Have You Experienced a Breakthrough Moment?

Have you ever had a "breakthrough" moment in your life? A breakthrough moment is when you suddenly have that quantum leap, or a sudden impactful jump occurs in your life.

I recently heard a leadership trainer Randy Gage, discuss this topic, and I immediately inserted it into one of my keynote presentations. He mentioned we all have breakthrough moments during our success journey, but the ones that can be the most impactful can occur during times of failure, obstacles, and challenges. Let me explain it this way.

After my second year in the NFL, I was cut (released, fired however you want to interpret it) from the Cleveland Browns. Over the next four days, I met with the Kansas City Chiefs, Detroit Lion, and the Green Bay Packers. I was rejected by all of them. To put this in perspective, over a five day period four NFL teams rejected me. That's not a good week! For any professional athlete, this can be a very devastating yet humbling moment in their career. You've always been one of the best athletically, however, now your being told you’re not good enough. Not always easy to digest. After analyzing everything that had taken place, I thought to myself, will this be the moment that breaks me down or will this be the moment that takes me to bigger and better things? I went on to play nine years in the NFL, so I think you know the decision I made. We'll discuss this in the next newsletter. 

will this be the moment that breaks me down or will this be the moment that takes me to bigger and better things?

Here's the main point of sharing this. We don't get many breakthroughs on our success journey's so when we do, it's important to recognize them. Reflect on the time, when you hit a roadblock. Perhaps something totally unexpected happens which you weren't ready for or maybe an opportunity was a "for sure thing" and turned out to be just the opposite. Yes, you were shocked, crushed and maybe questioning yourself. These situations give us the chance to choose these moments to be our breakthroughs. I can share many stories of NFL players, who were cut or maybe injured and decided to give it up. When I see them today, they regret they didn't use those failures as motivation to work harder and give it another shot. 

So the next time you're at that crossroads and trying to decide what you're going to do. Ask yourself, is this the moment that’s going to break me down or is the moment that will take me to bigger and better things? It's your choice! 

Stay positive and keep seizing your opportunities!

JJ