During the past several years, a number of studies have shown that graduates do not need to attend an elite college (e.g., Harvard, Yale, Stanford) to be successful. Instead, the studies consistently showed that students generally have a comparable or even better chance for career success when attending non-elite colleges that are a better fit for their majors, provide environments better suited to their interests and expose students to opportunities for solid internships.

For instance:

The most comprehensive discussion on the topic is a book called Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be by Frank Bruni, a columnist for the New York Times and author of three bestsellers. It provides many examples in which students who were not admitted into elite colleges still became very successful from opportunities realized at non-elite colleges.

Highlighting the findings of the Gallup-Purdue Index, "Measuring the Most Important Outcomes of Higher Education," Mitch Daniels, President of Purdue University, said, "Our survey clearly indicated that it wasn't so much where you go to college as much as it is how you go to college what you extract from the campus experience."

In an extensive research paper, "A 'Fit' Over Rankings: Why College Engagement Matters More Than Selectivity," Denise Pope, co-founder of Challenge Success, says, "Engagement in college is more important than where you attend," and "while some employers might check the name on your college transcript, most care far more about your track record in the field, basic communication and problem-solving skills and the attitude and work ethic you bring to the table."

The educational backgrounds of the Fortune 100 CEOs validate the position that attending an elite college does not make a significant difference in future earning power. In fact, a dominant 89% of Fortune 100 CEOs graduated from non-Ivy League schools, according to Kimberly A. Whitler, author of "A New Study on Fortune 100 CEOs: The (Surprising) Undergraduate Institutions They Attended."

While working with and mentoring many successful professionals during my 40-year career as a growth manager and CEO of large environmental consulting companies, I always found that the college my associates attended was not nearly as important as their basic intellect and work ethic. For example, of nine colleagues who founded and built their own successful companies, as large as $270 million per year, only one attended a college that would be considered "elite."

In fact, we never directly recruited from any elite colleges, and generally, the college any recruit attended was not a major hiring factor. Instead, our primary hiring criteria was the candidates' level of self-motivation, the extent they appeared to be good and passionate about our type of work, their abilities to fit into our "team-oriented" culture and their experiences, including internships. Satisfying these criteria assured us that they would be engaged and happy in their work.

Like the quotes above, it has always been my view that the extreme effort and stress of trying to get into an elite college often would be better spent pursuing other colleges where the student would excel in a major best suited for them. This is especially true for students whose GPAs and SAT scores would make them marginal candidates for acceptance at elite colleges. At an elite college, they might be near the bottom of the "curve" of grades and professor recognition, which can cause major stress and decrease the potential to be hired into the most attractive organizations upon graduation.

If, on the other hand, those same students were to enroll in "less-elite" colleges that are well-suited for their majors, they could be at or near the top of the student grade "curve." This, in turn, would lead to special recognition and very positive interactions with professors. Because of those strong associations, they would be much more likely to be introduced to solid internships or part-time work, which are critically important for employment immediately after graduation into an attractive organization.

Like many other organizations, our firms frequently offered positions to interns at our company immediately upon graduation and at a salary significantly higher than what was typical for a new hire. Generally, this "head start" stuck with them in their careers, and many were well on their way to promotions to higher levels and eventually into management positions.

In my experience, the most important employee qualities that lead to promotions and management positions are (1) their level of self-motivation, (2) their degree of engagement and (3) the degree to which they exhibit "soft" or "leadership skills" critical for successful managers. These include communication, team-building, strategic creativity, flexibility and time and risk management, none of which are in the curriculum of most majors for any colleges. Instead, these talents are learned on the job as the individual rises up the management ladder.

A final interesting point is that while our firms were considered to be elite service providers, our clients never asked from which colleges our staff graduated. Their interest was only that our team would consistently provide high-quality support for their most important environmental and permitting projects.

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Elite Colleges Aren't As Important As Self-Motivation And Choosing The Right Major - Forbes

Students who use digital technology excessively are less motivated to engage with their studies, and are more anxious about exam tests.

Students who use digital technology excessively are less motivated to engage with their studies and are more anxious about exam tests, according to new research.

This effect was made worse by the increased feelings of loneliness that the use of digital technology produced, said the study, published in the Journal of Computer Assisted Learning.

