I do not know what the future holds. This concerns me little because I essentially live for today. It is my belief that too many of us live in a world based on tomorrow.
The majority of us are working our way through life more concerned with what we want rather than enjoying what we already have.
In professional football one can become so concentrated on the next game that today's work is glossed over. A true professional, irrespective of the line of work, will apply himself, or herself, diligently to the task in hand and leave next week 'til next week.
My philosophy is to accept the need to plan ahead but concentrate fully on the moment. To do otherwise would allow life to dictate the terms and conditions of my existence. Sure, a man would be old before his time were he to accept that.
Modern professional football management is akin to a turbulent sea.
Changes come fast and furious. One can be riding the crest of a great wave moments before being engulfed by an enormous crescendo of confusion.
In many respects it must be a bit like surfboarding in the South Atlantic Ocean.
You can be performing miracles just staying upright and retaining a reasonable amount of control while all the time fully understanding that the world around you can come crashing down with such force that you literally don't know where the next breath is going to come from.
However, if you worry about the consequences you miss the thrill of the ride. But if you are the type to worry about the consequences you should not be in the South Atlantic Ocean in the first place, and you certainly should not have brought along your surfboard.
The procrastinated point I am attempting to offer for your perusal and contemplation is that in professional football, pressure and change loom large over every performer.
It is the attitude to these two constants that determine the true worth of the individual in this most demanding of professions.
I have been in professional football for over 40 years. In that prolonged period of time I have come to understand fully that my part in this sport of ours is a very small one indeed.
I have also come to accept that ego obstructs progression both in an individual and professional sense. However, I now know that ego is simply a reflection of insecurity in action, and insecurity is always around.
Like the surfboarder referred to above, the closeness of triumph and the adjacency of disaster can, on many occasions, merge into one mad moment of mayhem.
Many managers allow themselves to be beguiled into believing that they are alone and isolated by the demands of their profession. In truth, the opposite is usually the case.
When a manager realises and accepts that his club is far more important than any of its component parts or members, he will then understand that he is one of many.
And when each and every member of the club is united in their striving for the success of that club, then they have already found success.
Many of us in professional football are on the wrong scent in the pursuit of success. In many ways there is much to be learned from the ethos in Rugby and GAA that dictates the club to be of paramount importance.
And it is only when we embrace this ethos, this unity of thought and action, that we can begin to feel certain of what the future holds.
And the more principled the work we do today the more assured that future will be. Because nothing can be truly great that lacks integrity.
