Clutch Time Even When It's Ugly

So as most of you know I am a huge fan of the Dallas Cowboys. Well last night they played the Buffalo Bills and boy was it a game! Dallas had a chance to start with a record of 5-0, something they hadn't done since the early eighties, and Buffalo, well they were just supposed to be plain bad. The game was supposed to be a blowout in favor of the Cowboys all the way.

If you could see my jaw set you would know that 'supposed to' didn't, and still doesn't set well with me.

Anyway, you are likely asking yourself, "another stupid sports analogy Steve?" To which I would reply YUP!

The Cowboys played horrible. They looked flat and Tony Romo our Quarterback threw four interceptions in the first half alone. Can anyone say UGLY?!?

It would have been easy for the Cowboys, and more specifically Tony Romo, to pack it up at halftime. They looked defeated. They looked like they had already been beaten. And let me tell you, most of the second half didn't do much to improve their outlook.

Yet.....they kept fighting. They kept coming back.

They hung around just long enough to make the right plays happen when they needed to.

Defeat is a funny thing. It wants you to give in. It wants you to say, "I am so far down that I could never think of getting up." I know that's what Buffalo was hoping defeat was telling Mr. Romo and the rest of "the boys."

We all face times in our lives where things don't go our way. Tony Romo had statistically one of the worst showings of all time but he didn't give up. He didn't let those whispers of defeat ring forever in his ears. Nope! He knew they could win if they just played hard enough to give themselves a shot.

How many of us give up at the first sign of defeat? How many of us let defeat whisper sweet nothings in our ear as we give up on our hopes and dreams? How many people fail to be clutch even when things get ugly?

Fortunately for us our personal and professional destruction doesn't happen on Monday Night Football in front of millions of football fans. No, I suspect we quietly take our defeat in private and we hide it and what it does to us from the world.

What if you could be like Tony Romo and step out there on the field of life and refuse to give up...refuse to quit? What kind of Ripples might you find yourself creating in your own personal self-confidence and ultimately in your own self-worth?

As Tony Romo watch the winning field goal sail through the uprights to win the game, I suspect he was winked at old defeat and said, "Go away. I hear Buffalo needs you!"

How 'bout them Cowboys!!!!

Believe in yourself even when the odds and the world are stacked against you.

Ripple On!!!

Steve

There are No Automatics In Life

It was a play that he had done probably a thousand times during practice, countless games and in his mind. Tony Romo, the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys, performed that simple task so often that he and everyone else considered it automatic.

And it was…..until it wasn’t.

Saturday night I watched as my beloved Dallas Cowboys fell to the Seattle Seahawks 21-20 in their Wild Card Playoff Game. The loss was one of the worst in recent memory. It left me hurting as a fan and even more for a young guy named Tony Romo. The perfect snap, the botched hold and an entire season down the drain all in a matter of about three seconds.

Anyone who knows me knows that I live and breathe the Dallas Cowboys and I have for as long as I can remember. I am so silver and blue that rumor has it I came out of the womb with the shiny Dallas star tattooed on my tiny little dimpled butt. Yes, a true fan sent by God himself to forever support and root on “His team.”

Boy was I rooting on Saturday night! Let’s just say neighbors for three blocks knew the game was on and likely knew when and how it had ended.

Watching the game end like it did really, really hurt. However I managed to pull a lesson or two from it. Something I hope might make sense to you and by sharing it might assuage my pain.

Simple, everyday actions that we all take for granted and consider automatic can sometimes go erroneously wrong.

Something as simple as not returning a customer’s phone call because it is late in the day can cost you.

Taking your super star employees for granted and not recognizing them for their effort often enough can cost you.

Failing to say the words “I am sorry” when you screw up can cost you.

Not remembering to say “Thank you” to anyone and everyone who has ever purchased something from you, supported you or believed in you can and will cost you.

We all bump through our personal and professional lives I believe taking things for granted. We all have our “automatics” that we overlook and assume will always be there and go smoothly for us no matter what. If I learned anything Saturday night, there are no give me’s in life. I learned to remember that the automatic is not guaranteed and just when you begin to think it is that’s when life has a funny way of sneaking up on you to remind you it is not.

Saturday night was painful for me not only as a fan of Tony Romo’s and the Dallas Cowboys but a fan of life. It was a painful reminder that those things we take for granted can and will always find a way to break at the most inopportune times if we give them permission to do so. And by permission I mean….failing to place the proper importance on all the things we do…even the simple most automatic things.

Life offers us no automatics.

What I believe is Tony Romo will grow from this mistake. He will be back next year a better quarterback out there on the football field. His willingness to accept responsibility during the post-game news conference proves he will take this misstep and utilize it to motivate and inspire himself in the future. And I firmly believe on Saturday night, as tears filled his eyes and his heart was broken with the pain of the loss, he became the real leader of the team. Somehow in defeat and despite a huge mistake, he taught me something.

Saturday night’s game was good reminder to us all. The simple automatic things in life and in business can and will in a moments notice slip through our fingers if we let it.

Don’t.

Ripple On Friends!

Steve Harper

P.S. Check out our new website....we are still doing some editing but stop by and let me know what you think! www.ripplecentral.com