12/13/2024
Free Game Friday: Build, build, build again! It’s one of our mottos and is a reflection of life itself. Until you get it right, and most people don’t on the first time, build.
10/25/24
Free Game Friday: Control the controllable! We’ve all had that coach/teacher/parent/role model who mentions “attitude, energy, and effort”. If you haven’t met them yet, I’m sure you will. In everyday life, things are going to happen. But, most of them are outside of our control. Show up with a great attitude. Have positive energy. Put forth tremendous effort. See how your life changes!
10/11/24
Free Game Friday: We’re back with another Free Game Friday! We have entered the fourth quarter of the year and it is time to finish strong. This week’s free game is life is what you make it. Approaching things with a winning mindset, positive attitude, and optimism can change the outcome and trajectory of your life. Putting in the work to confidently do the above can also change the outcome and trajectory of your life. Make today a great day!
10/04/24
Free Game Friday: We’re back with another Free Game Friday! This week’s free game is “Citius, Altius, Forius”. This is the Latin motto of the Olympic games and means “faster, higher, stronger”.
09/27/24
Free Game Friday: We’re back with another Free Game Friday! This week’s free game is your affirmation. Whatever it is you are pursuing, pursue it whole heartedly. Success only comes before work in the dictionary. Best of luck.
09/20/24
Free Game Friday: We’re back with another Free Game Friday! The hustle has been real and we are excited to offer some new products to you all soon! This week’s free game is to be present and enjoy it while it lasts. Time is fleeting, memories fade, but being present, showing gratitude, and doing your best to be your best makes all of the difference.
08/30/24
Free Game Friday: August flew by for us on this end. But before the month ends, we have some free game for you, “trust the process”. Oftentimes it is easy to get lost in the future or frustrated by where we are currently. Just trust the process, it will all work out. Of course, your process has to be sound. Attention to detail, focus, commitment, determination, and excellence at all times should be prioritized. If this is true, then outcome will be more than what you initially expected!
08/16/2024
Free Game Friday: Perspective. A particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view. In sport, many athletes are evaluated on strength, power, and speed. However, it is often the mentality that separates average from good, and good from great. The same can be true in life. Being willing to having a positive, open, and adaptable perspective on immediate circumstances can change the trajectory of the moment you are in and potentially your life or career. From where you are currently, what is your perspective? Is positive, growth-based, and optimistic? Or quite the opposite?
08/09/2024
Free Game Friday: Plow another round. With the fall approaching, school, athletic activities, and agriculture are in full swing. This reminds me of a time that I held a part time job in ag and a common phrase around quitting time was “we better plow another round just to be safe”. Sure enough, we yielded a tremendous harvest. Are you 100% certain that your preparation matches what you hope to harvest? If not, plow another round. If so, plow another round.
This also reminds me of a sign that I saw quite frequently as the Director of sport science for women’s soccer at OSU. This is partly contributed to many of our successes throughout that time (multiple all-Americans, post-season victories, several athletes going on to play professionally). If you’re a strength coach looking to gain an edge on the competition, check out our 10-5-3 and Pros to Peewee ebooks. Take care!
08/02/2024
Free Game Friday: Visualize. With the summer Olympics in full swing, all eyes are on the world’s best athletes. These individuals from all across the world have dedicated a significant amount of time, energy, and effort to achieve elite athletic abilities. Although what we see is the physical manifestation, psychological preparedness has been touted as the driving factor.
In this article, “How to think like an Olympian and develop a winner’s brain” the psychological aspect is discussed in more detail. The ability to visualize success plays a critical role in being successful. As in sport, so in life. Go be great!
07/19/2024
Free Game Friday: Plan your work, work your plan. Run the day or let the day run you. We live in a busy world, which further emphasizes the importance of having a plan, goals, etc. Without this, we often get lost in the “day to day”. Whether it be a larger goal or several minor goals, having a plan can change your life!
05/03/24
Free Game Friday: Take a walk. I know it sounds simple, but there are so many benefits to intermittent physical activity (such as walking). Especially based on lifestyle factors and stressors that effect most of us today. Also, did you know, that generational scientists such as Einstein and Darwin walked religiously? Seriously, this activity was sacred to them and may have supported some of their genius. Check out this article that goes into detail on the subject https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170612-what-you-can-learn-from-einsteins-quirky-habits
04/26/24
Free Game Friday: Build, rebuild. Build, build, build again. Don’t stop building. These are our mantras. What’s a life without building something meaningful? Don’t be afraid to be great, start from scratch, and create something timeless.
04/12/24
Free Game Friday: Don’t look down (keep climbing).
04/05/24
Free Game Friday: Run your race. That’s it, that’s the message
03/01/2024
Free game Friday on the first Friday of a brand new month….it doesn’t get much better than that! With the beginning of a new month I figured it may be worthwhile to talk about goals and goal setting.
Before you know it, the first quarter of the year will be over (I know, time flies right). With that said, right now would be a great time to check the progress on your goals, refine them a bit or to set new ones. Have you ever heard of the term “SMART” goals? These have helped me a ton as I work through the goal setting process.
02/23/2024
Try, try, try again!
Whether it be sport or life, if you have a goal or mission, you must keep trying until you succeed! Too often, folks give up before accomplishing their dreams and they are SO CLOSE.
