The Process of Winning

Alabama Takes Tinsletown: Last night, while snow flurries danced outside, our family huddled in the living room to watch my alma mater win the BCS National Championship in sunny southern California. The Texas Longhorns appeared brittle facing the sturdy tusks of Alabama's Crimson Tide. I wanted to be in Pasadena with my brother, my nephew and scores of friends, but work and school commitments prevented us from going this year. It felt almost as exciting (almost) to dance around the coffee table with my kids, waving red and white shakers and beating my chest while my wife laughed on the sofa.

Coach Nick Saban inspires the best in his team. In me too. I woke this morning thinking about something he's said in nearly every interview leading up to this game: "There's a process to winning," to doing things in life that propel you forward, to the summit of the mountain. Process. I know that. What does it look like in my diverse, random, often routine-less world of creating, consulting, writing and reflecting? Here at the outset of 2010, I'm determined to better define and refine my processes.

I'm also motivated by the tenacity both teams demonstrated. Texas back-up quarterback and true freshman Garrett Gilbert deserves a trophy for stepping out of obscurity into a blinding national spotlight on a moment's notice. I enjoyed watching his teammates encourage him along the sidelines and then seeing him respond with a better-and-better effort, though I was greatly relieved it was not too good to recapture the lead. My team had to step up to the plate to prevent that, and they did, with their own relatively obscure player: Eryk Anders. He's been in the big shadows of Mount Cody and Rolando McClain all season, but at this critical time, he made the exact play we needed to solidify a victory. He knows the process.

Something else I've heard Coach Saban often say is, "We just have to be ourselves." In the world of collegiate football, for Alabama players, that means "Be a winner." This isn't to say, "Revel in the Bear Bryant glory days" - which were my own years in Tuscaloosa - but rather, recognize who we are today and live up to that potential. It's great to have such a glorious, storied history, but as Henry Ford once said, "The only history worth a tinker's damn is the history we make today." Work the process.

It's nice to celebrate ebbs and flows in life, like the Tide: we were great once, we hit a long dry spell, and well, now, we're great again. That's encouraging. In an article I read this morning, Heisman Trophy winner and Offensive MVP Mark Ingram summed it up beautifully in six letters: "We back." I like his brevity. I back too.