Fast Start, with Ed Molitor

Welcome to the Athletics of Business, a podcast about how the traits and behaviors of elite athletes and remarkable business leaders frequently intersect. The real stories and hard lessons to help you level up your leadership and performance. Now, your host, Ed Molitor.

Welcome back to another episode of the Athletics of Business podcast. I am your host and CEO of the Molitor Group, Ed Molitor, in episode 108 in the last episode of 20. If you're looking for a podcast to go back and rehash all the negativity and all the gloom and doom that 2020 has placed upon us, you're at the wrong place. My focus here today, yes, we're going touch on some things that we pulled out of 2020, right? Some success stories, some lessons, some struggles. We'll touch quickly on that. But then we're going to jump into getting you off and getting your team off to a fast start, because I believe that is so key. And we'll jump into that in a second. And again, 2020 took so much away from him.

And right from the beginning, if you follow this podcast, if you've listened to this podcast for a while, you know that our focus was on growing through adversity, not going through adversity. It was on the mind shift, right? Changing the way we looked at things. It was re. It was about reframing things, believing that adversity happened for us, not to us. And I'm going to tell you, because of that, our business is in a better place. Because of that, I'm in a better place physically, mentally and emotionally. Nancy and I, my wife and I, were more creative this year. I mean, with the homeschooling, with the lockdown, with the E learning, I mean, everything you want to call it, all right?

We had to get more creative with how we engage with our kids and not just to pass time, but to embrace it and get the most out of it and make sure that every day still counted. And we made the most of it. Our family's closer, you know, back to the business. What's really cool is my relationships with my clients. They're deeper, they're very genuine. They're very real because I was. We were in the fight together, okay? We were in the grind together. We shared the wins, we shared the losses, we shared the struggles, the highs, the lows of roller coaster ride. And we found a way to keep everything as even as possible and been a very productive year for them, which is really cool. Now, this all sounds great, doesn't it? But it wasn't pretty.

It wasn't easy and it wasn't convenient by any stretch of the imagination. But nothing worth having is convenient. And it wasn't always fun. And we talk a lot about bringing joy into our journey. It doesn't mean it's always going to be fun. It's going to be a grind. There's going to be days when you have to be your best, even when you're not at your best. There's going to be days when you got to get your rear end out of bed, when you don't feel like getting your butt out of bed and you got to get it out of bed with a positive attitude and go attack the day. And we're going to talk about attacking 2020. We're going to talk about getting off to a fast start. Now you can implement what I'm going to share with you today for 2021.

You can implement it for the start of a month, the start of a week, and you can implement it for the start of the day. Also start of any initiative you have going on within your organization. Because the keys I'm going to give you to getting off to a fast start apply to all of those things that I just mentioned. Now, before I get into that, let me say one thing. This feeling of gloom and doom or this fatigue that we have, this negativity that's kind of surrounding us, that's got to stop here. And you don't let that bleed. Anything you're feeling right now, negative, okay, or self defeating or unproductive, that can't bleed into 2021. Just because the numbers change doesn't mean that our circumstances are changing.

Because our circumstances that we have with this pandemic and the things that we are going through and the economy and the challenges, right, they're going to be here for a while. I know the vaccine is a light at the end of the tunnel, but here's the trick, folks. We don't know how long that tunnel is. So we have to figure out a way to bring it every single day, to bring it for our families, to bring it for our teams and to bring it for ourselves. That's what this is all about. And you know, where does this all come from? It's funny because as a college basketball, it's just as a player and as a coach, I always believed that there were four time blocks that were critical in the success of a basketball game.

The first two minutes of the game, the last two minutes of the half, the first two minutes of the second half, and the last two minutes of the game, obviously, in a few weeks ago, I was watching Creighton play at Kansas on TV and I was fired up. I mean, what a great game. I was so excited to sit down and watch it. And it brought me back to a time in 1997 when I was a young assistant coach at Texas AM. And were playing Kansas, who at the time was number one in the country. And I had the opportunity to go and, you know, check something off my bucket list. Going to Fog Island Field House as a participant, as a coach. Not only that, it was my scout.

