Are you chasing the wrong Jerry Rice?
In 1996, the San Francisco 49ers used a third-round pick on a receiver from Chattanooga named Terrell Owens. He walked into a locker room that already had Jerry Rice in it, the greatest receiver in football history.
I was listening to T.O. talk about that first camp recently, and one line stuck with me. He called Rice a technician: "However you drew it on paper, he would run it just like that."
So T.O. did what you or I would do standing next to the best to ever do it. He tried to become him. He wanted to run routes the way Rice ran them and play the game the way Rice played it.
The problem is that T.O. was 6'3" and 224 pounds. He was bigger than the defensive backs covering him, and he could outmuscle nearly all of them. The harder he worked at being just like Jerry Rice, the less he used the things that made him Terrell Owens.
What turned it around was a different question. He stopped asking how can I be like him? and started asking what can I learn from him?
He kept studying Rice, from how he moved laterally to how he set up a route, and then he ran all of it through his own size and strength. He went into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2018 playing a game that looked nothing like Rice's.
That first question is where the drift starts, and it's quiet.
If you're in sales, it sounds like I have to sound just like her on a cold call or I need to work a room the way he does.
If you lead a team, it's coaching every rep to sell like your top rep, or running your meetings like the boss you admired most.
Either way, you're measuring yourself by someone else's strengths while your own sit on the bench.
Comparison is a tool when you study someone's inputs. It becomes a trap the moment you try to copy their identity.
The person crushing it right now has habits you can borrow.
- How do they block their day?
- What do they rehearse before a call?
- What do they do in the first hour?
Those travel. Their voice, their personality, and their build don't.
I learned this one on stage. In my second year as a speaker, I had a virtual keynote for a real estate team, and I tried a few moves I'd picked up from studying how other speakers told their stories.
They never felt natural. It wasn't a rehearsal problem, either. I just wouldn't position a story that way. My speaking coach, Mike, still laughs that there are things I get away with on stage that he'd never recommend to anyone else, simply because of my style and energy.
So when we build a story now, we build it around how I really communicate, because the moment I show up like someone else, the message stops landing.
Your drill this week: block 20 minutes before Friday and write the name of your Jerry Rice at the top of a page.
Underneath, list three things they do. Skip the traits and write behaviors you could watch on film.
Then circle the one that fits how you're built, and run it your way for the next five workdays.
If you lead a team, put your top performer's name at the top instead and bring the list to your next one-on-one. Ask your rep which of the three fits their strengths, rather than handing them all three.
Study the greats. Then go play your game today.
Win your week, Reader.
I'm cheering for you.