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Zest is the key ingredient if you're teaching motivation, according to Dan Miscisco. "I hand-pick my teachers and look for people with zest, high energy, enthusiasm, vim and vigour." Miscisco says. He found someone like that in Coquitlam and hired  him to lead the city's first motivational

learning camp for kids. Rich Chambers, a teacher at Terry Fox Senior Secondary and coach of the Boys' Basketball AAA champions, will lead the one-week camp starting Monday, Aug 8, at the Social Recreation Centre. Boys and Girls entering Grades 5 to 8 in September are eligible for the camp, which runs from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., and is sponsored by the Coquitlam Leisure and Parks Services. "I don't think the formula for success - good manners, friendship, listening skills - can ever be started too early," Miscisco says. "Why wait until the kid is 16 and say, now it's time for good manners of good attitudes?" Even though he's 50 and a grandfather, Miscisco says "I'm still young because I still have energy. I talk about heart and passion." Twenty five years ago the North Vancouver teacher began camps for children in the Lower Mainland, focusing on basketball and volleyball. "Then seven years ago parents began asking  for something for the little people so I began Peewee Plus camps  for seven-year-olds where in addition to sports we taught positive attitudes, sportsmanship, and nutrition." This summer, 700 children are signed up for Miscisco's Future Smart motivational camps, which are designed around four components - motivation, people skills, life skills and academic skills. "How can you feel good about yourself if you don't accomplish something? I work on the 100 drop theory - if you tell someone 100 times you're doing a great job, you'll eventually believe it." Miscisco says many children don't take pride in what they do, "so they do a sloppy job so how can you take pride in it." He talks of the circle of success where you set targets and goals, then se action fuel - persistence, good attitudes, risk-taking, being positive - to accomplish those goals. "If you accomplish your goal the confidence level goes up and if the confidence goes up, then you take more risks and try new things and you keep going round the circle."