Dear Bank of Prairie Village Community~
Last month when writing this monthly letter, the Chiefs were going to play in the Super Bowl. Given the deadline, my letter had to go out before we knew the outcome.
It was a tricky letter to write. I couldn't really make a big deal about the situation given it would have been flat and awkward had the Chiefs stumbled.
My compromise was merely to state in my February letter that in Patrick Mahomes we had a leader who would not panic, a leader who always expected a positive outcome, a leader who with this positive expectation incessantly looked for and expected to find even the oddest opportunities to bring home a victory. Yes, it was subtle, but clearly, we had on our team the mindset of a great winner.
The rest, of course, is history. We all groaned when Patrick limped off the field just before half. However, we also all saw the determination in his eyes heading into the locker room.
The entire sports world sat dumbfounded (as well as the Eagles defense) in watching Patrick scramble in the second half for the broken play first downs.
The sports pages and talk shows have overwhelmed us analyzing the Chiefs’ come back. To me, it comes down to a simple mindset.
In the second half, the Chiefs were playing to win. The Eagles were playing not to lose. Somewhere, in the Eagles locker room, a deadly mindset crept in. Subconsciously, the Eagles assumed with Patrick having re-injured his ankle it was just a matter of their preserving the Eagles lead – and avoid not losing.
We have all seen this dangerous mindset of playing “not to lose defense” in a variety of settings. Offense is the mindset of winning. Defense is the mindset of not losing.
The good news for Kansas City, is that we can all share in this victory. Yes, Las Vegas bet against us. We were the underdogs. What I did love, (Fox announcers aside) was when many sportscasters asked various sports figures their prediction for the Super Bowl, the great players from other teams, all mentioned the Chiefs. This was particularly true of the great players from teams the Chiefs had played this season.
It was as if players who played against the Chiefs knew and respected our Patrick Mahomes “offensive will to win mindset.”
Ideally this winning mindset has undoubtedly now infused in our team, our children, and our community.
For our Kansas City community, being able to not only watch but to live and breathe this winning mindset will pay dividends well beyond the sports and business sectors.
This season, we have all been given an up close and personal great lesson on the winning mindset. We’ve all seen the benefits of adopting an underdog mentality. We all now know that against stacked odds the key to victory is to calmly survey the situation, expect positive opportunities, and to play to win as those opportunities arise.
There is a great book entitled Winning State. It tracked various teams and communities who against all odds achieved the ultimate high school goal. The thesis of the book is that being part of such an accomplishment is transformative, not only to the coaches and team members, but to the families, fans, and yes, the entire community spirit.
Such a winning mindset pervades the collective conscious. It inspires confidence and of course the desire to keep winning, in everything one does.
I once spoke to an accomplished orthopedic surgeon around my age, whose dad had been a WWII Aircrew prisoner and then a New York Bronx firefighter. I asked him what inspired his success. His answer stunned me. “Bolen,” he said, “When I was 10 years old, I watched Joe Namath and my beloved NY Jets beat Johnny Unitas and the Baltimore Colts. It was transformative. The AFL beat the NFL. Anything suddenly became possible. It made me feel like a winner. From that moment onward, I knew I could accomplish great personal goals.”
With that comment in mind, let’s close our eyes and imagine how Patrick Mahomes and the Chief’s win will undoubtedly inspire and motivate our community’s children to want to accomplish and do great things in their lives. Hopefully this feeling of winning is not limited to just our community’s children. With this inspired win under our belts, let’s all adopt the winning community mindset in which we always look for great opportunities and then pursue them with the will and confidence to win.
Yours in being your underdog Bankers and sharing the winning Patrick mindset as we head into the glorious Spring Season and conquer our own Super Bowl goals.
