Just A Thought:
Tiny Thought
1.
The difference between failure and success is often just staying with a problem a little longer.
One more rep.
One more step.
One more minute.
One more revision.
One more attempt.
The difference between average and outstanding is often just one more.
Nuggets Coach Michael Malone Shared This Brilliant 26-Word Poem After Winning the NBA Finals. It’s a Lesson in Emotional Intelligence:
By Justin Bariso
In his postgame interview, the Denver Nuggets coach taught a great lesson in how to overcome adversity.
Whatever you do, don’t feel sorry for yourself.
That’s the message Denver Nuggets coach Michael Malone delivered in his postgame interview after winning the NBA finals, and it’s a great takeaway for anyone who’s had to fight through adversity.
Malone and his team had just won a hard-fought NBA final against the gritty Miami Heat. In the final interview question, a reporter asked Malone about the performance of Michael Porter Jr., a major contributor who’s fought through serious back problems and multiple surgeries in his brief NBA career.
“It’s just sticktuitiveness. Staying with it. Not feeling sorry for yourself. It’s in one of my favourite poems, D.H. Lawrence's Self-Pity.’ I hate people that feel sorry for themselves, and Michael didn’t.”
At just 26 words, “Self-Pity” is one of D.H. Lawrence’s shortest poems, but it’s easy to see why it’s one of Coach Malone’s favourites:
Self-Pity, by D.H. Lawrence
I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.
With this poem, Lawrence and Malone teach a major lesson in emotional intelligence: understanding and managing emotions.
How emotional intelligence helps you–and others–to overcome
“Self-Pity” teaches a valuable lesson in how our thoughts affect our emotions and state of being.
The poem circles the central three words, ‘sorry for itself,’ returning twice, once in the second line and then again at the poem’s conclusion, neatly suggesting the way self-pity is self-consuming and, ultimately, self-destructive.
When things don’t go your way, it’s easy to get caught in a spiral of sorrow: negative thoughts feed negative emotions, which cause more negative thoughts. This can be paralyzing.
Over the past few years, the Denver Nuggets had plenty of chances to feel sorry for themselves. Besides Michael Porter Jr.’s injuries, another one of their star players, Jamal Murray, suffered a tear to his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in 2021 – an injury that took him away from basketball for 18 months.
This happened with Murray, and the Nuggets, playing peak basketball. In contrast, the Nuggets underperformed without Murray, not making it out of the first round of the playoffs in 2022.
But as Malone says, “Sometimes a dream is deferred.”
Rather than making excuses, getting paralyzed by negative thoughts, or giving up on his players, Malone stuck by his team, continuing to encourage and nurture them.
For example, at another press conference earlier this year, Malone tells how Murray sat beside him with tears in his eyes following his devastating injury.
“Hey man,” Malone told Murray. “You’re going to come back from this. And not only are you going to come back, you’re going to be better.”
Murray certainly did come back better. And so did the Nuggets.
So, how can you use emotional intelligence to help yourself–and your team–overcome adversity?
People need time to come to grips with negative events. But not as much time as you think. The more you feel sorry for yourself–or your team–the easier it is to give up. It can cause you to quit investing in and supporting your people.
Further, by focusing on the negative, you create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Your gloomy thoughts are self-limiting and self-defeating.
In contrast, emotionally intelligent leaders know that what’s happened has happened; the past is the past. They allow themselves and their teams time to face negative events but refuse to dwell on them.
Emotionally intelligent leaders help people focus on what they can control: positive actions that will help them come back stronger. This also creates a self-fulfilling prophecy–but one that’s based on fulfilling your potential.
So, the next time something bad happens to you or your team, remember one of Michael Malone’s favourite poems, and take a page out of his playbook:
1. Don’t feel sorry for yourself.
2. Focus on what you can do.
3. Remember: This will make you stronger.
That’s emotional intelligence in the real world, and it’s a formula for making emotions work for you, instead of against you.