What can Pete Carroll teach divorcing parents?
How apropos that I would start this blog on Superbowl Sunday. If you knew me, you would know that I am a diehard football fan. During football season, it is not at all unusual that I would go to 5 games in a week. (See the picture of my view from Husky Stadium). I love football for so many different reasons but not the least of which is the amount of time and pure passion that is dedicated to football training. I have watched my own sons attend practices 2x per day with weight-lifting in between. I have watched them getting up at 5:00 a.m. to weight lift before school. I have watched them coming home at 10:00 p.m. after spending hours in the gym after school. I have watched them lift and train through endless injuries and sicknesses. I have watched my son rehab from surgery, not once, not twice, not three times, but four; determined to have the best season. (Yes, I encouraged him to go back to swimming but we all know what type of influence I really have) I have watched them play in games, wincing in pain, hobbling down the field to start the next play but as soon as that ball snaps, they are healed. They put their heart and soul into football. Indeed, we have not found one single thing that will stop them from training for football. They are passionately committed to it on a visceral level and nothing gets in the way – at times, not even common sense or good medical advice. That type of passion inspires me.
Passion. Pure Passion. Just as my two sons are passionate about football (one has retired early from his football career), I am equally passionate about families’ futures after divorce. I am passionate about educating people how to successfully divorce and co-parent so that their children are the real winners. We have to face it, divorce is so common and touches so many families, we need to learn to do it right. Our society is counting on us, right now, to get divorce right.
The Seahawks’ head coach, Pete Carroll, can teach parents a lot about getting divorce right. One unique aspect of the Seahawks’ success is is that they are coached in the tenets of “win forever.” As Pete Carroll puts it “The best way to advance something is to live it out, in everything you do.” “That’s the interesting thing about the philosophy,” Carroll says. “To accomplish the grand, you have to focus on the small. To exist in the eternal perspective, you have to live in the moment.” “Each practice takes on utmost importance. Each strength and conditioning workout carries significant weight. They’re all monumental, yet none more valuable than another. And it goes to even more minute scales than that. Each repetition of each drill at practice means everything, because you can’t get to forever without right now.”
Parents also need to be coached in “win forever.” Children see their parents living out their “forever” in their day to day lives. Make sure what your children see day to day is the forever you want for them, the forever you intend for them. As a divorced parent, you have choices. Profound choices that will impact the lives of your children forever. You can choose to live out compassion and collaboration or you can choose to live out acrimony and hate. What is the forever you want for your children?
Today is Game Day! It’s also the start of your “win forever.” You choose your forever. You choose your kids’ forever. You choose what you say. You choose how you say it. You choose who hears you. You choose whether you need to get professional help to work with you so that you can make your kids’ forever great. Choose to “win forever” for you and your kids!!! Choose to “win forever” for your family’s future.
Go Hawks!!!! Beast Mode!!!
Elise Buie Family Law Group, PLLC
Your Family’s Future is our First Priority
