How Reflect Connect and Select Brought Me Home
[Music]
have you ever had a phone call that
changed your life
on march 13 2015 i was going about my
daily game day duties as an assistant
baseball coach at sonoma state
i was getting the field ready i was
organizing scouting reports
i was dealing with young college
baseball players and their daily
problems
i received a phone call from my wife’s
doctor my wife had been suffering from a
disease called lupus and
this doctor had managed her care for the
last seven years
at the end of our conversation he
informed me that he thought my wife
leslie had six months to a year to live
you know the phone call was devastating
it it triggered this
fear of the future this fear of the
unknown
it triggered anxiety and depression it
sent me into this downward spiral
unfortunately his his words came true
seven months later on october 25th 2015
i got a phone call from that same doctor
to inform me that my wife leslie
our son tyler’s mom had passed away
the downward spiral that i was on it
turned into a free fall
i stopped taking care of myself i i
stopped paying bills i
i started numbing my feelings and
emotions with
alcohol i was doing my best to to take
care of our son tyler
i was heading up the stairs one morning
to check his blood sugar
tyler’s a type 1 diabetic and i didn’t
make it to the top of the stairs
i had an alcohol related seizure and the
free fall that i was on it it came to a
crash landing at the bottom of our
stairs
and when i came to i i looked up and i
saw two paramedics standing above me
but what made the biggest impact in my
life is i looked up the stairs and i
i saw her son tyler and he was looking
down at the only parent that
he had he was frightened and he was
scared and
i couldn’t get to him i couldn’t hold
him i couldn’t hug him
i couldn’t tell him that things were
going to be okay because i just didn’t
know
later that day i was coming home from
the hospital and
i was angry and disappointed with myself
or had
taken my life to but i couldn’t help but
think that
that that was leslie that was leslie
nudging me
down the stairs giving me a wake-up call
telling me to straighten my life out to
to start
living my life by the advice that i give
to our players at sonoma state
when dealing with the players at sonoma
state i try to give them three steps
they’re the same three steps that i used
when i was struggling with baseball
those steps are to reflect connect
and select and i relate them to baseball
because baseball’s such a big part of my
life and
i envision myself up to bat i’m battling
the pitcher and i’m
paddling the defense and in order for me
to score
i gotta touch three bases i gotta touch
first
second and third well
in life i use these three steps as
i gotta touch each of those three steps
and they’ve helped me deal with
the challenges of dealing with lupus and
diabetes and dealing with the loss of my
wife
the first step is reflect and reflect
means to look in the mirror and to
analyze yourself and evaluate your
situation and
where you’re at and and where you want
to be
you know back then i remember looking in
the mirror
i was 35 pounds overweight my face was
bloated due to alcohol
my blood pressure was was through the
roof
i knew that i needed to stop drinking i
needed to start exercising
and i needed to start filling myself
full of nutrition
and that’s exactly what i did and it
gained this momentum to get me to the
second step
and the second step is connect and
what connect means is to to ask for help
to connect with people that can help get
you where you want to be
i was very fortunate my best friend dan
he had lost his wife at the very same
age he’d walked in my shoes
he’d been where i’d been i could lean on
him for
support and for advice
is there somebody that you can call on
is there a friend or a therapist that
that you could get help from the third
step
is select and what select means is to
select decisions that are going to make
you stronger knowing that all decisions
are linked see they can work for you or
they can work against you
knowing that one good decision it can
lead to the next one just like one bad
decision could lead to the next bad
decision
i remember back then i would wake up and
i would
i would choose to be a victim to my
situation
i would choose to neglect nutrition and
choose to sit rather than exercise
now now i choose
when i wake up to see life as a gift and
i get to see it through the lens that
leslie gave me
that life is really short
now steps they
i relate them to to baseball and maybe
you could relate them to
to hiking or music or photography
they’ve helped me become a better parent
a better
friend and a better person i get the
opportunity these days to
speak to colleges and police departments
and sports teams and i know these steps
have helped them
and i know they can help you so many
of us these days are waking up at a
crossroads
and there is that fear of the future and
there is that fear of the
unknown i know if you can get the
courage to
to look in the mirror and reflect and
figure out where you’re at
and where you want to be and you can
connect with people that can help get
you there
and you can select decisions that are
going to make you stronger
you can make it through your most
challenging times
i hope you choose to use this
as your nudge down the stairs thank you