Tennessee Rain (and Football)...

I don’t know what it is about Tennessee rain, but there really is nothing like it. It’s comfortable, it’s peaceful, it brings me back to my roots every time. It reminds me of times under tin roofs on the lake, it takes me back to football games with my dad in the good old days. Where we won, when we would hear “Give him 6” (if you know, you know) and the games my dad “made” us stay at even if we were 100 points down, in the pouring rain, because we stayed until the end of the game. Period. Now, I know that as passion and dedication and one of the greatest lessons he could have ever taught me.

You stay in the game.

I didn’t realize the importance of this lesson or maybe even do it until I got older. You stay in the game, you stay at the game, 100 points down or 100 points up even when the sky is falling. To be honest, I am pretty sure every game I left earlier, we came back and won with some crazy Hail Mary.

I have found there are times in my life when I have left the game early and looked back and wondered what if, what if I just took one more step, one more leap, one more try, what if that would have been my Hail Mary? I am no longer willing to live in what if.

What about you, are you living in what if…

What if I went back to school?

What if I quit my job and started my dream business?

What if I traveled the world?

WHAT IF?

I know the times I have tapped out it wasn't because I am a quitter but because it was not right, it was not my passion, my calling. It has taken me a while to learn this, as I am often my own worst enemy and think “oh look I just failed one more time”. Instead of shifting the thinking to what if…

I wasn’t playing the right game? The game designed for you.

Isn’t that a relief to just relax into the fact that maybe it just wasn’t the right game, maybe you didn’t quit, maybe you are just an arrow being launched in another direction? So you didn’t get the job, or this idea or that idea didn’t work, get back in the game, keep going until you find the right thing, the thing that fits you, your passion, your life's calling.

What lights you up enough to stay in the game 100 points down the pouring rain?

I know its’ easy to give up, to quit when you're 100 points down and see no goal line in sight. But what if that Hail Mary is the next step, the next leap of faith?

For me it’s about getting clear, setting a goal, and permitting myself to KNOW it’s going to shift, it’s going to change, and always along the way I learn and grow. We often find ourselves with new goals, new passions, and new excitements in life. Give yourself grace in the times you are 100 points down, grit when you can’t even see the goal line, and celebrate every little success along the way. As it is the little things that add it, that get you there, that get you through, that help you stay in the game.

It’s the little things like the smell and sounds of this East Tennessee rainstorm that remind me of my roots, and to always stay in the game even if Tennessee is losing to Florida 100-0 in a tornado because I guarantee you we come back with a Hail Mary.