Lesley Weidenbener: We could all use a bit of Haliburton’s attitude

You never know where you’ll find a little inspiration. For me, this week, it was from Tyrese Haliburton, the point guard for the Indiana Pacers whom I’ve never met but whose positive attitude and exuberance on the court made me rethink my own outlook at a moment of stress.

At the time, I was feeling a little overwhelmed. We have had a lot going on at IBJ of late, but this week, all our projects seemed to be in play at once.

In addition to our regular duties covering the news daily and producing this week’s paper, we hosted our first Education Power Breakfast—and I was fortunate to moderate a truly powerful panel. We are finishing work on a special publication called “The Block” to preview the U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials, which will take place in Indianapolis in June.

We’re also working on our annual Innovation Issue, which publishes on May 31, and we’re collecting information and starting to write profiles for the 2024 Indiana 250 list, which will be released in July. Add to that the state’s Global Economic Summit, a list of economic development announcements and our efforts to stay on top of the news related to the city’s Major League Soccer efforts, and you’ve got a crazy week.

I am so thankful to have an incredible staff full of talented reporters, editors, designers and more to keep all of these balls in the air. And I know they are at least as busy as I am—and feel just as much pressure as I do to accomplish all of these things in a quality way.

Still, sometimes in the midst of these periods of craziness, I can get a little too inside my head. That’s the way I was feeling on Wednesday morning when I arrived at The Crane Bay Event Center for the Education Power Breakfast. Even as I was initially greeting our panelists and guests, I was distracted by worries about the production of this week’s paper—by the fact that my column wasn’t finished and that I’d be starting to edit pages later than on a normal Wednesday.

I was letting the stress get to me—and it was affecting my attitude, which I knew could affect the entire event.

Then I got into a conversation about the Pacers game the previous night. The team let a close game with the Celtics slip away—a game by most accounts they should have won. That was the sentiment, at least, among the folks I was talking with that morning.

My take is a bit different. I never expected (and I think almost no one in Indianapolis expected) the Pacers to be playing this week in the Eastern Conference Finals, to have had a season as exciting as the team has had this year. And so even a loss at this point doesn’t seem that disappointing to me.

More importantly, I’ve had fun watching this group of guys play basketball. Their attitudes, drive and spirit are infectious. That appears to be thanks in large part to Haliburton, who seems to inject energy and positivity into everyone around him.

I thought about that Wednesday morning as I worried about what was ahead rather than fully engaging in the event right in front of me. Just like that, I snapped out of it, and we went on to have a fantastic event, thanks to an amazing panel and a great keynote speaker—and maybe thanks in part to Tyrese Haliburton. Go Pacers!•

__________

Weidenbener is editor of IBJ. Reach her at lweidenbener@ibj.com.