Blog
Read Blog Posts by Category:
Passion: Articles that deal with the inner drive that we all need to want to MOVE from where we currently are to where we dream to be.
Preparation: These posts reference articles, books, documentaries, speakers, quotes, and other inspirational and formative ideas that I have found that helped me and the people around me.
Practice: Articles in this category have a heavy sports and performance training lean.
Performance: These articles focus on how you go about your work. From networking to communications to finding a better way to do what you do.
Perseverance: Articles in this category speak to the mechanics that we go through both mentally and physically to stay on track and not get STUCK.
Dualism: Accomplish vs Achieve
Leaders often say they want their teams to accomplish big goals. Championships, growth, transformation, relevance. The language sounds practical, but it reflects a quiet misunderstanding that shows up later as frustration, burnout, or stalled progress. Large outcomes are not something teams accomplish. They are something teams achieve after the right work has been accomplished repeatedly and correctly.
That distinction matters because leaders do not motivate teams through outcomes alone. They motivate teams by clarifying what can actually be executed today. When accomplishment and achievement are treated as interchangeable, teams are asked to own results they cannot directly control, while the controllable behaviors that produce those results remain assumed rather than defined.
Achievement is the result. Accomplishment is the work. One lives at the horizon, the other lives in the daily environment. When leaders fail to separate the two, ambition stays high but execution becomes inconsistent. People work hard, yet struggle to articulate whether they are making progress, because progress has been framed in terms of future outcomes rather than present actions.
At USC, national relevance was never treated as something the program could accomplish directly. The goal was acknowledged, but it was not confused with the work. What mattered was what could be accomplished every day inside the building. Fundamentals had to be executed with precision. Work ethic had to be visible and consistent. Teamwork had to show up in preparation, communication, and accountability when fatigue stripped away intent and revealed habits.
Those were accomplishments. They were specific, observable, and enforceable. Over time, those daily accomplishments accumulated into competence, confidence, and identity. Achievement followed not because it was chased harder, but because the program had become capable of sustaining it.
Earn Your Respect: Understand Every Level
Leadership often looks effortless from the outside. The decisions seem clear, the pace looks controlled, and the person in charge appears calm even when everyone else feels the pressure. Most people assume that calm is personality. In reality, calm is usually built on something far more practical. Understanding.
Early in my career as a strength coach, I thought I knew what “running a program” meant. Write training, coach the lifts, demand standards, drive effort, and get athletes ready to perform. That was the visible part. What I did not understand at first was how many difficult, unglamorous jobs surrounded my role and quietly determined whether my work succeeded or failed.
The higher I climbed, the clearer it became. You do not rise into leadership by mastering only your lane. You rise by understanding the lanes that intersect with yours, especially the ones most people overlook because they do not look impressive on a résumé. Those “hard jobs” are the backbone of a business. If you do not understand them, you can still get promoted. You just cannot lead well once you get there.
Most leaders do not get exposed by lack of ambition. They get exposed by lack of operational understanding. They inherit authority without context, then they try to lead through meetings, dashboards, and secondhand explanations. That is when decisions start landing wrong. It is also when trust begins to erode, because the people doing the real work can tell immediately when a leader does not understand what it actually takes to keep the place running.
You do not need to know every job to do it yourself. You need to know enough to respect it, communicate with it, resource it, and protect it. That is how leadership gets easier, not by lowering the standard, but by increasing your understanding of what the standard actually requires.
Who Inspires You?
Inspiration is not neutral. The people you admire, study, and model yourself after quietly shape how you think, how you act, and what you believe is possible for your life. Most people assume inspiration is always positive, but that assumption is careless. Inspiration can elevate you, distort you, or slowly pull you away from who you are meant to become.
The question is not whether you are influenced. You are. The real question is whether you are being influenced with intention or by default. Left unchecked, admiration turns into imitation, and imitation without understanding leads people to adopt behaviors, attitudes, and standards that were never meant for them.
Who you choose to be inspired by matters more than most people realize.
Living a “Get To” Mindset
Most people don’t start their day exhausted by the work ahead of them. They start the day worn down by the story they tell themselves before it ever begins. The language they use internally frames the entire experience long before a single responsibility is confronted. When the day is built on “I’ve got to,” everything that follows feels heavier than it needs to be.
