Don't just Stand There!

Often times, life imitates sports.

In addition to owning and running my own professional coaching business,  I have been coaching high school and college baseball since 1993.  In those 17 years there is a statement I have made to my players time and time again: Don't just stand there!  The reason being, that if you're standing still you are not helping you or your team.

If you're the catcher and there is a ground ball in the infield you better be running down the line to back up first base. If there is a throw coming to third base from right field, that pitcher better be behind third base to back-up.  Being the best player or, for that matter, the best team doesn't always mean you are better physically than everyone else.  More often than not, it's that you are more prepared than the other team.
Life is not about doing 5,000 things at once. It is about doing three or four things 5,000 times.  Don't just stand there is a learned skill that needs to be practiced over and over and over again.

Don't just stand there is such a self serving statement in both life and sports.  Don't just stand there means don't just watch the play happen.  Get involved in it.  How many of you are there today  watching the game of life instead of getting involved in it?  Don't just stand there is a way for you to be active more, breathe more and, most of all, get into the action more.    A lot of times in sports you will hear people say “Wow that was a lucky play”.  If they didn't get lucky, they would have lost.  Other times you might hear someone say “Rather be lucky than good”.  Luck is a funny word in sports and, in fact, even funnier in life.  Google the word luck and you will come up with hundreds of definitions and meanings. The one I see that stands out above the rest is the true meaning of Luck to me: when preparation meets opportunity.

I will not buy the fact that life is left to a mystical word I have no control over.  Why are people super successful in life or sports is simple.  They Don't just stand there! They work and, work and work... harder and harder each and every day, putting themselves in position.  And what you ask, are they putting themselves in position to do?  Be in the right place at the right time and then someone can say : “Boy where they lucky” without knowing the truth that they had been preparing for that opportunity the whole time.

Remember be positive, be real and live your life In The Zone.