If You Woke Up This Morning, You Received A Gift

     This past Friday, Missy and I traveled to Amelia, Virginia to pick up our nephew's daughter Ivy. Ivy is like a granddaughter to us and we enjoy every minute we get to spend with her. She is a sweet, compassionate, young lady and her energy and love of life puts a smile on our faces the moment we see her! Sadly in a week or so we will make a return trip back up Interstate 81 and deliver Ivy back to her family and mark our calendar for the next opportunity to spend some time with our little package of light.
     Just as we were leaving town for Virginia, Missy and I picked up a local radio station where the host of the morning show was posing the "almost impossible trivia question" of the day. His question to the listening audience was "What is the one thing that will put someone in a bad mood as soon as you get out of bed?" As I drove down the road listening to the incoming caller's guesses I just couldn't quit thinking that this is a trick question. Seriously, if some of the things that people were suggesting as the answer to this question were the correct answer then it is no wonder that we have so much road rage, depression, and disconnection with life. Things like no coffee made, alarm didn't work, have to go to work, headache, car wouldn't start, car had a flat tire, the guesses went on and on. These minuscule offerings, petty as they were, put my mind to work. Over the last few years I have learned a great deal about being thankful and grateful in any and all settings that I have found myself. Have to go to work? Be thankful you have a job. Car has a flat tire? Be thankful you have a spare tire. Maybe your car won't start, you can still be thankful you have a car. You wake up with a backache, neck ache, headache, or any other type of body ache, guess what, you woke up and you are able to get up out of bed. See where this is headed? You get to make the choice, Hateful or grateful?
     The concept to grasp with today's FTM is that you have been given a gift, it's call today. What you do, how you react to it, how you commit to the day are all choices that you will have to make. Sadly for some the day will pass with many disappointments and not much joy. I on the other hand have decided just as Joshua did in Joshua 24:15 as he proclaimed, "This is the day that the Lord hath made I will rejoice and be glad in it." Armed with the resolve to make the most of the day how could you wind up in a bad mood? But if you do land in bad mood country don't take up residence there, take the opportunity to have your pity party for a few minutes and then go about the business of thinking about how grateful you should be for all you do have.
     Next week we will dig deeper into the different ways people accept the gift of "today". So until we meet again, choose to rejoice in the moment and be thankful for the day you have been given! Oh yeah, as we traveled up the road and curiously waited on the proposed answer to the almost impossible trivia question we eventually out distanced the radio station's coverage area. Just as I hypothesized I guess, there isn't anything that will put me in a bad mood first thing in the morning or any other time of the day for that matter. Enjoy your day! Coach Carter

Falling Apart or Falling Into Place??

     The other day I was listening to the words of a song by Casting Crowns entitled "Just Be Held" in which the lyrics create a play on words that really grabbed my attention and drives home a valid point for today's FTM. The song  encourages us with the following revelation, "Your world's not falling apart it's falling into place, so stop holding on and just be held!" Wow, what an awesome perspective to have and to find comfort in during life's storms. When the day is going to "chaos" level or your  personal life seems to be spinning out of control, you can stop, take a deep breath, reflect on the situation and realize that we can actually take something very important away from what is happening right now. Hard times, stressed relationships, stretched schedules, sicknesses in your family, and yes even tragedy may seem like a downward spiral that has no hope of ending with a positive outcome, but I want to encourage you to look up when you feel down. Understand that what we may view as a storm, may actually be the nourishment for that seed you have planted and you have just got to nurture and prune a little more to allow the fruit to be produced. What an awesome lesson to teach those we live with, work with, children, and most importantly to learn ourselves. When we feel like things are falling apart how powerful it is to step back from the situation and put things into the perspective that somehow, someway, this is all going to be part of the plan! So don't just hold on, just be held! For I am the LORD your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you. Isaiah 41:13
     This may sound simplistic, but my friend it is that simple. When you feel like the world is crashing in all around you, remember God is in charge, He is there in the storm with you, and He will give you the strength to see things through, you just have to hold on, and have faith that He can and He will.

