Michael stands in a circle with the other boys. At the center of it is Coach Dave, a former college wrestler, now wrestling coach. “I honestly believe each kid can win every match,” Coach Dave says. “And I tell them that.”

The mental strength gained from a coach is as important as physical strength. And Michael soaked it up. As a freshman, Michael lost half of his matches, but the next year the practice began to pay off, “It finally just clicks,” Michael says. “You walk onto the mat, and you know you’re going to win. When Coach Dave tells you how you are going to beat an opponent, you just go out and do it.”

At a tournament in Reno, Michael was ranked nationally and faced a wrestler from the Midwest ranked a few spots above him. In the final seconds of the match, ahead by one point, Michael clung to the lead while his opponent clung to his ankle, trying to get a takedown. Michael was hopping his way out of the circle to gain a restart. It’s the easy way out, like a boxer ducking out of the ring to get a breather and preserve a lead.With his back to his opponent, he took one more step. The opponent grabbed the other ankle, and Michael went down, Two points. Match over.

After the match, Dave asked one question, “Are you going to run away from challenges in life or turn and face them?” Michael knew exactly what he’d done wrong-and that it could become a lifelong flaw if he didn’t correct it. All he had to do was turn into his opponent and counterattack. “You’ll beat him next time,” Coach Dave said.

Eventually Michael won the tournament and won a lot of matches that year, but the encouragement from Dave is where he learned the most. “When someone believes in you like that, you know you can do it,” Michael says, “I often hear Coach Dave when I’m in tough situations. ‘No excuses, just do it.’ That encouragement has been my guide.”

When I was about twelve, I headed to a restaurant for dinner with my family. It was winter, and on that night, the wind was really blowing hard.

As my mom and I headed to the restaurant from our car, a girl about my age and her mother came up to us. They asked if we had any spare change. My mom right away asked where they lived. They pointed to an old car in a parking lot across the street. The girl said there were six of them living in that car.

My mom said she had something to do after handing the people a few dollars. She sent me inside the restaurant with my dad and my three siblings (兄弟姐妹). But she didn’t come. Later, I found out she had gone home and put all the food in our cupboards into a few bags. Then, she brought that food over to the car and handed the bags to the family. I wasn’t there when that happened, but I can only imagine the joy it brought to those people.

A few days later, when I actually found out about what she had done, I asked her why she helped those people. She told me that they were not lucky. I remember the face of that girl who had asked us for change. She was the same age as me, yet we looked so different.

Here I stood, dressed in almost new clothes, headed to eat in a restaurant and then back home to the bedroom I shared with my younger sister. I remember thinking that the other girl didn’t have any food to eat and she was heading back to a cold car shared with five other people.

After painting this picture in my mind, I understood why my mom had done what she did. I will never forget what she did that night, and how she taught me one of the best lessons I ever learned.