Celebrating the Wins Along the Way

Mack Brown is 71 years old. He’s won a National Championship and coached on the biggest stages of college football.

But there he was on Saturday in a locker room in the mountains of Boone, N.C., dancing like a giddy teenager after his UNC team’s 63-61 win at Appalachian State.

Why does Brown break into dance after big wins?

While he has experienced the highs of the profession, he’s also experienced the lows. He’s had disappointing seasons. He’s been turned down for positions he badly wanted. He was reportedly pushed out of a job by one of the most prominent schools in the sport.

The fact that he likes to break out a goofy move after a win isn’t a sign of delusion or complacency.

Rather, it’s an indicator that he has perspective on how thin the margins between victory and defeat can be and an acknowledgment that he must celebrate the good times while they last.

"I wanted to come back to have fun, and I want the kids to have fun," Brown said a few years ago.

It's an important reminder.

Many of us as leaders are stoic. We have lofty standards, high demands and are rarely at peace with the performance of our team or ourselves.

Ambition is a good virtue for the most part, and asking for more from our team members goes a long way toward setting a standard of excellence.

But if we can’t celebrate the good times, if we can’t have fun on occasion when things break in our favor, if we can’t loosen up just a little to appreciate how rare a moment is, then what’s really the point of it all?

Our jobs are hard enough, and it’s not a question of if we will suffer some losses but when. Let’s make sure, though, that we also take some time to enjoy our significant accomplishments and victories.

They are frequently the fondest memories for our team members at the reunions years later.

This doesn't mean we create an entirely loose environment and pop champagne after every single victory.

But getting excited on occasion about something our group just did doesn't make us weak or ineffective as leaders.

It makes us human.