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Pursue Success Like a Successful Person
Western culture embraces the notion that success is synonymous with having more money than you could ever spend or being nationally-recognized as the best at something. In sports, we find a measure of joy and satisfaction when our favorite sports squadron wins a national title. As fans, we find ourselves enjoying that success by proxy.
“My team won the [insert national title competition here],” we might say at the office water cooler.
Unless you’re Ryan Smith, they’re probably not your team.
Still, there’s an interesting thing that happens when you root for a particular team and they do well. Their success — even though your fandom contributes almost nothing to it — can have an immediate effect on the self-esteem and confidence of the fan. This is a phenomenon known as Basking in Reflected Glory or BIRGing. BIRGing hits the brain in some of the same way as personal achievement does.
We all know someone — maybe it’s ourselves — who seems to live by basking in their own former glory. The cliché version is the high school football star, now in his late 40s, who can’t seem to move beyond those glory days of being able to “throw a pig skin a quarter mile.” (Thank you Uncle Rico.)
Napoleon Dynamite and national pride aside, we don’t have to throw a football the way Tommy Frazier…
