A Gun In A Pawn Shop Window, The 'Face Of Failure', And The Last Man Cut From The 1980 Olympic Ice Hockey Team: How Adversity Can Serve As A Launchpad For Achievement
The 3-Word Quote “Obstacles Offer Options”
1.
Weeks after graduating high school, Augustine Mandino watched his mother die while making him lunch.
His mother was his champion, his encourager.
She was the type of mother who often bragged about her son to her neighbors.
Augustine armed his mother with things to brag about.
He was a gifted student—he edited his high school newspaper—and planned to study journalism at the University of Missouri.
Augustine's mother always bragged that her son would go on to do great things.
She was his cheerleader.
But after her death, Augustine was crippled with grief.
He paused his plan to go to college; his life stopped.
He gave up his dream of studying journalism.
Instead, he joined the Army Air Corps, flying 30 missions over Germany during World War II.
After the war, he tried to rekindle his dream of writing but found no success.
He was rejected by dozens of publications.
He soon quit writing again.
Mandino did manage to marry and bought a house. He started selling insurance.
But he was just going through the motions of life.
Soon, sales were slow at his job, and bills were high at home.
Problems began to pile up.
Debt collectors started swarming.
So Augustine looked for a place to hide from his problems, even for a short time.
He found that place - at the neighborhood bar.
He started stopping for a quick drink on the way home. He deserved it, he thought.
Then, one drink became four or five.
What little money he had disappeared quickly.
So did his wife and new daughter.
Augustine's life was in chaos. He found himself alone and broke.
There was nothing that his mother could brag about in his life if she were alive.
And it was then that he contemplated ending his life.
He felt he just needed a sign of what he should do next.
And then, one snowy night in Cleveland, while walking past a pawn shop, he saw a gun in the window.
The gun was $29.
And in his pocket was all the money he had in the world - $30.
He had just enough money.
Augustine knew this was a sign of what he should do next.
2.
Suneel Gupta was struggling, too.
He was also looking for a sign.
But, unlike Augustine Mandino, Gupta was armed with a middle-class upbringing and a college education.
Suneel wanted to change the world.
His passion and entrepreneurial skills led him to create Rise, an early telehealth service.
The idea seemed sound.
The timing seemed perfect.
And Gupta was confident.
But Rise wasn't successful.
Suneel needed money to bring his business to life.
But investors were nowhere to be found - he couldn't get anyone to fund his idea.
No one.
Countless calls. A multitude of meetings.
All ended in failure and rejection.
And without money, Suneel's business wasn't a business - it was just an idea.
One article later described Suneel as 'being good at not getting funded.'
Not something he wanted to be known for.
Desperate to find funding for his 'can't miss business,' he reluctantly agreed to speak at an event.
He figured speaking at this event was a risk, but he hoped a few investors might attend.
He was reluctant because the event was called FailCon.
It was a conference that focused on failure.
Suneel had been invited to be one of the conference's keynote speakers because—well, he was good at failing.
He gave the speech.
It went fine.
But there were no interested investors in the crowd as he had hoped.
Suneel was disappointed and slightly embarrassed to have been a featured speaker at something called FailCon.
Once his speech ended, he figured his situation couldn't get any worse.
But while there were no investors in the crowd, there was someone in the audience who wanted to meet him.
But the person didn't make Suneel's situation any better.
In fact, the meeting made it much, much worse.
3.
If you're a sports fan, you've engaged in some debates about players or teams over the years.
You might have argued over a question like who the NFL's all-time best quarterback is (the correct answer is Peyton Manning).
Or you've been part of a debate about who the NBA's greatest player is (Michael Jordan is the correct answer, but I'll entertain Lebron or Bill Russell).
These questions, and many like them, are often hotly discussed.
But if you ask a knowledgeable sports fan what the biggest upset in team sports' history is, you won't get much of an argument.
And that's because most will say the answer is the 'Miracle on Ice'—the 1980 Olympic ice hockey match in which the United States stunned the Soviet Union.
