IT’S EVERYTHING!

The 4^th Key to Beating Big Shots is Attitude

We hear it all the time…"attitude is everything." It’s certainly true that without the right attitude you have no chance.

Attitude keys your energy
When you have a great energy you don’t hold back. You expect good things to happen. You focus on doing your job.

If things go wrong, you stay focused and just assume your luck will change and you’ll get a chance to get back on top. Whatever play the coach calls—you jump in.

If you don’t have a great attitude you will question everything. You'll resent all the work you have to do, because you think it’s a waste of time.

Your attitude is tested everyday, every minute.
At every step, you have challenges that test you and give you the opportunity to turn sour. It’s only those who maintain a positive attitude that are able to stay positive going through the painful stages of conditioning, practice and preparation. 

No matter how great the game plan is that the coaches prepare, it’s worthless unless executed with energy and precision. If you have athletes with great attitudes on the field, you know that gives you the absolute best chance for that plan to work.

Great team attitude creates consistency, bad attitude destroys it
It keeps them focused on the team goal…winning! Maybe a player is having a bad day, but if he can overcome it by focusing on the team, it won’t matter. He will stay focused and intense. 

Self-centered glory hogs lose focus if they start to play bad. They are thinking about themselves—their statistics—and their real motivation is exposed. They become the drop of poison that destroys the team’s focus at the critical moment.

These are the ones quick to blame others and complain. You can’t win with them.

Great attitude gives you all the extras:

• It helps you keep things in perspective.
• Prevents you from making excuses.
• It gives you toughness and determination to win because you are always looking for positives.
• It creates the desire to improve and the drive to make the extra effort so you can improve
• It makes the process fun for the player and everyone else on the team

Protect the team’s attitude! With it, you have chance to do great things!

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Part 6 of 5 KEYS TO BEAT THE BIG SHOTS. Related posts:

• You Can Beat The Big Shots
• John Wooden and Shoelaces 
• Get READY, Get SET
• Face the Pain
• OUT THINK THEM

Look at ME! I'm Cool!

OK. I’ll admit in advance this is a rant. So there—it's out in the open.

But it's time to shoot the spotlight over to a segment of society that desperately wants it. You find them in the newspapers, magazines, TV, radio and all over the internet. They are the self anointed, self ordained and self-satisfied arbiters of cool.

Posturing, posing, vamping pretending…..I’m cool, my friends are cool. We think and talk about cool things. We are ahead of everyone else. Look at us, laugh with us, become one of us and be cool too. We are cutting edge…A step ahead!

They are desperate to be cool and desperate to be seen that way.

"Hey, look at me! I'm cool!"
It seems strained, trying too hard. Like outsiders trying to act cool so they can fit in with the cool kids. A self satisfied, elitist vibe permeates the mood, solidly entrenched with condescension.

Relax, calm down, you aren’t fooling anyone. We see through you. Dial the attitude back a notch, chuckleheads, and just be yourself.

Show us what you’ve found but don’t imply it makes you superior.
I’ve always been cautious about people and websites that promote themselves as home base for cool, insider ideas. The main reason is that there’s not an unlimited supply of those in the world and its hard to pretend there is exciting new stuff every minute.

It becomes a lot of reaching for cool from people who don't have any, but act like they do anyway. They do find some good things, fresh ideas and insights, new programs and approaches. But there is a ton of nonsense, fluff and just plain blather you have to wade through to find the legitimate useful material.

So thanks for exposing the fresh, good and new—but stop pretending its all cool just because you gave it your blessing. And stop pretending that you’re above the rest of us, because you’re not and everybody seems to know it except you.

Boring!

...So we were driving along when the boys were very young: me, Grannie Tee (my wife’s mother), and the two boys, Adam and Bryan.

Grannie Tee was visiting from Tennessee and riding along with us on an errand. As the car tires rolled, Grannie Tee unfolded one story after another. She was excited to be there, excited to have someone to talk to, talking away, talk, talk, talk—assuming we were hanging on every word. 

I had tuned her out, my mind was wandering as I drove, the boys were totally quiet in the back. The only sound was the stream of chatter coming from Grannie Tee, to which none of us were paying much attention. 

This went on for quite some time, until a sound exploded out of the back seat, like a lightning bolt!  

At the top of his lungs a young voice bellowed 3 times, "BORING! ...BORING! ...BORING!"

I was shocked out of my daydream and instantly realized 10 year-old Adam in the back seat had heard all of Grannie Tee he could stomach and was announcing in no uncertain terms that he had heard enough!  

I glanced in the rearview mirror to see Adam's younger brother, Bryan, laughing uncontrollably. Adam was just smiling a very satisfied grin. 

I was about to drive off the road in hysterics wondering how Grannie Tee is going to respond. She, of course, somehow never heard this coming out of the back seat or ha dno idea what this sound was and proceeded to ramble on as if nothing had happened or was happening—oblivious to our out-of-control laughing.  

Periodically, at about 15 second intervals, we’d hear another, "BORING!" like clockwork, chime out of the back seat, all the way home. Granny Tee busily continued to talk away—to no one. 

This little incident sure made the trip go a lot faster and all these years later I can still remember it clear as day.

The point of the story is this: If you want people to pay attention to what you’re saying don’t be BORING!