How Can You Soar Like An Eagle Surrounded By Turkeys?

Tags: failure, faith, inspiration, life lesson, Nick Foles, stand-up diaries, standup diaries, The Stand-Up Diaries, Trevor Dean comedian, trevor dean saskatoon

As I have stated before, when you write over 350 posts during these eight plus years, there will be times when you think a topic or a video clip gets duplicated.  Then again, if that is the case, there’s probably reason for it given the circumstances.  So, at the risk of duplication (not that I really care), here goes.

without failure, who would you be?

That was the question asked by Nick Foles, the 2017 MVP of the Super Bowl.  During his post-game press conference a reporter asked him what we should take away from his story, his journey that took him to the Super Bowl and winning it.  Watch about a minute of his answer.

Nick Foles was a third round draft pick of the Philadelphia eagles a few years before his 2017 triumph.  He bounced around to a couple of different teams and didn’t do particularly well, and when he was back with the Eagles for a second time, found himself as the backup quarterback.

In the NFL, backups rarely get to play, if at all.  Many a team has their starting QB take every snap of every game, whether they are getting blown out or blowing the opposition out.  Some backups don’t see a snap in a regular season game for a couple of years in some instances.

Things change when the starter gets injured.  Quite often the backup is inexperienced, never having taken a snap in a live game scenario.  How will they do?  In Nick’s case, he may have been a backup to Carson Wentz but he was a starter previously, so I am sure it was easy for him to get back into that starters mindset.

Once Nick assumed the starting role, he promptly marched the Eagles into the playoffs and to the Super Bowl, and winning it.  In that off-season the Eagles let Foles walk and made Wentz their starter to save money.  It didn’t make sense to have a backup QB make the same or more than the starter.  Even though Wentz had a history of injury troubles, he was younger and cheaper to keep around.  Ironically the Eagles haven’t had the same success since Foles left.

I bring all this up because this week I was thinking about it and watched Nick Foles get interviewed on many different t.v. talk shows.  He talked about what helped him to get to that Super Bowl moment.  He relied on the people close to him such as his family, his teammates, coaches and God.

It’s pretty difficult, but not impossible for one to succeed without family support.  I know, because I’ve done it for most of my adult life.  My parents are incapable of giving me what I need, which is for them to be a normal, supporting family, which they really aren’t.  I thought about when he said his wife wrote him a letter and persuaded him to keep playing in the NFL, knowing he had unfinished business in his heart and career to take care of.  On his appearance with Ellen, he said that he wasn’t focused on his contract status as a free agent that off-season.  He was focused on being a husband, father to a baby girl and a family man.

I wonder what that would be like, to have that responsibility knowing at the end of the day you have somebody who is waiting for you to come home, to love you unconditionally (at least, that’s the hope) and provide you with a safe environment to not only be your best authentic self, but to be unafraid of failing.  Being present.  Being human.  Being imperfect.

I don’t have that, and maybe 5% of my life thus far had me in a situation where even though I live on my own, someone was interested in my day, wanting me to get home, to spend time with me.

I have no family support.  I work a job that I enjoy with the best people, but its physical toll is slowly breaking my body down.  When you also factor in that my employer doesn’t seem to respect my desire to attend church and have me work every Sunday (ignoring the availability they had me fill out when I started) when they told me Sundays would be on a rotating basis, and you can see how it’s a struggle at times for me.  Wait, do you even care?

The underlying point in all of this is a simple one.  I believe that Nick Foles succeeded like he did because he surrounded himself with great people that helped him to soar to new heights.  In order to achieve anything great in life, no one person can do it alone.  Anybody that tells you otherwise is delusional, and an assclown.  Sure, a loving and supportive home front is very beneficial but in the end you need to surround yourself with great people.  When I mean great people, I’m talking about the people who have direct connections to get you to where you want to go, in Nick Foles’s case, it was his coaches and teammates.  For me, ………………….

Who would it be?  Eight years later I still believe that the great people I speak of to help me succeed in comedy are ones that don’t live in this province.  The majority of them live south of the border.  That doesn’t mean I’ll pack up shop and haul ass to America.  That’ will never happen.

What it does show are two things.  First, I need to forge deeper relationships with those people who are in a position to help, and sadly none of them reside in the city.  People around here may want me to succeed but seem unwilling to step out, step up and pay it forward and help.  The second thing it shows is regardless of how deep those relationships from outside of the province get, I’m still alone on a comedic island here in Saskatoon, with next to no influence, no local help and not a lot of confidence to get out there and try to get myself more known.

Nick Foles is very blessed with an adoring family, beautiful wife, daughter and millions that pray for him and root for him.  I don’t have the family support, but I would settle for the professional support that can help propel me to greater heights.  But that takes confidence that isn’t there, right?  I’d get confidence from writing better material and hitting the stage, but with no demand, there is no urgency, no priority.

Without failure, who would I be?  Well, I wouldn’t have a story to tell.  Not only do I have a story to tell, it’s still ongoing as I continue to spin my wheels in the mud with no tow truck in sight.