Robert Herrick, Hesperides:

If little labour, little our gains: Man’s fate is according to his pains.

You know how strongly I believe the best way to increase lean muscle is by incrementally adding weight over time. Our muscles do not grow without challenges, without continually asking them to do more. We push ourselves under the weight bar, right up to the point of failure.

In the broader expanse of life, we are asked to grow our emotional and mental muscles as well. Like our physical muscles, they only develop through challenges and adversity.

Baseball and life, life and baseball. In 1998, I had killed the ball in AA. I came into MLB camp in 1999 and tore it up, making the MLB team out of Spring Training. A few weeks into the season, Larry Parrish and Randy Smith called me into the office and told me that I was being sent to AAA until an outfielder was traded. I was distraught. There were plenty of times in my career that I sucked; this wasn’t one of them. It wasn’t deserved, and I told them so. Neither man disagreed. Funny, their voices in concert with mine was no consolation.

I didn’t have a choice of where to play - I was headed to Toledo. I did have a choice in how I responded. I could go down and act like a punk, or I could bust my ass and trust my intellectual and emotional armor was becoming more impervious. I may not have fully understood the process at the time, but I knew how I responded would affect my career and life. Looking back, I see how much I developed from the experience.

I’m not unique in this perspective. Major growth can occur through facing trials and adversity. From scientificamerican.com:

In recent years, psychologists have become increasingly interested in the positive life changes that accompany highly stressful life events, such as being diagnosed with a chronic or terminal illness, losing a loved one, or sexual assault. This phenomenon has been referred to as posttraumatic growth, and researchers have discovered five particular areas of growth that often spring from adversity:

• interpersonal relationships
• the identification of new possibilities for one’s life
• personal strength
• spirituality
• appreciation of life

I was young at the time; Alex is younger. He’s 12, actually. A family member of Kaplifestyle’s superstar editor and partner, Stephanie, Alex is a stud in his own right. He’s remarkably sharp and a devoted youth baseball player. He tried out for a travel team in Maryland recently and was not chosen. Here’s his experience, in his own words:

Dear Gabe Kapler,

I wanted to commit to trying out for the Olney All-Stars travel team because I wanted a chance to really show off my skills. I also wanted to play in an environment with other very athletic and hardworking kids and maybe learn something from them. I really was hoping to put all the training I went through over the summer to good use, and it seemed like the best option for that. I sat down with Stephanie and my dad, and we decided to add to my regular workout to make sure I was getting the maximum benefit out of it. Aside from my workout, I went to the batting cages several times in the weeks before my tryouts. I was taking extra time out of my day to devote myself to working hard and building up my strength. I worked very hard on the mound each day to increase my pitching velocity and accuracy.

Going into the tryout, I was slightly nervous, but it was not my first travel tryout, so I knew what to do. I ended up being the last pitcher, so I was getting kind of restless while I was waiting. But then they called me over to time my running speed. It was the perfect opportunity to get out my restless energy. I ran so fast the first time that the person timing me thought he misread the stopwatch, so I got to run an extra time. Then when I was pitching, all I focused on was drilling my vision into the catcher’s mitt so that there was nothing else to look at besides his glove. I pitched with great accuracy. The person watching even made a joke when I threw one high at the end. When I was batting, I was focused solely on swinging early. I hit a bunch to the outfield that the center fielder caught. Afterward, I felt like I had just vaulted a 500 foot deep canyon, or climbed Mount Everest.

It was a great achievement. At the tryouts, I performed way above my standards. At the end, I was really impressed with myself and what I had accomplished. It made me want to keep playing and work even harder. And most of all, it gave me something to work towards in the future.

A few days later an email came saying I did not make the travel team.

I knew going into it that my chances of making it were not very high because they were looking for an outfielder and a catcher. I am not a catcher, and the outfield is not where I shined the most at the tryout. I also knew that everybody goes through a time where what they do just isn’t enough. And even though I did so well, I just wasn’t the person they were looking for. I don’t feel like it’s my fault or the fault of the people running the tryout. They just didn’t need me at the time.

I feel like I took a huge step forward in terms of my overall performance. Over the winter, I am specifically going to focus on bringing the velocity of my fastball up as much as possible. I am also committing to lifting weight bars on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

I could have done a little better charging the ball in the outfield drills. But overall, I was really proud of myself for everything I have done so far to build up to this. It was beyond well worth it. And I learned a valuable lesson, and that is: No matter the outcome, hard work is always worth the effort.

Despite this exceptionally well-adjusted email, the experience was disappointing for him. Disappointment is a natural emotion and comes from challenging ourselves to do more than we did the day before. How we handle these moments determines their importance. Alex’s willingness to process the (perceived) failure with a focus on the upside both separates him from his peers and prepares him for the next time an opportunity to achieve presents itself. He may have Stephanie to thank. From Dr. Robert Brooks, psychologist on the faculty of Harvard Medical School:

When you ask adults who have overcome adversity what they thought was the most important things in their childhood or adolescence to help them be resilient and to cope more effectively, the first answer is that there was at least one person who truly believed in them and stood by them.

All we need is the lesson and a reminder from people we trust that life’s hardships are simply workouts. They are the tearing down before the building up occurs.

I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.

Michael Jordan, perhaps the most outspoken individual on the power of failure, has rings by the fistful. It’s fun to imagine what might be in store for Alex.

Strong mind,

Kap