That framing is subtle, but it is powerful. “Got to” language positions life as something happening to you rather than something you are actively participating in. It turns responsibility into burden and obligation into resistance. Over time, this mindset doesn’t just drain energy. It trains you to expect the day to be difficult before it ever has the chance to prove otherwise.
A “Get To” mindset is not about pretending life is easy. It is about recognizing that perspective determines weight. Two people can face the same schedule, the same demands, and the same pressures, yet experience completely different days based on how they frame what is in front of them. One carries everything as a burden. The other carries it as responsibility earned.
The Most Dangerous Lie: “Next Year Will Be Different”
Every December, people build their hope on the same fragile promise. They tell themselves that next year will be different. They believe the calendar will do what their character has not done. They imagine that when the ball drops and the clock resets, they will suddenly think clearer, work harder, and become more disciplined.
The problem is simple. The year is not the issue. The person walking into that year is.
The Most Dangerous Lie We Tell Ourselves
As the year comes to a close, people start telling themselves the same story. They convince themselves that enough distance from the past will soften what still hurts, that time will smooth over unresolved issues, and that simply reaching the next calendar year will somehow make things different. It feels patient. It feels responsible. It even feels mature. But it quietly removes responsibility from the one place it belongs.
Time does not change people. Work does.
Time does not confront patterns, expose blind spots, or interrupt habits that feel familiar. It simply passes. And when nothing else changes, time has a way of making problems feel smaller without ever making them better. If your life is going to change, it will not be because enough time passed. It will be because you were willing to do the work; time never will.
That work always begins at the source of the problem.
You.
The Most Dangerous Lie We Tell Ourselves
As the year comes to a close, people start telling themselves the same story. They convince themselves that enough distance from the past will soften what still hurts, that time will smooth over unresolved issues, and that simply reaching the next calendar year will somehow make things different. It feels patient. It feels responsible. It even feels mature. But it quietly removes responsibility from the one place it belongs.
Time does not change people. Work does.
Time does not confront patterns, expose blind spots, or interrupt habits that feel familiar. It simply passes. And when nothing else changes, time has a way of making problems feel smaller without ever making them better. If your life is going to change, it will not be because enough time passed. It will be because you were willing to do the work; time never will.
That work always begins at the source of the problem.
You.
Bet on Yourself: The Ultimate Act of Self-Confidence
Every year, when the Kentucky Derby comes and goes, it reminds me of a conversation I had last May with a man I respected, who was talented, capable, and carrying far more potential than he realized. What started as a simple talk about betting turned into something much deeper about self-belief, risk, and the courage to own your future. That moment stayed with me because it revealed something I’ve seen in thousands of people over the years: they will bet on anything … luck, circumstance, someone else’s decision; before they ever consider betting on themselves.
The Power of Imagination: It’s Not Just For Kids
When we were young, imagination wasn’t entertainment. It was training. When no one was around, we invented games, invented opponents, invented teammates, and created moments so vivid we could feel the wind, the pressure, the crowd. The winning free throw wasn’t a fantasy—it was a full-body rehearsal. The impossible catch wasn’t a wish; it was a moment we had already lived a hundred times in our head.
And then we grew up.
But the skill didn’t disappear. The shot we actually hit. The pass we actually completed. The catch we actually made under pressure wasn’t random talent. It was a memory our mind created before our body ever experienced it.
We didn’t call it visualization. We didn’t need a guru or a seminar. We just imagined it. And imagination expanded our courage long before we could spell “confidence.”
Preparation Disguised as Pain
Every leader eventually faces a season where everything they’ve relied on stops working. The strategy that once brought success falters. The habits that once produced momentum stall. We want growth to be smooth and success to make sense, but real development rarely happens in comfort. The truth is, pain often arrives dressed as preparation. The weight you’re cursing might be the very resistance building what ease never could.
Anchors vs. Sails: Culture and Life
Every team, every business, every person carries two forces: drag and drive. Drag slows you when the wind is perfect. Drive moves you when the wind is dead. The truth is, most organizations don’t fail for lack of talent. Most people don’t fail because of lack of ambition. They fail because they quietly add anchors to their lives and wonder why they aren’t moving.
