Life’s lessons are not about whether or not a person falls down, but rather that the person gets up and learns important lessons from them. The most successful people in the world have had to overcome many difficult things in their lives and they are successful because they never gave up. Honestly this incident I experienced helped me because what I picked up from this whole ordeal taught me an important lesson in life about hard work.

During squirt hockey in Minnesota I dreamt about skating on the traveling A team. That year as one of the last five kids the coach took off the team and placed on the B team, I was devastated, devastated. The pain felt inside festered and grew. My pride diminished to nothing like evaporating air. That year I ended up playing for the B team and ended with an excellent season. Although I excelled during the season, something inside me clicked that day after not making the team. My dad said to me, “Maybe you did not work hard enough before the tryouts to prepare yourself to beat out the other kids that were selected for that team.” My dad told me that the only way to ensure I never feel that feeling again inside is to work hard enough and get good enough that the coaches have no choice but to place me on the team because I earned it.

After that season playing on the B team I never again played on a B team. I also made a personal commitment to myself that no one on any team would work harder than I in anything, and no one has period! I took from that experience something important, that if someone really wants something then they must set their mind to it and actually go out and put forth more effort than anyone to achieve it. I’ve also discovered that putting forth that kind of effort and commitment can be easier said than done.

I recall many times in my life that I was thinking about hanging out with my friends but did not go and stayed back to lift weights, shoot pucks, or run. Times when I stay back, I remember that awful feeling that I felt back when I did not make the squirt A team. Experiences like this remind me what my dad told me when I was younger.

Skating down here in Kansas on Russell Stover seems worthwhile because I can surround myself with kids who like me, want to be the ones who stay back to practice when other people are doing other things. It was a great choice because my teammates push me and each other to the limits each day so we can better ourselves as hockey players.