Weekend Words - The Bulter Way

       Last year during March Madness I wrote a Words of Encouragement e-mail about the Butler Bulldogs’ improbable run to the Final Four and, ultimately, to losing to Duke in the national championship by just two points. At the beginning of this year’s NCAA tournament, there were a lot of sports commentators who said Butler couldn’t do it again. 

       As everyone likely knows by now, they did. 

       With Butler back in the Final Four, accompanied by another mid-major school, VCU, I thought it would be the perfect chance to re-visit what I wrote about Butler last year: 

       Butler University’s basketball team did it again in the NCAA tournament. They continued to shock the nation with their impressive performances against much larger and more-heralded schools. This year they made it all the way to the national championship game before losing to Duke 61-59. 

       They beat all the odds. How did they do it? I think the answer can be found below in something called “the Butler Way.” 

       The Butler Way – five principles intended to serve as guideposts for life as well as sports. Attributed to Tony Hinkle, the coach for whom Butler’s storied arena is named, they are: humility, passion, unity, servanthood and thankfulness.[1]

Have a great weekend,

Ro

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[1] Clarke, Liz. "Butler's old-school ways."  The Washington Post 8 Dec. 2009, Sports sec: D1+. Print.

Weekend Words - "If 'Ifs' and 'Buts' Were Candy and Nuts, We'd All Have a Merry Christmas"

       The above quote was one of my dad’s favorites. He pulled it out whenever his kids tried to make excuses for why things didn’t play out the way we wanted. 

       Making excuses seems to be back in vogue these days. I’ve caught myself in this predicament a couple of times lately. I had a couple of big deals that didn’t work out as planned, and I spent a lot of time wondering “What if?” and making excuses. 

       Many of my clients, seasoned pros in the real estate world, have told me that they catch themselves second-guessing their actions. A common theme among them is the refrain, “If I had just stopped while I was on top and hadn’t done that last deal…” Unfortunately, there’s not much we can do in these cases except learn from the experience and move on. 

       Bob Huggins, the colorful head basketball at WVU, once told a story about how he learned the importance of not looking back and wondering, “What if?”. He was born and raised in West Virginia. When this story took place, he was home on a break from his student days at WVU, where he was a player on the basketball team. 

       After playing in a pickup game he got a ride home from one of his childhood coaches. The coach was driving an old pickup truck, which Bob and his friends piled into. Bob started to look in the rearview mirror, and was surprised to find that the truck didn’t have one. 

       When he asked the old coach about it, the coach responded, “We don’t look back in life around here, so I don’t need a rearview mirror.” 

       I’m not sure I completely agree with the coach’s mentality. It’s important on occasion to remember things from your past. But there is something to be said for not living in the past, or dwelling on it. A glance back can help us to learn from our mistakes and not repeat them.

“Good judgment is the result of experience, and experience is the result of bad judgment.”

-Mark Twain

       Learn from your mistakes, but also let yourself move past them.

Have a great weekend,

Ro

Weekend Words - The Pre-Game Speech

       In honor of March Madness, I would like to share excerpts from one of the best pre-game speeches I’ve ever heard. Pat Riley recalled it in his book The Winner Within:

      “Sometimes you have a feeling that you’re about to embark on the most important trip of your life…That’s how I felt right before game two of the 1985 NBA Finals, the single most important game the Lakers played during the eighties. 

       It’s a beautiful moment when you know the team is just sitting there, waiting to take in something special. They’d heard my voice before, until they were sick of it. But there was no eye-rolling today. They were open, ready to listen and believe. 

       ‘I know there’s a lot of you in here who probably don’t think you can win today. A lot of you don’t think you can beat the Celtics. And it’s been proven. The record is undeniable. I want each and every one of you to close your eyes. Just sit back and listen.’ And they did. I had their total, undivided attention. 

       I started to talk to them about my past and my father. When I was nine years old, my dad told my brothers Lee and Lenny to take me down to Lincoln Heights and to get me involved in the basketball games. They would throw me into a game and I would get pushed, shoved, and beat up. Day after day, I ran home crying and hid in the garage. I didn’t want anything to do with basketball. 

       One night I didn’t come to the dinner table, so my dad got up and walked out to the garage…He picked me up, put his arm around me, dusted me off, and then he walked me into the kitchen. My brother Lee was upset with him. “Why do you make us take him down there? He doesn’t want to play. He’s too young.” 

       My father stood up and, staring at Lee, said, ‘I want you to teach him not to be afraid. Teach him that competition brings out the very best and the very worst in us. Right now it’s bringing out the worst, but if he sticks with it, it’s going to bring out the best.’

