Steve the Owl's Blog

Hi, everyone. I hope you are enjoying this Christmas Day. As I write this, I spent some time with my wife and our pets (we have a dog named RJ and a cat named Leopard) today and enjoying some downtime. For our Christmas tradition, we eat a roast chicken we cook in our slow cooker, and my wife is currently putting the finishing touches on it. This is definitely a time where, regardless of one’s religious or cultural heritage, that people can get together with loved ones.

However, as a veteran, I have been thinking about other things this holiday season. My war, the Iraq War, is finally over after nearly nine years. At this time, I always think about the differences in times between the wars of today and the wars of yesteryear. This is because of a documentary that I have seen several times on the History Channel called The Christmas Truce. This is a documentary that talks about the famous cease fire between British and German forces in the first year of World War I, in 1914. Nearly 100 years ago, the great powers of Europe were engaged in a conflict that everyone called “the war to end all wars,” because they thought that the advanced and brutal weaponry of modern warfare would make the powers that be that much more reluctant to send (at the time) their men into war. However, at that time, they found out that modern warfare ended up causing the bulk of the war to be fought in the trenches, as the war largely stalemated and they had to hunker down for what would ultimately be four and a half years.

In this environment, several junior enlisted soldiers in the German Army lifted the white flag of truce and lobbed cakes over no man’s land and into the British trenches. The British soldiers worried that it was a trick, but they realized that the Germans were acting in earnest when they came out of the trenches and into No-Man’s Land (so named because it was the area between the trenches, and there were very few attempts to cross into this territory, because it often meant certain death) and started singing Christmas carols.

Amazingly, several junior enlisted British soldiers began to enter No-Man’s land as well. British and Germans (as best as they could given the language difference) began singing and exchanging stories with each other and enjoying some time off. Perhaps what was even more amazing about this truce is the way that it humanized those who were across no man’s land and in the trenches. This is something that we don’t think of any longer, but there was a time when war was seen as something much different than it is today. While it is true that people still died in wars before the First World War (for example: the war that to this day has the most American casualties was the Civil War in the 19th century), the warriors still saw each other as opponents rather than enemies. This truce was something that was a threat to the higher ranking brass, who worried that it would be difficult to resume fighting, and it never happened again, but I am nevertheless touched by that glimpse of humanity in the middle of a terrible situation.

It has been said that no one wants peace more than those of us who have been to war. There is something that happens in that time that serves to shake humanity, and it puts such a strain on families. However, the story of the Christmas Truce gives us hope for another way. I first heard this story in 2004, nine months after I left Iraq for good. The year before, just as most of us suspected, our Christmas began shortly after midnight as we were up late watching movies and playing games, and we heard mortar fire in the distance as we knew that this would be a day that we could enjoy as best we could, with officers and everyone at the platoon level or above (I was a sergeant, which meant that I was an assistant squad leader, or team leader) took over guard shifts for the rest of us as our Christmas present from them.

Still, what is so powerful about the message of the Christmas Truce is that it is possible, even in the worst conditions, to preserve our humanity. However, this can be a threat for those who want aggression to continue. May we all keep the spirit of the ChristmasTruce all year round!

How have you found humanity where it was least likely?

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Lord, grant us the serenity to accept the things that we cannot change, the courage to change the things that we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.- Reinhold Niebuhr

Hi, everyone. I hope you are enjoying this holiday season. The last two posts I’ve written on have focused on the nature of some of the criticism of the world of personal development. However, as I said recently, I am going somewhere with this criticism. So, if part of the criticism is the idea that everything is absolutely limitless turns into self-centered behavior or disappointment when things don’t go exactly how we think they will go, what will we do instead?

Well, I decided to wait to write this series (which I had been think about for some time) because I had a book in my reading queue that seemed perfect to address this question: The Wisdom to Know the Difference: When to Make a Change– and When to Let Go by Eileen Flanagan.

Smart Personal Development

What I think is so great about this book is the way that it focuses on a way that we make a mistake when we think that we are the center of our own universe, and that trying to say that every single thing is in our control will lead to experiences that will ultimately humble us.

