Who is your Jeremy Lin?

Let me tell you right here and now, I am not a New York Knicks fan. I would have to be LINsane if I didn’t know the one individual that has transformed the New York sports landscape, Jeremy Lin. In his brief start as the New York Knicks point guard he has brought not only excitement to New York basketball, but an excitement to the NBA that hasn’t been felt since Michael Jordan retired.

You may be asking yourself is this a relationship blog, or ESPN. Don’t worry there is a correlation.

If you’ve had some challenges in the dating arena, you may have to ask yourself have I overlooked my Jeremy Lin? If you have dated long enough you have had a Jeremy Lin in your life. Even I, Coach Keith, was a Jeremy Lin before I found my beloved PG.

Here are some of the qualities that the Jeremy Lin in your life may have that you might not have considered.

• Perseverance– Jeremy never gave up on his abilities even though he was overlooked many times. So ask yourself, is there a person you have overlooked based solely on external characteristics.?He has been trying to get your attention, but there may be some quality about him that has held you back.

• Patience – You can’t judge your Jeremy Lin based on one or two meetings. The real Jeremy Lin was not recruited by any top flight Division 1 college basketball programs. He went to Harvard. Lin actually stated, “His game is something you had to see more than once.” So who did you write off after one or two dates because it didn’t go the way you thought it should.

• Risk/Reward – The Knicks had lost 11 of 15 games and needed a spark to turn your season around. They expected a player with more experience to help, but that help never came. So out of desperation, they turned to the unproven Lin.  The reward has been tremendous. The team quickly began selling replicas of Lin’s No. 17 jerseys and t-shirts, and the sales and traffic for its online store increased more than 3,000%.  Has your dating life been stagnant, or better yet non-existent? Instead of FB messaging your Jeremy Lin about the basketball game, go to the game, or watch the game together at a sports bar. You just might find that spark you need to bring to turn your love life around.

In relationships, you may have to think outside the box and consider the man/woman you might have overlooked. It might be the most wonderful rewarding relationship you will ever have.

A “New” Attitude – The Makeover of Relationships

When we often think of a makeover we think about a new wardrobe, cosmetic surgery, or any minor adjustment that will help us feel better about ourselves on the outside. But do we ever think about a relationship makeover? No! We automatically assume that the individual adjustments to our teeth, tummy or our breasts will bring the man of our dreams, when in fact it’s our attitudes about dating and relationships that are the main cause of our obstacles in the first place.

Some of the common attitudes about dating are as follows:

• There are no good men out there.
• Of the few good men that are available, they are either married or gay.
• Men don’t want to settle down, the just want to hit it and keep it movin’.

Have you ever really sat down and wondered where your thoughts about relationships come from? Your attitudes about relationships start to develop before you are even born. According to John Maxwell’s book Attitude 101, there are 6 stages where you develop certain characteristics that impact your attitude.

The first characteristic is your personality. There are four basic temperaments that shape how you view things, Sanguine (extroverted), Choleric (a doer), Melancholic (a perfectionist), Phlegmatic (self-content, kind).

The next characteristic is your environment. Our environment is the first challenger of our belief system. For example, even if we have a positive outlook about relationships, but we live in an environment that challenges that idea, it will begin to chip away at our beliefs.

The final characteristic is what moments we remember in past relationships. If you constantly hear negative words during a tumultuous relationship, they will linger long after the physical pain of the break up.

To start the Makeover process, you must peel away the layers of negativity.

What negative emotions are you holding on to? I would love to hear from you.

Coach Keith

Happy New Year! When are you going to Change?

Happy New Year! I know some of you may have been wondering what I have been doing for the last 30 days. Why no inspiring words to kick-off 2012. One of the things I felt that I needed to do was take some time off for some self-relection, and prayer to figure out what direction I wanted the blog to go for 2012.

This might be important for some of you, especially if your life is a constant treadmill, roller coaster. Sometimes you need a little break to figure where you life is going; where you relationship is going.

I believe in empowerment when it comes to marriages and relationships. I would like to see more people get married, especially in the black community. According to a New York Times article (December 10, 2011) 2009 data from the Census Bureau states 70.5 percent of black women in the United States between the ages of 25 and 73.1 percent of black men between the ages of 25 and 29 have never been married.

So this year, I am going to devote a day to my single friends. Empowering them to go on that date, make a personal change in order to move those statistics in a better direction, so Ralph Richard Banks, a Stanford law professor,who wrote, “Is Marriage for White People?” will have a new story to tell.

Another change is I will dedicate a column that will focus on faith in marriage. Marriage takes a certain amount of faith and belief in each other to make it work. So why not write about it.

I hope you like the new changes and let other people know what we are trying to do at Strivetwosucceed. I appreciate all of you that read this blog.

Let’s make it a great 2012.

Coach Keith

Relationship Gratitude – Day 18 Letters are great, but you are only as good as your last date!

For the past 18 days, we have spent a lot of time poring into our spouse with affectionate heart-felt words, but it’s the weekend, time to take action.

Today’s action, go on a date with your partner. Try and do something different. Ask your partner what is one thing you would like to do together that we haven’t done. Remember, by planning an event for your partner, you are showing him/her  their feelings matter.

Don’t forget that if you have kids, make sure you secure a baby-sitter as soon as possible.