Things I Learned from the New Orleans Saints

While I realize this group probably has several other NFL teams they support, I am a HUGE New Orleans Saints fan. I think I have been since birth. I grew up in a small town in Louisiana. Football was a staple in our family. I had an uncle so passionate about this team that his little dog ran to another room when he heard the Saints announced on TV.

I think one of the first things I learned from the New Orleans Saints was that people are going to hate on you. It’s okay. Not everyone has to appreciate your style, your record, or your personality. What matters is that you try. You try to be a good person. You try to be a winner. You try to do good deeds. You just try.

The New Orleans Saints tried for years to be a good team. Let’s face it. They were definitely not. Fans came to games with bags over their heads. In all honesty, they sucked. They weren’t concerned about people hating on them. They came out every week and for years, played pretty terribly. Did they give up? Absolutely not.

This has been a hard lesson for me to learn. In a perfect world, everyone shows up, does their part, gets along and treats others with dignity and respect. I’ve had situations in my role as Executive Director where not everyone appreciated my leadership style. I’m not a micromanager; it’s not my personality. I also don’t like drama. I’ve never cared to be in the middle of drama, or cliques or any group that wants to manipulate or bully an individual. I’ve been treated that way in this role and have on only one occasion wanted to quit my job because of it, but a good friend reminded me that it’s not my personality to give up and that I should never let another person’s opinion of me define who I was.

The second thing I’ve learned from the New Orleans Saints is that adversity makes you stronger. No one likes to fail. We all want to be winners, but in reality, someone has to lose. You can either be a sore loser, or take the opportunity to learn from your loss. My oldest child could not stand to lose at a game when he was younger. He would see that he would not be able to win a game and he would quit. I got wise to his ways and started making him finish the game, whether he won or lost. He would get so mad at me for making him play to the end. The lesson was that sometimes you lose in life; it’s how you handle it that makes you. My lesson to him was the same lesson you can learn from the Saints; grow from your loss and move on. You won’t always win and its okay. How you handle the loss defines your character.

Another lesson you can learn from the New Orleans Saints is that you should never give up on your dreams. From the Saints record, you would not have predicted that they would ever be great enough to even get to the Superbowl, much less win. They had some pretty terrible seasons, but the Sean Payton/Drew Brees combo seemed to bring a motivational aspect to the team that had been lacking. They seemed to gain confidence in their abilities and in the end, it led them to a Superbowl. I think sometimes people don’t go for their dreams because they are afraid to fail. Instead of looking at the end goal as unreachable, change your perspective. Start celebrating small victories on your patch to achieving your dreams and before you know it, you’ll need to dream bigger.

The other thing I take from this particular lesson is that we need more people in leadership positions that lift people up and encourage them to excel. I’m not saying to excuse or overlook mistakes or issues; deal with the issues but work to invest in people. Highlight their strengths and recognize that failure is an opportunity for growth. I have failed many times in life and I’m sure I will many times in the future. Not only is it humbling, it is an opportunity to analyze where I went wrong and make adjustments.

In closing, I challenge you to reflect on the things you can learn from the New Orleans Saints (how do you handle others’ perception of you, adversity makes you stronger and never give up on your dreams) and then look at your own personal leadership style. In what areas can you grow and are you overlooking opportunities help others excel?