Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group, LLC Blog

Easy and certain

The lottery is great, because it's easy. Not certain, but easy. If you win, the belief goes, you're done.

Medical school is great because it's certain. Not easy, but certain. If you graduate, the belief goes, you're done.

Most people are searching for a path to success that is both easy and certain.

Most paths are neither.

Headroom

The only thing worse than being able to say, "my boss won't let me," is having to acknowledge, "my boss will let me."

Over the last fifty years, the amount of headroom offered to white collar workers has dramatically increased. Piece work and time clocks have been replaced with self-policing and keep-your-own-calendar in many organizations. It's entirely possible to do very little, very often, particularly in a big company.

When we say, "my boss won't let me," what we're often saying is, "my boss wants great results, but she's not willing to let me take initiative without responsibility."

I'd be shocked if any smart boss took a different approach. Who's going to give you authority without responsibility?

Just about everyone I meet has far more ability to move up and to make an impact than it's easy or comfortable to admit. Once you do admit it, of course, you have to do something about it.

How to fail

There are some significant misunderstandings about failure. A common one, similar to one we seem to have about death, is that if you don't plan for it, it won't happen.

All of us fail. Successful people fail often, and, worth noting, learn more from that failure than everyone else.

Two habits that don't help:

• Getting good at avoiding blame and casting doubt
• Not signing up for visible and important projects

While it may seem like these two choices increase your chances for survival or even promotion, in fact they merely insulate you from worthwhile failures.

I think it's worth noting that my definition of failure does not include being unlucky enough to be involved in a project where random external events kept you from succeeding. That's the cost of showing up, not the definition of failure.

Identifying these random events, of course, is part of the art of doing ever better. Many of the things we'd like to blame as being out of our control are in fact avoidable or can be planned around.

Here are six random ideas that will help you fail better, more often and with an inevitably positive upside:

1. Whenever possible, take on specific projects.
2. Make detailed promises about what success looks like and when it will occur.
3. Engage others in your projects. If you fail, they should be involved and know that they will fail with you.
4. Be really clear about what the true risks are. Ignore the vivid, unlikely and ultimately non-fatal risks that take so much of our focus away.
5. Concentrate your energy and will on the elements of the project that you have influence on, ignore external events that you can't avoid or change.
6. When you fail (and you will) be clear about it, call it by name and outline specifically what you learned so you won't make the same mistake twice. People who blame others for failure will never be good at failing, because they've never done it.

If that list frightened you, you might be getting to the nub of the matter. If that list feels like the sort of thing you'd like your freelancers, employees or even bosses to adopt, then perhaps it's resonating as a plan going forward for you.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Keep Kids in the Game for Life Through the STOP Sports Injuries Campaign

Healthcare and, Business Leaders, and Professional Athletes Join Forces to Help Young Athletes Play Safe and Stay Healthy

Boston MA –– Today, leaders at The Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group are coming together with the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine, American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Society for Sports Medicine, National Athletic Trainers’ Association, National Strength and Conditioning Association and Safe Kids USA to promote the STOP Sports Injuries campaign. 

The campaign educates athletes, parents, trainers, coaches and healthcare providers about the rapid increase in youth sports injuries, the necessary steps to help reverse the trend and the need to keep young athletes healthy. The STOP Sports Injuries campaign highlights include teaching proper prevention techniques, discussing the need for open communication between everyone involved in young athletes’ lives, and encouraging those affected to sign The Pledge to be an advocate for sports safety. The campaign website and pledge are available at www.STOPSportsInjuries.org.

Sports injuries among young athletes are on the rise.  According to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), high school athletes, alone, account for an estimated two million injuries, 500,000 doctor visits and 30,000 hospitalizations every year. 

“BSMPG is committed to providing leaders in both Sports Medicine and Sports Performance the skills and information necessary to reduce the risk of youth sport injury during training and sport competition.”

- BSMPG Leadership Board

The high rate of youth sports injuries is fueled by an increase in overuse and trauma injuries and a lack of attention paid to proper injury prevention. According to the CDC, more than half of all sports injuries in children are preventable.

