This past weekend, I was at my alma mater, the University of Nevada and I ran into my old football coach, Coach Ault.
We had a brief conversation… as he was probably wondering who I was. You see, I was no superstar and this man has coached hundreds of players in his time.
Coach Ault, also known as “The Little General,” ran very tight program.
I mean, anyone with the nickname “The Little General” is going to be tough to play for- and he was.
While speaking with other alumni, everyone has very similar stories and feelings for Coach and the biggest thing is that he was tough and he demanded your very best – every single day.
He obviously knew what he was doing because he is in the College Football Hall of Fame and is one of the winningest coaches in college football history.
Even though playing for him was tough, when I reflect back, Coach Ault taught me a lot about success.
Here are 5 things that I learned about success from my Coach:
ATTITUDE – The first step to winning is believing you can win and that was the first thing that Coach instilled in his players was the belief that they can win and an attitude to do whatever it takes to do so. In fact, during my conversation with him that was the first thing he mentioned about the current team was they were still working on getting their attitude right. He is not the coach of the new team but he is still around the program working with the current coach to right the ship after a couple of tough seasons. Attitude is where it all starts.
COMMITMENT – You better be committed to the team first or you would get weeded out. When I played for Coach Ault, it was my senior season and his first season back from a few year break. The program wasn’t in a good place, so beyond changing the attitude and the culture of the program, Coach was going to make sure that you were committed. Before we even started spring ball over 10 guys were dismissed from the team due to a lack of commitment to the program and to themselves. These were good football players too, but to Coach – nothing gets in the way of your commitment to the team.
EVERYTHING IS EARNED – There were no handouts with Coach Ault. When I was playing for him, I could honestly tell you that he did not care what you did last year or what star recruit you were. You were going to earn your way onto the field. Being a walk on in his program was even tougher. Coach was never a huge fan of walk ons and he proved that to me in my senior season. We had a position meeting in Hawaii and there were two seniors in our group, myself and Shaun T. In that meeting, he referenced only having one senior in the group and I knew he wasn’t referencing me. This didn’t discourage me but motivated me to show him what he was overlooking. At the end of the year, things worked out well for me as I took home some nice hardware and got acknowledge from the work I did on the field. But the biggest compliment was after the season was over and Coach Ault came to me and said “ You had a hell of a season and nobody gave you shit.” Those words meant a lot after feeling overlooked for pretty much my entire career at Nevada. I earned it.
DO YOUR 1/11 – Coach had a saying of “do your 1/11”. In football, this means to do your job. There are 11 guys on the field and in order for a play to be successful everyone had to do their job. Today, I translate those words into do what you are best at and delegate the rest to people who are better than you. Often times, in football and life, we try to do too much and it ends up holding us back rather than propelling us forward. Focus on your 1/11.
MENTAL TOUGHNESS – I don’t know if this was something that was taught as much as it was something necessary to survive in his program. My senior season we played Rice University at home, and we were coming off a tough loss the week before. I heard Coach Ault was willing to do whatever it takes to win, but I did not know to what extent. Before our game that day, we had a full contact scrimmage in warm ups. This was unheard of, but… it worked. We shut them down that day. Coach Ault made sure to pull every ounce out of his players and you better be mentally tough enough to respond. When he challenged you …. you better be ready.
While playing for Coach Ault, I honestly had a strong distaste for this man because I did not truly understand what he was doing until I had a chance to reflect a few years later. Today, I am forever grateful that I played in his program because of all the things I learned from it and how much of it translates to real life.
With my business I have an attitude that I can bring success to myself and my clients. I am 100% committed to doing what is necessary to get results and I earn everything through actions and not words. I always focus on my strengths and surround myself with individuals that are strong in the areas that I am weak. The journey is not always easy but I will prevail because that is the only way that I know.
I do want to throw some love to the other man in the picture. That is my friend, Jamaal. I have been fortunate enough to know Jamaal since we were five-years-old. We had the unique experience of playing youth sports together, winning championships in high school together and then playing for the University of Nevada together. Not very many people can experience those things with a close friend and for that I am forever grateful.
I cherish the moments that I had playing with him and all my brothers at the University of Nevada. It helped shape me into the man I am today which also developed the business mindset that I have today.
When you implement these five lessons, success happens. Thanks Coach.
GO PACK!
