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Winning a Pee-Wee football game does strange things to an old coach.

It makes the sun look brighter. The sky look bluer. A long walk to work a little shorter.

My cute dog looks cuter. My friendly barista even friendlier. Strangers on Yonge Street not so strange.

Even being in the office on a Sunday feels like a sanctuary not a cemetery.

Oh did I mention we won last night?

My Greater Toronto Jets, 18-0, over the Niagara Storm. It’s been a while, maybe nine games counting our Spring league, since we posted a W. Let alone a shutout. Forgive me for being ebullient.

But this isn’t a story about winning.

First of all it’s a story about how I need to follow my own preachings. One thing I am constantly on my players about is to worry about themselves. Don’t worry about the refs calls. Or opponents cheating. Or even your own teammates mistakes. Worry about you. You are all you can control. Do your job. Lead by example. Motivate by your actions. Inspire by your words.

Wow, what wisdom from MH3. Start engraving my surname on the Nobel Prize for youth coaching right now. Except it’s a crock. I too often get distracted by the refs calls, good and bad. Or the other team’s coaches. Or even my own player’s parents. (Confession, I yelled, yes yelled, at my own team’s parents last night. In unison they had shouted instructions to one of my players which directly contradicted what I wanted. But still…I’m an idiot!).

In fact for this game my distraction, and hypocrisy, started weeks ago when the schedule came out and I saw an 8:30PM road game scheduled in St.Catharines. I wondered how any adult could think that getting 11 & 12 year olds home after midnight from a football game was sound parenting.

I got riled up. Complained to our Program Director. Fired emails to the league convenor. Groused about it to parents. Countless joules of energy were misspent when I could have been focused on preparing my team.

I knew how wrong I was when the players arrived. Bounding out of the night sky across the well lit field, the prospect of “Saturday Night Football” had them energized and motivated to a level my best oration would never have. When my starting tailback announced he was ready to rush for a THOUSAND yards, I knew there was some Saturday Night Fever in the air.

So the first moral from this story is to eat my own cooking.

The second came right after the game. It went down like this. Just as I was about to deliver my stirring post-game speech, one of my players interrupted and me and said “Coach, that was a good play you did at the end.”

Even as I write this I get goosebumps, a lump in my throat, and am honestly typing through teary eyes.

My emotion is so strong because his comment wasn’t about some trickery laced touchdown pass I called or a menacing blitz we implemented. No, he was referring to the fact that with 2:54 in the game, and a safe 18-0 lead in my pocket, we kneed out the rest of the fourth quarter. Four times I had my QB let the play clock wind down and take his time running a dead ball play. With the help of the refs, who realized our plan, the game metered itself to a victorious conclusion.

But that’s not the plot twist. The key to this story is that when we first got the ball we were on our opponent’s 1 yard line. First and goal. Easy touchdown coming up! First time in twenty years of coaching I have taken the ball over at the opponent’s 1 at any time during a game.

I toyed with punching it in. There were several deserving players on my team who would be thrilled with a TD. Even a gimme. I could have let one of our new players run it. Or allowed one smallish lad who aspires to be a QB, but hasn’t called a snap yet, maybe throw for it and thrill his Dad who drove so far to see him play. My son would probably bring me breakfast in bed if I let him crash his way in. Anyone of our linemen would have loved the glory.

But at the risk of sounding like I am still campaigning for that Nobel, I didn’t want to rub salt in the flesh of my wounded opponent. I’ve had it done to my teams and it sucks. This past spring we were down by 40 to a team and they ran a flea flicker on us for a late score. Who benefited from that?

So my only intention was to not to be rude. Instead I got a gift that I will last much longer than one more TD. I got those words from my young player…”Coach, that was a good play you did at the end.”

Even if it was only that one player who learned something about sportsmanship last night, I am now an even happier old coach. The memory of him looking me in the eye, from so deep inside his own developing young mind, will stick with me forever.

The goosebumps are back. My throat is even a little tighter now. I need to end this story. Not because I have now exposed my emotional fragility. It’s because those words helped me catch Saturday Night Fever, and I don’t want to lose it, or them.

Trust me, I won’t. Ever.

