Legendary football coach Nick Saban considers the following attitudes to be enemies of greatness…

1. Entitlement

• Success makes people think they deserve more – without doing more.
• Entitlement is the belief that past effort guarantees future rewards.
• Greatness only belongs to those who earn it again, every day.
• “You get up every day, and you’re entitled to: Nothing…Nothing is acceptable but your best” (Nick Saban).

2. Lack of Discipline

• Discipline is doing what needs to be done, even when you don’t feel like it.
• Without discipline, talent becomes wasted potential.
• The smallest lapses – being late, cutting corners, losing focus – compound into failure.
• “Run hard when it gets hard to run. Everything starts with discipline. Practice until you can’t get it wrong – not just until you get it right. If you don’t respect it enough to do it right-when it’s the right way to do it, how can you be trusted in a game?” (Nick Saban)

3. Circumstances over Vision

• Average performers let circumstances dictate their attitude and effort.
• Great performers stick to their vision, no matter the conditions.
• Your standard doesn’t change based on who you play, what the score is, or how you feel.
• “If you want to be good, you really don’t have a lot of choices, because it takes what it takes” (Nick Saban).

4. Self-Pity

• The fastest way to lose is to feel sorry for yourself.
• Self-pity kills resilience and responsibility.
• Saban’s teams were taught: no excuses, no complaints – just the next play.
• “Everybody’s got to be responsible for their own self-determination. If you think that not confronting people who don’t do the right things is helping your organization, you’re absolutely wrong” (Nick Saban).

5. Complacency

• The moment you think you’ve arrived, you start to decline.
• Complacency turns champions into ex-champions.
• Hunger and humility must outlast success if you want to stay great.
• “Complacency creates a blatant disregard for doing what is right” (Nick Saban).