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Wednesday, August 6, 2008

What the Green Bay Debacle Can Teach Us



First off...I love football. I am not a big pro sports guy, but I enjoy all levels of football. From little kids playing Pop Warner, to High School, College and the Pro's, for me there is no better drama in sports.

Even though I am no Green Bay Packer fan (Go Cowboys!) I can't help trying seeing parallels in our own career path that we need to understand.

For those not following the story; basically Brett Favre, a future Hall-of-Fame Quarterback for Green Bay (GB), decided to retire at the end of last season. It was a shock, given that the team well over achieved expectations. It wasn't a shock though that it was coming. A 15 year veteran, he had hinted at it for two years. Brett retires, team moves on, new QB, other personnel changes...then Brett decides he made a hasty rash decision and he wants to come back...(cue record scratch sound). Team says we have moved on, Brett say fine trade me to this team. GB says nope, they are our rival and it would hurt our fan base, but you are under contract so we control that move.

It gets worse from there, now there are rough feeling etc.. It isn't resolved as of this writing, but probably will be this week.

So...how does this ties to personal finance and career advise?:

  • No matter how good you are, you are replaceable - Brett's one of the best ever, but the team has moved on
  • If you don't own the business, you don't hold the cards - Brett is famous, rich and well liked...But see #1. It doesn't matter if you are the star performer, the business can move on without you
  • Don't make rash career decisions - If Brett had not rushed his retirement call (even if pushed) he wouldn't be in this spot with no leverage.

Its a sad story for a sports hero, team and fans to learn that even the best, eventually, are displaced. But it is a lesson we all should know too.

9 Comments:

Anonymous said...

Great post - nice tie into career!

Also, I love the Packers, so you get bonus points for writing about my team.

Anonymous said...

Your bullet points also are applicable to Aerosmith letting Steven Tyler go. Geez ... I sort of thought he was Aerosmith!!!

Noel Larson said...

@ Heidi - Ahh...now I know! No Problem and thanks!

Noel Larson said...

@ Dawn - Huh? Steven isn't out of Aerosmith. We are working on a promo with Joe and Steven now (if Joe ever gets back from Vacation!)

There was a bs story in the Onion, which is a joke newspaper...nmot true to my knowledge, just talked to their management this week!

Anonymous said...

Gosh ... I swear I read somewhere that he got let go! Oops, my bad!

Anonymous said...

Yep ... it was the Onion, now that I think about it.
Gosh you mean everything I read on the internet isn't true?!!!
I'm so disillusioned :-)

Anonymous said...

Please use a basic grammar check; your writing is hard to understand.

Noel Larson said...

Anonymous - If that is your real name...This blog is for fun, and I write in a conversational style. If not your cup o' beans totoally understand and best wishes.

CFP Certified Financial Planner said...

Thats true.. all businesses are like that. Every player is replacable, and so is every investment plan. There are many investment plans which were a hit 2years back, but now they are RETIRED.

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