Getting Pumped Up for a Big Game
Enter any locker room just before game time and you will find players getting themselves ready—from pre-game music, to jumping up and down to yelling and screaming to coaches giving motivational speeches (here are 3 of examples from the movies Any Given Sunday, Miracle, Friday Night Lights). Whether it these or some other method, players and coaches always have some routine to help build up the excitement that will carry them out onto the field and drive them to success.
While you may not jump up and down or bang heads with your colleagues, you can find ways to excite yourself in business.
Excitement is no guarantee, of course. We have seen teams get overly excited and then go on the field to get their doors blown off so you must find balance (USC pre-game entrance for the Alabama game comes to mind), but when was the last time you met a bored, unengaged, and successful person? And why would you want to succeed at something boring, anyways?
What are you excited about? You should be able to name your special thing in just one or two words—maybe it’s an important deal, or moving offices. Or maybe it’s some aspect of your work, like a new marketing strategy or a website re-design. It could even be another person, like a new sales rep. It doesn’t have to be anything that interests anybody else, as long as it works for you. But if you don’t know what excites you, there’s a good chance you’re not really engaged.
If you can’t find anything exciting about your work, then great! Now you can go make something. Use creativity to come up with something new that excites you.
The positive nature of finding your passion feeds into and supports other aspects of your business that may not be as interesting. Building a company is a multifaceted, multi-step process—seeing your progress can be fun all by itself. But one of those facets has to draw you in and light you up. Go find whatever that is, get excited about it, and tell other people.
Then return the favor and ask them—“what has you excited?”