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085 - The Ancient Rule of 'Maybe'
2 Playsin 7 hours
Maybe—a simple word drawn from an ancient Chinese parable that challenges how we judge life's wins and losses.
In this episode, you'll hear the story of a farmer whose horse runs away, then returns with seven wild horses, then causes his son to break his leg, which saves him from war. At every turn, the neighbors rush to label each event as disaster or blessing. The farmer? He simply says: "Maybe."
This isn't about indifference or avoiding reality. It's about recognizing that we're often standing too close to the canvas to see the full picture. We don't know the consequences of our misfortunes, and we don't know the consequences of our good fortunes.
For coaches navigating the extremes—the crushing losses, the unexpected wins, the chaos of leading others—this ancient wisdom offers a powerful tool: the ability to feel the ends without letting them define you.
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Transcript
Introduction with a Metaphor
00:00:00
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Don't judge the painting by one brushstroke. Step back to see the
Exploring Leadership in Athletics
00:00:04
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masterpiece. Welcome to the Captains & Coaches podcast. We explore the art and science of leadership through the lens of athletics and beyond.
Networking Success with In-Person Coffees
00:00:11
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I'm your host, Texel Kouken, and today I wanted to share a goal with you that I absolutely crushed in 2025.
00:00:18
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That was 50 in-person coffees, whether it's networking or socializing. I marked them on my big calendar. It was a huge goal and I absolutely crushed it. i love coffee. I love friends.
00:00:30
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We got the opportunity to combine them. Many of these were connected to podcasts. So you got to experience the conversation. One of my favorites, Logan Gelbricht. We sat down. He makes an amazing cup of coffee, combining goal and work.
00:00:46
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It's great thing. But there are still plenty of conversations that were off the line that I valued and wanted to share the insights my friends handed off to me, which now I'll hand back off to you.
Annual Christmas Tradition with Coach Joe
00:00:57
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The first conversation i wanted to share with you, it happened just a couple of weeks ago with my former classmate, colleague in strength, and friend of 20 years, Johanna Zabel, aka Coach Joe.
00:01:11
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Every year I return to Northern Virginia for Christmas to ah sit down with my sister's family, oldest sister's family. She's got the oldest kids, they're most fun, they're into sports, they get to beat them up a little bit and have a great time. Right down the road from my sister is my alma mater, Marymount University, and a number of my friends and colleagues whose families are based there They come and visit. So we take that opportunity to connect one such friend, Coach Joe, and I have had a long running tradition on Christmas Eve where we catch up on life and take care of some last minute Christmas shopping.
00:01:46
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This year was no different. Last year, we returned to our former college weight room on campus at Marymount to sit down and record our our annual catch up. And I took that opportunity to share Coach Joe's seven rules to live by.
Life Lessons from Coach Joe
00:02:03
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So let's let's take a clip, fast flash back to last year's episode.
00:02:11
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Here you go. Coach Joe's list, a lot of life lessons from your time here in this weight room and beyond. Number one is, i don't know yet. I want to keep learning. I want to be a lifelong learner. We're not ever going to be masters at at anything. What we can do is keep striving towards mastery. Number two, be honest with yourself and others. ill in the world comes from not being first honest with yourself. Number three, no one's coming to save you, princess. You got to be capable. You got to do things. Don't wait for somebody else to do it for you. Don't wait for somebody else to fill in the gap of something you want in your life. Number four, minor on the minors, major on the majors.
00:02:50
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Five, your lack of planning does not constitute my emergency. Where somebody is tasked with something and then all of a sudden it becomes my problem. And I'm like, that's so cute that you think I'm going to major on that right now. I respect organization and planning and a good con-op. Give me a good con-op every single day of the week. Otherwise, we're going to say, that's minor.
00:03:12
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We're going to minor her on that. Number six, GSD, get stuff done. The PG version, ah we all know. Always be doing, always be taking a step in the direction of something that you wanna do. You can't expect for life to fall in your lap. You have to be doing. Seven, feel the ends. When I talk about the ends, I mean like the ends of the the spectrum, the full feeling of all of the things of life, right? The good and the bad. And a lot of times, you know, we you and I have talked about this, where like you get into that bad end of the spectrum and you're like, not going to feel that anymore. Let's go ahead and pretend, right? And so we're raging with loud music, lifting weights, forgetting about it, not talking about it, pushing it down. We sort of forget how bad it feels and then we make the same mistake again because we forget that that really sucked. Feeling the ends in like that negative sense. really helps us not return to the mistakes that we made before.
Embracing Life's Highs and Lows
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It also helps us fully process it.
00:04:12
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It helps us help other people because we've gone through it before. And then feeling the ends, like the good, the joy, the like having these moments of this thing I've been saying lately is thank you more, please. Drawing attention to the good things that happen and Feel the ends. My immediate thought was the end of something. You never want to stick around a place too long. Then and start to paint the picture as negative. Feel the endings.
