When Dubai announced on November 25 that it wasn’t going to make it next payment (of $3.5 billion), it also reminded sukuk holders (bonds there are called sukuk) that “Investors should note that the Government of Dubai does not guarantee any indebtedness or any other liability of Dubai World.”

Mark Knowles laid out in his well-considered piece on Luxury Property Blog, that this is a tough time to sell investors on Dubai. Pollution, AIDS, and serious cultural differences are usually a turn-off for people – say, pro athletes – looking to invest in property.

As any smart buyer knows, and as International Property Investment “boss” Ahmed Bilani says in “his” worthy blog:

Property investment is always subject to what is known as “environment risk” – that’s the risks you can’t control such as local government changing the law on residency qualification for investors, or the banks deciding that you need to provide an extra 10% by tomorrow. There is also the market sentiment risk – now everyone even slightly aware of the of the world scene probably thinks every piece of Dubai real estate is grossly over-priced. Whether you own a reasonable priced piece of Dubai property or not -that is the perception you will have to battle if you are planning on selling anytime soon, or even in the next 10 years.

Things in Dubai are not going in a positive direction; and we’re not telling you anything you haven’t already heard elsewhere.

Earlier this year, the government there created a law making it illegal to publish “misleading news that harms the national economy.”

That’s going to be tough to enforce.

In the Rough

Click ahead to the past couple of months. Tiger Woods’ personal life has been splayed out for everyone, so let’s instead just talk about another of Tiger’s woes.

“The Tiger Woods Dubai will soon be one of the most sought-after destinations in the world, and will be a genuine oasis for those lucky enough to live or stay within its spectacular grounds,” said Tiger Woods in April of 2006.

The promocrap said: “Spread across an area of 55 million square feet, The Tiger Woods Dubai will be an exclusive golf community featuring a professionally-staffed golf academy, a clubhouse spread across 139,000 square feet with premium amenities, a high-end boutique hotel, a premium destination spa, 75 mansions, 22 palaces, and 100 luxury villas.” Good luck getting anyone other than bonused vps from UBS and Goldman Sachs to chip their shots there.

The Tiger Woods Dubai has not returned our calls for comment, so we are left wondering how many alchemists in addition to the world’s most renowned golfer are living the kind of Dubai dream they thought they would when they plunked down wads of cash for a crazy idea that Woods’ mere name would turn sand into gold.

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athletic economics

You have one pie.

Think before you slice it.

Hey, Stay-Pro

For almost his entire life, a pro is treated special. Rules are relaxed for him, and winks and nods get him to the next level.

Until recently, he could even skip growing up altogether, and just demand (and get) money for his potential.

Our society no longer accepts the boys-will-be-boys apology. Pros everywhere should realize this, because there are enough people who want their jobs – and possess the same skill sets.

Gone are the days when teams would hide the trouble their players were having; troubles like coping with everyday life.

Troubles like beating up their wife or girlfriend.

What do you think don’t we get?

That you are or were an important man?

That you are strong?

Why is there such a large percentage of players and former players who commit acts of domestic violence?

Do they not know how they denigrate themselves as well as their teams and their leagues to rightful derision and scorn?

Nothing the agent does shall deny the client money

The NFL has programs concerning off-field behavior. Do they work? Keep reading.

Do their agents even offer players guidance? Of course not. Overwhelmingly, agents think if they help reel in their client, he (the client) will lose some of his bete noire image. But a player evokes a bad-boy image (if that’s his desire) by acts ON the field or court, not off of it.

Look at John McEnroe. He is still considered tennis’ SuperBrat, even 20 years past his heyday. His aggression is never directed against people physically.

Mean Joe Greene was the undisputed leader of the Steelers defense throughout the 1970s, just as Troy Polamulu is now. Both of them have quiet lifestyles, and let their play do the talking (or hurting!) Both of them are said to be nice all-around guys.

When puerile off-field actions are the only press one gets, it is possibly because the Pro never fully separated the game from real life. He cannot think of himself as a person without including his adulations. His life is still on the field or in the locker room. Or both.

After O.J. Simpson was charged with the murder of his wife and her friend, the NFL went to all the teams’ training camps to talk about domestic violence. It had become an issue because Simpson was first charged with domestic violence five years earlier, in 1989. And in the 20 years since then, we still have headlines. What difference has the league domestic violence program made?

Same-day Super Bowl violence spiking has been disproved, but The Journal of Sports Economics did a study on college football games and crime. Their evidence says that when there is a home game, crime increases. When there is an upset, crime increases even more.

