“If you want to be great, you really don’t have too many choices because it takes what it takes.” -Nick Saban
“Most people are average.
That’s how it works.
It doesn’t mean average people are bad people, they are just generally undifferentiated from the masses.
If you don’t want to be average, you have to upgrade the quality of your choices.
You don’t get to live the same way.”
-Ray Zingler on Twitter
I have many favorite quotes and sayings and hell in our modern world I could even add “posts” to that list, but one of my favorites is a clip from Nick Saban about the illusion of choices.
Nick said: “Kid’s today (because of their upbringings and rarely being told no) have the illusion of choices. But the fact of the matter is that if you want to be great, you really don’t have a lot of choices because it takes what it takes.
You have to do what it takes to be successful so you have to make the choices and decisions to have the discipline and the focus to the process of what you need to do to accomplish your goals. And all these guys who think they have a lot of choices are really sadly mistaken.”
It’s such a profound statement because not only is it true, there are layers on top of layers of truth baked inside the simple message.
I see it all the time whether in person or on social media where you hear these guys talking about how they want to be great or “the best they can be.”
They want to be great or the best they can be without even committing to the process of what it takes to be great.
You’re claiming you don’t have time for extra training sessions?
You don’t have the discipline to eat like an adult?
You’re staying up until 2 o’clock in the morning?
You can’t make these choices and then claim that you want to be the best you can be.
You’re literally not allowed to be the best you can become if you’re hamstringing your performance potential from the jump.
It’d be like saying you want to be the CEO of your company one day, but you can’t even follow simple fundamental instructions from your employer as they relate to showing up on time and acting as a professional.
If you don’t want to be average, you have to upgrade the quality of your choices. That’s not like a “good idea” that is required to merely give yourself a chance to be great.
If you don’t want to be like everybody else, you’re not allowed to do what everybody else does.
