A genuine love for knowledge, she says, is as important as hard work and grit. What about wisdom? So wisdom is the application of knowledge. Wisdom is putting knowledge to work. I believe, we believe here at Celebrate Kids, that wisdom, the application of knowledge, matters the most. Teaching our children how to use what they now know matters tremendously. And I would boldly say
that wisdom also is defined by agreeing with God. And then the kind of the dictionary definition, if you will, is applying So Dr. Kathy, today on the Celebrate Kids podcast, in the daily segment, Facing the Dark, I want to talk a little bit about what makes kids successful. And this comes out of something that happened recently that I read
inside of a news outlet, CNBC. It was an article that was written by Susan Domenez, who recently wrote a book called The Family Dynamic, A Journey Into the Mysteries of Sibling Success. Now she lists five things as common in each success story that she encountered And it was something also that as she studied with experts, the experts agreed upon. And those five things are optimism is everything. Know your child and tailor motivation to them as individuals. Learning and empowerment can
happen anywhere. A genuine love for knowledge is as important as hard work and grit. And be a coach for your kids with love. Dr. Cathy, I want to ask you, what do you think of these five things that she lists here as really the steps or the consistent things I was very encouraged by the list because I do agree. Even in my book, I start with the heart, which is my book that's mostly about motivation. I write about these things. So
I was really intrigued. Optimism is everything, believing in a favorable outcome, knowing that good overcomes evil. I like to say that for believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, pessimism should never have a root old because it's just not appropriate. It dismisses God and his glory and his good. So I love that. Tailoring motivation to children as individuals, absolutely. Knowing them for who they are. Some kids are motivated by extra sleep and
some kids are not. Some kids are motivated by ice cream, others are not, et cetera, et cetera. And of course, learning and empowerment, that's really an interesting connection to be empowered, to be able to act on your own. Learning and empowerment can happen anywhere. Absolutely. So school continues, you know, nine months, no, 12 months out of the year. Absolutely, and then the one that intrigues, or that I would comment on too, Wayne, a
genuine love for knowledge is as important as hard work and grit. Now, I would agree. In fact, in my presentation on motivation, I talk about learning matters to teach children that, not grades, not GPA, not class rank, but that learning matters. That, again, is a biblical concept. A genuine love for knowledge, she says, is as important as hard work and grit. What about wisdom? So wisdom is the application of knowledge. Wisdom is
putting knowledge to work. And it does concern me that in too many of our schools, I think there's too high of an emphasis on knowledge. So there's too much testing and it's the multiple choice, fill in the blank, true, false, matching kind of an idea where we learn two plus two equals four and not five, but so what? Like what's the big so what? I believe, we believe here at Celebrate Kids that wisdom, the application of knowledge, matters
the most. Teaching our children how to use what they now know matters tremendously. And I would boldly say that wisdom also is defined by agreeing with God. And then the kind of the dictionary definition, if you will, is applying the truth. So I think let's celebrate that in our kids. And then, yeah, be a coach, be a coach. A coach divides complex tasks into miniscule pieces. A coach reteaches without shame and blame because a coach recognizes that it is hard to dribble and
run and not lose the ball when you're being guarded by a pro. You know, the piano teacher realizes that the child has to get good at the right hand before we add the left hand. Otherwise, no hand will be good at this, at this piece. So yeah, I'm a huge fan You know, Dr. Kathy, I love all of that. But there's one thing that I noticed that was absent from this. And she maybe talks about it a little bit at the beginning where she talks about this idea of optimism. But to me, optimism feels
kind of Pollyanna-ish, like, hey, things will get better. And don't you have to worry. You just keep going. And while I like that, there's something that I've been working with my kids on a lot. And that's this idea of resiliency. It's something that you teach a lot about. But one of the things that I tell my kids is, I mean, right now we're practicing this. I want them to go and ask somebody, they actually have to ask two people every day in theory,
but it doesn't happen every day. I want them to ask two people kind of an outrageous thing, like an outrageous request that they know or believe that they will get turned down from. So it's like, I would go to you and I'd say, Hey, Dr. Kathy, I really think that it would be important for us to launch a new endeavor inside of this ministry. And this is what I think about that. And I know that you're like, Wayne, we're crazy. We can't do anything else. And then I would take that rejection and
say, Okay, she doesn't want to do this thing. But what I'm trying to build in them is this idea that you can try something or put yourself out there and fail. And guess what? You walk outside and the sun's still shining or there's still water coming from the faucet or whatever it is that builds some sense of security, right? I just think that they need to have resiliency if they're going to be successful. It's not just optimism. What do you think of that? And maybe you
could give me. like a definition, so to speak, of what resiliency is. Am I right, kind of in this walking that I'm thinking through with my kids, that really resiliency needs to be on this list? And I would advocate probably at I think your thoughts are excellent. And I, I love that we are working together here and that, you know, you agree with me, like that when you came to work here, I'd already written that book and praise God that
you agree that resiliency matters. Otherwise you'd have a hard time, you know, working with our people. So, you know, praise the Lord. I think resiliency and optimism go hand in hand. I don't think that you can be an optimist without being resilient because optimism is believing for the best. even in spite of difficult moments. I do think that optimism, it's not just a Pollyannish thing, there is some reality, optimism is rooted, healthy optimism is rooted in some reality, which includes,
I can overcome. Not an arrogant statement, you know, with God, with the strength of God and the wisdom and the leading of the Holy Spirit, I can overcome. So resiliency, readily recovering from difficulties. Yeah, not taking a rejection as a, I'm gonna sit down in my valley and have a pity party. Um, resiliency requires a, um, a renewal resiliency is overcoming resiliency is believing there's something good around the corner. And I'm going to keep looking for that resiliency is
actually expecting to not always get a yes. You know, and I love your example, train your kids to, to dream big, to ask for something that could be, but probably won't be. And then how do you respond to that? Do you give up and never ask again? Or do you learn to discern who else to ask? How could you have tweaked your request in such a way that they might've gone along with it? Those are wonderful skills that really go along with everything on this list. Yeah.
