The Pressure of 4000 Weeks

The constant demand of sport is leading some to walk away

There was a time when sport was innovative, cutting-edge, and leading the way in helping businesses, the military, and the average person find high performance. Sport pushed the frontiers of human performance by experimenting with nutrition, hydration, sport psychology, strength and conditioning, rest, and recovery.

Sport is about to be left behind.

In the quest for elite performance, undertones of productivity, viewing “more” as better, and “hard work” as the most valuable commodity began to permeate every corner of the building. Now it’s not uncommon to find organizations that would prefer your “family” at work to be your first priority over your real family at home. Sport organizations want to own your work, your intellectual property, and increasingly, all of your time.

Professionals are finally starting to push back.

We're in the middle of a mass exodus of qualified professionals from the sports space at all levels, from coaches to psychologists to athletic trainers and administrators. This mass exodus is linked directly to the organizations’ quest to own nearly all their employees’ time. Those who push to find balance are chided as lazy, prodded about “missing” things at work while they're missing their kids’ birthdays and sporting events, and held back professionally because they don’t put work over everything else.

Underneath all of that is the fact that the pandemic has highlighted just how much time we have: about 4000 weeks.

At the end of 2021, author Oliver Burkeman released a book called "Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals." The premise of the book is remarkably simple - the average human life lasts about 4000 weeks, which doesn't sound all that long when you break it down. Several articles before this book have talked about the length of time we actually get with our loved ones (it's a lot less than you think, particularly after you leave for college: https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.html).

If 4000 weeks sounds too abstract, we can take a moment to paint a clearer picture. Say you're in your mid-40s, and your parents are in their mid-70s. You might be looking at less than 20 holiday seasons or family vacations to go.

And if you look at the opposite end - suppose you have young kids - you might have 5-10 sports seasons left, concerts or plays to attend, birthday parties to host.

And sports thinks you should miss all that, for work. In a lot of instances, for a small paycheck and the chance to wear a logo on your chest, with no promise of future employment unless the athletes on the field perform and no loyalty to you if the leader of the organization jumps ship. Because of an almost maniacal focus on outcomes, to the detriment of anything that would be intrinsically rewarding, the things that used to motivate people, like helping athletes get better, providing good healthcare, or leadership, are falling by the wayside.

We've seen instances of teams succeeding while still allowing some semblance of balance - Bruce Arians is famous for telling his staff that he'll fire them if they miss one of their kids' events - but by and large, the world of sport would like you to believe that you have a "family" at work that's more important than your family (whether that be your biological family or chosen family) at home.

The pandemic has shown us that just about nothing is more important than the people we have in our lives that support us. At a time when things were more challenging than ever, many athletic institutions turned a cold shoulder, either through layoffs, poor communication, or just plain devaluing their staff's welfare (to be fair, some did the opposite).

Sports is now facing a real problem, though many institutions are going to be reluctant to change. There’s an old adage in sports that there are “a thousand people who would love to have the job you do.” The idea that people want to work for a specific organization because of their brand or what they represent is alive and well, but as more people are able to find stable careers, better pay, more meaning, and greater reward away from the game, my sense is this well of 1000 people will dry up. And, even if it doesn’t, that says nothing of the quality of the group.

The next generation of employees is more interested in working for themselves, creating, and having the freedom to live a life that they find meaningful than finding their meaning in work. They want to make the most of their 4000 weeks.

We need to go back to making sports about what they were originally designed for: a chance to learn, develop skills, have fun, and find joy. For coaches and support staff, it was about helping athletes get better. For administrators, it’s about leadership and building something special. 

If we can't find meaning in what we're doing, the pressure of the 4000 weeks will be too much, and people will keep walking away.

What We’re Reading

Periodically, we’re going to start sharing some of the things we are finding interesting in sports and beyond.

First up: Burn by Herman Pontzer.

This book was as entertaining as it was informative. A deep dive into the evolution of human metabolism and metabolic health, Dr. Pontzer uncovers what we commonly misunderstand about metabolic health and how it impacts our energy levels and overall health.

A Concept We’re Exploring

Traditionally, teams have really focused on fitting personalities together to build team chemistry. What if, instead, the team focused on fitting abilities together, and trusted that over time, personalities will be able to work together to succeed?