CATCH ALL THE ONES YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO
What Jerry Rice taught me about work.
Jerry Rice has caught more passes, touchdowns, and yards of any player in NFL history. Instead of list all the records he holds we can say he probably has the record for holding the most NFL records. Rice won three Super Bowls and was the MVP of one of them.
Also impressive is Rice’s formula for success. In an interview he was asked what advice he would give to young NFL receivers looking to have an all-pro career. His answer was beautiful in its simplicity and clearness.
Catch all ones you’re supposed to and some of the ones you’re not.
Every job and career should have a clear set of achievable tasks and goals. For Jerry Rice his main goal was help his team win football games. His tasks were to run his routes, get open, catch passes, get first downs and touchdowns. If someone asks a football wide receiver to explain their job in two words or less those two words should be catch passes.
Let the sit for a minute. Can you describe your job in four words or less?
Jerry viewed his craft as simple. He trained himself to become an excellent pass catcher. He practiced frequent enough that catching passes when he was open became second nature. Drops didn’t happen.
Jerry knew the mundane fundamentals would help him master his craft if practiced enough. Here is an excerpt from his former coach Bill Walsh’s book The Score Takes Care of Itself:
If you’re Jerry Rice you’re practicing a slant pass pattern at 6 A.M. over and over with nobody within a mile of you — no football, no QB, nobody but Jerry working to improve, to master his profession. Rice understands the connection between preparation and performance; between intelligently applied hard work and results.
You have this level of mastery in your life already. Think about brushing your teeth. How often do you miss the brush with the toothpaste? Never. You are a machine at loading that brush with minty paste. You’ve done it at least twice a day for the last X amount of years.
But how good at you at loading your toothbrush with paste when the brush is half the size, there is an earthquake shaking the bathroom, the lights are off, and your phone is ringing. Well you’re most likely not very good then. That is not when you are supposed to be good at brushing. No one expects you to be and you never practice it like that.
But that is where Jerry separated himself. By tirelessly putting in big hours simulating situations where the odds were stacked against him catching passes. In tight coverage, bad weather, bad throws, while being hit. He didn’t get to a place where he could catch every bad ball thrown his way but he was able to catch a lot of them. Pair that with catching almost ALL the easy ones and all of the sudden you’ve caught 23,000 yards worth of passes. See graph above no one else has reached 18,000.
Back to you. How can you catch all the passes you’re supposed to and some of the ones you’re not?
First know what the greater mission is. 49ers wide receiver = help my team win football games. Real Estate Agent = help my brokerage sell more real estate. Landscaper = help my company make beautiful customer landscapes. Barista = get better coffee to more people. Nike salesperson = sell more athletic apparel. Manufacturing manager = get a quality product out to customer on time. GET THAT SIMPLE WITH THE BIG GOAL.
Get as good at your simple micro goals as much as brushing your teeth. These micro goals are your part in achieving the company's mission. Do you know what your deliverable goals are? If not the first thing is to find out. Set up a meeting and get clear with your supervisor what you are doing here.
For someone in sales your manager may want you to set up 20 new meetings a month. Great. What are the tools you need to get this done? How many emails, calls, and mailing do you have to send a day to get your 20 meetings or better. Get this down to a science and make the 20 meetings as easy as brushing teeth!
For a Production Manager catching easy passes may be getting job material ready for production within 72 hours of receiving a customer order. Get this down and make it routine for yourself. Make these your easy passes and catch them all, Jerry!
If you are a chef you should be incredibly efficient at chopping vegetables. You see the theme here. Find the simple fundamentals in your job and get incredible at the easy ones. It takes no special talent to chop veggies. Send emails. Hustle to order material and find good vendors.
It takes practice, repetition, and focus.
Catching some of the ones you are not supposed to.
Like with Jerry no one will blame you if you don’t always come down with tough passes. But they will love you if you do catch a few.
Often times work will not throw you a perfect spiral and a 250 pound linebacker will hit you hard if you get your hands on the pass. Practicing this situation hurts, but it's worth it.
Jerry was a master at predicting the unpredictable. He knew the elements that may cause a pass to be difficult to catch. And he practiced those situations. He’d wet the footballs so they were more slippery. He would have a coach throw passes in all directions with awful rotation. He would practice having the ball tipped before reaching him. Even being hit by large pads as the ball was approaching to simulate such contact in a game.
We can do this at work as well.
Manufacturing example of a tough pass. You get a call from your best customer and they need what normally takes 8 weeks shipped in 4. This is an opportunity to catch one you are not supposed to. Do you have arrangements with the common materials to get it there early? Vendors who will cut their lead time? Maybe you even pre stocked the material. Is there a vendor you can use to help offload some of the labor time? So your company can work on one section of the job while the vendor simultaneously works on the other. Is there any work that could have been pre fabricated ahead of time? Think outside the box.
Real Estate Agent; did the buyers financing fall through? Sale over? Or did you stay in contact with the other interested buyers. Did you continue to take calls and show the home until you knew the deal was sealed? Is there an opportunity to re-list the house and use the offer as a sign of interest thus creating a sense of urgency for other potential buyers?
A former manager of mine used to overuse two sayings that have stuck with me. “Jim, we don’t work in a library. Things are going to go wrong.” And “Jim, I just lied to the client, now I need you to make it come true.”
In both of those situations this person was challenging me to catch tough passes. Helping me get excited to make a diving catch in bad weather
The last thing I will say to make catching tough passes at work easier is to embrace them. Embrace the suck. View difficult not as a “oh poor me” situations but rather an opportunity to shine and show true grit and determination. You’ll never catch every pass. But we can catch all the easy ones through diligent practice of the fundamentals. And we can catch some of the tough passes. By preparing for the worst and mentally embracing them.
Thanks for the great words Mr. Rice.
