How are your brackets?

Ahh, the joys of March Madness. Here we sit, watching the spectacle and pageantry of one of the greatest sporting contests in the world. Sixty-four teams have been carefully selected and ranked to get us to this point—The Big Dance.

March Madness would not exist without Bracketology. It’s the framework that enables the fun.

Officially, the NCAA and its partners assemble a team of sports analysts to architect our madness and create a championship tournament in late March of each year. Basketball freaks combine with statistical geeks to form a group known as the NCAA Selection Committee.

Collectively, the committee holds tremendous basketball knowledge, wisdom, experience and intuition. If that weren’t enough, thanks to artificial intelligence they now have the unlimited automation and statistical modeling tools to help them select and rank a field of 64 basketball teams. Thanks to this concentrated, high powered Bracketology work, we get an output in the form of a fun if somewhat maddening puzzle known as “the brackets.”

Within the brackets, we have four groupings of teams, ranked from number 1 through number 16. Sixty-four journeys to basketball meccas commence. Each squad journeying to a designated arena containing a basketball court surrounded by 10,000 or more seats. Regardless of their assigned rank, each team carries the hopes and dreams of a university, its students, faculty, alumni and fanbase. Some aspire simply to advance past the first round, while others dream of earning an esteemed spot in the Final Four.

Unofficially, a great many of us engage in our own versions of armchair Bracketology. Filling out the descending ladders of brackets, each representing a contest between two, carefully selected and ranked teams. According to Statista , 56 million of us put pen to paper, or applied fingers to mousepad, last year to partake in this delightful, dance between probability and pandemonium. We love the science—and we love the madness even more.

Late Saturday evening, I watched the 12th-seeded James Madison University defeat an opponent ranked as the number five team in the region. The 12th best team defeated the fifth best team—Wisconsin. Given the precise, data-driven work of the selection committee, this outcome should not have occurred. It was a statistical anomaly.

Nevertheless, despite the selection committee’s processes and prowess, these 5 vs. 12 upsets are not entirely uncommon. In fact, we’ve grown accustomed to 12 seeds defeating 5 seeds. In fact this year’s NCAA tournament brought us two of four instances where 5-vs-12 upsets occurred. The lower seeded team defeated higher seeded team 50% of the time. Statistically speaking, those 12 seeds should only win 34 percent of the time . [For the record, the other twelve seed who advanced this year was Grand Canyon University. Hail to the Antelopes!]

It’s impossible to ignore the theme. The team we believed would win, in two of four such contests, did not win. Conversely, those 12th seeds, whom the esteemed analysts believed would not win – did.

This takes us to a wisdom principle I hold dear: “Those who you think will—won’t. And those who you think won’t … will.”

Credit to Paul Magistri, a friend and former colleague, for this gem. I try to keep Paul’s wisdom in mind and hold onto its truth. Because March Madness demonstrates: as it goes with basketball, so it goes in our daily lives.

When we examine our thoughts and feelings, we see that we assign rankings to things. Whether consciously or unwittingly, we tend to seed people and opportunities. It’s like we're all engaging in some big bracketology of life.

We do it with opportunities. A promising opportunity might lead us toward feelings of optimism and confidence. We look into our internal “data” and we are spurred to rank this opportunity as a fifth seed. We might apply such analysis to a business deal or a hoped-for promotion at work. Other more lackluster opportunities, long shots by our human measures, we evaluate as 12th-seeds or lower. Someone paying back a debt we’re owed, for example. We dial down our optimism in these long-shot instances.

Seeding - we also do it with people. We make a new acquaintance, and right or wrong, we make an assessment. Making small judgments of people. It’s part of our survival-instinct wiring. Influenced by our past experience, our perceptions, our wisdom, and our intuition. In the case of a promising new acquaintance, we assign a five seed. We attach significant optimism and hope, believing this person will become a close friend. In another happenstance meeting, we don’t see much commonality. We don’t feel an initial connection or spark. Accordingly, we assign this person a 12 seed.

Yet upsets do occur. We all know it. We've experienced those upsets.

In March Madness as in our daily lives, we get surprised. People will disappoint us. They’ll fail to reciprocate or simply avoid returning your phone call. Likewise, opportunities will fall through. (Why are we so often surprised?) Maybe that "sure-thing" stock never rises, instead dropping sharply and subtracting from your portfolio.

We shake things off. We regroup, bracing ourselves. We move forward. With time and repetition, we learn to release such disappointments. And we also learn to forgive people. That’s called living with grace. It's wisdom.

Admittedly, the opposite holds true. Life also brings good surprises. That neighbor you underestimated not only returns the borrowed chainsaw, they attach a classy notecard and a carton of your favorite beverage—chilled. The deal you’d ranked at the bottom of your revenue forecast closes, and along with it, the new client brings two additional opportunities into your sales pipeline. We call these blessings. It’s to our benefit … to notice and embrace the blessings that come our way. They’re worthy of celebration. That's wisdom, too.

Each of us in multiple instances, on multiple occasions, can point to and recall our own collection of 5/12 upsets. This combination of surprise plus happiness brings an unmistakable feeling of joy, every time.

Sometimes in life, we are the 12 seed storming the court in a frenzied victory sprint, fueled by the adrenaline of the upset we just pulled off. On other occasions, we are the 5 seed, graciously shaking hands with the upstart opponents who just ended our basketball season, even as we feel the sting of defeat.

What’s the takeaway? It’s more than winning our office bracketology and the prized free pizza. There’s tremendous wisdom in the realization that we are not fortune-tellers. Face it. If that army of analysts and basketball gurus can’t predict who will survive and advance in March, neither can we predict what will happen. We love to think we know what lies ahead. But we really don’t.

In reality, life is more like March Madness than a predictable script. That’s more than just okay … it’s beautiful, fun and thrilling.

All we need to do is release the expectations for how things should go and what people should do. Instead, we can set our minds to being fully present in whatever today brings. Victory is found in being open and accepting of life’s unpredictable nature. And that's a wise way to live, not just in March but all year long.