Failure is a part of life. No matter who you are, where you come from, or what you’re doing, you’re going to fail. When we are terrified of failure, we end up paralyzing ourselves. We become so afraid to fail that we end up sitting on the sidelines, watching as the game, and our lives, pass us by. When you’re more concerned with the way that you fight than you are the outcome of the fight, you begin to realize the real victory is in the struggle. The real victory is in the process, not just the outcome. You were made to be in the arena. Fighting. Striving. Pushing yourself to the absolute limit. The arena is where you’re going to make your impact on the world.

Pillar: Grit

Key Topics: fear of failure; process; outcome; results; seeking perfection; success; struggle; what gets rewarded gets repeated; be better than good enough; failure is an event not a person; criticism;

True humility is possible when you find your identity not in what you do, but in who you are. Your worth comes not from things like looks, or strength, or brains. Your worth comes from who you are and the reality that there is breath in your lungs. A humble person is someone who is so secure in who they are that their confidence becomes contagious. They become someone that everybody wants to be around. They become a leader that everybody wants to follow. Everywhere they go, they’re so confident in who they are that they just look for other people to lift up and celebrate, never afraid that someone else is coming for them. When you live your life with true humility, you become absolutely undefeatable. You will develop a spirit that is utterly unbreakable.

Pillar:  Servant Leadership

Key Topic: humility; meekness; who you are; self-worth;

Champions don’t just win championships. Too often, people believe they can “hack” their way to champion status but cutting out the “fluff” and only focusing their efforts on making the “big changes” they see champions make. While there is no doubt value in learning from the greats --after all, success leaves clues-- we must learn about all the champions do, not just the big things. It will always be the commitment to and execution of the unseen and difficult fine tuning that separates the best, from rest. If you want to reach your goals in sports or in life, you’ve got to commit yourself to the small, incremental, fine tuning. This week, and every other, let’s commit to steady, consistent, incremental growth. To the Plus One.

The day you choose to believe that you are worth it-- worth the sacrifice, the investment, the hustle, the fight-- is the day your life will change. Whatever it costs; whatever it takes; whatever lengths, you are worth it. The day that you decide that your value isn’t found in what you DO, but in who you ARE is the day that everything will change for you. That will be the day you start to realize that it’s not about what you BRING to the table, but the fact that you’re AT the table. When that happens, you will begin to value yourself based on the INTERNAL, not the EXTERNAL, and as a result, you begin to raise the standard of what you DO-- both on and off the field. You will never find success if you don’t believe that you’re worthy of being successful. Your coaches believe you are worth it. Your teachers, counselors, and family believe you are worth it. The question is, do you?

No matter where you go in the world, if you were to ask the question, “What is the most powerful force and emotion on earth?” 9 times out of 10 you’ll get the same answer. Love.
Love is patient. Have you ever known a champion who wasn’t willing to commit to something?
Who wasn’t willing to put in the hard work and wait for what they were striving for? Of course not! Champions are patient, and so is love.
Love is kind and kindness is strength. Kindness is going all in for your teammates. Even if you’ve got a beef off the field. It’s going all in for them not because of who THEY are, but because of who YOU are. Champions are strong and kind, and so is love.
Love doesn’t have a swelled head. Love doesn’t score and say, “Look at me!” it scores and says, “Look at y’all! I wouldn’t be here without you!” Champions don’t have a swelled head, and neither does love.
Love never gives up. Nobody has ever quit their way to success. Nobody has ever won a gold medal by throwing in the towel when things got tough, things didn’t go their way, or people told them that they wouldn’t make it. Champions never give up, and neither does love.

Are you a thermometer or a thermostat? It may sound like a silly question, but it has some serious implications for your success on the field, and in the game of life.

A thermometer can only respond to, and be influenced by the elements around it. When the temperature goes up, so does the thermometer; when it goes down, so goes the thermometer. A thermostat, however influences the environment around. Things get too hot? Then the thermostat cools things off. Are things too cold? Then the thermostat warms the room up. The thermostat influences the environment around it.

Everyday, you must ask yourself, “Did I set the temperature of my life, or did others set it for me?

Our body language will communicate things that our words never will. Words can be misun-derstood, misinterpreted, or manipulated, but our body language will always tell the truth. It will always give us away. It’s a universal language.
Your legs are burning, lungs on fire and your primary instinct is to bend over, put your hands on your knees, and catch your breath. At that moment, what does coach say? “Stand tall!” Why? Because when you bend over, you’re communicating much more than you think: “I’m giving up”, “My circumstances are winning”, or even “You can’t count on me.”
But when you decide to stand tall, it communicates to everybody around you that you can be trusted. That you will be there when things get difficult.

To maximize the impact you can have on the world, yourself and your team, It’s not complicat-ed; it’s as simple as two words: character vs. talent.
Too often we’re disproportionately focused on talent over character. We view talent as the way to make it. We strive to develop our talent; maximize our skill; because we think it’s the thing that will drive us to succeed in life. All the while it’s easy to neglect character.
How many division one athletes do you know who are untalented? You see, at a certain level, talent levels out. To maximize your talent, you have to must maximize your character. The strength of your character will determine the success of your talents.

In everything you do, whether in sports or in life, in order to succeed, there’s one thing that you need to bring. One thing that you need to summon from deep within yourself. One thing that will make all the difference.
You’ve got to bring your total effort.
Not A LOT of effort. Not more effort than you brought last time. Not more effort than the player to your right or to your left. You’ve got to bring total effort. You can give more effort than the person on your right and left, and still not give TOTAL effort.

Pillar: Work Ethic

Key Topics: effort; standards; structure; all in; integrity;