Opinion: Would you eat the marshmallow?

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Firstly, a warm thank you to the many people I meet who compliment me on these newspaper columns. It is very humbling and pleasing to know that someone is reading them.

I wish you and your whanau all the best. Nga mihi ki a koutou.

The other day I was playing golf with a couple of successful business mates who also enjoy sport and we were talking about the outstanding couple of weeks of sports coverage that was about to occur.

Those sporting events included the French Tennis Open, the Lions rugby matches, the All Blacks versus Samoa test, the America's Cup yachting finals with Team NZ and of course the US Golf Open.

We then realised that none of us had Sky Television.

Further analysis proved that we all chose not to have Sky Television because if we had it, then we would watch it.

We chose to play golf instead of watch it and were focusing on our businesses, whanau and other activities.

I must admit that I was really tempted to get Sky though with all those sports coming up.

That reminded me of one particular year I had end-of-year exams for my business degree on November 6-7, the two days after Guy Fawkes.

I was struggling to study on Guy Fawkes evening with my mates letting off fireworks all over the place, and one of my mentors gave me an awesome piece of advice.

They told me that I could either go out and enjoy Guy Fawkes and get a bad grade or maybe even fail my papers or alternatively I could study, pass well and get all the fireworks I wanted when I completed my degree and got a well-paying job.

Stanford University conducted an interesting study with children in the 1960s and 70s where they placed a marshmallow in front of the children and told them that they could either eat the marshmallow now or wait for 15 minutes and get another reward to eat with the marshmallow later.

About one third of the children ate the marshmallow immediately and about one third ate the marshmallow before the 15 minutes was up.

The other third held out for the 15 minutes and were rewarded.

The Stanford research later followed those children and found that the children who had received the reward for not eating the marshmallow were more successful than those who had eaten the marshmallow.

Hence the concept of delayed gratification was born where the people who chose to give something up now were rewarded with success later.

So what are you currently giving up? Would you eat the marshmallow immediately or wait for the next reward?

The marshmallow can symbolise anything from savings in bank accounts to working on a business instead of watching Sky Television.

For example, ask anyone who has run a marathon what they gave up to run that marathon and they will tell you they gave up hours of alternative activities so they could train for the event. However the gratification of running the marathon was well worth it.

Life is a marathon as well.

We just need to think about what we give up now, to make sure we are around to enjoy life later.

Kia kaha kia maia kia manawanui.

Ngahihi o te ra Bidois is an international leadership speaker, VIP Host, author, leader, husband and father. See www.ngahibidois.com for more of his story.