Wednesday, February 29, 2012

We should all be a bit more like Eli Manning



Okay, I'll confess, I am a tried and true Giants fan.  So I do pay attention to articles and blogs about my favorite team.  I noticed something recently, about Eli Manning's "athletic amnesia".  That really caught my eye.  The article, by Doug Farrar, talks about Eli Manning's athletic amnesia as the " ability to learn from one's mistakes at the same time you avoid the mental and emotional backlash that can happen if you take those mistakes to heart too often".  Oh yeah, I could use a bit of that; learning from mistakes, but not beating myself up.

Believe it or not, in life, as in football (yes, I just said that), it seems even more important for key leaders, or players, to have this "amnesia".  If you are central to the workings of your business, team, family etc you will be involved in and touched by more mistakes, and will need your "amnesia" to learn from them and move on. AND your "team" is affected by your demeanor, so getting down, or beating yourself up over a mistake will have a ripple effect.  Whereas, shaking it off and moving on will be noticed and emulated by your team.

This year's superbowl was contentious in my household, as my daughter is an avid, over the top, Patriots fan.  So there we were, our favorite teams pitted against each other.  In case you didn't watch, the Giants pulled off yet another come back from behind under the leadership of a calm, collected Eli Manning.  Gambling that Emma won't read this, I'll venture to say that a certain Patriots quarterback could use a bit more athletic amnesia.

ap photo/Greg Trott




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