Monday Mindset
– an uncommon approach to school, sports, and life –

Today’s Monday Mindset: Take the High Road – part 2

If you missed Part 1 from last week, start here here!

Welcome to your Monday Mindset where you discover how to be your best so you can give your best. This is by far and away the most important Monday Mindset I’ve ever recorded. And I want you to listen to the end.

It’s longer than usual. Stick with me.

Let’s open up with a story.

I was in my first year at the University of Waterloo playing for the men’s basketball team. And at the end of one of our practices our coach, Tom gave us the option to either sprint to run, we called them 17. So, you had to run sideline to sideline 17 times in a minute. But if you were brave enough, you could attempt to run an 18 and then 18 meant you were going to get one extra length from sideline to sideline in the minute. And there was a catch to it.

The catch was simply this. If you guaranteed the 18, that you could run 18 side to sides in one minute before you ran it and you got it, you didn’t have to do another sprint either later that day or before practice ended or in a future day. But if you failed to hit the sideline in time, you didn’t quite get the 18, the whole team would have to run again. In other words, you had everything to gain personally by guaranteeing an 18, but the team had everything to lose.

First of all, it was really difficult to get a 17, let alone an 18. But secondly, you were jeopardizing all of your teammates if you decided to go for the 18. But this one day after practice, I was feeling particularly energetic and I thought I could get an 18. So I decided to go for it.

And coach said, “Does anyone want to guarantee an 18?” I put up my hand and I looked over at my teammates who started giving me these glares. They knew what was at stake. I had everything to gain. They had everything to lose. The whistle went and we started running. I was on pace. I was at nine when coach yelled out, 30 seconds left, you get tired in the last 30 seconds of this sprint. And when it got down to 10 seconds left, I was at about 16. So I knew I had to make it down and back. And as the coach gave the countdown, five, four, I touched the one sideline and I had to make it all the way back.

3, 2, 1….

And, over the line. We all sat there catching, our breath.

Coach calls out, “Mano. Did you get the 18?”

“One second, coach.”

3, 2, 1, and pass the line. I was reflecting back on it and I stood there with my hands on my knees. He called out again, “Mano, are we done with practice or did you not get the 18?” And one of my teammates, Mike said, “You better have gotten the 18.” I knew what was to come in the locker room if I hadn’t. And I looked up at coach reflected back on it one more time and thought, gosh, that was so close. I was within millimeters inches, maximum of foot or two. I looked at coach and I said, “Coach, I got the 18.” He said, “All right we’re done practice. Call it a day guys, bring it in.”

I went home that night thinking about the way my teammates in the locker room had said, “Mono, that was close. You would’ve been dead meat if you hadn’t gotten that 18 and we had to run again,” but then the phone rang and it was coach. He said, “Mono, can you come see me first thing tomorrow morning?” I thought it was a little weird. Come see him first thing tomorrow morning, I’m going to see him at practice tomorrow afternoon. And I started to get this feeling. Gosh, what if? What if it’s about the 18? I went to sleep that night, kind of tossed and turn got up in the morning and went and saw him first thing.

I sat down in his office and he looked at me – he said, “I only have one question for you. Did you get the 18, really?”

I looked down hoping I was going to disappear, but I didn’t. And he repeated the question. “Did you get the 18 at the end of practice last night?” I said, “Coach, I didn’t get the 18. I was a foot too short. The buzzer went before I crossed the line.” He said, “I know. We all knew. Coaches knew. Your teammates knew. We just wanted to see if you were going to do the right thing.”

My head dropped. I didn’t even want to look at him. I was in my first year, first month starting my college career, my university career. And he said, “Mano, I want you to remember this. If you’re going to be a leader that others want to follow, your word has to be your word. You’ve got to take the high road consistently. You can’t take the easy way out. You can’t lie your way out. You can’t cheat your way out. You can’t steal your way out. You got to take the road less traveled if you want to be a leader that others are going to follow.”

And that taught me such a critical lesson. I committed from that point forward, recommitted to taking the high road, to taking the road less travel. And if you watched my Monday Mindset a week ago, you’ll know I talked about this. So this is really building on it. But one of the things I was reflecting on as I listened to the Monday Mindset is that I didn’t talk about why – why it’s so important to take the road less followed, why it’s so important to take the high road.

