"Tactics for Tough Times" - Excerpts Index

TWO- MINUTE DRILL

First in a series of excerpts from Mimi's upcoming book, "Necessary Roughness: New Rules for the Contact Sport of Life"

Legendary football coach Vince Lombardi once said, "Most games are won in the last two minutes." We have seen many dramatic comebacks during those last two minutes of football, because the players and coaches look at or hold the score in the context of winning the game, and they never give up. So we must in this economy. Don't lose your focus just because the pressure is on. We need to hold our present "score" or situation, in the context of "we will prevail."

In football, two minutes has emerged as the natural length of time to make a game-winning score because each half of a football game has an automatic time-out (also two minutes!) During that time-out, the team strategizes how to win the game using "scripted" plays they have practiced. This series of plays is the two-minute drill.

Even though the players have been slugging it out, play after play, for nearly three hours, this compulsory time-out gives them a fresh perspective on the situation.

DO YOU PERFORM AS IF TIME IS RUNNING OUT?

Never mind the past. How you got there isn't important. How hard you've worked isn't important. How tired you are isn't important.

Start fresh. Approach the end of your time allotment as if it is a whole new game.

DO YOU HAVE A 2-MINUTE DRILL?

You have six sales phone calls you need to make before lunch. It's almost lunchtime and you've done four calls, and they sort of sucked.

Call your next play. Punt? Quit? Head for the locker room? Why bother? LUNCHTIME!

Or...

Do you gather your thoughts, tighten your chinstrap, look for available openings and start driving forward?

As you begin exploring your inner competitive spirit, remember, in the two-minute drill, there is no time for glory-basking. In life, just like in football, you pick yourself up off the turf, hustle back to the line of scrimmage, ready for anything. No everything! It's what the game calls for. It's what life calls for.

And do yourself a favor, approach the closing moments of any challenge as methodically as possible: One Play At A Time. Don't think about the next play until it's time. Don't think about the last play... AT ALL!

If you can train yourself to play your whole game as if there are only two minutes left, Vince Lombardi would be proud.