I have written before many times on these pages that ages are merely numbers. Remember, when Prince was turning 40 and a reporter asked him if he had anything special planned for the big day. He asked what big day she was talking about. She thought that Prince was kidding and then he added, “Why do we put certain restrictions on ages? Society tells you that if you are turning 40, well you better stop pursuing this or that. It goes for any age that we are turning. I will forever be young and chase as many dreams as I want to.”
Absolutely love this. I didn’t graduate college until I was 28 and just about everyone said I was wasting my time which only added more fuel to my fire to graduate. I write this to say that we are never ever too old to stop pursuing our dreams. Once you start down that path, some amazing adrenaline goes through your body which is amazing. Now we have another great example of this.
Meet Curt Cignetti, the head football coach of the Indiana Hoosiers who just completed one of the best sports stories of all time, maybe ever. Cignetti took over a program that had the second most losses in college football history. A place where everyone told him he wouldn’t win and was wasting his time. When he took over the football program at Indiana, he was 62.
“Too old,” they all screamed, “Time has passed you by and Indiana has never won anything.” Easy to criticize but all too often, we don’t measure someone’s passion and Cignetti’s was off the chart. He had won everywhere he had been before but they all yapped, “It is small time football, it will not work on the big boy stage.” After two years, Cignetti is 27-2 and has a national championship at Indiana. It even feels weird typing this out because they were always a perennial after thought. Not anymore.
At 64 years old, Cignetti won that national championship after only two years at Indiana. They even gave him a nickname, “CigNATTY,’ for winning the Natty, which is slang for winning the national championship. All the naysayers are eating crow now that he has Indiana on top of the college football world. Hard work and belief in yourself and passion can conquer many mountains and obstacles.
So no matter how old you are, know that you are still powerful. Ask God for opportunities, have a plan and passion and you can absolutely do anything. I wrote my first book at 53 and now have written seven more. The only limit is what you put on yourself so don’t put one and watch great things happen.
