I Got Your Ali Baba Right Here!

In Syriana, an oil executive warns an attorney about the dangers of due diligence: "Dig six feet, find three bodies. But dig twelve feet, you find maybe forty."

There's also the Aristotelian adage that the unexamined life is not worth living.

Regardless, I don't mind coming across the proverbial forty bodies if it provides greater understanding.

Earlier in the week, a colleague of mine asked how I am able to withstand criticism. I spent quite a bit of time the next couple of days thinking about it and this is what I came up with:

Almost everything I learned related to ethos I learned from religious training; almost everything I learned related to pathos I learned from athletic training.

I recalled a previous conversation I had with another colleague about raising children: there's a certain part of me that is fearful my child, particularly a boy, will not be the sports addict his father is. In my everyday life, I often rely on the lessons I learned through organized athletics and I'd be a much weaker person without them.

Anyway, I told my colleague I always hear criticism, but don't always listen to it. Let me explain.

I played basketball with another kid from junior high all the way through high school. On paper, he was the superior athlete. Meaning, he could jump higher, run faster, and lift more.

The two things that made us vastly different (and, I believe, put me on the regional team at the end of the season): I hated to lose and I hated to be yelled at, in that order.

If I screwed up, I got yelled at; if I got yelled at, I made it a point not to repeat that particular screw-up. My teammate, however, if he screwed up, he got yelled at; if he got yelled at, he got so nervous, he'd screw up again. Rinse and repeat.

When I was about 15, our basketball coach was particularly upset after a disappointing loss. The next practice, he was still livid. The first time somebody ran the wrong play, he took that moment to explode. He yelled and used words I wouldn't use around war veterans. As he continued to yell, he got more and more upset. After telling us how sick and tired he was of being sick and tired, he took the key ring off his shorts and hurled them as fast as he could against the wall.

When he first started his rant, the JV coach took a knee against the mat against the baseline expecting to be there a while. He was allowed to do this; the rest of us were not. While he yelled, we were expected to stand still, neither slouching nor making a lot of movement. As he paced, we were expected to keep eye contact on him. What we weren't allowed to do: smile, smirk, roll eyes, or make any movement that might enrage him further. To do so would risk an invitation to, as he put it, run until he puked.

Getting back to the story, as the keys were hurled against the wall, they headed right for the JV coach's head. He quickly ducked to avoid them while Coach didn't miss a beat, continuing to yell. The rest of us were temporarily distracted at the near miss and a few bit their lip to avoid laughing.

A few minutes later, we resumed practice and everything went back to normal.

That, my friend, was the best training I had at hearing, but not listening to, criticism; I hope my kid learns the same lessons.