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Ask any former football player what they miss most about their playing days and you’ll probably hear few mentions of the games, the wins, the applause, or the awards. The answer you are most likely to hear is “I miss the guys”.  There can be many great reasons for this including the jokes in the locker room, the shared love of the game, and the challenge of competing against one another in practice or in the weight room.  But when reflecting on those times with my teammates, I most remember the difficult times. Like running the stadium steps in the July heat, sweating through two-a-day practices or rehabbing an injury in the team training room. I also tend to remember that I did these difficult things not by myself, but with my teammates.  I knew exactly what my out-of-breath teammate’s lungs felt like and what doubts were creeping into his mind as he struggled to finish the 10th 40-yard sprint after a hard practice.  Not because I was an observer who felt bad for him but because I was a participant that knew the pain he was experiencing. Empathy was not a word I used or heard mentioned in any locker room during my career. But I felt it.  And I felt it everyday.  As a quarterback of a football team, a CEO of a company, or the leader of a family, we may clash at times with the people on our teams but they need to know, without question, that we’ll extend a hand to help them up from the turf when they get leveled, knowing that they’d do the same for us.  They need to be able to trust that we’ll have their backs when times get tough.  Because they will.