Golf and work

I haven’t written much in the last 2 weeks. Just 5 blog posts including this one. That’s unfortunately been a product of a longest few weeks at work since joining Secfi.

This weekend was about recharging and clearing my mind. I got a lot of that.

I golfed for the first time in over 3 years today with my two best friends. I didn’t have high hopes for my performance on the course, but it was probably my best day of golf since my college days. Go figure. I’ve now got the golf bug and looking forward to growing this new hobby.

Golf is an interesting game. It’s as much of a mental game as a physical one. You might be good enough that you can go up to the tee, swing away without much thinking and if you’re talented enough, perhaps it’ll all work out. Unfortunately for the vast majority of golfers, this isn’t the case.

Most golfers including myself will shave many strokes off their score simply by having a plan for each hole and playing the long game. Going for the distance with a driver will likely lead you to a world of trouble. Often times, your best bet on the course is going for the layup shot rather than trying to get there as fast as possible.

Of course this is easier said that done. I’d love to be on the green with a long straight drive and a nice approach shot on every par 4 or 5, but this is rarely the outcome unfortunately!

I had a lot of time on the course to reflect on my last few weeks of work and I couldn’t help but think how this similar this is to building a startup. We’re always trying to find that easy path to success. We make plans for that path and how we can get there as fast as possible, but rarely does that plan actually work out as expected.

This is a startup and things go wrong. A lot and often.

Sometimes going for that layup shot to set yourself up for success is the better route. Things don’t happen overnight and they take time. As much as we all want to succeed and get there as fast as possible, we also need to play the long game here. At the end of the day, getting to the green in 3 shots is still getting on the green.

When things hit the fan at work, I’ll need to remind myself to take that layup shot at times.