“To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour.“ – Winston Churchill
A simple formula for finding the next phase of your life purpose might be said like this:
“Scratch your own itch.”
Here’s what I mean…
Growing up, I had to scrape the far corners of the internet, dig through hundreds of obscure articles, and beg for access to private, underground forums just to figure out how to train properly for basketball.
Seriously:
There were no YouTube tutorials, no online training programs, and no Instagram reels with “5 ways to break your defender’s ankles.”
Looking back now, it feels like the caveman era…
…But in those days I felt like a pioneer, hacking and slashing my way through unexplored territory, testing brand new theories and principles in the private laboratory of my own training.
Many mistakes were made, of course.
Dozens of failed training tests led to silly, pointless injuries and eventually a surgery that cut my playing career painfully short.
And I often wondered why there wasn’t a complete, reliable, and effective training system for serious basketball players to follow — without spending the vital years of their playing career piecing together random training theories and figuring it out on the fly.
But I did figure it out eventually.
And a few years later, I found myself building Elite Guard Training — the exact program I’d always wished I had.
EGT went on to save hundreds of thousands of players from the pain and struggle that drained my playing career — not because I ever wanted to be an entrepreneur…
(I actually went to school for kinesiology because I was so obsessed with training science)
…But simply because I had an itch that needed to be scratched.
And in the process of scratching that itch, I ended up bringing something into the world I always thought should exist.
So, what itch do you need to scratch?
What have you always wished existed, but doesn’t, because you haven’t created it yet?
If you don’t get a clear answer right away, that’s a good thing.
Answers to deep questions aren’t found on the surface.
We need to dig for them.
But don’t give up, don’t slow down, and never — ever — settle.
What you are digging for, after all, is more precious than gold.
– T