Reach Higher

As I begin blogging again, I found inspiration for this blog’s topic from Michigan State University’s football team.  The team’s motto for the 2015 season is ‘Reach Higher’.  The statement very easily lends itself to a visceral interpretation of doing better and going further.  A motto that is fitting for a team that over the years has had increasingly great success in its regular seasons, bowl game appearances, and is sitting at the cusp of yet another banner year this year.  Without bragging about a team that I’m very proud of from my alma mater, let’s look into why this is a motto that is extremely pertinent to all of us whether you love or loathe football.

Let’s start with a simple experiment for illustrative purposes.  This will cause you to leave the screen you’re reading this on, so please come back to finish.  Don’t leave me behind in awe of the results.  Ready?  Here is the first instruction: stand against a wall and reach as high as you can.  Make sure that when you do this, you have a way to mark how high you were able to reach.  Return to a resting position, and come back to the screen for the second set of instructions.  Part 2: Do the exact same thing again, and you will probably be surprised that you can reach higher the second time.  Interesting right?

This type of phenomenon happens to us in our personal and professional lives quite often.  We work hard and give 100% of our effort to achieve a goal that we’ve been working towards.  The goal is attainable, but really expends a lot of energy as we’ve tried as hard as we can to accomplish it.  There’s a lot of pride that comes with reaching it, but we must remember not to get lost in the celebration.  Instead, if we focused our energy, concentrated and kept on pushing just a little harder we would be reaching higher and could achieve even more than we thought we could.

The biggest trap that we can fall into is being mesmerized by our initial success.  The intoxicating joy of achievement can easily lull us into a safe place of satisfaction.  Satisfaction is the worst enemy you can have when greatness in your personal or professional life is what you want.  Satisfaction means we’re too comfortable and settling for mediocrity.  The reality is, no one great was ever mediocre, and they were always pushing for the next goal to achieve, the next precipice to climb, the next business venture to embark on, and on and on.

Just when we thought we couldn’t get any better we aim to push a little more and reach higher and we can get an even better result.  Michigan State’s football team is illustrating their motto right now and we are watching it unfold before us.  Their head coach Mark Dantonio in his job acceptance press conference stated “My vision here is to win championships.  That’s my vision.”  He’s held true to this vision winning Bowl Games, Big Ten Division Championships, and Big Ten League Championships.  The success, and rate at which the program has achieved it, could be dizzying and very easy to be comfortable with.  But instead of being satisfied with their success, this year they are reaching higher and aiming for a National Championship.

This is the type of mindset that we need to carry with us.  It’s a hunger to keep achieving, to keep reaching higher just when we thought we reached high enough.

I’ve already proved to you that you can do it physically through the experiment that we started with.  So why not prove it to yourself through your accomplishments to reach the greatness that you desire and push a little further to surprise yourself with even more success.

 

 

They Will Say No, You Will Say Yes

It’s definitely that time of year in sports.  There are NFL Playoff games happening, and NCAA College Basketball is in full swing.  So many of us watch great catches and defensive plays on the football field, and then flip the channel to amazing dunks that make us stand up and high five complete strangers.  If you take the time to read some of my past blogs, it will come as no surprise that I pull a lot of motivation and leadership philosophy from athletes, sports quotes and sports teams.

This week, I was reminded of something from playing basketball my freshman year in high school when I heard the stories of two athletes Derrick Coleman and Isaiah Austin.  I was reminded of a motivational quote our coach gave us during our first team meeting.  It stuck out to me, so I cut it out and hung it in my locker.  From then on, I would look at this quote all through high school, college, and eventually come to share it with people I supervised when I started working full time.  It’s from a Nike Ad (the ad is below) and although I love the whole thing, my favorite line is:

“They will tell you no.

A thousand times no. Until all the no’s become meaningless. 

All your life they will tell you no.

Quite firmly and very quickly.

And you will tell them yes.”

Derrick Coleman is a player for the Seattle Seahawks.  He climbed the ranks playing football through high school, at UCLA, and now will play on the greatest and biggest stage in the NFL, the Super Bowl.  I came across Derrick through, surprisingly enough, a Duracell commercial.  After reading more about Derrick I realized that he has a very inspirational story.  What you may not know about him, is that he is a legally deaf person playing in the NFL.  In a sport where snap counts, audibled plays (plays changed by the quarterback before the ball is hiked) and crowd noise play a vital role in the success of the team, Derrick has learned through his hearing aid and coping mechanisms to play at the most elite level in the sport.  From being a child trying to fit his hearing aid under his helmet, to going undrafted in the NFL, he was constantly being told ‘No’ and through perseverance and determination, he told them ‘Yes’.

