📰Headline Shocker
PRESEASON INSPIRES 32 TEAMS, 0 ACTUAL EVIDENCE
Area Fan Already Booking Super Bowl Airbnb Based on Third-String QB Performance
LAS VEGAS, NV — Local Raiders fan Mike Hanley has reportedly declared 2025 "the year" after watching a highlight of his team’s third-string quarterback scrambling for four yards in a meaningless preseason tie.
"I can just feel it," Hanley said, while placing a $500 futures bet. "The energy is different. We are building something."
Sources confirm he gave the same speech last year, right before the Raiders finished 4-13.
Across the country, other fans are following suit. Giants fans are declaring a dynasty after one touchdown pass in August. Cowboys fans are printing playoff shirts before Labor Day. And in Jacksonville, one man legally changed his middle name to "Momentum" after a kicker nailed a 42-yard field goal in garbage time.
🏈 The Career Preseason Effect
The same phenomenon happens in our work lives. We treat small signals as guaranteed proof of a championship run:
- New Job Energy: "This company is different. They have kombucha on tap. They value people." By October you are updating your LinkedIn headline to "Exploring new opportunities."
- New Manager Hope: "Finally, someone who gets me." Three months later they are assigning you to a task called "strategic pivot initiative" that no one understands.
- New Notebook Syndrome: "With this pen, I will be unstoppable." By week two you are back to writing grocery lists in the margins.
- Networking Coffee Overconfidence: "This is the connection that changes everything." Two months later you realize you were just background noise to someone else’s latte.
- The Training Hype: You attend a two-day leadership seminar, walk out with six acronyms, three mantras, and a workbook you never open again.
Hope feels like momentum. But without practice, preparation, and alignment, it fades by halftime.
🪑 From The Editor’s Desk
Preseason teaches us that hope is the spark, not the strategy.
In football, the real season is coming. The starters will play. The scoreboard will count. And the habits built in practice will make or break the year.
Your career is no different:
- Optimism gets you started.
- Preparation and alignment keep you in the game.
- Character is what wins in overtime.
So dream big. Wear the jersey. Believe this is your year.
Just do not forget to practice like it actually counts.