One of the big themes in the book is how that life has a funny way of not really moving in a straight line. This is something I can sympathize with, as someone who went to high school wanting to go to West Point, deciding instead (in part because of an inability to do the eight pull-ups necessary to pass the physical fitness test, peaking at two no matter how hard I tried) to go to a maritime college. Then, I realized that the world of the sea was not a world for me, and I thought that my path through life would be as a military chaplain. Then, I ended up going to the one college I swore I would never go to when I was younger (West Virginia University) and ended up finding a place that I absolutely loved and felt at home. I then went to a small town in the Ohio River Valley in western West Virginia and made an attempt at running for public office. Realizing that life was sending me in a different direction, I then moved to the main campus in the Philadelphia suburbs, and eventually to Philadelphia itself.

I don’t think that all of these things were predestined for me in any way. However, I do think that my life experiences helped inform each of these decisions. Ultimately, I came to realize that I was basing my decisions on my best judgment based on the information and the knowledge and awareness that I had at the time. This fits in part of the lessons that Eileen Flanagan teaches. She points out that we are limited in our understanding at the time, and that we can develop to do something better once we have humility.

A Fuller Picture

The other thing that I found so fascinating about this book was the way that we should think about what things we can and cannot do. In something that mirrors teaching in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, The Wisdom to Know the Difference focuses on the way that taking a humble attitude and being open to life’s experience actually makes it possible for the things that we can change to expand rather than contract.

One example in my own life was when I decided to run for public office for the 2006 campaign. I knew that my efforts would be quixotic, but I thought that I could make a bid for Congress. Ultimately, talking to a friend of mine, I realized that this would be biting off way more than I could chew, s0 I should consider a smaller office instead. I realized that running for the state legislature meant that I could run in a geographically compact area and get a chance to talk to more people in my district.

I lost by a huge margin, but I did ultimately make an impact in policy. I made one of my key issues public transportation, which many thought was a waste of time for such a small state with no city having a population greater than 57,000 (the most recent census now says that West Virginia’s biggest city only has 51,000 people). However, there were others who were trying to make the same argument from bigger cities, and the fact that someone who lived halfway between the first- and third-largest city in the state wanted to see it happen made it a little more feasible. While people in my party thought it would never happen, and people in the other party thought it was ridiculous, ultimately, there was momentum behind the idea, and two years later, my opponent actually voted for a pilot program to bring public transportation back and forth to the two largest cities in the state as a pilot program. I’m not saying that this would’ve never happened without me, but there were definitely people who didn’t think about the idea before I ran, and those people eventually became believers.

How do you try to make an impact when you can make a difference?

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Hi, everyone! I hope today finds you well, and for you Seinfeld fans out there, I hope you are enjoying a Festivus for the rest of us. Yesterday, I started a series on answering some criticisms of the world of personal development, some of which I thought had a point. Many of the criticisms were against the efforts of those who preach a literal and hardcore version of the Law of Attraction, that in its strictest definition, argues that anyone can have anything in the world if they only want it badly enough. Part of the complaint about these works were the ways that they have a tendency to focus almost exclusively on personal things rather than societal things.

They Can’t Both Win

One of the questions that I have never seen answered in some of the works that focus more on this self-focused version of the Law of Attraction (which truly does seem to put the reader at the center of his/her Universe) is what happens if two people have equally valid and worthy things that they seek, and what happens if they seek something that is in conflict with each other.

Here is an example: for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, it is now winter. However, here in Philadelphia, it has actually been above 50 degrees (10 degrees Celsius) each of the last three days. Currently, as I write this (past midnight), the temperature is still up, and it is raining rather than snowing. Many people who work outside are very content with the fact that, barring a huge shift in the next two days, that we will not have a White Christmas this year. However, people who are farmers in the West Coast rely heavily on snow melt to water their crops. Neither is a selfish desire. The outdoor workers know that they can’t work or feed their family if there is inclement weather. The farmers know that they can’t have crops if there is not.

It either has to snow or not snow. Which one should we root for? Each one has a worthy cause. If the Law of Attraction in its most literal sense, if it is to be believed this way, would say that it is the one who wants it more. Well, what if both want it the same? Where does the tiebreaker go?

