Hustle Over Talent
This week I wanted to give a shout out to some great people out there that helped influence my love of sports, fitness and health from an early start, well before I realized that this is what I wanted to be doing. They have all inspired me to want to be better at what I do and established a great foundation that I didn’t realize I was standing on until a few years ago. Hindsight really do be twenty-twenty sometimes!
Growing up as a kid I overheard my mom talking to my dad – it was somewhat of an argument as was common between them, which is a WHOLE ‘nother conversation for my yet to be discovered therapist. But anyway, it was something along the lines of, “well you need to get him (me) into something.” So later on my pops asked if I wanted to play football or baseball. I picked football because Da Bears! Next thing I knew, I was suiting up, playing Pop Warner with my dad as the head coach. He ran with it and was a tough coach with us kids. And me being his kid, he was even tougher on me, lest my teammates thought there was any favoritism. But he taught me discipline at an early age, how to give it my all no matter what I was doing and to take pride in my work.
As I got into high school I got back into sports. Money was tight so Pop Warner got sidelined after a few years. I got into wrestling, football (again), track and cross country. It all kept me busy enough to not have to deal with my parents splitting up, moving around a bunch and not getting caught up in gang life in SD - again, a whole other conversation for that therapist. Through those high school years, I had some really great coaches that took my under their wing to and kept those tenets of discipline that my dad established but also believed in me and do what coaches are supposed to do – help me reach and realize my own potential. It took a lot on their part because I was a stubborn kid and didn’t want to listen and take in what they were teaching which led to bad performances. But they were more persistent than I was resistant and eventually I took their advice and it led me to having a solid high school sports career.
Boxing is a sweet science and for most people you can’t go in and just pummel your way through a match or else you’ll most likely find yourself down on the canvas. Coming from playing football where I was bashing my way through as a defensive lineman, redlining my engine as a runner in track and cross country and manhandling my opponents on the wrestling mat, my boxing coach had to teach me to unlearn some of that aggressiveness and coach me on how to slow down and focus on technique and when to go ape shit when the time was right. I learned some of that in wrestling getting slammed enough over the years but by then, I was a lot more malleable as an athlete because let’s face, you’ll learn the hard way in the ring if you don’t. So I listened, drilled and sparred to perfect that technique and developed a solid left body hook.
All of these coaches practiced patience – some better than others (yeah, I’m talking to you Dad! Haha), were able to see the potential in the athlete (me) and while they worked towards my strengths they also developed the weak parts of my game to make me a more rounded athlete at whatever sport I was involved in. As an athlete, it’s not always to easy to see that potential in yourself because of so many reasons – self doubt, simple ignorance of the task, bad mechanics, but it’s the coaching that helps you overcome those challenges to get you to the end goal. Looking back and seeing my boxing coach light up when I mastered that left hook, my wrestling coach beam ear to ear when I tossed my opponent onto the scoring table or my pops grumble a not bad, I understand now that pride and joy of the student finally grabbing the pebble. As a coach training my budding adult amateur athletes, the added challenge of time management between work and family life makes having to stay on point with my athletes and knowing when to push and pull and lay off the gas pedal makes seeing their results even more rewarding. I tell people all the time, I’ll take hustle over talent anytime. Don’t get me wrong, talent is dope to have and makes some things easier. But without a person having that hustle in them to keep trying, keep pushing and persevering even when they think the task is insurmountable, that talent is worthless. As a kid, I didn’t have tons of talent, but I showed up, gave it my best and didn’t quit. Which, if you think about it, is much like life – work with what you got, keep trying, give it your best and don’t quit. Hustle over Talent every day.
