Do I have the three building blocks for success?
On a hot, humid day in August 1999…
During the summer before my sophomore year of high school, my friend Bob called me the day before two-a-day football practices were to begin.
“Dude, you need to come and play football,” he said.
“Me? What? Why,” I responded. He suggested something about how it would be good for me and that I might be actually good. (I played defense in hockey and liked to hit people hard.) So I joined him, and played my sophomore, junior, and senior years. Before our senior season, our team got a new coach. His name was Doug Miller, a former offensive lineman at the University of Maryland in the 1980s. He was a real estate agent by morning and football coach by afternoon. He was stern and had a real nasty side if you made him angry.
At the start of the season, Miller posted the depth chart, and I found that I was selected as one of the team’s starting outside linebackers. I played defensive back my first two seasons, mainly the safety position (the player in the far back of the defense who defends against long passes and is generally seen as the last line of defense to prevent against the other team scoring), so this was new for me.
Nevertheless, in our first game, I played well, and our team broke a 13-game losing streak. Following another solid performance in our second game, everything changed in the third game. I got manhandled by the other team. They were bigger, faster, and hit harder than anyone I had gone against in the first two games. I crumbled, seemingly unable to maintain my position and area of responsibility on the field. One of my main responsibilities was “containing” any runs. In simple terms, it means that if the other team tried to run the ball to the outside, I had to take a position that was even further outside and force the ball carrier back into the center of the field where my team had more defenders. The football term is “outside leverage.” In the first half alone, I failed in this responsibility three separate times. During halftime, Miller screamed at me for my poor performance. Our team lost by more than 30 points.
The next morning, we watched film of the game, and I could see how terribly I played. Miller didn’t say anything.
Entering the next week of practice on Monday, I wasn’t sure if I would still be on the starting defense, but to my surprise, I was. The next day, our starting defense was practicing different formations against an offensive group that was simulating our next opponent’s offense. I was playing my usual position and was responsible for maintaining outside leverage.
During one particular play, the quarterback snapped the ball and handed it off to the running back, who started running toward the side. The offensive player in front of me tried to get outside of me to block me inside, but I fought off the block, maintained outside leverage, and forced the running back to cut inside where he was tackled by another defender.
Miller blew his whistle. “Run it again!” he screamed.
Everyone lined up, and the offense ran the play again. And again, I did my job.
“That’s it!” Miller screamed. Everyone know it wasn’t a good yell. It wasn’t one of those “eureka” moments. It was someone who had reaching his boiling point. “God damn it! That’s it! He was pointing at me. His face was bright red. I froze. Everyone froze. He threw down his clipboard and started walking toward me with his finger still pointing at me.
“That’s it! I’ve had it! Every week you come to practice, and you do it right. And every week you get into the game, and you choke! You’re a fucking practice player, and I’m not going to put up with it anymore!
I looked back at him, still frozen, unsure of what to do. My teammates stared at me, equally stunned. In that moment, I felt worthless…because he was right. I did do it right in practice, and I’d choke in the games. What did it mean to choke? It meant to fail. I had failed, and I felt like a failure.
Miller stuck to his word, too. I didn’t play in the next two games. I eventually worked my way back up the depth chart toward the end of the season, this time playing defensive back, a much better position for me to play. I finished the season with solid performances and some good, memorable games.
…………………………
Two years later, wearing a military uniform and a parachute…
A little less than two years later, I was barely 19 years old, wearing an Air Force flight suit and a parachute. I was in a UV-18B Twin Otter aircraft that had taken off from the US Air Force Academy’s landing strip.
I was in a course called Freefall, in which Air Force Academy and a select group of ROTC cadets earned the US military’s basic parachutist badge by completing five successful solo skydives. It was a very exclusive program, as each Air Force ROTC unit in the country only had one slot. During my freshman year in Ohio State’s Air Force ROTC program, my unit commander selected me for the opportunity.
Following three full days of ground training, nine other cadets and I completed our first successful skydive on a beautiful sunrise coming up over the great plains. A few hours later, I completed my second jump, and a few hours after that, I began my third skydive. By this time, I tired. Exhausted, really. If you’ve ever jumped out of a plane, you know the adrenaline rush you get from the experience. And most of the time, you’re connected to a tandem instructor, or if you have your own parachute, you have two jumpmasters with you. Not me. I had gone out solo my first time. And my second time. I was physically, emotionally, and mentally exhausted.
That fatigue led me to have poor body position when exiting the plane. Instead of falling belly to earth, I began to flip. For a few seconds, I didn’t know which way was down and which way was up. My limbs were flailing everywhere. In one instant, the ground was in view, then the sky and the plane as it continued to fly on. Then the ground, and the sky again.
Almost instinctively, my training kicked in. I arched my body, pushing my hips forward and bringing my arms and legs back behind me. This instantly leveled me out and put me in a belly-to-earth position. Just as a I should be. A moment later, I pulled my ripcord and deployed my parachute, which opened cleanly. A few minutes later, I landed safely on the ground. When reviewing my skydive, my instructor said that I had failed because of my uncontrolled flips.