These are just some thoughts as I move forward. Come back soon for the conclusion of this series, and you will find the solution to the question of what kind of personal development we should seek if we acknowledge the limits of the Law of Attraction, and if it really is as all-or-nothing as its strictest proponents claim it is.

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Hi, everyone! I hope today finds you doing well. Recently, I read the book Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking is Undermining America by Barbara Ehrenreich. The basic premise of her book (written after a bout with breast cancer when she described the way that she felt that her cancer was turned juvenile with the insistence on use of the color pink and that the instance on the survivor narrative removed all others) is that an emphasis on focusing purely on positive thinking and a literal understanding of the Law of Attraction means that people ignore the things that need to be fixed in society. With this in mind, I am beginning a three-part series examining the question of personal developments dark side.

A Note Before Beginning

I am not writing this note to say that I have completely given up on personal development. However, I think that it is very important that those of us who believe in personal development engage those who criticize the field and, when the critics have a point, refine our understanding of personal development. While personal development is not science per se, I feel that it should be capable of withstanding scrutiny.

Personal Development or Societal Development

One of the biggest criticisms that Ehrenreich offers (that I feel has merit) is that some works of personal development completely ignore the societal issues at stake. While I do believe in Jim Rohn’s belief that we focus on the set of our sails, I do think that we should also make a continued and persistent fight for justice. I have heard some personal development writers talk about how that we can become philanthropists when we become really wealthy (and I realize that sometimes they have a point that some things take a lot of money), but the simple truth is that people in the United States who make less than $50,000 a year give a much higher percentage of their money to charity (including religious organizations) than those who make more than $100,000 a year (4% vs. 2%). Some have said that efforts at improving the lot of others is futile, so why even bother?

Perhaps the absolute worst thing of all that I read excusing selfishness in the personal development world was in The Science of Getting Rich, where Wallace Wattles says that “true philanthropy” is building one’s own wealth so that there is one less person who is poor, and that donating to the poor should not be done because it not only makes things worse for the poor person, but it makes someone think about poverty, which makes it impossible to ever get rich in the first place. (This one paragraph alone was enough to tell me to keep looking this spring when deciding on the books for my eBook Giveaway.)

A Different Presentation

I am not defending the Wattles quote (because I feel that it is indefensible), but I think that there are some things that are written in the world of personal development that have good intentions, but are worded in a way that could be harmful for others. One of those is the idea that our outer world is the reflection of our inner world. With true atrocities like the Holocaust and, as someone who lives in Pennsylvania is painfully aware of with the scandals that have been revealed over the last two months, of people abusing their position of authority to harm children in a profound way, I think it is safe to say that these things are not their fault. Instead, I think that those works that talk about the response to events in the world around us have a much better message to convey to help those who have gone through some truly horrific things.

With the Law of Attraction being used by some as a way to turn the universe into a genie or a mail-order catalog, we should look to works of personal development that teach us to live a life of generosity, discipline, hard work, and thrift. I’m not saying that we should try to avoid success, or try to improve our situation in life (my businesses, my blog, and my investments clearly demonstrate that I do not believe that), but that we should continue to examine our reading in personal development and the kind of personal development that each presents. I am going somewhere with this, and I ask of you to continue to look back and join me on this effort.

How do you test your works of personal development?

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Hi, everyone. I thank those of you who’ve stopped by my blog while I was away for the last couple of weeks grading research papers, doing a research paper, and giving and grading finals for the semester. My first semester as a student teacher made me think a lot about the nature of effort, which was reinforced by a picture that my fourth grade teacher posted on Facebook a few months ago. It was a picture from our class play, Rampunzel (I grew up in Richwood, “The Ramp Capital of the World.” If you don’t know what ramps are, they are the onion’s wild, stinky cousin, and if you get too close to them, they will stain your hands a purplish black, almost like ink. I’ve never eaten ramps, because quite frankly, the smell alone made me sick to the point that I feel a little queasy thinking about them.), an adaptation of Rapunzel.

A Leading Man?

