Tag: adaptation

Into The Fire

On the evening of April 23, 2005, a young man in a suit and tie strode across the stage at a convention hall in New York City.

The man stood next to the commissioner of the National Football League and posed for the cameras. His dream of becoming a pro football player had just become reality.

For many, this might seem like a triumphant moment. But throughout the experience, the man in the suit did not smile.

He had an axe to grind.

The man on the stage that night was named Aaron Rodgers. A standout college quarterback for the California Golden Bears, he had gone into the NFL Draft with high hopes.

Rodgers expected the San Francisco 49ers to call his name with the draft’s first overall pick. He would then move across the San Francisco Bay from his college campus, sign a lucrative contract, and take the reins as the storied franchise’s next quarterback.

But the 49ers chose another quarterback instead. And the teams that followed San Francisco selected players who starred at different positions than quarterback. As the hours passed, Rodgers appeared visibly despondent.

Finally, a team called Rodgers’ name, with the draft’s 24th pick. But it was probably the last one he wanted to hear from.

The Green Bay Packers were everything the San Francisco 49ers weren’t. Based in the NFL’s smallest host city, they played outdoors in the frigid Wisconsin winters. They had won only one championship in the past 35 seasons. And they had a future Hall of Famer — Brett Favre — as their quarterback.

Rodgers would need to bide his time to get his opportunity. And so, he did.

Rodgers played sparingly in 2005, 2006, and 2007. But then, the Packers and Favre parted ways. And suddenly Rodgers was at the helm of Green Bay’s offense.

The Packers had a lackluster season in 2008. But Rodgers showed poise, preparedness, and promise.

He built on that foundation in 2009, leading Green Bay back to the playoffs. Then, in 2010, Rodgers led the Packers to a Super Bowl championship.

Over the subsequent 12 seasons, Aaron Rodgers won four league Most Valuable Player awards. And he led the Packers to the playoffs nine times.

Rodgers might not have had the evening he wanted at the 2005 NFL Draft. But things have turned out well anyway.

Aaron Rodgers’ story is well known, in part because it’s so uncommon.

Franchise quarterbacks just don’t tend to have the journey that Rodgers did. They don’t fall to the 24th pick. They don’t wait as the heir apparent for three full seasons.

Instead, they follow the path of Peyton Manning.

Manning, a college standout for the Tennessee Volunteers, was the first overall pick in the 1998 NFL Draft. Named the starter from Day One, Manning struggled through his debut season with the Indianapolis Colts. But he was downright dominant thereafter.

Manning led the Colts to the playoffs in his second season. The team then returned to the postseason in 10 of the 11 seasons that followed, winning one Super Bowl championship, and losing in another Super Bowl. Along the way, Manning won 5 MVP awards and established himself as one of football’s premier quarterbacks.

NFL teams have tried to follow the Manning blueprint for years. They’ve chosen talented college quarterbacks at the top of the draft and thrown them into the fire. If these young signal callers don’t make it through the inferno with aplomb, team executives will cut their losses and move on.

This whole process is counterintuitive.

You see, the National Football League is perhaps the least appropriate place for snap evaluations. For any new entrant to its ranks faces a steep learning curve.

The dimensions of NFL fields might be no different than those found at the amateur levels. But the players are faster. The play diagrams are more complex. And the competition for each roster spot is fierce.

A player with top-notch skills and a championship pedigree at the amateur levels can still find himself humbled in the pros. It’s that tough to level up.

The burden is that much tougher for rookie quarterbacks. They must orchestrate an entire offensive attack against the best defenses they’ve ever faced. And if these quarterbacks were high draft picks, they likely took over a struggling team — one without a culture of making key plays. (The teams who lost the most games in the prior season pick first in the draft.)

Add it all up, and it’s ridiculous to expect mastery from the start. Yet increasingly, that’s what teams demand.

Consider the case of Tua Tagovailoa.

The quarterback entered the pros with a sterling resume. He came off the bench to lead the Alabama Crimson Tide to a championship in his first collegiate season, then dominated college football over his next two. Considered a sure thing, Tagovailoa was selected by the Miami Dolphins with the 5th pick of the 2020 NFL Draft.

Tagovailoa started his rookie year on the sidelines, but he quickly found his way into the starting lineup. He proceeded to win 6 of his 9 starts and lead the moribund Dolphins to the brink of the playoffs. He followed that up with another solid campaign — and winning record — in his second year.