The Importance of Learning to Fail

     In last week's Flat Tire Ministries Thought we looked at the whole idea of taking and accepting responsibility for the outcomes in athletics and effectually in life. Far too many people spend their condolences from a loss attempting to place the blame on someone else for the loss rather than look for the opportunity to grow from the experience, which ultimately should be our goal for our children, athletes, students, and ourselves.
     Why is it that we are always looking for someone else to blame when it comes to personal defeat? Why do we seek to blame the referee for the loss due to his or her bad calls? Why do we console our children with ideas like the only reason you got beat is because the other team cheated? My studies, and my own experiences have led me to the belief that as a society we do not want our children to experience defeat. We want everything in life to be in their favor. We want everyone to get a trophy for participating. Today's FTM stresses the point that not everyone gets a trophy in life and the lessons we learn from our failures are critical stepping stones to becoming men and women of character.
     Being a coach is so much more than trying to go undefeated and winning championships. I was reminded of this fact earlier this week when a former student/athlete of mine posted a comment about something I used to tell our wrestlers in practice. In regards to winning championships I would always tell the kids that "if we take care of business, business will take care of itself." Well my application of this life lesson in my coaching stuck around in Cody's mind because now almost 20 years later, Cody is applying that lesson we learned in wrestling to his own personal business experience as he reminds himself each day the importance of doing things the right way and getting back up on your feet when you fall down. That is the purpose of athletics, to teach life lessons that will turn young men and women into great leaders, business owners, parents, and spouses, not to tell everyone on my team how great they are and how they should never get beat unless someone cheats them out of it!
      I often use an analogy of a baby learning to walk to the efforts of an athlete to learn a new skill or move in my coaching. You see a baby doesn't stand to her feet and take off across the room the first time an attempt to walk is made. Instead each time she stands up and plops down on her Pampered bottom, she gets back up and equipped with a little more knowledge about why that didn't work and educated a little more about what needs to be done differently to avoid that same plop, she takes a couple more steps towards the apple of her eye on the coffee table across the way. That's how we learn. Or maybe I should say that is how we should want our children, students, and athletes to learn. If every time we fall down or fail to win a competition, or we aren't successful in attempting a move or a specific technique we give up and quit or even worse make excuses and remove ourselves from the equation we lose, we fail, and we are defeated.
     Think about it, the lesson is in the loss. We teach our students in school, they practice what we teach them, some level of success should be reached, but perfection is not the goal because we are still learning, we reteach and practice some more, we apply it to real life situations, and then we eventually assess the lesson learned to see if we learned anything along the way. Well if you are a parent that believes your child should never bring home anything but straight "A's" on their grade card you may want to rethink that, because they may need to be challenged more to stretch their minds to it's fullest capacity. And the same holds true in athletics, if you win every time you compete you probably need to play some tougher competition.
     What you have to understand is that we learn from our mistakes in life. Believe me when I tell you I have gained an additional degree in learning from my mistakes in life. The author of the Book of James in the Bible explained it like this in James 1:2-3 Count it all joy when you face trials, because the testing of your faith produces perseverance. We have to teach our children that it isn't the gold medal that we want them to win, it's the effort it takes to win the gold medal that will see them down the road when life presents them with challenges and trials of all kinds. We have to teach them to get back up when they get knocked down. We have to teach them that if you really want that trophy, you're going to have to work really hard to get it, not just show up. Just as Paul taught the Christians in Corinth you have to train to win the race regardless of whether you win every race every time. The training you are doing is so that when it is your time to shine you will be ready to go for it! That's my paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 9:24-27.
     You have to start somewhere. We don't want to beat down the confidence of our children, students, or athletes but we don't need to build them up to a place where they can't see the benefits of learning from a loss either. Instill perseverance because it builds character as Romans 5:3-5 points out, We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment.
The lesson is in the struggle not always in the victory! Enjoy your week and do something amazing!
Coach Carter

Whose Fault Is It Anyway?

