DW179: How to Win as the Underdog - What I Learnt from Rudy Ruettiger with Diane Rolston

Diane Rolston: 00:00:00

Have people been telling you that you can't do it? Have you been feeling like an underdog then you need to listen to this episode because I'm going to tell you how to win.

: 00:00:14

You're listening to the Dynamic Women Podcast. Each week you'll be inspired by our global community of women. They'll share with you tools and stories to help you be dynamic in every area of life. Here's your host, award winning coach and the CEO and founder of Dynamic Women, Diane Rolston.

Diane Rolston: 00:00:43

Hello, lovely Dynamic Women. Welcome to the Dynamic Women Podcast. I'm Diane Rolston, your host, and today I am going to share how to win as an underdog from Rudy Ruettiger. And you may be thinking who's Rudy? I'm going to tell you. So last week, I talked about what I learned from Kevin Eastman, who came into a mastermind that I was a part of and shared his, his knowledge, his truth bombs with us. And also the day before that Rudy Ruettiger, or the real Rudy from the Rudy movie, not the actor, the actual real life person, he came in to talk to us a little bit more about how he was able to do what he did, even when everyone told him that he couldn't, and that so many things were against him. Let me give you a little backstory.

Diane Rolston: 00:01:33

So Rudy Ruettiger, he was a five-foot-six and weighed like nothing. And his dream, he had two dreams. One was to go to Notre Dame, and go to school there. And another was to play for the Notre Dame football team, the Fighting Irish. Now the problem is that he weigh, he weighed nothing, he was only five-foot-six, so he couldn't get a football scholarship. Also, he was dyslexic, so he didn't have high enough grades to be able to get into the school. And if you can think about just those two things against you as a person, I'm going to talk today about how he was able to eventually not only go to the school, but be part of the football team and have his moment of glory on the field. If you've seen the movie, great, you know what I'm talking about, if you haven't seen the movie, I highly, highly recommend it. It's just a way to kind of inspire you to push harder to persevere, and to be able to do something that maybe other people are telling you, you can't do.

Diane Rolston: 00:02:39

Even how he got the film created was another kind of piece of you can't do this. You don't nothing about video production. And that's the truth. However, he was able to get the film made. Now he's a motivational speaker. And he goes and talks about his experience and how he was able to do what he did. And he calls himself the real Rudy, not just the Rudy from the movie. So I'm gonna go through actually five different things that I, that I heard from him that I took away that really are what I see is part of like the things that helped him to have the success that he had. So pester life until it gives in so maybe you've heard about like calling people over and over and over and over again until eventually they give you a meeting. Or they give you some time, or they say yes to you. It seems like you know, for the amount of times that Rudy applied to go to Notre Dame and he got those rejection letters, they you know him going in trying to play football five-foot-six, which that's like, that's like three inches shorter than me like he's a small guy, you're gonna see the photo. If you've seen any promo of this episode, you'll see a photo of me with him. And you'll see kind of the height difference and the size difference as well. So his thing about pester life until the until it gives in, it's just this, like 150% perseverance that he just like, he went for, and he kept trying and kept trying, kept trying. And how many times have you given up without trying again? How many times have you had someone say no, and you just took it at face value, and you walked away? He didn't.

Diane Rolston: 00:04:16

And this leads me into number two. So when someone does say no to you, ask why it was a no. Ask what would have made the difference to get a yes. And for him? Like sometimes the answer was your five-foot-six or your grades aren't high enough, which those are two very valid reasons for why you can't get into this college and why you can't play on this football team. But he always asked like, what made it a no. And so if you ask what made it a no, it gives you an idea of how you can make a little adjustment for next time. And when the question was asked, How many times did you apply? How many no's did you get? He didn't want to answer that. His key thing was, it's not the no's that you get. It's what you do with the answer of why you got to know. And so every time he just made an adjustment and made an adjustment and made an adjustment, until eventually he was allowed to be part of the school. And he was also allowed to be on the, like the support team, it's the the scout team player. So they're the ones who play defense against in practice, play defense against the main team. And I don't want to spoil the movie for you. So pause it here, if you want to watch a movie, and like fast forward, maybe 15 seconds. But he eventually in his last game of his senior year, they decide to dress him and let him play. And he was able to sack the quarterback of the opposing team, which is not an easy feat to sack a quarterback, but he was able to do it. And again, that was like that fight approach that he had and the desire to just like push and be bigger than he really was.

Diane Rolston: 00:05:57

So let me go into the third point here, sometimes why he was able to get ahead was because of the relationships he had. So it was a connection that he had that helped him to be able to get in with Notre Dame, it was a connection he had that helped him to be able to get his film made into the film that you may be seeing today. And just a side note, one of my coaches, he said that he watches that movie, the Rudy movie every year in December, as a way of like pumping himself up and getting ready for January. So the relationships piece, this is the third point, form strong relationships with people who want you to win, right? People who will like you, people who are cheering for you, and then cut those relationships with people who are negative. People that like cut you down. People who don't necessarily want you to succeed, are threatened by your success, are making fun of you. So it's a two piece, form those stronger relationships, because you never know when these relationships will help you to move forward. And by cutting those negative people, you keep your mindset, your attitude really strong.

