“Tales of a Business & Sports Optimist”: Episode 4–Not All Success is Created Equally

“Dream with your eyes closed, but live your dreams with your eyes open.”

-Anonymous

I’ve come to learn in business, and especially with this Utah Warriors venture, that not all success is the same. Sometimes a win isn’t really a win. At the very least, sometimes our perceived victories are less than that. And above all, success, no matter what type it is, demands your consistent focus in order to maintain daily improvement and growth.?

For an optimist, those sentiments might seem somewhat pessimistic or lacking in “attaboys” for the wins one might achieve in life. But I’ve always lived with the “glass half full,” while also finding that an ounce of pragmatism can be just the thing to fill that “half full” glass to overflowing.?

On the heels of 2020’s COVID-19 setbacks and closures, the Utah Warriors and the rest of society began our efforts to try and get back to “normal” (whatever that was going to be) in 2021. The Utah Warriors had lived through a lot up to this point with a near failure to even launch in 2018, financial insolvency in 2019, and a once-in-a-century global pandemic in 2020.

And despite the unsettled circumstances that 2021 presented, the Warriors found themselves seeing some success on the pitch and in some cases, off of it. But in truth and in hindsight, that success wasn’t exactly what it was made out to be.

We would find success in 2021, but it was a success we felt we “deserved” and which in the end, distracted us from focusing on how to keep “filling” our glass. We were in some way, as an organization, content with where we were because we felt after years of toil and strife that this was a reward for all of that near-failure and heartache.?

In other words, while I thought our “glass” was getting “more full,” I came to realize that there was plenty of more room in that glass and the Warriors’ potential was much more than what I thought possible.?

The Cardiac Kids

In 2021, the Utah Warriors came to be known as the “cardiac kids” by local and national media. During the Major League Rugby (MLR) season that year, the Utah Warriors won seven, yes, seven, of our ten wins that year by coming from behind in the final twenty minutes of the game.?

"Cardiac kids," indeed.

I just about had to get a pacemaker put in to keep myself standing up straight most of the time at the games.?

And what’s even crazier to think is that of those seven come-from-behind victories, five of them had the Warriors coming from behind by double-digit points, with the chiefest of these five victories coming against the San Diego Legion where the Warriors would score three tries in the final 15 minutes after a deficit of 17 points to win 45-41.

To make this season-long scenario even more unlikely was the fact that the Warriors had lost its head coach Chris Latham just six weeks before the season started. Due to COVID-19 and other family obligations, “Latho” made the hard decision to stay in his home country of Australia after what we all felt was a short, but successful 2020 season.

The Warriors’ supported this decision and respected Latho for how he managed this situation, but the change certainly put a pinch on the planning and preparation of the team ahead of the 2021 season.

With the timing of his departure and with the season just six weeks away, the Warriors didn’t have time to conduct a new head coach search and felt we had the staff to compete in the MLR regardless. As such, we tapped Shawn Pittman, a former USA Eagle who was a national team assistant coach at the time, to be the Warriors’ interim head coach for the 2021 season.??

The Warriors had also made some key off-season signings in 2021, most notable was former San Diego Legion and USA Eagle winger and fullback Mikey Te’o, among others.?

So with these signings and the late coaching adjustments being made, I candidly didn’t know what to expect ahead of the 2021 season. Would we see a 2-12-2 season like 2019 or would the Warriors pick up where we left off in 2020 with upsets over two-time MLR champion Seattle and others??

In truth, my gut told me it was a coin toss and I should have been more focused on the data related to the team’s performances in order to help along the way.?

Fast forward through the season, the Warriors finished second in the Western Conference with a 10-6 regular season record and played for the conference championship only to narrowly lose to the eventual 2021 MLR champions, the Los Angeles Giltinis in the historic LA Coliseum by the score of 17-13.

After the season, the Warriors interim head coach Shawn Pittman was voted as the MLR Coach of the Year, while Warriors fullback Mikey Te’o was voted as the MLR Most Valuable Player. These awards were well-deserved and a reflection of the overall team’s never-give-up ethic.?

While the “cardiac kids” had certainly clawed their way to success in 2021, sometimes this type of success can mislead and misinform those of us in leadership roles. And above all, it can distract you from consistently putting in the work and remaining focused on the bigger picture. Stated differently, we let our hand off the plow, so to speak, ever so slightly because we feel like we deserved a “breather” or that the team was “due” for these results.

