Category: Blogpost

Blogpost, self-reliance

Beezy World

Pete Huryk

BeezyMy daughter is an amazing person especially for a six year old.  She is always coming up with entrepreneurial ventures and brilliantly off the wall ideas.  Her imagination is amazing and she has created her own world in many ways.  Most recently she has asked to have her room repainted to look like “Beezy World” (Beezy is my wife’s nickname for her).  The clouds are lower in Beezy World and the blue sky is on top.  She has also developed not just one but several languages for Beezy World including Beezy Spanish and Beezy Chinese.  It is pretty obvious that she carries this world with her on a daily basis.

Although the creation of a personal world may seem like a childish thing to do, we all do it on some level.  We all live in our own version of the world.  There are some constants and overlapping but in many ways, we carry our own world along with us.  In a very Obi-Wan sense, our world is dependent upon our point of view.  For some of us we are semi-passive and the world happens to us.  While for others of us, we are active.  The world is not what happens to us but rather our influence on our surroundings.  So the world is not as concrete as it may seem but is more the result of the ingredients that we add to it.

So the question becomes do you like the world that you carry around with you?  Is your Beezy World the one that you want painted in your room?  Or is it time to make a change?  Since you are the creator of this world, make it what you want it to be!

Carry on!

Pete

Blogpost, self-reliance

The Next Layer of Skin

Pete Huryk

LifesaversStay with me on this one!  To a certain extent, I wish that each layer of my skin were a different color like a stack of Lifesavers in a rainbow progression.  Each layer would disappear over a set amount of time revealing the next color in the order.  Within a week or so, I would be red, orange, yellow, green, blue etc.  Beside the obvious reduction in racism, I think it would help get past a problem that I think many of us have.  We cannot see past ourselves.

We see ourselves as consistent beings and therefore we act and think consistently with that picture.  The truth is that we are always changing but those changes are so subtle that we do not perceive them.  So when we truly do need to change, we think that it will be difficult or that we are incapable of change.  At some point we need to recognize that we can be more than what we perceive that we are.

We need to be able to see the greatness that is on the horizon.  Our progress or lack of it is a decision.  Do we allow ourselves to see the person who is six layers of skin away?  Or do we accept the “Who I have been is who I will be.”  So the challenge is down to you.

Can you see the greatness inside of your own skin?  Are you willing to do the things necessary to dig for that person that hides underneath?  Or is your skin an imperceptible covering that gets washed down the drain of your shower along with your hopes and dreams?  If only we were multicolored and could say, “by the time I turn green I’m going to ______________!”  We are always shedding skin, so figure out what your ideal skin looks like and put it on underneath.

See the best you inside today.

Pete

Blogpost, self-reliance

St. Benedict’s

Pete Huryk
Salisbury 1994
Salisbury 1994

There are things that carry us much farther than they ever should. Our best self often springs out of something that we take as our own even though it never really belonged to us. This is the story that has been the most influential on my playing and coaching career.
My father played for St. Benedict’s Prep in Newark. St. Benedict’s is a virtual factory of soccer talent in NJ. Several USMNT players went there. Only my father didn’t play soccer, he played football. His was one of the last classes that played football before the school closed briefly and switched over to soccer.
My father is essentially blind without his glasses. In the late 1960’s, he didn’t have the money for special goggles or contact lenses to wear while playing football. So as a middle linebacker, he basically chased blobs that wore the other teams colors. Despite his vision, he was a pretty effective defender. In the last game of the season, his team was holding onto a slim lead in the fourth quarter. My father’s assignment was to go in on a blitz. He was just about to hit the quarterback when a screen pass was looped over his head to the running back. My father turned and raced after the running back for nearly sixty yards. He came close to catching him, but the running back crossed the goal line first. My father was completely dejected because he had lost the game for his team.
A few weeks later at the football banquet, they were showing film from the season. That play came up on the screen.  It played out exactly as my father remembered it. He raced in to tackle the quarterback and got beat by a screen pass. The running back was able to outrun him to the goal line. However, with his glasses on, he saw something that he didn’t notice during the game. During the game, he hadn’t paid attention to all of the teammates he passed who were in a better position to stop the runner, but they gave up before he did.

Even though it is a football story, it has colored my career as a player and a coach. As a player, I have caught many players that I shouldn’t have just because I refused to give up.  Even when it looked hopeless!  As a coach, I have looked to instill that same level of dedication and effort into my players because giving yourself to a worthy cause is always worth it.

