A Basketball Game, a Question, a Through Line

His father was a dairy farmer and eldest of seven who joined the Indian Army to provide for his family. His mother lost her father and brother early in life. We’ll never hear their midnight conversation about trading Indian for American soil. We do, however, see a glimpse through their son Joel Mathew – thanks to his father’s nuanced question which becomes the through line for all of it. Here is Joel's one bold story . . .

The prompt: Tell me a little story from your life, a story that shaped you.

My parents immigrated to the U.S. in the early 70s from a very remote part of India. They came here not knowing the language, not having family or education or jobs or money – all in pursuit of the American dream.

The natural evolution of this setup in life is that you have to work. A lot.

My dad worked for 40+ years as a blue collar factory worker traveling from the western suburbs of Illinois to the Wisconsin border daily. That’s two hours each way with traffic. He would be so tired coming home that he always had candy and gum with him to stay awake. He drove that maroon 1989 Toyota Camry to almost 300,000 miles.

This was his day, every day: He'd take a peanut butter and jelly sandwich from home, call my mom from the pay phone at noon to check in, and repeat. He'd set two alarms to make sure he didn't miss work, one digital and one an old school type in case the power went out. My mom worked two jobs as a nurse, day and night and weekends.

Their work ethic was not just to make ends meet but to set my sister and me up for success in this country so we could pursue opportunities my parents could only dream of.

The natural evolution of this setup in life is that my parents weren’t around a lot, at least at the same time or on the same days; they didn’t really make it out to any of our sporting events or extracurriculars.

Basketball was my first love in life, maybe other than my family, maybe sometimes more than my family. I grew up playing on various teams – sometimes well, but mostly not. Many of the kids had parents that came to every game, no matter where, no matter the weather, no matter what.

There was one glorious day when I was in middle school that my dad was able to come and see me play. I was excited. You always want to have a big game whenever you have friends and family there. I don’t remember exactly how the game went but I do vividly remember that our coach always had us shoot 10 free throws after each game. Most kids missed most of their shots. Some made four, some made five, someone might have made six at best. It was my turn to shoot, and I felt everyone watching and I delivered. I made eight out of 10, which was the high that day.

Eight baskets out of 10 as a very scrawny middle schooler was quite a feat when I barely weighed in at 100 pounds soaking wet and it took all my strength to get the ball to the rim.

I remember being so excited to see my dad after practice, after delivering such a masterful performance. He would probably take me to McDonalds or maybe to the toy store or some other childhood dream would be realized, but at the very least I knew he’d be proud of me.

When I saw him after the game, the only thing he said was: What happened to the other two? As in, why did you only make eight out of 10?

I don’t remember being crushed at the time; that’s just the way it was, and that was the thinking of a lot of Indian immigrant parents. If you got an A, you could have gotten an A+. If you got an A+, the expectation is that you do it again and every time.

The beauty in this lesson that I was only able to see much later in life is that it’s nice to do well, but always push for more. Never settle, never get too high on yourself, always strive for better. I think that this mindset pushed my sister and me, and many in our community, to new heights. It wasn’t a “you’re not good enough” thing, it was more of a loving but laser focus on doing your best possible. Not the best you can be, be the best possible in whatever you are in.

I’m not a perfectionist by any means, and I believe progress means much more, but you will never catch me celebrating the wins for too long because there is more work to do and there are new mountains to climb, and faster.

Eight out of 10 was just a B- anyways.

The Storyteller

Joel Mathew is CEO & Founder of Fortress Consulting, one of Chicago’s leading digital marketing and brand strategy agencies. Rarely sitting still, Joel also serves as Head of Originations at Woodson Equity and Co-Founder at Beyond Academics.

Joel Mathew, thank you for sharing your one bold story and for always inspiring others to look up, reach high and go for it.