Jerry Jones is Living in Denial

Someone needs to dump a bucket of truth on his head

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is living in anticipation of the day when the team will drop a big bucket of Gatorade on his head for winning the Super Bowl. But that’s never going to happen, unless someone drops a big bucket of truth on his head first.

Greatness in one area doesn’t necessarily lead to greatness in another
No one doubts Jerry Jones genius as a business man. He bought the Dallas Cowboys for $147 million and built it into one of the most valuable franchises in all of pro sports. In addition, he has recently built the equivalent of the Roman Coliseum of professional sports stadiums. The new billion dollar Cowboy Stadium is absolutely breathtaking on many levels. Everyone loves it! He had a vision. He built the support. He got the financing.  He put together the design and he got it built to glowing reviews. What he did in building the team and the stadium are two incredibly staggering achievements.  

Unfortunately he’s also the Cowboy’s General Manager
Once again, after the Cowboy’s were eliminated from the playoffs Jerry Jones was asked if he was going to give up the general manager’s job and hire someone else. In his reply, you can find the exact problem with the Cowboy’s on field lack of performance and likely source of future disappointment. Jerry said “I’ve been doing the same job for 22 years and I’m going to continue.” He said, “the heat for our failures should fall on the person most responsible and that’s me. A full time owner always makes the final decisions and if we had a general manager it would only confuse and clutter up the decision making process.”

Wrong. A full time owner hires a general manager to be the one to make the final decisions on football operations. There doesn’t need to be conflict. There needs to be freedom to do the job without interference. 

Reality check! Isn’t that the mark of insanity?
He’s been General Manager for 22 years. They have won 1 playoff game in 15 years. Shouldn’t he be noticing a connection? Isn’t that the mark of insanity... doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result? Isn’t that’s what Jerry Jones is doing? His insistence on remaining general manager is sabotaging and undermining all of his other tremendous efforts. Sure, the Cowboys won 3 Super Bowls 20 years ago, but what worked then isn’t working now.

Here’s what Jerry needs to hear. 
No one is good at everything. No one is expected to be good at everything. Championships are won by putting teams of great people together. Your track record says you are not a great general manager. Of course you’ve had some successes but your overall record is failure. You only have 1 playoff win in the last 15 years.  Every year the result is the same. High priced, highly talented teams that underachieve.

The first step in solving any problem is to accept reality. As Bill Parcel says, your record tells you who you are.  Jerry, your record says you are no longer a top general manager. 

He’s putting himself above the team.
It seems that he doesn’t just want the Cowboys to win the Super Bowl, he wants the glory of being the General Manager that got them there as well. He wants that glory. He wants that recognition and respect. He wants it so bad it had blinded him to what he’s doing to his team. He’s become the problem. Whenever anyone puts themselves above the team, the team always suffers. The Dallas Cowboys are suffering....defeat after defeat...year after year.

Until Jerry Jones wakes up and accepts reality, it’s highly unlikely the Cowboys are going anywhere, much less to the Super Bowl.

Now or Never

Here’s What You Think...

When you avoid the decision to do something, you think you are just postponing the decision, the option is still on the table. You think you can, at any time decide to go forward. But that’s not how it works.

Suppose it was something important. Something you have been wanting to do, something you need to do. But for some reason you just can’t get yourself to do it right now. The perfect opportunity has come along, now is the time—you could get this behind you—but no. You decide "not now."

I’ll Do It Later

You think I’ll do it later. There's no rush. I’ll have a little more time later, a freer schedule. It's just not convenient right now. Timing is not quite right.

But you tell yourself, I’m going to do it, just not now.

You’ll Do It—Never

But here’s the truth. If you don’t do it now, you never will. Not now becomes never. You don’t intend for that to happen. You would swear it wouldn’t happen. But that’s what’s going to happen.

Maybe Later

When I was growing up, each night after dinner my mother would ask my father if he would like some dessert. He would consider it for a second, then pat his stomach, look at her sweetly and say, “Maybe later.” He didn’t want dessert. He was full already. But he didn’t want to disappoint her. So, he didn’t say no, he said “maybe later.”