At the time of the play, I was 4’3, ten years old, and thanks to puberty, even most of the girls in my fourth grade class were taller than me. However, I’d developed a bit of a reputation from class sketches and Christmas plays in my hometown, mainly because I was really good at memorizing my lines. We were told that we could write down the three roles we wanted for the play, or if we didn’t want to act, we could opt to be a stage manager. I opted to audition for Spencer, the male lead; Sam, the second male lead; and one of the lumberjacks. The auditions for Spencer came first.

Our teacher, Ms. Barrett, gave us the script, and a one-day warning to read two pages of the script and learn our lines for one of the scenes. She read the lines off stage (there was no stage, per se, at this stage, so we stood in front of the class), and we were basically acting the scene out by ourselves. I was one of the last people to audition. However, when it came for my turn, I did something that absolutely no one else before me or after me did when it came time to audition, which I surely thought someone would would do.

I fell.

On purpose.

In a classroom with a very thin carpet and no padding.

Why would I do something like that? I did it because at the end of the scene, Spencer was supposed to climb a tree, but he fell trying to reach his lady love, the title character of the play. I pantomimed climbing, and when I got to the line, “If I could just get to the next step, the rest of the climb will be easy,” I fell like a rock. My best friend at the time, Eric, told me that he was amazed that I actually fell when the script said to. A lot of other people said the same thing. The next day, I found out that the part was mine.

I’m not saying that I necessarily won the part because I was the best actor, but because I was the one person completely committed to getting the lead role, to the point of falling flat when the script called for it. This audition taught me something that has served me very well over the last 21 1/2 years: you must always do your best. You might not be the best, or have the natural qualities that others do, but if you outwork someone, you will be surprised what you will accomplish.

How have you succeeded beyond expectations by giving your all?

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His problem is that he was born on third and thinks he hit a triple.- Molly Ivins

Hi, everyone. For my American readers, I hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving. This holiday made me think of the things that we have that others might not have. (I couldn’t pick one Jim Rohn quote to settle on to complement the Molly Ivins quote, so I would say that learning from the wisdom of Jim Rohn is another thing that I am thankful for.) However, I’ve also thought about how many times that we can be completely unaware of how we have been blessed, and how that this can lead to trivializing what others have to do in order to succeed.

The Myth of Being Self-Made

One of the things that we often hear is someone who has had a lot of material success insisting that it was all an act of will. Even those who had advantages from their parents tend not to notice those, and insist that it was something that they did. One of the biggest examples that I saw of this in action was a friend of my wife who insisted that those who hadn’t succeeded the way he did were just lazy and looking for excuses, while he was an example of someone who worked hard. I’m not saying that he didn’t work hard, or that he isn’t smart, and doesn’t deserve his success, but let’s look at this a little bit closer.

He is an electronics enthusiast, who has worked on electronics nearly his whole life. What he won’t tell you is that this is because his parents had the means to give him the electronics that would help him get better at his field. When he grew up, he won some scholarships on merit, at his first college received a scholarship because of his disability before transferring to a private university, and his parents paid the difference as he went to one of the most expensive colleges in the country, with tuition, room, and board coming in at over $50,000 per year. This meant that he got out of school debt free, which is a huge advantage that many students don’t have. His parents also gave him the money for a down payment for a house in a nice neighborhood in the Austin suburbs, thus guaranteeing that he wouldn’t have to save for several years while renting or make next-to-no down payment and have larger mortgage payments and mortgage insurance (which is mandatory for those who owe more than 80% of the value of the house). Despite all of this, he still insisted that he was a Horatio Alger story at work.

Acknowledging Others and Othering

Another thing that is so easy to miss is a concept known as “othering,” which derives its name for someone who is clearly aware that he/she is part of an out group and has several disadvantages because of that. The most commonly-known examples of this in the United States are race and gender. However, there are many ways that someone can be othered. For example, coming from West Virginia (a state that a lot of people still, no matter how many times I have told them, don’t realize is not Virginia, but its own state that stayed in the Union during the Civil War and became its own state in order to do so), I don’t know of any other state that actually had a sitting Vice President make incest jokes about it. (Dick Cheney did this when a family tree project pointed out that he had relatives with the name Cheney on both sides of his family tree.) This is because, let’s be honest, Appalachians get a bum rap in this country that few others get on a purely regional basis. This comes into play in academia, because the natural assumption a lot of people have when they hear me talk is that I am stupid. However, I have instead decided to work twice as hard to prove that I am worthy of the program for which I am seeking my doctorate.

