{"id":602,"date":"2015-04-06T15:13:22","date_gmt":"2015-04-06T15:13:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/?p=602"},"modified":"2015-04-06T15:13:22","modified_gmt":"2015-04-06T15:13:22","slug":"what-alabama-football-taught-me-about-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/2015\/04\/what-alabama-football-taught-me-about-life.html","title":{"rendered":"What Alabama Football Taught Me About Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alabama football coach, Nick Saban has been called a perfectionist. <\/p>\n

In an interview with 60 Minutes on CBS, “Saban preached to his players. Don’t worry about winning, just focus on doing your job at the highest level, every single play, and the wins will follow.”<\/p>\n

I watch the interview with fascination because as a marketer I am curious to read between the lines of Saban’s brand success. I find it in the aforementioned quote. Saban is not focusing on the win, but rather a solid mission statement that is irrefutable. Alabama football knows who they are and what they are about. The winning part is obvious in any sport. It is not the shelf value of the brand.<\/p>\n

Some time after that television interview, my son and nephew and I sit at the kitchen table. The conversation flows easily as we chat about the day. The topic switches to my son’s evening lacrosse game. <\/p>\n

“Why aren’t you playing like you usually do?” I ask. <\/p>\n

“I want to be selfless,” my son responds.<\/p>\n

“Why would you want to be anyone, but yourself?” my nephew asks. “There are guys who would do anything to be able to do what you do.” <\/p>\n

My nephew rises from his chair, walks towards the door and turns around.<\/p>\n

“Be Yourself,” he says. “I want you to call me later and tell me that you scored 6 goals.”<\/p>\n

This obvious lacrosse conversation is really about life. <\/p>\n

Every single one of us bring something to the table whether it be in our personal or professional lives. We bring forward our authentic selves with the hope that together we achieve great things in our lifetime.<\/p>\n

So wherein lies the balance of selflessness and selfishness?<\/p>\n

There is no need to explain ‘selfishness’ it’s counterintuitive to a prosperous life.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, ‘selflessness’ appears a positive contribution to the game of life. <\/p>\n

Yet, if it is extreme and not balanced then it can actually hinder, not help. An individual can lose what is their ‘personal best.’ Soon others will overcompensate and the selfless individual will throw the game off. <\/p>\n

In life when we play our ‘personal best’ we contribute in a way that only we can. We are in the moment. We are not in the past nor are we in the future. We are in the present. <\/p>\n

My son came home that evening having scored those six goals. His look of preoccupation gone and his sense of self once again shining brightly through. I spotted a restored balance that was missing while he was trying so hard to be something for others that he lost something of himself.<\/p>\n

I certainly identify with that as I lost much of myself giving to another. <\/p>\n

