Explore

1. Meet New Friends
2. Join Different Organizations
3. Register for Strategic Prerequisites.

Surround Yourself with Mentors and Leaders

1. Learn by Listening and Observing.
2. Ask Questions.
3. Professional and Personal Advisory Council
4. Turn Networking into Relationships

Get Involved

1. Community.
2. Volunteer.
3. Internships.

Embrace Challenges

1. Prepare for Success and Failure
2. Obstacles = Opportunities.
3. Resistance = Persistence. 

Don’t Stay In Your Comfort Zone

1. Control vs. Uncontrollable.
2. Outwork Others. 

Find Your Passion

1. “Great Work Comes From Loving What You Do.”

Utilize Resources

1. Institution.
2. Professors. 
3. Supervisors.

Set Goals

1. Achieve to Exceed.
2. Performance Checks.

 Become a Role Model

1. Represent Yourself Well
2. High Character

Yesterday – Today – Tomorrow

1. These Three Chains Are Always Connected For A Reason
2. Learn from the Past, Live in the Present, Prepare for the Future. 

A man pulls up to a golf course at 7am.

When he gets out to the driving range he sees one other guy

This other man has empty buckets all around his area

As he stands there watching he notices the perfection of his swing

He stands there for 10 minutes and finally he gets the courage to say something

“I’d love to hit a ball like you”

The other gentleman stops, looks back and answers

“Do you really”

“Do you really want to be out here at 4am every morning hitting balls for 3 hours?”

“Do you want to go to a job you hate at 8am everyday just to put food on the table and a roof over your head?”

“Do you want to come back to the range after that job and hit more balls until your hands are bloody?”

“Do you really want to do what it takes?”

None of us are entitled to the outcome

The only thing guaranteed is the work

Next time you find something you think you really want ask yourself

Do I really want the work it takes to truly be great?

Spartan Dawgs Tim Bograkos, Todd “T.J.” Duckett and Andre Hutson talk about failure and the impact it has on champions. Failure, they say, is the key to success.

“It’s good to remember your failures as long as you use these moments as motivation to improve yourself,” says Duckett.

Hutson says that athletes learn to deal with failure early in life.

“I’ve learned from failure, and now I’m not afraid of it,” Hutson says. “That no-fear spirit has carried over into the business world for me now.”

Bograkos says he takes little daily failures as chips on his shoulder and uses them as motivation to improve and prove his doubters wrong.

“Failure shouldn’t define a person unless you let the failures bring you down or hold you back rather than motivate you to improve and get better,” Bograkos says.

“There isn’t anyone who’s ever achieved a dream without a few failures along the way. Failure is just a step toward success,” he adds.

The Dawgs agree it’s important to not lower your personal expectations or goals because others may be doubting you.

“Your success of failure at anything often corresponds to the effort you put into it,” says Duckett. “And you can’t lie to yourself; you know how much effort you put in.”

“The hardest thing for people to do is self-evaluate,” adds Bograkos. “No one has ever achieved anything without experiencing a few failures along the way.

            We’ve all been around a person that has an inflated view of who they are and what they’ve accomplished.  Your ego is always going to put your priorities on the top of your list.  In these instances, ego is expressed through attention-seeking, power hungry, controlling behavior.

            A big ego can cause resentment within any relationship and especially within a team structure.  Nothing constructive comes from resentful interactions.  Below you’ll see a few suggestions to deal with your ego and maximize your interactions

Let go of the need to win

Your ego loves to make things seem like it’s you versus me and if I beat you it elevates me above you to a certain extent.  Winning is impossible to do all the time.  You are going to lose occasionally because you are bound to run into someone who is better than you, at some point.  Remember winning/losing and/or successes/failures do not define a person; they are simple outcomes to an individual event.  We can’t look in the mirror and call ourselves a winner or a loser based on one specific event.  Define yourself by how you handle those events.

Stop having to be right all the time

Your ego will act as a source of conflict for you.  When you’ve became stuck on a point that you know is correct you will fight and argue that point regardless of right or wrong.  Ego will cause you to forget that when we are in decision-making discussions, it’s not’s about who is right but it’s about what is right.   We all have the need to feel superior.  Your challenge is to stay focused on your growth and understand that that might mean you’re wrong.

