District Distinct #75 - Because vs Despite


In this week’s issue:

  • Post: 'Because' vs 'Despite'
  • Recommended Reads: John Grisham's consistent writing routine, South Korea's senior subway writers, revealing our co-workers' creative talent, and Yo-Yo Ma in the Great Smoky Mountains
  • Quotes & Observations: Donald Maas on pointing the way toward change

Because vs Despite

When facing the long post-injury road to recovery, an athlete will often proudly proclaim that he's coming back stronger than ever despite the injury.

And yet the use of that subtle and inconspicuous word poses a risk.

Clemson sports psychologist Cory Shaffer noticed this trend among college athletes he counseled, and believed that that innocuous word and the framing it implied was actually closing doors for them. He advocated for a change in diction. Swap despite for because.

Using despite is akin to relegating the difficult experience to a footnote, something to move past and leave behind. Because embraces the experience as a learning opportunity; asking for closer self-reflection.

If you come back stronger than ever because of the injury then you're centering the experience as a learning opportunity and asking questions about how it might serve you.

When advising a young pitcher at Clemson who was undergoing season-ending Tommy John surgery, Shaffer used the analogy of writing a book, in particular one about the player's baseball life.

"The analogy I always use is: imagine writing a book about the story of yourself in baseball. That kind of mindset, 'despite this injury,' it's almost like you leave that chapter out. It's sort of a footnote," Shaffer said. "The mindset I encouraged him, or anyone to have is: 'No, because of this injury I will come back better than ever.'
"So now if you are writing that same book, it's a really important chapter. It might be the longest chapter in the book. So much happened in that chapter."

That pitcher took Shaffer's reframing to heart. He had time on his side, an entire season of watching and waiting, while his arm healed. So he decided to start from scratch and rebuild his entire delivery. He studied the mechanics of professional pitchers who shared his body frame and asked why their bodies moved the way they did? What was their release point? How did they add velocity? The types of questions and deep analysis he might never consider if healthy and playing a full season.

Before the devastating injury in 2019, Spencer Strider had a fastball in the low 90s, a less heralded scouting report, and an MLB draft selection in the 35th round.

All before he asked the questions that led to a completely transformed delivery.

During his 2023 season with the Atlanta Braves, Strider won 20 games and notched 281 strikeouts, and did so with one of the best fastballs in baseball. He regularly reaches 98 mph and had a strikeout ratio that eclipsed even Pedro Martinez's peak years.

Okay, understood, a world-class athlete may not be the most relatable example, but I do believe embracing the distinction between these two words, especially following one of life's many setbacks, offers a valuable learning framework.

To be clear, there are cases of immense trauma where a person should not revisit what they experienced. Where the prescribed recovery is to move past and focus on healing rather than understanding.

But the vast majority are ones where we shun the learning opportunity in favor of false notions of security. Laid off from a job, losing a loved one, enduring rejection or relationship failure, passed over for a long-expected promotion are all emotionally hard setbacks. Ones that make us question ourselves, our motives and ambitions, and our abilities and self-worth. When facing those emotional challenges it's always easier to turn the other way and try to leave the experience of pain in the rear view mirror.

To do so though is closing the door on the chance to learn something profound about yourself. It relinquishes responsibility. Not responsibility for blame (necessarily), but rather the responsibility to learn and grow. It is these rare moments that offer the kind of fresh yet penetrating perspective that open new doors of possibility to become better versions of ourselves. The chance to turn footnotes into longer, more indelible chapters of our lives.

Recommended Reads

The Enduring Charm of John Grisham (Molly Ball, TIME): Grisham's fame may have dimmed, but his prolific output continues uninterrupted. Since "The Firm" was released in 1991, Grisham has rung up 48 consecutive New York Times number one bestsellers. Something no other writer has done. At the foundation of his success is a routine he rarely strays from. Every fall a new Grisham legal thriller hits the bookshelves, and every Jan 1 he starts anew. His writing sessions begin at 7am, disconnected from the Internet, reviewing the previous day's work. Then he writes roughly 1,000 words of new material for the latest book Simple and methodical.

