The Gospel In The Game
Conversation and stories about real athletes and the journey thru sport, faith and life.
Connecting athletes, sports families and the church. Build bridges and telling real stories to help repair, build and grow people.
Hosts Dan Dromarsky and Dave Dawson
The Gospel In The Game
Pride
Join us as we kick off with a spirited discussion about pride. Conversation on the dual nature of pride—how it can lead to arrogance and stubbornness or serve as a source of personal and societal achievement. Our reflections on the biblical saying "pride comes before the fall" provide a deeper understanding of its implications for everyday life.
In our next segment, we shift focus to the world of coaching and mentorship. We delve into the crucial role of humility, discussing how personal pride can often hinder genuine efforts to help others. Through modern coaching methods and personal anecdotes, we stress the importance of explaining the "why" behind feedback and highlight the significance of being coachable. Humility emerges as a powerful tool for personal growth and effective leadership, backed by scriptural references that underscore its importance.
Finally, we explore how character and humility play pivotal roles in sports leadership. Through examples of professional athletes like Connor McDavid and Shane Doan, we illustrate the impact of selflessness and a team-first attitude. Personal stories about interactions with players like Pat LaFontaine highlight how genuine interest in others can leave a lasting mark. We wrap up with a discussion on the erosion of character due to pride, particularly in sports and how humbling experiences remind us of the importance of humility and gratitude. Tune in for an enriching discussion on how pride and humility shape our lives and leadership styles.
we can argue about this all you want, but binoculars should never be allowed in the swimming pools period. Dave, it's no, it's a hard no I have binoculars in my condo and you're really well you know you live up on like the 20th the 19th floor. Yeah, they're useful for a lot of reasons, the main reason being like if someone's looking up you and you're just out there with your binoculars. Here's the.
Speaker 2:Here's the funny thing nobody, nobody looks up at the 19th floor when they're walking down the street. Nobody does, do you? If you tell me yes, I will fight you to the end of the earth. There's no way.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Okay, when you're down on street level, underneath the building, of course you're not going to look straight up, but from a distance. I've lived in an apartment complex, mind you, it was only the third floor, but you know what If you're looking out across to another apartment complex and you saw someone sitting out there with a pair of binoculars, right or even a telescope? Yeah, Be like whoa?
Speaker 2:No, you're not looking up that high, you're totally not.
Speaker 1:None.
Speaker 2:If I lived up that high, I totally would Absolutely. I would. No, you're not. You cannot convince me.
Speaker 1:If you were looking at the skyline and you look and you see another building of similar height. You're noticing the other buildings, you're. You're observing patio furniture. You're observing a lot of things, but on the street level, yeah, I think people still observe buildings. I will fight you to death on that.
Speaker 2:I walk down my street all the time, or I'm up on the 19th floor looking down and nobody looks up.
Speaker 1:Well, you know what? You're a tall. You're a tall guy.
Speaker 2:You can looks up. Well, you know what. You're a tall. You're a tall guy. You can see up. You can see tall. Naturally, that's true. That's true. Um, fighting, fighting. Have you ever, if you ever, believed in something so fiercely that you never saw the other side of the argument, like, like you had just taken it, you wrote it and said there's no other answer?
Speaker 1:no, I've never done that. To stick with our theme theme for today is pride.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that can. That can grab us in a lot of ways and I, I don't know, it's not. You know what's funny. It's so prevalent in our society, but I don't know if it's commonly thought of or discussed as much, because many people might not even understand or really know what the byproducts or the roots are of pride true, and I think a lot of people actually probably don't even think about how that they have it or that they're doing it yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:I mean we. I mean we think of anger you know we think of when you think of different emotions that you know in Christian circles are titled sinful, right, but in overall, in general society, think behaviors you don't want right, laziness, anger, things like that. Pride doesn't generally fall under one of those circles of. Are you a proud person, like if you're proud, like I'm proud of my country, I'm proud of my heritage, you think of it in the positive spin.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think this is more of a I'm taking a stance on being right, no matter what.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah and there's. There's so many aspects to pride, I think, in our world, and the first one being pride can lead to stubbornness, pride can lead to arrogance. Pride can lead to a number of different behaviors that can be destructive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you actually might get the argument by making that statement that some people say, well, no pride or being proud of something is you are, uh, you're acknowledging achievement or you're acknowledging pro um progressiveness, sure and uh. And so by not acknowledging that you take a pride in it, maybe you're you're not just taking ownership in it, or that you don't feel that it's a good thing.
