Introduction
Two major questions as we begin this journey:
1. Why write the book?
2. Who am I trying to help?
The answer to the first question can best be described in a talk I had with my son, Hadley. Most of the time when I have asked him, “What do you want to do when you grow up?”Or ‘Where do you want to go to school?” he usually does not give much detail. Most often he does not give up information as I try to get into deep questions.
Finally this time he cracked a little bit and gave me some insight one day as I was sitting on his bed and we were talking. Since he was heading into his senior year of high school I thought this could be a good time to pose the questions about his future again. I asked him what he would like to end up doing one day.
He told me down the road he would like to be a “_______“. (I’ll keep it private just so he won’t get mad at me; the job is legal to easy the fears of my family) I got pumped up when he told me his goal. Immediately I said, “You can do that! Oh, man, no doubt you can do that one day.” I was happy for him and a little bit jealous. There was no question in my mind he could reach his goal if that is what he really wanted in life.
Now I was into this because he was sharing a dream. I immediately started going into my dad mode. I stood up and started to talk rapidly, “Here is what you need to do. You need to start calling these people and starting lining up internships with these people. We can call this person and this person” On and on I went. I think I was more energized than he was.
When he told me his vision I could see a plan. Because it was in the field of athletics I knew what it was going to take. I knew two men personally that had made it that level and I knew how dedicated they were to get there. The neat thing as his dad I knew a blueprint of how to get where he wanted to go.
That is reason number one for the book: to give you hope and excitement for your future.
Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the plans I have for declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and future.” God’s word says it best. My hope is to also give you hope and for a future.
What happens to a lot of us is that we get knocked over by life. Things happen to us and for one reason or another we begin to lose our balance. Some people can get pushed and pushed and pushed and eventually topple over and stay there. On the other hand there are some that get pushed and have the strength to bounce back up once they topple over.
Who is the book for?
All parents
Kids from divorced families or broken homes
Kids with depression
Kids with anxiety
Kids with poor self-esteem
Kids with baggage from their past
Kids that feel ashamed
Kids that have stories about their family that they can’t tell anyone else
Kids that are scared
Kids that are embarrassed
Kids that are loners
Kids that have anger
Kids that feel lost
Kids that have it all going for them because at some point they will face some tough times
Anyone working with kids
Probably the hardest thing to do in writing this book is in putting down on paper why am I qualified to write a book that you should read. The thought has gone around and around my head. Writing out the principles was much easier than trying to explain this part in the opening of the book.
I am going to bare my heart and soul with some of these stories and anecdotes throughout the book. You will be passed on some life lessons and advice as you read from the front all way to the back. I will try to help you keep from stepping on the land mines that are out there in life. Also a goal is to keep you from making the same mistakes I made and your parents may have made down the pathway of life. Experience is not the best teacher. Someone else’s experience is the best teacher. If they made a mistake and can keep you from making the same mistake that is a good teacher.
Being a coach and teacher for over 20 years does give some me knowledge and stories to share with you. Having 5 children and being married for over 20 years I can fill up a book on mistakes I have made as a dad and husband.
Another goal is to help anyone reading this book is to be able to reach as high and far as they can for the dreams and aspirations they have without worrying what others say. Pretty big objective huh? Unfortunately I see a lot of kids that talk about their dreams. What I do see is how we hold ourselves back from reaching our dreams by making some silly mistakes. We sabotage ourselves more than anyone else does to our dreams.
What I want you to think of is a big roll of tape. Imagine taking the tape and taping some part of your body. Maybe it is one of your arms to the side of your body. Maybe it is the tape over your mouth. You might even tape something else to your body. What about some additional weight like they use in the weight room? You wouldn’t want a 15 lb weight or a 25 lb weight attached to your hip. With weight attached to your body or tape around your mouth now go out and see how effective you can be for the next week. You wouldn’t be able to do the things you normally do with the same effectiveness. That is what I see with young people is they have added restrictions or added weight that they don’t need to carry around. They completely limit their ability to reach the goals they have set.
They do this by trying to live in a way to be important or have an identity. So many kids aren’t living with freedom because they have so much baggage from the past. What I would like to do is help people from getting years of therapy, counseling and medication. I am not a doctor and can’t replace a doctor. What I am trying to do is say face problems now and not later. Problems that we have emotionally don’t go away. They have to be dealt with head on. You have to face the problems they will not run away.
I see kids today that aren’t at ease in who they are. I call it “being comfortable in your own skin”. More and more kids are coming to us at the college level not comfortable or confident in just being themselves. They want to be something else because they are not happy with themselves.
Through a series of failures I came to the realization that life is a journey filled with ups and downs. It is not about trying to stay on top, but finding a way to bounce back from some setbacks. It’s hard to find someone out there that has had some success or is experiencing success without going through some sort of failure or failures.
At a very low point in my life there were a couple of situations that occurred. It seemed like my life was like the old commercial “Help, I’ve fallen and can’t get up.” It took me more time to get back off the canvas after being knocked down that than it should have taken. I was up walking around and going about my daily routine on the outside, but I wasn’t the same. Usually getting knocked down was no big deal. I would hang my head for a while then I could eventually get back up off the ground and back in the race. For some reason at the most important time I was not able to accomplish the quick rebound. With a wife and at the time three kids when I needed to be strongest I let them down.
I couldn’t move. I held onto grudges, worried about being done wrong, dwelled about missed opportunities and keep myself mired in a funk that kept me down instead of quickly getting back up off the ground. I was having my own pity party with a steep cover charge. Persistence had always been my middle name. What had I allowed to happen to myself?
Looking back, I failed to implement some of the strategies in this book that could have been such a big help. My wish is to give my own children, my players and people from all walks of life skills and emotional stability to make life a success. Success is not always in the winning, but you will see how you travel the path of life that it comes from striving to reach your potential. Life is a series of games and challenges. It is how you respond. Once you realize you will get beat and get knocked down a lot it can change the complexion. You have to a place to fail. I worked for very wise boss that one time told me in letting an employee go he wanted to, “give this person a safe place to land”. That is an excellent way to put how God treats us. He never wants us to fall on our face. There will be times when we start out racing on our own without following his guidance that we will fall. The fall can be hard, but God will give us a safe place to land.
You will grade success differently than your best friend, your neighbor, your siblings and maybe your parents. I have found success comes when we know how to reach down inside ourselves and find out what is our best and also never giving up even when the scoreboard says give up.
My heart is not for you to look at success the way the world looks at success, but that you find a peace inside and a joy with what you do with your life. Naturally I want to help everyone to reach his or her full potential. I have seen so many people take full advantage of whatever they talents they have been given and unfortunately have also seen those that have not taken advantage of their great opportunities.
As we get started in this journey let me leave you with a quote my father gave me in college. He gave it to me in a plastic sheet protector and it was a poorly copied version. I had the quote with me for the last 25 years. Either in my dorm room, on my desk, in my office or somewhere I could see it on an almost daily basis and remind myself of the main points of persistence.
If I pride myself on anything it would have to be my persistence. I felt like the areas where I found success in my life through my profession or in relationships was in my ability to persist and not give up. That is what brought me to the point of writing this book and putting it down on paper. Some areas and experiences of my life I failed to persist and it cost my family and career dearly. My goal now is to create for myself a situation that I do not have that lack of persistence. Let’s find a way to develop habits that allow you to fall down and also to get back up and go back in the race. This book can be a good starting place for you.
“Good habits formed at youth make all the difference”
Aristotle
Pete Maravich Assembly Center