For the findings, 285 university students, enrolled in a range of health-related degree courses, participated in the study. They were assessed for their use of digital technology, their study skills and motivation, anxiety, and loneliness.

The research found a negative relationship between internet addiction and motivation to study. Students reporting more internet addiction also found it harder to organise their learning productively and were more anxious about their upcoming tests.

The findings also found that internet addiction was associated with loneliness and that this loneliness made study harder.

About 25 percent of the students reported that they spent over four hours a day online, with the rest indicating that they spent between one to three hours a day.

The main uses of the internet for the student sample were social networking (40 percent) and information seeking (30 percent), the researchers said.

In addition to the links between levels of internet addiction and poor study motivation and ability, internet addiction was found to be associated with increased loneliness.

The results indicated that loneliness, in turn, made studying harder for the students. The study suggests that loneliness plays a large role in positive feelings about academic life in higher education.

According to the researchers, the poorer social interactions that are known to be associated with internet addiction make loneliness worse, and, in turn, impact on motivation to engage in a highly social educational environment such as a university.

Read: Making effort to display real emotion in office is more productive

Read: Men might be more susceptible to cancer- Study

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Excessive internet use reduces motivation to study in students: Study - India Today

Ah, perfection! It's what so many of us unthinkingly strive for. Yet achieving perfection, the pedestal Lerner & Loewe's MY FAIR LADY perches upon in the eyes of so many, invites a whole set of calamities, chiefly complacency and inertia. Worshipers at the altar of perfection would understandably strive to replicate the voice of Julie Andrews and the grace of Audrey Hepburn in presenting Eliza Doolittle - or the sublimely calibrated gruffness of Rex Harrison in reviving Professor Henry Higgins.

Their perfection has seemed to add layers of tamper-proof portrayals to Frederick Loewe's cavalcade of memorable melodies, Alan Jay Lerner's concise and pungent lyrics, and the duo's deft adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion. Over the decades since it premiered on Broadway in 1959, our concepts of the ideal Fair Lady have become the sound of the original cast album (a #1 best seller) and the lavish look of the Hollywood film (Oscar for Best Picture).

But what about the stage show? There we tend to be rather vague. If you've been following theatre in Charlotte for the past 30 years or so, seeing as many as half-a-dozen local revivals as I have, you dimly remember one or two of them. Last national FAIR LADY tour to stop in Charlotte? Never happened before the current tour now playing at Ovens Auditorium.

Launched this past December, five months after it closed on Broadway, the acclaimed Lincoln Center Theater production directed by Bartlett Sher dares to mess with the perfect musical. You'll most readily notice Sher's ministrations in the final scene, where Eliza's response to Higgins' peremptory "Fetch me my slippers!" seems to draw a "did-that-really-happen?" reaction from the Professor. But Sher also makes a sumptuous meal of "The Servant's Chorus," a song that I could not remember hearing live before, an 84-second relic from the film soundtrack that was apparently shoehorned into the 1993 revival.

The insertion of this interlude, between "Just You Wait" - with its gawky vowels and dropped aitches - and Liza's breakthrough "Rain in Spain," makes delicious dramatic sense, giving us some idea of the flower girl's arduous toil to master proper English pronunciation and Higgins' merciless prodding. A gaggle of servants scurries through a mammoth two-story house that Sher has tasked set designer Michael Yeargen to build in such grand fashion that it revolves, showing us three different rooms in Higgins' home.

Extending Liza's struggles into epic spectacle makes her sudden latenight "Rain in Spain" triumph that much more rewarding. The crowning point of the sequence, Liza's exuberant "I Could Have Danced All Night" after Higgins and servants have wearily trudged off to sleep, had never moved me so much before, a true revelation.

But improving on perfection ran into technical difficulties on opening night. To clear the upstage wall for its subsequent rotations - and likely to ensure its stability - the two-story set must come forward a few feet toward the audience before it's properly secured and ready to roll. Instead, there was a slight lurch before the mighty edifice stalled. True to the hallowed show-must-go-on spirit, Laird Mackintosh as Higgins launched into the scene with one of his butlers, only to be shut down by the crew. Houselights came up as the curtain came down, and we heard the dreaded announcement on the PA, which confirmed a problem rather than describing it.

