From the Founder, Brian Mazza 10/16
WHAT DOES THE TEAM GET FROM YOU?
“If your presence doesn’t make an impact, your absence won’t make a difference.”
Think about that from an athlete’s perspective.
When you walk onto the training field, does the level improve? Does your effort force someone else to work harder? Does your focus help the group settle in? Can your coach trust you to bring the same standard on a cold Thursday that you bring when everyone is watching on Saturday?
What actually changes because you showed up?
The best players influence the environment around them. Their urgency is contagious. Their willingness to compete gives everyone permission to push harder. They listen, respond to correction, and keep working when a session becomes uncomfortable.
And when they are absent, you feel it.
You miss their communication. Their intensity. The way they demand the ball after making a mistake. The way they pull a teammate back into the session when his head drops.
That impact is available to every player. You can be working your way into the lineup and still make the team better every single day.
As parents, we need to teach that.
We spend so much time asking, “What is my son getting from this team?” Minutes. Attention. Opportunity. Recognition.
Of course we should care about his experience and development. But there is another question that deserves just as much attention:
What does this team get because my son is on it?
Does it get a boy who works? Who listens? Who celebrates someone else’s success? Who stays engaged when the day doesn’t revolve around him?
If we only teach our children to measure what they receive, they will struggle to understand their responsibility to contribute.
And eventually, those children become us.
Adults keeping score in partnerships. Friends waiting to be contacted. Colleagues wanting more responsibility while being inconsistent with the responsibility they already have.
This is where the conversation gets uncomfortable, because we have to hold ourselves to the standard we keep explaining to our kids.
What does your partnership get from your presence? Are you treated properly to give it your all? If so, does your partner get your attention, your patience, your willingness to carry something without being asked? Do you notice what needs to be done? Can they tell you something difficult without having to manage your reaction first?
Or does the person closest to you get whatever is left after you have given your best energy to everyone else?
You can work hard for your family and still have work to do in how you show up for them.
I have to sit with that, too. I cannot spend a session asking boys to listen, stay composed, and support each other, then act as though those expectations expire when I walk through my own front door.
The standard has to come home with me.
The same applies to friendship.
Are you present when someone has nothing exciting to offer? Do you follow up after the difficult conversation? Can you celebrate a friend’s progress without quietly comparing it to your own?
Some of the strongest contributions we make are ordinary. Remembering. Checking in. Keeping our word. Putting the phone down. Doing the thing we said we would do long after the mood to do it has passed.
Those actions give people something they can trust.
We all have seasons when we need more support than we can give. A strong team, a strong partnership, and a strong friendship make room for that. But we should be honest about whether we are going through a difficult season or have simply become comfortable letting other people carry the relationship.
Before we ask our children what kind of teammate they were today, we should be willing to answer the same question.
Who received our effort? Who could depend on us? Where did we make someone else’s day a little better?
You cannot demand that people appreciate your impact. You have to take responsibility for the impact you make.
Give the people in your life something they can count on while you are there.
