Granted this list is skewed toward the present day and far from definitive, but now that you have read the list, pick out all the overnight sensations on it. Now look at the list and take out all the people that never had to overcome any obstacles or suffered any setbacks. How many names remained on your list? I was able to whittle the original list of 25 names down to just 25 names.

Many of us today would prefer to rely on ponzi schemes, get rich quick propositions or a lottery ticket rather than hard work and determination. We often reward flash in the pans over tried and true. Look at the Oscars, if you are lucky enough to be the flavor of the month and are up for your first award, you are much more likely to win than the people that have been around for a while and are nominated against you. Most people in the major categories that win out of nowhere never win another, while the people that win multiple Oscars generally failed to win on their first nomination.

The latest overnight sensation the media is fixating on is point guard Jeremy Lin of the New York Knicks. Like many people, I am both intrigued and impressed by his recent accomplishments, but calling him an overnight sensation is a disservice to him and to us. The truth is it took Jeremy Lin about seven years of hard work to become an overnight sensation. He didn’t just drop out of the sky and start playing for the NY Knicks.

In 2005-2006 Lin led his Palo Alto High School team to a record of 32-1 and upset nationally ranked Mater Dei, 51–47, to win the California Interscholastic Division II state title. He was first team All-State and Northern California Division II Player of the Year. Despite his accomplishments he was not offered a single division I scholarship. One of the ugly truths in sports is that many coaches and general managers still focus on ethnicity and pure athleticism over production, while failing to measure a player’s heart and mindset.

Lin went on to play at Harvard University where he earned All-Ivy League honors his last three years and was one of 11 finalists for the Bob Cousy award (awarded to the top point guard in college basketball) which went to Greivis Vasquez of the University of Maryland. Again despite his accomplishments, he went undrafted by the NBA. After playing on the Dallas Mavericks summer league team he was offered a spot by them as well as three other teams, eventually signing with his favorite team from his childhood the Golden State Warriors.

After seeing some playing time with the Warriors and being sent down to the D-league and performing well there, the Warriors decided to let Lin go on the first day of training camp this season. The Houston Rockets quickly signed him but were already stocked at his position and had to let him go the day before the season started, and a few days later the New York Knicks signed him. Finally all Jeremy’s hard work is paying off as all his preparation finally met up with an opportunity and he’s in the midst of riding that wave right now.

Far from and overnight sensation, this is a classic story of how the power of belief coupled with perseverance can lead to great accomplishments. A few good/great games do not make a career, so Jeremy still has a ways to go and will likely face a few more hurdles, but with the strong foundation he has built for himself, I would certainly be more than comfortable betting on his future.

As Calvin Coolidge famously said “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”

You can follow Sam on Twitter @SuperTaoInc

You can follow Sam @SuperTaoInc

How many of you have ever opted not to attend a party, event or school meeting etc. because you need to work on a report that you have to complete by the end of next week? While it is certainly a commendable habit to put first things first, if you are like most people, I suspect you can remember a time or two (in a situation like this) when you ended up getting sidetracked by some news you heard and never ended up working on the report or project at all.

Envision the gains in our productivity as a nation, if so many of us were not consumed by things like TMZ, ESPN, talk radio and the Entertainment Tonight style shows. We treat rumors and breaking news on these mediums like emergency broadcast system warnings. How many times have you dropped what you are doing to follow a breaking story about a celebrity or sports personality? I suspect Brett Favre’s repeated retirements and un-retirements dropped our nations GDP by a point or two in the years they were happening.

What value do we gain by being among the first to know when Lindsay Lohan gets arrested again, or finding out what Indianapolis is going to do with Peyton Manning? Yet people are running around obsessing about these things daily and to what end? The fact is, once these things happen (for better or for worse) we’ll hear about it within a day or two at most and all that obsessing did was put us farther behind the eight ball.

Whenever a major development/rumor hits the news regarding a team or player I am associated with, my phone blows up with calls and texts from people I rarely hear from otherwise. What’s going to happen is going to happen whether they find out before or after it becomes official. Why waste your time worrying about it when you can be playing with your kids or doing something productive instead?