Here’s the thing, as I was thinking about that, the types of situations I shared last week, and this story seems like those don’t come around that often, maybe once a year, but there are so many times where we have the choice every single day to take the high road or the low road. Let me give you a few examples.

Are you going to be honest with a friend or not honest with a friend? Are you going to cheat on exams or cheat on a test or not cheat on a test? Are you going to talk about a friend and badmouth a friend when they’re not around and then put your arm around them when they are around? To our parents out there, to our adults, are you going to be faithful with your spouse or your significant other? When you hurt someone or you’re feeling hurt, are you going to apologize? Are you going to put up a wall? With your taxes, are you going to pay your taxes? Are you going to cheat on your taxes?

There’re are countless opportunities for us to take the high road or the low road.

So why choose to take the high road? Stick with me here.

I wrote down four different reasons why I think it’s mission critical that we take the high road as often as possible. In fact, all the time.

1. It’s more honorable. It’s more honorable. Who do we respect the most in society? We respect leaders. We respect others. We respect family members, who don’t lie, cheat and steal who take the high road at any given opportunity. That’s who we respect most. So if you want to be respected by others, if you want to be honorable, take the high road.
2. It’s flat out harder to take the road less traveled. So do it because it’s harder, because so few do. Not only will it make you stand out from the pack, but you’ll challenge yourself by doing it. Be willing to do what so often others aren’t willing to do. It’s the harder road and when you take the harder road, it makes you stronger.
3. It’ll give you peace. What’s the piece from? Here’s what I wrote down. If you haven’t taken the low road, if you haven’t lied, cheated, screwed somebody, what does that do? It gives you a peace that you don’t have to watch your back. You don’t have to wonder if you’re going to get caught. You don’t have to wonder if or worry that somebody might find out what you did, what you said, how you handled this situation. Just have greater peace in life.
4. This might be the most significant, self respect. When you choose to take the low road, you erode the integrity that you have with yourself. And what do I mean by that, your reputation, forget the reputation that you have with others. The most important reputation that you’ll ever have in life is the reputation you have with yourself and when you choose the low road, you erode your reputation with yourself. So if you want to have self respect, take the high road and it’ll grow your self respect and how you feel about yourself and how you carry yourself.

Here’s what else I wrote down – the principle in the scriptures of sowing and reaping, that which you sow, what you plant, you will eventually reap. Another way to view it is as Justin Timberlake sang in 2008, what goes around, comes around. In some traditions, karma, the boomerang, what you put out, you will get back.

It’s worth sowing seeds which are going to help others and help yourself rather than hurt others or hurt yourself. So why don’t we do it? Why don’t we take the high road? It’s really simply this. We don’t take the high road more often out of either fear or desire. Fear, what if I get caught? What if… Not what if I get caught? What if I come clean? What if I admit to having lied? What are they going to say? What’s going to happen to me with my team? What was going to happen in in my story if I hadn’t gotten 18 and the whole team had to run again, I could tell you what would’ve happened. It wouldn’t have been pretty in the locker room. They would’ve been on me every day, all year. I would’ve never have lived that down. It was fear. Fear which made me take the low road.

The other is desire. Desire, greed, power, lust, you name it. All of those things can be motivations for us to try and get ahead by taking the easy way or the cheap way out instead of taking the long hard road.

My challenge to you is simply this, choose to take the high road. If you’ve taken the low road, don’t wait for somebody to call you on it, come clean. Come clean, admit and apologize.

Just the other day, my wife and I had a disagreement about something and I felt like taking the low road. I felt like being stubborn and being displeased about the situation and kind of putting up a wall. But then I realized the high road is just to own the junk in my trunk, apologize for how I was acting and apologize is the first step to taking the high road.

The second is to commit to taking the high road at every opportunity. Do that and you’ll live more honorably. You’ll be a leader others want to follow. You’ll have greater levels of peace. You’ll be building your own toughness and grit and your own self respect when you take the high road. So put that into practice today, tomorrow, in every day of your life, you’ll never regret taking the high road.

Get started today.