Love Your Game?
July 2009

Love Your Game?

As a lifelong baseball fan I made my first trip to Boston's Fenway Park recently on a warm summer evening with two close friends.  We had terrible seats in deep center field that were really just perfect.  The Red Sox prevailed 15-9 as we had the time of our lives. 

The most memorable event, however, happened in the eighth inning when 37,825 fans stood and sang along to Neal Diamond's Sweet Caroline with the help of the sound system.   

A few rows in front of us a white haired gentleman seemed to be leading the way.  Open-hearted, with hands extended toward heaven, he swayed back and forth to the words ...good times never seemed so good...   He was experiencing baseball ecstasy and clearly having a spiritual moment.    

This Red Sox fanatic inspired me to ask myself, "How much do I love my game?"  My answer is, "A ton."  I get to work with amazing people doing amazing things.  But I haven't been experiencing or expressing this fun as much as our friend from Red Sox Nation.   How about you?  I think we can all do better.

Baseball is like business.  It is full of frustration and failure.  The best teams lose 35% of their games, and the best hitters are successful only once every three at bats.  Likewise, we spend much of our lives at work building businesses that are a culmination of lessons learned after missed attempts.

 But growing through failure is the only true road to success in business, as it is in baseball.  We say that you must hold onto your highest intentions long enough to realize them, because the inevitable disappointments are the stepping stones to your leadership growth.

Knowing that intellectually is of little assistance.  However, embodying the steps that turn failure into success is transformational.  If you are looking for more joy in your work, you'd be wise to face up to what you feel frustrated with.  Here's the best way we know how to do that:

1.       Acknowledge you've missed your intention or made a mistake.

2.       Accept responsibility for your missed attempt or mistake.

3.       Forgive yourself for whatever you need to.

4.       Discover the lessons learned from your efforts.

5.       Set a new intention with the confidence you can succeed.

6.       Take your next opportunity to succeed or fail again.

7.       Repeat as necessary.

This is easy to understand and very challenging to implement when our difficulties are wrapped up into our financial security, professional credibility, and view of ourselves.  But we can not succeed in business without learning to work this way.  We must love our game completely, knowing that we'll miss the mark sometimes.  This is why we focus a fair amount of our coaching attention on demystifying success and failure.  We teach leaders to trust their hearts' passion and their innate ability to ultimately succeed at what they love to do.  We help you relearn loving your work - all of it.

So, if you already love your work completely, go to your version of the ballpark and really enjoy yourself.  But if work is dragging you down these days, take a look at our announcements below and let us help you show yourself a good time.  Whether you're hitting or pitching, a little coaching can go a long way when you feel like you're in a slump.

You likely know someone who would benefit from this article.  Send someone you care about a pitch they can hit by passing this newsletter along to them.