Finding Respect and a Bonus Drill

Attitude. "Get your head on right" says Nick Saban. We all have our own perspective. "So and so" is a disciplinarian, or 'old school', or a dinosaur, 'task-oriented', or a flaming...jerk. Shades of grey. 

What if we decided to find dimensions to respect in everyone? There's an old story about a teacher with an unruly class. After handing out a class roster, she gave each child the assignment to find two positive traits about a classmate. She collected each paper, cut out the positives about each child and pasted them onto a sheet of paper for each student. She created a behavioral miracle by finding respect, or more accurately, finding self-esteem for everyone in the class. Years later at a sad reunion (the death of a classmate), many of the students still had that paper in their wallet or purse. 

We can choose to seek understanding of others. Perhaps we will find unbridgeable gaps. But we can find ways to see the positive in others...how they have faced an obstacle and overcome it, achieved in an unorthodox way, or even lost with dignity.

I'd be overstating it to say that it will be easy. Maybe nothing creates a bigger challenge than finding the good in a negative person or a bad situation. 

But excoriating others with poor understanding of their situations can be awkward. I heard a story from Stephen Covey about a father and three children who were noisy on public transportation. Another passenger scolded the father, "can't you do anything with your children." The parent answered, "it's been very hard since their mother died." The situation changed...immediately.

I need to ask myself regularly, "where is the positive" in a variety of professional circumstances. Sometimes illness rallies a family together or suffering brings out the best in a person. But those are the minority of times. 

One of the greatest mistakes we can make is comparing ourselves to others. Feelings of inferiority, superiority, envy and jealously, or regret can overwhelm our rational self. 

How can we incorporate the positives we find in others? I'll share a local example. Brendan Kent came from a family of local football stars. He has risen to become the AD of Wakefield High School, the next town over. He uses social media masterfully to promote the successes of local teams, athletes and coaches. 

Here are a couple of examples from Facebook:

I do not know Brendan well, but I greatly admire his use of social media. But I also recognize the potential pitfalls of social media as not everyone may feel appreciated or adequately recognized. With younger players, I'm not getting into the promotion game. Nonetheless, the reflected light often shines brightest upon the person illuminating their community. 

Bonus: "251" 

This drill has been sweeping the country. 

Choose an 'age appropriate' distance and rotate around. Your turn ends when you miss two consecutive shots. You accumulate points according to how many shots you end up taking. For example, if you make the first four threes consecutively, then you score '4' and continue. If you go +/-/+/-/+/-/+, then you score seven but you're wearing yourself out. 

My understanding is that the record is 251 but that Buddy Hield heard of the drill and put up 197 on his first try. 

Working the short corners and elbows today (after making rounds and admitting patients), I found the drill VERY challenging, especially at my age. For example, during one round I made ten in a row, but then missed two. Done. I never got past 27 in about ten rounds. The silver lining is lots of room for improvement. 

Obviously, you could vary the drill by establishing time limits or seeing how many 'makes' in a given number of shots (e.g. 50).