Attitude determines outcome

As promised, today's soccer match was another game for the record-books. 

This time we had more players come out, yet somehow when the teams were chosen, my team had more players and everyone agreed unanimously that my team had the advantage in our collective skill. 

But surprisingly, once the game was underway, we kept losing points. By half-time, we were down about 6-3. I was perplexed. That's when I realized - it was our attitude. We were too confident because we all thought we had the advantage, so we had let our guard down. 

In the second half, even without my saying anything to the effect of what I had realized, we started picking up our game. We utilized our strengths and started playing as a team. 

I realized that even a small change in my attitude can make a big difference for my team, even without my saying a word. That is the power of attitude.

A fight worth fighting

In this week's epic soccer match, Wilder and Kaz faced off against myself and 4 little league-rs for the ultimate show-down.

Up to the final moment, the game was neck to neck as the extraordinary talent of the Peru-Japan duo was matched by the passing skills of the 4 munchkins & the Neymar Santos Jr.-jerseyed coach (that's me).

After a prolonged fight to the last minute, the outnumbered duo defeated us 22-20. Yet what we all gained outweighed the losses.

Every team is full of unique strengths and weaknesses. For us, we had strength in numbers - for the other team, they had strength in skill and ability. Yet it was when we did not hinder ourselves by dwelling in our weaknesses and focused on our strong points that we could work effectively and score.

Stay tuned for next week's match and the valuable lessons that await us!