Headmaster

GREG WAIN

Headmaster

HEADMASTER’S SPEECH DAY ADDRESS

Distinguished guests, members of the School Council, parents, staff and boys of The Southport School – it is my great pleasure to address you this Speech Day, the final academic day of the 114th year of The Southport School.

DEMOCRACY AT TSS

There are two main themes in my talk today: moral reasoning and evolutionary psychology. I actually started off some months ago thinking about democracy as a Speech Day theme and that led to an interest in moral reasoning. Both topics are clearly linked to our Learning to Lead programs, as they have to do with an understanding of self and an understanding of others; knowing how to make decisions that are sound and just; and helping our boys to become better leaders, better community members and better global citizens. Democracy at TSS is about the power of the students. It is about valuing the voice of the students; and ensuring their overall views are heard, and that those views contribute to our decision-making. At TSS the students have the major say in the leadership positions of School Captain, Vice-Captain, Head Day Boy Prefect, Head Boarder Prefect, the Foundation Prefects, House Captains, Foundation Wardens and also the elected members of the Year Group Leadership Teams. The five Year Group Leadership Teams meet with me and other Executive staff regularly and are consulted on significant school decisions. In the past two years the Year Group Leadership Teams have debated and decided in favour of random drug testing; rewritten the diligence rubrics for the boys’ diligence grades on their reports; and been key players in designing and approving the Primus Octoginta list – the public listing of the top 80 academic students in each Year Group, in groups of 10 in alphabetical order. Further, our Ideal Teacher model for teacher improvement, which is also a performance pay model to recognise and reward outstanding teaching, is primarily driven by the boys through student quantitative surveys and focus groups of students who meet with me to qualitatively explore positive aspects and any areas for improvement. The teachers genuinely appreciate the detailed feedback, and it places the boys in a very powerful position. Basically they are setting the teachers’ above-award pay, and that does not happen in most schools. The boys are also consulted by me when staff apply for positions such as Housemaster, Deans and Head of Department.

So at TSS the boys are effectively ‘major players’ in the running of the school. It is a big responsibility and one the boys take very seriously and carefully. For any democracy to work well there must be high-level moral and rational thinking by those involved. Late last year, Harvard University philosopher Joshua Greene wrote a book

called Moral Tribes, which explores how humans engage in moral reasoning.

’MORAL TRIBES’ BY JOSHUA GREENE

At base, humans are driven by a survival instinct, so we can often be self-interested and a little selfish, but our highly successful evolutionary adaptation, along with the other primates, was to work together in groups to survive. So morality, doing the right thing by each other, evolved to enable cooperation between members of our group. In his book, Green explains what he is discovering about how our brain works when we are making decisions of a moral nature, and then how we might encourage in people moral reasoning that helps solve emerging global problems like climate change, feeding the world’s population and solving longstanding conflicts like the Middle East; a few challenges there for our boys and their generation!

DUAL MORAL-THINKING PROCESSES

Greene uses functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRIs) to detect changes in blood flow in various areas of the brain that light up as people think through moral dilemmas that he puts to them.

Greene’s research has discovered two distinct systems of moral reasoning. One is a ‘fast’, automatic, intuitive process (more an emotional ‘gut reaction’ using in part the amygdala, the emotion centre of the brain, and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex), and the second system is a ‘slow’, controlled, more rational cognitive process involving greater reasoning time and self-control, that uses part of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.

TRIBALISM

Greene writes about other aspects of our moral reasoning that have been influenced by evolution. These are covered under the headings ‘tribalism’ and ‘cognitive biases’. We have evolved from a hunter-gatherer tribal past, and that stage of our existence has greatly influenced many aspects of our brain and our behaviour.

’US’ VERSUS ’THEM’

Moral thinking evolved to enable cooperation within a group. Humans and other primates who formed a group had more chance of survival on the African savannah. We have adapted for cooperation with some people, people like us, in our group, but we struggle to cooperate with people in other groups, people who are different.

We (‘us’) are actually hardwired to compete against those other groups, ‘them’.

EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY

This hard wiring from our clan and tribe-dwelling past is the area of Evolutionary Psychology. I put down Joshua Greene’s book for a while and re-read a book I’d read eight years ago on Evolutionary Psychology called Managing the Human Animal, by London School of Economics professor Nigel Nicholson.

