Month: May 2025

Certainty of Outcomes

On June 12, 2009, the New York Mets and New York Yankees faced off in a baseball game.

The teams had played each other plenty over the years. But this was the first matchup in the Yankees’ new home ballpark.

Plenty of mayhem ensued. Home runs, bases loaded walks, and lead changes aplenty.

But as the 9th inning approached, the Mets held an 8-7 lead. As their closer took the mound, things looked bleak for the Yankees.

The home side did manage to get two runners on base, but they also made two outs. Their final hope for salvation was struggling superstar Alex Rodriguez.

Rodriguez took a mighty swing — and popped the ball high up in the air. He slammed his bat down in frustration as Mets second baseman Luis Castillo – an elite defender – drifted toward the edge of the outfield grass.

As Castillo waited for the ball to come out of the sky, everyone in the stadium thought the same thing.

This game is over. The Mets have won it.

But then, a strange thing happened. Castillo dropped the ball. Flustered, he threw the ball toward second base – even though both baserunners were already rounding third base. Another infielder quickly shuttled the ball to home plate, but it was too late.

Both runners scored. The Yankees won.

As the home fans roared, one thing was evident.

The sure thing wasn’t that sure at all.

In the years since Castillo’s infamous flub, three trends have enveloped sports.

First, advanced analytics have entered the field. Everything from the angle of Rodriguez’s pop up to the speed of Castillo’s frantic throw to second base would be tracked in the modern day.

Second, wagering has gone from taboo to mainstream. Fans don’t need to travel to a Las Vegas sportsbook to post a legal bet on sports action anymore. These days, they can even wager on little slices of a game – such as a single at-bat.

Add those two trends together, and you find the third trend. Sports broadcasters now track Win Probability within games. Indeed, there are graphs throughout the action showing the likelihood that one team will go on to win the game. Those graphs fluctuate due to factors like time remaining, score, and situational elements (runners on base, field position, penalties, and so on).

If that Mets-Yankees matchup took place 15 years later than it did, the Mets would likely have held a 97% Win Probability when Rodriguez strode to the plate. Yes, the Yankees had the tying and winning runs on base, but they only had one out left to work with. The chances of making that one opportunity count were slim.

The Mets’ Win Probability would have dropped a bit — perhaps to 95% — by the time Rodriguez took his fateful swing. He was in a favorable batting count at that point, with the Mets pitcher virtually assured of dealing him something hittable.

But as soon as the ball went into the air, and Rodriguez’s bat slammed to the ground, the Mets’ Win Probability would have spiked back to 99%. Even the analytics would have agreed the game was in the bag for them.

And yet, the 1% chance of failure became reality. The Yankees would have literally defied the odds.

This type of narrative happens frequently now. If a basketball team overcomes a 20-point deficit in the fourth quarter, or a football team wins a game they trailed by 17 points in the second half, pundits will cite Win Probabilities to show how unlikely the comeback was. The word miracle — once reserved for a famous Olympic hockey match — is now a commonplace sports descriptor.

But it’s a misnomer. In sports and in life more generally.

Several years ago, I attended an all-company meeting on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.

It was several months after the COVID pandemic had broken out, so the meeting was held via videoconference. Unease was in the air due to the impending holiday devoid of its usual large gatherings.

The meeting started as they always did – with the head of our company reading out the organization’s mission statement.

But the next slide contained a bombshell. The company was getting acquired.

The Chief Executive Officer of the acquiring company then joined the meeting to explain the situation further. He made sure to mention that while the deal hadn’t formally closed, it would take “a meteor hitting the earth for it to not happen.”

As I took in the news, I couldn’t get past that statement.

What a stupid thing to say, I thought. There’s no certainty until the final papers are signed.

I would know.

Over the years, I’d seen my fair share of sure things fall through. I’d been stood up on dates, rejected from job opportunities after final round interviews, and seen family outings get canceled. I knew better than to consider anything the real deal before it came true.

Pen did eventually meet paper, and the deal went through. But it did nothing to quell my unease.

For this was but one example of preemptive certainty of outcomes. Indeed, our society seems fixated on calling the race before the first contestant crosses the finish line.

In some ways, this trend was inevitable. Americans have never been known for patience, and the smartphone era has vanquished the last frontier of our restraint.

