Greg McMullen

Alain Bernard and coach Denis Auguin

I recently received a series of text messages from a former swimmer. I had only coached this athlete for two high school seasons and not only did he have an impact on my life, but these messages clearly showed that I had an impact on his as well.

Hey Coach Greg! I just wanted to shoot you a quick text here. I just wanted to let you know how grateful I was to have had you as my head coach senior year. I know this might be a little late, but my family and I were discussing swim season and I was describing my senior season to them and out of all the sports and coaches I have had you were the most inspiring to me. You inspired a goof of a kid with some talent to put his mind and will to a sport and team and I will always appreciate that. You taught me valuable life lessons that I will carry for the rest of my life…senior year was such a blast and seeing you behind us not only as a coach but as friends too meant a lot to me. Seeing you get emotional at conference truly I feel was the moment that defined you as a coach. Emotional, yet reserved and fully supportive of everybody on the team. Not just varsity, but also JV. Even if you may have some things you would’ve changed or done differently if you had a second chance, just know that I wouldn’t have changed a single thing. That season, that team was the best of my high school career. You believed in me when other coaches didn’t, and sometimes that’s all someone really needs is someones belief in them. The only thing I might have changed is to have you as my coach for my whole high school career (haha). I just thought I should give a long deserved thanks from me to you Coach Greg. I hope that you have luck in coaching because you’re one damn good coach.

Comments like this help solidify my place on a pool deck and make the time and sacrifices worth while. Who have you heard from and what have they said to make what you do mean even more?

For the last three weeks, I’ve been working towards finding my own way. The people at Rose-Hulman have made my transition extremely easy and incredibly fun.

I’ve been introduced to a large group of people and have already been given a large project that will change the way this school looks at social media. I’m looking forward to getting it off the ground.

This new position I’m in has been a very large change compared to where I was previously, they are embracing technology and putting the latest and greatest tools in front of me. Giving me the best opportunity to succeed. Heck, I’m typing this post on a brand new iPad.

I am so grateful for my past experiences, but I am looking forward to all of the new challenges that lie ahead of me.

People have asked me, why do you work so much? I didn’t really understand what they meant until this last year. Throughout the year, I work 3 different jobs which range, at times, from 5:30am until 8:00pm.

Why do you work so much?

I don’t do it for the pay, I don’t do it for the recognition. I do it because I want to pay off my bills. I’ve worked the same base full-time job for nearly 3 years, and honestly it’s helped me pay off my debt better than I thought it would. I’ve had some excellent situations though that allowed me to pay off 2 student loans within a year of graduating.

I’ve been blessed… Thus far, I’ve only had to pay one years worth of rent which means everything else goes towards my car, student loans and (wait for it…….) SAVINGS (401k and IRA)! (@PeteThePlanner would be proud I’m sure)

I’ve never been much of a “student” – honestly I didn’t graduate from Xavier University with a great overall GPA, but there was one class that forced me to wake up and realize what I need to do. That class was Finance.

So Prof. Sisak, thank you. I never had a professor ingrain something in my head so deeply.

At 25 years old, I have one student loan to pay off along with  $10k in a car loan left to pay. My goal is have no debt by the time Sarah finishes school and we buy our first home.

I honestly can’t remember the last time I actually wanted to make a New Year’s resolution. However, I am wanting to better my life and others around me so here it is; making it 100% public for the first time.

First: Eat out less and stop buying microwaveable/prepackaged frozen foods.
Second: Work out more. (The typical New Year’s Resolution, right?)
Third: Take care of myself and things I care about first and make more time for these things.
Fourth: Take more pictures! It’s something I enjoy, and I need to take advantage of it.

I know it’s well after the new year, but I still want these publicly known so that friends and family can hold me accountable.

Image: Idea go / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

There are two Michael Jordan quotes that truly are amazing. Actually, he has quite a few quotes on this topic; the two I am going to focus on are some of my favorites.

I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.- Michael Jordan

Failure leads to Success

I recently wrote Taking Risks; Meeting Opportunities because of my own life experiences. I’ve been too afraid at times to move on; mainly because I’m afraid of failure myself. However, should you be afraid to fail? Or simply learn from those around you and the mistakes that you’ve made in your life.

The best example I can currently think of involves Steve Jobs. We all know of the risks he took in the computer and entertainment industries, but amidst his success there was also failure.

Jobs failed better than anyone else in Silicon Valley, maybe better than anyone in corporate America. By that I mean Jobs did what only the greatest entrepreneurs can do: learn from their failures. I don’t mean learn from their mistakes. I mean learn from their abject, humiliating, bonehead, epic fails. Celebrating Steve Jobs’ Failures

The moral of this post is to accept failure. Own up to your failures and most importantly never stop learning. As soon as you give up on learning; you are abandoning success too.

And just because I can, I’ll leave you with one more MJ quote:

I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.