I don’t write this to disparage any individual or to begrudge anyone making the most of their situation. (I know that my wife will inherit some farmland that was part of her parents’ divorce settlement, so I’m not saying that I have no advantages.) However, I bring this up to ask us to remember to be grateful for all of the ways that others have fought to give us advantages, and to remember to have a spirit of generosity no matter how you have succeeded, or are still working to succeed. Maybe we should think of this as whether or not we should work to help society rather than just individuals. Maybe it means that if you are making an effort to succeed, you shouldn’t look down on others. Maybe they haven’t had their moment of realization yet, and they will get there. Maybe they are happy with their life. Either way, I think that all of us will do better when we realize if we hit a triple, or if we were simply born on third.

What are some advantage you have had, and what do you do to help others get their triple?

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Hi, everyone! I hope you are doing good today. I’m writing today because I’ve been thinking about experimenting. Recently, I bought a new heart-rate monitor to replace my old one. It’s not that my old one was bad, it’s just that it’s made for people who are doing less continuous work, and in order to get a reading, you have to hold down on the monitor with one finger. Needless to say, this can be quite awkward when running and needing to hold it for several seconds to get a pulse.

The Heart at Work

However, one of the big things with any new heart rate monitor is finding out how well it works. So, out of curiosity, when I first bought the heart-rate monitor, I decided to use it not just on easy days, but to check my pulse on hard days as well. The first one was a fast day, and I found out that my maximum heart rate was 191, rather than the 188 that I originally thought it was. This changed my pulse, because easy days are based on the maximum heart rate.

Then, a couple of days later, I did sets of 2 1/2 miles at my tempo pace with four 200-meter runs at my mile pace. When I did this, I was surprised to find out that, for the most part, my mile pace wasn’t long enough to get my pulse close to the maximum, but actually stayed at the tempo pace.

I found this to be an interesting experience, because learning about the way my body recovers, as well as learning my limits, helps me know how hard I can push it. If you don’t know what the limits are, it is easy to perform well under your potential. This is why I think that it is important to occasionally find out just how much you can do.

What things do you do to know when you are really giving it your all, or test your limits?

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“For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end. For all those whose careers have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.” Senator Edward M. Kennedy, 1980 Democratic convention, after losing the Presidential nomination to incumbent President Jimmy Carter

“You won’t have Nixon to kick around any more.” Former Vice President Richard M. Nixon, after losing the 1962 California gubernatorial election

Hi, everyone. I hope you are having a good day today. Last week was Election Day for those states and municipalities that have off-year elections (where neither the President nor Congress stand for election). In Pennsylvania, that means that city, township, and county governments, as well as some judicial seats, were on the ballot. Reading the returns, and some of the remarks by the victorious and defeated candidates, brought back memories of my own run for the WV House of Delegates five years ago.

The Sacrificial Lamb

In July 2005, weeks after moving to Ripley, West Virginia, I filed official paperwork to make my run for West Virginia House of Delegates (the lower house of the state legislature) in 2006. I was 25 years old, and I did not come from money, so I knew that my race was difficult. However, I was convinced that I could win in the same way another relatively unknown candidate did a few years earlier against the House Minority Leader: knock on doors and catch a seemingly entrenched incumbent who took his seat for granted off guard. Six months later, the candidate filing period came and went, and I found out that I would win the nomination in May, because no one else ran for the seat. (There were rumors of other people considering a run, but considering that I only raised $800 for the primary [including $500 of my own money], this would’ve killed my chances before the race even started.)

There is a term in political science for candidates like this: sacrificial lambs. Often, they are recruited by party establishment figures (I was not) for a race where the party knows it will almost certainly lose. This is done in order to keep the party’s name in the public, and avoid losing any momentum the party is trying to build. When this happens, there is very little financial and machine support, but sacrificial lambs often earn good will from the party when there is a seat where they think they can win. When I ran, I was told repeatedly how difficult my opponent would be to beat, to the point where I finally said that I wish that they would stop.

