Unlocking Greatness: Overcoming Complacency for Success

I just heard something on Twitter that it was an interview with Nick Saban. It was really impactful for me, but Nick Saban, for those that don't know, is the head basketball, head football coach—apologies, head football coach—at the University of Alabama, often regarded as maybe the best football coach. Definitely of our generation, my generation, but maybe of all time, and they are getting ready. I believe they're like eight and one, seven and one, something like that.

They're getting ready this weekend to play the University of Tennessee Chattanooga. It is outside of their conference. It is a team that they're probably favored to beat by well over 20, 30 points. It shouldn't be a problem. They're playing them at home. It shouldn't be an issue. So the question to Nick Saban is, how do you prepare your team for this game?

You go through the rigors of your conference. It's hard. You're playing Georgia and Auburn and Tennessee and Kentucky and all these teams in the SEC, but now you're going out of conference and playing a bad team. And his comment was, "What we are trying to get across to our team is that complacency will break momentum."

Let me say that again. So you get it. It's really important with your teams, with yourself, with your goals and ambitions and where you want to be in five to 10 years and where you want your teams to be in one to five years. Complacency will break your momentum. So we've got to have coaches and leaders that continue to challenge us, move us forward, give us the feedback we need to improve.

Challenge us so that we cannot get complacent. Momentum is a driving force, and to quote Saban, "Once you start getting momentum, it's hard to get back. Once it's broken." Let me give you this example.

Working on Dead Three, working on podcasting and blogging and social media and getting all of this out. And for those that follow my content, know that we were crushing it. We were getting all this out. Something happened professionally that I had to take care of, and we did, but it also broke my momentum of all this other stuff.

We broke our momentum, and I have struggled getting that back and getting momentum back and getting my wins back. I went for a walk yesterday, and I ran into a friend of mine, and we just started talking. I was just down and I was frustrated and I've been complacent, and I looked at him and I said, "You know, the best I've ever done was 2 years ago."

And I was doing this 75 hard workout where you have to do six or seven things every day. You've got to do it for 75 days. You can't break it. If you break it and you got to start over on day one, even if you're on day 72 and you don't do all seven of these things, you got to start over again on, you got to be able to do it for 75 days.

And I did it with my wife, and we crushed it from January 1st to March 17th. We crushed it. No drinking, two workouts a day, a bunch of water, a bunch of reading, a bunch of activities, blah, blah, we did it and we created momentum. We were not complacent. We crushed it. Then when it's over, we lost all momentum, all momentum.

And then I didn't like that feeling. So three weeks later, I did it again, but just a 30-day challenge, not a 75-day, 30-day challenge. Created the momentum again, 30 days are up. Did it the month of April, May 1st rolls around, done, done. And I looked at my friend, I was like, "That's the best I've ever felt."

And I try to do it again, and I've tried and I can't build the momentum back up. I can't even get a day. I can't even get two days. I can do it for a day, but I can't get to day two, and I know I should be doing it. Momentum is a driving force. You've got to get it. You've got to stay focused. You need to be coached. You need leadership. You need to be pushed. You need to set goals. You need to have a strategy for your day, your week, your month. It keeps you moving in the right direction.

When I work with software teams and I'm asked to come in and either consult or just to coach them to get better, to help them to start winning. The first thing we do, other than just kind of getting a landscape myself of what is actually going on. But the first thing we try to do with them is we've got to figure out how to get a win. We've got to figure out what win is today on Monday.

So at 5 PM, 4 PM, when people leave, they feel like they got a win and they're recognized and acknowledged for it. We've got to start creating. Momentum, and we need to get a win tomorrow and the next day, then the win's got to be bigger and bigger and bigger, and we won't be complacent with it.

Complacency is a killer to momentum. It represents a state of self-satisfaction, good enough, that it's okay to be just okay, as we say, instead of sustaining momentum, setting crazy goals, being coached to reach those goals, knowing we're capable of more and better and moving forward.

Complacency allows you to sit on the couch and eat a bag of Cheetos. And say it's okay. And now all of a sudden you haven't run for a week. You haven't been eating well, you haven't been crushing your goals. It's so easy to sit there and say, "I'm just going to go take a nap and not do a run." It's so easy to say, "I'm not going to make that phone call. I'll get to it tomorrow."

I'm reading this book called "Atomic Habits" by James Clear. And the portion of it that I read this morning, there's needs to, and there's want to. The habits that we need to create should be the need-tos. I need to go running. I want to sit on the couch and watch SportsCenter. Okay? When I'm done with my need-tos, I will do my want-tos.

I will not be complacent. I will not break momentum. I will be resilient and have a positive mindset to continue to push me towards my goals, my outcomes, my results that I need. So I continue with momentum. Don't let your teams become complacent.

What's Nick Saban doing? Nick Saban is saying, "We play Chattanooga this week." He's probably with his coaching staff. He's nervous about it. Any coach at any level is always worried about the next opponent. Does he believe that they should win? Absolutely. He's not playing Georgia where he's like, "We've got to do this in order to win." He knows that they should beat Chattanooga regardless of a thing, you know, but he's also sitting there saying if we allow them to get complacent, we will get our asses kicked.

And not only that, it'll break momentum. So as we prepare for the next round of opponents and the SEC championship and maybe a national championship in the playoffs. We would have broken momentum and we can't get it back. So let's challenge them. Let's focus on today, this practice, this time period. Let's get a pluses.

Let's not be complacent. Let's coach them to be great. Let's coach them to realize and get them beyond what they're capable of. And let's not break momentum and let's bust their ass on Saturday and let's get ready for the SEC championship.

Don't let your teams be complacent.

Get after them, challenge them, acknowledge them, value them, care for them, but understand we're going to push you. They have greatness in them. You have greatness in you, your teams have greatness in them. Let's get it out of them.