2549: Small Games, Big Lessons

The Olympics just finished, and Super Bowl was a success. But the most important athletic moment for me most recently didn’t happen on a professional field, it happened on a small flag football field, watching my son process disappointment after a bad call. This episode is about something far more important than winning or losing:how quickly you return to neutral. We unpack a powerful stat about Roger Federer, one of the greatest athletes of all time, who won roughly 80% of his matches while winning only about 54% of his points. The lesson? Great performers don’t avoid losses. They don’t carry them. No single play, good or bad, defines you. What matters is what you do next. This is an episode about resilience, emotional processing, and the quiet discipline of getting back in the game. Get the Rumination Reset here:https://docs.google.com/document/d/15d93dvGjZ0WeH8fJAAbotD2Vqn-OLI5cUgjDDdchg3k/edit?usp=sharing George’s newest book is available! Get your copy of The Meaningful Few here: https://amzn.to/4qA26X9 Feeling busy but unfulfilled? The Meaningful Few helps you identify what truly matters, eliminate distractions, and live with intention and clarity. Learn more here: MyMeaningfulFew.comWant to say “Thanks!” You can buy us a cup of coffee.https://www.buymeacoffee.com/lifebloodThanks, as always for listening! If you got some value and enjoyed the show, please leave us a review here:​​https://ratethispodcast.com/lifebloodpodcastCopyright LifeBlood 2026.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:42Speaker 01

  I love sports. I love competition. I like winning. I don't like losing. And I certainly appreciate that you don't always win. You don't always lose. And while it is really important to put yourself in the best possible position to win, it's not all about winning. It's not all about losing. It is about the effort. And in a lot of ways, it's about the experience. It's about the preparation. It's about the actual execution of it.

• 1:26Speaker 01

  So it's the playing of the game. And it's the enjoyment of it. It's all of the virtuous things that come out of it. It's recognizing areas of improvement. It's celebrating the wins. It's being able to move on from the losses. There's just so much that goes into it. And

• 1:51Speaker 01

  We just, I think the Olympics are now over, although it's not clear to me. For me, it was really the hockey that was the highlight of the Winter Olympics as it always is. Appreciate all the other sports as well, but for me, it was the hockey. And so that had, that obviously has this extra layer of national pride. And feeling good that the United States men's and women's team came out on top and won the gold medal, particularly both against the Canadian teams. And I just, it's just a reminder of how excited I got and how happy I was

• 2:34Speaker 01

  that, that we did come out on top in that one. But that's not what it's all about because it's all about, it's all about the smaller games that we are all engaged in. And what I really wanted to talk about today is not only experiencing winning and losing and preparing and competing personally. It's more a function of helping other people to do it better and specifically my kids. So as a parent, helping right now, my oldest son,

• 3:16Speaker 01

  deal with the highs and the lows of competition. But then also through my work, the work that I do coaching professionals and helping them to be able to navigate that landscape of winning and losing, but not from an athletic standpoint, from a business standpoint. So there's so much that goes into it and it's such a rich, rich area.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  But fundamentally and foundationally, I think a lot of it does come down to appreciating that it is the ongoing, it's not the act, it's just the competition of it. And appreciating that we're always competing at some level. We're always engaged at some level. And because of that, it's not necessarily about the winning or the losing. It's about how we are doing everything else to be able to be in the right position to

• 4:33Speaker 01

  win in the end, even though that's really not what it's all about. That is what it's all about, but it's not what it's all about because everything is teaching us constantly. Everything is of value constantly. What made me think about all this was the Super Bowl was whatever it was a couple of weeks ago, and that was exciting. I certainly watched it. It was fun. It's always fun to be able to check out the spectacle of all of it and the commercials and the halftime show and all that stuff. But it wasn't necessarily the biggest thing for me that weekend because for me, it was

• 5:14Speaker 01

  my oldest flag football game earlier in the day that really got me thinking about it. Obviously, there wasn't quite as much fanfare about that game. But just to give you kind of the highlights from my perspective was that he was involved in a play and he got called for a penalty and he just about lost his mind. He's just sad because he caused his team some yards. He caused his team to down. But it wasn't like because of him, they lost the game. It was just because this small, little play in the game, he felt like he let everybody else down.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  And so there we were on the sideline and I was working to console him and to process the disappointment that he was feeling because...

