What does Vince Lombardi know about real estate? Probably very little. I'm sure that he hired a realtor to buy and sell his homes. He may have bought cash, but who knows? Vince didn't know me personally, but he sure knows how to motivate me. About 4 years ago, I hired Vince Lombardi junior to give my company a speech. Here is an excerpt from his dad, the Green Bay Packer's coach, speech on winning. If you ask me, it translates so well to real estate:
Winning is not a sometimes thing; it's an all-the-time thing. You don't win once in aWhile, you don't do things once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is ahabit. Unfortunately, so is losing.There is no room for second place. There is only one place in my game and that is firstplace. I have finished second twice in my time at Green Bay and I don't ever want to finishsecond again. There is a second place bowl game, But it is a game for losers played by losers.It is and always has been an American zeal to be first in anything we do and to win and to winand to win.
Every time a football player goes out to play his trade he's got to play from the ground up-from the soles of his feet right up to his head. Every inch of him has to play. Some guys playwith their heads. That's O.K. You've got to be smart to be No. 1 in any business, but moreimportant, you've got to play with your heart- with every fiber of your body. If you're luckyenough to find a guy with a lot of head and a lot of heart, he's never going to come off the field second.
Running a football team is no different from running any other kind of organization- anarmy, a political party, a business. The principles are the same. The object is to win- to beatthe other guy. Maybe that sounds hard and cruel. I don't think it is.It's a reality of life that men are competitive and the most competitive games draw themost competitive men. That's why they're there- to compete. They know the rules and theobjectives when they get in the game. The object is to win-fairly, squarely, decently, by therules- but to win.And in truth, I've never known a man worth his salt who in the long run, deep down in hisHeart, didn't appreciate the grind, the discipline and the harsh reality of head-to-head combat.
I don't say these things because I believe in the ‘brute' nature of man or that man must be brutalized to be combative. I believe in God, and I believe in human decency. But I firmlybelieve that any mans finest hour-his greatest fulfillment to all he holds dear-is that momentwhen he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle-victorious.
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