“Character is built in how you act when no one is looking“. I tell my kids this frequently when teaching them about pursuing a good life.
The pursuit of character is where we find success. However, the road to success comes with many defeats! Losing is not something that we typically enjoy, but there are seasons when we can embrace loss as a way of gaining.
Earlier this month, the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs head coach, Gregg Popovich was granted a contract extension. This vote of confidence by the Spurs came following one of the most horrific seasons Coach Pop has ever coached. The Spurs finished in last place and had the worst record in the 2022/23 season.
Can you imagine destroying the reputation of your employer?
Or perhaps you are self-employed and you utterly failed at meeting the expectations of your client. Could you imagine keeping the job? Could you imagine getting renewed? To add to this, could you imagine getting paid even more money and promoted after this type of failure?
What makes this story even more spectacular is the response from Popovich (aka Coach Pop) after the season ended. Check out his remarks:
“We enjoyed the season because we had such great guys character-wise that it didn’t matter how many we lost in a row, what mattered was the film session the next day and what we have to do, and they’d be at practice or the next game and try to fulfill everything we wanted them to do,” Popovich said.
“So in a sense, it was one of the most — this will sound strange — more enjoyable years. It was fun in a way, not being on TV much and you just go to work and you don’t worry about results other than players developing and a team understanding going forward.”
If you follow basketball at all, this response from Coach Pop isn’t surprising, but it is definitely not the norm in professional sports. There is an application of grace in this story, but the bigger lesson to focus on is reputation.
Popovich is the NBA’s all-time winningest coach and has a reputation for being a player’s coach and winning often. He’s all about building a team that is based on good character and sticking to the fundamentals over the flashy. His own good character drives a culture that is contagious to those that follow him.
“You just go to work and don’t worry about the results,” said Popovich. What if we all had this mentality? I think we would see and experience a more loving society. But we don’t. The rat race is just as competitive as the basketball court and we often see the love of organizational success put as a priority over the mental health and other values of the employee.
But there are glimmers of hope in this story and others…
Terry Looper, author and multi-billionaire businessman in the oil industry, recently wrote a book, Sacred Pace, which is about his unworldly philosophies in leading a company. These philosophies prioritize families, marriages, lifestyle, and faith all before work. The one principle that stuck out to me, similar to Coach Pop’s story, is that he doesn’t make business or revenue goals. He relinquishes the purposes of his business to God’s will. It doesn’t mean tossing the strategic plan in business. The greater lesson in Looper’s book is to NOT worship the competition of our crafts so much that we lose out on the joy of the craft and the loss of living a good life.
What Coach Pop has working for him is what we all can pursue in our work, a solid reputation for being a good person of character. There is balance to life and we must understand what season we are in. Maybe it’s a season of growth, a season of change, a season to slow down, a season to put more focus at home, a season to get a project over the finish line, or a season of peace. We are all in our own unique season. Embrace the season with balance even when it’s not defined as a worldly success because there is mostly likely a greater purpose.
If you’re in a current season of burnout or disappointments, here are a few words of wisdom to fight through the rut to the silver linings.
- Know the purpose. When we know why we are doing what we’re doing, we don’t get lost in the everyday stumbling blocks. We keep going through the good and bad.
- Know how to work. Working hard is a virtue that is getting a bad rap in this burnout era. We need rest, but when we do work, let’s put in the focus and effort.
- Know the season. Like a farmer, there is a time to reap and a time to sow. The same goes for our work. We must realize that life works in rhythms…not every day or every season will look the same.
- Know the reward comes later. Sometimes we strive for the paycheck, the promotion, or just prestige. We all like rewards, but when this is the reason behind the pursuit, we will find the reward is fleeting and unfulfilling. Let’s enjoy the why in what we do, and the reward will come.
- Know that there will be bad days. Bad days will test us, but with that, it builds experience, lessons, and a purpose that can be shared with those closely following our lead.
- Know there will be better days. Every season has a beginning and an end. This perspective builds our patience and helps us appreciate when the good days arrive.
For Coach Pop, last year was just one season of many. That season lost his team’s TV visibility. That season lost his organization money. That season lost the team accolades. That season lost them celebrations. But as no one was looking at this team during the season, they worked on their character. Character is the most important pursuit in life because once you have that, success is the byproduct.
Character is to work hard, play hard, rest hard, and love others. Let the rest take care of itself!
By the way for those that don’t follow sports, the Spurs landed the #1 draft pick and one of the most desired players in the history of the NBA, Victor Wembanyama. The eyes of the world are now tuned back onto San Antonio.