Choose Action

POINT TO PONDER

Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.

                                                            - William B. Sprague

STORY LINE

                      The song I came to sing

                      remains unsung to this day.

                      I have spent my days in stringing

                      and in unstringing my instrument.

                                                "Waiting" a poem by Rabindranath Tagore

REFLEFCTION by Rajiv Shah

When I was a child I played competitive tennis. Training sessions were practiced four times a week at our local tennis club. After my lessons, I would retreat up to the clubhouse for a water and wait to be picked up.

Weekly, one of the workers from the proshop, a young teenager would come up to me to chat. He always carried around a copy of the USTA tennis rulebook. He would ask me questions about rules - many of which I didn't know, others I could care less about - and always he would give me pointers on my tennis game. I was a kid and being young I would just shrug and listen as he motored on. I figured this was the guy to listen to; he worked in a proshop, knew every rule in the book, and was older than me too. 

One day I asked him how long he'd been playing tennis.

He was silent for a second and then responded that he had never actually played - not any tournaments or matches anyway - but that he was studying the game so that when he decided to take it up, he'd be ready. 

I mentioned that he knew more about the rules of the game than anyone I had ever played with and asked him how much more he needed to know about the game before picking up a racket. I offered to play with him after my lessons but he shrugged and said he wasn't ready yet; that when he was ready, he'd let me know. 

I spent five years training at that club while touring the U.S.T.A. circuit and that day he spoke of, when he finally felt ready to play, never came. 

Comments

[Curious]

Who is Tagore?

[chiaoju]

Quite often would we choose to sit on something, dream about it but for some odd reason refuses to actually do it. Maybe we think that there will always be a tomorrow and many have failed to realize that sometimes, there will never be a tomorrow.

So why is it that we choose to not do something we speak so highly of? Could it be because of fear; fear of losing, fear of failing? Or could it be because of laziness? I don't know the answer to that to be honest, but what strikes me as interesting is how many times we would spend talking and not doing. And many a times, we fail to realize by doing, we definitely would yield more than just... talking.

[Believer]

Awesome...
Gandhi' words: if you wait until you are pure before you begin to serve, you will never begin to serve. No pun intended with "serve" given that the story was on tennis.

Thanks!

[Eastcoast]

Your Friday Reflection on Tennis reminded me of this note I had sent out in 2007.

Today’s WSJ had an article (link below) on professional tennis racket stringers. It explains how the people who cater to the most demanding professionals, for a reasonable fee, help regular people choose the correct racket and stringing method to suit their individual talents. And though I have never met the people in the article like Roman Prokes, the “tone” conveyed by the writer is they are extremely capable yet approachable individuals, offering their time and expertise, and providing real value for the customers. Are we like them?

The article is just a plethora of good business tactics: 1. Listening carefully to the needs of each customer 2. Giving great service to each and every customer to strengthen one’s reputation. 3. Offering a semi-customized solution so that each customer can attain their best performance. 4. Making sure each job is done exactly the same. 5. Calibrating their instruments each and every day.

Notice how small changes, which many would think are crazy (the color of the sweat-grip), adding a few grams of weight to the racket, needing a freshly strung racket every nine game ball changes, are critical to performance levels demanded by their customers. (sounds like Change Control doesn’t it). Notice the comment, “There are 90 variables with every racket, and if 89 of them are the same, a player like Sharapova will zero in on the one that's just a little bit different.". Think about this one statement and how it applies to your customer when they are evaluating our products?

Please take a moment to read this article and I think you will clearly understand the points I am trying to make. I’ve never played Tennis on this level, but I can assure each one of you, “We have to play our game at this level every day.”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118791933825807508.html

[Bisvas]

Rabindranath was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse",[2] he became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabindranath_Tagore

[micro CEO]

I recently encountered a friend, visiting my country on business, who was somehow afraid to leave the hotel and walk alone on the weekend (though it was daytime and nice weather) for fear of getting lost in an unknown land. I was busy and unable to accompany the friend, but I tried to ask the origin of this fear and even to suggest a safe and enjoyable walking route and found a map that would help to guide her. It was not enough, and the friend did not venture out of the hotel. I felt bad for having accepted too easily the friend's worries, and not having taken a more firm position with more effort to convince the friend. I, too, was guilty of inaction.

I would say that the same fear of action (fear or leaving comfort zone in general) can be experienced in all of us sometimes . So when we observe that in others, we should try our best to help the other to overcome irrational fears, as Krishna did to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita.

I am also reminded of the following quote:

"The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of making a mistake."
-Meister Eckhart