Pep Talk: "Success Is A Team Effort"

“Stop, stop right here” was the declarative statement of the 26-year-old photographer leading the charge up Vail Mountain. Like a dutiful soldier, your scribe froze in his tracks. I looked around expecting to see wildlife. None was present. Instead, my New York City-based son was snapping pictures of the exposed roots of Aspen trees along our path.

“Aspen roots grow horizontally and connect with each other,” said the writing team member of NBC’s Late Night With Seth Myers. He was capturing on film the complex entanglement of tree roots that resembled beehive honeycombs.

While a father watched a son express a passion and talent through photography, the old man’s mind wandered to the state of our world today in the wake of Dallas, Minneapolis and Baton Rouge. A nation in turmoil because we have lost our way when it comes to connecting with one another.

We need to be like Aspens, and reach out to one another for support or we will topple.

A few days later during Kyle’s week-long visit to Colorado, many of us attended a Colorado Rockies' baseball game at Coors Field. While we sat in the stands on a beautiful Centennial State summer evening, the quick-witted offspring began telling stories to his girlfriend about the Rockies’ improbable 2007 run to the World Series. “I can remember Matt Holiday’s slide into home plate, the Rockies refusing to lose in September in making the playoffs and their long layoff before playing the (Boston) Red Sox in the World Series.” He has a good memory.

For the record that year, down the stretch the Rockies won 21 of 22 games to earn a playoff berth and spot in the World Series where they were swept by the boys from Beantown. It was an amazing example of the possibilities present when a group comes together, sets personal egos aside and works for the greater good.

We need to be like the 2007 Rockies and embrace the value of teamwork in resolving our social issues that have a nation on edge.

The importance of teamwork was emphasized 3,000 years ago from one of the world’s most recognized philosophers. King Solomon, considered one of the wisest person’s in recorded history, sounded a clarion call when he wrote about venturing too far from our native villages, offering: “One will be overpowered, two can defend themselves, but a cord of three strands is not easily broken.”

It’s the spiritual foundation of the wellness outreach movement A Stronger Cord. Folks, it doesn’t matter if we’re black, white or brown; live in a mission, mansion or on Main Street, we need to realize societal challenges of homelessness, poverty, income inequality or racism will only be solved collectively by investing time in one another.

The reminders, snapshots, come from nature, sports teams and historical figures. The venues change but the strategy is the same. Success in life is a team effort that recognizes race, religion and socio-economic differences as opportunities not obstacles to build a stronger cord to one another.