PHOENIX—Less than 24 hours after they were at the Tacoma Dome in support of Michelle Obama's book tour, Russell Wilson and Ciara were in Phoenix at the NFL Annual Meetings, speaking to a group of more than 200 spouses and guests of NFL owners, coaches and executives.
Fittingly, one of the topics the Pro Bowl quarterback and the Grammy Award-winning singer and model discussed with the group was balancing the "organized chaos" in their lives.
"It really is a balancing act," Ciara said. "I call it organized chaos. One of the best ways to truly have balance in life when you have schedules that are always moving and you're always on the go and there's so many goals you're trying to accomplish, you have to have a schedule. So for us, we'll create a schedule for both of our worlds individually and also collectively has been a game-changer for us. It kind of gives us a map, a blueprint to the day or the week or even the month for that matter. Ultimately it's about finding balance in it all and just always communicating, trying to map things out as best as we can. Also our kids go to school, and there's all these things you want to try to do with them—our son just started playing football, we want to be able to catch moments like that. Then we want to pick our daughter up from school. We just try to balance it all out, and the best way is having a schedule as much as you can to map out all the chaos."
Wilson, whose whirlwind week continued with him trying to get to Stanford in time to see his younger sister Anna play in the Cardinal's NCAA Tournament game against Yale Monday night, said, "We were able to talk about our visions for our own personal lives and business lives, how we balance all of that. How can we make the league a better place, make each organization better? Those kinds of discussions were really cool to have, and we're really looking forward to just seeing continual growth from the NFL and where it's headed."
Balance was one of several topics the two discussed in a conversation moderated by Jane Goodell, the wife of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.
"We got to talk about a lot of things, from things we're doing in our work world to family life, even the husband-wife aspect of it all—a lot of things we can all relate to in that room," Ciara said. "It was really cool to give insight on how we do things, then also to hear about things they're thinking about, thoughts that they had. It was a really good time.
"We had several messages. We talked about things we do trying to have balance with it all, we talked about fitness, balancing sleep, because we're all ambitious people, but how do we balance that with kids, with work. Also the attitudes we have in our business, our work roles, where we find our motivation from in things we're working on. It was really cool being able to share our thoughts."