People who learn to turn all of these outside influences off and go about doing what they need to do, tend to be the most successful in my experience. Ever wonder why so-called pressure situations do not seem to bother some players, while other players fold under them? The ones who learn to focus on what they are doing and block out all the noise are the ones who are impervious to pressure.

Why do football kickers miss so many otherwise routine kicks when the game is on the line? It’s because they are thinking about how much the kick means and all the implications (noise) rather than just letting their body do what it normally does without needing to think at all. Show me a person who is worrying about things beyond their control and I’ll show you a person who is underperforming in whatever they are doing.

So the next time you hear yourself telling someone else ‘that you don’t have enough time to _________ (fill in the blank),’ think about all the time you are wasting on things beyond your control and use that time to do whatever you filled in the blank above with.

You can follow Sam on Twitter @SuperTaoInc

Have you ever wondered why so many consensus All-American players who are selected at the top of the various sports drafts are washouts? I have seen professional sports teams make the same mistakes year in and year out. There are several reasons these mistakes occur repeatedly. Probably the most common one has to do with covering your ass. If you take the consensus top player at his position out of Michigan State University and he washes out, you can justify it by pointing out that everyone else was wrong about him too.

But what if you find a guy at Mississippi Valley State University at that same position who you think has the ability to dominate in the league and you take him with your top pick and he washes out? If you answered you lose your job, you are most likely correct. This creates an atmosphere/culture where very few are brave enough to trust their own evaluations. You are never going to reach your potential in whatever you do if you are more worried about not making a mistake, than you are about hitting a home run.

Another factor in these mistakes is the failure to account for, or more often, a willingness to overlook a player’s character. If a guy is 6’3” 220 lbs, runs like the wind, and catches everything that is thrown to him, it does you no good to take him if he has a horrible work ethic, is a “me” guy, or is always getting arrested. A top college coach (who won a national championship) once told me in regards to recruiting: “It’s not who you sign, it’s who you keep and develop.”

One other fairly common factor is the infatuation with physical prowess. Once you reach the highest level in sports, the difference in physical ability is small, but the difference in heart, mind and character can be huge. These are generally what separate the men from the boys, not their physical gifts. Not coincidentally, when you field a team filled with players who possess great heart, mind and character, you are likely to play with much more cohesiveness and consistently prove the “experts” wrong.

Professional and college football are both filled with teams who possess great physical talent but struggle on the field (e.g. the Philadelphia Eagles or California Bears). I find it far more impressive to follow teams that bring in players who fit their team’s culture and beat those physically gifted teams (e.g. New Orleans Saints, San Francisco 49ers and Oregon Ducks).

The consensus top player at his position from Michigan State University that I referred to above is Charles Rogers a 6’3” 220 lbs wide receiver who caught everything and ran a 4.4 40-yard dash. He was the second player picked overall in the 2003 NFL draft and accumulated career stats of 36 receptions for 440-yards and four touchdowns. The guy from Mississippi Valley State’s name is Jerry Rice a 6’2” 210 lbs wide receiver who ran a (too slow for an NFL wide receiver) 4.71 40-yard dash and became arguably the greatest receiver in NFL history.

Not surprisingly after Rice’s slow 40 time was revealed, only a few teams remained in contact with him prior to the draft. But legendary coach Bill Walsh believed in his own evaluation of Rice, despite all the detractors, and traded up to pick him with the 16th pick in the first round. The rest is history.

I always tell my clients regardless of whether they are athletes, coaches or business leaders, that if you can’t trust yourself, how can you expect anyone else to put their trust in you? Sadly, very few coaches and general managers trust their own evaluations above those of the crowd, to their own detriment.

You can follow Sam on Twitter @SuperTaoInc

Some of you may already be familiar with “S.M.A.R.T” goals, but for those reading this that are not, here is a brief summary of what they entail:

S is for specific. Let’s say you want to become a better free throw shooter next season. M is for measurable. I’m going to shoot 100 extra free throws and visualize shooting another 100 everyday. A is for achievable. This means is it under your control? In this case it is, so we’ll move on. R is for realistic. This means if you follow the plan is it likely to provide the results you want. T is for time-bound. In this case it would be the date that the following season begins. Every goal needs a completion date.

