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Every Monday, I sit down to reflect on the events of the week, extract their lessons, and gameplan how to apply those lessons toward greatness and growth. It’s a system that has always worked for me, it can work for you too.
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Do you know your unique ability?
I am a 47 year old father of 3. I’ve won seven Super Bowls and five Super Bowl MVPs. I’ve been fortunate to make enough in my career that my children and their children will never have to worry about keeping a roof over their heads. I am honored to be a part of great teams at incredible organizations like FOX, the Las Vegas Raiders, and Nobull. I am blessed to be happy and healthy with a wonderful, loving family. I am grateful, appreciative, and full of perspective for all of it.
And then the other day, playing a nice, casual early morning round of golf on vacation at Bakers Bay in the Bahamas, I tried to play conservative off the tee on #13, and ended up shanking the ball about 100 yards left out of bounds. I slammed my club three times into the turf with full force while shouting a stream of profanities into the air loud enough for God to hear.
Riding in the cart to my ball, all I could hear in my head were the voices of my older sisters: “What is wrong with you?!?”
REFLECTION
For most of my childhood, I probably heard those five words from my sisters as often as any others. The earliest instance I can remember was when I was nine-years-old. I was playing Nintendo and I lost right at the point in a game where I was sure I was going to win. I smashed the controller against the living room coffee table until it cracked in half and then I threw it at the TV. I probably broke 5 controllers in this same fashion.
I know it's hard to imagine this angel smashing a controller 😂
I can’t recall if it was Maureen who watched me lose it that time. It could have easily been Nancy or Julie. It doesn’t really matter. They all have the same stories. They all say the same thing.
“What is wrong with you?!”
What was “wrong” was that I hated to lose more than I liked to win…and I loved to win. I was as competitive as they come. Probably more. I still am.
LESSON
I’ve always known this about myself at some level, but I don’t think I understood the full extent of it until later in my career when I’d lost a step and I was no longer that enthusiastic about holding onto the ball only to get shellacked by guys like Khalil Mack or the Bosa brothers. And yet…I was still winning games.
For the longest time I thought our success, at least as far as my contribution to it is concerned, was simply the result of having gotten better in all the important dimensions of football. Over the course of my career, my discipline got better, my work ethic got better. I got stronger and smarter. I learned to read defenses better. I learned to make decisions more quickly. I learned to eat better and sleep better. I learned to trust more. Everything it took to become elite at my position, I got better at. And all of that did help.
But the thing that has always made the biggest difference, I realized, was the thing that never changed: my competitiveness. And that’s because it never had to. It was pegged at a ‘10’ from birth. Hell, probably in utero. (If I had been an identical twin, I guarantee you I would have beaten him out of the womb.) Without my competitiveness, I don’t know if I win all those QB1 battles at Michigan. I don’t know if the 2001 season ends with a Super Bowl after Drew Bledsoe goes down. I don’t know if the Super Bowl 51 comeback happens. I don’t know if Tampa Bay even enters the picture.
I know I had the talent for all those outcomes to be possible, but I also know that talent is never all it takes.
APPLICATION
Recently, an old clip from a Glen Powell interview on the Rich Eisen Show popped up on my social feed. Glen’s talking about a conversation he had with Tom Cruise after he lost the role of Rooster to Miles Teller in Top Gun: Maverick. Tom still wanted Glen to be in the movie, but Glen was having second thoughts about taking a smaller role because his goal was to have a career like Tom’s.
“Do you know how I do that?” Tom asks him.
“Yeah, you choose great roles,” Glen says.
“No,” Tom replies, “I choose great movies and I make the roles great.”
It was a light bulb moment. A perspective shift for Glen.
Not everyone can be the star of the movie. Just like not everyone can be the starting quarterback or win the Super Bowl. Not everyone is destined to be a genius CEO. Not everyone is capable of having the best ideas or the quickest fixes. But anyone can make their role great–whether that’s on a sports team, a product team, in a movie, or as part of a family.
You don’t have to be the best to be the most valuable. You don’t have to be the star to be invaluable. You can be the most prepared, the most excited, the most supportive. You can be the best role player or the best energy guy. You can be the one who’s always on time, on task, and knows what everyone should be doing. You can care the most. You can be the most dedicated. You can be the glue that keeps your team, your company, or your family together.
That can be your role. Your unique ability. Your superpower.
All you have to do is be honest with yourself about what you’re good at and what you’re bad at. In the areas where you’re good, reflect on how you could be better, learn how you can make it great and apply what you’ve learned every day. I promise, if you do that, you may lose some video game controllers or coffee tables along the way, but you will go further in this world than you ever thought possible.
And you will definitely go further than the 60-degree I threw into the ocean from the bunker behind the 7th green at Pebble Beach a few weeks ago.
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Weekly newsletter delivered straight from my desk to your inbox, 199 is an extension of my group chat with friends and family. Get the inside scoop and join today.
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