Tagovailoa played about as well as could be expected. He mastered the NFL learning curve, winning games consistently. He got a previously putrid Miami offense across the goal line frequently. He didn’t turn the ball over often.

And yet, many pundits have called Tagovailoa a bust. Even with all his accomplishments, Tagovailoa hadn’t proved his worth as an NFL franchise quarterback.

This is the nonsense that Aaron Rodgers avoided when he slid to the 24th pick in the draft. He wasn’t saddled with an underperforming team and asked to work instant magic.

Rodgers got to learn the ropes out of the spotlight. And once he finally got his shot, it was with a team poised to succeed.

The fire still burned hot. But Rodgers was iron clad.

I’ve never played a down of professional football.

And yet, I’ve been both Aaron Rodgers and Tua Tagovailoa.

My Tua Tagovailoa turn came first. Two months and a day after my college graduation, I took the helm of an evening newscast in Midland, Texas.

I’d never produced a newscast on a local TV station before. But my resume looked good enough — dotted with some solid internships and time volunteering for my university’s TV channel.

So, I was offered a producer job. And once I accepted, I was thrown into the fire.

The results were solid, but not spectacular. I made a few early mistakes and was generally slow in reacting to breaking news. Even after fixing those early hiccups, I was never able to get my newscasts above third place in the local rankings.

I ultimately left the news business long before it would have left me. But, in hindsight, I was never Peyton Manning material in that industry.

My second career has ultimately proven more successful. But its arc has been Aaron Rodgers-esque.

You see, when I left the news media, I figured I’d land a role in corporate communications. My skills, pedigree, and track record seemingly lined up well for those positions.

But hiring managers didn’t see it that way. And so, I spent three months unemployed – growing more despondent by the day.

Ultimately, I did land a marketing role. But I knew next to nothing about the discipline.

So, I spent several years learning the ropes. I leaned on supervisors and tenured colleagues to check my work and highlight my blind spots.

This process started with that first marketing job. But it continued as I moved to a new role with a different company. It even carried through when I enrolled in business school.

Eventually, I felt confident enough to take command. I became more strategic and innovative. I took on initiatives I once considered too risky. And I racked up a raft of career accomplishments.

That voice of doubt still lives rent-free in my head. But my track record tells a far different story.

I am an accomplished marketer. But I don’t think I’d have become one if I were thrown into the fire and left to burn.

The journey I’ve taken is mine alone. But my story is hardly unique.

Most of us will find the Aaron Rodgers path more fruitful than the Tua Tagovailoa one.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise.

For we rarely enter a new venture as a finished product. There remains much for us to learn. There are still many ways in which we can grow.

Our participation can be viewed as a long-term investment — for employers and for ourselves. It’s something that will inevitably start slow and uncertain. But it’s also something that provides a valuable return over time.

Many professional roles are set up in this way. But many others are not.

So, whether we’re an NFL quarterback or a TV news producer, we find ourselves up against it. We’re expected to show our full value from the moment we walk in the door. And all too often, we disappoint.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Indeed, it shouldn’t be.

It’s abundantly clear that the into the fire method does more harm than good. It inhibits growth. It makes late bloomers irrelevant. And it causes employers to short-circuit non-immediate returns by pulling the plug too early.

No one wins. So, let’s abandon this losing game.

Let’s do away with the snap judgments. Let’s give each other some grace. And let’s see what good a little more runway gives us.

Life’s as much about opportunities as it is about moments. Let’s not set them ablaze.

Turkey and Tradition

It’s like clockwork.

Every year, as mid-November approaches, the temperatures drop, the leaves fall, and we focus our gaze on a particular type of bird.

I’m talking, of course, about the turkey.

Turkeys exist all over this land — on farms and in the wild. And most of the year, we hardly notice their presence. But as Thanksgiving approaches, we can’t stop thinking about them.

Just about every ad we see this time of year features some sort of turkey pun. The supermarkets are overloaded with packaged birds, ready to cook. And social media is rife with advice for brining, frying, or otherwise roasting a turkey for the holiday.

Few other animals get this treatment — a day where they’re on the menu nationwide and garner all our attention. Turkeys are unique in that way.

But should they be?

As a kid, I was always enamored by Thanksgiving. It was a holiday my family would spend with relatives who we didn’t see often. And it was bereft of most of the burden of customs or religious connotations that Halloween and Christmas had, respectively.

That said, there were some notable staples of the holiday. Most notably, the menu.

There was little freelancing when it came to Thanksgiving fare. Households were expected to serve mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, gravy, dressing, and turkey.

