Former University of Alabama and Murray State University basketball coach Mark Gottfried spoke Friday about the “get it done” mentality as a way to achieve success in life and career.
Gottfried was hosted by Pittsburg Tank and Tower Group and spoke to a crowd of business and community leaders as well as Henderson County High School students at One Life Church. He also spoke to PTTG employees earlier in the day.
Throughout the talk, Gottfried intertwined stories coming from his coaching career and those from his own life to support his message. One that laid the base to his message came when his 2004 Crimson Tide team took on the number-one ranked Stanford Cardinal in the second round of the NCAA tournament.
Trailing by three at halftime, the Crimson Tide came out of the second half and missed 17 straight shots. Gottfried called a timeout and circled all the team, staff and managers as closely as possible and told them they would play harder, play their role better and cheer harder than they ever had and “we’re going to get it done.”
When his five players took the floor, they huddled together and encouraged each other in the same manner. At that moment, Gottfried didn’t know if they’d win the game, but he knew that “they get it, and it’s going to bode well for them the rest of their lives.” The Crimson Tide went on to win the game 70-67.
The three pillars of Get It Done, or G.I.D., are grit, integrity and desire, he said.
Regarding grit, he said that no matter who you are, “adversity is coming.” People need a thick skin, strong spine, consistency, courage and resiliency. He spoke of Brendan Marrocco, a U.S. soldier he visited with after the soldier was flown from Iraq to Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.
Marrocco was the driver of a Humvee and stopped above an IED, which blew up the vehicle and instantly killed two, Gottfried said. Army doctors in Iraq had to amputate both his arms and both his legs and then he was flown back to Walter Reed for further treatment. Marrocco is the first U.S. soldier to survive double amputation.
When Gottfried was able to visit him at Walter Reed, he walked into his room and found Marrocco smiling with a pencil stuck between the nub of his arm and upper chest and said he was going to learn how to write his name.
Gottfried said integrity is the backbone of everything a person does.
“If your values are clear, your decisions are easy,” he said.
He also relayed a story of when he was an assistant coach at UCLA and often visited with legendary coach John Wooden. One moment during a visit with Wooden stood out. “The softest pillow in the world is a clear conscience,” Wooden told him.
Finally, he told the story of his brother-in-law, Dr. David Fajgenbaum, who in his late twenties was dying from Castleman disease, a disorder that effects the lymph nodes. When treatments didn’t work and he was told he would die, Fajgenbaum proposed to his girlfriend and set a date for the wedding, and then went out and chased a cure for himself so that he could live to his wedding day.
Desire fueled his work to get to his wedding day, said Gottfried.
Fajgenbaum, doing his own research, blood work and more, found a drug that treated his illness, and that also led to his founding Every Cure, an organization that uses technology to help identify already established drugs that can treat diseases currently without a cure. Fajgenbaum still leads that organization.
