Tag: african american bloggers

Motivation

Just finish

bhillay

“You can’t finish what you don’t start, and you should never start what you’re not committed to finish.” — Gary Ryan Blair

Always finish what you start. There will be times when you want to quit, but there’s nothing better than the satisfaction of finishing something and knowing that you did not give up. This will help you become resilient. This will make other challenges in life easier to get through.

You can’t place in a race unless you finish. One of the things I loved most about running track was when it was that person who was in last place in a long distance race, and the entire crowd would clap and cheer for them as they crossed the finish line. They may have taken last place, but they finished. That’s what everyone was proud of. They won the mental and physical battle.

I never quit a sport or a team in my life. As a kid, my mom wouldn’t let me. I’m glad she instilled that mentality in me. There will be times when you don’t like your team, or your job, or whatever endeavor you choose to pursue. Things will get hard or mundane and quitting will be the easiest thing to do. Not quitting and getting through those times is what helps build character. You’ll learn a lot of life lessons along the way.

There’s no better feeling to me than finishing a book. Even if I don’t like the book, I’m still satisfied that I finished what I started. This is a mentality that has been very beneficial in my life.

My senior year in college I decided to drop out of classes to pursue playing in the NFL. I only had about a semester and a half until graduating. I was on a full ride scholarship and chose to give that up to follow my dreams. I knew I would be able to eventually come back and finish my degree (even if I had to pay out of pocket) because I’ve developed the habit of finishing whatever I start. It wasn’t a “if” but a “when” for me when it came to graduating.

You can separate yourself from competition just by finishing. A lot of people will begin to write a book, or make an album, or take courses in college, etc, but not everyone will finish. If you can finish whatever it is that you start, you already beat out half of the competition.

The only way to find out what will come from certain situations is to finish. If you are a creator, you have to finish whatever you’re creating and get it out into the universe to really see what will come from it. There might be someone out there who needs whatever you’re creating. They just need you to finish it.

Just like that person who comes in last place in the distance race, you will be rewarded no matter what, if you finish.

Motivation, Random Thoughts

Study The Greats

bhillay

The good thing about the internet is that you can use a search engine and learn about any person that you want. This can make your journey to success much easier. There are blueprints to success. You just have to follow them.

For every running back who I liked growing up, I can tell you where they are from, what college they went to, their height, weight, their 40 yard dash time, college stats, and what round they were drafted in the NFL. This gave me a good paradigm of what I needed to do to make it to the NFL. I didn’t have to reinvent the wheel, I just had to do things that were simular to the guys that have already reached the goals that I wanted to reach.

These players were like mentors to me, and I never met them a day in my life. I just had to study their actions, good and bad. I learned what to do to get to the NFL and I also learned what not to do.

It goes beyond sports though. I know the story of my favorite actors, writers, entrepreneurs, etc. This is good for me to know because if I ever want to get to where they are, I know I have to do something similar to what they did to get there. There are no shortcuts to success.

I’ve had peers who never played college football tell me that they plan to play football professionally. I never crush their dreams, but I also know it’s not that simple . You have to respect the craft and put in the appropriate work. If they studied any player who made it to the NFL, they’d know that their plan to skip a lot of steps and still make it to the NFL is illogical.

It gets deeper than just studying the moves someone made in their life. You have to also learn their mentality. How did Kobe get that “mamba mentality”? Where did he even come up with calling hisself the “Black Mamba”? The answers are out there, you just have to find them.

I like to read books that successful people recommend. Maybe I’ll get the same things out of that book that they did. If not, at least I know I am on the right path.

You can study your friends, relatives, coworkers, anybody. If someone has something that you want, or are in a profession that you’d like to be in, or are at a place in life where you’d like to be, study how they got there and make similar choices. You’re half way there if you can do that.

Faith

Count your blessings

bhillay

If you are reading this blog post, that’s a blessing. If you can comprehend this blog post, that’s a blessing. We have so many blessings that we often take for granted. We can really find blessings in everything in life.

I always could run very fast. It is just a God given gift. I always appreciated it and used it to my advantage whenever I could. Then I ruptured my achilles.

