Not a single athlete looks at a challenge or opponent and admits defeat before playing the game.

Even if the oddsmakers say it’s improbable, even when fans hedge their bets and talk a little less trash or refuse to get their hopes up - athletes and coaches refuse to give into the thought of an insurmountable task or being outmatched by an opponent. 

It’s never about what the other team does or where they’re likely to come up short. They’re always thinking, talking and working from a position of strength and confidence. It doesn’t mean they don’t see the challenges. It doesn’t mean there isn’t a game plan in place to counter the strengths of the opponent. It means they’re focused on their strengths, they’re capabilities and their best chances to win.

The best athletes and most successful coaches don’t assume or anticipate failure before competing.

Where are you starting the year? Are you focusing on your...

Happy New Year!

It’s the time of year we typically start new habits and routines. You’re already used to glancing through this weekly list of sports conversation starters, but maybe you add one new thing to your Monday morning routine. It could be paying more attention (like actually reading the headline) of a sport you typically overlook. Or maybe you commit to initiating one more sports conversation a week.

Sports fandom doesn’t have to be time consuming. Sports conversations don’t have to be intense. Both fandom and sports small talk can be useful in relationship building at work. Here are topics you can use this week.

During this holiday season I hope there are more conversations with family and friends than colleagues this week, but regardless of who you encounter these sports conversation starters can help get the conversation going.

Surely you've seen the highlight by now. The final play of the NFL game between the Raiders and the Patriots. The one where New England was heading toward a win. It was almost guaranteed... until a huge mistake at the end of the game that result in an unlikely fumble recovery returned for a touchdown by the Las Vegas Raiders. 

As a football fan, I couldn't believe the end of the game. That highlight will be shown for decades. 

As a business owner, I see the potential for more conversations than just the outcome because I know mistakes happen, but they rarely happen in such a public way. The final play of that game was a HUGE mistake. Everyone at the game and on the field saw it. Millions of other people (fans and non fans alike) have seen the play. It wasn't just a mistake, it was a lack of fundamentals and there was a conversation after the game about accountability and who was responsible for the mistake and ultimately the loss. 

In sports all of that gets...

I call them conversation starters, but sometimes you don’t feel like talking. Or maybe you can’t get word in edgewise with your family. Or maybe none of your friends want to talk sports at the holiday gathering.

You can use the information in the weekly list to start conversations, but it’s just as effective in helping build your sports knowledge base. I intentionally build on storylines and keep coming back to specific names, teams and milestones to increase familiarity. It shouldn’t feel like you’re starting over every week. That’s discouraging. I want you to feel like you’re adding to what you’ve already heard about.

Whether you’re talking sports or just staying up to date on the latest sports headlines making news this list is for you.

Sports small talk can make it easier to have conversations about accountability with your team at work. 

How? I'm glad you asked and I hope you're ready to think outside the box scores. 

Conversations about accountability happen all the time on game days. They're called post-game interviews and listening with a close ear can help you take the stress out of initiating tough conversations at work. 

Athletes and coaches talk about how they talk about they exceeded expectations or failed to live up to their expectations and standards. The final score helps set the tone for those conversations, but they are a number of stats that support their assessments. With that in mind there are two things you need to do:

1. Know the numbers that measure success. Be specific. It's not pass/fail. If you want to move the needle and have impactful conversations about accountability know your numbers and why they're tied to success. 

2. Use a local or regional team as an...

You don't have to stick to sports. You can use sports small talk as a jumping off point for other conversations.

Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll did that with his team last week when showing World Cup highlights during a team meeting. Pete used soccer to spark conversations about competition, geography (actually showing them a map of where is county is located) and world events. 

He used something familiar - like competition and sports - to spark conversations that went beyond the pitch and the field.  

You don’t have to stick to sports when using any of this week’s conversation starters. See where this list of topics takes you in small talk.

Timeouts, huddles, conversations in the dugout and suggestions from a caddy are all forms of feedback that happen during sporting events. 

It's not just a break in the action, those conversations are critical for making adjustments, staying on track and being successful. When you think about it that way, it's easier to think out side the box scores and borrow a few conversation tactics from sports. 

As the video points out, it's absurd to think that a coach will withhold critical feedback until the end of the season or even the midway point of the season. So why would you do that with your team at work? 

Instead of dragging out the process or delaying conversations about feedback until it's time for mid-year reviews or yearly performance reviews, let's use sports to help accelerate the feedback process. When you see a time out called, a team huddle or a coach yell, you're watching feedback in action and this is what you're seeing:

1. Communication that's very direct
2. A...

For as much as sports brings people together, sports fans don’t always agree. There’s a lot of fun, light-hearted, healthy debates around sports that don’t mean all that much in the end (because at the end of the day does it really matter who gets ranked in the Top 4 in college football?) 

You don’t always have to agree. In fact, disagreeing and practicing a healthy back-and-forth is a good conversation skill to develop.

These sports conversation starters can help you with that this week.

If you measure success by where you end up, you could be missing out on what you actually gained. 

Think about it this in terms of your performance review or year-end reviews. The ultimate measure of success is meeting or exceeding a goal, but that's not the only way to measure growth, lessons learned and skills you obtained or strengthened. 

There is value in measuring forward progress. You see it every week during football games. This is one of the ways to think outside the box scores and find parallels between sports and business. 

If it feels like you move one step forward and then two steps back, only count the step forward. It's called forward progress.  

Every week I'm posting a new video on You Tube to encourage Thinking Outside the Box Scores. You can find those videos here and subscribe to be among the first to see them.