I read an article about Jay Bilas the other day. If you aren’t familiar with Bilas, he is a color commentator for ESPN who played basketball and coached for Duke Men’s Basketball along with many other amazing accomplishments. The article, though, was not about his career, but about the basketball camp that he runs every year for high school boys in Charlotte, NC. It was a lesson in leadership, for sure.

The first thing he does after the initial welcome is introduce the campers to the building staff. He wants the players to meet the people that provide a safe, clean environment for them to play the sport they love. He explained, “In addition to getting better, your #1 goal is to make their job as easy as possible.” He emphasizes cleaning up after yourself and your teammates—never make a mess for someone else to clean up. He added, “You do your own dirty work. The gym is to be spotless every morning when we arrive…it will be equally spotless when we leave.” The goal is to leave everyone and everywhere better than they found it. 

I love this! “Everyone and everywhere better than we found it.” Do we do that? It’s really simple to visually look around our area to make sure we are leaving it the way we found it, but it’s not as simple with people. Let’s look at the people around us at work or at home, are we “leaving” them better than we found them? Are we adding kindness, love, appreciation, affirmation, inspiration, or something else? And make sure we look toward the one we struggle with the most first. What are we “leaving” there? And like Bilas said, we are responsible for cleaning up our own messes—with things and with people.

Let’s GO! WE GOT THIS!
Beth