Finish The Game

As we approach Thanksgiving, I hope you are doing well and that you and yours are staying healthy and safe… physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Things are nuts right now but the world doesn’t stop turning, our clients and our teams still need us, and there are still great things to be accomplished in 2021.

Let me repeat that….THERE ARE STILL GREAT THINGS TO BE ACCOMPLISHED IN 2021.

If there is time left on the clock then you still have a chance to get better… to close the gap.

What gap?

You tell me!

Halftime

One of the things I love about coaching college basketball was the walk to the locker room at halftime.

Now, don’t get me wrong some were less enjoyable than others.

Walking to the locker room, down 20 to Kansas in Allen Fieldhouse when they are #1 in the country and have Paul Pierce, Jacque Vaughn, Scott Pollard, and Raef LaFrentz, was a bit of a challenge.

But you know what… we still had a job to do.

At halftime you have a thousand things you want to tell your team and all of them seem to be of the utmost importance.

Then your sports information director hands you the stats from the first half and you can distill your list down to the two to four most important talking points. Knowing that if you execute in those areas and control the controllable then you will have the best chance to be successful.

I absolutely loved making adjustments and communicating those to our players and then painting the picture of what will happen when we make those adjustments.

Halftime is not long, so having the ability to communicate clearly and efficiently and at the same time challenging and positively inspiring them to run to the fight is critical.

Give them the information they need and then the energy it takes to execute.

Consider this our halftime. I want to give you some things that can help you right now as we continue to work in a condensed time frame based on the environment we are currently operating in.

Refresher

Let’s start with the main question.

Are you doing the best you can with what you have?

Some time ago, I delivered four virtual presentations on my ‘How Champions Grow Through Adversity’ program including the Tulsa Men’s Basketball program. Needless to say, presenting to the defending AAC Champs, at the time, got me back into my locker room mindset and got my juices going.

I thought you might like a glimpse of what this program entails as we lock into adversity being something that happens for us versus something that happens to us and I walk the participants through how they use the adversity to their advantage.

Something I think is important to keep in the front of your mind as we finish up 2021 and get ready to jump-start 2022 is to Control the Controllable:

• Perspective
• Don’t have the victim mentality
• Attitude
• Self-talk
• Purpose
• Belief that something good is about to happen
• Ability to lift yourself up by lifting others up

Take time to answer these questions. The little things make a huge difference, and this exercise is a little thing.

• What adversity is happening for you right now?
• What situations have popped up recently where you can do a better job of focusing on breathing and staying even?
• What is an adjustment you can make in your lead goals that will help you close an identified gap and finish the year strong?
• Who can you lift up today?

Finish the Game!

This was originally published as a weekly newsletter from Ed Molitor, with The Molitor Group. If you'd like to receive the weekly newsletter, follow this link to subscribe.