“Coach, that was a good play you did at the end.”

For seven months all of you knew the truth.

The Atlantic City prosecutor knew.
The NFL Commissioner knew.
The Ravens coach knew.
So did the Ravens owner.
Ray Rice’s agent knew.
The NFLPA knew.

You should all resign. Sell your team. Quit your jobs. Admit it.

That’s the verdict Rice’s wife deserves.

Summer is over and done with. Not to throw an ice bucket on your mood, but it’s true. As I write this, the clock turns to Autumn.

Personally I couldn’t be happier. Fall is my favourite time of the year. You don’t need three guesses as to why. But here’s three answers:

Football. Football. Football.

I just walked off the field from coaching my son’s Pee-Wee team. Week I of the Fall season and the Hamilton Jr. Tiger-Cats squashed us 26-0. But my kids played great.

We dressed 19 players, to our opponents 36, and five of ours had never played before. So more accurately it was fourteen against the world. That’s how they played. Like a spirited band of soldiers, outnumbered on all sides, endangered but unwillingly to wave the white flag.

Exhausted as my charges were their tackling was surprisingly good. Even to the end. Not surprisingly their blocking was quite poor. I find blocking is the hardest thing to coach. It requires selflessness, commitment, and determination. Yet for young players they don’t see the reward. It’s a rare day when you hear kids chirping about a great block they made. You always hear about the runs, catches, kicks, passes, and most definitely the bone crunching tackles. But unless a block went Aunt Jemima for a massive pancake, they go truly unsung.

I’ve got to find a way to make blocking a priority. I need a method to convince my players of its value. It’s the most fundamental key to any offence. No system in the world works if players don’t block. Even the referees from today’s game commented that if we threw a couple of blocks we would have scored a couple of times. It’s that obvious to all at field level, except my would be path clearers.

The unsung, the behind the scenes, the backbone are the key to any team, business, army, government, or community group. Motivating 11 year olds that these roles matter is no easy task. Share with me your thoughts. Your ideas. Your techniques.

Fall Ball is erupting across North America this week. Labour Day classics. NFL, CIS, NCAA kickoffs. First week of practice for my high school team. One thing the winners will have in common. They block, block, block, block.

Fundamentals are never over-rated.

It’s an odd week here at TrojanOne.

We’ve had a thrillingly busy summer, with what has seemed like an endless season of live activations potently mixed with 2015 program planning. The hint of a brief calm pervades the office, but only a hint as there are RFPs to be finished and major Labour Day weekend events to be executed. This fleeting moment before the back to school storm is magnified by the absence of most of our summer interns, who have already decamped for their next wave of education.

Our intern program is a source of pride for me.

In this day and age the concept of interns is being globally and rightfully vilified for corporate abuse. The word itself has become a metaphor for overworked, bullied, ignored, abused, coffee-fetching, filer, underpaid, poorly trained, a managerial nuisance, and free labour. I think several years ago our program may have been guilty of some of those sins. In fact I can remember when full-time staff complained that having an intern was too much “work.”

No longer!

Today we have a sophisticated recruitment, selection, on-boarding, training, and supervisory system for our interns. We fully expect them to contribute to our success and they fully expect we will contribute to their success. It works.

But I would be foolish to suggest it’s all about our system. What the system has really done is allowed us to attract the best and the brightest. But these young people have talent beyond their years and we are merely fortunate they chose us. Today was a celebration of our summer intern crops. Announcements were made surrounding our hiring on of a few young talents. As excited as they are to be earning full-time pay, I am equally thrilled about the value our internships provide us in finding amazing entry level talent. To cap our celebration we presented the Matt Ludlow Spirit Award. It’s a special internal recognition to the intern who best represents Matt’s spirit, one of our former interns who died much too youngly three years ago.

This term’s winner represents all that is amazing about internships done well. In fact, he is so great I am not sharing his name because I want to keep him. Problem is he is only 19 and so I have to wait a few years.

Yes that was no typo. This kid is nineteen years of age. But he is already a legend in our shop.

I first took notice when he presented some background work he had done for an RFP. Not only was the work thought-provoking, insightful, and comprehensive; but staff members in attendance were in awe with his presentation.