I always say it was one of the top three scouting reports I did while I was at A and M. But they were absolutely loaded. All right. They had Jock bond, they had Rafa friends, Paul Pierce, Scott Pollard, Ryan Robertson, Chenoweth and their supporting cast, their bench. I mean, they could probably beat most of the high majors, you know, just by themselves. Now we had a senior point guard who had the heart, the size of Texas. I mean, he was. Tracy Henderson was unbelievable. And I thought if we could give him a chance to make big shots down the stretch, which he absolutely would, because that's what Tracy did. I thought that we could shock some people. I don't know why, I just thought we could shock some people.

And man, we watched so much film and we had every play, like I said, we had every call, we had everything they ran, we had their secondary break, different options off it. And it was a game we had circled on our calendar at the beginning of year. It was our first year in the Big 12. So this was kind of like a huge coming out party for us. One of the cooler things I did, one more fun things I did, I should say. I wrote an article that I share with the team. And it was in kind of back then, USA Today was huge. And the sports section, I never forget it was red and it looked like the USA Today sports section. I made copies for every player in the team. And it started as a visualization exercise.

And I'm not going to bore you with the details of the students camping out the night before the game in the hallways of Fog Island. The tradition, we're up against the level of energy that we are battling. And the thing that blew me away about this, we go into a locker room for the visitors. Honest to God, I had bigger locker rooms when were on the road playing for St. James Junior High growing up. But the bottom line was this was an incredible home court advantage with a whole lot of built in adversity and Things beyond our control. And the place was absolutely electric. So the ball goes up and here we go. Literally one of the first plays of the game, Our starting forward gets his nose shatter, okay? With an elbow, and they jump out to about an 18 to 2 lead.

Now, this is all going through my head as I'm watching the Creighton Kansas game, okay? It's just amazing, like, how crystal clear those memories are still in my mind. And I was sitting there, and all of a sudden I started having this conversation in my head about how this parallels a little bit about what we're going through right now and how critical it is for us to get off to a fast start in 2021. See, basketball is like business. It's a game of runs, okay? Momentum changes. And your ability to dictate the momentum, energy and pace is going to be paramount to your success. I mentioned the four time blocks. All right, let's focus on the first two minutes because that's what we're coming up on here in 2021.

And here's what the first two minutes of a game are going to tell you about yourself and tell you about your team and tell you about your opponents, okay? The first two minutes set the tone and determine the level of energy at both ends of the floor. The first two minutes also show who is mentally and physically ready to play. And it'll immediately show you what is working and what you might need to change and change fast. Now, as I share the keys to getting off to a fast start, I want you to think about how these relate to your world right now. If you're not driving, not working out as you listen to this, if you're sitting here listening to this, taking notes, I'd actually, you know, pause it. Okay. And write some things down. Okay.

Here's the keys to getting off to a fast start. Have an exceptional game plan, okay? Be crystal clear on your goals, your projects, and your task. Be mentally and physically prepared to play mentally. Are you feeding your mind the positive things on a daily basis that you need to feed it physically? Are you getting sleep? Are you eating right? Are you working out? Are you taking care of yourself? This is all going to lead to high, positive energy, and this is something we're going to focus on. The next solo cast. And I'll touch on this a little bit at the end, but here's the thing. I talked about bringing it right. Regardless of what you're feeling, you have to find a way to get to that high, positive energy.

That doesn't mean you're Bouncing off the walls and you're, you know, just kind of loud and boisterous and a cheerleader, so to speak. That's not what it means. What it means you have a high positive energy that engages your people, that gets you engaged, that gets you locked in. And you're giving yourself the best chance to be successful. And you're communicating things in a very positive way, right? That you have that look about you have that face that we talk about, the face that your team needs to see. And you're locked in and you're committed to the game plan. Now, we're to remember, we're talking about the first two minutes here. We're talking about whether it's the first day of 2021, the first week, the first month, the first quarter. Get off to a fast start. Don't just bleed into it.