I have no idea where this menu came from. Few, if any, of those dishes were in existence at the time of the first Thanksgiving feast in the 1600s.

Yet, these delicacies had reached critical mass. They seemed to be the only items people would talk about. And they were the only dishes Americans were expected to serve.

I was a picky eater growing up, so most of the vegetables, sides, and sauces didn’t appeal to me. That left turkey as my go-to option.

I would wake up on Thanksgiving morning thinking about the turkey feast to come. By the time the evening arrived, I was practically salivating at the sight of the carved bird on the table.

Still, as I sank my teeth into that first bite, I would inevitably find myself disappointed.

The bird itself wasn’t the problem. It was always prepared to perfection.

No, the problem was that I just did not much like turkey. It was too gamey for my liking, and the tryptophan within it would make me sleepy.

At first, I struggled with this disconnect. How could I reject the crown jewel of Thanksgiving dinner? I tried to bury my feelings, only for them to re-emerge a year later.

Eventually, I relented. I accepted that I didn’t like turkey and possibly never would. As such, I stopped loading my plate with it at Thanksgiving dinner.

I started preparing a brisket for Thanksgiving around this time. I did this simply so that there would be a dish on the table that I’d be excited to eat.

But as it turned out, my brisket was almost as big a hit as the turkey itself. My relatives lined up to try it. There were no leftovers to bring home, only requests that I bring more brisket next year.

So, the following year, I did. And the year after that. And the year after that.

I might have broken with the Thanksgiving gospel, but in doing so, I’d forged a new, more resonant tradition.

Who are the arbiters of the customs we follow?

Often, religious organizations come to mind. Or maybe government entities. Or even social entities, such as neighborhood groups.

Each of these structures has the power of trust, a broad following, and mass communication abilities. Yet, they each also have the downsides of preachiness and rigidity.

When you factor in the retail industrial complex, customs get fossilized. We live in a capitalist society, and businesses depend on norms to stay profitable and keep the economy afloat.

Ultimately, this all leads to a one-two punch. A form of authority establishes expectations, and retailers tell us what to buy to stay in compliance.

This is what creates our strict system of traditions, including the Thanksgiving turkey feast. It’s not an organic, grassroots process. It’s heavily manufactured.

The end effect matches a scene from the movie Mean Girls. The protagonist, Cady Heron, is invited to sit with the pretentious clique The Plastics in the school lunchroom for the rest of the week. As part of the impromptu invite, she’s given some instructions, including how to dress.

On Wednesdays, we wear pink, says Karen Smith, one of the Plastics.

Sometimes, I think traditions can be like this. Maybe they started out innocuous enough, but they evolve into On Thanksgiving, we eat turkey.

This latent expectation might not seem like a big deal, but its burden can carry a long shadow. In the case of Thanksgiving, turkeys are bulky, costly, and challenging to prepare. Turkeys — along with the rest of the holiday’s staples — fail to cater to the needs of those with dietary restrictions. And the entire idea of a feast can be cumbersome to those without large living spaces or families.

It’s no wonder that the joyful anticipation of holidays like Thanksgiving is all too often supplanted by feelings of dread. Our pursuit of a shared experience comes with strings attached.

But it doesn’t need to.

As we head into another holiday season, something has changed.

That something is us.

Living through the horrors of a global pandemic, the gut-punch of an economic recession, and the social unrest of a society in transition has not been a pleasant experience. But it has been an enlightening one.

Throughout all the turmoil, we’ve been forced to reassess what we’ve taken as gospel. Some traditions, customs, and norms that were once non-negotiable are now anything but.

Thanksgiving dinner can be one of those traditions.

Yes, we should still gather to celebrate. But maybe we can do so in our own way, and on our own terms.

That could mean Thanksgiving without a predefined menu of sides. That could mean Thanksgiving without a massive guest list. And that could even mean Thanksgiving without turkey.

Indeed, as I write this, I’m preparing for a Thanksgiving feast with all these adaptations. It will be a smaller, more intimate gathering, devoid of an excess of side dishes. And instead of a large turkey —or my brisket — there will be a beef roast.

The burden of old traditions has been lifted. And I couldn’t be more thankful for that.

The Linearity Trap

You’ve got to stand for something, or you’ll fall for anything.

So goes the chorus of an old Aaron Tippin song.

Whenever I hear it on the radio, I get fired up.

Heck yes, we should stand for something, I think. There’s no use in being wishy-washy.