00:04:37
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is I mean, look at us here. We didn't stick around here forever. This was a moment in time, the right place. and They poured into us to grow. We outgrew this place, stepping into and out into the great unknown.
00:04:49
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We were ready and prepared because we were here. and We also stepped out of someone else's spot because somebody else was then, that spot was freed up for somebody else to step into. Welcome back to the show. During our lunch a couple weeks ago, Jo and I talked about some new rules that she needed to add to the list. One of which is for those moments when you are feeling the ends, those moments when you are in the extreme bad or the extreme good of life's spectrums and you need that perspective, you need that ability to step back.
00:05:23
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And we're going to call this rule, maybe. It's inspired by an ancient story that challenges our need to label everything as a disaster or victory the second it happens. To understand this rule, you have to hear the story.
The Chinese Farmer's Wisdom
00:05:38
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There was once a farmer in ancient China who lived an ordinary life. His only horse ran away one day. The neighbors gathered that evening, shaking their heads and said, Oh, what terrible luck. This is awful. The farmer looked at them and simply said, Maybe.
00:05:55
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The very next day, the horse returned, but it didn't come back alone. It brought seven wild horses with it. The neighbors rushed over, cheering, What an incredible fortune. You are blessed.
00:06:06
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The farmer replied, Maybe. The next day, the farmer's son tried to tame one of the wild horses. He was thrown off and broke his leg. The neighbors came by, faces long with sympathy, crying, how tragic, such bad luck for your family.
00:06:21
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And the farmer said, maybe. The day after that, conscription officers from the army arrived in the village to draft able-bodied men for the war.
00:06:33
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When they saw his son's broken leg, they rejected him. The neighbors beamed, saying, how wonderful, what marvelous luck. And the farmer said, maybe. why is this coach joe's new rule because no one's coming to save you princess and no one's coming to stop you coach joe teaches us we're not ever going to be masters at anything but we must keep striving towards mastery it's not that one stroke that we take on of life's canvas and then accepting that.
00:07:04
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We have this opportunity to, one, take this step back on the canvas and see the big picture, or continuing to refine the art, refine those reps, and get better.
00:07:16
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So part of mastery is understanding that we are often standing too close to that canvas to see the full picture. We rush to label things. We lose the first game, and the season is over.
00:07:29
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We hit our bench press goal. and then we still feel empty. Or is that just me? But nature is an integrated process with immense complexity. And us as leaders, as coaches, as captains, we get the opportunity to hand off our experience to the younger people we're working with. We don't know the consequences of any misfortune that happened to us, especially when it's happening live in a game and there's so much time left on the clock.
00:07:57
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And we don't know the consequences of the good fortunes. If some the ball bounces our way early, how is that going to affect us in the rest of the game or the rest of the season?
College Chaos: Breaking a Leg
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So I did want to share the that moment that Joe and i had It was on Christmas Eve and in Christmas Day. i took to some time for myself to return to Marymount's campus and drive around a little bit.
00:08:21
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My freshman year season was 2005. Eight days before we opened the year, the season, lacrosse season against Salisbury, the number one team in America, I broke my leg in practice.
00:08:34
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It was a very painful yet comical experience. So I hit one of my teammates, Nemus, so hard. He was on offense. I was playing defensive middie.
00:08:45
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I basically slid and tackled him. I hit him so hard. He hit the ground, and I stepped on him, my left leg. I rolled my ankle and snapped my fibula.
00:08:57
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Done. I fall down. I tried to stand up. It was not happening. The trainer runs runs up to me to look at it. with my leg, my ankle in her hands. i remember grabbing my face mask and just gripping the hell out of it in pain. It was of a broken leg.
00:09:15
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And then the head coach just yells at someone to go get ice. The trainer, she drops my ankle, ankle hits the ground, and she runs after the kid, the player going to get ice and is yelling, my sandwich is in there.
00:09:29
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she was more concerned about her sandwich that was resting and being cool in the like the the Gatorade cooler of ice that trainers bring to practice than this player down for the count so that's the comical uh I couldn't tell you I think we iced it up I was in so much pain i blacked out um from that moment on but later on in on campus and I've told this part of the story before the training room at my school did not have two sets of crutches they've given one out to another player so then they asked the nurses office at a at at the university this is a Catholic school for if they had any crutches and they had a pair of wooden crutches
00:10:15
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So one set of crutches at the trainer's room, D3 problems. It was handed off to somebody else. And so then me, I may be sitting at 190, freshman at this point, just crutching on wooden crutches. And the they couldn't take me to the hospital that night. I broke my leg.
00:10:35
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So they were going to take me the next day. So I just had an ace bandage wrapped around my broken ankle. It's freezing cold. There's ice everywhere.
