Failure Is An Opportunity

FAILURE.   Failure is haunting.  Failure can have control over us.  Failure, when not addressed, has the power to own us.

Rob Bell in his book Drops Like Stars writes about failures this way:

Now it’s absolutely necessary for us to own and name and claim and make amends for our failures and mistakes and sins and wrongs where others are concerned.  But to stop there is tragic.  IT ISN’T JUST A FAILURE, a mistake, a sin, a wrong…  IT’S ALSO AN OPPORTUNITY to grow, expand, evolve, learn.  This is called the art of failure.  What every artist must learn is that EVEN THE FAILED PIECES ARE ESSENTIAL.  pp.110-113

During the 2009 World Series, Mark Teixeira of the Yankees talked about dealing with failure. Through game five of the Series, Teixeira was hitting 2 for 19.

“When you’re in a rhythm during the season, you’re going to fail seven out of 10 times,” said Teixeira. “When you’re not in a rhythm, you’re going to fail a lot more.”

The reality of it is as athletes, and as humans, we are going to fail.  It is inevitable.  What defines us is NOT how we fail, it’s how we manage our failure, and how we move on from failure.

Sunday Jay Feely, kicker for the Arizona Cardinals kicked a career high 61 yard field goal to tie the ball game at 16 against the Buffalo Bills, with a minute left on the clock.  Something extremely interesting happened.  They got the ball back from Buffalo and had the opportunity to win the ball game with a few seconds left on the clock.  Coming off such a confidence builder in the 61 yard field goal, Jay Feely had the chance to be the games hero by kicking a 38 yard field goal.  What do you think happened?  Well…  HE MISSED.  That forced the game to go into overtime in which Buffalo eventually won.  Jay Feely is not a failure.  What he is faced with now is an opportunity to move on, to grow, to expand, to evolve, and to learn.  The outcome has yet to be seen, but he has a choice.  In his book Failing Forward, John Maxwell says, ”One of the greatest problems people have with failure is that they are too quick to judge isolated situations in their lives and label them as failures.  Instead, they need to keep the bigger picture in mind.”  Jay Feely must realize that losing Sunday is just one out of sixteen games this season.  He has to keep the bigger picture in mind.

Have you failed recently?  A failure is an event, never a person.  Don’t let your failure define you.  Most importantly, FAILURE IS AN OPPORTUNITY.  How will you choose to move on from a failure?  I have a proposal for you…  FAIL FORWARD!

Making Memories

With basketball season locked and loaded, I am reminded of all of the years that I had the privilege of playing.  I always had to have the best shoes, wrist bands, and everything else that it took to look like Michael Jordan.  He was my idol.  But as much as I always wanted to be him, it was the memories that made my life so complete, not only in basketball, but in every sport that I played.

When you think about Coach K you think about his 4 National Championships and 13 ACC Tournament Championships.  But Coach K has not only made memories on the court, he prides himself of serving his community, and being the best husband and father that he can be.  Making memories that will last a lifetime is not all about being a great athlete.  It is about dedicating your life to be great in all areas of your life.  The reality of it is that you will make memories in your respective sport by dedicating yourself for the greater good of your team.  So why would you not live the same way in life that you are living as an athlete?  The world does not need more mediocre people, the world needs people who are dedicated to something bigger than themselves.  I am reminded about these great verses in the book of Hebrews where the author says, “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees.”  Making memories is all about taking it one day at a time, being disciplined, and striving to be a person with the utmost character.

What about you?  What memories are you making?

Winning At All Costs

I write an article for VYPE Houston every month for high school athletes.  Here is my October edition entitled WINNING AT ALL COSTS.

Long-time Green Bay Packers coach, Vince Lombardi, famously said, “Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all time thing. You don’t win once in a while, you don’t do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.”

Winning is what makes us go as an athlete, it is what makes us tick. We understand some things about motivation and drive that other people do not. We understand that as an athlete we must work extremely hard day after day to achieve our greatest goals. Athletes understand that winning is not a sometimes thing, we all want to win on a regular basis.

Unfortunately, winning can get the best of us at times. I am reminded by the many post-game press conferences by famous coaches that have gone south in a hurry. In some cases, coaches were fined for the things they said. I think about the ones that are on people’s top ten lists. Ones like Herman Edwards, “you play to win the game,” he said. Or there is Jim Mora, “Playoffs… Playoffs… We can’t even win a game, and you are asking me about playoffs?”

What about cheating to win? Think about all of the baseball players that were involved in the BALCO scandal. These were people who took winning to the extreme, taking performance enhancing drugs to be gain a competitive edge against their opponents.

We never play to lose the game as athletes. We have the mindset of doing what it takes to win. Lombardi said again, “It’s easy to have faith in yourself and have discipline when you’re a winner, when you’re number one. What you got to have is faith and discipline when you’re not a winner.”

As an athlete it is important to always press forward, not looking back, but to have faith and confidence that you are doing the very best that you can. Muhammad Ali said, “I hated every minute of training, but I said, “Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.”

Andy Stanley, pastor of a church in an Atlanta Suburb said this; “You can’t aim for a target until you have identified it.”

As an athlete, what are you aiming for? What does winning look like in your life?

Balance

I have the privelege of writing in a sports magazine called VYPE.  Here is my article on BALANCE.  Let me know what you think!

Summer Break can mean a variety of different things to many people. For some, it means rest and relaxation. For the athlete, however, it means getting better at his respective sport. It means getting bigger, stronger, and faster. It means being determined and driven to achieve the next goal. It means attending all kinds of camps in order to be noticed. So the question becomes: how did you do this summer? What did you do to get better?

Summer break is officially over. School has started, and so has competition. That means it is time to find a perfect balance between school and athletics. Vince Lombardi, the great coach from the Green Bay Packers, once said, “The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.” Notice the three keys to success: hard work, dedication, and determination. The key statement of that quote relates that there is a price to be paid in order to achieve success. You must decide what it is important to you. In order to successfully wear more than one hat, you must manage your time in a way that gives the appropriate amount of time to each area of your life.

To be a great student, you must be attentive in class. You must be willing to be on time to class as well as completing every assignment. In competition it means showing up to practice every day as if you were playing a game. It means having the heart to keep going even when it gets difficult. The key to balance is discipline and self-control.

I want to leave you with this though from 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 where the Apostle Paul writes:  “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.  Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air.  No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.”

Do what it takes to be a winner in all phases of your life.