Today is October 25, the 58th anniversary of the biggest mistake in NFL history.
Now, I really don’t care about American football, or any other nation’s football, but this mistake was pretty spectacular. Let me tell you about it quickly:
The date, like I said, was October 25.
The year was 1964.
The place was San Francisco.
The teams were San Francisco 49ers and the Minnesota Vikings.
During a play, the 49ers quarterback fumbled the ball.
If you don’t know anything about American football — it’s much like any other football. Each team is trying to advance the ball towards one, and only one, end of the field. A fumble is when one team drops the ball midfield — a bad thing.
But what happened next was much worse.
Jim Marshall, a Vikings player, picked up the fumbled ball, and started running down the field.
The problem was, Marshall was running the wrong way.
He triumphantly ran all the way to the end zone, unopposed by anybody, thinking he had just scored a touchdown for his team. But in fact, he had scored a couple points for the other guys.
A 49ers player was the first to run up to Marshall and say, “Thanks Jim.” Marshall stood there frozen as his teammates stared at him in disbelief, as the opposing team’s players laughed, and as tens of thousands of 49ers fans erupted in cheers around the stadium.
I watched an interview with Marshall about the incident. It was recorded decades later.
Marshall still seemed sheepish. The memory clearly still brought him pain.
But in time, he turned his mistake into something positive. He kept playing the game, and playing well. He said fans and other players have given him a lot of respect for continuing to do his best even after such a colossal mistake.
But hold on.
Colossal mistake? That still stings decades later? Football is just a game, isn’t it?
Here’s why I’m telling you about all this. One idea that’s been rattling around my skull for several years is a quote by Claude Hopkins:
“All the difference lies in a different idea of fun. The love of work can be cultivated just like the love of play.”
The “difference” Hopkins was talking about is the difference between success and failure, riches and poverty. And maybe something more. Maybe the difference between feeling good about how you spend a large part of your life, and feeling miserable.
But even though I’ve done a lot of trying, I have not yet been able to cultivate the idea that work is fun.
Sure, there are moments when I enjoy what I do. And sometimes I even find it hard to tear myself away from what it is I’m working on. But never, not once, in the 7+ years of working as a copywriter and marketer, have I woken up in the morning and jumped out of bed because I was so eager to open up my laptop and start working.
Maybe like Hopkins says, this can be cultivated. It certainly seems worthwhile.
And that’s why I’ve been thinking and collecting ideas about what work really is, and what play is, and how the two are different.
That’s why I was interested in the Jim Marshall story above. It shines a bit of a light on how consequential and work-like mere games can become, and how perhaps a game is something different from the play that Hopkins was talking about.
I’m not sure if this is of any use to you. It probably isn’t, not unless you’re like me, and you have to force yourself to work each day.
if that’s how you are, well—
You might get some more ideas about how to make your work more play-like, and how to get to riches and success, in other emails and essays that I write. In case you would like to read those as they come out, sign up to my daily email newsletter.