The Lighter Side Of Falling

When a skiing instructor's students are about to fall, he has them shout out "YES!" with a great grin on their face.

"It's amazing how lightly you fall compared with a skier who's trying to look good and is grimacing with tension as the unwelcome tumble approaches. It's also amazing how this childlike attitude toward falling helps prevent injuries, which are so often the result of tension in the muscles." - Ken Blanchard

Bracing for a crash - or in relationships, worrying - can cause more pain than protection. Sometimes it's just worth smiling and enjoying the experience.

Nice Catch

"They key to developing people is to catch them doing something right." - Ken Blanchard

I believe that at work and at home. It's so easy to spot Dena in a nice outfit and let the moment pass without a compliment. Likewise when the kitchen smells like baked bread, or a fresh scented candle is lit to energize the room. In any given day there are probably a dozen opportunities to exercise what's right with the world by simply allowing our thoughts to slip through the lips.

Moving Along

"I don't get consumed by circumstances that are beyond my control. If I worry, it beats everybody else down. I'm always in to what's happening next. So Bob Griese has broken ankle? Okay, let's get Earl Morrall ready and put him in there." - Don Shula

I never did finish my story about the agent who'd asked for a product that simply wasn't available currently. When she called back, we designed a halfway solution. We'd both given it the best we could, and that was that.

Late Friday, I stopped by my old stomping grounds in the Life Tax department. During a conversation I picked up a vibe of discontentment. For a while I studied the situation. Had I done something wrong? Probably not, possibly so. It could be that I'd simply come at a bad time. It wasn't worth the weight, so I cast the thought into the distance and headed on to the next thing.

The Way Things Could Be

Entering the hospital, the man takes an elevator to the second floor and asks for directions at the nurses' station. His face is solemn as he walks down the hallway toward the designated room. He enters and moves toward the bandaged figure on the bed. The patient sees him, smiles wanly, raises an arm from which tubes dangle.

"Thanks for coming, Coach."

"How you doing?'

"Oh, okay." The mournful look in the sunken eyes tells a different story.

There is a long pause. Finally the visitor leans in, his jaw jutting close to the face of the patient.

"Listen, Mike. I need you in training camp in July - on the field, ready to go. We're going all the way this year."

Later Mike Westhoff, recovered from bone cancer and still the special teams coach for the Delphine, would say of Shula, "I thought he would tuck me in, but he didn't. He treated me the way I could be, not the way I was."

When They Try To Suck...

"The press wants to suck us into these kinds of comparisons and crystal-gazing conversations. I want to enjoy the thrill of coaching one game at a time." - Don Shula

Who should be ranked the highest? Who's the greatest of all time? Casting opinions about is a pastime fun or destructive, depending on whether it's played with a spirit of discovery or judgment.

The Art Of Living

"The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he's always doing both." - James Michener

I need to figure out how the aspect of choosing one's environment comes into play here. Where would Tiger Woods be if he'd just taken a job at Wendy's? Are legions of retirees failures because they left work for leisure? Perhaps the answer is that, where our environment is beyond our control, we find a vision of excellence within that environment, and let that be the end of it.