Ok, last off-topic post. The last podcast I listened to is called "Middle School". The host interviews a 14-year old middle schooler, and she discusses in her own words why middle school can be so tough and just an awkward stage in life. It was fun to listen to as a former middle schooler because I totally remember feeling that way in middle school! Check it out and reminisce about your awkward middle school phase!
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/449/middle-school

One of the other pod-casts I listened to is called "No coincidence, no story!". It's all dedicated to crazy coincidences experienced by people, and they are so awesome! I personally love hearing about coincidences that are just out of this world, and this pod-cast is dedicated to sharing some! Go check it out http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/489/no-coincidence-no-story

Although it's off-topic, I listened to a few really cool pod casts recently! One of them was called "Getting Away With It" which was originally aired on NPR's This American Life. When seemingly nobody is watching or judging, the people featured in this pod-cast break the rules and make bad choices without fear of consequences. It was really interesting to hear these people explain themselves and why they did what they did, because we've all had that moment when no one is watching! Check it out
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/477/getting-away-with-it

Here comes another seemingly unrelated post. In reality, however, the film "God Grew Tired of Us" which I am about to discuss can relate back to my regular topic in the realm of life lessons we can learn. For those who have never seen the movie, I'll provide a little bit of background. The film details the travels of three of the "Lost Boys of Sudan," who fled their homeland of Sudan a midst war and chaos. They walked hundreds of miles, starving and dehydrated, to Ethiopia to find refuge. They soon had to travel once again to Kenya, where they remained for 10 years until the United States invited the Lost Boys to come live in the United States. There's several lessons that can be learned from these boys, but I admire their resilience and desire more than anything. If I was one of those boys, I would have given up before we were even half way to Ethiopia; but they didn't. They persisted. They were determined to seek out a better life for themselves, and they did everything necessary to achieve it. Sickness, thirst, endless journeys, didn't deter them. They were even separated from  their families. However, they made the journey and made a better life for themselves. We can all learn important life lessons from these boys; I certainly did just from watching this short documentary. With determination and desire, nothing can deter us from where we want to go or who we want to become: the lost boys of Sudan illustrated this principle right before my eyes in the documentary. I highly recommend you watch it, it has inspired me and allowed me to see how blessed I am in facing the negligible challenges that are in my own personal life.

People always talk about the lessons that can be learned from losing; myself included. As I've discussed before in this blog, losing in sports can motivate and bring about some of the greatest successes. However, I think there is another important aspect in losing that is often overlooked: losing with pride. You may not understand what I mean, so I'll give you two examples. My basketball team senior year was playing for the district semifinal against the #3 ranked school in the state. They were bigger than us, stronger than us, and on paper they were straight up better than us. We prepared for weeks for this game. When it was finally game time, we were pumped up and ready to go. We played extremely well: at halftime we were up by 3. The second half was a battle, and we were up by 5 with a little over 2 minutes left in the game. In my opinion, the referees screwed us in those last few minutes, making consecutive horrendous calls that negated some of our baskets and forced us to give up possession multiple times. We ended up losing by 4. We were heartbroken. Tears streamed down all of our faces, for we had come so close. Not a sound was made as we entered the locker room. When coach came in, he stood there silent for a moment as well. Then he told us to pick our heads up. He told us to be proud; we had played a hell of a game. Every second the clock was ticking all five players on the floor were giving 100%. Although we had lost, we all walked out of the locker room, chins high, eyes still filled with tears as we walked to the bus. We may not have won the game, but we left everything we had on the floor, and that meant something. I truly learned that day that sometimes it's not about the final score: what matters is your desire and effort.
There was another game in my high school career where we lost to an awful team, one we hadn't lost to in a number of years. It was truly embarrassing. Once again, our coach entered into a silent locker room after the game. He once again told us to pick our heads up and own that loss. Nobody had gone out there and lost the game for us. We played awful, and we had nobody but ourselves to blame. How shameful it was to keep our chins up and own that despicable loss.
There's two sides to losing with pride: being proud of what you did accomplish when nobody said you would even come close, and accepting when you simply blew it. Personal accountability is a lesson many people go their entire lives without fully understanding. The art of selling yourself short is something people in the real world are notoriously good at doing these days. Through some painful experiences and inspiring experiences in high school sports, I can now recognize in all aspects of life when I give a valiant effort. I am better able to give myself credit in the midst of an apparent loss. On the other hand, I'm also better at taking personal responsibility when I mess up (which I do fairly often). These are skills that I know I'm going to need later in my professional career and even in my personal life, and I'm grateful to have had experience in perfecting these skills through my participation is sports.