But that doesn’t make it right.

For life can be cruel and irrational. Even if we’re a foot from the front gate with a 30 mile per hour wind at our back, there’s still a chance for nature to bar us entry.

That’s just the way of the world. And we need to come to terms with it.

Numbers are the universal language.

I can’t recall who imparted this wisdom on me. But I’ve never forgotten the advice itself.

So much of our lives remains up for interpretation. What we see. What we say. What we write. It can vary from culture to culture, or region to region.

But the rules of numbers are finite. 1 + 1 will always equal 2. And a 95% chance is better than a 5% one.

It’s time we reacquaint ourselves with this practice. That we stop equating a 98% chance with a 100% one. That we stop proclaiming false certainty of outcomes.

Sure, this might take the wind out of our sails a bit. And yes, it will make the journey seem a bit nervier.

But we’ll spare ourselves the egg on our face if we save the celebration for the destination. We’ll find the security we seek, and we’ll become less vulnerable to last second plot twists.

It’s a high reward, low-cost proposition.

Let’s make it a reality.

500

I placed my palms down on the floor, a little more than shoulder-width apart. I let my legs slide backwards until only the balls of my feet touched the ground.

I took a deep breath, with my torso suspended a foot or so in the air. Then I let my body sink toward the ground, my elbows bowing outward to make room.

Just as my nose was about to hit the floor, I straightened out my arms. I felt the pressure move from my forearms to my shoulders as my torso rose upward to its original position.

I’d just completed a push up.

That wasn’t so bad, I thought to myself. I could do a few more of these.

So, I did. I kept sinking to the ground and lifting myself back up. Over and over again.

10 repetitions became 20. 20 reps became 30. But around rep 31, I started to feel a burning sensation in my arms.

The force of all that movement had caught up with me. My body felt tired and heavy. I could no longer make it through without discomfort.

I struggled my way to the 40th push up. Then I stopped.

It turns out time does take its toll.

Half of success is just showing up.

I’ve heard that phrase plenty. And it’s led me to scratch my head.

You see, I’ve always considered showing up to be table stakes. After all, it’s hard to seize opportunities without being present for them.

How could something foundational be worth half of the jackpot? It shouldn’t be.

So, in an era of participation medals and self-indulgence, I’ve kept my nose to the grindstone. I’ve focused on my execution and tried to keep the spotlight off my effort.

Being there has meant nothing to me. What I do in the moment has meant everything.

Recently though, I’ve found myself re-evaluating my point of view.

For it turns out that showing up is trickier than it might seem.

Sure, it’s simple enough to be present on day one, day two, or even day ten. We’re fresh. We’re eager. We’re determined.

But eventually the weight of all our expended energy catches up with us. We get worn down. And our will to persist wanes.

This is why the 31st pushup is harder than the first. And it’s why the 31st day of any venture is more challenging than the 11th.

It takes something special to power through. Stubbornness. Determination. Sacrifice.

It’s uncommon to see such traits in action, day after day. And when they are on display, the least we could do is recognize them.

Showing up might not be precisely half of success. But it matters.

Nearly a decade ago, I took a plunge into the unknown.

I’d been considering sharing my writing online for some time, in the form of an online publication. I had a lot of stories to tell, and I was eager to share my thoughts with the world. But I was terrified that my venture would fall into the abyss of online content out there.

How can I break through? I thought to myself. How can I avoid the curse of irrelevance?

As I pondered these questions, I thought about my favorite thought leaders on the Internet.  The personalities I followed back then showed up repeatedly and reliably. A daily blog post. A weekly YouTube video. A monthly newsletter.

It kept me engaged as an audience member. And it kept me accountable.

Perhaps I could try the same thing with my nebulous audience.

So, I made a commitment. I would share something fresh, original, and substantive each week. And in doing so, I’d give readers something to come back for, time and again.

This pledge didn’t seem overly daunting at the time. After all, I had lots of stories in my head that were yearning for the light. Sharing one a week would be relatively simple.

So, I set up my web domain, drafted my first article, and hit Publish. Then I did it again. And again. And again.

500 times, to be exact.

Yes, this is the 500th consecutive weekly article to appear on Ember Trace. There hasn’t been a single hiatus since the publication came to life.