The upset, indeed, was a miracle.
The Soviet team rarely lost and had been dominant on the ice for decades. It had won the gold medal at the last four Olympics, and there was no reason anyone thought that would change in 1980.
The Soviets had skated together for decades.
The US team had formed six months earlier and was up of 20 college kids.
The US team wasn't expected to do much.
In fact, the Soviet team had demolished the US team 10-3 just days before the Olympics began.
But somehow the Americans made it to the medal round and shocked the Soviets.
Announcer Al Michaels' 'Do you believe in miracles?' echoed through living rooms across the country.
Head coach Herb Brooks led the team to a gold medal a few nights later.
Those players and that game are still celebrated today - some forty years after the game.
Documentaries, a Disney movie, and countless other specials were made to commemorate the achievement.
Ralph Cox, a University of New Hampshire student, was a talented hockey player. Like the others on Team USA, he endured six months of training and countless grueling practices.
He had offers to turn pro, but he dreamed of playing on the US Olympic Hockey team. He didn't know the team would shock the world; he just wanted to be an Olympian.
And he was on the path to making his dream a success.
But Ralph Cox was cut from the team just days before they left for the Games.
Herb Brooks told him, I can't take you with us.'
Cox was the second to last player cut.
The team could only have 20 members, and Cox was number 22.
His Olympic dream was dead.
He was devastated and demoralized.
And soon after being cut from the team, his life started to unravel.
The Takeaway:
So what do an alcoholic veteran, a failed entrepreneur, and a hockey player cut from the 'miracle' Olympic hockey team all have in common?
All are examples of people who used setbacks as a springboard for success.
Psychologist Adam Grant says, 'Overcoming adversity takes time.'
He says, 'Resilience is not about how quickly you bounce back—it's about how fully you recover.'
Through a recipe of rest, recovery, discussion - and a change in mindset - the veteran, the businessman, and the hockey player were able to turn their adversity into an advantage.
They used their situation as a launchpad for change.
But it is never as easy to overcome difficult situations as inspirational stories make it seem.
***
Augustine Mandino, or Og as he was called, was depressed and desperate.
He was an alcoholic.
He had abandoned his dream.
His wife and child had left him, and he was down to his last $30.
And on a snowy night in Cleveland in 1959, he thought about ending his life.
He thought he got a sign.
The gun in the window was $29; he had $30.
He had just enough money.
No one would miss him.
He would leave this world with nothing - except $1 that would be left over from purchasing the gun.
But Og didn't go into that pawn shop that night.
Something made him change his mind.
He took a few steps past the pawn shop and looked to his left.
He saw a library.
He had always been a good writer.
Maybe the library and those books inside were actually the sign he had been looking for.
Og stepped inside the library and out of the snow.
It felt cozy inside - warm and well-lit. Before he knew it, Og had taken a few more steps and found himself surrounded by books on success and motivation.
This was his sign.
This was where he was meant to be that night, he decided.
Og Mandino knew he had to change.
He began to replace his daily whiskey with words - reading inspirational works each day.
He now devoured books instead of bourbon.
And he started to become someone different.
It didn't happen overnight, and not every day was great, but Og Mandino developed new habits and created a framework for a new life.
As Adam Grant said, 'Resilience takes time.'
He eventually found work for one of his writing heroes - W. Clement Stone.
He started writing again and became an editor for Stone's Success Unlimited publication.
Ten years later, Og transformed that small publication into a national magazine.
And Mandino, once a suicidal alcoholic, went on to write the types of books that saved him.
His best-known book is called The Greatest Salesman in the World.
It has sold millions of copies over the years.
His transformation was not simple - and it was slow.
But Mandino lived up to his mother's bragging words about his son - he did go on to do great things.
But, like all of us, he had to walk through adversity to do it.
***
Suneel Gupta was failing.
Perhaps his situation wasn't as dire as Og Mandino's, but Gupta was failing.
He needed financial backing for his business and couldn't find it.
He was failing so much that he was invited to speak at FailCon.