FLIGHT CENTRE AND EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY

There are a number of business people who have picked up on Evolutionary Psychology. I talked about Evolutionary Psychology with Graham Turner three years ago at a TSS Foundation Business Breakfast. Graham is CEO of Flight Centre and one of the highest-rated CEOs in Australia. He turned a small business with two people and one second-hand double-decker bus into Top Deck Travel, and then turned that into Flight Centre, which now has 13,000 employees. Graham used the principles of Evolutionary Psychology to restructure Flight Centre, a move he sees as instrumental to the success of the company. Flight Centre use a family, village, tribe structure based on lots of competition and prizes, a bit like our House set-up at TSS. When we spoke I was telling him that, when asked by the School Council some years ago about the optimum size of the School, I used Evolutionary Psychology principles to advise Year Group sizes of around 150. I’ll explain why shortly. So, what is this Evolutionary Psychology about?

How far back do we need to go? … Well…

“Our whole universe was in a hot – dense – state, then nearly 14 billion years ago expansion started. Wait... Math, science, history, unravelling the mysteries,

That all started with the big bang!” … sorry, I couldn’t resist!

WE ARE A SOCIAL SPECIES

Actually, we don’t need to go back 14 billion years, just back 250,000 years ago when out of the ecological niche of the African savannah that suited the first two-legged primates, or apes, our species of primate, Homo Sapien, emerged as clan-dwelling huntergatherers with very enlarged social brains, with a large neo-cortex that had adapted to facilitate complex group living. We were socially smarter than all the other species. The optimal size of the group of Homo Sapiens on the African savannah was about 150; big enough for protection and labour specialisation for gathering resources, but not too big that it became uncoordinated and could not support itself. Primates with a smaller neo-cortex lived in smaller groups. For the size of our Homo Sapien neocortex, 150 is the cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships, where each member can comprehend the group and know where they fit within the group. The number 150 is relevant for us today. Our brain hasn’t grown since then, and about 150 is still our cognitive limit to knowing something about each person and how they relate to other people in the group. It is basically the largest group of which a human being can feel a part. If you are just putting names to faces the number is much larger, probably around 2000. 150 comes up regularly in human history, including 150 as the estimated size of Neolithic farming villages 10,000

years ago, 150 as the most effective basic unit or company size of professional armies in Roman times, and in modern times, the average village size in the Domesday Book, the ’Great Survey’ of England and Wales in the year 1086, was, again, 150. So we lived in these semi-nomadic clans of around 150 from 250,000 years ago up to 10,000 years ago when we transitioned to agriculture in fixed settlements. This 240,000year period, the longest age by far in our existence, is this period that shaped our brain.

THE OPTIMUM SIZE OF TSS – A KEY TO OUR VALUE PROPOSITION

Some years ago I moved from teaching at a school where student Year Group sizes were about 150 to a school where the Year Groups were 240. It was clear to me then, not yet having read about Evolutionary Psychology, that there was a completely different dynamic between the boys in the 150 group and the boys in the 240 group. 240 just felt too big. At 150 the boys all knew each other and knew something about each person, and at 240 they did not know each other, even after three years together. So it was encouraging to come to TSS in 2004 and find the Year Groups at around 150. From experience, and now having researched Evolutionary Psychology, I’m sure that is a key reason for our enhanced sense of community and spirit at TSS, an important part of our ‘value proposition’ for parents and boys.

Hence my advice to the School Council that we resist the economies of scale argument and not grow bigger as a school in a way that compromises the magic number of 150. Once a group grows much larger than 150 its members begin to lose their sense of connection.

NICHOLSON’S CONCLUSIONS ABOUT HUMANS

Nicholson’s overall conclusion in his book on Evolutionary Psychology is basically that humans do things in groups and organisations to try and re-create the communities of our hunter-gatherer past, because that is what feels best for us, as it matches our hard-wired brain capabilities and tendencies.

These hard-wired tendencies include gathering in groups to do activities that matter or interest us, where we can cooperate, share, trade contributions, obtain recognition and be valued. We like hierarchical relationships, divided responsibilities, communal areas for interaction, display, ritual and competitive tournaments, and we look for leaders. We were designed for ‘within group’ cooperation and ‘between group’ competition. And, our genes do not allow us to be content with what we have; they push us in search of resources and improvement; we are very status conscious, and we love to compete – especially males.

