When I was about 12 years old, my family joined the Green Hills Golf & Swim Club and my dad started teaching me how to play golf. Two words he often said to me as we were playing have stuck with me and have shaped many aspects of my life: “Ready Golf.”
Technically, the term “ready golf” refers to an agreement among players that whoever is ready to hit their shot should do so. I remember my dad’s use of the term slightly differently. As a pre-teen boy I’m guessing I was easily distracted. From my father’s encouragement, I knew that as soon as I hit a shot I was to begin preparing for my next shot.
My dad had to repeat the phrase to me often. It did not come naturally to me to stay focused and be prepared. I’m sure that our earliest rounds of golf were much slower than they needed to be because of my youthful fidgeting, misdirected energy, and lack of focus. I imagine that my father, more than once, wondered whether this idea of joining a club and teaching me golf was such a great idea. But in time I learned.
From my dad’s repeated reminder with those two words I developed a mindset to always be thinking ahead, always being prepared for the next action, wasting as little time possible in whatever I was striving to do. I see that in everything I do in my work and my life. Sometimes it’s a blessing. Sometimes it’s not. But it’s a part of who I am.
Although I don’t remember focusing on the formal definition of “ready golf” during those Green Hills days, I do think I’ve practiced those additional aspects of that concept throughout my career. There have been several times when I have “hit out of turn” because it didn’t make sense to wait any longer. Entrepreneurs don’t wait to be asked before they develop a solution to a known problem. Star employees don’t wait for a role to be added to their job description before stepping into an obvious gap. They do the work that needs to be done and maybe they’ll even get credit for it. Being always ready, looking ahead, and being sensitive to changing conditions positions you to move the game forward. Sometimes you even win.
Are you playing ready golf? Maybe you should give it a try!