Not only could I not run anymore. I also could not walk. I had to learn how to walk again. I’ll never forget the first time I walked again about 8 weeks after my surgery to repair my achilles. I was at Target and I was in a walking boot. I could only walk very slow, and it was still kind of painful to walk. This brought me so much joy. I had taken walking for granted my entire life. It made me think of all of the other things that I do daily without thought that I take for granted.

We have so many blessings that we should be thankful for. Even when times are hard and you might not be optimistic about things in life, you still have a lot of things to be thankful for.

When you are thankful for all of your blessing, large and small, you will have a more positive outlook on life, and really just be happier overall.

It’s when we only think about the bad things in life when we begin to not be happy. When I tore my achilles, I could have focused on all of the bad things. Instead, I was just happy that I could walk again. I was happy that I had insurance to have surgery, and that my surgery went well. Those were all blessings.

Thank God for all of your blessings right now, because the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Also, whenever you’re in a crisis, there are still blessings in that situation that you can be thankful for.

Motivation

Earn Your Perfect Attendance Award

bhillay

One of the first awards I can ever remember winning as a kid is the Perfect Attendance award. This is the award a kid receives from their school at the end of the school year as an honor for being present every day of school during that year.

Initially, if it were up to me, I would have never gotten that award. There were days that I did not want to go to school and would rather stay home and play video games . There were days where I felt under the weather and felt as if I shouldn’t go to school. On those days, my mom would still make me go to school. She would tell me the importance of going to school everyday and how my ancestors sacrificed a lot just for me to be able to go to school. I couldn’t miss school for being sick unless I had a fever of like 100 F or higher. My mom would tell me I could not fake sick, cause one day I really will be sick, and I need to save my “sick days” for when I really am.

After a while I wanted to go to school everyday. I loved the gratification of getting that perfect attendance award at the end of the year. It also showed me what is possible when you really commit to something. Not only did I get the award, I would also receive every daily lesson of education at school. My perfect attendance reflected on my grades and intelligence. It also reflected on my drive.

My mom wasn’t just teaching me to go to school everyday, she was teaching me how to be consistent and how to finish what I started. She was teaching me how to do things even if I did not feel like it. Those are the same traits that helped me graduate from college and even helped me excel in sports. It’s a mindset.

In football, you often hear the saying “ the best ability is availability”. I knew I could beat players out for the starting job because I knew that I would show up everyday. Something as simple as that can separate you from others. I never missed workouts. I never missed practice. And for the most part in college, I never missed classes . That “perfect attendance” mentality is what kept me self-driven. I think it should be apart of everyone’s mentality. That is probably why in college your attendance is part of your grade.

I know people who flunked out of school because of their attendance. I know people who got fired from their job because they missed too many days. They might call in “sick” when they really aren’t sick. They might miss school because they just don’t feel like it. I believe these bad habits are formed as a kid. Like a coach would always say to us; it’s either coached, or allowed.

A parent is either coaching their kid to miss school often as a kid, or they are allowing it. My mom did not coach or allow it. In return she instilled the importance of showing up daily, being responsible, being consistent, and really just getting the most that I can get out of whatever endeavor that I choose to pursue.

No matter what you do, rather it’s school, work, or your goals and aspirations, you have to show up everyday. Because there is someone out there with the same goals and objectives as you, who will. The one who can show up everyday will be the one who is successful.

Learn and practice showing up every day and watch how it positively impacts your life.

Motivation, Random Thoughts

Lane Ends – Merge Left

bhillay

Don’t panic, it’s not the end of the road, just the end of that lane. You can still get to your destination, you just have to merge into a more suitable lane.

Follow the signs in life to merge lanes when needed. Also understand that you might be in the lane that people are merging into. So give them room to merge. Don’t be a hater. We can all get to our destination.

It’s when you ignore the signs of the lane ending, that’s when you have a problem. Or when you ignore the sign and drive to the end of the lane and then force your way into the line of those who already merged. That’s not how things work. You should not feel so entitled.

The sign was put there for you to successfully reach your destination. Follow the laws of success.

As you gain more experience in life, you’ll be better able to anticipate the signs you may come across on the road to success. Trust them and follow through in order to reach your destination.

