It’s a Hard Knock Life

I owe it all to Rex Ryan.

Yep...this guy.

Now before my Green Bay Packer brethren think I’ve wandered off the Lambeau reservation and straight into the new-and-improved Meadowlands, that is not the case.   I will forever bleed green & gold.  However…

I’ve finally gotten back into my morning workout routine which usually involves my treadmill and a television. (Yeah, I need some sort of visual or iPoditory distraction when exercising or else I am bored to non-perspiration.)   While on my treadmill, I’m usually watching a movie or revisiting a cable TV show I love like Sex & The City or Party Down.  But these last couple of days I needed something more motivational for my current state of mind…and Carrie Bradshaw drooling over Manolo Blahniks wasn’t gonna cut it.

Sorry, SJP...I need more.

As I’ve probably expressed a thousand times already, this roller coaster of entrepreneurhood has me experiencing a bi-polar cyclone of emotions ranging from exhilaration to apprehension to sheer panic to total exhaustion about it all.  I have semi-laughingly wondered if this blog was going to end up being a detailed true Hollywood story of Deirdre’s great mental breakdown of 2011?  Yeah, one thing became clear:  I needed an attitude adjustment.  And HBO Sports helped me find it.

It's not TV. It's therapy.

As most of you probably know, there’s a reality documentary on HBO called Hard Knocks and it follows the training camp of an NFL football team.  The viewer is taken behind the scenes to grueling practices where we’re given insight into the extremely intense and competitive world of professional football.  Talk about DRAMA!  In its most recent sixth season, Hard Knocks profiled the New York Jets.  It’s pretty compelling television to watch veterans and rookies compete for the few open spots on the team roster, running drill after drill under that humid New York sun while being screamed at and sworn at by demanding coaches.

Are we having fun yet?

But what really struck me even more than the physical stamina of the players was their mental toughness.  You can see that the guys who stay focused on the ultimate goal and remain confident in their own abilities are the ones who will persevere over the long haul of training camp.  And even if they don’t make the final cut, the true survivors keep looking for the next opportunity instead of packing up that pigskin and skulking home.  Brashton Satele is one of these guys.  Alas, poor Brashton ultimately didn’t make it onto the Jets (mainly due to an injury sustained early in camp), but he remained philosophical about the experience: “Tough events don’t last, tough people do.”  Granted, he’s paraphrasing evangelical preacher Robert Schuller, but the sentiment still resonates.   And I am determined to stay tough! (At least until the next entry when I’m a blubbering mass of insecurity….)

Oh yeah, here’s one more reason why I enjoyed Hard Knocks:

Ah, Sweet Sanchez!

Now GO PACKERS!!!

It WILL be yours, Aaron Rodgers!

NEXT UP: A Mr. Coppola Update?