“Pop,” went something in the bottom of my foot, and I knew my goose was cooked.
It was Sunday morning, July 31, and I’d been playing a game of pickup basketball with guys from town. I’d been doing this for about two months now, once or twice a week, and was getting my groove back after having not really played in 20 years. I was now able to run up and down the court without gasping for breath every time and, once in a while, my shots were going in.
It had rained the night before, and it seems most of the guys assumed the court was wet and so decided to sleep in. Instead of the 10-15 players who usually showed up, there were only five. But we decided to make the best of it and get the exercise most of us had come here for (at least that’s part of why we come). So we started playing two on two. For those of you who play, this can actually be more fun in some ways, as you get the ball a whole lot more, you play half court (and thus can pretend to have better cardio) and there’s much more room to operate.
I was having fun when, on an innocuous play, snap. My first thought was that I’d stepped on a rock or something — a very sharp one that must have somehow pierced the bottom of my sneaker. After a quick look at where I’d last stepped, I knew this wasn’t the case. My next thought was that, based on the severe and abrupt pain, I wasn’t going to be playing any more basketball that day, or for a while.
Luckily I live in an injury prone environment. When I got home, my wife grabbed the walking boot that she’d used after turning her ankle training for a triathlon, and my neighbor — who’d torn his ACL playing basketball with the same guys — brought over his crutches.
After all the hoopla was over and things quieted down, it was just me sitting on the couch. I started to get a bit angry, frustrated and depressed. I’d been making progress after all and — don’t underestimate the importance of this — getting out. I was getting in better shape and losing weight. As always, I’d warmed up and worn good basketball shoes. I wasn’t doing anything crazy. It just happened.
So now I was going to have some time on my hands (turns out it’s a torn plantar fascia) and the question became, what was I going to do with it? Was I going to dwell on the negative, play up the victim role and sulk, or was I doing to use my newfound time profitably? Would I someday be able to say, “You know, being forced out of action gave me time to read Winston Churchill’s entire work on The Second World War,” or, “I finally taught my son how to tie his shoes properly,” or, “My wife sat on the couch with me and we really had a good time”?
The point is that, throughout history, great leaders have used their unwanted, unintended and unplanned downtime (whether temporarily stuck in some career backwater, thrown out of a job or thrown in jail) to grow in some way that, eventually, propelled them to the heights they ultimately attained. The point, as I’ve written before, is that your chances for success are directly tied to how short you can make the interval between disaster and recovery; how profitably you can spend the forced pit stop. Shock, depression and panic are all certain tickets to doom, while resiliency, resignation (in the sense one accepts the new realities) and action are the hallmarks of bouncing back.
In your life, in your career, the unexpected and the unfair will happen — you will get passed over for a promotion, you will be let go, you will get into a car accident not of your own making — and it’s up to you to take the blow, stand up and move on. Or, if you’ve got to sit for a while, pick up a book and turn your forced leisure to good account.
For my part, during my recovery, I’ll plan to do and say the right things so my kids see how they should act when adversity strikes, for if I wish never to see them sulk, I’ve got to grab the crutches and get off the couch.
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