Uncategorized

Take your kid to work

bhillay

As a kid I always loved “Take Your Kid To Work Day”. Actually, I’m old enough to remember when it was called “Take Our Daughters To Work Day”. My mom was a nurse who worked 3rd shift, so my sister would be able to go to my mom’s job (most of the time a nursing home or a hospital) and stay the night. It always seemed so fun. I always wanted to participate.

Although I never got the chance to visit my mom’s job on that national day, I still got the privilege to visit my mom’s job quite a bit growing up. It was always cool to see my mom interact with her patients. She was always so nice and loving to them. She would talk so gentle to them, and if the patient was not in the best mood, she would try to cheer them up.

The only bad thing I did not like about going to my mom’s job was the smell. Nursing homes and hospitals have this smell that I will never get used to. I never understood how it did not bother my mom. Another thing that I didn’t like that I appreciate now, is that my mom would take me and introduce me to all her coworkers and all of her patients. I can still hear her telling all of her patients ” This is my youngest boy, Bronson, he’s the baby of the family”. I used to be like “mom, you don’t gotta introduce me to EVERYBODY”.

Now I am happy that she did. I remember meeting quadriplegics, stroke victims, patients who couldn’t talk but would use an eye-gaze device to speak to me, very old patients, and sometimes younger patients. Seeing my mom interact with all these people and also getting the chance to meet them myself changed me for the better. I believe it made me more compassionate, caring, nonjudgmental, a better communicator, and even helped my ability to cope with death. Most importantly it showed me how to have a positive impact on someone’s life, and to also appreciate all of my blessings.

My sister ended up becoming a nurse also. I believe “Take Our Daughters To Work Day” is part of the reason she is a nurse like my mom. I believe kids are heavily influenced by their parent’s occupation. I think my sister becoming a nurse is something my mom can be proud of. Also, I think all the morals and values that were instilled into me from visiting my moms job is also something my mom can be proud of.

So my question is; Would you want your kid to grow up to have the same occupation as you? Would you want them to grow up to earn money the way that you do? Would you like them to grow up and have the same morals and values that comes with your job? Would that make you proud? If yes, then take your kid to work. If no, then maybe you shouldn’t be doing whatever you’re doing.


Faith, Motivation

Let the doubters doubt

bhillay

“But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.” – James 1:6-8

It’s perfectly normal to have doubters. They are inevitable to have, actually. Not everyone will believe in your ideas or dreams. I’ve had all kinds of doubters in my life. Everyone from family, friends, teachers, coaches, significant others, random people on social media, you name it. That never bothered me though. I’ve always had self-worth and I’ve always believed in a God who believes in me. That’s all I’ve needed. Plus, it’s fun when you prove the doubters wrong. They will humbly be your biggest congratulators also when you accomplish that goal.

Sometimes we may doubt others and don’t even realize that we are doing it. So don’t take it personal when others doubt you. But whatever you do; don’t doubt yourself.

It always amazes me whenever someone doubts themself before even trying to achieve that goal or task or activity. Most of the time it is a self-limiting belief. At least give yourself a chance. Then continue to give yourself a chance until you achieve whatever you set out to do. Don’t just automatically count yourself out. That is a bad habit to have because you will begin to believe yourself. That’s the wrong type of belief to have in yourself. You may not be able to do it right now, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be able to after practice, and hard work and dedication.

I’ve reached so many goals and milestones in my life, that I could never doubt myself. I made it to the NFL after having statistically one of the worst football seasons during my senior year in college, the most crucial year of my college career (350 total rushing yards, 0 rushing TDs). I was benched and didn’t play the last 7 games of my senior year. I even had my coach look me in my eyes and straight up tell me that he did not think I was that good of a running back. I didn’t budge. I still believed in myself and just made the next right moves to try to get to the NFL. I thank God that I never doubted myself for one second and I never gave up. Don’t get me wrong, doubt will always try to sink into your head. You just have to fight it and keep moving towards whatever goal that you have in life.

I understand that we are not all the same mentally. There’s been plenty of times when I believed in someone more than they believed in theirself. All I can try to do is do my small part and try to encourage and help them. The final choice and actions will be theirs. But like the Bible verse says, you shouldn’t expect to receive anything from the Lord when you doubt. You gotta have faith that God got you, and that He blessed you with the abilities to achieve whatever you want in life. Cause He did. Next time things get hard, or you begin to feel the doubt come, double down and bet on yourself and go even harder. That’s when you’ll see the power of having faith in God and yourself.

