It’s hard to believe that the NFL football season is only a few weeks away. I’m reminded of a story of Vince Lombardi. Fifty-six years ago the legendary coach walked into training camp of the Green Bay Packers and stood before 36 professional athletes who, just months prior, had watched their championship dreams slip through their fingers.

It was the summer of 1961 and Vince Lombardi started the camp holding something that needed no explanation and said…

“Gentlemen, this is a football.”

In five words, he communicated his point: if you want to be successful, we’re going to remember the basics and make sure we’re executing the fundamentals. You never graduate past the basics. Yes, you build on them but you never move past them. His focus continued throughout the entire camp. Each player reviewed and remembered the fundamentals of their position. How to defend and tackle, how to catch and throw, how to stand and run, and ultimately, how to think. Six months later, the same group of men gathered together to hear another one of Vince Lombardi’s speeches. This time it was to celebrate their NFL Championship and their 37–0 victory over the NY Giants. By remembering the fundamentals, they had become the best in the league at the tasks everyone else took for granted.

Fundamentals are hard for us.

We live in a culture that worships the big wins, the overnight success, and the rags to riches story. We play the lottery and we wait for our big break. We overestimate the importance of that one “monumental moment” while forgetting the significance that fundamentals, keystone habits, and little decisions have on our lives.

I am a highly emotional person which at times has been my greatest asset and at others my greatest weakness. Through my 35 years of life I have often found myself tripped up and confused on the journey. Often asking, “How did I get here?” Through reflection, prayer, journaling, and conversation with those close to me I would realize it’s because I forgot the fundamentals.

So this is a reminder to me, to my kids and my future grandchildren and also to you. May we remember the fundamentals of the game we are playing. Below I’ve listed out the fundamentals that I too often forget in life, business, marriage, and parenting.

Disclaimer: I’m only 35 years old with limited experience and it often feels like I’m losing at life so I feel very inadequate in writing this, but I’m learning that vulnerability is the key to growth so here goes.

Fundamentals of Life

Let’s really start with the basics of biology. That we are human beings that need sleep, water, good food and healthy activity.

We need sleep. How many of us are clinically sleep deprived, and not just because of external circumstances? We do this to ourselves. I can’t tell you how many nights I pull out my computer after putting my kids to bed. I get some work done, but then before I know it, it’s midnight, I’m exhausted and I can’t remember what I did for the past 60 minutes. Embarrassing, but true. I need to remember that I was created to work out of rest. To go to bed early, get up early to win the morning and win the day.

What we put into our bodies matter. Coffee, beer, pop, fast food, refined sugar are constantly luring us in, promising a few moments of delight. But in reality I am most alive when I drink pure water, eat lots of fruits and vegetables, and stay filled by lean protein.

I also need to move. My best days are always started with a predawn run followed by a cold shower.

Fundamentals of Business

I started my business 10 years ago this summer and it is laughable how many times I forget the fundamentals of business.

1. Find and solve a real problem that creates real value and make the world a better place (value creation)
2. Tell your story in a way that people who need your product can find it and believe in what you are doing. (marketing)
3. Deliver the value in a way that has a return on my investment, which can be reinvested and redistributed (profit)

Fundamentals of Marriage

I’m 13 years into marriage and every day I forget the basics. I guess it makes sense as it’s hard to believe I could even remember my name standing next to this beautiful woman.

1. The feeling of being “in love” is fleeting. It does not determine love. As the old DC Talk song says, “love is a verb”. And that verb has sacrifice written on its core. If I am to love my wife, I am to sacrifice for her.
2. I can only love my wife with a love that I have received. My heart is like a vacuum; if I am filled with love I will have something to breathe out to my wife. If I am starved for love I will go to her demanding for her to meet my needs. This puts unrealistic expectations on her and a weight she was not created to carry. So I must be filled by God as a man in order to breathe life and love out over my wife.
3. My job is not to be served by my wife, but rather to serve and lay down my life for her.
4. I have to lead my heart. By using selective attention I can choose joy, gratitude and life in every circumstance.

Fundamentals of Parenting

My oldest son is turns 10 in a few weeks. And I constantly need reminded that it is a privilege and an incredible responsibility that God has entrusted us to raise up the next generation.

1. Yes, the days are very long but we have to remember that the years are short. Check out the book Let Me Hold You Longer if you are in the trenches and need a reminder of how short these years are.
2. We have the privilege and responsibility to train our children in the way that they should go, to point them to a Father who loves them unconditionally.
3. We have the opportunity to hold them and lavish our love over them. To hold them in our arms and to pray over them while they sleep.
4. Our words have incredible significance. We have the honor and responsibility of speaking life (or death) over them.
5. We are broken parents and we will fail our kids. We must remember that. Imagine if I stopped trying to convince my kids (or myself and the others around me) that I’m the perfect parent. Imagine if I stopped trying to hide my brokenness from them, which is a losing battle, because they see brokenness. Rather, I can embrace my brokenness and be honest with my need for grace and I can bring my meek attempts at parenting to God and He will make them whole.

Fundamentals of The Gospel

1. I can’t do this on my own. That I was created to live dependent on God. I am a broken man in need of rescue.
2. God loves me so much that he sent his Son to live a perfect life and die a sinner’s death. He took my place so that I could take His.
3. My job is to be filled to overflowing by a God who loves me and laid his life down for me, so that I can lay down my life for others. Blessed to be a blessing.
4. If I’m not filled first, I won’t have anything to give away. And if I haven’t received His life, I won’t be able to give my life away.
5. There are always second chances and regardless of my past, I can receive a new start if I turn to Him.

Conclusion

So it may be a new season, a new week, or just a new day. Remember, start with the fundamentals. If the greatest athletes in the world forget the fundamentals of the very sport that they have spent their lives pursuing, then we will likely forget the fundamentals of this game called life.

So let’s join Vince in remembering the fundamentals. Let’s become the best at the tasks everyone else takes for granted. Let’s write them down, pray through them. And ask yourself. “How are my fundamentals? Am I focused on the things that matter most?

Ask your spouse, your business partner, your best friend, your kids. “Am I forgetting any fundamentals?

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