The Habit of Winning

Posted by Larry Wallace on September 20, 2010 under Everything else | 2 Comments to Read

Coach Mike Sherman, Head Football Coach for Texas A&M, was the offensive line coach when I played football at A&M in the early 90′s. He later went on to be the head coach for the Green Bay Packers before returning back to A&M a couple of years ago to take over as head coach.

Both the Aggies and the Packers are rich with tradition and a remarkable history. As head coach of the Packers, he didn’t have to go far from his desk to be reminded of the greatness of Coach Vince Lombardi and all that he meant to the Packers and football in general. Many players under his his coaching felt their success not only on the field but to lift after football was a direct reflection on Coach Lombardi’s pre-season speech to his team in 1962 and the implementation of those principles every single day after that.

Coach Sherman sent out a letter to me and the rest of my fellow Aggie Football Alumni that read this: “You may have read excerpts from (Coach Lombardi’s)  speech but I do not think you get the full effect of it until you read the entire speech. The following is Paul Hornung’s (Former Packer Great) recollection of the speech. It can be found also in his 2004 book, The Golden Boy.”

The Habit of Winning
by Vince Lombardi

“Winning is not a sometime thing,” Lombardi said. “You don’t win once in a while. You don’t do things right once in a while. You do them all the time. Winning is a habit.

“Every time a football player goes out to play, he’s got to play from the ground up. From the soles of his feet right to his head. Every inch of him has to play. Some guys play with their head. That’s OK; you’ve got to be smart to be No. 1 in any business. But in football, you’ve got to play with your heart. With every fiber of your body. If you are lucky enough to find a guy with a lot of head and a lot of heart, he’s never going to come off the field for a second.”

“Running a football team is not different from running any other kind of organization – an army, a political party, a business. The problems are the same. The objective is to win. To beat the other guy. Maybe that sounds hard or cruel. I don’t think so.”

“It is a reality of life that men are competitive and the most competitive games draw the most competitive men. That’s why they’re there – to compete. They know the rules and the objectives when they get in the game. The objective is to win – fairly, squarely, decently, by the rules – but to win. And in truth, I have never known a man worth his salt who in the long run, deep down, did not appreciate the grind. The discipline. There is something in good men that yearns for – needs – discipline and the harsh reality of head to head combat.”

“I don’t say these things because I believe in the “brute” nature of man, or that man must be brutalized to be in combat. I believe in God and I believe in human decency. But I firmly believe that any mans finest hours, his greatest fulfillment to all he holds dear, is the moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle victorious.”

DO IT . . . AND THEN SOME!

Posted by Larry Wallace on September 28, 2009 under Everything else | Be the First to Comment

Long before the famous discovery of Alexander Graham Bell, Wilhelm Reiss, the German schoolmaster, constructed a telephone through which he could whistle or hum. However, the gadget couldn’t transmit speech. Something was lacking! Reiss never let the electrodes touch in his telephone. Bell then followed Reiss and discovered that a little screw controlled the telephone electrodes. Accidentally, he moved the screw one-thousandth of an inch and speech, articulate and clear, came through. History records that the fraction of an inch made an enormous difference.

Just “That Much More” makes the difference in winners…

What’s on my phone?

Posted by Larry Wallace on August 5, 2009 under Mobile, Social | Be the First to Comment

“What apps do you have on your phone?” Seems to be a question that I am asked most often when people find out about what I do for a living. So, I thought I would take a moment and use one of the apps on my phone, WordPress for Blackberry, and write my response!

So let’s start with this one that I’m using:

WordPress for Blackberry – the application is very useful for the blogger on the go. While I will be the first to admit that writing using a qwerty keyboard isn’t the most ideal way to write. It does come in handy while I’m away from my laptop. You can download this application from blackberry.wordpress.org. The application allows you to create and edit posts and pages, as well as monitor comments.

