The 1983 NFL draft is referred to as “the year of the quarterback” and is considered one of the strongest drafts in NFL history.  The Denver Broncos had thirteen rookies make their team that year including me and their choice at quarterback Gary Kubiak.  Gary was a ninth round pick out of Texas A&M but the Broncos expected him to challenge Mark Herman for the backup role and eventually replace Steve Deberg as the starter.   Gary had been a three sport high school star in Texas and had put together an outstanding football career as an Aggie.  Athletic and smart Kubiak was going to be the Bronco’s future quarterback.

     Kubiak came to Denver in June with the rest of us rookies to work out at the team facility, get to know his future teammates, and prepare for training camp.   In July the Bronco’s brought rookies and a few nonstarter veterans to rookie camp.  This was the week before the veterans joined them in Greeley and reported to training camp.  Gary was a star at rookie camp with his accurate passes and his quick mastery of Dan Reeves offensive system.  Then to Gary’s’ surprise the Bronco’s pulled off one of the NFLs biggest steals in history.  They traded quarterback Mark Herrman and their 1983 first round pick Chris Hinton to the Baltimore Colts for the first pick of the 1983 draft, future Hall of Famer John Elway. 

     To Gary’s credit he competed with John instead of pouting.  When it became clear that John would be the Bronco’s franchise quarterback Gary realized that he could still be a leader on our team.  He prepared as if he were going to play in every game and developed a solid friendship with Elway.  They supported each other by talking between offensive series letting each other know what they saw the oppositions defense doing.  Gary and John roomed together at training camp and on the road.  Elway’s leadership qualities are well documented but Kubiak’s leadership may have been even more impressive.  There was no fee agency in the NFL in the 1980s so unless the Bronco’s traded one of them, or John got hurt, Gary wouldn’t play in games.  From the outside it looks like he spent his whole ten year career languishing in Elway’s shadow, but he embraced his role of helping John excel and became a valuable team leader.

     Gary was always prepared when John was injured and his precision short passing game confused opposition defenses who had prepared for Elway’s strong arm and scramble game.  Not only would Kubiak learn the offenses’ game plan but each week, but he would also take the extra time to study opposing quarterbacks’ tendencies.   Throughout the week in practice Kubiak would show our defense individual decision making and release points of the quarterback we would face in the upcoming game.  Gary also came up with game day rituals to support his teammates.  After stretching and before the coin toss Gary would shake my hand and say “hold up the class Meck”.  It was a little thing, but it reminded me to take advantage of and enjoy my opportunity to play.  I knew if our roles were reversed and I was standing on the sidelines holding a clipboard, Gary would be giving his all on the field. 

     Big things like leadership are a combination of little things.  Leadership is not a title or an assignment, it’s a choice.  Gary consistently and clearly showed his commitment to our team’s success.  The Denver Broncos were a much better team and won more games because of Gary Kubiak’s leadership.  Working with and studying under Dan Reeves, Mike Shanahan, Chan Gailey, Raymond Berry, Jim Fossil, Joe Collier, and Wade Phillips, Gary learned the game of football from the sidelines and is now one of the longest tenured head coaches in the NFL.

Karl Mecklenburg

www.karlmecklenburg.com

     Two sets of parents are suing the Greater Toronto Hockey League because their sons were cut from the Avalanche Minor Sports Club midget junior A team during tryouts in April.  In the Toronto Star’s article by Lois Katchman http://www.thestar.com/sports/gthl/article/829749--parents-sue-gthl-after-sons-cut-by-team one of the father’s complaints reads,  “Their (team officials) direct actions have caused irreparable psychological damage to Daniel Longo’s self esteem as an impressionable teenager and demoralized Daniel as an athlete and team hockey player with his peers.  The conduct by all defendants destroyed the dignity of my son, whom in good conscience gave his team nothing but his best efforts.”

     I can think of nothing more demoralizing and dignity crushing to a teenage son than these fathers’ actions.  Before the lawsuit a small circle of people were aware of their sons’ releases.  Now the whole world is aware.  Instead of allowing this setback to be a refocusing event where these teenagers each decide whether hockey is important enough in their life to fight through this challenge, these fathers chose to try and make money off their kids’ misery.  What coach will ever allow them to try out now? 

