Hello weekend friends and readers. Since we are in the “throws of football” and coming down to the Super Bowl, I wanted to share with you an interesting perspective from Myron Rolle, who was a safety for the Titans and then the Steelers. He is now a Neurosurgeon-really!! He has written a very interesting book called The 2% Way, based on his life and his personal philosophy of personal growth. With his permission, I share some of his writings.

“A few days before the end of 2019, my wife Latoya came to Boston to celebrate New Year’s. She still had to finish her dental residency in Birmingham, forcing us, for the moment, to live apart. After enjoying a wonderful meal and catching up with one another, we were tired and ready to sleep. Something on the bed caught my eye. A blue onesie had been placed on top of the pillows. Below it sat two tiny booties, one pink, one blue. I picked up the onesie and read the lettering on the front: Daddy of two. “Twins, I shouted out?” She answered, “Yes, two of them, just like us—two together.” We figured out right away that our honeymoon was the “instigator” for our now-growing-family and we were delighted because we wanted to have children. I told her, “You know, I’ll be the seventh neurosurgeon in our department to have twins; there must be something in the water at Mass General.”

It was then that a memory from my father spoke loudly to me: “Myron, your life is not your own.” I knew those words as he taught me them throughout my life. As a child of God I am given talents to enjoy and share with others. Now my life was going to belong to my unborn children. And I will share the same statement with them. You see, I have a philosophy I call the 2% way, and I learned it from Mickey Andrews in a sweaty football locker room. This philosophy has steered my life. It got me through Florida State, Oxford, the NFL, Harvard and on the front lines of a global pandemic and now back to the Bahamas where it all began, solving health issues in the country of my origin. Through the ‘2% Way’, I moved beyond the quick anger of my boyhood. I fulfilled the promise of my parents’ sacrifice. I earned the respect and friendship of my teammates on and off the field. I found the love of a woman who will be by my side until one of us takes our last breath. I stepped fully into an identity that many refused to admit could exist.

The 2% Way helped me build a life full of purpose and meaning. It can do the same for you. It takes away the pressure you feel when your problems seem insurmountable. If you see your life from a thirty-thousand-foot view, your challenges will seem as large as the earth. But if you take tangible, incremental steps of edification every day, that which was once overwhelming will shrink to a manageable size. Progress becomes reality. And as you live your life taking the steps God has for you, you can look back on those and realize that each one was valuable and it changed you and, in that process, you have changed the world!”

Wow, what a life and what a perspective, but it is so real and solid, too. Step-by-step living, taking each day cultivating the talents God has given and using them for your life and others. Even while in the NFL, Myron’s role was more of an ‘encourager’ than anything. He was often dubbed “Barnabas” and his care for his teammates changed their lives.

We don’t have to be football stars or neurosurgeons to do this! The ‘2% Way’ challenges us to do something every day—little-by-little—growing our faith, sharing our faith with others, and making a difference in the world. You may think you aren’t equipped like Myron, but you’re wrong about that. God has already equipped all of us to do this, we just have to DO IT! And when we do, we will wonder why we waited so long because this kind of living is one that is a daily personal encouragement and a joy as we live out our faith-walk on this earth!

In Proverbs 11:25 (CEB) we read “Generous persons will prosper; those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed.” This is something Myron embraced and it changed his life and others. So, watch your games coming up, and while you do, remember a young kid from the Bahamas that God took from an island to a football career and to medicine that is helping the world. Wouldn’t that be a great adventure to get on? God is calling you, get on board, AMEN.