One Important Lesson I Learned from an Olympic Coach
Two weeks before the 2018 Olympic Games, South Korean Women's Olympic Hockey Team Head Coach Sarah Murray found out via government request that she was going to be getting new players - 12 of them to be exact - and that she was required to play a certain number of those 12 players in each and every Olympic game her team would be participating in.
Oh, and the players were from North Korea.
It would be the first time in over 25 years that North Korea and South Korea would field a unified team in any sport, creating an international, political news frenzy and putting a tremendous amount of pressure on a group of young women that already faced a Goliath-like task in competing against the top 7 teams in the world, when they themselves only ranked 23rd.
Hockey fans around the world may harken back to the days when US Men's Hockey Coach Herb Brooks helped lead a team of outmatched kids to the 'Miracle on Ice' in 1980s Lake Placid. But no one from the White House called Herb two weeks before the start of those Olympics and told him he had to take 12 players from Cuba on his team, and required that a handful of them play in every game.
Amongst the new Unified Korean Team, three different languages are spoken, and translators are used so that the players and their coach can understand each other.
That coach, Sarah Murray, is only 29 years old.
I was blessed to have played hockey for Sarah's father, longtime NHL and international hockey coach, Andy Murray, at Shattuck St. Mary's School some twenty years ago, when I was a teenager. Outside of my family, I reference Andy as being the most impactful, positive influence on my life, and of the many lessons I learned from him, one of the most important is being displayed on an international stage by his daughter.
The lesson - "FLEX"
The term "FLEX" was impressed upon my teammates and I from Andy's experience coaching on the international stage, when team travel plans were occasionally upended, and 3 hour flights turned into 16 hour bus rides as a result of everything from bad weather to political upheaval.
"FLEX" means not being so emotionally invested in your way that you are separated from your objective or blocked from your goal when change comes about. Instead, the message promotes a focus on finding solutions when change happens to you, and not using change as an excuse for not accomplishing your mission.
Be flexible, but unwavering in pursuit of your goal.
Whether in sport, business, or in our personal lives, things get thrown our way that can be used as excuses for not accomplishing our objectives.
The point is to do the best you can regardless of the circumstances.
The Korean Women's Hockey Team lost each of their three games, scoring only one goal. But they gave no excuses.
And in playing together they proved that a group of people from North Korea and South Korea could be unified, regardless of all of the incredible circumstances and challenges thrown their way.
It's an incredible accomplishment.
When something doesn't go my way, or challenges hit me that I didn't plan for, I remember my old coach, and now I'll remember the Unified Korean Women's Olympic Hockey Team. And I'll "FLEX."
