It has been
a good while since I’ve written an original blog, so I think I will begin this
one with a little story?
When I was
in junior high school, I tried out for tight-end on the football team. Now it
might be important to acknowledge that any year that I played football, whether
before or after that time, was done so under duress. I was not interested in
the game, per se; I was only interested in appeasing my two fathers, both of
whom, to this day, believe that football is God’s sport. I, on the other hand,
harbored a far less favorable opinion. Honestly, I could have cared less about
it.
We had
two-a-day practices in the weeks before the classes started, and on one
particularly hot afternoon in August, Coach Coleman took a group of us players
to the backfield of the campus. There, he introduced us to the blocking sled,
an intimidating piece of equipment on which two torso-shaped, high-density foam
pads attached to the metal pedestals of a rugged chassis. The goal for us,
Coach Coleman explained, was to learn to use our mass to power through the
oncoming force of the man on the opposite side of the line of scrimmage. He
said, “When you hit this pad, you are going to keep your head up!” I remember
those words well. Unfortunately, while I heard them, I really was not listening
to them.
When it came
to my turn, I was standing next to Clay Chauvin—a good guy, an ambitious guy,
and much better football player. We both got down into a three-point stance,
and the coach, standing on the chassis of the sled, shouted a snap count. At
the second “hike”, Clay and I lunged forward. Having not listened, I went in
helmet-first, but Clay plowed his arms and chest into the other pad. The laws
of physics took over at that point. Because Clay applied more force to one side
of the sled, when it moved, it did not do so evenly; it spun to the left, and I
lost my footing quickly, falling between the pads and slamming my helmet into
the sled’s metal crossbar. I did not get hurt, luckily enough, but that split
second made for a lasting memory.
After
practice, Coach Coleman took me aside. He studied the wide scratch on my helmet
without a word for several moments, but when he returned the helmet to me, he
had a lot to say. “Your problem is you are too smart. You think you don’t have
to listen to anybody, but if you don’t want to get hurt, you better start.”
Coach Coleman insisted, even though his tone was benign, “You don’t know
everything already.” And shaking his head with disappointment, he walked away
from me. If I am not mistaken, in fact, he actually never spoke to me again.
That stupid
moment happened in the late 80’s, and I had not thought seriously about it in
many years. Back then, I now concede, I was a dumb and prideful kid. I felt like
I could do anything that I wanted, any way that I wanted, and for that, there
would have been few, if any, real consequences. On the other hand, if I did not
want to do something, I found every way to express my disinterest in it.
Consequently, at the time, I did not even give much credence to the coach’s
advice. But today, being a different man, I kind of wish that I had not just
heard Coach Coleman’s last words to me, but that I had really understood what
he was trying to tell me. It probably would have saved me a lot of trouble on
the football field, back then, and later in life, as well.
“Hey…I’m
proud of you.”
That was how
an exchange of text messages began between me and a colleague two nights ago. At
first, I smiled, because it is always humbling to hear an affirmation, now and
then, that I am doing something right, but then, I sat back for a moment,
realizing that I was unsure of what this person was talking about. And so, I
asked. As it turned out, the text message was prompted by my response to a long
email that he sent me several days before that. My colleague went on to write
the following: “[For] being you and being willing and open to options. Thought
you should hear it.”
Without
going into too much detail, several days ago, the colleague took serious
exception to how I was handling a situation in my little sphere of influence.
Though the matter did not affect or involve him, and though he knew his
unsolicited opinion really should not have carried any significant influence,
he penned a rather long missive to me, wherein he took great pains to point out
how wrong I was and, at the same time, to suggest a different approach. Had it
not been for that email—well, let’s just say that this exchange of text messages
and this subsequent blog post, along with a more improved handling of the
matter in question, would not have happened.
It is no
secret to most people who know me well enough that I can be painfully stubborn
person, particularly when I assume that I am right about something, or
particularly when I have it in my mind to do a thing my own way. In fact, I can
remember that my mom would always have to tell me that “[a] hard head will make
for a hard fall on a soft ass.” Looking back, it seems funny just how those
words turned out to be so right, and they run parallel to the ominous warning
that the coach gave me. Unfortunately,
as I got older, I did not heed the wisdom being imparted on me by those people.
To be sure, I did not turn out too badly, I must confess. After all, I am at a
prime moment in my life, and I have done some awesome things that—well, to be
honest—even leave me, as the doer, pretty impressed. But I cannot help but to
wonder, today, if the path to all of these good things would have been
smoother, had I just listened once in a while. Though it is not a bad one, for
example, would I have a better relationship with my Creator? Would I have seen
some business opportunities a lot sooner, and acted on them with a clearer mind?
Could I have prevented damage to some friendships and relationships? Could have
avoided some of life’s other blocking sleds, or at least have been better
prepared to meet them? And even better than any of that, should I have made
some choices that would have changed my life a lot sooner rather than later?
Of course, I
will never know those answers to those questions, but I guess there really is
no better time than the present to start contemplating and doing the right
thing.
If I am sounding
unusually contrite, it’s because I am, honestly…I guess if you are proven wrong
in your handling of one thing, then you are poised to study your handling of
almost everything. Not to determine if you are wrong about everything else—but
it is definitely to make sure that you are still right, as well as to devise
ways to do things that will ensure you remain right in the future.
So have I
learned anything for this moment of introspection? Actually, I have. For
starters, I am a bit of control freak. That is unsurprising, I know, but that
is probably the single, greatest reason for my stubborn nature. I want things
my way, and I usually believe that most others are genuinely incapable of
looking out for my interests. The other
big problem is this penchant for dictating outcomes. Eight years of being the
guy who defined results for businesses, and who structured the roadmaps to get
to those results, has made me a little bit jaded. I have largely operate under
the assumption that I could easily do the same things in so many other facets
of my life, especially when it comes to interpersonal relationships, where I’ve
admittedly given little regard to other people’s feelings or expectations. Consequently,
all of that has culminated into a stubborn attitude that sets an expectation
that Gary should always get everything his way…Yeah, even I will admit that
that’s probably not a good attitude.
For me, life
has been pretty good—no, pretty blessed. I have built a good business and a
solid reputation as “one of the smartest guys in the room”. I have been blessed
with the ability to written articles and books, the talent to build businesses
and change lives, the gift to teach and speak before hordes of strangers, the
opportunities to meet some of the most interesting and notable people of our
times, and the luxury to travel to very cool places. But I have had to learn a
few things along the way. Chief among them is the fact that none of this comes
easily. It has taken a lot of work to build this life, and I fully believe that
my Creator has shown me favor, even in times when I probably was far from
worthy of it. What’s more, I have had to learn—and, yes, I am still trying to learn—that
humility has a place, because I don’t know everything, and that the arrogant
and prideful tendencies of my hard-headedness have certainly brought me into
the path of some of life’s bigger blocking sleds. Fortunately, though, in every
instance, I was wearing my helmet.
