The Danger of Judging Outcomes Too Quickly

In this episode, Zach shares the famous parable of the farmer and the runaway horse to explore why leaders and performers often judge moments too early. A loss, injury, setback, or disappointment can feel defining in the moment, but most moments are incomplete stories. This episode breaks down the dangers of binary thinking, emotional overreaction, and attaching permanent meaning to temporary circumstances, while offering a more grounded way to navigate life's circumstances.

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Transcript

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Have you ever noticed how quickly we label moments in our lives? Sometimes we might think that one bad game or one poor performance all of a sudden means that we're in a struggle or we're spiraling out of control. We might think that a tough conversation means that a relationship with this person might be permanently fractured or this person's never gonna like me anymore. If you're an athlete and you experience an injury, it's very easy to start to feel like the world's falling apart on you, and you start to question whether or not your career is gonna be the same or that you're ever gonna regain your form. But even on the other side of things, sometimes we have a huge win or we experience a huge accomplishment and we think all of a sudden, like, okay, the tide is turning, we're back on track, and kind of think that everything's gonna be taken care of from there. As human beings, we have this tendency to oftentimes assign permanent meaning to a lot of things that are temporary moments. But the challenge is that most moments are incomplete stories. We will rarely know in real time what something will eventually lead to. So today on the podcast, we're gonna discuss an important mindset skill, and maybe more importantly, a perspective for coaches, athletes, and leaders to resist the urge to judge moments a little too early. Hey coaches and leaders, I got a quick question for you. You spend a lot of time building game plans for those you lead, but when was the last time you built one for yourself? If you're looking to sharpen your leadership skills, strengthen your team culture, or find better ways to support and challenge your athletes in the mental game, I'd love to help. I'm offering a free coaching call where we can talk through your current challenges and create a simple game plan for what might move the needle most for you, your players, and your program. Most coaches I know obsess over developing their team, but they neglect the person in the mirror. This call is a chance to invest in you because a better you is going to produce a better them. And if that sounds helpful, you can grab a time at Callenly.com slash Zach Brandon. That's Callenly.com slash Zach Brandon, or just check the link in the show notes. I'd love to connect and explore how I can best support you. Now the inspiration for today's episode comes from one of my all-time favorite parables about a farmer whose horse one day decides to run away. When the neighbors of this farmer hear the news, they come by and they say, That's terrible, what bad luck you have. Now the farmer simply replies with, Well, we'll see, maybe. And the next morning the horse returns, but it brought back three wild horses with it. Now again the neighbors hear the news and they rush over and they tell him, Well, that's wonderful, what great fortune you have. And again the farmer responds with the simple, We'll see, maybe. Now the following day the farmer's son attempts to ride one of those untamed horses and he was thrown off and he breaks his leg. The neighbors come by and they say, That's awful, what terrible luck you you're having. Now the farmer again calmly replies with, Well, we'll see, maybe. And then finally, on the next day, there's military officials from the government that come through the village recruiting every healthy young man for an upcoming war. But when they see the son's broken leg, they pass him by. And the neighbors again return once more and they say, What incredible fortune you have. And again, the farmer responds with, We'll see, maybe. And I love this story because it's a great reminder of something that it I think exposes that we're all oftentimes very guilty of or that can show up in our lives uh oftentimes in a subconscious way. We rush to label moments, oftentimes before the story is finished. A consistent challenge in life is that we tend to confuse moments with conclusions. We experience one event and immediately decide what it means about us or our future or our team or a relationship or even our life. And yet when you ask people, or at least most people, it inherently I think they know that performance and growth will rarely, if ever, move in a straight line. A difficult season is oftentimes going to be what leads to or it allows you to help strengthen your culture for a future season. A player that gets benched may eventually use that as the turning point in their development. Or getting cut from a team may redirect someone toward a better opportunity, or maybe a setback in business may force you to build better systems uh for the future. Now, on the flip side, sometimes the moments, again, we initially celebrate as successes, they can create complacency and even entitlement, but we just don't know yet how it's all gonna pan out. And I think this is especially important for coaches because coaching, and especially in different sporting environments, it can be incredibly emotional, especially as you move up levels. Every result can feel magnified. Uh, I have this like running internal reminder that I always think to myself, um, and I'll always check before I reach out to somebody that I know in pro sport, for example. I always like to make sure that before I reach out, I kind of know, like, okay, how have the last game or two gone? How the last 48 hours been? Because when you ask them about how things are going, it is so often contingent on how the last game or 48 hours has been. Now, most of us know inherently in that environment, that's probably not the most healthy or sustainable mindset or perspective to have. Um, but it's incredible how quickly one loss can create a sense of panic, or how one big win can trick you into believing that you've solved everything and now you can actually go ride the wave and build some momentum from it. But if we're not careful, we become very emotionally reactive instead of grounded and clear with our focus. The same thing happens for athletes. An athlete has one bad performance and now suddenly they might start questioning their confidence, they might start questioning their entire abilities or their future in the sport. But often the meaning of these moments just hasn't been revealed fully yet. And that's what I think the farmer understood. He simply refused to overinterpret a temporary circumstance because every event is going to be connected to another event. It just hasn't happened yet. And I think one of the healthiest things that we can actually do is mentally create more space between what happens to us and the story that we immediately try to tell ourselves about it. Because for most, we instantly label something, usually with a good or a bad, and what that does is it narrows our thinking, and then therefore we're sometimes unable to respond more clearly, or maybe we stop noticing uh opportunities from it. And instead, we just get trapped emotionally inside whatever the event or circumstance was. So I think one of the simplest but easiest practices that you can in essence build from this story and apply in your own life is to simply pause before assigning meaning. The next time something unexpected happens, a setback, a mistake, a conflict, maybe an injury, a disappointment, or even a success, resist the urge to immediately decide what it means for you. Instead, create a little space. Maybe even borrow the farmer's phrase, like that we'll see, maybe. That doesn't mean that you're necessarily trying to use avoidance or denial toward what has transpired, but it is a reminder that the story is still unfolding. One other question that I think can be really beneficial here, uh, and you could use this not just for athletes, but I think even coaches, uh, this can be relevant for them. What's a moment in my life that I initially labeled as bad or maybe as a problem that eventually led to growth or yielded an unexpected opportunity that now maybe from it you have a perspective that you wouldn't want to trade. Most of us, I think, whether it's big or small, can identify a lot of those moments. And remembering them can help us stay more grounded, not only in the current ones we're encountering, but also any ones in the future. So all this brings me to don't forget that most moments are incomplete stories. The challenge is that we often judge them long before we understand them fully. And the best coaches or performers or athletes, they learn how to stay steady without becoming emotionally hijacked by temporary circumstances. Not everything that feels bad is gonna stay bad, and on the other side, not everything that feels good is gonna stay good. Sometimes the best or maybe most wisest response we can give is a simple we'll see and maybe he