As I stared at a dugout of dispirited 14 year old boys Saturday afternoon in our tournament championship game, I found myself talking to my fellow coach Mitch about a book I’d read a few years ago (turns out 14) called Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End, written by HBS professor Rosabeth Moss Kantor. While that original blog post is pretty specific to something that was going on at that point in time in my prior company, the thinking in the book about momentum and the role it plays in our psychology, about sports, about business, and about life in general, is timeless. Watching this team of teens go through ups and downs within an hour was…
Category
Sports
Sometimes a Good Loss is Better than a Bad Win
I just said this to a fellow little league coach, and it’s certainly true for baseball. I’ve coached games with sloppy and/or blowout wins in the past. You take the W and move on, but it’s hard to say “good game” at the end of it and feel like you played a good game. And I’ve coached games where we played our hearts out and made amazing plays on offense and defense…and just came up short by a run. You are sad about the L, but at least you left it all out on the field. Is that statement true in business? What’s an example of a “bad” win? Let’s say you close a piece of business with a new…
The Joy of Coaching
I was the head coach of my two older kids’ little league team this past spring. The whole thing was a little bit of an accident – I vaguely volunteered for something and ended up in charge. The commitment was a little daunting, but I was ok with it since the season was only a couple months long, it was both Casey and Wilson, and both kids, especially Wilson, are really into baseball. Other than helping out a bit here and there, I’d never coached a sports team before. What started off as an unclear assignment ended up as one of the most fun and fulfilling things I’ve done in years. I loved every minute of it, looked forward to…
Why Do I Have to Be Frisked to Go to an NFL Game?
Why Do I Have to Be Frisked to Go to an NFL Game? I am freaked out about terrorism as much as the next person, but our obsession with security has gone too far. Some of the airport-related security is dumb enough — I can’t hijack a plane with my shampoo any more — but at least there’s some logic to the general premise. But the major pat-down I got last weekend when I went to see the Chargers beat the Chiefs was just silly. It certainly didn’t make me feel more secure sitting in the stadium. It wouldn’t have even occurred to me to feel insecure in the first place. The experience reminded me of all…
Closure
Closure This past weekend was a weekend of closure for me. As I prepare to leave the city after almost 17 years and the apartment I’ve lived in for almost 15, we had my two original roommates from this apartment in town for the weekend with their families for a bit of a farewell party. Times certainly have changed – from three single guys to three families and 7, almost 8 kids between us. Sitting around and noting that all three couples had either gotten engaged or first started dating within the confines of Apartment 35B, then saying goodbye as everyone left the apartment for the last time, was a little surreal. But overall, having everyone around was great fun…
Half as Long, One Third as Hard
Half as Long, One Third as Hard (Post written on Saturday, August 23.) I ran the Mesa Falls Marathon & Half Marathon near our house in Teton Valley, Idaho today. I ran the 1/2 and Brad ran the full marathon as part of his quest to run 50 marathons, one in each state, by the time he turns 50. Return Path is a proud sponsor of Brad’s running, donating $1,000 for each race he completes to the Accelerated Cure project for Multiple Sclerosis. Brad chronicled the race here. The run was set up well for us. I wasn’t up for training for a full marathon, and this race had a half marathon that started at the halfway point of the…
Run, Brad, Run!
Run, Brad, Run! A few years ago we announced our support of a charity called the Accelerated Cure Project for Multiple Sclerosis (see the post about it here and learn more about Accelerated Cure here). While we have a strong culture of giving back to the community at Return Path and do that in several ways, we chose this charity as the main beneficiary of our corporate philanthropy efforts for three reasons: We wanted to support research into finding a cure for MS to honor and support one of our earliest colleagues, Sophie Miller Audette who was diagnosed with MS about 5 years ago (and is still going strong as one of our key sales directors!) – and since then,…
Only Twice? or The Un-Big Sur Marathon
Only Twice? or The Un-Big Sur Marathon Well, it wasn’t pretty, but Brad and I finished the 36th running of the New York City Marathon yesterday. Here we are shortly after the end. This was my second marathon. When I finished Big Sur in 1996 with my friend Karl Florida, I had a nagging feeling that I’d do another one someday and figured it should be New York given how long I’ve lived here and what a great race it is. From where I sit today, it’s hard to imagine doing another one. Finishing is a truly great feeling, but boy is it a lot of work to get ready for it (not to mention a fair amount of pain…