🏀 Are you a student of the game?

The 5-minute weekly newsletter to help married fathers feel seen, think differently and take action.

What’s good! Y’all see that eclipse yesterday?

Neat stuff.

-Collier

I mean…should we just end it here? Dagger.

My first thought after reading this was how many times I have either said to myself or out loud how I want to be a great father, husband, friend, employee, etc. but have fallen well short.

Being exceptional, by definition, is uncommon AKA not a lot of people are doing it. That usually means doing an incredible amount of work on yourself physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally day in and day out.

I think we underestimate how big of an undertaking that is. I know I have.

Whatever goals you have for yourself, your marriage and your family, let’s respect the amount of work it will take to get there and trust the process.

In sports speak, to be exceptional, we have to prepare to leave it all out on the field.

Get the fundamentals down and the level of everything you do will rise.

That’s what Michael Jordan had to say about his craft - and a principle that can also be applied to a lot of things.

I am guilty of trying to take shortcuts at different times in my life - trading hard work for immediate satisfaction and flat out relying on whatever skills I thought I possessed at that time.

In turn, I sacrificed the chance to learn, understand and practice the fundamentals needed to excel in various areas of my life.

In a lot of ways, I am mad at myself for that.

But I am encouraged that I have another chance to change that narrative especially as it relates to parenting, marriage and personal growth.

If we can be “students” of the game as some of my coaches growing up would say, then leveling up becomes much more attainable.

As I get older, the more I appreciate those who have gotten their hands dirty with the fundamentals of their faith, sport, business, family life, marriage and so much more.

Pick your ONE BIG THING for the day.

The idea, from Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky’s book Make Time, is to decide on one activity or task that’s going to define your day.

That one big thing could be whatever is most urgent to get done at your job, with your wife, your family or something personal.

This’ll be the thing you have to get done that day. Everything else is secondary.

I know to-do lists can get long and tedious and there will always be an endless amount of things we “could do.”

But honing in on the one big thing for the day will help us sort out our priorities and bring more clarity and productivity!

(Source: Ali Abdaal’s blog post 10 time management tips to up your productivity.)

That’s a wrap, folks!

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