Having A Successful Clinic
Now, having a successful clinic is a bit like being awesome at riding motorbikes (stay with me), I ride an old 1978 Triumph Bonneville and I’ve spent thousands of pounds and hundreds of hours on it, making it go quicker, improving the handling and – importantly with an old bike – making it brake better. I’ve even had it out on a few track days chasing much more modern bikes.
Riding a bike is a skill and it’s something that I’m okay at. I just love going out for a ride and getting in the zone where you’re completely engaged in the present moment and you simply don’t think about anything else. Buddhists would refer to it as mindfulness and living exactly in the present; I just think of the huge smile I always have on my face.
But it makes me really marvel at just how incredible professional bike racers are – they almost seem to defy the laws of physics, and their focus is something every business owner and entrepreneur can learn from. I’ve been to the Isle of Man TT races a few times (if you’ve never heard of the TT races do look them up; it’s road racing at the extreme). Motorbikes touch nearly 200mph and race around a 37.9 mile track made up of the island’s own roads, which in all honesty are at best just B roads, complete with all of the street furniture, telegraph poles, walls and even houses you’d expect.
If you’ve never seen any footage of these races you can see some bike camera shots on YouTube, and it just shows the speeds, which are phenomenal. Anyway, how these racers learn this incredibly long and complicated track, and how they take in such a huge amount of information at the speed they’re going is truly amazing. Of course, at these speeds, and on these roads, when something goes wrong it tends to go very badly wrong for the rider.
Successful Clinics Need Focus
Just so that you can understand how the races work, basically, if you live in the Isle of Man during these events you tend to leave the island as it’s invaded by 40,000 bike fanatics who get to watch their race heroes while they stand on the roadside, a mere 10 feet away from them in places. It’s a great atmosphere with everyone wanting these heroes to come in safely, and glued to their radios listening to the commentary…
I recall an interview with a renowned racer called Guy Martin who was entered into the senior race at the TT a couple of years ago. Guy, an experienced racer, had complained that the front tyre kept pattering in corners at high speed (pattering means the tyre was ever-so-slightly bouncing and leaving the tarmac for a fraction of a second) which caused the bike to run wide – not good on a narrow road with brick walls and telegraph poles, at these incredible speeds. Anyway, Guy set off on the race and was doing well until he hit his third lap where he came into Ballagarey Corner at 150mph and the front end of the bike started to wash out.
Every Successful Clinic Has Practised Over and Over Again
A split second later the commentator was reporting a huge fire ball at Ballagarey and everybody’s heart sank. Everyone on the island knew that this was the fastest corner of the track, and that Guy, if not killed instantly, was almost certainly critically injured. Even his pit crew, believing him dead, started packing away his belongings in the garage. However, on the run into the corner, Guy had what every successful person has, complete focus… In the split second that the bike started to run wide, Guy was focusing on where he wanted to go and, knowing he was heading for a wall, actually started to leap from the bike in an effort to stay on line.
Successful Clinics Don’t Happen By Chance
Guy suffered broken ribs, bruised lungs, twisted ankles and fractured vertebrae, which is the equivalent of a scratch considering the speed at which the crash took place! The key factor that kept Guy alive? His absolute, unwavering focus, and as an clinic owner that’s what you have to have if you are going to build something that has the impact on your life that you want and deserve to have and thats what your successful clinic will get you.
By Alan Adams The Clinic Coach
