Member-only story
Why We All Need a Playbook to Succeed in Business
5 lessons I learned from my dad and a failed startup
When I was a kid, I’d watch my Dad create weird-looking sketches.
“What is it, Dad?” — I asked.
“It’s a game plan.” — Dad said, looking up from his drawing.
“What is it for?”
“It helps you think about how to play a good game.”
That gave me a pause. I knew that Dad was a basketball coach; I knew that his team had recently won the National Championship. What I didn’t know was that his job entailed drawing. Now, that was puzzling — because, frankly, he was pretty bad at it!
“How could these messy squiggles help Dad’s team become national champions?” — I wondered.
Here is the story of my Dad and his approach to coaching his basketball team. It’s also the story of my first startup’s failure and the five lessons I learned from both.
Lesson 1: A playbook comes before a game plan.
When I asked Dad about his sloppy sketches, he was amused:
“A game plan doesn’t have to be beautiful — it just has to work. But even when it does work, it can only…
