Ten for Ten, Baby

I am not sure if you guys know who Reggie Bush is, but I have a Reggie Bush story for you. This story is third hand, so minor details may vary. Nonetheless, the point is the point. I listened to a story a man told about his journey as a strength coach. In this story he advanced into the college strength coaching community, which is quite an accomplishment and quite a responsibility. In his story, he mentioned special athletes. Special athletes come along, and they are just that. They are something special. Watching them is nothing less than remarkable. He was speaking about Reggie Bush in this way.

In the story, Reggie had just arrived to the team within the last few days so his talent had yet to be completely revealed to everyone. The team was scheduled to do ten sprints that day. I can’t remember the distance, but you get the point. On the first sprint, all of the players toe the line, the hand goes down, and Reggie jumps out in the lead by a good ten yards. He smoked all of them. On the way back from the first sprint, the players were reacting a bit sour saying things like, “We’ve got nine more of these, man” and “You’d better slow down and save some.” Reggie just went about his business. 

Sprint number two yield exactly the same result. He smoked them all, including the fastest guys on the team. Sprints three, four, five, six, seven, and eight also had the same result. He was dominating all of these fellas. Sprint nine came around and he smoked them all again. Now, only one sprint remained and a couple players began to talk a little trash. They had been seemingly silent for the most of the ones in the middle, so the ante was higher. They were after him on this one. Gun went off and all bets were off. Reggie smoked them all once again. If you know anything about Reggie, you know that he is a phenomenal athlete.

This example rests upon a mountain of commitment. What we see clear as day is the work ethic, what we don’t see is the time invested by Reggie. What we don’t see is the struggle. The achievement is as clear as day. He gets out there and gets it done. He has been doing this for years. I would imagine that this day in his mind did not seem like such a great achievement. It seemed like a day getting after it, per usual.

How do you approach the things you do? Do you go ten for ten? Do you put forth the effort required? This is something to think about. Thanks, Double A, for the story.

 

Danny Lesslie

@dannylesslie