Today, I’m sticking with the concept of significance that I have been focused on for the last few weeks after doing my series on the book, Change Your World by John Maxwell and Rob Hoskins.
While reading that, I realized that I needed to get moving on my project that I had been thinking about, and so I got working on it.
It’s called SlamDunk Significance, and it’s about all of us working to help create the best athletic experience possible for kids.
So, I have decided to keep my focus on significance over the next few weeks or months with regards to my podcast, videos, and these blog posts.
That title of today’s post comes from a quote by Oprah Winfrey that I discussed this past Monday on the Great Quotes for Coaches podcast.
Oprah’s quote is, “The key to realizing a dream is to focus not on success but significance – and then even the small steps and little victories along your path will take on greater meaning.”
I love this quote for a variety of reasons. One is that it speaks directly to me, as the name of my company is SlamDunk Success.
However, for those of you who follow me and my posts, I have now created SlamDunk Significance. I chose that name specifically for the reason that Oprah mentions—I need to focus on significance instead of success when it comes to creating great experiences for kids… and I want others to do the same.
I also like how she says that the way to realize a dream is to focus on significance instead of success.
We all have dreams. Some may seem far-fetched, while others may feel more attainable.
But if we focus on creating something of significance or being a person of significance in others’ lives, we have a greater chance of realizing our dreams.
It has been a goal or dream of mine for a while now to be able to help as many kids as possible have a great athletic experience. Far too many kids are still having poor and even miserable athletic experiences.
Over the last year, I started thinking about how we can work to create great experiences for kids on a big scale. And that’s when I came up with the idea for SlamDunk Significance. (If you haven’t heard about it yet, click here to find out what it’s all about.)
Little Victories
The second part of Oprah’s quote talks about a term I have used for many years, as well as something I have felt for a long time.
I always liked the term “little victories.” I first heard it as the title of a Bob Seger song from 1982.
From that point on, I used that term to talk about any kind of small victory that we can have in any kind of setting.
I used it most often when trying to get kids to understand that, though we may not have won on the scoreboard because we were facing a team of superior talent, there were many “little victories” for us throughout the game. I would then talk about what some of those little victories were.
For far too many people, (depending on their definition of success) when they focus only on success, they often feel that they have to hit something big to be considered successful.
In business, that usually equates to making a lot of money or climbing the corporate ladder.
In sports, that might equate to a championship of some sort.
But I love the concept that when we focus on significance, “even the small steps and little victories” help us to feel successful.
We don’t need to win championships or a lot of contests to feel “successful.”
We measure our successes in other ways.
For instance, John Wooden’s definition of success gets at the heart of this idea—Success is peace of mind that is the direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.
In this definition, the focus is on you becoming your best, not on comparing yourself to someone else on some kind of a scoreboard.
So when you take small steps and have some type of positive, forward movement, those are little victories.
That’s success!
It Means More
More importantly, those types of victories are much more meaningful.
When I focus on helping kids have a great athletic experience, even if we don’t win a lot of games, I can still create a positive, significant experience for them.
I can work to help them see the value in the lessons they are learning from playing sports.
I can help them see that they are learning the value of hard work, persevering through difficult times, and working well with others in a team setting.
They can take those same concepts of work ethic, perseverance, and teamwork and apply them in many areas of their lives.
There are so many small steps and little victories in any endeavor. When we focus on significance, those become the most important victories that we will ever have.
The beauty of this, though, is that the big steps and large victories will take on even greater meaning, too, because you will have achieved them while focusing on what’s most important—finding the significance in the entire experience and trying to help others find it, too.
The way I see it, that’s a total win-win!
Don’t forget that if you’re interested in joining me on this SlamDunk Significance mission, there are a few ways to do so:
- If you’re a coach, athletic director, or league director, and you would like to have us pay for a speaker to come to your school, fill out the application under the “Schools/Leagues & ADs/Coaches” section on the SlamDunk Significance page.
- If you’re a speaker/trainer and you would like to be connected with teams, schools, or leagues looking for professional development for their coaches, kids, administrators, and/or parents, fill out the application under the “Trainers/Speakers” section of the SlamDunk Significance page.
- If you’re an athlete, coach, or someone who would like to donate to help teams, schools, and leagues create positive athletic programs for kids by bringing in quality speakers and trainers, click on any button on the SlamDunk Significance page to be taken to our GoFundMe page.
- If you would like to volunteer to help out in any way, email me at scott@slamdunksuccess.com.
- SPREAD THE WORD!! Tell anyone and everyone you know about what we are trying to do to help kids have great athletic experiences. And if you know anyone with the financial means to make a donation to our mission, please let them know about it.