Tag: Flyblackboy

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.

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.

Motivation

You’re only as strong as your weakest trait

bhillay

Thomas Reid said “The chain is only as strong as its weakest link, for if that fails the chain fails and the object that it has been holding up falls to the ground”. I believe that same concept can also be applied to your personal traits.

The president might be a great leader, charismatic, courageous, a visionary, good crisis manager, etc. But if they don’t have integrity or are adulterous, that will be their downfall and perhaps all they will be remembered for.

You can be the best athlete ever and have generational talent, but if you aren’t coachable, or even make bad choices outside of your sport, you will never reach your full potential as a player.

Someone can have intentions to be a nice, loving parent who cares about their kid, but if they have a bad tempter and anger problems, they can negatively impact their kid and how their kid views them as a parent.

I was always a fast sprinter. In track, I had a good acceleration phase and could maintain my speed for a long time. My start phase was my weakest trait. I could beat most kids with a bad start out of the blocks, but as competition got better, my weakest trait of coming out of blocks slow became a bigger problem. I wasn’t able to start off slow and catch everyone mid race like usual. Some sprinters I couldn’t catch because they ran to the best of their ability and were good in every sprinting phase. The same goes for life. My weak traits might not be a problem at the moment, but that doesn’t mean they won’t cause a problem once things get harder or when I am faced with character defining moments.

We must work on our weakest traits because they will eventually hurt us in some type of way. Whether it’s sports or personal life. The good thing is we can get better and improve those weak traits before they become a real problem.

We must be conscious of all of our traits and continue to find areas where we can grow and improve. This can happen through self-reflection as well as through the help of others. This does have to be a deliberate effort though. There should be a sense of urgency to improve our weak traits because you don’t know when they will cause a problem, if they haven’t already.

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