What does it mean to make the pass? It’s something that has been on my mind a lot lately. As you probably know I have a long background in sports playing college soccer and even baseball through high school. In sports, making the pass is doing the unselfish thing that is best for the team overall. It’s a result of prioritizing the team’s success over personal acclaim. 

But there’s a second form of making the pass - it’s an invitation. A pass involves an intentional decision to include someone else and work with them to generate a certain result. Within passing is collaboration, teamwork, and mutual interest. And when you live in a way that considers others, inviting them into your world, it’s a much brighter place to live with more understanding and less suffering.

But today, I want to talk about Making the Pass through the lens of underserved youth. As an athlete myself I know first hand the value in playing team sports - the meritocracy of it where you get out what you put it, the structure guidance and mentorship, and the opportunity for advancement that lies within it. Unfortunately many under-served do not have access to organized sports and therefore do not have that influence to develop in a well-rounded way. That is why I chose to fundraise for the non-profit Peace Players, to bridge the opportunity gap and drive change in the lives of deserving kids.

Here is an important clarification on goal setting. You don’t accomplish a goal simply because you have one. Yes, you are 42% more likely to accomplish a goal if you write it down, but that’s more because it means you acknowledged your intention and you’re serious about it, not that there’s any mechanism behind it.

However, a well crafted goal SMART goal gives you the direction required to figure out exactly what you need to do to accomplish it.

When you set a goal you approach progress from something called "outcome orientation", which is taking the position of generating a specific result. Well outcomes are a delayed indication of the work you’ve been doing, they’re a lagging measure of the action you’ve taken. So if that’s delayed, then what can we do in the now to accomplish our goals?

Take action! Once you know where you’re headed, you need to get there. You need to take action. And that’s called "process orientation", approaching progress from the lens of the things that you do to take steps toward your goals.

But even then, how sustainable is it to use will power and discipline to take action? It will run dry eventually, which is why it’s important to make one final shift toward "identity orientation". When the actions you take are simply the person you are, then it’s not longer a decision to take the right action, it just becomes something you do. 

You see there’s a system to all of it, and making that change you’ve always had on your heart is all possible when you have a comprehensive plan.

I want to talk about something that is true for a lot of us. We are stubborn. When we have our mind made up about something, or an opinion on a topic, we hold onto that perspective very tightly. It makes sense because there is an identity built within that viewpoint, from which we have drawn other conclusions and generated other opinions. 

The problem is though, that when we’re challenged in that opinion, it becomes more a matter of protecting our perspectives than having an open conversation about what is right. This happens across the board from social issues to common preferences to politics to religion. 

I believe the reason we do this is because we don’t want to be wrong, because if we are wrong, what does that say about us? We’re incompetent, ill-informed, uneducated, and therefore not valuable.

But, what if I were to flip it for you and tell you that changing your mind is a strength? Hmm. Well it is, and here’s why.

When you have the awareness to recognize that your perspective or opinion isn’t completely accurate, and you take action to renew or improve it, it’s actually a major display of emotional maturity. It demonstrates that your identity isn’t tied to you being right on something, but instead suggests an overall capacity and willingness to become more right in many different things. This more generally lifts your value, displays that you can become educated, opens the door to conversations that will allow you to be more informed, and therefore you are more competent.

3 of the most powerful words a leader can say are “I don’t know” because the vulnerability in it implies confidence. It’s an expression of humility in asking for support, and it’s proactive in its approach to find the answer.

So believe it! Changing your mind is a strength, and when you become open to being persuaded, you’ll stumble upon much more authentic, pure, and appropriate strategies for life.

Life goes on.

The good, the bad, and the ugly. The planned, the unexpected and the spontaneous. We have a tendency to attach so much anticipation and emotion to future events, and while it does pull us out of the present moment, it’s fascinating to think about how the future becomes our present.

Then, it becomes our past. That’s the core message. If you’re ready for it or not, life goes on. It’s your choice to decide if you move along with it.

For me, it was a big exciting launch day at my full-time job and I couldn’t even picture what life would be like after it, because it was the culmination of so much hard work. And here I am on the other side. In college, it was a reflection on heartbreak and private matters and injuries, but it all came and went.

I don’t mean to sound cynical or pessimistic. I’m just bringing this up to share more about our reality. The only thing we can do right now is the next thing. We can’t change the past. Sure we can influence the future but we can’t craft it perfectly. What we have in front of us today are the choices we make in the present. Time doesn’t care how you feel today or if you’re in the mood to dwell or celebrate. Life is just going to keep moving forward. you need to make sure you do the same if you want to keep up.

