Football | THE FINANCIAL HACK

With me trying to adjust to this new “work schedule” of mine, I had no intention of actually writing any posts this week, but I felt compelled to do so today… This will be one of my “Each One Teach One” postings, and I’ll use football, (yep football) as an example. Now c’mon. Did you expect anything different?

I wrote a few weeks ago about Madden Mobile, a FREE mobile app in a previous posting. Feel free to read about it here:

https://thefinancialhack.com/2015/10/06/tip-tuesday-an-altnative-to-madden-16/

Now some of you may be thinking: Why on earth is a forty-something year old female wasting her time playing video games? I don’t consider myself a “gamer,” but I do play video games to decompress and unwind. And, also because they’re fun, but I digress. What does Madden Mobile have to do with teamwork? Allow me to extrapolate (Oooo an SAT word, lol).

One great aspect about Madden Mobile, is you can connect with people across the country by joining a league. You can request to join a league, a league can scout you (as in my case,) or you can even start your own. Still, what does that have to do with teamwork you may be asking… EVERYTHING!!! I could have continued to play alone but there are advantages to playing in a league. Comradery is what I enjoy the most. You can chat with other league members and/or give the team encouragement via the league chat board. We played rival teams, and we played each other for fun. We were a team… or so I thought. Our teamwork photo at the moment looks something like this:

WHY? EVERY MEMBER IS NOT HOLDING THEIR WEIGHT…

All this time I’ve been playing with this particular league, I thought we were all working together, winning as a team, and for a time, it felt as though we were a team… Until we started losing. Once we started losing, it seems as though collectively, “the team” had completely given up on the vision. The vision to win.

Playing football is similar to playing chess. The object is to win obviously, however, there is an objective even greater than the win itself: Outsmarting your opponent by anticipating their next play and stopping them from advancing. In Madden, I get more of a rush from outsmarting my opponents by switching up plays than scoring actual touchdowns.

Football requires TEAMWORK for a reason. Where one team member may be weak in a particular area, another team member may be stronger and can pick up the slack. In a case where it’s obvious your team might lose, YOU DON’T GIVE UP. THAT’S WHEN YOU COME TOGETHER AS A TEAM AND FIGHT HARDER!!! And you fight until the clock says zero. You don’t stop playing with 4:52 seconds left in the 3rd quarter because the score is 35-0. You use that deficit as your motivation to try harder. It upsets me when I see people giving up because they’re losing. That’s life. Don’t get mad, pick up your marbles and go home because you’re not winning. KEEP PLAYING! It can only develop you and make you better. And if you lose, the next time you face an opponent, you’ll be ready. Don’t doubt yourself and turn away because you’re facing an opponent you DON’T BELIEVE you can defeat. You won’t know until you try. I can’t tell you how many opponents on the field/obstacles in life I thought would get the best of me, but I refused to give up. When you give up, not only are you disappointed in yourself because you’re losing/lost, but you’ve disappointed those teammates/the people that believed in the vision, the win, and refused to give up in spite of an anticipated loss. I have more respect for a fellow team member who tried but didn’t score, than a person who quit before the game/fight was over. This could be the fight to win in your finances, marriage/relationships, the workplace, your organization, or even in your church. As a team, in order to claim victory, you must work together and never give up!

If a team worked together as one single solitary unit as opposed to the “every man for himself” attitude, just imagine what could be accomplished. Your teamwork photo would probably look more like this: