Are Your Opponents Excited or Exhausted by You?

Is your competition excited or exhausted to face you?

I don’t want to get bogged down into investing much time into caring what they think about you, but specifically, what’s the mark you leave on them during interactions? Do they get tired simply thinking about having to go against you?

What would the people you compete with making sales calls to prospects, line up next to on the race course, or just up against life in general say about going against you?

ESPN analyst and former pro basketball player Jay Bilas talked about this very thing in regards to the toughest player he ever faced. You would think someone who played at a high-level in college at Duke and again on Team USA might say Michael Jordan or Sam Perkins.

“The hardest player I ever went up against was John Ebeling,” Bilas recalled.

I consider myself a fan of basketball but even I did a double take and asked, Who the heck is John Ebeling?

For those of you like me who have no idea who this guy is - nor how in the world he was a harder person to face than Jordan - Ebeling was a 6'8 forward who earned Division II player of the year honors at Florida Southern college before going on to play in Europe (which is where Bilas first encountered him).

“He wasn’t this spectacular athlete, but when I played against him, everything I had to do was hard against him. And when you finished playing against him, basically your thought was, I don’t want to do that again. Like, I don’t want to play against him again.”

Bilas went on to reveal that after some thought, he didn’t believe his own opponents thought that way about him - not because he lacked the talent, but because he was unwilling to do the same type things that Ebeling did to excel.

“And it was all stuff that I could do, but honestly, I don't think I was willing to do it. And he was. Ebeling didn't do anything that I couldn't do. He was just relentless. And that was kind of one of the times where it hit me, man, like, relentless is really hard to deal with. And what's keeping me from being relentless?”

Choices.

The one thing keeping Bilas - and maybe even you - from being relentless is something 100% within your control. It’s the choice to be relentless. To get uncomfortable. To show up consistently in every circumstance and feeling every type of feeling.

It’s easy to get caught up in talent being the factor that separates those who win and those who don’t - and when we do that, it’s often unintentional but removes the responsibility each one of us has to what we do with our talent that matters most.

Author Angela Duckworth said it best, “Talent counts, but effort is twice as important.”

What if this year was the year you chose to be the type of relentless competitor that others dreaded to go up against?

What if you leveraged what is 100% in your control to achieve outcomes that, before, may have felt 100% out of reach?

Relentless is really hard to deal with - and dang near impossible to defeat. Choose to be more of it this week than last.

Thank you for reading! PS - Here are 4 ways I can help you right now!

1. 📈 Make Your Next Event Impactful Beyond Just One Day: Learn how we can partner to help your leaders & organization compete every day here.

2. 🚀 Skyrocket Your Mindset by reading my free The Competitor Journal here.

3. 📕 Grab one of my books, Compete Every Day, or my newest one, Lead Better Now, here.

4. 🎧 Listen to my podcast, Compete Every Day on Apple, Spotify, or here.