Merrill Dubrow: My name is Merrill Dubrow, CEO of M/A/R/C Research, and a 35 plus year veteran of the insights community and the host of my podcast on the M/A/R/C. Welcome to another on the M/A/R/C Merrill-ISM. Congratulations, you are a professional athlete. Are you CeeDee Lamb or Larry Bird? Yes. I want you to pretend to be a pro-athlete, and I want you to choose between one of them, but not based on physical looks, size, ability. Rather both had a choice and a decision to make and frankly they made a different one. For starters, Larry Bird is considered a great NBA player, not a tremendous athletic ability, but he had amazing skills and court presence. He was from a small town in Indiana, played for the Boston Celtics, go Celts. Winning three NBA championships. CeeDee Lamb, wide receiver, who was a star at Oklahoma, and now plays for America's team, the Dallas Cowboys. He has been on league for four years, and without question, he's a rising star. Now let me explain what happened. Way back February, 1985, Larry Bird was playing in a game, and in the third quarter, his stats were 30 points, 12 rebounds, 10 assists. In a sense a triple double, which is big in the NBA and something he had done many, many times. In fact, I think he's 10th or ninth all time. But this game was different because he also had nine steals, which means a quadruple double, something that is extremely rare. In fact, only been done four times in the history of the NBA. CeeDee Lamb, November of 23, he had two games in a row of 10 catches and over 150 yards. In his third game, after three quarters, CeeDee had eight catches and 141 yards. In the history of the NFL no one has ever had three games in a row of 150 yards and 10 catches. Three games in a row, not Jerry Rice, not Terrell Owens. Not any other star receiver, which was shocking. That's the setup. It was brought up to Larry Bird's attention at the end of the third quarter that he was one steal short of a quadruple double with a quarter to go. Larry chose not to go back into the game after being taken out in the third quarter, saying what for, I already did enough damage to them. CeeDee Lamb last month had the same decision to make when he was informed that he could do something that no one else in the history of the NFL has done. He did choose to go back into the game and the Cowboy's backup quarterback Cooper Rush through CeeDee Lamb, back to back, two or three yard passes to get the record and then come out of the game to a lot of high fives on the sideline. Now, let me say that both Larry Bird and CeeDee Lamb were in the middle of blowouts. The game was never in doubt. The Celtics were going to win and America's team, the Dallas Cowboys were going to win, but their decisions were different. Before I ask you what you would do, my decision do. dot, dot frankly is easy. I'm all about the team and winning championships. I'm not about individual awards. I'm not about risking injury. And yes, there could be an injury, a freak injury, yes, if you come back into the game. But look, I'm not a pro-athlete and my livelihood isn't paid for by teams or stats, but that's what I would've done. I would've been Larry Bird. If it was a close game, clearly I stay in, but not in a blowout. The question is I have for you today, what do you do? Thanks for listening to today's on the M/A/R/C Merrill-ISM. Congratulations, you are a professional athlete. Are you CeeDee Lamb or Larry Bird? My name is Merrill Dubrow. I look forward to hearing from you. Stay well, stay safe and please, please stay in touch.