The difference between winning and losing is how you handle “difference.” The fear of being “different” is the difference between making a difference and making no difference. We all share a common calling–to make a difference–to use our potential to make a difference in lives in order to change the world for the better. Those who made a difference in our lives chose to be different. They overcame their fear of being different to lead the way.

The number one lesson I’ve learned in 40 seasons of coaching is the danger of stereotyping. At the amateur levels I’ve coached, we don’t have the luxury of drafting the best or signing the best free agents. We don’t choose players, they choose us. We have to develop whoever chooses us. We have to build players who choose us, regardless if they “fit” conventional positions.

I’ve been blessed with Quarterback Continuity since 1984. Continuity doesn’t mean the same quarterback or the same type of quarterback. It means the same type of higher performance. Not one of our quarterbacks has ever fit the conventional quarterback mold. Not one of our quarterbacks looked like a quarterback. The best example is Tom Denison. He looked the least likely to succeed at quarterback position, but his story is at the top of our list of high performances.

I almost fell in the trap. My wife told me that another quarterback had registered for our team, a guy named Tom Denison. I told her she was mistaken. He looked like a fullback or maybe a small lineman. He wasn’t. He developed into the most prolific record-breaking quarterback we’ve ever had in any of our programs. His 22-game career numbers seem made-up. Actually they were. They were made from scratch. Tom beat incredible odds to make it the next level and the next. He beat the odds by investing a level of work and reps that had to be seen to be believed. Tom was different. And he played different.      

The biggest obstacle in education, sports, and careers is the complex mix of stereotyping and fear of being different. They are connected.  Stereotyping promotes fear of being different and vice-versa. It happens in the classroom, in sports, and at work. The system tries to cram students and employees into one model that fits conventional thinking, even if the fit has to be forced. 

Stereotyping students is the easy way out of having to teach them and coach them. It’s easy to separate students into two groups–the talented go here and the untalented go there. The words “talented” and “untalented” are dangerous words because of their misuse. Talent evaluation is skewed in education, sports, and work where self-professed experts use the wrong evidence or partial evidence to attach labels.

Wrong labeling starts in school. It takes no effort to fit students with a label that they carry around for life to help justify the lack of will or capacity to teach them, to coach them, and to mentor them in order to develop their full potential. I coach in a sport where students are fit into stereotypes by appearance alone. The quarterback position is the best example. If a student is too short, too slow, too pudgy, he is deemed unworthy of being a quarterback. Focusing on deficiencies ignores efficiencies. In the college law enforcement program I taught in, stereotypes of who would make a “good cop” and who would not, replaced the most important evidence of all–proof by performance. Superficiality and artificiality over reality is the dangerous game of stereotyping.

Stereotyping is a form a brainwashing that tries to make one believe that it’s impossible to make a difference if you are different. Those who stereotype try to discourage through the fear of being different; by not fitting a specific mold. The victims of stereotyping have two choices: i) surrender to the fear of being different, or; ii) fight it. If you have ever been stereotyped, you would have had to choose to not giving in to the foolish notion that it’s impossible to achieve by being different.

Giving in to the pressures of stereotyping is one of the main causes of wasted potential, of burying God-given gifts and talents instead of developing them. Wasted potential leads to the pain of underachieving that manifests in soul-killing symptoms–regret, bitterness, anger, contempt, hate, and every emotion that corrupts the environment with conflict. Underachievers suffer the inner conflict of unresolved cognitive dissonance that spreads to the environment, infecting the air and those weak enough to let it sink into their minds, hearts, and souls.

The story of Tom Denison is an inspiration to all students, employees, or anyone in any field who has to fight stereotyping. Tom Denison’s story is a remarkable journey of a student-athlete who tore off labels and then made it to the pros at a position when no one wanted to give him a chance. Tom Denison’s story shares valuable insight about how to succeed despite stereotype; despite being different from what mainstreamers believe is normal. His journey to the pros is a remarkable story of perseverance to overcome one of the toughest adversities of all–stereotyping, labeling. The Tom Denison story is one of the best examples of how to judge–by performance.

High-performance is not reserved for the elite, the naturally gifted, the affluent, or those who have inherited a DNA fortune. Beating the fear of being different is the difference between making a difference and making no difference.

Tom Denison’s inspiring story can be heard on Blunt Talk podcast.

#Peace