Come from Contribution

Gratitude is king.

Seriously - being thankful and showing thankfulness and gratitude are what will move you forward in this world.

Doing for others rather than being done for.

You'll find in this world the more you offer other people the more you get in return.  Believe it or not what you get in return isn't always just a warm fuzzy that you did something nice for someone.

I'm not trying to say if you go around doing good deeds all day, and nothing else, that you're going to have your wildest dreams come true.  If that's how you spend your days the warm fuzzy is likely all you're going to get - or perhaps someone will buy you lunch.

What am I talking about then?

The other day I was trying to grasp the concept of gratitude shown by those who are widely recognized as being wildly successful at what they did.  It's going to sound strange, but I watched the Hall of Fame Induction speeches by Emmitt Smith and Michael Irvin.  I'm going to concentrate on Emmitt even though Irvin's speech might be one of the all time great speeches in my book.

If you know of Emmitt Smith you know he retired as the leading rusher in NFL History.  You might wonder why I would use him as an example of real gratitude.  Watch the speech.

Emmitt said in his speech that at 6 years old he declared he was going to play in the NFL.  I think it was in college he decided he was going to be the NFL Leading Rusher.  He wasn't ashamed to say he set goals people laughed at when he told them.  He wasn't ashamed to say he worked hard to achieve them either - they would never have been possible without the hard work.

Here's what else he did.  He recognized the quarterback (Troy Aikman) and primary received (Michael Irvin) and tight end (Jay Novacek) and stated flat out that his achievements wouldn't have been possible without them.

Then he named the linemen who were on those great Cowboy teams.  It might be normal for a running back to name the recognizable names from the line.  Emmitt named them all.  While never a Cowboy fan I was a huge Emmitt Smith fan, and closely followed the NFL during the years he played.  He named linemen I had never heard of.  He had them stand and thanked each of them personally and by name - recognizing that without them he would have been tackled in the backfield and his accomplishments would have been impossible.

Then individually he thanked his fullback.  Darryl "Moose" Johnston.  He got very emotional in this one.  Thanked him for watching out for him on the field like he was looking out for his little brother.  If you remember those teams it's true.  Moose never put up stats that got noticed by anybody - he made the pro bowl a few times - but every game he was there.  Leading the way and moving people out of the way.  Truly Emmitt would not have the records he has without Moose and he made sure during his speech the world new it.

Showing gratitude after the fact isn't all there is.  It's not all Emmitt did either - not the only way he showed gratitude.  The other way was while they were playing.  Now - there were stories back then of running backs buying dinner for their linemen - or watches at Christmas.  Emmitt did one thing better than nearly every other player during his era. He showed up to work every single day.  He did his conditioning, and his strength training and he showed up like he owed it to every other player on the field.  Emmitt played hurt like few others, and perhaps none since.  The quintessential tough guy on the field - playing with injuries often during the playoffs.  He was a workhorse and everybody knew it.

See - his teammates worked hard because they knew he was working hard.  He worked hard because he knew they worked hard.  He showed up  - hurt or not - and played like the world was going to end if he didn't because he knew those other guys were doing the same for him.

Sometimes showing gratitude it more work than you thought it was going to be.  By showing it to them he got it from them and the more he got from them the more he felt he owed them.  For the Dallas Cowboys of the early 90's it was a cycle and because of that cycle they won more football games than any other team in that decade.  Because of that cycle they have good number of guys in the hall of fame (Smith, Aikman, Irvin, Johnston, and a handful of those linemen - plus Novacek seems a matter of time before he's there as well).

Smith didn't downplay is own role - he put in the work on and off the field.  He set the goals and did the work to make them happen.  Along the way he simply acknowledged that he could not accomplish those goals on his own.

Gratitude - maybe not what you pictured?

The Future of Me

I'm taking this class.  The class is called BOLD and it's through Keller Williams MAPS Coaching.

BOLD stands for Business Objectives, a Life by Design.

There was an exercise yesterday that really got me attention.  The exercise might be something you've done before.  The participants sit quietly with their eyes closed while the leader guides them through creating this vision.  So I'm going to walk you through - of course your eyes will be open because you're reading.

(More than the exact words used by the instructor I'm relaying this through my own experience of the exercise.)

Sitting with your eyes closed.  Breathing in and out quietly and slowly.  

You're walking on an old dirt road. The road is lined with trees and the trees narrow with the road.  It increasingly becomes more narrow and overgrown into little more than a walking path through this woods.  Then  the space opens a bit more. It's obvious this used to be a road, but having overgrown sufficiently enough there's no place for vehicles here anymore. 

As I walk I see a figure in the distance. (In the exercise this figure is me 40 years in the future).  I didn't meet an older me.  As I approached I noticed it was my grandpa.  During the exercise we didn't talk.  We didn't discuss what was going on now or what would happen in the future. I simply saw him working.  As I walked he continued to work - just as he had always done.

You have to know.  My grandpa was 70 years old when I was born.  He worked until he was 77.  I lived directly across the street from grandpa and remember the day that car was there.  He never had visitors who weren't family.  There was one guy - an old blind guy who came with his cane and spittoon.  We never went over if grandpa had visitors.  The day that car was parked there I ran over as soon as it was gone...I found a sad old man who had just been told he needed to retire.  What's a man worth if he can't work he said to me.

Back to my vision.  My path was the lined with people I knew.  All working.  My parents. My maternal grandparents.  Everybody just working.  Not sure any of them ever did me a favor along the way.  I would mow their lawns - all of them - and would sometimes take a break in the middle.  Seriously?  They allowed me to do that?  The work was an hour tops for a kid who didn't walk fast, and I took a break in the middle.  

Now as a 40 year old man I am sitting in a classroom for an exercise and all I see is them working.  Working hard. Working with their hands.  That was their example to me. That was just what they did. All of them. They didn't work out of need - they didn't need because they worked.  They didn't work to prove anything to anybody - their work proved them.

As a very self critical guy who analyzes and over analyzes almost every move I make I wonder.  Am I destroying their legacy when I lay in bed an extra half hour in the morning?  If I decide I'll do that tomorrow? Doesn't tomorrow bring enough of its own work that today's needs to be done right now?