A few weeks ago I had a conversation with someone who believed that a talented successful team was easy to coach, and that if given the opportunity they could coach that team to success. I was pretty emphatic about my disagreement with the assertion. While successfully building a team, program, business or even a family is difficult; I believe winning when you should, in athletics or in life, could be our biggest challenge.
In sports we see how difficult it is to repeat as champions at any level. From pro sports to high school, winning a championship is monumental, repeating a championship is infinitely more difficult. Talent, money, and coaching alone are not guarantees of perpetual success. While many teams, businesses and organizations find it possible to realize a degree of achievement, consistent greatness is often reserved for those with exceptional vision, role recognition, extraordinary work ethic, organizational buy-in, adequate resources and a little luck. That list may seem a little long, but those attributes are what enable each of us to achieve long term extraordinary results.
Families are no different really. When faced with family challenges how many of us have provided a vision as to where we want our families to be? By having strong parental leadership and vision in a family, children are taught their individual roles and how to work hard. If parents have established a vision and everyone is on board, even when resources are limited, long term success in families can be accomplished. With everyone paddling in the same direction, and parents providing consequences for good and bad choices, family members achieve great things because individuals are doing what they should, and when they should, and insurmountable mountains become small hills.
As a child many of us may have played the game, “king of the mountain”. While our focus may be on the person or team at the top, rarely when climbing the proverbial mountain do any of us have a “target” on our backs,. While our focus may be on the top of the mountain, the mêlée is really within each of us individually. The ultimate battle is not in defeating others to get to the top, the battle is within ourselves; to conquer our individual fears, apply correct principles, not lose focus on the prize, and act.
Our successes are a result of overcoming our own limitations and fears and winning most battles that we can and should win. Excellence is having enough courage and effort to expect exceptional results. Doing what we say we will do, and having others confident enough of our character to depend on us, will yield uncommon results in an otherwise average environment. To successful people, being average has never really held much appeal.
