Winning the Super Bowl isn't all that much unlike studying for college finals.
Hear me out.
We've heard Nick Foles repeat this message ad nauseam over the last year. He simply tries to live in the moment. Be where your feet are and all that.
That's the philosophy that helped Foles study in college in Arizona. When he looked at everything he needed to study, it was overwhelming. But when he broke it down by subject and focused in, it became feasible.
It's the same philosophy he used last year during what should have been the most stressful moment of his life, playing in Super Bowl LII.
"It was peaceful," Foles said, "which it shouldn't be."
It's well-known that Foles wants to become a pastor after his football days are over, but he might make one hell of a life coach if he chooses. (Sorry, Nick. *one heck of a life coach.) It's rather rare to hear truly inspirational words or lessons from press conferences with football players and coaches as they prepare for a game many think is suited for neanderthals, but Foles does this pretty regularly.
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Sometimes, I'll admit, my mind wanders during press conferences. How many times can I listen to the same non-answers and football cliches? But I find myself listening and getting way more out of the chats with Foles than I ever expected. Every week, it seems like Foles holds a sermon in Q&A form. Foles takes us to church in the NovaCare auditorium without ever getting preachy. There are some real life lessons in there, starting with the idea of "being present" as Foles calls it. It's a lesson he wants to teach his kids.
The most refreshing part of it is his honesty. He says he's still learning how to do this thing that's changed his life.
I still have to remind myself. I think there's time where you get overwhelmed, you get excited thinking about all the different things you want to do, all the different things you want to accomplish. Starting from when I was a kid to now. Some days, if you feel really good, you can handle it all. And there's days where you don't feel good and it overwhelms you. What I've learned is I'll have a plan for the day of what I want to attack, but it'll be a list of what I need to do. I really go down the list and stay in the moment on that list. That's what helped me. And that's trial and error from whether it's in college, when you have all these things you gotta study for and you look at it at once and you're like, ‘I can't do this.' As opposed to, ‘OK, I'm going to start with this subject right now and this is all I'm going to worry about in the moment' and then I go on from there. And then by the end of it, you've studied appropriately, you've done it all and you're successful. Again, these are all things I'm still learning. I don't have it conquered.
Foles said he was basically forced into this way of thinking by the end of last year's miraculous season. If he let himself get overwhelmed, the magnitude of the situation would have engulfed him.
So even when he was on the field during Super Bowl LII, he worried about that individual play. He didn't look at the clock or the score or think about what it all meant. He simply got in the huddle and played the game with his teammates. That's why everything seemed so strangely peaceful to him, he thinks.
At times since then, he admitted, he's made the mistake of not staying in the moment, but has been able to catch himself and settle back in.
"I still get overwhelmed," Foles said. "At times, there's anxiety that comes in. I'm a human."
The difference with Foles now is that he's able to control those emotions. It's why he's been able to stay focused on this upcoming game in Washington instead of thinking about his completely-up-in-the-air future.
It's a good lesson for all of us, really.
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