The World Doesn’t Stop When Bad Things Happen So Why Should You?

As a lifelong follower of basketball and avid hoops fan, I've come to appreciate the important life lessons the game has to offer. When I was a teenager, I religiously followed the on court exploits of players like Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson not realizing that the benefits would be more than just entertainment.

The life lessons of persevering through adversity, determination and hope were glaringly obvious when my eldest daughter, Vanessa became involved with organized basketball.  It provided me with a great opportunity to teach what I learned.  She was about nine years old when she started and played until her mid teens. As a “basketball dad”, I naturally was excited that she gravitated to a game that I loved. Despite this, I made a point of making it clear that the decision to start or stop was always hers to make.

During the practices, I used to sit on the sidelines and observe with the other parents as her coaches ran through various drills and plays. Despite knowing the game well enough to coach, I didn’t interfere with whatever instruction given by her coaches. I played a support role and left the “real coaching” for the car rides to and from practices and games. I remember one instance when Vanessa wasn’t feeling particularly well and experienced severe cramping just before practice started. I gave her the option of skipping out and taking a break but she insisted on going.

She got to about the half way mark when the pain of the cramping intensified and I noticed Vanessa really started to struggle and was moving significantly slower than her teammates.

Her inability to keep up slowed down the practice considerably and I could sense the agitation level in her coach rising. He perceived it as “lack of effort” or not trying on her part. My natural instinct as a parent was jump in pull her out of the situation and take her home but I held back and decided it would be best to let the situation play itself out.

At one point, Vanessa gingerly jogged by me during one of the drills with tears in her eyes. As I offered her water, I gave her the option of calling it quits. She declined and pushed on.

Her coach became infuriated and abruptly ended practice citing lack of effort by a "particular individual" as the reason. Vanessa was pretty upset during the “car ride” home and the tears flowed profusely the moment the door slammed shut. I have to admit that as I was consoling her, I was extremely curious about why she insisted on continuing forward with practice despite the obvious pain so I asked. She responded by simply saying, “I didn’t want to quit”.

Vanessa learned a very important lesson that day in perseverance and as a parent I couldn’t be any more thrilled. You see, the ability to fight the tough times is a skill that all children will need as they progress through their personal journey into adulthood and the earlier they’re equipped and understand its importance, the better.

One of the hard realities of life is that there will be days when things won’t go our way and you're going to want to quit.  Take heart in the fact that persevering through adversity and demonstrating resiliency will be the difference maker between you reaching your goals or not.  

I recently had an opportunity to listen to the incredible story of Kevin Rempel who's a member of Sledge Team Canada. You see, it was Kevin's dream to be a pro dirt bike racer but after an accident in 2002 that saw him fall from a height of nearly 30 feet, he became a paraplegic.

Despite being told by the doctors that he too would never walk again, Kevin wasn’t willing to take that answer. After months of intense therapy, he got back out of the wheelchair and back on his bike. In just one year, he kicked it over and went riding again.

His sledge hockey team has their eyes on  a gold medal from the next Paralympics in Sochi, Russia in 2014!  

Congratulations Kevin!

You can read more about Kevin's inspiring story by visiting his website.

Being resilient means bouncing back despite the number of times you've been pushed down and believe me, you will get pushed but at the end of the day you have the final call as to how far you'll end up because  nothing is truly over unless you believe it is.

The world doesn’t stop when bad things happen so why should you?










See you on the court!

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Why People Fail - Siimon Reynolds

We've all seen this classic Nike commercial in which Michael Jordan recounts the number of times he's failed on the basketball court but just in case you haven't, here you go:



Failure is a natural part of the learning and growth process and a topic that Siimon Reynolds dedicated an entire book on.

His book is entitled "Why People Fail" and it hits home on the importance of mastering failure to achieve your aims, hopes and dreams. Failure is the ambitious person's constant companion. It can dog you for months, years or even decades before you finally achieve your goal.

Siimon was a guest on HCL Radio and we discussed his book and the notion of failure in great detail. He said, "Successful people fail more then failures but they keep persisting and adjusting their strategies until they finally gt where they want to go."

Why People Fail offers strategies and tips for beating failure habits such as:

• unclear purpose
• destructive thinking
• low productivity
• weak energy
• not asking the right questions
• poor presentation skills
• stress
• lack of persistence
• money obsession

Click this link to hear my conversation with Siimon or listen via the media player below.

If you're interested in learning more about Siimon and his work, please visit his website.

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See you on the court!

It`s Not What You Don`t Have

There`s very few people that would have a better understanding of this concept than former big league baseball pitcher, Jim Abbott.


As a result of a birth defect, Jim was born with only one hand but that didn`t deter him from following his dream of being a professional pitcher.

Here are a few of his accomplishments:

• pitcher for the Gold Medal Olympic Team in 1988;

• threw a 4-0 no-hitter for the New York Yankees versus Cleveland (September 4, 1993).

• played for 10 seasons on 4 different teams and ended his big league playing career in 1999.

Instead of choosing to focus on what he didn`t have, Jim turned his attention towards the things he did have and refused to be defined by his missing right hand.

As a motivational speaker, Jim joins the next episode of HCL Radio to talk to about his playing career, how he personally overcame obstacles and what kinds of things motivated him to fulfill his dream of becoming a professional baseball player.

Listen as Jim talks about the importance of being accountable to ourselves clicking here.

Click here to read Jim`s full biography.

For more great insights be sure to check out the program or to stay regularly up to date with new episodes, click on the follow button on slightly above the show description!

See you on the court!

The Foul Call

Getting fouled in the game of basketball and life are natural.

Fouls are those "not nice" things that can happen that throw us off our game plan, they usually appear in our lives in the form of adversity.

To best cope, we need to come to the understanding that the fouls will come and we need to learn how to leverage those experiences to make us stronger individuals.

The big difference between basketball and life is that there aren't any refs in life who'll blow the whistle and stop the game so we can get a break.

Stuff just keeps coming!

So, to move forward we have to play through the foul.

These day to day challenges may be tough to overcome but if we want a chance at winning then giving up isn't an option.

Joining me on the next episode of HCL Radio is a woman who understands this concept far too well.



In her latest book, Play Through The Foul - Basketball Lessons for the Game of Life, Vera Jones helps readers to better understand the importance of standing in the face of adversity and the kinds of things we can do to overcome them.

Vera said, "Life's experiences are meaningful despite whatever fouls they encounter."

As a former basketball player, coach and now motivational speaker, Vera`s unique approach gives her some great insight on how we all can deal with the challenges of the life.

Note: Free show reminders are available by visiting the show page and clicking on the "Remind Me" button.

Thanks for reading!