With a good fortune of living near one of the most popular golf courses in the Tampa area, I grew up watching a number of celebrated golfers from rather a close corner. Later in my life, I got the opportunity to brush shoulders with some of the country’s most successful business leaders. And, what did I learn? Both great golfers and successful entrepreneurs have something in common — their passion for what they do. Recently, while observing one professional golfer take great care in picking the club for his next shot, I could not help but think how similar the lessons learned in golf are to succeeding in business. In golf, choosing the right club for a situation is the first step to your swinging success. Choose the wrong club, and you will miss your mark, no matter how perfectly you swing. Then, you will have to keep changing your clubs as your skills improve, as the choice of the club also varies with the player’s ability.
The same rule applies to the world of business. To stand out in the competition, you must be quite apt at picking up the right weapon to deal with specific situations. This weapon may be the latest app in the market or a new, strategic hire. The tool that your competitor used to deal with a particular problem may not be suitable for your business when it faces a similar situation. Delve deeper into the game of golf and you will start learning the lessons that can give your entrepreneurial career a real boost:
Practice Makes You Perfect
As in golf, so in business, the achievers make the things look easy. Needless to say, nothing is that simple. It takes years of painstaking practice and honing of skills to get the first taste of success. As a budding entrepreneur, you might have already realized how hard it is to run your own business. Most golfers spend just five minutes at a driving range to realize that. And the lesson for a new businessman? It will take time, be patient. Your career in this demands paramount patience and unswerving dedication. Both aspiring golfers and ambitious entrepreneurs have to bear it all at the beginning in order to make their dream come true.
Information Overload
You may have heard your mom say that too much of anything is not actually good. Let’s apply this principle to data in the context of golf and a business. In golf, some data such as wind speed distance to target, and fairway slope help you in the proper execution of your strokes. But what happens when you add too much of it to the equation? You lose focus and tend to neglect the relevant aspects of your game. It is the same for a company. While some information does help entrepreneurs turn the realities of a new business environment into an opportunity, but beyond that an information overload may prove to be counterproductive for a business. What’s the take away? Process your information smartly. Filter your data astutely for problem solving and decision making.
Stay Focused, Come May What
Has any golfer ever played a perfect round? Nope. Even the best rounds are not altogether devoid of the so-called bad shots. The key is to stay focused and not let these random baddies play the spoilsport. As a businessman, you are likely to encounter a volley of nasty surprises time and again; just don’t let them take you off guard. The lesson that golf teaches you precisely is to play on with a focus on your goal so that you never allow a few unexpected outcomes affect your confidence level.
Start Slow, but Finish Strong
As they say, there is no shortcut to success. Be it golf or business, you will have to invest your share of time, patience, and practice to touch the pinnacle. Just look at the professional golf circuit and you will find that most players start small, but take control of the game after a few holes, and carry on with the momentum all the way through the end. Being an entrepreneur is not easy, but don’t start doubting your abilities merely because the beginning did not go smoothly. Modify things, take a different approach, but do stay in the game. You will surely find a way to finish strong.
Be it golf or business, the beginning is rarely easy. Whether you are a budding sportsman striving to make it big in your local Tampa area golf courses, or the dreamer aspiring to enter the big league of the global business landscape, you are bound to feel misled sometimes during the initial phase. But with the right mindset and strategies, you’ll pick up the pace, eventually leaving your competitors behind. Pay heed to the lessons learnt on the golf course and apply them to business for a spectacular entrepreneurial career.
