Find and play your 6ixth man

No one wants to be a bench warmer but I learned 12 pivotal lessons over the course of 20 years of struggling to find my identity as a player. When I say struggle, I mean that I sat the bench a lot. Ironically, I have never been cut from a team but there were times in my career where I played about as much as those who had been.

So what do you do when you cannot accept a coach’s authority – when you cannot compete in practice because you are distracted by the feeling that “I’m better than the starter at my position?” If you are like me, much of your skill set was self-taught and refined late. We often see things in ourselves that others have yet to perceive and that proves to be immensely valuable. However, when our perception of ourselves and our circumstances becomes so one-sided that we blame others for our failures, the “6ixth Man” is inactive. In other words, you’re playing the game, life, your career without insight.

The “6ixth Man” is a paradigm from God that brings clarity and purity to your goal. Upon reflection, comparing yourself to others, aiming for the spotlight, blaming others for failure and other character flaws should all serve to convince you that every encounter yields a lesson and every lesson God teaches us through the team prepares us for life’s most significant demands. One common expression goes, “If I knew then what I know now, I would do it all again, but differently.” Such logic is ridiculous because who do you know who would rewind the clock to re-experience disappointment, frustration and utter humiliation? Much of what happens in sports or any other team-oriented activity is outside our control and therefore it is pointless to argue that “I would have done…”

The “6ixth Man” is wisdom imparted from an unchangeable past intended to outfit you with the resources to live successfully on a world stage of so much more importance than the team for which you play(ed). The world is a dying place in need of extraordinary individuals who have absorbed a Godly mindset to maximize personal potential and share it exhaustively. Play your 6ixthman today.