The quality of enthusiasm – it’s definitely an x factor. An x factor in the sense that it’s something out of the ordinary and an x factor in the mathematical sense that it acts as a multiplier across the board.
It’s a trait that’s definitely underestimated and not really utilized that much so I want to write an article about the power of it just to really bring people’s attention to it.
Probably the best area to illustrate the power of enthusiasm so you can see it unfold before your very eyes is sports. So often in professional sports, talent is the end all, be all goal. Nothing else matters. If you have a natural gift for doing what you do, teams want you. And it does make sense. Teams will focus on acquiring the best talent there is out there and while that’s very important from a “hard” perspective, it can backfire in the sense that teams begin to rely on talent too much. Enthusiasm about the sport and the game itself gets lost in the process as an air of “seriousness” takes over.
This reminds me of a college football game that was on last season. It was between the Georgia Bulldogs and the Florida Gators. It was a bitter rivalry with Florida almost always getting the upper hand whenever they met. Florida was always stocked with talent and in that year, they were stocked with great talent as well. Add to that, they were playing at Florida so they had the home field advantage too.
The coach for the Georgia Bulldogs decided that since he couldn’t stack up against Florida in terms of talent, that he would bring in the x factor. The x factor of enthusiasm. He made it VERY clear to his team that when they scored their first touchdown of the game, that they would celebrate so much that they would be penalized for excessive celebration by the referees. If they didn’t, the whole team would be running at 5 in the morning the next day. When they scored their first touchdown, the ENTIRE team, about 50-60 players came running off the bench onto the field, celebrating with the offensive unit.
The team went crazy. The fans went crazy. The crowd went crazy. They felt that something special in the air. And it multiplied like crazy across the stadium. Needless to say, Georgia won the game, 42 to 30.
There’s another college football game that comes to mind when it comes to showing the power of enthusiasm.
In 2006, the UCLA Bruins played against the USC Trojans in the last game of both their seasons. If USC won the game, they would be playing for the national championship. Talent wise, UCLA could not even compete with the Trojans. The USC Trojans were stacked to the brim and on a totally different level. Yet, what the UCLA Bruins lacked in talent, they more than made up for in enthusiasm, especially the coach who was usually very stoic and never showed any sort of emotion during their games.
When USC went for it on 4th down in a crucial offensive drive down the field late in the game, the UCLA defensive unit stopped the Trojans dead in their tracks and the camera then panned to the UCLA head coach, Karl Dorrell, who the media embraced as one of the most “emotionless” coaches in college football.
But the picture told another story.
His right fist was clenched tightly, pumping through the air and he was shouting at the top of his lungs with eyes that looked like they were coming from a blazing fire. His whole aura reeked of enthusiasm and when the team saw this, when the team saw for the first time, their “emotionless” coach, coming to life thanks to that shot of enthusiasm he got from that crucial play the defensive unit made, the entire team huddled around him in a circle and started jumping up and down, huffing and puffing at the other team and fed off his enthusiastic energy.
And it started to grow. There was storm of electric hope in the air. The team could “feel” it. And the crowd began to feel it. They started to believe. They could win it.
Never mind that every college football analyst gave UCLA a snowball’s chance in hell of winning the game. Never mind that nobody in the nation expected UCLA to pull of the upset. Never mind that even some fans of UCLA never really believed that their team could do it.
The enthusiasm the UCLA Bruins showed that day and especially at that moment late in the game negated all of it.
Needless to say, UCLA won that game as well, 13 to 9, and it proved to be one of the greatest upsets in college football history.
Now obviously, as great as these stories are, there are times when no matter how enthusiastic you are, it won’t be enough to help you win the game.
But sometimes it is. Sometimes it will prove to be just enough, just enough to give you that edge to win the game. And that’s what makes enthusiasm such a great x factor trait.
And enthusiasm doesn’t even have to work in just sports either.
Take a speech for example. A person can nail a speech in the sense that he doesn’t stumble, mumble, or have any awkward pauses. He speaks clearly, enunciates, and just basically does everything technically right. In other words, the speech is perfect, but it lacks that “soul”.
But take a person who isn’t so technically graceful, who sometimes stumbles, forgets what he has to say, but he’s enthusiastic about his speech. He’s excited about what he’s talking about. The audience feels it. They connect with him. They feel his passion for his message. And in the end, they remember the enthusiastic speech and the feeling they got from it that much more than the “perfect” speech they heard earlier.
These examples also bring up another point besides the fact that enthusiasm can make up for talent, in that enthusiasm spreads like crazy. It’s infectious. Very infections. In a very good way too. It elevates the levels of everyone it comes in contact with. People feed off of it. It’s one of those things that can be started by one individual, one event, one action and it just grows and grows and grows from there.
Talent doesn’t do that. Talent is confined to the individual. You can’t “give” talent to another person, yet enthusiasm does just that in the sense that it gives others the energy to step up their own game and improve upon it.
Another power that enthusiasm brings with it is that it attracts other people who are willing to help the enthusiastic individual. People are more willing to impart knowledge, and helpful information to enthusiastic people because they sense that desire to improve within them that naturally comes along with the quality of enthusiasm.
And not only that, people just like to be around enthusiastic people in general. Look at your own social group and I’m pretty sure you’ll find the most popular individual is the one who’s the most enthusiastic of them all. People naturally gravitate toward that quality like moths to a flame.
Going back to that UCLA vs. USC game, the quarterback for UCLA was one of the most, if not, the most enthusiastic player on that team. The players felt it and rallied around him. They played for him. They gave it their all for him. That enthusiasm was one of the major contributing factors that made him the true leader of the team and led to them winning the game.
And the best thing about enthusiasm is that it’s within everyone’s reach to use it. You don’t have to “learn” it. It’s a natural human emotion you can tap into anytime.
But if you’re having some trouble mustering it up, just get your body into it first. Start jumping up and down. Pump your fist in the air. Shout at the top of your lungs. Beat your chest and flex your arms. Your mind will naturally follow.
Get mentally fired up about what you want to do. Imagine how good it will feel like if you accomplish that goal. Get to work on the things you know you have to do to reach that goal.
Then, simply watch enthusiasm work its magic and grow.
