Every Day is a chance to dance

​If you're like me - and a few million other people - you spent time this weekend watching March Madness. It's also possible you filled out a March Madness bracket and quickly tossed it in the trash when St. Peter's beat Kentucky.

As you walked away from the trash can, if you live anywhere but in the state of New Jersey, you started wondering - who in the heck is St. Peter's.

Well St. Peter's is a university with about 3,200 students. Kentucky has a basketball stadium that holds over 20,000 people. Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari makes 8 million dollars a year; St. Peter's coach Shaheen Holloway makes about 250 grand.

Just a couple of differences between these programs.

No one on earth believed St. Peter's was showing up to the big dance to win. No one except for Coach Holloway and his players.

I loved what coach Holloway said after their epic win. "Proud of my guys for battling, LIKE WE DO ALL YEAR...."

That was a subtle but direct jab at me and you and anyone who walked away from the trash can thinking our brackets had just been victimized by Cinderella - or by a fluke. Coach Holloway was letting us know the dance venue had changed for them, but they were showing up doing the same dance they'd danced all year.

The name of the dance in his words: fight.

In our eyes it was David taking down Goliath. In Coach Holloway's eyes it was Goliath taking down Goliath. Turns out his eyes - and his players' eyes - were the only ones that mattered.

LIKE WE DO ALL YEAR.

There's a lesson in those words. Not just for basketball players, but for you and for me.

It's easy to start dreaming about our big chance at the big dance. It's easy to start believing the difference between making it big and living in obscurity is the size of our buildings and paychecks. Maybe the difference is much more controllable than that.

Maybe the difference is our willingness to fight. Fight before the dance. Fight when we arrive at the dance. Fight for the sake of fighting because that's frankly the only dance we know.

It's Monday. Maybe you're having a hard time getting started. Maybe you have a run planned - an article you want to write - a healthy meal you want to prepare for lunch today - an encouraging word you want to offer your kids before they head off to school.

But it's Monday, and I stayed up WAY too late this weekend watching March Madness.

Well what will your press conference look like at the end of this day? Will you say I'm proud of myself for battling - just like I do every day? Or will you offer a reason why you just weren't up for the fight today?

I'm going to go fight. I'm going to go fight like I do all year. Today might not be the BIG dance, but it's a dance.

So I'm going to fight. I hope you do too.