Relentless is Really Hard to Deal With

Recently, I heard former college basketball standout and current announcer, Jay Bilas, talk about the toughest guy he ever played against. As a note, Bilas played at the same time as Michael Jordan, but the toughest guy he ever played against wasn’t Jordan. It was a guy named John Ebeling. If you’ve never heard of Ebeling, you’re not alone. I never had either.

Here’s what Bilas said about Ebeling.

Bilas: “He wasn’t this spectacular athlete. He wasn’t jumping out of the gym or anything. But when I played against him, everything I had to do was hard. And when I finished playing against him, I thought, ‘I don’t want to do that again.’ And honestly, I started being introspective, and I thought, is that what my opponents would say about me? And the answer was no. Every time I had to bust my a** down the floor because he was sprinting down the floor. Every time a shot went up, he cracked me. Every time. Every screen he set was hard. It was all stuff that I could do, but honestly, I wasn’t willing to do it. Ebeling didn’t do anything I couldn’t do. He was just relentless. And that’s when it hit me. Relentless is really hard to deal with. And what’s keeping me from being relentless?”

Are you relentless like Ebeling? Would people say about you what Bilas said about him? Would people say that you bring it every time?

In what areas could you be more relentless? It what areas are you totally capable of doing more, you just don’t want to?

You’ll probably never be Michael Jordan. I won’t either. But it’s pretty amazing to realize how much is actually totally in our control.

I’m committing to being more like Ebeling. I hope you’ll join me. Because if relentless is really hard to deal with in one person, imagine if all of us are relentless. That’ll make us unstoppable.