A Second Chance

1. A Second Chance A very few times in the life of every human being there comes an opportunity to start his/her life again. If you did not do as well in your ‘A’ levels as you wanted to do, then this for you is A SECOND CHANCE.

2. A Second Chance You must be quite clever or else you would not have done ‘A’ Levels, but if you do not get the grades that you wanted, then luckily you can still sort yourself out.

3. A Second Chance I don’t care how badly you have done. This is YOUR chance to re-make yourself.

4. A Second Chance When you go to bed tonight say to yourself - I am on the verge of becoming an adult. - I have made a mistake, but - I can still make my life whatever I want it to be. - My life is in MY hands. - I am going to make a HUGE success of my life.

5. A Second Chance Then when you wake up tomorrow morning, wake up a different person. WAKE UP TOMORROW AS ONE OF LIFE’S WINNERS.

6. Success Success is not about being a doctor or a dentist or being the director of a company or whatever.

7. Success Success is NOT about making a lot of money.

8. Success Success is about realising the potential that you were born with.

9. Success A brain surgeon who has not realised his/her full potential is NOT a success.

10. Success A road sweeper who HAS realised his full potential is the greatest success in the whole world.

11. SUCCESS Realise the potential that you were born with and your life will be a huge success.

12. SUCCESS If you have not done as well as you wanted to in your ‘A’ Levels, you may not get into the University of your choice and may now go to a different University, or you may go straight into work. Do not despair. Your life is NOT at an end. You can still turn it round. Just follow some simple steps, and you will be just as successful as you would otherwise have been had you been successful in the things that you set out to do.

13. SUCCESS You are now just about to make the transition from being a child into becoming an adult, and when you start work, if you are a conscientious, hard-working, and reliable employee who gets on with his/her fellow workers – then you will be given more and more responsibility and you will be promoted quickly. You will therefore earn more and more money – and while money (by itself) does not make you happy, it does make your life easier than if you do not have enough money! I therefore want you to start NOW to train yourselves to be conscientious, hard-working, and reliable!

14. SUCCESS In my local Tesco, in the last 9 years, I have watched a newly-arrived Polish girl go from being a shelf-stacker, to becoming one of the Managers. (In NINE years). She did it just by hard work and being nice. Every customer and member of staff with whom she comes into contact loves her, not because she is good-looking (she is in fact rather plain), but because she goes out of her way to be nice to everybody. SHE HAS JUST WORKED HER WAY UP(and she was promoted over people who had British degrees but who did not work as hard and were not as nice).

15. SUCCESS If you are now going to a University that was not your first choice, then learn to think for yourself, and learn how to use textbooks to help you to understand better the subjects that you are studying. You will find the jump from ‘A’ Levels to Degree work to be a MUCH MUCHbigger jump than the jump from GCSEs to ‘A’ Levels and the big difference between school work and University work is that at school you are TAUGHT – whereas at University you have to LEARNthings for yourself.

16. SUCCESS Learn to manage your TIME Time is one of the most precious things that you have. Do NOT spend a lot of time talking to your colleagues. When you get to University, spend most of your time studying and reading. Do not waste your time socialising. You do not need to be a genius to get a First. You can get a First just by sheer unremitting hard work – and when you start ‘work’ you will find that hard-workers and accommodating people get promoted quickest. Once you have a good job and are earning good money, THEN you can spend a lot of time talking.

17. SUCCESS Develop good working habits - always keep up with your lectures - read around your subject voraciously and then put those good habits into practice when you get to work.

18. The way to study • If you do not keep up, then within three weeks you will be so far behind that you will find it difficult ever to catch up!This is especially true of a University where a lecturer will stand before you and give you a lecture on something for 40 minutes, and you will then be expected to read around the subject and master it for yourself – and the next time that you will encounter that particular topic might be in your end of year examinations! • I promise you that when you get to University NOBODY will take the trouble to spoon-feed you the material that will need to know! In some Universities, you will be lucky to find a lecturer who will even answer your emails!

19. SUCCESS Please remember that success in life is NOT measured by your ABSOLUTE achievementsi.e. by what grades you get/by what job you have/by how much money you earn/etc – but, rather, true success is measured by whether or not you fulfill YOUR OWN personal potential! Fulfill your own personal potential and you will have a very good chance of having an immensely happy and successful life.

20. Having an easy life It is one of the great paradoxes in life that if you want to have an easy life, then you have to work immensely hard to achieve it.

21. Having a hard life If you want to have a hard life, then take it easy. Go out at the weekends/go to discos/ spend hours on social media/smoke shishas/get drunk, and generally have a ‘good’ time – and your life thereafter will be an extremely HARD one.

22. Having a hard life If you want an easy life, then work your socks off for the next three years and for the rest of your life. If you want to have a hard life, then take it easy in the next three years and when you get to work.

23. The response to a mistake One of the most important things to learn in life is that you very rarely learn anything when you get something right(because you automatically assume that you got it right because you are clever). However, intelligent human beings learn a lot from their mistakes, because(if they are even moderately intelligent) thenthey examine their mistakes to see where they went wrong, and then they make sure that they never repeat that/those mistake(s) again!

24. MISTAKES Mistakes are very important things when they are treated as wake-up calls. What is important is that - you learn from the mistakes that you make, and - you give everything that you do in life your best shot.

25. MISTAKES The more mistakes that you make, and the more that you learn from your mistakes, then (ironically) the better you will become as a student and as a human being.

26. A SECOND CHANCE If you respond appropriately, then the fact that you did not do as well in your ‘A’ Levels as you wanted to do may turn out to be one of the most important turning-points in your whole life. Being an “adult” is not defined by age. An “adult” is someone who takes responsibility for his/her own actions. Until now, your parents and your teachers have been responsible for your actions, but now YOU will be responsible for everything that happens (or does not happen) IN YOUR LIFE. What happens to you now is up to you and to nobody else.

27. GOOD LUCK. I WISH YOU A VERY HAPPY AND SUCCESSFUL LIFE.