Why not?

Why not us, why not here, why not now.

It’s been over 7 years since I stopped playing rugby, a game which until that point in my life, was my life. Everything I did was about rugby and to perform the very best I could. I have a load of great memories from the game but more than that I have many great lessons and pieces of time where things happened that I am almost able to freeze and keep with me in my life today. Strange though that may sound, let me share one with you here that I hope you are able to make work in your life.

We were the under dogs, that didn’t bother me at all but I could tell that a number of the team let it lay on their mind, to me the under dog has the upper hand as the pressure is off. It was 2001 and we were in our changing room minutes before kick off against one of if not the strongest rugby nation, New Zealand. In less than 3 minutes we would face the mighty Kiwi’s in front of 30,000 people at the Hong Kong Sevens.

Seconds before being called to the tunnel by the referee our captain for the day released these words:

Why not us, why not here, why not now.

No one needed to ask, nothing needed to be said as we all looked each other straight between the eyes for one last time before the battle was to begin…..we knew exactly what he meant.

That moment and that phrase I was lucky to hear on a number of other occasions in my playing career. Some days we won and others we lost. That’s kind of the way the game goes I guess.

But why am I sharing this? What does it mean to you or to anyone else outside the changing rooms?

The message for me was simple, believe in yourself, back yourself because there is no time like right now to make what you most want in life to happen. For us on those days it was to beat our opposition in a game of rugby, for you it can be anything but just think, why not you, why not here, why not now.

There is no reasons why not. Just go and do.