Calm During the Storm

Today marked 125 years of Mercedes in F1 and their 200th start. Lederhosen, vintage outfits, one-off livery with pomp and circumstance.

Now, as I sit here watching the F1 post race of the German GP, I'm contemplating what it must take mentally to be able to push in extreme conditions. This race was fraught with rain, dry, disasters, mistakes, overtakes and upsets. Some teams pitting up to 6 TIMES!!! Experienced drivers were making mistakes, going off, spinning and hitting the wall.

Lewis Hamilton began at Pole and Valterri Bottas on the 3rd grid spot. By the end of the race, Valterri took a DNF by way of the wall and Lewis finished outside of the points in 11th spot. Top team, 0 points and 1 DNF.

On the other hand, Max Verstappen started 2nd, did a 360 in mid-track mid-race, pitted 5 times and won. At the end of the race was a cool as cucumber when interviewed by Martin Brundle. The team kept their heads down, made the right calls and Max executed a near flawless race.

The stress of the day-to-day business, of any business is exacerbated by the strain of pending goals, objectives and deadlines. As leaders we cannot let the long game be affected by short term speed bumps. We must remain calm when presented with uncontrollable events and occurrences and deal with these situations quickly and calmly.

Let the 2019 German F1 GP be a tutorial of what not to do and more importantly remember that there is no failure, only lessons learned.

Head down, #focus and #justworkhard.

j.

#automotive #f1 #formula1 #selfawareness #work #passion #racing #business #motivation