Now that I have given you a structure for your New Year’s goal, I am going to address two of the most common reasons people give when failing to reach their New Year’s goals/resolutions.

The first is that they lacked enough willpower to resist falling back into the bad habits they wanted to eliminate. People often talk about willpower as though they are born with a finite amount of it. I hear them say that some people have a lot of it and some don’t have much at all. The truth is that willpower comes directly from learned behaviors. So anyone can learn to have an enviable amount of willpower. As you learn new ways of coping (and turn them into habits) your willpower will increase exponentially.

The second excuse I hear is that they lacked enough motivation to take them to the end of their goal. More likely, what they viewed as a lack of motivation, was blindness to habits they have that got in their way. There are usually between five and ten different sources (social, situational and environmental to name a few) that are reinforcing the bad habits they fail to see.

Since we are blind to them, we never challenge them. This makes us attribute our failure to our lack of motivation or effort, when in fact it was because we were only attacking at most a fourth of the issues involved. Meanwhile the other three-fourths were running all over us unopposed. Now imagine trying to win a basketball game by guarding just one player on the opposing team and letting the other four run around unopposed. Not hard to figure out who wins that game is it?

This is one reason most diets fail. For example, people who go on diets generally eat less and exercise more, which will definitely work. The problem lies in that they are only attacking those two elements, while they’re blind to the underlying reasons that cause them to overeat and not exercise in the first place (and sadly these are not going to disappear without a fight). It’s also well known that people take on the traits of those around them, so if you are dieting in the midst of a bunch of people who do not exercise and like to eat, your likelihood of succeeding drops exponentially.

One final point, that is the key to success in anything: You must acknowledge and accept that you are going to have setbacks, and you cannot ever take them personally. Setbacks are part of the process. It’s unrealistic to expect a straight line to success. I often tell my clients that ‘setbacks are our friends’ because by going through them we learn valuable lessons that give us the skills we never would have had otherwise, that will help us in the future.

Once you have your S.M.A.R.T goal, you are equipped with a plan of action to help lead you to its fruition. Author F.M. Knowles once said “He who breaks a resolution is a weakling; He who makes one is a fool.” So why don’t you abandon your New Year’s resolutions this year and replace them with S.M.A.R.T goals.

You can follow Sam on Twitter @SuperTaoInc

In situations like this it is common for people to rush to judgment and label the perpetrators involved as thugs. While I certainly do not condone this type of behavior, it is not fair to define any individual by a singular act. Yancy Gates, the player who threw the first devastating punch, seemed sincere in his apology to the recipient of the blow Kenny Frease. In fact, Prosecutor Deters pointed to Frease’s acceptance of Gates’ apology as an act of forgiveness that mattered in his decision not to prosecute.

Taking a closer look at the events that contributed to the brawl, I find the words and lack of action on the part of Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin to blame for the situation. Listen to this quote from Cronin, “True toughness is dealing with the environment and walking away. We lost our head. We were winning when it all started. My guys lost their cool. We were concerned with everything except execution.” Great words, outstanding and completely appropriate you are probably thinking and I would agree.

The problem is that this quote came not after last weekend’s game, but rather about an altercation that took place in the same game on December 12th, 2009 . Clearly coach Cronin sounded concerned about his team’s lack of poise but it appears that he has done little to change the culture that lead to it.

Here are a few of his quotes following the brawl this past weekend, “If my players don’t act the right way, they will never play another game at Cincinnati. I just told my guys, I’m going to meet with my AD and my president, and I’m going to decide who’s on the team going forward. That’s what the University of Cincinnati’s about, period. I’ve never been more embarrassed.” And this, “I made everybody take their jersey off, and they will not put it on again until they have a full understanding of where they go to school and what the university stands for and how lucky they are to even be there, let alone have a scholarship, because there’s a whole lot of kids that can’t pay for college and don’t get to go to school.”

I wrote about previously about ‘Walking Your Talk’ here last May.

Not personally knowing the players involved or their history, I am not sure what an appropriate punishment would entail. But I do know that you cannot use strong language like ‘never play another game for Cincinnati’ and ‘I’m going to decide who’s on the team going forward,’ followed by a simple suspension of six games (which includes just one league game) and still retain the respect of your players.