By the time November 2006 rolled around, I turned 27, won the party’s respect through my hard work and maneuvering to get a debate, but I still couldn’t raise much money. (The final total was $3400 compared to $20,000 for my opponent.) Still, I was shocked to find that, not only did I lose, but I only won 38% of the vote. When I went to the radio and newspaper reporters that night, I congratulated my opponent and thanked my supporters. I was asked about running again (which seemed odd to me considering the lack of institutional support and not breaking 40%), and I told them I wasn’t sure about my political future, which would depend in part on academic and professional obligations. (I made my final decision not to run again in March 2007.)

Entitlement

Fast-forward to last Tuesday. Bruce Castor, one of the county commissioners from Montgomery County, lost his bid to keep the majority in the county commission. (Montgomery County allows each party to nominate two candidates for county commission, thus guaranteeing one seat for the minority party.) When he gave his speech, he complained about being outraised and a 30,000 vote registration disadvantage (in a county with over 600,000 people), even though his party had never been in the minority. At one point, he even said that he would rather be fourth (and thus no longer on the County Commission) than be in the minority.

What Concession Speeches Say

Needless to say, Bruce Castor won no favors by his speech that day, even though he had to work with the winners, and he did provide them lip service later in the speech. However, I think that there is a lot to be learned about someone by the concession speech he/she gives. Four years earlier, rather than be a team player and help out other candidates on Election Day, he went to play golf, and several in the party never forgave him for all of the other county-wide seats that were lost.

This speech is the hardest that anyone will ever give in the world of politics. This is the speech that means that you are returning to private life, and often you have to rally the people who have dedicated months (or in the case of some major offices, years) to your election, which did not happen. People don’t want to do it, but this is something that is a delicate art, and often necessary for your supporters to heal.

In the above quotes, I gave quotes from what is considered the best and worst concession speech in American politics. One gave a way to move forward, and the other gave into bitterness. This is an example of the great character displayed by the candidate as he decided to continue his life’s work, and accepted his role as a Senator, rather than a President.

In a side note, I’ve also noticed a trend over the last few years that I really don’t like: the victory speech coming before the concession speech. This just strikes me as wrong because it feels like trying to force someone’s hand. If someone is going through a difficult situation, don’t make them jump the plank. Let people come to their own terms for a difficult thing, and let them exit the stage with dignity.

How do you handle the times when you don’t get the result you were hoping for?

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Hi, everyone. I hope you have been enjoying this Veterans’ Day. Last year, I wrote a little bit about my thoughts about Veterans’ Day, and our status as a diverse group. I also touched on what it really means to support the men and women who serve in the military. I think a lot of this stemmed from seeing so many magnetic bumper stickers that say “Support Our Troops,” and the notion that this is what it really means to support the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who work every day to secure our country.

More Than a Bumper Sticker

It has been estimated that less than 1% of all Americans were active in the theater of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, compared to nearly 9% in World War II, which does not count those who were in the military in other capacities. However, some of those same people are who have the bumper stickers have never done anything other than the bumper sticker to actually help those men and women who they are telling everyone to support.

One of the biggest things that I have seen in this fight is the issue comes to military pay. A private with less than two years in the military only earns $1467 a month, or less than $18,000 a year despite a job where people are literally trying to kill you, and that is before taxes. When I was in Iraq, I also noticed that there was a lot of money spent on high-tech equipment that doesn’t work while there wasn’t enough spent on those who are doing the basic services necessary for foot soldiers.

Also, perhaps the biggest one is what happens with veterans as there is more and more focus on cutting spending, which means that the VA, which has been demonized so often, is in danger of receiving even less funding. However, this means that there is a big problem as we are in more and more military engagements that last so long and more people need the services of the VA.

Why is this? I think that part of it is because of the fact that these things cost money, and we have such an entrenched anti-tax attitude in this country over the last few decades that it makes it difficult to make the needed investments in the people who we say are important. The best example of this attitude I have seen in pop culture comes from The Simpsons, in an episode where the teachers go on strike because of budget cuts. Watch the conflicted attitudes on display in this clip. (I apologize for the audio quality. This is the best clip I could find.)

