I’m stuck in a Commonwealth Games thought loop this week because I went to see the rugby 7’s and then the 3x3 basketball and then the cycling time trial and then the women’s T20 cricket and tonight I’m going to the closing ceremony.
It’s kind of dominated the week in between trying to work for a living and also going to Glasgow to do a consultation ITI study club.
But it’s all things mixed together that make the final recipe and I read Seth’s blog today and it seemed to bring the week together.
Last night, I talked about the changes that I could feel and see on Wednesday as I travelled to Glasgow after the extraordinary 3x3 basketball finals the night before at Smithfield in Birmingham.
But there is no point in experiences unless you can sit back and process and filter and appreciate what you’ve seen and allow those things to wash over you and wash into you and to change you (hopefully for the better).
And so, even though the trips to the Commonwealths were tough in terms of trying to fit them in and the late nights and interfering with riding my bike and trying to look after a house whilst my wife and my daughters were away (another extraordinary event) in the afterglow the things that I’ve seen and the people I’ve met have been astonishing.
But Seth’s blog reminded me that we all experience the world entirely differently through our own eyes.
Let me give you an example of what that means and why it’s important.
I used to be a basketball player at a reasonably good level (many groans from the audience for that story again) and so, I can see basketball differently to other people because of my previous experience even though it was decades ago.
I was not ever the best basketball player in any of my teams but what my coaches always said about me is that I could ‘see the game’.
For that reason, I made a good captain for my school and for my district and for my country, not because I was the most flamboyant but because I could direct.
And so, at the final of the 3x3 and the highlights are here, and you should watch them, but it was just a complete joy because I could just see everything that was going on in full HD and 3D and slow motion.
Often when you have a greater insight into something you can see it happen slowly in front of your eyes and the final 15 seconds of the overtime of the men’s 3x3 final is etched in my brain.
It was 15:15 and it was the first to 2 points to win in overtime, with Australia taking a 1 point shot first to go 1 up.
That meant that England needed to score 2 to win and not give the ball back to Australia or else all they had to do was to score the easier 1 point and they had it.
England missed the 2-point shot, Australia missed another and then they missed another all in the space of about 10 seconds.
And then the rebound from the oh so almost in 2-point effort from Australia fell to Myles Hesson, the young lad from Birmingham on his home court in front of his home audience in the biggest basketball game of his life.
And so, then everything slowed down to about a tenth speed for me as the ball headed towards his hands because he was down at the right hand corner of the court on the baseline outside the 3-point line, in that little corner that hosts one of the hardest shots in basketball.
This is so difficult because all you have is the sight of a hoop with no backboard and therefore no depth perception at all in which to range your shot even though you’re shooting for one of the furthest points out.
But it was so obvious that he was always going to score.
By the time the ball landed in his hands he had a full second or a second and a half before anyone could get near him to see it.
60-90 seconds to take it all in and understand what had just happened to him and what fate had given him.
He was never, ever going to miss that shot and it never even touched the sides.
He nailed one of the hardest shots in basketball to win a gold medal for England in the Commonwealth Games on his home court to set off pandemonium in the little 3x3 stadium.
I’m not even sure if I cheered (I was cheering a lot for England) such was my appreciation of what had just happened.
But then, on that occasion, I saw the world differently from everybody else in the stadium (and they saw differently from me).
The following night I found myself trying to explain to a group of dentists how important it is to understand that when you meet someone new for the first time you have to try to see the world through their eyes.
My daughter, Grace, was sat beside me at the basketball and afterwards we spoke to each other and she thought it was one of the greatest sporting things she’d seen in her life, but she didn’t see what I saw (and of course I never saw what she saw).
Hers was much more a story of redemption of the rise again of British basketball as 4 young men (1 from her university hometown) became heroes against the odds having won the first English basketball gold medal.
Mine was technical, in awe of brilliant execution and appreciation of skill and talent and hard work and effort and guts but both of us enjoyed it just the same.
I can appreciate why Grace loved the 3x3 and she can appreciate why I did and together we can appreciate that together.
Understanding that type of empathy and applying it to the people you meet for the first time (not just seeing them as someone you might fire a titanium bolt at) might perhaps be the route to the most wonderful and satisfying and successful (and dare I saw it, profitable) career you could imagine.
Blog Post Number - 3166