Kid President

I don't give a lot of pep talks any more, the kind I did during my years as a baseball coach. I suppose it's because most of the proper pep talks to which I've been subject were delivered by my own sports coaches, but I think of the pep talk as a mature man's game, so it still strikes me as humorous when I reflect on my 15-year-old self pacing back and forth in front of my 8-year-old charges, getting them fired up for the game.

Naturally, I still give a pep talk every now and then, but rarely of the "Go team!" flavor. Today, as a teacher in a cooperative preschool, these talks are more of the one-on-one variety, and tend to be in the line of a two-way dialog in which I'm assuring someone, child or adult, who already knows what they need to do, that I have faith in their ability to actually do it.

Of course, we all know the weakness of the pep talk, that it's effects are usually short lived and that those who rely too much on pep talks must constantly seek out the next one and the next one. In other words, pep talks are not the long term solution.

Still, sometimes you just need to get over that hump, to be reminded that attitude is everything, to hear about the power of boldness and awesome. Sometimes it just feels good to get "pep talked."

That said, I give you Kid President to put a little song in your heart and dance in your feet as you sail into the weekend:

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