Here in Ontario, we have been opening slower than other places. We’ve just gone into phase 3 with gyms opening. My yoga classes will resume with limited capacity at the end of July. (I realize your experience might be different, and you might be already open.)
I have to admit it sent me into a bit of panic about how stiff I am. I know I should have used the shutdown as an opportunity to finally get started on that home practice I’ve always wanted to do. Well, I’m human. I didn’t.
This week, I kind of began. Each morning I’m spending 10-15 minutes doing what effectively is my yoga teacher’s opening leg stretches and hip openings. And it’s starting to make a difference already. The body remembers.
I also remembered a few other key things.
I was reminded of something a sports personal trainer told me years ago. That for every weakness in the body there is a complimentary tightness. For me the weakness is my left knee and the tightness is my right hip. Hmmm.
Then after a few days of stretching, I remembered a corollary that I’ve learnt in yoga. That each pose has a foundation and a stretch. For instance, in downward dog the foundation is your hands and feet. For side-angle stretch, the foundation is your side with the bent forward knee. The stretch goes from the toes to the fingers of the other side.
Most people’s ego focuses on doing the stretch well. They forget about the foundations.
So why am I talking about yoga in my newsletter? Because for me this yoga lesson is completely transferable to our businesses.
Certainly, you want to focus on the stretch. Your growth in terms of number of customers and revenue. Yet, we sometimes forget about the business foundations that get us there. Brand. Your understanding of your customer segments. The use of marketing technologies that result in efficiencies and scale.
There is an element of start-up growth marketing that encourages focusing on stretch at the cost of efficiency. While that is useful when beginning and trying to gain traction. It’s not always sustainable. When we do get traction and want to accelerate, we need our foundations. Or we will topple over. Or worse, we just can’t do the stretch well.
It’s not so much a question of should we focus on our business foundations. It’s a question of when.
Where do you see this in your business?
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