People are too soft for this

I’ve been going back to the gym lately and it’s been awesome lifting free weights again. I don’t consider myself a big or heavy lifter. I have no desire to get jacked or anything, but I’ve been lifting weights since high school during my football days and it’s therapeutic for me.

It’s a time when I can zone out from work and get some natural endorphins. It’s an hour of my day where I can do whatever: brainstorm business ideas or day dream.

Today was my first day working out my legs and I was thinking about my old football coach. He was a character to say the least, but I always remember when he used to scream at us during weight training to motivate us.

“Look at those people outside. They’re too soft for this!”

While I don’t think football was for everyone, I was always surprised by how many people had desires to play football but were indeed too soft for it. I’m not talking about the contact, but rather the work that’s required.

We all dream of catching touchdown passes and getting a big sack to end games, but not many can put up with the two-a-days, conditioning and weight training required to get to that point. Football is a grind that never ends until the end of your last season.

There’s a lot of parallels to the startup and business world when I think about football. Everyone wants to be an entrepreneur and a key contributor, but very few actually are willing to put in the work to get there. Behind every successful company is hours of hard work, grind and sacrifices. Not everyone can do it - no matter how much they say they can. It takes a special kind of person to go through this grind day in and day out.

Like coach said… some people are just too soft for this.