I played softball last weekend and learned a valuable lesson.

Before the game started I noticed that everyone was stretching. I remember thinking to myself that stretching wasn’t that necessary. This week my left leg has been a little sore, but I didn’t think anything about it. The other day I noticed some swelling and that’s when I got a little concerned.

A friend of mine runs a sports medicine clinic so I stopped by her office. Turns out nothing is seriously wrong with my leg—just a little soreness and inflammation from not stretching before the game.  

This lesson only reinforced what I’ve been learning: You can’t get to where you’re going without working hard where you are.

Students today are disillusioned by this notion they’ll be making a triple digit income straight out of college. They want to be paid as an expert while having the experience of an amateur.

That’s as absurd as me thinking that I didn’t need to stretch when I hadn’t played softball—or any sport for that matter—in over a year.

There are a lot of things I want to do. I try to take positive steps every day to reach my goals, but I am nowhere close to where I want to be. So I read books and follow blogs and talk with people who are a few steps ahead of me. When I’m at work I do my best because I can learn from every job experience.

Do you see where this is going?

I am by no means trying to reinvent the wheel.

Truett Cathy, founder of Chick-fil-A, once said that when you make a product better, the people will demand that your business gets bigger.

I think this is true of individuals as well.

As I work harder to become better, other people can’t help but notice.