One Of You

‘One of you, one of you’

This is one of the things that I heard most as a child

Because from the age of 4, I played football

Every weekend I could play matches and tournaments, I played. Every weekday evening training session, I’d go. Every opportunity to roll up a pair of socks and play in the house, I would

(This led to hours of fun and the dramatic loss of one toenail)

Playing football as a young child is barely recognisable as football

Positions don’t matter, it’s 2 goalkeepers then everyone else chasing after the ball

With coaches on the side shouting ‘One of you!’, trying to implore kids to stay in a position, create more space - or just to not tackle their own teammates, just to get a touch of the ball.

Not quite the Champions League final.

Even as you get to much higher up the football pyramid, the difference between decent amateurs, semi pros and then the top 1% is massive, and underappreciated.

One thing that interests me when it comes to research in elite football, is how much time elite players spend looking at the space the ball is going to, rather than looking at the ball.

A common criticism of defenders when conceding goals is they were ‘ball watching’ - which highlights just how much of the job is knowing what’s going on around you, and what will happen - not just chasing the ball around.

I wrote one of these a few weeks ago talking about how I think a sign of an expert coach or consultant, is their ability to predict the future for their audience

‘This is what I’m seeing, this is where it’s going, this will happen next’ - same as the elite footballer does during a game.

Surprise surprise, it’s not just a skill with coaching and content - it’s a skill in your business.

A bad business owner makes decisions based on how they feel that day.

A good business owner makes decisions based on what’s happened before, and they use that data to either make it happen more, or avoid it happening again

The best business owners? Look at the future.

They’re seeing trends - their own business, elsewhere, how markets are shifting, how buyers are buying in their industry and outside of it.

Because it allows them to dictate cadence of offers, size of the offer they want to make, collaborations, mini pivots into other niches, a corporate play or maybe even a move to a physical space.

Now I’m not saying you have to keep tabs on the Strait of Hormuz, to see what is going to happen to fuel prices and reverse-engineer what that will do to your client Sandra’s energy bills and her ability to buy coaching.

But a good skill to practice is to be aware of what’s going on around you, and learn enough to be able to make plans for the future of your business.