Commitment, Dedication, and 400 Aspirin
An excerpt from “Be Bold and Win the Sale” by Jeff Shore. Available now.
I have had to come to grips with an unpleasant reality over the last several years: I’m not as young as I once was, and my body can no longer perform the superhuman feats I once imagine it did.
A few years back, I was invited to take part in a pick-up soccer scrimmage, a “friendly” event at a local high school on a Saturday morning. What I was not told was that this game matched a bunch of hacks like me against the varsity soccer team from that local high school as a means for the very talented young men to practice their skills in game conditions.
I realized I was in over my head long before I stepped onto “the pitch,” but hey—I worked out fairly regularly and that included aerobic exercise; how bad could it be? (Don’t answer.)
Remarkably and inexplicably I scored a goal in the first few minutes of the game. I would describe that moment to you in all its glory except that I never actually saw it take place. I was standing in a group in front of the goal when the ball suddenly shot out of nowhere, struck me in the back, and careened into the net. I felt something hit me and the next thing I knew people around me were offering congratulations. This was going better than I had anticipated!
I should have faked an injury and walked off the field right then and there, but my newly puffed-up ego commanded me to stay put. Less than a minute later I was back on defense when the ball was kicked a mile into the air from the other side of the field, right at me. I saw it descending from on high, growing larger as it lost altitude. I thought to myself, “I’ve watched soccer games on television and I know what happens next. My job is to head this ball in the opposite direction from whence it came. How hard can that be?”
Bad idea. I thrust my ample forehead in the direction of the ball and sent it launching back up the field. I would continue with the rest of the story but that is about all I can remember. The moment was cartoon-like, complete with tweeting birds and stars circling my head. Someone complimented me on the excellent strike but quickly followed up with, “You OK?”
I stayed in the game for a time (pride is a powerful yet ignorant motivator) but I was clearly proving to be even less useful than I had been up to that point. Eventually, I just walked off the field and wished the team good luck.
The next morning I could barely get up. My legs felt like a Buick had parked on them all night. My head was throbbing and I could feel every pulse. I asked my wife to get me four hundred aspirin. I haven’t played soccer since.
You have some sort of similar story, I would guess. A time when your brain convinced you that you could do more than your body could handle…and you paid the price. The older I get, the more I realize my own limitations.
You’ve heard me say many times before that boldness is a beautiful thing, but boldness also works like a muscle group. Try to do too much too soon and you’ll pay the price.
Building your boldness muscle is all about commitment and dedication. Novice bike riders feel a tremendous burn on a relatively slight slope; experienced riders can climb mountains. Beginning weightlifters feel tremendous pain after their first workouts while advanced resistance trainers have to push hard to feel that same burn. Likewise, boldness is a muscle group. The good news is that, like any muscle group, boldness can be grown. We can increase our boldness strength with regular usage and continual stressing. In fact, boldness must be developed if we are to reach our true potential.
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