When he said you could be great…I looked behind me as I thought he was talking to somebody else!

The feeling of an adult who believed in you as a kid, will never leave you.  So many great kids never had a mentor to develop their spirit, their character and their future life reflects it.  There I am, awkward, insecure, acne scarring my face, trying to fit in and somebody singles you out as having the potential for greatness.  As scary as it was then, it was a template for future success.

“You could be an all-scholastic hockey player”

When my JV hockey coach said this to me, I thought he was talking to somebody else.  After all, if you were not on the varsity by the time you’re a sophomore, you’re not going to make it anyway.  I didn’t even know what an all-scholastic hockey player was, but I knew it was something good.  Had to ask my gym teacher what all scholastic meant ( there was no Google back then).  He told me high achievement scholastics combined with high achievement athletics.  “Why are you asking me that?” he said, “You’ll never be one.”  Thanks for the confidence boost.  Now mind you I was a pint sized, introverted, weak, unaggressive, hockey kid who didn’t like being crunched.  I also was a C/D student.  Getting in trouble and other peer pressures were calling out to me.   So much for being an all-scholastic hockey player I thought to myself.  This coach didn’t see my present appearance, he concentrated on what I could become.  He wouldn’t let up on his belief in me…he saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself.

 He didn’t pity me because of the situation I was in…or feel sorry for me

He knew that I just needed some purpose in my life.  He worked me like nobody else on the team.  He raised my bar of standards on and off the ice.  Off ice training was year-round and grueling.  He demanded better grades and insisted on A’s and B’s.  Today I would have been classified as learning disabled and would have been dumbed down with drugs, special ed and lowered achievement standards.  He, instead raised the bar!  He knew my grades, just like my hockey would improve if I was properly mentored and had the courage to be great.  My life started to head in the right direction.

One day he gave me a stick and he autographed it

 It was such a token act of kindness, I didn’t want to use it to break it or hack it up.  I bought another one, so I didn’t have to use the one he gave me.  I put it in my room next to my bed.  Every night before I went to bed, I gripped it, pretended to score a goal and then dreamed about scoring in the big game.  Same deal when I first woke up.  That stick symbolized someone’s belief in me and something amazing started to happen…I started to believe in myself.

We see this everyday in practices across the US and Canada

 When you decided to become a DC, your own personal issues come out when dealing with patients.  If there is one key to success, it’s stop trying to re-invent the wheel.  Open yourself up to the opportunity of having your hidden potential realized.  The way out of struggle in any area of your life is being guided by someone who has your back and sees something in you that perhaps you don’t even see in yourself.

“In a roomful of DCs, you were speaking directly to me”

 We hear this comment quite often.  We’ll be speaking at an event and DCs who we have never met, come up and say, “It was like there was nobody else in the room.  You were speaking to me.”  That’s exactly how it happens.  It’s not like I was looking for a mentor that one fated day.  I was not exactly tearing it up in life (could have easily fallen through the cracks) and I sure could use some help, but I didn’t know where to turn or who to ask.  My coach Joseph Massafero just appeared in my life.  If you know you have the passion, the caringness to be a great DC and your practice doesn’t reflect it, step up and get in contact with me.  In just a few minutes your life will change forever.