Sitting down to watch the Super Bowl I am impressed by a few players and the lesson we can learn from them.
We are all familiar with the Michael Jordan story. As a freshman MJ was cut from the freshman basketball team, even at his acceptance speech in to the NBA hall of fame Michael was still focused on this event from over 30 years ago.
Michael Jordan was Hungry.
He was hungry to win, hungry to be the best basketball player on the court every night. It is interesting that he seemingly lost that hunger when he stepped out of the league to play baseball. That time away brought Michael back to the NBA hungry for more and resulting in 3 more consecutive NBA titles.
Fast forward to the Super Bowl today. There are two starters on the Green Bay Packers team that have remained Hungry. They have not let failure or rejection stop them from achieving their dreams.
Sam Shields went undrafted in 2010 and fought for a job at Green Bay. Hungry to prove he was as good as those that were drafted when he was not Sam has played in 14 of 16 regular season games, 3 playoff games including a game sealing interception to send the Packers to the Super Bowl. He set a NFL rookie record with two interceptions, a sack and a forced fumble in the playoffs.
Sam’s teammate on defense is Clay Matthews. Clay was drafted 26th in the NFL draft, has already made the Pro Bowl and is anchoring the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl XLV. A very impressive feat for a player that just 5 years ago was walking on to the USC football team because they would not offer him a scholarship.
There are many things that these highly successful athletes share, but at the core they stayed hungry.
They didn’t let other’s opinions, failure and even out right rejection take their hunger away, instead they let it fuel them. So as you sit down today watching some of these great athletes, I hope you take just a minute to ask yourself.
Are you Hungry?