What is "Winning" These Days?
Reflecting on Soccer, French, and the Gift of Today's Great Reprioritization
A few days ago I turned my attention back to the soccer field just in time to see my six-year-old scoring a goal at his first soccer practice of the season. Actually, this was his first soccer practice - ever!
I watch a little longer as his team does 1-on-1 drills where they try and score goals against one another. Next round up - he scores again! Oh man, a natural!
Although…admittedly, something is off. The kid he just scored on seems genuinely confused.
“Well, he does find a goal!” a parent quipped toward my son, and I think (I hope!) they are being good-natured about the whole thing.
It dawns on me that my son has now racked up no fewer than three own goals, and suddenly I feel a sinking embarrassment about how little (nothing) we have taught him about soccer before this moment where we threw him into his first practice.
Which draws me to recall a moment that occurred in the final season of my underwhelming soccer career. It was in the fourth grade, and a ball was kicked all of five or six feet away from me.
“Bobby, run to the ball!”
The coach (my dad) was rather exasperated given my unwillingness to make any effort toward the ball.
Instead, with a ready cynicism I would have been loathe to whip out upon any other authority figure I respond, “Why?! We’re just going to lose.”
To be fair, by the end of my fourth grade year, the cumulative record of all the soccer teams I had played on was 0-39-1. Surely I was not wrong in my assessment.
Do you know why that story sticks with me today?
It’s the same reason my conversation with Ms. Chapman sticks with me. She was my French teacher for three between Junior High and High School.
“Ms. Chapman. I don’t think I’m going to take French next year,” I told her one day near the end of the my sophomore year. “I just have a really hard time getting good grades in this class.”
I don’t know how I put it from there, or even if I was fully honest. But the bottom line was this: My GPA needed to be in a certain range for certain eventual colleges - and French was doing no favors.
Her response? “Bobby, don’t worry about the grade. We can talk about ways for that to improve - and I am confident that it can. But bottom line: don’t make a decision about this class based on grade concerns. Do you enjoy the class? The experience? Your classmates?”
She rightly intuited that I had experienced a lot of fun and growth in her class over those three years.
Regrettably, my 10th grade self was not so different from my 4th grade self in at least one critical way - I saw no value in endeavors that I could not win.
Hustling for the sake of the game and teammates?
Enjoying the the gift of movement and effort regardless of the final score?
I had no ability to conceive of that.
Letting my brain and tongue continue to be stretched by a trying challenge?
Learning for the sake of learning regardless of the final grade?
I had no ability to conceive of that.
Winning is what matters.
Grades are what matters.
The next visible measure of success is what matters.
Talk about someone in need of a pandemic much earlier in life.
To be sure, I don’t mean to make light about how trying and grievous the pandemic has all been.
Actually, the trying nature of the pandemic goes to my point: in this pandemic, no one is winning - even in the moments where it feels like winning for a moment!
Just when we think we've turned the corner personally or professionally or societally, something breaks or the supply chain breaks or we break, again.
Just when we think we have landed a solid job, we discover we can’t find a used car, a house, or even reasonably-priced lumber for a DIY project.
Just when we think we have named a sensible and wise mask/vaccine/distancing/hybrid/travel policy or non-policy, another variant or political dynamic or unruly school board attendee turns it upside down.
In this pandemic, we’ve all been playing 500 ball. At. Best.
A good number might say we’re 0-39-1 these past two years - and not for lack of trying! This is simply a season where easy, obvious or continual wins are just not for the taking.
But you know what happens when nobody is winning?
We begin to re-think our definition of winning altogether. We begin considering again who and what actually matters.
All of us know about the Great Resignation, but I tend to agree with those who have begun calling it the “Great Reprioritization.” The Great Resignation/Reprioritization is not fundamentally about people throwing in the towel and sitting on the couch for days on end. It’s about an awakening to new priorities.
It’s about people en masse asking, “What really makes for winning?” And they readily intuit more clearly than ever that the answer is not simply,
More money.
More rungs on the ladder.
More likes.*
The answer is found, actually, in sitting with the kind of questions that riff right from Ms. Chapman:
“Where do you find joy?”
“What are the experiences of lasting value right now - or meaningful experiences you finally want to pursue seriously?”
“Who are the classmates on this journey with you - because in the end it’s the people on this journey that make all the difference?”
(As an aside, I like the term ‘classmates.’ Not that it replaces other great terms, like “friends,” but it reminds us that every aspect of life is about learning and growth. And we do it together).
Back to my six-year old who probably would benefit from a gentle lesson regarding own goals - but far more importantly needs to learn about winning.
Can I help him avoid the day when he stops trying since he sees no way to have more points than the other side? Can he be the kind of teenager who embraces a difficult subject for the pure love of learning and growing? Can we help a whole generation of kids see better what truly makes for winning? I don’t know.
What I do know is that it is more than coincidental that I recently came across this timeless gem from Howard Thurman:
“It is not important whether the child is able to comprehend the words we use or understand the ideas that we make articulate. The child draws their meaning from the meaning which we put into things that we say and do.”
If we want to teach winning, it is not about our rightly crafted messages. It’s about the invisible meaning and energy that informs all of what we say and do.
And therein lies the gift of a Great Reprioritization: we are invited (if not forced) to consider the invisible assumptions and motivations that inform who we are and what we think truly matters.
What if we continued to lean into this Great Reprioritization for all that its worth?Both for ourselves and our (grand)children?
Surely, that would be winning.
* “Winning” is also being redefined in a specific way among faith communities and non-profits. It is more clear than ever that the traditional metrics for winning (The Three B’s) are simply not those of most fundamental importance:
Butts (in the seats)
Budgets (how much)
Buildings (how big/how many)
A better metric (surely among others)?
Howard Thurman, again, for the win: “Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” Metric: Are people are moving toward alive-ness in/because of your organization? And what are their stories?