Technically, I’ve only relied on three items to keep this streak alive — a word processor, a website, and a stable Internet connection. But this whole venture has demanded  far more of me.

I’ve become relentlessly creative, judicious with time-management, and determined to make writing a priority. I’ve made this venture a focal point of my life.

All to repeat the trick of hitting Publish 500 times over.

That’s nothing to sneeze at.

Several years back, I met with a physical therapist who specialized in treating runners.

I was close to the peak of my running career at that point, with the physique and the medal haul to match. But I’d also picked up a couple of injuries that had knocked me out of some races. And I worried that my gait was to blame.

The physical therapist looked on as I ran on a specialized treadmill. Then he showed me some video clips of my form.

Sure enough, my right foot was freelancing. It would oscillate with each stride – oftentimes landing behind my left heel. This wild motion led my torso to twist, putting strain on my right hip, knee and ankle.

I looked on, defeated. It seemed that I was going to need to relearn how to run.

But the physical therapist had other ideas.

He gave me a litany of exercises to practice at the gym. Mobility drills. Strength training. Balance tasks.

I was to run through that circuit several times a week, paying close attention to detail. But when I went for a run, I was ordered to pay my form no mind.

Confusion washed over my face. Why wouldn’t fixing my form be the number one priority?

The physical therapist explained the gait doesn’t define success for runners. In fact, many with unusual strides have gone on to achieve great things. Their bodies adapted to the unbalanced movements, and they created a new equilibrium.

I think about this often when I’m drafting a new article for Ember Trace.

The stories in my mind are no longer abundant, and article topics no longer flow freely. Indeed, I feel far more like I’m on my 31st push up than my first. Such are the challenges of doing something 500 times over.

But with God’s grace, I’m still out here. I’m still writing, still publishing, still making a miniscule mark on this world every seven days.

I’m proud of that feat. And I’m honored to keep it going.

Here’s to 500. And to all that’s still to come.

Learning to Wait

The calendar looked like a warped tic-tac-toe board.

A series of X’s covered various date boxes, with the marks accelerating toward one date that was circled.

My sister was relying on this system as she waited for our parents to return.

They were across the ocean, enjoying a European vacation. Our grandparents were looking after us in their stead.

I didn’t mind this arrangement. But my sister did.

She was maybe 4 or 5 years old. She couldn’t fathom why our parents would abandon us like this. And she wanted the whole episode to end, immediately.

So, after enduring a night of my sister’s hysterics, my grandmother suggested the calendar technique. It wouldn’t make our parents come home faster. But it would help make their impending return more tangible.

The activity transformed my sister. A new sense of determination overtook her. Despair gave way to excitement, which built with each passing day.

Learning to wait was paying dividends.

Patience is a virtue.

You’ve likely heard that proverb a time or three. And for good reason.

Waiting, you see, is the natural order of things. Plants take time to blossom. Structures take time to complete. And opportunities take time to emerge.

And yet, we’re not wired to wait. From our earliest days, we demand instant gratification. A bottle. A blanket. A toy.

To paraphrase Queen, we want it all and we want it now.

This central tension requires a metamorphosis. To reap the fruits of the world around us, we must learn to live by its rules. And that requires a crash course in patience.

My grandmother taught that course to my sister with that calendar exercise. And I went through similar crucibles as I learned to wait.

These lessons were annoying, frustrating, and bewildering at the time. But looking back now, I’m grateful for them.

For much of my life has developed gradually. Professional opportunities have often been slow to emerge. Social connections have ebbed and flowed. Earning power has arrived relatively late to the party.

If I hadn’t learned patience, I wouldn’t have achieved much. I’d have thrown in the towel years ago — resigning myself to a future of bitterness and diminished potential.

Patience was one of the greatest gifts of my childhood.

But I wonder if I’m among its final recipients.

My middle school years were a whirlwind.

I was attending a new school — one which I was commuting to on my own. To cut down on the risk, my parents bought me a cell phone.

Back home, my parents had added cable TV, a PlayStation 2, and a DSL internet line. Instead of spending my evenings ensconced in boredom, I could now watch a show, play a video game, or browse the web.

Instant gratification had been dropped into my midst like supplies from a rescue helicopter. Life had fundamentally changed.

But not entirely.

You see, much of this technology was primitive by modern standards. Smartphones and streaming were still years away. And the options contained in these digital devices were far from limitless.

