Introduction

The Christmas tree was still standing and my wife was readying our home for a New Year’s Eve party the day I was fired. We had been in Cleveland for 304 days. To be exact our home was located on a little plot of suburbia in Berea, a seven-minute drive to the Cleveland Browns practice facility. With three young children at the pre-K level, we didn’t choose homes based on school districts, the only criterion that mattered was proximity to the practice facility. Period. As a coach in the National Football League, I spent most of my days (and nights) inside of a dimly lit meeting room tucked away on the second floor watching clips of football plays.

Play.

Rewind.

Play.

Rewind.

Play.

Rewind.

Pause … .

Rewind.

I was looking for any tip, the hastened departure a receiver took as he left the huddle, when the ball was coming his way. Or the subtle head nod a quarterback gave before he heaved a deep throw. I would rewatch a single play for one hour, to detect anything (and I mean anything) that could give our defensive players a slight edge. The average margin of victory in the NFL hovers about four points. Four points. That’s a field goal and an extra point. Two safeties. It’s a razor-thin margin that lies between win and loss.

Let me rewind the story just a bit to give you more context. We had just lost to Mike Tomlin and the Pittsburgh Steelers at Heinz Field in the final game of the regular season. It was December 2013. To be honest, this far removed from that time in my life, I don’t remember much about that particular game. I vaguely remember the Steelers being up 14-0 at halftime (I’m sure some of you will Google this; let me know if I am wrong). I remember a few players (and some coaches) looking like they were ready to hit the fast-forward button and get to the offseason. I remember wondering if any of my three kids had slept through their respective naps during the game.

I can tell you what I vividly remember, however, and it is the text message I received just before midnight. Sitting at my computer “breaking down” that day’s game, I was readying myself for our postgame meetings the following morning. Fans see games and postgame press conferences. As a coach, you meander through a series of meetings. Pre-practice meetings. Post-practice meetings. All coaches meetings. Defensive coaches meetings. Defensive backs meetings. The gauntlet never ends. Although the season was over, we still had to analyze the game and then begin the long process of grading each player as we went into the offseason. Grading the players would influence who we drafted and signed in free agency. One season was ending but another was just starting.

Or so I thought …

The text message simply read: 8 AM staff meeting with the owner.

Damn it.

I looked at the clock. It was 11:46 p.m. We were 14 minutes away from the start of Black Monday.1

My first thought: We can’t be getting fired tomorrow, can we?

My second thought: Wait, this is the NFL.

The entire staff had just arrived in Cleveland. The team’s new owner, Jimmy Haslam, had scrapped the coaching staff and front office and handpicked our head coach, Rob Chudzinski. Most of the assistant coaches were on three-year guaranteed contracts. Some of us had four-year deals.

There is a cringe-inducing cliché that you’ve probably heard before: NFL stands for “Not for Long.” Well, it’s true. In what may be the shortest termination in the history of firings, owner Jimmy Haslam sat at the end of a long oak table and informed us that he’d fired our head coach, Rob Chudzinski, the previous night.

Damn, he was already fired when I got the text.

That was it. No HR professionals entered the room and checked on our mental health or reassured us that we still had health insurance. Nope, we were done. I remember driving home, walking into the kitchen, and the look on my wife’s face screaming, That’s why I never unpack most of the moving boxes!

Instead she asked, “You okay?” She didn’t have to ask what happened. This was my seventh year as a coach. We’d been fired twice. We had frequent hauling miles with U-Haul. From Kansas City to Detroit to Morgantown to Cleveland, we’d crisscrossed the country chasing the next job. More pay. A better title. A bigger office.

“So what do you think is the next stop?”

I shrugged. I was still thinking about what would be the next landing spot. I walked to the refrigerator, yanked a carton of eggs, flipped on the stove, and started scrambling. When I first felt the tug on my hoodie, I ignored it. Then I looked down into the quizzical eyes of my three-year old, Dylan.

He looked at the skillet, he looked at me, he looked back at the skillet.

“You eat breakfast?”

The inflection in his voice was somewhere between the interrogative and declarative. I was unsure whether he was telling me to eat my breakfast or asking me if I ate breakfast. And in one of the lowlights of my fathering career, I ignored the kid and kept scrambling.2 But Dylan was persistent.

He wobbled into the living room for a few minutes, came back and said, “You …,” pointing a chubby finger in my direction, “you eat breakfast?”

Now, it was clear he was asking a question. I started to answer him, but instead turned to my wife. “Honey, what is he talking about?”

“When was the last time that you had breakfast with Dylan?” I rummaged through my memory bank for the last breakfast I had enjoyed with my son. Not only could I not locate a breakfast, I couldn’t remember the last time I had shared a meal with him. The irony jolted me: I was spending all of my time with other people’s sons and my firstborn didn’t know that I ate breakfast.

Meanwhile, my phone was ablaze. Calls and texts were pouring in from around the league.

Just saw the news. Craziness, bro. Keep ya head up.

You good?

Don’t sweat it. I got you if you need a landing spot.

I swiped through the text messages. I scoured ESPN for who else was getting fired and predictions on who would land where. But the only thing I could think about was that simple question: You eat breakfast?

What I understand now, that I didn’t appreciate in 2013, is that if things aren’t going right at home, no quantity of work success can compensate you for the loss. Titles and promotions make for poor traveling companions. Work-life balance is a myth. The scales will never be even. They are in different weight classes. Your work is what you do but your life is who you are.

I had confused my identity with my profession and fractures were showing in the foundation of my home.

That night, I took out a stack of hot pink Post-It notes and wrote one sentence:

Eat donuts w/DK Saturday.

I went into our bathroom and placed the sticky in the middle of our mirror. Every time I brushed my teeth or washed my hands, those five words stared back at me. I could hear my mind rationalizing my way out of the commitment.

You can do it next week.

Just focus on where you’re going to coach next.

He doesn’t understand now, but he’ll get it when he’s older.

Because our head coach had been fired but “technically” the rest of the staff was still under contract, I still had to show up to work every day.3 So every morning that week, while I brushed my teeth and combed my hair, I stared at those five words.

Saturday finally arrived.

I walked into Dylan’s room early that morning.

“You wanna go get some donuts?”

“Donuts?” he asked.

“Yep, donuts. Just you and me. Wanna go?”

“Yes, sir!” he screeched as he ran toward the door.

“Wait! You need shoes, buddy, and your coat.”

After straitjacketing him into all of the clothing that a three-year old needs to survive a January outing in Ohio, we pulled into the donut shop, made our order and sat down.

That was a decade ago but what still sticks with me to this day is how the shared meal felt like an out-of-body experience. Even during the “offseason,” I rarely had/took the time to sit down with my son in a non-hurried state. It took a job termination for me to recognize how much he needed me, not just to “be around” but to be present.

“Mama, we got donuts!” Dylan yelled as he presented the box of donut holes to my wife.

“That’s great honey! I’m sure Daddy will take you again.”

The Microwins System

Microwins are small units of victory that chip away at big goals. If you’re looking for a complicated system of personal growth, then this is not the right book for you. A stroll through the self-help section of your local bookstore will uncover a pile of manuals, treatises, and how-to books that are much more involved than this system.

My wife and I have five rambunctious children. There are chess meetings. Basketball practices. Reading lessons. Gymnastics meets. On finally getting home after a series of suburban pickups and layovers, I joke with my kids, “Thanks...