At 25, I became a professional basketball player.
I left Nottingham and moved to Sunderland, where the club had a large house that I shared with three American players.
I was living my dream.
The Americans trained with weights every day at the back of the house, so naturally I joined them.
Unfortunately, I already had a weakness in my back following an earlier cycling accident. It was becoming increasingly painful.
But pride took over.
I kept going.
THEN ONE MOMENT EVERYTHING CHANGED
Before the season started, we travelled to Nottingham for a friendly at the old Nottingham Ice Rink.
The ice had been covered with boards to create a basketball court; the game was sold out, and I was incredibly excited to return to my hometown as a professional player.
Then one moment changed everything.
I was attacking with the ball and made a move I’d performed hundreds of times.
Fake one way. Plant my foot. Explode in the opposite direction.
Except this time the board underneath my foot was wet.
My foot shot away from me, and I felt excruciating pain in my back.
That night the agony became unbearable.
Eventually, I ended up in hospital with a slipped disc and was put into traction.
Fortunately, some of the directors from Sunderland came to see me and arranged for me to travel to St Albans to be treated by Terry Moule, who was working with the England rugby team.
After three weeks of treatment, I managed to return to basketball.
But things were never quite the same.
THE DREAM DISAPPEARS
For the next two years, I was in and out of the team.
I’d play well, then my back would cause problems. I’d miss training, and my confidence suffered.
My England playing days were over too.
At just 27, I retired.
It was devastating.
I believed the opportunity I’d had to become the player I could have been had been taken away from me.
But recently, something happened that completely changed how I looked back at that period.
I checked the records of my final game.
It was the play-off final at Wembley’s Empire Pool in front of around 10,000 people and live BBC television cameras.
We beat Crystal Palace 96–92.
For more than 40 years, I had remembered us winning comfortably and assumed I’d been put on near the end because the game was safe.
But it wasn’t.
It was close.
And I was on the court at the end.
That stopped me in my tracks.
My coach had ten players to choose from, and when the game was on the line, I was one of the five he trusted to be on the court.
Perhaps I was better than I remembered.
For more than 40 years, I had been telling myself the wrong story.
Isn’t it incredible how our minds can rewrite our own history?
WHAT IF IT HADN’T HAPPENED?
My injury ended one career.
But it also started another.
After retiring, I became Commercial Manager of the basketball club.
I learned about sales and marketing, which eventually took me into the business world.
And today?
I’m doing something I absolutely love.
My coaching business is growing, and I have the privilege of watching people change in front of me.
The setbacks I’ve experienced throughout my life have given me something no textbook could ever have taught me:
Empathy.
I understand what it feels like when life doesn’t follow the plan.
And that helps me connect with the people I coach.
Sometimes it isn’t the past that needs to change. It’s the story we’ve been telling ourselves about it.
THE POWER OF THE REFRAME
One technique I teach is reframing.
Reframing doesn’t mean pretending something bad is good.
My injury wasn’t good.
It means asking:
“Is there another way of looking at this?”
Lose a client?
Perhaps it creates time to find a better one.
Don’t get the promotion?
Perhaps it exposes an area you can develop or pushes you towards an opportunity you would otherwise never have considered.
A plan falls apart?
Perhaps it’s forcing you to look for another way forward.
Sometimes something positive is hidden inside a negative situation if we choose to look for it.
We can’t always see it immediately.
My basketball injury certainly didn’t feel positive at 25.
Almost five decades later, I can see it very differently.
Maybe the career I thought I’d lost was actually opening the door to a life I could never have imagined.
And what a life it has turned out to be.
3 KEY TAKEAWAYS
1. Your first interpretation isn’t always the right one
What feels like the end of something may eventually become the beginning of something better.
2. Reframe the situation
You can’t always change what happened, but you can look for another way of interpreting what it means for your future.
3. Don’t underestimate what you’ve already achieved
Sometimes our memories focus on what went wrong and quietly forget the evidence of what went right.
THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK
1. What negative experience from my past could I reframe today?
2. What might my current setback be creating space for?
3. What have I achieved that perhaps I don’t give myself enough credit for?
If something hasn’t gone according to plan recently, don’t be too quick to decide what it means.
The final chapter hasn’t been written yet.
By the way, can you spot me in the photo?
Well, that’s it for this week.
Have a great weekend and keep believing in yourself.
Warm regards
John
Off the Wall https://tinyurl.com/3tvr892z
100 Days https://tinyurl.com/4vsejtur