• 6:09Speaker 01

  You and I know that regardless of what just happened, the game is still going on. Assuming that the game is still going on, that we did not lose on this last play. It was in the first half of the game. So there was an entire second half still to be played. And

• 6:29Speaker 01

  how do you help him to process that in real time? That's really kind of the challenge and the opportunity. We're not trying to suppress it or to have him feel shame about it, not to spend too much time there. It's let's have a brief conversation. Let's take some deep breaths. Let's wipe the tears out of our face and then let's get back into the game. And he was able to do that. He was able to overcome that. He played great. And the team actually ended up winning the game, which was an awesome thing. And it's not because we somehow erased the bad experience and the penalty.

• 7:11Speaker 01

  It was just because he did not allow it to define the rest of the game. And that's one of the biggest things. So I played tennis really competitively. I played in college and always enjoyed watching Federer play, watching Roger Federer play. And he recently delivered a commencement address where he told everybody, "Over the course of my career, I won around 80% of the matches that I played." It's pretty incredible, but the really incredible and really informative, instructive, important thing here is that he only won 54% of the points. So out of all of the matches, over the course of his professional career,

• 7:55Speaker 01

  Roger Federer, arguably one of the best, arguably the best, certainly one of the best to ever play professional sports, professional tennis, won 54% of the points. So let that sink in. One of the most dominant players ever, lost nearly half of the points that he played. It's incredible. So.

• 8:19Speaker 01

  What does that teach us? Well, it teaches us that regardless of the outcome of the last play, regardless of the outcome of the last interaction, phone call, email, whatever, the next point, the next interaction, the next call, the next whatever is coming. And I need to prepare myself for that. So I need to be able to move past the elation that I'm feeling because I won the last point, or the despair or sadness that I'm feeling because I lost the last point. So, most people don't fail because they lost most of the points.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  They lost, or we lose because we let those feelings linger. We let the negativity linger. We let the positivity linger. We let the last interaction or the last bad call seep into the next play. The last bad conversation make its way into the next or the newest or the future conversation. We allow a missed opportunity last year to color and impact how we're pursuing and interacting with opportunities this year. So we turn, we'll stick with the athletic thing here. We turn that point, the previous point, into some kind of a prophecy.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  So it's for wins and it's for losses. You got a new client, great, celebrate that. Then you gotta get out and execute. Today was an awesome day? Awesome. Let's not, you know, let's, let's just keep moving forward. Because no single event, either good or bad, changes everything unless you allow it to, unless you decide that it does. But we don't find consistency. We don't build consistency based on the greatest hits, good or bad. We build consistency by returning to neutral. GLP-1s are changing weight loss.

• 10:27Speaker 02

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• 11:27Speaker 01

  Which brings us to really what I wanted to talk about, that that stuff that you ruminate on, which we all do, we're always constantly relitigating past stuff. It's just taking up its living rent-free in our heads. Those thoughts that keep looping, those conversations that we replay every morning in the shower, and not a random thing. That is evidence, that is data, that is not processed. It is hanging out in our subconscious. And every time it's popping its head back up, it's knocking on the door and saying, hey, you've got some more work to do. So, kids cry and they move on, hopefully.

• 12:12Speaker 01

  Adults, well, we suppress things and then we spiral. So, the quote-unquote "work," it's not eliminating emotion. It is developing the ability to process it, to move through it. So, it's not hijacking our next play. So, it's not hijacking tomorrow, next week, the next quarter, next year.

• 12:37Speaker 01

  So these flag football games that my kid was playing in, it's not really about that. It's about developing resilience. It's about learning early on that life is a long match. It is a marathon, not a single point. And that the people who win, that the people who win aren't the ones who never fall apart. They're the ones who are able to put it back together, to piece it back together. And I tell you this, that frankly, the most instructive moments of my life

• 13:19Speaker 01

  came from bad losses, came from, and in the most valuable experiences athletically that I can look back on are some of those, some of those butt kickings. But it wasn't that I just got rolled over, I got my, my, my butt kicked. It's that I competed super hard regardless. I remember when I was in seventh grade, I was never a very good basketball player, but I enjoyed it very much and still really enjoy basketball. It's one of my favorite sports to watch. But I was in seventh grade and I was, you know, a hell of a role, like 12 or 13 years old and not a great athlete, certainly not a good basketball player.

