Are You Willing to Bleed?
“I don’t play with a lot of finesse. I usually play like I’m breaking out of jail.”
- Stevie Ray Vaughan
Here’s a great story. Halftime had just ended. It was a close game. The Seahawks were coming out of the locker room. I was walking next to Marshawn Lynch. I leaned into him and said, “You got this Big Man.” He gave me that stone cold look that he has, and said, “Bitches ain’t willin’ to bleed”.
He turned and ran down the tunnel and out on the field.
Marshawn carried the team to a dominant victory that day.
To gentle his words a bit, what he was telling me was that the other team (Bitches) were not committed enough (ain’t willin’) to give the effort (to bleed) to be the best. Marshawn has a way of doing away with all of the “fluff” and niceties, he will get right to the point. He doesn’t have a filter because he speaks the truth as he sees it. He doesn’t care about stepping on others toes. He might hurt your feelings. But you know where he stands. I have great respect for that man.
Marshawn was willing to “bleed” to be the best. When I was with him, he would give me everything he had every day to make sure he was prepared for his next outing. Some days were harder than others, but he pushed himself to be the best at what he did.
My question to you, “Are you willing to bleed?”
Are you willing to do what it takes to be the best at what you do?
I’m sure you all will say, “I work hard.”
Working hard is just the entry fee into the “game”. So, don’t give yourself a medal.
I asked, “Are you willing to bleed.” To give everything you have. Collapse into bed at the end of the day. Wake up, excited about your challenges, and then outwork everyone in your profession … EVERY DAY?
I didn’t say, “outwork everyone in your office”, I asked if you were ready to outwork everyone in your profession? EVERY DAY. Not just with one customer. Not just one day. I’m talking EVERY DAY!
That is “bleeding”. Emptying yourself out to obtain what you have always dreamt of.
Sports Bleeders
Watch any documentary about Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant. They were “bleeders”. They took what God gave them and made it better. They didn’t look for excuses, they found reasons to get better.
Jordan is famous for taking any slight as a slap in the face, which would turn him into the basketball star that we remember.
Bryant would outwork everyone. His program started in the early hours of the morning. Four A.M. is when he would start his day. He would train right, eat right, think right and work right. He even worked sleep time into his schedule. He wasn’t just willing to be great, he wasn’t satisfied until he was seen as the best in the league.
Music
One of my favorite Blues artists was Stevie Ray Vaughan. He was amazing. I used his quote at the top of the article. He was a “bleeder”. I’ve seen concerts he played in where his hand actually bled after tearing off a callus.
One of my favorite clips is where he is playing on stage and he breaks a string. He doesn’t stop the song and take care of his guitar; he changes the arrangement with the 5 strings he has left. His guitar tech comes up behind him, unhooks the defective guitar, slides a new guitar in front of SRV, who doesn’t break stride or miss the vocal cue … he continues on with the song.
Watch him play. He was totally into his music. Sweat, blood and tears were falling from him as he played with a passion, like he was “breaking out of jail.”
Here is the Problem
This is what makes me mad. Everyone wants to be at the top. But very, very few are willing to bleed. They are not willing to push themselves to be the best. They are afraid to get “tired”. They are only concerned with the moment they are in. They all hope that lightning will strike and they will luck into that “opportunity”.
The problem with that is maybe the day you are coasting through your normal routine was the day the person that could make you the next up and comer is watching you. Opportunity doesn’t call and say, “Hey, I’m going to be knocking today, so make sure you are really working hard … TODAY.”
How To “Bleed”
It would be wrong for me to talk about how important “bleeding” for your passion is without giving you some ways that can get you on the right path. Warning: They aren’t easy.
- Set Lofty Goals
- Get Your Mind Right
- Exercise
- Surround Yourself with Positive, Driven People
- Push Yourself
Set Lofty Goals (Reach for more than you can grasp)
Where are you right now?
Where is the point that seems unattainable for you right now?
This point of “unattainability” is now the bullseye of your life.
When anyone asks, “Where do you see yourself in five years?”
Your response must be “I want to go farther than I can reach!”
The artist / sculpture Michelangelo once said, “The danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and coming up short; but in setting our aim too low and achieving our mark.”
