Brian Johnson (Heroic +1 #1,431) reflects on Rule #4 — "Finish strong" — from Darren Donnelly's Old School Grit. He reads the coach's locker-room admonition that "Everybody starts strong, but champions finish strong," then connects it to his own startup experience running E Teams (which raised $5 million), the Sanskrit cautionary term rhaambashura (a "hero in the beginning"), and Napoleon Hill's observation that many people quit just before success. The episode closes with a motivational reminder to persevere and "finish strong."
Questions this video answers
15 rules.
Rule number four — "Finish strong."
February 20, 2023.
$5 million.
Chapters
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic plus one. In our last one, we talked about Darren Donnelly's 15 rules of grit from his great Sports for the Soul fable Old School Grit. Today we're going to talk about rule number four. But first, here's the quick recap of all 15 rules. Number one, don't accept your fate. Create your destiny. Two, you'll only achieve what you believe you can achieve. Three, embrace the pressure. Four, finish strong. Five, find something you love to do and stick with it. Six, keep moving forward. Seven, put the needs of others above your own. Eight, live for a purpose greater than yourself. Nine, eliminate negative influences. Ten, Effort trumps talent. Eleven, focus only on the things you can control. And twelve, don't waste a day. Thirteen, Life is a series of wins and lessons. Fourteen, don't put off pursuing your dreams. Fifteen, don't quit. Don't ever quit. Now here's the story from the fable to bring the wisdom of rule number four to life. Darren's hero guide Coach tells us, and I quote, in the locker room prior to our championship game, I wrote two words on the whiteboard in front of my players. Finish strong. It's easy to start strong. I told them, everybody can start strong, whether it's a season or a game. Everyone starts off excited, positive and enthusiastic. Everyone starts off full of energy and optimism. But fellas, after more than four decades of coaching, I've learned that while everybody starts strong, only champions finish strong. He continues by saying, it's a fact of life I've seen hammered home over my many years as a coach. Things are usually toughest right before a breakthrough moment. It's funny how quickly life can turn around if you keep pushing forward and expecting things to be most difficult right before they get drastically better. Then he tells us, and I quote again, you have to expect your most challenging moment right before your greatest victory. Remember this the next time you feel like you can't catch a break or you start questioning whether you have what it takes to accomplish your dream. To make his philosophical point with a hammer, he tells us, everybody starts strong, but champions finish strong. Now, I thought of a number of things when I read that passage on finishing strong and rule number four, I thought of one of my most influential mentors when I was running my first business. I thought of the Sanskrit word for being a hero in the beginning, and I thought of Napoleon Hill and his parallel wisdom on success coming right after we almost give up. Let's briefly discuss each now. First, my mentor. As we've discussed way back in the day when I had more hair and less gray whiskers coming in nicely. I was a 25 year old CEO running my first company. It was the 1999 2000.com boom era. Our business was called E Teams. We won the businessman competition at UCLA's business school. We'd raised $5 million. We were a pretty exciting startup that blended sports and technology. Dartboard in my office, ping pong table in the boardroom. The full deal. We were blessed to hire the CEO of Adidas to replace me as the young CEO. Then the market crashed. Rather than going out and raising our next big round, we had to deal with some huge obstacles to survive. Which is precisely when my mentor told me what Coach Flanagan told his players as they were getting ready for a March Madness NCAA game. My guy told me it's easy to start something. I can remember him saying this like it was yesterday. How long ago was it now? 20, what, three years ago? It's easy to start something. It's a lot harder to finish it strong. And I'm proud of how our team responded to those challenges. As I earned my first batch of gray whiskers, we endured the tough times and wound up creating a positive return for our investors. We while ultimately serving millions of families involved in youth sports with our platform and as we discuss in passage, meditation and the Art of Taking Action. Check out both of those notes. Eknath Eswaron tells us that this idea of starting something strong and then tiptoeing out the back door when things get hard has been so common for so long that thousands of years ago the ancient sages of India came up for a word for it. In Sanskrit they call it a rhaambashura, which we've talked about so many times, which literally means to be a hero in the beginning, not what we're looking for. Heroes finish strong. Then there's Napoleon Hill in Think and Grow Rich. Check out those notes. He tells us, quote, before success comes in any man's life, he is sure to meet with much temporary defeat and perhaps some failure. When defeat overtakes a man, the easiest and most logical thing to do is to quit. That is exactly what the majority of men do. More than 500 of the most successful men this country has ever known told the author, gotta love the old school third person reference that their greatest success came just one step beyond the point at which defeat had overtaken them. And that's today's plus one. Remember rule number four of old school grit. Heroes finish Strong. Day one all in. Let's go.
