As a tennis player, AKA weekend warrior, I’m used to failing and forgetting. Over the years, tennis has actually helped me get better at failing and winning. In tennis, you’re out there by yourself solving problems on the fly, one point at a time. Tennis is a sport where you can actually end a match with more points won, but still lose the match overall.
Tennis is a lot like life, and surely life in the produce business. Whether you’re farming, selling, or buying, “you’re only as good as your last load.” How many times have I heard that over the years? And like tennis, this business is riddled with failures and wins. Either way, you learn and move on to the next thing, whether it be a point, order, game, load, set, season, match… or job.
Just today I found myself quoting to a job candidate a line from the famed tennis player turned commentator/tennis philosopher—Martina Navratilova: “If you have a winning strategy, stick with it. If you have a losing strategy, then change it.” It’s simple, but sometimes hard to do. When things are going well, we often think it’s time for a change. We hear it all the time, “If it’s not broke, break it! Make it better! Improve it before your competitor does! Cannibalize yourself first.” The list goes on, and in certain scenarios all those statements make sense. However, in tennis, and sometimes in life, you really should stick with what is working and just keep on winning. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve resisted changing a winning strategy and then won the game. When that happens I am almost always amazed that the other person did not and/or could not do anything to change the momentum.
Conversely, I have been on the receiving end of this situation, getting my tail kicked while refusing to change my game to adjust to my opponent’s winning ways. I would be losing, but kept on the same losing play!
A candidate/friend called me recently and he was notably frustrated. He had been sending out his resume to select companies, and getting some phone and face-to-face interviews, but still no win (new job) yet!
He shared his frustration and the fact that he has all the credentials, experience, skills and desire to qualify for and perform these jobs. My advice? “If you have a winning strategy, stick with it. If you have a losing strategy, then change it.” I admit it, I was happy to interject a famous tennis player’s quote into the conversation. But it’s so true!
To that end, we discussed changing up his resume to accentuate his unique attributes that were not conveyed on the resume. This particular person’s professional experience does clearly demonstrate their sales experience, sales ability and relationships. So, we came up with a new strategy to present these skills. I recommended that he develop a page to accompany his resume that clearly demonstrates his sales experience, skill-set, and customer relationships. He is also going to speak with a few people he interviewed with to receive some constructive criticism.
He is creating a new strategy. And if this doesn’t work, he’ll adjust his strategy from there until he finds a new approach that works. I do hope he’ll also adopt the tennis players’ other gift of short-term memory!
Win or lose, the point is over and you move on, but learn along the way. I know that seems difficult, but what it really means is that you learn intellectually and let go emotionally. It can be done, and takes practice. The point is that sports and life are far over-weighted in failures, so we just need to move on to the next point. 
