What impressed me about the show was not so much his stats and highlights but the story of his preparation for each and every practice and game. What I took most from this special was his professionalism, his approach, his leaderships, how he understood the mental aspect as well as understanding how those around him were effecting by his actions and abilities.
Here is someone who was playing in the NFL when there was a minority of African-American players. So it's pretty fair to say that he dealt with racism far greater than we have ever seen, heard or experienced in our lives. Also, players back then were not set up on multi-million dollar contracts with insurance policy's to fall back on. Most players worked second jobs. Basically, if you got injured, tough luck!...and unlike today where you have Replay footage and heavy officating, player's dealt with being cleated, eyes gouged out, being speared after the play was finished, etc, etc....
Jim Brown understood that he was a gifted individual not only physically but mentally as well. The epsiode on Brown highlighted how he got up after each and every tackle the exact same way (taking 10-15 seconds to get up). Regardless if he slipped up or got nailed in the numbers, he would get up if it were the exact same as the previous play.
Brown did this so that no one around him, both his opponents and his own team mates would know if was hurt by the hit because he never changed his approach/reaction....therefore leading those to believe he was unbreakable.
Also, Brown never received treatment from the medical/training staff while any of his team mates or media were around. He would come 2 hours before every player arrived for practice to get treatments so that they would not know he was hurt or required some aid.
What I'm trying to get at is that we all have the ability to leave our baggage (because we all have things going on in our lives in some form or another) at the door to prevent attention being drawn to ourself. This just leads to affecting the facility, the customers and our team mates all in a negative manner. There is a time and place for everything to be sorted and trying to do so when you're on the training floor is only detrimental to your team, the overall energy, the customer's experience (their not hear to listen to our problems), but also yourself.
Being the leaders of IF, it starts with us and it trickles down to all of those around us whether it be a lack of energy we display, a change in mood, crying, complaining, lack of work ethic, mediocre training sessions, etc, etc...
We must be on our top game 24/7 if we want to lead both our team mates and ourselves to the next level.
Using this forum group and our management in place to find solutions to our own personal situations during 1-0n-1 meetings, forum meetings, coffee's/lunch/dinners outside of the facility are all great avenues for us to handle our own situations properly.
Jim Brown could have been the star player who acted all dramatic when he was hit hard or could have let everyone know the abuse he took both mentally and physically week in and week out during his illustrious career. However, he chose to go the other path of dealing with it in the proper manner where he still produced at an extraordinary level, leading all of those around him, winning championships and also still finding the right time to take care of the things that needed to be addressed.
We all have the same ability.
When we step into the facility doors and wear our IF jersey's, it's time to leave our personal baggage at the door and take care of business.
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