Musings at Altitude

After a quick in and out in Vegas on Wednesday night and Thursday, I wanted to get to bed early on Thursday night when I got to Houston.  But I couldn’t!  I turned on ESPN and began watching one of the most fascinating and exciting games I’ve ever watched on TV.  If you’re a sports nut, you too probably watched Syracuse versus UCONN in the Big East Tournament.  If you’re not a fanatic, this game may have even kept you glued to the TV and then caused you too to be semi-zombie like today!

For those very few people in this country that may not know what happened, Syracuse just about won the game in regulation with a last second 3 pointer that ended up being disallowed after video review showed it left the tips of the fingers only milliseconds after time ran out.  It then took 6 overtime periods for Syracuse to finally wrap up a victory.  In each of the first 5 overtimes, either team could have won but neither team made that crucial shot at that critical time.  In that 6th overtime though, Syracuse pulled away and then won by a comfortable margin.

As I think back to that critical shot at the end of regulation that just didn’t get off on time, I can’t help but think that many teams and many people would have been so dejected when the referee waved off that shot that they would have moped into that overtime and lost by a wide margin.  But Syracuse didn’t do that.  They came out fighting as if they expected to win, and they eventually did beat the number 4 team in the country.

In business today, companies get rejected at the last second and then they too have a choice to make – either mope and let that dejection adversely affect your operations for days, weeks or months to come; or come out fighting in any potential overtime period that you have and focus on overcoming whatever setback occurred and as a team achieve victory.  Way too many folks are moping today.  Now is the time for focused action after any adversity.

PS.  After finally winning in the 6th overtime during the wee hours of this morning, Syracuse went back on the court this evening to play another incredibly strong team in West Virginia.  That game too then went into overtime (only 1 this time though), and once again Syracuse prevailed.  Winning is most certainly an attitude, and Syracuse, on two consecutive nights, has shown us what it means to be winner.