Aliamanu was lucky enough to have an awesome pair of Nikes donated to us from an old staff member, Cynthia. To earn the shoes, members were asked to write an essay about their goals and plans for success, and then to compare and contrast them to Michael Jordan's success. Courtney blew us away with her amazing essay! What I really liked about it was the organization, complex sentences, vocabulary words and the use of a quotation.This is going to be an essay that will compare and contrast my plans for personal success compared to Michael Jordan's determination to succeed. My plans for personal success would be always trying my hardest and never giving up. Another goal would be to have a job that I enjoy when I grow up. Also, I plan on helping others and giving back to the people who have helped me. I also plan on having a decided mind on what I want to do and stick with that. Lastly, I plan on staying active and doing sports like volleyball and having good sportsmanship. Those are some examples of some of my goals that I have for throughout my life.
Now I am going to tell you about how my plans for personal success and goals relates to Michael Jordan's determination to succeed. Michael Jordan was always compelled to try his hardest, just like my goals, if he didn't get something the first time he tried over and over; he took it personally if he didn't succeed which led to him to practice and try harder until he was the best at whatever it was he was trying to do. Like one time when he didn't make the high school varsity team; he set out to prove everybody wrong and soon after that he became the best player out of his entire school. This is just like my goal to never give up, I say this because he didn't give up at the sport, he kept trying and I hope I can do something like that instead of giving up because practice makes perfect and I can't get better at anything unless I try.
Michael Jordan once said "I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. There was 26 times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed." He means that we learn from our mistakes and you try harder so you don't make the same mistake and that is like my goal of trying my hardest all the time. This is because if we learn from our mistakes, then we try harder not to repeat that mistake and every time I mess up I would want to try harder and harder which means I am closer to succeeding each time.
He probably also planned on staying active just like me because he is into sports like basketball and I don't think he would just throw that away; I love volleyball and I don't think I could just get rid of it and quit playing; this is like my goal of continuing to be active.
What I like about Michael Jordan is that he always found time to give back. He was not greedy with his money and he always worked hard at everything that he did. He was very determined and never gave up. He always found a way to triumph in any situation. He always found time to spend with his family. This is how I hope to be when I grow up and this is some of the stuff that he does so this would be the same sort of thing as my goals. He is a good person for the most part and I hope to be like that, maybe even better.
Now I am going to talk about how my future plans contrast Michael Jordan's determination to succeed. One thing is that he doesn't have that good of sportsmanship. For example when he was on the Chicago Bulls he once lost a ping pong match to a teammate, he then went out and bought his own ping pong table and worked on his ping pong game for hours on end until he was the best ping pong player on the team. Michael Jordan was very results oriented and he always wanted to win and be the best; he set out to do just that, and he did. He is now in the Hall of Fame with six championship rings and regarded by many as the best basketball player ever. When I grow up I hope I can accept the fact that I am not the best and move on with my life and accept that I cannot always be the best at everything. That is one way he is not like me.
Another way his determination is unlike my own goals is because of the fact that he didn't stick with the same team all the time and he kept coming in and out of retirement. He went out on time for an injury (to get surgery on his knees) and another time because of depressions because of his dad's death. I can understand that, but he also went in retirement because he was tired of losing and then he joined the Wizards instead of going back to the Bulls. I hope that when I grow up I can make my mind and stick with it, even if the team I am on isn't always winning, I hope I would choose to stay with my own, original team but try to make improvements to the team so we have a better chance of winning other games.
Other than the two differences I hope I can be similar to Michael Jordan. That's all about how my goals and plans for personal success are similar and different to Michael Jordan's determination to succeed.
