Just Bring The Ship In

I first saw this quote on Kobe Bryant’s twitter feed a few years ago as a “Mambo-ism”.  I don’t know who originally said this but I have said similar things for years.  Among them is the one quote that my players always rolled their eyes at ‘Don’t tell me about the labor pains, just show me the baby.’

One of my former bosses was Andy Carter.  He was the Vice President of Athletics when I was at Newberry College.  I remember him always saying that ‘if it was easy, I wouldn’t need you’.  That has stuck with me to this day.  Each of us have certain strengths that we bring to the table.  We have a responsibility to utilize these strengths to attain success.

Another thing that I constantly say that gets an eye roll from my players is when I ask them what is in the middle of all excuses.  I then proceed to tell them that the answer is ‘U’.  The same can be said for what is in the middle of all results.  Obviously, there is team work involved in a lot of what we do and most of the time, we are not on an island.  However, we must take the approach that we must do everything that we can do to be successful.

John Wooden, the legendary basketball coach, once said ‘Do not let what you can’t do interfere with what you can do’.  You have heard it said that you are normally part of the problem or part of the solution.  You may not be able to do everything, but you can always do something.  If we wanted to, we could sit around forever coming up with reasons why we can’t do something.  That is not productive.

What can we do?  How can we make things better?  Sure, there are many challenges that come our way that might appear to be insurmountable, but what kind of attitude do we take?  I know it’s cliché but we need to have a can-do approach.