This week's Pep Talk: "Show Them"

It was a Sunday to cherish: daughter played well and contributed substantially to a winning team effort as Juggernaut closes its season; the Rockies rally to win and take three of four, on the road, from Pittsburgh; The Masters has one of its most incredible finishes ever and I’m having a beer with my neighbor watching Ireland’s Rory McIlroy walk off the 18th green at Augusta National. I think of my son, Kyle.

Kyle and McIlroy, who led for 63 holes before crumbling late at the season’s first major golf tournament, are the same age. Each just 21 years old, kids.

I’m watching this disappointed Northern Ireland native walk off the final hole at the 2011 Masters and thinking, “I just want to hug that young man.” For whatever reason, watching the one-time PGA winner depart after leading, then decomposing, made me think of his parents and their feelings observing their son chasing dreams, and coming so close, but falling short. It had to have been a heartbreaking experience.

Once the dust settles and the pain subsides from disappointment – others or ours – is an opportunity to objectively look at what transpired – call it a moment of transformation. What becomes the great question in life is whether we will choose to become a student of the experience or victim of the circumstance. Will we grow, or shrink, from it? Our choice, choose wisely, right?

We all have those moments of regret along this journey we call life, right? We have those moments – like McIroy blowing a four-shot lead – where we wonder, “What the heck’s going on around here?” The question becomes, what to do about it?

In watching a young man suffer through a terrible final round and realizing “he’s the same age as my wonderful son” I sat there thinking about the first thing I’d want to do. What would, as a father, I do as my flesh and blood dejectedly departed golf’s biggest stage? I thought a warm embrace would be in order, probably with tears rolling down my cheeks, while proclaiming: “I’m so proud of you!”

But then here’s where it gets kinda tricky. The second-most important thing I could do after embracing him – same for a daughter too – would be, down the road a bit, in an encouraging way, ask, “How can we learn, not suffer, from this?”

Is there a greater psychological gift, demonstrating the value of becoming students, not victims, of experiences, we could give our children or others – home, work and elsewhere? The big challenge is – my opinion - all the money in the world can’t ensure learning, not suffering, from our experiences. We can’t buy it for our loved ones. We, hey I’m from Missouri, gotta show them.