The Malleable Heart Overcomes Failure

Topic: Perspective

I will never forget the breathless feeling, stride after painful stride, of trying to run that elusive seven-minute mile.  To the 15-year-old me, a seven-minute mile was something on par with an explorer finally discovering the mythical Fountain of Youth, or Atlantis.

Unfortunately, the seven-minute mile was a strict requirement for making the baseball program at Hillcrest Christian School in south Jackson, Mississippi.  While my alma mater was a perennial punching bag in football in a high-powered division, the Cougars were the cream of the crop in baseball and basketball, almost like Duke University, but in high school form.  The school had won several state championships prior to my tenure in baseball, which began in Fall 1999, and won the state championship in basketball three out of my four years in high school (2000, 2001, and 2003).

Paul Wyczawski’s baseball Cougars were legendary for their skill, precision, and discipline on the diamond.  Coach “Y” sent players to Division I programs nearly every year, with many having distinguished collegiate or professional careers ahead of them.  Unlike the football program, the baseball Cougars had the luxury of turning away kids who didn’t have what it took to make the team.  Sometimes a roster cut couldn’t hit or couldn’t field and throw.  Some of us weeded ourselves out because we couldn’t get past the screen of the seven-minute mile.

Make no mistake, that is a strong mile time.  A practicing runner can knock down a seven-minute mile, and I managed to get beyond the threshold as an Army officer on several occasions, though I would train at a speed between eight and nine minutes per mile when running distance.  I couldn’t run a seven-minute mile today, but with a few weeks of training, probably could.  In 1999, however, the seven-minute mile event was no different than the Olympic Games in its importance and prominence in my world.

I had already shot past 6 feet, 3 inches in stature, and weighed in at nearly 200 pounds, a tremendous size for a ninth grader.  I had gone through a period of awkwardness in middle school, being quite overweight, and struggling with my confidence as a result.  I believed all those negative voices telling me I didn’t have what it took to be good at sports, and consequently, lacked the mental acumen needed to rise to challenges, such as sucking up pain for seven minutes and meeting a basic requirement to play a sport I loved.

On the first day of tryouts every year, every kid would hit the track, and crank out four laps.  The alumni had no issues.  The speedsters would show off.  One senior was able to run a sub-five-minute mile without even warming up.  On Day 1, I came in just shy of ten minutes, and was utterly winded and in agony after finishing that mile.  Every single day after practice, another mile, inching closer to nine minutes, but still well off the mark. I just didn’t have the guts to tough it out, or the belief that I could make the time. So I didn’t.

One day, Coach “Y” summoned me to his office after practice:

Keshel, to spare you the pain of having to run another mile, I’m gonna cut you loose.  Face it, you can’t hit, you can’t run, and you aren’t the best fielder, either.

Even though those things were obvious to me, the end of a dream, to be a Major League Baseball player, hits hard no matter how old you are when you hear the news.  I had never been a good player.  I struggled with my coordination thanks to inner ear issues, and throughout Little League ball, had never been regarded as a threat with the bat, or even able to throw strikes in the few opportunities I was afforded to pitch.  But I loved the game and had a mind for the history and numbers behind it.  Coach “Y” knew that.

Before I was able to leave his office, he asked me to stay around and “keep stats.”  Thus began a four-year journey with someone who became a lifelong friend.  I started out keeping the scorebooks, helping our main scorekeeper with keeping the statistics when our team was on the road and he couldn’t attend.  Eventually, I wound up informing MLB scouts and college coaches on “intel gaps” they didn’t have the answers for, such as the attitudes, work habits, and overall potential of players they considered prospects.  I became a trusted source of information for many credible authorities in the game.

With Coach “Y” in 2011, Tyler, Texas

I dabbled in other sports.  I played football for four years, earning sporadic starts on the offensive line because I was so big and competent at pass blocking, but spent plenty of time on the bench as more athletic players took the snaps, even though I was north of 6 feet, 5 inches at the time, and weighed more than 250 pounds.  I had never played basketball since being cut from the junior varsity team in eighth grade, even though I was over six feet tall at that very young age.

Our baseball team was nationally ranked my senior year, 2003, and lost the state championship in a total upset to a team that caught fire at the end of the season.  It wasn’t long until Ole Miss baseball created a spot for me to have a similar role there as I had in high school.

