First off, happy holidays! It’s well-timed the fantasy season finishes up around the time of the holidays and the new year. I am a self-diagnosed workaholic but this year with Christmas on a Tuesday and traveling to visit family, which has not been the case in recent years, I committed to taking at least chunks of multiple days ‘off’ this year. It was a breath of fresh air and a reminder of mixing in life – even during the fantasy season – to keep proper balance. The season is a grind, not in a bad way or anything, but when you get the home stretch it can be easy to slack off and not finish on a high note. Trust me, grinding through all the games on Sunday night like usual was more of an investment this week than the previous weeks. Part of it was the notes are for next year with next week not a factor for lineups, waivers, etc. The other part was Week 16 is the culmination of the season as championship week. Also, being ‘on the road’ and trying to have your same fantasy schedule for the week is a challenge as many of you can relate I’m sure. When I stay up until 2am (Pacific) on a Sunday night at home, the Mrs. knows and expects this and we have that routine for 4 months straight. Go to someone’s house and say ‘yeah, I will be watching football starting at 5pm and not go to bed until I am done with X-Y-Z…and don’t expect me up early in the morning tomorrow’. Even with understanding, that’s not a common thing as a guest when the hosts may watch football minimally and/or casually at normal ‘human’ type hours.
The weekly UTH show will be the annual UTH Awards this week and not recorded until Wednesday evening due to the holidays. My football time will be getting the projection model and feeder data for the trade calculator updated for the 2019 full update to kick off the offseason (should be by next Monday at the latest) and writing some summary-type pieces regarding aWORP and 2018 season takeaways.
It’s not Thanksgiving, but to list a bunch of things I am thankful for in a stream-of-consciousness fashion:
Thank you for the shoutouts and thank you emails, tweets, notes about your dynasty success this season. These NEVER get old and I view myself and UTH a small part of your success and championships. You ultimately draft, pick up players, set your lineups, and collect the hardware. Congrats, and it’s an honor for UTH to be a small piece of the puzzle to provide tools, info, and another perspective to clarify some of your decisions along the way.
Thanks to all the subscribers and listeners whether joining in the past month or years ago. Trust me, the support is never lost on me. I started the weekly podcast in 2011 and 20 people listened TOTAL to the first show, one of whom was my dad. Heck, the software probably counted me as another listener when I checked out the show after it aired. The point is, UTH literally started that evening with a guy who had no idea what he was doing and called into blogtalkradio (it was an actual live show back then) on an archaic cell phone with a ream of notes to make it through the 30 minutes. In some small way, I feel like I need to ‘earn it’ every time I push the record button or publish an article like back in 2011. A listener may give a show more tiebreakers as the shows pass, but a show host still needs to earn future listens and allegiance. That philosophy will not change at UTH. We earn your next download, subscription, site visit, etc. This show, the one being recorded right now, is THE show that counts. It’s the ‘never settle’ part of the UTH tagline. Everyone knows what settling looks and feels like in various areas of our life. Trust me, UTH will not settle and just coast to the end of a season or offseason, etc.
Thanks for supporting the new ventures UTH has explored in recent years. A few years ago, I put out 2-3 annual editions of the ‘UTH Dynasty Experience’ which was an audiobook I recorded through the year and published. The UTH premium podcasts were not a regular part of the website until a few years ago and feedback was beyond positive. The UTH Draft Guide has been a product offered annually for a few years now as a Cliff Notes version of an NFL Draft class on the metric side and a rookie/startup draft tutorial. I started the UTH Patron program over the past 1-2 years as an additional avenue for UTH podcasts, helping patrons 1-on-1 and now creating the UTH VIP chat room as another outlet for relationship building. With each of these, the support and feeling of ‘keep it up, Chad, you are doing the right things’ reaction from subscribers and listeners has been reassuring and positive.
My final point is thank you for supporting and validating the way UTH operates. This is not a big box website/operation with a host of support employees, writers, editors, code writers, designers, etc. My stock line is UTH is run like a 1980s hardware. My goal is to create relationships. The business part of revenue, etc. will follow if I develop my skills in the area (never settle) and treat people like relationships and not a number on a customer list. When Brian (or Tom or Jennifer) emails me, I want to remember who they are from our last communication and not view them as Customer No.3197. If they were my friend, how long would I wait to respond? The answer is I would reply when I see the message, not put it off until later that day or week. The relationships are the lifeblood of UTH. From answering emails to recording shows with subscribers to now meeting some in person when in the area all promote the Hardware store mentality of getting to know people and build relationships, not view them like a number or part of a money-based end game. Thank you for supporting this vision, venture, and the years of fun conversations, relationship-building, and dynasty stories which make up the canvas of UTH going forward by never settling, refusing to be average, and to keep building those dynasties!
