Many years ago, when I started blogging, I read a newsletter that said something like, "Never say something like sorry I haven't written for X many days... I've been busy with Y and Z" even if you were absent for a longer period of time. So... I'm not saying anything.

I've drafted many newsletters in my mind (no pun intended regarding the subject line of this email), and although some were timely, I've settled on this one today.

We've all seen the memes about the Turkish shooter from the Olympics, Yusuf Dikec, the Olympic silver medalist representing Turkey at the summer 2024 Paris Olympics for the air pistol shooting competition.

If you haven't, here it is.

Chill, relaxed, a professional. Exactly what you would want from your dentist, doctor, professor, instructor, etc. Right?

His competitors had all sorts of accessories like special glasses to help them with the accuracy.

He didn't win gold; he won silver. Second place. With a small difference from the first place.

As always.

If you haven't seen Roger Federer's speech to the Dartmouth graduates, you can do so here. This is the second time in his life that he set foot on a college campus, yet he receives a doctorate degree (makes you wonder about the values of these degrees nowadays and how much money some people spend to get them - but that's a topic for another conversation + Roger knows his stuff and I don't want to take away from his message now).

I do recommend watching the entire video, but here's a summary (of what I think is worth remembering):

• Effortless is a myth
  • Everyone can play well for the first 2hours... but a game is longer than that!
  • Believe in yourself has to be earned
  • Discipline is a talent
  • To the audience: because you graduated from Dartmouth, people will think things will be easy for you; let them believe that, as long as you don't.
• It's only a point
  • One can work very hard but still lose
  • 1526 matches played in his career - and he won 80% (almost) of them
    • out of those, with only 54% of the points, meaning top professionals barely win, with little over 1/2 points available
    • when you lose every other point, you learn not to dwell on every shot
    • the best shot ever, the one that makes history - is just a point
  • When you're playing a point, it's the most important thing that it is, but when it's behind you, it's behind you! Otherwise, it prevents you from focusing on the next points (this here is where I need to do some more work. for instance)
  • Your opponents have self-doubt, too!
• Life is bigger than the court
  • Roger never forgot where he came from (one can argue that he's from one of the best places in the world; true, but still...)
  • Humbled by the fact that he had to explain what tennis is to underprivileged (what a nice word to use in this context) children from Africa
  • Sometimes, you need to take a chance and figure it out
  • When you're in the court, you can't see what's happening outside of it**

Feels like I could turn these into some images with quotes and share them on social media, right?

Now, consider this in the context of your business (or career).

Everything fits perfectly. The biggest lesson? Don't overthink it! Do it! Work hard, smart, and know your craft. Be like Roger; be like Yusuf. Their craft is so embedded in them that they no-mind when they do their thing.

Speaking of careers and skills, if you want a boost in your SEO knowledge, then you don't want to miss the next How About Some Marketing? webinar happening Thursday, August 29 starting 7PM EST, where Amin Foroutan, a Toronto-based SEO Consultant will showcase a few of the SEO tools he built.

More information and the link to register are here.

Here's a video Amin did to promote this event.

*I've re-watched The Last Samurai with Tom Cruise, and in one of the sequences, one of the Japanese samurais was trying to tell him - don't overthink it or don't think it. He used the words no-mind. Same thing. But after a Google search, it turns out the no-mind is an entire concept. This subject line could have been Overthinking or About Overthinking, but no-mind is better. Agree?

**He didn't say that; this is a concept I learned a few years back!