Origin Story

 Hearing an origin story seems to be one of those things that goes in spurts. For three or four months it’s all you hear about, and then you go a year without the word coming up again. I used to think that an origin story was where you were born and the area you grew up. My thoughts on that have changed over the years. But, if it’s not that, then what is an origin story? I didn’t look up the proper definition, but to me, it’s the training and failures you had that got you to where you are today.

 Why Those Two Things?

I Said I’d Never Do It

It had been all over the news leading up to this, but the date was finally here, it was September 11, 2011. I didn’t understand all the publicity it was getting. Who would want to watch a movie about losing. That’s what the movie represented to me. They should have just called it Titanic 2. Everyone knew how the story ended, and no one lived happily ever after. I’m sure you can guess, but yes, I am talking about the movie Moneyball. The story of the Oakland A’s in the early 2000’s and how they changed the game of baseball.

My Identity in the Rough Terrain

A few weeks ago, I spoke about identity and who I am. Shortly after writing that I heard someone say on a podcast that you can’t outperform your identity. When I heard that I kind of froze. I kept saying it over and over again, trying to process it. It was simple but challenging. If I think I am a “B” student and nothing better, than getting an “A” is impossible. That makes complete sense to me, I always thought I was an average student. So, I was content with getting just a “C” in almost every class. But school was many, many years ago, so what does that mean for today?

Leaning on my Five

 Last week was a crazy week! I don’t even think I can list everything that happened, but I will go through a few highlights. My brother-in-law had to go to the emergency room because he was hurt while hunting, I had a doctor’s appointment, I’m starting to show some signs of my side effects coming back from my medicine, work has been flipped upside and spun all over the place, and my truck is broken. Again, these are the highlights, not everything.

Break it Down

 I’ve been looking very far ahead in the future lately. What do I want to be doing a year from now? What will have to happen in the next twelve months for me to look back and be happy about the previous twelve months? This time of year, this isn’t an uncommon thing to do. I’ve played this game before and lost miserably. The problem I usually run into is that I have goals, but I get off track. Then I try to get caught up and burn myself out

Finish The Job

I have two holidays in my life that I celebrate that no one else in the world probably celebrates. I’ve talked about it before, but the first one is September 3rd. That is the day that over nine years ago I decided to start journaling, and I haven’t stopped since. For me that is what I consider my New Year. The other date isn’t as specific, but it comes around the same time every single year and the crazy part is that I don’t even celebrate it every year. That day is the start of the baseball playoffs. Everyone probably knows by this point, but baseball is by far my favorite sport and the Yankees are my only team.

Mentors, Masterminds and a Mistake

I was listening to a podcast and the guest asked the question, “What if your opportunity comes, and you aren’t ready”? He brought up being an author and getting the chance to be on Oprah, but not being ready for everything that comes with it. Can you imagine having the chance of a lifetime and not being ready? I think most of us have something that we have been thinking about or fooling around with for years, what if our big break finally came and we had to pass?

Three Challenges

  When you have done everything the same way for so long, the difficult part isn’t knowing what you need to do, it’s making yourself start to do it. Recently someone sent me a text message, and I just wasn’t ready to respond to it. I think I’m usually pretty good at responding to text messages, but this one was different. I had to really think about what I wanted to say. I couldn’t just go with the first thing that popped into my head.  So, I waited, then I waited some more. I had waited so long that now no matter what I was going to look bad. I forced myself to put it at the top of my to do list and I even threatened myself if I didn’t get it done that day. 

Starting Over in the Fourth Quarter with the Same Exact Team 

When I started thinking about what I was going to write this week, I thought of something interesting. I wanted to talk about how sometimes you must win with who you have. It would be nice to change out low performers or replace someone who is going to be out. But just like in sports, once the game has started you can’t add new players. As I was thinking about all of that, I realized that tomorrow is the fourth quarter of the year. We only have three more months to finish strong and set the tone for a new year.  

Old Songs and New Challenges

 The year was 1989, I was eleven years old. The first quarter was about to finish, and I had spent the last six months doing nothing but listening to the Beach Boys. In July of 1988, they released the song Kokomo and that was the start of my lifelong love of the group. The Yankees finished 1988 nine games over five hundred. I didn’t know it at the time, but they would have a losing record every year for the next four years. That was over thirty-five years ago, why have I been thinking about those two things a lot over the last few weeks? When I started writing these articles, I had a few things on my mind.