For South Korea’s Senior Subway Riders, the Joy Is in the Journey (Victoria Kim, NYT):

In 1980, South Korea's minister of health and welfare proposed an idea to let citizens over 65 ride for free on Seoul's subway. At the time only 4% of the country's population was over 65. Today it is 17%, and that demographic in South Korea lives below the poverty line at twice the rate of Japan and the US. Those taking advantage of the free-fare policy today make up 15% of total subway riders. While conclusive data eludes policymakers, the city's mayor believes that the free fares have a positive effect on health and wellbeing. Senior citizens leave the house, go for walks to their neighboring subway stations, and are engaging socially with their communities as they ride back and forth below wide swaths of the city.

When Museum Workers Take Over Their Institutions’ Walls (Elaine Velie, Hyperallergic): The Met recently held an exhibition open to the public composed entirely of employee-produced art. What began as a curiosity by one Frick employee turned into a series of ongoing exhibitions open to the public and happening at The Met and other museums across the city and country. The curiosity was one employee wondering 'what are my colleagues doing outside of work'? We spend so much time with colleagues and yet often know little about the rest of their lives. A lighter variation of this model would be a wonderful thing to trial at corporations and other large organizations so often plagued by low employee morale, lagging productivity and softening retention levels. For the employees it's a way to build stronger bonds with their teams and colleagues, and inspire confidence and encouragement in the things that fulfill them.

Yo-Yo Ma plays Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 in the Great Smoky Mountains (Kottke): Your proverbial moment of zen.

Quotes & Observations

"The journey toward wholeness is a mysterious one, with turns in the road coming at any time and in any number of ways. Indeed, in our lives it is the unanticipated discoveries about ourselves that have the most lasting effect. Along the way, there are obvious mentors, such as parents, teachers, and coaches, but also unexpected ones like ghosts, barn swallows, and beggars. The struggle with self is the substance of our own stories. Insights are its daily developments and its happy endings are something that can’t be measured in material terms: the end of struggle and the arrival of peace.

To reconcile to oneself, to be happy, is a primary human need. To transcend oneself, though, is a divine attainment. The former is enough to make a story good. The latter is what makes a story great. The search for peace is satisfied when a protagonist feels happy, but it isn’t finished until a hero is also happy with the world. What’s inward radiates outward again. In a real sense, the purpose of stories is not only to change characters, but also to point the way to a change in us all."

-- Donald Maass, The Emotional Craft of Fiction


Next Sunday

Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for next week. If you aren’t already subscribed, please join my newsletter here. We deliver on Sundays. :)

District Distinct

On Sundays, I send a newsletter digest of stories and essays highlighting ideas and insights on how to live better. I'm a business strategy consultant and executive performance coach helping business leaders grow their organizations and themselves as leaders.

Read more from District Distinct

Photos from Tepoztlán, Mexico Five Things to Share: Roger Federer Lost 54% of His Points: During his 24-year career, tennis legend Roger Federer won 20 grand slams and 80% of his matches. He's universally regarded among the greatest to ever play the sport. And yet, even with all that success, he only won 54% of the points he ever played. From his recent Dartmouth commencement address:When you lose every second point, on average, you learn not to dwell on every shot...When you’re playing a...

Five Things to Share: In honor of James Baldwin's 100th birthday this weekend, I'm sharing his quote from a 1984 Paris Review interview describing the meaning and weight behind turning 40:INTERVIEWER: This brings us to your concern with reality as being history, with seeing the present shaded by everything which occurred in a person’s past. James Baldwin has always been bound by his past, and his future. At forty, you said you felt much older than that.BALDWIN: That is one of those things a...

Photos from Puerto Vallarta Five Things to Share: Tadej Pogačar and Netflix's Tour de France: Maybe the greatest athlete you've never heard of, and a show you should probably add to your queue. I'll write more soon about the fun of following and learning much about the Tour de France for the first time, but for now wanted to share praise for the best cyclist in the world. As the 21-stage Tour de France concluded today, the 25-year old Slovenian stood atop the podium with his third yellow...