The Sporting Life

It’s now been over a month since my “relapse” of sports fever, when the Green Bay Packers made it to the NFC championship game. I had it pretty darn bad, I’m afraid, because as my wife can attest I watched the whole game a nervous and pacing wreck. Any and all perspective was totally lost.

I was acutely aware of what was happening to me, but yet I just couldn’t stop it. So by the time the game went into overtime, I was darned near hyperventilating.

As the Giants lined up to kick the winning field goal I finally sat back and promised myself if the game was to be over right then and there, I’d immediately turn the channel and go right back into a total sports embargo once again. I couldn’t handle it.

History shows the kick was made, and I have been totally true to my own promise since then. I didn’t watch the Super Bowl. I haven’t read a sports page, or watched a sports report on the news. And guess what? A month on, I’m doing this even subconsciously - not even having to catch myself peeking.

So I’m back on the wagon……..or am I??

I think what’s happened lately is a classic case of “transference” - the shifting of a irrational focus from one thing to another. What have I transferred to?

Politics. The 2008 Presidential election.

I now have a daily habit of devouring any and all information on the election I can get my hands (and eyes) on. I visit sites like Politico and Real Clear Politics regularly, as often as I used to visit ESPN.com and CNN sports.

The ups and downs of political campaigns utterly fascinate me - it kinda reminds me of………SPORTS.

Watching primary returns is like reviewing football scores - heck, there’s even post game….I mean post vote…. “expert analysis“.

Have I really let go of this thing? Do I simply have to be exposed to some kind of competition that stimulates my brain and provides great drama and excitement?

I suppose the answer is yes. But at least in this case, I’ve transferred it to something that actually does make a difference in my life. Who we have as President for the next four years is much more meaningful than if Brett Favre makes it to another Super Bowl (although I know quite a few people that probably would debate that one……..).

So, did you see that debate last night?

I’m in Milwaukee this weekend visiting family and friends, and today we’ll gather around the TV to watch our beloved Green Bay Packers take on the St. Louis Rams. The team is having a pretty darn good season so far (11-2), so the excitement level in Packerland is high.

To top it off, in early December Packers quarterback Brett Favre (and Half-Full Hall of Fame member) was named Sports Illustrated’s “Sportsman of the Year”.

Amongst all this football hoopla I discovered an excellent leadership lesson I wanted to share with all of you. In the SI piece honoring Favre, he was asked about how he defined leadership. Here was his response:

“It’s somehow getting 52 other guys to raise their level of play. To get them to believe in what we’re trying to do. You do that by setting an example, by doing things the right way. I’ve always shown up, I’ve always been prepared, I practice every day. I practice hard. I study. No matter what happens on the field, I never point blame at anybody else. Everything I do comes back to leadership, the example I want to set.”

As someone who has thoroughly enjoyed watching him lead by example on the field for 17 years, it was no surprise to find out how Brett Favre chooses to practice his craft.

What was interesting, however, was how easily this definition could be “ported” to any other business or profession.

Yep, everything we do as managers should come back to leadership. Talking the talk, AND walking the walk.

Now if he could just get us to another Super Bowl……….

Last Saturday I was enjoying a leisurely stroll in Boulder when I passed a restaurant that had ESPN’s “Sports Center” showing on its TV over the bar. They were showing highlights of a baseball game between the Milwaukee Brewers and the St. Louis Cardinals.

I stopped in my tracks, almost like it was on command, and stared at the screen. I’m from Milwaukee, so of course “my team” has always been the Brewers. The highlights showed the Brewers taking a two run lead into the bottom of the ninth inning, but ultimately losing the game when the Cardinals staged a three run rally.

At the moment I realized they lost, particularly in this fashion, my mood suddenly changed. I caught a wave of bad vibes. I lost the spring in my step.

It was yet another attack of what I call the “Sports Gene” - this seemingly uncontrollable ability for sports to affect my mood depending on whether my adopted teams won or lost. The gene is particularly present during football season, when the Green Bay Packers play.

In every other time before this one, I’d gradually shake off the bad vibes and go right back to ESPN and the daily sports page for my next dose of uppers or downers.

But this time was different. I got mad at myself. “Why do you get so worked up about something that has absolutely nothing to do with your life and your happiness?????”