The Ole Miss Rebels baseball program, the 2022 national champion, was beginning to develop into a national power, and in my time there, was a mainstay top 10 program.  I had very basic duties as a freshman, but the coaching staff began to realize my potential for streamlining lineups and pitching rotations and developing an entirely new way to evaluate statistics.

Enter the “Keshel Cup.”  Our 2004 team had peaked early and crashed hard, finishing near the bottom of the Southeastern Conference (SEC) in most offensive categories.  Hitting coach Stuart Lake had to get the hitters focused on quality at-bats and engineering a process that would lead to long-term success, not intermittent spurts of successful play.  Together, we developed a new system of getting players to compete in practice games for seven-pitch at bats, two out RBIs, moving runners up with none out, and clutch hits.  The improved mindset resulted in an offense that finished in the top quarter of the SEC in most offensive categories and finished up a single victory short of playing in Omaha at the College World Series.

I stuck around for one more season in which the team finished just a game short of Omaha.  In my last season working for the program, I had taken a class called “Ranger Challenge,” which was affiliated with Army ROTC and likely designed to get participants interested in contracting with the Army, which needed young officers to serve in one or both active combat theaters (Iraq and Afghanistan).  I had a low point, in which I failed a physical fitness test on account of the two-mile run.  I needed to come in at or faster than 15:54, and I ran 18:12.

That never happened again.  Failure in the PT test was so unacceptable to me, I committed myself wholeheartedly to physical conditioning so I would never again experience something so embarrassing.  I passed my next PT test and continued to improve so consistently that the ROTC program hoped to add me to its list of contracted cadets.  I had begun to realize, in my third year working for the Ole Miss baseball program, that my likelihood of landing a meaningful job in pro baseball without having played ball at a high level was next to nothing.  I decided one day in August 2006 to volunteer my service to the nation.

Realizing I could not successfully balance my obligations as a newly contracted ROTC cadet and student assistant for the baseball program, I made a very tough personal decision and departed the Ole Miss baseball program in January 2007.  In what amounts to a crash course, I sped through the commissioning program, and in less than two years, became a newly minted Army Second Lieutenant.

2LT S. Keshel, Fort Huachuca, AZ - 2008

I had listed Military Intelligence as my first choice for branch assignment within the Army.  I was given exactly that, but with a branch detail to Field Artillery until I made Captain.  In smaller branches, such as Military Intelligence, Signal, or Adjutant General, there is not great demand for lieutenants.  They need more captains and majors, so they rent out the lieutenants to combat arms branches to gain leadership experience in them.

I showed up to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, on June 8, 2008, for Basic Officer Leadership Course, Phase II, an eight-week tune-up prior to entering branch-specific training.  In my first week, my career was put on life support.  I was unable to sneak past the hearing screening station, even though the Army ROTC gave me a waiver for my disastrous hearing loss in my right ear to complete cadet training on the way to earning my commission.

I was left with was is called a “P3” profile for hearing, Permanent, and Level 3 of 4 in severity.  Any P3 for any physical issue or category requires a medical review board to determine suitability for military service.  As a new lieutenant with little having been invested in me, and zero experience, I was likely weeks away from dismissal for medical reasons, namely the inability to hear at a level suitable for serving in combat.

Enter, my father.  He accompanied me to my hearing and spoke on my behalf.  A retired lieutenant colonel of Infantry, he had the ear of the panel, consisting of a colonel, three lieutenant colonels, and a major, who was the medical officer advising the other four.  I would either be dismissed from service or switched to a branch the Army deemed my hearing suitable for.  I had my money on a direct transfer to my ultimate branch, Military Intelligence, but didn’t feel so confident I would be retained after I was greeted coldly by the panel of field grade officers I mentioned above.

Dad took his turn.  He made his case for his son to serve, and after about twenty minutes, I was summoned into the room.  The colonel, president of the board, told me that against his wishes, I had been retained by the panel, three votes to two.  The deciding vote in my favor was cast by Lieutenant Colonel Watson, who I later learned was functionally deaf and wore hearing aids.  I was to move directly to my basic branch, Military Intelligence, and report to Fort Huachuca, Arizona.

