Myles Jones is our neighbor here on the Emerald Coast, who is also a five time All Star and 2021 All Pro lacrosse player with the Premier Lacrosse League. And, he is a realtor with the Spears Group handling luxury real estate. He explains how lessons from lacrosse translate into how he runs his business. These lessons will help you to stay the course with your New Year’s goals, especially when progress seems slow.
Myles plays lacrosse in a different city every weekend from May to September, but he still runs four fast-growing camps for kids in Atlanta, Boston, Virginia, and Houston. Starting with about 50 kids each camp, two cities reached nearly 200. For him, inspiring youth is a perk of the job. He loves ‘being able to talk and communicate with [kids]’. They are inspired to see him up close instead of on a TV or from the stands.
Regarding setting goals for the New Year, he cautions, ‘Goal setting is easy. It’s also easy to forget your goal.’
His first lesson counters this tendency. Write down your goal and read it before you start each task. Without this simple act, you may not remember why you’re calling extra leads, waking early, or attending training. If you read your goal before you start, you’ll be motivated to work harder.
Myles’ second lesson is to think of the tasks you do to meet your goal as making a daily deposit, just as you would into a bank account. The returns compound over time. He learned an important lesson at Duke University about this simple principle.
As a freshman player at Duke, Myles was excited to be named one of the Top 10 midfielders in the nation during a championship year. The next year, Duke won the championship again, but he wasn’t on the list! He wanted to get better.
For the entire next year, he trained five extra hours per week. To him, it didn’t seem to make much of a difference. In fact, toward the end of the season, he thought to put those hours back into his studies the next academic year. You’ll probably hit this wall too.
The turning point was a championship game against Virginia in which he played against the top midfielder in the country. Myles (and every sports commentator) expected Virginia’s midfielder to outplay him, but the extra work paid off. Myles literally had the best game of his career up to that point, earning 4 points and 2 assists.
“I learned about motivation, hard work, determination, and daily deposits.”
Although sports and luxury real estate are competitive, Myles competes with himself now. He leans into lacrosse, public appearances, youth camps, selling luxury real estate and fatherhood.
Remember these two lessons from lacrosse. First, write down your goal and read it before you take each step to succeed at that goal. And secondly, shift your mindset to making daily deposits toward achieving that goal. Trust that your hard work will pay off!
“I learned about motivation, hard work, determination, and daily deposits.”
"Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts."