86,400
WMMM #070 - This week I share lessons from great coaches.
Jeff Keplar Newsletter July 20, 2024 2 min read
Be careful.
We need help.
Always Do Our Best
We cannot work twice as hard tomorrow to make up for what we didn’t do today.
If we can work 2X tomorrow, we should have worked 2X today.
2X = Our Best.
Playing catchup doesn’t leave room for us to be at our best.
Many are satisfied with just getting by.
If we don’t have time to do it right the first time, when will we find time to do it over.
This attitude requires us to have discipline.
To have discipline, we must develop mental and emotional control.
This isn’t easy.
It is hard work.
It is also a lifelong struggle.
We need help to be our best.
Coaching
Do the things that we know we need to do when we don’t want to.
Don’t do those things we are not supposed to do but want to.
A coach:
Reminds us of what we need to do
Helps us with our control
Motivates us to be our best.
Find a coach or mentor.
See ourselves increase our effort.
Feel ourselves get better.
Or, find a colleague that you admire.
Do they do things we don’t?
Challenge ourselves to emulate them.
Then, outperform them.
Compete.
Raise the bar.
Then, find another and repeat.
Time
Imagine you have a bank account with $86,400 in it.
Every evening, the bank removes all the funds we do not spend.
Every morning, it deposits $86,400 again.
What would we do?
Spend every last cent for sure.
We all have an account like this.
It is called time.
Every day, we have 86,400 seconds.
At midnight, whatever we fail to use is lost.
There is no balance carryforward, no overdraft protection.
Every morning, the account is replenished.
Each night, if we fail to use our seconds, the loss is ours.
Thanks to our Coaches.
Much of the content for this week’s edition came from the teachings of Coach Wooden and Coach Saban.
John Wooden is regarded by many as the greatest sports coach of the twentieth century. His UCLA teams won ten NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championships in a twelve-year period. They set a record seven in a row that has yet to be broken. Coach Wooden considered himself a teacher first. The results were student-athletes that excelled in all aspects of life.
I borrowed a copy of ”Coach Wooden, One-On-One,” autographed by the great coach from my son Stuart, who received it while attending a class taught by another fine coach, Marv Dunphy of Pepperdine University.
Nick Saban is widely considered to be one of the greatest football coaches of all time. He is a former professional and college football coach. As a college football coach at LSU and then most famously at Alabama from 2007 to 2023, his teams won a record seven national titles. Coach Saban and Bear Bryant are the only coaches to win an SEC Championship at two schools. Coach Saban finished his college coaching career with a record of 292-71-1.
I recommend “The Ultimate Nick Saban Leadership Speech” on YouTube.
Lessons Learned
1) Always do our best.
2) We need help - get a coach or mentor.
3) Compete - keep raising the bar for ourselves.
4) Empty our account every day - give it everything we’ve got.
Thank you for reading.
Jeff
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