Getting Back In Touch With That Inner Dog

A few years ago out on the basketball court I received a compliment that is one of my favorites to this day.

It was the last game of the night and I really didn’t want to go home on a loss. With it being a close game I decided to step up and start playing harder, getting a few big defensive stops before putting in the final bucket of the night to seal the W.

After the game my teammate exclaimed “My man is from the streets! He’s got that dog in him!”.

“Being A Dog” In The NBA

Some of my favorite stories in the NBA are guys who went undrafted, played overseas, or weren’t heavily recruited out of college who have gone on to have successful careers in the league.

These guys tend to truly work their way up from the bottom, sometimes barely seeing play time early on, and sometimes starting with only a 2-day contract.

Some of them go on to become NBA champions and some even become top players in the league. And it’s not always based completely off of highlight plays, scoring, or stats. Sometimes it can be just doing the little things that don’t even show up on a stat sheet. Some examples include Derrick White, Alex Caruso, or just about any player on the Miami HEAT roster.

Past Criticism

Over the years I have at times been criticized for not working hard enough.

Back when I first graduated college I was criticized for cherry-picking only “office jobs” instead of just taking whatever I could get.

A few years later I was criticized after running out of money while in between jobs. My Mother in particular made a comment that stuck with me saying that “I wasn’t capable of doing what it takes to survive”. A few days later I got into a car accident that easily could have been fatal.

My parents both set a high bar for what it looks like to “work hard”. Dad would work 12+ hour days 5 days a week and would rarely take 2 days off in a row. Mom would work 10 hour days plus tack on two hours of commute time as well.

However, those comments still motivated me to become more proactive, and I’m happy with where I am today.

What It Means To Me To Be A Dog

To me being a “dog” is someone who isn’t afraid to take a lower seat at the table if if it means continuing to move forward in life.

It’s someone that isn’t afraid to start out cleaning the bathrooms and taking out the garbage as they are working toward where they want to be.

And it’s someone who doesn’t lose a healthy, humble perspective in terms of who they are and where they come from.

These are all the things that I strive to be.

Even in times where I received criticism, I always knew that I was doing a lot of the right things behind the scenes. Even if people weren’t able to see them first hand, I knew that eventually the narrative would start to change.

This is another part of “being a dog”. Sometimes the expectations for you are lower than what seems accurate, and the criticism can seem higher than what is necessary, but at the end of the day those things are internally taken as good things.

Taking The Right Actions

After the situation with my car accident, and after running out of money on several occasions, the last thing I ever want is to feel like I didn’t put the right attention into the important things in life.

I’m happy to say that this has been working well for me.

I can also say that I don’t ever want to feel entitled. Like I should sit back and expect to receive things that I haven’t earned or that anyone should feel obligated to do anything for me.

These are the sorts of things that motivate me to keep getting up each day.

Thank You For Reading

Thank you for taking the time to read this article. I hope that you have enjoyed, and I look forward to seeing you on the next one!