Game-Time Decision Making: High-Scoring Business Strategies from the Biggest Names in Sports
David Meltzer
McGraw-Hill (October 2019)

How and why you have to get out of your own way in order to get wherever you want to go

There are many valuable business lessons to be learned  from competitive athletics. Here are my Top Five:

o “It’s not the will to win that matters — everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.” Paul (“Bear”) Bryant
o “Champions get up when they can’t.” Jack Dempsey
o “Others know where the puck is. I knows where it will be.” Wayne Gretsky
o “I became a good pitcher when I stopped trying to make them miss the ball and started trying to make them hit it.” Sandy Koufax
o “Potential” means “you ain’t done it yet.” Darrell Royal

Of course, there are other observations of lesser value such as Joe Thiesman’s angry response to a reference to dumb jocks: “We can’t all be Fred Einstein!”

What we have in this book is David Meltzer’s examination of high-impact business strategies and lessons to be learned from some of the biggest names in sport. They include Muhammad Ali, Tom Brady, Kobe Bryant, Brandi Chastain, the Golden State Warriors, Michael Jordan, Ray Lewis, Phil Mickelson, the New York Yankees, the Philadelphia Eagles, Bill Russell, Nick Saban, Tiger Woods, and John Wooden.

In my opinion, the greatest value of this book is not found in what Meltzer learned from these and other peak performers. Rather, from the lessons that each reader learns that helps them to get out of their own way in order to achieve their own goals, whatever they maybe, however difficult they may be, especially if they now seem impossible.

Let’s have Henry Ford provide the last comment: “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re probably right.”