Being Active In Your Own Pursuit

"Being active in your own pursuit" is a slogan I have used since my college/high school baseball coaching days and still tend to lean on this through my professional development.

There are the 5 essential questions that I ask my players, my mentees, and even myself:
1. Do you understand your position/potential?
2. Do you understand the meaningfulness of your pursuit?
3. Do you have the capacity to perform at that level?
4. Are you focused?
5. How have you prepared your plan?


1...To properly understand your position/ potential you must give yourself a blunt reality check. Are you a 2.1 GPA student trying to get into Harvard or are you a 3.0 student wanting to sign a scholarship to a JUCO because you haven't quite developed the velocity that a D1 school is looking for. This is a huge factor in your plan of execution and without a PLAN you are definitely not being active in your own pursuit. Professionally speaking: What type of jobs are you applying for based off your experience? If you have 2 years of experience then your personal position is not qualified for a job that requires 5-7. Not saying you can not get lucky and land that gig however I am saying you need to position yourself parallel with the qualifications of that particular job (5-7year experience) going into year number 2 so that when you're ready to make a move, you will have the proper alignment as you progress professionally.

2...This is the easy part, everyone knows why they do what they do. Some people do the things they do as a cop out or as a "please feel sorry for me" but in reality of this world we all started at the same place which is around 9lbs 4oz on November 3rd 1983. The choices a person makes dictates their future. To get on the right track, you must figure out the things that mean the most to you and how will you be able to financially, professional, and spiritually protect them. What really matters most to you?

3... This is a tough one because everyone believes in themselves and everyone thinks they have it figured out in this uncoachable world until someone gets slapped in the face and now needs a coach. Take Chile for an example. I moved down there to teach English and planned to save money and bounce from country to country teaching ENGLISH ...wtf was I thinking because I speak SOUTHERN DIALECT ...I have to do spell check for the word: preposition or consonant. I don't know no English!! The experience was amazing and I would never take anything away from it however my plan went from 3 years to 2 1/2 months and I was back in Nashville. That is the whole point of understanding your capacity so that you are not wasting precious professional time. If you start something and realize it is not you then quit and start something else. Do not sit around and hope and wish and pray and stress thinking the profession or the love for whatever will change because those are permanent and aren't going anywhere, therefore you have to be the one to make the adjustment.

4... ARE YOU FOCUSED? ARE YOU? REALLY, THINK ABOUT IT....ARE YOU FOCUSED ON BEING ACTIVE IN YOUR OWN PURSUIT?

5...In all honesty there is one way to properly prepare your plan. You have to figure out your end result, meaning what professional position would you like to hold one day. Once you figure that out whether it is an Oncology Pediatric Nurse, an Athletic Director, or a Secondary History Teacher..you need to schedule a meeting with someone who already sits in that seat and ask them how they got there. This is the only true testament of understanding the proper path and what it takes to get to that level because obviously the person you're talking to has made it professionally. In my case I have had 1on1 meetings with over 10 Directors of Development, 3 D1 Athletic Directors, and 1 University President. I did this to understand what it takes to become a Director of Development (step 5 of 6 ) because I need to reach that position in order to gain sport supervision to become an Athletic Director (step 6 of 6) and the reason why I had a meeting with the President is because he is the one who hires the Athletic Director and I need to properly align myself parallel with the qualifications of that position as I am at step 2 at Tennessee Tech.

Moral of the story: GET RIGHT and GET ACTIVE!