This blog is dedicated to the memory of Craig Sager, who I had the good fortune of meeting last summer at the Batavia Basketball Golf Outing. Craig graciously spent time with me talking about his battle with cancer, basketball and life in general.
“Time is something that cannot be bought, it cannot be wagered with God, and it is not in endless supply. Time is simply how you live your life.” -Craig Sager
Hard to believe it is already New Year’s Eve and tomorrow will be 2017. Combine the end of the year with a six-day family vacation and it provides a lot of reason to spend time reflecting.
The Monday before I left for vacation I spent the afternoon at York H.S. watching the Jack Tosh Holiday Classic basketball tournament. Being a former college basketball coach I still have a great deal of friends who are coaches and a number of them were competing that day. Some had really good wins and some had some awful losses. A few of them were happy to survive and advance. Regardless, watching hoops that day reminded me of one constant that must exist every single day in the business world for us to be as successful as possible. One thing, that, if done with consistency, will set you apart from those who take a stab at being successful.
COMPETE.
Compete every day and in every facet of your life. I use to tell the young men I coached to “not take plays off.” See, most people do not like to hear that and it is very uncomfortable. Especially in this day and age of handing out trophies like they are uniforms. Earn them. Competing every day can be hard. Guess what, life is hard. Life is awesome, but it is brutally hard at times and you better be ready to battle every day.
We all have people close to us in our life that have had to square off with cancer. It is brutal and there is no level playing field and trust me, they compete every day. They compete to get through the chemo cycle and be able to try to return to a somewhat normal routine. There are days when they compete to just put a smile on their face. People who are battling cancer cannot afford to take days off and they, more than any of us fortunate enough not to have had the disease, understand the meaning of every second of every day. When something happens to you in the routine of your day and it doesn’t seem quite fair or that your competition has an unjustified advantage here is a thought, get over it and figure it out. Do you think people with cancer have a level playing field? Are they going to pout and throw in the towel? You get tired of competing every day, visit a children’s hospital and then go take a look in the mirror and have a talk with yourself.
Competing does not mean just participating. Compete with energy, compete with integrity, compete with focus and compete with an intentional plan. Competing is fun and if you do not like to compete, my guess is there is an underlying fear. Get out of your comfort zone and work in your strength zone and see how much fun you will have. Compete when no one is watching. Compete in your preparation. Realize that you are a part of something bigger than yourself and compete as a team. Compete with a positivity than no one can match and I am not talking about being all rah-rah. Just compete and have fun. I would give anything to go back to the day of being in high school or college and playing pick-up hoops for hours. Shirts and skins and if you lost, you sat. For a long time. You were pissed. Then, when you got on the court the next time it was a war because you were not going to sit down again.
You can work on your personal growth and development all you want, but if do not run to the fight and compete than it is all for naught. If you are not sold on competing than take a quick look at what competing does for you.
Competing:
- Teaches us to dig deeper and find resources we never knew we had.
- Provides us with the opportunity to think outside the box and explore other ways to succeed.
- Can often inspire more imaginative thinking and inspires us to develop additional skills.
- Provides the opportunity to develop a winning attitude.
- It ensures you do not become complacent in your business operations.
- It puts the pressure on to improve your product or service.
- Forces you out of your comfort zone and makes you work harder to stay visible.
When you compete at a high level on a consistent basis for an extended period of time, you increase your odds of being successful and success cannot be ignored.
The Molitor Group wishes you a great 2017, one filled with good health, success and growth.
