Handbook to success

My oldest son said when he was 4 years old that he wanted to be a major league baseball player.  And the others have followed suit.  As a baseball geek, I am a sponge when it comes to learning the game.  As a dad, I've done my best to help guide them and teach them everything I've learned.  The interesting part of this...and I know you think I'm talking baseball but it applies to everything is that I've found the secret to success.  I feel like a mad scientist, but I found THE SECRET to absolutely everything.  Any sport, any educational goal, professional goal, and just plain everything.  But I'm not sure you will understand if I tell you because you might be turned off by my love of the game.   But I'm going to try to explain it anyway. 
The secret is a formula that I've seen used by every single success story I've read about.  I mean read any success story.. it's there.  The first is to be able to be at your best, you need to be healthy and have appropriate amount of sleep and nourishment.  If you aren't it's very hard to function both mentally and physically.  I mean it's like putting bad tires on a race car or worse yet watered down fuel.  That race car isn't going to win any races.  The second is to have a plan and be insanely persistent in sticking to it.  Set a goal and work hard daily.  If you aren't pushing your limits and working hard towards your goal, then you won't succeed.  People should think you are crazy for how persistent you are working towards your goal.  Success rarely hits people on the head and says, here I am.  Success is earned.  The third is you can never, ever stop learning.  When you stop, you are done succeeding.  Some of my favorite athlete's are examples of all this.  Bryce Harper's work ethic as a kid was insane.  Hitting off a tee or in a cage every night whether it was a holiday or Sunday including working out.  He was hitting 500 foot home runs as a Junior in High School.  I read an article last night on Nick Franklin (rookie second baseman for the Mariners) and how hard he worked and is working.  One of my all time favorites is Edgar Martinez stories.  Even in his last year when he knew he was going to retire he was talking and learning about hitting every day.  One of the best hitters of all time was working hard as he was approaching retirement.  Mike Holmgren, former Seahawks head coach and then General Manager of the Cleveland Browns is now working as a radio talk show personality.  The guy has all the experience in the world and my favorite excerpt of the article is this... "Holmgren’s approach to the media job may surprise some listeners, Levy said. “First of all, people might not guess … he’s got a lot of humility. He is so confident and secure with himself that he can say, ‘Hey, teach me; what did I do right, what did I do wrong? Coach me on this"  
You have to be willing to learn and can't have an attitude of knowing it all. 
When you are done learning, you are done.   The fourth is that you have to have a burning desire to succeed.  If you don't really care... then you can't succeed.  There you have it. 
The secret to mediocrity and failure is the opposite of what I've stated above.  Have bad habits, bad nourishment, no plan or goals, and no learning and I can tell you exactly where you are headed and it's not towards success.

Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2013/08/25/2750038/mike-holmgren-returns-to-seattle.html#storylink=cpy"