J.J. Watt says one of the hardest lessons he learned as an NFL captain was that not everyone knows how to work the way you work, and being a professional is something that has to be taught/learned “That mentality is a tough thing that I’ve had to learn over time, especially as a leader in a locker room, is when to impose that mindset and when to back off a little bit too.” “Somebody told me this once, and it was a very interesting quote. They said, ‘If you hold every single player to the standard you hold yourself to, you’re always going to be disappointed.’ You hold yourself to such this incredibly high standard, and truthfully, some of these young guys just don’t know yet. They still have to learn how to be a pro.” “Yes, you want to bring them up to your level, but you also can’t be so angry every time. Sometimes I was good at it. Sometimes I was bad at it. I had to learn also how to be a leader. There’s definitely situations I look at where I say, ‘Oh man, I could’ve done a better job there.’” “The thing I always try to remember is, ‘They don’t know everything I know yet.’ That’s a hard switch for me to make sometimes. I go out to practice, and I have this knowledge because of the experience, and I get mad at a guy because he doesn’t know that if they line up like this, they’re going to run this play. And I’m like, ‘Why didn’t you know that?’” “But he doesn’t know. I have to give him that knowledge, and I have to help pull him along. Studying your film, doing your weights, maybe the little extra things, it’s the things that have become natural to me over time, but it’s not natural to them.” “You have to teach them. Being a professional is something that is actually taught. It’s not just a normal thing.”

A standard without clear behaviors is just a slogan. A slogan tells people what the team believes. A standard shows up in how players behave.

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