Want success? Keep fanning those fl ames

Even football superstar Curtis Lofton struggled with burnout from time to time.

But he told a hometown crowd at the Kingfisher Chamber Banquet Monday night that the key to success is “finding your fire and then fanning that flame.”

Lofton was a Yellowjacket and Sooner standout before his selection as a second-round NFL draft pick in 2008.

But he described a dark time in his sophomore year at OU when he was ready to walk away.

“I thought I should have been playing instead of a fifthyear senior who was getting time on the field. I thought I was a better player,” he said.

“I made my mind up I’m quitting - I’m done.”

Then Lofton recalled a day when he was a boy and his grandmother Debora Terrell had just gotten home from a double shift and he promised her that someday he was going to play in the NFL.

“I did some self-reflecting and I remembered that,” he said. “I remembered why I was playing — so that my grandma didn’t have to put out pots and pans to catch leaks everytime it rained and she didn’t have to keep a coat on at night to stay warm.

“I owed it to her to keep playing. I owed it to myself and I owed it to a lot of people in this room to be successful.

“What’s true in football is also what’s true in business. There’s a thing called burnout.”

Avoiding it requires reminding yourself “what’s your fire, what’s your passion,” and then focusing on the activities and people that will stoke those flames,” he said.

“Make sure you’re surrounding yourself with the people who will push you toward your goals, not pull you away from them,” Lofton said.

He also reminded attendees not to settle for good enough.

“Good is the enemy of great,” he said. “Don’t settle for gold, don’t settle for silver when platinum is the most precious metal on earth.”

Lofton added that just as platinum requires a 3,000-degree fire to refine it to its highest level of purity, “you have to use the fire to push yourself to greatness.”

Following his presentation, Lofton took questions from the audience.

He was introduced by chamber board member Heath Redwine, who said that only 850 players make it to the NFL each year, out of 1.1 million college athletes.

Redwine said when Lofton announced in the sixth grade that he was going to the NFL, classmate Ryan Tech bet him $100 that he would not

“In 2008, Ryan ended up writing him a check for $100 that I’m pretty sure is still framed and on display somewhere,” Redwine said.

Chamber Board President Brian Henderson welcomed guests and presented the Past President Award to Mike Brown.

Chamber treasurer Kreg Kastner led the pledge of allegiance, Emily Faith Sanders performed the National Anthem and the Rev. Dr. Jennifer Long, First United Methodist Church pastor, offered the invocation.

At the end of the program, a short video showed chamber highlights from the past year.

Chamber Executive Director Shauna Rupp read the names of more than 60 new chamber members out of a total of more than 200.

She recognized Savana Reherman as the youngest chamber member and said the organization’s challenge is to teach younger children the value of membership.

“A lot of high school students don’t know what the chamber is or what we do,” she said. “We’d like to develop programs to mentor high school students and teach them the value of a strong local business community.”

Rupp congratulated the business community on surviving one of the most challenging years to date.

“People all over this room could stand and tell their testimonies of what it cost them to stay in business the last 12 months,” she said.

She also mentioned signs of growth, like Casey’s General Store and the new Visitor’s Center, both currently under construction at the intersection of Main Street and Broadway Avenue.

“We hope to have the chamber moved to our new office in the visitor’s center and have a grand opening by the Fourth ofJuly,” she said.

Rupp introduced Tiffany Jones, her new administrative assistant, and also recognized her predecessors Judy Whipple and Janet Clark, who were in attendance.

“We did not get to where we are tonight without those two women.”