00:10:45
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Wooden crutches just walking along campus trying to get from the athletic training room to my dorm room. And the part of campus it is I'm trying to think of how to describe it.
00:10:58
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It's where our event center was and our event center had all windows. So I'm crutching along over ice in front of this event center, all windows. And it just so happens there's a comedy show going on during my my crutch across campus.
00:11:16
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So. Just out of my control, my freaking wooden crutches break, snap, and I'm walking with two buddies, and I just fall down and hit the ground.
00:11:28
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I remember seeing the comedian like see it and just call me out. I can't hear the laughter, but i mean hilarity ensued. My two buddies are down there laughing at me, and I remember them falling down the laughter from those sons of bitches, and they wouldn't even help me out.
00:11:45
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Still some of my best friends to this day. so You know, i I've told that before, and it is unfortunate. It was a misfortune. It was such a painful but hilarious day now that I can tell that story. And it sucked.
00:12:02
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Maybe. I needed to stop judging the immediate outcome as the final destination. There were some dark days. I mean, I went to school to play lacrosse. I lost it. I was in a cast.
00:12:14
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My team was losing. They were having ah a rough year because we had a tyrannical head coach. It was an awful experience all around. Lots of depressing moments.
00:12:26
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I lost my ability to play that season and it killed me. it it It really did. It hurt a lot. However, three years later when I'm a senior and staring down and I can count the rest of my games on one hand, it, it dawns on me that I have one more year, one more year of eligibility and I grad school in my mind, I wasn't but the best student in the undergrad. I wasn't a my style preferred style of learning.
00:12:56
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And so the, opportunity just came a light bulb moment and i asked my head coach reynolds at the time what can we do about a fifth year this is back in the day you had to actually apply for it they didn't just grant it to you so i didn't know if i was going to get it and then it happened so I had NCAA eligibility now's the hard part I got to get into the school so I had to start studying for the GRE my final semester of senior year college took the test got admitted and then committed to playing in grad school which opened up that possibility for me so the darkest moment maybe turned into
00:13:40
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I mean, an opportunity where i actually learned how I enjoy to learn. Grad school was more my style. It was, hey, let's read this. Let's go apply it or work with different clients and see how this happens. How did this work for you?
00:13:54
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So the it was it was awesome. made made Hell yeah, it was great. So the farmers maybe, it wasn't indifference. it was It was wisdom to know that life is beyond our small definitions of success and failure.
00:14:11
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So that that perspective for 18 year old Tex and 22 year old who created this opportunity and really unlocked something special in me,
00:14:22
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that I was smarter than the the classes I was locked into. I was able to connect information that I was interested in with people that i wanted to work with and really start to unlock an understanding of potential and human performance and behavior and motivation and taking people where they can't take themselves that they want to go.
00:14:45
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So here's the takeaway of the week.
Rule of Openness to Outcomes
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Coach Joe tells us to feel the ends, to fully process the joy and fully process the pain so that we learn from it. The rule of maybe is the tool that lets you thrive in those ends.
00:15:01
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When you are in chaos, when you're the when your horse runs away, do not let it destroy you. Working with high school athletes right now, this is one thing that they they are all or nothing mindset.
00:15:13
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one loss and they think the season's over versus all the other opportunities that we have presented to us to make it to the state championship so helping them understand helping them take one big step back to start to see that that one bad thing that happens it's just a stroke on the canvas so when the wild horses arrived arrive for us don't let it blind you sit quietly amongst the chaos realize that every ending is a beginning and every loss contains a great gift you don't know the end of the story yet so the next time the world tries to tell you that your life is over or you break your leg and you or that you finally made it take a breath look at the situation in the eye and tell yourself maybe
00:16:02
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One more thing, excited to announce that I am starting my doctorate program back at
Announcement of Doctorate Program
00:16:07
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Marymount. I'm going to hit four, the cycle, or get a hat trick. I think hat trick is more appropriate because it's three, aiming to solidify the connection between social emotional learning and sports, many of the topics that we're presenting here on the podcast.
00:16:22
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So doing that online, I'll be visiting campus every once in a while. If you want to learn more about my mission and the course of action I presented to the university to truly unlock then and raise your own game as a coach, head to my course I have online, listen.captainsandcoaches.com.
Podcast Website and Sponsor Mentions
00:16:41
Speaker
Shout out to our our show sponsor, Train Heroic. If you're a coach looking for supplemental income, start your online training biz today at trainheroic.com slash captains for a 30-day free trial of their program.
00:16:56
Speaker
I put my own training programs on there. Everything I'm doing with my high school lacrosse guys, it's available to you as well as my own training on the Oval Training Program. Check out the link in the show notes for all that good stuff.
00:17:09
Speaker
Thank you for tuning in. If you liked what you heard here today, be sure to to rate, review the show. No maybes, that is a yes. Thank you again for tuning in. See you next time.