Herman: John L. Herman Jr., Author

Not So Fast...

You hit the scale and find out there are a few more pounds than you expected…and a lot more than the last time you had the mindset to “get in shape.” You open the mail and find out those credit card balances are going up, not down, even though you promised yourself a “makeover” on your debt a while back. And your bank statement can’t be right because you seem to have far less in your savings as you keep sliding a few bucks a month over into your checking account to cover those overages.

Listen…it didn’t happen overnight, and it won’t go away in a hurry either.

People need to take a lesson from the Greatest Golfer Who Ever Lived, Tiger Woods. Yesterday he finished what he himself acknowledged was his greatest tournament win ever as he beat Rocco Mediate in the U.S. Open. Rocco hadn’t won a tournament in 6 years, during which time Tiger won 41 of them. The lesson learned if you watched any of this tournement was the way Tiger approached each challenging shot as time was running out and he was one stroke behind.

Imagine thousands of people watching a sporting event. The noise level like a buzz in your ear, as some just whisper quietly and others shout “You the Man” on almost every stroke. Watching Tiger walk up to his shots was like watching a genius thinking out loud. He surveyed the shot, consulted with his Caddy, Steve, and then went trancelike as you could almost see him turn the volume switch in his ears off. He went into a mode where it was just him and the shot…in very slow motion. You could actually see him “slow down” every one of his processes as he pondered club selection, track of the shot, and landing area when the ball would come to rest. Tiger’s Putting is more than magic. The announcer Johnny Miller said it better than anyone else could have…“Tiger trusts his stroke, reads the Put, and takes the swing and whatever happens will be OK.”

What then can you learn from this Golfing Wonder? That you must slow down your thinking one every aspect of the problem you are trying to solve.

The weight won’t come off without executing many steps so slow down your expectation of instant weight loss. Your credit card balances didn’t shoot up overnight and it will take a long time to correct the situation and rid yourself of debt. Stop spending more than you make…slow down those purchases you don’t need…and the savings side will be left undisturbed…and once those credit cards are paid off you can increase the savings side again.

The Tiger lesson is simple. When anything problematic appears on the scene, slow down and win…just like Tiger does.

• Posted: 17 June 2008
• Comments: 1
• Category: Running a business

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