Hurry, hard!

The expression in my title is an oft used expression that you hear at a curling rink.

I’ve recently gone back to the game of curling after a very long absence.  I know that it’s been a long absence because all of the muscles in my chest wall and arms are telling me so.  That said, I think that curling holds some useful metaphors for those of us who are interested in business success.

As you might know, curling is played on a sheet of ice. At each end of the ice surface, there is a target (called the house) painted onto the ice.  Two teams, of four players each, takes turns sliding (called throwing) a curling stone (rock) towards the house, at one end of the ice, and points are scored for the team with the rock(s) closest to the centre of the house.

In a business sense, the house represents the goal(s) that a business establishes for itself. The rocks that are thrown represent the efforts expended to reach the goals. However, the opposing team (ie the competition) is also trying to achieve their goals at the expense of you attaining yours.  The rocks that they throw become obstacles that you must overcome.

You can attempt to remove the obstacles that are in your way by hitting those with one or more of your rocks.  Or, you can attempt to go around the obstacle.  In either situation, you are intentionally dealing with situations that are hindering the attainment of your goal.  With each throw taken, the situation on the playing surface will change.

You could say that curling mimics our business life.

The important thing to remember is that we must attempt to overcome our obstacles if we are serious about achieving our goals.  Of course, we might not be successful.  However, in my mind, the only failure comes from not trying.

Rising To The Challenge

 

 

A lesson learned …

My wife and I, with a group of friends, were recently in Provence, France on a cycling holiday. On one of the days, we had the opportunity to ride to the summit of Mont Ventoux. This is one of the climbs that is frequently included in the Tour de France cycling race. Now, to be absolutely clear about this, we were not racing. We weren’t even in a hurry! Our objective was simply to reach the summit.

This is a mountain that is geologically part of the Alps. The top 500 metres are devoid of trees and the name Windy Mountain is well deserved. We had read that wind speeds of over 300 km/hr have been recorded and that the wind blows at 90 km/hr 240 days out of the year. Furthermore, at 1900 metres elevation, the temperature can be downright frigid.

With the above as our understanding, we were nervously anticipating the day of our ascent. Had we packed sufficient clothing to stay warm? Could we do it?

Fortunately for us, the day of our ascent was one of the 120 non-windy days!

It turned out that the ride to the summit wasn’t as difficult as we had conditioned ourselves to expect. But, it is interesting to me to reflect upon the thinking that preceded the actual ride. It wasn’t too hard to think that a number of plausible excuses for not going would avail themselves on the day of the ride.

And, that causes me to wonder “how often do we let ourselves get overwhelmed by the possibility of an obstacle”?   How often do we pull up short without having taken the time to consider how we might overcome that particular obstacle?  How often does our fear of failure prevent us from even trying?

I like to think that obstacles are meant to challenge us and without a challenge, how can we know the satisfaction of accomplishment?

I can tell you that it was very satisfying to know that I’d succeeded in riding to the top of Mont Ventoux and it was also very satisfying to reap the reward of the accomplishment.

The view was spectacular!