Box Score | September 2025
Why showing up everyday is important.
“Hey, thanks for coming in today.”
This was always a fun exchange with staff I used to have over the years, suggesting that there was actually a choice. Of course we were coming in on that day.
If you get hired for a job, you likely want to show up everyday, because if you don’t, you will probably be let go. So, thanks for coming in, good choice! Sounds obvious, but I have learned over the years to not assume anything. Communicating expectations can go a long way.
What also comes with a job is responsibility. The demands of any work will obviously vary and how a business or company chooses to have individuals and teams accomplish goals may come in a different form, but in the end the work will need to get done.
There is a level of dedication and commitment that also plays into the job. Every individual has something that drives them to be successful with a desire to achieve. The level that this comes at will vary person to person and can be an observable behavior easily demonstrated to others.
It’s nice to know that every job is free from difficulty, struggle, conflict, resistance, pressure and setbacks. Come on! What’s the problem? Show up, and everything goes as planned! No surprises, deadlines are met, people are pleased, you are loved by all and it’s almost like you didn’t even need to try. Now this is my kind of 9 to 5 job!
Then you realize that there is a level of perseverance and determination that will be required to manage what actually will come your way: difficulty, struggle, conflict, resistance, pressure and setbacks. As an extra, I’ll give you patience too, an excellent choice for a bonus tool for the tool box.
So there you go. Communicated expectations got it. Be responsible, yes, this probably means be where you are supposed to be and when. Got it! Meetings, appointments or just starting the day in the office. Maybe even arrive early, good idea. I’ve always believed a successful person will subscribe to the “Early is on time, on time is late” mentality. Being early releases stress, clears the mind, allows for the trains, traffic and other variables to be considered so you arrive promptly. Dedicated and committed? Oh yes, for sure. Perseverance and determination? Very interesting, what do you think about these? While some will claim to handle this well, it is those who talk less and handle it more that will follow the pathway to success. This is where we start to see those who employ a 5 to 9 mentality. The willingness to put in the time to realize results. First to arrive and last to leave. Putting in the work, the kind that is above and beyond. Getting the job done making no excuses along the way. The ability to overcome adversity through positivity isn’t easy and requires a real commitment to showing up everyday to where you get the job done.
And we are just getting started here.
There is a responsibility in all of us to do our best in a given job, it is the reason you have been given a role, an objective to reach or a goal to accomplish. One’s integrity has a lot to do with succeeding here, no question. So really getting to the importance of showing up everyday is just as much about doing what you are supposed to do as it is being a difference maker for those you are around regularly.
Never did this ever become more clear to me than the time I spent in East Africa at a school in the summer of 2019.
For a total of 11 days, I was honored to travel across the globe to Tanzania and teach soccer while visiting a school located close to a Maasi Village. Showing up everyday for those kids was an opportunity of a lifetime. One that I was able to provide for them just as much as they provided for me.
5 classes of students a day and a team at the end of the day. Pure joy in playing the game I have grown up playing myself and teaching for over 30 years. Happy, excited and eager to learn, these students gave everything they had and did so in a way that left little to the imagination. Forget that there was a little bit of a struggle with the language difference, which forced me to be really really good at painting the picture. “Picture worth 1000 words” took me a long way. But what really got me through was showing up everyday. Not in the sense of a job. Showing up everyday to provide an experience for these kids that they don’t normally get to have.
As the kids showed up everyday, so did I. But my showing up was different. It was showing up to give them everything I had. Never mind that the flight to get there took a lot out of me. Didn’t matter. Or that my stomach didn’t settle well or adapt, leaving me with little energy. Showing up meant putting my struggles behind and focusing on them. Teaching, coaching and learning from them as they learned from me. The soccer balls I had donated and shipped over for years were used in the classes I provided and truly brought the experience full circle. The lessons I provided were sequential and led to an end of week application through small sided games and a large field game. The skills and soccer tricks I introduced to them were fun and entertaining for them to try and hopefully left a lasting memory. Ones that they could remember for a long time.
Showing up took on a new meaning when I learned of two boys who were brothers that overcame the challenges of attending school each day. Always on time, putting in a full day with culminating soccer practice to end the day, these two had to set out on a 3 hour walk one way to attend school, only to head home at the end of the day to get home. These two demonstrated in a very powerful way that they understood what it would take to get their education and be successful, regardless of what stood in their way.
It was an honor to be a small part of these students' lives over the course of 11 days and be there to make a difference. There is definitely a difference in showing up everyday because you have to, and showing up everyday because you are present, available and ready to make a difference in the lives of those you interact with everyday. In leaving Kilimanjaro, one of the last goodbyes came from a boy who was having a hard time leaving the field. He’d walk a few steps, and turn and wave. He’d walk a few more steps and look only to look away. Then there was a brief pause and he turns to me and says, “Don’t forget us Wiggy”
The trip was more than just showing up. It was all about showing up for them everyday.