God had it in his plan to preserve my military career, rather than send me home to Mississippi to dabble in something in line with my business degree.  I wound up having to fight the Army again, when my branch manager desired to keep me in the training environment, under the guise of honoring my so-called physical limitations.  No young officer wanted to serve in the training command when two wars were going on, and combat experience was coveted.

Eventually, I finished schooling there, and reported to Fort Hood, Texas.  I took my spot as an assistant intelligence officer in an Aviation battalion, and just before the brigade deployed to Afghanistan, I was assigned to another battalion that would be serving in one of the remotest, most primitive regions of the country, the far west.  Regional Command West was run by the Italians, and very little continuity of intelligence existed.  Our unit took over for the previous American unit, which had only been there six months.  Serving as first lieutenant in place of our section’s captain, who was home for personal matters on leave, I drank from a firehose, running 24-hour operations with just three people, myself included.

We built the intelligence picture for an area the size of Georgia practically from scratch, and eventually disseminated the most widely read intelligence summary in Western Afghanistan, which was used to target enemy operations and gain awareness of enemy activity that put our troops in jeopardy.  I fell on my face many times, got it wrong, and embarrassed myself with plenty of mistakes, but rarely made the same mistake twice.  We had no option but to sink or swim.

This is the time in my life in which I learned to assess large amounts of information and data, and boil it down to simple, easily transferrable, and actionable points for others to work with.  I became an expert at adjusting on the fly and briefing those senior to me, peers, and subordinates on critical mission information and intelligence, and was impervious to scrutiny and questioning.  My combat experience hardened and sharpened my mind in a way nothing else can even approach.  My mindset today is enhanced by the trials of those times.

From there, I took a couple more assignments and eventually left the military.  I became a project manager in Oil and Gas in 2013, and had to learn it all from scratch, only to be laid off when the oil market collapsed just as I was hitting my stride.  I immediately took a job I was ill-suited for, and was so unhappy there, I quit within two months.  After that, I ran the rat race with hundreds of others fighting for the same jobs, until I learned the skill of unconventional job searching, and landed my next job in healthcare, although it was in a position that did not fully utilize my skill set and competencies.

That hospital system went through crippling financial stressors related to a failed merger, and soon enough, I was laid off from that position.  I was given a very easy parachute out of that role, with six weeks on payroll before I received a long severance.  It was a much easier tumble to take than the one two years before, from the oil and gas company.  This time, instead of rushing to find another job, I took my time.  I was nearing completion of my MBA, and already had obtained the PMP (Project Management Professional) credential.  I looked strictly for positions commensurate with my experience and salary expectations.  On several occasions, I thought I had hit a home run, only to find a mirage.  I must have been a finalist for six or eight high-paying, promising positions, only to have them fall out from under me each time.

Finally, after eight months without a job, my unemployment had run out, and I was considering joining the Texas State Troopers.  I was a top recruit for the organization and was within months of agreeing on a training date with them.  I would spend my downtime working out, trying to get in the best shape possible to start out with a good impression.  One day, a lady at the gym told me her husband had a side gig delivering food for a local restaurant chain.  I decided to go check out that opportunity for myself.

This turned out to be the best job I ever had - a delivery driver for Pappas Restaurants in Houston, Texas.  No one had to know I was an Army officer, or had an MBA, or should be making six figures a decade into my professional career.  It was back to the basics – right time, right place, right uniform.  It was the worst job I ever had in terms of money, making seven dollars an hour and praying for tips, but the most meaningful for putting me on track for what I would need to do in the future.  I needed an attitude check.  I had grown entitled and believed I was owed a certain level of pay or promotion potential because I had the degrees or credentials. What God needed was a malleable heart.

I showed up on time every day, made my rounds with the guys, and took those pats on the back from those who placed the orders, telling me I’ll find my stride one day.  They didn’t know it was just a temporary thing for me.  I feel that God must have seen my change of heart, because within weeks, I was offered a job that used my skills better than any other job did since I left the military.  I was hired as a salesman at a transportation technology company based in the Houston area, at a modest base salary, but with high pay potential for sales commissions.

