The “blood round” is a great tester of grit. Both the pressure and associated stakes are extremely high. It’s a critical juncture between sweet victory and agonizing defeat.
The Blood Round
My son Grant wrestled in the Georgia High School Association’s State Wrestling Championships this past week in Macon, Georgia. He is in his sophomore season at Allatoona High School here in Acworth, Georgia.
If you aren’t familiar with wrestling, there are two formats of tournaments, dual and traditional. In a dual format, you are bracketed as a team. The traditional format allows for each wrestler to compete individually against other wrestlers within their weight class.
The traditional tournaments are in a double elimination format. Once you obtain a loss, the wrestler moves to the consolation bracket. That is their last chance to place in the tournament.
The blood round is the round before placement. The wrestler that wins moves on to placement and the tournament ends for the other.
The blood round is where Grant found himself in the tournament. The Georgia State Tournament places top six. As he entered the match, he was one of only eight in the state left.
Here are five leadership lessons I hope Grant learned from his experience in the toughest round of the toughest sport in the world:
Tests Your Grit
The day began with weigh-ins at the crack of dawn, 7:00 a.m. Wrestling started at 9:00 a.m. The blood rounds started around 6:00 p.m. that evening. Those making the blood rounds had already wrestled at least three matches. It was a long…long day for these kids.
The blood round tests your Grit. One’s grit is measured by our willingness to keep moving forward in spite of internal whispers to quit. My Jui Jitsu professor, Vic Rosati, used to say, “Most people quit mentally before they ever quit physically.” That has always stuck with me. The blood round offers a wrestler an open invitation for a wrestler to do just that, quit mentally.
In leadership, we are served up with plenty of opportunities to throw in the towel mentally. The chaos of the day, unforeseen circumstances, and problems associated with people all present a leader with the option to quit mentally.
Great leaders keep taking the mat in the blood rounds. They keep showing up even when things get tough. Day after day, they toe the line of leadership.
Sweet Victory
There is a lot on the line in the blood round. It has intense emotional stakes and extreme pressure at hand. With the wrestler having one loss, losing is not an option. You win or you go home, plain and simple.
Therefore, when the referee raises the winning wrestler’s hand, there is incredible relief. The wrestler went from the fear of losing to the feeling of sweet victory. Their placement in the tournament is solidified. There is elation in the stands and wrestlers jumping into their coach’s arms in celebration.
In leadership, victory is sweet. When we make it through those tough leadership blood rounds, the feeling is indescribable. Just when fear told us we were done, we pushed through and our hand gets raised in the end. It may not always feel like it in the grind, but sweet victory awaits.
Agonizing Defeat
Being that there are no ties in wrestling (another argument for its greatest sport in the world case), someone wins and someone loses. While one experiences sweet victory, the other suffers agonizing defeat.
The objective within reach is permanently ripped away. Season over, no placement. One match short of everything they had worked for the entire season. It’s not uncommon to see wrestlers fall to their knees in exhaustion, fleeing the mat in frustration, or crying tears of sadness. The defeat is agonizing.
We will win some and we will lose some in the blood rounds of leadership. There will be days where things just don’t go our way. All the blood, sweat, and tears that were put into a project or a person feel worthless. Disappointment and discouragement set in. It can be crippling and debilitating.
It’s Not Always Fair
All it takes is for one highly seeded wrestler to get upset early in the tournament to significantly impact the blood round. Two wrestlers that deserved to place, now must battle each other for that one spot. Meanwhile, on the other side of the bracket, two wrestlers who may not be as deserving get to wrestle for that prestigious spot of placing.
Leadership is not immune from this circumstance either. Things can just simply be unfair. We work ourselves to the bone to position ourselves for success and come up short, while someone else skates through to victory. It happens, it’s tough to watch.
Sometimes leadership just isn’t fair. But, we must find value in our effort despite the outcome of the blood round. We competed to the best of our abilities, it was not lack of effort. We positioned ourselves to place, it just wasn’t our day.
Drives Us Forward
Both wrestlers experience can drive them forward. Sweet victory gives them a taste of success and they desire it even more. It can also lead to complacency and sense of entitlement. When you coast, you are always going downhill. Not good.
Agonizing defeat can also drive a wrestler to the point of refusing to ever lose again in the blood round. They work harder than they ever have and push themselves further than they ever have with the mere mission to never experience that feeling of agonizing defeat again.
I often told wrestlers that I coached, you have two decisions to make when you get put on your back. One, lay there in get pinned. Two, you can figure out a way to get to your stomach, work up to your base, get on your feet, and fight.
In leadership, we are faced with those same two choices daily. We can let the blood rounds pin us to our backs, or we can figure out a way to get to our feet and move forward. Staying on the mat is not an option.
Conclusion – Grant’s Blood Round
Well…Grant did not experience sweet victory. He lost his blood round match to a wrestler who was upset early in the tournament. It led to the exact situation of another wrestler he had easily defeated the week prior getting to place in the other blood round matchup. It didn’t feel fair to watch.
Here is what I know about my son. His grit got him to the blood round. It was leaving his high school practice dead tired and choosing to go to his private wrestling academy for another full practice after. It was the discipline to eat healthy to maintain weight and push through ailments throughout the entire grind of a tough season.
Defeat does not determine our future, we do. It’s the choices that we make in response to defeat that matters. I have no doubt there will be a follow-up to this post next year, one that has him experiencing sweet victory. All because of the lessons he learned from his blood round experience.
The question is what have we learned from the blood rounds of not only leadership, but life? We are still standing today, that is a pretty good start. Keep fighting through the blood rounds of life and leadership, sweet victory awaits.