     Many of life’s most important lessons are learned in failure.  Perseverance, honesty in self evaluation, accountability, desire, dedication, and goal setting are all character traits that can be brought out in these situations.  The parents’ role is to supply opportunity and support.  With 70 players trying out and 17 positions on the team good prospects were bound to be released.  Instead of calling lawyers these dads should have talked about the numbers with their boys and ask them what skills they need to develop to succeed in their next hockey tryouts.  

     Coaches don’t release players without reason.  Most find cutting hard working kids to be the hardest part of their jobs.  Not to let these dads off the hook, but when releasing players coaches should take the time to reemphasize why they are releasing the prospect and what the player needs to work on to fit in to the team next year.  If they already have depth at the position the athlete plays they can suggest a position change or another team to try out for.

Captain, colonel, chaplain, commander and chief, cardinal, chief executive officer, chairman of the board, counselor, coach, chief financial officer 

There are so many leadership titles that start with the letter C that leadership should start with C.  Fortunately you don’t need a C title to be a leader, but you do need the four Cs of leadership.  These Cs are community, commitment, consistency, and clarity.

True leaders are community centered.  They know their team, not only their names but their likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses, their family situation, their hobbies.  This knowledge is vital for what separates great leaders from the crowd.  A great leader uses the team to cover for teammate’s weaknesses and uses teammate’s strengths to help the team.  A great leader knows there is nothing more important to a team than relationships.  The anonymous worker bee is a thing of the past as generation Y and X teammates become a higher percentage of the workforce.  With the explosion of electronic communication available to teams and leaders, there are no more excuses for a lack of communication, explanation, and relationships within and throughout your team.  

My favorite leader starts with C, Christ Jesus.   Isn’t it amazing that God, the supreme leader, decided to come to earth as a dependent child and to live his life humbly, teaching through relationships, rather than coming in like a Greek god on a flying golden chariot with lightning bolts strapped to his back?  That’s because dominance isn’t leadership.  True leadership demands that the leader puts himself in a position to serve his teammates and the team.  The team’s success is his top priority.  He is number two.  Executive bathrooms, parking spots, lunchrooms, and the like undermine the community component of leadership.  When I became a leader for the Denver Broncos wasn’t when I was selected to be a captain.  I became a leader when I decided to get to know all of my teammates better by sitting at a different lunch table every day.

A leader’s absolute commitment to the team’s mission over her own short term interest is vital.  A leader thinks we instead of me.  Every person in a position of power has to make tough decisions from time to time. This is the hardest part of being in a position of power.  The football coach who cuts a veteran teammate and friend when it’s best for the team is a leader.  The parents who send away the rebellious teenager they love, to remove his influence on the other children in the home are leaders.  Being a leader is not easy.  My wife’s commitment to staying home for our children, rather than using her many gifts in the working world, is a sacrificial act of leadership on her part.  She is a brilliant woman who has made a conscious decision to put our team’s needs, our families’ needs, before her own.  Mom should start with C too.   

The combination of being community centered and committed to your teams’ goals will make you an effective leader as long as that commitment is consistent and clear.  Change scares many people but if change is what the team needs then a leader must call for it.  As my old coach Dan Reeves was fond of saying in his southern drawl, “You’re either gettin better or gettin worse, you cain’t stay the same”.  When problems become apparent making no decision, hoping the problem will go away, will undermine your position as a leader.   If you are not consistent you will quickly lose your followers.  Followers will question a leader’s decisions, but if they see that the leader is consistently trying to do what’s best for the team they will continue to follow.   It takes time to build a reputation of consistency in followers’ minds.  Consistency in making those tough decisions, for the good of the team, repeatedly over time, is the mark of a great leader and essential to motivating the team to buy in to the team mission.

Clarity of motive and commitment is best demonstrated in consistent actions that backup consistent communication.  Be proactive, informing teammates of decisions, minimizing rumors and confusion. Communication must be a two way street for the community to thrive.  Opportunities for input in decision making across a team brings ownership and accountability to team members.  These input opportunities strengthen a team by allowing team members to demonstrate their strengths and helping to prepare future team leaders.

Community, commitment, consistency, and clarity are four vital components of leadership that every leader needs to be aware of.  Leadership should start with C.

