Steiner Sports held a great event Monday night at Cipriani, with the Core 4 and some of the stars of the 77-78 Yankees. (This was the first time the Core 4 - Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte and Jorge Posada - had been together off the field!)
The event went very well, and everyone - our guests, the players, the staff - gave us tremendous feedback.
But the next morning I woke up a little concerned BECAUSE we only got good feedback.
See, a couple of years ago I was at a fundraising event hosted by Derek Jeter's foundation, Turn 2, which helps kids lead healthy lifestyles. Derek's mom Dot was there; she helps run the foundation.
Dot told me that every year, after they've finished putting on the event, the people at Turn 2 sit down together and figure out what went wrong, or what they could have done better. It doesn't matter if everything seems to have gone off without a hitch; they always sit down the next day and try to find out what could have been better.
That's how that event - always really great - manages to improve every year.
If you want to get better at something, you have to look for feedback. You have to create the feedback if there is none. You have to undergo self-analysis. You have to be critical with yourself. You have to be tough on yourself. To a point, of course. But you gotta do it.
That's the only way to get better.
It's easy to be self-critical when something you've worked on fails or performs poorly. In those cases, you're kind of forced into self-examination.
But in order to progress and get better, it's just as crucial to give yourself an audit after a win as it is after a tie.
Eli Manning once told me that after a game is over, one of the first things he does is watch the game tape.
"Even if you win?" I asked him.
"Yes," he said. "Because I still want to learn. Especially when it's fresh in my mind."
I've heard Tom Brady is the same way. After a big playoff win, he'll race to the team facility to find out what he did wrong.
Success is nice, but if you want to keep getting better, you gotta watch that tape!
