Address To The Nation: Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

I’m here to talk to you guys about sacrifices and decision making. See, growing up, whenever I made a decision on something I always used to say that I sacrificed going to the school dance to go on a hockey tournament. Or, I sacrificed being able to play different sports like football and basketball just to be able to play hockey and specialize in that. I sacrificed going to the movies to be able to stay home and study.

But see, the word sacrifice has such a negative feel to it. It has such a negative grasp on our lives. What I want to encourage you is: don’t look at it as a sacrifice. Usually when you sacrifice something, something else has to go, something else has to die. And that’s not the case.

Well, it is, but it’s not. Let me explain.

See, I made a decision that I wanted to be the best hockey player. I made a decision of what I wanted to do, and every decision from then depended on whether it was going to bring me closer or further away from my goal. See, when you make a decision to go for something, then with everything else you can decide if it’s going to be the right step. Is that going to make me a better player? Or is going to make me a worse player? Is this decision going to make me a better employee or is it going to make me a worse employee?

That’s how you can base all your decisions from there, when you make that one main focus and concentration. The weird thing about it was, as a kid, I didn’t need someone to tell me to sit down in a room and we’re going to have four hours of quiet time and meditation, we’re going to discover what you want to be, you’re going to decide it, and then everything else is going to fall into place. I naturally gravitated toward it.

So often we think: “I have to do this. I have to do that.” Do what you love.

And that’s what I did. I did what I loved, and because I did that, the higher I went, the more decisions I had to make in order to get to that level. Whether that meant not coming home over the summer, to stay where I was at and train. Because, I went to St Louis and I realized St Louis has a great facility, it was a great ecosystem for me to train and get better compared to coming back home where it was alright, but it wasn’t going to be the best incubator for me to get better and to be a college athlete.

And so, throughout our lives, throughout our sporting careers, don’t always view everything as a sacrifice. Because when it sounds like a sacrifice, it sounds more like my diet when I sacrifice a delicious slice of pizza in order to have something more healthy. When you’re making that decision, whether it’s with your health, whether it’s with your business, whether it’s in your sporting career, it’s a decision.

And when you decide to do something, you’re in control. You’re deciding today you’re going to be the best person you can be. You’re deciding today you’re going to be that athlete that you want to be. You’re deciding today that you’re going to be that teammate that you want to be. You’re deciding that you’re going to be that student. You’re deciding that you’re going to be that husband. You’re deciding that you’re going to be that spouse – everything. Everything is a decision.

So, don’t worry about what you lose in your decision making, because everything that you gain will make it more than worth it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

— JFK