Speaker 2:For sure. So I mean you've probably heard the saying pride comes before the fall. The actual verse from Proverbs is Proverbs 16, 18. Pride comes goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before the fall. That's actually the full saying, not haughty as in like hey, you're a haughty, yeah, yeah, yeah, like you're looking good today.
Speaker 1:Now, before we dive right into pride, we should probably let everyone know who they're who they're listening to.
Speaker 2:By the way, let's talk about ourselves. We're so we're so proud of this show Forgot to announce who we are. I'm Dan. This is Gospel in the Game, episode seven.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and we had a little bit of a little substitute in the last episode. Yes, yes, it was a wonderful interview.
Speaker 2:We had a we'll call it a technical difficulty in recording an episode, so we threw a throwback. When was that? 2019, 2018?
Speaker 1:It was five years ago.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 2019. And you know what?
Speaker 1:It's really interesting that we're talking about Pride after that interview. And you know what? It's really interesting that we're talking about pride after that interview. When we had recorded that interview, I really we both, I think came out of it. We were both like, wow, that was awesome. That was great, that was wonderful.
Speaker 2:We had a broken chair with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we did that was pretty fun. But then the Lord in his infinite wisdom decided to park that. Yeah, and I think there was points in both of our lives where we both kind of scratched our head, maybe even a little bit of frustration, saying like what, why didn't, why didn't we do this, sure, and now, looking back on it, it's like initially I thought I might have that thought where it's like, oh, we should have released this like four years ago. What were we doing, right? But now I'm just like, okay, now I kind of have got to have a little bit of a humble attitude with this and say, no, it's all in god's timing yeah, and I mean through that.
Speaker 2:I'll admit there was some finger pointing on my side, going I was so ready in my life to jump into that. I had the free time, I had all this like what's the issue? And now somewhat the opposite, we're I mean, we're both busy, but yeah, no, it's in, I think, in a component of pride. Finger pointing can happen as well, cause you're looking at the other person rather than yourself. For sure, right, you're pointing out the faults and going, well, this is wrong and that's wrong. But if you're looking in the mirror, going, hey, you know what? Like, maybe there was something to it that wasn't ready for that moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that finger pointing part of it can be really destructive with a relationship for sure it can. And it's like sometimes we think, oh, pride, well, that person is really proud that's really going to ruin them, or like they're, they're thinking they're the way they do things actually want it's wrecking relationships and so like had I think we both taken it personally, I think we have a strong and a friendship where I think the lord's blessed that to say, listen, you guys can probably talk about a lot of really tough things and we've had that.
Speaker 1:We've had a lot of bad layers, yeah, we've had layers, and I think the lord's kind of built that callous a little bit for us now to be able to say, okay, well, I provided you a few layers and maybe you're going to have a few discussions here. You may not see eye to eye or you may work together on it, but either way we're going to come out of it saying hey.
Speaker 2:Well, and let's look at what happened in the world since 2019, right, what's just strengthened our friendship even more? Not only strengthened the ability to talk about different topics and different layers, so I'm grateful for Nicole's interview, which was phenomenal. Now she's playing in the pro women's hockey league, so it was cool. Nice little flashback from what that looked like from now then to now. But when I think of the word pride, here's what I think of Someone who has a difficult time admitting they're wrong. Somebody who is a little bit self-inflated. Has a difficult time admitting they're wrong. Somebody who is a little bit self-inflated, yeah, and somebody who has maybe thirdly to this, but I think the first two are, for me, are most important who really needs attention? Yeah, okay. So what does it look?
Speaker 1:like for you when you think of pride. I'm going to take a little bit of a different look on it. I think of I agree with you with someone that needs attention often. Pride, for me too, is the. It goes along with tact. I used to have in my office I used to have the word the definition of tact written up, say did you have a tact up. No I actually holy cow I did. Wow, you and.
Speaker 2:I are also a big fan of bad jokes. Very punny of you.