Contrast this with how the head coach of the University of Oregon football team (Chip Kelly) who has only been a head coach for three years, suspended his star running back LeGarrette Blount for 10-games after his first game ever as a head coach. Following that season, he kicked his star quarterback Jeremiah Masoli off the team, and this season he kicked off pre-season all-American punt returner/defensive back Cliff Harris.

Upon hearing Cronin’s words and watching his actions following the game, it is clear that he lacks the leadership qualities necessary to maximize the talents of those under his charge, and though it is sad, it is hardly surprising they acted out in the way that they did.

You can follow Sam on Twitter @SuperTaoInc

Normally I encourage people to immerse themselves in their challenges and face them head-on, so they can gain the experience necessary to work through them. If you have a fear of elevators, it is easy to expose yourself to riding elevators and learn the skills necessary to overcome that fear. If you are afraid of public speaking, you can similarly make it a point to speak in front of people until you gain confidence. However, if you have a hard time dealing with the death of people you care about, it is (thankfully) not easy to immerse yourself in that and begin to gain those new skills.

I always preach about the importance of acknowledging your fears and facing them head on. One way to do this is by learning to live in the moment and learning from all of the things you experience whether positive or negative. I can’t change the fact that he died, but I do have complete control over my response to his death. That’s why I am using it for my, and hopefully others, benefit here today.

I am reminded today of the importance of telling the people that are meaningful to you, how much of an impact they had on you, before they die. My relationship with Chester was more jocular than close, but that does not mean he did not have a strong effect on me. Chester and I met early in his professional career and we used to play basketball together regularly.

Chester attended Clemson University, the same university as a player named William Perry who became known as “the refrigerator” (for his size) when he played for the Chicago Bears. I always called Chester “the real refrigerator” because he looked like a refrigerator with a head, arms and legs attached. He was as solid as a refrigerator from head to toe, and did not have a big gut like William Perry did.

I find it ironic that I was in the locker room of the same gym that I used to hoop with Chester in when I heard the sad news. It seems like time stood still as I remembered how he would come barreling down the court like a point guard and drive the lane before dishing off a perfect pass to me or someone else for a layup. I had rarely seen guys that were half his size, handle the ball like a magician the way Chester could. We all marveled at this gentle giant’s nimbleness on the court.

Chester was different than most pro athletes I’ve known. He was a big country boy at heart, but also a little kid in a man’s body. I don’t think I ever saw Chester lose his temper (and if you have ever played pick-up basketball you know what an amazing feat that is). He had a great mindset in that he always accepted the way things were and dealt with them both on and off the court/field. I never saw him fall into the trap of trying to control those around him. He was a hard worker and a generous human being who will be missed by many.

As a good friend of mine said to me when his son died at a young age…. “Hug your kids.” I’ll go one step further and say hug all the people you love and let them know how much they mean to you before they are gone.

You can follow Sam on Twitter @SuperTaoInc

Lincoln’s Emancipation proclamation, which led to the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States constitution which abolished slavery, was driven by his belief that all people are created equal, despite the previously long held belief that this was not true. Joseph Lister saved innumerable lives when he bucked the system and became the father of antiseptic surgery.

Now I’m not saying Chip Kelly’s work in football compares in the grand scheme of things to any of those men’s work, but it does share a key essential element with each one of them. The belief that the way things are done right now are not necessarily the optimal way of doing things. It takes someone willing to look outside the norms of whatever field they are in to truly make a transformational difference. It is in human nature to become complacent when comfortable. Thank God there are people around us, like the late Steve Jobs, who are able to overcome their wiring for complacency to challenge the status quo and help us move forward.

A vast majority of people tend to operate in two modes when norms are challenged, they either become dismissive of what’s new or different, or they overreact and call the new behavior reckless or silly. In the case of all the people mentioned thus far, I see anything but recklessness behind their behavior. All of them used empirical evidence and experimentation on the road to their conclusions. None of the above mentioned people were seen to be acting on whims, so how could their work be considered reckless? In fact, in all four cases I would suspect they took methodical routes to where they ended up.

