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OK, let's talk about the World Cup. If anyone got up early on Monday morning to watch the match between Australia and Germany, you no doubt walked away disappointed with the end result. But full credit to the German team - they really were brilliant and obviously the deserving winners. Today I am not here to talk about Italy and Australia - I am here to talk about something I heard in the game between Greece and Korea.
Now my wife is Greek, so even though she shows very little interest in the soccer, I thought it was my duty to also watch the last half of that game. Unfortunately, Greece lost 2-0. And here's what's interesting: at half-time I was listening to the commentators and they said something which I found interesting...
"Korea is playing to win whereas Greece is playing to not lose" And that's a fine distinction, isn't it? After all, how many of us play the game of business just to stay in business... just to survive? It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking small rather than thinking big. It's easy to think of break even rather than how you are going to build an empire. It's easy to avoid risk rather than take calculated risks which allow you to take your business to the next level. But what happens when we do that? It's really quite simple.
Think of it like a soccer game. If you don't take your chances... if you don't implement some aggressive strategies... and if you are always thinking about defence... Somehow the enemy manages to slip through your defence and all of a sudden you are heading for a loss which kicks you out of the tournament. By the same token, in business you might lose a client or an ad might stop working. You might lose a staff member. Many things can go wrong. In fact, we shouldn't be surprised when they do...
Even though we should at the same time be focusing on what we want and thinking positive. You need to stay ahead of the game. Here's how it works... "Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle: when the sun comes up, you'd better be running"
So take a moment right now to decide to stay ahead of the game... and play in your business with an attacking game plan. Interestingly enough, in Keith McFarland's book, The Breakthrough Company about how everyday companies become extraordinary performers he says this is one of the most important aspects to breaking through to the next level: Being willing to take calculated risks. Anyway, time to start running.
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