Growing up, I loved watching the NFL. My favourite team was the Seattle Seahawks. My brother’s was the Dallas Cowboys. We would watch the Cowboys when legends Roger Staubach and Tony Dorsett were playing the game.
Tom Landry was the coach. My brother stopped being a Cowboys fan the minute Jerry Jones fired Tom Landry. But that’s another story.
I always admired Landry’s calm and cool demeanour throughout the game. He was a Christian man; I recently learned that during home games he would teach a Sunday school class and arrive at the stadium minutes before kickoff!
Recently, I ran across two quotes by Landry that are worth repeating:
“Leadership is the ability to get a person to do what he doesn’t want to do in order to achieve what he wants to achieve.”
That’s a great quote. It speaks of motivation and influence and the price of “success.”
Here’s one about the importance of preparation:
“The will to prepare is more important than the will to succeed.”
God sees our heart; He knows what we do in the secret place. We must be faithful in our preparation. All of our work is for Him.