We need to aim at the loftiest goal possible and then set out to accomplish it. Too many set these easy goals and then when they hit them, they sit back and say, “Well, I’ve accomplished my goal, I can stop now.” People stop their career arc with so much gas in the tank they could have climbed to the top of their industry, but they are content with where they are.
Even if you are at the top of your industry or you are retired, after 35 years of service, are you “done”? If you still have “rubber on your tires” you need to reset your path and chase that next passion, assuming that you have already achieved your first passion, of course.
Get Your Mind Right (Great Focus and Mindset)
Now that you have set your goals: How are you going to get there?
Make sure you have the tools and talents you need to get to that lofty level. If you don’t then learn how to do it by watching the best do their work.
Once you have the tool make sure you are willing to commit everything you have to being the best … every time you put on your work boots, step out on the stage, live your passion.
You don’t get the luxury of “mailing one in”. You can’t take a personal day. You need to “bleed” every single day.
Your mindset must be that no one can outwork me. No one can do this skill better than me. No one will “bleed” more for this opportunity than I will.
It doesn’t matter if you are in the mail room. Be the best.
If you are an elementary teacher with a goal to be a college professor; be the best teacher in the world, EVERY DAY. Before you know it you will be teaching the top scholars in the world.
A bar band playing at a small venue. Be the best. Bleed the most. Make people want to come to WATCH your showmanship and LISTEN to your words. Crawl off the stage between every set. Reset and then go “bleed” some more.
You NEED to want your dreams and goals more than anyone else.
At the age of 33 Julius Caesar, who was the governor of Spain at the time, visited a temple which held a statue of Alexander the Great. Caesar wept. Not because of the passing of Alexander, he wept because at the same age (33), Alexander ruled the known world, and would forever be remembered. Caesar saw that when his life was compared to that of Alexander, that he had accomplished nothing during his life thus far.
This got Caesar’s mind right, and he went to work. Eventually to become the Emperor of the Roman Empire.
Reach for more than you can touch while understanding that nothing but your best work will get you where you desire to be.
Exercise (Physically and Mentally)
In order to accomplish your goals and to give your greatest effort you must be physically and mentally fit. Being the best will take more out of you than you can imagine.
You can’t be too tired to push through the hard days. There can never be a deficit of energy when it comes time to be at your best. It will take everything you have to get to the big time – how much will be left in your tank when it is “your turn”?
I was at a small bar listening to some live music. The band played for 45 minutes and then left the stage for a break. I overheard a fan ask if they were going to play some more. The lead singer said, “It’s not that easy to sing for that long.”
I thought about that. Then I remembered being in Seattle watching Bruce Springsteen, at the age of 70, run up and down the stage. No, warm-up band. No co-singers.
For three and a half hours. 210 minutes. Dripping sweat and running from one end of the stage to the other, jumping up on the piano, bending over backwards with his mic stand. Seventy years old. He bled for his fans, putting on the same great show, 210 minutes every night, show after show after show for months at a time. Springsteen called he and his E-Street Band, “the best bar band in the world”.
This “kid” was struggling to sing for 45 minutes, in which members of his band sang two of the songs during the set. The lead singer was not sweating. He played a guitar and stood behind the mic stand.
This bar band was performing for 180 minutes during a 4-hour gig. I know you’re going to say that my math was wrong. A 4-hour gig would be 240 minutes. But if you take away the 15-minute breaks between sets you lose that 60 extra minutes.
Why was it hard on the lead singer? He was out of shape. He had not prepared himself physically to carry the show.
It’s not easy to be the best. You need to be in phenomenal shape. You need to prepare with such great focus that you would never need a break.
This not only goes for your body but also you must exercise your mind. You need to stay on top of your mental game. In the time in between your being at your work you need to be understanding how the best became the best.
Read more, listen more and watch more. Read the books, listen to the interviews, watch them perform their work. Why are they better than everyone else? They got lucky? Well, luck plays a part in getting your foot in the door, but you kick the door down through your preparation.
Exercise your body and mind so when your time comes to put on a show, no one can touch you!
Surround Yourself with Positive, Driven People
When you are working your way to the top, you have the right focus and mindset and you are in the best mental and physical shape of your life you now must surround yourself with people who push you farther than you think you can go.