I’ve taken such perspective as gospel for years. But now, I’m starting to question this mantra.

Back in 2004, John Kerry was campaigning to be the United States President.

The Massachusetts senator had an uphill battle against him. The nation was only three years removed from the 9/11 terror attacks. American combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq were nascent. And the incumbent president — George W. Bush — continued to earn strong marks for his handling of the job.

However, Kerry — the Democratic nominee — saw a window of opportunity. As the military got entangled in conflicts in the Middle East, reporters scrutinized President Bush’s prior service in the Air National Guard.

There were rumors that President Bush had sought to avoid combat in the Vietnam War, which was escalating during his time in the Air National Guard. And there were open questions about whether the president had fulfilled his military service.

Kerry pounced on this opening. He had served as a Swift Boat captain in the United States Navy, earning a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts for his service in Vietnam. Kerry made it a point to feature such accolades in his campaign, contrasting it to President Bush’s dubious service record.

In a country that loves stories of military valor, this strategy seemed like a slam dunk. But Kerry’s efforts quickly hit substantial headwinds.

A political organization — Swift Vets and POWs for Truth — challenged Kerry’s narrative, claiming he had misrepresented his service in Vietnam. The group also claimed that Kerry’s later criticism of the Vietnam War represented a betrayal of military trust.

Kerry tried to defend himself against these accusations, but they stuck. He became known as a flip-flopper — someone who would shift between opposing stances on a topic. He went on to lose the presidential election by a wide margin.

Swift Vets and POWs for Truth later disbanded, and the group’s claims were eventually discredited. But the damage had been done.

For many, John Kerry had defied the Aaron Tippin Edict. He had failed to fall for something. And as president, he was liable to fall for anything.

Four years after the Swift Boat scandal, I was eligible to vote in a presidential election for the first time. Kerry was not running for office in 2008, but I still scrutinized the candidates closely for inconsistencies.

Were they true to their word? I asked myself. Did anyone flip-flop?

I repeated this exercise for another decade. Linearity was the best policy, I told myself.

I should have known better.

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, not the most intelligent. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.

Those words come from Charles Darwin.

Darwin is notorious for his work with modern evolutionary theory. But the foundations of his principles continue to elude us.

Darwin saw evolution more as an arc than a straight line. As the environment changed, the process of natural selection would pick new targets. Only the most adaptable species could stay in the running each time the landscape shifted.

Evolutionary theory underpins much of our society these days. Modern capitalism, pop culture, and even the trajectory of industry all reward those who are most adaptable to the demands of a changing world.

Yet, we fail to get the memo when it comes to assessing our own viewpoints. Those Aaron Tippin lyrics fill our minds, and we feel determined to take a stand.

We refuse to admit that life is not linear. We refuse to change, even as the circumstances at hand shift drastically.

Such shortcomings have been made all too apparent during the recent pandemic. As an unknown disease spread around the globe, guidance on how to ward it off shifted.

An early focus on physical distancing and handwashing morphed into a new approach — wearing face coverings and getting inoculated. Activities that were shamed in the early days of the disease — such as small outdoor gatherings — were later deemed safe and preferable.

The shifting advice was as frustrating as it was confusing. Some defied it all together — rallying against masking, business restrictions, or vaccine adoption. Others refused to change their ways as the guidance evolved further.

These actions have led to strained social relationships, and they’ve accelerated the toll levied by the pandemic. Many have blamed the rebellious for these outcomes — pointing to their selfishness and lack of empathy.

These people do have some impact on the outcome, for sure. But our expectations are equally to blame.

For the more we follow the playbook laid out by Swift Vets and POW’s for Truth — demanding linearity above all else — the more we stand to lose.

Polarization will only go up. Discourse will only go down. And our ability to make choices that meet the moment will disintegrate.

Knowing all this, it’s hard not to turn a critical eye toward those Aaron Tippin lyrics.

Having a backbone does matter. But it might not be the panacea we think it is.

An immovable conviction may protect us from manipulation. But it can also close the door to coalition.

And to fix what ails us, a coalition is exactly what we need.

It’s my hope that we can move beyond our differences. That we can restart discourse, both in politics and broader society. That we can face the needs of an evolving world, rather than anchoring ourselves in principle.

But this work can only start if we free ourselves from the linearity trap. It can only take flight if we accept that our views might change with the times.

Yes, we do need to stand for something. But that something should be openness.

Openness to connection. Openness to information. Openness to change.

I’m ready to meet the moment. Are you?