But there’s nothing special about my story.
I remember telling my coach that early in our time working together. I was new to public speaking and had hired his team years ago to help me elevate my craft to better serve my audiences. I had goals of becoming a household name as a speaker, but mentally, I was struggling to see myself as one. I wasn’t able to connect my stories with everyone else who carried that “speaker” title. I’d never been homeless. I hadn’t overcome a powerful addiction or had a near-death experience, and I didn’t “live in a van down by the river.” By all accounts, my life was very, well, normal.
And that normal thinking was keeping me in neutral at the starting line instead of taking action for my goal. Normal doesn’t change lives – or so I thought.
“For a long time, I convinced myself that I could will my way to a dream. As long as I wanted it bad enough, I could make it happen. But if there is one great truth I learned from this great game, it’s that no great accomplishment is ever achieved by yourself. Being successful is contingent on others, and it always starts with someone taking a chance on you.” – Kurt Warner, PFT
I heard retired NFL quarterback Kurt Warner say these words Saturday night during his enshrinement into the NFL Hall of Fame with his fellow 2017 classmates.
“…no great accomplishment is ever achieved by yourself.”
I believe a lot of us love the idea of reaching our goals and claiming that “I did it.” I put in the work. I faced the obstacles. I won. Our (long) roads from Day One to eventually reaching our goal can many times feel, well, lonely. We remember the early mornings we woke up and went to the gym, alone. We think about the times we drove cross-country for our dream, alone. And we think about the struggles we went through financially, alone.
Yet, through all that time, we were never actually alone. And the reason we got to that goal was never just us.
People all around us are searching for inspiration.
They scout their social media feed, multiple times a day, for the right quote, the right picture, the right spark to help them. The world around us gives enough reasons every day to question if we actually “have what it takes.” Buy this. Do that. Believe this. Each and every one claiming to be the missing ingredient we need, the source of inspiration. They hear the doubts whisper in and wonder, “can I really be a Competitor if I think this?”
They’re desperate to believe that “yes, they are a Competitor, and yes, they can win.”
So what if you were the reason why they did believe?
“All good is hard. All evil is easy. Dying, losing, cheating, and mediocrity is easy. Stay away from easy.” – Scott Alexander
I still remember my coach’s face when he caught me and a teammate cheating reps during our workout.
It was a mix of disappointment and pure hell-fire anger.
Brad and I had cut our 3 sets of 10 reps short by a few here and there. Our coach had been watching us the entire time and waited until the whistle blew (signaling time to switch stations) before using us as an example to the rest of the ninth grade football team.
“Jake, did you and Brad complete every rep before stopping?”
I looked at Brad sheepishly, knowing we’d been busted. He looked back at me with an “oh sh*t” expression.
It’s funny how our mind works.
When many of us face obstacles, we tend to believe we’re the only ones facing that obstacle. So we don’t talk about it. We internalize everything. And because of that, we feel alone in a battle with a Goliath we can never beat.
In all reality, there’s hundreds – if not thousands – of people out there going through the same situation, if not much harder ones – yet they’re overcoming it. Because we don’t know about them, we assume we’re alone. And we believe our battle to be an impossible one.
