Hey, it’s Mike Cooch at my home here in San Diego.
It’s NBA playoff basketball time and I’m glued to the TV.
It’s just so funny because I can go the entire season without watching an NBA game. But when it comes to playoffs time, I’m completely obsessed and it doesn’t matter who’s playing.
The reason why is because I just really enjoy watching people who are at the very top of their game. It doesn’t matter when it’s time for championships and playoffs, I’m glued to it. It doesn’t matter what sport, what time of year or anything, I am here for it.
I just like seeing people that are absolutely obsessed with being the best and you can see some of them at their top game in the NBA playoffs. This year we get to watch LeBron James, Steph Curry and the likes to play, and it’s just incredible.
Not all are good things
There are some of the stories comparing LeBron to Jordan and it is just simply amazing. It is like a birth of another legend, which LeBron is.
But what kills me, anytime I go to any game or watching something like this in a bar or anywhere, is to hear the general public and how critical they get of these athletes.
Lebron James, it is either you love him or hate him. What an unbelievable success story, both on the court and in business. Apparently, even in his family life, the guy is just so at the top of one of the most competitive fields in the world.
It’s unbelievable.
And yet you will hear a middle-aged, overweight person who has never competed at a high level, maybe at anything in their life, just absolutely tearing Lebron James apart. They talk about how bad he sucks, that he’s all washed up, he’s old and they’ll never be as good as this or that.
If you go to an NFL football game it is the exact same thing. The quarterback throws an interception and there’s always those loud mouth clowns that are just going crazy. They are screaming about how bad the quarterback sucks and how they could do better if they were in the game.
It just makes me insane that people are able to hold others to this incredibly high standard of performance yet they’re not doing the same for themselves.
Observe and evaluate
I’m actually in the process of reading an incredible book called ‘Principles by Ray Daleo’.
If you’re not familiar with it, he is one of the most successful investors ever and a very interesting introspective guy who wrote this book about what he thinks are the principles to life and success.
In it, he talks about that no matter what you are doing always remember that what separates us from the animals is our mental capacity to observe life and observe ourselves within life.
That we can actually step outside of ourselves and see who we are, what are we doing, what are we thinking, how are we behaving versus purely just reacting and responding like an animal in nature.
That’s what makes us different. This is something that not only Ray Daleo talks about but other philosophers too.
So when you see someone being that critical of somebody else and not able to step outside of themselves and observe themselves with that same lens, it is pretty painful to watch.
We’re all, of course, guilty of this. We’re all guilty of not performing at the highest level that we can in some area of our life.
Let us challenge ourselves
I would issue a challenge to anybody to maybe use this as an opportunity to make this year their playoff season.
Look at your performance and the key areas of your life, your business, your relationships, your health, and fitness. See how much fun you’re having and how much you’re celebrating in those areas in your life that you need to make tough decisions and changes that you haven’t.
Evaluate the areas where you need to show more discipline and you haven’t considered looking at like those athletes or celebrities that you watch on TV. Observe and evaluate yourself just like how you look and expect from that celebrity who hasn’t shed the 15 pounds before the film as they should normally do.
You know, it’s very easy to be critical. Just try to look at yourself like that.
Turn that lens and consider yourself just as important as a pro athlete or a celebrity. Somebody who is playing a game for a living and somebody who is acting as somebody else for a living.
They get put on this pedestal yet those of us who are living real lives, who are building real businesses, trying to provide jobs, all that type of stuff is sometimes not holding ourselves to anywhere near as high of that standard.
Your life is just as important.
Your career is certainly just as important as somebody playing a game for a living or acting for a living. So take the opportunity to step outside yourself, observe yourself, and act like it’s important and find that high standard for yourself.
The challenge is issued. I’m going to do the same. You can count on it.
