Happy Sunday Everyone:
Youth football in Danville is fairly intense. All the boys are going pro, so we treat it as such.
Thomas, who at some point will want to kill me for writing about him as much as I do, was in tryouts a few month back for the “A” team. He was a shoe in to make the team. He’s big, he’s strong, he’s a leader, he’s awesome. The list came out and he wasn’t on it. Kim and I were surprised, Thomas was crushed. Most of us can relate to an experience or two in our lives where we expected something and didn’t get it. Thomas was asked to play on the “b” team, which he immediately shot down as something he’d never do for all the right reasons. We told him it was his decision, we brought out the mental T chart on the pros and cons of quitting vs. joining the b team. We really did leave the decision up to him. I was somewhat neutral to it as it wasn’t what he had signed up for and we were all surprised by the outcome of the tryouts. With that said, if he was going to quit, he wasn’t going to send a text or an email, or have us do it, he was going to tell the coach himself. Thomas called the coach and voiced his concerns about playing on the B team. Thomas talked to the coach for 30 minutes. He then went upstairs to his room and came down 30 minutes after that and told us he had decided he was going to play on the B team. Fast forward 90 days, Thomas just ended his season. He was a team captain, he played every down of every game,, he was the homecoming king, and he made the all-star team for the league. This is not to brag about Thomas, this is simply to show the other side of not quitting.
Lessons to me from Thomas and this experience, which I can certainly learn from.
* Never make a snap decision when your ego gets punched in the face. Thomas’s immediate and emotional decision was to quit. He probably would have never played football again. I could care less about his football prospects but the lesson to motor-on when you don’t get exactly what you expected, is alive and well. Thomas had a blast this season. He was a leader for the team, he learned so much beyond playing football. Had he quit, it would have simply been a negative experience with a negative outcome never to have been proven otherwise. Thomas proved the exact opposite by letting his bruised ego take a back seat.
* Changing our mindset. You could loop this in to the bullet above but they’re really different. Snap decisions are a moment in time, changing our mindset is a longer term, more purposeful process. To remember to focus on the growth that is taking place when things aren’t going our way is a blessing. Thomas’s experience is a perfect example of the book “Mindset”. A “fixed” mindset would have quit and simply suggested football isn’t my thing. Thomas having the “growth” mindset that he does, took this lemon experience and made lemonades with it, all proven by the outcome.
* God bless the great coaches of this world. This is a dad, with a “day” job, without a kid on the team, changing my kid’s life for the better. From start to finish, this guy lifted Thomas up, told him he needed him on the team, told him he was meant to be a leader and treated him as such, proving to be right. Side note, in case you’re wondering, we wrote the coach after the season to let him know what a positive impact he had on Thomas and how much we appreciated him, his time, and his efforts.
Nothing better than learning from your kids. I so appreciate the position Thomas was in, I probably would have quit myself. Thomas didn’t and because of his decision, his stack of chips of confidence/positivity just keep building up. I like thinking of it that way, the decisions we make on a daily basis are building up or taking away from our chips of confidence/positivity.
Picture of Thomas/Coach attached while talking to the team.
Have a great Sunday!!