What We Can All Learn from the Toronto Maple Leafs

Today is a historic day as the Leafs have shown the NHL that just because one has lost — consistently over time — doesn’t make one a loser.

I’ve lost many times in my life, from competitions to very close influences that have helped define who I am. Through this loss, I’ve learned to lose. Learning to lose takes tremendous courage and a clear focus on finding the opportunity to improve. Improvement as a concept is wonderful and encouraging. But as a tangible, day-to-day method, it is grueling, strenuous, stressful, and painfully revealing (especially when uncovering weaknesses). In order to find order for myself, I’ve always developed an order of operation to keep me focused on the main goal — process. I can only speak for myself and my experience with improvement when I say that it has been challenging, mostly because it’s a daily thing for me. I’ve learned to give myself a break over time, but it is difficult because I’ve always been naturally intense about refinement and its process. I’ve seen these same attributes in the Leafs players over the years because every Leafs player is naturally aware of the standards one must live up to to be a part of an organization of this caliber.

The Leafs broke a streak of losses to defeat the Tampa Bay Lightning in today’s first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. This means they’ve knocked out…