       And I told the players, ‘I thought I was never going to be able to get over being hurt and afraid, but I eventually did get over it. And before too long, I was sending other kids home to their garages to lick their wounds. That’s what competition is about. That’s what the Celtics and Boston Garden are offering up today.’ 

       I told them of a time I saw my father in 1970. It was at my wedding. I had just been cut by the San Diego Rockets. The Portland Trailblazers, another expansion club, had invited me and twenty-nine other players to their training camp. That looked like my last shot. I was $5,000 in debt, and I was about to take on the responsibilities of marriage. It was a great day. But I needed a voice. 

       As his car was driving away, my father yelled at me, ‘Pat!’ His arm came out first, gesturing, then his head. I began to chase after the slow-moving car to hear. ‘Just remember what I taught you. There will come a time. And when that time comes, you go out there and kick somebody’s a**. This is that time, Pat.’ 

       I told [the players] that I did not realize as the car pulled away, that those were the last words I would hear my father say. He died soon afterward. 

       ‘I don’t know what it’s going to take for us to win tonight,’ I said. ‘But I do believe that we’re going to go out there like warriors and that would make our fathers proud.’”[1]

 

       The Lakers won the game, 109-102.

Have a great weekend,

Ro 

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[1] Excerpted from The Winner Within by Pat Riley. Berkley Books: New York ©1993

Weekend Words - "The Future Is Now"

       Former Redskins coach George Allen was once asked why he was signing so many veteran players in free agency, instead of picking up younger, less experienced players. He replied, “The future is now.” 

       I believe those are good words to live by. Too often we get caught up worrying about things that may or may not happen in the future or regretting things that occurred in our past. We can’t change the past and many times the future events we worry about never come to pass. In the end, we’ve wasted valuable energy and time on things we cannot control. 

“Regret and fear are the twin thieves who rob us of today.”

-Robert Hastings

       When George Allen said, “The future is now,” he was alluding to the fact that he needed to win games immediately, and had no time to wait for young talent to develop. He was focusing on his immediate goals and problems, and working to correct them. Too often we focus on the future or the past as a way of distracting ourselves from the present, because our present situation is painful or difficult or simply not what we want it to be. We focus on what we can’t control because it lets us avoid making the tough choices about what we can control. 

       What we can control is the here and now. Learn to live in the moment. The more centered our focus, the more productive we’ll become. If you aren’t where you want to be, take action and make a change. Don’t let the past or the future keep you from living life in the present. 

“The stories of past courage…can offer hope; they can provide inspiration. But they cannot supply courage itself. For this each man must look into his own soul.”

-John F. Kennedy

Have a great weekend,

Ro

Weekend Words - It's About Forgiveness

       As I’ve grown older I have learned that the least beneficial of human behaviors is our tendency to harbor grudges against those who do us wrong. It never ceases to amaze me how otherwise very intelligent people will give up their entire being to another person because they will not let go of their bad feelings towards that person. 

       I have made this same mistake myself many times in my past. It hasn’t happened as much lately, though, because I realized the secret to freeing myself from these unnecessary burdens. It really starts with truly forgiving the other individual. This is not an easy thing to do, and in order to get there we have to see things “sono mama” – a Japanese phrase meaning to see something as it truly is. 

       Getting to that point requires us to look at both sides of our disagreement, remove the emotion and accept the other person’s point of view. Then we have to truly forgive that person. I find that when I really look at things from the other person’s point of view I usually come away with a much better understanding of why they took the actions or said the things that they did. Once you can see the situation for what it really is and forgive the person, then (and only then) will you finally have peace from the bad feelings that have burdened you. As it is said quite often: “the truth will set you free.”

       A friend of mine recently spoke at his 12-year-old daughter’s school about the importance of forgiveness. He’s an accomplished public speaker who has frequently spoken before large crowds of professionals. Yet he became emotional while giving a speech for the first time ever, as he recounted to his daughter’s class the story of the 2006 school shooting at an Amish school in Lancaster, PA. 10 girls, close in age to the girls in his daughter’s class, were shot; five of them died. But the message my friend focused on was the response of the Amish community to this terrible tragedy, and how quickly they forgave the culprit. In the Amish culture, he said, people are taught at an early age that to be forgiven you must forgive. 

       Take your life back today. Stop focusing on the negative things from your past. Let go of your grudges and bad feelings, and truly forgive. I think you will find, as I have, that forgiveness gives you far more benefits than any grudge or thirst for revenge ever could. 

Have a great weekend,

Ro