The third stop on the new MY FAIR LADY tour had come to a dead stop. After a half-hour delay, I felt thankful that the snafu had occurred at the top of the scene so that the whole revelatory sequence was eventually delivered without interruption. Mackintosh as Professor Higgins and Shereen Ahmed as Eliza make a wonderful pair. Ahmed doesn't have the #MeToo energy and cleverness attributed to Lauren Ambrose when she brought this production to Lincoln Center in 2018. She almost doesn't need to with all the abrasiveness, conceit, and disregard that Mackintosh brings to Higgins' misogynistic treatment of Eliza.

We feel like Eliza is being abused long before the Professor's aborted physical attack on her, and Mackintosh never surrenders all the cruel edge of Lerner's lyrics in "I'm an Ordinary Man" and "A Hymn to Him" to their comedy. Nor is there more potent testimony to Eliza's triumph than Mackintosh's chastened, broken rendition of "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face." Sher manages to remind us in his nuanced staging that women are still mobilizing behind the cause of suffrage at the time the action is set in 1912. We can cut some slack, then, if Ahmed seems a little deferential towards Higgins' erudition, wealth, and gender - and, in turn, we can cut Mackintosh some slack for his troglodyte arrogance.

Sher also judges keenly in giving us a more youthful Higgins, for Mackintosh can react to Ahmed emotionally as she wins his admiration, almost sweeping away thoughts of her desirability as a maidservant or private secretary. That youthful casting gives Ahmed more to be giddy about when Higgins shows her his first glimmer of approval and pride. In "I Could Have Danced All Night," Ahmed's whole body seems to awaken to undreamed-of possibilities that surpass the prospect of becoming a private secretary or a flower shop owner.

Ahmed does sing superbly, showing steel and vitality in her bellicose songs, "Just You Wait," "Show Me," and "Without You." Helped along by Catherine Zuber's smashing costumes, Ahmed also transforms magnificently from the grubby Cockney we meet in the opening scene into a vision of regal elegance that credibly explodes Higgins' wildest expectations of success for his phonetic experimentations - and his gentlemen's bet with Colonel Pickering.

Pickering and Higgins' patrician mom, whom you might expect to oppose Eliza, turn out to be her staunchest supporters. Sher doesn't tamper with their traditional essences, bespeaking the good-heartedness of upper-crust Brits, getting zesty and stylish performances from Leslie Alexander as Mrs. Higgins and Kevin Pariseau as the Colonel.

Yet when it comes to the young gentleman smitten by Eliza, Freddy Eynsford-Hill, Sher calls upon Sam Simahk to augment the chap's dopiness and devotion. That allows for a broader comical take on Eliza's gaucheries at the Ascot races in her society debut. And it equips Liza with a lovestruck, puppy dog valet throughout most of Act 2, reaffirming her new sheen. Simahk only slightly trims back the rhapsodic splendor of "On the Street Where You Live" in pulling off this alteration.

Drunken, vulgar, and rascally, Adam Grupper as the irrepressible Alfred P. Doolittle now seems heaven-sent, purposed to make Higgins seem enlightened and evolved by comparison. Holding his hat respectfully in Higgins' study as he sells his daughter's virtue for five pounds sterling, or dancing the night away with barroom sluts the night before his wedding, Grupper is a quintessential scoundrel, lit up with earthy, peasant merriment. His "Get Me to the Church on Time" production number is even more extravagant than the pivotal "Servant's Chorus," with climactic funeral imagery in Christopher Gattelli's choreography on loan from the Scrooge movie musical.

As Higgins proceeded afterwards to toy with thoughts of reconciliation and matrimony, I could see more clearly than ever before that he and Doolittle are kindred spirits. I could also appreciate more keenly the delicious irony that Higgins' benevolent sponsorship of Doolittle's welfare, which has a sequel beyond that five-pound note, is what lands Alfred P. in his matrimonial pickle.

But if you don't like the ambiguous ending of MY FAIR LADY, you can take comfort in the fact that George Bernard Shaw didn't write it. Unlike the 1938 screen version, the true source of Lerner's adaptation, the GBS play ends with Higgins exclaiming, "Marry Freddy, ha!" A 14-page postscript incorporates Shaw's prognostications about his vibrant protagonists' futures.

