It's not like I had to throw the football and deal with that as well. It was more disheartening, to be honest with you, just to kind of see how the National Football League really is.
One of my favourite contemporary fiction writers is a Texan, Ben Fountain. His extraordinary novel, Billy Lynn's Long Half-Time Walk, all takes place within the half-time show at a Dallas Cowboys football game. No one has better summed up the American appetite for spectacle, the link between sports and politics, and the absolute madness of George W. Bush's Iraq War.
The way to be successful is through preparation. It doesn't just happen. You don't wake up one day and discover you're a lawyer any more than you wake up as a pro football player. It takes time.
Life was a damned muddle - a football game with everyone offside and the referee gotten rid of - everyone claiming the referee would have been on his side.
The game of business used to be like football: size mattered. Then it changed to basketball: speed and agility. Today, business is more like chess. Customer priorities change continually, and the signals given by these changes are vital clues to the next cycle of growth.