The Formula for Success II: Show me the Quan

I was not planning on turning the formula for success into a series of blogs but a lot of my students have responded to me about this blog post and I wanted to write a little more about it.

I was listening to sports radio last night on the way home from work and I am a big Redskins fan. For those of you who don't know, in a cleaning house type move, the Redskins released a lot of players yesterday. The sports program I was listening to is the Lavar Arrington/Chad Dukes show on 106.7 the fan. Lavar is one of my favorite former skins and he was chatting with another of my favorite skin that just got cut Rock Cartwright.

Rock is a guy who was the epitome of a team player. He did everything that the redskins asked him to do. He was well known for being a hard worker and before the interview ended Lavar said "Don't worry man, there is always a silver lining, and good things come to people who work hard." I thought to myself, "Lavar, thats just not true, you also need positive mental attitude."

This got me thinking about the movie Jerry McGuire. In this movie Rod Tidwell (played by Cuba Gooding Jr.) is a very talented player with no heart. He is driven by the desire for a bigger contract and more money. The organization he plays for knows he is talented but is not using him to his full ability because he is a pain to deal with and all around negative guy. He is missing the positive mental attitude.

In the life altering moment of the movie, Rod is involved in a very tough tackle that looks like it might be a career ending injury. He is knocked unconscious and when he awakens he realizes how happy he is to be alive and how lucky he is to have all the gifts of talent and a fantastic family. The change in his attitude is instantaneous and the affect that it has on his old goals are also instantaneous. He no longer is consumed with the drive for money, but the PMA allows him to have more than he ever dreamed of.

I have no doubt that Rock will do well in the future if he also adds to his hard work a positive mental attitude. But the question is what will he do well at? In the next blog I am going to discuss the real step that you need to take if you want to succeed. Its easy and magical but for some reason everyone I work with that has trouble setting goals has difficulty with this one simple thing.

Good Luck at the tables,
Greg