Karl Mecklenburg
www.studentathlete.us

 

South Park had a hard winter this year.  No, not the cartoon South Park, but Colorado’s ten thousand foot high, forty miles wide, and hundreds of miles long grassland surrounded by mountains.  It was March, and I was driving across South Park on my way to Montrose to the grand opening of a Sports Authority store.  The trip takes close to five hours from Littleton so I had plenty of time to think.  I say it was a hard winter realizing that’s a relative term.  This high plain with rolling hills and miles of grazing land is tortured by freezing winds and drifting snow every winter, but this winter was remarkable with blizzard after blizzard.  The very road I was driving on, highway 285, was repeatedly blocked by eight foot deep snow drifts, sometimes for days.  

I had to head out early to get to Montrose by noon so I drove through the morning hours past Aspen Park, down Crow Hill to Bailey, and climbed Kenosha Pass.   I must have seen fifty Stellar’s Jays along the road on that stretch, which is many more then I had ever seen before.  They are shaped like a Blue Jay but with body feathers that are an iridescent blue and the head and crest are black.  This is big game country, and with so much snow the deer and elk that had been hit by cars through the winter were quickly buried and preserved.  Now that the snow was mostly gone, many carcasses lined the road and were irresistible to the feathered scavengers including the jays looking for bugs.  Up in the park the ravens, vultures, and eagles fed on the road kill itself. 

I am struck by the enormity of South Park every time I crest Kenosha pass and see it spread out before me.  The Middle Fork of the South Platte River winds back and forth through the pastures down the center of the Park.  For every mile it travels down the valley it must wind for five miles.  I know South Park is forty miles wide because as you come off of Kenosha pass a highway sign warns to watch for elk for the next forty miles.  Traditionally this was buffalo country.  Cattle have taken their place now, but elk, mule deer and pronghorn antelope still roam free.  During the short summer up here this is pretty country with enough water to grow lots of grass and more.  The purple irises called blue flag fill the valley in June and the yellow blooms of Potentilla bushes line the Middle Fork through most of the summer, but March is the ugly time of year.  Repeated freezing and thawing leaves gray mud, or frozen gray mud and what’s left of last years grass.  Patches of crusty snow spot the landscape and snow showers will still blow through regularly.  This is a hard cruel time for people and animals alike in South Park.  Only the scavengers do well before the summer grasses fill the valley.

 As I passed the elk warning sign at the bottom of Kenosha pass I ran into a South Park traffic jam.  I was going at least seventy miles an hour but the pickup and the vehicle in front of it were doing about fifty.   I could see a mile of empty road past them so I didn’t even slow down but slipped into the oncoming lane of the two lane road and zipped right past them.  As I passed I saw that the pickup truck carried only the driver and the front vehicle was a hearse.  I had just buzzed a very short funeral procession.  A combination of the bleak windblown landscape, the twisted and picked over road kill that lined the road, and the extra time that I had to dwell on it, kept bringing my mind back to that hearse with only one car following it.  I had to slow down to go through Fairplay and noticed that the Furniture and Antique shop hadn’t survived the winter either and was up for sale.  Who would only have one person at their burial?  It was as if I had seen the dream of Ebenezer Scrooge, but this was no dream.  A body would be buried today in this desolate wind blown place with only one witness.

As a motivational speaker I spend much of my time writing and speaking about success.  We all go through down times; the Marches of life, but successful people overcome these obstacles and continue toward their desires.  Had the dead man taking his last ride across South Park been a success in life?  I don’t think he could have been because success takes teamwork and leadership.  As a team leader you think we instead of me.  With we as a focus, lifelong relationships are formed.  With we as a focus you can move beyond success to significance or as some people call it legacy building.  I was thinking about this when I drove past some cows and their very young calves further down the road outside of Salida.  The mothers, each with a brand on their hip and a green plastic rectangle clipped to one ear, stood and chewed their cud, or tried to graze on what was left of last year’s grass.  Many of the newborns slept on the bare ground between the crusty snow patches, but some of the unmarked calves ran and played, thrilled with the prospects of life on South Park.  I saw a Western Blue Bird land on a fence post and a pair of Mallard Ducks in the Arkansas River.  Maybe summer would come after all. 

