31 Days of Lessons Learned: Overconfidence can jump up and bite you

31 Days of Lessons Learned:  Day Twenty Four

Overconfidence can jump up and bite you

All day yesterday, I walked around with a bit of swag.  Why?  Because the Detroit Tigers were opening the World Series with Justin Verlander vs. Barry Zito.  It was in the bag, right?  All of America thought so…even in California (according to ESPN SportsNation that is).  The poll was overwhelmingly skewed in Detroit’s favor.  It made sense…the Tigers just finished sweeping the Yankees and the Giants just finished a grueling series with the Cardinals.  Everyone in my neck of the woods was looking for a huge victory by the Detroit Tigers.  We all had our Olde English Ds displayed with pride and just knew JV was going to get things rolling.  I was even thinking about taking a day off to go down to the celebration parade.  Hell, people were also making cute pictures like this one…

Saw this shared all over Facebook – I will credit the original creator if you let me know who you are…

What a difference a day makes.  Now I, along with Tiger Nation are sitting around in disbelief after watching the monumental World Series collapse of our beloved Detroit Tigers.  America seems to have changed their opinions as well.  A majority of the country now things San Fran will win the Series in 5 or 6 games based on the latest poll at ESPN SportsNation (only Michigan seems to think Detroit will pull it out).  It was almost like they reverted back to their frustrating selves from the regular season…no hitting, bad fielding, mediocre pitching.  It looks like the rest was not a good thing for the team after all.  I just hope we don’t have a repeat of the 2006 World Series.  That was a brutal series to watch.

Watching the San Francisco Giants dismantle the Detroit Tigers re-taught me a lesson…overconfidence can be a dangerous thing.  Sometimes it helps, but most times it just knocks you on your butt and makes you question yourself.  I’ve had that happen on more than one occasion in my life.  Thankfully, I’ve become gun shy in the process.  I’d rather be over confident than have no confidence at all.

Also, you’ll notice that I’m a day behind right now.  I was pretty deflated after the World Series game, so I wanted to sleep on it before I posted my lesson.  You’ll get another lesson from me later today.