Shi**ing Your Pants and Other Lessons in Leadership

Being handed a role you don't know how to play

Last week on the podcast I introduced you to NSA intelligence officer turned author Lizzy Wright. Lizzy co-wrote her first book, Aggressively Human, with husband Steve Wright. One of the challenges she talked about in writing the book was humanizing Steve. He was/is a Greek God who has for all intents and purposes lead a charmed life. However, like all of us, Steve has had his share of hard times. But early in the book those things hadn’t happened to him yet.

Below is an excerpt from early on in the book that I think shows some great humanizing. The scene takes place in the early 80s in Dallas. Steve, a rookie with the Cowboys, is staying with all the other rookies for pre-season camp in a local hotel. At one point during camp there was a very large nursing convention going on at the same hotel. Which is how he and a few teammates found themselves at the hotel bar, making what they probably believed to be excellent life choices.

At one point in the evening Steve needed to excuse himself and use the restroom. Where he promptly, and violently, shit his pants:

“Nothing at my disposal could handle this predicament unless it involved industrial cleaning equipment. My task was figuring out how on earth I could get up to my room unnoticed. It had also dawned on me that I had left my wallet on the table with the cute nurses, but that was an impossible retrieval mission given the circumstances. Forget my wallet; I wasn’t going back to that table now, you couldn’t drag me.”

Upon sneaking out of the bathroom, still in his soiled pants, he snuck his way into an elevator:

“I took a position against the side wall, closest to the exit, next to a hot nurse who I had eyed at the bar earlier. As the doors slid shut, everyone started looking around, wondering why the elevator smelled like an outhouse, followed by a hunt for the culprit. The nurse surmised that it was emanating from me and inched away…So much for that potential hookup.”

Funny story, right? But it also does the job Lizzy wanted of humanizing Steve in a way the rest of the early part of the book couldn’t.

It also reminded me of something I didn’t fully understand when I was younger, especially when I first started coaching. You don’t get to grow into authority. Eventually it just gets dumped in your lap. And from that moment on, whether you feel ready or not, you’re expected to act like the version of yourself that deserves it.

I learned that the hard way at one of my first jobs.

Throughout high school and college, I was coached by guys who essentially did what I mentioned a few lines ago. No explanations, no pats on the back…just perform. And your reward for doing so was that you didn’t get your ass ripped.

They say that a bully is a bully because they themselves were bullied at some point. And that people who are abusive were probably abused themselves. That’s about the best way I can describe my early coaching style: mimicking what I was used to.

On the first day of practice as the running backs coach at a new job, one of my freshmen, Russell, left his helmet on the ground while the group ran to midfield to grab a drink. Because this wasn’t how we hydrated:

If this photo bothers you as much as it does me we could maybe be friends. Maybe.

It was more like this:

So, the guys had to run about 35 yards, grab their drink from the MacGyver’d water trough, and jog back. By the time they got back I was holding Russell’s helmet. As the group gathered around me, intently listening for the next drill set up, I handed Russell back his helmet.

“I’m handing this to you nicely this time. If you ever leave your helmet on the field again I’m going to throw it into the fu**ing woods.”

That was that, and away we went practicing. As an aside, running a drill session for the running back position is usually about as fruitless as me watching opera. Nobody’s getting anything out of either activity. Guys that can run the football can run the football, guys that can’t…can’t.

Anyway, that period came and went, and off the group headed for another water break. And wouldn’t you know it, that sucker Russell left his helmet again. I can still remember the words that ran through my head:

“Shit. Now I gotta throw his helmet in the woods.”

….then:

“Am I really gonna throw his helmet in the woods?”

This internal debate ping-ponged around my head until the group returned. Going back on my word, on the first day of practice and in front of the entire group, eventually became a non-starter. As the guys gathered around me, holding Russell’s helmet again, I casually turned my back to them and chucked the helmet as far into the surrounding woods as I could. When I turned back to them it was on to the next drill.

The only other thing I remember from this episode is that the very next day, what should have been the second day of a four year career for Russell, he didn’t show up for practice. He had quit and went home after the previous day’s practice.

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So often in life we are trying to be some version of ourselves that we think others want us to be. Or need us to be. Especially in environments like locker rooms and practice fields. But not just there.

Jobs. Relationships. Any place where you’re handed responsibility before you’re sure you’re ready for it. Places where you don’t get eased into anything. You just look up one day and realize you’re the one expected to know what you’re doing. And so you act like you do.

That’s what I was doing that day. And in a different way, it’s what Steve was doing too.

Because even in his story, the one involving the inadvertent incontinence, he still gets on the elevator like he’s supposed to be the same guy he was ten minutes earlier.

The Cowboys rookie. The guy at the bar. The version of himself everyone expects.

The hard part isn’t becoming that guy.

It’s figuring out when you don’t have to pretend to be him anymore.

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If you missed last week’s pod with Lizzy you can check it out here (or, on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube):

From Hunting bin Laden To Published Author

And if you’d like to read all about Steve Wright’s exploits (other than shitting), check out Aggressively Human.