Get Back in the Arena

Last Thursday, Drew Allar had a tough night.

His stock was rising as a hot quarterback commodity. With the national semifinal against Notre Dame, it was a showcase opportunity that might have moved him into a high first round draft pick.

Unfortunately for Allar, it was not to be. He struggled with one of his worst career games. The cherry on top was a brutal interception with 33 seconds to go, sealing Penn State’s fate and ending their season.

He wasn’t the only quarterback who struggled in a big moment this weekend. Saturday was LA Chargers’ QB Justin Herbert’s turn; he threw four interceptions and had the worst completion percentage for a Chargers QB in a playoff game in 20 years. Sunday it was Packers’ QB Jordan Love; his pair of costly first half interceptions kept Green Bay from ever taking a lead against the Eagles on their way to a first-round exit.

As a former teacher, coach, and leader of an SDR Team, it’s tough when those you care about come up short in a big moment. It’s very painful.

I used to take these moments really hard in my own life. Over time, the more I’ve had a chance to work with others, I’ve come to see these moments differently - which in turn has helped me as a parent, a husband, as a business owner, and a member of the human race trying to figure it out in this life.

While they are never welcomed, these moments can be incredibly meaningful as a tool for growth…when you embrace them constructively. 

Here’s what I’ve learned and what I would share with these guys if I had the opportunity.

STEP ONE: Accept your defeat.

In the wake of disappointment, there’s a mourning period that has to happen in order for you to move on.

Unfortunately, I think many of us are conditioned to skip the mourning step. 

In my family, my well-intentioned parents did their best to raise me to be happy and to be tough. I am so blessed to have two wonderful parents who gave me everything I could have asked for and more as a kid. They are wonderful people and great role models.

Whenever something bad would happen, they would typically do two things:

1) Not allow complaining or focusing on negativity for too long.

2) Expect me to bounce back very quickly.

For life’s daily setbacks, it was very helpful. But for bigger disappointments and losses, I’ve come to realize there was a cost to this approach.

*

From the moment my sophomore year ended at Regions, my goal for junior year was forged: make it to the State Tournament!

At the end of my junior year of high school, I had a match at the Region III Wrestling Championships that was at that time the biggest moment of my career. The stakes were extremely high. It was the 3rd place consolation match where the winner went to the state tournament and the loser would go home, ending their season.

Unfortunately, 15 seconds into the consolation match, I rolled my ankle. The pop sounded like a gunshot. I took some injury time to recover, but it didn’t help. I basically wrestled the entire match on one leg, and although I battled to tie the score at one point in the 3rd period, I eventually lost the match.  

I was devastated. I had come so close to the goal I had been working for all year, and I came up short.

I cried for hours that afternoon and into the night. I had never cried that much in my life. I am sure for my parents, it was tough to see. 

Somehow my friends talked me into going out for a movie that night, which gave me a temporary reprieve from my misery. By the next morning, I was back in the depths of despair.

I sat at the kitchen table, reading the New Jersey Star Ledger to see the results of all eight regions across the state. It was brutal to see that guys I had beaten in other regions had advanced to states. I would be watching from the stands.

My Dad came up to me at the kitchen table as I read the paper.

“So, Mark. Are you good?”

I was far from good. Nowhere near good. 

“Yeah, I’m good,” I said, not wanting to engage in deeper conversation about my nightmare.

For the next few days, he asked the same question. I gave the same answer.

Over the next few months, my ankle prevented me from doing much. I tried to play baseball, but I couldn’t really run or cut. I had a lot of work to do to rehab my ankle.

The real work I needed to do was on the inside, though. I didn’t want to think about wrestling or what had just happened. 

So what did I do? I tried to swallow the disappointment and bury it, pretending it didn’t happen.

The result was an eight month emotional hangover. 

When my ankle got better by the end of spring, I got back on the mat. I went to wrestling camps. I went to tournaments. I lifted. I ran. But my heart wasn’t really in it. 

I didn’t want to set another goal and fall short again. It wasn’t until I was a month into my senior wrestling season when I realized time was running out, and if I didn’t get my head right, I was on the road to more disappointment.   If I had it to do over again, I would have cried for as long as I needed to. Maybe it was another day. Maybe it was another week. I’ll never know.  

But what I do know is that when you don’t fully process the emotions of a loss, they will stick around. If you do have the courage to process the negativity fully, you will get to the next stage a lot more quickly where the real work needs to begin.

STEP TWO:  What can I learn from this?

Once you do that necessary mourning, this is the question you must ask - and embrace.

