062 - Get Back on the Bike (Even When You're Bleeding)
In the wise words of Steve Jordan, "never end on a miss." In today's episode, host Travis Shelton reflects back on the habits of his childhood best friend and how this silly and simple mantra has the power to transform our lives. Fast forward several decades, these same principles are carried forward to a new generation. When Travis's son Finn recently fell off his bike and tore up his leg, he needed to get back on the bike to prove to himself it's not as scary as it now felt. Never end on a miss! This same valuable lesson recently rang true when one of Travis's friends, Meredith, fell off her proverbial bike. Not only did she get back on the bike, she did so in a powerful and inspiring way. Now of course our adult lives don't consist of us parading around on literal bikes, but it's inevitable we will get knocked down, beat up, and feel defeated. That's not the end of the story.....rather, the beginning. So today's episode is brought to you by the wise words of Steve Jordan, the ripped up knee of a 5-year-old, and a young lady who refused to let embarrassment stand in the way of her call.
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Full Transcript:
Growing up my childhood best friend was named Steve Jordan. And I swear, all we did growing up was watch Bulls games, play basketball, and play video games. I feel like that was my entire childhood. We’d do these things and we'd always sleep over at his place. We'd play Goldeneye for hours and hours and hours.
And we'd go out to his driveway, turn the lights on, and we would play hoops. And we’d play more Goldeneye and we'd play basketball. We play video games. That's all we did. Now. Steve had this thing. Steve was obsessed with the idea that you can't leave the court until you make a shot, you never leave on a miss. And so that was something that I just watched him do over and over and over again, it kind of became a thing.
We kind of did it as a group. That was always the thing because Steve insisted you don't leave the court on a miss. And I didn't realize it until many, many years later, but I've really internalized this way of living. And I see it in my parenting more than anything. I kind of saw it myself, but I see it in my parenting.
And I see it, you know, when I'm playing catch with my boys. They're five now. Whenever we're playing, I won't let them end on a missed basket or a missed catch, a missed kick, whatever sport we're playing. We don't end on a miss. And lately I've been watching myself. And pushing the envelope even a little bit more in this regard.
And here's kind of what it looks like. For us, whenever something bad happens, I won't let it end. And so for example, I was playing catch with Pax with a football and I overthrew a little bit. I smoked him right in the face, blood dripping down his nose. He's hysterical, he's super mad at me.
And he starts screaming and runs away. And I say, no, we can't, we're not quitting on that. And so we get the blood to stop and we get back to playing. I don't make him play for a long time, but I do make him play at least long enough that we regain his confidence. I don't want him to end remembering when we play catch with a football, he gets a bloody face. I don't want that to be the memory that's sealed into his brain. So we get back and we play.
So the other day, Finn was riding his bike. I think he was….I don't know what he was doing. He's Finn, if you know Finn, Finn's crazy. He was riding his bike and he took a nasty tumble and he cut his leg badly.
It was pretty bad. And he, understandably, got up, he was crying. He ran inside and I walked inside and said, “Finn, let's go ride our bike.” And Sarah, my wife, said, “Well, no, he's hurt.” And I said, “Okay, bandage him up, send him back out. Because even when we're bleeding, we need to get back up on that bike.”
And I'm not trying to be that guy. I'm not trying to beat them down. Instead, what I wanted to show him was that even when we're bleeding, we need to hop back up on that bike. And so he was reluctant. Why? Because he was scared. He just took a whooping from that bike and he's got blood all over.
Now he's got bandages. And I said to him, “Let's get back on that bike.” He goes, “No, I'm scared. I'm scared.” I said, “Hey Finn, you got this, dude, you got this.” It took a little coaxing, but we got him back on the bike. And within two minutes, he was smiling and laughing again. And so I didn't want to end on a miss.
Even when we're bleeding, we need to get back up on that bike. I believe in this so much because knowing my kids and knowing me and how I'm wired and how they're wired, especially Finn, we can easily take a hard L and give up. That's ingrained in us. It's deeply ingrained in us.
And so I think back to my friend, Steve Jordan, and how he would refuse to end on a miss. Always end on a make. The reason I'm talking about this today, this was not planned, I was not planning on being here today. It's a Sunday. So I'm sitting in the middle of church, and my friend Meredith. You'll recall, I talked about Meredith and her husband, Jake, on a prior episode about just diving head first into life.
So something happened, and I hope I'm not overstepping my boundaries here, but recently Meredith was on stage. So her husband, Jake, is a worship leader. She was on stage, well she's gifted as well. It's ridiculous. She was on stage as well. And I didn't notice it because I'm not smart enough to notice things like this, but she made a mistake.
And I didn't notice it, but I guess some others noticed it and she certainly did. It crushed her, and I think she was embarrassed. She was humiliated. She was defeated. And I think a lot of people say, “Hey, Meredith, you got this…it's okay.” I reached out to her and I said, “Hey, Meredith, I don't even know what happened, but I just want to tell you, you got this, don't give up, don't quit.”
I don't know what her mindset was then. We didn't really talk about it, but I do know that there was a mistake and she was bloody, her leg was bleeding, so to speak. She could have gone one of two ways. She could have just walked away and said, “You know what? This is hard.” Or she could have said, “No, I do got this. I’m not going to end on a miss.”
So today, this is why I'm here. I rushed from church. I said, “Sarah, I'm sorry, can you take the boys home? Can I just go record an episode quickly? Because I am inspired. I want to talk about Meredith today.”