If you’re looking for a sign, then this is it.
10/20/23
Celebrate
Outstanding Young Alumni Award: Dr. Quincy Johnson ‘16 | Midland University Alumni – With Purpose
10/13/23
Enjoy the moment,
Happy Friday! Hopefully you all are having a great week and are taking care of yourselves. This week’s “Free Game Friday” is focused on enjoying the moment.
Whether you are at the pinnacle of your career or climbing your way up to the top, always take time to enjoy the moment. While career, life, etc. can be a whirlwind at times, the only time we have is the present.
Here are a few simple ways to enjoy the moment:
- Practice gratitude
- Be present
- Create quiet time for reflection
- Celebrate your accomplishments
- Take pictures, journal, phone a friend
Until next time,
Quincy Johnson – 05/10/23
Hey y’all! Welcome back to free game Fridays. Last week’s FGF got posted late, and this week’s is being posted early. As it goes. This week I’m blogging on SOPs, or, standard operating procedures.
Standard operating procedures are typically a set of step-by-step instructions to help complete tasks.
This is a bit different than the typical fitness blogs that I post, but a worthwhile topic. Whether you are hoping to enhance your life, sporting performance, etc. SOPs would be a useful addition.
Accomplishing great things are hardly ever done by a single act of greatness, but by compounding and consistent acts. SOPs can help you develop a system for creating success for yourself and others within your organization or under your mentorship.
05/05/23
Hey y’all! Welcome back to another free game Friday. This week I don’t have anything deep or profound to share. Well, not necessarily. My mantra for the past few years has been (see below):
I took on this mantra when I noticed that the world needed more people, but that people needed to know that there is good in the world too. It’s kind of like the never ending cycle right. You see good in the world, you consciously or subconsciously emulate the good that you see, someone else sees the good in you, and this cycle continues. For most of those reading, you are probably a coach of some sort. For others reading, you may be educators, work in the service industry, etc. Either way, if you haven’t already heard of this quote (the one above), I wanted to share it with you in hopes of improving the world we live in and the spaces we occupy.
First, believe there is good in the world. Then, be the good in the world.
All for now, take care
Quincy Johnson – 04/28/23 SCALING UP
Hey y’all! Welcome to Free Game Fridays. I spend a lot of time embracing the moment and working to get better at my craft. But, in an effort to share my experiences and develop personally I’m going to drop some knowledge each Friday. At the moment, I don’t have a set agenda, so I’ll likely post on a wide range of topics.
Be sure to subscribe and comment below on topics that you’d like Free Game on. Thanks for reading!
This week’s Free Game Friday is about scaling up. Thanks to social media, we all have immediate access to the world’s greatest business men and women, entrepreneurs, CEOs, you name it. Further, I’ve seen a ton of “3-easy steps to get rich” and “Disappear for 90-days to conquer the world” posts within the last year. While those both provide useful information to some, I wanted to share my experiences on developing as an individual-level and professional-level and how I’ve used those experiences to “scale up”. If you don’t have time to read the full blog, the bottom line is that if you’re looking to scale up, you must accurately assess where you are now, where you want to go, and how you can get there. Sure, there will be setbacks along the way, but if it is worth it to you, you will find your way.
In August of 2022, I began my role as an Assistant Professor (tenure track) at the University of Nebraska-Kearney. In addition to teaching undergraduate and graduate level courses, supporting university athletics with sport science approaches, and mentoring students, I’ve had the honor and privelege of directing our youth strength and conditioning program, Loper Performance. With experience training the most elite athletes….at the end of the day it’s about the youth.
Off the bat, I saw the potential in our program, even when others didn’t. Perspective is important for those looking to scale up. Although the program was stable, I knew that we were capable of positively impacting so many more youth and accomplishing so much more. So, I set to work.
The first thing that I did was self-reflect. If you don’t understand your strengths and weaknesses, how can you effectively lead and manage others? Regularly reflecting is important for those looking to scale up. After reflecting for a while, I began to envision the best youth strength and conditioning program one could offer. Vision is important for those looking to scale up. I knew that we needed to have the right people, relationships, and approach to make this thing work. To many, training youth athletes is no big deal, but I understand the importance of having knowledgeable coaches providing quality training and how that can impact an athletic career. This is not only true in sport, but in life as well, but that’s a message for another day.
After I had a realistic vision, I began to establish goals/benchmarks, identify key team members, and share my vision with them. Being realistic, setting goals, and finding the right people are important for those looking to scale up. As is life, there was pushback from many, and acceptance from some. However, perspective is everything and being open to feedback actually helped us address concerns and formulate a stronger approach for marketing, program design, and program implementation.
After a few weeks of planning, developing our approach, and developing relationships we began marketing our program. While it was not the perfect time, the time was perfect to get things going. Taking action is important for those looking to scale up. Wouldn’t you know, we had 30 kids enroll in the first phase of our program! But that’s not it, we have grown since then and provided quality strength and conditioning services to nearly 100 kids in a 9-month span of time.
As I sign off, the moral of the story here, and the key to scaling up is not what you do but how you go about doing it. Whether it be personal or professional growth these things have worked well for me when attempting to scale up; perspective, reflection, vision, realism, goal setting, finding the right people, and taking action. Hopefully this was useful to you, have a great Friday!
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