Main Idea
Do you play to win? Or do you play to not lose? Do you go full tilt forward or do you go slowly forward and are very careful about failing?
Expansion of Idea
As most of you may know, I am a pretty risk-averse person. I am wired that way. Part of that may be due to breaking so many bones when I was a kid. About 15 years ago, my wife and I were on vacation with her family in Florida. Someone had a brilliant idea to get some wave-runners and go up to a nearby island. I had never ridden a wave-runner, the ocean was choppy, and I was not feeling great before I started. (Needless to say, I really did not want to go.) On the way to this island, I took it fairly slow and I really felt bad. We then had lunch in a hole in the wall restaurant. My brother in law looked at me and said “You really hate this, don’t you?” I was really dreading getting back on the wave-runners and going back. On the way back, I decided if I was going to die, I was going to die quickly. I went faster and remarkably it was a much smoother ride. The moral of the story is that there are some things that if you are going to do them, you need to go full tilt.
The same is true in business. How many of us are doing things that we are supposed to do but we are not giving it our best? We aren’t necessarily trying to be lazy. Instead, we may not understand exactly what we are trying to accomplish. Or, the systems are not in place to do it well. Or, we have not devoted enough time and money to accomplish the activity well. When these barriers are in place, we hold back on our performance thereby guaranteeing mediocrity at best or failure at worst.
Start by Asking Yourself these Questions:
What activity is not getting your best efforts?
Why are you not giving that activity your best effort?
Is there something you can do to improve your effort?
Do you need help and resources to accomplish your goals?
And No, I have not been on a wave-runner since then.