In the lacrosse industry, as in many other industries, success if publicized frequently.
Visit a club lacrosse programs web-page and see the players from their program and where they’ve committed to play college lacrosse. Follow the twitter feeds of collegiate lacrosse teams and see a time-line of their successful seasons. Read the biography for any major league lacrosse player, you’ll find past individual and team accolades.
With all that success being said or typed or tweeted or shared, what isn’t frequently publicized are organizations, teams, or peoples failures.
I heard recently that 9 out of 10 entrepreneurs fail. This stat amazed me. With 90% of people failing, why is the internet flooded with so much success?
As we grow old, the fear to fail grows as well. We use the internet to paint a picture of nothing but success and greatness. We choose to hide the failures, the adversities, and the road bumps along the way.
I am guilty of painting this successful picture as well. Since failure is such a big part of our story, we should feel free to share them.
I’ve decided to share some (I could probably write a book on all of them) of my failures throughout my life as a studlete and employee here at FLG.
- In elementary school, my friend Mike and I had the idea to start Scooter Boy Lawn Co., a leaf cleaning service for homes in our area. Our goal was to raise enough money to purchase new motorized scooters. What we thought was a great idea, was never fully executed. We failed to work for something we wanted. We failed to get the money we needed. We failed to get past our business idea.
- In 6th grade, I ran for elementary school president. I lost considerably. I failed at conveying how I could make the school a better place and in communicating my ideas for why I should lead the school.
- Senior year of High School, our team had a goal of winning the New York State Class C State Championship. After winning the State Championship the year prior, our class was fighting to become the first team in Cold Spring Harbor Men’s Lacrosse history to win the NYS Championship two years in a row. After being sidelined for most of the season due to a broken collar bone, I came back for the playoffs. Our team lost in the Long Island Championship. I played one of the worst games of my career. I failed in playing to the best of my abilities at a crucial time. Our team failed to make history that day.
- My junior and senior year playing lacrosse and attending the University of Pennsylvania, our newly appointed Head Coach set a team goal of winning the Ivy League Championship. Despite making it to first round of the Division I NCAA Playoff my senior year, our team fell short of our goal both my junior and senior years. We never got that conference championship. To this day, I think about what I and we could have done differently to accomplish our goal becoming Ivy Champs.
- After working for FLG Lacrosse for about a year, I created a program that fused multi-sport concepts and incorporated those concepts into small area competitive games. I was to call this program FLG Fusion. I ran free clinics on consecutive Friday Nights and had 3 players show up. The next year I tried running an actual Fusion program which failed to get enough players to make the event successful or profitable. Those failures have inspired me to adjust how I communicate the idea of Fusion and how I teach Fusion. To this day, I am still working on getting people to understand the impact Fusion can have on youth player development in the sport of lacrosse.
