I DO. Two powerful words when you stop and think about it, because our minds are constantly telling us to “do” something.

Let's see. I have to do the food shopping, make dinner, get the kids home from practice, meet that deadline for a presentation at work, and so on. We all have daily tasks to accomplish in order to have a functioning work and family life.

As the daily grind of our workday begins, most people get their to-do list going. (My wife calls it the honey-do-list.) It can be scribbled on a yellow sticky note, typed up on the phone, or simply placed on a mental list just after the alarm goes off at 6 a.m. So at 6:01 a.m., a string of obligations runs through our minds: I have to put the garbage out, get the kids fed, walk the dog, and get my big presentation ready for the boss.”

We all “do” a lot throughout the course of the day. But what we do are a series of small assignments. Simply put, we follow marching orders set by ourselves or others, in an effort to complete a series of tasks.

What I want to “do” in this chapter is to look at another level of “doing,” when you set out to accomplish something much greater than a simple task. This might be something that you are fearful of or that sits completely outside your comfort zone—for example, a project that concerns you because you doubt your abilities to succeed, and it might result in embarrassment, shame, or rejection if not completed properly.

Are you capable of making that leap of faith? Do you have it in you to truly put your head down, buckle that chin strap, and dive head first into something outside your comfort zone? Can you really “grind” out a task or assignment?

We “Do” Our Wedding Vows, Not Just “Say” Them

“I do.” We say those two words when we've made the decision to enter into marriage with the love of our life.

“Do you, Mary, take John, to be your husband; promise to be true in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, with love and honor for all the days of your life?”

“I DO!”

These are very powerful words that come with great responsibility.

“I Do. Forever.”

Those who have walked the marriage path likely have amazing memories that last a lifetime. For most people, excitement, fear, nervousness, and joy all lead up to that one special day. Society has taught us that it's a big commitment, that leap of faith we spoke of earlier. So the pressure is there to succeed and not disappoint.

“I don't wanna screw this up.” “Am I doing the right thing?”

Uh oh. There goes the confidence, and here comes the second-guessing, those cold feet, that “shoulda, woulda, coulda” talk.

I hope for all, as I did, that you went into that day with an astounding “I DO!” as your mindset. I hope you felt prepared, confident, and so sure of yourself you'd bet the farm on your decision. The person you are marrying is “the one.” Those important vows we take on our wedding day are meant to last a lifetime.

If you are fortunate enough to find “the one” and enter into marriage, your wedding day brings great excitement and a bit of tension. You look forward to the ceremony, praying you don't mess up any of the lines you practiced at rehearsal the previous night. Those solemn lines include various commitments to doing: to love and cherish, respect and honor; to laugh and cry together; to care for each other in sickness and in health. You don't just say the words; you commit to doing them.

Can you imagine attending a wedding, only to hear the bride and groom blurt out, “I say” when asked, “Do you . . . ?” Most of the guests would probably think, “Well, that marriage is gonna last all of three weeks.”

Would you enter into such a huge, life-changing commitment just by “saying” those important vows? Talking the talk, only to fail to follow through with the commitments you just agreed to? The bride and groom might as well answer their vows with “I guess?” as Grandma falls off her chair and the whole crowd looks on in confusion. It would seem like a skit straight out of Saturday Night Live.

Think of an example of “talking” in another way. What if you wake up at 6 a.m. and say you are going to take out the trash, feed the kids breakfast, get them off to school, walk the dog, and then do the shopping. Then you just run the daily list of chores through your head, hit the snooze button, and roll over for a few more hours—it was just “talk.” And most likely, chaos would ensue. You would rise from your extended siesta, only to find kids with cereal in their hair, the dog licking up a puddle of milk off the floor, and the school has left messages asking why the kids are absent that day.

Don't Just Talk the Talk

This is where most people revert to becoming a “sayer,” a term I used earlier. Let's call this person a “talker” instead—someone who talks about the great things they want to accomplish, but for some reason never gets around to it. Maybe they procrastinate, have a fear of failing, or can't manage rejection. They find reasons and excuses not to try or to make the effort to do. Their determination to take that chance on something that might come with risk does not exist.

How do we become a doer? What needs to exist for someone to become a doer of simple tasks and a doer within business, school, job, or team? Is it a mindset? A culture? A list of values?

Well, it's all of these things, and more. It seems so complex and yet mundane. But, rest assured, with a few simple changes in your own daily life, it is really quite simple.

