How Do You React to the Agony of Defeat?
The doer makes mistakes - Will you learn from them and commit to creative excitement towards improvement?
Mis compañeros, amigos, y familiares
Buenos días - It is early Sunday morning and I am in a hotel room in the Washington DC area writing while my wife and son sleep. This Sunday morning the sun rose which is good, since Saturday evening it seemed like a great darkness covered all the land.
The Army team did not accomplish the mission yesterday. I would be lying if I said it didn’t hurt - it wasn’t fun - it left a mark. I feel that pain because I give a damn. I assess that I didn’t do all I could - not that I can put on the pads and play anymore, but I didn’t follow my own routine and ensure I too was focused 100% on the task at hand. Sure I was there physically, but I didn’t have my heart, might, mind, and strength there the whole time. There is a reason people generally don’t like to go to Army football games with me - I am not a very social critter, especially at an Army football game - I want to focus on the game. I didn’t do that like I should have yesterday - I hung out with old friends and missed what I consider the most important part of the game, the first offensive drive of the 3d quarter because I was taking a picture with old classmates.
There is no excuse - I failed and need to learn from it.
The thought on my mind this morning aligns with an an article Cadet Kaitlyn Johnson, one of my MX400 superstars and future Engineer officer, is writing to submit for publication regarding resilience to overcome life’s mistakes then learn from them and grow stronger.
“The test of success is not what you do when you are on top. Success is how high you bounce when you hit the bottom.” ― GEN George S. Patton Jr.
BLUF - Life is full of ups and downs. It is pretty easy to stay positive when you are up - but the real test of our character occurs when things aren’t going our way and we make self inflicted mistakes or suffer a setback either as individuals or as a team. We have a choice - will we choose to learn from the experience and grow stronger or will be wallow in self pity and fall apart? Those of good or even great character learn from these experiences and overcome them bouncing back to even greater heights.
The Army team this year has been damn successful until yesterday when they hit rock bottom. The mark of greatness will be how much can they learn, will they become stronger, or will they fraction? Will the will to prepare for future success increase as a result of this experience, or will teammates quit for what they perceive as greener pastures instead of putting in the effort for greater growth?
The game ended and today (Sunday) they will return to West Point so they can prepare for Term End Exams (TEEs = final exams) in the coming week while simultaneously preparing to play in the Independence Bowl.
Hell - there are firsties (seniors) on the team that literally will commission as 2LTs in the United States Army less than a week from today. They will assume the exceptional and unremitting responsibility of officership - they dont have time to wallow in self pity, nor do any of the rest of them.
The reflection started immediately at the end of the game - the post game interviews tell you that. My guess is not unlike me, most players relived the game in their minds through the night. Today they need to reflect again and learn all they can from the experience then decide how they will attack the future.
If you read any Stephen Covey he shares an array of choices at this point:
Rebel or Quit
Malicious Compliance
Willing Compliance
Cheerful Cooperation
Heartfelt Commitment
Creative Excitement
What will YOU (or they) choose to do?
An old piece of plywood, painted white with small black letters on it is screwed to the wall outside the football locker room at West Point in a spot that most people might not notice. But the location doesn't matter. The words that are painted on it are much more significant. The words are simple and come from an old Scottish ballad by Sir Andrew Barton.
“Fight on my men, I am hurt, but I am not slain; I'll lay me down and bleed a-while, And then I'll rise and fight again”
The doer makes mistakes. Notice the period.
People who are trying to achieve things in life will inevitably make mistakes. Benjamin Franklin went broke before he rose to fame and fortune. Bill Gates’ first company failed. Henry Ford’s first car company failed miserably. Edison famously failed 10,000 times before he hit the jackpot. Kentucky Fried Chicken founder Colonel Sanders was rejected 1,009 times before he got a `yes`.
Michael Jordan once said, “I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
The doer makes mistakes. There’s no way around it. If you’re afraid of committing mistakes, then you deny yourself any chances of success.
Think about it, fear of failure usually leads to inaction: If you’re afraid of making a mistake, then you will never do anything. To avoid failure therefore means to avoid success. It makes statistical sense, too. The more times you try, the more you will both fail and succeed. To fail more means to succeed more.
I believe strongly in President Theodore Roosevelt’s concept of the man in the arena he described in an April 1910 speech about Citizenship in the Republic.
THE MAN IN THE ARENA
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
Adversity often produces unexpected opportunity. Look for it. Appreciate and utilize it. This is difficult to do if you’re feeling sorry for yourself because you’re faced with adversity.
Maybe we should ask ourselves these questions:
Do we seek to have our challenges and burdens lifted off our backs?
Or do we seek to have the strength to overcome those challenges and to carry the burden?
Coach Lou Holtz stated, “It is a very negative time, by some respects, but in my lifetime experience, I've come to learn that nothing negative has ever happened to me that didn't turn out to be a positive if we reacted favorably to it."
Most people have heard of post-traumatic stress disorder. But did you know that the opposite also exists? It’s called post-traumatic growth – the phenomenon of people becoming stronger after a tragedy or trauma. They don’t just bounce back, but they bounce higher than they were before.
"Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit." - Napoleon Hill
The problem is, we won’t see this equal or greater benefit and we won’t experience post-adversity-growth if we’re feeling sorry for ourselves.
Next time you’re facing adversity, buckle up and look for the opportunities to grow. Make sure you use it as fuel for growth, not as a reason to quit or wallow in self-pity.
“I’ve failed many times in my life and career and because of this I’ve learned a lot. Instead of feeling defeated countless times, I’ve used it as fuel to drive me to work harder. So today, join me in accepting our failures. Let’s use them to motivate us to work even harder.” – Phil Mickelson
It hurts when you fail - especially if you put your heart, might, mind and spirit into the effort. Yesterday’s game hurt me and I am some old grad who hasn’t played football in over 30 years. Think of the pain the players are feeling, knowing they didnt achieve all of their goals. If you know you did your very best - then that is all anyone could ask, but if you have regrets, then you have to learn from the experience, adjust what you were doing, and get back into the fight.
Progress - not perfection - is what should be expected - hence getting up when we are knocked down is part of the process - how will you react?
Remember that it is always darkest just before dawn and we always control our reaction to shortfalls and failures. The only acceptable response is to maybe bleed a while, then get up, knock the dust off, and fight again - be it a football game, a math test, a work project or anything else in our lives we find truly important.
“If you call failures experiments, you can put them in your resume and claim them as achievements.” - Mason Cooley
The mistakes we make in life are not as important as the lessons we learn from them. I look forward to seeing and talking about our / your comeback - All the times you fell and got back up.
I add that us old grads are behind the Army team all the way. Yes expectations are high, but why the hell would you go somewhere like West Point if you didn’t think a lot would be expected???
364 and a butt days until we beat navy
Pride - Poise - Team
This Week I Will:
Don’t just talk about what is important - demonstrate it 24/7/365
Reflect from my experiences, learn from the good, the bad, and the ugly and seek to improve from those lessons
Seek to go 1-0 today making each day my masterpiece
Demonstrate creative excitement towards the goals that matter - not unlike planing trees - best time to do it was yesterday, but we can live with NOW.
Fight for the right things - Fight Hard - Fight on to Victory! Do great things!
Dewey
I reflect each Sunday morning on what I have been learning - I encourage you to reflect daily or weekly as well. I share these notes just to get you thinking about topics related to leadership and character. If you would like to continue the conversation, add someone, or if you would like to be dropped from the distribution list - please just send me an email at Marc.Boberg@gmail.com - Do great things this week!