What things do you do to support our servicemembers?

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Hi, everyone. It has been a while since we’ve had the chance to talk to each other. Recently, I finished reading the autobiography of Rex Ryan, Play Like You Mean It: Passion, Laughs, and Leadership in the World’s Most Beautiful Game. What I found so interesting about this book, as it showed insight into the mind of the man who has already established himself as one of the most successful coaches in Jets’ history after only two seasons, with his two trips to the AFC Championship Game. While this book is in the autobiography/memoir genre, there is definitely a lot that anyone interested in personal development can learn from reading this book.

Believe, Especially When Others Don’t

Ever since the day he became the New York Jets head coach, Rex Ryan has insisted that he saw his team as the one that would be the team to beat, and a Super Bowl-caliber team. This is something that a lot of people have seen as a joke. After all, he became the Jets’ head coach 40 years after their one and only trip to the Super Bowl, and the Jets spent a lot of time in the cellar since then, making two trips to the AFC Championship Game since, losing both times, and only making the playoffs 11 times in those 40 seasons, with a total of six wins in playoff games. It was also a team that was often seen as the “little brother” to the New York Giants, to the point where the Jets played for nearly 30 years in Giants Stadium. (They have since moved into New Meadowlands Stadium, which has been renamed MetLife Stadium.)

He also used his first draft pick to select Mark Sanchez of USC as quarterback, and he became the starter at the beginning of season one. Sanchez has had some problems as he has gotten used to the NFL, but Ryan has continued to believe in his quarterback, even when no one else did. In his first season, the Jets finished 9-7, which was good for a spot in the playoffs. The Jets had an up and down season, and they ultimately needed a win in their last two games to make the playoffs. When they did, they ended up winning two playoff games, with the Jets’ rookie tying the Joe Namath, Richard Todd, and Chad Pennington for the most all-time playoff wins in Jets’ history. (There were fewer playoff rounds in 1968 than today.) The next year, the Jets finished 11-5 and won two more playoff games, with Sanchez tying the all-time NFL record for career road playoff wins.

Learning from Your Heroes, Including Mistakes

No one can deny Buddy Ryan’s skill as a defensive mastermind in the NFL, as two of his defenses, the 1968 Jets and the 1985 Bears, won Super Bowls, with the latter one of the all-time great defenses, and he was so respected so respected on his team that his defensive players carried him off the field, the only time someone other than the head coach was carried off the field in the Super Bowl. However, Buddy Ryan’s record as a head coach was much more mixed, making three playoff appearances in seven seasons (five with the Philadelphia Eagles [where he made his playoff appearances] and two with the Phoenix [now Arizona] Cardinals) and never winning a playoff game. Rex admits that part of this is because Buddy was so focused on defense that he often neglected his offense.

While Rex is primarily a defensive coach (he spent ten years with the Baltimore Ravens, first as a defensive line coach, then as a defensive coordinator, before becoming the Jets’ head coach), he knew that he couldn’t win just by focusing on defense. He showed this by using his first pick in the draft to get a quarterback, and this year he has even been willing to experiment with opening up the passing game more. (It affected the team’s culture and took away from the larger philosophy, so they have gone back to their emphasis on the ground game.) He will tell anyone that Buddy Ryan is his hero, but he learned both how to emulate the good and improve on the bad.

Be Where You Want to Be

His other great lesson was making sure that he was fully invested in each of his jobs. He stayed in Baltimore for ten years, and this is something that is not common these days for assistants. He said that he wanted to spend his career in Baltimore if at all possible. However, his ultimate goal was to become a head coach. He thought he had his chance with the Ravens after the 2008 season, but he lost that job to John Harbaugh. The Jets’ head coaching job opened up, and he took the position with no hard feelings from his former employer. Because he wanted to be in New York, he wanted people whose focus was on the team, and people who wanted to play in New York.

What are some personal development lessons you have learned from unlikely sources?

If you like what you read, please leave your comments below and share with your friends using the buttons above.

If you would like to learn more about the principles of personal development that have stood the test of time, please fill out the form for my Seven Day eBook Giveaway in the upper right-hand corner of this page.