Improving Your Cross-cultural Competence

"Read a being-the-best biography..."

Looking up to people who made a lasting difference in their community and around the globe is a distinctive phenomenon of American life. There is a whole network of biography books in which well-known people share their experiences of how to get to

the top or rediscover oneself after some life crisis; or they can be books written about such people who from humble beginnings worked their way into nation-wide and world-wide fame: McDonald brothers who pioneered American fast food industry; the Marriotts, father and son who founded the famed Marriott chain of upper-level hotels now to be seen in all major cities of the world, including Tokyo, Moscow, Beijing, etc.; Joyce С Hall who created Hallmark, perhaps the greatest greeting card enterprise in American history.

Such "being-the-best" biography books uphold the idea that to get to the top is not such an unrealistic thing if you have drive and if you Work, Work, Work, Work. These books are immensely popular with people; they give them inspiration "to get up when you fall down" and to persevere in finding their place in life.

In this way the core values of the American society — optimism and belief in your own potential — are very successfully marketed to the people.

Assignments to chapter 5

Pre-Reading Instructions

Vocabulary.

SAT— Scholastic Aptitude Test— nationally administered test for high school graduates and seniors — used by colleges as part of entrance materials;

scholastic (adj.) — academic;

aptitude (n) — capacity for learning;

reservation (n) — feeling of uneasiness, mistrust, doubt, fear;

in effect — actually, in practical fact;

accomplish (v) — to succeed in doing, achieve;

accomplishment — achievement

break away (v) — to separate from;

tremendous (adj.) — great, enormous;

limitation (n) — limiting condition;

to be stuck in — to be unable to move and act freely, to be blocked;

Little League — a baseball league for boys from 8 to 12;

Brownies — a junior group in Girl Scouts;

commute (v) — to travel back and forth regularly;

commuter (n)— a train that takes people to the suburb and back to town; also person who commutes;

sitcom (n) — situational comedy, usually 1/2 hour long, part of a TV serial;

enhance (v) — to intensify, to improve; to make more attractive, valuable, desirable.

From Chapter 5 will the real you please stand up

In the movie "Breaking Away" released some years ago, the story centers on a young man from Indiana who has grown up in a community and in a home where stonecutting is the only way to make a living. He comes to a crisis in his life when he tries to decide whether to consider trying to go to college. His SAT scores are good enough, and his application has been accepted. But he has deep reservations and self-doubt.

Everybody in his neighborhood is either a stonecutter by trade or the son or daughter of a stonecutter. Typically, the sons and daughters follow in their fathers' and mothers' career paths. It is tradition. They never go away to college. They stay close to home and cut stones.

The young man's father takes him to the university campus one day, and they stand on the front steps of the administration building.

"I cut the stones that you see placed here to build this university, Son," the father says, with his arm around his boy's shoulders. "I'm proud of that accomplishment. I think I did a good job." His son nods and they look each other in the eyes.

Then his father offers, "But I'm a cutter. And I've been watching you. You're not a cutter, and you don't have to try to be one. You can be anything you want. Just find out what you really like and what you really want, and you can be different .You can stand up and break away."

And so he does.

It's one thing to tell yourself or have someone else tell you that you can break away from the same old rut. But it's another thing to believe that what you see is who you'll be and let it make a real difference in your life. I constantly get letters that say in effect:

Okay, Waitley, so my potential is tremendous. I don't have to live with all those limitations. I've heard all that before, but I'm stuck in the same dead-end job. What do I do first to get out of my rut? Do you know of any good positions for a person of my potential?

Such letters ask me to be practical – and specific. I don't know of any better way to do that than to respond, "Find out what you are good at."

A problem in today's society is that parents really have little opportunity to help children discover their natural gifts. Contemporary culture and lifestyle leave very little time to spend really getting to know children by watching them and working with them.

In the "old days" children often worked on the farm or in the family business right alongside mom and dad. Now they run from school to Little League to Brownies to dancing class and, finally, to bed. And about all that mom and dad get, if they are lucky, are brief reports on how things are going. In many cases only mom hears the grants of "Okay, I guess", as she chauffeurs the kids from one activity to another. Dad doesn't get home on the seven o'clock commuter until after they're fast asleep or in the middle of a sitcom.

Try a lot of things. Spend more money on experience and less on toys and other material possessions that are supposed to enhance life. Isn't it ironic that we spend more at Christmas on toys than we spend the rest of the year on giving our children interesting experiences? We try to buy their love with birthday and Christmas presents when we could give them the priceless gift of discovering the unlimited potential they have within themselves.

Your natural gifts are the key to fulfilling your potential for success.

Find your natural gifts. Develop them. Then use them to be the best you can be.