Grant Baldwin’s Blog

If you’re a sports fan, then no doubt you’ve heard about this saga between Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers. I’m not a diehard football fan by any means, but I can certainly appreciate the talents of Brett Favre as a quarterback and an incredible athlete. I also can appreciate the Green Bay Packers and the legacy that they hold within the National Football League.

But right now, they both look like idiots. And unfortunately, I think Favre is looking stupider at the moment.

He has a tearful goodbye and then has a change of heart a few months later. But what really got to me was his interest in the Packer’s financial offer to stay away. He obviously misses the game, which I can appreciate, but after the Packers offered him $20+ million to stay away, he seemed genuinely interested in taking the money.

I guess I’m confused…does he really want to play football or is the money already running dry in retirement?

I’m assuming he’s okay on cash, but this is just making him look stupid. This game of cat and mouse and trying to force the hand of the Packers, who are obviously trying to leave the past in the past, is getting a little old.

I know every “cheese head” around the country wants Favre to play again, but the rest of us are getting a little tired of the drama.

Like many, I was shocked and saddened yesterday when I learned of the death of journalist Tim Russert. I’m not a huge political buff and never met Russert so I know little about him other than what I catch on the news every so often.

But watching the occasional evening news during this election year or past Presidential election years for that matter, I was always struck by how passionate Tim Russert was about his work. The guy loved politics and he seemed to absolutely love what he did.

And over the past 24 hours, there has obviously been a wave of emotion from fellow journalists and the media remembering Tim Russert. I was sitting in the airport yesterday and was catching clips of various journalists from Tom Brokaw to Campbell Brown to Larry King all talking about Russert and all the positive things they had to say. And all of this reminded me of a simple question…

How will people remember you?

Last Friday on Oprah (cue the jokes but I TiVo it looking for interviews like this one!), her guest for the show was Marcus Buckingham who talked about finding your strengths and applying them to your work. It was a great interview and he said so many things that I passionately believe and try to convey to others.

The bottom line is this: life is too short to do something you hate. Take the time to discover not only your strengths but also consider what you really love to do. As opposed to doing a job for the sake of a paycheck, wouldn’t you rather live life getting paid to do what you love?

I know I would…and I do! People actually pay me to do what I love!

At the end of the show, they said they are offering a free workshop from their website that helps people walk through some of these issues. I just briefly glanced over the website but haven’t looked in depth at it but I’m sure it has some valuable ideas.