“Regardless of whether the athlete is a professional, an amateur, an Olympian or a young recreational athlete, the number of sports injuries is increasing – but the escalation of injuries in kids is the most alarming,” said Dr. James Andrews, former president of the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM) and STOP Sports Injuries Co-Campaign Chair.  “Armed with the correct information and tools, today’s young athletes can remain healthy, play safe, and stay in the game for life.”

Supporting the STOP Sports Injuries campaign are the country’s leading sports medicine organizations along with professional athletes and business leaders who have signed on as members of the campaign’s Council of Champions. This Council will help raise additional awareness about this growing epidemic of youth sports injuries.  Some of the founding members of the Council include former Olympic champions Christie Rampone, Eric Heiden and Bonnie Blair, professional golfer Jack Nicklaus, NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Bart Starr, MLB baseball player John Smoltz, NFL Hall of Fame defensive end, Howie Long, and Heisman Trophy winner and St. Louis Rams quarterback Sam Bradford.

 # # # 

The Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group was formed in 2007 and is comprised of a number of health care professionals, including  athletic trainers, strength coaches, and physicians, in and around the Boston area.  Our goal is to enable coaches, sports medicine professionals, and athletic training sp

The agenda

The job of the CEO isn't to check things off the agenda. Her job is to set the agenda, to figure out what's next.

Now that more and more of us are supposed to be CEO of our own lives and careers, it might be time to rethink who's setting your agenda.

The flip side

It's impossible to have a coin with only one side. You can't have heads without tails.

Innovation is like that. Initiative is like that. Art is like that.

You can't have success unless you're prepared to have failure.

As soon as you say, "failure is not an option," you've just said, "innovation is not an option."

Turning the habit of self-criticism upside down

Perhaps this sounds familiar:

When it's time to write a resume or talk to a boss or discuss a project glitch with colleagues, the instinct is to spin, to avoid a little responsibility, to sit quietly. Put a best face forward, don't set yourself up.

When reviewing just about anything you've done with yourself (in your head), the instinct is to be brutal, relentlessly critical and filled with doubt and self-blame.

What if they were reversed?

What if the habit of the project review meeting was for each person to put their worst foot forward, to identify every item that they learned from? What if we took responsibility as a way of getting more authority next time?

And the flip side--when talking to ourselves, what if we were a little more supportive?

It's not an easy habit, but it works.

If you look hard enough, everyone has problems. In the sports performance profession, problems provide easy targets for coaching, training, and interventions. Explicitly stated or not, problems make the physical therapist, athletic trainer, strength and conditioning coach, and sport psychology consultants’ jobs easy. The athlete that needs to be “fixed” provides a clear target for intervention. The athlete that is pretty well-rounded without any glaring weaknesses can be a lot more intimidating to help. Easy targets for coaches and trainers however may not be what is best for the athlete.

This is not the only problem with problems however. Athletes pride themselves on their strength and abilities to intimidate and dominate. Few embrace being weak and even fewer enjoy being stigmatized as someone with a “problem.” This reality can lead to hesitancy on the path towards improvement. So many performance specialists slip into the trap of highlighting athlete weaknesses in efforts to advance an athlete’s training régime. Not a compelling sales pitch to someone whose self-image is enshrouded in strength.

Perhaps this problem with problems is best illuminated when considering development of one’s mental game. Too often working on one’s mental game is neglected because sport psychology may be seen as being for the mentally weak or mentally unbalanced. These perceptions are fair. Psychology (and much of medicine) has spent much of its history labeling illness and treating problems. Upon reflection however, one would be hard pressed to suggest that an athlete that gets a bit anxious when taking a penalty shot, walking the back nine of a major golf tournament, or toeing the foul line for a game tying free throw has a “problem.” Distraction, doubt, and stress are normal in the quest towards high performance. A motivated athlete would be remiss not to make deliberate efforts to develop one’s mental game. Presenting this work on one’s game as fixing “problems” or healing a wounded psyche certainly stigmatizes a necessary part of player development.

