Jeremy Bhandari - Trust the Grind: How World-Class Athletes Got To The Top (Motivational Book for Teens, Gift for Teen Boys, Teen and Young Adult Football, Fitness and Exercise)

Trust

the

Grind

How World-Class Athletes

Got to the Top

Jeremy Bhandari

Coral Gables

Copyright 2020 by Jeremy Bhandari.

Published by Mango Publishing Group, a division of Mango Media Inc.

Cover Design: Jayoung Hong

Cover Photo/illustration: Shutterstock/Wavebreakmedia

Layout & Design: Jayoung Hong

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Trust the Grind: How World-Class Athletes Got to the Top

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication number: 2019954713

ISBN: (p) 978-1-64250-244-2 (e) 978-1-64250-245-9

BISAC category code: YAN051200, YOUNG ADULT NONFICTION / Social Topics / Self-Esteem & Self-Reliance

Printed in the United States of America

To my friend PJ, who passed away in 2018 at just twenty-two years old after a battle with osteosarcoma. In November 2016, PJ had his first surgery to remove a tumor in his hip. The following are two passages from PJs post, The depth of my gratitude is equal to the height of my successand I feel victorious, which can be found on Boston Childrens Hospitals pediatric health blog.

When I was first going through treatment, I learned that sometimes you have to take it one day at a time, one hour at a time, or even one second at a time. Those hard times taught me to appreciate all the great moments I have in a day. We all have so many great moments that we take for granted. I learned that if I just took a second to change my mentality and perspective, I could enjoy everything so much more.

They told me Id never walk again, at least not without a really bad limp and a cane. But after four months of physical therapy, I was walking on a single cane. The next summer, I hiked to the top of Mt. Monadnock with two of my friends, Gaby and Greg. I just kept working at it and doing a little more every day until I could hike without crutches or a cane. I started doing hikes at Noanet Woodlands in Dover every day and decided I wanted to try Mt. Monadnock. That hike was way more than I expected, and I really had to push it to get to the top. But, once I was there, it felt like such an accomplishment. I had been told I wouldnt be able to walk, and there I was at the top of a mountain.

Thank you for epitomizing greatness as an athlete, student, friend, son, and brother. Your legacy will live on forever.

Table of Contents

A Look into This
Wonderful World

August 4, 1901. Louis Daniel Armstrong is born in New Orleans, Louisiana. Having a knack for music, Armstrong flourished as a trumpeter, composer, and vocalist. To this day, Louie is considered one of the most authoritative figures in jazz. Are you familiar with the song What a Wonderful World? You know, the one that starts out with:

I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself what a wonde rful world

The elegant voice behind the euphoric lyrics was Armstrong, who recorded the song in his sixties. By 2014, the single had been downloaded over two million times in the United States after it was released digitally. In 1999, twenty-eight years after Armstrongs death, the song made its way into the Grammy Hal l of Fame.

August 4, 2019. On a day when we should be celebrating Armstrongs legacy and the clouds of white and colors of the rainbow, that he so gracefully described in his music, we are forced to captivate some stomach-churning statistics. According to the Gun Violence Archive, there had been 255 reported mass shootings so far that year in the US. By the not-for-profit corporations definition, a mass shooting is any incident in which four or more people are shot. 216 days into the year. 255 mass shootings.

According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, Major Depressive Disorder, a mental health disorder specified by frequently depressed mood or loss of enthusiasm in activities, affects more than sixteen million American adults. One in four children between the ages of thirteen and eighteen suffers from anxiety. As said in national survey data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), between 2011 and 2014, 11 percent of Americans, of all ages, reported taking at least one antidepressant medication in the past month. To put that in perspective, if you looked around a baseball diamond during a game, one of those nine individuals used antidepressants within the last thirty days. Just three decades ago, it was reported that less than one in fifty people (2 per cent) did.

Stopbullying.gov reported that seven out of ten young people claimed to have witnessed bullying at school. Heck, even three out of every ten people admitted that they had bullied others. The 2017 School Crime Supplement (National Center for Education Statistics and Bureau of Justice) found that around 20 percent of students age twelve to eighteen experienced bullying in the past sc hool year.

In 2017, CBS News published an article on happiness in the workplace. The article referenced a recent Gallup study, which reported that 51 percent of full-time employees in America are not engaged at work. Half of our working society is spending at least forty hours per week un satisfied.

Yes, you could absolutely make the argument for gun laws in America. You could also come up with a pretty good case for why adults in the work force deserve more vacation. Creating a petition for change in the education system wouldnt be a bad idea either, especially since public schooling has been run the same way since well before the internet.

But what if I told you there was a way to continue to see the kindness and light in the world, even with all these sad truths? Before you call me crazy, read this Jack Canfi eld quote:

If you can tune into your purpose and really align with it, setting goals so that your vision is an expression of that purpose, then life flows much mor e easily.

You see, when we have a sense of purpose, we give ourselves a real reason to get up every single day. A sense of purpose picks us up when life knocks us down. It can also help us create the life that we aspire to live. A purpose forces us to focus on self-growth, and spreading positivity and love to those around us, rather than expressing anger and unrolling hatred out to the world. By identifying a motive, we are able to appreciate babies crying and seeing friends shaki ng hands.

Remember when Benjamin Franklin said, Our new Constitution is now established and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes? While many argue about who coined the latter half of this quote, the premise is understood by all. With so much uncertainty in the world, the only guarantees in life are death and the fact that we will be faced with tax payments for as long as we are breathing.

However, I can make an argument that everyone, and I mean everyone, certainly seeks success and happiness. I mean, have you ever met someone that wakes up each morning and plans on being sad and a failure? Of course not. With that said, the idiomatic expression should really be, Nothing is certain in life except death, taxes, and the pursuit of happiness and success.