Throw a Perfect Spiral: How Professionalism Fuels Our Life, Not Just Our Work

I was watching the recent Ravens - Lions Monday Night Football game, and Ravens’ quarterback Lamar Jackson, two-time MVP, did something that struck me.

He rolled out of the pocket, sprinting at full speed. His receiver was blanketed 50 yards downfield, running over 20 miles an hour. And yet Lamar let the ball go with a perfect spiral, perfect timing, threading it into a window just a few inches wide where there was nothing but open field when he released it.

The ball dropped into his receiver’s hands like it was inevitable.

But, of course, it wasn’t.

He can do that because it’s his profession. That’s what he gets paid $260 million to do. He gets to spend all day, every day, perfecting his craft.

And here’s what hit me: even among professionals, almost no one on earth can do what Lamar just did. Which made me pause on that word we toss around so casually—professionalism. What does it really mean? Because what I saw in that throw wasn’t a paycheck or a title. It was a life built so completely around a craft that the impossible starts to look routine.

Where I First Saw It

I recognized that professionalism immediately, because I’d seen it in my own world.

For me, it was first in bobsled. Professionalism there wasn’t just about pushing a sled hard; it was about learning to push in every possible way. Heavy sleds, light sleds, uphill sprints, sprint starts, muscular endurance grinds—over and over again, in every variation.

Every day, I had to take my body right to the edge where performance lives—and where injury waits. That edge is razor-thin. Push too little, you fall behind. Push too hard, you break. So every rep, every day, was about knowing how far I could go without tipping over, then finding a way to stretch that limit just a little further.

And it wasn’t just the hours on the track or in the gym. The other 20 hours of the day mattered just as much. How I slept, how I ate, how I rehabbed and recovered, how I managed my mind—those choices decided whether I could come back the next morning and do it again.

That’s how you get great at something.

It’s not just what you do in the moment of performance—it’s everything you build around it. And research backs it up: ignoring recovery and treating injury as “just part of the job” eventually shortens careers and drags down performance (Winning at all costs).

Later, when I was at my peak as a CEO, it showed up differently. Not in muscle and steel, but in how precisely I prepared for board meetings and fund development interactions, how carefully I thought through decisions, how deliberately I built systems to protect my energy and focus. The demand was the same: perform at the edge, recover, then come back sharper the next day.

That’s professionalism: not one perfect moment, but building the capacity to make it look inevitable when it counts and leveraging every part of your days to improve.

The Upward Spiral

Now, I’ll be honest—it sounds exhausting, I get it. Who would want to live like that? Leverage every part of your day for your job?

But here’s the thing I’ve learned: you don’t have to obsess about your job 24 hours a day. You just need to see the rest of your life as fuel for it. And the reverse—use your focus for work to fuel the rest of your life.

When you bring more focus, endurance, and emotional steadiness into your craft, those same qualities spill into your health, your relationships, your joy. Life fuels work. Work fuels life. That’s where the upward spiral begins.

Think of it like a tire rolling forward. If one part is flat, the ride is bumpy. But when every part is balanced, the tire doesn’t just roll—it builds momentum. That’s what the best CEOs, surgeons, teachers, and artists understand. They don’t just professionalize their work. They professionalize their lives.

Better sleep, recovery, and exercise make you sharper at work. Sharper focus at work makes you more aware with better emotional regulation. Better emotional regulation makes you a better leader—and a better parent, partner, and friend at home. Stronger bonds at home give you resilience and clarity for the next day. Round and round it goes—an upward spiral that sustains you.

Upward Spiral Wiring

But why does it sustain us? This is the parallel we don’t draw often enough. 

Professionalism and human connection come from the same source. For nearly 300,000 years, survival wasn’t about standing out on your own. It was about caring for your people. If you didn’t, you didn’t make it.

Unlike most animals, we don’t walk away once our kids can feed themselves. Humans are wired to care for each other across an entire lifetime—parents for children, partners for each other, friends for friends. That bond is written into us. It’s why we feel the pull to provide, to protect, to belong.

And when you look at it through that lens, professionalism is simply the modern expression of the same instinct. It’s showing up for your team. It’s making yourself stronger so you can make others stronger. It’s honoring your role in the group because you know the group is stronger when you do.

When you align your work with that ancient wiring, something powerful happens. 

Your professionalism stops being just about performance or achievement. It becomes about fulfillment. Work fuels life, life fuels work, and both fuel your ability to take care of your people. 

That is not just sustainable performance—it’s the way we were designed to live and it’s what the upward spiral is based on.

Protecting the Spiral

Of course, there’s a catch.

You have to protect that spiral.

Junk food isn’t just a diet problem, it dulls your clarity. Scrolling isn’t just wasted time, it fractures your focus. Skipping exercise isn’t just about fitness, it’s about whether your body can handle stress. Isolation isn’t just loneliness, it’s cutting yourself off from one of the deepest sources of energy and recovery we have: connection.

When you see those obstacles for what they are—blocks in the wheel—you can start replacing them with fuel. With choices that strengthen every spoke, reinforce the upward spiral, and make tomorrow’s performance better than today’s. Even in sport, balance and variation, not rigid over-specialization, lead to longer, stronger careers (Specialization and Its Effect on Professional, Elite, and Olympic Athlete Performance, Career Longevity, and Injury Rates).

And when you give your body and mind what they actually need, the numbing agents lose their pull. You don’t need the extra drink, the mindless distraction, the late-night escape. You’re already full. You’re already building momentum.

Lamar’s Spiral

Which brings me back to Lamar Jackson.

When he threaded that ball through the air Monday night, hitting a receiver running over 20 mph with a pass traveling 50 yards into a window just a few inches wide—it looked impossible.

But it wasn’t magic. It was professionalism, multiplied over years. A system of preparation, recovery, and refinement that made the impossible look routine.

That’s the edge. That’s professionalism.

So here’s my question for you:
What would it look like if you professionalized your life the same way?
What might change if you built the conditions where, when your moment came, you could drop the ball right into someone’s hands?

That’s the power of professionalism—not just in your craft, but in how you live.

Go have your Lamar Jackson moment. 

(Or as my sister would say - go Josh Allen that Lamar moment. 😉)

- Steve

steve.mesler

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