Identity, Success, and the Evil Arizona Cardinals

A week ago, the evil Arizona Cardinals defeated my Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC Championship game. DING! The Cardinals are going to the Superbowl, and the Eagles get to watch form home. (For those of you Cardinals fans offended by me calling them evil, get over it. Your team won, mine lost, that should be enough. Besides, this is sports; irrationality is perfectly acceptable behavior).

As I looked back on that loss, and on Philadelphia sports in general, I learned some interesting thing about success and the concept of identity.

There is a common idea in the motivational world that a person’s identity, or who they think they are, is the most important factor in determining how successful a person will be. Personal development giants such as Tony Robbins and Brian Tracy have written on this.

The idea is that if, for example, you set out to make a million dollars but deep down you identify yourself as a person who makes $50,000, then you will never make one million, no matter how badly you think you want to. You can apply this to anything, not just money. If you want to excel at sales but identify yourself as a person who hates selling, good luck, ’cause you’re going to need it. Want to be a ladies man but deep down think you’re a dork? A dork you shall remain.

What does this have to do with the dastardly Cardinals defeat of the noble and glorious Eagles (yes I am biased)? Quite a bit.

I remember going into Sunday’s game against the Cardinals feeling nervous, even more nervous then when the Eagles played the #1 seeded Giants the week before. When a friend asked me about it, I said, “Well, here’s the thing. Last week, people thought we would lose. We weren’t favored. This week, everyone is picking us to win. I don’t like that we’re not underdogs anymore. We don’t do well when we are favored.”

Odd feeling, eh? Being more nervous when your team is favored then when it’s the underdog…

But here’s the thing: Philadelphia, as a city, identifies itself as “the underdog.”

I blame Sylvester Stallone. In 1976, he wrote and starred in “Rocky.” This is a great movie set in Philadelphia, and is still one of the things most associated with the city. Rocky, cheesesteaks, and Ben Franklin. Everything else, including little things like the Liberty Bell and the signing of the Declaration of Independence, are secondary.

So you’ve got this movie, one of the greatest sports underdog stories of all times, and the entire city embraces it. To make it worse, did you know that Rock LOSES at the end of the first movie. Is it any wonder we can’t win?

And it’s not just this year’s Eagles. The city continues to live out this identity:

In the 80’s Philadelphia’s star basketball player, and one of the greatest of all time and my favorite player of all time, was Charles Barkley. Guess what? He was small for his position.

In the late 90’s and early 2000’s, Philadelphia’s star basketball player was Allen Iverson. He took the Sixers to the NBA finals (where they lost to the villainous Lakers) and won the league MVP. Guess what? He was small for his position.

Even the team that won a championship, the 2008 Philadelphia Phillies, were underdogs. They were behind in the rankings late in the season and needed the Mets to tank in order to win. Amazingly, the gracious NY Mets decided to lose a bunch of games so that the Phillies could make the playoffs. Even in the World Series, the Phils were underdogs.

The evidence is quite strong. I don’t know the last time a Philadelphia team was the front-runner *and* pulled it out.

What does this have to do with you? Think about it: if an identity issue can keep a city, a die hard sports city at that, out of a championship for so long, what kind of an impact do you think the concept of indentity has on you and what you are trying to achieve?

Take a second and think on the goals you are trying to achieve in your life. Take a step back from obsessing over all the actions you may or not be taking, and pay careful attention to whether who you identify yourself as is supporting you in achieving that goal or holding you back.

Put more succinctly, if you want to win a championship, maybe you should identify with Apollo Creed and not Rocky Balboa…

About

By Avish Parashar. As the world's only Motivational Improviser, Avish uses techniques from the world of improv comedy to engage, entertain, and educate audiences on ideas around change, creativity, and motivation. Connect with Avish on Google+

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