Springtime in the Rockies is a strange mixture of the futile and the promising.  The little calves reminded me of the last day of the 2005 ski season at Winter Park.  My family and I skied down the melting snow in sixty degree weather through a migration of Painted Lady Butterflies.  They were passing through from California and were so thick that you needed goggles to keep them from getting in your eyes.  Seasons of futility come to an eventual end and so do seasons of plenty.  Change is inevitable, but you will always have people who care about you if teamwork and leadership are priorities for you and become part of who you are.

The lack of focus that stems from not believing one can achieve great things is a pitfall that stands squarely in the path of even the most talented people in the pursuit of remarkable performance.  An individual’s passion must be extravagant in order to dedicate them self to the preparation, self examination, and sacrifice that remarkable performance is born of.

I spent over a year of my life at Bronco training camp in a twelve year NFL career.  Those were the most physically, emotionally, and mentally challenging days of my life.  Dan Reeves would bring one hundred and ten NFL hopefuls to camp each year and every one of them had the physical tools, the raw talent to make the team.  At the end of camp the forty nine man roster would be set and sixty one physically capable players had been sent home. 

NFL clubs have scouting staffs that scour college and pro rosters across the country in search of athletes that have the physical tools to make their teams better.  They run exhaustive tests and interviews on prospective draft choices and free agents.  I was a twelfth round draft pick, the three hundred and tenth player drafted out of college in nineteen eighty three.  The Broncos sent two different scouts to test me and interview me at the University of Minnesota before the draft.  One of the scouts even interviewed my girl friend.  Imagine the scrutiny first and second round picks go through.  The scouts make sure that each of the players they bring to camp can help the team, but the majority of the players don’t play a down before they are fired. 

One of the main reasons that talented people fail is that they limit their passion to the short term and the average.  If my dream had been to be invited to an NFL training camp my chances of making that team would have been zero.  I would have accomplished my dream before camp even started and at the first difficulty in camp I would have folded.  Extravagant passion begets perseverance.  My passion was to be the best football player that ever played the game.  Despite my twelfth round athletic ability I set off on a relentless pursuit of greatness, and because of that passion I would not settle for average or even good performance.  I wasn’t trying to make the team; I was determined to be an all pro captain of championship teams and more.  That focus shaped and influenced the way I approached preparation.  Instead of having a short term goal of not getting hollered at by the coach during practice, I took chances and tried different ways of reacting to plays in an attempt to find what worked best with my skill set for the long run.  When game time came I performed remarkably because my style of preparation allowed me to anticipate problems, and gave me options for how to handle them. 

Each year at training camp the Broncos would bring in linebackers with much more athletic ability then I had, to compete for my job.  I would watch them as plays unfolded in practice and observed how they reacted.  Instead of responding to plays the instant they recognized them, they would hesitate and double check in fear that they might make a mistake and get in trouble with the coach.  Because they limited themselves in preparation their performance was limited.  They were concerned with the short term instead of believing that they could accomplish great things in the long run.

 On the football field, I found that if I took the first step in the right direction before anyone else did all the angles would be changed in my favor.  This approach is not only limited to NFL performance but is true in school, business, relationship, and personal goal achievement.  The focus that extravagant passion brings to your preparation allows decisiveness in decision making.  My speaking business affords me the opportunity to meet and discuss success principles with many business owners.  It’s surprising how many of them, in describing the start of their successful business, have told me, “This wasn’t the plan.  I saw a need as an opportunity and responded to it before anyone else did.”

To avoid the pitfall of lack of focus brought on by a lack of passion I consider my desires whenever I make decisions.  Obviously I can’t be a great football player as a broken down forty seven year old, but I have other passions in my life.  As a speaker I am committed to inspiring long term positive change in teams and individuals.  As a husband and father I am committed to providing love and support to my family.  As a Christian I am committed to reflecting God’s love in my words and actions.  If you can articulate your passions in life and consider them when you make decisions, you will avoid this pitfall on the way to remarkable performance. 