Photo Credit: Joan Marcus

More here:
BWW Review: Sher Tinkers With MY FAIR LADY, Recalibrating Its Perfections - Broadway World

This photographer is highly motivated. He has read a lot of motivational books and attended several motivational seminars.

He has taken photos for a national magazine and was assigned to get pictures of a great forest fire. However, smoke at the scene was too thick to get any good shots so he frantically called his home office to hire a plane. It will be waiting for you at the airport! he was assured by his editor. As soon as he got to the small, rural airport, sure enough, a plane was warming up near the runway. He jumped in with his equipment and yelled, Lets go! Lets go! The pilot swung the plane into the wind, and soon they were in the air. Fly over the north side of the fire, said the photographer, and make three or four low level passes. Why? asked the pilot. Because Im going to take pictures! Im a photographer, and photographers take pictures! said the photographer with great exasperation and impatience. After a long pause, the pilot said: You mean youre not the instructor?

On January 6 of this year, I posted this material in my digital spaces. Some people cannot perform better because they lack motivation. Not really. Motivation is frequently overrated. Many times, it is not the motivation they lack; what they lack is clarity. The clarity to know how to do things well. The clarity to know the repercussions of their work and their effect on others. The clarity to appreciate the rewards of work delivered with excellence and, most importantly, clarity to understand how the process affects the character and the being of the person doing the work. Clarity is power.

Motivation is overrated. Motivation without knowledge is dangerous. As a popular, witty book author once said, Give me an idiot, I will motivate him, and you end up with a motivated idiot, and thats not a good thing. To level up and do greater things, what is needed is clarity.

Now this makes a lot more sense to men than women and has something to do with the urinals. There is something about Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam that has made a significant contribution to cost savings that is devoid of any motivational push.I wondered why urinals in hotels seem to have a bug or a fly near the center of the fixture. At first, I thought I saw a fly in the urinal, but then later, I notice every urinal has a fly in it. Here is the explanation. During the 1990s, the cleaning staff at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam came up with a brilliant idea on how to deal with spillage around the floor. They installed a small sticker that looked like a fly near the center of the urinal, and guess what happens? The men stepped up to the urinals, and they aimed for what they thought was a bug. The stickers improved their aim, and the result was that the reduction of spillage cut their cleaning costs by eight percent every year. Here is clarity in its literal sense.

You forget to take your daily vitamins. You think you are not motivated to appreciate the importance of health. Motivation is overrated. All you need to do is to place your vitamins where your daily morning habit of water or coffee drinking is, then you would take your vitamins regularly. All you need is clarity.

Those extra pounds you gained during the holidays still has not melted away. You think you are not motivated enough to exercise? When you wake up in the morning make sure that one of the first things you see is your exercise gear. Put them on immediately before you do anything else. That is clarity.

If you want to eradicate unhealthy habits, then you do the reverse. Want to manage your weight or lose a couple of pounds? Remove all the snack foods away from sight. Want to have sane moments to do something useful? Then charge your phone in another room. Turn off all the notifications. Dont have it near your bed if you want uninterrupted sleep. It is not motivation; its clarity you need.

But clarity encompasses a body of knowledge that aligns with truth and reality. A lack of knowledge would render things unclear, and all those silly motivational stuffs you do would not help you achieve substantial success.

As well-meaning as many of my clients are, they introduce me as One of the most sought-after motivational speakers in the country... I cringe a little bit. I do not motivate people. I wish to educate people and share ideas that provide clarity for them so they can improve their work and themselves.

After going through my Level Up Leadership training, most participants would describe the experience as Very Inspiring! None would say, It was Very Motivational! They discovered that the ideas shared are useful, and through their insights and realizations, they can begin to use them for growing their businesses or making themselves better.

Motivation might deal with the manipulation of emotions and feelings. But the transformation from these is not sustainable. Education and inspiration deal with the intellect that inspires the person to become self-motivated. Yes, motivation is many times overrated. I hope this brings clarity to the point I am making.

(Francis Kongs Level Up Leadership 2020 workshop-seminar runs on March 11 and 12 at Makati Diamond Residences. For further inquiries or reservations contact April at +63928-559-1798 or register online at http://www.levelupleadership.ph)

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Motivation is overrated - Philippine Star

Jan. 21, 2020, 10:11 PM UTC/Updated Jan. 21, 2020, 10:35 PM UTC

The decision by Puerto Rico's governor to fire the island's housing secretary just as the U.S. territory is slated to receive some long-awaited hurricane recovery funds is throwing uncertainty into an already complicated process as both sides dispute the motivations behind the ouster.

