REFLECTION
One of the first things I talked about in this newsletter was learning everything that goes into being a broadcaster and how I was working to improve, just like I did when I played quarterback. In both cases, I started at one level and I was always looking to ascend to a higher level, day after day. I had a “you vs. you” mentality, That’s the Nobull mentality.
In the booth, I wanted to be quicker, more incisive. I wanted to feel more comfortable. I wanted to feel better at picking my spots and knocking it out of the park with just enough of the most useful information at the right time. Like everything I put my heart into, I wanted to be the best I could be; not just for myself, but for my teammates and the fans, as well.
To do that, I watched a lot of tape back from last season, again just like I did when I was a quarterback. I got advice from friends whose opinions I respected and from others colleagues whose experience I admired. I changed a bit about how I prepare for games and reorganized the information I have at my disposal over the course of these weeks.
Was it the right approach or the best approach? At the time, I wasn’t entirely sure. But I always believe, as I’ve said before, that growth happens outside of your comfort zone. So if I wanted to grow and become a better broadcaster, I had to go outside my own comfort zone. I had to try new things, find new approaches, seek out different advice, and watch others who I admire. That’s simply what it has taken to figure this job out, so that is what my process has been all about.
Approaching challenges like this is always what makes the most sense to me. Sometimes it works right away, sometimes there’s a bit of trial and error. You never know how it’s going to go until you’re in it. What I did know, what I was absolutely confident in, was that, just like I’ve done throughout the course of my life, I will eventually manage to figure it out.
For the most part, I believe I’ve done that pretty well. Broadcasting, included. Going into the Bills-Eagles game this past weekend, with a week left in the regular season, I’m feeling more comfortable than ever and I’ve grown in ways that I didn’t think were possible. And it’s thanks, in no small part, to the fact that I’m confident in what I’m doing, and I’m doing it with people I really care about, who are awesome at their jobs, too.
LESSON
That I’ve begun to improve my skillset as a broadcaster is not simply an accident or coincidence. And I don’t really believe it’s luck, either. It’s the product of being able to figure things out and developing confidence in myself over many decades of successfully confronting challenges and obstacles in pursuit of my goals.
In every part of life, personal and professional, we’re going to hit walls. We’re going to get to some level, usually a place we’re excited about when we first get there, but then we’re going to struggle to get any further, and it will be frustrating. If we’re there too long, it can start to chip away at our confidence and steal some of our motivation. Often, the pain we feel every time we unsuccessfully throw ourselves against one of those walls can produce a fear of failure that keeps us rooted in place, and tricks us into believing that this level is not just a safe space, it’s actually our destiny.
There’s another word for this kind of fear. It’s ‘stagnation,’ and it’s the death of growth.
We all know that we need to get over these walls. Failure teaches us where we need to improve in order to do that. Self-sufficient people don’t spend their time complaining that the walls exist or lamenting that this is as far as they’ll ever go. They don’t waste their effort and energy like that. They also don’t do the same things over and over again expecting a different result. Instead, they allow their failures to guide them to new and different ways of tackling their problems. They’re not afraid of failure, they court it, because they know that’s where the growth is. They’re confident that if going over the wall didn’t work, maybe going under it will. If there was nothing to left, maybe there’s something to the right. People who know how to figure things out are always probing and tinkering like that. They’re always asking questions. They don’t accept defeat. They never quit.
It’s like Thomas Edison famously said about inventing the light bulb, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
Self-sufficiency is about working through your failures and answering the questions they produce in order to eventually find the best technique for getting past each specific threshold barrier that stands in the way of your progress–no matter which area of life you’re struggling with. The confidence you gain from enduring through failure, from putting effort in the right place, and from working smarter and harder to figure something out, is an invaluable byproduct of self-sufficiency that also helps build resilience.
That doesn’t mean you go it alone. We’ve talked about the myth of the self-made man in the past. I wouldn’t be where I am today without all the people who make up my support system and who I rely on for daily support, love and guidance. But self-sufficiency means that once all the coaching and confidence-boosting is done, and it’s just you in the arena, under the microscope, with nothing but your thoughts and behaviors to rely on, you will be able to figure out what to do, regardless of what comes your way.
Fundamentally, self-sufficiency is a mindset that in many ways makes you invincible, or unbreakable. It’s an awareness that, in the face of any obstacle or uncertainty, you know that you’re capable of learning, adapting and grinding through failures until self-belief clicks in. When you are self-sufficient, you wake up in the morning, look in the mirror, and you say, “you know what, it’s within me to use my arsenal of knowledge, resources and skills to change where I’m at, to get over this wall…”
It’s called living in the solution, which is what we should all be trying to do.
APPLICATION
Life is hard. The world is not designed to make it easy on you. If you want to win, if you want to be successful and find gratification in whatever you do, it’s imperative that you learn how to figure things out. Not just because no one is coming to save you, but because it unlocks your capacity for figuring other things out. Hard, complicated things. Important things in every area of life. I can tell you from experience, for example, that the things you figure out being part of a football team ABSOLUTELY show you how to figure out related issues in your business, your friendships, and your family. There is a ton of carry over. Because the attributes of a great teammate are generally the same regardless of what kind of unit you’re a part of. Once you figure that out, it unlocks all kinds of relationships.
The most powerful part of being someone who can figure things out is that you immediately become a solution-oriented person, which is the essence of self-sufficiency. You begin to live in the solution, knowing that complaints and excuses keep you in the past, while only solutions propel you forward.
Self-sufficiency doesn’t all come at once, however. And like any skill or ability, it will come more naturally to some than to others. For some, it must be learned from the ground up. Still, for all, it must be practiced. It must be used like a muscle, so it doesn’t atrophy.
And getting better at it doesn’t mean you will be free from failure or pain. Those are inevitable parts of life and success. In fact, you don’t want to avoid them, you want to seek them out, because like we talked about earlier, when you find them you will also find the limits of your ability and the point beyond which growth happens. They show you where the wall is. Failure tells you what you need to do to get through it. The pain tells you how important it is. Developing self-sufficiency is how you build up the confidence, self-esteem and resilience to tackle that wall no matter how high or wide it might be.
And the beauty is, there’s no wrong place to begin this journey. There’s no one ideal starting point. Every case is different. Yours will be different than mine was. But don’t worry, I’m confident that over time, if you’re solution-oriented, you’ll figure it out.
