Obsessed with succeeding

To be the best at something, you have to be willing to do things others aren't willing to do. As a high school athlete, I wanted to be the best wrestler on the planet, so I was willing to do some "crazy" things that set me apart. Some of them were completely ridiculous, but I believed they were required to gain an edge physically and mentally. Obviously, I was never the best wrestler on the planet, but I still believe in order to be the best, you need to be a little bit crazy.

Some of the things I saw as essential to separate me from the crowd were various mind games that I played with myself. They were internal goals that no one else knew about. In hindsight, I think a lot of them had obsessive compulsive disorder tendencies and they were often times nuisances, but I knew I had to do things that were sometimes inconvenient if I was striving to be the best.

No shortcuts

I heard several times that the best never take shortcuts. I understand what is implied when people say this, but I did my best to take this to the extreme. I often looked for ways to make my journey longer than others. I still wanted to get there first, but I didn't want to take a shortcut to do it, I wanted to take the long way and beat everyone who took the shorter path. The most concrete example I have is when I was walking on sidewalks, I always took the extra steps to cross the street at the cross walk even if my friends slightly cut the corner. Not only did I do this with crosswalks, I did it with every path. You wouldn't have seen me cut across the grass at anytime. I believed if I took shortcuts easily on the sidewalk, there was nothing stopping me from taking shortcuts during my training. Crazy? Absolutely. Did it work? I'm not sure, but I wasn't willing to take the risk that it wouldn't.

Cracks in the sidewalk

A lot of these idiosyncrasies became superstitions that I was scared to let go of. One in particular started when I was in Confirmation class in 9th grade and one of my friends challenged me to not step on a crack in the sidewalk during from the riddle, "don't step on a crack or you'll break so-and-so's back." I looked at it as another training opportunity. This time, it was one of self-control and discipline. I went through my entire high school career without stepping on a single crack on any sidewalk. Similar to the shortcut thing, I believed it gave me a mental edge over my competition. It was also extremely inconvenient. Obviously, I had one eye on the prize and one eye on the sidewalk spotting cracks (yes, even the routine cracks every three feet). Crazy? Absolutely. Did it work? Again, I'm not sure, but I wasn't willing to take the risk that it wouldn't.

One extra

I'm the first to admit that these behaviors came close to consuming me, but I was obsessed with succeeding. Another deal I made with myself was to always "do one extra" when it came to training. If we had 10 sprints, I did 11. Soon the one extra wasn't exceptional and I had to do two extra (in case there were others who were also doing one extra). On my birthday in 2000, I took this to the extreme when I set out to do more stadium stairs runs at Camp Randall than anyone else. I had 25 up-and-down in my mind and kept adding one more in case someone else took on the same adventure. I forced myself to stop after 102 stadium stairs runs to the top. To be the best at something, it's a prerequisite to be obsessed with greatness and success. It needs to flow into every aspect of your life. To be the best, you have to be crazy, but you must maintain a healthy perspective, too.

Needless to say, now that my athletic career is over I do my best not to pay attention to the cracks in the sidewalk, however, I find myself doing things out of the ordinary in hopes of becoming the best wrestling coach, the best father or the the best husband I can be because I'm still obsessed with greatness. But for now, those are secrets.