March Madness…

I love this time of year.  The NCAA, D-I tournament; the “Bracket Challenge”; “Prime time, baby!” as Dick Vitale says with great enthusiasm.  This is the tournament that separates the “Blue Bloods” from the pretenders.

For a few weeks the intensity of competition is raised unlike any other sport.  Oh, others have big games; but we’re talking about dozens of big games played back-to-back in a “Win or go home!” setting.  Madness!

There are parallels between sports and business competition.  We relate because we compete in our jobs on a daily basis, too.  Of course, maintaining a high level of enthusiasm, maintaining our “edge”; remaining tenacious back-to-back is difficult.  After all:

Only the mediocre are always at their best.

Jean Giraudoux

To be a Blue Blood the business person in general and the salesperson in particular benefit greatly from competition, coaching, and motivation.  Especially motivation:

Our competition got me out of bed in the morning; paranoia is a wonderful motivator. 

Scott Deeter

Lord knows I have felt paranoid on more than one occasion when I’m trying to close that big deal; finish that big project; or win recognition from my Manager.  Though we might agree that a little paranoia goes a long way.  If we get too carried away they might start padding our cubicles. 

There are other sources of motivation.  How about personal pride; a never-give-up mind set; staying the course no matter how difficult. That tenacious mind set can be very motivational, individually and in our teams.  We see it on display in the NCAA tournament.  How fun!  We also see those with mental weakness vs. toughness. They collapse in the face of competition; “over-rated”; “pretenders”.  In March and throughout life winners - Blue Bloods - stand out. 

Whatever we do to find inner strength; however our toughness is displayed to the outside world; regardless of our life pursuits, we can always think of March Madness, basketball, great coaches, and great players that find sources of tenacious strength to overcome obstacles in pursuit of success .  Jimmy V summed it up best:

Don’t give up.  Don’t ever give up.

So let’s enjoy some round ball and leverage the hype of March Madness towards meeting our personal goals.  And every day let’s visualize success by repeating the mantra over and over and over again in our mind – nothing but net!

GAP

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.