To My Magnificent Agents, Staff and Friends:
This morning I was reading the Sports Illustrated article about Drew Brees being selected as this year’s Sportsman of the Year. One particular story caught my eye and is the inspiration for this week’s message. Brees was reportedly visiting an elementary school in Mandeville and addressing the student body when a little girl stood up and asked him, “What is your empowering word?” Brees responded without hesitating, “My empowering word is faith.”
Drew was not just referring to spiritual faith, although he unashamedly admits that he is a person who possesses a deep religious commitment. Faith, the article states is “the central force in his life, slicing across family, football and community, carrying him to the top of his profession and to an iconic status in a still-wounded city that he has helped lift from despair.”
In support of this, the author writes of the numerous challenges that Drew Brees faced throughout his life – challenges that he overcame because he had faith. These include his blowing out a knee in high school that caused college football recruiters to largely ignore him. “It took faith to believe that he would someday play college football. When the entire NFL passed on him in the first round of the 2001 draft, when the San Diego Chargers benched him four times and then brought in a young quarterback to replace him, when he tore up his shoulder in December ’05, it took faith to believe that he would be a star in professional football.” For both Brees and the entire Who Dat Nation it took faith to believe that he could lead a perennial losing team to victory in last year’s Super Bowl.
Some think, wrongly, that faith connotes passivity and capitulation, as in “if I just have faith, this will pass.” Faith, in fact, is the ultimate expression of belief in action. It is not a noun, it is a verb. Action is a critical part of faith. Faith is being sure of what you hope for and certain of what you do not see.
Do you want to be successful in business, in sports, in life? It all begins with faith. It is your greatest asset. Believe and it will be. Doubt and you are lost. Winners win because winning becomes a state of mind. Most of those who fail, or are consumed by challenges are those whose fears and anxieties prevent them from reaching their potential. Faith is the antidote for fear and anxieties. Just ask Drew Brees.
Have an AWE-full weekend!
Bill