I was with a client in Saskatchewan this past weekend. I knew his son played hockey at a high level and asked how he was doing. The client proudly told me his kid was playing for the Tampa Bay Lightning. He was in THE big leagues at age 19. This is truly a big deal. He went to camp fully expecting to be sent to the minors but they kept him up and he stayed up, playing in every game this year.

I asked if they had seen any games in person. He and his wife traveled to see him in a number of places. I cant remember exactly but it was over five, close to ten trips to see him play. He explained, “We never knew when he might get sent to the minors or get hurt so we wanted to see him now. We didn’t want to wait. We know people who waited to go see kids play in the NHL and they never got the chance.”

Tonight I am in Montreal and, of course, hockey is on TV. Tampa Bay is playing Toronto. As I watched I didn’t hear his name being mentioned so I went online to check the roster. He had just been sent to the minors. He was playing well but not getting quite enough ice time. The team wants him to get more ice time per game and that will happen on the farm team.

I hate to see him get sent down although all indications are he will be back in the NHL. I am so happy for my client though that he chose to go see his son play and didn’t wait.

This is a good lesson for all of us. You can live life or you can wait and hope it gets better. You can choose to make things happen or you can simply float along. I choose to live life. It may take energy, money, commitment, discipline, planning and other things that can be compared to swimming upstream but it is worth it. Even a dead fish can swim downstream.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 22nd, 2010 at 5:14 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.