You don’t have to play for one of the best programs in the country to give your best effort!  Many times, chasing your dreams is going to look a lot like that play.  You’re going to be close enough to touch them but they slip away.  Do you give up or run like a partially blind man after them?  The answer to that question is going to tell you a lot about yourself.

Go get ’em!

Pete

Blogpost, self-reliance

7 Words (you don’t know until you know)

Pete Huryk

7WordsAbout a year ago my son, Luke, and I went to a Red Bulls game.  He was eight years old at the time.  On the ride home we were listening to the music from my iPhone.  At one point, a song called “7 Words” by the Deftones came on.  I quickly switched the song because it is a hard and aggressive curse-laden song.  He asked why I changed it and I told him that the title of the song was 7 Words and that it had a lot of cursing in it.  He probed further about why it was called 7 Words.  I explained that there were seven major curse words that most people recognize as bad.

Much to my surprise Luke said that he thought he knew them all.  We seemed to be having a “man to man” discussion, so I gave him the green light to test his seven.  He started off two for two with the F and S.  Then he stumbled a bit with his next two selections.  There was another F in his seven, “frick”.  I informed him that it was actually a replacement for his other F.  Then he went to another S-word, “sex”.  Again I explained that sex was not a curse word which was unfortunately followed by the question “what is sex?”  I got instantaneously nervous that I was going to have to have “the talk” with an eight year old.  Luckily my explanation that sex was another word for gender or boys/girls seemed to appease him.

I was reminded of that incident several times today as I was speaking to the 8th graders of HMS.  It is extremely tough to know until you know.  That may seem like cryptic language but I’m being very literal.  Until you go through certain things for yourself it is difficult or even impossible to fully understand.  My goal was to give them some tools to work with and I hope that I did.  However there are things that you need to go through for yourself to understand like how to get over a broken heart or deal with the betrayal of a good friend.  We can put these things in the manual with instructions but they can’t particularly be taught.

Life has a series of missteps and pitfalls that we must go through.  We can avoid some through the help of others.  However some things we just need to experience for ourselves.  You don’t know what you don’t know until you know it.  You know?

Happy Birthday Luke!

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Pete

Blogpost, self-reliance

The Chase

Pete Huryk

The bed and the couch never try to escape. There is never a shortage of food that tastes good but is horrible for you. The distractions and setbacks are all around us. Yet we act as if these were the things that were fleeting or important.   When in fact it is the opposite.

Time is fleeting and opportunity is always on the run. Catching up to our dreams takes consistent pace that often looks like a sprint. The life that we want will run until we wear it out and find it resting from exhaustion.  Are you ready to chase what you want?  Or are you looking for an excuse to rest?  One is easy to find and will always be there.  Is that for you?

Make today happen.

Pete

Blogpost

The Statue Equation

Pete Huryk

Most people remember the date, July 4th 1776.  It marked the day that the United States declared its independence from Great Britain.  A lesser known date is June 15th 1775 when George Washington was appointed Commander in Chief of the Continental Army.  It was at this time that George Washington signed his contract containing the “Statue Equation”.  If the quest for independence was successful, Washington was promised at least one statue in each major city, the eventual capital to be named for him and a monument within that future capital.  Since the colonial leadership had their eyes on expansion, he also negotiated an option for a future state to be named for him.  Hopefully at this point, you’ve recognized the ridiculousness of the prior three sentences.  They are completely untrue.

While I’m sure that Washington and others had some selfish reasons for fighting the Revolutionary War, I doubt that statues and monuments were among them.  The ideals of freedom and self determination were most likely more relevant than the fame that would come from victory.  It is a relatively simple equation that in the past we revered those who acted with a higher purpose than themselves.  Today people are revered simply because they are willing to make a spectacle of themselves in the media.

I do not believe that people are inherently foolish but there is a “shell game” that has been played on us or we’ve played on ourselves.  Fame used to be a byproduct of being exceptional at something.  The desired result was being exceptional in a particular area, now the desired result is being famous.  Getting on TV or one million likes on Facebook or Youtube.  When do we stop fooling ourselves that this is what life is truly about?

The key component to being a human being is acting in the interest of a cause bigger than yourself.  Acting in the interest of making yourself bigger than other seems to only make people smaller.

Blogpost

What Language Are You Speaking?

