By Wes Berry, Business Expert
I’m constantly humbled by my golf game. However, my sons are really very good golfers. One of them is a college player, although I honestly think all four of my sons could have played at the collegiate level.
On the other hand, as for my game I spend more time in the trees than the squirrels. A while back my college player shared a bit of wisdom with me about how he approaches those tree-lined holes. He said, “I just look at them the way you’ve always taught me to look at problems.” — OK he really didn’t say that. What he did say was “I see a tree-lined hole, and ‘I say to myself I’m gonna hit between the trees.’” He doesn’t think about not hitting into the trees – instead he thinks about hitting between the trees. So he sees them as an opportunity to define his game in the positive.
“Life is a lot like a coin with two sides. One side is good, and the other side is bad. It’s up to us to find the good side.” That’s an excerpt from my best-selling book Big Things Have Small Beginnings and it really can ring true. I’ve spent a lot of ink on how important it is to finding the positive in every situation. Although, I’m the first to admit it’s easier to say than to implement. The power of positive thinking only works if you believe, and some things are harder to have faith in than others.
Yet if you are willing to redefine the situation, you’ll be surprised how problems both big and small can be transformed into positives. Always remember that winning and losing are both part of every experience, and if you aren’t willing to take the loses you can’t take the wins either.
The great golfer Walter Hagen never worried about hitting a bad shot. He use to say “I never played a perfect 18 holes. There is no such thing. I expect to make a few mistakes. Therefore, when I make a bad shot, I don’t worry about it. It’s just one more of those bad shots out of the way.” Everyone has their own way or faith, and from time to time we all question our faith. Regardless of whether it’s faith in yourself or spiritual faith, if you’re well grounded you can steady up and get back on course.
If you are willing to embrace that everything, everyone and every situation has a positive as well as a negative, it than becomes your job to find the positive.
As for golf, I’m positive that for me – it’s good exercise.
About Wes Berry:
Wes Berry is a keynote speaker and the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of the book Big Things Have Small Beginnings. His business career took him from a $60-thousand-dollar-a-year failing family flower shop in Detroit, from which he built a $60-million-dollar international company with more than $750 million dollars in sales. Wes can be contacted at wes@wesberrygroup.com or you can learn more at his website staging.wesberrygroup.com.