Speaker 1:No, I had it up on my wall and it was the definition of tact is making your point without ruining the relationship, and I think it's not necessarily. The pride is not always on the side of the person who's wrong and being willing to admit the wrong. Sometimes it's the willingness of the person who's actually right, allowing the other person to be wrong and not trying to push their point, and I think for me that's one of the things, from a faith perspective, that's important with having conversations with people. Sometimes I have to let people be wrong in order for them to hopefully get to the point where they realize that what they are thinking or believing is destructive to them, in order for them to see the light.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's very biblical, because the Lord allows us to.
Speaker 1:okay, if you think you know better, I still love you, I'll still be right beside you, but just go ahead and work through your difficulties and the temptation, I think, is for us to try and rescue people ourselves, where it's like someone we care about and someone we love is walking towards a cliff and you're trying to grab them and pull them and yank them back and force them and you actually become an annoyance to them and they can even see you as prideful, where really you're trying to help them but they can see you in a pride light, even though it's them taking, being proud of their own belief in what they're doing.
Speaker 2:How about this one? In enabling them, saving them to the point of if you don't follow the same creed or doctrine not doctrine, but the same desires that they do, then they get angry at you, thinking that you know you're not caring for people because they're too proud to admit that they feel that they're the ones saving them. You know what I mean, have you?
Speaker 2:been in those situations where, oh, it's midnight and I'm going to go and save this person from their abusive behavior again for the fifth time this week. But, man, I'm doing the Lord's work by doing it. Where, maybe, as you said, a little bit of tough love and telling this person hey, I've told you four times that drinking and driving isn't a good idea. Yeah, so you should probably, you know, check yourself. I'll pray for you. But you know you are also ruining my life. Like, have you been in situations like that before? When somebody feels that you know, if you set a boundary around them, you're the one causing the harm. Where, really, maybe that's their pride of going.
Speaker 1:It's god's job to fix somebody, not yours yeah, for sure, you know, and that's a really tough one, especially when it's someone that you care about and you love. Yeah, I remember, yeah, a situation where it was a close relationship and I still have a really close relationship with this person and it was at the point where it was like the person had no food in their fridge, like literally no food in their fridge, and I was working and, yeah, I was a single guy, no family yet and stuff and I remember going and spending only almost every last dime that I had to put food in someone else's fridge because I knew they weren't going to get paid for a couple days. I knew I had food in my fridge.
Speaker 1:And I'm not saying this to to gloat or have pride but I'm just saying because it was a hard decision to make, because I'm like okay, like maybe am I stopping this person from getting to their wits end by helping them, but I care too much for them in order to do it that I'm actually sacrificing of myself physically and financially in order to try to, like, give one last olive branch.
Speaker 1:And thankfully the person came out of this and it was a story. But I kind of left that place thinking maybe I was wrong by doing this. Maybe, like, maybe this was more, actually more damaging to myself and to the person than it was to help them because of what I was willing to do and it was. It was a hard thing to kind of walk through. But at years later the person actually shared with me and said you know, um, I used to hate it when you'd come by and talk to me or visit me, because you wouldn't push on me and you just loved me and I was. I felt unlovable and I felt like no one should care for me in this moment and you cared for me enough enough to just come be with me and to say the odd thing that was actually the most important thing that ever happened to me, and so I think, in hindsight, it was good for me to get that feedback.
Speaker 1:But in the moment I was questioning myself what was it like? Was I ruining my my own being by doing that Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks for sharing. That's powerful. I mean, I'm sure there's many stories out there of wanting to help somebody, trying to help somebody, and their behavior doesn't change Right. So you think, well, what am I, what am I doing wrong?
Speaker 2:And I've, I've had the Lord check my heart repeatedly in situations like that, when realizing, you know, when you get to that moment where I've had those conversations with God and him telling me do you think that you're bigger than I am? I've had those conversations with God and him telling me do you think that you're bigger than I am? Yeah, like you need to leave this person to me and I'll change them. Right, you just pray for them. And I've had situations like that before with a friend who just wouldn't change and I would constantly help them and be up late, you know, counseling them and things like that, and they wouldn't change. And then realizing, when I got to the moment of realizing, it's my pride because I was getting a jolt of going wow, I'm such a good person helping this person through their difficulty, man, that makes me feel good. Well, that's pride.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because if the Lord's telling me, here's what I want you to do, but I'm doing the opposite just because I think that my behavior is changing them. No, I'm just a vessel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the Lord says do this. You're an instrument, you're a tool.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think it especially when you're dealing with athletes. Athletes have put so much effort into what they're doing. They've put so much like not just physical training but preparedness, mental work, so many other things that now all of a sudden, when you try to help them, some see it as wait a second, are they pointing out a weakness in me? I've been working so hard at this, I've been training so much on this, and this person is telling me I'm weak, and so it's kind of a careful thing to kind of work into, because now all of a sudden in the athletic life it's like what do you know better?
