Dominated by Sports: Andrew blogs on Spinning Into Butter

American culture is dominated by sports. Yes, Sports. Not Theatre. This may come as a shock to some. I will add an ellipse here to allow you to reacquaint yourself with your senses.

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Are you back with me? Good. I helped myself to some skittles as you convalesced. So now I’m jacked up on sugar and GOOD INTENTIONS!

As I was saying, Sports dominate American culture Football, Baseball and Basketball being the three most popular sports (with Soccer hot and heavy on their heels) and one of the tenants of sports is the idea that one team will overcome another team via teamwork. These are sports that pride themselves on teamwork. Games that say “It doesn’t matter if you have LeBron! We will play the game the right way and our five average players will overcome your LeBron!” Now what’s the “right” way? It’s putting the team before yourself you make sacrifices for your own needs in order to serve the team, you know like in the movie Hoosiers. You put others in front of yourself and in the long run you’ll win the day, right? Go Team!

That being said…how many of you have heard of Scooter Gennett?  Matt Paradis? Clint Capela? None of them?!

Well, my feelings are hurt for them on their behalf.

These players all make millions of dollars a year and are crucial members of their pro teams and are one of the reasons their particular team wins or loses on any given night. But unless you play fantasy sports or they are on “your” team. You’ve never heard of them. Yet they are in the top .1% in the world at what they do and yet… still apparently not worthy of your time.

Who have you heard of? LeBron James, Derek Jeter and Tom Brady. You know who those people who are the top .000001% best in the world at what they do. They are celebrated. They are given tens of millions of dollars a year to hawk productions, in addition to the tens of millions of dollars a year they receive to play their particular sport that they dominate.

Yet none of them…without the right “Scooter Gennett” on their team will have ANY hope of winning a championship or even a game.

We are trained to focus on and strive to be the best or be elite or be the “One”. The Michael Jordan, the Joe Montana, the Willie Mays. To shoot for anything less than the best is unacceptable because how will you get the fame and the money and the renown if you aren’t the best?

We are a culture that says the best are better.

So do whatever you can to make it to the top. Failure is only acceptable if it in some way pushes you to the top on the mountain in the long run. If failure teaches you how to use others as a launching board to your own success and only then is it okay. You get that money, not that other loser who couldn’t quite make it because you are better because you deserve it, not them.