Leadership 7, Make Each Day Your Masterpiece (Bot9 #145)
"Make Each Day Your Masterpiece" John Wooden's Leadership Lesson #7 by Keith Wahl
John Wooden wrote 12 Leadership Lessons that enhance our understandings of leadership and success. These 12 lessons will be the focus of Bottom of the Ninth for 12 weeks.
"Make it a great day!"
I still remember the first time I heard this from one of my dear friends and mentors, Rod Olson. "MAKE" it a great day? What the heck are you talking about? Don't you HAVE a great day?
When I asked Rod about it later, it became one of the foundational elements of my life moving forward. HAVING a great day is a passive activity, while MAKING it a great day is a proactive mindset. No matter what happens to you that day, you make it something that contributes to your growth as a human being.
Cam Newton had a rough day on Sunday. On the field, his team lost the Super Bowl. Off the field, his reputation has taken a hit. His attitude during the postgame press conference was less than desirable and reminiscent of his moping during the early stages of his career. It was sad to see a guy being propped up as the ambassador of the league behave in the exact opposite way of the current ambassador, Peyton Manning. Manning's lost a lot, but we've never seen him behave that way.
I'll be honest - I suck at this. I'm awful. Each of the last two springs we've lost baseball games to opponents to which we had no business losing. And I Cam Newton'd my way around after the game, home, to work the next few days, and to subsequent practices. I have a lot of grace for Cam in this situation because I've done it, and I didn't have Bronco cornerback Chris Harris in the same room barking about how they dared me to beat them throwing the ball. I only had the voices in my head (we all have those, right???).
My only hope is to grow in this area, in good times and in bad. I have to continue to improve at making each day my masterpiece. On the good days, I must give thanks, as Peyton Manning did after the game, to the "big man upstairs." On the bad days, I must take comfort in James 1:2, and “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds.†They are an opportunity to grow. Then, and only then, will each day be my masterpiece.
Until then, I'm just going to keep working on my own shortcomings and give grace to guys like Cam who have a rough day in front of millions of people.