One More.

Perseverance is something that's easy to talk about, but when it comes time to persevere, we often have every excuse known to exist ready to keep us from doing just that.

I remember my junior year of high school soccer, I took that summer off and didn’t do much soccer or conditioning, I just wanted to recover. First practice came around and our conditioning was almost always 10, 120-yard sprints. They were timed, and it was difficult enough if you were in shape, let alone having taken the summer off. I had every excuse in my head trying to tell me it was time to quit. “My legs hurt, my back hurts, I’m going to puke, I can’t do this, I’ll get there tomorrow, etc.” Yet there I was, after every sprint, “Let’s go boys, one more.” I wanted to quit, but I also wanted us to win, and I knew I couldn’t have both. And don’t worry, I’m not just telling you this story to tell you how I’m a great leader who always perseveres and never gives up, because I am not – and the one time I did try to quit in a very similar situation, I couldn’t handle it.

My freshman year of college, we did a running drill and I was dehydrated, physically exhausted, and my lower back was shooting pain. I walked off the field about halfway through the drill and sat down. All I could think was, “I just quit. What am I doing?” I was almost in tears at the thought of it. Satan kept telling me lies, “I’m a quitter. What am I even doing here? I don’t belong on this team. They are all better than me. I don’t stand a chance. It’s time to be done.” As I was telling myself all these lies, my athletic trainer came over and started talking to me. She quickly picked up on the fact that I was upset at myself, and she said, “You know, you can still finish.” Everyone was done running, sitting on the sideline down the field from me drinking water and panting at this point. I thought, “Seriously? I’m going to look so stupid. But then again, I already look stupid for walking off when it got hard.” After thinking through what she said, “You can still finish” for about 2 minutes, I humbled myself enough to the point I got up, walked over to the spot where I originally walked off, and finished out the running drill by myself. The whole team and all the coaches watching. I wish I could tell you I finished in record time and everyone was proud of me, but I can’t. I looked dumb, and it was still hard. My back still shot pain, my lungs still burnt, and my legs were still sore. I learned though, that I have to finish. If you start, you have to finish. It’s that simple.

Martin Luther King Jr. famously stated, “If you can’t fly, then run. If you can’t run, then walk. If you can’t walk, then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.”

When we are leading, I think we often make up the false conclusion that we are the only one going through the rough, or that the rough we are going through is different and much more challenging than that of our team. We know it’s hard, but we think about our leadership having another factor to the hard that the rest of our team isn’t seeing. If our organizational culture is hurting, we might say, “Everyone can feel it, but they don’t see how it is hurting our metrics like I can.” But the truth is that the team is still in the middle of it, and the last thing they need is a leader that gives up. When I was running the 120-yard sprints, it was hard, but it was hard on my team also. Sure, maybe their backs didn’t hurt, but their attitudes did, and they needed to see someone persevere. Why not me?

I brag about my dad a lot; he is easily my biggest role model and has an incredibly large amount of influence over my life. Love you, Dad. -

When my brother and I were little and we would be on a long car ride and ask the dreadful question, “how much longer?” my dad always answered with the same thing. I don’t know if it was only to be funny or if he just needed us to hang in there, but he would always say, “'Bout an hour.” We could be 7 hours away and he would still tell us it was ‘bout an hour. I think he told us this partly to be funny, but also because he didn’t need us to make it 7 hours, he just needed us to make it one more.

Lately I have found myself saying, “One more.” This is a thing that has been around for a while and I honestly don’t know who first thought it up, but I can tell you it wasn’t me. When it gets hard, it’s always one more. Monday sucked? One more. Tuesday sucked? One more. Wednesday sucked? One more. Etc. I think you get the idea, one more always turns into another one more. If you stick to a one more mentality, you will likely persevere.

“Let’s go boys, one more.” I knew there was still 6 sprints left when we were at 4, but we didn’t need to do 6 right then; we just needed to do one more.

There is always one more step to get to the top. If you start, finish. When it gets hard, one more.