Risk & Business Magazine Cal Legrow Spring 2017 | Page 28

THE PATH TO VICTORY
The Path To Victory:
Brad Gushue’s Brier Title Proves
That Business & Sport Success
Share Multiple Characteristics
T
he white bristol board
taped to Brad Gushue’s
bedroom door when he
was a teenager was big
news recently as the St.
John’s native was sliding his way toward
a Canadian men’s curling title.
The story goes that young Gushue had
prioritized a list of goals he wanted
to achieve in curling. So, like any
driven, dedicated, and focused young
athlete, he wrote them down:
•
•
•
Win a world championship
Win an Olympic gold medal
Win a Brier
There were other goals on that board
— the Brier was the last check mark,
actually — but the point was made: if you
truly want something, you need to bring it
to life. Writing that list down and seeing
it every day is partly what motivated
Gushue to do all the heavy lifting that
led him to raising the Tim Hortons Brier
Trophy on March 12th of this year.
How does Gushue’s Brier victory
have relevance in this magazine?
Simple. Business and sport at the highest
level share multiple characteristics.
Determination and perseverance.
Hard work and teamwork. Long-
and short-term goals and strategies.
Competition, and how you react to
it. Wins and losses, or to put it more
28
bluntly, successes and failures.
“SOME FAIL TO SEE
THAT FAILURE IS A
KEY COMPONENT
OF SUCCESS.”
Want more? The ability to achieve more.
Understanding that your achievements
this year aren’t going to cut it next year.
Move the goalpost. Find another target.
Shifting goals and finding ways to deliver
the performance required to reach new
levels. And probably the most important
attribute of all — mental toughness.
All those traits are present in business
as much as in sport. Ever wonder why
many large companies bring in Olympic
or championship athletes to speak to
their staffs? Because the similarities
between business and sport are too
great to ignore. Gushue himself is
a businessman and about to open
a fitness operation with teammate
Mark Nichols called OrangeTheory
Fitness. Gushue’s curling team is a
prime example of this interconnection
between business and sport as he
operates the team as a business.
For instance, start by developing a plan.
That includes goals to achieve, methods
BY: DON POWER,
AWARD-WINNING
REALTOR, CENTURY 21
SELLER’S CHOICE
to reach them, and putting in the work to
execute those methods. Every member of
the team has a job to do. You do your job,
I’ll do mine, and we will be better for it.
In any business, there are bumps in the
road. Perseverance allows us to trudge
on towards our intended goals and not
become sidetracked by the hiccups.
The entire province panicked when
Newfoundland and Labrador lost to the
Northwest Territories Tuesday morning of
Brier week, but Gushue didn’t. While the
loss was surprising, and dropped Gushue’s
team to 3–2, they were still in the hunt.
Refocus, and start again. From that
Tuesday morning game, they ran the
table. The ability to bounce back is
paramount to success. We don’t often
get to run the table, so having the
capacity to stop, re-evaluate the goals,
and re-examine the plan — while
realizing that plan is taking us down the
right road! — allows us to rebound.
In my business — real estate — we see
many failures. A lot of them are because
new agents, and some who have been
around awhile, are like bumblebees,
flitting about and heading towards
the latest shiny object. The phrase
“Jack of all trades, master of none” has
resonance because it’s real. Gushue and
his team are masters at their trade.
Some fail to see that failure is a key
component of success. Most people don’t
realize that there are great lessons to