And for leaders, like me in this instance, 2021 was a lesson that being successful isn’t the end, it’s a part of the process. It’s the milestone to direct us to even more success and should be regarded with the same, if not more, attention and focus that comes when in the midst of duress and strife.?

Unfortunately, in 2021, it pains me to say, that despite our best-laid efforts and plans, we lost sight of the goal and began to give in to the ride of what the feeling of success might offer.?

For example, over the course of the 2021 season, the Warriors were a top-tier team in attack scoring the second most tries by averaging over four tries a game. The Warriors also held the third most line breaks in the competition. In other words, other MLR teams didn’t like giving the ball to the Warriors.?

Our defense, on the other hand, was the exact opposite. Of the twelve MLR teams that season the Warriors were tenth in tackle percentage. We also had the least amount of breakdown steals (1.375 a game when no other MLR team was less than 2 per game). And the Warriors were also tenth in most points conceded.?

In other words, the ball was bouncing the way of the Warriors in terms of the final results, but with the dichotomy of the performance data that we had, we should have been focused on developing a more balanced team by shoring up our weaknesses.?

NBA legend Michael Jordan, who has been notoriously on the record for constantly pursuing success no matter what the situation was, said the following about weaknesses.?

“My attitude is that if you push me towards something that you think is a weakness, then I will turn that perceived weakness into a strength.”

In 2021, the signs were there, but we subconsciously chose to ignore our team’s “weakness” because it was a by-product of the “attacking flair” or some other weak attempt to explain away our lack of defensive success.

In other words, while many outside of the Warriors organization may have seen the 2021 team’s wins to be some form of the long-awaited “just deserts,” in fact, our team was getting by grit and sheer determination–something to never doubt or not appreciate–but that lacked the consistent execution on both sides of the ball.?

With this level of execution of the team’s systems, the Warriors needed more detail in order to drive stronger and more-balanced results which is a hallmark of a truly successful team. And the fact that we didn’t adjust our plans and operations in light of this data because we were riding a wave of success is something that is and was on me as the leader of the organization.?

And what hurts me more to admit, is that this kind of abundant confidence in success found itself bleeding over to the front office as well, again on my account.?

Sellouts?

The best marketing in sports always will be winning. No one will argue that.?

While we had what I felt was a solid marketing plan given the level of resources and with a growing front office the “cardiac kids” were the best marketing tool at our disposal. Marry all of this to the fact that the community’s excitement would grow after every come-from-behind victory, our attendance began to surge every week.?

But that didn’t come without issues as we can all hopefully recall in early 2021.?

On the heels of COVID-19 the Utah Warriors were not able to open our 2021 season to full-capacity crowds. In fact, our pre-season exhibition game on March 6th against Rugby ATL saw us capable of hosting only 800 fans per government health guidelines. That crowd size would grow to fifty-percent capacity however by the time of the home opener against Toronto on March 27th.?

Eventually, that limit on capacity eased and the Warriors began growing our crowd sizes from the on-the-field success of the team that was likely also married to the community’s interest to get “outside” after months of COVID-19 lockdowns and isolation. And with this growing interest, for the final two home games in Zions Bank Stadium, the Warriors saw sellout crowds on July 10th against Rugby ATL and on July 17th against the Los Angeles Giltinis.

With the relative “newness” of our ticketing and front office staff, the Warriors still weren’t set up with a mastery of ticket sales. We had a new Chief Revenue Officer and new, relatively inexperienced, but motivated ticket sales reps, and a marketing team that was still managed by a third party. Needless to say, it would be unfair for me or our Warriors’ to take wholesale credit for the attendance success of these final two games.

And just as we saw on the team side, and in hindsight, our data showed what was working and what wasn’t working and we should have been better focused to recognize how we should pivot short-term gains into long-term success.?

For example, in 2021 on average our “walk-up” or week-of ticket sales were north of 45% over the course of the season, including the final two sellouts. In most professional sports, if there’s a solid season ticket holder base and a legacy of success on and off the field those rates are usually in the 10-15% range, at best. In many cases, that figure is substantively lower.?

With it being a COVID-19 year, we didn't quite know what to make of those numbers since we were simply scrambling to host games in some cases. And with the success of the team and in the evolving COVID environment, somehow this number was overlooked.