     I have been involved in athletics for around forty years starting out as a little league right fielder ( baseball wasn't my strong suit), participating in wrestling and cross country in high school, and then as a coach for the majority of my life, approximately thirty-one years. What time I wasn't directly "in the game" I have been a spectator at athletic competitions on all levels, pee-wee through professional, developmental and competitive and in almost every setting possible. There is a common theme that pervades the outcome of competitions when the score on the scoreboard doesn't necessarily go in favor of our team. In too many instances the "blame" for a loss sits directly in the lap of the referee or the scandalous techniques of the other team that cheated their way to victory. My proposal today is that we all sit back and reflect on what we are teaching our children and others when we point the finger of blame in the direction of someone else in these game like situations? Is this the proper approach to teach personal accountability and responsibility? In my mind it is directly counter intuitive to what we should desire for those that are learning how to conduct themselves from our words and actions.
     I distinctly remember an elementary school ball game where a parent had to be escorted out of the gym because he was almost in a rage over what he perceived as a number of "bad" calls that were being made against his child's team. After the game was over, which our team won by the way, it is almost certain that if you had walked up to this athletic team supporter ( the word supporter is being used loosely) and asked him why his child's team lost that game the response would emphatically be that "the referees lost that game for them ". I feel it is pertinent that I impart a little of my own disclaimer at this point.
      I have stepped into the other side of that equation over the last few years and donned the whistle and stripped shirt of a referee. I will be the first to admit I have botched some calls and probably some that were made at game point in the third set that ended one team's comeback and sealed the deal for the winning team. At no point have I ever intentionally made a call or missed a call in an effort to help or hurt a team. Refereeing is hard and if you want a better appreciation for the job that a referee does sign up to become one and see how the shirt feels on the other side! Enuf said. Back to today's FTM.
     The mentality that any victory is directly related to our efforts and abilities, while any loss is adversely directly related to the calls that the referee made or didn't make, or even worse creating a scenario where the other team "cheated" to win is a treacherous road to travel when molding mindsets for life whether it be our children or our "fan base". Personal responsibility or accountability has always been a teaching point for me as a coach both to my athletes and to my athlete's parents. I won't allow my kids to blame the referee for a loss due to what is perceived to be a bad call or several bad calls. I tell them that if that one call or if one person not playing the game controlled the outcome of the game then we didn't do our job of taking care of business. One play or person could not have beaten us. We are responsible for the outcome of the game, match, or results. One of the most important skills we can foster in sports and in life is personal accountability.
     There's an old saying about pointing a finger at someone else that when we do so there are three fingers pointing back at us. When accountability is accepted and expected the outcome becomes so different. Instead of just looking at the end result we each can look at and analyze our input in comparison to the output at the end of the day. To teach this life skill to our children in athletics or in any other area of life we have to model it just as we model our expectations in other areas of our daily walk. Working hard in practice, focusing on the task at hand, being persistent in our efforts, and learning from mistakes instead of making excuses for them are all contributing factors in learning to be accountable. If we teach our proteges to take ownership of their education, their game, their mistakes, or their own efforts, and we teach them to give credit to others for the team effort win or lose we are taking steps toward teaching them to take personal responsibility for their own journey in life.  If parents, coaches, teachers, politicians, and others in leadership roles step up to set high expectations, coupled with an emphasis on teaching personal accountability for those they are leading the end result will be success without a doubt! The score on the scoreboard may tell who won the game, but the score doesn't show the real winner, that  comes later in life! Teach' em to own it! Good or bad it's theirs and they are responsible for what they do with it!
Have a great week!

The Difference Between a Boss and a Leader

     It's pretty safe to say that most of us have the responsibility of being in charge of someone. In many cases you may have the responsibility of overseeing a number of people ranging in size from a few people to other positions that assume the task of leading tens or hundreds, or even thousands of people. Today's question to ponder is this are you bossing those people and getting compliance because of fear or intimidation? Or are you leading those that are following you and being an example of a true "servant" leader?
      Bosses tell people what to do. Servant leaders model what should be done and others eagerly follow. Bosses make the rules and expect others to follow them. Servant leaders feel the pulse of each situation and act accordingly, realizing that this is a multicolored world we live in and people are not black and white and neither are the situations and outcomes that require our attention. Bosses believe they shouldn't have to do the dirty work, while servant leaders eagerly roll up their sleeves and get dirty. Bosses believe there is a difference in them and the people that work for them. Servant Leaders do not see a difference in any one on their team. The role each of us plays is just as important as the next, and the relevance to the success of any team is dependent on everyone on the team and their contribution to the outcome of each task the team assumes responsibility. Bosses deliver orders, while servant leaders seek guidance and deliver instruction, guidance, and hope. A boss is not worried about relationships. A servant leader cares about you and your concerns and makes a committed effort to be available to help.
     Whatever position in life you carry, parent, sibling, staff member, shift manager, supervisor, business manager, or CEO of your own company you are daily faced with decisions and responsibilities that impact people's lives. This week make more of an effort to get more involved in the lives of those you are charged with leading. If you are barking out orders and ultimatums your family, business, organization may be making it, but with more empathy, compassion, and dedication toward those you are leading you will no longer have to "boss" anyone because your team will be following you and your example. If you need an example to model after look no further than our Lord and Savior, "...., whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Matthew 20:26-28.
This week belongs to you, make it amazing!
Coach Carter

Who's Driving Your Car?