Speaker 1:show me your stats yeah when's the last time you scored 20 goals?
Speaker 2:yeah well, I remember having a conversation with a junior hockey coach a couple years ago and he told me that the way you coach young kids now is different than you used to. Used to be able to say, hey, fix this. And they'd say, okay, we're the younger generation, now you need to explain the why. So, on the bench, pull the ipad out. Hey, you see how your left foot was dragging here. That's why you got beat wide. If you do this, this and this and we'll go oh, okay, that sounds good. Where before, a coach without an ipad on the could just say you got burned on another, two-on-one, fix it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. And they'll say well, how do I fix it?
Speaker 2:Why.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and even in the last few nights we've had, we're in the like. We've played three out of our five games five games and five nights and coaching younger kids and same thing. It's like giving them the why, giving them the why, and sometimes it's sitting here and like don't look at me, let's watch the play, as we're watching these guys play, see how he's doing that.
Speaker 1:And it's even better than an iPad watching some of your peers do things, because now, all of a sudden, it takes the focus off of them and instead it puts it on someone else for them to learn from, and I think that's what's so great about looking at Scripture, and instead it puts it on someone else for them to learn from, and I think that's what's so great about looking at scripture is God gives us this compilation, these 66 books of the March of the Unqualified, where it's like the as so many people, even though there are failures and struggles and other things that they had to work on, including pride. Now God gives us some examples of people that he's brought through things.
Speaker 2:I think, a good sports metaphor. You know, like you, you talk about the word weaponizing, right? So your power play is a powerful weapon, or you have this great goalie who's a weapon, or you have a quarterback with an arms gunslinger. You know, the weapon against pride is humility, and the Lord gives us that through scripture, right. So being able, you know managing. So the company that I that I work with, I have the green light to hire staff, coach staff, manage staff. So one of the things I look for when I'm recruiting employees is are you coachable? I don't care how much you know, I don't care what your skill set is. You can be better than another guy. That's fine by me.
Speaker 2:I had to let a guy go last year because he was really coachable, but towards the end he started to become really arrogant, got all these gigs and he thought he was better than everyone else and he thought he deserved more. And I. So I went through one of his games and said here go, okay. Wow, you actually like I was just letting you have your time, but okay, let's sit down together. You made this mistake, and this one and this one and this one, and this one, and this one and this one and this one. So do you think you're better than everyone else now? And he started to push back a little bit on that, right?
Speaker 2:So I think that you know being coachable in any athlete, broadcaster, coach, whatever if you can be humble enough to be corrected and not look at it as attack against your character. And I think that is to me. When I think of pride personally, in our society, in sport, in life, the essence of pride is feeling it's an attack on your character. If someone says, hey, have you thought of a different way of thinking, yeah, of doing this situation, of this life topic, have you thought of the other side of it? Maybe when someone feels it's an attack on their character?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're so inward focused that you're no outward good, and so I got a question for you how do you identify whether or not someone's coachable in a world that is so self-focused?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great question. I think there's many ways one can do it. In my world where I hire broadcasters and things like that, I'm looking for the ability to be corrected. But I'm looking for the ability to be corrected so when I'm doing an introductory five-minute phone call with a guy, I can pick up on the way he speaks. Is he more about himself and his accomplishments or is he speaking about the experience of doing things? If his whole goal is to impress me by I did this, I did that, I did this, I did that repeatedly rather than I had a great experience doing this, I want to learn more. Yeah, same with an athlete.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right NCAA schools come to look at a junior hockey player when he's going to ask him questions about his team. What is his team attitude? This and this and this. I'm sure they know he scored 50 goals or at a 9.30, say, percentage. They want to know who he is as a person. Yeah, the results don't matter. Who are you as a person when no one's looking? Who are you? You know around your teammates. Do your teammates like you? Yeah, it doesn't really matter if they like you or not, but do you stay within the ability to make putting your team first over everything?
