Every Choice is a Chance

“Every choice is a chance”. Ted Lasso.

Ted Lasso was a great show in large part because the show delved deeply into Coach Lasso’s focus on his players’ character development. Lasso used his own experiences to guide his players. These pearls of wisdom became known as “Ted Lassoisms”.

One of my favorite of Lasso’s insights was “every choice is a chance”.

We are responsible for the decisions we make. Making good choices opens up the chance to create new possibilities. Making bad choices shuts them down.

Lasso chose to hide from his players his having a panic attack that led to him walking off the field mid-game to illustrate making a bad choice. His panic attack, leaked to the media, became a front page story.

But what made his choice so bad, was the missed opportunity to build trust with his players.

And there’s no do over when a bad choice is made. And that’s because choices, once made, follow their own path. 

Lasso wanted his players to know that the choices you make can create new possibilities, or preclude them. But, in the end that choice is yours to make. One way or the other.

Creating Opportunities

But, choices can only create these chances to grow if you take action. And as Lasso pointed out, failure to take action is a choice too. One that can lead, not to possibilities, but to problems.

I think this resonated so much with me because of a choice I made decades ago. .

In 1988, I chose to leave the building business, where I had worked full and part-time for 10 years in order to pursue a career as a private investigator. 

A new and very different direction. The choice was not without risk. But taking action always involves some risk.

But as Lasso reminded his players, paraphrasing John Wooden, it’s the choices we make that define who we are. Much more than our abilities.

That choice created the chance to work with some amazing attorneys. Because of my work with them, I then became a regular guest law school instructor giving me a chance over the years to introduce the power of effective investigations to hundreds of future lawyers. 

And the chance to conduct group trainings for hundreds of legal professionals. And later to work directly with individual plaintiff law firms to help them implement an effective in-house investigation system. 

The same choice also created the chance to help businesses implement an effective workplace violence prevention program.  Conducting investigations into violent incidents taught me how violence occurs and how it can be prevented. And because the work I did often took place in dangerous areas, the  developed effective ways to keep myself safe.

In fact, my first workplace violence prevention clients were law firms I was already providing investigation services to, and then to the court staff working at the courthouse where I often reviewed court cases as part of the investigations I conducted.

And finally, that skills combined with my training in and teaching of self-defense led to providing one-to-one and small group personal safety trainings to judges and court administrators, which opened the door to my one day VIP 1:1, and small group intensive, personal safety training programs for business owners.  

As Lasso said. Every choice is a chance. But sometimes businesses can make bad choices. And those choices can create long term negative consequences, and not just for themselves, but for those they serve.

The Wrong Choices

I worked on many lawsuits against group home operators during the 30+ years I conducted investigations for attorneys. 

Group home clients are extremely vulnerable. And because of that, the choices the companies that operate their homes make, along with those made by direct care staff, can have lasting detrimental impact on those vulnerable people.

One case in particular stands out as an example of the consequences of when a business facing what should be a straight forward choice made the wrong choice with significant consequences.

Our client in the case was a blind young man, who was wheelchair bound due to a variety of conditions. I was brought in to investigate when he began showing signs of having experienced a variety of care issues, and who appeared to have experienced a trauma of some type during an outing to a park with two caregivers, one female and one male.

Group homes were not supposed to hire anyone with a history of violence or drug use.

Conducting a pre-employment background check is a pretty straight forward choice to make to keep from doing so. 

But that’s not what the company did.

As I began working on the case, I discovered that the male caregiver had been charged with a felony involving violence, and was on probation when he was hired to work as a caregiver.

He had violently attacked a roommate including swinging a sword at him.

Court records showed that the male caregiver was impulse control issues that created safety issues for those around him.

The female caregiver, who my client was partial to, had her own issues.

I found a social media profile for her, that listed her “ favorite hobby” as “trading my body for drugs”.

Once that information was found the case was pretty much done. Neither caregiver should have been hired to care for my client or any of the other group home residents. Things went south for my client’s care, and his well-being, because the group home made the choice not do background checks on those they hired.

And that choice couldn’t be undone once the consequences occurred. 

Consequences caused by the caregivers turning the outing with my client and the other home residents under their care into a drinking, and drug filled afternoon where they had sex in the work van in front of the group home residents. 

My client, unable to see was traumatized, as he interpreted the sounds he heard as the male caregiver hurting the female caregiver.

The same group home operator was the defendant in many of the other group home cases that I worked on. Soon after we settled our case, the state forced the group home operator to exit the state for three years, causing it to lose a large amount of revenue, and sustain significant damage to its public reputation.

Every choice creates a chance. We all should listen to Coach Lasso. And make the right ones.