Gratitude

Gratitude is king.

Seriously - being thankful and showing thankfulness and gratitude are what will move you forward in this world.

Doing for others rather than being done for.

You'll find in this world the more you offer other people the more you get in return.  Believe it or not what you get in return isn't always just a warm fuzzy that you did something nice for someone.

I'm not trying to say if you go around doing good deeds all day, and nothing else, that you're going to have your wildest dreams come true.  If that's how you spend your days the warm fuzzy is likely all you're going to get - or perhaps someone will buy you lunch.

What am I talking about then?

The other day I was trying to grasp the concept of gratitude shown by those who are widely recognized as being wildly successful at what they did.  It's going to sound strange, but I watched the Hall of Fame Induction speeches by Emmitt Smith and Michael Irvin.  I'm going to concentrate on Emmitt even though Irvin's speech might be one of the all time great speeches in my book.

If you know of Emmitt Smith you know he retired as the leading rusher in NFL History.  You might wonder why I would use him as an example of real gratitude.  Watch the speech.

Emmitt said in his speech that at 6 years old he declared he was going to play in the NFL.  I think it was in college he decided he was going to be the NFL Leading Rusher.  He wasn't ashamed to say he set goals people laughed at when he told them.  He wasn't ashamed to say he worked hard to achieve them either - they would never have been possible without the hard work.

Here's what else he did.  He recognized the quarterback (Troy Aikman) and primary received (Michael Irvin) and tight end (Jay Novacek) and stated flat out that his achievements wouldn't have been possible without them.

Then he named the linemen who were on those great Cowboy teams.  It might be normal for a running back to name the recognizable names from the line.  Emmitt named them all.  While never a Cowboy fan I was a huge Emmitt Smith fan, and closely followed the NFL during the years he played.  He named linemen I had never heard of.  He had them stand and thanked each of them personally and by name - recognizing that without them he would have been tackled in the backfield and his accomplishments would have been impossible.

Then individually he thanked his fullback.  Darryl "Moose" Johnston.  He got very emotional in this one.  Thanked him for watching out for him on the field like he was looking out for his little brother.  If you remember those teams it's true.  Moose never put up stats that got noticed by anybody - he made the pro bowl a few times - but every game he was there.  Leading the way and moving people out of the way.  Truly Emmitt would not have the records he has without Moose and he made sure during his speech the world new it.

Showing gratitude after the fact isn't all there is.  It's not all Emmitt did either - not the only way he showed gratitude.  The other way was while they were playing.  Now - there were stories back then of running backs buying dinner for their linemen - or watches at Christmas.  Emmitt did one thing better than nearly every other player during his era. He showed up to work every single day.  He did his conditioning, and his strength training and he showed up like he owed it to every other player on the field.  Emmitt played hurt like few others, and perhaps none since.  The quintessential tough guy on the field - playing with injuries often during the playoffs.  He was a workhorse and everybody knew it.

See - his teammates worked hard because they knew he was working hard.  He worked hard because he knew they worked hard.  He showed up  - hurt or not - and played like the world was going to end if he didn't because he knew those other guys were doing the same for him.

Sometimes showing gratitude is more work than you thought it was going to be.  By showing it to them he got it from them and the more he got from them the more he felt he owed them.  For the Dallas Cowboys of the early 90's it was a cycle and because of that cycle they won more football games than any other team in that decade.  Because of that cycle they have good number of guys in the hall of fame (Smith, Aikman, Irvin, Johnston, and a handful of those linemen - plus Novacek seems a matter of time before he's there as well).

Smith didn't downplay is own role - he put in the work on and off the field.  He set the goals and did the work to make them happen.  Along the way he simply acknowledged that he could not accomplish those goals on his own.

Gratitude - maybe not what you pictured?