Sunday, October 28, 2007

Message #34 - Love The Process

Winning Does Not Lead to Passion; Passion Leads to Winning

You must absolutely Love The Process in order for this success principle to work. You're wondering "WHAT IS THE PROCESS". Well, the process is EVERYTHING that comes before the success. This includes the PRACTICE time; the REHEARSAL time; the DRILLING time; the LEARNING time; the GETTING THE DETAILS RIGHT time; the REBOUNDING AFTER A SET BACK time; the OVERCOMING A BAD CALL time; the REHABILITATION AFTER AN INJURY time; the THINKING ABOUT QUITTING time. All in all. you must love the PROCESS in order to reach the highest goal possible.

It is the LOVE of the PROCESS that separates the mere team members (what ever the team - sports, business, whatever) from the State, National and World Champions! Granted the champions are team members too, but before the champions became champions they first LOVED the process.

Think about this. I've read when Michael Jordan played, his love of the game of basketball was so great that he would have played for nothing (in fact he had a "love of the game clause" in his contract that allowed him to play basketball when ever and where ever he wanted). Larry Bird has said the same thing. Other great achievers in various disciplines have said the same thing..."they would have worked and toiled at their craft regardless of any reward". Quite simply THEY LOVED THE PROCESS, and by loving the process they were able to achieve great success.

It the case of Michael and Larry, it was their PASSION for the game of Basketball that paved the way for them to become great basketball players. This is going to sound crazy, but these two great basketball players in my opinion, Michael Jordan and Larry Bird, actually loved the game more than they loved WINNING. Think about Michael's career with the Chicago Bulls how he hung in there all those losing years with the Bulls but he himself playing really great basketball. It was his great love of the game that came before the great periods of winning.

A lot of good athletes in high school sometimes fail to excel when they get to college, or even quit their sport after they get to college. I believe these athletes realized they were going to have to "climb the mountain" again and do all the work necessary to get back on top (just like they did in High School), and when they relalized this they didn't want to do it again. IT IS A LOVE OF THE PROCESS THAT IS THE FOUNDATION FOR SUCCESS.

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