Wednesday, February 13, 2008

On Strategies for Winning the Super Bowl

The other day I was pretty stressed about a physics test I was going to have. Everything about it looked bad: it was timed, closed-book and the problems seemed difficult.

Well, after a long day of taking a long time to finish a problem set that I thought would be about like the test, I stopped to watch Conan O'Brien.

His guest was Michael Strahan of the NY Giants. O'Brien mentioned how intimidating it must have been to play an undefeated team like the Patriots (full disclosure: I wanted the Pats to win). He asked about Strahan's strategy. Strahan said that the team just went out there to "have fun" and that this enabled them not to get psyched out.

Wow. So, to beat a team that is heavily favored and widely regarded as the best football franchise of the decade, a team that is famous for making very few errors and consistently scoring, all Strahan had to do was have fun at them.

It sounded too good to be true, but I bought it and applied it to my own life. Since actually learning the material for my test seemed out of the question at that point, I decided to go with the strategy of going out there and having fun.

It wasn't easy; I had to repeat it to myself many times before the test.

But, do you know what? It worked.

At least, I think it did.

No comments: