I like the term scrappy. I’ve always pictured some femme fatale bobbing and weaving and diving and contorting herself into any number of ways to get the one and only job done that she’s there to do: Win.
It reminds me of my favorite Will Smith quote (oh, you don’t have a favorite Will Smith quote?)
“The only thing that I see distinctly different about me is I’m not afraid to die on a treadmill. I will not be out worked, period. You might have more talent than me, you might be smarter than me, you might be sexier than me, you might be all of those things you got on me in nine categories. But if we get on the treadmill together, there’s two things: You’re getting off first, or I’m going to die.”
I’ve quoted that on this blog before—SUE ME.
Point is this: When you go, you go hard. There is no inbetween. There is no middle. Why?
Because the middle is for cowards.
See, when you’re scrappy, you don’t give a shit what other people do. You don’t give a shit because you don’t have to give a shit. You know you’ll always come out on top, no matter what happens, because this is who you are. This is what you do. People can throw whatever they want at you in life’s game of dodgeball, and no matter what happens, no matter who else is playing, no matter how big they think their balls are—you will not lose. Because you can’t lose. Because while the rest of the world is relying on some bullshit technicality to save themselves, you’re relying on yourself. You don’t need to run around begging the coach to blow the whistle, because you’re already two steps ahead of the play.
This is where too many people go wrong. They get upset with life; upset with the way things are going for them. They whine and yell and get all wrapped up in what everybody else is doing of getting out there and doing their own.
And that’s precisely when they get whipped in the head with a ball.
Look, I don’t always know the answers. I don’t always do everything right. Goodness grief, I still can’t make a grilled cheese sandwich. But one thing I do know is that when you’re scrappy, instead of crying about all the broken shards of glass around you, you figure out a creative way to piece them all together—and then use it as a stepping stone on your way to the top.
That’s scrappy.
The scrappy person—they don’t need anything else but themselves. The more and more shards they pick up, the thicker and thicker their skin gets. And that’s what makes them the most dangerous person in the room.
No matter what’s gone wrong for you in the past, what’s going wrong for you right now, or what might go wrong for you in the future, I want you to remember this:
Everything can be used to your advantage.
Because it’s not the person who dodges the most bullets who wins.
It’s the person who finds something useful to do with the bullets, after the shots have been fired.