Let the doubters doubt, but never doubt yourself. It’s possible.

Motivation

Always check your blind spot

bhillay

One of the first and most important things that they teach you when learning to drive is to always check your blind spot. As new drivers, we must learn that your blind spots are areas around your car that you cannot see when looking in your mirror. It is so subtle that some drivers may forget that they even exist. This can lead to a lot of car accidents.

 While driving, you should always check your blind spots before reversing, changing lanes and parallel parking. After a while, it becomes an automatic habit. This helps you drive as safe as possible. Living in Southern California, you GOTTA check your blind spots all the time. Especially on the highway. There’s a lot of traffic here, and people also aren’t the best drivers here, in my Midwesterner-safe-driver opinion.

Just today I saw two cars on the highway almost crash into each other. They both were trying to switch into the same lane at the same time. That’s easy to do here because there are so many cars on the highway. The best way to avoid that is to check your blind spot before switching lanes, then check again for safe measures. If you’ve ever rode with someone who doesn’t check their blind spots, you know how scary that can be. You probably also start to get a good understanding of that driver’s personality.

Checking your blind spot also applies to life. There will often be things in our blind spots that can hinder us in our journey of life. This could be things such as haters, fake friends, bad habits, character flaws, vices, anything. Sometimes it might look as if we are on the right path, but we haven’t checked our blindspots yet before making the next move. That’s when accidents happen. One small thing in your “blind spot” in your life can lead to destruction. Most problems in our lives could have been avoided if we took the proper procedures when making decisions. The same way most car accidents can be avoided if we follow the laws of driving.

We can also be the person that is someone else’s blind spot, so we must be conscious of that. We can help check blind spots for others as well. Sometimes you gotta be a back seat driver.

Stay in your lane, check your blind spots, and you will get to your destination successfully. Rather that’s driving, or in life.

Motivation

Do it right the first time

bhillay

It’s difficult starting over, (but) that’s better than going backwards.

I learned that from the rapper Starlito.

Back in 2020, I bought a handwriting workbook. I didn’t really like my handwriting at the time, so I figured it was time to finally go back to the basics and start over. That workbook helped my handwriting tremendously. I went from writing in chicken scratch to… just a regular person’s handwriting. It’s still nothing special LOL.

I began to ask myself why my handwriting was so bad in the first place, and all I could think about was being in elementary school and not caring too much about those handwriting workbooks. I wanted to do other things in school, like disrupt the class or flirt with girls. I didn’t know at the time that my handwriting would look like a 2nd grader’s for the next 20 years.

Last year I wrote a book. It’s a memoir about my life. The book is over 64,000 words long. Would you believe that I typed that entire book with only like three fingers?! I never mastered typing on the keyboard. I remember practicing as a kid, but somewhere along the way I stopped using the home row of the keyboard and all the mechanics they teach you when learning to type went out the door.

The past couple weeks I have been reteaching myself how to type the proper way. I can now use the home row and type without looking at the keyboard. I can’t believe I made it all those years just using three fingers. Although I can type decently with three fingers, I know I will be more efficient typing the correct way.

So here I am, a grown man, relearning how to write and type the correct way. Don’t get me wrong, I love the feeling of self-improvement. I love the feeling of not being able to do something, then seeing myself gradually improve with practice. The thing is, you can practice bad habits and get good at that also. Like I did with my handwriting and typing.

I could have used my free time learning new things, instead of relearning things I was taught as a kid. All I had to do was: do it right the first time.

That goes for anything in our lives. You gotta do it right the first time so you wont have to redo it later in life. Sometimes you might not even get a second chance if you do not do it right the first time. You know how many people are in prison who wish they could go back and do things right the first time? Or that dude who lost his wife cause he wasn’t doing right, who wishes he could go back in time and treat his wife better? Or that athlete who wishes they could go back in time and not smoke weed so that they didn’t fail their drug test?