TRIBALISM AT TSS

Given our boys have innate tribal tendencies, let’s look at tribalism at TSS. Our boys’ brains were designed for within group cooperation and between group competition, and we play unashamedly on that at TSS. House tribe against the other House tribes in a competition that runs for the whole year; the boys love it! Our Housemasters, young primates that they are, also get excited about this tribal interaction. Then we have the Year Group tribe, and then the ’Team TSS’ tribe competing against other schools, not to mention the hardwired tribalism on display at State of Origin time. Actually, educationally, the House system in the Senior School is all about a group of adults getting to know, and providing pastoral care and strong moral guidance to, a group of boys aged 12 to 18. If you asked the boys to volunteer for that experience…“Who’s up for some pastoral care and moral guidance from a few random adults?”, well, there would be a lot less enthusiasm! But if you say to boys…“When you join TSS you will be placed with a special group of boys. This is now your group, your House. Your House competes against other Houses for prizes and status, you get to ‘display’ the colours of your House when you compete, and there is a hierarchy of leadership positions in your House. You even have a House territory.” Now that gets boys interested. On one of our trips out West this year I met a five-year-old boy with a brother in Delpratt and I was talking with a group of people and I mentioned Thorold House, and this five-year-old, who had never even been to TSS, looked straight up at me with a stern look on his face and said … “We don’t like that Thorold House!”. That’s tribalism.

Now, tribalism taken too far has problems and can be very unhelpful, but to reject tribalism is totally unrealistic. Aspects of our tribal tendencies can be used to build a sense of belonging, House spirit, School spirit and community. Here are a couple of examples of ‘good tribalism’.

GOOD TRIBALISM – ACADEMICS AND BONDING

Researcher Meredith O’Connor from Melbourne University recently looked at the role of school bonding in preparing students for the early adulthood years of 18 to 25, when young people have greater freedom, but less support, and are more reliant on their own resources. This can often be a period of instability, disruption and can be overwhelming. O’Connor looked at what factors in adolescence predicted healthy development in early adulthood. She looked at more than 20 factors, including gender, socioeconomic status, academic performance, extraversion and family circumstances. O’Connor found that the most significant predictor of wellbeing, including mental health and resilience, in post-school early adulthood was ’school bonding’.

School bonding is how students feel about their school, the sense

of connection, relationships with teachers, and sense of belonging and pride. It is widely accepted, even by people from other schools, that TSS rates extremely highly in terms of school bonding.

O’Connor found that the key aspects of school bonding were relationships with teachers, student involvement in school activities, an emphasis on community building and involving students in decisions.

GOOD TRIBALISM – BOYS’ SCHOOLS HAVE AN ACADEMIC EDGE

Here is a second example of the advantages of a school building a culture of positive tribalism and bonding. The International Boys’ Schools Coalition, of which we are a member, recently commissioned an independent study by the New Zealand Council of Educational Research to compare, at Year 12 level, the academic performance of boys who attend boys’ schools, to boys who attend co-ed schools.

They found a big difference, with boys in boys’ schools significantly outperforming academically the boys in co-ed schools. They recalculated the figures controlling for socioeconomic status, and found that even for the medium and lowest socioeconomic status boys, in boys’ schools versus co-ed schools, that the academic achievement difference was sustained.

This is proving what those of us in boys’ schools have known anecdotally, but have until now not had the research to support, that boys are advantaged academically by being in a boys-only school. Now it needs to be a very good school, not simply a boys-only school. You need to get all the aspects of the school working well to maximise the boys’ only advantage. The researchers looked at the top academic performing boys’ schools at all levels of socioeconomic status to find what they were doing that advantaged the boys academically. Not surprisingly to me, the strategies that made a difference to academic performance were mostly around engagement in sport and activities, tribalism and the sense of belonging it encourages, including an emphasis in Year 7 on identifying with the School and its values (like our Year 7 Transition Program); offering a range of sport, service and cocurricular activities where boys relate as ‘brothers’ and experience the need for effort before achievement; getting to know and trust teachers in non-classroom settings; leadership roles for boys; threading core school values through the week at Chapels, House meetings and assemblies; and high-quality teaching by reflective practitioners who stay up to date with best practice. Some of our competitors on the Coast actually try to use our extensive sport and extracurricular program against us, telling prospective parents it will distract their boy from studying. Far from it, school sport and extracurricular activities will actually improve a boy’s academic performance.

