As a veteran, and since this is Memorial Day, let me kindly continue the analogy. What HAS to die on the battlefield of our lives are our pretensions, our fears, our stupidity, our ignorance. They will die, and sometimes at a very high cost, but not if we expect a mentor or coach to do our work. First, they can’t. If they did, they would be killing us off slowly. Why? Because when we ask others to do our work, all we then have at the end of the day are people to blame for our shortfalls. Excuses are cheap. Fall guys are legion. Ultimately you and I are the field generals. If the battlefield falls it’s because we gave it away to someone else.

Consider football. The best QBs in the world have a LOT of coaches. Um, those coaches don’t throw the interception. Don’t dodge the the defensive tackle. Don’t get to lift the Lombardi Trophy. They also don’t suffer the concussions, the back injuries, the tears, the heartbreak. The QB does. He does the work, takes the chances, puts the training into play.

That’s why sometimes the oldest QBs (think Brady, Farve, Elway, Manning) were some of the best. Still getting coached as they aged, but by then they had learned how to use the wisdom. They didn’t end up like RGIII, barely a third string QB on a third level team after being uncoachable, untrainable.

I have worked coaches my entire life. I have a coaching session today at 1 with the guy who helped me produce my first book which won THREE PRIZES. Few authors win prizes with a first effort. That’s what coaching does. I may have expertise, but my glass is always and forever empty. When I do what he tells me to do, I tend to succeed. And by the way, he has a coach, too.

We’re both in our mid-sixties. It never stops.