Rob Barber

A little known program helps the future stars of Major League Baseball, learn about the handling life away from the baseball field. Link

There is a new way to measure an athlete’s power and it has nothing to do with lifting weights.

Nielsen/E-Poll’s new N-Score was created by CSE analytics to quantify the value of an athlete’s brand effectiveness (marketing power). While on-the-field success is part of the equation; perhaps the most leveraged measurement has to do with the choices an athlete makes in his personal life.

For example, the brand power of Tiger Woods, Michael Vick and Brett Favre remains affected by poor off-the-field decisions. Meanwhile, the squeaky-clean and wholesome Tim Tebow’s “power” value is 165, well above superstar status, even with a modest rookie year in the NFL. Choices make brands. Good choices build brand power and are rewarded financially.

So what kind of things are measured? Off-the-field metrics include an athlete’s name awareness, appeal, influence, trustworthiness, overall popularity, and a number of other attributes. Another tool used by Nielsen/E-Poll was a public survey that essentially asked participants what they thought of certain athletes–how much influence does each athlete have? That is good news for our kids because it means we are about to be more intentional in paying athletes to be good citizens as well as penalizing those who “don’t care” what fans/consumers think.

In the 2011 rankings, Peyton Manning is valued as the most powerful athlete in all of sports. While his on-the-field performance can’t be minimized, his greatest financial asset is how he is perceived by his peers and in the sports world in general. Manning works hard on being at his personal best while remaining the consumate team (and company) player. He’s tough, cool, calm and collected. He’s funny and animated. He’s smart, charitable and consistently makes good decisions in his personal life (or at least avoids the publicly dumb ones). And as if that weren’t enough, Manning is simply likable and extremely humble.

Even if you’re not a Colts’ fan, it is hard not to have a deep respect and admiration for Peyton Manning. He embodies the American sports ethic, and we take notice as does corporate America. The amount of money an athlete makes from endorsements is yet another off-the-field metric in the “power calculation.” Last year, Manning earned $15 million from Reebok, Gatorade, Mastercard and Oreo. Not bad for being good.

“Credibility is the currency by which sporting figures’ effectiveness as endorsers is measured,” says Stephen Master, Vice President, Nielsen Sports. “From Wall Street to Washington, people want to surround themselves with individuals of influence.”

Therefore if the N-Score formula is a reliable predictor of influence, it might also tell us something about leadership.

What we say, how we dress, the choices we make will affect our value and the opportunities that follow. Wise choices will have positive implications: jobs, schools, scholarships and increased opportunities. Poor choices can cause a loss of of control and independence. It can close doors, create financial distress, and in extreme situations create problems with the law.

Every day coaches, bosses, teachers, admission counselors, family and others make value judgements about your leadership. So even though no one may ever hand you an endorsement check, the same qualities used to determine the value of Peyton Manning’s influence are being used by those around you to place a value on your brand. The higher the value, the greater your influence, the stronger your leadership.

And while the currencies may vary, you will, mostly likely, receive the fair market value for the brand you choose to become. Choose wisely.

I was pleasantly surprised to hear Auburn University Head Football Coach Gene Chizik and the Auburn players remain humble in the interviews after winning the BCS National Championship last night. It’s always welcome but especially after an NFL season plagued with fines, wining millionaires and trash talking coaches. It’s good to be reminded of the boys who play for pride and an education.

That tone starts at home. It’s also recruited and modeled from the top down. Great coaches not only say it’s about the team, they have to back it up player by player because the team is a collection of individuals and each person brings something different to the program. To ask a lot from players, you have to get them to buy in. And to do that, they have to believe you are genuine. I think there’s something special going on at Auburn.

Right after the game Coach Chizik said, ” it is really hard for me to describe the feeling that I have for the Auburn family. I look down here to my left and I see three guys along with a locker room of 100 more that have just defied all the odds. I’m not sure if 15 weeks ago anyone believed that we could do this except us. And this is the most unbelievable group of young men I have been around. I feel very blessed. God has blessed my life to be around a great administration, a great Auburn family. These guys represent Auburn on the field, off the field, in the community the right way. We said that we wanted to go from good to great. And I can sit here tonight and I can tell you that Auburn — the Auburn Tigers are the best football team in the United States tonight.”

Nick Fairly, the dominant and NFL bound defensive lineman for the Tigers, responded to a question about his five tackles in the backfield with “it’s not about me, it’s about our front four…” Call me old-fashioned but I like it.

There’s something to appreciate about a young player when he can give that answer on the spot. Good job mom and dad. Good job Coach Chizik.

Cam Newton talked about their approach. “We are a blessed team just to be — just to have this type of setting. Coach Chizik told us to act professional on this business trip. And, you know, we did. We had fun, but we still had — we still knew we had a task at hand to accomplish.”

It was really my first time to hear Cam Newton talk and it’s easy to see why he’s so good. What a deserving Heisman Trophy winner and natural leader for this team.

It will be fun to follow the careers of each young man. Hopefully they maintain their sense of humility and class as they move to the next level.

But for today, who would of thought a man named Chizik would be the king of Alabama?

War Eagle!

1. He never makes excuses.

2. He never points the finger at his teammates.

3. He works incredibly hard at his craft.

4. He is a tremendous leader.

5. He is a role model on and off the field.

I can count on one hand the number of books I’ve read in one sitting  - one.

Malcomb Gladwell, the author of Outliers, I’m sure will want to add that to his resume.

This isn’t a book review, but I did want to take a moment and reflect on chapter I found particularly interesting relative to finding balance. Since I’m new to blogging, I’m not going to spend much time doing more than recording a few thoughts.

I must confess that I picked up the book because I liked the subtitle, The Story of Success, and what I read inside the jacket. I also knew that his previous two books were pretty good so I thought I would give it a shot over the holidays and see what factors he thinks contribute to a person’s success.

Outliers is written with lots of stories, which is very good for me. By the second chapter titled The 10,000 – Hour Rule, I was hooked. While the concept of “paying your dues” isn’t new, I was completely fascinated with how the 10,000 Hour Rule applied to the Beatles, Bill Joy (The author of UNIX and founder of Sun Microsystems) and Bill Gates.

Where does 10,000 hours come from? According to Gladwell, it’s the magic number of hours of practice to achieve world-class mastery of anything. Neurologist Daniel Levitin says that in study after study of fiction writers, basketball players, concert pianists, master criminals, and composers, to name just a few areas,  it seems that 10,000 hours of “practice” is the amount of time it takes the brain to assimilate all that is necessary to achieve true mastery.

So I’ve been stuck on this all week. I would assume most of us want to achieve mastery in something yet what are we to do? 10,000 hours is a crazy amount of time. It’s ten years! Does that mean I have to settle for pretty good  or not so bad?

As I embark on this journey into the blogosphere I have to wonder: How do you develop mastery of anything without sacrificing everything?

And so my journey begins. Only 9,999.5 hours to go.