Doing things correctly the first time saves you a lot of time and stress in the future. One of my favorite quotes is from Marshall McLuhan. He says “The future of the future is the present”. So think about how you want to be in the future, and do it right now. Want to be that healthy, fit person with a nice body in the future? Eat healthy and workout right now. Want to gain 50 lbs of fat in the future and be out of shape? Start eating bad right now and don’t exercise. You’ll get there LOL.

Whatever it is in your life that you may not be doing right, fix it now. Like Starlito says; “Not a quitter at all, but I’m giving up bad habits”. Just start over. Don’t go backwards. Sometimes doing things the wrong way is the same as going backwards. And for all my Christians out there, this might be the only life we get, so if you want to go to heaven, you gotta live right the first time. I don’t know if God will send us back to earth to redo things correctly. Well, there might be purgatory (for my Catholic readers), but even that’s the result of not doing things right the first time.

There are no shortcuts in life, so just do things right the first time. The future you will thank you.

Uncategorized

The first of many

bhillay

And for my next trick, I will write a blog post every day.

I have always been a very competitive person. I’m not a sore loser, but I can for sure be a sore winner at times. I want to win at anything that I do. I’ve always been that way. I like to challenge myself all the time. There’s no better feeling than when you challenge yourself to do something, then eventually fulfill that challenge or goal. It’s always reconfirmation that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Growing up, I was very competitive with my siblings. Everything was a competition. We even had a game where whoever put their seat belt on first when we got into the car was the winner. Y’all know I won most of the time.

When I was younger, my brothers and I would always play the video game Madden NFL against each other. We used to love to play this mini-game mode called “Rushing Attack”.

The concept of Rushing Attack was simple: A player is given control of a running back and a full back and there’s also a few moving blocking dummies that would simulate a run play. The objective for that player is to score as many touchdowns as possible within a minute. The opposing player would be on defense with two to three players.Their objective is to stop the person on offense from scoring touchdowns. After one minute, you switch sides. The person who was on offense is now on defense, and vice versa. Whoever had the most points after each player got their one minute on offense, won. You earned points from things such as yards gained, stiff arming someone, tackling someone, etc. The most valuable objective was scoring a touchdown. Those were worth the most points. If you scored consecutive touchdowns, you would earn even more points. That’s pretty much all my brothers and I wanted to do; get consecutive touchdowns.

Playing that game mode all those years and trying to get those consecutive touchdowns helped shape me as a football player. “Rushing Attack” taught me how to run the ball efficiently. It taught me how to read blocks, how to set up blocks. It taught me about angles and leverages and even taught me how to do moves such as spins and jukes. It’s amazing what can happen when you do something repetitively. You will naturally get better. You might even be rewarded even more for doing it consecutively.

That is how I plan to approach writing blogs. I will do it everyday. I got the idea from Seth Godin. He has written a blog post everyday for over 7,000 days. That’s crazy! It’s possible nonetheless (Jordan shrug). He says his blog posts are not to get people to read it, or even for monetization. He posts a blog everyday because he made a decision, one time, to write everyday. He doesn’t post a blog post because he feels like it, and he doesn’t post a blog post because it is perfect. He writes a blog post because it is tomorrow. It’s that simple. Having that mentality helps the work move forward.

To reach any big goal, or to do anything of greatness, you have to do it consistently even when you do not feel like doing it. Imagine if your dentist only performed well at work when they felt like doing it. There would be many days where clients got subpar dental services. As an athlete, you got to show up everyday (every play actually) and perform to the best of your ability. If not, someone who does show up everyday and perform will eventually pass you up.

I love to challenge myself. I love to compete. I love to be consistent and I love to stay out of my comfort zone. Only good things have come out of my life when I have done so. I know that the same will be true with writing a blog post every day. I encourage you to do something consistently also. Rather that’s reading everyday, working out everyday, or practicing whatever skill/craft you are passionate about; just do it.

Posting a blog everyday is not too hard. Neither is doing any other task, such as working out everyday, or eating healthy everyday. But as Jim Rohn would say, “What’s simple to do is also simple not to do. The magic is not in the complexity of the task; the magic is in the doing of simple things repeatedly and long enough to ignite the miracle of the Compound Effect.”

So here’s to my first blog post of many. Each new day that the Lord blesses me with, I shall bless y’all with a new blog post. For this is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice (and blog) and be glad in it. -Psalms 118:24 KJV