The problem with problems is not unique to the mental game however. Coaches and trainers that spend majority of their time reminding an athlete of his weaknesses rarely lead the athlete to commitment or excellence. It can be argued that the coach’s ego needs are fulfilled as the athlete with inadequacies cannot thrive without them. Yet the truth is, all athletes have one problem or another and regardless of these things they strive quite successfully. The most successful performance coach does not challenge the athlete’s desire of strong perceptions of self, but rather builds upon them… encouraging a normal human being to strive towards super-normal. Muscle imbalances are not a problem, but rather an opportunity to train for higher performance. Distracting performance anxiety is not a problem, but rather an opportunity to find a next level of mental fortitude. Poor cardio is not a problem, rather an opportunity to develop wire to wire dominance.

Injury that takes you out of practice for a while, depression that inhibits performance in the classroom and on the playing field, and clinical nutrition issues that sap wellness and energy are problems that need to be treated as such. A heavily problem-focused practice however loses athlete enthusiasm and misplaces the focus of training. Challenges to injury resistance, mental fortitude, and conditioning are opportunities for performance specialists to ply their crafts at the highest level. They are opportunities for the athlete to embrace the appropriate coaching and training necessary for finding one’s optimal potential.
Dr. Adam Naylor, CC-AASP. is the Director of the Boston University Athletic Enhancement Center (www.bu.edu/aec).  He has serves as a mental conditioning and player development resource for players at all stages of their sports career.  He can be reached contacted at adam@telos-spc.com.  Follow Dr. Naylor on Twitter @ahnaylor.

Continued from Part 3

You never quite know in business if what you are doing is the right or wrong thing. Unfortunately, by the time you know the answer, someone has beaten you to it and you are out of business. I used to tell myself that it was ok to make little mistakes, just don’t make the big ones. I would continuously search for new ideas. I read every book and magazine I could. Heck, 3 bucks for a magazine, 20 bucks for a book. One good idea that lead to a customer or solution and it paid for itself many times over. Some of the ideas i read were good, some not. In doing all the reading I learned a valuable lesson.
Everything I read was public. Anyone could buy the same books and magazines. The same information was available to anyone who wanted it. Turns out most people didn’t want it.
I remember going into customers or talking to people in the industry and tossing out tidbits about software or hardware. Features that worked, bugs in the software. All things I had read. I expected the ongoing response of “Oh yeah, I read that too in such-and-such.” That’s not what happened. They hadn’t read it then, and they haven’t started reading yet.

Most people won’t put in the time to get a knowledge advantage. Sure, there were folks that worked hard at picking up every bit of information that they could, but we were few and far between. To this day, I feel like if I put in enough time consuming all the information available, particularly with the net making it so readily available, I can get an advantage in any technology business. Of course my wife hates that I read more than 3 hours almost every day, but it gives me a level of comfort and confidence in my businesses. AT MicroSolutions it gave me a huge advantage. A guy with little computer background could compete with far more experienced guys just because I put in the time to learn all I could.

I learned from magazines and books, but I also learned from watching what some of the up and coming technology companies of the day were doing. Its funny how the companies that I thought were brilliant then, are still racking it up today.
Every week a company called PCs Limited used to take a full-page ad in a weekly trade magazine called PC Week. The ad would feature PC peripherals that the company would sell. Hard Drives. Memory. Floppy Drives. Graphics Cards. Whatever could be added to a PC was there. What made the ad so special was that each and every week the prices got lower. If a drive was 2,000 dollars last week, it was $ 1940 this week. For the first time in any industry that I knew of, we were seeing vendors pass on price savings to customers.