A common question asked in job interviews these days is, “Do you work well in a group?” Employers are looking for potential employees who are able to work well with others in a team setting. In the workplace, it's very rare that you’ll be able to work alone on all of your projects and assignments; especially if you work for an engineering industry or for a business firm, where virtually all of your large scale projects will require a team of many working together for weeks at a time. I participated in two team sports in high school, and doing so has provided me with experience in working with a team to reach a common goal. Many people take for granted the challenges associated  with team work, but it truly takes a lot of work and focus to bring together a group of separate individuals and work like a well-oiled machine. For example, my first few years on the basketball team, the upper classmen had a problem with egos and self-interest. Almost every player who received significant playing time on varsity on my freshman year was incredibly talented, and we were ranked 10^th in the state preseason. Any outsider looking at the pure talent and skill level we were able to put on the court that year would have said we had a chance to go deep into the state playoffs. However, they had no idea the level of disharmony and disconnectedness we had as a team. Sure, we were incredibly talented as a bunch of individuals, but our team dynamic was severely lacking. All 5 individuals on the court at one time put their individual stat line and success over what may have been best for the team as a whole, and our performance suffered. We were still the top team in our region, but we were losing some games we had no business losing. When playoffs rolled around, our team was as divided as ever. We coasted through our first two games (since we were a very high seed, we played two of the poorer teams from our district). When the semi-finals in the District playoffs came, we were facing a team we had beaten by 35 points just a few weeks earlier. We came out as we usually do, but our opponents had a new approach. The played an essential zone defense, and took away all of our individual one-on-one options. Any basketball player knows that an effective way to beat a zone defense is good ball movement, which equates to unselfishness and good team work. Our players became frustrated, for they were unable to score and beat the defense as an individual. We lost the game by 10 points, and I attribute this loss to a poor team dynamic. In life, working as a team is inevitable. Being able to work in that setting and promote the best from others in that situation is a crucial skill that employers value very highly. I watched a lack of team work ruin a team, and from that year on the players and I made sure to foster a close relationship with our team mates. We found success in this, and I feel very prepared for when I’m asked in an interview, “Do you work well in a team setting?” 

Discipline is key to success. Without discipline, nothing would get done. It takes discipline to do homework, study for exams, lose weight, gain muscle, and to improve in essentially any aspect of life. One great lesson I learned from my time in sports was how to discipline myself. For example, in high jump, there are many drills that at the time seem pointless and useless. When I was a freshman, all I wanted to do was practice doing full actual jumps over a bar. When my coach would insist on drilling isolated parts of my jump, I couldn't see the end goal he had in mind. They all just seemed like stupid drills. However, after my years of jumping, I discovered that the tiniest technique flaw could be the difference between qualifying for the state meet at a 6'4" clearance and not even meeting the district qualifying standard at a 5'10" clearance. I began to spend more time drilling and drilling isolated parts of my technique. This took an incredible amount of discipline, because even then all I wanted to do was full jumps to receive that instant gratification. I think this concept can be applied to any kind of progression in life. In order to become good at your job, you have to improve bit by bit, piece by piece. The discipline to be able to improve without instant gratification is a life lesson that I have learned through my experiences in sports, and I think anyone else who has learned this lesson early can say that it's been very helpful.