The Secret Recipe for Lemonade

Oct. 25, 2019

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When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

That’s cute, fun, wise, and easy to say to other people.

And no one does it.

When faced with the opportunity to succeed and be happy or fail and fit in, almost everyone chooses to fail.

Here’s a case study.

The National Football League is the most successful sports league in the U.S. It makes the most money and gets the highest rankings.

It also pays the coaches exorbitant amounts of money, ostensibly because they are the best and the brightest. No owner would pay millions to an idiot, right?

About a year and a half ago, the Baltimore Ravens head coach had a problem. His team had been doing poorly, and it looked like he might lose his job.

On top of that, he had an old, ineffective quarterback.

What should he do?

Keep in mind that the NFL is unequivocally a passing league. The rules have been changed to promote passing and passing numbers have soared in recent years. Passing records are falling so fast that experts think past eras can’t even be compared to today’s game. They’re two totally different sports.

In today’s NFL, you pass the ball 30-40 times per game and throw for about 270 yards on average. If you don’t have a quarterback who can do that, you are a dinosaur on the verge of extinction.

Or so the experts say.

But Baltimore didn’t have that option. Their quarterback was too diminished and they didn’t have any passers of that quality available in the draft.

Lemons everywhere.

So what did they do?

They took what was available.

What was available?

A running quarterback. One who was okay at throwing but other-worldly at running.

Of course, that’s not what you’re supposed to do in the NFL now. You pass, not run.

Unthinkably, the Ravens doubled down anyway. They saw what they had and built an entire offense around it.

They went all-in on something good that was available to them–eschewing all conventional, expert wisdom.

That was a season and a half ago.

Last week, they barely passed the ball and beat one of the best teams in the NFL easily. Today they’re in first place and their “unconventional” quarterback is a Most Valuable Player candidate.

Eighty percent of the coaches in the NFL would have failed. Most of them are failing…in exactly the same way.

How do we keep from failing? What’s the miracle recipe?

Don’t do what you’re supposed to do.

Don’t listen to the generalized opinions of experts.

Examine the assets you have, and use those assets relentlessly.

Examine your weaknesses, and avoid those constantly.

Take lemons, and make lemonade.

My book is called The Inevitability of Becoming Rich, and you can find that here.