Lisa Gambrell

 1. It’s Not Just About You

Every successful workplace functions like a well-coordinated team. In football, no one wins alone—the quarterback doesn’t throw to himself (well, maybe in a trick play, but stay with me). In the same way, professional relationships thrive when we work collaboratively toward shared goals, not personal glory.

The same applies to personal relationships—it’s a team effort. In the football game of life, two individuals are teammates driving toward the end zone together. Scoring a touchdown, winning a game, or even taking a season requires the coordinated effort of every team member.

2. Get on the Same Page

Strong communication is the real MVP. Football teams rely on knowing the play, anticipating each other’s moves, and reacting in real time. In the workplace, aligning expectations, actively listening, and adapting when things change are key to any winning strategy.

Just like a healthy relationship, playing a good game requires strong communication skills. There’s back-and-forth movement and plenty of ball passing. For the center to hike the ball to the quarterback successfully, both must know exactly what the other is doing—every moment of every game.

3. I Get Knocked Down, but I Get Up Again

Even the best teams fumble. Becoming a championship team involves years of accumulated practice filled with both failures and successes. What matters most is how quickly they recover.

Professional relationships are no different. There will be missteps, dropped balls, and the occasional bruised ego. Learn from them. Focus on the next play, not the last one. If you drop the ball, fumble, or even lose, you get back in and go for next week’s win.

4. Huddle When Needed

Before major plays, teams regroup and align. In the workplace, taking time to connect, clarify, and strategize is just as important. Whether it’s a weekly check-in or a one-on-one conversation, the “huddle” ensures everyone is aligned and moving forward together.

5. Recharge Off the Field

No one performs at their best in constant grind mode. Football players rest, recover, and study the game off the field. Similarly, in work relationships, downtime and informal bonding build trust, strengthen resilience, and improve long-term performance.

6. Know and Respect Roles

Great teams succeed because each player knows their position and plays to their strengths. At work, this means recognizing your colleagues’ skills, trusting them with the ball when it’s their play, and supporting them when they need backup.

You need to know when to pass the ball and when to take the tackle. Sometimes your teammate is better positioned to score the touchdown. Other times, they may still be stuck at the starting line. Success isn’t about who gets the credit—it’s about scoring together.

In the End…

The beauty of football—and of relationships—is having a team that helps you move toward that winning touchdown in life. Whether you’re eyeing the playoffs or just trying to get through Q1 without a breakdown, healthy relationships—on the field and at work—are built on trust, communication, and shared goals.

You win some. You lose some. But when you play as a team, you’re always in the game. And because you do it together, it becomes not just the greatest game—but one of the best ways to live your life.

The other day, a young person asked me, “What does it feel like to be old?”

The question caught me off guard—not because it was rude, but because I don’t think of myself as old. He must have seen the flicker of surprise on my face, because he immediately looked embarrassed. But it was a fair question. And after sitting with it for a moment, I realized something simple and profound:

Getting older is a gift.

Some days, I’m startled by the person in the mirror. But I don’t linger there long. I wouldn’t trade the life I’ve lived for fewer gray hairs or a flatter stomach. I don’t scold myself for leaving a chore undone or indulging in an extra treat. I’ve earned the right to be a little messy, a little extravagant, to spend an hour watching flowers open to the sun.

I’ve said goodbye to people who left this world far too soon—before they experienced the freedom that comes with age.

So who cares if I stay up all night reading or tinkering on the computer, only to sleep past sunrise? I’ll dance alone to the music of the ’50s and ’60s. If a memory moves me to tears, I’ll let them fall.

I’ll wear tight leather pants and Converse at sixty—not to chase youth, but because I never needed permission to begin with.

I’ll walk the beach in a swimsuit that hugs a body shaped by time, and I’ll dive into the waves anyway. If someone stares, so be it. With any luck, they’ll grow old too.

Yes, I’ve known heartbreak—the kind that comes from losing loved ones, watching a child suffer, or saying goodbye to a pet. But those experiences carved out space in me. Pain is what makes room for deeper joy. A heart that has never been broken may be untouched, but it is also untested. It will never know the fullness of love that rises on the other side of loss.

I’ve lived long enough for my hair to turn silver—though hair dye tells a different story—and for my face to map every lesson, every laughter line, every tear. The smile I wear now isn’t the same one I had in my youth; it’s richer, wiser, and earned.

So, what does it feel like to be old?

It feels like freedom.