The story of Isaiah Austin is also a story of triumph under difficult odds.  Isaiah Austin is a basketball player for Baylor University, a Division I Men’s Basketball Team.  Through a routine dunk in warm ups during middle school, he aggravated an injury from little league.  In basketball where eye sight and depth perception are as vital as a good jump shot, Isaiah was learning to play the game in a completely different way than most youth.  He tore his retina in one eye and despite surgery and efforts to save his sight, he eventually became blind in one eye.  He was therefore learning coping mechanisms to compensate for his sight, and how to play through his unique circumstance.  Bearing this secret until very recently, he admits to hiding his loss of vision in one eye because he was afraid people would tell him ‘No’ suggesting that he wasn’t good enough, or not take a chance on him because he only could see through one eye.  Instead he found ways to tell them ‘Yes’ before they even had a chance to say ‘No’.

I share these stories and the Nike Ad because intrinsic motivation is such a vital source of the drive we must have to succeed.  I think about my favorite line whenever I get the sense that someone thinks I’m not good enough, or when I come across an obstacle blocking me from something that I want to achieve.  Our circumstances may not be the exact same as Derrick’s or Isaiah’s, but they serve as great examples of how to overcome the odds against them to achieve their goals in life.

Most importantly I use the Nike Ad and will now think of these athletes when doubt creeps into my own mind wondering if I’m good enough, or talented enough.  I think it’s safe to say that we have all had moments of self-doubt where we have second guessed ourselves or berated ourselves in comparison to others.  We can easily get sucked into the spiral of negativity in our minds and our thoughts second guessing ourselves on whether we are capable of something.  It’s natural for those thoughts to creep in occasionally, but it’s even more crucial to put them out and stand resilient with the confidence in ourselves.  We have to eliminate those thoughts and be determined to succeed the same way Derrick and Isaiah have persevered through their challenges to succeed.  The reason this is so important is because as the Nike Ad says: “They will tell you No”, so if you’re not willing to tell them ‘Yes’, then who will?

Story from ABC about Derrick Coleman click here.

Story from Sportscenter about Isaiah Austin click here

Don't Quit

This past Thanksgiving Weekend was filled with some of the most exciting endings to college and NFL football games.  The most memorable was the end of the Auburn versus Alabama game, which has saturated almost every news and media outlet for the past few days.  I bring up this college football game not to exhaust an already fatigued sports news story, but because it serves as a classic example of why we should never give up, even if it seems like the game is over.

If you haven’t seen it, the Auburn win came on a last second, long range field goal attempt by Alabama, with both teams tied and braced for the possibility of going into overtime.  Auburn put one person in the end zone to catch the field goal if Alabama missed it short.  It was a heads up ‘let’s be prepared for any type of situation’ play calling mentality that gave them the win.  This attitude that the game isn’t over until the clock says zero is the mindset that we need to carry with us every day.  In life your game might be a job hunt, starting a business, or another circumstance you face where not continuing to try means the difference between quitting and success.

All too often many of us get caught up in convincing ourselves that our circumstances are too monumental to overcome and we give up.  We might have been trying so hard, for so long at something, that frustration has set in from a lack of the results that we expect.  Just when it seems like we are at the end of our journey some of us choose to quit.  Not quitting at that instant in time makes successful people successful.  Just when successful people start to think their ‘game’ is over or feel frustration start to set in, instead of quitting, they push a harder to keep on going until they reach their goal.

Before Auburn won they were down two touchdowns to the number one team in the nation but they didn’t give up and neither should you.  Auburn put someone in the end zone in preparation for something good that might happen to help them win.  They took a chance even though the odds were stacked against them, and that’s what we should do with every opportunity.  We need to be ready to go, ready to take a chance, ready to finish strong and play hard through every last second regardless of the odds we face.  Had Auburn not been ready for opportunity to come their way in the form of a short missed field goal, that game probably wouldn’t be in the history books for the way it ended, and Auburn might not be in the SEC championship game. 

You too have to be ready for opportunity to strike in whatever form it may come to you, just like Auburn was.  Don’t give up and say I’ll get it next time.  Had Auburn adopted that thought process, they could have lost in overtime.  Fight until the very last second, and be prepared to put in extra effort just when it seems like it’s all over, because an opportunity might come your way.  When opportunity knocks, you need to make sure you’re ready with a welcome mat ready to let it come into your life.

Over the years I’ve shared a poem titled “Don’t Quit” written by an anonymous author with those I have supervised.  I would share it with them as motivation to keep working hard no matter what.  It’s my favorite poem to read for inspiration, and the last stanza which I have pasted below summarizes what I’m getting at with this week’s blog.
(You can Google “Don’t Quit poem” for the full version)

"Success is failure turned inside out–
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far,
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit–
It’s when things seem worst that you mustn’t quit."