Plus, I’d already become well-versed in the virtue of patience. So, I tended to treat instant gratification more like snack than a full meal.

The landscape is far different for kids today.

By the time they get to middle school, many have been playing with smartphones and tablets for years. They’ve streamed bottomless catalogs of shows on big screen TVs. They’ve played hosts of video games online, facing off against peers hundreds of miles away.

This setup provides ample opportunities for the newest generations. Opportunities my younger self could have never dreamed of.

And yet, it brings up some disconcerting questions.

It’s safe to say that today’s children won’t need resort to cross off dates on their calendars or counting the tiles on the kitchen backsplash. There are more dynamic entertainment options at their disposal.

But how will these generations learn how to practice patience? That lesson no longer seems to be required in the era of instant gratification. And I worry about what that means down the line.

On a June night in Florida, a group of hockey players took turns skating around an ice rink in a sports arena.

The players had just won the Stanley Cup. And each was taking a victory lap with the most prestigious trophy in sports – cheered on by thousands of delirious fans.

Standing among the players on the ice was a middle-aged man in a suit. He was the team’s coach. A hard-charging hockey lifer who had never won the big one before.

As a TV reporter interviewed the coach, one of the players skated up to the coach with the Stanley Cup. He abruptly paused the interview and hoisted the trophy high above his head, letting out a roar.

It was fitting.

Paul Maurice had coached 26 seasons in the National Hockey League. He had spent time behind the bench for four different franchises, winning 900 games in the process.

But he’d never reached the pinnacle of his profession before.

He’d come close at times. Twice, he’d watched an opposing team hoist the cup at his team’s expense. But he’d also been fired twice and forced to resign once.

It had been a long road to glory. In the face of so much heartbreak and heartache, Maurice needed to practice patience. To learn to wait for his opportunity, and to capture it when it arrived.

That opportunity came at the end of his second season coaching the Florida Panthers. Patience paid off in a moment of instant gratification.

It sounds ironic. But it’s par for the course.

You see, hockey coaching jobs have become a revolving door in recent years. Few bench bosses last more than a few seasons with any team. Instead, experienced coaches move around the league in an elaborate game of musical chairs.

As I write this, only three coaches across the league have been in their posts for four seasons. Yet at least nine have track records comparable to Maurice’s.

It seems that team executives have impulse-itis. They crave instant gratification and accept nothing less. Even though the absurdity of that quest is self-evident.

This disconnect is what awaits our entire society if we don’t learn to wait. People will jump ship from their responsibilities at the first moment of difficulty. Those offering opportunities will cut bait at the first sign of underperformance.

There will be no runway for us to evolve, to grow, to let things develop. Life will be a series of hollow moments in time, with precious few of them fulfilling.

This is not a path worth following. So, let’s re-blaze an old one.

Let’s put boundaries around the instant gratification in our midst. Let’s re-introduce mid and long-term goals back to our lives. And let’s evangelize patience as a strength, not a weakness.

Going back to the future like this will surely have its challenges. But it will unlock untold opportunities for all of us to meet the challenges of tomorrow.

And that’s an outcome worth waiting for.

Wear on the Tires

The scene was horrific.

A beachside condominium in ruins, with residents trapped beneath the rubble.

It seemed like something out of a movie. But back in June 2021, it was all too real for the residents of Surfside, Florida.

A wing of the Champlain Towers complex abruptly collapsed in the middle of the night, killing 98 people and injuring plenty more.

No hurricane or fire or other acute disaster brought the building down. And there were no warning signs to alert inhabitants to the structure’s demise. Indeed, the randomness of the incident made it so terrifying.

How could a building that had been through the rigors of the tropics suddenly give out like this on a clear, calm night? And would others suffer the same fate?

The answers are disconcerting. But they require our investigation.

I remember the day I first felt it.

A hollow pain on the inside of my lower leg.

I was on a morning run, and I’d just crossed a busy street. I grimaced for a second. But I gave no thought to stopping.

After all, running is about endurance. About continuing, even when it’s uncomfortable. I wasn’t about to break with that mantra here.

Besides, it was hot and humid out. Maybe I was just cramping up.

When I reached a water fountain a mile later, I took a healthy swig. But the blast of hydration and a quick stretch of the legs did little to quell the discomfort. And nothing else I tried in the ensuing days helped.

