Core Values: Messiah Men's Soccer (Dave Brandt)

1. We dare greatly.
2. We work hard.
3. We choose to be positive.
4. We mean no offense and take no offense with each other.
5. We show no weakness.
6. We finish strong.
7. We walk like champions.
8. We support the team mission regardless of our circumstance.
9. We are a collection of friends first, soccer players second.
10. We seek excellence in all areas of our lives, not just soccer.
11. We want our four-year experience to have an unspeakable impact on our lives.

IX. We Take Personal Accountability For Our Actions And The Actions Of Our Teammates

A few years back, I read QBQ: The Question Behind The Question by John Miller after hearing it was mandatory reading for employees working at Dave Ramsey's company. The book is about personal accountability. It's about asking what you can do to improve the situation rather than assigning blame. The opposite of taking personal accountability is playing the victim. A good line from the book:

We always have a choice. Always. Realizing this and taking responsibility for our choices is a big step toward making great things happen in our lives.

On high performance teams, it's not enough to take accountability for your actions alone. You must also take accountability for the actions of your teammates. If your teammate fails, the team fails. You fail. The verse on our crest at Messiah was Proverbs 27:17:

As iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

It's interesting: after including 'we take personal accountability for our actions and the actions of our teammates' in the Starting XI, I came across the Navy SEAL's SEAL Code. One of their values is very similar (almost identical):

Take personal responsibility for your actions and the actions of your teammates.

Here's more on the SEAL Code.

V. We Walk Like Champions

'We walk like champions' was one of our core values at Messiah. It's about action rooted in identity. It's about doing what you ought to do because of who you are (or who you want to be) regardless of how you feel -- or the result or where you finish in the standings or some other set of circumstances outside of your control. We are champions therefore we act like champions even when we don't feel like champions. Here are related excerpts from Mere Christianity, Resilience and Champions: The Making of Olympic Swimmers:

1. Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
In a chapter called "Let's Pretend," C.S. Lewis writes:

The story is about someone who had to wear a mask; a mask which made him look much nicer than he really was. He had to wear it for years. And when he took it off he found his own face had grown to fit it. He was now really beautiful. What had begun as disguise had become a reality. Even on the human level, you know, there are two kinds of pretending. There is a bad kind, where the pretense is there instead of the real thing; as when a man pretends he is going to help you instead of really helping you. But there is also a good kind, where the pretense leads up to the real thing. When you are not feeling particularly friendly but know you ought to be, the best thing you can do, very often, is to put on a friendly manner and behave as if you were a nicer person than you actually are. And in a few minutes, as we have all noticed, you will be really feeling friendlier than you were. Very often the only way to get a quality in reality is to start behaving as if you had it already.

2. Resilience by Eric Greitens
Resilience is a collection of letters written by former Navy Seal Eric Greitens to another former Seal, Zach Walker, plagued by depression, alcoholism and debilitating lack of purpose. In the chapter on "Identity," Greitens asks Walker to think about the following three things in relationship to one another: feelings, action and identity. Greitens writes:

We tend to assume, without really thinking about it, that everything starts with our feelings, that our feelings are in control. Feelings lead to action. Action shapes our identity.

He then challenges Walker to think about feelings, action and identity in the opposite direction (identity, action, feelings):

You begin by asking, 'Who am I going to be?' You decided to be courageous again. So what's next? Act that way. Act with courage. And here comes the part that's so simple it's easy to miss: the way you act will shape the way you feel. You act with courage and immediately your fears start to shrink and you begin to grow. If you want to feel differently, act differently.

3. Champions: The Making of Olympic Swimmers by Daniel Chambliss
Chambliss wrote Champions after observing the practice habits of Olympic swimmers ahead of the 1988 Olympic Games. He writes:

They become champions by doing what needs to be done, by doing everything right, by concentrating on all the silly little details that others overlook. What makes them champions is the knowledge -- and the action following from that knowledge -- that champions are only real people, not gods, and all that it takes to be a champion is to do what champions do. 

Hey Josh

Below is a letter I wrote to a friend at the beginning of the year. He's a young graduate who hosted a retreat of sorts to help other young graduates transition from college to the real world. It's not easy for everyone. It wasn't for me. Here is what I wrote:

--

Hey Josh,

Thanks for including me in this. I went through some Messiah withdrawal myself and know some guys really struggle after graduation so I think it's a cool idea. I read a book recently called A Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. It really impacted me and I think it has some direct application to what you guys are trying to do with young alums. Frankl was a Jewish psychologist who survived
Auschwitz then wrote about his experience from a very unique perspective. The book doesn't have much to say about God, but it does have great insight into humanity -- insight that becomes even more powerful when you filter it through a Christian lens and recognize that those things are a part of God's design. His main premise is that man is ultimately searching for meaning (versus power or happiness as some psychologists would argue) and that he can find meaning through:
                                                                           
1. Purposeful work
2. Meaningful relationships (love)
3. Courage in the face of suffering

Messiah provided guys with both purposeful work and meaningful relationships (and you could make a case for suffering as well) and those things gave meaning to guys' four years on the team. For a lot of guys, however, graduation leaves them without purposeful work and without the same meaningful relationships (those relationships still exist, but the context is different). So, for whatever it's worth, my advice to young Messiah grads is: seek out purposeful work and meaningful relationships. (Suffering is not something to pursue and should be avoided if possible, Frankl says, but one can find meaning in suffering if forced into it.) Purposeful work might be found in a job. It might not. It might require a career change. It might not. It might mean finding purpose in the job you already have. It might mean throwing yourself into work that doesn't pay the bills. Whatever it is, don't be afraid of work. We were created for it. As for seeking out meaningful relationships, my best advice is to find a good church and get involved (versus just showing up on Sunday mornings). Can you be a Christian and not go to church? Sure, but that's not the way it's supposed to be and you deprive yourself if you try to go at it alone. A life filled with purposeful work and meaningful relationships is a good life.

Do with that what you like, but those are my thoughts on the topic.

Hope the weekend goes well!

Viss