Do It

How taking action makes all the difference

Doing it; the key to anything that you try to accomplish is to physically and actively, do what you want to happen. The art of doing things, and making things happen, versus talking about them, or wishing for them, or hoping for them. The art and the act of doing is the single most important thing for taking people down a path of success. In order to do, you have to have certain things in place.

Number one; you have to have the correct mindset to be able to take you in the direction that you’re physically gonna act on what has to get done, and your physically gonna do the things that have to get done, the garbage in the morning doesn’t come out by itself, someone has to do it. They have to take the garbage out, the garbage can to the curb, it has to physically be done. Someone has to physically do it, every single day someone has to physically make their bed, it has to be done. Someone has to make the food for people to eat, it has to be done.

Everyone finds a way to do the necessity, and then necessary things of life, but don’t take the next step, and figure out ways to do things, and take the act of doing, on things that they actually want to happen. If you want to be the very best athlete that you can be, you have to do the sprints, you have to do the weightlifting, and you have to do it at a high level of intensity. You have to do the skills that are necessary for your sport, you have to wake up in the morning, put your clothes on, and get out a half hour early before anyone else.

You have to do that, you have to change your mentality everybody has the same 24 hours in the day, that does not change, everyone no matter where they are, and what they’re doing, they have 24 hours in the day to do whatever they need to do, and somewhere around 6 to 8 hours get dedicated to sleep. Most people don’t need more than probably six hours of sleep, but six hours of dedicated sleep at a minimum will help you be ready.

I sleep five hours myself most times, and take like a 45 minute to an hour nap, and I found that that helps me throughout my day to be able to accomplish more things, but it allows me to wake up earlier, get more things done, and to do it, to actually go and do what has to be done.

I remember when I was in high school, and I was walking with another athlete to school, I can’t remember where it was, but I think it was school, and we were talking about what is it you know, what I want to accomplish, and he was talking about what he hoped to accomplish, and I was two years younger than him, and it was very interesting to me, because my mindset was that I was gonna get a scholarship for football.

I was gonna be able to go and play, like I’d never changed like from the time I was a little kid, I mean I was preparing myself mentally to be an NFL player. There was nothing that was going to stop that from happening, I have to say like only the fact, it wasn’t what people’s influences are on you, have a huge impact, and you have to be able, at a very young age to stay focused on what you want to happen, and to do the things that are necessary.

But I remember in this conversation, I said you know, I want to be a division 1 athlete, and he turned, and said you know, you have to be, you need to be an all-county player in order to be a division 1 athlete, and there’s very few all-county players from our high school, and I said: Well! I’m gonna be division 1 athlete, I mean I’m working hard, I’m running sprints, I’m lifting every day to do it, and I love when I hear athletes talk about that they want to play the Division 1 level.

I deal with so many all the time, and they don’t do the things that are necessary, that means lifting six out of seven days a week, when I was in high school, I lifted two hours a day, every single day, every single day. no matter how I felt, six days a week, seven days a week, lifting, ran, sprints every other day, ran every single day, six out of seven days a week, did drills in the summertime, any time I could to get better.

All the time, and yes I played another sport, I ran track. So, I was working on my speed, I did that in the winter and spring, that’s how important it was to me to be a Division one athlete. How important it is for you, are you willing to do what’s necessary? And looking back to when I was a kid, as much as I did do, I felt like now I could have done even more.

There were things that I didn’t do, that probably other people did do, and that’s probably the difference between my career ending after college, and other people’s careers ending playing in the NFL, because they probably were even more willing to do than what I was, and I learned that lesson, and I learned that, if I want to be the best, I have to be willing to do, what other people are not willing to do.

The key word in everything I’ve said so far is DO, how do you do? you got to go do it, you got to take action, you have to go and do it, and you got to plan, not because you’re taking all this time to plan everything out then not doing, you’re gonna plan, and then do, plan and then do, set goals and revise, take action on your goals.

There’s no more important thing than doing the things that you want to happen, every inch of improvement, every tenth of a second of improvement, every five pounds of weight, add up. I always tell the kids that I coach, when we’ve set our goals, you put a number on there, and you say let’s say you said 500 pounds in the squat, they look at that number, if they haven’t done anything, when they entered my program as a new coach.

They look at that number, and think that I’m out of my mind, but I look at that number and say, if this person squats 300 pounds right now, and over the next 52 weeks, over the next 52 weeks, improves literally four pounds per week, they will squat 500 pounds. Can you improve four pounds per week? Absolutely! Can you improve 200 pounds from nowhere? Absolutely not!

And that is the thing that has to be understood, the act of doing the things that are necessary to become a great athlete, a fantastic entrepreneur, a leader, a CEO. You have to do things that are necessary, you have to wake up earlier, feel like. Oh! I don’t — you know, I don’t like to wake up early. Yeah! That’s not me, that’s nonsense, that’s nonsense.

For a long time, and I had reached a certain level of success, without ever having to wake up really early, but then I learned, I went and coached with a guy, his name is DJ ,he’s one of the best football coaches that have ever been around. Maybe, the best. Okay, and I went and coached with him as an assistant, and I really was not an early-morning person, and his practices started at 6 a.m. promptly.

I had to be on the field at 5:57, and every time he’d see me walking down the hill as a coach, literally I’d be walking down, I’d get there at 5:55, he’d blow the whistle and start practice, hit there are 5:52, he’d blow the whistle and start practice, and it took me a long time to understand why he was messing with me on that, but the lesson I learned was, wait a minute, I have to be committed to being successful.

My whole goal was to get there, so I could do what I had to do, from a coaching standpoint. it wasn’t to get there early, and to be focused, I always thought of myself as someone that’s talented, that could show up, and do what they need to do coaching, because I have a certain level of talent there, a very high level of talent coaching, and I’ve always been able to rely on my ability to feel people out, and understand how they think, and be able to get the most out of them.

But I learned commitment there. Now, I knew it from playing in college, I played college football University of Carnegie, and Coach Holtz still doubted me, and we had to be there 3 minutes, 5 minutes early, for practice, we had to be there at 5:55a.m and I would always be there on time. But as a coach, and as a leader, I looked at that part of my life, and said; thank goodness, I don’t have to do that anymore, instead of realizing that was what made me great.

So, the key is to understand. The second key is, find out the things that will make you great, the difference makers, and do those difference makers. If you attack those two things, and do, and do again, and go after it, and do it again, and figure out a way to accomplish big things. You’ll be ultimately very, very successful in whatever it is you do.

If you find excuses, if you get yourself off the hook, by finding the excuse, I’ll do it tomorrow, I don’t feel like doing it right now. This drive is a little bit too long, I don’t feel like picking up the phone call, maybe I’ll just leave tomorrow, and everybody goes through this.

If you allow that to dominate your thought process, and your mindset, you’ll never accomplish the things that you hope to accomplish. You must do the things that are necessary to be successful, you must act on it constantly, and you must figure out a way to be great, and do it, over and over and over again.

I hope that’s helpful for you.

Transcribed From Coach Schuman’s Success For Life Podcast….@nucfootball on twitter @daveschuman on instagram www.nucsports.com