With 2 Words, Kansas City Chiefs Tight End, and Taylor Swift Boyfriend Travis Kelce Taught a Lesson About… Read more

Do you bring joy to the day-to-day process of doing your job? Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce certainly does. It’s an incredibly effective thing to do. Not only will you enjoy your work more, you’ll likely do a better job. And if you’re an entrepreneur or business leader, it will help you inspire those who work with you to see their own jobs with the same degree of enthusiasm.

Someone at the Chiefs
had a smart idea during the last days of the team’s recent training camp: They attached a small microphone to Kelce to record what he said during practice to go along with the usual video. So what did Kelce say? One phrase came up so many times that the Chiefs posted a clip on X of him saying it over and over: “Alright now!” (In their captions, they spelled it phonetically the way he said it as “Alright nah!”) Those simple three syllables are the essence of Kelce and perfectly express his attitude throughout training camp, according to several of his teammates: He loves football so much that even the repetitive grind of doing reps and practice plays is fun for him.

Besides the running commentary on his own performance, he directed a lot of cheerful patter to his teammates, which makes sense since as an 11-season veteran and the most high-profile team member, he’s one of the team’s leaders. “Fire up, fire up!” he yelled. “How about it, boys? Let’s go! Be great.” Or, “Flying around, baby!” And, of course, he was constantly joking around with the other players. “Has anyone seen my stapler?” in Milton’s voice from the movie Office Space. Or, to another teammate, “You like the head butt, or you hate the head butt?” When the teammate answered that he loved it, Kelce crowed, “Oh yeah, he loves it! He like-ah the sauce!” All of it adds up to exactly what the Chiefs’ X account said: Kelce made the team’s grueling practice look like the most fun thing in the world.

As Mahomes and others have noted this preseason, Kelce’s happy demeanor during these workouts sets an example, and a high bar, for the newer players. That’s particularly true when you consider that the 34-year-old Kelce is the second oldest player on the team. Long snapper James Winchester is just two months older.

Admittedly, Kelce has a lot of financial incentive to be happy even while practicing. He’s now the highest paid tight end in football history, with a contract that was recently increased to more than $34 million for the next two seasons. But it’s also true that Kelce, who is hosting a game show, starring in the upcoming FX series Grotesquerie, and has a recently announced role in Adam Sandler’s Happy Gilmore 2, could make millions every year without putting himself through everything it takes to play in the NFL. It seems pretty clear that he does what he does because he loves it and enjoys it. So much that even the grind of practice in the Midwestern summer heat are fun for him.

That’s a lesson for all of us. What if every morning you sat down at your desk, and didn’t look with dread at the mountain of mundane work you needed to complete by the day’s end. What if, instead, you said “Alright now!” and headed into the workday with maximum joy? What would that do for your company and your employees? What could it do for your own success?