Why should we cultivate children’s sports skills?

If, on the basis of having decent academic performance, children are allowed to learn some sports skills that suit their physical strengths and 
participate in more sports competitions, this will be able to expand their mental talents to the maximum extent and the children will benefit greatly throughout their lives.

“People with sports expertise are more likely to stand out and succeed in society… If children learn some skills that match their physical expertise and participate in more sports competitions on the basis of decent academic performance, this will help them expand their mental talents to the maximum extent, and they will benefit from it throughout their lives.”

Professor Li called on parents to pay attention to their children’s athletic development and summarized three special psychological qualities that people with a background of athletes possess.

Many leaders are athletes.

I still remember a scene from a few years ago.

In winter, in Davos, Switzerland, the most private venue of the World Economic Forum, a special meeting for the highest-paid bigwigs, a group of entrepreneurs from large international companies took turns meeting with waves of international dignitaries and individual scholars. I was invited to talk about economic trends.

The last show had just ended and everyone was standing and talking. When I walked in, I was shocked: everyone was very tall, and I, at 1.79 meters tall, was almost the shortest!

After calming myself down for a while, I immediately remembered a fact I was familiar with earlier this morning: many international leaders are professional or amateur athletes! Those who practice sports are mostly big.

Indeed, many Western leaders have a knack for sports. Some have been selected for university sports teams, and some are former professional athletes:

Henry Paulson, the former US Treasury Secretary, was once a star player on the university football team. Christine Lagarde, the IMF chairwoman, was once a synchronized swimmer. Stephen Schwarzman, the founder of the world-renowned financial institution Blackstone Group, was once a member of the university’s running team…

Not only do people with an athletic background tend to achieve success, but elite Western universities also focus on cultivating students with an athletic background. My analysis is that people with an athletic background (professional athletes are another matter, as they require physical conditions that are different from those of ordinary people) must have special psychological qualities.

They have these three excellent psychological qualities

First of all, athletes are a group of people who know how to compete.

Sports games are inherently competitive, and athletes involved in them are naturally good at and like competition.

Secondly, athletes must understand teamwork.

Even individual events, such as table tennis, gymnastics, diving, track and field events, also require teamwork, because a team includes coaches, nutritionists, sparring partners, etc. Only when every link is excellent can a high level of competitive state be achieved.

As long as human society exists, competition and cooperation will be the eternal theme. This is the spirit of sports!

There is competition and cooperation between people and between countries. You can’t win by relying on just one of them. Athletes have both.

Why do people with a background in sports often stand out in society? Because they have unbreakable confidence and appeal.

A winning team must have experienced many adversities and inevitably experienced disappointment, fear, doubt, regret… especially in an ever-changing competition arena.

When falling behind in the competition, the key players must put aside all distractions and must not dwell on the mentality of “how miserable, how unlucky” or dream of winning the game in one fell swoop. Instead, they must concentrate on thinking about the next ball to seize the opportunity to win back.

Such opportunities are often fleeting, and you must maintain a high level of attention to capture them. This is exactly the quality that a successful person should possess.

Children should learn physical education

▌Students with a background in school sports donate the most to their alma mater

Because of these characteristics of athletes, foreign business schools particularly favor students with sports backgrounds. Harvard University once conducted a survey to determine which alumni groups donated the most to their alma mater 20 years after graduation.

The result was unexpected. The students who donated the most were not the best students, but rather those with a school team background. These students always had the strongest sense of collective honor, both then and now.

▌Love of sports is one of the scholarship criteria

Oxford University has a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship. This scholarship, which has been established for more than 110 years, has four admission criteria, one of which is a love of sports and preferably athletic achievements.

They believe that such people often possess excellent minds and are future leaders worthy of cultivation.

▌Sports teams create elites in Chinese society

The most prestigious university league in the United States, the Ivy League , was originally an American football sports league among Harvard, Yale, Columbia and other universities, rather than an academic evaluation league such as a league for the Mathematical Olympiad.

China also once had a very distinctive high school education. For example, about one-third of the students at Tsinghua High School joined the school team a long time ago and was active in various competitions. Some of them later became the elites of Chinese society.

If, on the basis of having decent academic performance, children are allow to learn some skills that suit their physical strengths and participate in more sports competitions. This will be able to maximize their mental talents and benefit them throughout their lives.