The End of the Game

Confession: I’m not a huge sports fan. Irrationally, I like watching golf on TV, even though I don’t play. I enjoy live American football for the intensity, sometimes.?Then there is surfing, as it is a constant out my back door. I do regularly work out - staying strong as we age isn't for the faint of heart. But otherwise, you're more likely to find me with a book. So, I guess it is strange that some of my most loved books are written by sports leaders.

For me, the best is Phil Jackson.

I began reading Phil years ago, but just got Eleven Rings recently. (Books are slow to come to Portugal - family and friends are kind enough to bring a few with each visit.)?The photo below is from this morning:

As you can see, I’ve been marking anything that inspires me. Any word or idea that jumps out becomes fodder for my own conscious leadership work. And yes, the book is a mess. (In part, because it has come with me to my favorite breakfast spot on many days.)

“The end of the game is the game,” I wrote.

Obvious, probably. But I noticed this theme again and again as Phil took me through his 11 big wins. It’s astounding how many games were won in the last seconds when it could have gone either way. It’s not that the entire game didn’t matter. Points are points. It's not that practice and talent and attitude and negotiations and everything else were not also critical. It’s just that without anything left in the tank at the end, the game is lost.

Sometimes we who lead are good for most of the game, but not for the final and most intense moments. How well can we play and for how long before too much is too much??Is play even play anymore? That is not a criticism, it's a signal worth noting.

More and more, I’m seeing leaders falter because they didn’t - couldn't - pace themselves in the world of today. That’s a collective problem, yet one that is experienced personally.

What to do? If I read Phil right, he'd likely tell us to rely on our inner awareness to know how much gas we have in the tank - for anything. Sports. Work. Relationship. Family. And if it isn’t much, there is only one solution. Rest. If we can't rest (another thing I hear more and more), we have some hard choices to make.

Without gas to the end, we can’t win the game. That’s just how it works.?

I'm sure you already know this. So does everyone, most likely, the day before they finally burn out.

I’m Robin Rice. I lead leaders with high visibility and impact. I’m also a writer. Stories About Stories, my book #11, is about to be released as a book-on-podcast. You can get the immediately available earlybird audio of the Introduction + Chapter One, and my companion Sunday Story Prompts, by signing up at BeWhoYouAre.com.?