And after his speech, someone approached him from the crowd.
It was a reporter for The New York Times.
The reporter was writing a story about FailCon. Suneel was interviewed, and his picture was taken.
And a few days later, The Times ran a lengthy article about failure - and Gupta's picture was prominently displayed.
The article on failure spread widely, along with Gupta's face attached to the words.
He literally became the 'face of failure.'
During this time, if you googled failure, one of the top results would include the article - and Suneel's picture.
He was a wreck.
Family and friends reached out to check on him.
Suneel worried that he would be ruined as a businessman.
But he believed in his idea and didn't wallow in self-pity.
Suneel decided to use 'what you got.'
And what he had was attention through The Times article.
So, pushing aside his embarrassment, Suneel took action.
He pitched several investors via email as before - but this time, he attached The Times article that featured him as 'the face of failure.'
Gupta's request was one of humility - asking the investors for advice, instead of money, and joking that he clearly needed help.
This email seemed to stir the investors' emotions. They wanted to help - and offered funding.
Rise soon became a reality.
Apple named Rise as the ‘Best New App of the Year.’
The Obama administration tapped him to partner in helping tackle obesity.
Eventually, he sold Rise to One Medical.
Gupta, once 'the face of failure,' was featured in another article - this one in The New York Stock Exchange Magazine.
This article also included his picture prominently.
Underneath his picture, the magazine declared him 'the new face of innovation.'
***
Ralph Cox was 'embarrassed' and 'devastated.'
He had just been cut from The US Hockey team - right before the Olympics.
His childhood dream was over.
There was no miraculous story of Cox getting a second chance or somehow making the team.
He described himself as angry and empty at the time.
He needed to be alone, so he went on a solo fishing trip to calm down and think about his situation.
He hoped the solitude and quiet would help with the pain and disappointment.
It didn't.
In fact, the trip brought out his anger.
When he accidentally broke his fishing rod in half, he took the two parts and furiously threw them in the water.
Then he grabbed his tackle box and tossed it into the water, too.
Still enraged, he marched back to his car and grabbed his hockey sticks from the backseat.
He snatched one and, with all his strength, smashed it against a bridge until the stick splintered into several pieces.
Cox grabbed his other stick and did the same thing, smashing it into pieces.
Cox had snapped like his sticks.
He knew he was good enough to be on that Olympic team, but it wasn't meant to be.
He was angry.
One article commented that while he was angry, he was never 'angry at others.' And this was key - he didn’t become bitter.
He didn't blame others for his circumstances. He wasn't furious at his teammates. He didn't resent Coach Brooks, who had cut him.
And he didn't wish failure upon the team.
But he was profoundly disappointed, devastated to not be on that team.
But the anger didn't overcome him.
Helen Keller said, ‘The world is full of suffering; it is also full of the overcoming of it.’
An Inc. article on adversity suggests doing three things to overcome it - and Cox seemed to do all three.
The article suggests:
Acknowledge your emotions
Get support
Stay optimistic
Simple steps, but not simple to enact.
Cox said of himself at the time:
'It was just a devastating moment as an athlete. And it really hurt. But I love those guys and I love the team. And I liked Herb Brooks. And I've been asked so many times, 'If you had to go through all that again, would you?'
'And I'd say honestly, tomorrow. Even though I have to face all that pain again, I'd do it all over again.'
He dealt with his emotions.
His father offered him perspective and hope after Cox destroyed his hockey sticks. He said, 'You're just at the beginning of your life.'
It was a simple statement, but Cox realized his disappointment was a painful chapter in his life - not the entire story.
And he stayed optimistic.
He kept in touch with the team. He still hangs out with those who played, and he still attends events that honor that 'Miracle Team' all those years ago.
Twenty young men won gold that night in 1980.
But Cox knows there were twenty-one men on that team.
***
3 things before you go:
watch: the final minute of ‘The Miracle on Ice’
watch: this seems like a great job
listen: stumbled upon this one; a good one
Appreciate you reading. See you in 10 days.
-Jeff