THE GREAT STRETCH

Albert Einstein said, “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” Looking beyond the difficulties of 2020, there lies great opportunity in 2021. We will only be able to take advantage of these opportunities if we are ready for the great stretch. When we stretch ourselves, we are pushing ourselves further than we think is possible and creating new boundaries in what we can achieve. The Great Stretch is the stretch we will need to make in order to seize the amazing opportunities that are ahead of us in 2021.

Individually, we will need to all find ways to stretch ourselves to be able to seize these opportunities. We cannot continue to do what we have done in the past and expect to achieve more or greater results. We must stretch ourselves to our new boundary of success. How do we stretch ourselves and grow? Here are 4 key areas that will help us all individually achieve The Great Stretch.

We Before Me – When it comes to growth and stretching, we are not in it alone. Our greatest assets are the people we surround ourselves with. When we face new challenges, we can lean on the group for help and insight. We can use the collective learning of the group to our benefit. This is a quicker path to success. This collective knowledge is at your disposal, as long as you humble yourself to ask for help and are willing to help others as well. As we work together, we will rise together.

Another key aspect of stretching is also understanding that the group as a whole is always more important than your own interests. This is hard because we generally only think of ourselves; however, the success of the whole will always be more important than any one individual’s success.  Sometimes things will happen that might not be in your best interest, but is for the best interest of the whole. When you are willing to accept that and help the whole succeed above your own success, you will find that not only does the group benefit, but individually you will rise as well. As the great writer Alexandre Dumas wrote in The Three Musketeers, “All for one and one for all, united we stand divided we fall.”

Hunger – “A hungry wolf is bound to wage a hard battle” – Laxdaela Saga. Hunger is an attitude of perpetual growth and an unsettled spirit of achievement. This does not mean that you should not be grateful for what you have or what you have achieved but, that you understand your past successes are just that - the past. When you have hunger, you are willing to do what it takes to achieve something. Often times we lose our hunger when we achieve and do-good things. We start to defend our past instead of charge at the future. When we lose our hunger, we see opportunities as distractions from doing what is the norm. During The Great Stretch we need to leave the norm and chase the opportunities with a hunger for new areas of achievement. 

Hunger is a sign of humility. Hunger is the ability to say that even though you have achieved something in the past, it doesn’t guarantee that you will have the same success in the future. You are continually reminding yourself that, we all have so much more we can learn and do, and that it’s not about the finish line, but the journey. Dave Anderson said, “Strong teams are characterized by an uncanny ability to stay hungry when doing well, rather than shift into neutral and maintain.”

Coaching –Who are you helping? Who is your replacement? Throughout our careers we can all point to great mentors that have helped get us to the next level. They said the things you know you might not have wanted to hear, but you understood it’s what you needed to achieve. They stopped and took the time to help you learn and stretch yourself. These mentors and coaches were stretching themselves by helping someone else. We are only as good as the people we build. As soon as we stop coaching people to get to our level, progression stops. When we do not have people to fill the holes we create as we move forward, then forward is not an option. This is why coaching and mentorship is so crucial. If we are to stretch and take on new opportunities, we need to be able to help those around us take on the opportunities we leave behind. The Great Stretch means we need to also stretch our teams. We need to ask them to take on more opportunity. We need them to do more, become more, and stretch themselves. The great coach Bill McArtney said, “All coaching is, is taking a player where he can’t take himself.” We need to help stretch our people and take them to where they can’t take themselves. 

Performance – “The true measure of value of any business leader and manager is performance.” -Brian Tracy. As we continue to stretch and push ourselves to take on opportunities, we need to remember that the main objective is performance. We cannot take on new opportunities if we cannot perform in the ones we currently have. The Great Stretch is the ability to continue to perform at a high level while coaching, training, staying hungry, and thinking of the team first. Many managers hearing there are new opportunities for growth, start to focus on the opportunity more than their responsibility and cease to perform – then fail at both. Performance is not optional. You can’t slide in performance and expect to acquire new opportunity. You need to perform and then stretch further. Bill Parcells the legendary New York Giant famously said “You don’t get any medal for trying something, you get medals for results”

As we head into 2021 set your sights high. Get ready for The Great Stretch to push yourself beyond what you thought was possible and seize new and exciting opportunities.