Haters gonna hate – stop worrying about your rep

As much as we want to think that reputation is something that is inside of us, it’s a completely external factor.  You might run into 10 different people through out a day and each person is going to have a different idea of what they think your reputation is.   Your ego will spend a lot of time worrying about what others are going to think and what rewards you might gain.  Remember that you need to stay focused on the PROCESS, not the OUTCOME.  You have to take responsibility for what actually resides inside you: your character. 

On their relentless road to victory, winners…

1. Take 100% responsibility. – Your life is your statement to the world, representing your values, beliefs, and dreams.  It is yours to create, to enjoy or not enjoy, to fight or to be at peace.  In the end, the very best years of your life will be the ones in which you decide your problems are your own.  You do not blame them on your parents, society, or the economy.  You realize that you control your own destiny.  Read The Road Less Traveled.
2. Focus on the controllable. – Life is a balance between what we can and cannot control.  You must learn to live comfortably between effort and surrender.  Life does not owe you anything; it has already given you everything you need.  Freedom is not overcoming what you think stands in your way;  it is understanding that what is in your way is part of the way.
3. Eliminate the wrong things. – The true price of anything you do is the amount of time you exchange for it.  If something you’re doing or thinking isn’t fixing or improving the situation, then it’s wasting your time.  There comes a point when you have to choose between turning the page and closing the book.
4. Maintain control. – Start shaping your own days.  Start walking your own walk.  This journey is yours.  You know you were born, and you know you will die.  The in between is all up to you.  Stop wishing, and start doing.  Either you run your days, or your days will run you.
5. Keep good company. – It’s not always where you are in life, but who you have by your side that matters most.  Some people drain you and others provide soul food.  Be sure to get in the company of those who feed your spirit, and give the gift of your absence to those who do not appreciate your presence.
6. Think constructively. – Change your thoughts and you change your reality.  Our thoughts are the makers of our moods, the inventors of our dreams, and the creators of our will.  That is why you must sort through them carefully, and choose to respond only to those that will help you build the life you want, and the outlook you want to hold as you’re living it.  Read Learned Optimism.
7. Conquer oneself. – Being yourself is the foundation of happiness.  Knowing yourself is the foundation of wisdom.  Pushing yourself is the foundation of success.  It is better to conquer yourself is these ways, than to win a hundred battles elsewhere in life.
8. Practice self-love. – We need to fix ourselves first before we fix others.  Caring for yourself is not an act of self-indulgence, it’s an act of self-respect.  The day will finally come when you have to accept that you need to be your own caretaker.  There will be times when you’ll have to work hard to mother yourself with the compassion and patience that any messed up kid would need.  Doing so will prove to be a great challenge, but a happier life is your reward.
9. Work through the pain. – One day this pain will make sense to you.  Sometimes it takes the worst pain to bring about the best change.  The strongest people you know became strong because of the pain they once faced, and conquered.  So in spite of all the put-downs and negativity you’ve heard from others in your life, stay focused on your goals, and remember that how you rise up is no one else’s business but your own.  Read Man’s Search for Meaning.
10. Keep going. – No matter what you do, no matter how many times you screw up and think to yourself that there’s no point to carry on, and no matter how many people tell you that you can’t do it – keep going.  Pick yourself back up.  Don’t quit.  Don’t quit, because a few months from now you will be so much closer to your goal than you are now.  Focus on the road ahead.  Do something today your future self will thank you for.

Credit for this article goes to Marc and Angel Hack Life Blog http://goo.gl/nMvDI

Too often in this current culture we look at the outcomes of our daily activities and use them as measuring stick to call us a successful person or a failure.  We forget that success and failure characteristics of a specific person, they are words that define the act of a single event.  One misstep doesn’t label you for every thing you do going forward.

In sports in happens after you perform poorly in a game with a lot hype and national recognition.  We have a lot of people who will be ready to blame a loss on one specific person or play.  Once those moments are over they are gone forever and you have to be ready to move forward.  

The one thing that truly defines who you are at your core is how you react to the outcomes you experience both positively and negatively.