The PC Limited ads became the “market price” for peripherals. I looked for the ad every week. In fact, I became a customer. I was in Dallas. They were in Austin.  I remember driving down to pick up some hard drives that I was going to put into my customers PCs. I had no idea up to that point, but it turns out that they had just moved from the owner’s dorm room into a little office/warehouse space. I was so impressed by this young kid (I was a wise old 25 at the time), that I actually wrote a letter thanking him for the great job he was doing, and…I’m embarassed to say now, I told him that if he kept up what he was doing he was destined for far bigger and better things.  I kept on doing business with PCs Limited, and Michael Dell kept on doing what he was doing. I dont think he really needed my encouragement, but i have since told him that I thought his weekly full page ads with ever declining prices, changed the PC industry and were the first of many genius moves on his part.

Michael wasn’t the only smart one in those days.

One of the PC industry’s annual rituals was the Comdex trade show in Las Vegas. Every November, it was the only 3 days I knew I would get away and get a break from the office. It was work during the day. Visiting all the new technology booths. Trying to get better pricing from vendors. Trying to find out where the best parties were. If you could believe it, back in those days, the number one party was the Microsoft party. I sold some Microsoft products, so I could get in.
One particular year, I was on my way to having a memorable night. I had met some very, very attractive women (I swear they were). Got them some tickets to come with me to the big party. All is good. I’m having fun. They are having fun. Then we see him. Bill G. As in Bill Gates dancing up a storm. I’m a Bill Gates fan, so I wont describe his dancing, but he was definitely having fun.
At that point in time, Microsoft had gone public and Bill Gates was Bill Gates. If you were in the business you knew him or knew of him. The girls I was with were in the business. Long story short, I went to the bar to get some drinks for all us, I come back, they aren’t there. Come to find out the next day, Bill stole my girls. As I would learn later in life, money does make you extremely handsome. 

Bill G also taught me a few things about business. Put aside how he killed IBM at their own game by licensing PC DOS to anyone that wanted it. What MicroSoft did to knock Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect off their thrones was literally business at its best.
At that point in time, software was expensive. WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 both sold for $495 and their publishers were proud of that fact. In order to be able to sell Lotus 1-2-3, you had to go to special training to become authorized. How crazy does that sound now going to a special class to be able to sell a spreadsheet. WordPerfect wasn’t quite as bad, but they had their own idiosyncrasies as well. Meanwhile, Microsoft was on the outside looking in. Excel, Word, Powerpoint were all far down the list of top sellers until lightning struck.  Microsoft decided to go against industry protocol and package those 3 programs as a suite and offer them as an upgrade to competitors’ products for the low, low price of 99 dollars. Of course you needed to have and use Windows for it to work, but in a time when people were buying new PCs with every dramatic increase in power and decrease in price, it was a natural move for us at MicroSolutions to sell the bundle. It made the effective price of the PC and software together far, far lower. We loved it. It also taught me several big lessons.

Always ask yourself how someone could preempt your products or service. How can they put you out of business? Is it price? Is it service? Is it ease of use? No product is perfect and if there are good competitors in your market, they will figure out how to abuse you. It’s always better if you are honest with yourself and anticipate where the problems will come from.

The 2nd lesson is to always run your business like you are going to be competing with Microsoft. They may not be your direct competitor. They may be a vendor. They may be a direct competitor and a vendor. Whatever they may be to your business, if you are in the technology business, you have to anticipate that you will in some way have to compete with Microsoft at some point. I ask myself every week what I would do if they entered any of my businesses. If you are ready to compete with Microsoft, you are ready to compete with anyone else.

Watching the best taught me how to run my businesses. Along the way I taught myself a few things those come next blog.

A slow news day

I think you can learn a lot about an organization (and a person's career) when you watch what they do on a slow news day, a day when there's no crisis, not a lot of incoming tasks, very little drama.

Sure, when we're reacting (or responding) and it's all hands on deck, things seem as if they're really moving.

But what about in the lulls? At the moments when we can initiate, launch new ventures, try new things and expose ourselves to failure? Do we take the opportunity or do we just sit and wait for the next crisis?

If you have ten minutes unscheduled and the phone isn't ringing, what do you do? What do you start?