“Why Do You Always Make Those Putts?”

Several years ago as I was golfing with Curtis Blair I had a very interesting thought. I was attempting to get inside of his brain, and indeed golf is a game of brain, and I turned to him and commented as he had about an eight or ten foot putt, “Curtis, why do you always make those putts?” He laughed and then, guess what? He made the putt. He went on that day to have a tear and made all the eight or ten foot putts.

Last week as we were driving to Southern Utah to have some discussions on our business, we stopped and we played a quick round of golf. I was having a rather difficult day. I had missed a number of putts, and right before I lined up to make what was a very important putt Curtis commented to me, “Rich, why do you always make those putts?” I had a real good laugh, and guess what? I made the putt.

In life, it’s so much that way. We oftentimes tell ourselves don’t do this, don’t do that, watch out for that, be careful! Guess what happens? We telegraph into the universe and all that our mind hears is that hesitancy, and we end up doing exactly the thing that we didn’t want to do. Business is very much about being pragmatic and thoughtful and deliberate and using real skills. However, there’s also a real mental part to the game. In Bootstrap Business we talked about the heart and the head – the head being the intellectual part and the heart being the more intuitive part of the equation. It’s really important that when you look at succeeding or look at executing in your business that you ask yourself why do you always succeed in business. Why do you always make those putts? I promise you it will give you a higher probability of success, and it will also just make it a lot more fun.