Pete Huryk

Languages are essentially agreements.  At the moment, you and I are working under the English agreement.  We both agree that you are using “eyes” to read this post and the thing that processes your thoughts about it is called a “brain”.  As my day job, I try to get young people to accept the Spanish agreement.  Over the years that I have explained this concept, I was aware that there are many variations underneath each agreement.  There is American English and Australian English but in essence they are close enough to allow communication to flow.  Today I had a thought that I may have sold the idea of variations a little bit short.

The problem with the language agreement is the same as with most contracts: the fine print.  As I was driving home, I began thinking.  If language is an agreement, why do we disagree so often?  One of the issues is that I am not exactly writing English here.   I’m writing American 39 year old moderately educated Northwest New Jersey English.  I could probably lump a few more descriptors on there but you get the point.  Does this mean that we can’t understand each other?  No, that’s not necessarily true.   The key is to recognize what language you’re really speaking and the language of the other person.

This simple shift can make your communications better with the most important people in your life.  For example, silence can mean something very different in the female language than the male.  It can also change person to person.  The key is to work to understand the other person’s language rather than assuming that your languages are compatible.

Blogpost, self-reliance

Stop Believing!

Pete Huryk

StopOur beliefs are extremely important tools that we use to form who we are and who we can be.  Although the title of this blog may seem negative, it is intended to have a positive outcome.  It is intended to add some inner dialogue that will help you to achieve a goal, create something, improve something, change a habit or any other endeavor that is difficult.

Stop believing that it will be easy!

Stop believing that anyone will do it for you!

Stop believing that it’s too big for you to pull off!

Stop believing that “You Suck” voice inside your head!

Stop believing that you need to wait for the time to be right!

Stop believing that you’re too tired!

Stop believing that people will laugh at you!

Stop believing that anyone is going to help you more than you help yourself!

Stop believing that there are too many obstacles!

Stop believing that your past failures matter enough to stop you from trying again!

Stop believing that there’s nothing you can do!

Start believing in you, in possibility, in the future!

Start today!

Pete

Blogpost, self-reliance, Uncategorized

The Fearometer

Pete Huryk

NormandyFear, one of our most basic emotional states, has served us through the millennia to keep us alive.  Few of us are in daily peril from the elements or predators anymore.  So our fear mechanism has little real cause for use.  So we sometimes indulge the fear mechanism in very benign circumstances.  Although emotions are not perfectly quantifiable, I would suggest that we take some time to truly assess our fears and their intensity.  Where would most of our fears of today rate on the Fearometer?

Fears are very personal.  However when I think through history and all of the possible situations that could cause a fear level of TEN, being a soldier on a boat about to storm the beach of Normandy is always at the top of the list.  Waiting for a door to open to almost certain death is something that I’m not sure that I could handle.  By comparison, my daily fears seem extremely small and petty.

So where do your fears rank?  Is talking to that special person and asking them out really a TEN?  Or is it a FIVE that you’ve turned into a TEN?  Since most of our fears are societal and not natural, inflation is something that is bound to happen.  We make things bigger and scarier in order to protect ourselves.  But from what?  A moment of discomfort?  The truth?  In the end you need to decide if your Fearometer is working well for you or is it paralyzing you?

Regret is momentary pain that you have chosen to make permanent.

Blogpost, SoccerLifeBalance

Winning vs. Leading

Pete Huryk

DaxGoalAs a teacher of language, I often find fault with the English language.  It falls short in many ways.  It breaks its own rules.  Pronunciation is ambiguous and changes happen all the time.  Probably my biggest gripe with English is that many of the things we say are either misleading or cause us to look at things in a way that does not serve us.

One instance of this vocabulary problem is from my position as a coach.  The phrase “we’re winning” needs to go.  It is something that I know I’ve said before because it’s what prompted me to write this post.  Winning is worthless until you have won.  Even worse is realizing that you’re winning causes a sense of comfort and a change in attitude toward the game.

Until you’ve won, you’re leading.  Leading does not imply a result but rather a process.  Leading means that you’re ahead of the opponent but they are still there.  Leading is something that can be taken away if you let it.  Leading is difficult and a struggle.  It takes effort and focus to lead until the end but if you want to win, it’s what you have to do.

Don’t let the word trick you.  You’re not winning or losing.  Either you’re leading or you’re trailing!

Don’t stop until you’ve won!

Pete