Average Doesn't Take Much Effort, Dare to Be Great

By Nick Lee Thamer

Whether it was because Nick was the second child and striving for attention, or because he didn't want to let his parents down, I don't know. All that I do know for certain is that inside of Nick was a burning desire that would not let him settle for less than the best. Being average was something that Nick never considered.

This book is a compilation of everything that he thought about while overcoming obstacles in pursuit of his goals, athletics, and in life afterwards. If you are satisfied going through life being average, when you are older, you will only have average memories. Push yourself. The pain and sweat required to be the best is nothing compared to the memories you will have provided for yourself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: May 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685700997

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Average Doesn't Take Much Effort, Dare to Be Great

Nick Lee Thamer

ISBN 978-1-68570-098-0 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-68570-099-7 (digital)

Copyright © 2022 by Nick Lee Thamer

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1

Questions Regarding Success

What Is Success?

Chapter 2

How Do You Get Started on the Road to Success?

Chapter 3

Is There an Age to Start That Is Most Beneficial for Success?

Chapter 4

Why Do You Want to Be Successful?

A. Motivated by Parents

B. Necessity for Survival

C. Necessity for Financial Survival

D. Necessity for a Career

Chapter 5

How Successful Do You Want to Be?

Chapter 6

What Can Temporarily Delay Success?

Chapter 7

What Must He/She Have to Be a Success?

A. Chasing Your Tail or Victory?

B. The Brain's Lack of Respect

C. The Brain, as It Would Appear on Trading Cards

D. Mental Abilities Necessary to Be Successful—List

1. The Ability to Be a Positive, Glass Is Always Half Full Thinker

2. The Ability to Turn a Negative into a Positive

3. The Ability to Never Quit

4. The Ability to Be Self-Motivated

5. The Ability to Make Others Better

6. The Ability to Take Constructive Criticism

7. The Ability to Override Your Emotions

Introduction to Golf

8. The Ability to Endure/Overlook Tiredness

9. The Ability to Endure/Overlook Pain

10. The Ability to Perform Well in the Spotlight

11. The Ability to Play From the Heart

12. The Ability to Not Even Consider Losing an Option

13. The Ability to Picture in Your Mind the Desired Result

14. The Ability to Never Place Limits on Yourself

15. The Ability to Never Be Satisfied

16. The Ability to Manage Pressure

Nerves, Yips, and Pressure During the Club Championship Finals

17. The Ability to Be a Gracious Loser

18. The Ability to Be a Gracious Winner

Philosophies, Mental Strategies, Sayings Necessary for Success in Athletics—List

A. Pitfalls to Avoid

1. Self-Confidence vs. Overconfidence

2. Mental Strategy Used to Counteract Overconfidence

3. Mental Strategies, Coaches

Philosophies and Sayings Applied in Athletics

4. Mental Strategies, Managers

5. Baseball Players Play Smart

Philosophies, Mental Strategies, Sayings Necessary for Success: Outside the Sporting Arenas

God's Perfect Plan

Chapter 8

How Do You Know When You Have Achieved Success?

A. Definitive Measures of Success

A. Educational Goals

B. Sports-Oriented Goals

C. Career Goals

D. Philanthropic Goals

E. Mental Goals

F. Spiritual Goals

G. Military Goals

H. Personal Goals

I. Parental Goals

Little Girl Gone Fishing

A. Subjective Measures of Success

The End

Epilogue

Joel Osteen Story

About the Author

ack

Preface

I would like to begin by saying that this book was, almost, merely a suggestion. During the past few years, while conversing with my family over the telephone, I would relate stories and experiences that I had encountered. My family seemed to find these adventures humorous and uplifting. The end of the phone calls quite often would consist of these words, You should write a book. I always said that I could never write a book because I did not have that much to say, and if I did write a book, who could possibly be interested in anything that I would have to say? They would always try to convince me, and it always ended up being a very awkward, embarrassing moment for me. I didn't want to hurt their feelings by arguing with them, but on the other hand, I really did not want to write a book.

To avoid this awkward moment, I developed a new strategy. Instead of responding in a negative manner, I told them that their suggestion would be worth considering. Since I had agreed with them, there was no further need to try and convince me. This strategy was working perfectly. We could talk and laugh, and best of all, nobody was trying to get me to do something that I really did not want to do.

One day, after my daily Bible-reading session, I had this very strong feeling that I was supposed to write a book. I had no idea as to the subject matter of this book, nor did I have any clue as to how to begin writing this book. I decided, however, to do as the feeling had suggested, and see where that might lead me. Consequently, I immediately got up from the sofa and walked over to the dining-room table. There, I picked up a daily journal from the previous year.