In this program, two failed jumps meant you went home without the parachutist badge. I didn’t have any more room for failure, and I still had two more jumps to go.
The next morning, my jumpmaster for my fourth jump walked in. One look at him was all it took for me to know his background: Air Force Special Operations. He had a grizzled look to him…just like Doug Miller. I was scared, just at the time I needed to perform. If I failed, I went home. If I passed the jump, I had an opportunity for to complete my fifth and earn my parachutist badge.
In the plane, I tried to focus. A few cadets jumped before me, and then it was my time. The jumpmaster grabbed me by the collar of my flight suit, pulled me close, and put his finger in my face. It was eerily similar to the finger pointing and look Doug Miller had two years before.
“STAND IN THE DOOR!” he yelled, moving his finger from me to the door I was about to jump out of.
In that instant, the football practice flashed before my eyes. “You’re a practice player.”
Was I? Was I going to fail again? Would I succeed? What would it take to be successful? I mean, I wanted to be in the plane in that moment, so I was motivated. I had the same training that everyone else had, so I was adequately prepared. What was wrong with me? What was missing? In that moment, with one hand inside and one hand outside the fuselage, half my body hanging out of the door. Wind blowing past me at 100 miles an hour while I stood 5,000 feet above the ground. I spoke to myself, uttering only four words.
“I can do this.”
I jumped…
I came out of the plane and fell belly to earth. I deployed my parachute and landed safely. I made my fifth jump a few hours later and earned my parachutist badge.
What happened? What was the difference?
Motivation…Preparation…What was missing?
………………………..
The answer I hadn’t seen before…
About a year later, a United States Air Force pilot came to Ohio State for a one-year fellowship. He was a lieutenant colonel and had been in the Air Force for close to 20 years. He spoke to our ROTC unit and said that his office was open if any of us wanted to meet him. He was a pilot, and it was my dream to do what he did.
I reached out to him via email, and he invited me to his office for a meeting. I asked about his career, his background, and what it was like to be a pilot. While I don’t remember much of what he said, there is one thing that has always stuck with me.
I asked him what he thought it took to be successful in the Air Force…and I suppose life in general. He leaned back in his chair for a moment and said three short sentences.
Be motivated.
Be prepared.
Be confident.
In that moment, it didn’t hit me that he had exactly named what had gone through my mind a year before. I wasn’t self-aware enough to think about it at the time. But as I grew older, and I think (perhaps, hope) I grew more self-aware, I reflected on this. And it all made sense.
Motivation. Preparation. Confidence. The latter was the missing piece. It was what I lacked in football; it’s what was missing in the aircraft…
As I grew into my 20s and eventually my 30s, I thought about this advice more and more, especially as I became a supervisor with direct reports, a military officer responsible for people in my unit, and a leadership instructor developing CIA officers. These three tenets were the basis of success, and they also became my own personal leadership philosophy: Ensure that the people around me had the motivation, preparation, and confidence to accomplish their mission.
As you think about your approach to success (and everyone’s definitions will be different, and that’s okay), think about how these three factors affect your ability to succeed:
Motivation
There has been significant research conducted on motivation. Scientists and psychologists have determined that there are two types of motivation: intrinsic, in which you are self-motivated because of how completing the task makes you feel good, and extrinsic, in which you strive to achieve something because you will receive a reward or avoid a negative consequence. Research also indicates that your motivation, in many cases, depends on three things: your psychological state, environment, and past.[1] When thinking about these overarching factors, ask yourself:
- How am I feeling about what I’m doing?
- Does what I’m doing excite me? Does it bring me down?
- What’s my energy level as I do my work/assignment/task?
- What’s my anticipation for what I’m about to do? Is it positive or negative?
- How do I feel after I’ve done it? Do I want to do more?
Preparation
In writing this section, it was difficult to find research that described overarching themes of preparation. Rather, I found a lot of tips for preparing for an exam or emergency preparedness.
- Do I have a clear understanding of what I need to do?
- What resources do I need to accomplish my task?
- What training or skills do I need?
- Do I have the information I need to make the right decisions?
- What is my plan and timetable for accomplishing my task?
- What else do I need to learn?
- Who can help me learn more?
Confidence
Confidence is a tricky thing. It’s not a switch, something you turn on and off. It’s a dial. In areas in which you’re an expert or are comfortable, you can turn up the dial. In areas you’re not, you turn it down. But it’s hard to know where and how to do that. Ask yourself these questions to help find the right level of confidence
- How do I feel about my abilities and skills related to the task?
- Do I believe that I’m good enough?
- Do I believe I can do it?
- Do I believe I’m the best person in the best position to do what I need to do? If not, is “good enough” good enough for me?
- What, if anything, is holding me back?
Answering these questions can help you develop and get a true self-assessment of your motivation, preparation, and confidence around your different roles. If a particular area is lacking, you know where you can focus. Then, after some attention to that area, ask yourself these questions again and see if anything has changed.
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4864984/. Accessed July 15, 2024.
