What To Do When Life Throws You a Curveball

The press had a field day with footage of American Football sensation Kareem Hunt kicking and shoving a woman back in February 2018. With the incident exploding into a media hurricane, Hunt’s professional and personal reputation quickly turned to ruin, at least for the immediate moment. In a moment of weakness, Hunt threw himself his own curveball. He was then dealt a second blow in December 2018 when he was released from the position of running back with the Kansas City Chiefs. After signing with the Cleveland Browns, he was suspended without pay for the first eight games of the 2019 NFL season.

In high-stakes leadership, the altitude of the playing field itself is one most we can’t even fathom reaching in our lifetimes. A fall from the top can be likened to striving to survive and recover from an obliterating avalanche. In professional corporate arenas or elite sport, great suffrage is a given consequence. Whether you agree or don’t agree or believe Hunt’s account of what happened or whether or not his apology is truthful there are consequences and trauma that need to be processed and dealt with after the fact.

Great business mentors often say: “Start with the end in mind.” They are referring to the end game, what life and your business, sporting career or otherwise, ideally looks at when you’re ready to exit or transition. However, too often do we fail to plan for the direst of circumstances exploding in our faces.

We need to first become better at forecasting and managing the impact upon our mental and emotional health, not just for ourselves but for our families and our community.

1. Acknowledge and accept the downfall with people qualified to support you.

Trying to positively reframe the situation initially is not going to be helpful. Immediate attempts to be open to any guidance of looking at the glass half-full or searching for lessons in the experience will likely add layers of frustration. You need to give yourself at least some time to acknowledge the knock you have just received.

The rug has been pulled from under you and you couldn’t even see it coming. You had one moment of weakness that’s transformed and shaken your world in ways you could not fathom or be prepared to rebound from. You’ve lost. Your mental and emotional compass need to regain their bearings and come to grips with the disparity between where you were just a moment ago, to the sub-par circumstances you now find yourself in. Deliberately find and make time and space to do it. Call a spade a spade. Be upset, frustrated and angry. Harboring such thoughts and emotions in denial will cause you further harm than good.

How you acknowledge is also important. It’s essential to find the most qualified support people in your corner who won’t judge, say the: “I told you so. I tried to warn you and didn’t listen” or try to problem solve straight away. You need to quickly get in touch with people who know how to be truly empathetic. Those people need to be prepped and on speed-dial.

Your partner or spouse may not be the best person. Unless your parents and closest friends can put aside their views and sit down beside you in the proverbial gutter and recognize your experience of doom, they are not going to be your best supports. You need people who can willingly and selflessly step out of their world into yours and sit beside you and feel present as feel the pain.

2. Make sincere apologies where they are due.

High-profile elite athletes often get professionally and publicly roasted more than highly reputable CEOs whose popularity stems from business results they’ve achieved. Their personal lives receive less attention from the public spotlight. However, there’s virtually no escape once it’s decided your blunder is front-page newsworthy.

Some of Hunt’s fans have never met him but respect and admire him, often blindly. The apology he makes needs to not just beg forgiveness from the person he offended but that person’s community and other communities that follow and support him. Even those whom you may have impacted vicariously, you need to consider saying sorry to. If you don’t, those you need to follow and support you will emotionally and mentally resist doing so.

Dr. Michael McCullough, research director at the Institute for Healthcare Research in Maryland, led a study exploring if we feel increased empathy toward an apologetic

offender. Their conclusions found that apologies lead to empathy and that empathy mediate forgiveness. Rip the band-aid off quickly so you can start the healing process for yourself and those you’ve affected.

3. Reignite your resilience to recover and rebuild.

There is never a definite time frame when it comes to bouncing back, however, you should always look to have a recovery plan in place. In a physical emergency, you dial 911. In a mental and emotional emergency, who’s your 911?

Intentionally qualify and choose who the people are you can immediately connect with. In the midst of a crisis, your first step needs to be to find and create moments of mental stability and solace. With a calmer, clearer head you can truly determine who those people need to be. You might need a professional coach or therapist to facilitate that for you and then determine your own general recovery plan.

Work out a hierarchy of graduated steps which you can move through one by one to restore your mental and emotional strength. Look at a mix of physical, tangible steps and cognitive exercises. As you go, map and record what you find are particularly helpful as well as those that aren’t. This foundation will be your recovery prescription for the next curveball you’re thrown.

4. Mitigate Risk.

What do you learn and how do you correct it?

As you reach a certain turning point in your recovery journey there will a stage at which you will have enough mental and emotional capacity to use the beauty of your hindsight to look for the lessons. Whilst details are still fresh and there is still some raw vulnerability, you are in a prime place to consider mapping how you forecast and make plans to be ahead of the curve.

Consult with your mentors and coaches (e.g. business, sport) and ask for suggestions. Could they see things you were unable to see? What warning bells did you ignore? What were your weaknesses and what is your plan to directly work on transforming those into your best learning and improvement opportunities? What protective measures can and should you put in place?

When you apply these above steps as your recovery protocol you recognize, learn and adapt to not only make a comeback but bounce back even stronger from your setback. The curveballs in life lead us to some of the greatest growth opportunities and we bounce back stronger than ever before.

About Malachi Thompson

Dr. Malachi Thompson III has cracked the code to creating a life that enables sustained levels of high performance. He has spent nearly 20 years as a coach, adviser, friend, mentor, and creative spark plug to elite athletes, CEOs, senior sports industry leaders, senior military leaders, and people who want to get more out of themselves and their lives. His expertise has been featured in Entrepreneur, CEOWORLD Magazine, Lifehack, Thrive Global, and Addicted2Success.

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