    

     “You will never change your life until you change something you do daily.” The words of author John Maxwell could never ring truer in relationship to today's Flat Tire Ministries Thought. The title presents a question that may seem very obvious in a literal sense, I mean when you sit down behind the steering wheel in your car it should be pretty safe to say you are driving, yet in more of a figurative sense who is driving your car? In life are you influenced by those you work with or go to school with? Or is your day constructed around what you watch on TV or what you deem as the reality of the current cultural trend in music or the entertainment industry? Do you have life habits that are unhealthy and thus create an unhealthy lifestyle for you and those that you love? Is your opinion of your life measured by what you see as success in someone's life that you may or may not even know? The question of who is driving your car may seem obvious, but I want to suggest that even if you are sitting behind the steering wheel you may not be the one that is making the decisions about where you are going.

     Going back to the opening quote, Maxwell makes it clear that if we want to do something different in our lives we have to change something that we do daily, think routines and habits. Whatever yours is "I would quit smoking, drinking, eating too much, or you fill in the blank________, but....", "I am so tired after I get off work I don't feel like working out", or "everyone else is doing it so why should I stop or change what I am doing?", you are the one that is driving those decisions and choices. Fortunately, we have the ability to change our lives, all we have to do is make the decision to change and then do it. Sounds easy huh? Well my friend it may not be all too easy, but it is possible if you really want to change. Remember Philippians 4:13 "I can do ALL things through Christ which strengthens me", Paul didn't say that you can change things up to a certain level and then things are impossible from there up, no I emphasized the word ALL because that is what the Word says we can change ALL things through our faith and trust in Christ. We must put our faith to work by making the choice to change whatever it is we want to see change, and that is where it gets tough,  many of us get stuck believing we can't change.

     We all have two voices inside us that guide and direct our thoughts and actions. In commercials and entertainment many times those voices are portrayed as a little angel on one shoulder and a little red devil sitting on the other shoulder. Each whispers thoughts of either encouragement or discouragement into the ear of the listener and then it comes down to a choice for the individual to decide which direction to go from there. That is pretty close to how it really is in life, but I want you to think about it just a tad bit differently. I recently read a thought that has opened my mind to a whole new perspective on change in my life. It went something like this, if you want to do something differently (change), you have to quit listening to yourself and start talking to yourself. First, I'm not suggesting you walk down the street chattering to yourself, that could result in you receiving a new white jacket and a padded room for accommodations. What I am referring to is that you stop letting your mind limit what you do or what you want to do in life. Too many of us let our minds be limited to areas that are comfortable and familiar when instead we should be telling ourselves that we can change, we can challenge ourselves, and we can be successful if only we will believe, trust, and stay strong in our faith that ALL things are possible. 

     Is it easy? Will there be immediate success? Did I say it would be easy and that you would succeed without effort? No, No, No, yet ALL things are possible. We must change our minds to change the world, and to change the world we must first change ourselves. "Who's driving your car?"isn't such a silly question when you think about what drives you to choose the direction you chose this morning to go to work, or what influenced your decision to continue that negative behavior you just can't seem to quit. At the end of the day you are driving your car, but are you listening to yourself as you make the decisions you make, or are you telling yourself what you are going to do in this life you are living? 

     Whatever you want to change in life, habit, behavior, actions, personality trait, it all starts with the one that makes the decisions in your life, YOU. I will conclude today's FTM with the words of Joshua 24:15, where Joshua made a choice about his faith in God that goes well with our message of  change today. Joshua in speaking to the children of Israel about their choices of who they were going to serve going forward took this stance, "But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua had a decision to make, he could have went along with what was the current, popular thing of the day and he would have just kept on going along with his life, but Joshua chose to not listen to his mind that might have been influenced by what was going on around him. Instead Joshua made the decision to do what he knew was the right thing to do. You can do this too. Whatever it is and I'm certain there is a long list of things that collectively we want to do differently in our lives, you can do it! Don't listen to those negative voices in your head, tell yourself that you can do it and that you will do it and then go out and do it! 

Have an awesome week and make a change in your routine this week that will signal a change in your life. 

Coach Carter

 

"Like Sands Through the Hourglass, So Are the Days of Our Lives."