Looking back, we should have seen those signs and worked feverishly to remarket harder than we did or re-invite these ticket purchasers to another Utah Warriors experience. We needed to make our brand stickier than what we assumed was taking place.?

In other words, our success with the team was helping us find commercial success, but it wasn’t the eventual “turning of the tide” in terms of the community and professional sports relevance that we had been fighting for. This was a temporary rise in the tide that we weren’t equipped to maintain due to a lack of internal staffing and general organizational experience.??

And in this case, as well as the team’s success, the onus for these missed opportunities lies with the leader, or to be more direct, with me. I should have led the charge and driven the energy to dig in deeper to keep and maintain our growing fanbase. As the CEO, I should have kept my eyes solely focused on the eventual goal of a larger season ticket holder base, corporate partners, and the big picture of our goal to build the epicenter of North American rugby.?

But I regret to say, like many in our organization and like many outside of our organization, I too was swept up in the emotion and excitement of the “cardiac kids” in 2021 and I let the organization down in doing so. We could have and should have done so much more with the success of 2021, in hindsight. And that was solely on me as the leader of the Warriors’ organization–something I will always hold on to as a lesson learned: enjoy the wins when they come, but never lose sight of the bigger picture.

Summary

In 2021, with the wins and success came the perceived notion that “we’re doing this right.” I’m not minimizing the work and the performance of our team, nor our staff by any stretch. But in hindsight, there were tell-tale signs that we should have paid attention to in order to ensure that the success in 2021 wasn’t passive.?

Stated differently, we shouldn’t have let the success of a few games confuse our focus on what was truly the priority–to build a sustainable business.?

At the time, we had lived through so much, during the prior three seasons—almost failing to launch, insolvency, and a global pandemic–and it almost felt like we “deserved” a respite and that things were beginning to turn in our favor. But we should have known better and we shouldn’t have gotten caught in the ethereal oasis of 2021’s success.

We saw the data and the prompts internally and even externally, but we were so driven to ride this crazy wave of success, something that we hadn’t had before to this level, that we were willing to justify away the data and the prompts in the hopes that we could keep riding that crazy wave above all else. When, in fact, we should have been more confident to continue finding ways to improve, sure-up, and broaden the foundation that 2021 was offering.?

Looking back, it’s not as if we were partying and simply ignoring to man the helm of the Utah Warriors’ ship. But it was a unique and challenging time that was different from the previous years–it was a challenge to stay focused and consistent in the face of success versus the alternatives that we had faced in the years prior.?

And that to me is what is at the heart of a true leader or a successful individual–they are putting in the work no matter what the situation may or may not be. Rainy days never deter these types of people. And sunny and warm days are seen as an opportunity to really make headway against their goals.?

In sum, success or strife, the person who is truly focused on achieving their maximum potential sees both sides of that coin as an opportunity to improve. The glass will always be half full to this person, but there will always be more room to “top off” the glass whatever comes this person’s way.?

There’s a saying that people should “dream with their eyes closed, but that you should live your dreams with your eyes open.” I like this quote, but after the lessons of 2021, I’d modify it slightly to say that we should “dream with our eyes closed, but that we should work with our eyes open.”

The Utah Warriors team and the front office had stood up to so much in such a short amount of time, and we were beginning to live out that dream that we had back in 2015 and 2016. But with the success that we began to see, we forgot to work with our eyes wide open as we began to live out that dream.?

From all of this, I came to learn and appreciate that the potential of this organization’s worth demanded a greater level of focus–a greater level of working with my eyes open to the reality and the situation in front of me.

As such, after looking back on the lessons of 2021 that was something I committed myself to in the lead-up to 2022 not knowing that some tests and challenges would take a different, but familiar form. More on that in the penultimate episode next Friday.?

One of the NFL’s truly revolutionary and most successful head coaches, Bill Walsh said that “consistent effort is the consistent challenge.”

I hope we can all remember that not all successes are the same and that they should never distract us from what is our eventual goal or vision. In fact, once success may come into our lives, it will likely take a greater level of "consistent effort" to be worthy of achieving the goals that only come from our working through the "consistent challenges" of our lives. ?

But above all, I hope we can keep dreaming with our eyes closed but above all, find enjoyment in working with our eyes open, no matter what may come our way, good or bad. In those moments, that’s where a true leader will find and display his or her value.?

If you’d like to read the “Tales of the Sports & Business Optimist” prologue and the other episodes please CLICK HERE.