We develop our own future by applying persistence to the possibilities.
From the Bo Burlingham article "The Believer" in the Aug. 2008 issue of Inc. Magazine.
The personal Blog of Howard Mann. Author, Speaker & Entrepreneur. - November 21st, 2008
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The 7 Maxims of Football
I recently stumbled upon this great little story about a set of "rules" created by Robert Neyland, the storied football coach of The University of Tennessee. Before every game his teams recite these seven sentences that he felt captured everything it took to win a game. Now known as "the Seven Maxims of Football," or "the Seven Game Maxims."
To this day, Tennessee football teams recite them before every game.
What it took to win in 1930, despite all the changes and innovations to the game, are the same basics that it takes to win today. The basics are classic for a reason,etc... Connect the ideas behind each to your business where appropriate
> The team that makes the fewest mistakes will win.
> Play for and make the breaks and when one comes your way - SCORE.
> If at first the game - or the breaks - go against you, don't let up... put on more steam.
> Protect our kickers, our QB, our lead and our ball game.
> Ball, oskie*, cover, block, cut and slice, pursue and gang tackle... for this is the WINNING EDGE.
> Press the kicking game. Here is where the breaks are made.
> Carry the fight to our opponent and keep it there for 60 minutes.
*Note:Oskie - A term used used in football to let the lineman know to block the closest person on the other team when the ball is intercepted or a fumble is recovered
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Quick Posts
Rajesh Setty is giving away his great book "Life Beyond Code. Learn to Distinguish Yourself in 9 Simple Steps!" A very nice and useful Thanksgiving gift to yourself. Download it here.
It seems the commenting feature on the blog posts has not been working properly. I apologize. It is now fixed. Please do comment and join the discussion.
Great Harvard Business post on lessons that can be learned by the Obama campaign. Loved this part on the importance on purpose: "Bigness of purpose is what separates 20th century and 21st century organizations: yesterday, we built huge corporations to do tiny, incremental things - tomorrow, we must build small organizations that can do tremendously massive things."
Tom Peters: 100 Ways to Succeed #146: "Obsess On The Basics! Now, More Than Ever!" "....Keep on each other over those basics—and be liberal with the kudos for those who go an extra millimeter to do a "trivial" job especially well."
The VC's are yelling from the roof tops for startups to batten down the hatches. Like I said in my post from the other day, you have to double down AND batten down. What all of this really means is, of course, you need to get back to the business basics that have always worked and always will.
The smart folks over at Behance have launched an online project collaboration tool that follows their Action Method paper system. Watch the online video tour to get an idea of how it works. Looks like a simple and effective ways to track the individual action items for projects and goals.
Tom Peters and Seth Godin on one stage taking questions from Inc. 500 business owners. Priceless wisdom on a wide variety of topics. Click here to watch then sit back and enjoy!
"It’s easy to say that entrepreneurs will create jobs and big companies
will create unemployment, but this is simplistic. The real question is
who will innovate. A 50-year-old company can innovate as well as two guys/gals in a garage." From an interview with Guy Kawasaki discussing the ideas in his new book Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition
"If you want to make your website better at turning visitors into customers (or subscribers), you need to understand why most of your visitors are leaving!" a helpful article to drive home the point that launching your web site is the easy part. If you want your web site to deliver real results for your business then you need to work at with persistence.
Douglas Rushkoff is singing from the same songbook about the importance of the basics... now more than ever. "I’d love for businesspeople who feel all is lost to recognize that this is such a perfect moment to return to core competency, to remember what it was about their industries that excited them to begin with, and to reconnect with the processes and attitudes that make work fun and meaningful again." If you have not read his book you should buy it now and rock your basics!
Howard Mann is a speaker, author and entrepreneur. He is on a mission to get businesses to thrive in every way, in good times and bad, by relentlessly sticking to their basics. Learn more.
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