Orange You Glad You Found It?
How a Little Sports Car Not Only Made Me A Better Coach But More Importantly, Improved My Life.
I’ve always had a fascination with sports cars—maybe it’s tied to never owning anything of real value, or maybe it highlights the Peter Pan complex I’m certain I have. Either way, I had my sights set on a 2016 Volcanic Orange Mini Cooper. I found one, bought it, and felt pretty certain I’d be the only person in town with a car like this.
When the car finally rolled off the truck from Tampa, it felt like the thrill of Christmas morning all over again. The delivery truck hissed to a stop, and I wasted no time. I slid the windows down, let the roar of the engine breathe, and set off through town. In that moment, I wasn’t just driving—I was waiting, inviting the world to take notice.
But instead of being the only Mini Cooper on the road, I saw three others—same day, same road! None of them were bright orange like mine, but I swear to you, I had never seen a Mini Cooper in town before that moment.
Maybe you’ve experienced something like this, where you start noticing something you’ve never paid attention to before. That’s when I learned about a little part of the brain called the Reticular Activating System (RAS). The RAS is like a filter that determines what’s important for you to notice, out of the millions of bits of information your brain receives every second. It's the reason you suddenly see Mini Coopers everywhere when you’ve just bought one.
The RAS and Athletics
I started thinking about how this applies to other areas of life, especially athletics. I would have conversations with my athletes before competitions, walking them through every scenario they had control over, preparing their minds to see success before it happened. Much like me noticing Mini Coopers, their performance often improved when they focused on what they wanted to achieve.
The flip side is also true—if they focused on what could go wrong, those negative outcomes seemed to materialize. Their minds were filtering the world to show them exactly what they feared.
Many people today talk about the law of attraction—the idea that focusing on something, whether positive or negative, can bring it into your life. Similarly, manifest determination suggests that when you set clear intentions and work toward them with focus, your actions and thoughts shape the outcomes you experience. While there’s certainly something to these ideas, I believe there's an even more important focus we should have: wisdom. Instead of merely attracting material things or success, Proverbs 2 urges us to seek wisdom intentionally—because wisdom is the ultimate key to navigating life well.
The RAS, Manifestation, and Proverbs 2:2-5
This brings me to a deeper discovery I read in Proverbs 2:2-5, which states:
"Turn your ear to wisdom and apply your heart to understanding. Indeed, if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God."
Just like I was focused on finding Mini Coopers, and just like my athletes were focused on success (or failure), these verses speak to the same truth: what we seek, we find. If you want wisdom, you have to focus on it, search for it, turn your attention and your heart toward it. The RAS is like the filter we have given us to find wisdom if we’re willing to look.
If you desire great things in life—whether it’s success in athletics or gaining wisdom—what you focus on matters. Much like the RAS filtering what you see, your mind will be tuned to find what you’re searching for. So, turn your attention to wisdom, and you’ll be amazed at what you start to see.