Speaker 1:else, yeah, and that's a big one. I've had pro scouts contact me and ask about junior players. And it's not about, like you said, it's not. They know all the stats, they know all the information. They always said who is this person? When no one is watching, what is their character? And, without going into details about the player, because you have to respect the confidentiality and all this other stuff, you can give insight and I I love the feeling when I can talk about the person, not in a proud sense, but say no, this person is really selfless. This person is not about making sure they're on the pedestal, it's about making sure that they respect what's been laid before them, expectation-wise, like you said, being coachable. But at the same time, in our self-focused world, even if you go up to them and you ask them that who are you outside of the team, they're not going to talk about themselves. They're going to talk about what they're doing in order to go, move forward, not staring backwards or into the mirror.
Speaker 2:Who is an example for you? I'm going to put you on the spot here, not on our itinerary calling an audible here, by the way, sorry about that. Who, for you, is an example of a great sports like? A humble leader in sport? I can think of one and I might steal yours. Humble leader in sport, I can think of one and I might steal yours um connor mcdavid. You put him in front of a microphone at any point in his career, at the peak of his success and his team's success. You'll never draw attention towards himself. Yeah, the reporters are always trying to say hey, your experience. Hey, what a pass you made. Hey, you scored three goals there, what a pass you made. Hey, you scored three goals there. Hey, what a move. Yeah, and instantly he's deflecting, and a number of people can do that in front of a microphone.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But from what I hear in my circles and seeing what I see, that's all aspects of his life. Yeah, he's not this self inflated, proud person. He's the best hockey player on the planet, but he's so humble.
Speaker 1:everything is pushed towards the peripheral, away from him yeah, when I was a teenager, I had a job with the ebb and snorlers and we had access behind the scenes.
Speaker 2:You mentioned this in a previous episode. Yeah, did I? Oh yeah, and I love the story. It was about that. Listen to previous episodes. It was a. It was a tie domey. I think it was the tie domey to previous episodes. It was a. It was a Thai Domi. I think it was the Thai Domi. Yeah, it was the Thai.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're right, it was the Thai Domi thing, but anyway, I had, I, um, I, the Buffalo Sabres were in town and I remember waiting around for players to come out of the way, teams dressing, and that's one place we couldn't go. And Pat La, always a man, I just love that guy.
Speaker 1:The way that guy's heart as you started to tell the story I was thinking like he's going to talk about, and and I I always kind of admired who he was in front of the mic and how he was fairly well-spoken, and I asked him for his autograph, to autograph a Jersey, and he said, well, what's your name?
Speaker 1:I'm Dan. And he said, well, so, dan, what grade are you in? And he started asking me questions and he stood there for about 10, 12 minutes asking me questions about my life, about the things that I liked, the things I enjoyed doing, what I liked about the game tonight, what I saw and I was like here's a pro hockey player asking, like a 16-year-old kid, a 17-year-old kid, about life and hockey and everything. And here I had my list of questions and he did this without making it about himself, and I had such a high regard for this person for not having pride where he could have, because he was the best guy on their team. He literally was at the time. But I think as soon as you asked me that question, though, my mind went to Shane Doan.
Speaker 2:Yeah. He was like one of the first guys that went to my Winnipeg Jets guy right yeah. I mean, I grew up in Winnipeg, yeah.
Speaker 1:And it was like. It was like wow, Okay, you know what would? Never. He was never self-focused, he never was. And to stick with one organization and to really just kind of be the guy and be the face without making it about himself Great example.
Speaker 2:I love the verse Matthew 23, 12,. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbled himself will be exalted. Um, I love the, the contrast between that, because it talks about short-term payoff. Yeah, you want to be the guy, be the guy. Eventually it's going to lead to destruction, like the first verse that we talked about there. But if you're humble yourself, you'll eventually be exalted.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we live in a world where people would rather be right than caring for someone else's well-being or even being willing to listen to someone else. I love conversations where people are like you get to hear both sides, but there's no fork in the road where both people have to leave right or where both people can leave wrong. And I think you know what, in the long run, I think we're going to be fairly surprised at the end of time. All of a sudden, we stand before our maker.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oops and two people are like well, who was right, him or I? And he goes well, you're both wrong.
