What You Learn Is What Matters

The cool part about life is you can learn from it, no matter the circumstances.

“I could have missed the pain, but I’d have had to miss the dance.”  Garth Brooks, The Dance

1996.  While it’s not a year that will live in infamy for anyone else, it’s pretty close to that for me.

You see, 1996 was perhaps the first year that my own mindset was laid bare to me. This weekend I had the opportunity to stand with some of my former teammates from the 1996 Stanford University Varsity Football team to commemorate our win in the Sun Bowl.  Here’s the picture (that’s me, 2nd from the right in the white shirt…standing among giants):

Only, for me, there’s more of a personal side of that football season now 20 years ago.

I missed the whole thing.

After a promising prior season where I was a starter on a good team as a redshirt freshman, I came into 1996 with high hopes of becoming a “great” collegiate offensive tackle.  Only, those hopes were put on hold in the heat of a preseason practice when I suffered a severe knee injury.  I can still, to this day, hear the voice of the gentleman standing to the right of me in the picture above saying “ooooh” out loud as the athletic trainer softly flexed my knee sideways to see if it had any ligaments left in that direction.  It didn’t.  It lacked a couple of other structural components as well, so I missed the 1996 season.  I was ecstatic to be able to put on a uniform for the Sun Bowl that year (it was, after all, months post injury), but never played a down on the field.

Now, as football careers go, I’m happy with mine. I went on to start for a couple more years, and got to sip a cup of coffee with an NFL team. This isn’t about that.

After my “off” year in 1996 (anybody who has rehabbed a multi-ligament knee injury knows that I was anything but “off work” that year), the San Jose Mercury News ran a headline that read “Back From the Scrap Heap,” signaling my return to spring practice. I guess I had been on the scrap heap, but one thing is true:  I learned a ton from that awful experience.

Setting aside all the obvious things I had to learn about biomechanics and ligaments and rehabilitation and recovery, a few other things stand out:

I learned that being an awful critic of yourself isn’t the best way to see your strengths. You see, before and after injury, I never was able to look at videotape of myself on the football field and feel good about it.  Never.  I never really took pride in watching myself play.  I guess that sounds sad to some, but to others–possibly those who keep looking higher–it probably makes sense; and I think it has probably been at least one really key mindset element of my own development athletically or otherwise: I was never really very good at anything, in my own eyes.

On the day I was injured (the injury happened in the morning), I crutched my way into the film review room with my teammates and, probably for the only time in my playing years, really appreciated the images of myself on film from that morning’s practices before I was hurt. I saw a player who was not perfect but who got things done. I didn’t see the wrong footwork and the awkwardness and imbalance that I constantly saw when I was “healthy.”

I was there, facing the loss of playing time and perhaps whatever sliver of athleticism I once had, and I was able to see myself with an appreciative eye vs. an entirely critical one. The takeaway for me from that experience has never been that I’m actually better than I think I am so why worry…the takeaway has been that it’s important to stop and look for even minor glimpses of strength in my own game and in those of others around me so that I can build on those. I think that has made me a better leader in the 20 years since than if I had survived with only a critical eye intact.

I learned that it’s possible to will one’s self beyond pain.  I know it sounds cliché and maybe even self aggrandizing; and I don’t mean it that way.  But, one of the funny outcomes of my little rehabilitation exercise was a quote in the newspaper from Stanford’s head athletic trainer about my “pain tolerance” being off the charts.  I say it was funny because while I guess having high pain tolerance is a useful thing, I can assure you–I felt it all.  One does not simply recover range of motion in a wrecked knee without working through some pain.  I think that I had worked through pain prior to that experience, but never appreciated the need to “zen up” and just go through it.  Such a learning has been instrumental during the hardest times of my professional life.  I once faced an entirely distasteful, months long pseudo-negotiation with two unsavory characters that–in my down south code of honor–probably deserved to come to blows. I figured there’s more to life than that, so…zen up.  Fight through it. Be nice.  Swallow the pain. Get it done.

Finally, and probably most importantly for this blog to make any sense to anyone other than me, I learned that suffering alone is the pits, and being insensitive to someone who might be suffering alone is even worse. I’ll make light of the first part. In the depths of physical rehab, I had a CD of the band Alice in Chains doing an unplugged live performance. You haven’t lived until you’ve listened to the song Down in a Hole on repeat while overcoming the ego depleting darkness of a major injury.  Had I stopped there, I probably would have been down in a hole for a long time.

Luckily for me, I had friends, and I had support of teammates, trainers, and coaches.  I don’t know that I could have made as complete a recovery as I did had I not had those things. I think knowing this has led me to seek counsel from a very tight set of friends whenever the going gets tough in my professional career–even when faced with adversaries who really wanted me on an island. I’ve seen senior executives leave companies without having a single friend or supporter, and I wonder how lonely that must be.  While Frank Capra may have been a little generous when he allowed George Bailey to read he words “no man is a failure who has friends,” I think there’s some wisdom there.

Alone is a bad thing.

As to insensitivity: I had a teammate on that 1996 team who faced a potentially season limiting injury due to some major bone chip issues.  He is in the picture above.  I remember it being revealed to him with me nearby just prior to my own injury and I remember seeing the x-ray.  I also remember making some offhand, flippant remark about how “that sucks.”

I basically balled up this guy’s whole athletic career and tossed it into the bin of things incidental to my own.  I’m embarrassed to this day about that, and he doesn’t know it. I probably wouldn’t remember my own insensitivity had I, not less than a few days later, faced the obliteration of my own season.

So there you have it…critical learning from a bad, personal experience years ago. I’ve never forgotten those lessons, and the constant dull ache and floppiness of my left knee hasn’t let me forget the injury even 20 years later.

If I can pull out something of use to anyone reading this blog, it’s this:  No matter what you are going through, keep your mind open enough to learn. Some experiences–whether positive or negative–amplify your senses and thought processes to the point that they would not have otherwise been amplified.  Be willing to learn during those times.

It’s easy to say I learned a lot by playing sports.  I learned how to work hard. I learned how to be accountable.  I learned how no matter how much a person talks about being great, demonstrated greatness is what matters.

But it’s perhaps more important to realize I learned a whole lot by losing the ability to play sports.

Somewhere, someone is reading this while going through personal tragedy.  Their tragedy may be incidental to everyone around them. My encouragement is twofold:  Be willing to let the experience build perspective, and seek out people who can help and support.  An open mind during dark circumstances sets the stage for growth.

I’m not a self help writer.  These are just reflections from a personal experience from a time long ago that was commemorated publicly this weekend–reflections that have affected my life. Many of the guys in the picture above would even chuckle that I’d be writing words like “sensitivity,” “encouragement,” and “seek help.”  But that’s perhaps humorously beside the point, which is: Wherever you are…Always learn.

What do you think?