Gov. Wanda Vzquez fired Housing Secretary Fernando Gil Enseat and two other high-profile officials after residents in the earthquake-hit southern town of Ponce discovered a warehouse full of emergency supplies, some dating back to 2017 when Hurricane Maria devastated the U.S. territory.

His ouster came four days after the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development ended its yearlong hold on $8.2 billion of hurricane aid funding to help Puerto Rico rebuild hurricane-ravaged homes. The much-needed funds are supposed to be administered by the agency Gil Enseat used to oversee.

The governor accused the three fired officials of not informing her of the existence of warehouses full of emergency supplies.

Gil Enseat has told local news outlets his agency had nothing to do with the supplies found in Ponce. He clarified that his agency is tasked with overseeing emergency supply warehouses in the towns of Cabo Rojo and Ro Piedras, not Ponce, adding that updated information on the inventory of both warehouses was made available to the governor.

The locations of the emergency supply warehouses situated in Ponce and in other towns are included in Puerto Ricos emergency management plan. The plan was signed by Vzquez in August 2019, suggesting that she already knew about the existence of the warehouses before outraged residents broke into the Ponce warehouse last week.

Get a head start on the morning's top stories.

While Vzquez did not elaborate on the circumstances that led her to fire Gil Enseat, she only said he doesnt have my trust due to various circumstances.

But rumors quickly started circulating suggesting that Gil Enseat was fired because of his support for Pedro Pierlusi who is running against Vzquez to become the gubernatorial nominee under the islands pro-statehood party ahead of the elections in November.

On Tuesday afternoon, Vazquez elaborated on what led to his dismissal, saying in a statement that the former housing secretary put at risk the disbursement of the hurricane aid HUD agreed to release last week after holding the funds for over a year.

The governor did not respond to questions from NBC News on how Gil Enseat specifically put the disbursement process at risk. However, the former housing secretary had been critical of HUD for adding a series of last minute restrictions that would significantly limit the way in which Puerto Rico can use the hurricane aid provided through HUDs grant program known as CDBG-DR.

Gil Enseat told Vzquez the restrictions showed the "bad faith of some officials, not all" at HUD and expressed his intention to fight back, according to El Nuevo Da, Puerto Ricos biggest national newspaper.

Vzquez alleges that Gil Enseat did not consult her before making remarks contesting HUDs actions, adding that his intentions go against the public policies her administration seeks to implement and could further delay the disbursement of the funds, she said in a statement in Spanish.

Rep. Nydia Velzquez, D-N.Y., who has been pressuring the administration to release funds it has allocated but not disbursed to Puerto Rico, told NBC News in a statement that "regardless of why the Puerto Rico Housing Secretary was dismissed, the fact remains that the long delayed federal HUD funds need to be released so Puerto Rico may rebuild. I fully hope to see continuity in this process and will keep monitoring to see HUD keeps moving forward.

HUD Secretary Ben Carson tweeted on Sunday that the news coming out of Puerto Rico is disturbing, to say the least. He said it further underscores the importance of the restrictions his agency imposed last week limiting how the island can use HUD money to recover.

Sergio Marxuach, the policy director at the Center for a New Economy (CNE), a nonpartisan think tank, said the restrictions seek to prohibit the use of HUD funds to help fix the islands electrical grid, even though Congress promised $2 billion to rebuild it, and give more power to a new federal financial monitor appointed by HUD in the islands recovery process, among other limitations.

The situation in Puerto Rico is so desperate and the island really needs those funds at any cost," Marxuach said in Spanish. "And they seem to be taking advantage of that, referring to HUD.

Follow NBC Latino on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Nicole Acevedo is a staff reporter at NBC News Digital where she reports, writes and producescontent for NBC Latino and NBCNews.com.

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Doubts surface over Puerto Rican governor's motivation to fire housing secretary - NBC News

Its hard to feel motivated after a semester of hard work and tireless effort, and thats what every spring semester feels like. Though winter break is a nice reprieve from back-to-back classes, hours of studying and a nonstop finals week, its no summer. Its not enough time to fully rest, relax and forget about everything going on at Trinity.

