HOW I LEARNED ABOUT HABITS

HOW I LEARNED ABOUT HABITS
Attending Denison was one of the best decisions of my life. I earned a spot
on the baseball team and, although I was at the bottom of the roster as a
freshman, I was thrilled. Despite the chaos of my high school years, I had
managed to become a college athlete.
I wasn’t going to be starting on the baseball team anytime soon, so I
focused on getting my life in order. While my peers stayed up late and
played video games, I built good sleep habits and went to bed early each
night. In the messy world of a college dorm, I made a point to keep my
room neat and tidy. These improvements were minor, but they gave me a
sense of control over my life. I started to feel confident again. And this
growing belief in myself rippled into the classroom as I improved my study
habits and managed to earn straight A’s during my first year.
A habit is a routine or behavior that is performed regularly—and, in
many cases, automatically. As each semester passed, I accumulated small
but consistent habits that ultimately led to results that were unimaginable to
me when I started. For example, for the first time in my life, I made it a
habit to lift weights multiple times per week, and in the years that followed,
my six-foot-four-inch frame bulked up from a featherweight 170 to a lean
200 pounds.
When my sophomore season arrived, I earned a starting role on the
pitching staff. By my junior year, I was voted team captain and at the end of
the season, I was selected for the all-conference team. But it was not until
my senior season that my sleep habits, study habits, and strength-training
habits really began to pay off.
Six years after I had been hit in the face with a baseball bat, flown to the
hospital, and placed into a coma, I was selected as the top male athlete at
Denison University and named to the ESPN Academic All-America Team
—an honor given to just thirty-three players across the country. By the time
I graduated, I was listed in the school record books in eight different
categories. That same year, I was awarded the university’s highest academic
honor, the President’s Medal.
I hope you’ll forgive me if this sounds boastful. To be honest, there was
nothing legendary or historic about my athletic career. I never ended up
playing professionally. However, looking back on those years, I believe I
accomplished something just as rare: I fulfilled my potential. And I believe
the concepts in this book can help you fulfill your potential as well.
We all face challenges in life. This injury was one of mine, and the
experience taught me a critical lesson: changes that seem small and
unimportant at first will compound into remarkable results if you’re willing
to stick with them for years. We all deal with setbacks but in the long run,
the quality of our lives often depends on the quality of our habits. With the
same habits, you’ll end up with the same results. But with better habits,
anything is possible.
Maybe there are people who can achieve incredible success overnight. I
don’t know any of them, and I’m certainly not one of them. There wasn’t
one defining moment on my journey from medically induced coma to
Academic All-American; there were many. It was a gradual evolution, a
long series of small wins and tiny breakthroughs. The only way I made
progress—the only choice I had—was to start small. And I employed this
same strategy a few years later when I started my own business and began
working on this book.
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