During my recent vacations I had the opportunity of visiting the world famous Yankees Stadium in New York. It was indeed impressive to be there and relate to the many stories of success lived on that stadium; however, something that caught my attention during the guided tour was when we entered into the internal museum they have.
While checking all the impressive collections of memories from many famous players such as Babe Ruth “The Bambino” among others, what caught my attention was a section dedicated to George Steinbrenner a.k.a “The Boss”; in this section they have some particular quotes said by this businessman who became the Principal Owner and Managing Partner of the New York Yankees in 1973.
I have always liked to relate sports with organizational business teams since I definitively consider there is a huge similarity between the both; the quote that you see in this picture is the perfect example to elaborate my point.
It’s not a matter of being traditionalist but I agree with George that attitude and discipline are two key components to achieve success no matter what you do, no matter if you are talking about a great sports team or a business team.
Demonstrating only one of those characteristics talks very well of you or your team but will hardly get you to achieve success because you can have the best positive attitude ever to achieve your dreams but if you are not disciplined enough to constantly “fight” to achieve them, you will probably end up with a grat collection of efforts loaded with tons of great intentions but no results. In the other hand, you may be the most disciplined person in the world but if you do not combine that with a good attitude towards the difficulties we all encounter pursuing our dreams then your discipline may get stuck with you and so your intentions to achieve your dream.
In business we constantly see similar situations; I personally have seen many people with the greatest attitude but unfortunately without discipline which prevents them from reaching excellence on what they do and therefore keeping them away from endless chances of improvement.
I have also seen many disciplined people with goals and dreams but with a terrible attitude; those that are always complaining if things are good or bad or just not the way they want, those that live in their comfort zone and are not willing to go further and demonstrate what are they made of; those that do not want to push themselves to the boundaries.
At the end, it has to be a mix of them, there need to be a balance in order to be successful in everything we do, from preparing dinner to your significant other to improving the metrics of your team or winning the sports team championship.
It takes a lot to be successful and George Steinbrenner was a perfect example of it by earning seven World Series titles and eleven pennants on his 37 years of ownership and leadership on this famous team, the New York Yankees.
Posted by Minor Arias S.
