Moments of Choice

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Coaching Note
So Thursdays I'm typically in the or during the day... in the morning, and afternoon and then I head to the wrestling room in the afternoon so practice is usually at 6 30 and I grab a quick bite to eat at home and I get up here and get to work all right we all going to sit.

Practice is over. I told you this was a very important night. Right? Very important. I want to talk to you tonight about halloween, practice, and homework.

Have you ever been trick-or-treating and you walked up to a house with your friends and you came to the house and nobody was at the house but sitting on that porch was a bowl of candy? Yeah, and maybe it had Baby Ruths in it and Reese's peanut butter cups and Hershey's chocolates and it looked really good.
Where all these different candies, all your favorite candies are there, but there was a little sign there that said take only one and you know what? You're gonna have a choice to make when you come to a bowl like that and there's a sign that says take only one.

You're going to look around and your friends have already gotten what they got..., maybe somebody got two or three and you're gonna be standing there looking at that bowl and you look around there's gonna be nobody around and you need to make a choice and only you will know what that choice was.

Coaching Note
The nice thing about wrestling which teaches kids at a young age is it's all about responsibility and it's your responsibility. You're out there. There's nobody you can point to and say "Hey somebody else messed up."  It's all you so I tell them when they cross that line and they go into the ring they're responsible for what happens out there and they're responsible how they behave and how they choose all those things are really helpful for kids.

So there's an experiment they looked at kids..., at candy bowls. They did an experiment they had a room with a candy bowl in it and the kids got in and the sign said take only one and a lot of kids didn't take one they took two or they took three but they did the same exact experiment and they put a mirror in the room
and they the sign said take only one and guess what the kids that walked in the room with a mirror and the sign that said take only one they usually took only one now why is that

Coaching Note
I've always said that wrestling is like neurosurgery passion and skill keep you on top but really it's a lot more than that I mean it's the intensity it's the it's the high risk emotional and adrenaline that you get when you're in the wrestling room similar that you get in the in the operating room and i've just always felt it had the same kind of intensity and the same personal nature to it.

We're at wrestling practice and we're working out. We're working at a wrestling practice and our partner is grinding our face into the mat and it is a miserable night of practice and I am you're tired and you want to go home and coach says 30 seconds left and all you want to do is get out of there and get home
are you gonna go the distance or are you gonna coast?

it's a choice you may need to make I can kind of stall a little bit catch my breath make it look like I'm wrestling are you going to do that or are you going to go the distance give everything you got that's a choice you're going to make and again nobody's going to know but you now let's say you're at home and you're doing your homework and you're working there and you're studying and you've got an exam tomorrow or a quiz and you know you know the material pretty good you probably get an 80 or B or C on it but another 30 minutes will get you an A. Are you going to close the book and coast? Are you going to go all the way?

Maybe it's not a test maybe it's your reading log where you got to record how many pages you did and how much time you did or it's your band log if you're practicing an instrument and you got to record what you did for your music teacher you got to put down something you're going to have a choice and only you is going gonna know.

Coacing Note
I talk to all the kids that they are the author of the dictionary they carry around and what that means is the words that we think about the words that we talk about the words that we envision are what we become so when I talk to these kids at practice I talk to them about who holds you down nobody what are we on our feet relentless who owns the third period we do these are the kinds of like empowerment thoughts that kids really get into and then they they own it.

 

I'm going to tell you something when you make those choices they're either going to be positive charged or negative charged, so you need to think about it when you make those choices. They're going to be times when you get challenged like that now I told you tonight was a really important night because you know I could I bet you I would make a wager that every single person in this room has taken the shortcut once has not done the thing that they thought they should do maybe not even done the honorable thing every single person in this room maybe you think you're unique you're not. Everybody in this room even the folks over there everybody everybody including me has fallen short and has taken a shortcut and has done things that we're not that proud of maybe even dishonored ourselves
because that's the choice you're gonna make am I gonna honor myself or am I not gonna honor myself but this is why tonight's an important night is because we can wipe the slate clean tonight.

We can say right now from this night forward I'm gonna go the distance I'm not gonna take the shortcut I'm gonna do the honorable thing I will not dishonor myself I am going the distance not throwing the towel in. We can make a vow tonight to never do that again and move forward. Does anybody know what a vow is? What's a vow?

That's right. It's a promise on steroids isn't it? All right. So I'm telling you tonight, we are gonna take all those things that we're not so proud of and we didn't do what we should do we're gonna throw them in the garbage can and we're gonna say from tonight on we are going to go the distance you want to take that vow with me
and then we're not going to feel any of that regret we're not going to feel any of that negative energy we're going to be positive from here on out.

All right. You want to say it? I'm going to go the distance. Say it.

Tonight from now on I'm going to go the distance. Tonight... from now on I choose honor not dishonor now.

I like it it feels good doesn't it? So everything in the past is gone. It's from this point forward now.
It's a special night I think we should celebrate. I got some treats for you all right and take only one

From tonight forward

Right?

From tonight forward
From tonight forward
From tonight forward
From tonight forward
From tonight forward