I am writing this post as I watch my daughter during her very first iceskating class. Fewer moments can be as painful for a Dad as watching a kid slip and slide around on the ice…knowing full well that the afternoon is going to end with some tears and even some bruises.
But this lesson began with something that was as much a surprise to me as a Dad as it was to the eager kids, ready to get out onto the ice. It was a moment that has reminded me of some important lessons in management, leadership, and life. And it happened off the ice.
As the class got started, my daughter’s skating teacher approached the group and announced, in her quintessentially thick Russian accent, that the most important lesson of the day would happen during the very first few minutes of the class. Each of us parents perked up and watched as she pointed her finger one-by-one at the mesmerized students, her sparkling snowflake brooch shining under the fluorescent lights of the ice complex.
“If you want to learn how to skate, she somewhat sternly proclaimed, first you will learn how to FALL.”
“Fall?!” You could see the quizzical looks on the faces of the kids. They came to skate, not fall down. “Fall?!” You could see the overly protective helicopter parents bristle at the idea that their suburban dream kids would do anything other than soar along in Olympic form.
“In order to skate properly,” the teacher explained, “we teach you how to fall so that it does not hurt your body and ruin the rest of the lesson. And we do it out here before you get out on the ice. Now follow along….”
The kids and teacher ensured a comical series of falls, including the safest way to hit the ice without breaking any bones.
As I watched this spectacle, I thought how important it could be to communities that are important to me…at home, work, church, the classes I teach or the people I care about. We all will fall. We should think in advance about what we can do to lessen the burden of that fall once it happens. Life is full of failures as well as successes. What and how were the ways I was learning how to “fall?”
My mind went immediately to my support group of family and friends. Do I know which ones I will go to when something bad happens in my life? Do I truly pray for strength to learn from challenges in my life when they take place? Am I the kind of manager that prepares his team members for failure instead of just pushing out the cliché phrase that “it’s OK to fail?”
In every aspect of my life there is a kinder, gentler way to fall. And if I think about it now, I can prepare myself and my friends for learning from the falls and being ready, sooner, to bounce back-up.
For the record, my kid fell A LOT during her first lesson. But she got back up. And as she came off the ice she told me, “I stayed up a LOT!” That’s the perspective that is perhaps the best result of her learning to fall.
