You've Got to Be Ready for Your Next Opportunity!

"You Miss 100% Of The Shots You Don't Take...."

Wayne Gretzky, hockey legend

Oh my! Pickup any book, watch any video, ready any article, attend any seminar from those who make a living in the self-improvement and motivation industry—and it is quite a burgeoning industry today—and there is likely only a slight variation on a single, core message: You've got to be ready for your opportunity! While way, way too much money is being made by often self-appointed gurus selling themselves and their advice in this area, there can be no disputing this simple fact. Whether in your business, your career, your relationships—you have to be paying attention to be able to recognize that your chance to shine is at hand!

And so yes, in so many ways, sports is absolutely a metaphor for life! If you don't think that's true, just look at what happened in a single instance in a single game in September. This one moment of inattention cost a player—Nick Sciba, a freshman placekicker for Wake Forest University—dearly. And his story serves as a simple, object reminder to all of us that in our own lives, when opportunity knocks, that moment is gone in an instant! Whether that chance comes back around or not, that particular opportunity is never to be repeated, and your chance—at least in that particular context, is indeed lost forever! But what is really critical is what we do next.

So let's review the basics of exactly what transpired that will probably enshrine this kicker on ESPN's all-time Not Top Ten Plays. On a bright, sunny afternoon, Wake Forest was hosting the 8th ranked team in all of college football, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Halfway through a fairly uneventful first quarter of the game, the Wake Forest Demon Deacons had possession of the football, and their offense was—as sportswriters say—matriculating the ball down the field. Their drive however stalled on the 21 yard line, and on fourth down, their field goal team trotted out onto the field for an attempt to score the first three points of the game. Arguably, an early lead might boost the team's confidence in taking on a ranked opponent, and after that, who knows what might have happened? But is was not meant to be.

That is because not all of Wake Forest's field goal team made it onto the field—at least not initially. The linemen were in their positions. The long-snapper was over the football. And the holder, Dom Maggio, knelt down to prepare to call out the signal that would begin the play. He turned around, and to his surprise, he saw that the eleventh—and most important—player, was not standing where he should be to prepare to actually kick the ball! In his shock, Maggio got up from his kneeling stance to look around, shake his head, and hold up his hands in wonderment, basically thinking he was being "punked" in front of a packed stadium and on national television.

At that moment, while his teammates were ready for the play, and Maggio was understandably quite confused, where was the 11th man—placekicker Nick Sciba? As the video shows, Sciba was doing what kickers typically do for about 99% of the game. He can be seen calmly standing on the sideline, seemingly enjoying a beautiful first day of Fall. Yes, Sciba was holding a football, casually stretching just a bit to stay "loose"—ready for action—except he wasn't ready for action! Obviously, as a results of the combination of the holder's panicked gestures on the field and unseen, unheard, but likely quite loud, four-letter-laden urgings of his coaches and teammates, Sciba ran as fast as he possibly could onto the field and into position for the kick. However, in all the confusion, Sciba was definitely out of his normal "pre-flight routine," and the kick sailed wide to the left.

And so the kick was missed, and Wake's scoring attempt went by the wayside. And yet, the net result of Sciba's misstep really had little to no impact on the actual outcome of the game. The Demon Deacons would go on to lose to the Fighting Irish by a score of 56-27. In fact, not even "degenerate gamblers" really made or lost any money based on the results of that particular play! This is because both teams exceeded the projected point total (59.5) for the game and the 29 point actual deficit meant that a wager on the game's point spread—at 22.5 points—would not have been impacted by Sciba's missed opportunity.

Overall, Nick Sciba ended-up not having a total disaster of a day. In fact, for the game, the kicker ended-up making two field goals—one longer than the one he missed on his "play of infamy"—and converted three extra points, contributing nine points in all to Wake Forest's score. However, those positive stats will, as Lincoln famously put it, be "little noted nor long remembered" in comparison to the spectacle that will live on forever on YouTube of a field goal team sans the field goal kicker! And so while Sciba—or generations of Scibas—may not ever laugh at seeing the video of that play, even many years from now, that play has joined the ranks of the greatest hits of sports viral videos.

Wake Forest kicker Nick Sciba makes the next field goal!

And yet, that was just one moment. For sure, it was a one big moment for Sciba. And once the moment had passed, to his great credit, Sciba did indeed bounce back and greatly help his team that afternoon. But the indelible image of the field goal team ready to execute their jobs without the field goal kicker on the field was the takeaway of the day—hopefully not the season, and certainly hopefully not the life of still young Nick Sciba. Still, it was an opportunity lost, and one that provides an abject lesson to us all as to how to not just deal with opportunities lost, but how to build on those missed chances (hopefully, it just takes one!) to be better prepared to succeed on the next moment of possibility for us.

How many times in our own lives have we ourselves missed an opportunity—for whatever reason? Were you like young Nick Sciba, lost in your own thoughts—so much that you missed the moment? Were you thinking about what you were needing to do next—rather than doing it? Were you lost in concentration on something that appeared to be important in the moment, rather than the thing that really was the important thing? Were you looking at your phone, rather than being engaged in what was going on around you? Were you concentrating on something totally outside of the situation at hand—your upcoming beach weekend, your grocery list, your kid's d#$& science fair project, etc., rather than the situation happening right in front of you?

We live, work, drive, study, learn, talk...exist in a world of distractions today. It is up to all of us to try, hard as it may be at times, to focus on the moment—to look for the opportunities straight in front of us. Yes, as Wayne Gretzky famously said, "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."

And yet, in our own lives—in our work, our careers, our relationships—we have to make a choice as to how we react, both to opportunities found and opportunities lost. The important thing here is to be ready—mentally, physically, psychically—to bounce back, as Sciba did. We need to have that kind of resiliency to be able to forget about the moment lost and look toward the moment ahead to be able to make the best of the next opportunity, not wallow in the one we just lost. However, the best approach is not simply to say, "Well, that one's gone, and that's it!" We need to be open to learning—really learning—from our experiences, so that we take the lesson of the missed chance to make us more prepared, more focused, more ready to succeed on the next chance (yes, assuming, hoping, that there will be another one down the road—whether that be in the next hour, the next day, or the next year).

So be prepared! Be watchful. Be mindful. Be in the moment. But...if the moment does pass you by, be open to learn from your mistake so that your next shot, your next kick, your next interview, your next sales pitch, your next date, your next whatever it may be that represents opportunity for you, is made more likely for you to succeed in it by living through the process of failing, learning, and then doing better the next time! As Eminem put it....