Take Your Ball and Go Home

I spent last weekend at a kids’ flag football tournament in Tampa.

Watched a lot of football. Watched even more adults lose their minds.

Every bad call triggered the same sequence. Coach erupts. Parents follow. Kids stop playing and start feeling wronged.

The game shifts from “what do we do next” to “we’re being cheated.”

I drove home thinking about how early this starts. How quickly teams learn to blame instead of adapt.

Then I checked my phone.

Notre Dame—left out of the College Football Playoff after being ranked in the top 10 all season—announced they wouldn’t play in a bowl game at all.

Their athletic director called it a “farce.” Said the opportunity to compete was “stolen” from them.

The team’s official statement: they’re skipping the bowl and hoping to bring a national title to South Bend in 2026.

Translation: we’re taking our ball and going home.

This is the air we’re all breathing now.

Entitlement so thick you can taste it.

It shows up in youth sports. In college football. And it shows up in how we run our businesses.

The belief that your firm is the best and nothing can touch you.

Belief that you understand your clients while spending less and less time with them.

The belief that people are lucky to work with you.

These aren’t just blind spots. They’re the lies that prevent actual success from ever taking root.

Real success doesn’t get announced. It gets earned.

Every day. By showing up. Caring. By doing the work that makes you better.

Some firms try to buy championships. Throw money at the problem. Stack the roster with credentials. Build the brand before they build the substance.

But the best teams? They’re built by process and time. They’re the product of virtue and repetition. They taste different because they were made different.

If you’re running on the anabolic steroid version of success—pumping yourself up in the mirror, telling yourself you’ve arrived—deep down you know the truth.

You haven’t earned it yet.

The antidote is simple. Not easy, but simple.

Get grounded in reality. Your team should know your clients better than anyone. The more you learn, the more you realize how much you can improve. That’s not weakness. That’s the whole game.

Study the standard your clients actually expect. Not what your custodian allows. Sign up for Uber. Order food on DoorDash. That frictionless experience? That’s the bar. Your onboarding workflow held hostage by legacy systems isn’t impressive. It’s invisible friction your clients tolerate until they don’t.

Build a team that ships. We’ve entered the era of separation—people with ideas versus people who deliver. Find the ones who carry water. Who would do this work because they’re passionate about the problem. Who can actually reinvent how you operate.

And then show up. Every day. Wealth management is simple. Stay grounded in facts. Trust the process. Be in it.

Notre Dame could have played one more game. Proved something. Competed.

Instead, they went home.

Don’t leave early.

Play every down.

Earn the right to be a champion today.