Don't just kind of sloth into it and just drag your feet into it. You've got to be committed to coming out of the gates fast. How is your execution learned? Are you executing right from the start? Now? It doesn't mean it's going to be successful. It doesn't mean it's going to go as planned. You could come out of the gate at 7:30 in the morning on the first Monday of 2021 and just receive some awful news. If you're mentally and physically prepared and you have high positive energy, you are going to have the ability to pivot, to shift, to make a decision to move in another direction or to just defy whatever adversity there is in front of you, grow through it, set a game plan and keep moving forward and keep getting off to a fast start.

And in order to do that, you have to have the ability to make effort plays. Watch a college basketball game. I'm going to keep going back to college basketball. Watch a college basketball game and watch the teams that even if their shots aren't falling in the first couple of minutes, they're making effort plays. You know, I could go off on a side tangent here and start talking about 50 balls. The announcers need to stop talking about 50 balls. But there's no such thing as a fair loose ball. Go make the effort play and go figure out what needs to be figured out to help you get off to a fast start. Are you over communicating with your team? Again, crystal clear in your goals, projects and tasks with yourself. Are you over communicating with your team?

You watch these teams on defense when they start a game and you listen them to them talk and you see them Point at their man, you see them point at the man they're helping. You see them call ball. Okay. Are you over communicating with your team? Are you over communicating phone calls, in text messages and emails on the zoom calls? And part of over communicating is shutting up and listening and hearing and not waiting for your turn to talk, but trying to actually grasp what your people are saying. Are you over communicating? And here's the key and we're really going to talk about this in the next solo cast. Do you have the ability to get punched in the face and not flinch? Get punched in the face and not flinch. Okay. A fast start builds momentum. It increases your self confidence.

Here's a really cool one. It allows space for you to be more creative and take risk and it's going to open up your eyes in the doors to more opportunities. So focus on your lead goals. Set metrics that you can measure daily and weekly. I talk a lot about with my clients on lag goals versus lead goals and without going too far into that, lag goals are goals. Let's say a long term goal, let's say a one year goal. At the end of 2020, here's where I want our revenue to be. Here's where I want my new client numbers to be. Here's what I want my title to be. Just keep going right on and on and on. Here comes the end of 2021, you look at your lag goals. I met it. I didn't mean it. Didn't mean it, didn't mean it.

Guess what? When you don't meet your leg goals, there's nothing you can do on about them. It's over, it's done, they've expired. When you set lead goals that are very focused on the process and focused on the metrics that are going to get you to the revenue numbers that are going to get you to the metrics, right? An example, I'm going to make X amount of calls this week. I'm going to set this many presentations and I'm going to close this many sales. You don't hit it in week one of 2021. You can adjust something in your process, you can adjust something in your time management, you can adjust something in your expectations. Whatever it is, you can make adjustments to help get you towards those high level metrics that you're trying to reach.

So have the lag goals, have the lead goals and really lock into them. Again, I just said it. Set metrics that you can measure daily and weekly. Pay attention to the Little things. Pay attention to the little things and identify the activities and the relationships that you need to lean into to get off to a fast start. And do not overreact when things go wrong. Okay? Don't get too high when things go well and don't get too low when things don't. It's that ability to stay even, to keep your mind right. Okay. To be able to access the best decision making that you have in there. And that's what's going to help you get off to a fast start. I mean, I want to help you get off to, you know, launch into 2020 with Bounce. We always talk about bounce, all right?

Do you have that bounce? You know what I'm talking about when you see people that walk into a room or you jump on a zoom call, all right? Picture those people that just have it, all right? They just bring the energy to the meeting, they just bring the energy to the conversation. And start 2021 off with the focus right from the start. We always talk in basketball about when the ball goes up, nothing else around you matters except what's going on. And when you lock into your work to start 2021, how focused are you and do you have the ability to. To lock in? Okay? Do you have that laser like focus? And here's the other thing. Relentlessly pursue mastering the fundamentals, because that's where the magic's really going to happen. That's where you're going to see the transformation, right?

