It is funny how some pieces of advice you receive when you are young are timeless and their power shows up at different times of your life and for different reasons.
One of the most valuable lessons I learned in life came from hanging around my Dad’s basketball practices when he would tell his teams over and over that “if you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.”
That piece of advice has shown up and served me well over the years.
It showed up when I was choosing who to hang out with in high school.
It showed up when I was a walk on at Creighton trying to navigate my way through that part of my journey.
It showed up when I began my college coaching career and sought advice on how to excel as a young coach.
It showed up when I transitioned into the business world and quickly found myself in the unfamiliar territory of having the opportunity to make a lot of money.
It showed up in some very personal struggles when I was battling demons and refused to lose.
It showed up when I committed to my amazing wife Nancy 14 years ago.
It shows up each day now in my family life… how do we go about raising our children.
It shows up in my business and how I am locked in to doing the best I can each day with what I have to become the best I am capable of becoming to inspire others to do the very same thing.
That piece of advice and my focus on what I stand for is what drives me every day to direct my attention on the controllable, to not get overwhelmed with the world we are living in, to grow through the personal and professional adversity in my life right now, and to not get caught up in the negative rhetoric on social media where people prove time and again that it is better to keep your mouth shut and people think you’re a fool than it is to open it up and prove them correct.
Most importantly… I am leaning into what I stand for so I can continue to serve my friends, family, and clients to the best of my ability.
See, when we lose sight of who we are and what we stand for, our integrity slippage will spiral out of control. We will find ourselves doing and saying things we cannot take back.
Are your thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors right now… right now, representative of who you are and who you want to be?
And…
Are your thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors part of the problem or part of the solution to whatever is going on in your life.
Do you know what you stand for personally and professionally?
This was originally published as a weekly newsletter from Ed Molitor, with The Molitor Group. If you’d like to receive the weekly newsletter, follow this link to subscribe.
