Olympic sized goals require Olympic quality focus, and in this episode we’re sharing one simple question that could make a HUGE difference to your business and lifestyle. It comes with a proven track record too!

Watch the episode now to find out more…

Transcript:

Hi, welcome to another episode of BaranovTV, designed to demystify the world of accounts and tax and to help your business grow. In this episode, I wanted to talk about a book.

It’s not something we do that often, but I love a good business book, and I thought I’d share some of them with you. In this week’s episode, I want to talk about this one. It’s “Will It Make the Boat Go Faster?” co-written between Ben Hunt-Davis and Harriet Beveridge.

Ben Hunt-Davis is or was a gold medal-winning rower. He took part in the Sydney Olympics in September 2000 as part of the men’s rowing eight. The team itself wasn’t anywhere near as high-profile as the likes of Matt Pinsent and Steve Redgrave. They were underdogs as they went into the Olympics and the preceding two years.

They took a particular decision to really focus, and they distilled their desire to win that gold medal down to one question, and that is the question, is the title of the book, “Will It Make the Boat Go Faster?” And they deployed that question at every opportunity, so whenever they were looking to make a decision, they asked themselves the question, “Will this make the boat faster?” and if the answer was no, then they didn’t do it.

They deployed that as a decision-making tool throughout the build-up to the Olympics. They were absolutely fastidious about it, and ultimately they won the gold medal.

Now, in the immediate lead-up to the race and the heats, they took this to the point that they didn’t go to the opening ceremony of the Olympics because it’s a lot of standing around, it’s a lot of waiting, and they didn’t want to expel the energy that would be required. Would it make the boat go faster? No, so they didn’t go. Throughout the build-up, there were so many sacrifices.

What the book does is it takes you through the story, the build-up to those Olympics and why they decided to make that decision, why they decided to have that as their mantra, and what they did and the strategies that you can use and to take from what they did into the real world, into your day-to-day to get the same sort of focus and the same sort of benefits.

There is a website that goes with this, which is www.willitmaketheboatgofaster.com.

On that site, there are a lot of free resources, including a free e-course that will take you through lots of different information and give you lots of questions and strategies to actually implement in your life, whether it business or personal, depending on what you’re working towards to actually hopefully get you closer to those goals as well.

We all should have really clear goals, but it’s fine deciding what those are, but actually sticking to them and staying focused can be really difficult. I found that having read this book, it gives you just something. It’s like a filter.

So when you’re making a decision, when you’re thinking about whether to start something new, whether you’re thinking about, I don’t know, anything really, you can say, “Will it make the boat go faster?” You’re obviously not planning on winning a gold medal in a rowing race, but it’s the analogy. That just gives you that focus and that filter to make those decisions.

So you might want to think about what is your equivalent question?

You might just want to use this one, will it make the boat go faster, because it doesn’t really matter. It’s the filter and the thought of is this going to help me achieve my goals? And actually, will it make the boat go faster is as good as anything else. So that would be my recommendation. You can find this on Amazon. It’s not a heavy read. It’s not that meaty. But it is big print, and it is actually a really good, really interesting read. If you like to watch the Olympics, it’s interesting anyway, but also, as I say, there’s lots of messages in there too.

So that’s my message this week. I would be really interested to hear what you think about the book if you do read it, and I’ll see you all very soon.