In the span of a few months this youngster, who I don’t think shaved once during his tenure, went to client meetings, wrote pitches, led concept brainstorms, dealt with senior purchasing people at our clients, and never once lost his smile. To say that I trusted him like a five year vet was an understatement.

Maybe I’m biased because he gave me such a nice “Thank-You” card before he departed, but my experience with this youngster dispels all the myths that young people today don’t get it. This kid got it, as did our entire crop of interns this summer.

Our team feels fortunate to have had them. Hope they feel the same about us.

My kids spent last week at their grandparent’s cottage.

What do kids do when their parents aren’t around?

Do they stay up late and lie about their regular bed times? Do they justify sugar as brain food? Do they watch every Entourage episode ever produced? (Apparently my 11&13 year old did just that…requiring some parental commentary that Entourage isn’t “real life”, to our young boys dreaming of celebrity life in Hollywood!)

Do they and their temporary guardians subscribe to that old joke? (Q. Why do kids and grandparents get along so well? A. They have a common enemy!)

Hopefully they spend their days swimming, fishing, and skipping stones, followed by an evening of campfires, singing, and making smores, in my Rockwellian spin anyway.

My guys did almost all of that and more. The more consisted of staying up and watching the news with their grandmother. Not just watching, but discussing current events, and seeing the world’s issues through the wisdom of her eyes. They went fishing, not just with their beloved grandfather, but together, forging a brotherly bond over the one that got away. For those pisces who didn’t slip their grasp, they were subject to a grilling flavoured by a secret recipe from my older son’s summer camp. When they weren’t on the water, they helped spread a half-ton of gravel on the lake road, meeting my parent’s neighbours who had joined in for a Saturday cottage association work party. They also spent magical hours in Papa’s workshop handcrafting a beautiful end table for our patio.

I am grateful, fortunate, and potentially even underestimating the power of these life lessons my children are receiving. The most powerful form of learning is not from what you are told, but what you are shown. Great teachers, leaders, mentors demonstrate their wisdom through actions.

The lesson for all of us is to seek out the pairing of mentors with youngsters in our workplace, our teams, our associations, our families, and even within our circle of friends.

 

 

I have some bad news for you. But please, don’t shoot the messenger.

In fact, you should hug, cuddle, or even smooch the bearer of bad news. Because sometimes there is nothing better than knowing.

Ever had something go wrong in a hotel room and had the service desk tell you they would be ‘right up’ to fix it…only to arrive an hour later? You’re pretty angry right? It happened this weekend to friends of mine at a resort we were all gathered at. In fact it happened more than once. Unfortunately for this vacation destination they had a slew of issues. A power failure. A water outage. Inadvertent fire alarms. You name it.

I felt sorry for the staff. They were scrambling. Tired, wet, harassed. It was a long night for them. But management wasn’t making things better. Not only was their service response quite poor, when you did connect they made it worse by over promising.

Even before the pounding weather descended, management was demonstrating their over-promise, under-deliver mannerisms. Personally I wanted a cab to take us to a golf course for lunch. We planned to walk back from lunch (which we did), but it was a two hour hike, so we weren’t up to a four hour round trip on foot! After calling the front desk five times to no avail, we showed up in person to book a cab and told to wait ten minutes. Some thirty minutes later we were on our way, but understandably incensed. Same thing happened to a friend when the alarm in his room went off. ‘Right up’ turned into a forty-five minute delay.

This place was not cheap. But it seems management there could use a few client service reminders that every young person in our business probably knows by heart. I am not suggesting I was great at this, at a young career age, but I had enough mentors who taught me:

1. The best time to share bad news is right away. It doesn’t matter how late it is, where you are, or how bad it is. Bad news travels fast, so win the race and deliver it right away!
2. There is no spin cycle required. Facts are facts. Sometimes I listen to myself rambling on when trying to dimensionalize the impact of an issue with a client. “Shush” says my oft-ignored inner voice. Just serve up the facts and save the polish for my shoes.
3. If it’s by email, put the issue in the headline.
4. Unless it’s past bedtime, use the phone.
5. Say sorry. Once.
6. Definitely come with an action plan to solve, but go one major level further and recommend a communication roll-out. Offer to deal directly or in tandem with key stakeholders of your client. In essence, take one for the team. Offer up to jump on the grenade, potentially taking some blame that shouldn’t be shouldered by you.
7. Stop saying sorry and show your remorse through your actions, efforts, and emotions.
8. Follow-up as soon as you can, 1:1 with everybody involved, and ask your boss to do the same. If you have dealt with the issue and solved it by the time your boss calls, she will be doing quality assurance calls with a now happy client.