Speaker 2:Let's let me explain this to you well, we live in such a polarizing world, right? You look at 2020, I think the world. A hard line was drawn right between the entire planet through COVID-19. You're either on one side or the other, and our selfishness of our society was exposed. How prideful are we as a world? Look, none other than 2020.
Speaker 2:I had a recent conversation with a friend who I'm not totally sure if this was the cause of it or not, but I'm pretty sure it was based on the information. He had some really, really close friends that he had been friends with for quite a while. Hasn't talked to them since COVID-19. Wow, because I know that he was on this one side of the argument and I know his friends were on the other side, okay, of the argument, and I know his friends were on the other side. I think, just because of the bitterness of what happened during that time, had just completely obliterated their friendship. Wow, the two sides couldn't see eye to eye anymore. Yeah, yeah, I want to tell you a story, two stories actually. We'll hog the rest of this podcast.
Speaker 1:No no, no, no no.
Speaker 2:It should only take another hour and a half to talk about. But so I, it should only take another hour and a half to talk about. So I used to do fantasy sports, so CFL fantasy football. Years ago, before it was really a thing. A friend of mine and I saw a niche opportunity, thought hey, there isn't really anybody doing CFL fantasy out there, let's start a podcast. So we started doing weekly rankings and then we were doing TSN sports net radio hits across Canada for a year.
Speaker 2:We were on morning shows all the time and it was cool. We're like, oh, we've got a niche thing going on. But what I found about myself when doing fantasy information, what is the heart of fantasy advice? You have to be right, I'm paying you or I'm listening to your show, so you're gonna win me this week. So you tell me who's gonna, who are gonna be the players, who are gonna be good, yeah, and who is gonna suck this week. And if and if my I don't win, guess whose fault that is? That's your fault, wow.
Speaker 2:So I did that for a number of years 80, probably 75% success rate overall. There were some players who exploded and people thought how the heck do you know that? Well, it's by studying this and that or whatever. But what I saw in my character during that time is this ugliness appear. It wasn't just in fantasy sports. In every other area of my life I saw my character starting to erode. Well, I became better, I became more frustrated, I became more arrogant, entitled, all because of why. The main focus of what I was doing for work is I had to be right and and if I wasn't right, someone would attack me on social media. You idiot, you said this guy was going to do well, okay, well, dah, dah, dah, dah dah. There's why he didn't do well, I'm justifying the reason why I wasn't right. Yeah, I'm not saying oops, I'm sorry, I was wrong, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm justifying the reason why it wasn't right. Oh yeah, so I saw my character completely erode during that point in time and I imagine that was probably tough because you're fairly fast on your feet, you're quick on your feet, you can give a quick response.
Speaker 2:And usually.
Speaker 1:Usually it has a comical side to it. You got a good sense of humor, but I think it's probably, it's probably a dangerous thing. Also, now you use that ability that you've been given to be quick on your feet and think fast, but you're doing it in a way that's prideful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I, I eventually had to give up on it. Yeah, I had to stop. Right, I was doing it. We had a really great following for well as great as CFL fantasy following can be in Canada but we had players were, you know, starting to follow us and listen to our show and whatever. But the where it all started was and it started to ruin the friendship with the guy that I was doing it with, because constantly we were fighting against each other. You were right, no, I was right, no, you were right. No, I was right, no, this was like that's what's happening all the time, and the root of it is pride, yeah, and the root of it is pride, yeah, for sure. And when I started to abandon that, I would realize, wow, okay, no, I have a lot of work to do. In my heart of you know, it's okay to be wrong and it's actually healthy to be wrong because there's a better answer on the other side of that.
Speaker 1:For sure. Now, you said there was two stories. What's the second one?
Speaker 2:Recently, I was on the train coming back from a sporting event.
Speaker 1:Wait, hold a second. You took public transport. I did, it was free.
Speaker 2:Okay, not by choice.
Speaker 1:You know what that might be another conversation.
