Monday, February 11, 2008

Start Well to Finish Great

Great Finishers don't learn how to finish by accident.

Sure, we all understand that (performance enhancing chemistry aside) our sports heroes get great because of hard work over a period of time.

But how many times do you hear the story of a sports figure who is full of talent and never realizes their "potential," or they never achieve their big goals..whatever those may be?

How many times do you hear a nutty sports commentator say, "Well, the wildcats just wanted it more."

Ummm...no...the other team "wanted" it just as much, and god was just as much on the other team's side as she was yours...

No, I think the difference between finishing well and not quite getting there is how you START.

Over the years, Seth Godin has talked about doing the hard work early so that your project finishes well. This week his take on this subject is contained in a post called "Soggy"

How do you start well? I believe that you start well when you know worry about the details when others say, "let's just get started and then we'll figure that other stuff out later."

I am usually that guy! So, my lesson to myself this week is:

Finishers Get the Hard Stuff Done First.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Toby,
Great point!

There's a good book by Brian Tracy called 'Eat that Frog' that echoes your point very strongly.

The title comes from a Mark Twain quote "if you woke up every morning and ate a live frog, it’d probably be the worst thing you’d do all day".

The point is that to be most productive, get your ugliest task out of the way first.

Shawn