Our results suggest that the host community registers sharp increases in assaults, vandalism, arrests for disorderly conduct, and arrests for alcohol-related offenses on game days. Upsets are associated with the largest increases in the number of expected offenses.

Why is this?

We think those abusers play a vicarious game. They see how aggression is valued and even revered on the field, and they cannot fully separate that from the reality of their own lives; much like we think some former players cannot think of themselves away from the sport, some abusers have a deep vision of their life as having the positive attributes of a competitive game.

• Get ready
• Get set
• Go at it for 1 hour
• Retreat
• Think and talk about what happened
• Repeat

My life isn’t like that.

Yours probably isn’t either.

My life has crap – for which I’ve not prepared – that hits it from all sides at any time – and not just for 1 hour. Everybody’s does.

Some players and fans need to work on distinguishing “what you are” from “what you do.”

We fans see from many sources that all players are self-serving, privileged and pampered. The same media show some of them as unruly, unethical or illegal. We don’t see genuine examples of professional tough guys being warm or gentle in their off-field lives – and we desperately need to see that.

But it has to be honest. We’re not idiots.

Family Violence Prevention Fund President Esta Soler has said, “(A)s public figures, athletes are in a unique position to take a stand against violence, and many are doing just that. We commend the professional athletes who are helping to raise awareness about abuse and doing their part to end violence against women and children.”

We call on pros of every sport to rise against domestic violence, now, while your teammates and the public are paying attention. Your league’s instructions are clearly not working.

Otherwise, the football names already in the newspapers associated with domestic violence will continue to grow.

2009 only:

• Will Billingsley
• Tom Cable
• Cornell Green
• Shawn Merriman
• Richard Quinn

What are you doing?

Do you think that maybe you need help?
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Hey, Stay-Pro

Troy Polamalu by Todd Nauck

His financial advisers, he said, “never stepped in and never made anything last a lifetime; I was left to make my own decisions.”

Unfortunately, this is becoming regular reading.
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Hey, Stay-Pro

Episodes like that take place all the time in professional sports.

You make a corn-balled move and someone tells you what to do to make it right.

That is one of the expert domains of Stay-Pro, and an important sector of our business. We are the ones in the background who suggest appropriate ways to take the negative aspects of an act and turn them around completely – into big positives, even when you don’t understand that it was negative.

We didn’t work on the Mark Sanchez problem – and would have structured it differently if we had – but we are certain someone told him that donating hotdogs to a soup kitchen would play well. No one thinks that Mark Sanchez thought it up himself. No one thinks that he was ever near that soup kitchen until his “people” brought him and the hotdogs. No one thinks he’ll ever return there.

At least he followed their directions.

When you engage Stay-Pro, we watch out for you like a friend, we encourage you and care for you with our top people. To us, you, includes your reputation, because you are so much more than just a passing arm, a fast 40 or a good hook shot.

Naturally, we take pride when you perform as a worthy person, as that shows the true nature of our relationship.

If you make an error in judgment, we work to make the fix sincere and meaningful; where no one thinks that you were advised to do something that you wouldn’t have thought of yourself. We turn bad situations into effective opportunities.

We’ve never divulged who our clients are, so we are always able to work in the background without raising suspicions from the media, or others with jaded views of pro’s actions.

We keep you grounded in the things that you want to keep important in your life. We start to do this when we initially evaluate you, a process in which you tell us about the matters that matter to you.

A reputation is determined in four distinct areas. Mark Sanchez’ Hollywood hotdog giveaway dealt with one, or maybe two – at best. It did nothing to remove the image of a spoiled rich kid; odd, when you consider that he could probably have afforded much better advice.

Sometimes, you don’t even understand that your actions may be interpreted differently than you ever imagined.

We do.

Of course it is best to contact Stay-Pro before you absolutely need us. But if you must, then we will work without judgment to get your issues resolved. Otherwise, you might be giving away hotdogs in a staged atmosphere that simply reminds others of the classlessness of the original deed.

And that will do nothing to improve your reputation, except with the one person who doesn’t even realize his reputation took a hit.
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Hey, Stay-Pro

Recently some NFL players have been making news, not just for their athletic prowess, but for destructive behavior off the field. Emotional intelligence has been highly correlated with health, positive relationships, and pro-social behavior: Is this true for professional athletes? If so, these skills could be a key to help professional athletes overcome a range of challenges. This study assesses 30 retired NFL players with a survey on life success (including good health and relationships, avoiding drug/alcohol use and violence, doing well at work, and creating a high quality of life) and an emotional intelligence assessment. Over 60% in the variation of the life success factors are predicted by emotional intelligence scores. Athletes with greater emotional intelligence are likely to be more successful in life.

