The Secret of My Success

I am beloved by thousands!

Okay, not in my current writing and editing world, but in my previous career as a teacher.  I enjoyed working with the students so much.  I loved them and many of them loved me back.  It was great then and still is when I see former students and we get hang out together for a few minutes.  It happens pretty much everywhere I go.   I explained to my husband who did not know of this type of exposure when we were dating, that going somewhere with me was like traveling with a rock star...young people scream out my name and run up to me to visit.

This is not me, being delusional or conceited. In spite of any mistakes I made in my career, and there were more than I wanted, most of the students I worked with on a daily basis came away with good feelings about the experience.   To the ones who did not...sometimes you weren't in a position in your life to be ready to have a good relationship with anyone and sometimes I simply failed to be what you needed.  I do apologize for that.

I was a teacher!  I worked hard to be a successful one.  And in our small town I taught nearly everyone who came through our district.  I had over 3000 students during my teaching career and I taught whole families of children and even the second generations too. It was a lot of people to influence and a lot of people to influence me.

Since I retired from teaching earlier in the year, I have reflected on my career and decided what worked and what didn't and how I am going to apply what I experienced to my writing and editing career.  I think the most important part of what I learned is a strength in how I treated my students.

My mother calls it the Pollyanna Principle. For those of you who didn't have a mother who made you watch the movie repeatedly, the quote is "If you look for the bad in people you're sure to find it, so look for the good in them instead."

I found this to be true in class.  If a student with a bad reputation came into my class, I tried not to acknowledge what I knew.  I would be just as nice and as mean as I was to everyone else.  Now, I wasn't too nice to them if they chose to demonstrate how they earned the bad reputation, but I had much more success by acting as if it were inconceivable that anyone would want to act up in my class.  Frankly, that confused some of them.  But even when they behaved poorly, I would just act like we hadn't had a problem before and move on.  Soon there wasn't a problem and I got to see their best side instead.

I am not a pushover when it comes to dealing with people.  (Stop laughing, those of you who would say this is an understatement!) There are co-workers and people from my life that I did not always give the wonderful benefit of this kind of benevolent acceptance. I apologize for this too.

I know not everyone responds in a positive manner when treated well as I hope, but I, like Anne Frank, really do believe, "In spite of everything, that people are really good at heart."

What a fantastic gift it is to believe the best about someone!

In my writing the one thing that has kept me going during the drudgery of editing and the difficulty of thinking I may one day be published is the belief my family, friends, and my former students have that I can.  So I am going to try and live up to their faith that I am good enough to do it.

Time to edit.