Preparation

This is the written script of Halftime, episode 51 of the Makers of Sport® podcast. Halftime was a short show on the off weeks between interviews where I wrote and read on topics in professionalism, entrepreneurship and business for creatives in sport. The episode aired September 7, 2015; the audio is on SoundCloud and the show notes live at makersofsport.com. The show's opening and closing announcements are trimmed here.

Today I’m recording this Halftime episode on the opening Saturday of college football season. Many of you (at least in the U.S.) are glued to your TVs, social media or at tailgates ready for the kickoff of your favorite team. This morning, just like many Saturday mornings when my beloved Kentucky Wildcats don’t have a noon game, I had my coffee while watching ESPN’s College Gameday. I love the show. Both the college football version and the college hoops version. But specifically the college football version.

The sport lends itself is to great content obviously, but what I really admire are the stories in sports. And College Gameday takes the cake when it come to that. The amount of work it takes behind-the-scenes regarding the production of such a show is often under appreciated by most of us fans. Everything from the storylines, the research, the video and audio post-production and being able to handle your own in front of the camera for 3 hours is no easy task. One guy that really embodies the hard work that goes behind the show is long-time host, Chris Fowler. Fowler was the face of the show since its inception 25 years ago and has arguably become more synonymous with the show than Lee Corso.

This morning as I was watching the first Gameday of the 2015 season, Chris Fowler was honored on the show by his colleagues with a nice video that aired discussing his hard work and all he has done for College Gameday over the years. If you do not know by now, Chris has left Gameday in the hands of Fowler look-alike Rece Davis in order to call prime-time live events. His apparent true passion.

While watching the video, there were many clips and photographs of Chris on the phone, watching footage, in front of pages of notes. In a book I read recently called The System: The Glory and Scandal of Big Time College Football, the Gameday staff has a chapter in which book references Fowler’s ability to make decisions the fly, to be the QB of the show and for rest of the staff so-to-speak. Occasionally, he’ll have to drop in and give live updates of urgent news in the midst of his scripted show outline.

It takes talent, sure, but most of all it takes preparation in order to do confidently what Chris Fowler has done for 25 years and will continue to do calling games at night.

Because of these observations and my admiration of Chris Fowler, he has inspired this week’s Halftime’s topic, preparation.

How prepared are you for the challenges of your career? Do you take time to practice your craft on your own at night in order to get better? Do you spend time on the weekends studying and learning some new method of thinking to incorporate into your craft?

How prepared are you when it comes to selling your work or your services? How about when that dream client comes calling after years upon years of doing the mid-level or lower-teir work? Are you prepared for opportunity when it comes?

Being good at what you do is ever enough. There is a lot of be said for natural talent, but I think if you really dig behind the scenes of the best of the best in just about any industry or sport, you’ll not only see natural talent but you’ll see people who work extremely hard at their craft, learning everything there is know about it. Going over the potential scenarios and situations in their minds and physically preparing for them in the instance they happen. These particular methods of preparation require them to make plans and follow through the plans. Coaches have game plans, we too should have plans for our careers or even for particular projects.

Benjamin Franklin once said “by failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail”. Preparation is about being able to react without having to think. Those questions a hard-nosed client asks you are not something you have to BS without confidence because you have prepared by researching, by reading and studying other business people or successful ones that have come before you. You have a process. Something you adhere to for each and every project. By doing this, you are able to better withstand the roadblocks or curveballs that are thrown your way. Chris Fowler is able to gracefully veer from his script into order to break some urgent news, because has prepared the notes and script. He knows even though there is a small roadblock, he is able to steer the show back on its original track because he knows what is coming next. Those small little roadblocks do not effect the long game.

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

Our careers are a marathon not a sprint. In the book Toughness, ESPN college basketball analyst, lawyer and former Duke basketball player Jay Bilas refers to preparation as a key part of mental toughness. In the book, he often refers to Coach K preparing for games against smaller opponents just as hard as he would against the likes of a Kentucky or UNC.

We too should approach every single project with similar preparation. Just because a client is local, or a project is small, each and every thing we do is a stepping stone to a higher place in our careers. Halfway doing things for the small guy, means that we will not have taken those smaller projects to learn and prepare ourselves for bigger challenges and we will not be able to perform the larger challenges at the level we would have hoped if we don’t go hard on each and every project leading up to them.

I encourage to read as much as you can about business, entrepreneurship, coaching or the biographies of successful people. No matter the industry. Through reading and studying those that have gone before us and been successful, you will be able to identify patterns or a through line that is consistent in each person’s success. Something they did. Something they read. A little thing they added to their day-to-day be it journaling, reading, meditating or praying, or other things that they attribute to their preparedness for the curveballs thrown at them in their careers.

Nick Saban, head coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide football team is notorious for saying “trust the process”. A guy like that who has many national championships and is arguably the best college football coach in history knows that here things that happen day-to-day that are beyond his control. But he has a process that has enabled him to prepare for challenges and he trusts the process, a process that he has developed over time through his own preparation.

Develop your business and design processes, set goals for where you want to go in your career. Write them down. Follow through, check in. Develop your gameplan for the marathon, not just for the sprints. Study those outside your field, see how they bounced back from failure. Take these lessons, find the patterns and apply the ones that fit your own personality, niche and long-term goals. Preparing for this long game, will allow you bounce back when things don’t go your way in shorter sprints. Always keep the next play in mind and remember why you have a gameplan in the first place.

One day you could be the Chris Fowler of your own niche.