Fall in Love With the Behind the Scenes Work
We have all heard of the term "climbing the corporate ladder." Yesterday, I was listening to a podcast on How to Climb the Coaching Ladder for sports coaches, and an idea came to me.
Why not run our races, and impact humanity at our own pace?
We want to travel to the end destination as quickly as possible for numerous reasons. Why? A big one with my generation is comparing "virtually" how well someone is doing in their career.
You can quickly check Instagram or LinkedIn to determine someone's someone's job status. Oh, then you see they won a championship game with a varsity HS team, and you are coaching 5-year-olds. You say to yourself, "I deserve to be coaching varsity because my friend is."
Are You In It For the Right Reasons?
I will use sports coaching as an example because it's the world I'm living in right now. There is nothing wrong with lofty coaching aspirations at the highest professional levels.
But don't overvalue those dreams over the present moment of where you are coaching. Ask yourself, does an NBA coach make a more significant impact than a middle school basketball coach on their players?
Maybe, maybe not. But the reason I'm all in on coaching, leading, and teaching is because of the impact I can make. It's amazing the difference we can make in human lives behind the stage.
Everyone Has Access to a Stage and a Platform Now
I'll be the first person to admit I fell into the stage trap last year. I was longing for more when I was working at the Boys & Girls Club and substitute teaching.
My ego came in the way and told me it was time to "be successful" right now. So I mentally checked out of those jobs to pursue what I thought would be a fulfilling future. A future where I would be admired on the internet for my coaching profession like many of my peers.
But guess what? I became incredibly unhappy when I went to full-time freelancing and working on my projects. Why? I wasn't working on my strengths and lacked human connection.
Fall in Love With the Behind the Scenes Work
Most of life is behind the screen and off-camera. Even for content creators like myself, so much happens off the stage. As humans, we need to cultivate and create a life where we love the behind-the-scenes work.
We will not always get the recognition we may feel we deserve, and that's okay. It's up to us to align our strengths and passions to pursue a meaningful life of contributing to the greater good of society.
Let's have fun, encourage others to perform well, and enjoy the ride because we only get one shot at the end of the day.
