The Canada Games brings together all the best teams in multiple sports from across Canada – it is a mini-Olympics for young athletes in Canada.  When I was 16, all my hard work and determination paid off and I was selected, along with 11 other players, for the Canada Games Team.

The players selected to this team trained for two full years together in preparation for the Canada Games.  We had a very harsh coach who ended up being replaced just a few months prior to the competition.  Up until that time, we had an established starting string and I was the starting setter and co-captain of the team.

Because of the difficult experience we had with the previous coach, the team was in a state of turmoil when our new coach arrived.  Players were angry, some were doubting their own abilities, and there was disagreement about whether replacing the coach was the right decision so close to the competition.  Our new coach was highly accomplished and firm but kind. He had the very difficult task of managing the complex dynamics of this significant change just a few months before the big competition.

For the first couple weeks, he tried to change things as little as possible – the same players were on the starting string and the captains of the team remained the same.  But as we approached the competition, he held individual meetings with each player.  I remember our meeting involved a conversation where he seemed to be reassuring me that I was a very skilled setter and asking me who I thought should be the starting setter at the Canada Games.  I responded: “The decision is yours because you’re the Coach. It’s not up to me.” 

After that meeting, the Coach pulled me from the starting string and instead had another teammate, who was also a good friend of mine and amazing player, start as the setter.  He made a couple of other changes to the starting string as well and we only about three weeks to get ready with the new set of starters.

Frequently, after practice my teammate, who was now the starting setter, would say to me through tear-filled eyes: “I think you should be starting – I’m not good enough for this.”  And every time she said this, I would reassure her: “You’re are an excellent setter and you’re going to do an awesome job.” 

This was actually one of the most difficult experiences in sport that I had to that point in my life.  

I had visualized and prepared for that competition for four years.  The venue was in Kamloops, a small town close to many of my relatives. I had invited them all to come and watch our team.  My immediate family drove up from Vancouver – over four hours to see our team compete.  And the new Head Coach of the University Team I was playing for the following year, flew out from Ontario to watch the competition.  So about twenty people were there to watch each match where I barely saw any court time. 

But despite my disappointment, I did my best to provide support to my friend and teammate and she played great.  I cheered from the bench and I was ready to do my best for the few points I was put in for each match.  We had been predicted to make the finals in that competition but, likely due to the turmoil, we finished a disappointing fifth.

We always learn important lessons from losing, as Rachel recently shared. Through these experiences, I learned about how to be a team player and why it’s important to ask for what you want.

Lesson #1: How to Be a Team Player

Through this experience I learned the important lesson of how to be a team player.  I learned how to put my own self-interest aside and support the shared vision that we had as a team to win that competition.  I learned the importance of supporting my teammate, who was experiencing her own self-doubt, throughout the weeks leading up to and during the competition.  And most important I learned that it’s important to act in a way that supports your team even in, and perhaps especially in, the most challenging circumstances.

I have applied this hard lesson on how to be a team player to many other situations, including in my professional work.  Each person’s responsibility is to forward the vision, mission and strategic priorities of the organization no matter what role they play in that organization.  And so, in my current work, in those high pressure moments, we all pitch in to finish our priority work – regardless of our title, regardless of our role.  We put the team’s interests above our own and we work together to forward the mission and vision of our organization.

Lesson #2: Why You Need to Ask for What You Want

I have reflected on that moment where I didn’t speak up to the Coach many times.  It was a really important learning experience for me.  I chose not to voice my opinion and the outcome was terrible.  If I had spoken up, it might have changed the Coach’s decision.  But even if it hadn’t, it would have definitely reduced the amount of time I spent going over and over that moment again in my mind.

When I was just 17, I had no idea that being pulled from the starting line-up just a few weeks before the biggest competition of my life (up to that point) would provide me with two transformational life lessons.  Reflecting back on that difficult time, I now appreciate the value that learning those two lessons at an early age.  Not everyone has the opportunity to learn how to be a team player nor to be in a situation where they have failed to speak up and suffered as a result of it. 

I have learned so many important life lessons through sport and I’m grateful for every one – even those that felt devastating at the time.  That difficult experience of being pulled from the starting line-up reinforces the valuable and sometimes tough lessons we gain from failing.  It also reminds me that we carry many of the defining experiences that we have in sport for the rest of our lives.