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2/3/2020 – One play at a time

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The Monday after the Super Bowl. The day of the year with the most unplanned absences in the American workforce. Also known informally as Super Sick Monday. While many fans don’t make it into work the day after the big game due to too many frosty beverages, or perhaps they are too stricken with grief due to their team’s loss on the world’s stage, Super Sick Monday is probably an appropriate hangover for a season that monopolizes our Sundays for 6 months out of the year.

But before we all hang up the cleats for 6 months til the next season, I want to spotlight something that inspired me a few weeks ago. It was in the Chiefs that just won yesterday’s big game (sorry to any of you grieving Niner fans!), and it was their leader, Patrick Mahomes’ determination to put one foot in front of the other that shone more than a bright light on his athletic ability, but also on his ability to inspire greatness in his teammates.

You probably remember it if you were watching. The Kansas City Chiefs were facing the Houston Texans in a divisional playoff game that got off to a shockingly unexpected start. On the 6th play of the game, Texans QB Watson connected with receiver Stills for a 54-yard bomb down the field for a touchdown. On the very next play set, frustrated by an inability to generate any positive offense, Mahomes and the Chiefs were suddenly shaken up when their punt was blocked and Houston scooped the ball up for an easy defensive score.

A couple play sequences later, Houston was punting back to KC when kick returner Tyreek Hill dropped the return, allowing Houston to recover the ball and score again on the next play. A few plays after that, Houston kicked a field goal for another score.

Suddenly, in a matter of a few minutes, the Kansas City Chiefs were down 24-0. No small margin in the NFL, the Chiefs were now facing a bleak outlook. It would now take 4 trips down the field to catch up, assuming no more scoring from the opponent, neither of which Kansas City had been able to accomplish thus far. Their season appeared to be over before they could even get a chance to get anything going against a Houston team that had stepped into the game and punched the Chiefs right in the mouth at the opening bell.

But something interesting was happening.

Patrick Mahomes could be seen on the sideline encouraging and rallying his troops. He was walking back and forth shouting messages of positivity to his teammates, instructing them to put everything they had just experienced behind them and forget about it. 

He wasn’t sitting down, hanging his head, lamenting about how he could have such poor luck right out of the gate of this playoff game. It wasn’t his fault that the last 2 touchdowns scored were due to mistakes by his teammates in plays where he wasn’t even on the field. It would have been completely understandable if he had been filled with anger at his teammates for their lackluster play thus far in the game. But was that his response?  No.

In his post-game interview, Mahomes explained that he was encouraging his guys to “go do something special” and take it “one play at a time.” He knew there was a lot of football left, and he knew how good his team could be when they were at their best.

2 plays later, The Chiefs scored their first touchdown. On their next possession, they scored again. Then they forced a Houston fumble and scored again. On their next possession they scored again and took the lead, 24-28. But they weren’t done. They would score 2 more touchdowns before the stunned Houston offense could do anything. By the end of the game, Kansas City would put up 51 points in a commanding victory.

Asked after the game, wide receiver Sammy Watkins admitted thinking they had already lost the game before they turned it around, saying “A couple of times, I was like, ‘This is over.'”  But his teammates Mahomes & Kelce encouraged him and made him believe. They showed him there was a plan.

And what was that plan? What do you do when the deck is stacked against you and clearly the cards are not falling your way?  The solution is simple: One Play at a Time. You don’t dwell on the past, and you don’t dream about the future. You stay present, keep your head down, and you focus on what is immediately in front of you. You go to work.

Mahomes knew if he could get his teammates to focus on that simple instruction, they were talented enough to come back and win that game. He remained confident in his team’s abilities, he knew they had prepared appropriately for the match-up, and he knew that nothing had really changed if he zoomed out and took a bird’s eye view of the entire game. If they took it one play at a time, they could do something special.

And now they truly have. Congrats to the Kansas City Chiefs on winning their 2nd Super Bowl. They have a special player in Patrick Mahomes and we all hopefully have many years ahead of us getting to watch him showcase his leadership skills both on and off the field. One play at a time.

Patrick Mahomes displays leadership in Super Bowl win
motivation, Uncategorized

the new motivation

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**i’ve been writing a Monday morning motivational email for a little over a year now as a sorta “positivity message” to focus or meditate on throughout the week. The small group I’ve been sending it to have offered positive feedback, so i’ll be sharing them here now going forward**

It’s been a few months since i put out this weekly motivational.  I decided to take some time away from writing these after what was, admittedly, an epically frustrating end to my 2019. Coming from what was supposed to finally be my big moment, professionally, 2019 went from all things pointing straight up and to the right, and resulted in a total collapse of everything i had poured myself into the past 3 years.

