‘I didn’t toss it high enough,’ I said. My tennis coach made an example of that comment
Serendipity is a marvelous experience. I had two moments in the last 24 hours that make me smile — a lesson from tennis, and a video of a snowboarding 4-year-old.
First, the tennis: I served yesterday, and the instructor said, “Great serve.” My comment was: “I didn’t toss it high enough.”
He gathered the other players around and said, “Nancy’s first comment was … the problem. That’s the wrong way to go about this. Instead of focusing on the problem, focus on the solution – on what you’ll do the next time – toss the ball higher …”
He wants me to turn the reaction upside down. Instead of saying, “I know this wrong,” think “I know what do to right going forward.” One focuses on the past, which I cannot change, and one reaction focuses on the future, which I have some chance of changing.
Then, I found a video. Two years ago, some parents made a video of a 4-year-old snowboarding. Their daughter, dressed in a dinosaur ski suit, talked and sang to herself down the mountain.
“I won’t fall … maybe I will … but that’s OK … ‘cause we all do.”
She falls, says “ugh” and pops back up. Over and over. (Maybe because her knees are a bit more flexible than mine?)
So for my future tennis serves, and my fledgling fiction-writer-in-training self, I’ll try to be more like the “powder-saurus” snowboarder. “I might fall down but that’s OK, ‘cause everyone does.”
Here’s to lessons from the youngest teachers.
Nancy Napier is a distinguished professor emerita and coach for the executive MBA program in the College of Business and Economics at Boise State University in Idaho. nnapier@boisestate.edu. She is co-author of “The Bridge Generation of Vietnam: Spanning Wartime to Boomtime.”
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