Mini-Series
We’re going to spend three weeks closing this season the right way.
Not performing gratitude for a season you’re not sure you’re grateful for. Not pretending outcomes were different than they were. Not moving on before we’ve actually been here.
The first session is the hardest one: seeing the season for what it actually was. Not what you hoped it would be. Not what you’re going to tell people it was. What it actually was.
Read this passage slowly.
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.
Ecclesiastes 3:1 — NIVLet that sit for a second before you move.
A season for every activity. Ecclesiastes names the rhythm of things with a specificity that is both comforting and demanding. The season ends. Every season ends. The question is whether you were honest about what the season was while you were in it, and whether you’ll be honest about it now that it’s closing.
Most end-of-season conversations drift toward one of two distortions. The first is false positivity: the season gets remembered as better than it was, the difficulties minimized, the growth narrative applied like a coat of paint over the honest complexity. The second is false negativity: a disappointing record or a hard stretch becomes the whole story, and the real things the season contained get buried under the weight of what it wasn’t.
Neither serves the team going forward. The honest account is more useful. What were the high points — specifically, not generally? What were the failures — again, specifically? Where did this team show who it actually is? Where did it fall short of who it said it wanted to be? What happened in this season that was significant regardless of the record?
This session is just the seeing. No conclusions yet. No lessons extracted. Just an honest look at what the season was.
The honest account of what the season was is more useful than either the polished version or the collapsed one. Just see it clearly first. The rest follows from that.
If you had to describe this season in three honest words — not the words you’d say to a reporter, the words that are actually true — what would they be?
Three words. No elaboration required yet. Go around the room. The words people choose reveal a lot about how the season landed for different members of the team.
See the season clearly. That’s session one. Come back next time.
Establish the three-week commitment at the outset. This session is purely diagnostic — resist the urge to move to lessons or applications yet.