373: Jaeden Graham, Atlanta Falcon: Reaching beyond your potential
I love talking with people who strive to reach their potential and beyond, and who elevate people around them—their teammates. People like that exist everywhere, especially in professional sports.
Jaeden plays for the Atlanta Falcons. We start by talking about his first touchdown pass, which you have to watch. It’s what you’d dream of for a first touchdown pass.
Loving sports as I do and hearing about the personal experience, I indulge in asking about that play. He said he was open, but not much. It looked like a mess except that Matt Ryan through it right to him. He got hit but bounced right back, spiked the ball and did a dance.
He shares the inside view, what went different than planned and other inside stuff. Then we talk about teamwork, the role of fans, training, giving everything you have.
Of course we talk about the pandemic, it being an opportunity beyond surviving, digging deep, finding yourself, and reaching your potential. We also talk about the environment, acting on it, and giving all you have for everyone, how that improves life.
I grew up thinking of professional athletes as bad boys, but competition is founded on reaching your potential, giving everything you have, serving your self, your team, your fans, the world. I heard from Jaeden that the level of fun you reach when you try transcends when you just settle for creature comforts or just playing okay.
Is applying what he says to environmental stewardship obvious? Relating it as I see it, people ask me why I do so much—picking up litter and so on. Then I listen to athletes, business leaders, political leaders, artists, Nobel Prize winners, and all the people I’ve spoken to on this podcast and think of how little I’m doing compared to them. I think of how much more I can do.
I hope you feel as enthusiastic as I do to find out what more I can do to serve my teammates, which is everyone who needs clean air, land, and water to live—that is, to steward this beautiful world for them.