Anchors and sails are more than metaphors for culture. They’re daily realities, choices you bolt onto the hull of your team, and choices you bolt onto the hull of your own life. And here’s the deeper truth: not all anchors and sails are the same. Some protect you. Some destroy you. Some sails drive you forward. Others blow you wildly off course.
Noise vs Signal: Sharpening Your Focus
Every team, every business, and every individual lives between two competing frequencies: noise and signal. Noise is motion without meaning; the constant hum of distraction that fills every open space. Signal is clarity with purpose, the steady tone that cuts through the static and points toward true north. The truth is, most organizations don’t crumble from a lack of ideas. Most people don’t fail because they lack ambition. They fail because the signal gets drowned out by noise, and they mistake activity for progress.
Legacy Isn’t History. It’s Hunger.
The word legacy gets thrown around like a trophy — something to show off, something to admire, something to protect. But legacy isn’t preservation. It’s propulsion. It’s not a monument to what was — it’s a mandate for what still must be done. When we start protecting our past instead of producing our future, the clock starts ticking on everything we built.
The Power to Rise When the Ground Breaks
Everyone loves to talk about resilience—until they actually have to live it. It sounds good in a meeting, looks inspiring on a poster, but in practice, resilience is ugly. It’s scraped knees, sleepless nights, and the quiet grind of showing up again after failure just knocked the wind out of you.
Resilience isn’t optimism. Optimism says, “It’ll be fine.” Resilience says, “Even if it’s not fine, I’ll find a way through.” Optimism looks for a silver lining. Resilience forges one out of fire. It doesn’t deny pain. It doesn’t escape struggle. It uses both as fuel to keep moving when everything else says stop.
Time Leadership: Why Managing Minutes Isn’t Enough
Time gets treated like it’s negotiable. As if it can be wasted, stretched, or made up later. Too many live like the clock is on their side, when in reality, it’s the most unforgiving opponent they’ll ever face. Money can be recovered, teams can be rebuilt, health can be restored … but time never comes back. The clock doesn’t care about your excuses. It doesn’t care about your intentions. It just runs.
That’s why “time management” has always felt like a lie. You don’t manage time. You don’t control it. What you manage are your choices. What you lead is your attention. And what separates great leaders from average ones isn’t that they have more hours in the day—it’s that they treat every hour like it matters.
Self-Discipline: The Standard That Builds Everything Else
Motivation gets you moving. Excitement gets you started. But neither lasts. They fade the moment the grind begins. The separator—the trait that holds everything together when the spark is gone—is self-discipline.
Self-discipline is the refusal to compromise with excuses. It’s the ability to keep your commitments long after the mood you made them in has disappeared. It’s not about punishment or perfection. It’s about consistency when it would be easier to coast, about living by standards instead of feelings. Without it, nothing else matters. With it, you can outlast talent, outpace comfort, and outwork doubt.
Creativity: The Courage to Break the Pattern
Most people think creativity is about being artistic, activities such as painting, music, and design. But in leadership, creativity is something else entirely. It’s the courage to look at the same situation as everyone else and see a different possibility. It’s refusing to get trapped in “the way it’s always been.” Creativity is not optional for leaders. It’s survival. Because the moment you stop creating, you start copying. And when you’re copying, you’re already behind.
Creativity isn’t chaos. It’s not throwing ideas against a wall and hoping something sticks. It’s disciplined freedom—the willingness to explore new approaches without abandoning standards. It’s the grit to innovate, not for novelty’s sake, but because yesterday’s solutions won’t solve tomorrow’s problems.
When No One’s Watching: The Weight of Character
In a world that thrives on visibility and recognition, the true measure of strength lies in what we do when no one is watching. Imagine this: The person above you just dumped a load of work on your desk, then they gave you a 5:00 pm deadline. You put your head down and go to work. There’s no audience, no cheering section—just you and your resolve. In these moments, where effort meets silence, we discover what character truly means. Every day, we see how far we have grown as we watch how our true selves emerge when the spotlight fades away, highlighting the importance of doing the hard work for our growth and integrity.
Unleashing Your Potential
Have you ever felt that spark inside you, a desire to become the best version of yourself? Welcome to the exhilarating world of personal growth and self-improvement! This journey is about reaching new heights and transforming your life into one full of purpose, fulfillment, and happiness. By setting clear goals, developing empowering habits, learning from your experiences, and embracing continuous evolution, you can unlock your full potential and create a meaningful life.