Everything I need to know about life...

I learned from Fantasy Football.

and yes I did steal borrow my post title from the All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten book by Robert Fulghum.

So, how can Fantasy Football teach us about life and ourselves?























Well, for one thing, it can tell us if we have any addictive personality traits!

Seriously !

One could write a book about what constitutes an addictive personality, and many people have. The topic is far too big to go into here, But I will include this one...

“Addictive personalities have difficulty planning and achieving long-term goals because they are focused on the short term. They may exhibit impulsive behavior or a disposition toward sensation seeking.”

How many of us have fallen for the hype from experts and others about a particular player only to have our expectations dashed!

It can teach us how we plan and budget.

Do we keep falling into the same hype pattern on a weekly basis? Or do we plan for a longer term goal? Like making the playoffs and winning the championship.

Do we keep throwing good money after bad?

Do we look for players who are consistent or a streaky home run hitter or perhaps a combination of both?

If you are in a league that puts a price on such things as waivers, trades, players or positions; this translates into how we handle budgeting and investments.

And yes I am still talking about Fantasy Football.

But as you can probably tell, I believe this can, and probably should tie back to how we handle other things our life.

How much do you invest, spend in relation to your expected return?

We have an owner in my league who is consistently the king of transactions on the waiver wire. He is also consistently a playoff contender and he even won the championship two years ago.

This year he spent so much on waivers and trades, that he needed to win the championship or finish second just to end up in the Black. He finished 4th.

How much time and effort do you put into research, statistics, matchups, trends and patterns?

I bet a lot!

How many of us spend hours looking for that diamond in the rough or the old veteran everyone forgot about? This is like a battered stock that reemerges to outshine all the others in the industry. See Dogs of the DOW.

Or, how many of us look for the rookie or the newcomer in the industry that defies odds with his new talent and skills and surprises everyone with his success!

Conversely, How many of us know folks who don’t even bother to show up week after week?

Active participation vs. autopilot.

They set their drafts to autopick, don’t log in, don’t trade or do anything on the waivers, heck maybe they don’t even make roster moves based on bye weeks!
This usually translates into nothing ventured nothing gain, and if you are lucky, nothing lost. But, in reality one rarely wins with this plan.

Automatic is a good saving vehicle for budgets, but it can have its disadvantages in purchases and merchandise and god forbid if someone stole your identity and your were not researching and tracking what you purchased and spent money on.

Autopick in fantasy football does not account for changes in what is going on in your league. It is static and based solely on your preferences and statistics at a previous point in time.

When to hold, fold, walk away...and get back in.

In Fantasy Football you also need to track the health of your current players. If someone gets injured, do you dump them out to the waivers and pick up another? Do you bench them, save, for another day when they are healthy?

Same thing applies to stocks and other finances.

Oh and I just thought of another thing.

Late Fees and missing the boat!

How many of us have missed a deadline? Maybe had an eye on a player but failed to log in to snag him up at the right time or maybe we did and forgot to move him from the bench to active roster!

That is like paying late fees and ruining your credit ratings, significantly hurting your chances of cashing in on that winner of a player or stock and shooting yourself in the financial foot.

I think everyone should play Fantasy Football!

How else will you learn from your mistakes and apply what you do in the rest of your life?

This is serious stuff!

This is really fun stuff too!

As always,

Be good, do well, have fun!