It is a gift from God to have people who believe in you. People who are willing to push you to be the best, and then ask for nothing in return.
These people are out there. YOU need to find them and lean into them. You can’t be shy about asking for help. You can’t be offended when they tell you the truth that you know, but won’t admit.
When people who know you say that you aren’t pushing yourself, how do you respond? Sure, you can tell them they don’t know a thing about “your world”, and you might be right, or maybe you aren’t. Maybe these people are the ones you should be listening to. Not the ones who are patting you on the back.
Answer this: What does the person who is willing to tell you the truth get from telling you that you are working hard enough?
If when you lean in and they want you to pay them for “helping” you then you understand who they are.
But if they don’t want anything, but still took the risk that they might piss you off, only wanting to make you better, why wouldn’t you at least listen?
I’ve written 100 times about my Quarters. One that I don’t talk about much is my son, Alex. He’s 24, and ten-times better at everything than I was at his age. He truly is an “old soul”. I’m talking he’s at the same level as Troy Polamalu was when I worked with him at USC at nearly the same age.
When I ask his opinion about the steak I cooked, I know he will tell me the truth. When I send him a recording of a talk that I just did, he won’t just tell me, “Yeah, it was good.” He’ll go into depth on why he liked it and how I might transition better or how I lost the string of the topic or how I hit a homerun.
He gets nothing for telling me the truth. He knows I have thick skin and can take constructive criticism.
He is a sounding board for me as much as I am a mentor for him in his field. The only advantage I have on him in his profession is perspective. I’ve seen it done wrong, or I did it wrong, and learned how it can be done better. In a couple of years, he will need someone else to push him. But for now, he has me as his truth-teller. Just as he is mine!
You need to find people who are willing to “hurt your feelings” with the truth.
Alex’s strength is that he doesn’t just spit a comment out. He will back it up with the reasons for his opinion. This I can understand and use to get better.
The ones you need to watch out for are the ones who tell you how great you are or how much you suck, and then don’t follow it up with solid reasons. Run from these people. They are toxic to your advancement. They only want to hurt you or to hype you. In either case neither helps you to get better.
Push Yourself
Now that you understand where you want to end up, are willing to do what it takes, have prepared better than anyone in your field and have a strong supporting cast at your back, you need to do the hardest part. You need to work harder than you have ever worked. You’ve got to be willing to “bleed” for your dreams.
This is the hardest thing to do because people don’t like to be uncomfortable. They like to live in their little cocoon. It’s safe and warm. It’s consistent. You don’t have to sweat. You can just go through the motions and say all the right things. The sad truth is that if you want to bleed, you must become comfortable being uncomfortable.
Eventually the rubber will meet the road. You will have the opportunity to show that you are better than everyone else. And usually, it’s not just once. Most times you need to be the best, over and over and over again until one day, when you don’t see it coming, the right person will see you busting your ass.
They will see that you are doing cutting edge work. People you have never met will talk about how special you are.
You can’t put on a show one day and then not be around for two or three months and expect people to remember you. It’s the ones who show up every day and make a difference, move the needle, change the world for the better that we remember, but more importantly, these are the people that we can’t forget.
My friend Shea Hillenbrand, Major League Baseball All-star, once said, “You don’t make the show by hitting one home run, there’s got to be the anticipation that you will do it every time you step to the plate.”
This is life. This is the way things are. You’re not going to become the highest paid person in your profession on your first day. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t outwork the best person on your first day. You need to bleed every day you show up.
When people see you coming, they know they better stock up on bandages if they even hope to keep up.
This is the difference between dreaming to be the best and becoming the best. The willingness to bleed. To push yourself to the limit, every single day.
This is what makes common people UnCommon. The willingness to push yourself to be better than you are right now. It’s using everything at your disposal, every single day. Pulling every string. Asking the stupid question. Withstanding the jealousy of those who try to keep you down because they know you are better than they are.
It is up to you. Are you willing to bleed for your dreams? Or are you one of those people who Marshawn was talking about when he said, “Bitches ain’t willin’ to bleed”?
Move or Die … it’s your choice!
Have an amazing day!
