Tom Landry, former head coach of the Dallas Cowboys.
Do NOT say to Yourself:
- They had special advantages.
- They had it easy.
- I had more problems to overcome than they did
That’s what losers do. Losers focus on all their disadvantages. Poor baby…They never have enough to win.
DO say to Yourself:
- I should have worked harder.
- I should have started earlier.
- I didn’t deserve it. They did.
- They did a better job.
- They took it more serious than I did.
- I’ve got to get better.
- This shows me where I need to improve.
Winners focus on what they DO have going for them. Winners focus on what they CAN do. Winners know they don’t have to be perfect, they just need one way to win.
The Building of “America’s Team”
Tom Landry was the Dallas Cowboys first coach. As an expansion franchise, they weren’t very good. Their record the first year was 0-11-1. All losses and 1 tie.
Someone once asked Tom if he got depressed during the early years with all the losing. Tom replied calmly,
“No. We just went into every game with our best plan to win and then the other team taught us lessons. Next game we made adjustments, learned our lessons, and put together our best gameplan. Then the next team would proceed to teach us some new lessons. We would improve, put together and then get taught some more lessons. As time went on, as we got better, we started teaching the other teams some lessons of our own. We got to the point to where most weeks we were the ones teaching the lessons.”
The result? By 1966, The Cowboys had gotten a lot better and went on an historic run of 20 Winning seasons. They had become “America’s team” (according to their PR department, anyway) because as we all know, America loves a winner.
