Greatness is having a mission, working hard to accomplish it, and instead of resting on your laurels, upping the bar and going after it all over again. And again. And again.

Dick Rosenthal shared those and other thoughts on greatness and overcoming adversity at a private fundraising event in Portland yesterday.

With the financial world in tatters and self-employed workers – including writers – questioning what effect current events will have on their livelihoods, it seems like a good time for a little inspiration, and Rosenthal fills the bill.

Today he looks more like the grandfather of 30+ that he is than the head of one of the most storied college athletic programs in the country. But from 1987 to 1995, Rosenthal was athletic director at the University of Notre Dame, running the show when the Fighting Irish football team under the direction of coach Lou Holtz took the 1988 national championship.

It’s easy to feel frustrated, disillusioned or hopeless when the stock market, the economy, or your own job situation aren’t exactly going great guns. But if you’re a champion at what you do, giving up is not an option. Instead, champions continually strive to improve themselves, Rosenthal says. Whether it’s football or some other pursuit, great teams and individuals continually raise the bar. “To be great means to constantly change,” not the mission, but how you’re defining what greatness is, he says.

On the field, in the board room, in a newsroom – or working virtually across time and space – championship teams are created “because the right people are on the bus and they’re in the right seats on the bus,” Rosenthal says.

Another measure of greatness, according to Rosenthal, is not how you are at your best, but how you are at your worst.

Think about that the next time you finish a project that you weren’t particularly excited about. Did you give it your best, or just do what needed to be done to get it over with? Is that how you want your publisher or client to remember you?

At Notre Dame’s football stadium, Irish football players walk through a stairwell that leads from the  locker room to the tunnel that takes them onto the field. At the bottom of the stairwell is a sign, put there by Holtz while he was still coaching. It’s become a custom for ND players to hit the sign as they walk past, for inspiration and luck. The sign says simply, “Play like a champion today.”

You don’t have to play football or even like it – or ND – to perform like a champion. Just make sure that whatever you’re doing, you’re giving it your best.

Working writers can’t always wait to be inspired. Deadlines aren’t that patient.

But if you let it, lightening can strike. You could be anywhere: a steamy shower, a long walk, falling asleep, in the middle of the night. And wham, there it is, the lead you’ve been searching for. The perfect structure for that feature story. The idea for an article you just know your favorite editor will love.

I call these “aha” moments. For me, they normally come when I’m relaxed or letting my mind wander.

I was inspired to think about inspiration by an article in the July 28 issue of The New Yorker on the subject of insights and how people get them, “The Eureka Hunt: Where in our brains do insights come from?” by Jonah Lehrer. (When I checked today, this article was not online yet. I’ll make the link live when it is.)

In his story, Lehrer interviews a variety of scientists who study the brain and comes to some of the same conclusions that people who work in creative fields like writing have discovered intuitively: that if you walk away from a difficult problem your brain continues to tackle it and will come up with a solution when you least expect it; that being relaxed helps the brain do its thing; that the best time to work on creative endeavors is in the early morning when your mind is half-asleep but more open to new ideas than when you’re fully awake.

How do you get inspired?