I’m sure I was told many many things about what I needed to do in order to be successful when I moved on to play college basketball.
I really only remember one of them.
I wasn’t told to to work on my jump shot or learn a new style of offense or even to get faster and stronger.
I wasn’t told anything about basketball at all.
I got some very simple advice:
“Win every sprint, don’t let anyone beat you ever.”
Now nobody can win every sprint for five years, but I didn’t lose very often.
And I almost always knew who it was that I had to beat, and I tried to beat them every single time.
And we did a lot of sprints (arguably way to many, some days it was just ridiculous)
I didn’t know it at the time but this was leadership advice.
I was team captain of that team my senior year and I can confidently say it was because tried to never let anyone beat me in a sprint.
It was not because of my crazy basketball skills.
Advice that I’ve tried to adhere to over the years.
It’s a simple message:
Do the little things, do the mundane things, and do them well.
I’m as guilty as the next person by being confused at times about what gets us to the goal line.
The prevailing thought is that there is one moment, one incident or one thing that gets us to the goal
In very few instances that may be true……it’s called luck.
But sustained performance doesn’t work on luck.
What is the one thing that I can control?
What is the one thing that I can focus on?
Effort….
Effort is the thing we can control, it determines out attitude and it can determine the outcome.
Sustained effort is what we should strive for.
Every time I’ve fallen short or didn’t get what I thought I deserved it was because I was hanging my hat on that “one thing” and ignoring the little mundane things that needed to get done.
My bosses noticed, and when I didn’t do the little things it caused them headaches.
No amount of me doing that one big thing made up for all the small headaches.
How often do we place too much emphasis on one event or a single outcome?
How often do we feel entitled when we aren’t doing the little things?
How often do we come up short on effort?
Do the little things, do the mundane things and do them well.
Fern
