Defense Wins Championships

It was 3 am, and I was awake - again. I checked into this hotel three days ago. My client made the reservation, and while it was a well-respected national hotel chain, it had seen better days.

The towels and sheets were clean, but they had lost their shine, and you needed all four pillows to get the fluff of one. But the real issue, the thing that had me awake at 3 am, was the wall heating unit.

I was on the East Coast in January, which meant it was cold, and I needed to have the heat on. This unit sounded like a freight train when it was running, so I had this frustrating nightly routine: turn on the heat, wait until it was hot, turn it off, go to sleep, wake up cold, and repeat. It was too loud to sleep with it on and too cold to sleep with it off.

On the third night, I woke up freezing and said out loud, “This is ridiculous! I wish there was a way to flip my business model!”

At 3 am, I sat up and decided to answer my rhetorical question. It was rooted in this: At that time, about 75% of my income was from face-to-face projects, which required me to travel outside of St. Louis, and the remaining 25% was from local or online work. Would it be possible to flip those percentages?

I turned on the freight train and grabbed my iPad. I started playing with the numbers. To my shock, I discovered it was possible to switch those numbers. It would take a lot of work, but there was a path that would have me sleeping in my own bed more often.

A few days later, when I returned home with a clearer head, I began to map out a more detailed plan. My estimate was that it would take about 18 months to complete this transformation. It was also very clear to me that it would take intentionality. This shift could not be left to chance.

As a former college coach, I believe that defense wins championships. I love the art of making it difficult for an opponent, of reducing their opportunities to score and minimizing their forward progress, but this mindset wasn’t going to create a new business model. To make this change, I needed to play offense. I needed to focus on attacking, creating, and going after what I wanted.

Successful teams know that you don’t win the National Championship in the first game of the season. Instead, you commit to an end goal, and every single day, you move a little closer to that goal. You decide what you want to be good at, and you work on it daily. This is a commitment to playing the long game.

High-performing teams will also tell you that they have hyper clarity in how they do things and how they will accomplish their goals. With my business, I needed to take the same approach. I began by making a list of my non-negotiables.

First, I decided to say yes to the things that felt like they had the potential to lead to transformation. I was no longer willing to say yes to opportunities that felt like checking a box, playing it safe, or simply putting a Band-Aid on an issue. I wanted to partner with people who were willing to do the hard work of transformation.

Secondly, I prioritized Zoom sessions, local events, and self-guided processes. This meant I had to continue doing face-to-face work while simultaneously building out new content.

And lastly, for any event that required travel, I wanted to be compensated in a way that honored the toll that travel takes on the human body.

These three things would be my non-negotiable compass moving forward.

I knew I could make a change happen if I committed to these three things. Naming them allowed me to ensure that I said yes to the projects that my future self would thank me for.

It’s nearly a year later, and I am starting to see some positive results. Let me be clear: I’ve been working on this shift for almost a year – 12 months, 365 days – and I am just now beginning to see the fruits of my labor. I remind myself every single day that I am playing the long game.

So, the next time you find yourself in a hotel room with a heating unit that sounds like a freight train, stuck in an airport for yet another weather delay, or in a job that doesn’t inspire you, maybe it is time for you to start asking and answering your own rhetorical questions.

In doing so, you may just discover the path that will lead you where you want to go.

And for the record, I still believe that defense wins championships, but right now, I am enjoying the fact that offense is helping me win at life.