In the late 1980s, an ad agency created a marketing campaign for Nike. The commercial featured an 80-year-old man running every morning, who says, “People ask me how I keep my teeth from chattering all the time. I leave them in my locker.”
Then, a slogan flashed on the screen, “Just do it.”
This phrase has resonated with millions of people over the decades, and has been a foundation of Nike’s communications until today.
Perhaps one of the more iconic avatars of this motto is Nike basketball’s most famous athlete, Michael Jordan, who scored 40 points in a playoff game to lead his team to victory while he had a flu. He just did it.
What’s more intriguing is when MJ decided to walk away from the game. After winning three championships in a row—a rare feat—he felt burned out. His father, who had always wanted MJ to play pro baseball, had passed away.
So he didn’t just show up to the NBA next year, saying, “Just do it.” Instead of just doing another basketball season, his thought process changed to, “Just don’t it.”
When you tell yourself “Just don’t it,” you open up the possibility to do something else. In MJ’s case, he joined minor league baseball, playing for two years at the peak of his athletic career for his personal fulfillment and to honor his father.
Everything in life involves tradeoffs. In professional sports, MJ is just one example of this. LeBron James stopped playing football in high school in order to focus on basketball. Terry Crews played in the NFL until he decided to become an actor. When Terry said, “Just do it,” to acting, he also said, “Just don’t it,” to pro football.
If you want to approach your personal or professional life in a smarter way, a great place to start is to decide what to stop. A classic business saying goes, “The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.”
When you decide not to do something, you open the possibility up to do something else.
Just don’t it.