Leadership Lessons from the NFL

      When I came to the Broncos in 1983 as a twelfth round draft choice, I was just another foolish rookie.  Fortunately for me the Bronco’s defensive roster was full of veteran players with a team focus.  Ruben Carter, Steve Foley, Louis Wright, Tom Jackson, Barney Chavous, Brison Manor, and Randy Gradishire were all veteran players from the famed “Orange Crush” defense.  They not only taught me how to be a professional and selfless team player, but in many ways they taught me how to be a man.  There are only forty nine roster spots on an NFL team, so each rookie who makes the team takes a veteran’s job.  Despite the limited job pool, these veterans knew that for the team to be successful they needed to mentor the twelve rookies that had made the final roster that year. They needed to get them up to speed in a hurry.  The veteran’s focus on team goals, instead of their own concerns, was a great example for us as young players. The “Orange Crush” left a legacy that has lasted long after their playing days were over.

I played on some great Bronco teams in my twelve years in the NFL.  We won three AFC championships and were usually in contention for the AFC West title.  On those teams the coaches got along with the players; the offense got along with the defense; the veterans got along with the rookies; it was fun to go to work.  I also played on some bad Bronco teams when we didn’t have that togetherness.  White guys didn’t get along with black guys; linemen didn’t get along with backs; rich guys didn’t get along with richer guys; it was hard to go to work.  I longed for the days of camaraderie.  The strange thing was that most of the players were the same.  The difference of adding and subtracting a few players can dramatically change a team’s chemistry.

A team is like a teeter-totter with a group of leaders on one side and egos on the other.  The middle of the see-saw is occupied by the largest group. These are the undeclared teammates that can go either way.  A leader thinks we not me.  The team’s mission always comes first.  A leader thinks long term and realizes that his personal success and job satisfaction is directly tied to the team’s success.   A leader is willing to sacrifice for the good of the team.  They look to build up their teammates when ever they can.

An ego thinks only of his or own short term gain.  They don’t want the rest of the team “holding them back”.  They aren’t accountable or ethical.  If a team goal happens to coincide with an ego’s short term interests, everyone on the team will be told of the ego’s sacrifice in that area.  An ego sees his teammates as competition and will not mentor them or recommend them for promotion.  An ego downplays his or her teammate’s accomplishments, while broadcasting any failures.

By adding or subtracting a leader or an ego you can tip the team teeter-totter in one direction or the other.  The undecided teammates in the middle will start to slide in that direction, developing team momentum towards success or failure.  This is how an individual can change the culture of their workplace, family, or football team.  Step out of that middle group of undecideds and become a leader.   

Leadership is the ultimate form of teamwork.  It doesn’t matter if you are vocal or not.  There are all kinds of leaders.  The four Cs that all leaders have in common are commitment, community, clarity, and consistency.  Commitment to the team’s mission is necessary for leadership.  A great leader adopts the team passion as his or her own mission.  A leader makes an effort to develop relationships with everyone on the team.  She should know the strengths and weaknesses of each of her teammates so the strengths can be utilized for the team’s benefit and the team can cover for any shortcomings.  This community of relationships forms bonds between teammates that last a lifetime.  Clarity of motive means that a leader’s communication and actions demonstrate his or her commitment to the team’s mission.  These actions need to be consistent or a leader will quickly lose credibility with teammates. 

The Denver Bronco’s success as an organization is an example of teamwork while the latest USA Olympic Basketball “dream team“ coached by Larry Brown, was an excellent example of great talent underachieving because they didn’t operate as a team.  Your teams need you to buy in and step forward as a leader.  As a leader you will enjoy your team relationships more then ever, you will see your team succeed, and you will ultimately go way beyond what you could accomplish on your own.


Step up, Karl

Leadership in Individual Sports?

Thursday I gave a leadership presentation to the junior class at Colorado Academy.  C.A. is an excellent private independent day school in Denver.  Because the school is attended by pre-kindergarten through high school seniors, there are many opportunities for mentoring and leadership at C.A.  Near the end of my speech I opened up the floor for questions like I usually do, but this time I got a question that I hadn’t heard before.   A young man asked me “How can I be a leader in my sport when it’s an individual sport, I’m a wake boarder?” 

