Learning the Fundamentals

In sports as in business it is important to learn the fundamentals and become great at them. I was reminded of this recently while reading an article on the most successful athletes and their training habits. The article talked about how top performing athletes and the teams they compete on, work routinely on the fundamentals of their game. Whether it is baseball, basketball, football, soccer, a golfer, or any other sport there are basics that have to be mastered. The most successful are those who understand that and make it a habit to focus on perfecting the basic fundamentals of their game.

Take golf as an example. There are basic things that must occur in the swing of a golfer to make sure they will have solid contact with the ball and are able to control its flight. The way the golfer addresses the ball, rotates the arms, shoulders and hips and then follows through on the swing. Golfers spend hours upon hours practicing these moves. They hire coaches who can't swing the club nearly as well as they can but know the fundamentals and can point them out and correct them. The golfer can't see everything going into the swing because they are too busy executing the swing so the coach observes, teaches and corrects. The athlete is never finished working on the basics and even as they get to be the best in their field they still need to use the basic moves to be successful.

The same is true in your business. You have to learn the fundamentals of running a successful business and then use them consistently. It's not enough to be an expert on the production and delivery of the product or service you sell. You need to understand how to make a business work effectively. Coaches can do the same thing for you as they can for a professional athlete. As coaches, we are trained to teach you the fundamentals of running a business and helping you become masters of it. Everyone needs a good coach to guide them, train them and help them see things in their "swing" they can't see themselves. When you are ready to take your business to the next level send me a note. We'll get started on building the business you want to support the life you deserve.

Sometimes the Underdog Wins

I've been a Cleveland Browns fan for as long as I knew what a football was. The last several years (ok many years) its been difficult to be a Browns fan. The team has under performed each year and the fans just keep getting more restless all the time. I have to admit that includes me. I find myself expecting the Browns to lose before a game even starts. The start of this season certainly didn't give me much hope things were going to change. They lost the first game in a bad way and they had just made a big quarterback change after the first game of the season. More changes were sure to follow.

Yesterday, the Browns played the in-state rival Cincinnati Bengals. Before the game I told my wife I wasn't even sure I should watch as I EXPECTED the Browns would lose and lose badly. But, as any true fan does, I turned on the game and settled in to watch. It was an offensive battle the whole game and the two teams racked up a total of 95 points - one of the highest scoring games in recent NFL history. Much to my surprise the Browns won the game - 51 to 44. Going in they were the underdogs that very few people expected would win.

After the game it hit me that sometimes the underdog does win, in football and in life. If you ever get to the point were you feel your business is the underdog and you have been struggling to get ahead lately, don't give up hope. Maybe you are the underdog today, but if you are open to making some changes in the business and focus on a positive outcome you too can come out the victor. There's no reason you can't have a winning streak that takes you to new levels of success if you believe you can, are open to change and stay focused.

Who knows maybe even the Browns are going to start a winning streak for all us fans! Hey, a guy can dream can't he? Stay focused, stay positive and work on a plan of change and good things will happen.

Any Benefits of 9-11?

This morning as I was driving to the office there were a number of tributes to the memory of those who lost their lives on 9-11-01 - and who continue to fight against terrorism today. Frankly it was difficult to listen to a lot of the audio sound bites from New York City, the flight controllers who were attempting to contact the pilots of the ill-fated planes, and relatives remembering their loved ones. And I got to thinking...Have there been any benefits to the events of 9-11?

There has certainly been a lot of negative fallout from that day, especially the loss of life in Iraq (both our military and the Iraqi civilians) and in Afghanistan, to say nothing of the political division in the U.S. And yet I believe that there have been positives as well...

For one, we can say with certainty that the American economic system is the most robust, dynamic and healthy in the world. Our ability to say - individually and as a country - that there is nothing that will stop us from doing what we are fully capable of doing. How many business owners wondered if their company would survive in the immediate aftermath of that horrible day? How many of us were tempted to simply crawl into a hole (as Saddam did...) and hide from the world hoping this would all just go away?

And yet, not only did most businesses impacted by the attacks survive - they thrived. Instead of crawling into holes we reached out and helped the victims in New York, Washington and in our neighborhoods. We gave MORE to charities rather than keeping it for ourselves. We learned that we are a UNITED country with incredible talents and intestinal fortitude. We chose to continue to live and thrive and prove to our detractors that even though we were attacked successfully in the short term, through the long term we will win in the end.

Are you living that way today? Do you feel as though you are under attack? If so, remember the famous quote from Henry Ford:

"Whether you think you can or you think you can't...

Either way is right."