Speaker 2:Maybe for episode number eight. Well, yeah, taking care of yourself and care of others. So I had. I was riding with some friends and they had gone off at a previous stop, so I'll qualify this. So, during the CFL Fantasy time and being in sports broadcast, anybody connected to being an athlete or whatever. If you get recognized as an athlete in public, it's kind of cool. Hey, aren't you so-and-so? Yeah, yeah, you play for that team. Wow, if you get recognized as an athlete in public, it's kind of cool. Hey, aren't you so-and-so? Yeah. Yeah, that's me. You play for that team. Wow, can I get an autograph? That's a cool injection of energy, right? Yep, same within media. You get recognized by someone hey, you're that guy, listen to you. And you had this injection of wow, that's so neat.
Speaker 1:Did someone recognize you for this podcast?
Speaker 2:I don't think we have. We don't have more than five listeners, oh no, we do, Come on, we have six.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I talked to a guy last week who listened Okay, my mom, but he's a guy that's going to ask a lot of questions what is going on in his life. So I was on the train again, my apologies and this young man had piped up, you know that had been riding with me for about 10 minutes and says hey, you're Dave right? Yeah, dave Dawson. Yeah, you know you do this and this and this. Yeah, I've been listening to you for a little while. I really enjoy.
Speaker 2:I've enjoyed following your career, you know, and earlier in my life, especially during that CFL fantasy time, you know, if you get recognized and whatever, that is a jolt of energy to my being of going wow, I'm the man right, shoulders back, walk into a restaurant hey, how you doing. Look who's here. You know so. But all it did for me is I got off that train and I thought, wow, like god, you're so powerful because I've been through, as you and I both know, moments in my life where a disaster is hit and I felt like I was nothing. Maybe as an athlete you've had that. You're at the height of your career, you win a championship, you come back the next year, goals, gains to averages at the top, or you threw 10 touchdowns. You're the man, you're the person, you're the woman, and then you blow your ACL. Then suddenly nobody recognizes you. You get released Right. So how to bring that together for me was going.
Speaker 2:I remember what that felt like to be on the top of the hill, so to speak, in my career doing really cool things. I remember what it felt like to be in the bottom during COVID-19, when I didn't have anything, so to speak, that I wanted me back in that moment and me to go. Instead of being proud, arrogant, prideful, it was just this moment of going. God, you are so good. Thank you that I have the ability now to glorify you, that I can meet this person and I can tell them in a relationship, if that gets built say you know how I got there? It's because of this great God who loves me, who restored me, who can restore you in your life. And that was a cool moment for me because I vividly remember the moments of height, disaster and then going wow, god, you were so good.
Speaker 1:Yeah wow what a great event. And it's interesting how the Lord puts events like that in our life to remind us of his goodness. And not only his goodness, but when we have pride and we're self-focused and we push away God, it's destructive, it's utterly destructive. But by his grace we get that wake-up call. We're like, oh Lord, you were here this whole time, you didn't go away from me. I was the one who tried to step away from you. Yeah, such a good conversation.
Speaker 2:And sometimes I think all it takes is just having a quick look in the mirror and go like what's really going on here, right, and then we've all had those moments where, even at the height, it doesn't have to be disaster. You don't have to have been cut or got shelled for five goals and going who am I Like? I would encourage you if you're at the peak of your performance, if your body's functioning at a high level, if your team is winning or et cetera, have a look in the mirror and go, like, check yourself, like, hey, am I am I right? Yeah, like, is there something? I am I right?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like is there something more I can do for somebody else? Is there someone I can raise up? Right Cause? Remember that verse pride goes before destruction, but a hot and a haughty spirit before the fall. So that's self-inflated spirit. H-a-u-g-h-t-y. Self-inflated spirit is where there's the beginning of the end for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Great thought. Good conversation today, Dave. Ultimately, we can see that man, the greatest example of humility, which is the opposite of pride, is Lord Jesus Christ. But good conversation about this.
Speaker 2:Love this Episode number seven Gospel in the Game. You can check us out on social media Instagram and Twitter or X and any place podcasts can be found. You can download this episode and all other episodes as well.
Speaker 1:That's right, and when you pass a skyscraper today or in a large apartment building, look up, get your binoculars, because they're not meant for swimming pools. That's right so.
