Trust, but verify. –Ronald Reagan
Many years ago, I had a dream to to be a Hollywood screenwriter, and I moved out to Tinsel Town with my wife to pursue my passion. Creative Artists Agency (CAA) was the most powerful talent agency in the world, and I was fortunate to land a job there to ply my trade. While I learned so many valuable lessons during this time, perhaps the greatest came not in the writing room, but on the basketball court.
We had a great group of friends at CAA who enjoyed playing pickup hoops on the weekends. Eventually, we organized an entire league of teams from different talent agencies and production companies, complete with referees, scoreboards and a legitimate March Madness Tournament. Our team name? “Untitled Basketball Project” (U.B.P.)! Classic!
Late in the season, we faced a particularly tough team from a rival talent agency. They had a giant, bald guy who kept torching us in the lane, but otherwise seemed unathletic and awkward. Late in the game, we were down by three and the other team had the ball. We couldn’t let them run out the clock and soon a plea arose at fever pitch from the bench:
“FOUL THE BALD GUY!”
It made perfect sense at the time. Judging from his appearance, it seemed logical that free throws were NOT his thing. As soon as he got the ball, I immediately hacked him on the arm. Two shots!
The bald guy calmy sank both free throws. Hmmm.
We hustled the ball down the floor and quickly scored. No way the bald guy could pull that off again.
Swish! Swish!
Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Three times a charm? Nope.
The bald guy skillfully made EIGHT free throws in a row. We never wavered from the plan despite a mountain of evidence that suggested this guy was money from the line. We lost by five points.
At our postgame de-brief at a local bar, my buddy asked an insightful question:
“Why did we assume that a big, bald guy couldn’t shoot free throws?”
It was a great question, and no one on the team had the answer in the moment.
But the bigger question was this:
Why didn’t we adjust our plan when he did?”
And why don’t we adjust our plans in our everyday lives when things clearly aren’t working.
We Can’t Ignore the Universe
There is no shortage of advice in this world. Most of it is well-meaning and logical and worthy of consideration.
We are told to follow our passion. Take on more than we can handle. Strive for upper management. Go with the largest firm. Do anything to win a deal. This is all logical and certainly better than embracing the opposite! Finding something that lights us up can unlock our true potential. Ambition and diligence will propel us further. Working our way up the ladder and stretching for more should be applauded. Landing a job at the largest and most profitable firm opens up massive opportunity. We need to get creative and work every angle of a deal to bring it home.
But what if we execute on the advice and things are still not working? We follow our passion but the bills pile up and we damage our relationships. We can take on more than we can handle and get sloppy with the tasks and follow up. We strive for upper management but are more effective as an individual contributor. We go with the largest firm but find we are more effective in a a scrappy, underdog role. We do anything to win a deal but steer away from our moral compass in the process.
We are not meant to blindly follow a path. There is no “set it and forget” plan for success. We need to stay alert and check in with ourselves and our loved ones. It is not supposed to be comfortable. But sometimes we need to listen to the universe when the plan is not working. Sometimes, the bald guy doesn’t miss!
Action is the Key
Resilience requires us to remain vigilant when things are clearly not going our way. There is no ONE path to our goals. Sometimes, we have to back up in order to move forward. Sometimes, we have to change paths entirely. Sometimes, we have to trust our gut and have the courage to keep experimenting until we get it right. Dreams should never be blind. We have to put them to the test with action!
Would we have won the game if we mixed up our strategy and fouled someone OTHER THAN the bald guy? Maybe. Maybe not. But we had no chance of victory by stubbornly sticking with our original, flawed plan. We don’t need to overthink this life. We just need to occasionally pick our heads up and listen to the clues around us.