Business Leaders, Entrepreneurs and Social Change Agents need to forget like a quarterback.

Tom Peters thinks the ability to forget is so critical to the ability to innovate and lead that we need to formalize it into the position of CFO; chief forgetting officer. Peter’s goes on to say that, ” Learning is a cakewalk. Forgetting is hell—particularly for “seasoned” successful executives. Therefore, the idea of “forgetting” per se is of perpetual strategic importance.”

I say we need to learn to forget like a quarterback. In today’s rough and tumble market place there’s no time to be whining over an in-completion or second guessing the interception that took place on the last possession. The clock is ticking. We are in the middle of the game called ‘life.’ When play is over, there will be eternity to ruminate and analyze. You can’t move the ball forward if you’re looking backwards.

I often feel as if my clients are trying to jump the next hurdle in business or life with a past hurdle dangling from their leg. When your mind is busy thinking about past mistakes you aren’t all the way in the game. Period. Think about it. It’s rare that a quarterback sits down mid game and spends 30 minutes analyzing what went wrong. Quarterbacks have to keep their heads in the game. And we’ve all witnessed what happens when the quarterback forgets to forget quickly, when they don’t keep their head in the game; things go from bad to worse.

A quarterback’s job is to get up and move the ball forward regardless of what happened 2 or 20 minutes ago. It’s the same for leaders, change agents, dreamers, visionaries and entrepreneurs.

Ready to score some big win’s, make some real yardage toward those business goals and life dreams? Good.

Be the quarterback.

Forget about what happened a day or even an hour ago. That doesn’t mean don’t learn from it. Just don’t live in the past. Show up present, here now. Stay in the game. Play offense. And if the reverse doesn’t work, flank right and if that doesn’t work, go left and if that doesn’t work go up the center…

Leaders, Entrepreneurs and Social Change Agents put on your Chief Forgetting Officer helmets and stay in the game!

Pam Hoelzle

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Photo Uploaded on November 9, 2008
by Eric Wolfe