Article contributed by Clive Murphy.
I was recently speaking with an elite footballer who plays in a national code and he was saying how competitive it is and how much time and effort they have to put into it.
After the conversation finished, I saw a correlation between athletes and business.
I have concluded there are four types of athletes:
Casual Athlete – very part-time. Trains once or twice a week and plays on weekends. Doesn’t care how they perform so long as they have fun.
Semi-Serious Athlete – still part time but takes it serious. Trains twice a week and is out to win on weekends. Attends training on time and puts in effort.
Serious Athlete – trains 3 to 4 times a week. Aspires to be better and reach the big time. Goes that extra mile and does weight training and learns some things about nutrition.
Elite Athlete – full time athlete. Trains up to 7 hours a day, 5 days a week. Learns about nutrition, motivation and ways to get the best out of themselves. Does a lot of planning for training and on the day they perform. Looks to learn as much information as they can to get the edge on their competitors.
These four categories can be related to business and to BNI.
Most business people fall into the Serious group. The ones in the Casual and Semi-Serious tend to go out of business within 5 years – no plans, no skills and little enthusiasm.
The serious business person spends much time at work “doing” the work. They do a lot of talking for what they should be doing – should get healthy, fit and have some time off. They are success driven and continue with what they have always done. They view getting outside help as “not their thing” or say they can’t afford it. These people battle along and seldom make it into the big time (the “Elite”).
Very few make the Elite business person. The elite person does the planning for their business and for themselves. They eat healthy meals and exercise. They work on becoming the best person they can possibly be and look to teach their team how to do the same. They are happy to hire coaches to help them with their business and their personal life.
Which category are you in relation to being a business person?
Which category are you relating to BNI?
Are you Casual (hoping this is going to work and attend looking to receive referrals), Serious (attending every week, thinks about who you can give a referral to the night before) or Elite (works on giving referrals to all Chapter members, attends all the functions, the first to put your hand up to do things within your chapter and looking for bigger and better ways of working BNI)?
