This week’s article has to do once again with the concept of Kaizen, the practice of incremental improvement.
The truth is that you don’t have to be twice as good as your competition in order to become enormously successful. I have previously labeled this mindset The 1.6% Rule, referring to a downhill Olympic skiing event where the difference between first place and seventeenth place is commonly less than 1.6% in overall time.
The following borrowed quote was responsible for my recalling this all-important reminder:
“In sport, there is no greatness without sacrifice. There is no being very, very good without sacrifice.
Elite athletes are the best in their trade, and while they cannot all be the greatest of all time, they are all still the best in the world at what they do, and to be that good you must possess certain characteristics. Talent, yes; single-mindedness, certainly, but also the ability to push yourself, to live life to the extreme—and that is hard.
They miss parties, decline nights out, ruin family holidays, all for what British Cycling during its golden heyday of the last decade would describe as “marginal gains.”
That is small improvements, refining everything by 1%, to significantly increase your overall performance; because when the difference between success and failure is a fraction of a second or an inch, every little thing matters.”
(Source unknown)
The obvious lesson here involves practice, focus, and incremental improvement. But I want to call your attention to a fourth aspect that separates the best from the wannabes. And that has everything to do with deciding whether you want to “pay the price” or not. Somebody is going to become “the best in show.” But, I can say with unwavering certainty, it will not happen without paying a significant price.
Rather than dance around the issue, I will ask you a single question that will immediately cut the “wheat from the chaff.”
“Are you committed to doing everything possible to distancing yourself from your competition?”
In other words, “Are you willing to pay the price?”
Mike Marchev is always looking for a few more proactive travel professionals to join his Sales and Marketing Club, mike@mikemarchev.com.
*** You want more to think about? Check out my weekly podcast (Miked Up Marchev). Also listed on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google, and iHeartRadio.
