3 Tips for Succeeding in an Imperfect World

Posted on December 12, 2020 by Bennie Fowler, One of Thousands of Leadership Coaches on Noomii.

The following is adapted from Silver Spoon: The Imperfect Guide to Success.

What’s your plan for your life? Do you know where you plan to be a year from now? Three years? Five years?

Wherever you want to go, you’ll need goals to aim toward. You’ll also need the adaptability that enables you to move quickly when circumstances change. No one knows that better than an NFL player. Even for the best, life in the league is short and retirement comes early. We need to prepare for life after football. Guys like Terrell Davis or James Jones on the NFL Network exemplify this principle. So does Peyton Manning. And so will I.

Life and success don’t stop after sports. I achieved the highest level of play in the NFL because I am a complete person: flawed, determined, consistent, and willing to persevere. And my next successful journey will be forged by and indelibly linked to my mistakes, determination to overcome them, consistent work ethic to improve, and mental fortitude to go higher.

Marell Evans is a great example of someone who took an unusual route toward success. Marell could have had it all, but his path took him away from the NFL before he found success in a totally different field. His story is a perfect example of succeeding in an imperfect world, and his tips for success apply to us all.

A Roundabout Route to Success

Marell played linebacker at the University of Michigan. He was the state player of the year in football in high school, and as a senior, he had about fifteen offers to play Division I football. He chose the University of Michigan and was the first person from his family to go to college.

Unfortunately, after his sophomore year at Ann Arbor, coaching changes and problems at home prompted Marell to leave Michigan. He went from playing in front of 110,000 fans in Michigan to moving boxes in a Richmond warehouse. But he was able to set aside money to help stabilize his family’s situation.

Eventually, Michigan lured him back. But even though Marell practiced every day with the team, he never earned enough credits to get into an actual game.
Consequently, he never popped up on the NFL’s radar. He was disappointed and sometimes depressed about how things had worked out for him.

But that didn’t last long. Instead of lamenting lost opportunities in football, Marell threw himself into carving out a career in technology. He became close to Dave Brandon, the former athletic director at Michigan, who encouraged Marell to pursue work in technology.

Marell contacted every technology company you can name—Google, Microsoft, IBM, LinkedIn. Eventually, he took an offer from IBM in New York because it had an accelerator program to help employees build skills in technology. He was the only black person in the program.

Surrounded by smart engineers, he realized his best option was to develop people skills, which many of the others in the program didn’t have. He joined a Toastmasters Club. Soon, Marell was polished and confident.

His work paid off. He was promoted, and after a few years, he moved to San Francisco and secured a position at a firm that provides seed funding for early-stage businesses.

Marell’s Three Keys to Success

Marell’s life didn’t work out the way it was supposed to in the storybooks. He never heard the roar of a hundred thousand fans as he strode onto the field to play in an NFL game. But he never stopped actively doing what he could to take control of his path. As a result, he’s now successful in a totally different field from sports.

Here are Marell’s three keys to success:

Find a Mentor

You need an advisor who exhibits the qualities you’d like to see in yourself. Once you find this person, follow what Marell calls “the 80-20 rule.” In this context, the 80-20 rule states that you need to spend 80 percent of your time listening to your mentor and 20 percent of the time speaking and asking questions.

Don’t Be Afraid to Be Different

Don’t be afraid to venture into something that you aren’t comfortable with, Marell told me. You won’t be the first, and you won’t be the last.

If Marell hadn’t embraced his uniqueness early on, he might never have gotten his opportunity at IBM. When he saw that many of his colleagues didn’t have confidence in their public-speaking skills, he slipped into that niche. “I didn’t have the ‘book smarts,’ so I dedicated a ton of time to develop those skills, and it paid off,” he told me.

Surround Yourself with Incredible Friends

Marell believes in that saying, “Show me your friends, and I’ll show you your future.” He feels your friends should be different from you. They should have different perspectives and backgrounds. But they should also be like you—hungry for success.

“I have a lot of different mindsets around me,” Marell told me. “I have a corporation of friends who are all different and bring different approaches to life. This corporation wouldn’t run very well if everyone had the same strengths and outlook.”

Choose Your Own Adventure

The key message I want you to take from this article is that, even though life doesn’t always work out the way we hope it will, it’s essential to keep adapting and learning. You may have a fixed idea of what constitutes success. What will you do if that path gets blocked? Will you consider yourself a failure? Or will you find a new way to succeed?

Life is imperfect. So are humans. Marell could have given up on life when his football career hit the skids. Instead, he found a way to turn his experience into a positive, reinventing himself and fueling his success. He supported his learning and growth with the wisdom of mentors and the assistance of friends.

I know that, when the time comes for me to hang up my boots and leave the NFL, a new path will open up for me because I’m constantly learning and growing. I’m happy to set big goals and back myself to achieve them. In an imperfect world, I’m also happy to change tack when I need to. Now it’s your turn.

For more advice on success, you can find Silver Spoon: The Imperfect Guide to Success on Amazon.

Bennie Fowler is a six-year veteran of the NFL. He began his career as an undrafted free agent signed by the Broncos in 2014. He spent four years with the Broncos and was a member of the Super Bowl 50 championship team in 2016. Bennie played college football at Michigan State University, where he was a member of the 2014 Rose Bowl championship team. Bennie holds the annual Bennie Fowler youth football camp in Detroit, Michigan, is an in-demand speaker trained through the NFL Speakers Bureau, and lives in Denver during the offseason.