The previous year, I was in a store buying a daily journal for my business. As I bent over to pick up a journal, a strong feeling came over me. This adamant feeling compelled me to buy two daily journals, two for the same year. At the time, I had no idea why I was buying two journals for the same year, I just followed my feeling. I kind of figured that the purpose for the two journals for the same year would present itself, sooner or later. I took the two journals home. I kept one for work, and the other I laid on the dining-room table. The journal remained on the dining-room table for over a year. The funny thing about this is that I cannot lay anything down for more than a day without losing it. When I say losing it, I mean not even having a clue as to where I put it.

This second journal, however, stayed in the same position, in full view of me for over a year, even though there was never an intended purpose for it. This second journal I took back over to the sofa, and I kept it there, beside me all the time. In this journal I recorded every topic of every story as it would occur to me. Since the stories were all true events from my life or someone close to me, I only needed to write down the topics. To bring these topics to life, all I needed was my memory.

After I had filled the journal with topics that could potentially be used for a book, I began to expound on them. After all of the topics and their ensuing stories were put to paper, I began the tedious task of editing those that were not pertinent to the main theme of the book. The following are the compilation of those that made the cut, ultimately becoming the basis for this book. The theme of this book explains just what it takes to reach the top: in various sports, sports as a career, and life after sports.

Most good athletes are born with everything that they need to be exceptional athletes. They just have not learned the key elements instrumental in propelling them to the top. That is what I try to provide. I bring forth many ideas and philosophies in this book. In this book, however, I use my own true-life experiences to prove my theories correct.

Introduction

This book was not meant to teach all the fundamentals of certain sports. It also was not designed to teach the techniques of various sports. For this instruction, there are plenty of coaches, private coaches, and private consultants around at whom you can throw hundreds, even thousands, of dollars a session if this is your desire. This book was written as an instructional manual for certain athletes, and individuals.

These athletes are the ones with physical attributes that, at first glance, have superstar written all over them. The problem is that too many of these athletes with can't-miss potential never pan out. They never seem to walk away with the first-place trophy. My intent is to take this person who already possesses a sufficient level of physical ability and sound fundamentals and teach him/her how to finally attain the goals that in the past have been so elusive.

Having great talent is a nice advantage, but if you are relying on your talent alone, you probably will not reach your goals. It takes more than just talent to be the best. Talent is just a very important part of the foundation in your quest for being successful. Think of your talent as Mount Rushmore, a mountain in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Before this mountain could achieve the status of being a national memorial, an immense amount of time and hard work had to be expended toward its ultimate goal. That goal was the faces of four of our presidents, sculptured into the side of it. The faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln were always present there, inside the mountain. It just required the removal of some of the mountain and reshaping of the rest of the job site that transformed this large rock into one of the most recognizable monuments in the United States.

Like Mount Rushmore, an athlete will have to make changes along the way if he/she is serious about walking away with the first-place trophy. That ability by itself may get you close, but you will need something more to carry you over the top. That something is what I will try and provide you. Once you have learned how to be your best athletically, apply these same principles and philosophies toward your career goals, and you should do just fine.

Chapter 1

Questions Regarding Success

Before a person can begin to walk on the path to success, he/she must first answer a few questions:

What is success?

How do you get started on the road to success?

Is there a certain age at which to start that is most beneficial to success?

Why do you want to be successful?

How successful do you want to be?

What can temporarily delay success?

What must he/she have to become a success?

How do you know when you have achieved success?

What Is Success?

Success is that really great feeling that you get, when you achieve a goal that you have previously set for yourself. The satisfaction that you feel is directly related to the importance, and difficulty rating, of the task. Going to the store and getting milk is a measure of success, to some degree. Granted, it is success on a very small scale if you jumped in your air-conditioned car and drove only two blocks. Walking two miles, picking up the milk, and returning home while the milk is still cold, however, would be considered a success on a larger scale.

Success can be learning how to ride a bicycle for the first time without training wheels. It can be achieved when a man bakes sourdough, apricot-filled cookies, and those who tried them asked for the recipe. It could also be when a man makes a chocolate fondant and is told that it tastes as if a pastry chef in a five-star restaurant made it.

Success is relative to the goal set. The higher the goal is set, the more gratifying the feeling when you achieve it. Success can occur when a person, afraid of public speaking, finally gives a speech or lecture in front of an audience. It can be achieved after digging a ditch through coral rock. It can be when a person uses a sledgehammer to break up an old concrete sidewalk, so that a new sidewalk can be poured. The harder the task, the greater the feeling of satisfaction when the task is completed. Success could be receiving a high grade in a subject that is extremely difficult for you.