Evernote – Evernote is a free service that allows you to easily capture information and saves it on their servers so that you can access it anytime, from any device or platform. You can jot down notes, take pictures, capture screenshots, voice recording and anything else that you can think of. You then can tag the information, place it in a category and access it whenever you want from whatever you may be using at the time. The cost? Nothing… Awesome! I run their app on my phone as well as their desktop app on my laptop. Though you don’t need to run their apps to use their service, it just makes it more convenient.

Google Maps – You’ll see that I also have a GPS app called AT&T Navigator. I use both for different reasons. Google Maps offers a satellite view that comes in handy at times. It also interacts with another app on my phone called Poynt. I rarely ever use Google Maps for directions. I rely on my Navigator for that.

Google Voice – This app is actually a dialer that enables you to easily use their service from you mobile phone.

Google Voice is an Internet based phone forwarding and call management service. It’s free service except for international calls. But even the international calls are at a discounted rate.

Google Voice gives you a separate phone number which you can give out as if it is your regular phone number. You can then change your settings to have calls forward to any of your phones.

The service has so many features that you really need to check it out for yourself.

Youmail – Youmail is an application that allows me to listen to voice mails that people leave me through their system. I have used Youmail prior to Google Voice.

AT&T’s voicemail is very limited and other than VERY basic features (like call forwarding), they offer no call management. I wanted certain people in my address book who call me to be handled differently than others. And I also wanted a phone management system to handle spammers. Youmail was my answer.

But, it’s worth noting, I am in the process of transitioning away from Youmail to Google Voice.

Bloomberg – This app is strictly used to give me a snap shot of what’s going on in the markets as well as track the stocks that I own. It provides a great visual presentation of the information that I want.

Poynt – Poynt is a free (starting to see a trend here?), all-in-one local search application for BlackBerry.

It allows you to get information on your local area and begin connecting with the local businesses, retailers and events that are important to you. After you complete the search Poynt connects you to Google Maps to get driving directions. You can also look up movies that are showing in your area, see show times, watch movie trailers and buy tickets. Very useful.

You can either enter your zip code, allow the phone to triangulate your position from the use of cell towers, or allow the app to access your GPS chip to discover your location.

Viigo – Viigo is one of the most used apps on my phone. It’s a very an easy to use interface, that serves up content and services from a wide range of leading content providers and publishers. I am able to access news, my favorite blogs, sports scores, weather, and financial information.

Although I don’t use these features, it also gives you access to audio and podcasts, entertainment news, and shopping information.

One of my favorite features of the application is that it allows you to email the article that you are reading to someone else directly from the application. It also allows you post the article, with comments, to my favorite social media sites, Twitter, Facebook, Digg and others.

UberTwitter – This is my twitter app of choice for my BlackBerry. I’ve tried several other applications to tweet with. But, none of them have the feature or performs as well as UberTwitter.

AT&T Navigator – This application is created by Telenav. I use it for all my GPS needs. I am able to store my favorite address for easy access, but I’m also able look up addresses to local businesses, points of interest, and anyone in my address book. And of course, I can manually type the address that I’m looking for or speak the address into my phone and then it will translate my speech to text. A nice feature when I’m driving.

Their maps are not perfect. There have been times when I have been driving down a new section of highway and my GPS shows that I am in a field. The little lady who speaks the directions freaks out and doesn’t know what to do. So, I just turn the volume down and let her work it out. (smile)

Gmail App – I run all of my personal email addresses through Google Mail. This application allows me to access and manage my email from my phone.

Skydeck – This application from Skydeck backs up all my contacts, calls, and texts that are made from my BlackBerry. The application runs in the background and all your cell phone data is synced to Skydeck.com. From their website, I can manage my contacts and it will sync back to my device. Very seamless.

What about voicemail? Well, with Skydeck, you have to pay extra for them to manage your voicemail. So, that’s why I have been using Youmail for all of my voicemail and call management.

You can also search, read, and reply to all of your calls and texts directly from Skydeck.com.

Finally, at the end of each day, I receive a summary email of my phone usage for the day which includes, who I called, text messaged, etc. It also lets me know who I haven’t contacted for a long period time.