I'm not at all Psychic (but I've got rock star hindsight)

Ten years ago today, I was just 5 days short of my 30th birthday. And, being the intense A-Type that I am, I had my 5 and 10 year goals clearly laid out. They went something like:

• Be a patiently supportive mom as I watched my then almost-two-year-old son grow to sports and academic fame.
• Stay a humble and service focused leader as I served as an executive in a media or sales related company.
• Live in Utah - long story, but lack of hurricanes and tornadoes was one of the determining factors.
• Have led every professional and service organization directly related to my career to earn even more love and adoration from my colleagues.
• Win some awards and accolades for my hard work and awesomeness.
• Drive a Jaguar convertible.
• Live in a big house in the right zip code.
• Keep that house in Southern Living style all of the time so that I would be the envy of everyone who ever stepped inside.
• Have the perfect marriage that included romantic date nights once a month and the symphony most weekends.

You get the picture. In general, my plan was by now, heck by 5 years ago, to be prefect, oh, and live a perfect life while I was at it. Since I was going to be perfect, I would certainly have to train my son and husband into perfection with me, so we'd all be perfect together.

As you may have guessed, now ten years later, I was WAY OFF. In fact, I was so wrong about where I'd be right now, it appears I am the opposite of psychic.

My current reality proves I was not near as dedicated to achieving perfection as I once believed. But, before you or I beat me up too bad for abandoning my worthy ambitions, let me explain.

Life Happened.

It turns out, that as I sit here 5 days short of my 40th birthday, I am most happy about, most blessed by and most thankful for all of the things that happened instead of reaching those decade old goals.
Some of the highlights include:

• Being a patiently supportive mom as I watch my almost-twelve-year-old son struggle with ADHD and school. He's often socially awkward, personally irresponsible and way too easy going to ever be a sports star.
• I couldn't be more in love with him if I tried, in part, because he's not perfect, and I'm not perfect. We gave up on perfection, instead we're both working to be excellent for ourselves and each other.
• I've led, though not always as humbly as I would have liked. More than once in the last 10 years, I've bought into my own PR. I've been uncompassionate, inconsiderate, unsupportive and over-demanding. Not all of the time, but I've also not always been the servant leader I am committed to being.
• I've learned as much from the people I've been blessed to lead as I have from the ones who've trained me to lead. I've been knocked off of my high horse enough to enjoy the view from the ground as much as the one from the saddle.
• We stayed in Baton Rouge, LA. It turns out that being close to family, sharing my culture and history with my son, and helping to make the place I came from better was more important to me than any glamorous publishing career in Utah.
• When I got my cancer diagnosis, my mom immediately told the doctors to pack up my stuff, we were going to MD Anderson. This was the first time I knew, beyond any doubt, that this is my home. I responded, "I don't know if I'll beat this, but I know if I have to try to do it in Houston, away from my friends and family, away from my community, I don't really stand a chance. What is there for me to fight for in Houston?" Turns out all the world class care and inspiration I needed was right here in Baton Rouge.
• I have been blessed to work with some great groups of professionals, doing great work in our community. And while I did get some commendations here and there, it turns out it is the work I am most proud of. Seeing the impact that a group of dedicated volunteers can have on our community is why I now give and serve and couldn't care less if anyone notices.
• It's not a jaguar, but I do drive a convertible. A girl's got to have a dream, right?
• My home is a mess, we call it "domestic chic" and my marriage is equally. One day everything is tidy and romantic and the next there's clutter everywhere and everyone is cranky.
• Now sixteen year married and 20 years together, I don't want perfect. I love our flawed, full and fast-paced life. It isn't pretty, but it's a hell of a lot of fun.

So, I missed the mark. My goals, my hopes, my aspirations have changed. My reality is not nice and neat and it sure isn't perfect. It is however more fun and a bigger adventure than I could have ever imagined.

Life happened and I wouldn't trade or change one minute of it.

Coaching

My ten year old son has played some sort of organized sport since he was four. Soccer, baseball, basketball, football...we've played seasons of them all. And we have been blessed with great coaches throughout the seasons of his life.

Some of Hunter's coaches were nurturing, there's not much more you can do with four-year-old soccer toddlers. Some were disciplined. All were strong Christian men. And then there is Hunter's dad, my better half. David Howard, who never imagined anyone would let him coach his own kid, much less theirs, turned out to be one of the best coaches our son has ever had, both on and off the field.

Of all the sports he's played, soccer has remained Hunter's favorite. That may have something to do with him having always been on winning soccer teams with amazing coaches. Or it could just be he likes running up and down the field.

Whatever the reason, as soon as they opened sign ups for him to play for the first time with his school soccer program, Hunter was the first one committed.

From the beginning, we knew we would learn a whole lot more from this soccer season than we did from any of our previous seasons. As his mom, I figured out real quick that this soccer season would be a lesson in patience. And for Hunter and his teammates, it looks like this season will be a stark lesson in self leadership.

You see, Hunter isn't the only child I know that has benefited from great coaching in their early sports careers. Most of his friends have learned and played under great coaches, and a lot of the time, as teammates as well. In fact, of the 15 -20 boys on this soccer team, 10 -12 of them have played on the same team for the same coach in more than one season.

I mentioned my need for patience this soccer season because it is a lack of coaching staff that has made the blessing of our previous coaches all the more poignant. The coach we have is great, he's just having to coach three teams and three different games, sometimes two at the same time, while the school works to get other coaches ready to go. This poor fella doesn't stand a chance. He is heroic, but it appears doomed, if he doesn't get some help.

So, to bring the lessons learned full circle, Hunter and his friends need all of the self leadership skills they've not yet developed to get through this season. In fact, here's what they'll have to learn for themselves that their previous coaches have done for them.

• Putting a bunch of superstars together doesn't make a team.

Our fastest kid is FAST. But if he's way out in front and passes the ball, no one is there to get it. He has to slow down a little to make sure he's covered. And each boy will have to be honest with himself and his team about where his talents are best applied to get the best team result.

• Having great skills and knowing when to use them are two very different disciplines.

All of the fancy footwork they've learned looks great. But if their teammates can't keep up with them, it's just showing off. They've got to get the best kids with the right skills in the right place at the right time to be successful. Any other grandstanding means failure.

• COMMUNICATION isn't the most important thing. It's the ONLY thing.

Without a coach barking direction at them, the boys have to talk to each other or they're doomed. They have to let each other know where they're going, why, and what they plan to do when they get there. The Goal isn't the only goal of being a team. Getting to the goal together is critical.

• Win or lose, when you're the one on the field, you have to take responsibility for that outcome.

After losing their first game, and remember, they aren't very used to losing, the boys all whined. The field is too big. We didn't have a coach most of the game. We weren't ready.

That's life. They are likely never going to be completely ready for their opponents in life. But if they take responsibility for the parts that they can fix - train harder, run faster, communicate more and better - then they're 50% closer to winning than they were before they did nothing waiting for someone to tell them what to do.

Our second game ended in a tie. That's better than a loss. The boys all seemed to be getting the above lessons, that they'd have to do more for themselves to be successful in this season of their lives than ever before.

As a mom, seeing my son learning these important life lessons in vivid clarity, I can honestly say I'll be thankful for our overloaded coach. I will be patient and kind to him because he's teaching my son as much, if not more than, all of the other coaches he's ever had. I imagine quite unintentionally, this coach is teaching my son what it means to be a young man, responsible for his own success or failure, in what is thankfully, one of the safest places he could learn these lessons.