Diane Rolston: 00:07:09

The fourth one that I wanted to share with you is around again, relationships. But it's about when you step forward and do things. So Rudy, one of, he was actually watching an interview with Kobe Bryant, the late Kobe Bryant, and he saw in that interview, that Kobe Bryant thought of Rudy as like one of his heroes, one of his inspirations, and he was telling people in this interview, like watch this movie, this is great, this guy's awesome. And so that if you think of it, like Kobe Bryant was much more famous than Rudy has ever been, and much more successful at being a pro athlete than Rudy has ever been. And so you might be thinking that you're only inspiring people below you. But in this case, Rudy was inspiring people ahead of him. And he actually got to meet Kobe Bryant before he saw this interview. And, and Kobe had like tears in his eyes around that meeting. And that story that he told, I wish I could remember it all right now it was really impactful story. And he said to us, like I couldn't believe it, you know, I couldn't believe that I inspired him with my story. And so I want to ask you right now, have you maybe stopped doing what you are meant to do? Because you don't think you're impacting enough people. I want you to imagine the people that you're inspiring, who could be ahead of you, who could be behind you who could be beside you, and just know that your forward motion, whether it be successful or not, can inspire others and you don't know who you will inspire with your forward action. So keep going, right? Keep going, keep doing.

Diane Rolston: 00:08:57

And the fifth one was based on this video that he showed from this gentleman named Justin, who was in a wheelchair and they were in the stadium and they had this this opportunity to kind of go to the and cross the 50 yard line. And so everybody went and did that. But Justin was in a wheelchair, and I think he had cerebral palsy. And so his movements would be very hard in order to do that walk and the wheelchair is not allowed on the field. Kind of that's, that's the way it goes, wheelchair can't be on the field, can damage the field. And so Justin got out of his wheelchair and he can't walk and he wanted to do it by himself. And so he crawled, he crawled across the ground. He was falling over. It was a very sporadic thing. He got tired and he did it. He completely did it. I'm gonna see, I'm gonna see if I can get you the video for that so that you can watch that as well. And the key learning from that is, do you participate? Or do you just spectate? So Justin had the chance to do this, but no one would have thought he was going to do it. They thought he would just spectate watch every single other person do it. But he said, No, I was never never going to miss out on that opportunity. And how many times do we miss out on opportunities? Because we think we're not good enough, because we think we can't do it maybe because someone else has told us or society thinks we can't. How many times as a woman have you think, felt? Oh, I can't do that because I'm a woman, or because they're not welcoming women to do this. Has that happened to you? So I asked you do you participate? Or do you spectate? Do you jump into things that you want to be doing? And when you jump in to do it, do you continue to persevere like Rudy did to reach your goals? And to have the results that you want? Right? If you have a dream? Are you going for it? Are you sitting back? So these are the five different things that I learned that were kind of mic drop moments for me from Rudy.

Diane Rolston: 00:10:57

And the other thing, I just want to kind of share a side note around the do you participate? Or do you spectate? I kind of want to give you a bonus one here, and this is not from Rudy, it's from myself. I want to ask you, do you listen to people who are also participating in your realm? Or are you listening to the spectators? So are you listening? If you're a coach, are you listening to other coaches who are doing well? And maybe even beyond you? Are you listening to people who don't do it? I don't know how many times I've had people come up to me after I finished a talk. And, you know, they, they say they're a keynote speaker or something, and they want to give, give their ideas or whatever. And I asked them about their talks, and they haven't done any, they're just a spectator. And I think really, like you're going to tell me how to do it when you've never done it? And so how many people in your life are just spectating? But say, oh, no, you shouldn't run your own business. Oh, no, you shouldn't leave your nine to five. Oh, no. Like you shouldn't give up your house, downsize and then go travel the world and an RV? Are spectators telling you what to do? Or are you surrounding yourself with other people who participate, other people who are living life who are in the game. I don't know how many times somebody on the sidelines has wanted to tell me how to play my game, you're on the sidelines, you don't have the experience, you don't know how it feels. So I just want, I just wanted to add that in there because I not only want you to participate in life, but I want you to surround yourself with other people participating, other people who are in the game, and then listen to others who are in the game to who can give you real feedback, real inspiration and real strategy on how to do well. So those are the things I learned from Rudy, I encourage you if you haven't go and see the movie, I'm always looking for where I can learn. So that's why the past episodes have been around what I learned from Route 66, what I learned from Kevin Eastman and what I learned from Rudy Ruettiger. And I have done these episodes rather than doing interviews, so if you know someone who a woman who you think I should interview, please shoot me their website, so that I can check them out. If you enjoyed today's episode, and I hope you did, can you please give us a review? And when you do, take a screenshot and send it to team@dianerolston.com with your mailing address so that we can send you a little something special in the mail. If you haven't yet, hit subscribe, write a comment and share with a friend. Until next time everyone stay dynamic.