Ironically this resort stands on the grounds of a campy family/convention lodge that I used to work at, during my university summers. My first week there I inadvertently tossed an entire carafe of red wine down the back of a very nice white dress shirt. Mr. Button (the victim) probably hasn’t forgotten me. I can tell you I haven’t forgotten the situation.

The bad news traveled too fast in that case! But at least he knew…

 

I’ve come to a simple conclusion about email. I should never send emails when I first wake up. I should always wait until I have:

• Worked out, or…
• Eaten, or…
• Showered, or…
• Had my cappuccino, or…
• Had my smoothie, or…
• Expended yesterday’s meals, or…
• Read my morning papers, or…
• Driven to work, or…
• Walked to work, or…
• Run to work, or…
• Biked to work, or…
• All of the above!

The thing is I have realized that while I don’t believe I am a grump in the morning, I must be a grump in the morning. Because some of the emails I write are downright stupid, mean, inappropriate, uncalled for, cowardly, unfair, and totally misguided. A friend of mine says “you read email in the mood you are in.” He’s right. I told him I was going to steal his quote and I just did.

The good news is I actually told him that today, so he can’t accuse me of stealing. Because if he did I may write him a nasty email. Tomorrow. First thing in the morning.

It’s not that I believe I am grumpy in the mornings as much as I am wound up. I actually love the mornings. This morning (July 21st, 2014) was blindingly amazing. The weather was perfect. I snared the primo parking spot at Starbucks. My gym wasn’t too crowded. Even the old guy who interrupted my workout (there is one every day at my gym), had something interesting to say.

But I am wound up.

I think I am like a firecracker. The fuse is lit when my eyes open. The smell of the flame activates my senses. The hiss of the chord rings in my ears. For some bizarre reason I don’t know if the ignition point will be trigger celebratory fireworks or client damaging dynamite? Most days turn into a celebration of sorts. But somehow my paranoia has me looking over my shoulder at the business bogeyman like he’s going to get me.

After all these years.

So if you’re reading this at the break of dawn, hopefully I haven’t emailed you. If I have, feel free to send me back a mood rating. Or if you are reading this in the eve and want to play havoc with my attempt at self-discipline, send me a midnight rant that will subliminally haunt my iPhone all night. Then see how I fare.

It’s time to take more positive control of my mornings. That can’t include a bowl of email to start!

It’s not every day you get to share the stage with Dana White. But that’s where I found myself last Wednesday, when the UFC President headlined the opening day of CSFX 2014. Imagine my thrill of conducting a live Q&A, in front of my peers, with the brains behind the fastest growing sports organization in history!

So while Mr. White may have thought I was innocently conducting a conversation to entertain our CSFX delegates, I was secretly attempting to pick up some timeless sports marketing lessons.

Trust me, Dana, you fulfilled my wildest dreams. Over the course of forty-five minutes you gave me and the 300 CSFX delegates a lifetime of invaluable lessons. Hope you don’t mind my sharing them with my blog followers. They were so good I would feel selfish keeping them all to myself.

With a nod to the genius of the octagon, here are eight things I learned from my conversation with Dana White at CSFX 2014:

1. Fighting was the world’s first sport. Before any sticks or balls were invented, two guys had a fight, and a third guy ran over to watch, claims White. Fighting is in our DNA and he attributes this as one of the reasons for UFC’s undeniable success. I never thought of fighting as the world’s oldest sport, but he does have a point. Wonder if those first two pugilists were on skates?
2. Chuck Lidell is the world’s toughest accountant.  Who knew the Mohawk sporting former UFC great was a Cal Poly accounting grad? I didn’t, but Dana White loves his fighters because they are multi-talented and, unlike boxers, don’t all have the same downtrodden wrong side of the tracks story. New twist on an old lesson… judging a book by its cover is not only unfair, it can be dangerous!
3. Ronda Rousey is a game changer for women. There is no question Dana White knows how to hype his product. But when it comes to Rousey, his belief in her talents eclipses mere promotion. He is convinced that not only will she transform the image of women in sport, but that Rousey will become a symbol of empowerment for women worldwide. He may be right. She’s a dominating superstar in one of the few sports where women “play” by the same rules as men. But her skill, personality, and determination are Tiger/LeBron/Manziel once-in-a generation like. The lesson? Sometimes it’s okay to believe the hype.
4. Embrace your challenges. When White and his partners bought UFC, they faced stiff political resistance and regulation. UFC couldn’t even get on pay-per-view, when porn was widely available on PPV. Instead of fighting a losing battle, White set out to make the sport safer and embraced regulation. Makes me realize the genius in turning your biggest challenge into your biggest asset.
5. Fan loyalty is key to building a sports brand. Access to athletes has been a UFC hallmark and no matter how successful they become, that won’t change, said White. He was incredulous about stars in other arenas who won’t take five minutes to acknowledge the fans that make them rich. It’s called the customer is king and we all need to be reminded of it.
6. Yes, Dana White loves Canada. White stated that their original business plan focused on the USA, Mexico, and England…all great fight markets. But in his own words he never saw Canada coming and has been thrilled by their success here. Despite the business decision to move the upcoming Jones-Gustafsson fight to Las Vegas (from Toronto), he’s bullish on the GWN.
7. There is no finish line. Many people have a belief that when they reach a certain title in their career or revenue in their business, that somehow things will get “easier.” Just the opposite, said Dana. The more successful you become, the more there is to do. His words remind me that it’s worth remembering the journey is the reward.
8. Dana White walks the talk. At the conclusion of our chat, White agreed to pose for some photos with our delegates. After nearly thirty-five minutes of smiles and selfies he was still greeting every delegate like his new best friend. I was amazed at his utmost generosity with his time.

Dana, thank you for this special moment in my career.

 

Spent last night packing for my hosting duties at the 2014 Canadian Sponsorship Forum in Ottawa. I hate packing; it’s like moving. Which I also hate.

Packed two different shirts for the “Night at the Museum” dinner event. Partly because I can’t decide if I am wearing a sports coat or not.

Packed two different pairs of pants for The Killers concert at RBC Bluesfest. Again, not sure if I should wear my beige denim or my khaki baseball pants from Intuition.

Was able to decide on which toothbrush to bring. My souvenir Pittsburgh Steelers model is my road trip go-to.

Packed six (!) pairs of shoes and then realized this morning that my new Nike runners were left behind. Guess I am headed home before tripping to the airport.

Packed a new liver. If you have been to Forum you’ll know why.

Looked around for replacement vocal chords. Couldn’t find any. Guess I will have to use sign language to host, come Friday.

Packed a rain coat but really didn’t want to. Going to ask my Pops to do his rain dance and scare away the clouds.

Didn’t have any toothpaste for that Steelers brush. Hoping the hotel store is open when I land. Check that, it won’t be. I should head out at lunch today to do a RX run.

Packed Sports Illustrated. It will soon take a privileged spot in my hotel bathroom. Yes that’s TMI… but where else do guys read SI?

Didn’t pack a map of Ottawa – I have my friends from Ottawa Tourism who will keep me pointed due north.

If you thought seven pairs of shoes were too much, you should see how many pairs of socks I’m on-boarding!

Almost packed my own speaker gift. That didn’t make any sense since I would be bringing it back to Toronto after presenting it to myself, which makes even less sense! But I want to show it off because it’s so amazing. Thanks Reward Connections.

Still thinking about my clothes and wish I got some advice from my ‘nephew’ Dave St. Helene. DSH & the 365 Productions crew are packing all of our amazing AV staging for the conference.

Left a little room to throw in any last minute purchases from ROOM 2046. Never been? It’s my emergency fashion depot when I’m not feeling prepared. It’s only a four-minute walk from my office!

