This Moving Speech Might Make You Cry

I mean, is it not, does it not sound absurd? Can we even do the video with that? Have you even listened to the levels to see if this is going to work? All right, so Jameson sent me a video the other day of this guy, David Belisle, coach of the Rhode Island Little League team, and he was giving his team a speech. after they'd lost this huge game. I wish I could tell you more than that, but I know nothing about baseball, let alone Little League, so I'll stop there in terms of the sport itself. But what captivated me about this speech was the lesson that he passed on to these young guys. I'm going to show you a clip of this because they were sitting around him and they're sobbing, they're crying, and it's the sweetest moment ever. And you can see how much it meant to them, and he's sitting there with them. Not consoling them, but I think empowering them and giving them a lesson that we all need to learn at times. So let's start, I want to give you a little taste of this clip right now. Let's jump into that and then I'm.

Gonna come back to you afterwards. It's a pie. Let's talk for a moment. Yeah.

Look, I gotta see your eyes, guys. Okay?

There's no disappointment, okay? And you're at it. Okay? In the whole tournament, in the whole season, it's been an incredible journey, okay? We fought, look at the score. Eight to seven, okay? 12 to 10 in hits, came to the last out, we didn't quit. That's us. Boys, that's us. The only reason why, okay, I'll probably end up shedding a tear is 'cause this is the last time I'm gonna end up coaching you guys. But I'm gonna bring back with me, and the coaching staff is gonna bring back with me, and you guys are gonna bring back something, okay? That no other team can provide but you guys. That's pride, okay? Pride. You're gonna take that for the rest of your life, what you provided for a talented Cumberland. You had the whole place jumping, right? You had the whole state jumping. You had New England jumping. Yeah, yeah, ESPN jumping, okay? Because why don't they like fighters? They like sportsmen.

So why did this strike a chord with me? Well, it struck a chord with a lot of people because it went a little viral, a lot of people watched it. I think one of the reasons is because we get so caught up on the end result and we often do find ourselves sitting there mourning the loss of something that we thought would happen as a result of our hard work, of our taking risks. That grieving can lead to us not wanting to try again. It can lead to us developing a negative association with putting in the hard work in the first place because after all, if I don't get the result that I want, what was the point in all of the hard work? And as he's sitting there and he's saying to him, you had the whole town jump in, you had everyone on the on their feet. You had ESPN on their feet, the whole stadium. He said, you know why? Because they love a fighter, win or lose. Ultimately, that person who people really feel for, the person that people want to help, that's the person that fought for it. And many times it's the underdog, the person that you didn't think was gonna win or didn't win, but they fought so hard for it that you can't help but feel like they won your heart. The world loves someone who puts everything into it and who doesn't back down. I found this piece of paper the other day, and it was a Tony Robbins quote, and I'd written down Effort is the reward. I guess it must have meant something to me when I wrote it down, but the funny thing was it didn't mean anything to me the other day when I read it. It sounded too cheesy for me. It sounded too positive. You know me. If you watch these videos, you know I don't like things that are just positive without meaning, things that don't feel based in reality. And when I heard the effort is the reward, it seemed too positive for my liking. The thing that really made me think about it was going to the gym the other day. and I worked out really hard. I got home, I felt wrecked at the end of it. But I had this kind of euphoric feeling and I know you've had it. If you're someone who goes to the gym, you get home from the gym and you almost have this euphoric feeling of having done something with your day, having achieved something. You could get the same thing if you just focus on a project for a couple of hours that you've been putting off and all of a sudden you put energy into it and afterwards you feel this slightly euphoric feeling of having achieved something. Many times we think, well, once I've been to the gym, I'm going to reward myself. I'm going to get a massage or I'm going to or watch my favorite TV show and relax. And we think those things are the reward. Those are the artificial rewards. The real reward is the effort that you put in. And it clicked for me in this moment. I go, oh God, I remember why I wrote that down at the time. I wrote it down because just the act of going to the gym is the thing that makes you feel good. And it doesn't always make you feel good in the moment. In fact, it can suck. It can really hurt. But at the end of the task, That feeling of having that pride that he talks about in that clip I just showed you, that feeling of euphoria, of having done something that has meaning, done something that requires effort, that is where the real reward is. We don't need artificial rewards because the effort is the reward. I think David Belisle really captured that when he talked to the boys and he said, you, don't need to take home a win when you take home pride. And right now you take home pride and you'll carry that for the rest of your life because you fought today and you went for it and you didn't give up. And I want to say that to you right now. Whatever it is it is you're doing in your life, just because you're not getting the result that you want, it doesn't matter. The pride that comes from going for it, from putting in the effort, is more important than the reward of the outcome itself. For those kids, for that little league team, they keep fighting like that and battling like that in their life. They're gonna get wins. It doesn't matter whether they get a win that day or not. They may be upset by not winning that day, but they will win in their lives because of that attitude. So the important thing is not the win on the day. The important thing is not the number you get tonight, the date you get tonight, the promotion you get today, the extra money you make today. The importance is not on that. The importance is on the pride that you take home at the end of today. Because you know that you put the effort in, you know that you used it, and you know that you didn't give in. So go get that pride, my friends. I'm excited for you. I'll see you in the next video. And thank you as always.

I love you guys. I'm gonna love you forever. And you've given me the most precious moment, okay, of my athletic and coaching career, okay? So for the last time, we're gonna try to suck it up and we're gonna yell Americans, okay? One, two, three. Americans! Okay, boys, good job.