     The title for today's Flat Tire Ministry Thought is taken from the opening tagline of the long-running daytime American soap opera Days of Our Lives. The tagline was accompanied by a picture of an hourglass with the sands quickly dissipating from the top bulb to it's resting place in the bottom portion of the timepiece. (Little did the viewing audience of said soap opera dramas realize that, in my opinion,  they were actually wasting their time about like someone sitting around watching the sand flow downward in an hourglass!) But that is all fodder for another day, today's topic for our  FTM deals with time and how we need to make the most out of the time we have in front of us. 
     A few years ago I settled with an understanding of a concept that, as obvious as it is, most people have not come to terms with and are not living accordingly. If you were to ask people about their fears you would find that one of the top ten things folks would tell you that they are afraid of is dying. Well guess what, not being morbid or pessimistic, but if you are living you are dying, point blank end of story. Just like the grains of sand in that hourglass aren't moving upward into that upward bulb, our days left on this egg aren't growing in number. So my conclusion, revelation, Aha moment whatever you want to label it is this; if we know we have a finite number of days to live, why are we so worried about dying, that is inevitable. We should instead be more focused on making sure we live each day as if there won't be a tomorrow! 
      Now like I said earlier I'm not convinced that most people have a full grasp of the gravity of this concept and I have garnered that conclusion in part because when I shared my "AHA" moment with a colleague they looked at me puzzled and concerned and inquired "Are you okay, is there something wrong?" Many times our first thoughts are about the wrong end of that outcome. Instead of putting so much concentration on our ultimate end, why aren't we more concerned with how much life we can squeeze out of the time we have and stop worrying about the one thing we can't control. 
      We can all do things like exercising, eating healthier, and getting adequate amounts of sleep, to hopefully extend our time here on earth, but at the end of the day, literally, we do not have very much control over when it is our time to go home. On the other hand, what we do with the time we have been given each day we live is totally ours to decide. How we are going to spend it and what we are going to accomplish during that time is completely up to us. When you look at your calendar what do you find filling the squares for each day? Are you spending your time working, moping around, harboring hard feelings, or worst of all looking at your condition in life and complaining about how bad you have it? Well you can spend your time here doing just that and what will you have accomplished, nothing that will amount to anything. Instead I believe you have to get up in the morning and armed with the knowledge that this is the day that the Lord hath made I will rejoice and be glad in it, (see Psalms 118:24 for more on that one), we have to go out and live today like there isn't going to be a tomorrow.
     If I'm living today instead of planning on doing something when I get time to do it I'm going to leave no stones untouched when it comes to my plans in life. I know people who go through life holding grudges or disowning family members over something as trivial like hurt feelings or financial matters. It may be bad, it may have cost you or your family a great deal of strife, but is it worth losing time with your family? Make amends today who knows there may not be a tomorrow. People proclaim that they would spend more time with family, spend more time exercising, reading, praying, serving, whatever you want to fill in the blank with, if only they were not so busy. Well "you can not serve two masters, for you will love the one and hate the other, or else you will hold to the one, and despise the other, you have to pick one." paraphrased from Matthew 6:24. You only have one life to live and trust me it ain't getting any longer, don't put off till tomorrow what you can accomplish today is a good motto to live by each and every day.
      The grains of sand aren't increasing in my hourglass and I'm okay with that, I'm in the same boat with about 7.5 billion other people, the area where I'm gaining ground is what I'm doing with those grains of sand I still have left. Do I know how many I have, unfortunately / fortunately we aren't given that tidbit of information, but what I do know is while I have breath to breathe and while I have an opportunity to live I am going to live it, love it, and make a difference in it until it's over and then I hope I did enough that my life will still be impacting other lives long after I am gone! That's how you can beat that old hourglass. Do things that will matter in other lives and things that will impact the world in a positive manner in which you live. Don't be worrying about yesterday it's gone, and don't be dwelling on how bad you have it because you are alive and as long as you are alive you have a purpose to fulfill so go for it! Make amends, make headway, set your course, go deep, work harder, live stronger, leave the place you were better than it was, and always make a difference in someone's life in a positive way! We can't stop the sand, but we can most certainly color each and every grain with a rainbow of life experiences that will make a difference in someone's life. 
     It's the last week of school where I'm from, I plan to keep on pushing to make a difference while I still have a chance, what about you? 
Coach Carter