Success can occur when you finally become pregnant, after many unsuccessful attempts. When your baby says his first word, or takes his first steps, you will not be able to get to the phone fast enough. You will call every family member, on both sides of the family, to deliver the good news. My point is to show you that success is many things to many different people, occurring at various ages, and for various reasons. I am going to describe and interpret success as it relates to sports in general. I will explain what I believe to be the most important aspects of it: why, and to what extent, an individual might become successful as it pertains to sports. I will be using various stories from my past experiences to help illustrate my points. I will also provide other examples and reasons why their outcomes were unsuccessful.

As I look back on my life, I notice that it is a compilation of many of your normal everyday events, mostly usual, but some unusual. These events were interwoven throughout my childhood and adult life. There were many various happenings, with many different people, and in many different places that formed a spiderlike web that I call my life. Throughout most of these stories, there were a couple of things that I could depend upon. There was almost always a humerous part, somewhere in whatever I was experiencing. There was almost always a positive aspect to whatever scenario was starting to unravel itself around me. I just had to look for it.

My dad had all these sayings that seemed appropriate for just about every situation that presented itself. I am certain that he had acquired some of these sayings from his father. Like my dad, and his dad before him, I have acquired my own lists of sayings. As I look back on my entire life, and the situations that have presented themselves during it, I have found that these two separate lists cover just about everything. They apply to athletics, and in careers after athletics. These two lists I refer to as Mental Abilities Necessary for Success, and Philosophies, Mental Strategies, and Sayings Necessary for Success. Some of these were from my dad, his dad, and myself. One I even got from a movie. One thing that all of these have in common is that when followed, they will help ensure a successful endeavor. These two lists will help you solve some of the problems that you are already have and will help you avoid some that you would have had. I cannot go through a day without calling to mind, at least one of these, to help me with a situation.

These two lists when learned, and practiced, in athletics will help you to take the God-given talent that you already possess and exploit it to its maximum potential. When learned and practiced, they will automatically carry over into your life after athletics. So the degree of success that you enjoyed as an athlete, you will also enjoy in life after athletics. All that you have to do is learn and follow them faithfully. I know that these Mental Abilities, Philosophies, Mental Strategies, and Sayings Necessary for Success work because I used them. I applied them in sports and in my career after sports.

If they worked for me, they most certainly will work for you, provided that you just don't read them and set them aside. They will not help you if you fail to practice them. A car won't get you where you want to go if you don't put gas in it. You can't find a job sitting in front of your television set eight hours a day. Having all the vitamins in the world won't help you if you don't take them. God gave you talent. What you choose to do with that talent is up to you. I have done the hard part. I have found what works, why it works, and have presented it to you.

All that you have to do is follow proven practices. Is that so hard? It is like that saying, You will get out of something, only what you are willing to put into it. This is what separates the dreamers, wishers, and hopers from the champion who is holding the first-place trophy.

Being the best in anything is not easy. It requires a lot of hard work. You will have to make a conscious decision that you will not be satisfied with anything less than the first-place trophy. You will then have to understand and accept the fact that since your goal is to be the best, so must your desire, practice, and thinking coincide on the same level as your goal. From this moment on, anything less than excellence will not be an option. Understand that you, and you alone, will ultimately be responsible for the success in reaching your goal.

Chapter 2

How Do You Get Started on the Road to Success?

It helps if your father was a coach, as was mine. Dad was a coach in various sports. His father played semipro baseball, as a catcher. Dad inherited the athletic gene and participated in many different sports, from high school through college. Upon graduation from a small Midwestern university, he began coaching immediately. He coached football, basketball, baseball, track and field, and golf. Dad was born to be a coach. His uncanny ability to understand sports, and teach every nuance of them to his athletes, resulted in winning programs wherever he went.

To my brother and I, this proved to be (in the words of Adrian Monk, of Monk television-sitcom fame) both a blessing and a curse. Being coach's kids, my older brother and I would hang out with dad during his practices, for a couple of reasons: we needed a ride home after school, and we liked hanging around the older kids on dad's teams. At the time, my brother and I did not realize that, during these practices, we were also being schooled. We were being schooled in fundamentals and why they were so important. We were not sitting behind desks, with a pencil and paper, waiting for the teacher to call on us. Nonetheless, we were still in class.

A lot of the time, my brother and I would not even be paying attention to the activities taking place on the court itself. Then, all of a sudden, we would hear the shrillness of a whistle, which commanded the complete attention of every player on the court, my brother and I included. It was the whistle that had seemingly always hung down from my father's neck.

There were always three immediate blasts from that whistle: two quick, short blasts, followed by a third and final blast. This final blast, however, lasted about three times longer than the first two. The first two blasts were used to get the player's attention, and to stop play. That third longer blast meant that dad had just seen one of his players do something that would only have negative consequences for the team.