On falling in love with the process, “Chop Wood, Carry Water”

Nick Sirianni has led the Philadelphia Eagles through five seasons. In each of those seasons his Eagles have finished first or second in their division and have made the playoffs. Twice Sirianni's Eagles have played in the Super Bowl and they brought the Lombardi back to Philly following the 2024 season. It seems quite fair to say, the Eagles are producing results under Sirianni. 

As his Eagles begin camp for the 2026 season, Sirianni wants them to focus on, and better yet to fall in love with, the process, knowing the results will follow. 

In a team meeting captured and posted by the Philadelphia Eagles on Thursday, the head coach held up a copy of Joshua Medcalf’s Chop Wood Carry Water: How to Fall in Love with the Process of Becoming Great and walked his players through one of its central chapters: being faithful in the small things.

“Alright, so last thing I want to talk about,” Sirianni begins. “I gave this book to some of you guys. I have some extra copies in there. So if you guys are interested in this book, right? Chop wood and carry water, right? Really good book. So it’s about how to fall in love with the process, right? And my favorite chapter in this book, alright, was being faithful in the small things.”

He then zeros in on the controllable fundamentals:

• Effort (“Effort’s free… I’ve been starting to say that to my son.”)
• Conditioning (“Conditioning is free.”)
• Knowing your assignment and being on the same page
• Block destruction, tackling, strip attempts, blocking, catching, and ball security

“You’re going to hear this a thousand times through training camp and 10,000 times throughout the year,” Sirianni tells the room. “These are the small things.”

Then comes the punchline that every coach has lived:

“Now the problem sometimes with the small things… it’s not sexy and it’s often boring. It’s boring. It’s monotonous. It’s not sexy… and it’s in conflict with our society because they wanna see the big sexy shit. But being faithful in the small things, that’s where your strength lies.”

He closes by reading directly from the book:

“Everyone thinks greatness is sexy. Greatness is far from sexy. It’s dirty, hard work. Usually required to be done in the dark when no one is watching while your dreams are so far off they feel like fairy tales. Everybody wants to be great until it’s time to do what greatness takes.”

For college and high school coaches, this is pure gold. Sirianni, at the top of the game, is deliberately drilling the same message into a roster full of stars and proven winners that the daily, unglamorous work is non-negotiable. The process doesn’t change just because the banner is already hanging. 

Watch the full meeting clip here:

Fall in love with the process. Chop wood. Carry water.