I was nineteen years old. Best players in the US and Canada under twenty, one year from the Olympic team. The highest level I’d ever competed at.
And I choked.
We were up 20-18. The other Setter had won the game prior, this was my turn to lead the team. And we were up.
Then,
Two less-than-perfect sets. My guy got blocked straight down. The next guy got dug.
Momentum was gone. We lost 25-23.
I lost, that’s what it felt like. Like failure.
I walked off that court convinced I had personally cost us the match. My nerves. My inexperience. My inability to close at the highest level, the thing I’d trained for years to be ready for.
I called my dad and told him what went down. He didn’t agree with my perspective.
He said something that completely rewired how I think about high performance — and I’ve used it with the leaders I’ve coached since.
The Reframe That Changed Everything
He listened to the whole story. The bad pass. The set was too tight. The block. The momentum shifts. The final score.
Then he said:
“I don’t think this is bad news. You played with the best players in the world at your age, and your team almost won. You were up 20-18. That means you just need five more points. You’re clearly good enough for this level. You just need to add five more points.”
Five more points.
Not: you failed. Not: you’re not ready. Not: that was a sign.
Just, you’re close. Closer than you think. Go get five more points.
I didn’t win that day. But I walked away with something more useful than a win. I walked away with a measurement. Specific, honest, actionable.
Five more points.
Why Most High Performers Get This Backwards
Here’s what I’ve watched happen — in owners, in operators, in leaders at every level — when something goes wrong.
The deal falls through. The key hire doesn’t work out. The quarter misses. The strategy lands flat.
And instead of asking what the measurement is, they ask what does this mean.
And the answer they land on is always some version of the same thing: it means I’m not good enough. It means I made the wrong call. It means this whole thing was a mistake.
One loss. Verdict: everything sucks.
That’s catastrophizing. And the problem with catastrophizing isn’t just that it feels bad. It’s that it’s functionally wrong. You can’t build from a wrong diagnosis. You can only spiral.
It’s Not Failure. It’s Just Feedback.
The right question after a loss is never what does this mean about me.
It’s, “What’s the gap?”
Because when you name the actual gap, not the catastrophized version of it, the real one, you can work with it. You can make a targeted adjustment. You can add five points.
I use this with clients all the time.
The owner who’s exhausted and starting to wonder if any of this was worth it. They’re not done. They’re five points away from a structure that holds without them.
The second-in-command who feels like the owner doesn’t trust them, who keeps getting pulled back from the decisions they should be making. They’re not the wrong person. They’re five points away from demonstrating something the owner can see and feel.
The young leader who just made a costly mistake and is already writing the story of what it means. They’re not finished. They just got a measurement. That’s an advantage.
Five more points isn’t a pep talk. It’s a precision tool.
It keeps you from turning a problem into a verdict. It keeps you competing when the story in your head says quit. It keeps you honest about the size of the actual gap — which is almost always smaller than the feeling.
The High Performance Mindset That Sustains Over Time
The highest performers I’ve ever worked with don’t feel less than everyone else. They don’t experience fewer setbacks, less doubt, less uncertainty.
What’s different is the speed of recovery.
They feel the loss. Then — fast — they ask: okay, what’s the gap? What are my five points? Let’s learn, pivot, and build.
That’s the skill. Not perfection. Not that they never lose. Speed of recovery. The ability to move from feeling to measurement in a short enough window that you stay in the game.
I never made the Olympic team. But I played at a high level and I became a leader of leaders. This simple lesson was pivotal.
Five more points. Not a catastrophe. A measurement.
That voice followed me into coaching. Into business. Into every hard conversation I’ve had with a leader who’s sitting across from me convinced that one bad moment means the whole thing was a mistake.
It wasn’t. You’re not finished. You just need five more points.
So here’s the question I want to leave you with:
Where are you catastrophizing or dramatizing right now? And are you ready to shift your mindset?
