Burnout Can Be A Good Thing But Don't Count On It

Jim Marshall | A Viking to Remember - YouTube Burnout can be detrimental to a team and to an unappreciated team player. It may seem easy to go to work to be a team player. After all, team leaders intentionally make it look like an easy example to follow so that others do follow their lead. To watch someone try to lead from a place of being disrespected is painful sometimes. The attention they receive is what gets them unappreciated and in professional sports, that ultimately gets them fired. Guys like Matt Ryan and Aaron Rodgers can easily be discarded for their leadership of teams that clearly have been toxic workplaces long before they get there. After they leave, that breath of fresh air dissipates faster than it started, while excuse makers blame them for creating it rather than looking it word for cremating their great careers. Fans tend to treat such gifted talent like their salaries are paid by our hard-earned taxes. They’re not. Even if they were, it still doesn’t answer the question of why should they lead the fans to championship outcomes?

Players are required to say they do it for the fans. However, the ones who do it for the fans ought to be clearer about which fans are at the focus of their work. Many of the ones who do it for the fans are trying to impress their critics or to make them eat their words. For a bullied child who is watching from a distance, that is a great story. It gives them a reason to leave their bed and be willing to muscle another day of bullying in order to get to that moment. But that little kid does not realize until he gets old and it is too late that while he was being inspired by such heroism, his hero was actually ignoring him.

Our work should not be done to change the minds of bullies. If anything, that should be a nice effect of the inspiration we give to empower God’s blessed. Our work should be done to empower the weak, the fallen, and those on the brink of quitting. If we try to work for those who hurt us, whether they be fans, opponents, teammates, or coaches, we will crumble to ashes. However, if we work to help those who have been hurt, whether by us or by anyone else, we rise an entire battlefield from the ashes. True victory is surviving when by all accounts we should remain low and fallen.

Burnout can be a contagious problem. Hard work unappreciated will soon watch greatness leave before it can be displayed. Burnout is an important part of the greatness of our work. We need to get tired so others can be inspired.

In order to be an inspiration, we need to draw attention to what inspires us. We have to look for that inspiration in some unusual stories and situations to help others creatively. For example, most people know to look for Christian McCafferey in discussing NFL Running Backs. However, they don’t know to look for his backup and what a good move it was to send Christian to the 49ers.

The Christian McCafferey trade is one of the rare trades that needed to happen. The Panthers may have seemed desperate and foolish. However, everybody won. The Panthers were overusing the star running back and underusing those who also were on the team. The 2022 Carolina Panthers featured a long list of examples like that. For example, they tried too hard to make Baker Mayfield seem like a right quarterback when Sam Darnold was growing but not being appreciated. When the team sent McCafferey to a safer situation for his career longevity, they were stuck with an importantly unknown solution as their running back. D’Onta Foreman. As it happened, D’Onta Foreman had more success that season with the Panthers. So did McCafferey and the 49ers. That is a combination of good trust and good decisions for every person involved.

By all accounts, D’Onta, who had been through life already, had many reasons to just try to survive a toxic work culture for the rest of a year that should have left the Panthers with the number one overall pick. Instead, he sparked a sensation that forced the Panthers to trade for that very pick (to the Bears who would sign him in 2023 and collect the Panthers number one overall pick in that trade). The Bears probably got that pick because the Panthers made decisions to quit on hardworking people like D’Onta Foreman.

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It is important to struggle so you can find out who your friends are. The Panthers made mistakes in believing that because they were struggling that they had no friends. Especially when it seems like nobody is on our team, we have to get our attitudes right.

Tyler Shough and the New Orleans Saints may be easy to mock and scold at these times. However, the season sweep of the division champion Carolina Panthers is nothing to ignore. When people throw their best efforts at the worst times, people may not see victory. Everyone knows in a classroom to value integrity over victory. However, analytics does not mention that.

The Atlanta Falcons accidentally once let their backup quarterback, Matt Schaub, leave to repair the Texans when the Falcons needed him the most. But they did not know their favorite investment would be arrested on dogfighting charges that offseason. According to Pro Football Reference, this is what he did after leaving Atlanta.

Notice the massive jump from Atlanta to Houston. Granted, he moved from backup to starter. However, the Falcons would have inconsistent success while waiting for Matt Ryan to grow in his role. The Texans have a powerful presence as a result of this poor decision making from the Falcons, especially from who they thought would be  a hero. Feeling unappreciated is not the same as being unappreciated. The Texans made a lucrative deal to show appreciation for DeShaun Watson’s work only to have him revealed one year later to be a race-baiting and selfish charlatan who expected the team to work according to his ridiculous demands. And then there are the massage allegations.

Being unappreciative can destroy teams. Feeling unappreciated can destroy players. Even when it feels like nobody is watching what we do, they are reading parts of us that we don’t realize. People are more likely to recognize the outcomes of burnout than to look for the symptoms and evidence of burnout. To get control of people’s attention, we have to have control of our own decisions. Sometimes, it is better to just collapse in persistence than to rise from a place of being comfortably rested. People don’t need to help  people who are comfortable. They are more likely to help people who seem uncomfortable and exhausted. Tired is earned. But it is an excuse that ought to be burned.