“Your character comes through in golf. If you’re pissed at the world the whole time, you really can’t enjoy your wins, and in many ways you can’t really — what’s the right word? — you can’t really understand the meaning of your defeats. To get beat is very healthy. Particularly when you’ve really given it your best effort. If you win every time, you don’t learn anything. You don’t learn anything about yourself. You don’t learn anything about the other person. You don’t learn anything about the game. You don’t learn anything about life.”
– Jack Nicklaus, in SI, December 2015 upon winning the Muhammad Ali Legacy Award
And so it is in business, too. If we’re angry, gruff, frustrated and harsh, how will we enjoy our wins? How will we set the tone for the next generation of leaders? How will we objectively understand our defeats?
Learning — Jack contends — is an ultimate goal. Not necessarily the ultimate goal, but certainly one worth ranking in the top two or three.
Golf is a metaphor for life, which is why I try to play a round with Senior Level hires before extending the offer. If a person kicks the ball out from under a bush when they think no one is looking, or constantly claims 4’s and 5’s when 6’s and 8’s are the real score, one can only imagine what they’ll promise a client, write in to an addendum or tell their boss when the heat is on. (By the way, golf is not the only metaphor for life — I just like it a lot, and any excuse I have to quote Jack, I gotta grab!)
“When you’ve given it your best effort…”
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