That's how you're going to build the mental toughness and that's where you're going to see your vision come to fruition. And all we've talked about here in the last five, 10 minutes is getting off to a fast start. We know that's not all there is to it, but. But we want to create that momentum. We want to give you that boost of self confidence, okay. We want to get clarity around what your process is. You're going to make a mess, you're going to make mistakes, you're going to come out all right, like a basketball, you're going to turn the ball over, you're going to get beat. How do you react? You move on to the next play. Do you identify the pieces on your team that you really need to do a better job of putting together so you execute better as a whole?

Can you share these things that I just talked about with your team and help them individually get off to a fast start? So collectively you do that as a unit as well. And then when you get into the next Podcast. I want to talk about something very significant and that's how do we turn this short term momentum into long term advantages? Okay, let me repeat that. How are we going to turn the short term momentum into long term advantages? Because really, that's a huge key to success. Life as a game of runs. Business is a game of runs. Basketball is a game of runs. How do you extend the run that you are on? And let's say your opponent, I'm not talking about your competitors, but let's say your opponent is adversity, failure, struggles, whatever. And how do you shorten that run?

How do you shorten your opponent's run? And that's really the key to your success. And what do you do inside of that run? So I hope this helps you get off to a fast start again. 2020 has been a bear. It has been unpredictable. It has been very inconvenient to have. There are so many unknowns. We've talked a lot about this and I want to rehash a couple of things here. We talked a lot about vulnerability. That doesn't change in 2021. Still have the ability to be vulnerable, right? Still have the ability to be vulnerable. Still really lock into being an authentic leader. Operate with honesty, operate with integrity. Keep working on the level of trust. It's funny because one of the things I loved about athletics, about being a coach, is I could put.

We could, our coaching staff could put our players in certain situations where most likely they're going to fail. We are going to create the adversity for them. We are going to challenge them physically, we are going to challenge them mentally, and we are going to challenge them emotionally. We could do it in drills and they might never know when they were going to get out of that drill. All they could do is the next rep to the best of their ability. Right now life is doing that to us. Life's putting us in adverse situations. Okay? We're dealing with adversity far greater than just closing sales and just winning games. There's so much going on out of our control. But the thing you can control right now is what kind of start are you going to get off to?

And you might be going through a bad time right now, a real bad time. All right. Or you might be going through a real good time. A lot of success. Closed up the year strong. If you did. That is awesome. Congratulations. But you know what? 2021 is a new game. January is a new month. The week of January 4th is a new week. January force a new day. What are you going to do with it? How are you going to get off to a fast start? What are you going to do to give you and your team the best chance to win? Right? What are you going to give you and your team? Give me the best chance to be successful. I challenge you to watch a really good college basketball game, okay?

And pay attention to the first two minutes and just look at the level of energy, the level of communication, the level of execution, the effort plays that are happening and bring that to your world. Bring that. Because that is what is going to help us continue to grow through the new challenges that are coming up in 2021. Cause there's some stuff coming down the pipeline. We had that light at the end of the tunnel, but you know what? We still have some stuff coming down the pipeline that's not good. So again, continue to do the best you can with what you have to become the best you are capable of becoming and do that for your team, do that for your family and do that for yourself. But man, have some fun getting off to that fast start.

It doesn't mean that it's going to be easy. It doesn't mean it's going to go as planned. As a matter of fact, it probably won't go as planned. Okay? And it doesn't mean things are just going to all of a sudden magically fall into place because you were prepared, because you were dialed in, because you executed. But what it does mean is you're creating that momentum. You keep pushing, you keep pushing and the creativity comes, the opportunities show up, right, the relationships get deeper. And as a quarter goes on, as a year goes on, as a game goes on, you're going to find yourself in position to make really significant decisions and execute on those decisions that are going to set you up for massive success. So happy New Year. I wish you all the best in 2021.

I look forward to the next solo cast where we're really going to jump into what is coming up from us. The challenges, the adversity and how we lead through that and how we take the short term momentum and turn it into a long term competitive advantage. Keep doing great things.

Thank you for listening to the athletics of business. Be sure to give us a rating and review so we know how we're doing. For more information about the show, Visit TheAthletics of Business.com now get out there, think, act and execute at the highest level to unleash your greatness.