A Lesson From Golf 2- Don’t Focus On The Hazards.
Tuesday, March 10th, 2009
I was playing golf recently with a former National Football League lineman who is now a successful investment banker (even in these troubled times).
We came to this one hole known as the “black hole”. It’s named this because many golfers lose golf balls here and the hole is very difficult. It has a narrow sloping fairway, on the left is a large flood control channel and on the right is a steep hill and fenced off area. Hitting the ball straight down the fairway from the tee box looks like an ominous task.
Before we teed off, I mentioned to my NFL partner to make sure to avoid the flood control channel. His reply was “What flood control channel”? He then promptly hit the ball straight down the center of the fairway. A couple of strokes later he pared the hole. Throughout our round of golf I kept noticing how he seemed to focus on where he wanted to hit his ball and not on any of the many obstacles (sand traps, water hazards, etc.) that were on the course. With few exceptions his ball rarely landed in a “hazard”.
The round of golf turned out to be a good lesson for me. Far too often, we tend to focus on the hazards of business (weak economy, lack of sales, lack of customers, etc.) rather than where we want our business to go (increased sales, positive cash flow, etc.)? Sometimes, thinking about what we don’t want to happen increases the odds that it will.
I’m not suggesting we ignore any hazard, just that we don’t focus on them.
