# 40 - Do Sports Stars Deserve Second Chances?

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It's also important to have a think about what why are you reacting that way? Because sometimes it can cause you to react with anger. And the question would be is, like, why? What are you actually angry? Because when we get angry at different things, it's actually a projection of something that we're angry at ourself about, something that we're angry about our life situation. I'm Ian Hawkins,

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and this is sport. Is life.

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The purpose of sport, as I see it, is to see your vision become a reality. Find Your Voice, create strong connections, and learn to trust your body.

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And this

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week in the world of sport, I noticed it is the week for redemption stories, or, shall we say, second chances. A couple of NRL players have been caught recently for drug offenses. One of them was driving and got stopped by a roadside tester. Another one, an accident, pretty bad, actually, under the influence of drew hugs, I think it was cocaine, quite a bit of that veered on the wrong side of the road, hidden Uber and injured the driver and a mum and daughter in the car. So, you know, fairly substantial charges for both of them, and not the behavior that I'm sure the organization but fans definitely don't expect. Now it's looking likely they're both going to get second chances. Now, for some of them might be even more than second third chances

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tends to happen in patterns,

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and that's generally because there's some underlying issues that need to be resolved. But today I want to talk about like, what? Why do we care so much? Like, you only got to jump on now my team para, potentially, it looks like they're signing Josh and a car who was the one who got caught in a roadside test. And people have viewed, some just care that their team's going to be better. And they're they're all in saying, This is great. Others are like, no, don't want him at the club. He's a drug taker, or a whole lot of other reasons. And it's like, Well, why do these things like create so much emotion? Well, for a lot of people, probably, well, most people, what's playing out generally, is a strong sense of fairness. They're thinking, Why? Why should that person get away with that? Why should they be able to just have what seems like no rules, and then they get away that? They just get signed by another club. They're making great money. Just life doesn't seem fair. Now, this strong sense of fairness probably shows up a lot in lots of different areas of your life, too. Generally, when we see things that just don't add up, it can cause a reaction in us. There are different times where maybe you feel like you've been unfairly treated, that can happen in relationships, in the workforce and all sorts of different places I know on the sporting field, it was definitely what would trigger me when when things weren't fair or didn't seem to be fair to me, maybe someone was overly aggressive and myself or someone on my team got injured and the referee didn't act, and so then the sense of fairness in me was many I was going to get retribution, whichever way necessary, not necessarily great trade. But it was from that strong sense of fairness, and often the challenged player that gets themselves into trouble has a strong sense of fairness, and their reactions, and even drug taking can sometimes because certain things that just don't seem fair, and life's quite challenging for them. So it's not only playing out for you and your reaction to them, but it's also playing out for them, because when things don't feel right, when things don't feel fair, when we do react and because, in the case of professional sports stars, we we're passionate, and everyone has their thought as influential members of the club, that's how they feel, right? If you're a member or just a fan like you have the right to a voice. You have. Have the right to have your opinion heard. The problem is, is that there's a million different personalities within fan bases and businesses, and everyone's got a different opinion. My question is, if you're looking at these athletes like the one argument is, I've had everything handed them to to them on a platter. You know, they should be doing the right thing. Well, the reality is, they often have had everything handed to them on a platter. They've had no one say no to them. A lot of them go to these sports high schools now, where they're basically the schooling isn't prioritized, but their sport is they're not really there for anything else, and people just haven't said no to them. And then suddenly they get to an older age, and they're in the public eye, and now we're expecting them to suddenly learn skills that they've never been taught, they've never been shown. And there are also a lot of them from a young age living in this bubble, which we think must be the most amazing thing. And I'm sure there are many positive elements, but if you haven't been exposed to some of the basic areas of living in a community, of having to deal with different scenarios, well then of course, you're going to have limited ability to then do it. We underestimate just how much we learn through our life of all the different challenges we face. But if you're shielded from them because you live in this bubble, well then you're going to struggle. It's not just a matter of saying, well, they should just fall into line, because they get well, really well paid and really well looked after, because it doesn't work like that. There are areas of life, your life, where you get really well looked after, too, I'm sure. But it doesn't mean that you don't have patterns running. It makes you react a certain way that maybe you wish you hadn't, because we all do. And if you listen to this thing and you don't more than you're lying to yourself, because we're all running hundreds of these patterns at any given time, and then we do something, or we don't do something that we really wish we had or needed to do, and then we sit there playing out the the conversation our head, wondering why, and being pretty hard in ourselves. So why would that just because they're earning more money and because they're good at something? Why would they suddenly have the ability to deal with different things that they don't have the capacity to now, a lot of prodigious sporting talents don't come from the best upbringing as well. They again, they haven't had boundaries. They haven't been taught some basic ethical or moral standards or or maybe they have been taught them. But the the role models that they had were behaving badly, and they usually just copy the same patterns from generation after generation. So yes, care Yes, weigh in. It's also important to have a think about what why are you reacting that way? Because sometimes it can cause you to react with anger. And the question would be, is like, why? What are you actually angry? Because when we get angry at different things, it's actually a projection of something that we're angry at ourself about, something that we're angry about our life situation.