Yeah. I think it, I think resiliency, readily overcoming difficulties, believing that I can do more than You know, Dr. Cathy, I love that definition. Thanks for giving it to us. I think that sometimes having a picture of what the definition is gives us a lot of clarity on what we should do next, right? And I was thinking about this a little bit because the other day I took my son out for breakfast, and he was coming back from a Bible camp that he's working at this summer.
And you had given me five questions to ask my son. You didn't give them to me. You gave them to an audience and I was in the audience and I wrote them down. And so I texted them to him in the middle of your talk. I'm sorry to say I was texting in the middle of your talk, but that's my life, right? I was going to forget it. So I decided to text him. And I texted him the comments and then we came back and we talked about it over breakfast. And he gave me his ideas on
what the different things were, but he used the word successful. He wants to be successful. It's one of the, to be, what do you want to be phrases that he kind of came up with. And, and I wrestled with that. We kind of had a good like back and forth on what does success actually look like. And as parents, I think we have a idea of what success is for our kids and kind of as a target to shoot for.
I want to ask you a little bit. As an expert in this a little bit of how kids think and how parents should think, what is success for our kids? What should that target look like? How I love that you did that with your son. And I think, you know, what in your lifetime, what do you want to be? Like, I love that he said successful. I would love to know what, how he defined that. Um, here's what I would say. Um, successful, um, that I find people and work that fulfill me, that
my connections go deep. Um, connections with God for the believers who are listening connections with, with people, um, go deep and that I work to maintain them. I am successful when I just, when I don't just cut and run, but when I choose. When it's appropriate to dig in and when it's appropriate to, you know, move on because sometimes that is something we need to do. I think, um, success is contentment without plateauing. Right. I think success is I am content and I am growing. Not
I have to grow. I have to grow. I have to grow. Like I'm the gerbil in the cage going nuts. But there's a peace and there's a contentment with where I'm at, but I'm not going to stay where I'm at because growth matters and becoming more matters. I think that I would put that in success, a joy, fulfillment, contentment, growing connections, run deep service. I think we are successful when we get our eyes off of ourselves and we use our talent and our delight to leave the world a better place. And
I think you can teach a three-year-old to do that. And I think an 18-year-old graduating from high school can strive for continuing to learn and continuing to become so that I can serve people and therefore impact culture and the world to be an influence, right? Why are we created for such a time as this? To leave the world a better place, to put God on display. So part of success should You know, as Dr. Kathy was talking today, it reminded me of a passage that comes out of Philippians chapter
3, and I'll begin reading in verse 7. But whatever were gains to me, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord and Savior, for whose sake I have lost all things. I now consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him. Not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ. The righteousness that comes from God on
the basis of faith. I want to know Christ. Yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings. Because like him in his death, and so somehow attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have attained all of this or have already arrived at my goal. I press on to take hold of
that which Christ has called me forward. Brothers and sisters, I don't consider myself yet to have taken hold of it, but one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. I love this passage because Paul in all of this is writing about success, but he's writing about success from a Roman prison. He reflects on really an impressive resume.
He ends up being a distinguished rabbi in his life, and he was a strict law keeper. He rose as a star among his peers, but he recounts every achievement that he's ever had, a loss compared to the surpassing value of knowing Jesus. In the Greco-Roman world, there's a lot of honor and titles, civic status, that really ended up defining everyone's human worth. But Paul shifts his metric to intimacy with Christ and participation in his resurrection life.
His athletic image is one that resonates with me. I don't know if it does with you, but he talks about pressing on toward the goal and pictures himself in a foot race, familiar to what Philippian citizens would have done. There's an idea that success is finishing the race of faith, not just standing upon society's podium. I think that's an encouragement for us as parents and people that work with kids. We can celebrate effort
and character more than grades or trophies. After games or report cards can be really helpful if we change our attitude away from talking about the successes they might have had in the game that was measured on a scoreboard or a stat sheet to a question of, hey, how did you honor God today? I think praising perseverance, humility, and love, I think that anchors our children's definition of
success, really, in pursuing Christ above all. And that can give them a bright light that can shine like Paul in prison through dark times. I want to thank you for listening to the Celebrate Kids podcast, especially this daily segment, Facing the Dark. On behalf of Dr. Kathy Cooke, my name is Wayne Stender.