Source: Jarel Cockburn Flickr
From time to time I read this article -Wide Receiver Jarel Cockburn Drafted 48th CFL’s Argonauts. This article was written almost 10 years ago, 11 days before my 23rd birthday {I am dating myself, I know} and just a couple of weeks before graduation. By this point I had interned on Wall Street, lived it up quite a bit and was just about to start as an Analyst at a venture capital firm in NYC. I was on top of the world to say the least.
As you can imagine, I had everything figured out; I was going to retire at 30 and would have a huge retirement party in Brazil on a very big yacht and tons of models – not joking! I was almost certain that this wold be the case, I had done my time at an Ivy League institution and now it was time to reap the rewards of all the hard work, long hours and exams. I was so confident in myself – just look at these gems from article {narrated by present day me} :
“I’m somewhat interested” Cockburn said. “It’s not my first option.” {who is this guy? seem like a punk}
“[In the CFL] good Canadians are in high demand. They try to draft as many as possible because of the high level of play at American colleges” Cockburn said. {wow, no self esteem issues here – I am suddenly the self-appointed spokesperson for my contemporaries}.
“I was told at the beginning of the year that I probably would be drafted, once you go to a U.S. university, you’ll probably be drafted,” Cockburn said{ever confident, I had life completely figured out}.
I addition to my quotes, what the article didn’t capture is what happened when I actually received a call from the Argonauts GM – Paul Masotti – about a week later. Despite my own booming self esteem, I was honored to receive a call from a guy I grew up watching in the CFL, but when he launched into a monologue about training camp and team protocol, I asked what the compensation would be and proceeded to let him know that I would not be coming to training camp for a number of reasons, but primarily because of the pay. I knew my worth and my potential. I had just accomplished so much and was ready to achieve so much more. I remember exactly how he sounded on the phone when I told him about my position on the matter. He said thank you and we never spoke again.
The fact is, I knew where I was heading, I had direction, a goal {queue the dancing Brazilian girls on the yacht} and nothing was going to stop me. I marvel at my own arrogance and stubbornness at the time and to this day I try to recapture and apply that approach in certain settings, because let’s face it, this sort of attitude towards life does have its place. How do we tap into this attitude in business and in our personal lives after the years have worn us down with disappointment and circumstance? It helps to remember pivotal moments in our lives when we were we at our bravest, most courageous, and defiantly optimistic.
Try, Fail, Grow, Succeed.
Jarel
