Did You Say Over?

I can hear many of you answering that classic question from Animal House. “Nothing is over until we decide it is!” and despite the subsequent attribution of the Pearl Harbor attack, it’s damn good advice. In fact, we’ve had two incidents this week in the world of sports that bear it out.

There is , of course, a business lesson in there too.The U.S. Men’s National Soccer team upset the number one side in the world, Spain, in the semi-finals of the Confederations Cup.  I realize many of you have no clue (or a care) about soccer but this is a big deal.  It’s a prestigious international competition, ad we had “backdoored” our way into the semi’s by other clubs’ incompetence just as much as our own skill.  Spain was expected to lay a beating on us – it was going to be over before the first whistle blew.  Yet we won 2-0 and it was NOT a fluke goal.

Lucas Glover won the U.S. Open as I’m sure you know.  He was such a long-shot he’d made the field as a qualifier (meaning he had to play his way in rather than having previously earned a slot based on his great play elsewhere) and isn’t mentioned in any articles I can find as a potential winner.  It was over before he teed up his first ball on Thursday – Tiger or Phil or someone else would win in a walk.  Yet he won.

It’s easy to lose when you’re supposed to.  It’s easy to say it’s over and let the other guy win, whether its making a sale or winning a negotiation or just proving a point in a planning session.   That precludes the upset, that golden moment when the world gets changed a bit.  They happen every day.  To paraphrase –  Where’s the spirit? Where’s the guts, huh? These could be the greatest days of our lives, but you’re gonna let them be the worst.  Well, not me!

How about you?