HUMANS ARE BIASED IN THEIR THINKING

What are some of the other aspects of our brain and behaviour that we have inherited from our hunter-gatherer tribal past? We are hard-wired to make snap judgements based upon emotion. Like the fast moral-reasoning system described above, life in the wilds of the African savannah required quick reaction to survive. Instant fight or flight worked when being attacked by a wild animal, not stop, think and discuss.

Quick-reaction thinking is still needed on the football field, but not now in most aspects of life. When we feel our emotions rise in the 21st century, allowing time for them to dissipate, and for our slow, rationalthinking processes to kick in, is almost always a good thing. From our time as less-sophisticated primates, we are hard-wired to create opportunities for display and competitive contest. We strongly desire to manage social impressions, and our drive to ‘display’ our attractiveness comes from our primate mate-finding behaviours. We used to ‘display’ ourselves by competitiveness, chest beating and loud noises. This is now superseded by our displays of hairdos, fashionable clothing, jewellery, cars, houses and, I was thinking, possibly tattoos fall into this ‘display’ behaviour category. Gossip and mind-reading were key survival skills. They still are. We share information to gain social information, affirm alliances and friendships and signal inclusion. We are born to gossip, men as much as women, men just call it ‘networking’ so it sounds more important! We also have hard-wired biases. Our thinking is not always balanced and rational.

In our clan-dwelling days, confidence was rewarded. It still is. To be an effective social performer we need to be confident, so most of the time most of us think we are right. This is called ‘confirmation bias’. We dwell on the facts that support our case rather than the facts that refute it.

We are naturally good bargainers with ready access to facts that support our worthiness and less-ready access to facts that don’t; and we are hardwired to believe in our entitlement.

MORAL VALUES DIFFERENCES BETWEEN TRIBES – GLOBAL PROBLEMS

To make things more complex, different tribes (different nations) have different views on how societies should be organised, and different values and moral commitments to different religious beliefs. So there are plenty of barriers to cooperation between nations. Yet the pressure for global scale, inter-tribal cooperation is mounting due to global warming and environmental degradation, over a billion people living in poverty, and ongoing violent conflicts.

So, with all these biased-thinking tendencies, a moral-reasoning system that did not evolve to produce cooperation with groups and nations different to us, and brain hard-wiring to identify and favour our own tribe and nation, what are we to do?

METACOGNITION AS A SOLUTION

Greene’s first solution is to become more self-aware, especially of our tribal tendencies and biased thinking. Greene calls this a global ‘metamorality’ solution, raising awareness of our metacognition ability, our ability to think about our own thinking (metacognition is one of the Habits of Mind of successful people that we teach the boys), so teaching and encouraging people to understand their own thinking, their biases and irrational tribalism. Greene also encourages us to reason morally using the slow but rational and logical unemotional part of the brain, rather than our fast, reactive, emotional-thinking processes. For example, metacognitively, you can often feel your emotions rise in an argument. When this happens you know you are using your amygdala (emotion centre) and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, that is, the fast moral-thinking systems, so find ways of engaging the other, slower, rational, moral-thinking system. Maybe take ‘time out’, go for a short walk, 10 deep breaths, start writing the other person’s point of view on a piece of paper, or whatever works for you.

METACOGNITION TO SOLVE BULLYING ISSUES

At TSS we use this metacognitive approach with our ‘no blame’ initial approach to bullying. One reason bullying takes place is that evolutionary hard-wiring causes us to take pride in our group and devalue members of other groups. This helps us feel good about ourselves and our status. Hence almost naturally, unfortunately, we get name calling, payouts or hurtful comments directed from one group to another group or an individual perceived to be somehow different. The ‘no blame’ approach we use at TSS basically involves an adult exploring biases and incorrect tribal thinking by encouraging metacognition and helping the perpetrator see things from the victim’s point of view to boost empathy.

This is done in a non-threatening, nonpunitive manner, because any threat of punishment sets up unhelpful lossaversion thinking and defensiveness that thwarts clear thinking.

UTILITARIANISM AND IMPARTIALITY

Greene also advocates for the philosophy of ‘utilitarianism’ where all actions and moral decisions are measured and guided by the sum of their effects on overall wellbeing for all people. Utilitarianism is ‘impartial’, everyone’s wellbeing counts the same, which is the Christian Golden Rule… “treat your neighbour as you would like to be treated”.

Greene says this does not mean that everyone gets to be equally happy, but it does mean than no-one’s wellbeing or happiness is inherently more valuable than anyone else’s. John Stuart Mills and Jeremy Bentham were founders of the philosophy of utilitarianism and used this principle in the early 1800s to oppose slavery and advocate for women’s rights, including education for women, free speech and environmental protection.

