“One-Handed”

Last weekend during our vacation in Anaheim, my friend Mario and I decided to shoot some baskets at the hotel’s outdoor basketball court.

On top of the 2nd floor and under the California sun, we grabbed a couple basketballs and made our way there.

As we approached the court there was a younger kid there, maybe late teens early 20’s.

All 3 of us had been shooting around for a bit before I decided to fire one off from half court.

After I did it the kid said "oh, we’re shooting from half court now?”

So he quickly followed with a half court shot of his own.

Obviously both of us with a competitive nature, continued to battle back and forth until he finally hit one. Sending me packing with my tail between my legs.

We continued to shoot around and as is shoot-around protocol, if someone else shoots and you get the rebound but already have a ball, you pass it back to them.

When this happened on one of his shots, I grabbed the ball around the 3 point line and he signaled to me to pass it to him near the basket for an easy lay-up.

As he started to run toward the basket, I led him with a pass just in front of the hoop.

When he reached up to grab it, he pinned it against his chest with his right arm and his left fist.

At the moment it thought, “that is a strange way to catch the ball”.

It wasn’t until a few minutes later that I noticed…

It wasn't his fist... He only had one hand!

We’d been playing basketball with this kid for 20 minutes and had no idea.

It took that long to notice because he didn’t draw any attention to it.

He didn’t ask for sympathy.

And more importantly, he didn’t fear being out there doing what he loved in front of people he didn’t know.

He was truly inspiring.

It reminded me of a video I watched recently. Tom Bilyeu of the Impact Theory podcast interviewed a guy by the name Ed Mylett. (I highly recommend watching it and paying full attention)

Mylett made a comment that took me back a bit, and this kid solidified it. He said...

“The most inspirational person, is the person overcoming the fear of doing something, NOT the person who is excellent at it”

This made me think, “what if LeBron James was out here right now? Who would inspire me more in this moment?

I gotta go with the young kid.