“You’ll never know until you try”. The expectations we have are imposed by ourselves and those around us, and usually aren’t all that fair. We expect that we need to succeed in everything we do, that it’s only worth it if we succeed and there’s some measurable outcome that comes from it.

But that’s not fair, especially in the context of this quote, because all that’s asked of you is that you try. When you try, you make an attempt or effort to do something. It’s all about the process, and not the outcome.

That’s because when you try, both failure and success are very possible options. And that’s great! It means your effort and commitment to trying is what should be measured, not the result generated. If you start approaching things with curiosity, and you start giving them a try, it is best that you aren’t emotionally attached to the result because that undermines your reason for trying.

Think of it this way. One of the most effective things you can do is use the trial and error process. Each time you try and don’t create what you want, it still should be viewed as a success because now you’re one step closer to doing it right and the outcome you want!

As Thomas Edison put it, “I haven’t failed, I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”.

The reason that this is all important is the quote, "you’ll never know until you try". You don’t want to live in the what if’s and could have been's in life. Might as well figure out the truth for yourself by simply giving it a try.

Have you ever heard about the power of non-verbal communication? I’m sure you have, but fortunately I came upon some research that backs it up a little more. The study was conducted by Dr. Albert Mehranian at UCLA. Dr. Mehrabian founded the 7/38/55 rule, stating that 7% of our communication is in the words we say, 38% is in our tone and the way we say it, and 55% is in our body and our posture as we deliver it. 

While the specifics are under contention, there’s one thing everyone agrees on, and it’s the idea of balance. It’s that all 3 of those elements are most definitely at play while communicating, and they need to all say the same message. In fact, when those messages are not consistent, you can know that there is an underlying disbelief or concern that isn’t being expressed. 

This is where we as leaders and communicators need to be extra cognizant of everyone’s holistic communication so that we don’t get ahead of ourselves and draw conclusions too early in conversation. These incongruencies are often displayed as micro expressions.

A good method that is shared in the book, Never Split the Difference, by Chris Voss is to use the rule of 3. If someone is saying something, make them repeat their thought in a few different ways so that they have more opportunities to express themselves. 3 opportunities seems to be the magical number when it comes to disclosing truth.

Communication is about the words you say, the way you say it, and the belief your body has behind it.

If someone achieves something amazing they often say “I was in the right place at the right time” implying that it could have been anyone, it just happened to be them. And as things start to domino and grow into massive opportunities we all look back at the lucky breaks we caught to get there.

I want to focus on one word in particular that relates to all of this, but in understanding it we flip this whole thought on its head. Coincidence. What does it actually mean if something is a coincidence?

The root words built into the word are “co” meaning together and “incident” meaning occurrence, which means that two things are happening at the same time. But then when we think of the word coincidence there’s an element of luck, chance, and randomness built into it. Why can’t coincidence happen by design?

As David Meltzer puts it, this new form of “designed” coincidence is the combination of attention and intention. Attention helps you to know that something is happening, and intention helps direct where it will happen! When these two elements are applied, you’ll find coincidences start to multiply, and you know that it’s not random.

I can describe it this way too. Arnonld Palmer, a legendary golfer, once said, “It’s a funny thing. The more I practice, the luckier I get”. We can clearly see the correlation between his practice and generating positive results. He attributes those results to luck, but is that really the cause? The same goes for coincidences, they might seem lucky, but they’re really a response to the foundation you’ve laid for two things to occur together in a magical way.

I’m going to share a bit about my daily mental restart. The reason I choose to restart my brain every single day is for the same reasons you restart a computer, laptop, or anything. For whatever reason, when it starts getting slow or glitching out or being inaccurate, all you have to do is unplug it, wait 30 seconds, and plug it back in and like magic it’s as good as new.

Well, that’s what I do every morning with my brain but in the form of meditation. After I quickly ground myself by focusing on my sensations and the flow of my breath, I close my eyes and ask myself a question. “Why are you meditating today?”. My answer is always some form of, “I want my brain to work more efficiently, defaulting to the traits and perspectives I choose to embody, and I want to make higher quality mental associations more often”. Then, I turn my brain off, and picture my visual field go completely black and feel what it’s like to have zero brain activity.

Even on the days when I feel like I’m relaxed, I always find that there’s a little more of my brain to turn off.

I’m far from an expert. I’ve only been meditating about 2 years but I’ve found that very quickly I was more often in higher brain states where my processing power, ability to recall information, and ability to understand new information was far improved.

To get started, it doesn’t need to be massive. It can take you two minutes. Spend 30 seconds focusing on your breath, 30 mores seconds focusing on your breath with your eyes closed, and then let your brain screen go completely black. Relax the tension on your face particularly in your forehead and eyes, and just let yourself rest.