How I Learned to “Do”

I am guilty of this very thing—I've been a talker for years, promising “I'm gonna write a book.” Others say the same thing, mostly in jest: “One day, when I write my book . . .” But I never really meant it, until now. I've been talking the talk, too afraid to walk the walk due to a lack of confidence. I mean, I'm a baseball coach, not an author! I usually have a hard time even writing a quality email to my athletic director. I recognize my strengths and weaknesses, and I'm aware that my writing generally needs a bit of polishing.

Now, if you want me to share a story or give a speech, I'm all in! I feel comfortable communicating thoughts, speeches, and ideas orally, in person. I have given hundreds of speeches and rarely write notes. It's not an ego thing; I just speak my mind. I can get my point across better when I talk from my heart than when I read notecards. In fact, the most intimidating thing about writing a book, besides lacking any visual and verbal communication to an audience, is finding ways to share my emotions and passion for leadership and put those thoughts on paper!

How can I get my message across when I would rather be sitting in a classroom, boardroom, or barroom, talking through my thoughts?

When I first started my college coaching career, I wanted to be the best and outwork everyone. I worked to be the best recruiter, the best hitting coach, the best third base coach. I researched and read all the popular coaching books to help me be better at my craft: John Wooden, Lou Holtz, Joe Torre—you name it, I read it. I believed this was going to make me a better coach.

The culture of an organization is vital for long-term success.

But as my career progressed and I navigated through winning and losing seasons, success and failures, I began to look for more than just sports successes. I recognized it was not always about the content—in my case, the baseball lessons—but the culture of the program. The culture of a college baseball team or a business organization is vital for long-term success.

College coaches are often asked to speak at conventions and clinics on topics that revolve around the sport you teach. I always enjoy speaking at these events and have done so multiple times. The crowds mostly consist of high school and youth coaches, trying to pick up ideas and knowledge to run a practice. I like interacting with the crowd and the networking it brings from meeting new and diverse people. I view these speeches as another form of recruiting players; if I can show these high school coaches that I know what I'm talking about, they'll feel comfortable recommending their players to our program.

On one occasion years ago, I was giving a talk on indoor practice plans and how to utilize limitations, such as cold weather in the north, and best maximize your time with players. I finished my talk with a few minutes dedicated to the importance of culture within a team and the value it can bring toward long-term success. I spoke about how you could have all the best ball players, but if they aren't engaged in learning and creating a positive culture, the ultimate goal of winning is difficult.

After my speech, a man approached me and said he loved my content. He explained he was the CEO of a bank and asked if I could come to his business and present my topic to his employees during their upcoming company retreat. I asked him why a bunch of bank tellers and administrators would want to hear me talk about fielding bunt plays in baseball.

He chuckled and explained that he recognized he was having trouble with the culture of his team of employees and loved my ideas revolving around culture. Up until this point in my speaking career, I had never spoken to any group other than baseball coaches, but I accepted his offer and worked to prepare a new PowerPoint presentation.

As I worked on my speech about leadership and culture, I felt that I was actually learning more about the topic I am so passionate about, leadership. I was hooked. I clearly had a “light bulb” moment; I was convinced I had found a new avenue to address with my own team to make them better. I found that I needed to take the time I was spending on the “content” of teaching baseball and invest in the culture of my own organization if I wanted to sustain long-term success.

My leadership speech to the group of bankers was a great success! After a standing ovation, everyone told me they felt energized to tackle their workday. I also felt satisfied. I was happy a group of people could be so engaged in my topic. Giving a speech solely dedicated to leadership was a new one for me at that point of my career, and a bit out of my comfort zone. But afterward, I felt exactly like I do when I give that pump-up locker room speech right before we take the field.

“Now, fellas, let's play our best. Go get 'em! Ready—1, 2, 3, WIN!”

More and more, I began giving speeches and talks to groups about my ideas of success and building a strong culture. I presented ideas that had worked for me in my early days of coaching 18- to 22-year-old Division I athletes. One talk led to another and another and I continued to learn about myself as I prepared for each speech. The preparation process allowed me to learn tactics, study theories, and constantly observe others from whom to pick up leadership traits.

Then I had a stroke of good fortune. A dear friend who is a successful financial advisor recommended that I read a book about giving back to those who are closest to us. Up until that point, most of my reading was about sport successes, written by successful coaches. Basically, the theory of the book my buddy gave to me was that the more you gave, the more you would ultimately receive—a very well thought-out and successful strategy.

