[Video] Flip It! Your Success: Are You Taking it For Granted?

As many of you may know, we just had the Winter Olympics, and the US women’s hockey team beat the odds and won the gold.

So, because I live in America, there are inevitable references to that famous Miracle on Ice game.

If you don’t know the story, here’s the cliff notes version. In 1980, the US men’s hockey team beat the Russians. Now, that may not sound like a big deal, but at the time, the US men’s hockey team was something of a longstanding joke.

That’s because if you were a professional athlete, you were barred from competing in the Olympics. So, no NHL players. Instead, the US would field a team of a bunch of college kids.

The Russians, however, for all practical purposes had their professional hockey team in the Olympics. Yes they weren’t technically professionals, but Russia had found a way to get around that rule.

This particular Russian team was really good. All it did was win. The players had been together for years and they had won virtually every game they played.

Until they ran into the buzzsaw of those college kids in the Olympics.

You may have seen some of the pictures from that Olympics, specifically the famous Sports Illustrated cover that showed the pure chaotic joy of the players celebrating on the ice.

But, what isn’t talked about as much is what the Russians were doing.

They had gathered together on their side of the ice and were standing there watching the Americans lose their minds.

I saw a documentary about the Miracle on Ice, and filmmakers had interviewed one of the Russian players. They asked him what he, and the rest of the team, was thinking at the time.

The player said, and I’m paraphrasing, they were watching the Americans because they had won so often and for so long, it had become expected. They no longer felt joy when they won a game. They had forgotten the joy of winning and watching the Americans brought that back to them.

Now, I’d like to bring this back to you and your business. Is there some successful part of your business that has become so expected, so routine, you’re taking it for granted?

I’m not talking about your entire business, just one part. For instance, maybe you get a crazy high open rate. Or maybe you have really good organic traffic to your blog. Or maybe you have a popular podcast with a lot of downloads.

Never mind if you’ve figured out how to monetize it yet. Are you seeing some level of success that you’re now expecting and taking for granted and no longer celebrating when it happens?

If we’re forever stuck in this energy of “not enough” or “well sure this is good but look at this other list of everything that sucks,” how can we possibly open ourselves up to receive bigger levels of success?

In fact, that’s one of the secrets of a gratitude practice. Being grateful for what you have opens you up to receive even more.

So, I’d like to encourage you to take a moment and celebrate the small successes of your business. Especially anything you used to celebrate and you don’t anymore because it’s happened so often you are now taking it for granted.