The Peaks and Valleys of a Career

He had won over 62 percent of his games, earned a Coach-of-the-Year award, and had been to the playoffs five times in as many seasons — all to be fired.

But unlike many, Mike Brown landed on his feet and was named Los Angeles Lakers coach — all to be dismissed five games into his second season.

Then, back to Cleveland for a second stint — where he was let go once again after a single year.

Last week, Brown, the thrice-fired coach who was mocked and ridiculed for his previous tenures, was named the NBA’s Coach of the Year for a second time after guiding the Sacramento Kings to their best season in 15 years.

Conversely, Nick Nurse, who won a championship in his first season with the Toronto Raptors, Coach of the Year in his second, and was dubbed by Sports Illustrated “the best coach in the NBA” a season ago, was fired last week.

So what’s the relevance of all of this to us?

As leaders, we work tirelessly and methodically to put our teams in the best positions to succeed. We comb over reports, consider countless hypotheticals, agonize over details just about everyone else would consider trivial.

As we do this, others cast judgment — often loudly — about our performance and formulate what are frequently ill-informed opinions.

For us as coaches, executives and teachers, it’s important to remember that whether we’re winning awards or receiving pink slips, very rarely are we as good or as bad as we may feel in a particular moment.

As difficult as it can be to process, fluctuations in our careers are somewhat inevitable. The peaks don’t make us geniuses, and the valleys certainly don't make us failures.

As we go about navigating our team members through the grind of an intense work period, we may want to reflect a bit on the NBA's recent coaching developments.

If we're hoisting a trophy now or basking in some other type of honor, let’s stay humble and not lose sight of what got us here in the first place. It can all be taken away quickly.

And if we're down in the dumps after suffering some excruciating defeat, this isn't the end. Our circumstances will get better.

The opinions that matter aren’t those of outsiders screaming at the top of their lungs about what they’d do differently.

It’s the person in the mirror going through it — doing the best job he/she possibly can.