Breathe Success: How to Transition Beyond Sports and Breathe Success in Business and Entrepreneurship

By Leo Petal

Student-athletes spend most of their life developing their athletic talent to get athletic scholarship and potentially make it to some level of pro-athletics. At some point of this journey our athletic ability stops paying the bills, whether it’s in high school, college or pros. I lane of creating and achieving goal after goal and achieving them dries up the day we turn in our jersey. Why are we not creating new goals, building new businesses and using the entrepreneurial spirit that built our athletic business to build a new lane. Breathe Success gives you the recipe to transition beyond sports and breathe success in business and entrepreneurship. I know firsthand the adversity student-athletes experience in their mid-life crises to transition beyond sport and Breathe Success will make a difference in your life with a step by step process to make new goals and get on the road to achieve them! Then the naysayers will say it’s luck, they will say you are blessed, because all you do beyond sports is Breathe Success. Leo Petal takes you on journey through adversity and how the lessons that has shaped his life, will shape yours!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 17, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796066203

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Copyright © 2019 by Leo Petal.

ISBN:           Softcover             978-1-7960-6621-0

                     eBook                   978-1-7960-6620-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 02/12/2020

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Letter to Coach Pat Riepma (1961-2015)

Introduction

SECTION I

Commit to Learn One Thing

Interpretation

Cost of Learning vs. the Cost of Eligibility

Apply Learn on Thing

Establishing Integrity

Interpretation

Unwrapping my Integrity

Apply Establishing Integrity

Personal Responsibility

Interpretation

Personal Responsibility

Take Responsibility for Your Fears

Apply Personal Responsibility

Section I Review REUSE Education

SECTION II

Positive Attitude

Interpretation

5 Impactful Negative Attitudes

Positive Attitude

Apply Positive Attitude

Take Inventory

Interpretation

Take Inventory

Apply Take Inventory

Seek Uplifting Circles of Influence

Interpretation

Seeking Uplifting Circles of Influence

Other Types of Circles of Influence

Apply Circle of Influence

Section II Review Recharched Education

SECTION III

Stay in your Lane

Interpretation

Stay in Your Lane

Apply Stay in Your Lane

Keep Grinding

Interpretation

Keep Grinding

Apply Keep Grinding

Section III Review Recycle Education

The Breathe Success Program

Putting it All Together

Glossary

Letter to Coach Pat Riepma (1961-2015)

Dear Coach, the good book says, in my father’s house is many mansions, I will prepare a place for you. I know that you are in Our Fathers House and I am remaining forever grateful for your contributions to my life and the life of many student-athletes at Northwood University. The purpose of this letter has to do with your creed that you stamped on the hearts and the minds of those who attended Northwood, Go Make a Difference! Go MAD! When I think about our many interactions over the course of my tenure as a student-athlete and thereafter as an adult, I can point to one (1) instance that made a world of difference in my life, in addition to the other 100 or more contributions you made in my life. The instance was the time you forced me to understand and apply integrity in my life. Since that day, I grew up, I left my childish ways behind and began to understand what I needed to do to make a difference in my life and the life of others. I am writing Breathe Success because it represents my WHY in life. As you know, I have been married to my wife for 13 years and I remember when I told you that I had found my wife, you gave me the very best advise – Don’t take advantage of your wife! I assure you and she and my daughters will validate that I LOVE my family and give one-thousand times more than I receive, the reason is because they are my why! Growing up in Flint, MI and having the privilege of making so many connections at the Wood, I learned that the way I grew up was optional and options is something that many student-athletes don’t often see beyond sports because of the amount of time we spend earning our scholarships. We spend time in class and studying but very few of us find purpose in the education itself in the manner we do with sports. Why? I have observed that education is meant to be a summary, education is confused as a degree. The gap is that ordinary students participate in a comprehensive education than the student-athlete. Seminars, webinars and networking functions serve as informal and nonformal educations to fill the gaps left by their formal education. My goal is to work with Raise the Bar in Student-Athlete Career Education to fill the gap for student-athletes who invest a greater percentage of their time in developing our minds and bodies to compete in sports. The term, student-athlete reflects how we identify ourselves in college as 50% sports. Many student-athletes create their lifestyles in college and have plans to be involved as fans and alumni around our sports and simultaneously abandoning the drive to reinvent ourselves beyond sports. Honestly Coach, only 20% of student-athletes that I follow on LinkedIn or Facebook are in careers or are spending their time in vocation that they love and enjoy as much as the sport they played. It is fair to expect student-athletes to breathe success beyond sports as much as they do within their sport! Why? Time is the most precious resource, that said, we only spend 4-10 years playing sports after high school depending on if we play professional sports or not. The average person lives to be 70 years old; student-athletes can essentially spend 42-48 years of their lives never experiencing the passion and the emotion of making and achieving new goals, persevering through adversity to breathe success with dedication and resiliency. Coach, I spent 17 years helping students connect to their vocation in the automotive aftermarket, connecting to their vocation in college and now I have a platform to build content to Raise the Bar in Student-Athlete Career Education, I do so through Keynote Speaking, Video Podcases, Podcasts, Video Series, Career Coaching, Training and Professional Development Coaching for Student-Athletes during and after college and for the professional athletes who need transitional insights after their professional careers have run their course. This is a restart to my my first book, Guide to Athletic Recruiting and Career Education, which had the right intention and the wrong demographics, I spent three years working diligently to make a difference at the high school level only to learn I needed to make it at the college level and beyond in order to make the greatest impact by filling the career education gap. I am grateful to God for giving me this vision and I felt it was important to let you know and anyone who picks up this book know how important coaching is to the life of student-athletes at the college level! I want coaches to know that winning is everything! Winning with young men and woman not only means winning games, it also means winning with the development of young student-athletes who will one day become professionals in society. The best part of career coaching, in my opinion is when a young person realizes that their resiliency is transferable to a career, vocation or calling

Furthermore, student-athletes always light up when they realize the opportunity that exists in informal and nonformal circles