How golf can help you play to your strengths in every aspect of your career

In Teeing Up For Success, a new book published by the EWGA Foundation, Lisa Krouse, executive vice president and chief human resources officer for FCCI Insurance Group, shares how she turned personal, early struggles in learning the game of golf into key business metaphors for creating a culture of respect and support in the workplace and achieving one’s personal best.

1. Your strategy makes the difference

To be successful in golf, you have to have a strategy before you approach each round. Golfers think long and hard about factors ranging from the direction of the wind to the condition of the course. Conditions are rarely perfect.


SEE ALSO: 6 tips for playing golf for business


2. Your stance is critical

Whether analyzing the economy or tackling a workplace challenge, your stance is going to be affected by whatever situation you’re in at the moment. Take control and position yourself to succeed.

3. You must keep your focus on the ball

By practicing, making corrections along the way, being open to coaching and being persistent, you can tackle your toughest challenges. Be realistic at each new starting point.

4. Your vision must be broad

Professional golfers use their caddies as collaborative strategists to help them determine what kind of club to use, how to evaluate the conditions, or how big a swing to take. Know where you want to go.

5. You must get tough

One of the most valuable lessons in business is that difficult obstacles can always be overcome. If the ball is in the rough or the mud, get over it and play it as it lies.

In the movie “The Gumball Rally,” the late actor Raul Julia portrays an Italian racecar driver who rips the rearview mirror off the windshield, saying, “And now my friend, the first rule of Italian driving, what’s behind me is not important.”

Golf and life certainly share this truth. A personal best for the hole, the course, the game or your life is about focusing on where you are and what’s in front of you. Every stroke — like every career move — represents a new opportunity.

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