Success Is Often Remembered Incorrectly
Even our heroes ran into walls and only succeeded when everything lined up perfectly.
When I was 25 years old, I moved to Dallas, Texas, for the dream job of a lifetime. Next month, I will turn 53 years old, and I am still chipping away.
It was 1998, and I spent the entire summer trying to catch up on everything I missed before I got here. If you know me, you know that I couldn’t stand not knowing things, and therefore I tried to educate myself on everything I missed. Like someone trying to race through a couple of seasons of Breaking Bad so they can be caught up when season four drops, I was doing the same thing with my sports history—trying to learn how all four major sports teams found themselves in their particular position in the world.
Well, during that time, I learned many things—several that stick to this day.
Perhaps the main one was this: Roger Staubach and Nolan Ryan are unassailable. In case you need that definition, here it is:
“unable to be attacked, questioned, or defeated.”
They are superheroes to the sports fans who live here and were alive during that period of time. They were passed down from generation to generation as perfect in every way. You might name your firstborn “Roger” or “Nolan” because they were just so doggone perfect. In my business, where we may question everything, I was reminded of that definition:
“unable to be attacked, questioned, or defeated.”
Truly unassailable.
This doesn’t come up much, of course, because it is a given. We don’t have to revisit or re-litigate their cases because they are sealed for eternity. If someone comes along in the present day—even someone as perfect as Dirk Nowitzki—they are often positioned just below those incredible humans because they were not granted the status of “ancient god of sport” like Roger and Nolan. Dirk was too modern, but we are willing to alter his mythology a bit more as he ages. Stay tuned—maybe it happens as we all age.
But for now, if you ask anyone for their DFW Mount Rushmore of athletes who have graced us with their presence, they will undoubtedly list Roger and Nolan as inarguable automatic bids, due largely to the idea that they are as obvious as the sun and moon. You simply cannot go in any other direction.
Of course, that is why I wanted to write this piece today with no real modern-day agenda.