Of course we understood what he meant, he didn’t want any dessert. Later never came. But it still made it more pleasant at dinner than abruptly saying no.

Delay Deludes

The trouble in life comes when we use the same delaying tactics to deal with difficult decisions and we delude ourselves. When faced with the decision to do something right now that we need to do should do, but don’t want to do right now, we say, "not now."

The time isn’t quite right. The truth is that the time is NEVER quite right. And we lie to ourselves thinking I’m REALLY going to do that later. A little later... 

The Truth

But the truth is this, if you don’t do it now, you never will. Not now becomes never. If you want to change your life, if you need to change your life, but the time is not convenient, don't kid yourself into thinking it ever will be convenient. There will never be a perfect time.

Wake Up and Decide Now, Because Tomorrow Will Never Come

Don't lie to yourself and say “Not now, maybe a little later, because later will never come and you will have forfeited your chance to make the changes you want.

REMEMBER…NOT NOW BECOMES NEVER… ALWAYS.

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What have you put off that you can do NOW? What are the things that keep you from moving forward NOW?

The Big If

If God Wills It ... Latin, German, French, English, Irish, Russian... We are all subject to His will for us.There's a real danger in talking big about what you will or will not do.

The reason is you really don’t  know the future. You can’t really be sure you’ll even be here much less be able to make anything happen.

Most have heard the common saying that... I'll do such and such if “the Lord is willing and the creek don't rise.” What I always say when I hear that is if the Lord is willing, the creek won't rise. 

There's one thing that controls what happens in the world - God's will. Some things are determined and some things are allowed to happen but nothing happens that is against his will. Sometimes he lets “bad” things happen that he fixes later or that he use to his and everyone else's advantage. Sometimes we know why they occur, sometimes we don’t.

Beyond that that statement don't ask me to explain any further because I can’t.  No one understands it all. But there is one thing we can understand and have confidence in and that is... No one but him can control what happens in the universe. Why? Because He is the Creator and we are just the creatures. The creatures don't decide, the creator decides.

“Come now, you who say, today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit. Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, of the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that. But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil.”  James 13-16

In this scripture the Bible is very clear that you are on dangerous grounds when you say that  you WILL do this or that in the future because you can't make that promise. You are showing ignorance and arrogance because you're not in charge of the future. You don’t know. You can’t know. You don’t have that knowledge. You don’t have that power.

But you can get on safe ground—it's easy!
To be on safe ground you just need to qualify your statements saying “if the Lord  wills or if the Lord is willing." That demonstrates respect and humility and awareness that we know the truth and the truth is that we don't even know if we will take our next breath or not. Our lives are gifts, not something that we make happen.

Every breath, every day, is a gift. 
Our health is a gift, our family is a gift, our abilities are gifts and all of these can be taken at any time. We are wise to stay humble and remember that there is a big IF about what will happen in our future or what we will do in our future and that is

...IF the Lord wills.

The Book of Light

It's been said that the quality of your life can be directly traced back to the decisions you make.

Yet how do you decide? We are can get paralyzed by many decisions, so many choices and so much conflicting advice. Its even more frightening when you are making decisions that affect your family or business.

It seems like we have to make these choices in the dark.

Darkness is fine when you're sleeping, but it's terrifying  to be walking around in the dark. The truth is that if you don't have a guide and you don't know the future, you actually are in the dark when it comes to making decisions.

Fortunately we have a guide, the Bible, the Word of God.

As it says in Psalms 119:105

"Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path."

God's word gives us a foundation. It provides us reference points for evaluating and judging choices - providing practical advice in hundreds of areas. It helps you discern danger, position yourself for success and evaluate your life's direction

God has always been in the light business.

In fact the first record of his words are "Let there be light" in Genesis 1:3. If you look a little closer you'll also find the light described as a person, his Son Jesus Christ.

"I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness". John 12:46

When you are ready for the Light to come into your life and tired of walking in darkness, you'll find your answer in the Bible - the Book of Light.