Nick Saban's 2 Questions for Life

There’s a key networking event tonight where we get to meet some influential people in our industry.

Except we’ve had a long week, we’re tired, and there’s a game on TV.

So we skip it and miss out on a valuable opportunity to make new connections. Then, a few months later, when we’re in the same dull job while one of our colleagues is moving on to an exciting new organization, we kick ourselves and lament why we didn’t go.

Recently, Alabama Coach Nick Saban delivered a powerful message in which he laid out two questions that go a long way toward determining life success:

1. “Here’s something I know that I’m supposed to do that I really don’t want to do. Can you make yourself do it?”2. “There’s something you know you’re damn well not supposed to do, and you want to do it. Can you keep yourself from it?”

Just about all of us have the best intentions and loftiest ambitions for our teams and personal careers.

But ultimately, our short-term habits run counter to our long-term visions, and we never reach our true potential because the path of least resistance is too tempting to turn down.

We skip the networking event because it's only two hours, and how valuable can it really be?

We wait an extra day to start our application because we're tired and, really, how much of a difference can 24 hours make?

We don't review the entire game tape because what are the chances there's anything that important at the end?

But the margin between reaching the upper echelons of our professions and simply being average is often incredibly thin — and it's frequently determined by our approach to these types of scenarios.

Achieving our true ambitions will frequently mean pushing through when we have little left, resisting the greatest enticements, and not always being cool.

Short-term suffering is almost always inevitable for long-term success.

Many of us know this deep down, but fewer are able to actually execute it.

The difference between those at the top of their industries and the ones who have little leverage within their team isn’t simply knowledge or skills or a fortunate break.

It’s often an ability to consistently answer Saban’s two questions correctly.