A standard is defined as “a level of quality or attainment.” It’s a measure of accountability that directly influences your impact in sports and in the game of life. When you have low standards, you will have low success. However, the opposite is also true. As the level of your standards increase, so increases your success. That’s because with higher standards, comes a higher level of accountability, training, commitment, grit, and focus on goal achievement. Your success in the game of life is directly related to the standards you hold yourself to.

Pillar: Personal Code

Key Topics: high standards; support system; peer pressure; family standards; mentorship

Who is the most valuable person in your life? You might say your mom, your grandfather, or maybe even your girlfriend or boyfriend. Sure, there’s always an easy answer to that question, but the easy answer may not always be the most accurate. If we zoomed out of your life and looked at the person you value the most, do the most for, and focus on the most, you’d most likely be looking in the mirror. If you want to find success in the game of life, then you must learn to treat every person you meet, from the custodian to the coach that’s recruiting you, the same. Treat every person you meet like they are the most valuable person you’ve ever met.

Pillar:  Servant Leadership

Key Topic: servant leadership; serving others; service; team goals; putting others first; communication

We’ve all heard the saying, “When opportunity knocks, you better open the door.” That phrase claims if you’re not in the right place at the right time, you’ll miss your shot. Let’s get one thing straight: opportunity it not a unicorn. It’s not rare, and it’s definitely not a once in a lifetime chance. Opportunity is everywhere. The question is not, when will opportunity knock? The real question is, what doors am I building for opportunity to knock on? The more doors you build, the more opportunities you will have. The people that believe opportunity is a matter of luck haven’t picked up a hammer to make their own way. They’ve complained more than they’ve constructed.

Every great idea the world has ever known began with the question, “What if?” From Thomas Edison to Dr. King, Kenny Sailors to Mark Zuckerburg, BIG ideas begin with a with small question. Sadly, so many people refuse to “risk the if” and settle for the “is.” What is acceptable? What is easy? What is the path of least resistance? But, for those who are willing to risk failure, there is a world of unfathomable possibility– not only in your life, but through your life. IF you can ask the right question.

When is the game really won? Is it when you run up the scoreboard? When the clock ticks out to zero? When you stride a few inches longer than your opponent? While all those are technically true, they don’t tell the whole story. A more complete story is, if you want to outscore your opponent on Friday night, you’ve gotta outwork them Saturday-Thursday. Victory is not simply had on the playing field, it’s had on the practice field. If you want to win in the game, you’ve got to win in practice. The math is rough, but in general, you will only spend around 8 percent of your time in a sport in the game. You’ll spend somewhere around 92 percent of your time practicing, watching film, working on the fundamentals, honing mental skills, and lifting in the weight room. That’s why we say: Prior Preparation Permits Proper Performance.

Your future success is dependent upon you doing the right work, right now. Not just hard work, but the right work. And not just the right work; not just hard work tomorrow, or yesterday, but right now. Success is found when you do the right work, right now. That’s why it is so important to find the one thing that you’ve got today to make you successful tomorrow. When you hyper-focus on the one thing you need to do today, everyday, and then you do it again and again for the rest of your life, you find success like you’ve never imagined.

Nobody likes making mistakes. They’re embarrassing. They’re uncomfortable. They make you confront the fact that you are not perfect. But, something powerful happens when, instead of shying away from the fear of making mistakes, we embrace mistakes as a welcomed teacher. Mistakes and the discomfort that comes with them can be one of the most powerful tools for our lives, if we let them. But, if all we do is run away from situations where we might make a mistake, we’ll never grow. When we let go of the fear and negative power of making mistakes, there’s no limit to what we can do.

We’ve all had daydreams of being “discovered” out of the blue for our awesome talents. It looks like it happens all the time: a YouTuber’s video goes viral or a hot new musician pops up from nowhere. Outside looking in, success just happened like they wished on a lucky penny and *poof* there it was. But, internet celebrities, musicians, and pro athletes have given us a skewed view of what it means to be successful. So often, those big careers make it seem like success just happens overnight. One day, he’s joe schmoe, and the next, he’s world famous. It doesn’t work that way, though. Success isn’t something that just happens. These celebrities weren’t just walking down the street one day when they ran face first into fame. They worked long and hard for that recognition.

Superheroes often wear disguises to hide their identities from the world. One of the most famous examples is Superman’s disguise as Clark Kent, but we can all think of plenty of others. In a similar way, we wear disguises everyday based on where we are or who we’re with. These disguises are natural, but they’re also a defense mechanism. We wear them because we’re afraid that if we show people who we really are, we might be rejected or ridiculed. These disguises form the basis of our reputations, and they can become so integral to our self-image that we might even forget sometimes that we’re wearing a disguise. But, we have to try to remember that we are not our disguise, or our reputation. Instead, we are our character. Reputations are changeable, and they’re based on other people’s perceptions. Character is a lot harder to alter, and it’s based on the reality of who we are, whether other people see it or not.

Pillar: Servant Leadership

Key Topics: character; reputation; foundation; coaching beyond the game; potential;