What Can We Learn from the Super Bowl

Financial Football Hints

Even while watching the Super Bowl on Sunday, there were easy parallels to daily financial struggles. Yes, I am an avid sports nut. Still, it is interesting to see how some things leap out of the TV as evident to me (in my demented view of the world).

I must say that Boomer & Echo and I were in a spirited Twitter War, and I must now say that they were right in that their Packers did win. I am a Steelers follower (unfortunately a Giants fan at heart), so we traded a few comments on Twitter, but the better team won the game in the end.

So what critical parts of the game remind us about critical financial points in life?

Mistakes will Kill Your Plans

The Steelers mainly lost because they turned the ball over to the Packers 3 times, and the Packers managed to score three touchdowns from those turnovers, and that to me was the critical part of the game. The Packers did not turn the ball over and seemed to follow their plan (with a few tweaks at halftime), and the Steelers could not use their plan because they dug such a massive hole in the first half.

If you have a financial plan, mistakes and miscues while running this plan will cause your plan to flourish or go down in flames. Don’t get me wrong, we all make mistakes, but how we react to those mistakes has to be factored into your financial plan.

Examples of these mistakes might be:

• Having a bad Christmas and overrunning your budget their, thus causing your ability to pay other bills to be screwed up, and then you are behind on many bills, not just debt pay down.
• Investing in a specific stock, without a plan on profit or loss break points, and simply staying with the stock, hoping for it to go up (you caught me, that was my infamous Nortel plan).

Recover from the Interceptions and Fumbles, don’t use them as excuses to fail, or worse, give up. Do rethink your plan if needed, but don’t give up on it completely (unless it turns out to be a lousy plan).

Hype is Fine, but You Have to Do it Too

This one came out in the halftime show and its implementation. The halftime extravaganza had been hyped almost more than the game itself, but the show’s performance was the big letdown. I don’t mind the BEP, they are no Tom Petty or The Who (and from that comment, you can guess my age), but for the younger folks, I am sure their music is enjoyed, but their Sound Techs (or the ones who mixed it into the TV feed), should be shot. It sounded like an Auto-Tuned Toilet throughout the show. The rest of the show was fine (although if you look at my Twitter feed, you might see a few pointed barbs about it), but that one screw-up ruined all chances of the show being received well.

This reminded me of the importance of implementation in our Financial Plans. You can plan until the cows come home, but there is no point in planning if you do not act or implement your plan correctly. Maybe doing a mock run-through of your goal would be good too? You can figure out your major yearly expenses, so how does your plan work with actual data?

Implementation is the second most crucial part of your financial plan.

Don’t Choke

The Pittsburgh Steelers Field Goal kicker had a chance to get the score closer in the second half. However, he shanked a field goal attempt, giving the Packers an excellent field position. You could tell he was excited and nervous, and he ended up being like me on the 1st tee whenever I start the golf season, worried about everything and launching a horrendously excellent shank (me on the golf course, kicker’s shank wasn’t that bad).

Don’t overthink things. This causes you to Choke (i.e. make a mess of things), and you end up failing on something you have succeeded on before. If you have a plan, and a budget, keep going with it, let it do the work, don’t start overthinking things, let the project succeed, don’t push it.

Choking is your higher thinking brain doing things that you should be doing. In finances, let your budget and plan succeed by doing what it needs to.

Now I have about six months until my next football game? Maybe more, given there may be a Lock-Out or Strike, let’s hope for the best, and back to quiet Sunday afternoons.