Let me paint a picture for you
You’re 22 years old. You’ve been worshiped your entire life. Ever since you could remember, you knew you were built for this.
You were the most popular kid in your grade school. You were the homecoming king. Then you were the most popular kid in your high school.
You were adored.
Late one night she was dragged by her hair by a man she knew. She screamed for help but none came. “I ask these guys to close their eyes and I share my story. And I ask them ‘if you were in that house with me, would you have helped me?’”
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Colleges from all around the nation beat down your door to give you a free college education. Your family hosted coaches of all shapes and sizes at your home over dinner. Lots of smooth talking and hard selling.
You choose your college home.
Flash forward three years. You stand 6-3 and have forged your body into a 255-pound slab of muscle and ill intentions with a torpedo for a head. You run the 40-yard dash in 4.6 seconds.
You’re the next big thing.
Okay, it’s championship game time. You’re standing across the line of scrimmage from the best team in college football. An angry bunch of animals who are out for blood – your blood. They even have a running back who took home a certain bronze stiff-arming statue.
In other words, this team is amazing.
But to the surprise of all the pundits and talking heads, you’re ahead. But only by four points with :30 to go.
The angry animals are driving. They have the ball: third down with two yards to go at your own 12. They smell championship gold.
After the time out, they hand the ball to their Heisman winner. And you have the angle.
As you’ve practiced thousands of times, you lower your head into the crook of Mr. Heisman’s arm. The ball squirts out.
Your roommate jumps on the loose ball.
“First down!”
Your teammates are anticipating the visit to the White House. You think you’re going to go the next level with a national championship ring on your hand. But something happens between point A and point B.
While your brothers are celebrating, you realize that you can’t feel your feet.
This is an extreme example, I get it. Roll with me…
After a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, you can walk again. But the NFL won’t touch you with a ten-foot pole. You thought your life was set. Millions, women, glory, fame – you thought it was all in your reach.
Now what?
So often, we accept what we think we can get. We stay in relationships that don’t move and inspire us. We stay in jobs because we think we can’t do better. We settle for a life that’s beneath us because we don’t think that we deserve our kingdom.
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I’m not just speaking to the microscopic number of men who’ve actually played college football. I’m speaking to all.
“Be a king. Be a king with your word. Be a king with your character. At the end of the day, look in the mirror and ask yourself ‘am I proud of the decisions I’ve made?’ Are you proud of who you are?” – Rachel Baribeau
As I’ve spoken about in this space before, I have a real passion for college football. I live for those twelve Saturdays in the fall. And while I love the game and live for my Crimson Tide, I realize that college football has some problems.
Look no further than the 2016 scandal that enveloped Baylor’s football program. Several players were arrested and investigated for sexual abuse and assault. But more troubling to me was the cover-up by the then coaching staff and school administration.
This was simply the highest profile scandal that plagued college football last summer.
That scandal triggered Rachel Baribeau to do something to change the narrative.
Baribeau is the only female host on SiriusXM’s College Nation channel. She’s also a writer for gridironnow.com where she penned an article last June called College Football is Breaking My Heart.
In that article, she shares a story of being a victim of domestic violence herself. Particularly disturbing to Baribeau wasn’t the incident itself where late one night she was dragged by her hair by a man she knew.
What got to her was there were others in the house that night. She screamed for help but none came.
Baribeau has taken this passion for shaping lives and the game she loves into a motivational speaking tour. She’s spoken to some of college football’s highest-profile programs.
In her address to the players, she asks a pointed question:
“I ask these guys to close their eyes and I share my story. And I ask them ‘if you were in that house with me, would you have helped me?’”
When she told me that story, I got chills in places I didn’t know I had. Integrity is something that is missing in a lot of today’s society. Are you a man or woman of your word? Do you do what you say?
Baribeau’s message isn’t limited to those gifted with athletic ability or the ability to make a Heisman winner fumble in the biggest game of the year.
A short video clip of Baribeau’s address to Baylor from a couple weeks ago showed up on my social media recently. I watched that clip before I went to the gym that morning.
And as I’m doing cardio (hello Beulah, we meet again) it hit me. Man oh man, did it hit me.
And I’m not talking about the stair master either.
Three words from the video just knocked me out.
“Be a king.”
So often, we accept what we think we can get. We stay in relationships that don’t move and inspire us. We stay in jobs because we think we can’t do better. We settle for a life that’s beneath us because we don’t think that we deserve our kingdom.
It’s like Vince Vaughn said in the 1996 movie Swingers, “You’re so money and you don’t even know it.”
Baribeau says this refrain was inspired by her personal spiritual faith as well as her friendship with former NFL player Kevin Turner.
Turner passed away in 2016 at the age of 46 due to complications from Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) and ALS.
Turner’s lesson was simple. Four simple words.
“It’s not about you,” Baribeau said. “You were not created for you.”
How can you be a king? How can you be a queen? How can we attract like-minded and like-hearted people into our lives? How can you be of service to the world?
I asked Rachel about what she’d say to the average guy who wants to take ownership of his kingdom. What can the average Joe and Jane do to be a king or a queen?
Her advice was straightforward but incredibly deep.
“Find your purpose in life and start doing that,” Baribeau said. “Set your soul on fire.”
I’m speaking for me here, but one of the mantras in my life and in my coaching practice is this: set the world on fire just to watch it burn. If you do that, then those kings and queens will come into your life.
She then shared a practice with me that I’m going to take on in my own life. It’s a bit of advice she gave to a player she’s mentoring.
“I asked him to answer this question: how was I king today? Journal five ways that you were a king today and three ways you could’ve been better.”
In closing, this idea of “be a king” isn’t dramatic and big. It’s simple.
“Be a good man through and through. You’re going to find yourself and that person you’re meant to find.”
By the way, this movement has taken off like a wildfire. As of this writing, #changingthenarrative has almost 1.3 million unique impressions on twitter and climbing every day.
You are kings and queens. You deserve the amazing life you want to create for yourselves.
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Would you like to change the narrative of your life? Are you a king? Of course you are, I’m being rhetorical.
I’d love to support you in finding yourself so you can rule the beautiful kingdom that is your life.
Email me at [email protected] for a free sample session. Let’s change the narrative of your life together and create your kingdom (or queendom, I’m not picky.)
As mentioned earlier in this article, the Baylor scandal was the germ for this movement. Since the scandal, their house been pretty much swept clean.
Baribeau spoke recently to Baylor’s football team. She says the atmosphere at the school has shifted and she believes the narrative has started to change.
“The place that broke my heart has started to mend my heart.”
Understand this: this movement has never been about football.
To the people reading this: you are royalty. You are kings and queens. You deserve the amazing life you want to create for yourselves.
Let’s be kings and queens.
Let’s change the narrative.
Follow Rachel Baribeau on twitter: twitter.com/rachelbaribeau.
Photo by Yaniv Golan