sports

In an hour, team USA will take the field in a match against Algeria at this year’s World Cup.

In their first two matches they gave up a goal right away, and in their second match they headed into halftime down 2-0 against Slovenia. They adjusted in the second half, tied the match up, and would have gone ahead 3-2 if a ref hadn’t made a bad call on a corner kick.

What adjustments did they make? Not much: the one thing they did was play in attack mode. They were aggressive. It made Slovenia uncomfortable and they took the match over.

Considering a win today almost guarantees they’ll advance to the round of 16, we all would think team USA will come out in attack mode.

We face this same scenario every day in our lives. Are we playing to our strengths as much as possible? When we do amazing things can happen. When we don’t we sit back and wonder what could have been.

Play to your strengths, USA. Attack and put pressure on Algeria. Keep it up and who knows how deep you could make it in this year’s Cup!

This is part of my weekly series on how philosophy (personal beliefs) affect people’s perspective, and how you can this knowledge in life.

After the first round of the baseball playoffs this year, it became clear to me which team I was going to root for: whoever was playing the Yankees.

Bear with me. I’ve been a diehard Red Sox fan since I first began to understand baseball.

Loyalty is an interesting topic. We all have loyalties to certain people and companies for our own reasons. If you’re loyal to someone you’ll go out of your way to help, offer support, and spend time with them. Same with loyalty to a company, as you’ll go out of your way to support them and get others to check them out.Read more

This is the first post in a weekly series on how philosophy (personal beliefs) affect people’s perspective, and how you can this knowledge in life.

What would you rather do, work or play a game?

Some call problems “opportunities dressed up as work.” Who the heck wants to show up to WORK? You know what I mean; that kind of work you dread, the kind where you need a pot of coffee in your system just to move papers to a new area, after you already spent the first thirty-five minutes of the day bantering with your coworkers around the water cooler. That kind of work.

The game wins for me, always.

Games fit life well. Remember, there are different kinds of games. Not all have losers, though someone comes out ahead. The losers don’t have to be people (though sometimes they are). Take the concept of the game and expand it beyond pickup basketball, monopoly and poker. It’s all three of those and so much more.Read more

When people talk about the greatest athletes ever, they’re looking at a body of work from someone who was exceptional at multiple things. Michael Jordan was more than a great scorer. He was a great defender, good passer and rebounder for his position, and led his team to 6 championships. Tim Duncan is a great scorer, great defender, great rebounder, and has led his team to 4 championships.

While each player has done amazing things, they needed everyone around them to contribute to winning championships. These great players are the exception to THE EXCEPTION. Getting into the NBA is hard enough. Playing for over a decade is ever harder. Everyone who plays in the NBA has to be one of the greatest players in the world.

Now that we’re looking at the 400 or so NBA players as a collection of the greatest basketball players in the world, here’s a question: of every player who played at least 10 seasons in the NBA, who had the highest 3-point shooting percentage?

The answer: Steve Kerr.Read more