Background

Recent headlines have emphasized the “off the field performance” of professional athletes, raising awareness that the behavior of athletes impacts team performance and finances, the athletes’ lives, and society.[1] But many athletes are incredible role models during and after their pro careers, upholding the highest standards of sportsmanship and citizenship. Given other research on the relationship between emotional intelligence and life success,[2] Six Seconds and Sportstech International conducted an exploratory study to assess if emotional intelligence is an important ingredient in helping professional athletes live healthy and successful lives.

Sample Group

The Retired Players Department of the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) represents professional athletes who played in the NFL. In May 2007, approximately 220 members met for their annual conference in Atlanta, Georgia; the attendees are retired professional athletes, and most are leaders in their state and regional player associations. Marvin Smith, a retired NFL player and member of the NFLPA, is the co-founder of Sportstech, the human asset management firm for athletes. Smith attended the 2007 Retired Players Conference and invited a random sample of fellow athletes to complete anonymous assessments of emotional intelligence and life success.

The 30 respondents[3] all are men between the ages of 37 and 52 (mean age 44). They currently work in a broad range of roles from employees in manufacturing to executives in sales to counselors; they work in finance, technology, health, sports, manufacturing, and professional services. Sixty three percent have a university degree.

To form a comparison group, random visitors to the 6seconds.org web site were invited to complete the same Life Success questionnaire. A sample was selected from these responses to form a comparison group of 48 people from North America, mean age 49 years. While they have a similar range of work experiences as the NFLPA members, 87% have university degrees.[4]

Assessment

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence was measured with the Six Seconds Emotional Intelligence Assessment (SEI).[5] The SEI is based on the Six Seconds Model of Emotional Intelligence consisting of eight core competencies associated with three macro areas: Self Awareness, Self Management, and Self Direction.

• Self Awareness, called “Know Yourself” includes two competencies: Enhance Emotional Literacy and Recognize Patterns.
• Self Management, called “Choose Yourself” includes four competencies: Apply Consequential Thinking, Navigate Emotions, Engage Intrinsic Motivation, Exercise Optimism.
• The Self Direction area, called “Give Yourself,” includes Increase Empathy and Pursue Noble Goals.

The assessment provides an overall EQ score, scores for each of the three macro areas, and scores for each of the eight competencies for a total of 12 normative values.

Life Success

The Life Success scale was developed from a questionnaire Six Seconds has used for previous research [6] and expanded for the purposes of this study. Using a 5-point Likert scale respondents rated themselves on 18 items related to:

• Health (physical and emotional)
• Addiction (drugs and alcohol)
• Depression
• Relationships (personal and professional)
• Pro-social Behavior (avoiding violence and legal issues)
• Quality of Life (satisfaction with work and life)
• Effectiveness

Respondents are asked to rate their agreement with a series of statements, such as, “I have had problems with alcohol,” “My personal relationships are not successful” and “I don’t like the way I am living my life.” The 18 items form a combined variable called “Life Success,” with a Cronbach alpha of a = .864, indicating high scale reliability; however, do to the small sample size a Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin test was run to check the sample adequacy, and KMO = .395, indicating the study should be expanded to include a larger sample to confirm the strength of the Life Success scale.[7]

Analysis

A high correlation appeared between the emotional intelligence (EQ) scales and the life success (LS) outcomes. As shown in this graph, there is a strong positive relationship between EQ and LS. Generally speaking those with higher EQ had higher Life Success scores:

To assess the strength of the relationship, a linear regression analysis found that for these 30 retired NFL players, EQ is a strong predictor of the Life Success Variable: F = 32.88, p < .001 (R square = .55).

One of the strongest predictive models arises from a combination of SEI scales which yields F = 8.17, p < .001 (R square = .70, adjusted R square = .62):

In other words, approximately 62% of the variation in Life Success among these retired professional athletes is explained by emotional intelligence.

Life Success

The athletes’ scores on Life Success were 14.5% lower than the comparison groups’. The sample size is too small to achieve an even demographic distribution, so this finding requires further study. However, for the purposes of discussion, the results are:

To further understand the relationship between EQ and Life Success, several of the components of Life Success were examined separately:

Violence

Participants were asked, “I have not been violent to others,” and “I have not been abusive to others.” These two items were combined to form a variable called “Violence.”

