After 6 grueling weeks of being a Division 1 student athlete, I was cut from the men's lacrosse program.
Right when I thought I was finding my identity, I had rug pulled out from under
That's as far as I made it into the first draft of this post. I started writing last week after my meeting with coach. Essentially, he recruited a large freshman class, has a large recruiting class coming in, and does not have very many seniors graduating. He told me it was an excruciating decision because he asked my teammates and the coaching staff about me, hoping they would make it an easy decision for him, but I garnered nothing but respect from the boys and the coaches.
I had so many thoughts swirling around my head, I felt like I needed to get it all out onto some sort of medium; however, when it came time to get those thoughts onto paper, I just couldn't seem to do it, hence the unfinished sentence near the top...
I am a strong believer in the idea that everything happens for a reason. I used to say it all the time to friends in high school experiencing hardship. I would encourage them to change their perspective on their situation and look at the experience as a launching pad or a divergence of their particular path of life. I am trying to look through that lens right now, but this week was hard.
I have never been one to sit around and dwell on the things that haven't gone well for me, but this week, something different sank in. I felt lazy, I slept late, I didn't eat very well, I didn't workout every day, I just wasn't feeling it. It was so not James.
Tonight, the impetus I did not know I needed has helped me turn the crank and shift my perspective. Dara Khosrowshahi, the CEO of Uber (arguably one of the nation's most well-known tech companies), a Brown alumni (!), AND a parent of a young woman in my class at Brown, delivered a keynote speech. The dude is worth more than $5 billion and runs a company that is worth about $55 billion (down from about $75 billion--ouch--but still...) and I was psyched when I heard I had the opportunity to listen to him speak.
Dara talked about his time at Brown, how he was a linked spirit between the geek squad and the jocks, both a biomedical engineer and a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity. He looked out across the crowd and as if speaking directly to my soul, he told the parents and students in the Ruth J. Simmons quadrangle that we can be amazing right now, we may, and probably should, fail right now, we may not be so amazing right now...to be completely honest I don't even remember exactly what he said. What I do remember, is the way I felt sitting in the audience. I felt inspired. I felt empowered. I imagined myself waking up before sunrise, getting my workout in, grabbing breakfast and heading off to class. With the afternoon hours I saved working out in the morning, I envision myself reading outside of my coursework and learning about whatever it was I wanted to learn about and get better at. I imagined the company I could start or the community service I could do with the extra hours I no longer spend in the lacrosse locker room or the varsity weight room.
The problem is that motivation cannot be the sole driving force. Motivation comes in the middle of the night. Motivation comes after a tough loss when you are bruised and bloodied. Motivation comes when you are beaten to the ground and struggling to crawl. During all these times, the energy required to do the work to get better is not available. This concept, in my opinion, begins to separate true champions from everybody else. True champions have the ability to focus on those feelings, really feel them, and put a plan together to get better. "Everybody else" will feel great for the time being and may put in some half-ass reps before deciding that's good enough. I never quite feel "good enough."
I think Dara's words gave me the grip to crawl out of the hole I fell into, that's what I told him when I shook his hand. In fact, the experience of listening to him was so profound to me, that I had completely forgotten about a lecture I dragged my Dad and sister to earlier that day on the Power of Finance on Environmental Change and Societal Challenges. Jeremy Grantham, a successful investor committing 98% of his net worth to climate change ($1 billion to climate change, you can do the math on his net worth...), talked about his thesis that large oil & gas companies were aware of the negative effects of fossil fuels and worked hard to brush them under the rug, much like the cigarette industry. The conversation quickly evolved into a discussion of ESG (Environmental, Social, & Governance) investing, an investing strategy rising in popularity over the last couple decades. I found it fascinating because I actually did an ESG project for the company I worked for over the summer. I considered the possibilities of my time here at Brown, and thought about how I could pursue a monetarily successful career while also attaining a morally, ethically, and sustainably successful career, much like the Mr. Grantham and the panel that spoke after his keynote.
I am hoping to start playing Club Hockey and Club Lacrosse, while deepening my involvement in the Brown Investment Group and the Brown Social Responsibility Investment Fund, both of which manage a purse of endowment money and buy and sell stocks based on weekly pitches. I am hungry for more.
Life is a beautiful gift.
J
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