When I started playing sport in primary school, I tried every sport that was available. I was reasonably good in many of the sports, but I somehow enjoyed the team sports more which is where I learnt about the benefits of working as a team.
I have seen with my kids that this is often a personality trait, and one will enjoy individual sports and others will enjoy team sports. The reason why I am bringing this up is that I want to talk to you about the benefits of working as a team.
You can give it many names but in the end we all work in teams. Your family is your closest team, yet we often discard the value of a strong family bond that operates like an efficient team. In your younger sports teams, the bigger and stronger individuals help you win the games but as you grow older everybody starts catching up and those big kids in primary school are not that big anymore. This is when it becomes more important to work as a team and not as individuals.
When you play your first test for the Springboks you receive your first cap, and you go through a very special initiation. Part of this initiation is that you read a Springbok code of conduct in front of the whole team and management. A part of this code of conduct reads as follows:
“I will put the team and its interests above my own ambitions”.
As a young player many of the other statements you read stand out but if you think of it carefully this one is massive. If every player lives and breathes this line, then you are bound to have a very successful team. You can of course change this to anything in your life. “I will put my family and its interests above my own ambitions” “I will put my wife and her interests above my own ambitions” “I will put my company and its interests above my own ambitions”.
You see the big thing is that in life we operate in teams and if you and your interests are always number one then life starts getting a bit complicated. If you just work for yourself, you can never perform week in and week out for months and years as you will become demotivated. Do you think the Springbok teams players play just for themselves? No ways they do. They play for their country, for their coach, for the Springbok emblem on their chest, for their parents, brothers and sisters who all sacrificed to get them where they are. Nobody can go through life without operating in a team.
Who are you working/playing for? Make sure that you reach out to your friends and always stay in contact. They are also part of your team that can stand in when you or any of your family member are not capable of making good decisions. Be a team player that always reaches out and always goes the extra mile. In your family be the captain that keeps everybody together when life happens, and things start falling apart.
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If you would like to get in touch about Debunking Motivation, send an email to corne@cornekrige.com. Visit my website to review my speaker sheet for more info. I also share my story on my social media pages on Facebook and LinkedIn.