It's All in the Game

So here we are -- in the middle of march madness, sitting under the leadership of a President who filled his brackets out in front of ESPN cameras, and all around the country people are obsessed with which team is advancing. Or more importantly, if the teams advancing are the ones they picked. It was a few weeks ago, during the NBA All-Star game in Phoenix, that a group of current and former players sat around a table to watch playbacks of the President on the court and critique his game. One those players, the great Magic Johnson, offered a very insightful analysis of President Obama's style of play. He said it was fitting that Mr. Obama played the point guard position because that's the position driving the game forward. Magic said the point guard is always thinking five minutes ahead of the current play -- anticipating the pass, the cut to the basket, the set up of the defense, and most importantly, the movement of the offense. The point guard has to see the whole game and pass or shoot the ball to set the other guys up to score.

And as someone who used to play the point position myself back in my junior high and high school basketball days, that analogy got me thinking. I bring a lot of my "point guard" qualities to my job today. I manage alot of moving parts and have to anticipate the possible pitfalls along the way. I'm thinking one week, five weeks, even twelve weeks down the line to organize those parts and give everyone their assignments. And like a point guard, when a teammate (or coworker) misses his assignment on the court/office, I get upset -- because that means it throws off the whole offensive strategy, and now we have to play in transition. I'm also competitive and know that what I do as an individual can impact the whole team. Basketball is a team sport and one slacker on the court can ruin the game for the entire team. And when the team loses, I lose.

Then I compared it to my husband's sport of choice when he was in school -- track. My husband is a sprinter -- and a pretty good one at that. He won all sorts of awards and broke all kinds of state records when he was in high school. So what does that say about him? Well, alot, actually. Track is a highly individualized sport. You're mostly judged as an individual, and very rarely do you ever run as a team. Each race has a first, second, or third place and everyone else is just someone on the field. It's a low-key sport, meaning it doesn't typically attract large, sold-out crowds. But it does require a certain element of confidence, even cockiness, in some of the shorter-distance races. And then there's strategy. You have to pace yourself and figure out at what point to pick up the speed and start to put the pressure on the other runners to either pick theirs up too or get left in the dust.

In a lot of ways, this very much describes my husband. He's one of the most competitive people I know. Silver or bronze just isn't good enough -- you have to be the best to take home the gold. He's a very independent thinker. He doesn't depend on anyone else's analysis of any situation -- he conducts his own research and draws his conclusion based upon what makes the most sense to him. He is his own team. You very rarely see him intentionally standing out in the middle of a crowd -- that's the low-key part of him. And strategy and analysis are everything to him. He's learning your moves so he can decide what his should be. This plays out in his work as a financial crimes investigator. But then he's also quick off the blocks. He decides and decides quickly, and once he's made up his mind, he's at the finish line before you can even hit a comfortable stride. And man, is he confident! He knows the sport of life is as much mental as it is physical. So there are a lot of similarities to be made between our personalities and our sports.

So here's the question -- what if your approach on life could be traced back to the sports you played as a kid? And if not sports then some other extracurricular activity, like dance or theatre, or painting or even academic decathlon? Do the characteristics of your childhood hobbies play out in your life today?

The Pursuit of Excellence

I know it's been a while since I last posted, but I'm back and ready to blog!!! This week's topic -- current events. With all the recent talk about bank bailouts and AIG bonuses, I thought I'd take this opportunity to discuss what I think the real problem is with the current state of the financial industry, and other industries, for that matter.

About seven years ago, through a very strange and serendipitous chain events, I ended up having dinner one night with the man who invented Sweet 'n Low. As a young 23-year old, I'd never really been around "money" (save the typically irresponsible college student with loaded parents who paid for their entire private school education). And this man had it. Not in a way that was braggadocios but in a way that was quietly confident and fully aware of the responsibility his wealth gave him to the community. It was in this context that the meeting with him happened.

I accompanied my then-boss to a downtown theatre where we were to meet Stephen O'Dell. At the time, I had no idea who he was or what he did, only that we were meeting some guy interested in funding an inner-city theatre arts project. And the real reason I was there had absolutely nothing to do with the meeting itself -- my boss needed someone to ride with her so she could catch the carpool lane -- seriously. But I was there "taking notes" as her "assistant" when we met Stephen, his wife, and the young man manging this arts projects (let's call him Joe).

So there we are at dinner at the Palm Restaurant and nothing on the menu was cheap. I had no idea he'd be paying for dinner and the $400 bottle of wine (you know, that first time being around money thing). But as we waited for our food (I just ordered a measily appetizer), conversation ensued. And it was then that I learned who Mr. O'Dell was -- yes he invented Sweet 'n Low but he also lived by a creed that drove his success and his mission to preserve the arts in greatly underserved communities.

As the conversation continued, it turned to money for the arts project. Joe was visibly nervous and anxious about being able to raise the money he needed to have a real impact in the community. You could see his mind racing, his calculations computing. Of course, Steven O'Dell could just give him the money he needed without the blink of an eye but he only committed to a small portion of the overall amount, which made Joe even more nervous. And then, as if the moment stood still to me, Mr. O'Dell looked at him sitting across the table, placed his hand on top of Joe's clinched and folded hands and said, "Joe, don't worry about the money. The money will be there. You will never get the money by pursuing it. Pursue excellence and the money will come." He went on to say that-that was exactly why he wouldn't give him all the money he needed -- he wanted the pressure Joe felt of not having all the money to drive him even further toward excellence.

Seven years later and that is still the wisest piece of advice I've ever heard. I still have this quote laying on my desk and it's been undeniably true in my own life.

So as all of the chaos began to unfold in the financial markets and the real costs of all that unchecked risk began to take its toll on not just those who took the risk but even on those who didn't, I began to think about this advice. And it made me wonder -- would our economy be where it is now if businesses and, really the individuals who run them, took a different approach? What if the real mission of business wasn't the pursuit of profits? What if the real mission was the pursuit of excellence?