Greene sees overall ‘wellbeing’ as the common currency of human values, cutting across national lines, that can inform the impartial and rational decisions that he proposes to solve our global issues.

JESUS TAUGHT ABOUT THIS 2000 YEARS AGO – THE GOOD SAMARITAN

Now it occurred to me that 2000 years ago, the greatest expert in moral reasoning was trying to teach people the same lessons Joshua Greene is advocating today. Jesus was fighting our natural tribal thinking and trying to encourage empathy with his Parable of the Good Samaritan.

We read in Luke that when Jesus was teaching, a lawyer in the crowd asked Jesus … “I know the religious law says I am to treat my neighbour as I would want to be treated, but who is my neighbour?” In answering the question, Jesus told of the man on the road from Jericho, beaten up, robbed and left on the side of a road. Two people in his tribe, who should have helped, passed by, but then a man from the much hated and despised Samaritan tribe stopped and went out of his way to show compassion and help the man in need. Jesus then asked the lawyer … “Which of the three was a neighbour?” Here Jesus was encouraging metacognition; challenging the lawyer to examine his own thinking. The lawyer had wanted to know how far his obligation to help others extended, and Jesus made it clear there were no limits – our obligation is to the whole of humanity. Certainly the Good Samaritan did not ask the injured man’s nationality or religious beliefs.

JUDGE YE NOT

Earlier in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus says… “Judge not, and you will not be judged…Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?”

Here Jesus is teaching us to be aware of our biases towards favouring ourselves and our tribe. We are not more deserving than other people. He is encouraging metacognition; before we judge others as less than perfect, we should think about our own imperfections, and that may lead to a little more understanding and compassion towards others.

TSS HABITS OF HEART

At TSS the Chapel is the spiritual heart of the School. It is there that we work with boys who, like all of us, are naturally a little self-centric. We try to de-centre their thinking to encourage them to think about others. To further encourage ethical and moral thinking, Chaplain Father Jonathan is coordinating the development of our Habits of Heart to promote ethical and moral thinking and complement the Habits of Mind.

These Habits of Heart include service to others, respect, reconciliation, compassion and justice. Our Positive Psychology programs are also working towards the types of solutions Joshua Greene is advocating. I love the quote of a Year 8 boy when interviewed about what the Positive Psychology program in his English class did for him … “I understand myself better and I understand others in the class better.”

This is on a small scale now, but as boys leave TSS and take this profound knowledge and understanding with them, they can lead change in the organisations and communities in which they become involved. So while our tribal tendencies can be used at TSS to build a sense of belonging, House spirit and community spirit, our boys metacognitively understand that during the House competition we behave tribally, but we don’t take it too far. They know the boys in the other Houses are really just like us. And we can actually cooperate with them to compete against the other tribes, like Churchie, but even then, the Churchie guys are really just like us too. So if we keep building that sort of thinking among the boys we start to break down some of those unhelpful biases and tribal tendencies. We have Indigenous boys here now breaking down such barriers, and Chinese and Muslim boys, and when we get to know them we think… “Really, they are just like us”. Hence we can help our boys make the cognitive leap that all other people are just like us… “I’m special, but other people see themselves as special too, so I am not especially special, there is nothing that makes my interests more important than the interests of others”…this gets to ‘empathy’, the ability to feel what others are feeling. My hope and prayer is that our boys will take this global, untribal, unbiased attitude and understanding of others with them as they leave us, to work towards solving our global problems and creating a more cooperative and peaceful existence for all. Thank You

Thank you all for your support of The Southport School during the past year, the 114th year of this great School. I wish you all a happy, peaceful and holy Christmas.

SCHOOL COUNCIL

SEATED ROW: PROF K. DUNSTAN, MR V.B. WRIGHT, MR F.D. PERRIN (CHAIRMAN), MRS L. MCCOLL; MR G.R. WAIN (HEADMASTER), MRS J.A. REDLER (EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT) SECOND ROW: MR R.W. CARDIFF (BUSINESS MANAGER), DR A. PAXTON-HALL, MR A. TWEMLOW, MR G.C. RIX, PROF M. BLUMENSTEIN

FRED DORROUGH

School Captain 2014

I want to start off by thanking all of you for this honour of School Captain of The Southport School. It something I have truly enjoyed and will never forget.

