Monday Morning Musings

Morning Team.

For those of you who were here this time last year, I started to send out a weekly email with the goal to share something with you all that I had learned or observed during the previous week.

It’s a constant challenge for me to connect with so many of you, especially now that the team has grown across Europe. Nothing beats regular face to face contact, but by sending out this weekly email, my goal is to try and open up about share with you the things that I have learned and that are important to me as a person, so that you can feel that you are getting to know me better.

What we do day to day is all about human connections, so I’m always trying to find ways to make this more efficient and valuable. If you feel like this weekly email is irrelevant or not useful then that’s totally fine, just ignore or delete, I won’t be offended. If it helps 1% or that you’ve learned something new to help aid your own personal growth and development, then I’ll feel pleased to have made a difference to that 1%.

What I LEARNED

As assistant coach for my sons u12 football team, I get a lot of enjoyment from supporting the kids growth and development in a sporting environment. The lessons that can be learned from teamwork in a sporting context can be applied in so many different ways and walks of life, so installing the fundamentals of teamwork and team psychology at a young age I personally believe is an important trait to help them later in life.

What I found really interesting recently is the mindset these u12 boys. During the first game of the season, they lost heavily to a team that had been newly promoted and their heads just dropped. The head coach of the team gave them a really hard time which I had to have a word with him about, as its unfair to apply so much pressure on these young kids. The following week we played the top of the table team who have won all of their games, so needless to say the boys were apprehensive. As the head coach was unavailable on that particular day, I was fortunate to manage the team for this big match. I decided to try a different tactic, and told the boys to not worry about the result as it didn’t bother me, I just wanted them to go and have fun, support each other, and back each other on the pitch. My only ask was not to get their heads down and keep battling until the end. If they could come off the pitch and tell me they gave 100% then that’s all I could ask for. The boys won 2-1. They couldn’t believe it themselves. They went out and had fun without focusing on the result.

When I reflected on the game afterwards, and the feedback my son gave me about how much he enjoyed that game, it reminded me of 2 things in a work context:

1.       It’s important to have FUN – this so often gets overlooked.

2.      Sometimes it’s about the journey and not the destination.

The reason I wanted to mention this, is because as we enter Q4, we know the end result of our Q4 goals are going to be challenging to achieve, so my ask from each of you is to make the most of your time during this period. Have fun and take the positives out of every situation to help you learn and develop. Its through the most challenging times we learn the most about each other, but please know that you are not alone, and that you have this amazing world class sales team around you, as well as myself to be there for support and guidance when you need it.

What I LIKED

I love a good podcast, especially when I’m walking to the office, or during my lunchtime walk when I’m working from home. A lot of the podcasts I listen to are based around self-improvement, however I also listen to lot of work related content as a means to keep up to date with the industry. This particular podcast is an interesting listen, as it relates to some recent research conducted in the US regards FAST TV. There are some interesting viewpoints and discussions regards the current and future of FAST that may help with your customer conversations:

Final thought

Feedback is a gift, and I’m always trying to improve or understand what’s working and what’s not. Please leave any constructive feedback that you feel can help me improve or continue with what’s working.

Thank you for reading and I hope that you have a successful and fulfilling day.