Watching the Sugar Bowl reminded me of what happens in
business. One team came ready to win
while the other team came over confident destined to lose. Many times I have pitched an idea, product or
service only to find my competitor winning out in the end. Over the years I have spent much time
thinking about those times - the times I thought I had the deal in the bag only
to find out I didn’t. A friend recently
sent me a quote that painfully reminds me of those hard lessons learned –
“There is nothing to be ashamed of when you prepared to the best of your
ability. But you have ample cause to be
dejected when you know you didn’t prepare properly when you had the ability
to.” – John Wooden
There have been many times I went into a deal thinking I
have this, so I didn’t spend a great deal of time preparing. I would think, “I have this, I know this, I
have this in the bag”, only to lose in the end.
Not until it hurt badly did I decide to change. The other piece of the puzzle is you have to
believe you can win. When you believe
you cannot be beat there is a higher sense of confidence. People like to deal with people who are
confident. But there is a danger in
confidently believing you will win. As
the Florida Gators demonstrated in the Sugar Bowl misjudging your opponent and
confidently believing you will win without proper preparation will end in
losing. Louisville on the other hand
confidently demonstrated their belief they could win by flawlessly executing
what they prepared for in practice leading up to the game.
The same holds true in whatever the situation – sports,
relationships, business or a difficult situation. How well do you prepare? How well do you know your job? How well do
you know your product or service? These
are questions you should be asking yourself.
When capabilities, products or services are very similar many times the
deciding factor will be who is better prepared. I promise just one more Sugar Bowl
example. To start the second half
Florida kicked off to Louisville. Florida
kicked an onside kick something they had not done all season. The Florida coach must have assumed that
Louisville had prepared for the game based on what they saw on this season’s
game film – since there were no onside kicks on film maybe Louisville could be
caught by surprise. However, that was
not the case. In fact, Louisville had
anticipated the possibility and had a majority of their receivers on the field
instead of the special teams players – which was something the Florida coach
completely missed. Louisville had
prepared for all possibilities.
How many times have you sat across the table from a customer
only to be blindsided by the competition because you didn’t fully prepare for
all possibilities?
As I begin 2013, I am resolute in being prepared for all
possibilities that come my way. As John
Wooden stated there is nothing wrong if I prepared to the best of my ability
but do not win. But I have no one to
blame but myself if I lose because of a lack of preparation. It starts with believing, moves to
preparation and ends with confidently demonstrating you are prepared for all
possibilities. What do you believe you
will achieve in 2013? How are you
preparing for the game?