• 14:01Speaker 01

  And I was from a town in northern Minnesota and we played a school from the Minneapolis area, so the big city. And these kids were the opposite of me. They were really good at basketball. They were really good athletes. And we got rolled, we got stopped. But I can still remember, I can, I can see it in my mind. I gave full effort, every possession, mostly on defense, because we didn't have the ball very often, but trying, trying, trying, trying to stop the other team from scoring.

• 14:43Speaker 01

  Can also remember playing high school hockey. And again, not a great hockey player. And in northern Minnesota, we had a lot of really good hockey. And we played one of the teams that at that time was one of the best in the state. And they, I think that they went on to, to win the state tournament that year. And at, at the end of the second period, we were down 15 to nothing. But it didn't stop me. I mean, it didn't deter me at all. I wanted to get back out and to keep competing and to keep trying. That's what it's all about.

• 15:26Speaker 01

  So I think in a lot of ways, the only way that you really lose is if you just stop competing. If you throw in the towel. That's when you really lose. Obviously, when the buzzer goes off and the game's over, you won or you lost. There's that. But then there's a whole nother layer to it. It says, I can look back on this now, you know, 30, 35 years later, literally, and still remember many of those plays.

• 16:04Speaker 01

  Still remember the feeling of pushing and trying as hard as I possibly could against Jordan Park in basketball and Duluth East in hockey. I remember both of those games like vividly. And they were two of the finest butt kickings of my life, for sure. And I can go back and I can tell you all about the tennis matches that I won, because I won a lot of those. And there's some great ones, things I'm really proud of. But those two butt kickings really stand out. It just taught me, it's how you compete. You compete.

• 16:47Speaker 01

  Doesn't matter what the score is, doesn't matter what just happened. You compete now, right now, this play. This point.

• 16:59Speaker 01

  Doesn't matter what just happened. Next. So that's the trick, is to be able to make sure that you're able to return to neutral.

• 17:09Speaker 01

  To be in position to win the next point or the play. To do a good job in the next meeting, your next interaction, your next client interaction. And you can map this onto any part of your life, any arena. Doesn't matter.

• 17:26Speaker 01

  So, you don't win in life by avoiding losses. You win by refusing to carry those losses with you into the next play. Or you refuse to, you know, allow your elation and your success to stop you from doing what must be done.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  So, I put together a little worksheet called the Ruminations Reset that you'll be able to access in the description of the show. And I encourage you to check that out.

• 18:06Speaker 01

  Much of my work is designed to,

• 18:11Speaker 01

  it's designed to help myself and other people determine this is what matters most to me. And then understand this is what must be done in service of what matters. And then it's doing those things. So it's pretty clear what I'm doing here, trying to connect all these dots. So I've decided what matters. I know it has to be done. And then how do I go about executing those regardless of how I'm feeling? Regardless of how the last interaction or thing just went. So you can pick up your copy of my newest book. It's called The Meaningful Few: Designing a Life That Works. Or you can go to mymeaningfulfew.com, mymeaningfulfew.com and check out some of the additional resources.

• 18:54Speaker 01

  All designed to help you do your part by doing your best.

• 19:02Speaker 01

  GLP-1s are changing weight loss.

• 19:04Speaker 02

  My sister had amazing.

• 19:05Speaker 01

  The ideal treatment is.

• 19:06Speaker 05

  Seems like everyone's a GLP-1 expert these days. But when it comes to your health, it pays to listen to someone who actually is. Like OrderlyMeds.com. With 50% off your first two orders and personalized support along the way. We're making it easier to get started. Visit OrderlyMeds.com. Bringing orders to the chaos of GLP-1s.

• 19:26Speaker 03

  Individual results may vary. Eligibility and prescription required. Not medical advice. Visit OrderlyMeds.com for details. Compound and medications are not FDA approved.

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