So, I went to the doctor, who ordered an X-ray. When that came back clean, I went through acres of red tape to get an MRI scheduled.

That image contained the smoking gun. A hairline fracture in my left tibia.

I was ordered to stop running for 12 weeks, and to drop out of the race I’d been training for. My body needed to heal.

I was devastated by this news. All the work I’d done to train for that race had gone up in smoke. The five stages of grief were all that remained.

Still, I tried to find the silver lining in it all.

I’d put more than 1,000 miles of running on my legs over the prior year. Perhaps they’d feel fresher after a reset. Perhaps I would as well.

Yet, I found the return to running challenging. When I hit the streets a few months later, my endurance just wasn’t there.

It would take a couple months to get my stamina to return. Meanwhile, my top-end speed never quite did come back.

Plus, I kept sustaining new injuries, including one that required surgery. Those setbacks robbed me of any semblance of rhythm. I was effectively in a rolling rehab cycle for two years.

Eventually, I found the culprit for my woes. I was diagnosed with a degenerative bone condition — one that left me particularly susceptible to injury. Genetic misfortune had done me in more than anything else.

I could have taken this tidy explanation at face value. Indeed, perhaps I should have. But instead, I kept pulling at the thread of my athletic demise.

Perhaps my own delusions had done me in more than my bone chemistry ever could. Maybe the mantra that time would heal all wounds was misguided.

It all required further investigation.

When you get your driver’s license, you learn a host of new skills.

There are the core driving functions, of course. How to accelerate, brake, and steer. How to check mirrors and blind spots. How to merge into traffic or pull into a parking spot.

But then there’s the maintenance acumen. How to fill the gas tank. How to read warning lights on the dashboard. And how to check tire tread.

That last task is critically important. And yet, it’s easily overlooked.

We tend to forget about the circles of rubber connecting our vehicles to the road until that connection becomes faulty. At which point, we’re in deep trouble.

Fortunately, there’s an easy heuristic for checking tire health. If we insert an upside-down penny into the tread and see the entirety of Abraham Lincoln’s head showing, the tire is worn down — or bald.

There is no remedy for a bald tire. Our only option is to replace it with a newer, fresher model. And this happens relatively frequently.

I’ve primarily driven three vehicles in my lifetime. But I’ve had at least six sets of tires — combined — on those vehicles.

So, I find myself perplexed when I hear the term wear on the tires bandied about as a complement in social settings. It seems woefully out of place.

The analogy is meant to be a compliment. It indicates that someone has plenty of experience. And that a little recuperation is all that’s needed for that individual to share the fruits of all that experience.

It’s an appealing sentiment. But it’s also a delusional one.

You see, time moves in but one direction. And once we stop growing, we start degrading.

This is as true for our bodies as it is for the clothing we put on them or the tools we operate with them. Everything gets worn down until it’s worn out. There is no magic reset button.

I should have considered this when I saw that hairline fracture on my MRI results. I grasped onto the delusion of coming back better than ever. But I would have been better off acknowledging that the worn tread on my legs would never return.

It’s a sobering reality. But accepting it would have helped me move forward.

In the middle of Spain lies a small city named Segovia. And in the middle of Segovia sits a giant stone aqueduct.

The aqueduct was built by the Romans nearly 2,000 years ago to ferry water across a steep valley in what’s now the city center. And it still stands intact today.

It’s safe to say there’s been plenty of wear on the “tires” of this structure over the years. The granite is no longer pristine, and the mortar is no longer quite as smooth.

But the leaders of Segovia have done a remarkable job keeping the structure maintained. Over the years, they’ve repaired some of the arches and replaced some more. They’ve checked the integrity of the structure and fortified it as needed.

They’ve let the aqueduct age both gracefully and safely.

Contrast that approach with the one taken by the proprietors of the Champlain Towers in Surfside, Florida. Instead of working with the lost tire tread, they effectively let the building rest. And 30 years into its lifespan, it gave out.

These two structures – and their fates – represent paths of destiny. We just need to choose which one we follow.

Do we cling to delusion, believing that a little time off our feet will reverse the wear on our tires? Or do we work with the degradation, and build a smooth path to tomorrow?

The answer should be clear. Let’s go with it.