Tweet

Success: Can You Spell That Without Any S's?

Guest post by: Don Doman

Article Overview: The wonderful feature film Akeelah and the Bee is about friendship, community, achievement, and love. If I had enough money, I would give multiple copies of this movie to every single educational institution in the world. I can’t give away that many DVD copies, but I can give a few and so can you.

Success: Can You Spell That Without Any S's?

The wonderful feature film Akeelah and the Bee is about friendship, community, achievement, and love. If I had enough money, I would give multiple copies of this movie to every single educational institution in the world. I can’t give away that many DVD copies, but I can give a few and so can you.

“Akeelah Anderson can spell. She can spell better than anyone in her school in South Central Los Angeles, and she might have a chance at the nationals. Who can say? She sees the National Spelling Bee on ESPN and is intrigued. But she is also wary, because in her school there is danger in being labeled a "brainiac," and it's wiser to keep your smarts to yourself. This is a tragedy in some predominantly black schools: Excellence is punished by the other students, possibly as an expression of their own low self-esteem.”
-- Roger Ebert

We see Akeelah as she struggles to get by in school. She’s never missed a spelling word, although she doesn’t study, but she does love words. She plays Scrabble on her computer. Her dad also loved words. He died when she was six, and now five years later she feels closer to her dad than her mother, a single, over-worked mom trying to raise a daughter with her own baby, Akeelah and her gangsta-wannabe brother.

This is a movie with relationships and my favorite one is between Akeelah and her best buddy, Georgia. Georgia is always supportive and she has dreams of her own. She wants to be a flight attendant. She is unwavering in her encouragement of Akeelah, and Akeelah repays with encouragement and support in kind. When Akeelah is invited to a birthday party for a fellow spelling bee contestant in the prestigious Woodland Hills area, Georgia goes with her. At the party, however Georgia refuses to get out of the car and instead chooses shopping at the mall. She knows she doesn’t fit in with Akeelah’s new friends. As Akeelah gains notoriety and becomes a local celebrity, Georgia sees Akeelah less and this saddens her, but she never fails to offer encouragement. They remain friends . . . and Georgia will probably grow up to be a flight attendant.

Throughout the movie, the characters never take the easy way out. There are so many clichés that could have been easily applied. They weren’t.

Akeelah meets every challenge with determination and pluck. She chooses her own path from forging her permission slip, to skipping a tutoring session, and to misspelling a word on purpose. She makes decisions and suffers the consequences.

Akeelah and the Bee is a movie that deserves to be shown over and over again to young people, old people, friends and strangers as well. Share the experience with your neighbors and students. Support your local schools at every opportunity. Now, that spells success.

Related Articles
  If Your Salespeople Can Spell They Can Sell
  Four Steps to Ensure Accuracy in Your Written Communications
  A Formula for Flawless Decisions
  Target Your Pitch or Suffer the Consequences
  You Are the Message: Package Your Personal Brand

Article Tags:



Related Forum Posts
Re: THE SECRET TO SUCCESS IS ALL IN YOUR HEAD...RIGHT NOW!!! - Success = Thinking (Head) + Heart (Feeling / Interest) + Hand (doing/ action). Success - H3 Robert
Re: Success - I study success intently, and would like to share: Here's two excellent and nearly identical success-formulas from a couple of the world's masters. FIRST FORMULA: 1. Passionate Desire 2. Clear, Definite Purpose 3. Committed Decision 4. Take Action In Faith (Bonus Secret Sauce: 5. Repeat Consistently) I made a video about this, but am not allowed to link it yet. Google "Ryze Success Steps" for it. Oh, and this is Napoleon Hill's (Master Of Success Laws)'s Formula. SECOND FORMULA: 1. Passionate Desire 2. Understand It Is Already Done (Faith) 3. Relax & Allow It To Unfold (Go about your life calmly) This one is courtesy of Abraham-Hicks (inspiration for the movie The Secret). Hope that helps!
Success Strategies - How to get the results you want now? Success Strategies and Action Steps I have used are: The Power of Choice Where you are at this present moment, is exactly perfect from the choices you have made. If you want to be somewhere else, you have to decide clearly what that is (your goal/outcome) and create action steps to achieve this. The Power of Focus The book "The Power of Focus" by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Les Hewitt, is one of my treasures in my Entrepreneur Library. If you focus on what you want versus what you do not want, your conscious and sub-conscious mind will direct attention to this. The movie, What the Bleep, Down the Rabbit Hole, explains this in detail about quantum physics and what we create in our lives. The Power of Commitment This is not about commitment to others. The first step is the commitment, your word, you make to yourself. Accountability and responsibility are additional success strategies and ingredients to creating the success, defined by you, that you want. The commitment to others reflects your integrity, your word and the team you work with. Co-workers, clients, yoru family, friends and community. My Success Acronyn in Success Breakthroughs(c) is: S pecific & self-directed U nlimited opportunities & possibilities C reate powerful outcomes C onsistent measureable results E xperience pwoerful transformation S olution and action-oriented S uccessful habits and outcomes Break Through to Powerful LIfestyle & Performance Choices Moira
Re: Books for the Entrepreneur - Here's one of my most recent books The 100 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws of Business Success By Brian Tracy
Re: What is your age? - Kevin, Success is the best revenge. they are telling the world that been raised by sinlge parent will not determine their success in life


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Work at home Opportunities for the Disabled

Local Marketing: 3 Simple Low-Cost Strategies

Promoting your company and self with verve

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.