And so today, Meredith, not only was on that stage, but she led worship and she crushed it. She absolutely crushed it. She could've just walked the other way, but she didn't end on a mistake. Even when her leg was bleeding, she got back on that bike. And man, I'll tell you, she approached it with confidence and conviction and she was powerful up there.
I don't know about you, but when I'm on the heels of an L, when I mess up, when I'm humiliated, when I'm embarrassed, I don't feel like I always bounce back that strong. If I come back, I can feel sheepish or hesitant, or I have imposter syndrome. I feel like I don't belong here. I don't deserve to be here. I lost my right to have a place here on this stage. What's happened to me a lot in my speaking career, but here she was owning it because she got back on that bike, even though she was probably scared.
And so I think this is worth talking about, because we have this in our life. We all have it. Now, we might not be on stage singing or on stage speaking, or we might not actually be riding bikes like my son, Finn, but it happens to us. Things happen when we're embarrassed. We screw up, we mess up, we make mistakes.
We hurt somebody. And it's so easy to turn around and walk the other way. The easy thing to do is to quit. It is always the easier thing to do, to quit. And sometimes that's messing up at our job and sometimes that's making a mistake on our finances. Sometimes that's in our relationships. Sometimes we put ourselves out there to date somebody and it goes horribly wrong.
We just want to say, “You know what, forget this, I'm out.” But even when we're bleeding, we need to hop back on that bike. I've had so many presentations and client meetings over the years where I just whiffed. I didn't do a good job, but I got back up on the bike. Even when I'm bleeding, I'm getting back up on the bike.
Why? Because I don't end on a miss. I have a little Steve Jordan sitting on my shoulder saying, “don't end on a miss.” A lot of you are facing that right now. Maybe you've been rejected by company after company, after company, or school after school, maybe you decided, you know what? I want to get my financial stuff in order.
I want to do this right, only to fall flat on your face and make a mistake and take a giant step. Maybe some of you have tried to start something, a company, a nonprofit, a side hustle, something you feel the pull, you feel that itch, you feel that call in you to start it and you fail. And so what we do is we retreat back to what is safe and what is comfortable for so many of us.
This is what's stopping us from really following that dream, from following what we call our dream life, the life that we so badly want to live. It's on the other side of discomfort, it can be on the other side of getting back up on that bike and so many of us don't want to get back up on that bike.
I get it most days. I don't want to get back up on that bike whenever I get on Instagram or Twitter or Facebook and I see just brutal comments about me or about what I do. It's so hard, and I've learned to get a thicker skin.
Cole, my business partner and producer of the show, he's a kicker by nature. And by profession, he literally was a kicker for a D-1 college. He was ridiculously successful doing it. As he always tells me, he says, “Travis, you'd make a terrible kicker.” And he's right. He has to have thick skin because the only thing people notice about him is his kicking career, or his failures missing that kick. That's all that’s talked about.
So I've actually learned a lot from Cole over the years because I've had to develop a thicker skin because it's so easy to not get back up on that bike when nasty things are said to you or about you. But we have to remember what's important. Are the naysayers important? Are the people who criticize us and bring us down important?
Are they what's important? Or is it the people that we have the opportunity to impact? Take Meredith this morning: She could have not got back up on that stage, but because she did, what happened? Who was influenced by her? Who is inspired by her? Besides me? I was tremendously inspired by her. Who else was inspired by her?
I don't know. And I don't know if she'll ever know, but had she not got back up on that stage, got back up on that bike, it wouldn't have happened. So we all need to take a step back and really ask what bikes are we not getting back up on when we're bloodied and battered, when we've taken an L, what are we doing out of fear?
And so that's my encouragement, no matter what area of life we're talking about, whether it's relationships, career, ministry, finances, we're all going to mess up. We're all gonna make mistakes. We just do. I wish I could say I'm done making mistakes, but man, my mistake making career is just beginning.
And so I think we all need to really look at Meredith and use that as the model. And look at my friend, Steve Jordan, and look at that as the model. We don't end on a miss, even when we're bloodied and battered, we get back up on that bike because in those moments, that's what can change everything for us.
But we may be one decision away from changing the trajectory of our life. Now I'm not trying to say that Meredith getting on that stage today changed the trajectory of her life. I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that it matters back when I was playing ball in Steve Jordan's driveway, ending on a miss or not ending on a miss.
Did that change the trajectory of my life? No, probably not. But maybe. Or what about my little guy? When he fell off his bike and he ripped his leg up. Or Pax when I smoked him right in the face with a football. Would it change the trajectory of their life?
I don't know. Maybe not, but maybe. And so I want to take that seriously. I want to take that responsibility and the opportunity seriously to get back up on that bike, because frankly, for as much confidence as you think I have, for as much you think I’ve accomplished, or whatever you think of me in a positive way. Maybe some of you don't think highly of me at all, but if you think positively of me just know, I don't think that of myself. Most days, imposter syndrome leaks in…..every single day of my life. And it's a constant battle to fight and fight and fight and fight through that.
And so just know you're not alone. No, you're not alone. We can do this together. And when somebody messes up, encourage them, lift them up. That matters because there's enough people that are ready to attack you when you mess up and point that finger at you and say, “See, you shouldn't have done that. See, you shouldn't have left that job. See, you shouldn't have even had the audacity to think that you should have been on that stage.”
So when somebody fails and they fall flat on their face, lift them up. Tell them, they got this. Remind them they're not alone. Remind them they're not the only ones that are going to go through this.
Get them back up there on that bike. That's all I have today.