Here is an article that I wrote for my local newspaper, The Lewiston Tribune, that I thought you would enjoy….
If you’re reading this, thank someone. I don’t care if it is a higher power, your parents, your kids, your neighbor or even the person you got the paper from, thank someone.
They deserve to hear it and you need to say it. Think about it: Without others, you are nothing. I don’t care how great an athlete, businessperson or student you think you are, you did not get there on your own.
You had help along the way. Everyone does.
A world-class Olympian sprinter doesn’t come out sprinting. They fall, they crawl, they walk, they jog and then they run. There are steps and there are always people assisting along the way.
A top-tier business owner didn’t get to the top on their own. I don’t care if you invented the perfect “widget,” you had help along the way. From someone teaching you to read, to someone showing you how to write, to the manufacturing of the “widget,” you had help. No one does anything completely on their own.
Those people who are assisting you have been there and they have done that. Usually, of course not always, people don’t just talk to talk. They talk for a purpose. They talk to be heard. They want to help.
You have been helped. You need to thank someone.
Then, after you thank that person or persons, you need to ask for more advice and really listen. The next step is key: Make a plan and don’t stop until you get there.
It doesn’t matter how tough the first part of your plan will be – never stop. Champions don’t stop until they get to the championship. That is why they are champions.
The great ones have taken advice from many along the way, they have implemented the advice, they made their plan and they did not stop until they reached their goal.
Everything is hard when you first start. Suck it up. Get over it. Learn from it. Move on and then dominate it.
If being a champion, in anything, was easy … everyone would do it.
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