Many of the popular sports that young people are attracted to are “individual” sports but that doesn’t mean that contestants can’t be leaders.  The popularity of the X Games that are going on in Aspen right now is a prime example of that growth.  Snowboarder Shaun White is a great example of a leader in an individual sport.  White won the gold medal at the last Olympics and took gold at the last two X Games.  He won gold again this year even though he took a scary looking face plant on a practice run an hour before the competition.   Young snowboarders across the world follow his exploits and are amazed by the new tricks that he comes up with.  This year he broke out a new move called the Double McTwist 12.  White has not only taken his sport to new heights by leading the way in innovations in the air, but he has popularized his sport though his snowboarding video games, and through his amazing ability to connect with young snowboarders worldwide.

Obviously my C.A. wake boarder is not in Shaun White’s category yet, but he is still a leader in his sport.  How he acts and relates to other wake boarders determines whether that leadership is positive or negative.  Less experienced wake boarders will watch how he interacts with his driver, coach, and his competitors.  They will notice his language, dress, and how hard he trains.  Is his commitment to wake boarding consistent and clear?  Is he involved in the wake boarding community?  Is he involved in instruction or associations passing his knowledge down to them and learning from the masters?  Even in individual sports like snowboarding and wake boarding competitors are leaders and should take that leadership role seriously.  After all they have had their heroes too.  No one gets to the competitive level in a sport without the help, tutelage, and example of others.

Karl Mecklenburg

Inspiring long term positive change in teams and individuals!

Author of Heart of a Student Athlete; All Pro Advice for Competitors and Their Families

www.studentathlete.us

www.karlmecklenburg.com

www.karlmecklenburg.net

Direct Your Future with Desire

People are born dreamers.  There is no limit to the possibilities in a child’s mind.  As the years go by, and life takes its toll on you, it is easy to lay aside extravagant dreams as impractical or even impossible.  Don’t do it.  I am a published author with dyslexia.  I make my living as a professional speaker despite spending years in speech therapy for a lisp.  I was a slow, stiff, white kid from the suburbs whose love for football carried me to a twelve year NFL career including six Pro Bowl and three Super Bowl appearances.  My dreams carried me beyond where others expected me to go, and continue to direct my day to day decision making.

A desire is a dream, passion, or mission.  It has great power if you let it guide your decisions, goal setting, and way of thinking.  In football there is a saying that “It doesn’t matter how big or fast or strong you are, if you don’t know where you’re going you can’t get there.”  If you have desires in life as targets to aim for, then you will get closer and closer to where you want to go.  If you don’t have a desire to pursue you will go through life without purpose, wandering aimlessly, unable to achieve regardless of your talent.

Every year NFL scouts are sent out to evaluate talent across the country.  They go to every college with a football program and look at game film to find players they think can help their team win.  They watch practices and go to games, all the while projecting how these young players could fit into their pro team’s future.  When they find a college player they are considering drafting scouts fly to the player’s school and run a series of tests on them including intelligence, speed, agility, vertical jump, and strength tests.  They also interview the player, his coaches, and other people in the player’s life.  They are very thorough with their inquiries and testing.  I was picked in the last round of the draft and one of the Bronco scouts even interviewed my girlfriend.  Imagine how hard they look at projected first round picks.  Pro teams know without a doubt that a player they draft can help their team get better.  The question is will he? 

When I played, one hundred and ten players would start camp with the Broncos each year, and in the end forty nine would make the team.  One of the main determining factors as to whether a player would make the team was that player’s level of desire.  They all had the talent to make it; the scouts had made sure of that, but every year qualified NFL players walked away from camp.  No one made them leave.  They just gave up under the pressure and left.  We called them runners.  There are cut-down days in the NFL when rosters are paired down by releasing groups of players. Ten or more are fired at once but each year if you watch the papers you will see a single player released sometime during camp.  These are the runners.  They say they saw the writing on the wall, they didn’t see eye to eye with the coach, or they weren’t getting a fair chance.  Whatever excuse they use, the fact is that they quit and left because they gave up.  Their dream was to go to an NFL training camp and see what happen, not to be the best player that ever played the game.  They sold themselves short before camp even started, and as soon as things got tough or looked bad they ran.
 