As soon as you move from frustration, anger, sadness, and pain - to curiosity - you start to diagnose what happened so you can avoid a similar result in the future.

In many situations where you underperform, there is typically a root cause within your control. Sure, sometimes in sports - and life - things do happen outside of your control. But most of the time, there is a tangible opportunity for growth. However, that opportunity for growth is only available if you have the space, self-awareness, and willingness to pursue it.

When I got to the fall of my senior year, it was time to face the past.

As I looked back on the fateful match back in March, I came to an interesting conclusion: I only had the ability to shoot on one of my opponent’s legs. As a result, when I hurt my ankle, I was forced to take the same shot, requiring me to push off my bad ankle (which wasn’t an option).

I realized that if I had a second attack where I could have shot on the other leg, I may have had a chance to win that match. Going forward, I would also be a lot better on my feet with a second option.

*

Perhaps one of the most powerful examples I have seen of the application of “What Can I Learn from This?” was the end of Kobe Bryant’s rookie year.

In Game 5 of the opening round Western Conference Playoff series vs. the Utah Jazz, with the score tied, and the seconds ticking down, Kobe had the ball with the chance to win. It was a dream moment. He dribbled, fired, and took the game winning shot…

He missed.

But not only did he miss…he threw up an airball.

Over the course of the next five minutes in overtime, Kobe kept shooting - as any top player would do. 

He continued to miss - and ignominiously, he fired three more airballs in overtime.

It was the ultimate embarrassment on the world’s biggest stage. After processing the pain and humiliation of the airballs, Kobe quickly went into learning mode. He reviewed the film, analyzed his performance in the latter half of the year, and gained some clarity on why his year ended the way it did. 

His conclusion? He didn’t have the legs. 

After playing 40 games a year in high school, his body was not equipped for an 82 game regular season plus playoffs.

It’s hard to accept defeat. It’s even harder to ask yourself the tough question about what you can learn from the experience. Once you do, you are in position for the final, and most important step on the road back to the arena.

STEP THREE: What’s my plan to address this?

After accepting a loss and learning the lesson from the experience, it’s time for action.

But here’s a hard truth: knowing what you need to do - and actually doing the work required - are two different things.

I don’t know too many people who enjoy change. Most people I know prefer to do things the way they’ve always done them so they can avoid the friction and difficulty of implementing something new.

I recall meeting with a company back in the spring of 2024 about building an SDR Team. They were struggling to book new meetings, so an SDR Team was a timely and worthy option.

The director of sales liked the idea. But when it got to the C-Suite, there was a different message.

“I think we know what we need to do to be more successful in our outreach. We’re just not doing it.” Our conversation ended there.

When I checked back a quarter later with the director, they shared that everything was status quo. And the CRO? Gone. They had just left to join another company.

We will never know whether their plan or my plan was the right one to solve the problem. But one thing is for certain: because there was no execution, there was no way to know.

It takes a combination of vision, discipline, and focus to move forward from setbacks. 

Vision helps you craft the right plan of action. 

Discipline drives your ability to show up. 

Focus makes sure you execute according to plan. 

Then to complete the flywheel, applying curiosity as you review your results helps you understand if you are on track. If not, curiosity helps fuel what adjustments you need to make.

Kobe had the right team to help him build his leg strength that off-season. I was lucky to have some great coaches my senior year who helped me add this new element to my offensive arsenal. 

Which brings me to a key point: you don’t have to do any of this alone. 

Enlisting others in the process at every stage - from recovery, to exploration, and finally, planning and execution, will help provide you with valuable inputs to accelerate your growth.

That is, if you are willing to accept feedback!

*

It’s never fun to lose. But the only thing more painful than losing is repeating a similar mistake when you had an opportunity to correct it but didn’t.

Here’s a final hard truth: you can do all of these steps, and find yourself experiencing an even bigger pain in the future. There is no law that declares a person can’t have their heart broken more than once. 

So to put a bow on this piece, I will leave you with what I share with all those who have the courage to try again. It is my favorite quote. In fact, it is the only quote that sits in my office:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. 

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - Teddy Roosevelt, “Citizenship in a Republic,” 1910

Disappointment is simply the price of being in the arena. We all have a choice.

We can play it safe and stand on the sidelines to ensure our safety and avoid disappointment.

Or we can get back in the arena where we may succeed…or fail.

The only guarantee is that if you don’t step into the arena, you have no chance to win.

So to Drew Allar, Justin Herbert, Jordan Love, and all those who had their hearts broken in some way this week, my message for you is this:

Accept defeat, find the learning, plan and execute…and get back in the arena!

#thearena