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So it's asking that question, why? Why am I triggered by this?

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Or whatever reaction you have,

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if you like, yep,

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couldn't care about their moral

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their moral behavior. I just want them to be good for the team that I support. Might be worth questioning that as well, not because I'm not not saying that it's wrong. I'm just saying that well, what why do you think that way? Is that something a way that you want to think? Is it consistent with how you think in other areas of life? If we come back to the question now, why do we care so much and then switch it to do they actually deserve a second chance for me, so I put myself in the shoes of like, well, I've made plenty of mistakes, if every one of them was in the public eye and they'd seen some of the things I got up to and then told I can't carry on in my profession, because I've done this, this and this, and I might have changed jobs Hundreds of times by now, and people might not necessarily think the way they do about me because of seeing all these things from a past. And that's the reality. I'm sure many of you have got same stories, like if you've if you've grown up and you've ended up kicking around with people in a as a youth, then there's, tend to be things we've done that we're not particularly proud of. If you've ended up drinking or or taking drugs to excess, then I'm sure there's things that you've done that you're not proud of,

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but because

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not many people knew about it, well then. Um, you get redemption some, some of the most famous and well revered athletes in sporting history came before social media came before cameras in everyone's phone everyone's pocket. Remember Johnny raper, the St George, legend and legend of the NRL of rugby league in Australia. Talk about kangaroo tours, and he was well known for being

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well into his party.

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But people probably joke about it now he would have got second chance after second chance because no one knew. And the reality was they often covered it up because a good relationship with journalists and just a different world. So yes, we have higher standards for people now. It doesn't necessarily make it right. It doesn't mean that we should look at the individual as a person that has some challenges and does need to be haven't given the option to learn more about themselves and why they might be doing that and change their behavior. I'm a big believer that bringing in more harsh rules in that environment isn't going to be the answer, because these they still break the rules. It's about being able to introduce sustainable behavior change, and if you are a parent or a coach as well, the same thing. There's no point coming down hard on on a young person if they're just playing out a pattern that's not of their fault. It's just a pattern that's repeating from generation after generation. If they're your own child, you probably made very similar mistakes, if not the same, and your parents probably did as well, and they're just repeating again and again. Might be showing up in a slightly different context, but it's basically the same pattern. So for me, I'm a believer in giving people a second chance. I'm also believer in that when people put in trusted positions, and they then betray that trust by a behavior that doesn't fit in with what is expected of them. Then there must be boundaries put in place to to then have them earn that trust back.

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For mine, they need to be given that opportunity.

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Again. Same with parenting. Give not only do do our children need boundaries, they want them. They don't want to be left with not knowing where the line is. So give them a line, be consistent with it, and they need to know that trust is hard earned but sometimes easily lost. It doesn't mean they can't earn it back. Trust can be re one. So it's just approaching every situation, yes, with boundaries and consequences, but also with compassion and seeking understanding of what might be going on. First, too often we jump to conclusions in life and then find out later. I was listening to it, find out later the real information listening to a an interview with Rocky Elson, also in the news this week because he is on the run because of a war a doubt for him in France, where he's involved in a rugby club. Now, hearing that news and the very basic version that was put in the media, you'd be convinced that, you know, he's done the wrong thing, and then he needs to be locked up and he shouldn't be on the run. But like burros found him, what are the how? And got an interview with him, and he explained the situation and why it was, how it was. It's like, I'm not saying that. You know in the interview, you that everything you said was 100% truth, because I don't know that. But even just the context of how it was explained the situation, it made so much more sense. It was definitely nowhere near the version that you read the newspaper. So context is everything, I think, a little bit of track there. But it's, it's, there's an opportunity for us to learn from these situations. How can be, maybe be more compassionate and have better boundaries in our life, also, how can we be more understanding for those people in our life that maybe have inadvertently done the wrong thing or make mistakes and and, yeah, that's how we're going to change behaviors. Is not by being harsher on people and and removing their livelihood, but instead, let's find a way to educate, bring in more of those circuit breakers that I talk about so they can be behavior change. Start changing these loops to to much more positive behavior loops that ended a much better result.

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Speak to the next one

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Transcribed by https://otter.ai