Eric McAlister is a former professional athlete and now serves as a performance consultant and international keynote speaker, delivering expertise in well-being, mental performance, leadership and team culture.
Audiences often ask me, “What is the quality or value that separates people who are truly successful from others?” While I wouldn’t say there is one quality that separates the elite from everyone else, I do think there is a series of habits that provide the necessary tools and experiences to achieve success, and when assessing talent, it’s often one of the first things I look for.
Sometimes, life is simpler than we want to admit to ourselves. Each of us is uniquely wired with a set of skills, natural talents, if you will, that enable us to thrive when we understand how to put them together. Those natural talents are the starting point for achieving whatever we set our minds to. Outside of those talents are the things we have to work harder at, some people may excel at math while others are better at writing. Your skillset doesn’t define you; it merely lays out the blueprint of work needed to achieve the goals you set for yourself.
Think of your skillset like you would a muscle group in your body. To make them bigger and stronger, you must train them, tearing them apart and allowing them to heal. Life is no different than exercising at a gym. we must tear ourselves apart, stretching our very being past the point of comfort to allow ourselves to become more resilient.
A common theme I continue seeing throughout society is our unwillingness to stretch ourselves to the point of discomfort. Genetically, we are wired for survival, to find our comfort zone and desire to stay there. Unfortunately, our very being, the soul of who we are, wishes for something different. As the old adage goes, you must never lie, cheat, or steal, especially if you want to achieve great things in your life.
Simple in theory, but let’s take a closer look at "the struggle" and how it affects the standard by which we choose to live our lives.
Lying (to the struggle)
From my experiences as a professional athlete, a consultant working with some of the top organizations across the globe, or in the NBA, complete objectivity is critical to achieving success. I find that with the advancement of technology, there seems to be an adverse correlation between the growth of technology and our ability to effectively confront adversity. In a world built on comfort and convenience, where information is so incredibly accessible that the narrative we want to believe to be true is just a Google search and click away, we have lost sight of life’s most important value, honesty.
Our ability to be honest with ourselves is paramount in accurately assessing the situation at hand, creating a viable solution, and understanding how to execute that solution to the best of our abilities. When it comes to the individual, the more quickly you assess a situation with absolute honesty, the quicker the problem goes away. Not groundbreaking theory by any means, but many people lose sight of this in favor of protecting their own ego.
As the Japanese proverb goes, “If you get on the wrong train, immediately realize it, get off at the next nearest station. The longer it takes you to get off, the more expensive the return trip will be.”
Cheating (the struggle)
As I noted above, we are genetically predisposed to seek comfort and the easy way out. In today’s world, where smartphones have an app to provide every convenience from the seat of your couch, cheating the struggle is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid for many.
One thing about the best athletes in the world that I can say without a doubt is their commitment to discipline is second to none. Their willingness to sacrifice for a goal that is greater than most can fathom, in pursuit of excellence, is exceptional.
When I was coming through as a player and pursuing a college scholarship and professional career, the work ethic of young people seemed greater than what it is today, and standing out seemed more difficult. In fact, studies support that anecdote, showing how our society is rapidly evolving. However, it’s not fair to blame just our young people today, when there’s a pill, app, or hack to “get you the results you want.”
Too often, we are looking for a quick fix for everything we do in life. Truthfully, sustainable success starts and ends with growing through experience. No one gets it right the first time, and no one learns anything through success. Struggle, adversity, and failure create adaptability, which fosters evolution.
When working with personnel and trying to find the right fit, looking at how they respond in moments of adversity will always tell you what you need to know. In basketball, we have a saying: “You can’t cheat the grind because it knows how much you’ve invested. It won’t give you anything you haven’t worked for.” The same is true when it comes to maximizing your potential, find comfort in knowing you are getting better with each difficulty and that you have what it takes to overcome the odds.
Steal (the struggle)
This one is directed at leadership. Whether you are a coach, parent, sibling, partner, manager, or hold any other title that involves a relationship of responsibility for others, you cannot steal the struggle from others. I am a firm believer that our purpose in life is to experience, learn, and grow. It is our responsibility to leave this world better than when we came into it.
It is our humane and empathetic nature to want to help those we love and care for, ensuring that we provide a better environment and experience for them than for the things we’ve gone through ourselves. Herein lies the duality of life.
I would like you to take a moment to think of the time in your life that was most challenging and caused you the most angst. Now, I would like you to think of everything you’ve ever learned from that experience directly. Think of the resilience you’ve built, the knowledge you’ve gained, and how you’ve adapted since then. None of those gifts could have been cultivated and refined had it not been for your experiences.
To use the NCAA (US College Athletics) as an example, from 2012 to 2017, 4,360 men’s basketball student-athletes transferred from Division I programs, an average of 727 athletes per year. In 2023, 1,649 players entered the transfer portal.
What is the significance of this? We are failing to teach resilience from a leadership position. When things stop going our way, our emotional impulses take over, and we find ourselves looking for the next option that appears to have greener pastures instead of buckling down and putting in the hard work that allows us to grow and transcend who we are in this very moment. We have turned away from development and are choosing not to teach society to fight through adversity, learn the lessons, and come out on the other side better than we were before. We now cater to the ego of others and are losing sight of the skills necessary to achieve long-lasting excellence.
The solution is simple: learn to support those you lead through hardship, rather than running away from the issue. I see it every day as a consultant, individuals who left for greener pastures but continue to underperform because they have refused to address the elephant in the room: they aren’t well enough equipped, yet.
My college career was far from a fairy tale, but I showed up every single day and put the work in. As my college coaches always used to tell us, “Winning is hard, losing is easy. If winning were easy, everyone would do it. The struggle is the price you pay to be a champion.” To this day, in every area of my life, that continues to ring true. But it was my first professional coach who really drove home the point of fighting through adversity.
He constantly talked about the importance not of reaching our ceiling but of raising our floor every day, so that every day we knew we had a chance to win, not that we needed to play our best in order to be victorious. His practices were the most difficult I had ever endured, but his vision was to lift us as individuals to achieve great things as a team. That team overachieved more than any team I had ever been a part of because his leadership allowed us to endure adversity behind closed doors, so we were able to grow when the lights were at their brightest.
As we all know, never lie, cheat, or steal, especially when it comes to adversity.
Read more from Eric McAlister
Eric McAlister, Performance Consultant and Speaker
Eric McAlister is quickly revolutionizing how we look at the connections between well-being and performance. As a professional athlete, Eric has gained and now expanded on the many tools at the disposal of a professional athlete, honing in on our ability to maximize our potential without the emotional pitfalls that come with chasing our goals. Eric has worked with athletes and organizations across the world including the NBA, Olympians, PGA golfers and more. His vision is clear winning well and it is something he believes we all deserve.
