June 23rd, 2010 is a date that will go down in Wimbledon history. This is the date that two guys whom you’ve probably never heard of—Nicolas Mahut and John Isner—battled for ten straight hours in a match that had to be completed the following day because, well, because it got dark!

Ten straight hours! Even before it was completed the following day, it was the longest match in the history of the Wimbledon Championships. In fact, it was the longest match in the history of tennis.

Now, why should you care? (I figured I’d say it first before you could get all snotty about it.) What’s the leadership lesson for your business?

Actually, there are two:

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There’s a guy at my gym whom I call Burl. Not because he’s burly, like you’d expect a gym regular to be, but because he looks like Burl Ives. (For you younger readers, Burl Ives was a rotund, congenial-looking man, whom you may know as the voice of Frosty the Snowman. He was not known for his rock-hard abs.) Burl is there every morning, sitting on an exercise bike, watching TV. Not actually exercising, mind you. I’ve never seen him so much as pedal his bike. He just sits there, watching TV.

Burl Ives: He didn't pedal

Now, here’s the thing. I’ll bet you that every morning, he tells his friends and family that he’s “going to the gym.” Which is technically true, but not really legitimate.

Kind of like when the rest of us tell our friends and family that we’re “going to work.”

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We all know their names: John, Paul, George, and Ringo. (If there are any children reading this who don’t know what I’m talking about, these are the names of the Beatles. The Beatles were a pretty famous musical group in the 60s. The 60s was the coolest decade ever, and you missed it. So there.) These four guys changed history, but they didn’t do it alone. Here are four other names:

Brian, Neil, George (a different one), and Mal.

These are just four of the crucial people on what I call the Beatles’ “satellite” team. And in your business, just as in the Beatles, your satellite team can make or break you. Let’s take a closer look.

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Are you preparing for success, or, to paraphrase Shakespeare, waiting for success to be thrust upon you?

My first job in television was basically that of a glorified secretary (and by “glorified” I mean “unglorified”). My primary function was to answer viewer mail. At around 2:00pm on my first day, while I was answering the 50th inane request for the Chicken Kiev recipe that some local chef had made on our morning show the previous day, I recall thinking what a perfect use this was of my brand new Bachelor’s degree. Still, I was hoping for more. So when quitting time rolled around, rather than go home, I found my way to the engineering department and asked them if they had a manual for the video editing machines. They gave me one, and I spent the next eight hours teaching myself how to edit. I did this for the next four days; then, the following week, I did the same thing with the video cameras. And then, I waited for someone to get sick.

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Everything is better in first class. Right? I mean, that’s why they call it first class. It puts you ahead of the rest. How many times have you been sitting back in steerage (the airlines call it “economy”), seen the people in the front of the aircraft being served foie gras and vintage champagne and thought to yourself, “Everything will be great once I get into first class”? For that matter, how many times have you thought:

• “Everything will be great once I’m making $100,000 a year.”
• “Everything will be great once I get that promotion.”
• “Everything will be great once we have kids.”
• “Everything will be great once the kids move out of the house.”
• “Everything will be great once pigs learn how to fly.”

Yes. the grass is always greener on the other side. “But,” you say, “things really are better in first class.”

Think so? Read on, Sparky.

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“What do you do for a living?”

That’s a question that far too many people dread, because they don’t have a good, compelling answer. They say something like, “I’m a lawyer,” or, “I’m a financial planner,” or, “I’m the drummer for the Beatles,” and then wonder why everybody quickly walks away. (Okay, they’re probably not going to walk away from that last one, but you get my point. And by the way—Ringo, if you’re reading this, give me a call. I miss our little chats.)

What’s the real problem here? These people are answering the wrong question. The question was not “What is your job title?” The question, if you’ll remember, was “What do you do for a living?” So, how should you answer this question?

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John Lennon was raised by his Aunt Mimi, who is usually described with words like “strict but loving.” And while there is some debate among Beatle people over exactly how “loving” she really was, nobody questions the “strict” part. As you can imagine, then, she was not a big fan of young John’s obsession with rock and roll, or his non-stop guitar practice.

“The guitar’s all well and good, John,” she would say, “but you’ll never make a living at it.”

Years later, when John was a rich and famous Beatle, he had those words engraved on a plaque and sent it to Aunt Mimi.

“The guitar’s all well and good, but you’ll never make a living at it.” Read More…

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I have a friend who is really struggling in his business right now. He works for himself, and when the phone was ringing life was good. But the phone hasn’t been ringing for a couple of years now, and he doesn’t know how to turn things around. He said to me the other day, “I’m doing everything I can think of, putting in ten hours a day trying to build the business, but nothing seems to be working.” And it’s true–he is doing everything he can think of. And therein, I think, lies the problem. It comes down to one word: focus. Read More…

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