On September 2013, Washington State traveled to Los Angeles to take on USC. For those of you not familiar with college football, all you need to know is that Washington State was the doormat team of the Pac-12 last year.
USC is a powerhouse and attracts the best talent from all over the nation so people assumed they would stomp WSU.
They didn’t.
It was an ugly defensive battle and WSU won.
Why?
Here’s where one of my favorite college football coaches come into play – Mike Leach. Say what you want about him, he is indeed the “mad scientist of football”. He never played college football, was on the road to becoming a lawyer, and then decided to coach instead.
All throughout the year leading up to the season, he pounded this simple secret into the psyche of his team and it’s the same secret he’s been dispensing throughout his coaching career.
If you look at his coaching history, you’ll see that he took the “rejects”, the players that were denied by the powerhouses of college football, and brought out the best from them and then in a bit of sweet revenge, beat those very same powerhouses of college football like Texas, Oklahoma, and USC.
This ONE simple secret transformed his team (and you could tell by the way they played USC compared to last year – it was night and day).
But before we get to that, let’s look at the usual factors people consider that lead to wins.
#1 – Talent. You need to have people who are physically gifted, who have the muscle, the ability to run fast, who have good eye hand coordination, etc.
#2 – Skill. You need to learn how to read the defense, run routes, block, etc.
That’s good too.
So to win, all you need is the best talent and then teach the players with the best talent the skills they need right?
Whoever has the best talent and teaches their players the best wins right?
Nope.
Talents and skills are USELESS without the simple transforming secret Mike Leach shares with his team.
What is it?
Effort.
Mike leach preached effort to his WSU team, EVEN MORE than skill. He spent MORE TIME ON EFFORT than he did on teaching skills. He couldn’t do anything about talent because talent is just what you’re born with. You can’t do anything about it.
But skill and effort is within his control and effort is more important – more important than skill OR talent.
Why?
Think about it.
It makes perfect sense.
You can have players who have the talent and who learn the skill – but if they don’t put in 100% effort, the “yield” isn’t very much.
Compare that to a person who puts 100% effort AND that 100% effort is translated into learning proper skills – then even if his talent is a good chunk lower than the player in the previous example, he comes out ahead.
Let’s run some numbers. Let’s say on a scale of 1-10, you’ve got a player with 10 talent. For effort, let’s say he puts in a 6. For skill, let’s say he’s about a 7. Add it all up and this player is playing at a level 23.
You’ve got another player. A player who understands what Mike Leach is saying. He’s not as talented – let’s say he’s a 6, but he’s a 10 on effort. And BECAUSE he’s a 10 on effort alone, he’s a 10 on skill because he puts in 100% on learning the skill.
Level 26.
This was evident in the game because both sides were clawing at each other and the difference came in the 4th quarter on a run play from WSU. It looked like the player was about to be tackled but he juked this way and that, broke tackles, ran for a huge gain, which set up the game winning field goal.
Effort.
Think about it. If you have the best talent, it’s SO easy to just ride that isn’t it? Why put in the effort? You’re already born with it. You can just wing it.
Ah, but therein lies the trap.
That’s what happened to USC. They thought they could wing it and win on talent alone, but they learned otherwise.
So what does this teach us?
Put 100% effort in EVERYTHING you do.
Because if you do 100% in something as simple as stretching in the morning, there’s no doubt you’re going to do 100% in the bigger things as well.
It’s a MULTIPLIER effect.
Most people try to put in effort only on the important things and it may work for a while, but they won’t be consistent. It’ll average out to average over the long run.
Putting effort into EVERYTHING you do – I don’t care what it is – that’s the key.
That’s the simple secret to transforming your life.
Let’s say you’re a janitor. It’s easy to wing it right? But let’s say you don’t. Let’s say you want to get the bathrooms so clean, people will eat off the floor. So in your effort to do the best, you run across some stains that are tough to get rid of. Sure you could try to scrub a little and then give up, but you don’t quit. You do your best. You put in 100% effort so you experiment. You mix and match, mop and brush, wait and see, pour this chemical, and that liquid and finally you find something that works like a charm.
Then an idea hits you.
Companies might want to know about this stain breaking formula so you go about pitching it to them.
And guess what? Since you put 100% into cleaning bathrooms, you put in 100% in pitching those companies. Never mind that you don’t have an MBA from Harvard. Never mind you never learned how to pitch. You just put in the effort to learn and persevere and boom – you sell the formula and make a ton of money.
Yes, sounds like a fantasy like but it’s just a simple example to show you how effort in the big picture can do wonders for your life.
So go throughout your day and see what you do. Put effort into everything that you do.
Stretching, dressing, showering, cooking, eating, cleaning, driving.
100% effort just for the sake of it.
Looking at it with a micro point of view, it’s easy to think – What’s the point of putting 100% effort in mopping the kitchen floor? It seems useless.
From a macro point of view – it’s a priceless treasure that transforms your life.
