Nothing Less Than Legendary

I remember preparing for the baseball tryouts my freshman year of high school. My dad told me that everyone had to know I was the best player at the tryout, BEFORE the tryout actually started. I didn’t really understand. I asked him “what do you mean?” He said, “when you are walking to the field, people have to know that you are a bad ass. When you are warming up, people have to know you’re a bad ass. When you are stretching, you want the coaches talking about you, asking ‘who is that kid?’ Before you ever take a groundball or get an at-bat people need to know who you are." This theme stuck with my sister and I throughout our high school years, into college…..and shoot, we are still the same at the local 5k race. It’s not cockiness – well maybe a little. Although my dad never promoted cockiness. He absolutely hated when we wore Nike wristbands, Underarmour sleeves and bright, flashy and obnoxious colors. We did it anyway because they looked cool. He would always say things like, “put up, or shut up”. Or, “don’t talk about how good you are, show everybody”. What my dad was talking about was a mindset. A belief in yourself. Walking into a situation that could be intimidating and not allowing it to get the best of you. Being a freshman walking into a tryout with a bunch of older guys and KNOWING that you can play with them. It’s swagger. It’s a quiet confidence. It doesn’t mean that you walk into the tryout being loud and obnoxious, but people can feel your energy when you know you belong. You are different than all the other nervous freshman wondering if they are good enough. I can’t thank my dad enough for instilling this powerful mental strength in me. I have called on it so many times in my athletic life and in my professional life. I used this when I played in an All-Conference game my senior year of high school and again walking onto the baseball team in college. I have used it giving presentations to professionals worth more than $30 million dollars. If you believe in your mind that you belong on the field, or in that boardroom. You do. People can sense it. It’s a real, physical frequency that you are emitting. It means nothing can truly intimidate you.

Nothing less than legendary, is a line in a T.I. song that I love. It’s the same mindset that my father instilled in my sister and I. It’s self-belief. If you believe you are legendary, you will be. Your actions will be legendary and therefore, so will the results. You have to believe things before you can accomplish them. Because of these incredible lessons my sister and I learned at a young age, we don’t limit our accomplishments. My sister has won several sprint triathlons and half marathons. She now has her sights set on winning a half-ironman. There is no doubt in my mind that she will. I want to become a professional racquetball player. I will accomplish that. There is no doubt. The possibilities are endless. Sometimes when my sister and I tell people of our plans, they are deemed “unrealistic”. But are they? We don’t believe that you can just dream of winning a triathlon, never train, and do it. But it all starts in the mind. You have to see yourself winning every race. You have to see yourself dominating a baseball tryout or absolutely crushing a sales presentation. That will fuel you during your training and preparation. When it hurts or when you get tired, you will keep pushing. When you want to quit, you won’t. If you get beat, you’ll be back. It’s a relentless mentality. A mentality that gets tougher with the circumstances. A mentality that craves people to not believe – giving you an opportunity to prove your greatness.

Life becomes incredibly exciting when you stop seeing limitations. Even if your situation isn’t particularly awesome, you see great things. I can’t understand people that stop dreaming. I am going be a child the rest of my life. I see the world as an endless place of opportunities. I will never run out of goals, whether it is becoming a professional racquetball player, starting businesses, advising entrepreneurs, being on the senior PGA tour or sailing a yacht around the world for a full year. These are things that are real. There are people that do these things. What makes them so special? They put their socks on the same way that you and I do. The difference is that they just believe in great things and know how to work hard towards accomplishing them.

Don’t escape your reality. That is all too common in this world. People give up. They give up on their health, their professional dreams, and their happiness. They quit chasing things that excite them and replace it with things that are detrimental, like drugs, alcohol, excessive eating, etc. There is nobody that really wants to weigh 600 pounds, yet there are plenty that do. There are tons of people that don’t want to hate their job, but do. I see it on Facebook every week. Everyone joking about “humpday” or saying things like “can’t wait for the weekend” or “I hate Mondays”. Change your perspective and your life will change. Being miserable 5 out of 7 days, every single week, for your entire life, doesn’t seem like much of a life to me.

When is enough, enough? When are people going to get pissed off and decide to do something great? When are they going to get pissed off and truly decide to follow their dreams? What’s stopping people? When are they going to get off their ass and stop accepting mediocre and normal? Do people get fed up not having everything they want? Is drifting aimlessly ok for most people? I just don’t get it. People would rather complain than do something about it. I get so fired up. I want to meet every person who is fed up and help them break through that wall of inertia. Whether it’s losing weight, quitting their job, writing a book, or becoming a division I athlete. Yes you can! I’m fucking sick of people saying you can’t. I’m fed up. I don’t buy into that bull shit. With planning and relentless action, you can do anything. I’ll prove it.

Winners win in their mind long before they win in public. They don’t accept failure as final, because it never is. You always have an opportunity to rebound. You can always get better and you can always do a little more. You can always think bigger and be more relentless. There are no limitations in this world. We create all of them for ourselves. Belief is reality. You become the person you see in your mind. It happens autonomously. Your subconscious mind propels you in the direction you see in your mind. You don’t even realize it is happening. You attract things that you hold in your heart and repel things that you don’t. If you believe in limitation, success will avoid you. If you don’t, it will find you. This can be applied to every single area of your life. Guard your thoughts like hell. Don’t allow these limitations to creep in. Don’t allow negativity to take over. Fight for positivity and accept nothing less than legendary, for your life.