Are all girl FIRST team counterproductive to the philosophy of FIRST?

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by MamaSpoldi

I suspect Jane was indicating this as a distinction between some people's idea of a "Rock Star" and just a great mentor. Many feel that you have to be over the top and desire the spotlight to reach that status.

Actually, I was thinking that there are many powerful egos in FRC. There are great mentors with powerful egos. The trick is to control them (egos) and not let the egos control the mentors.

Post 101, JesseK's, is brilliant regarding this discussion about the ego. If a mentor with an incredible sense of self and ego can help to power a team to success and achievement while in control of the ego, it can be a magnificent journey. Why do high school and college students spend so much time and energy looking at the numbers in a variety of settings but always coming down to the elite teams leading the way in those numbers? What drove those teams to garner the wins and achievements? What was the power and the motivation? In some of those cases, we'll see the very strong, very healthy egos as part of the bigger picture. And, for many teams, the mentors have learned to harness the ego and turn it into a source of positive energy and inspiration. That is where a team that has access to this energy can have a lot going for it in ways that can be talked for years to come.

I'd also like to talk about the wisdom in post 100. This mentor, George Kantor, is helping the team explore their sense of self and to develop their ego and, in some ways, he is as surprised as anyone as to how amazing the discoveries are.

Fantastic posts by these two awesome mentors and what I'm actually talking about regarding the ego.

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Jaine - I'm just now reading about my suggestion to think a while before posting that was made by Jason. I may send you guys a pm later after I've had some time to think about what I want to say. It's no biggie, it's just that I know both of you and I also know that historically, each of you loves an excellent and sometimes, heated discussion.

Jane