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Practical Goal Setting Tools
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Michael JordanGuest articleby Harvey Mackay An obscure outfielder for the St. Louis Browns, Dick Kryhoski, once observed, "The first time I saw Ted Williams hit, I knew God hadn't created everybody equal." The same can be said for basketball superstar Michael Jordan. We are used to seeing Michael Jordan in total control. The greater the pressure, the stronger his game: Michael setting the pace, forcing the action, dictating every move on the floor by every player with his dominating talent. So it is no surprise that when Michael announced his retirement from basketball, the pundits were universally in agreement: good move, Michael. I hate to be the skunk at the garden party, but I am not going to join the hallelujah chorus. No, Michael. Bad move. The Michael Jordan that mouthed the words at the press conference may have looked and sounded like the same Michael Jordan we have seen ripping NBA defenses to shreds, but it wasn't. It was a shell. Recently, Michael hit a bad patch in his private life. The gambling and the murder of his father converged. Like any human being under the kind of stress Jordan was under, he sought advice. And he got it. Quit. Take stock. Get away. That's exactly what you don't do. You don't quit doing what you do best, you do not abandon the wellspring of your identity, because you have been blindsided by life. You cannot regain control over the bad parts of your life by giving up your control over the good parts. Let's give the scenario a flip. What do you think Michael would have done if a) the embarrassing gambling problem had not surfaced; b) his father had not been killed; and c) Jordan and the Chicago Bulls had lost, not won, their third consecutive NBA championship ... with Jordan at something less than the top of his game. Easy. He never would have quit. His whole professional existence has been built around the give and take of competitive sports. Sometimes you win; sometimes you lose. You have to be able to handle both. Jordan falls off horse; Jordan gets back on horse. Hey, Babe Ruth didn't just set the record for homers. He set it for strikeouts, too. That's baseball. That's basketball. That's also life. If Michael Jordan ever needed doing what he does best, it's now. Now is not the time to focus on the negative. It's time to get back with the program. The point is this, and it's a sad one: we are often forced to make life-changing decisions under miserable circumstances. Michael wasn't. Even though his situation was stressful, he wasn't forced to do anything. He didn't have to sell the farm. He wasn't losing his skills. He wasn't in the middle of a child custody battle. He was still in control of the game. He should have put more time between his immediate personal problems and the decision to end his career. He would have found it much easier to handle the grief of his father's death with his demanding occupation taking so much of his time and energy. Now, without that therapy, he'll have unlimited time to anguish over his tragic loss. If he had given himself that additional time, he never would have made the decision to retire. Now that he has that time, I feel certain he will reverse himself. One thing I learned early in life was that an expert in his own field was just that, and only that. When I first bought my own business, I remember asking my great corporate lawyer for advice when I was about to lose one of my customers because of a service problem I was having delivering envelopes. He had the answer: rewrite the contract. I did, and of course, I lost the customer.
About The Author Reprinted with permission from nationally syndicated columnist Harvey Mackay, author of the New York Times #1 bestsellers "Swim With The Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive" and "We Got Fired! ... And It's The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Us."
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