It feels like wisdom with dirt under its nails.

It feels like living on your own terms.

I know my time isn’t endless. But while I’m here, I’ll follow the rules of my heart. I won’t dwell on what never happened or worry about what comes next. I’ll love life as long as I’m in it—and trust that I’ll leave the world to hands capable of shaping what’s ahead.

I’ve earned this life.

And I’ll dress—and live—accordingly.

She had always been called strong. The kind of woman who bent without breaking, who carried the weight of a family, a career, and a thousand unspoken sacrifices without letting the world see the cracks. Six children she raised—six lives she shepherded through scraped knees, broken hearts, and the messy unpredictability of growing up. Through it all, she fought her way through school, climbed into a career that demanded everything from her, and kept moving forward no matter how uneven the ground. People admired her. They still do.

But late at night, when the house is still, there’s a silence that presses against her like a stone. She looks around at the life she has built—the children now grown and gone, the grandchildren who visit but belong to someone else’s orbit, the parents she now tends to instead of leaning on—and she feels it: the emptiness that no one ever prepared her for.

She has hobbies, yes. She travels, learns, challenges herself with little adventures, fills her calendar so there are fewer hours left to notice the void. And yet, some days, even in the middle of laughter with friends or in the quiet joy of her green grass, she feels it creeping in. A hollow ache. A whisper in her chest: What now?

It isn’t loneliness exactly, though that’s part of it. It’s something heavier. A sense of being untethered. For decades, her purpose was crystal clear: raise the children, survive the storms, keep moving forward. Now, with the years stretching ahead, she wonders if she has lost herself in the process.

The past doesn’t let her go easily. Some nights it plays like an old record—mistakes she can’t unmake, sacrifices that cost more than anyone knew, regrets that surface in sharp, sudden flashes. She feels stuck in its loop, as if the weight of who she was keeps dragging her back just when she tries to imagine who she might still become.

The mirror doesn’t help. She stares at her reflection, searching for the woman everyone else insists she is—resilient, admirable, strong—but what she sees is someone tired. Someone asking questions with no clear answers. Who am I, really? Who am I without the children who needed me, without the endless to-do lists, without the chaos that gave my life its shape? Who do I want to be now, when the world is so quiet I can hear my own doubts echo back?

Sometimes the fear feels suffocating. The idea that maybe she’s already lived the best of her years. That maybe what lies ahead isn’t discovery or adventure but simply more silence, more echoes of the past. She pushes it down when she can, but there are days when it consumes her, when she feels too tired to swim back to the surface.

People still call her strong, and she smiles politely, because that’s what she knows how to do. But inside, she wonders if strength is what’s keeping her stuck—if she’s worn it so long it has become armor too heavy to take off, even when she longs just to breathe.

And so, she drifts in this space between pride and emptiness, between gratitude for all she’s built and the haunting question of whether there is anything left for her. She doesn’t know where to go next. She doesn’t even know if she has the energy to try. For the first time in her life, the future feels less like a road ahead and more like a fog she can’t quite step into.

And yet, in the middle of that ache, another truth pushes through.

For the first time in decades, she is free. There are no small hands tugging at her, no late-night cries, no endless lists of who needs what and when. The children are grown. They are fine. They are living. She did her part, and more. She has earned this moment—this open stretch of life that belongs to no one but her.

That should feel exhilarating, shouldn’t it? A relief. And sometimes it does. She can wake up when she chooses, say yes or no without explaining herself, spend her money and her hours on anything she wants. The whole world lies before her, wide and endless, like a map with no boundaries. She could travel. She could fall in love again. She could start over in a brand-new place. She could reinvent herself entirely, if she wanted to. The second half of her life is hers to design.

 But the freedom itself is terrifying. With no road already drawn, where does she even begin? At fifty-something, starting feels heavier than it once did. She can’t help but ask: What are my options? Am I too late? What if I choose wrong? What if I waste what time I have left?

The duality tears at her. Relief and emptiness. Possibility and paralysis. Some days she feels the spark of adventure, the thrill of not needing permission to simply live for herself. Other days, the same thought makes her chest tighten with fear—because the choices are infinite, and she doesn’t know who she is anymore to even decide.

She lingers in the in-between, suspended in the paradox: free, but stuck. Relieved, but haunted. Strong, but questioning. She looks at her life and knows she has already done the impossible, yet she stands at the edge of this wide-open future with no map, whispering into the quiet: Where do I begin?