How Champions Are Built

Hey team, here we are again. What a beautiful day. I have a quote for you.

I talk about these quotes that I use from time to time. On Mondays, for example, I relate them as much as I can to our core values because I believe that our core values are something that we need to always remember and live by. We need to set our course and drive the bus by this set of rules. More than rules, they’re our foundation. One of them is: resolve. Improvise, adapt, and overcome. Never quit. You don’t quit. Pressure plus pain times perseverance equals prosperity.

These are things that we live by and believe in strongly because they are really true. They are fundamental laws, so to speak, in how we govern ourselves and focus both as a company and as individuals. At least, that’s how I believe it is.

I wanted to share this quote I read that I think is really powerful: “Champions aren’t built on the days that they feel motivated, but on the days they feel like quitting.”

Champions are built on the days that they feel like quitting, not on the days they feel great.

So we go back to that: don’t quit. Improvise, adapt, and overcome. When you run into a wall, how do you get through the wall? How do you improvise, adapt, and overcome? How do you MacGyver your way out of that situation?

There’s actually a movie from when I was a kid, and I just found out they did a new series on it. My son Jonathan is amazing. JT loves sitting and watching with his mom and me. That show, MacGyver, we’re watching it on Amazon, I think. We’re enjoying spending time together as a family. The whole concept is that he uses everyday things around him to get out of tough situations because he doesn’t quit.

He doesn’t have a quit mentality. Neither do we at Northwest Enforcement. Chad Wro does not have a quit mentality. Improvise, adapt, and overcome. Life is hard. It punches you in the gut, it knocks you down. It doesn’t want to relent or release. But you make it because you’re willing to wrestle with that and continue to fight against quitting.

True champions are built on the days they feel like quitting.

The days they don’t want to roll out of bed, go for a run, exercise, go to work, do that patrol in the cold or in the heat or in the rain, follow the directions of their supervisor. They fight against doing the comfortable, easy, mundane things in life. They put down the social media, get the work done, and make it happen. That’s what champions do.

They accomplish their goals. They take a class. Or they read a book. They read their 10 pages a day because they are motivated by something deeper inside themselves than the comfort of watching television.

And if you’re listening to my voice and thinking, “Chad, I’m feeling very convicted right now because I’ve been sacrificing what I know I need to do for the comfortable things in my life”—if you’re not feeling much like a champion, if you’re not motivated, if you’re feeling like quitting, if you’re feeling down—I get it. I’ve felt it too. Even recently, I’ve had moments like that. That’s why maybe this video today is a wakeup call.

Dig a little deeper.

Say to yourself, “Listen to Chad.” Get off the couch. Get out of bed. Put on your exercise clothes, put on your gym clothes. Put on your work clothes, whatever it is. Turn off the TV. Pick up a book. Get on the reading program that Sonia has so many of our team members on now. Do something easy, simple—something you can do. One thing. Get it done. Then do the next thing, and the next thing.

There’s a great book out there. I believe Lieutenant Miller is reading it right now for one of his quarterly books. It’s written by the same guy we use in our leadership class recently, Admiral McRaven, called Make Your Bed. It’s based on his 2014 speech to the graduates from Texas A&M, if I remember correctly.

The premise of the book, the premise of the talk, the whole premise is that the one thing you can do every morning is accomplish that one important thing—make your bed. When I was in the Marine Corps, we used to have to make our rack every morning, and we had to make it really tight. If you didn’t, they’d strip it and make you do it again and again and again until you did it right.

That one simple thing makes you feel like you accomplished something.

Now you can get dressed, do the next thing, and the next thing. So do that one simple thing in your life. If that’s making your bed this morning, then make your bed. Then go do the next thing, whatever it is.

But don’t quit. Because champions aren’t made on quitters. People don’t stumble into success. They don’t get to that top place, champion of whatever it is, by quitting. They’re not the pull-up champion, the 100-meter champion, the long jump champion, the number one wrestler in their division because they quit. They’re number one because they stayed at it. They did it on the hard days. When they felt like quitting, when it was cold, when it was hot, when they were sweating, when their muscles ached.

They kept moving forward, they kept accomplishing.

They didn’t quit. That’s why they’re champions. That’s why you’re a champion, because you’re still at it. Yes, life punches you in the gut. Yes, it’s hard. But you’re still here. You’re still doing it. So let this be a wakeup call, maybe for some of us, including myself. There are a few things I’ve put on the back burner that I need to get back to. Make it happen.

Take my advice. Don’t quit. Champions aren’t made on quitters. They’re made on people who get out and do the hard things on the hard days when they feel like quitting. So push yourself a little deeper, a little longer, a little harder. Keep climbing that hill. Keep getting there and you’ll be there. Be valuable. Nothing less will do.

God bless you guys. Have a wonderful week. I can’t wait until I see you again. Summer will be coming to a close soon, but we are having a wonderful year, nothing but blessing. I am so proud and so excited to have so many of you on our team doing great things.

Again, thank you. Thank your family for being a part of this organization that is out to make a difference in our communities, for the safer communities that we provide because of your dedication and because we don’t quit. God bless you. I’ll see you guys next week.