Nothing is over until it's over.
I got reminded of that today, and it wasn't even my sport.
Look, your red-blooded, hamburger-eating, hot-wing-murdering American football fan doesn't stray. I've bled for New England my whole life. But today I watched Argentina, down two goals to Egypt in a World Cup knockout, the game all but buried, and I felt something.
For my US brethren, let me translate. Soccer does not score. Even this World Cup, the highest-scoring in almost sixty years, still averages under three goals a game. Under three. This one had five. And Argentina spent most of it down two, in a sport where two is a canyon. Lionel Messi had already missed a penalty. They were done. Everybody knew it.
Comeback stories start when a fire ignites in a person and adversity becomes the reason rather than the obstacle. I saw it in Messi's face. One look, and a great team became a team that does not quit. I have seen it before (cough cough Tom Brady cough cough). Three goals with the clock running out. Messi scored one and set up another. And just like that (he said after nearly having a full coronary), they were through to the quarterfinals.
So there I sat, in my head and on my couch, watching a group of men refuse to lose. And it hit me. This is the whole thing. Sport is just the struggle of being alive with a scoreboard attached. It levels us. It makes the ending, win or lose, worth the ache.
I screamed "GOAL" loud enough to frighten my cat. And something in me let go.
I let go of what's supposed to be. I let go of what winning is supposed to look like. For one breath I felt free, and I said thank you.
A few weeks back I told you I'm ending my one-on-one practice for something bigger. I sat with that decision for months, because I love my clients. The aha moments. The flash of light when someone rewrites a lifetime of history and gets back in the fight. Walking away from that is hard.
But I don't break promises. Especially to myself, these days at least. So I built the thing and I told you about it.
Fourteen of us so far, and I'm falling for it. It's early, it's small, and it's already becoming a place where we grow in the same room instead of alone. Is it scary? Every day. Fourteen doesn't pay the bills yet, and the freak-outs are real. Somebody told me recently that a lack of focus is cowardice. That refusing to go all in is the fastest way to get nowhere. I took that to heart.
So I'm doing what Messi and the boys did today. Staying in the game until it breaks my way.
I hope you will join the team.
If you've been waiting for your moment, this is it. JOIN HERE.
See you in there.