One of the great pleasures while doing resilience training was working with the University of Southern California Trojan football team in 2015. There was a young man that was a walk-on for the team. To do that is a difficult task, yet he made the team. Although he loved football, his real passion was academics and gaining greater knowledge. I spoke to the team about how being focused and diligent can keep you out of frustration in life.
I stressed to them that procrastination is the enemy of achievement. Well this young man that walked on had got an injury and this could have affected his scholarship and other things. Yet because he decided to practice diligence and initiative, he was able to be so far ahead in his courses that he graduated early. If he had not been proactive, his injury and medical challenges could have derailed his pursuit of higher education.
The bottom line is having a proactive resilient mindset will always pay off in a good way. Every day in America 7000 people die, so we don’t have a moment, hour, day or anything else to waste. That young man that graduated from USC now has a front office job for a fortune 500 company.