Losing for the win

One of the best ways to test one’s resilience is to coach little league.

It’s a crash course in patience, adaptability, emotional regulation, and finding silver linings (and that’s just for the coaches!). This is my life right now, spending most of my spring with a group of energetic, easily-distracted 7 and 8-year-olds, trying to teach them baseball.

Heading into last weekend, my son’s team was sitting at a solid 0-7. That’s right. Zero wins. Seven losses. Spirits were low and confidence a little fragile. And yet, we were about to enter a weekend tournament. That meant a clean slate and a chance to turn things around.

Game 1? A disaster.

We were unfocused, sloppy, and gave up run after run. There were errors in the field, mumblings from some parents, and kids distracted by Pokémon cards and snacks.

Game 2? Slightly better, but still another loss.

At 0-2, by the time we entered the knockout rounds, we were dead last. We needed to win three straight games, some against teams that had already beaten us. The odds were, appropriately, not in our favour.

So we simplified. We emphasized three things:

1. Focus. One play at a time, eyes on the game.

2. Effort. No matter the score, we always hustle.

3. Communication. Talk to each other. Bring energy.

It was easier for us to do this with the first two games in hindsight. I won’t lie…the coaches didn’t sugarcoat it with the kids - we used those games as examples of what not to do and drew attention to the distractions as contributing to our scattered focus. It was our way of leveraging those bad losses in some way.

Ok so Game 3? Well, we gave up five runs in the first inning and then scored none in return. It was not the start we had hoped for.

But instead of spiraling, the kids held steady. We reminded them that baseball is a game of ups and downs (the analogy of a yo-yo worked well here). All we could do was focus on what comes next. The next pitch, the next opportunity, the next hitter…. let’s focus on that.

The important word is “FOCUS” - I think our coaches may have said it about 762 times over the whole weekend!

Well, something clicked because it began to work!!

In the second inning, we held the other team scoreless with a couple of clean plays. Then we started to hit. One base at a time, one run at a time. The dugout came alive. The energy shifted.

By the end of that game? We had them beat. 13-7.

Focus was locked in and now we were on our way.

Game 4 was against the team that had beaten us in Game 2. This was going to be tough, and already felt like a mountain. But the kids showed up. Loud, focused, and connected again. We played with confidence. We made critical catches, we made plays, we got hits. With two innings to go, they couldn’t catch us. Victory.

Somehow we were now in the final.

The championship game wasn’t perfect, but it didn’t need to be. We played clean. We hit well. We had each other’s backs. And after five innings of play, we did it. 11-9 to us.

We went from winless to tournament champions. In one weekend.

“Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.” Babe Ruth

Now, I know it’s just little league. But this weekend was another reminder that resilience is really everywhere in this thing called life. And we learn the most just by living it and paying attention.

Because resilience isn’t about always winning. And it’s also not about avoiding mistakes. It’s about learning how to show up, and how to shorten the time between setbacks and recoveries.

Life is also a game of ups and downs.

Baseball is a brilliant analogy for life. It teaches us a LOT about failure. It’s a game where the best in the world fail 7 out of 10 times to get to first base (seriously, that is the stat!). So it becomes an opportunity for us to learn more from our failures that we do from our successes.

In the workplace, we all go through slumps. Bad weeks. Lost clients. Tough reviews. Moments where it feels like we’re 0-7, and everyone else is hitting home runs.

But, what are we doing between each inning?

Do we let the errors define us? Or do we refocus and reset?

For our team, it was the focus on being process-oriented (rather than outcome-oriented) that made a huge difference. We had to remind these kids what happens when we forget to focus. Because if we could get the basic things right, that was all that was in our control, and a win would come eventually.

It’s the same with challenging situations at work. It’s the small, steady things that we do consistently to show up:

• Taking a mindful pause between meetings.

• Always looking for the opportunity, even after a failure.

• Choosing to prepare thoroughly for the next meeting or pitch.

We didn’t win that tournament because of some big, dramatic speech. We won because the whole team decided to show up after losing, to focus on the process, and be ready for the next opportunity. And we did it with heart.

Until next time friends, stay resilient.

Carre @ Resilient Minds

PS - how would you rate your resilience at work? Take 3 mins to fill out this quick Resilience Scorecard.