I couldn't get enough of this sort of thing: “Leadership 101,” “How to Build an Empire,” and many more. There are certainly a ton of leadership books out there, and I felt like I read them all.

I would seek out friends, donors, and alums who built successful businesses so I could pick their brains about what made them successful. I reached out to big companies to get in front of CEOs, even for just five minutes, to gather a tidbit of information to file in my storage bank. The information I received allowed my leadership speeches to grow in content. I started to do fewer and fewer sports talks to baseball audiences and more presentations to banks, businesses, car dealerships, HR meetings, roofing companies, police departments, shoe companies, schools, and many more. I would talk to anyone who was interested in having me share my message.

Invest in Relationships

We're all familiar with the concept of turning a negative into a positive, which is easy to “say” but tough to “do.”

About the time I was engaged in these leadership talks, I was coaching baseball at the University of Maine, and was given a great opportunity to turn a not-so-great situation into a positive one.

As coaches at UMaine, we not only had to coach, but had to raise funds in order to offset or enhance the programs' operating budgets. If you wanted to turf the field or build a batting cage to improve your facilities, you had to raise the funds. No university funds at all were available for any sort of project. If you wanted to take a spring trip to Florida with your team to beat the long cold days of March, you would need to organize an alumni golf outing for people to donate to offset the costs of that trip. Our program accomplished this by doing little fundraising activities like running a youth camp or starting a club where donors and alums could support the team with annual gifts of $100.

About this time, the university, like most around the country, began to have financial troubles, and most budgets were cut by as much as 25 percent. This would have a huge impact on things like operating budgets and recruiting, which would surely impact the success of these programs. The money needed could not be achieved though small fundraisers, like selling T shirts and running bake sales.

I decided I would take on the role of a fundraiser by meeting some of the generous donors and alums, hoping a few of them could help close the financial gap with larger annual donations. I began to cultivate relationships with a few successful supporters of the school.

Although my goal was to raise funds, I quickly learned that building these relationships was more personally rewarding. These individuals were highly successful in their fields of work, and I quickly realized there was an opportunity to learn just how they became successful. What was the secret sauce to build a multimillion-dollar company?

Surprisingly, all these successful people had similar paths to success. Their stories paralleled one another. Through this monumental task of raising funds to keep our program advancing, I found a great opportunity to learn and to fuel my desire to learn more about positive, successful culture. I initially set out to raise some serious cash to support the baseball program, but I was given so much more. I asked questions and listened to remarkable stories, trying to be a sponge to soak it all up. I quickly recognized these opportunities could be applied to my own team, and could be exactly what I was looking for to be a better coach through my good fortune of being around some of the greatest leaders and builders of culture. After each speech, inevitably someone in the group would ask me where they could find my book. I was stunned. I'm a baseball coach, not an author, I'd tell them.

Most of the time I would pull out a flash drive and download my PowerPoint for them. This became a long process, especially when everyone saw me doing this. I would get letters at my office containing empty flash drives and a note asking me to send them my presentation.

All along, I was still getting asked about writing a book. I can honestly say that writing a book was “out of left field” for me. Yet I set out to turn the negative of having to become a fundraiser into a positive. The great success stories I now possessed helped me become a better mentor and coach to a bunch of college kids. Coupled with ideas to share with businesses and organizations outside the sports world, this was such a positive for me.

Over the years, I have been fortunate to be gifted valuable information on success from strong business leaders and applied that to my sport. Their gains didn't happen by accident. Each one might have had a different footprint, but their paths to success are quite similar.

Nike: “Just Do It”

I finally decided to follow that famous Nike slogan. I told myself that I can be more than just a college baseball coach. Enough with just saying I want to write a book; time to conquer my fear of communicating through writing and do it. It was time to stop talking the talk and finally walk the walk.

What transpired from the experiences I gained from success, and more times when I failed, led me to share my ideas, experiences, stories, and thoughts. Ultimately, I came to believe in the power of being a “doer.”

It was time to stop talking the talk and finally walk the walk.

So, if a college baseball coach can write a book about leadership, you certainly can do anything you set out to do! Be persistent, and when you decide to accomplish a task, find a way to get it done. Don't just talk about it—do it.

Remember: never hit that snooze button at 6 a.m. when the list of chores is going through your head. Find the will power to “just do it.”