How to lead like a dawg

For the moment when the ball was in the air before Kelee Ringo picked it off and had the pick six, what was that moment, what did you see in front of you?

The moment UGA won the 2021 National Championship

This is the question ESPN’s Kece Davis asked Coach Kirby Smart during the trophy presentation ceremony of the National Championship. Kirby’s response has stuck with me ever since:

Actually, I saw about 1000 drills we did during the year playing the ball with Kelee and I knew he was going to catch it. I didn’t know he was going to run it back, but I knew he was going to catch it. And what a big play in a big moment.

Coach Kirby Smart

It takes work to win and to accomplish your goals. A lot of work.

I love Kirby’s response because his entire team worked their tail off to get on that stage. Coach Smart knew Kelee was going to make the play because they had practiced it a thousand times. When asked about one of the biggest moments in Georgia football history, Kirby credited the work.

Take a look at another quote from team captain Jamaree Salyer after winning that night. The culture of putting in the work shines through.

Q. What does this moment and winning a national title at Georgia mean for you? 

It’s probably one of the most special things I’ve ever done in my life. Just understanding the work that it took, honestly, it’s kind of one of the crazy things, just understanding how much work, man hours and how many reps. It’s kind of crazy to look back on it.

Jamaree Salyer

In 2016 we produced a film for Jamaree’s high school that features him doing squats. He has not stopped doing reps since and the work will undoubtedly pay off during the upcoming NFL Draft.

Jamaree Salyer doing squats at Pace Academy in 2016

Nakobe Dean and Jordan Davis (two additional team captains) both credited work ethic in their postgame interviews.

Kirby created a vision and instilled a culture of preparation and readiness. He was honest about the amount of work required to get there. He was able to attract, inspire, and coach others who bought into his strategy.

Three points of application:

  1. It takes time to reach big goals
    • Coach Smart won the National Championship in his sixth season as the Georgia Head Coach. Before that, he was the Defensive Coordinator of Alabama for eight seasons. And before that he was a coach for nine seasons. Twenty-three seasons of coaching to reach the top.
  2. There are no short cuts
    • UGA quarterback and former walk on, Stetson Bennett, said it best after helping Georgia win the title: “I hope it gives somebody a little hope, just keep fighting, keep your mouth shut, work hard, life’s tough, you just gotta fight through it.”
  3. The end crowns the work
    • Or said another way, the goal gives value to the labor that produced it. This is one of my favorite phrases that I discovered while walking the Brooklyn Bridge. Kirby and the entire UGA Football Team brought this phrase to life while accepting the championship trophy.

It takes belief, a team, time, and work. Seeing the dawgs win in Indy will forever be a source of inspiration and pride. Go Dawgs!

Two women, who symbolize Brooklyn and Manhattan, are shaking hands as they meet for the first time because the Brooklyn Bridge was the first solid foundation that connected the two islands. Above reads the sign “Finis Coronat Opus.” This Latin terms means, “The end crowns the work.”

My community helped me run over 1100 miles in 2021

One year ago I made a resolution to run 21 miles every week of 2021. It took 231 runs and over 150 hours but I completed the goal this past Friday.

Two primary running hats in 2021

Before starting all of this I wasn’t a big runner. The idea of running 3 or 5 miles at a time wasn’t that appealing to me, however I was ready to make a commitment to something that tested my self-discipline.

To help with motivation I publicly shared the challenge on all my social media accounts and periodically provided updates as we moved through the year. This ended up being critical to my accomplishment and led to my biggest takeaway of the year.

Each running week would start on Monday and end on Sunday. The key was completing as many miles before the weekend as possible which ended up being difficult for a few reasons.

Scheduling: My wife is a teacher who needs to leave for school by 7am and my son is a recent 1 year old who wakes up between 6:30-7am. I’ll normally feed him, dress him, and get him out the door to daycare. I’m home from work between 5:30-6pm and then it’s bath, bottle, bed for the kid until 7pm, followed by spending time with wife and any night work. This meant that these important during-the-week-miles needed to be run before my son woke up, which required a serious lifestyle and mentality change.

Weather: I learned that running in cold weather is better than warmer weather because you can always add more layers. The humid, dog-days of summer were brutal, especially when I badly rolled my ankle in July. I tried to avoid rain runs as best as I could.

Other: Weeks that included travel or being sick would knock me out of routine and shortened the week. Late nights never helped. And then there were the days I didn’t feel like running.

Despite my best efforts I still had weekends where I needed 10+ miles to keep the streak alive. The weekend offers more flexibility to run but at the expense of other activities. I played very little golf, significantly reduced my time on a mountain bike, and had to take a season off from the local soccer team.

What helped me accomplish this goal was my community who kept me accountable week in and week out. Many ran alongside me, issued encouragement and advice, and shared their doubts. Special shoutout to Annie for believing in me, Logdog for doing 90% of the runs with me, my Strava Kudos Gang, and everyone who engaged with me through it all. Your feedback and support propelled me to the finish.

Now here’s my biggest takeaway of it all — a strong community is required to accomplish big goals. You can’t do it alone.

Take a look at the community around you.
– How will your community help you to achieve your goals?
– How will you grow your community to help you achieve your goals?
– How will you support your community?

It feels good to complete the challenge. For those wondering, I will not be running 22 miles every week of 2022 although I have signed up for an Ultra Spartan Race in March, which involves completing 30 miles and 60 obstacles in a single day. The goal is to finish and not be completely wrecked afterwards.

My new, year-long resolution for 2022 is meditating at least 5 minutes every day. I have not done a lot of meditating in my life but look forward to understanding it better twelve months from now!

Final Running Stats of 2021
– Runs: 231
– Time: 156hrs and 41 mins
– Distance: 1106 miles
– Elev Gain: 50,364 ft

The Original Birdnest

While preparing this blog, I rediscovered my old one! Here it is.

I made five post from March 2013-Jan 2015. They are called:

The rediscovery was a fun stroll down memory lane and it feels appropriate to pay homage by giving the predecessor a shoutout as my first post here.

My biggest learning from my old blog and this Twitter account I operated from Feb 2012-Aug 2014 (@wordsofencourage) is do not stop.

I kick myself wondering where both would be if I had continued over the last six/seven years. Regardless, they both helped me become the person I am today and I intend to keep this site active for many decades to come.