Growing pains…

This afternoon at 3bells we began practice 52 with The OSU grapplers. We went back to the basics of skill, passion, and effort – the three pillars of elite performance. Each athlete wrote about which bucket needs more of their attention. The melody line was around more passion. One athlete summed up the problem rather succinctly – he shows up at 3bells and clocks in, kinda like a factory worker. You see, wrestling is simply a job.

You, most likely, are a lot like this young man.

You see, the average American worker is a laborer. Many that receive the gift of BTL practice are highly paid laborers. The elite have more passion than the average. It’s the passion that precedes the extra effort and it’s the extra effort, toward minute kinda improvements that’s the difference between good enough and freakin’ Nato kinda nasty. Even Nato’s gotta find more love as we discovered today. Nato’s a senior stud on this team and he’s learning to stop the self loathing and start laughing a bit more. Today was another day filled with opus. I didn’t even take time to eat (big deal for me as I love to eat) until Miss greeted me at 7bells with a little Kale Caesar and sirloin. Good.

You, friend, gotta find more love for your work if your aim is excellence. Fact. Masters aren’t doing a job. Masters are, well, mastering a craft they love. These are the ones we want to emulate. So, like a few OSU grapplers, you gotta find a way to fall in love with some stuff you kinda naturally loathe. Back in the day, I loathed stepping into hard conversations and causing another acute pain – now I love it. You see, I don’t love causing another pain. I love causing another to grow and realize all growth, well, is preceded by growing pains. Good…