ONE THING

Marshall Faulk is the new running back coach at University of Colorado. Faulk retired from playing football in 2007. He is one of the greatest running backs in NFL history. In 2011 he was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame.

When he was introduced to the team few of the young men knew what he had achieved. He didn’t take time to run down his accomplishments. He humbly told them to google him if they were interested. I would have enjoyed seeing the facial expressions of the athletes who took the time to do so.

I zeroed in on a comment he made to the team. He told them, “How you do one thing is how you do everything.”

He wanted to emphasize that everything is important. Effort is full speed. If you want to be the best there are no layers of effort. Everything you do feeds into the other things you do.

How you conduct yourself in your personal life will impact your on field performance. How you practice will determine how you play. How you play will feed into the team’s success.

There is a tendency to categorize life. We separate our personal persona from our profession. We keep our faith in one corner. We shove our social life into another. We neglect to fully understand that all of who we are is intertwined. Our life is more of a tapestry than slots to be filled.

How we do one thing is how we do everything. Anything we give partial effort to will bleed into other areas. The goal is to be consistent. A person who can be counted on to do our best.

What one thing you are giving partial effort? What do you need to change to ramp up your one thing?