I decided to do something about it. I was going to go on a “sports embargo” - for as long as I could I was going to avoid any contact with sports news.

Now here it is the following Friday, almost a week since I started the embargo, and I’m happy to report that it has held firm. I didn’t turn on the TV in my hotel rooms once all week (and there was another side benefit there - a purge of the “mindless TV watching” gene), and avoided all online and in print sports news.

I don’t have any idea how “my team” has done this week - and you know what, I’m gradually getting to a point where I don’t care. That’s what I’m aiming for - a more casual, detached approach to this information. I know that this embargo will be broken sooner or later - my guess it will be the first time the Packers play - but it’s serving a very useful purpose.

I need to be more concerned about the things going on in MY life versus a bunch of highly paid people on a field someplace. That’s what always bugged me about my Sports Gene, and I’m glad I chose to do something about it.

So, if you do happen to speak to me on the phone while this embargo is still going on, please do not preface the discussion with “how about those (insert team here)!” I really will have no clue.

Now, back to the wrestling………..

Very early in my blogging adventure I proclaimed my allegiance to the Green Bay Packers. I’ve been bleeding green and gold for over 40 years. While the team isn’t very good these days and I’ve stayed rather mum about them in this space, today I’m making an exception because they are on my local TV this afternoon (playing the Patriots), and also because they are teasing me with their 4-5 record and renewed playoff talk.

So “Go Pack Go”, and here are the “pre-football” Sunday Papers (all NY Times:

Lisa Belkin writes about “speed coaching” in this installment of her “Life’s Work” column. Participants sign up to be business coached by a professional in 5 minutes (actually timed with a stopwatch). Can anything of value be passed along in 5 minutes? In this “short attention span” day and age, I suppose if a point can’t be made in that amount of time, it probably won’t be absorbed anyway.

I’d like to put this to all my coaching and consulting friends out there - could you “speed coach” effectively?

Next, there are many mantras out there for all of us “Half-fullers” to stay positive and keep pushing forward without fear, but this one caught my attention this morning - “God hates a coward“. This has been used successfully by Philip Kent, now CEO of Turner Broadcasting (and described in this “The Boss” column).

Now I’m not sure this is necessarily true, but like any effective mantra if it pops up at the right time and allows you to take the right turn on those forks in the road, have at it. In Kent’s case he was able to have the courage to even take sabbaticals with the confidence that something good was around the corner.

This made me think - do I have a mantra like this? Should I have one? It might make sense to condense all of my accumulated quotes, sayings and teachings into one “pithy” statement, but so far it hasn’t been necessary. How about you?

“Only in something like running can finality be achieved, the sort of finality that is almost perfection. But it is not the kind of perfection that leaves you with nothing to live for… because sport is not the main aim of life. Yet to achieve perfection in one thing, however small, makes it possible to face uncertainty in the more difficult problems of life.” - Roger Bannister

I heard this quote spoken by Bruce Jenner on ESPN Classic while I was on the treadmill this morning (doing a mile in 20 minutes, instead of the sub-4 minutes that Bannister achieved on that day in 1954), and I was quite struck by the point about how “achieving perfection” can help you in other ways, even if it’s concerning something that’s “not the main aim of life”.

This aroused my curiousity about Bannister so I Googled him, and what I found was an utterly facinating story about a man who chased “perfection” (the sub-4 minute mile) but not at a cost of his real goal in life, which was to pursue a career in medicine (in neurology, no less). His biography notes that even while he was training for that fateful race, he only allocated 45 minutes to it per day because he was a full-time medical student.

Here was a man that was chasing history but could really put it in perspective - it was just a sport. But yet he knew that by breaking this barrier it could help him in the later challenges to come. There is a great interview that accompanies the biography that is well worth reading to get an even better sense of his motivations and influences.

I found one more quote from Bannister that aptly puts the icing on the cake - “This–this was what made life: a moment of quiet, the water falling in the fountain, the girl’s voice…a moment of captured beauty. He who is truly wise will never permit such moments to escape.”

The big lesson here is that if we can seek “perfection” somehow, someway, in one little aspect of our lives, while yet keeping perspective and balance, we can build up our inner strength to summon the courage to take on what other fates await us. Nice thought to take into the weekend - thanks Roger!