Colin Kaepernick hasn’t played a down in the NFL since he began his silent protest of police brutality against people of color. Dating back to his childhood, he continuously invested in himself, perfecting his craft to the point he could play football at the highest level.
How many days can you take off and still be a starting NFL quarterback? I doubt any at all...
Imagine all the personal sacrifices Colin had to make, just to reach the goals he set for himself. With all that taken into consideration, imagine the type of energy it took to choose...yes choose, to sacrifice his career in order to use his platform to create change for others? That’s a real sacrifice. Putting yourself last. Placing your wants to the side in order to achieve a greater good. Understanding your power and how to wield it. Colin understood this concept and the results back that fact up!
There’s an art to sacrificing and how it directly impacts your success in life.
Listen, you may aspire to be a leader with the skills to connect effectively to the team you “could” potentially be leading in the future. You might even be an individual with intentions of climbing your personal mountain of success, to whatever goals you have set for yourself. Regardless of what spectrum you exist in, sacrifice is relevant! How can you expect to receive positive gains in your life without ridding yourself of the dead weight that's holding you back? It's all give and take! That dead weight could be anything from bad habits, immaturity, selfishness etc... It's important that you regularly give yourself a personal audit but with the focus aimed at the “sacrifice” category.
What are you currently giving up, to be where you are in life right now?
Write those things down. Hang them up around you. Is that it? Is that really all you have to offer? The reason Colin Kaepernick was used as an example earlier, wasn’t because he sacrificed the millions he "could have made" from playing football. He was used because of the fact he actually sacrificed something more, that being himself. His time. His energy. His being. Everything that went into him being able to achieve that level of play. Colin sacrificed an actual piece of himself when he took that knee. He may have lost his NFL salary but that number means little when compared to what he earned from his leadership. That’s what makes it so powerful when we live in a country lead by leaders who don’t understand the concept at all. However, you don’t have to take a knee to make Kaepernick like impact on yourself & those around you.
Time is money, so how are you spending yours?
How are you using your time? If you strategize what to do with your money, why wouldn’t you do that with your time as well? A lot of people don’t have a plan with their time because ultimately, they don’t care where they end up in life. That’s a choice & you’ll choose what make sense to you. However, if you want the very most out of life & want it has to offer, you’ll choose to be deliberate and effective with your time.
Are you investing your time on items that don’t return anything tangible to you? Things that at the end of the day, offer nothing to defend their existence...?
We all have vices but you have to choose to sacrifice things, people or items that don’t return the investment for our time. When you start to see how you can sacrifice more than money, such as your time, energy & sanity, then you can better understand the concept. When people around you catch wind of you making these types of sacrifices, it'll leave an impact that is invaluable. Not to mention authentic!
Leadership isn't barking out orders or forcing your views on people, most of the time it’s by living & accepting your truths...
People don’t need to hear you speaking in order to learn from you! Just by you making those sacrifices in your life and living by your truths, you can have positive impacts on the people around you. The key to leading is to do so without reminding people every 5 minutes of your intentions. I believe we all have areas of our lives where we can afford to sacrifice more, it just takes a certain level of maturity to acknowledge the fact. People who sacrifice also tend to have something to lose. You should always have a reason or a purpose for why you’re sacrificing any portion of your being. If you're struggling to answer any of those, you should step back & do some soul-searching. I'll leave you with the quote below to wrap up.
"Who do you blame, when you happen to be the only person at the table...?"