I just heard from one of our members. He's heading for the National Spelling Bee finals in Washington D.C. in early June and very excited.
Over the last few years, our site has become a major hub for these amazing mental athletes, since we are the only comprehensive and fully managed spelling program to help them manage their ambitious goal.
We also offer a forum for spelling bee contestants: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eSpindle_SB/
This particular child just emailed me saying "I am using your website as my personal coach. It is such an amazing program!" He has studied over 17,000 words with LearnThatWord so far... what an amazing achievement! There are only two members who have studied more -- you can see the highest scoring users by moving your mouse over the blue round "1" icon on the home page or next to the quiz.
I was wishing him good luck, but then thought how inappropriate the term seemed compared with his level of preparedness. Luck is so often looked at as something random. However, contrary to popular folk myth, luck very rarely just drops on people. Instead, it follows a formula.
l = p x o
Luck = Preparedness x Opportunity
Of course, this child may encounter one of the few words he has not yet studied or that his brain has forgotten under the onslaught of vocabulary data. He may be making a mistake. But he has taken every step to minimize the likeliness of that by making sure he is prepared to the highest degree.
And from what I can see of his character so far, I'm sure that even if he hears the bell and not the questions of the media this year, he's likely to be back next year.Luck is not blind. She only has serious trouble seeing clearly. Get up and try to stand right in front of her by striving to increase your preparedness and opportunities wherever you can. Don't give up. Every action you take to either increase your preparedness or your opportunity will seriously increase your chances of being tagged by "luck."
