Squash & Business by Filip Madaric
July 01 2018
Filip Madaric explains why is the sport of squash connected to successful businessmen & regarded as the ideal activity for entrepreneurs & teams all over the world?
Let’s first see if you recognise any of these points in business.
Time allocation
Deep focus
Simplicity
High intensity
If you are a business owner, manager, entrepreneur or have any connections to working in a team environment, you will have recognised one of these four points during your career.
Working in a high-achieving environment usually entails deep thought on time allocation.
Every area we work on has a time limit & a goal. We don’t allow time to go to waste with minor nuances, such as small talk, social media exploring or jumping from task to task before finishing either. Knowing where we want to put our focus & how long we want to spend discussing or thinking about it is crucial for our success. Squash, surprisingly enough for many, has the same trait.
Thirty minutes would be an average time of one match, jam-packed with high-speed decision making, deep focus on individual tasks & simplicity to reach our targets. Is it any wonder we, the fortunate ones, love it so much & belong to the successful bunch?
Due to such a short time frame, we usually dig deep into our mind to find good focus in achieving set goals during meetings. A day-to-day occurrence of good leaders & businessmen/women. Understanding what we need to do to achieve our goals & then focusing on that task as if nothing else matters.
Having the ability to focus deeply on certain individual tasks requires a clear & relaxed mind, exactly what squash does to us while playing. There is no way of escaping the brutal conditions of gladiatorial sport like squash.
To be able to achieve deep focus, we need to know what to focus on, so having simple goals that we can reach is key to reaching our targets, & to state the obvious, key to hitting a good shot. This is our tactical brain speaking. Knowing where we’re going & what we’re doing with that darned tiny ball is where a simple image of our direction plays a crucial role.
To lead a meeting, we need to know our direction, to decide, we need to know where we want to be, the end goal. As clear as a day. If we can have an end goal in sight, we can move towards it.
High intensity is just what happens when all these components fall in place. It seems as if we are going in slow motion, seeing all the little wheels turning exactly how we want them to.
Squash is a picture-perfect example of high intensity. Each step of the way is as fast as a bullet if we know where it takes us. A classic tell-tale of a successful businessman leading a company to its successful destination.
Multiple direction short sprints will keep you flying around the court like superman, & that little black ball will bury you in deep focus so hard you won’t realise you're having a workout until you're back in your changing room wondering what just happened.
So next time you're thinking of getting better results in business, growing your company, improving your team’s performance, start with that first step, think of squash & join your local club.
Let’s first see if you recognise any of these points in business.
Time allocation
Deep focus
Simplicity
High intensity
If you are a business owner, manager, entrepreneur or have any connections to working in a team environment, you will have recognised one of these four points during your career.
Working in a high-achieving environment usually entails deep thought on time allocation.
Every area we work on has a time limit & a goal. We don’t allow time to go to waste with minor nuances, such as small talk, social media exploring or jumping from task to task before finishing either. Knowing where we want to put our focus & how long we want to spend discussing or thinking about it is crucial for our success. Squash, surprisingly enough for many, has the same trait.
Thirty minutes would be an average time of one match, jam-packed with high-speed decision making, deep focus on individual tasks & simplicity to reach our targets. Is it any wonder we, the fortunate ones, love it so much & belong to the successful bunch?
Due to such a short time frame, we usually dig deep into our mind to find good focus in achieving set goals during meetings. A day-to-day occurrence of good leaders & businessmen/women. Understanding what we need to do to achieve our goals & then focusing on that task as if nothing else matters.
Having the ability to focus deeply on certain individual tasks requires a clear & relaxed mind, exactly what squash does to us while playing. There is no way of escaping the brutal conditions of gladiatorial sport like squash.
To be able to achieve deep focus, we need to know what to focus on, so having simple goals that we can reach is key to reaching our targets, & to state the obvious, key to hitting a good shot. This is our tactical brain speaking. Knowing where we’re going & what we’re doing with that darned tiny ball is where a simple image of our direction plays a crucial role.
To lead a meeting, we need to know our direction, to decide, we need to know where we want to be, the end goal. As clear as a day. If we can have an end goal in sight, we can move towards it.
High intensity is just what happens when all these components fall in place. It seems as if we are going in slow motion, seeing all the little wheels turning exactly how we want them to.
Squash is a picture-perfect example of high intensity. Each step of the way is as fast as a bullet if we know where it takes us. A classic tell-tale of a successful businessman leading a company to its successful destination.
Multiple direction short sprints will keep you flying around the court like superman, & that little black ball will bury you in deep focus so hard you won’t realise you're having a workout until you're back in your changing room wondering what just happened.
So next time you're thinking of getting better results in business, growing your company, improving your team’s performance, start with that first step, think of squash & join your local club.