Remember Your Why
I work with a high major college coach who has tasked me with helping him remember his “why” through the storms that come with leading at the highest levels.
Like many in his role, the pressure is extreme, and it’s not just external. For all that is made about “external noise,” I’m increasingly convinced that the best leaders and performers deal with “internal noise” far more.
External noise is easy to train for. You break it down or get broken down. You focus on the task at hand.
Internal noise is much more debilitating. Resistance. Drift. Lack of clarity. Insecurity and uncertainty. Confusion. Lack of courage.
These elements create far more sleepless nights than any media member, social media warrior, or message board member.
I’m not sure there is a singular “best” way to cut through internal noise. It always depends on the individual’s unique wiring. Some are fierce external processors and they break through internal noise in life giving conversations. Others are prone to solitude. A pen and paper, or miles and miles of trails on the bike or running.
The one commonality in wrangling “internal noise”?
Contemplation.
Especially contemplation on first order things. Our purpose, our why.
What Is Your Career Really About?
This morning I’ll ask you the same question I’m asking this coach. What do you really want your career to be about?
Oklahoma football coach Brent Venables once shared in a season ending press conference.
"What the game of football has meant to me, it saved my life. I know I've lived a career that I don't deserve. It has represented excellence. Not perfectness. Excellence, for decades."
If you don’t purposefully contemplate what this whole thing is going to be about, it will naturally be filled with what everyone else wants it to be about. The default is always going to be frantic, fear-based stress and striving.
We’re the only ones who can return our attention to a more purposeful way of doing this coaching and leadership journey.
Designate what you want your career to be about, or it will drift to the way of all the masses.
Coach Venables has centered his career, his why, on the pursuit of excellence. That is as clean of fuel as we can get. A life devoted to excellence will always cut through both internal and external noise.
A Builder of Men
On June 23, 2019 at Louisiana Lafayette head baseball coach Tony Robichaux suffered a sudden heart attack. He passed away a few days later after complications at the age of 57. Having led the Ragin Cajuns since 1995, Coach Robichaux recorded over 1,000 wins, led the Cajuns to the College World Series and won multiple conference and region championships.
But, he was known for far more than his on field success. He was known as a builder of men.
Does the development of people and the success of a team have to be mutually exclusive? I don’t think so. Yet, so much in our sports culture would suggest that building program wins is valued more than building the people in the program.
An exercise to remember your why:
Watch this short video on the career of Tony Robichaux. And as you do, think deeply about the following questions.
What do you want your career to be about?
What interferes with your authentic definition of a successful career?
If your career ended tomorrow - what would the people on your staff, or the players you lead say about you and their experience under your leadership?
Stay The Course,
JB