The purpose of this is not to talk about the past, but to focus on the future. But to summarize: the small but successful company i built for the family i work under got consolidated into a larger corporate entity, which was then captained by poor leadership, resulting in calamity. then, just days before a new product launch and in the middle of HUGE contract discussions with major retail companies around the country, an ignorant (and inaccurate) political news cycle affected my entire industry segment, which led to a premature shutdown of my product/project/division.  Needless to say, i was incredibly discouraged the last 3 months of 2019.

——

“I understand that everyone goes disappearing

Into the greatest gray

That covers over everyday,

And hovers in the distance”

~counting crows, “up all night”

——-

That lyric segment is from a song i really love called “up all night.” it’s a song about disillusionment and realization, and beginning to understand that eventually autopilot just doesn’t take you to new destinations. And that’s where i’ve been the last few months. In a sort of hazy gray. Not a deep, dark black. I’m stronger than that, and i’ve been through much worse in my life. But i’m not sure i ever really knew what this song was about until recently.

But the frustrating circumstances (i wouldn’t quite call them failures. Let’s call them “unsuccesses”) of the end of 2019 elucidated a few defects in my armor, which i may never have paid any mind if i had gotten everything i had wanted last year, and hit the home run that i was so close to hitting.

firstly, i had no specified discipline in my game. Just raw determination. I was often working 80 hour weeks, flying all over the country to deliver sales pitches, staying up all night in weird hotels, sometimes in airports, making phone calls at all times of the day and weekend, with little-to-no social life. I allowed personal relationships to deteriorate, i stopped participating in my favorite hobbies, and i buried myself in what seemed like the workload equivalent of 10 men. Some might look at that with admiration, but i can tell you it was foolish.

what it made me realize was actually something i’ve already written about in this very column, but clearly hadn’t realized i wasn’t doing enough of:

Passion without discipline is wasted.

the last 3 years, i burned with passion. But i eventually burned out. Sure, i could have been supported better by my organization, and perhaps that support would have fueled my passion a little longer. But i now realize that i would likely still have landed right where i am now. eventually.

second: much of what i was doing, wasn’t as much for myself as i thought, if i’m being honest with myself. It was also for others around me. and what i failed to account for is that much of that audience was not really receptive to my message (these emails, but also my general message & behavior/mentality/culture). Regardless of how altruistic i wanted it to be, the driver eventually became the accountability of “i have to get this motivational out this morning or people will wonder what happened,” instead of “i want to get this done, because I need it for myself” (and if i’m completely transparent, there was also an aspect of aspirational embodiment i was hoping for. Of speaking the version of myself i wanted to be into existence).

i wasn’t feeding myself. I was feeding ego. I thought my message could be a rallying point for the things my company lacked, so that became the focal point.

But i’m done with all that. I’m doing this for me now. and i’m going deeper. if you’re reading this, it’s likely because

  1.  i know you were previously receptive to the message, or
  2.  you’re a dynamic individual who inspires, encourages, or collaborates with me, and people like that enjoy messages like this.

So let me start 2020 with a hint of the new discipline. It comes from a book that was recommended to me (i’ll talk more about it in later writings) by a good friend named jonathan, who has been hounding me for months to start writing these things again (thanks jstein. your words picked me up and dusted me off a number of times last year, a few times very literally). Here it is:

control your perceptions
direct your actions properly
willingly accept what’s outside your control

I am learning to accept what’s outside my control. I am learning to control my perceptions. And i am now directing my actions properly. It’s monday, let’s go get it.

Uncategorized

Music Monday: Not Now Chief, I’m in the Zone.

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there was a moment when i had just barely returned to the states where i was spending hours crawling through my hundreds of hours of video footage to put together a highlight video for my birthday of “age 31” for myself, where i realized something that i already knew, but had been ignoring.  in the beginning of that video, there is a moment where i am in mexico and don’t have a shirt on.  when i was putting together the video, i watched that clip, then looked at myself in the mirror, gave myself a sort of sideways frown, and then decided right then and there that i was going to be very productive with the rest of my unemployment, trying to get back to where i was in my fitness last summer.

so naturally i started with a playlist.  a list of songs to listen to at the gym so i could feel so motivated to not only show up to the gym every day, but also to push myself to my limits once i was there.  so far i’m 3 weeks in of going to the gym 6 times a week, running 2 miles everyday and then lifting for 40 minutes, eating extremely lean with no sugars or carbs (i cheat once a week), i haven’t had a drop of alcohol, and i bought a blender to increase my intake of vegetables and fruits.  i feel great.