But unlike summer, we come back from winter break with the sense of newness and the potential of transformation that comes with the new year. We have resolutions! We have goals for the next 12 months! We have assessed the past year and know how we want to do this one differently. For the most part.

But we also know that those aspirations kind of become inaccessible by month No. 3, and by summertime maybe youll have forgotten them entirely. Its not that those goals have become less important; we just become surrounded by other needs that seem so much more immediate.

Theres the pressure of academics and jobs and a social life. Getting good grades while not overloading yourself, but doing just enough overloading to graduate (with good grades). But at the same time, a new year means a new running schedule or meditating routine or a plan to read more for yourself. By midterms, all the extra ambition that comes with New Years resolutions makes it hard to prioritize yourself and your future, especially when its much easier to marathon a TV series or scroll endlessly on your phone.

That time feels wasted and unproductive, but that shouldnt be the case. Just because your mid-year version of rest (playing games on your phone, color-coordinating your Google calendar or any other form of slight procrastination) isnt your ideal rest the rest you pictured for yourself at the start of January doesnt mean its bad for you.

On page 9, our columnist Nina Loya talks about the importance of recognizing the growing pains that come with college. She emphasizes that this is a time to be kind to yourself and to recognize your personal needs. Not following through with a resolution isnt a failure, but instead an opportunity to recognize new areas for growth. Maybe running five times a week isnt your thing, and completing every book for that English class is just not doable.

As ambitious students surrounded by other ambitious students, its hard not to want to be the best. But sometimes, in a stressful environment like Trinity, your priority should be in being the best to and for yourself rather than for others.

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Sustaining motivation in the new year - The Trinitonian

Feeling a little down these days? If you're having a tougher time than usual rolling out of bed or staying focused on the task at hand, you may be suffering from SAD, or seasonal affective disorder.

It's a type of depression that's related to the changes in seasons. Many people find it affects them in January when days are short and they're unable to be outside in the sun.

An app might not be able to cure you of the symptoms, but the app "Motivation" may help you feel better about yourself and what you're trying to do.

The free app simply sends text-type messages of motivation and encouragement during the day. Things you probably need to hear to get you or keep you going.

Using the app, you can choose the type of messages you'd like to see. You can also self-diagnose any issues you have and tell the app what issues you're facing such as loneliness, loss of a loved one, or depression.

The app also has options for competitive athletes to help them train.

Once you shuffle through all the categories (you can simply choose generic to get going faster), you'll be asked how many messages you'd like to receive during the day. You can choose between 1 and 30 per day. You'll also have the option to turn off message delivery while you're sleeping.

On my first day, I got a message promptly at 7 a.m. to start my day with a quote from an Elvis Presley song. During the rest of the day, I received inspirational and motivational quotes from Zig Ziglar, Rocky, Anatole France and this from Anthony Robbins: "No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow you progress, you are still way ahead of everyone who isn't trying."

I have to admit I began to look forward to incoming motivational quotes and messages.

If you receive one you'd like to share with others, you have the option to choose a graphics theme to dress it up exactly how you want it to appear and then post to your Instagram, Facebook and Twitter accounts, or email or text them to a friend.

Motivation is a free app in both the Apple App and Google Play stores, but reviews of the free version are critical of intrusive pop-up ads. A premium version without ads is a very reasonable $12 per year.

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What the Tech? App of the day: Motivation | What The Tech? - WFMZ Allentown

Unbeaten Tyrone McCullagh has extra motivation to seize #GoldenContract glory silencing those who have written him off.

Derrys White Chocolate (14-0, 6 KOs) enters the semi-final draw on February 18 alongside British champion Ryan Walsh, world title challenger Jazza Dickens and pre-tournament favourite Leigh Wood.

Although he acknowledges the excellence of his rivals, McCullagh is fully confident of defying underdog status.

McCullagh said: I genuinely believe that out of my three potential opponents, theres not a lot separating them. Theyre all very, very good.

Without a doubt, whoever I get, it will be my toughest opponent to date but Ive always said that the higher the quality of opponent, thats when youll see the best White Chocolate. You havent seen it yet.

