I'd like to share with you a story I don't think I've ever shared with anyone and it's one of my earliest memories. Looking back now it's the earliest memory I can remember of someone saying something to me that not only do I remember, but has also impacted me even until this day. 

It's the title of this blog... ONCE.

I believe I was in second grade. My family and I lived in Stuttgart, Germany on a military base. My dad had been in the U.S. Air Force so we lived in Germany for about 3 years. Now I'm not good with ages but we lived there from when I was in Kindergarten until 2nd grade. I remember it was 2nd grade and I was on the basketball team.

Note: Since I lived on a military base not much is different in this story from 'normal' American school. I didn't get a lot of culture or anything, at least while we were not traveling. Only thing we got was when you were practicing fire alarms, we were practicing bomb threats. Ok... now in hindsight, that is pretty different. 

I remember sports were always just a little more difficult for me growing up. I was always the smallest kid on the team (as you can see in the picture I'm the shortest and smallest one sitting on the bench). However, I never let my height or size stop me. If I wasn't the biggest or the strongest I might as well be the fastest. Didn't matter what sport it was I was always the fastest.

Soccer: I'd make it up and down the field twice before you could make it once. Baseball: By the time you had caught the ball I was already on the base. Basketball: I was always told to just stay on the kid with the ball and keep trying to steal it no matter where it was on the court. 

So there I was one day practicing my shooting. I don't know why I and I forget exactly what had happened but I remember not doing too well that day. I just couldn't sink a shot. So, naturally I decided to go for a 3 pointer. Now to be fair I was in 2nd grade the basketball hoop might have been pretty low but ether way it felt pretty high!

So I went for it and BAM... I made the shot! I was freaking out as happy as could be and my coach saw it too. I remember him coming over and saying things like "great job" and "that was awesome." I just remember standing there looking at how far away the basket was and thinking to myself how I had just done the impossible. Even for my shorter size I had managed to not only get the ball all the way to the basket but with a certain amount of accuracy.  

Then my coach looked at me and said, "okay, now do it again."

Wait, what?!? I remember thinking this guy must be out of his mind. I looked at him as if I was puzzled. How could I ever do that again?!? It was a fluke I even got the ball to go that far let alone make the damn thing. Although I knew how this would go I figured I would humor him and I tried anyway.

You know what happened?

I missed. 

But that's not the point of this story. 

I remember looking at him after I missed thinking, "see, I told you so. I told you I couldn't do it again." He watched as the basketball bounced away and then he said something that has always stuck with me. He said, "you know what, yes you missed. But once you do something ONCE, that just means you can do it twice. And once you do it twice that means you can do it three times. Do you understand?" And I did.

You see no matter how impossible something is the truth is if you can do it once, then you can do it twice. There's no guarantee that twice will happen right away or even in the near future but IT IS POSSIBLE.  

It didn't matter if I had done it twice in a row, it mattered that I had done it ONCE. Which means from then on it was possible to do again. That message stuck with me until this day. Now regardless of the challenge I always aim for ONCE. Because when I achieve ONCE, it's only a matter of time until consistency kicks in.   

My hope is that you never give up on your ONCE. It may take a while, but once you get there you're then on a path to consistency and in most cases, SUCCESS.

- Jimmie