So, date night a while back, The HubTM and I saw the movie Draft Day.
Football, Love, Kevin Costner and a Time Management Puzzle…{swoon}…It was absolute heaven.
But despite the heart melting, Hallmark Channel worthy cheesy happily-ever-after {one of the few things that can rival my love affair with cake} I was gob smacked that in the middle of this sports romance movie was THE ultimate lesson in time management.
For those of you not familiar, the film kicks off twelve hours from the opening of the NFL draft. Kevin Costner plays the GM of the Cleveland Browns.
Already I’m hooked. Here’s a time management social experiment – Hard deadline, big stakes.
He’s just found out that morning he’s going to be a father {with his salary cap analyst, the lovely Jennifer Garner #officedrama} and the week before his own father, who he recently fired as the Brown’s coach (#YouThinkYourFamilyHasDrama), has died. He’s holding the 7th round draft pick and a team in desperate need of a talent infusion.
Hard deadline, big stakes and major personal distractions. Tick tock, the count down to the draft keeps coming. Talk about a powder keg.
But that’s not enough and the writers throw another productivity conundrum at our hero.
He’s convinced his first choice pick should be a kid with all heart and a great ability to hit, but no one around him agrees. His owner wants him to make a bigger splash and his coach wants someone safer.
Now in addition to the deadline, the big stakes, and the personal distraction, there is goal and task confusion.
To up the time management ante even further, he gets a call from the Seattle Sea Hawks offering him their first-round pick – an arrogant QB with supposedly a golden arm.
This new option would solve one problem (it would certainly make a splash) all be it at the expense of his other goals, and it would create two other big problems.
First, the Brown’s already have a QB. The current QB is a guy our hero recruited the season before but who had a knee problem mid-season. He’s supposed to be better and stronger now, but there are no guarantees his knee will hold.
Second, in exchange for the splashy, number one QB pick, the Sea Hawks want all of the Brown’s first round picks. For the next three years.
Everything is balancing on a pin as we see the clock tick down to the 0 hour – the start of the draft.
Tick Tock, Tick Tock
In that moment Kevin Costner gives us an extraordinary insight into time management.
The decisions are mounting,
Millions of dollars are on the line
The clock keeps ticking
Players lives are on the line
The goals are unclear
His personal life is demanding attention…the pressure is intense.
Watching it all mount, I needed cake.
And then in the middle of it, he just stops. Not because he’s quitting, quite the opposite.
“The clock is always ticking,” he says. “Great leaders have the ability to slow it down.”
To prove his point, he gives the example of a high stakes football game where the team is at a must deliver play in order to make the playoffs. The huddle is intense. The players are tired and nervous.
Rather than give a rah rah speech that would up the intensity even more, the quarterback looks up into the crowd and says “Hey, isn’t that John Candy.” All the players looked. They all start talking about it. And in that moment clarity found them.
They relaxed.
They believed.
And then they won.
The ability to slow down time.
It doesn’t come from doing more. Or working harder. Or organizing better. Or eating frogs. Or breathing through your eye lids or any other nonsense.
It’s about recognizing that one thing in the moment of crunch that will bring clarity for YOU specifically and your team.
My business, this blog, is about showing you, about turning you, in your unique circumstance, into a time and productivity master – someone who can slow down time.
So that you can win.
So that you can add more value to other people’s lives.
So that you can level up your business.
So that you can stop feeling like an insane madman/woman running around with your hair on fire.
If you’d like to join me on that journey, connect with me on email and we’ll get started.
