Bad days are guaranteed to happen. What’s not guaranteed, is what you do when it does. The way you respond to a bad day determines your success for that day and the following days. Don’t sit and wallow in self-pity. Instead, choose to view the struggle as an opportunity. Bad days will come. When they do, instead of thinking “It shouldn’t be this way,” think “This is a GROWTH day.” To change your bad day to growth, focus on shifting your mentality. Remember that you are still learning, but you are still accountable for your actions.

Pillar: Growth Mindset

Key Topic: PLAN; bottleneck; bad day; growth day; emotional intelligence; helping others; do your job

Often unseen and unpraised, nuts and bolts are responsible for holding together a lot of the items that people rely on, such as vehicles, cooking appliances, and indoor plumbing. There are areas of life that are like those nuts and bolts: unseen and unpraised but vitally important. A few of those areas include: being a great follower, seeing the best in others, and knowing how to lose well. Like the often overlooked nuts and bolts throughout the world, skills like being a great follower, seeing the best in others, and losing well are often unpraised or unnoticed. Still, they are incredibly important for leading a successful life.

Pillar: Servant Leadership

Key Topics: work ethic; communication; self-management; self-awareness; social awareness; seeing the best in others; back to basics; nuts and bolts; how to; humility; integrity; perspective; how to lose well

Anger isn’t any more inherently wrong than fire. But like fire, it can be destructive if it’s not kept within boundaries. You have certain rights when it comes to your anger, but those rights can be forfeited if you let your anger control you instead of the other way around. The more you control your anger, the more even-keeled you will be. The more you can be angry without committing any of these anger rights violations, the more even-keeled you will be able to remain. And, the more even your temperament is, the better leader and teammate you will be.

Pillar: Personal Code

Key Topics: anger; anger rights; patience; control your anger; count the eyes; anger management; emotional release

When we lose or fail, it’s never caused by just one thing. Instead, it’s caused by a series of repeated errors. Often, you’ll see those errors, but you don’t do anything about them because you think they don’t matter. But think about an airplane. If the plane is just one click (one degree) off from the projected path and doesn’t course correct, it won’t reach its destination. The little errors left uncorrected cause the big failures. Success or failure is never caused by just one thing. It's caused by a lot of little things added together. To stay on course to reach the big picture goal, you need to be proficient in setting (and sticking to) smaller, SMART goals.

Pillar: Goals

Key Topics: family values; off course; standard bearer; little things; mistakes; set the example; course correct

Usually a class is your “favorite” because it comes easily to you. You’re good at it, so you naturally like it. People tend to avoid the things that they are not naturally gifted at. The problem is, when you let obstacles deter you, you are giving in to the fear of failure and giving up the opportunity to learn from the obstacle course that is in front of you. The solution is to enroll in the course the obstacle is trying to teach you. When you enroll in the obstacle course and learn from it, it changes your perspective. Changing your mindset to view obstacles as classes to be learned from will take effort and persistence. To help you along the journey, treat an obstacle the same way that you would a class: have your materials ready, read the textbook, and test your knowledge.

Pillar: Grit

Key Topics: obstacles; struggle; truth; positivity; tough love; benefits of tough love; challenge; learning; growth mindset

You understand the concept of “work in progress” in class when working on a big project, but you might forget that this also transfers to the real world. You are a work in progress, and you always will be because there is no end point for learning. Learning never stops, so long as you choose to stay in progress. When you are in progress, you always have something to celebrate, you learn from your mistakes, and you view others as teachers rather than threats. You get what a work in progress is, but you also have to understand that you are a work in progress. There's a process of growth that everyone has to go through, and learning never stops as long as you choose to stay in progress.

Pillar: Growth Mindset

Key Topics: growth mindset; work in progress; owning mistakes; learning how to learn; learning from others

In the game of sports and the game of life, there will be critics. You can’t avoid critics entirely, but you can prepare to ensure that the arrows they shoot at you can’t derail you. You prepare by developing a thick skin. A thick skin means standing in your convictions, not defining yourself by success or failure, and seeking the truth. When you stand in your convictions, nothing can topple you. It’s a solid foundation on which you can stand firm. Conviction adds to the thickness of your skin. Your conviction is your belief in something outside of yourself. It's your purpose, your why, the motivation behind your actions. You can’t control the critics and arrows that will come your way, but you can control whether or not you have a thick skin. You prepare for criticism by holding to your convictions, keeping a solid sense of self independent from success or failure, and seeking the whole truth in the criticism.

Pillar: Personal Code

Key Topics: constructive criticism; how to grow a thick skin; accepting feedback; praise; criticism; improvement; growth; staying grounded

As you step into summer and off-season, remember this: If you're going to talk it, you better walk it. Nobody cares what you say; they only care what you do. You can talk all day without anything to show for it. But when you walk it, you get somewhere. When you walk it instead of just talking it, your teammates will trust you more because you show them your dependability and accountability. Only you choose if you're a walker or a talker. Walking it means putting in hard work and long days, but it will always be worth it.

Pillar: Work Ethich

Key Topics: walk the walk; walk it like you talk it; do what you say you will do; accountability; dependability; integrity; hold the rope; respect; integrity; work ethic; character