Being The UNDERDOG

We've all heard of the phrase the "Underdog" that is heavily favored against in whatever endeavor they are undertaking. The classic example is David and Goliath in the Bible. David is not expected to have a chance against his powerful foe, yet he takes Goliath out with a stone to the forehead!

You have the Cinderella teams that make the BCS bowls like Boise State and beat the heavily favored team (Oklahoma), teams that make the NCAA Final Four that barely made the 64 team tournament in the first place, and finally, PEOPLE that are born as ZEROS, expected to be WORTHLESS, such as Helen Keller, and end up becoming HEROES because they have alot of the traits I mentioned in previous blogs. Most of all though, alot of these people have the UNDERDOG mentality that FUELS them to feats most people that were ever in a similar situation would consider IMPOSSIBLE because they had the DEFEATIST attitude!

My brother Trent (leaderofthepack.wordpress.com) inspired me in this blog to really think back on my personal successes. When I was serious about track in high school, I would always have the underdog mentality. My Dad would always help me out by saying things such as "What is ____ (my main rival or someone that had beat me) doing today? anytime that I would take the day off or not work very hard.

Realizing that you are not the VERY BEST in your particular endeavor, hustle, or whatever you do should motivate you to get out of bed every morning. I know it motivated me every Sunday to wake up at 6 AM all alone and run 12-15 hard miles. By my Senior year, I had won the State Championship, and the WEIRDEST thing happened.

All of a sudden, I was NO LONGER the UNDERDOG! It was the weirdest feeling. All of a sudden, EVERYONE it seemed, believed in me! I was EXPECTED to win every race or it was a DISAPPOINTMENT! It got to the point that I stressed myself out and got injured. It is unreal how hard it is to stay HUNGRY for success when you're ON TOP.

The reason why you sometimes see the people rise to the top, then sink back down is because they let me MONEY and SUCCESS get to their HEAD. They forgot how much hard work, blood, sweat and tears it took for them to get to that level!

When I finally got my head on straight, I realized what I needed to do to maintain that underdog mentality: In whatever endeavor you want to pursue, make sure you ALWAYS surround yourself with people that are BETTER than you are. If this is not POSSIBLE, (it usually will be but it is possible that it's not), surround yourself with others that are not on your level yet, but JUST AS HUNGRY for success and are BITING AT YOUR HEELS for the TITLE!

Do you think I would have lost the HUNGER if I would have had a teammate that was as good as I was? NO! I would have had to work harder just to maintain my position. Same goes for a younger teammate that wanted to take my crown. It may make you work harder, but it is a GOOD THING because it actually makes you BETTER.

Having an older brother definitely helped me with this. Trent would almost always beat me in everything we did. I was naturally small built, so whenever we played sports he had the advantage. Being around someone BETTER than me FORCED me to step my game up in order to COMPETE!

You see this in the wild all the time. There is a saying about every day in the Jungle, the Lion and the Antelope are having a race for SURVIVAL. Just because the antelope survives one day, he can't get too proud of himself and lose the UNDERDOG mentality or he will get EATEN by the lion. On the other side of the coin, the lion can't get too proud of himself for killing one antelope that he doesn't hunt the next day or he will STARVE to death!

BOTTOM LINE: No matter if you're an Platinum selling artist with a major deal, or an artist that has yet to sell a single album, you have to wake up everyday with the UNDERDOG mentality, and that today is YOUR DAY, THERE IS NO TOMORROW. If you wake up everyday with that mentality, there is no doubt you will eventually make it!

Keep Hustlin

Tre "T-Jack" Thomason

ps: Check out Trent's related posts "Adapt or Die" and "How To Beat The Hell Out Of Someone Bigger Than You" at http://www.leaderofthepack.wordpress.com/