How Are You Bringing Your “Why” to Life?
Lessons from Blazing New Trails in Youth Basketball and My Quest for Quality
Last year I coached 3rd grade girls basketball in a local recreational league. As you can imagine, most of the players couldn’t reach the 10 foot rim at the start of the season, including one girl (I’ll call her Gabriela for this post) who struggled to hit even the bottom of the net.
Week after week, Gabriela put in the work to learn the fundamentals and continued to improve. Still, she didn’t come close to scoring during the regular season.
Late in the fourth quarter of our league’s championship game, Gabriela received a bounce pass about eight feet from the basket. She squared up to the basket and used all of her might to launch a shot. The packed gym watched in complete silence and time seemed to slow down as the ball descended towards the hoop. And then…
Nothing
But
NET!
The entire stadium erupted as players, parents, and coaches cheered on this extraordinary ending to the season, a moment that was unimaginable just a few months earlier.
Unimaginable for everyone but Gabriela, that is. Calm, cool, and collected, she just turned and ran back on defense like making this clutch shot was no big deal. And, in a sense, it wasn’t. What mattered most is that Gabriela had fun throughout the season, she tried her best to get better, and she learned to be a good teammate.
My coaching experience was extra meaningful to me because it involved a new way to bring my “why” to life. After spending my career building mission-driven nonprofits and companies to empower students, leaders, and organizations to reach their full potential for impact, I had discovered a fun new way to advance this larger purpose through a sport I love.
This experience also helped me recognize an important truth that transcends basketball and is at the heart of purpose-driven leadership. Namely, we can blaze new trails to achieve our “why” over time as we change as people and leaders and as the world’s needs change.
As I reflect on my “why” and what matters most to me during this phase in my life, I’m choosing to focus on quality in three major areas: (1) quality work, (2) quality relationships, and (3) quality experiences. Below is a bit more on each area.
Quality Work: I’m fortunate to have spent my career doing work that matters for students, families, and communities. Since the majority of this time was invested in founding and building Education Pioneers, it’s rewarding to see EP’s impact continue to compound through its work and 4,600+ Alumni. Following the organization’s 20th anniversary, I’m grateful for the opportunity to continue giving back to this diverse and extraordinary network by facilitating the second cohort of the Reinventors Workshop for EP Alumni.
As I look ahead to the next decade, I’m excited to prioritize quality work with quality organizations and expect this to be a defining theme for this period.
Quality Relationships: Investing in my most important relationships - especially with my wife Doran and my daughters Julia and Vivian, along with my other family members, close friends, and teammates - is the single best way I can spend my time and energy.
Continuing to focus on the quality of my closest relationships is a choice that I’m confident will result in zero regrets in life. This belief is based on my own experience and research, including a famous Harvard study of adult life that showed that, “[t]he people who were the most satisfied in their relationships at age 50 were the healthiest at age 80.”
Quality Experiences: The past year included a number of quality experiences, including coaching basketball, watching the Giants in spring training with my lifelong friends Miguel and Brian, going to Japan for two weeks in our first big international trip as a family, and attending amazing concerts, comedy shows, and sporting events (including the 49ers recent playoff win over the Packers!).
I’m currently looking forward to a family trip we’re planning to Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park. And, of course, I’m back for another season of basketball coaching!
Why am I continuing on a quest for quality in my life? Quite simply, it’s because quality endures and compounds. The quality work that goes into building a purpose-driven organization impacts the lives of its stakeholders and their loved ones for generations. Quality relationships that are built with love, vulnerability, and trust bring meaning and joy that compound over decades. Quality experiences expand our horizons, giving us new perspectives on our place and purpose in the world.
As purpose-driven leaders, we can keep moving towards towards quality or other core values in how we bring our “why” to life. While this journey will vary based on each leaders’ priorities, strengths, and season of life, we all have the opportunity to define what success means to us and blaze new trails that go against popular culture.
We can value impact over income. We can think and build for the long term instead of focusing exclusively on the short term. We can measure our life by an inner scorecard rather than an outer scorecard focused on money, power, or status. We can choose to play infinite games instead of finite, zero-sum ones. We can be courageous, kind, and optimistic, embracing eulogy virtues over résumé virtues. And, in pioneering purposeful paths, we can manifest the powerful words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and “make our lives sublime.”