A combination of EQ factors (Pursue Noble Goals, Apply Consequential Thinking, Increase Empathy, Recognize Patterns, Enhance Emotional Literacy, Exercise Optimism) predicts over 28% of the variation in scores on violence. [8]

Substance Abuse

Participants were asked, “I have had problems with alcohol,” and “I have had problems with drugs.” These two items were combined to form a variable called “Addiction.”

Having low emotional intelligence scores is extremely predictive of problems with drugs and alcohol. This model is highly significant, over 49% of the variation in the “Addiction” variable is predicted by components of EQ. [9]

Relationships

Participants were asked, “I have many excellent friendships,” “My marriage(s) / relationship(s) have been excellent,” and “My personal relationships are not successful.” These were combined to form a variable called “Relationships.”

Emotional Intelligence components (Pursue Noble Goals, Navigate Emotions, Apply Consequential Thinking, Recognize Patterns and Engage Intrinsic Motivation) combine to predict over 44% of the variation in relationship quality. [10]

Quality of Life

Participants were asked, “I don’t like the way I am living my life,” “I have had financial problems,” and “Overall, my life is great.” These items were combined to form a variable called “Quality of Life.”

Total emotional intelligence is highly predictive of Quality of Life; almost 45% of the variation in Quality of Life is explained by EQ scores. [11]

Conclusion

It appears that emotional intelligence, as measured by the Six Seconds Emotional Intelligence Assessment, is a significant (perhaps even essential) capacity for professional athletes to live successful and healthy lives. These findings suggest that since players, teams, and the association are concerned with the lifelong wellbeing and life success of athletes, it is in their interest to ensure that athletes develop or strengthen these competencies.

In short: It appears that athletes who develop greater emotional intelligence are more likely to succeed in life.

While this athlete sample is small, it represents almost 15% of the participants at the Retired Player Association conference, a group of leaders who are among the most successful members of the association. It is important to conduct a larger scale study of retired and current NFL players, and to expand the study to other sports to more fully understand what it takes for athletes to win at life.

About Six Seconds and Sportstech

Six Seconds is a 501(c)3 organization based in California (USA) with offices in Bologna, Brisbane, Beijing, London, San Francisco, and Singapore. Established in 1997, Six Seconds exists to help all people develop emotional intelligence so communities, businesses, schools, and families can thrive. For more information, please visit www.6seconds.org

Sportstech International is a human asset management firm helping athletic teams optimize their people so teams are more successful. Sportstech partners with Six Seconds to bring emotional intelligence programs to professional athletics. For more information, please visit www.sportstechintl.com

Notes:

[1] E.G., NFL player Adam “Pacman” Jones is currently facing felony charges after his sixth arrest since joining the league causing his suspension for the season. Or Michael Vick, who ranked 33 in the 2005 Forbes 100 most powerful celebrities, was charged with cruelty to animals and was recently called “one of the most repugnant figures in all of sports” (Mobile Register, Saturday, June 23, 2007)

[2] Joshua Freedman, Massimiliano Ghini and Carina Fiedeldey-Van Dijk, “Emotional Intelligence and Performance” www.6seconds.org/sei 2006.

[3] An additional 10 members of the NFLPA responded after the analysis was completed and were not included.

[4] Not only is the education level higher, the demographics collected on each group are not adequate to form a rigorous comparison; an expanded sample with additional demographic indicators will be required for full comparison in a future study.

[5] The only tool based on Six Seconds’ model, the SEI is focused on developing key capacities for living and leading with emotional intelligence. (www.6seconds.org)

[6] Joshua Freedman, Massimiliano Ghini and Carina Fiedeldey-Van Dijk, “Emotional Intelligence and Performance” www.6seconds.org/sei 2006.

[7] Subsequently a comparison group sample (n=77) was collected from visitors to 6seconds.org web site, and the scale analysis was repeated showing strong adequacy with KMO=.735

[8] EQ vs Violence: F = 2.77, p = .038, R square = .44, Adjusted R Square .28

[9] EQ vs Substance Abuse: F = 4.274, p = .004 (R square = .643 ; Adjusted R square =.492)

[10] EQ vs Relationships: F=3.47, p <.02, R square =.44, adjusted R square .31

[11] EQ vs Quality of Life: F = 23.60, p < .001, R square = .47, adjusted R square = .45)

Joshua Freedman and Marvin Smith

Publication Date: May 1, 2008

Joshua Freedman is the Chief Operating Officer of Six Seconds, the global leader in emotional intelligence development.

Reprinted by kind permission of Six Seconds. Learn more about emotional intelligence online (www.6seconds.org).

Hey, Stay-Pro