Internet Marketing Coaching

If you are an avid reader of my blog, follow me on twitter or read my status updates on facebook then you would know that last Thursday I lost tennis to my Mum and Dad.  Well, lose isn’t the right word, my brother (@MattStenning) and I were absolutely flogged

I am not the kind of person who is going to take this loss lightly so I was eager on Friday to re-challenge my parents to another game. We finished work on Friday and went out for a game of tennis, this time Matt and I had a steely resolve. This time we were determined that we were not going to leave that court losers, we were going to be winners.

After the warm up we opted for my Dad to serve first, we won this game easily.  In fact we won the first 4  games easily and without even breaking a sweat. It was at 4-0 our way that my parents got together for a team huddle, to discuss how they could turn the game around.

And turn the game around they did, out of the next 14 games they won 13 of them ending with a score of:

7-5

6-0

Now you be wondering, why I am sharing this story with you, well I am an avid believer that games like tennis are not only good for your fitness but can show you internal learnings.  Here are a few of mine:

1. Systems Work - While my parents were trying to play fancy tennis and not follow the normal system of playing tennis, Matt and I were winning.  Let me explain, the aim of tennis is to win a point by continuing to hit the ball over the net until your opponent, misses the ball, hits the ball out, hits the ball into the net or you hit a winner past your opponent.

Out of the 4 ways to win a point only one of them calls for you to make a remarkable shot or play “fancy” tennis.  The other three ways of playing tennis is to just hit the ball over until the other person makes a mistake.  So tennis is really just a very simple system, hit the ball over the net.  It’s us as humans that complicate that system and make it more difficult then it really is.

For the first 4 games of the match Matt and I had this system down pat, we just hit the ball over the net.  But when we started winning, well that’s when we threw the system out the door. The only reason my parents ended up winning that game was they followed the system while we didn’t

2. An Ego Can Destroy A System – Reflecting back on our game of tennis now I realise why we threw the system out the window. Quite simply we let our egos get in the way. You see, not only did we want to win but we wanted to win with “fancy” unnecessary shots. Once Matt and I had established the lead we started playing more difficult tennis shots to win points quicker and finish the game with flair.  While this was good for our “ego” in no way was it productive to following the “winning system”.

Those are just a few of my learnings from a simple game of tennis. Have you taken the time lately to sit down and assess what games are teaching you in your life?