Now, 2014, what a year it has been, culturally, academically and in the sporting arena. We have had another large increase of boys joining either the Music department or Drama department. Also, with the continuous success of the three Cadet services, it was clear from the TriService Graduation Parade that this aspect of TSS is thriving.

In the academic arena there is a growing number of boys being rewarded for their efforts by receiving Dean’s List prizes, and this has been led by such an intelligent and hard-working group of boys in the Academic First XVI. This is only the second year the Academic First has been recognised, and it has proven to motivate boys to work hard in their academic studies. Also, the top 80 boys in each Year were named and it was a success due to the large number of boys improving.

On to the sporting side of TSS, we have seen over 80% of boys compete in sport this year. From Rowing to Rugby to Tennis to Chess and everything in-between. We have seen us hold the Premiership Trophy proudly in Soccer for the third year and Cricket, we came a close second in Swimming and Gymnastics and a marginal loss in Rugby and Rowing. We have made an enormous improvement in both Cross Country and Athletics, thanks to not only Mr Stalling, but every staff member, parent and boy who put a huge amount of time and effort into making TSS climb the ladder in both sports. We have also seen the GPS system bring in the Years 5, 6 and 7s to compete against the other GPS schools and it has been a success. To have these younger boys competing and cheering and looking up to the Senior School boys it makes a massive difference in their performance and their enjoyment, which improves TSS as a whole in the years to come. It is great to see the little tackers having a go and doing their best for the School. Because I know there are some boys that don’t look 11 or 12 and they may have grown very early, but it’s that ‘giving it your best’ attitude that puts TSS in front of the others. It is obvious that we are a smaller school than the rest of the GPS, but we are always aiming for the top, as we have again done so this year.

I thank you, on behalf of all of the boys who have been involved in sport, cultural and academics, all of you teachers, directors, Heads of Department, coaches, supporters and sponsors for everything you do to make this place so enjoyable.

Boys, I had an endless amount of memories, experiences and great days at this school. I remember the day speaking up here for the first time and stuttering like crazy. I remember my first war-cry practice and just was speechless, the first time a Year 12 said G’day, the day I scored a try, kicked a goal and mimicked the Drumline beat. These moments, these experiences, and these days you will all have them, and I’m sad to say that they won’t ever happen again. Because you only get a first time, once. So make sure you remember, cherish and enjoy these days. Not only in school, but throughout your life. Although I have had some great days I’ve also had my fair share of long and tough ones, especially this year. But I learnt throughout this year that it’s how you cope with those days and what you do to overcome them. Because I guarantee you they will always happen, bad days are always just around the corner. And I learnt that I like those days, not at the time, but I like the end of a tough day at school with training, assignments, meetings, etc, where you can lay down and just let everything go and look back at what you have just been through in only one day. Those are the times you remember and those are the days that make you into the person you will become. Because if you sit back too early and give up, that’s when you know yourself it’s really a bad day. And most likely you will suffer some sort of consequence because of it; whether it’s a poor grade, not making a team or being late to something. However, the main consequence you will suffer is regret. You’ll regret not pushing through the tough days, and that’s the one thing you don’t want to have when you leave this special place.

As some of you may know I like to give advice. Whether you take it on board or not, I like to pass on things that I’ve learnt.

First, throughout your time at school people will let you know that there is pressure on you, trust me. But I never really liked that word because I think you can take pressure however you want. For example; if you have a game-winning kick it’s no different to a kick out on a field where no-one is watching, or for instance if you are voted in as a Prefect, why change, you don’t need to do anything differently, you’re the same person you were before, you just have a title. So if you are faced with a so called “pressure situation” just think to what you have always done, because nine times out of 10 that’s probably the same reason you were put in that situation.

Second, stay motivated in everything you do. I don’t mean motivated as people pushing you externally like a dad living through his son, you have to have something internally that pushes. I’ll tell you a quick story about a lion, who you all know is the king of the jungle, and a gazelle, which is a small, vulnerable, deerlike animal.

First, lions hunt gazelles, this is to feed their families. And as anyone would do if a huge lion was about to eat you, you would run, which is exactly what the gazelle does. However, as soon as the lion stops chasing the gazelle stops and does nothing, just goes about eating grass again. And then when the lion starts chasing it again it runs and then stops, and the same thing happens over and over. Until the lion gives up or catches and kills the gazelle.

What I’m saying is that the gazelle needs something external to motivate it to run,