Too often people settle for average dreams.  They sell themselves short believing that they don’t have the talent, or don’t deserve to be successful.  Even when others question you or things go wrong, if you have an extravagant passion you can overcome those obstacles.  When the Broncos were scouting me they sent two different scouts to the University of Minnesota to check me out.  One came back reporting that I was too slow to play linebacker in the NFL, but maybe I could play lineman.  The other scout said that I was too small to be a defensive lineman, but maybe I could be made into a linebacker.  I was drafted as the 310^th pick of the draft.  That was ten guys away from the last pick.  My desire was not only to play in the NFL but to be the best player that ever played the game.  It didn’t matter what the scouts thought, or where I was picked, I was focused on my dream to be great.   I would out work, out study, and out hit higher round picks who the scouts had loved, on my way to a long NFL career where I played both linebacker and defensive line at the highest level.

All three of my children have trained in Karate.  One of the fun things that they each accomplished was breaking a board with a punch.  The trick to accomplishing that feat is to strike through it by aiming beyond the board.  By aiming beyond the board the Karate student doesn’t slow down or stop on contact.  They follow through and break the board without pain.  If they focused on the board instead of beyond it, they would feel the contact and stop, hurting themselves and failing to break the board.  This is the same principal that is accomplished with extravagant desires.  If you are focused beyond the obstacles in your way, you will break through them with minimal pain and continue on to your dream.  Our training camp runners were focused on getting to a training camp instead of focusing on achieving greatness beyond it.  They hurt with each day’s doubts and fears until they convinced themselves that they didn’t belong.

Success is overcoming obstacles on the way to your dreams.  Each of us should have dreams that focus our day to day decision making in many areas in our lives.  My old desire of being the best football that ever played the game allowed me to have a long and successful NFL career.   I retired from football sixteen years ago and have other desires now that guide my decision making.  As a husband and father, I will give unconditional, uncompromising, sacrificial love to my family.  As an author and speaker, I will inspire long term positive change in teams and individuals.  As a Christian, everything I say and do will reflect God’s love.  These are extravagant, long term, and general.  These desires define who I want to be.   By setting goals in my desires direction, and by making decisions based on the knowledge that these are what is important to me, I will continue to move closer and closer to my target desires.
 

Make sure your desires use strong language.  I have seen corporate mission statements or desires that were full of qualifying words.   “We will be known as the company that strives to eventually be close to the top of our field.”  This is not extravagant and will not allow you to power through obstacles.  Your desire needs to be strong and concise.  It should also be short enough that it is easily remembered when you are making decisions.  I use ten words or less as a guide.

It takes introspection, honesty, and time to develop desires.  Many people think they want something, but if they were honest with themselves they would find that it really isn’t important to them.  I have also found that there are things in my life that are important to me and I wasn’t acting on them.  Once I went through the process of writing them out as desires and committed to them, I have found it much easier to act in a way that is consistent with my desires. 

People set desires in many areas of their lives.  Professional, relational, financial, health, educational, fitness, charitable, spiritual, travel, and any other area of personal accomplishment are possible to achieve if you identify them as important and pursue them with passion. 

Brainstorming is a great way to remind yourself of what those dreams are.  Take out a piece of paper and write down any wish that comes to your mind.  This is for your eyes only so be extravagant.  There is no commitment to these ideas yet.  Once you get a list, take the time to sit down and think about what your life will be like when you accomplish these things.  Is it worth it to you to commit to pursuing these passions relentlessly because that is what it will take to accomplish an extravagant desire?  You will find that you aren’t willing to commit to many of the ideas on your list but there should be some that ring true with who you want to be.  These are the dreams that make a big smile come to your face when you think about what your life will be like when you’ve accomplished them. 

Write the final few desires down in ten words or less so you can remember them when you are making decisions.  These are what you want to describe your life.  Honestly evaluate where you are now in relation to these desires and set short term, reasonable, specific goals in the direction of your desires.  Now you are on your way.  Expect obstacles, but since you have identified desires that are extravagant, and have committed to pursuing them at all costs, you will shrug those obstacles off as you focus beyond the immediate to your vision of success.

Karl Mecklenburg

Mecklenburg Motivation

Author of Heart of a Student Athlete; All Pro Advice for Competitors and Their Families

Keynote speaker inspiring long term positive change in teams and individuals

www.karlmecklenburg.com

karl@karlmecklenburg.com