The Quietness of Success
A blog I wrote on my son in 2011, Internalizing John Wooden's Definition of Success, gives added depth to Wooden's quote.
A friend, Ed Bird Song, recently shared a quote on success that was written by LeRoy Pollock in 1928 to his then 16-year-old son, Jackson Pollock - "The secret of success is concentrating interest in life, interest in sports and good times, interest in your studies, interest in your fellow students, interest in the small things of nature, insects, birds, flowers, leaves, etc. In other words to be fully awake to everything about you & the more you learn the more you can appreciate & get a full measure of joy & happiness out of life."
I recently read a great blog post by Patrick McHugh, Are You a Passenger or Driver, that highlighted one of the best videos I've ever seen on success and what it takes to achieve it. "Small Tasks" is the video and I love everything about it; the video edits, the background music by Clint Mansell, "Together We Will Live Forever," and most importantly, the words of Owen Cook.
COOK ON SUCCESS
"The vision of a champion is someone who is bent over, drenched in sweat, at the point of exhaustion when no one else is watching."
To your success! Be the best that you can be!
Cultivation: If you've got a talent and you've got a gift and you want to do respect to that gift by cultivating it, then you make a decision to cultivate it, and you make a decision to do what you need to do to push that out there, whatever that is, to bring it to the forefront. It's those small little tasks. It's the little things that add up. This isn't like some big rah rah speech. Success is like a quiet daily set of tasks, real small, real real small .........
Quietness of Success: How is success done? Success is like that quiet walk to the gym, like footsteps, some empty ass gym late at night. Success for me is like watching my videos and my speaking, and seeing where I can work on it, over and over, and over. Or, as I sit there studying other great people, and then comparing it with what I'm doing and looking at it, over, and over, and over. Doing 20 minutes of quiet meditation a day, over, and over, and over. Making the choice to eat foods that enhance my brain's neurotransmitters, over, and over, and over. It's a very quiet process, where you're just drawing your state from within yourself doing these simple little tasks; but finding love in those simple little tasks. It's not this big rah rah speech where you do this one thing and something big happens. And those little things, those little menial tasks that add up, you have to execute them.
The Process: And when your brain tells you that you've got a great reason today not to do it {small tasks}, and you want to listen to your brain, because your brain doesn't want you to be a big success. Your brain just wants to keep you alive. It's going to lie to you and trick you until you can get it on your team. You've just got to be consistent. You have to have that consistent thing. You have to cultivate a love for the process. You've got to love the process and you've got to make a decision to love the process.
Motivation: Motivation is an art, and to get the motivation to play at that level, with the big boys, you go deep. Are you getting that sense? You go deep! Now, when you hear all the stuff I'm saying, did I come up with that overnight? No! That's from decades of motivation, and I can talk longer. I can talk all day about where it comes from. I can talk about God. I can talk about my belief about the world. Where I think the world is going. I can talk about the fact that I have an internal locus of control ,and I believe that I can create the circumstances that I want and I don't believe that I have no effect. These are the things that have crossed my mind from years and years and years of having to do little menial tasks; from having to take huge risks, from having to grow and suffer, from having to be humiliated, because no one wants you to succeed. If you have a dream and it's worth it to you, because you're someone who is inspired by that dream, you can choose to go to that level and find your own motivation.
Anson Dorrance & Mia Hamm
Anson Dorrance knows something about success. His University of North Carolina women's soccer team just won the program's 21st NCAA championship title. Months ago, I read Tim Crother's book on Dorrance, "The Man Watching." It's a great read. I created a Chirpstory of key themes and quotes that were presented in the book. Here's one of my favorites:
"Push" - "The challenge isn't someone else. The challenge is within. It's the aching in your lungs, and the burning in your legs, and the voice inside you that yells, 'Can't.' But you don't listen, you just push harder. Then you hear a voice whisper 'can,' and you realize the person you thought you were is no match for the one your really are."
Click on the link, The Ways of Anson Dorrance - "The Man Watching" by Tim Crothers to get more insight into the wisdom and philosophies of this great coach.
"Push" - "The challenge isn't someone else. The challenge is within. It's the aching in your lungs, and the burning in your legs, and the voice inside you that yells, 'Can't.' But you don't listen, you just push harder. Then you hear a voice whisper 'can,' and you realize the person you thought you were is no match for the one your really are."
Click on the link, The Ways of Anson Dorrance - "The Man Watching" by Tim Crothers to get more insight into the wisdom and philosophies of this great coach.
Anson Dorrance gave one of the greatest Hall of Fame introductory speeches in 2007 when he presented Mia Hamm for induction into the National Soccer Hall of Fame. Dorrance related how Mia Hamm inspired him to write his vision of a champion:
"The vision of a champion is someone who is bent over, drenched in sweat, at the point of exhaustion when no one else is watching."
To your success! Be the best that you can be!
"Champions are made when no one is watching. Success is realized when you become highly skilled, passionate and prolific in something. Peace of mind is knowing you are giving maximum effort, are honest in who you are, and are only competing within yourself."
ReplyDelete-- Ed bird song