Motivational Story - Christian McCaffrey (Carolina Panthers / NFL)




Greetings! This week I want to show you a few things. One is that professional scouts are not always accurate in their assessment. As we’ve stated many times, do not let a personal ranking determine your fate or ruin your attitude. Second, in order to get to the highest level, the work you put into your body and development of your mindset has to ramp up because talent alone does not guarantee you success or the ability to sustain a lengthy career? Usually it’s the Will Power that one possesses that scouts cannot assess that can help propel the individual to even greater heights.

Take Christian McCaffrey of the Carolina Panthers. He stands in at 5-feet, 11-inches. He was one of the most prolific college football players ever and still holds the single-season record for all-purpose yardage gained (3,496). In the NFL last year, he became just the third running back in league history to run for 1,000 yards and add a thousand more in pass catching yardage. By the age of 23, he already holds nearly a dozen Panthers team records.

Coming out of Stanford University in 2017 and preparing for the NFL Draft, here were some of the critical comments submitted by Scouts about McCaffrey as a pro prospect?

… “Lacks desired size of an every-down running back.”

… “Takes foot off gas into contact.”

FACT CHECK: According to “Football Outsiders” (a company that provides statistical analysis for ESPN), McCaffrey was second in the NFL in 2019 for most broken tackles, behind New York Giants running back Saquon Barkley).

… “Doesn’t have NFL-caliber power to break tackles and create yardage for himself.”

… “Lacks the burst to accelerate away after the initial cut.”

FACT CHECK: McCaffrey was second in the NFL for most yards gained in 2019 after the initial catch (871), trailing only George Kittle from San Francisco by ten yards.

“You can never satisfy other people,” says McCaffrey. “I’ve learned that at the end of the day, it’s extremely important that you know yourself better than anybody else. I have a lot of my own motivations. I never play to prove anyone wrong. I always try to prove myself right.”

One of the secrets that McCaffrey sees as helping build his career success comes from perfecting everything from his sleep strategy to what he eats. When he was about to first enter the NFL in 2018, McCaffrey met up with a personal chef and also had blood work done. It was designed to find out exactly what he was sensitive to and what he was deficient in and what his body was lacking? He invested in the chef to prepare meals for him on a weekly basis. By eating right, he feels it helps his performance on the field stay at peak levels. Same for getting proper sleep. He averages nine or more hours.

McCaffrey also spent a great deal of time continually influenced by the use of martial arts and studying Bruce Lee’s past teachings on self-discipline, body and mind control. He’s found that it has helped strengthen his core, improved his flexibility and reactionary skills out on the playing field. One of Lee’s teachings that McCaffrey most talks about is TO BE LIKE WATER. McCaffrey says “when you look at water, you see how it makes its way through cracks. It is not assertive, but adjusts to the objects around it. Same for football, you have to find a way around it. I found this (martial arts) all relates.”

I encourage you to watch the video link below from start-to-finish. 

Jim Loria


Bruce Lee Video Link 
https://t.co/6h6dct89Kj


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