The Flu Game Is Not a Career Strategy

If you live in Florida, you already know.

The tree pollen this week has been out of control. I never had allergies until I moved here. I’ve lived plenty of places with trees, but apparently the combination of Florida and whatever floats through the air down here… won.

This week, it took me out.

Somewhere between sinus pressure and tissues everywhere, a post about the “Jordan Flu Game” popped up in my Instagram feed. And it got me thinking.

How many times as athletes did we play sick, hurt, or nowhere near 100%?

We all have at least one story. Usually several.

I remember a high school game where I was so sick I had tissues stuffed into both socks on the court, one side for clean, one side for used. We won. I had decent stats, if memory serves.

Later in my career, I played the Hermosa Beach Open with a badly injured right shoulder. I was told I had about 15 full swings in it for the weekend, and to use them wisely. Fifteen chances to go up and hit with power against some of the best beach volleyball players in the world. The rest would have to be finesse.

It was probably closer to 10 before my arm just lost everything.

That one didn’t go so well.

But I was out there. Because that’s what we do.

As athletes, we are trained to go, even when we don’t feel 100%. We are comfortable being uncomfortable. We pride ourselves on pushing through. And often, we succeed because of it.

That wiring doesn’t disappear when our sport ends. It’s built into how we think, how we approach work, how we measure ourselves. Years inside the sport ecosystem shape that.

So it follows us into the “real world.”

We become the dependable one. The one who never calls in sick. The one who says yes. The one who stays late. The one who always finds a way.

And usually, we’re rewarded for it. Promotions. Praise. More responsibility. More trust.

But here’s what’s different.

In sport, the push had structure.

Before the game, there was rest. Rehab. Someone monitoring your load.

We had coaches, athletic trainers, teammates, people invested not just in our performance, but in our long-term health.

After the game, there was recovery. An offseason. Time to come down from the sustained effort and recover from what you just put your body through. There was an end point.

A defined window: one game, one tournament, one season. Then you recovered.

In the “real world”?

The game never ends.

No one blows a whistle and sends you back to the locker room. There’s no defined offseason. No built-in recovery cycle.

No one automatically pulls you aside and says,

“You’re not practicing today.”

“Take tomorrow off.”

“You’ve hit your limit.”

The built-in boundary setters are gone. So we keep pushing. Because that’s what we’re good at. That’s what we’re known for.

We power through the allergy week. The back tweak. The exhaustion. The overload.

And when we do take a day off?

We feel guilty or maybe even lazy. Because somewhere along the way, pushing through became the only way we knew how to operate. It became automatic, so automatic that we rarely stop to consider another option.

In the sports ecosystem we grew up in, someone else often knew our limits better than we did. They pushed us, that’s what good coaches do, but they also protected us.

There was structure. A plan. People responsible for helping us know when to push and when to dial it back.

Now that structure is gone.

Which means you have to be the coach. The athletic trainer. The one responsible for putting yourself on injured reserve.

And yes, people might question it. Your boss. Your coworkers. Even the colleagues you grab drinks with after work.

But the people who truly know you best? They won’t.

Because here’s the thing:

Just because you can perform sick doesn’t mean you should.

Just because you can grind through pain doesn’t mean it’s wise.

Just because you can outwork everyone doesn’t mean that’s the move.

Sometimes the highest-performance decision is recovery.

And here’s the irony: when we actually allow ourselves to rest, we often come back stronger than when we left.

Will there be seasons of life where we need to power through?

Absolutely.

The good news is we’re built for that. Performing under less-than-ideal circumstances is one of the most underrated skills athletes carry into adulthood.

It’s a superpower. And superpowers need to be used intentionally.

Not automatically.

Not daily.

Not indefinitely.

The Flu Game is legendary precisely because it was rare.

And maybe this week, instead of stuffing tissues in your socks, you put yourself on injured reserve.

Not because you’re weak.

Because you’re playing the long game.

See you next week,

Jill