Just like it is hard to imagine the Earth at the center of our Solar System, having slaves in our country or a high percentage of people dying during minor surgical procedures today. I imagine a few years from now, a lot of the behaviors that Chip Kelly is being called reckless for employing, will be the new accepted norms in football and those who are not practicing those methods will be the ones called reckless.

One of the things Chip Kelly has been accused of being reckless with is his propensity for going for it on fourth down which has earned him the nickname “Big Balls Chip.” But not only is he not the first coach to employ this strategy, even that nickname was stolen from Pete Carroll whose USC student body originated “Big Balls Pete” complete with juggling hand motions, for his propensity to go for it on fourth down years ago.

I would argue that Chip Kelly is still too conservative and still has more growth ahead of him. Going for it on fourth down is hardly reckless as UC Berkeley professor David Romer showed in his exhaustive study of the subject. In fact there is a high school coach (ironically also named Kelley but with an extra e) who since 2007 not only goes for it on EVERY fourth down regardless of field position, down or distance, but also always goes for two point conversions and onside kicks nearly as often as well. His record by the way, is 90-19-1 with two state championships and his team is currently ranked #1 in the state this season.

Despite all the overwhelming evidence about the soundness of these strategies, coaches not surprisingly (remember human nature; we are wired for comfort) have been slow to adopt them. On top of all the hard data supporting these strategies, there is a strong mental edge as well. When you know you are going to be using all four downs, it changes how your team perceives down and distance, and empowers them to open up the playbook even more (to the consternation of defensive coordinators). Success on fourth down is also a momentum changer, as teams who convert a fourth down tend to score on over 75% of those drives.

So the next time you hear a commentator question the logic of Chip Kelly’s play calling or call him reckless, remember at one time the conventional wisdom was that three yards and a cloud of dust was the best strategy for winning in football.

Happy Thanksgiving!

You can follow Sam on Twitter @SuperTaoInc

This coming week features the game between current BCS #4 ranked Stanford hosting BCS # 7 Oregon and on the weekend of the 25th BCS #1 ranked LSU will be hosting BCS #8 Arkansas. In addition to all those games with national implications riding on them, November is the month a majority of the in-state rivalries take place and most fans do not soon forget which teams won those games and hold all bragging rights heading into the following season.

Despite their importance and the memories created by the games played in November, one must remember that in order to make those games, games of significance, the teams involved have to win most, if not all of their games leading up to November. This is best achieved by staying in the moment each and every week, and focusing on your own improvement. If LSU was thinking about their upcoming game with Alabama in November when they opened the season against Oregon, chances are the outcome of that game would not have come out in their favor.

Far too often teams get ahead of themselves and are more focused on where they see themselves going, rather than where they are right now. This is how upsets and disappointments tend to occur. Teams that control what they can control, which is their own improvement and beating whoever they are facing each week, are the ones who are likely to be playing those meaningful games in November.

For example Florida State and Texas A & M were in nearly every preseason top 10, coming in at #6 and #8 in ESPN’s preseason top 25. But as we entered November, neither one of them was even listed in the BCS top 25, in fact Florida State only received 12 votes in the poll that came out yesterday and Texas A & M did not receive any votes at all. Now imagine how big Texas A & M’s game against BCS #6 Oklahoma would have been this past weekend had they taken care of business in all their earlier games.

Good teams avoid getting caught up in all the hype surrounding them, knowing that each game counts the same on their record. Teams that are not constantly improving themselves usually find that the only games they remember, that were played in November -other than the aforementioned in-state rivalry games- are sadly games played by teams other than themselves.

Among the headlines in today’s sports page was the news that the Kentucky Wildcats are a heavy favorite to win the Southeastern Conference men’s basketball title. This immediately brought back the memory of Kentucky coach John Calipari’s exchange last season with his star Freshman Terrance Jones. Though not specifically about coach Calipari, I wrote about how counterproductive yelling at players during a game can be here

I also noticed while watching several college football games this past Saturday, as well as a few youth games last week, that helmet stickers are still way too prevalent for my taste. I wrote about them here

Have a happy and safe Halloween!

Follow Sam on Twitter @SuperTaoInc