Photo by Ben Hershey on Unsplash
Generally, as you might expect, my blog posts represent my ideas and my words.
Every once in a while, however, I’m so blown away by something someone else thinks and writes that I feel a deep need to promote and share it.
That is the case now with the thoughts of Nick Foles, the quarterback for the Super Bowl-winning Philadelphia Eagles.
For those of you who don’t follow football, Foles is a journeyman, bounced from team to team over the years as a fill-in, add-on, grist-in-the-mill kind of player. At Philadelphia, he was only playing because the much-vaunted starter suffered a season-ending injury. When Foles took over as quarterback, he was simply awful. His passes were erratic; his on-field judgment seemed cloudy. His team, which had been on a winning tear, lost.
But each week, he got a bit better and he was just good enough during the regular season to eke his team—which has deep talent and a terrifyingly strong defense—into the playoffs.
And then, suddenly, in the playoffs, he was great! And in the Super Bowl, he was masterful against the dreaded New England Patriots, who make a sport of chewing up other teams in the big game.
On the day Philly won the Super Bowl, at a time most athletes would be touting a trip to Disneyland, Foles wrote the words below. They are full of wisdom and I think could stand as a manifesto for entrepreneurs, or really for anyone who wants to understand the deep underpinnings of success.
I might have expected this from a business guru or life coach. To get it from an athlete is truly remarkable.
Foles wrote:
"I think the big thing is don't be afraid to fail. I think in our society today, Instagram, Twitter, it's a highlight reel. It's all the good things. And then when you look at it, you think like, wow, when you have a rough day or your life's not as good as that, like, you're failing.
"Failure is a part of life. That's a part of building character and growing. Without failure, who would you be? I wouldn't be up here if I hadn't fallen thousands of times. Made mistakes.
"We all are human, we all have weaknesses, and I think throughout this, just being able to share that and be transparent. I know when I listen to people speak and they share their weaknesses, I'm listening. Because I can resonate.
"So I'm not perfect. I'm not Superman. I might be in the NFL, and we might have just won the Super Bowl, but, hey, we still have daily struggles, I still have daily struggles. So that's where my faith comes in, that's where my family comes in.
"I think when you look at a struggle in your life, just know that's just an opportunity for your character to grow. And that's really just been the message. Simple. If something's going on in your life and you're struggling? Embrace it. Because you're growing."
This causes me to think that the Patriots, and everybody else in football, underestimated this young man. They had no idea who they were really up against.
And that, of course, is what every entrepreneur requires.