Reconcile Your Past, Identify Learnings, Focus On The Future

This past week I had the rare opportunity to return to my alma mater, the University of Notre Dame, and walk around the campus for two hours by myself. Everywhere I went memories came pouring back, some trivial and some life changing moments. But more important than that were the questions that came rushing at me. Primarily, these five questions:

1. Have I become the person I set out to become?
2. What got in the way of my desired progress?
3. What helped me to become effective?
4. Am I on the right path now to become the person I set out to become?
5. What can I do now to improve my chances of being the person I've always wanted to be?

I graduated from Notre Dame 18 years ago and haven't visited the campus in13 years. The main reason I stayed away for so long was I felt that during those four years I was a failure. I was largely unsuccessful in the three areas I invested the most time and energy into: academics, athletics and relationships. My grade point average was the bare minimum required for a degree in engineering. I sat on the bench for most of my four years in the soccer program and on the rare occasion that I got into a game I quickly demonstrated why I should be back on the bench. And suffice it to say that my relationships with women were poor at best, mainly due to my own selfishness and insecurity.

However, there was one other simple activity that I did frequently, which I had forgotten about until I wandered the campus. This activity was a subtle but powerful current flowing below the surface of my college activities. From my first day on campus until my graduation day, I went to a place called The Grotto two to three times a week every week for the four years. The Grotto is a very simple and quiet place where a person can reflect without interruption. Each time I went there, I asked myself two questions, "What should I do with my life?" and "How can I do it?" It was not an activity that can be considered a success or a failure. It was simply a constant reexamination of my internal compass. In the end, a clear theme emerged, "My life's purpose is to work with other people to help them achieve whatever they want to achieve."

The reconciliation with my past happened when I answered the first question above. Rather than seeing myself as a failure in college as I have for some twenty years, I now realize that I was truly a success because of my constancy of purpose. This purpose manifested itself first when I was a college head soccer coach for five years. Then it evolved into its second iteration when I spent eight years as a high school teacher, coach, moderator and advisor. Today it is fulfilled through my work as a corporate advisor and teacher and through pro bono work for non-for-profit groups. This realization freed me from a great deal of burden and guilt about my past. Now I look forward to my next journey to the campus.

During my internal reflection, I identified the following as things that held me back:

A far too frequent attitude of cynicism and finding something wrong with virtually every situation.

A lack of discipline in doing what I said I would do.

A lack of sustained focus on a single objective.

However, the primary asset that generated success was the commitment over the past eighteen years to revisiting the two key questions, "What should I do with my life?" and "How will I do it?" These questions helped guide my life's ship and make adjustments when necessary.

Recommended Exercise:

Go back, either physically or mentally, to an important place in your past. Recall your situation at that time. And then answer the five questions at the beginning of this issue.

Recommended Book:

"What Should I Do With My Life?" by Po Bronson (2002, Random House, New York)

New White Paper – Accelerate Your Strengths

On June 16th I gave a half-day seminar on “Accelerate Your Strengths: practical ideas to boost business momentum” for GE Capital. It was such an interesting project that I wrote a white paper for the group after the seminar based on what we talked about. In turn, that white paper was forwarded on to 7,000 GE employees. Consequently, I thought you might like to read the paper, except this version has all the references to GE taken out. Here is the link for the

Accelerate Your Strengths white paper: http://thecoughlincompany.com/accellerate_your_strengths.html

New Book, Find a Way to Win: Management Insights from Terry Michler, America's All-Time Winningest Soccer Coach

This book focuses on business lessons that can be learned from soccer. The foundation of the book is how Terry Michler used the powerful simplicity of Dutch soccer to win more games than any other U.S. coach in history.

On July 11th, the finals of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa between Holland and Spain was watched by more than 700 million people. While I was cheering for Holland at the beginning of the game, a major decision by their coach led me to learning a valuable lesson all over again.

Dutch soccer, which is highlighted in my book, is all based on extraordinary technical skill, efficiency, and precise attacking soccer. This is how a country with only 16 million people competes so extraordinarily well with the world's super powers in soccer including number-one ranked Brazil, whom they beat in the quarterfinals. However, in the World Cup finals Holland abandoned what made them great and instead focused on playing brutal, violent soccer. They wanted to intimidate Spain, and in the end they lost the game and the respect of so many people who love Dutch soccer. What happened and why did they do it?

They felt they couldn't compete with Spain if they allowed them to get into their normal passing game. So they consciously decided to physically attack the Spanish players with violent tackles all over the field. One Dutch player even shoved his metal cleats into the chest of a Spanish player. They received numerous yellow cards, a red card, and ridicule from the world-wide soccer press after the game.

What's the lesson to learn here for every business? Stay true to who you are. When the prize is close don't abandon what got you to be one of the best organizations in your industry. Too many companies in the past ten years have decided that what made them very, very good wasn't going to be enough to make them number one in their industry, and so they got away from their strengths. Big mistake.

I believe Holland will return to their traditional style of play, focus on precise, skillful, attacking soccer, and get away from their violent style of play. I think they learned a huge lesson. And hopefully every business that got away from its core strength in the pursuit of being bigger and more successful financially than anyone else in the industry will also return to its core and get back to winning again.

You can learn more about Find a Way to Win at http://thecoughlincompany.com/book_store.html

Republishing Articles

Each month my e-newsletter gets republished in approximately 20 blogs, on-line publications, and internal publications for businesses, universities, and not-for-profit organizations. If you would like to republish all or part of my monthly articles, please send me an e-mail at dan@thecoughlincompany.com with "Republishing Article" in the subject heading. I will send you the article in a word document. All I ask is that you include my name as the author of the article and a short paragraph at the end of the article about me with a link to my website.

Take care and have a great month!

Dan Coughlin

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