Alabama football coach Nick Saban may be labeled a ‘perfectionist.’ I believe he’s compelling his athletes not towards perfection, but rather their ‘perfect’ selves. Why would we want to show the world anything else?<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/nick-saban-alabama-football-coach-crimson-tide-60-minutes\/
\n(CBS News 60 Minutes Interview)
\n\"alabama_football_hd_photo_wallpaper_collection-300x187\"<\/a>
\n(Image from sport city.us)
\nFollow me on Facebook @Colleen Sheehy Orme
\non Twitter @colleenorme
\non Pinterest @colleensheehyorme
\nE-mail: Colleen.Sheehy.Orme@gmail.com
\nwww.colleensheehyorme.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alabama football coach, Nick Saban has been called a perfectionist. In an interview with 60 Minutes on CBS, “Saban preached to his players. Don’t worry about winning, just focus on doing your job at the highest level, every single play, and the wins will follow.” I watch the interview with fascination because as a marketer…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":575,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,14,108,90],"tags":[113,112,232,56,84,12,57,60,231,21],"class_list":["post-602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-divorce-2","category-inspiration","category-new-beginnings","category-parenting","tag-alabama","tag-football","tag-inspiration","tag-inspirational","tag-motivational","tag-parenting","tag-self-help","tag-selflessness","tag-spirituality","tag-strength"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat Alabama Football Taught Me About Life - How Great Thou Part<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/2015\/04\/what-alabama-football-taught-me-about-life.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What Alabama Football Taught Me About Life - How Great Thou Part\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Alabama football coach, Nick Saban has been called a perfectionist. In an interview with 60 Minutes on CBS, “Saban preached to his players. Don’t worry about winning, just focus on doing your job at the highest level, every single play, and the wins will follow.” I watch the interview with fascination because as a marketer…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/2015\/04\/what-alabama-football-taught-me-about-life.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"How Great Thou Part\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-04-06T15:13:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/files\/2015\/04\/alabama_football_hd_photo_wallpaper_collection-300x187-300x187.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Colleen Sheehy Orme\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"What Alabama Football Taught Me About Life - How Great Thou Part","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/2015\/04\/what-alabama-football-taught-me-about-life.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"What Alabama Football Taught Me About Life - How Great Thou Part","og_description":"Alabama football coach, Nick Saban has been called a perfectionist. In an interview with 60 Minutes on CBS, “Saban preached to his players. Don’t worry about winning, just focus on doing your job at the highest level, every single play, and the wins will follow.” I watch the interview with fascination because as a marketer…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/2015\/04\/what-alabama-football-taught-me-about-life.html","og_site_name":"How Great Thou Part","article_published_time":"2015-04-06T15:13:22+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/files\/2015\/04\/alabama_football_hd_photo_wallpaper_collection-300x187-300x187.jpg"}],"author":"Colleen Sheehy Orme","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/2015\/04\/what-alabama-football-taught-me-about-life.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/2015\/04\/what-alabama-football-taught-me-about-life.html","name":"What Alabama Football Taught Me About Life - How Great Thou Part","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/2015\/04\/what-alabama-football-taught-me-about-life.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/2015\/04\/what-alabama-football-taught-me-about-life.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/files\/2015\/04\/alabama_football_hd_photo_wallpaper_collection-300x187-300x187.jpg","datePublished":"2015-04-06T15:13:22+00:00","dateModified":"2015-04-06T15:13:22+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/#\/schema\/person\/8f4436fdd06cdbb61d63a9a788b98e15"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/2015\/04\/what-alabama-football-taught-me-about-life.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/2015\/04\/what-alabama-football-taught-me-about-life.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/2015\/04\/what-alabama-football-taught-me-about-life.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/files\/2015\/04\/alabama_football_hd_photo_wallpaper_collection-300x187-300x187.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/files\/2015\/04\/alabama_football_hd_photo_wallpaper_collection-300x187-300x187.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/2015\/04\/what-alabama-football-taught-me-about-life.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"What Alabama Football Taught Me About Life"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/","name":"How Great Thou Part","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Colleen Orme","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/#\/schema\/person\/8f4436fdd06cdbb61d63a9a788b98e15","name":"Colleen Sheehy Orme","description":"Born and raised in Northern Virginia outside of Washington, D.C., I often call myself a southern New Yorker, much to the dismay of my true New Yorker buddies. Born to my native Brooklyn parents, I have a love of all things city and all things country. I found myself in the town of Scranton, Pennsylvania, which prior to The Office, nary a soul could envision less you found yourself on the hills of Interstate 81. I was held up there while I pursued my B.S. in Business. I have two passions: Business marketing and writing. The two are not so terribly different. Why? Cultivating a brand is in essence the story and the connecting of the dots of a corporate entity. I write features for various magazines and newspapers and I am a national divorce columnist (what can I say things didn\u2019t turn out quite the way I thought they would). I am also a former business columnist. For more than fifteen years, I spent my summers on the Jersey Shore in what I call my \u2018out of state\u2019 clothes once again magnetized to the northerners I find so familiar. If I were to brand my writing, I would say I write of LOVE. That is the core from which I begin most stories. I find myself drawn to dig for the moments in the story that are the passion that drive the message. It may be the love of what originally started a business or an authentically motivated personal profile, or simply the love of a subject being investigated which compels me to write. My forever favorite form of writing is the human interest essay or what I call, \u201cAn Interview With Life.\u201d The average day that is explored and somehow once again instills in us a joie de vivre\u2026..a joy of life. These human moments are the Hope Virus that spreads amongst us and can\u2019t help but propel us into better human beings with a larger sense of the world.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/author\/corme"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/575"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":613,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602\/revisions\/613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}