Did I have sales experience?  Hell no.  But I was persuasive.  Army intelligence officers have no choice but to be convincing, or they won’t be briefing senior officers for long.  I had the energy to run constantly, as I do today, and the zeal to get after it harder than my peers – to squeeze out one extra meeting a week, realizing it would turn into ten extra sales in a year that others couldn’t find the margins to reel in.  I had outstanding success and was widely regarded as one of the company’s top salesmen by the end of my first year.

Looking back, I believe this job taught me to work hard, not take anything for granted, aim for quality, and keep tabs on a lot of different accounts over a wide geographic space.  That almost sounds like 3,143 different counties with their own quirks and issues regarding election integrity.  It would have not been possible for me to have held that job without going through the pit of unemployment in 2017, and finding the ability to accept a job society would regard as humiliating for a professional with a MBA degree.

My life took a dramatic turn beginning on the evening of November 3, 2020.  Within weeks, I was pulled into the initial teams challenging the “results.”  I was relied upon to provide guidance and statistical overviews of the contested counties in those early days, and as the election integrity movement grew, became known for my easily understandable analysis of things political minds have known as simple truths for more than a century.  On January 4, 2022, sitting by the sea in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, I couldn’t run anymore.  Too many people knew my name, and too many publications turned me into a liability.  I was let go from corporate America with no warning at all.

To say I was unprepared for this current chapter in my life would not be true – my life had God’s fingerprints on it for more than two decades.  He was with me when I excelled, when I failed, when I did good, when I sinned, when I was sick, when I was with despair, when I needed to be disciplined, and when I needed a pat on the back.  He did his greatest work with me when I failed at what I thought I was supposed to be doing.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.  “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.  -  Isaiah 55:8-9

I was not good enough to play the game I loved, but I had the mind for it and the passion to do something with it.  With that passion came the ability to change and overhaul things that were so traditional, they were etched in stone.  With no ability to travel down the road in the game, I moved to the military.  I nearly had no career thanks to my hearing loss, but God made a way.  I was put into a branch and combat assignment that pushed my abilities to the limit and strengthened me.  I survived those challenges and then became a professional, and experienced peaks and valleys, with humbling events and uphill battles that shaped me for what I am doing today.

I am pelted in the press, likely unable to rejoin anything resembling a corporate ladder, and must monitor every single word I pass through a microphone.  Life has changed.  Therefore, I am adamant that people keep it together in the face of adversity, or when we taste defeat.  I lived through more than two decades of setbacks and events that seemed like the end of a road for me and what my dreams were.  But you were made for a great purpose, and your life is unfolding as it should if you are being open to the movement of God’s Holy Spirit in your life. I feel doubts and pain every time something goes wrong, when another election is ripped off - but in my heart, I know that we will not toil in vain forever. We will be rewarded for our persistence and commitment.

You may need to humble yourself or change direction if things seem unstable.  Every single life was made for a great purpose, and it is clear to me that our great purpose as a civilization here in the early 21st century is to expose evil and tyranny and pave the way for a free future.  If we fail here, there is no place for us to fall back to.  That is why you don’t give up.  If we were able to save this nation on our own, we wouldn’t need God.  But God always shows up when all is bleak, because in the end, he is going to get the credit for delivering what man could not.

Jesus replied, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.” -  Luke 18:27

We are a people at war against tyranny.  In a way, we are no different than our founders, or any civilizations before or since who have struggled under the burdensome yokes of tyrants.  We cannot expect to simply undo a century worth of corruption in a couple years, but if we persist in our efforts, reveal the truth, and count on God to come through with a great movement, we will win.  We will win because God desires government to produce righteousness and justice (Ps. 89:14), and He will not delay forever in judging those who are proliferating evil and perverting the created order in this world He created.

Examine your life, and your greatest failures, or the dreams you had that reached an end.  Perhaps in your heartache, God was molding you to step up to the plate and realize your full potential is so much greater than playing games, making rank, or getting the best award in the company at the yearly banquet.  He is using you to usher in His Kingdom, and it takes courage, persistence, resilience, and faith that He will come through.  I no longer want to become an old man in a country heading the way it is going, and as such, have nowhere left to go but into this mission.  When you find yourself in that mindset, you too will be ready.

SK