Coveting ideas, taming tigers, selling benefits and the middle

sent by Nick Grantham | 12th January 2021

"Do not covet your ideas. Give away everything you know, and more will come back to you."

Paul Arden

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When you were a kid, did you ever try and stop the person sitting next to you from looking at your work? I'm sure you can remember sitting with your arm wrapped around your book in the hope that the kid sitting next to you couldn't see your work of genius! In Paul Arden's cracker of a book (I can't believe it's only 93p on Amazon at the moment!), he describes this as hoarding. Long after leaving school, people still love to hoard, desperately hanging onto ideas, not wanting to share them. But here's the thing. There's very little out there that's original, so the chances are it's not your idea to hoard! Instead of guarding all of your ideas (which will end up become stale and dated), concerned that others may steal them or take credit for them. Share your thoughts, experiences, ideas and brainwaves with everyone and anyone who'll listen. Giving away all of your ideas will not only force you to go on the hunt for new ones but it will also be paid back in full by others who'll be more than willing to share their brainwaves with you!

Source: It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want To Be by Paul Arden


"Head in the direction of where you want to arrive, every day."

Jim Lawless

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How do you start your day at work, college, school? It may go something like this. Arrive at the office, grab a brew, have a bit of a chat with your colleagues have a quick check through your email (still do that, by the way, so that you don't miss this newsletter!). You ease into the day by doing a bunch of stuff that doesn't achieve much of anything. You can get away with it if you don't want to achieve anything, but what if you are trying to pass your exams, gain a promotion or make the first team. I know from experience, the best athletes in the world don't just bimble around. They plan; they always have the end in mind. They are making the most of each day.  But I'm not an elite athlete Nick; I can afford to bimble about? Can you? If you need to pass your exams, then you need to head in the right direction. If you want to get a promotion, then you need to head in the right direction. ?If you're going to make the first team, you need to head in the right direction. You have choices to make every day that will take you closer to or further away from your end game. Option A will take you further away from your destination. Option B will bring you a step closer. I know which one I'm taking.

Source: Taming Tigers by Jim Lawless


"Forget features - sell benefits."

Caspian Woods

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We don't buy things because of the features. Sure it may come into it somewhere down the line, but we are nearly always hooked and ultimately sold on the benefits. Coaches can learn from sales. Stop selling the features of your gym, training programme or equipment and start selling the benefits. I don't have many conversations with athletes about the maximum loading capacity of the barbell they're using. We don't chat about how the floor they are standing on has excellent shock absorbing properties or how the rack they've just stepped out with has a particularly heavy-duty steel gauge. We may have that conversation later down the line if they are really interested (or just trying to engage me in conversation to gain some additional recovery time), but we don't talk about that stuff upfront. I don't explain the periodised wave loaded system I'm using for their training programme either. I sell the benefits. If you follow this programme and train with me in this facility using this kit, I guarantee you'll hit a personal best in your next 5km run. They're hooked on the benefits—a personal best 5km time, not the features.

Source: From Acorns...How to Build Your Brilliant Business From Scratch by Caspian Woods


"You need to be realistic and accept that you tread such a fine line between success and failure. But impartiality is not part of most sports reporting. People want to read about triumph or catastrophe. There is nothing in between. But the truth is that, for most sports teams, you're generally somewhere in the middle, occasionally touching the opposite extremes?"

Eddie Jones

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It's the truth for most sports teams, and it's the truth for most people! During the past 12-months, I've been reading a fair bit about stoicism, and the one thing I've learnt is that we shouldn't run away with the highs, and we shouldn't get too down with the lows. We should celebrate success, and we are all allowed to have a bit of a wallow when things don't go to plan. But the reality is that we are somewhere in the middle most of the time, and that's a pretty good place to be!

Source: My Life and Rugby by Eddie Jones


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