You\u2019re only as good as your last game<\/b><\/p>\n
To stop us getting arrogant after a big win Coach Steve would focus in on what we did wrong in that game and repeat the phrase \u2018your only as good as your last game\u2019. So right now we were the dog\u2019s bollocks but that would mean nothing if we lost our next game. I remember going over the same drill again and again as I could feel the mud under my boots start to freeze in the cold winter evening. In your professional life you may be getting lots of sales but this doesn\u2019t mean you can relax. In fact this is the best time to start looking for more clients as these attempts usually have lag time. It\u2019s too late to start looking for clients when your business is quiet. How many companies do we know of that were at the peak of their game until a plucky young startup threw a big pile of disruption in their face? I\u2019m looking at you Blockbuster. And Netflix, don\u2019t you get too cocky either, a business disrupting punch to the face can be just around the corner.<\/p>\n
You can\u2019t do it all on your own <\/b><\/p>\n The great thing about rugby is that it\u2019s a real team game unlike superstar obsessed football. Each position needs you to be a specialist in that area. You need small little whippets to run through the big guys, tall giants to catch the ball, big guys to push the other team back when the ball get's stuck and some cheeky bugger to take the penalty while the other team is looking the other way. In business I\u2019ve found that I often have to call in the talents of another person who can do the job better than myself. I always try to work with designers that are better than me. You can learn from almost anyone, even if it\u2019s looking at incompetent losers to learn what not<\/b><\/span> what to do. Isolation will kill your business skills.<\/p>\n Crossing the line is what matters<\/b><\/p>\n I was no where near being the best person on our rugby team, in fact I felt lucky to be playing with a bunch of very talented players. Having said that, I did score a few tries throughout the season. One of the easiest tries I scored was when my team mate did all the hard work by running through lots of nasty looking opposing players only to be tackled at the last moment where I picked up the ball and scored the try. Was that worth less points? Nope, the only thing that mattered was the ball crossed the line and I touched it down. In many businesses they only measure results, how you get there doesn\u2019t matter. (As long as you don\u2019t kill any kittens along the way.) The amount of effort you put into a task isn\u2019t important. Is a logo<\/a> that took 2 months to design better than one that took 1 day? Isn\u2019t it actually better if a design is completed sooner rather than later as long as the quality is the same? Do your customers care that you stayed up all night finishing a product? No, they just want it to work really well. It\u2019s worth striving to make things as effortlessly as possible, ironically this may take a lot of hard work to get there.<\/p>\n Playing to win<\/b><\/p>\n The idea that \u201cit\u2019s the taking part that matters\u201d never entered our heads. We trained as a team to win and we expected to win as a team. There was never any doubt what we were there to do. In the final season it came to a point where a lot of other teams didn\u2019t want to play us and canceled their games. This positive attitude is key to any project. There is no point turning up half-hearted, every project needs commitment and focus.<\/p>\n Your positive attitude can influence your customers, suppliers, investors and all those that you come into contact with\u00a0 <\/span>throughout your day. A positive attitude is infectious and those around you will hopefully be inspired by your positive energy, unless you over do it and in that case you\u2019ll be seen as some kind of fake guru that goes to the toilet to cry when things get tough. A positive attitude opens your mind to new opportunities rather than dismissing them as unworkable. Having a negative attitude is more likely to lead to a negative outcome. Although that\u2019s not to say a good dose of cynicism isn\u2019t a good thing when approaching new opportunities.<\/p>\n No excuses<\/b><\/p>\n Our school was just a normal state school with kids from a mixture of backgrounds. The school was comparatively small and not as well funded as the private school in the nearby town. Every year we would be narrowly beaten by them. Losing to a private fee paying school that had the word \u2018Royal\u2019 in their name always felt like a slap in the face. They seemed to have an advantage in every area, money, training facilities, boys that started playing rugby much earlier to name a few. None of which we could ever use as an excuse, what would benefit would that give us? The only thing we could do is train harder and smarter. In our last season the hard training finally paid off and we beat them by just a thin margin. It was amusing to see them lose their temper when they were beaten by an\u00a0 \"<\/span>inferior\" state school. In business it\u2019s easy to sit back and say someone is doing better than you because they have the right family contacts or they got \u2018lucky\u2019. While it may be true that someone has an unfair advantage over you, it does no use to use this as an excuse to not improve. Dwelling on it only has negative effects. And you know what? No one wants to hear you moan. The best thing you can do is to use it as motivate for improvement and take your business to the next level.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/bridgestudio.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/year-9.jpg\")
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