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Hi Team,

How good are the Olympics?
As an ex phys-ed teacher I love watching the Olympics.
So many inspirational stories and achievements and such dedication to their passion.
Just what the world needs right now and especially everyone in NSW.
(PS: so much human psychology!)

Lockdown's allow us all to be a little self-indulgent and "Victoria 5.0" allowed me to reread several of my past Weekly Emails and to reflect on why I continue to invest several hours a week writing these emails (hence the title above!)?  My rational and the answer to this question revolves around my own curiosity and self-discovery. My curiosity motivates me to learn more about myself and about topics that interest me and to then teach what I have discovered to others. In short, I have a need to teach people stuff!

Two of the topics that I find I am repeatedly drawn to are, "personal values" and "philosophy". As I have previously written in email # 53, that your personal values form a picture of who you are and what you stand for and a lot of what motivates you in life comes from your personal values. Following on from this, for me, the intriguing thing about philosophy
( Email # 97) is that it makes you question everything you know, and it helps you to find real meaning and purpose in what you do. So right now, I feel that learning about these two topics is the perfect antidote to living in this mixed up Covid affected world and to a life that is increasingly dominated by digital devices.
 
These Weekly Emails are for me a form of personal journal where I record and share my own self-discovery and self-improvement and where I follow my beliefs and personal values. As Simon Sinek wrote in his breakout book "Start with Why";
"what you value is not as important as why you value it."

Whilst watching the Olympics I am constantly in awe of the discipline and dedication the athletes have to their specific sport. Just to get to the Olympics is a massive achievement for any Human Being, but to be the best of the best is just an extraordinary feat for a single person or for a team. This all begs the question "what magic ingredient makes a super athlete?" The answer to this question will be debated for eternity, but someone I believe is well equipped to help solve this puzzle is Michael Phelps (the greatest male swimmer of all time). In an interview with Dax Sheppard, (that I have referenced before in email #91) Phelps is asked the question, "what motivates you to swim for 60+ hours per week year after year?" and his golden answer was, "I just wanted to see how fast I could swim!" So, Phelps' magic ingredient looks like being his endless curiosity about how fast he could swim.

So to swing back to the question in the title to this Email; the reason I am sitting at my desk early on a Sunday morning writing this Email's is that I am trying to satisfy my own curiosity. I strongly believe that the greatest gift your parents can give to you and the greatest gift you can give to your children, is curiosity and a love of learning. If you love learning and discovering new things at any stage of life, everything else will follow. It seems that children have curiosity in spades, but unfortunately adults generally lose their curiosity as routine and responsibility in life take over and squeeze the love of learning new things out of their daily endeavours. So, for me the magic ingredient in all forms of success is curiosity and anything you can do to keep your curiosity alive is well and truly worth getting up early for!

Thanks for reading
Stay safe and love learning.
David