but honestly, i don’t know if i would have been able to do it without the right mix of music.  this playlist is the one that is getting me there.  it may not be for everyone, but if you don’t have the energy to put one together yourself, i suggest you give this one a try.  it’s basically all the songs that get me amped up when i hear them.  they range from hard rock 90s rage against the machine anthems all the way to today’s under-the-radar-off-the-radio electronic beats that give you a nice running pace with the thumping bass rhythms.  give it a follow and let me know if you like it!  also, feel free to paste links to any workout playlists you might have created.  i’m always looking for new inspiration.  enjoy…

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Music Monday: Fort Music

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There comes a time in everyone’s life when we need to be hard working and responsible adults. If you are lucky, there will also  come a time where your roommate leaves for 2 weeks giving you the opportunity to live in a fort you built in the living room.

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For this mix I wanted to have a selection of music that captures the essence of the fort lifestyle. When you construct your fort, you will want to think about the type of activities that you need it for. As a kid most of my forts were designed to withstand impact from random flying objects. The fort that I built recently was designed for Maximum comfort with a focus on TV accessibility.IMG_1527

I hope this mix inspires you to hurry up and relax. Spring is right around the corner, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t find some time to hunker down and enjoy the last bit of winter. Bake some cookies, sip on some hot cocoa and build yourself a fort. IMG_1529

the beginning, Uncategorized

Peter Gibbons: What if we’re still doing this when we’re fifty? Samir: It would be nice to have that kind of job security.

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the quote above is from one of my favorite movies, Office Space.  it’s a movie i’d watched often in college, but i never had a true appreciation for it until about 5 years ago when i got my first “real” job working as a tech support phone rep at a company called Intuit.  those days were interesting for me. i had been homeless (living out of my rusty ol’ toyota 4runner) for a couple months after the girl i had moved to Denver for on a whim had broken up with me and left colorado for an ex of hers. i had been sleeping on friends’ couches as long as i could without wearing out my welcome, bumming meals, smokes, beers, and any kindness people could offer until i could figure out what i was doing with my life.  it was 2009, nobody was hiring, and i had basically given up on my dream of being a starving musician in a band somewhere.   and then somehow i got an email back from intuit, scheduling an interview.

i didn’t know anything about tech support, or sales.  they were hiring for a hybrid role where i had to do both.  i sat across the table and lied my ass off, tried my best to make them laugh, employing my best self-deprecating personality, and tried to convince them that i was a perfect fit (which was probably not the case).  my goal going in there was to just make them like me enough that they wouldn’t mind sitting next to me at a bar somewhere if there was nothing else going on.  i must have done something right because i got a call back before i even got home (or whomever’s couch i happened to be crashing at the time) and they offered me the job.

fast forward through the next few years, through a lot of sales awards, a couple promotions, a wave of outsourcing, mass hirings, mass firings, divestitures, acquisitions, site relocations, and now, ultimately, a site closure.  and now, here i am, i’ve come full circle.

or have i?

today marks the first day in over 5 years that i don’t actively have a job to go to at any point in the near future. i have a clean bill of health, i have no kids, no significant other, no mortgage, no demanding responsibilities anchoring me where i stand. my employment at homestead, where i have been a manager for the last 3.5 years, and sales & support rep before that, has come to an end. i am, quite literally, free.

the scene in Office Space that is quoted above obviously is one heavy with sarcasm. but also honesty. some people look at their job and they find a safety and an identity that allows them to live their life with a comfort and security. some of those folks are lucky enough to be doing something they don’t even consider work, and they draw all of the energy of their life from it, while others… (to quote George Carlin)

“…work just hard enough not to get fired and get paid just enough money not to quit”

i found too much of my own identity in my occupation these last 5 years. i allowed myself to think that my internal value was tied to my job, my title, and my paycheck, and i eventually grew weary and complacent. instead of growing and learning and creating and inspiring, i gradually and slowly devolved, and sought fulfillment in anything that would give me a temporary release, without success.

i am now determined to “undo” as much of that as possible.  this place here will serve as my documentation. today i begin a quest to relentlessly evade the mundane.  to find a way to live this life extraordinarily. to go against the grain of the american worker bee mentality of working and saving and preparing for the inevitable demise that comes with age, and instead i will wholeheartedly commit to being present and living now. adventure will be my creed, and discovery my motto. i will not wait until retirement to live. i will live now.

stay with me, friends, i have a lot of big things coming up. music, video, travel, pictures, and of course, the dissection and recollection of my mind.  it’s time for me to get back in touch with my creative side, and i want to share it with you.