You may know that I love playing team sports and applying those learnings to my career. One of my top ten career tips is to make your career a team sport. Here’s another lesson gleaned from playing team sports.
I play ice hockey, and a normal part of playing ice hockey is falling down. You can end up on the ice for all sorts of reasons:
- An opponent can knock you down- deliberately or by mistake, e.g., with a check or a trip.
- A teammate can knock you down- deliberately or by mistake (hopefully not deliberately, but it could happen).
- You can knock yourself down- deliberately or by mistake, e.g., with a heroic diving save or by catching an edge of your skate.
So what happens when you’re in a hockey game and you fall down? Does the play stop? Does the game stop? No, the play goes on and the game goes on. Now you could just sit there and pout, but that doesn’t accomplish anything. In fact, the longer you stay down, the longer you disadvantage your team by not being in the play. So there is really only one thing to do- Get up!
Well, this is directly analogous to your work and your career.
If you fall down for any reason, whether it’s because of an opponent, a teammate, or yourself, then you better get up and get back into the play as fast as you can!
The game goes on with or without you, so you might as well keep playing.
One more bonus tip: If you see a teammate fall down, then help them get up. You need to get your team back to full strength as soon as possible.
Can you apply this to your career?
Susie, Thank you. I like this post!
In Chinese, we say falling down is unavoidable, understandable or forgivable (which words to be picked up depends on what the reasons cause you to fall down
). However, falling-down twice at the same place by same reason is silly. Therefore, sometimes sitting there for tens seconds could help you find out the reasons—most importantly once you stand up again, you are stronger!!!
heehee….thoughts?
Good post, perfect example, I love it.
What is considered “falling down” in your career? Having a bad day? Not being fully present? Getting laid off? I can kind of see what you’re getting at, but I’m not sure I “get it” completely. Mind you, I can be pretty slow, so maybe it’s just me.
Susie,
I really like this.
Great post. You have a new follower.
Cheers,
Sam Diener
Hey Susie!
Great post! People often have to realize that the past is sunk cost, and all you can do is to make sure you use the present to get to the best future possible.
I remember I once worked with a client, which was a dying webhosting company, and I told them that “instead of viewing yourself as a dying company, view yourself as an entirely new startup. But unlike a startup, you already have customers, revenue, and all the fixed equipments. What a wonderful setup for a startup!
It helped