See you in Bytown!

Spent my weekend walking the dog, washing the car, watching World Cup, and writing my final speaking notes for hosting CSFX next week in Ottawa.

Words I’m never at a loss for. But the right words take more work than some wanna-be witty weekend alliterations.

How many times have you written a presentation and halfway through giving it…..wished you had gone a different direction?

Carefully orchestrated slides suddenly seeming like they were sequenced by a teenager working the sub counter at your local food court.

Builds and special effects rendered useless by the realization that they are distracting your focus substantially more than they are engaging your audience.

Witty titles generating zero laughter and punch line copy eliciting genuine disinterest.

Thousands of dollars spent on Toastmasters, days spent studying Dale Carnegie, and hours obsessing over Tony Robbins videos suddenly wasted by the enormity of your failure.

There is no lonelier place in the world than the stage hosting the failing speech giver.

As comfortable as I am in this arena, I can tell you I’ve had my failures. My first, and only, IEG workshop I ran. Horrible! They’ve never asked me back. A dine-and-learn I did many years ago for a client in the trade show business? Way too long and far too theoretical. The worst? A conference hosted for the home birthing industry, who thought they had huge sponsorship potential. That’s when I realized it was time to stop saying yes to every invitation and perhaps read past the first sentence of the conference description, which I’m not sure we even got to in this case.

Thankfully, hopefully, the good presentations I’ve delivered significantly outnumber the bad. If they do, it’s because of a simple secret I learned along the journey of being presentation polygamist. It’s one I’m happy to share with you today. It’s one I hope I practice sufficiently next week at CSFX. If you’re there, you can let me know.

The secret is that a great speech isn’t about the speaker or their expertise or their learning or their research or their learnings.

A great speech is about you.

A great speech tells your story.

A great speech is the town crier of the audience.

No one wants to sit in a room and hear about someone else. They want to hear about themselves.

You may be quick to comment that this is an obvious piece of advice. Of course it is. Like many great words of wisdom, they are obvious. So are many great strategies whether they are for business, sport, or war.

But the hard part isn’t the strategy. The hard part is executing on the strategy. First with determining the creative theme, then determining relevant content, and finally packaging including the story arc. That’s the hard part.

But I also find it the easy part. Next week at CSFX I’m going to do a Top Ten moments from our ten years of staging the Canadian Sponsorship Forum, now known as CSFX. Since it wouldn’t sound professional of me to talk about my cage-dancing episode in Quebec City in 2009, none of these moments will be about me. All of them will be about you.

(Editor’s Note: there will be two that include reference to the author….who by the way is also the editor….therefore almost nullifying any genuine credibility nearly created by this entire “it’s about you” blog.)

Generating ten great Canadian Sponsorship Forum moments will only be challenging when it comes to whittling down the options. That’s what I did this weekend.

Thinking back over the past ten years had my juices flowing. A month ago I was panicked for ideas. Had some input from my Advisory Committee and then got stalled again. But now feel pretty good about it because I spent hours flipping through delegate lists of days gone by and remembering what experiences you had at Forum. That’s not to say I’ve nailed it shut. So if you have any input, let me know. There is still time for a new slide or two.

My Top Ten list is a tiny part of this year’s conference. If you’re coming to CSFX 2014 in Ottawa, partnered with the RBC Ottawa Bluesfest, I hope you are Ready to Rock. Because we’ve got so much going on: the return of our Ball Hockey Tournament; Dana White; live music every time you turn around; amazing delegates; Chris Overholt of the COC; a private stage-right party area for the Killers concert; surprise guests from TSN; the CMO of L’Oréal Canada; Jeff Craib of the Feldman Agency; the global CEO of iON America LLC; the second Most Valuable Property Study; Bell Media Quebec, RBC, MBNA, Kruger Products, Molson Coors Canada, SAP, PwC Canada, TELUS, The Coca-Cola Company, StubHub; Vanessa Thomas of Songza; an amazing evening of food, culture, and music with Ottawa Tourism; and probably the BEST Don Mayo presentation ever given by someone named Don Mayo. Right Don Mayo?

If you’re coming, hopefully you can already see yourself there! Let’s get Ready to Rock!