"If you play for yourself, you play for your opponents; if you play for the team, you play for yourself."
— Helenio Herrera
It has been buzzing in my ears for days and days on end, without ever departing. In a good way of course!!
Why is it that sports analogies can reveal such deep meaningful life lessons even for those who could care less about sports? Read on…this might just be one to hang on to.
Many times we think that when we have a business to be successful and credible, we have to do everything ourselves. The often misguided saying comes to mind, “If you want something done right, do it yourself.”
This type of thinking LIMITS our growth potential and makes us smaller instead of bigger. When we play thinking about ourselves only, thinking that we are the only ones that can make things happen, it makes us move slower and slower instead of in a bigger and greater way.
When 2019 hit we were ZOOMING before that term meant being locked in your house and chained to your desk for hours of meetings every day. See Italy was growing very fast! We were soaring, like a jet airplane in the sky. We were growing like many were in the travel industry, more and more by the day. Everybody was happy and ready to ride the next wave and then...as we all know...things changed immediately for everybody.
This is where our sports analogy comes in because when we took a LONG, HARD look at what the future had in store for us, for our See Italy Family, our clients, and the world, the vision returned, was in a word, BLEAK. We could so easily have “played for ourselves,” reduced overhead to zero, and minimized our losses since we didn’t know, and still don’t know how long the pandemic will continue.
BUT that course of action would have gone against every grain of our core values. We aren’t here to simply make money. We are here to share our passion, which is making life-changing connections with as many people as possible to the authentic Italy we love.
SO, we “played for the team.” We thought about the well-being of everybody around and especially the well-being of our team, who we had smartly entrusted our client’s well-being to over the years, which had resulted in our amazing growth in the first place.
This didn't just happen to us, it happened to ALL of us, including our guides and drivers on the ground. So, with the same core values, we were born with we stayed true to our values and beliefs: relationship making, authenticity, and passion.
We had to comply with the rules of the Italian government but we also had to give in some to keep the relationship with our clients. But in some cases, neither was possible and misguidedly, some people thought that we were ALL in, playing just for ourselves…
This week we received an email from another supplier that got the boot from an important consortium because... actually they don't even know why they didn't want them anymore. Probably the influence was that they did not protect the client enough. But if we are truly ALL in together as one then we need to play as a team, we need to stick together and look out for each other…
Imagine how easy it was for some big fish to become the KING fish because the government gave them some advantage. And imagine how easy it is for some to forget the smaller, but essential companies and people closest to the action that either way, after the pandemic, after taking care of their clients first, couldn't survive past the month.
Yes, some people have acted differently than us or this other operator that got the boot but, in the end, whoever plays for the team is ultimately playing for themselves too. The righteous way!!
When you are ready...we can't wait to welcome you to the the See Italy Team!
See Italy Travel
P.O. Box 927268 San Diego California 92192 USA
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