On February 21, itll be my finest display. I know a lot of people think Im here to make up the numbers and I dont blame them because Im a super-bantamweight moving up with only 14 fights against those three, who have world title fights etc.

Im happy to wear the tag of the novice in this. I imagine Ill be the underdog whoever I draw. That suits me down to the ground because it takes all the pressure off me.

Ive got a bit of a chip on my shoulder. I have a few people out there I need to prove wrong and thats part of what has motivated me through this camp. I think about going out there and silencing my doubters.

Johnny Nelson said I dont have any power but thats not true I have the first five seasons of it on DVD in my collection. Jokes aside, I have devastating power but I dont want the knockout bonuses because Im not greedy.

The hotly-anticipated final four collisions will take place at York Hall on February 21 alongside the super-lightweight equivalents live on Sky Sports in the UK in association with Matchroom Boxing and on ESPN+ in the US in association with Top Rank.

CLICK HERE FOR #MTKFIGHTNIGHT & #GOLDENCONTRACT TICKETS

Stay up to date at mtkglobal.com and on social media @mtkglobal

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Unbeaten Tyrone McCullagh reveals the source of his extra motivation - British Boxing News

By now, you know the legend of Raheem Mostert after what he did to the Green Bay Packers on Sunday.

In case you dont, heres a summary of the path the San Francisco 49ers running back took before he ran for 220 yards on 29 carries and scored FOUR times to clinch a Super Bowl berth: the former Purdue RB went undrafted and signed with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2015. He was cut, added to their practice squad, then he ended up joining the Miami Dolphins, Baltimore Ravens, Cleveland Browns, New York Jets, Chicago Bears and eventually ended up on the 49ers practice squad before breaking out and signing a three-year, $8.7 million contract in the 2019 offseason.

Now, hes the lead back for a Super Bowl team. And he certainly didnt forget the slights. He said after the NFC championship game that he looks at the dates of those six times he was cut by those teams before every contest:

It reminds me of Draymond Green remembering all the names of the players taken ahead of him in the NBA draft. Pretty good motivation, Id say.

Read more:
How the 49ers' Raheem Mostert uses the six NFL teams who cut him as motivation before every game - For The Win

DALLAS (105.3 THE FAN) - Leave it to Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones to manufacture an offbeat reason for new coach Mike McCarthy to want to succeed in Big D.

"We know he wants to show 'em,'' Jones said. "And we want him to show 'em everything hes about with the Dallas Cowboys.''

Jones, in Houston to present Bob McNairs Lifetime Achievement Award at the Houston Sports Awards to Janice and Cal McNair and to honor the late Houston Texans owner,visited with 105.3 The Fan sister stationSportsRadio 610and was naturally quizzed about Dallas' coaching change.

"Its very early,'' said Jones, speaking of the process of McCarthy taking over for Jason Garrett. "Mikes got his staff that hes still putting together there back in Dallas (and is) not at the Senior Bowl.

"Well take care of evaluating this talent, at least for right now, while hes doing that work to put the staff together.''

Jerry and Stephen Jones and personnel boss Will McClay will be in Mobile. But eventually? They look forward, Jerry said, to climbing into "the foxhole'' with McCarthy.

"The thing that I like about Mike the best is that hes been in the foxhole,'' repeating ananalogousstory that's become a favorite when discussing McCarthy, who was in charge in Green Bay for 13 years. "Hes certainly had experience getting shot at, but hes been hit. When you get in the foxhole with someone whos shown theyre made of the right stuff get them in with you after theyve had a little flack - and then you might really have you something there.

"Everybody gets theirs,'' Jones said of troubles in life, and football. "It's just a matter of when you do.''

Of course, one of the Jones' attractions to McCarthy is that he and the Packers didn't struggle all that much. Under his guidance, the Packers qualified for the NFL Playoffs nine times in the 13 years, with four NFC title game appearances and a Super Bowl win.

"Without being too poetic here,'' Jerry said, "Mike brings the combination of experience and a can-do attitude.''

And he also brings a desire to prove the doubters wrong, to "show 'em'' - even if, given McCarthy's track record, the doubters are fewer than the storytellers wish to imagine.

Continued here:
Cowboys Owner Jerry Jones On Coach McCarthy's Unusual Motivation - 105.3 The Fan