When No One is Watching

One of the best pieces of advice my dad ever gave me was to "always give your best because you never know who's watching." He learned that from Yankees legend, Don Mattingly, after Mattingly shared a story about a conversation he had with a young Derek Jeter.

Like many boys growing up in Northeast New Jersey, sports were a natural part of my childhood. From practicing and playing to following professional teams and listening to the adventures of my sportswriter dad, sports were everything. They made up some of my best memories. And when my dad instilled in me what I now call the "Jeter-rule," I never forgot it.

During spring training one year, Mattingly was running off a baseball field and noticed a still-developing Jeter, also on the field, walking off. He went over to Jeter and quietly encouraged him to always run onto and off of the field because "you never know who's watching you." In the case of these two men, it wasn't just fans watching, it was George Steinbrenner as well. Jeter never walked again after that.

Mattingly said later, "Derek was going to be a great player regardless of whether that conversation took place. But guys like Derek, who become great players, take the right things and make them their own."

I think there is a lot of truth in that.

The beauty of the Jeter-rule is that it transcends sports. It is a character-builder like no other. The late great basketball coach, John Wooden, believed in this too. The Jeter-rule means we should do our job to the best of our ability no matter the task at hand. It doesn't matter if it's stocking shelves or building a billion dollar company, work is work. And there should be dignity in putting some elbow grease into it.

We should always try hard and give our best effort even when we're certain no one is watching and when there is no direct negative consequence for taking a shortcut. Because it's what we do for ourselves, not others, in our own time that shapes our future habits. And of course there is always the chance we're wrong and our next boss, investor, or mate just lost interest because they took notice of us being overly lazy.

The Jeter-rule also extends beyond the work that we do, it's about how we act as people as a whole. For example, when we talk to the housekeeping crew at a hotel, the waitstaff at a restaurant and anyone in a demanding service job, it's our responsibility to be kind. We never know who is watching. And, again, it shouldn't matter who is watching if we want to be people of good character.

It would have been easy for Jeter to dismiss Mattingly on the ballfield that spring day. Just like it can be easy for us to write off any need for extra "effort" that seems to give us no immediate benefit. But great, moral people find ways to do the right thing when no one is watching because it's too important to the kind of person they want to be.

There's a reason why Jeter, even with his imperfections, is a shining example of who a team captain should be. He made the high-road version of the captaincy his own. It perfectly lived up to the clean cut, top class image that the New York Yankees wanted to project. That's why there would be a sea of "#2" shirts anytime you took a walk through the Yankee Stadium concourse. Parents respected him and kids looked up to him.

Of course, we can say that someone like Jeter had a tremendous amount to lose if he didn't act that way, more so than your average person. But how many times does that stop us from seeing celebrities and professional athletes still acting ignorant? It often doesn't matter because the force of their own entitlement blinds them to everything else.

Celebrities don't have to be role models, but I say it's to their benefit if they are. And we've seen plenty of examples of career implosions from those who were not trying nearly hard enough to embody this.

I encourage us all to keep the Jeter-rule in mind and embrace this in our own way. Being a righteous person may take a bit of extra work and require us to go out of our way at times. But it's worth it in the end because I believe we are on this planet for that sole purpose. We are here to be good citizens in an effort to make the world a slightly better place.

There is a reason why many of the major religions believe in judgment or "Last Judgment" by a higher power as a guiding principle. You never know who's watching...