The Score That Matters by Ryan Hawks and Brook Cupps
“When we focus on our internal scoreboard, we embrace the reality that we are constantly becoming, never arriving.”
3 Main Messages:
Choose carefully who you surround yourself with and what information you are consuming daily as these will shape who you are and how you think.
By focusing on the process, rather than the end product, you will be aligned with your values and be both happier and more successful as a result.
Use your values to set a standard and then consistently live up to it.
I received a private message on LinkedIn recently, thanking me for commenting on a post by Ryan Hawks and asking for my measurements and address. Ever sceptical, I checked out the details and they seemed legitimate so I took a leap and a week later was delighted to receive this book, a high quality T-shirt and a handwritten note in return (I am a sucker for a handwritten note). This is what it means to go that one step further. I was already impressed by Hawk and his team - now I am in awe!
According to The Score That Matters, “consistency is one of the most distinguishing characteristics of excellence.” This is a core belief and behaviour of one of the authors, Ryan Hawk, whose podcast The Learning Leader Show airs, without fail, every week. It has become a staple in my weekly routine and I eagerly look forward to my Monday morning beach walk when I can listen to the latest episode. It is this consistency which meant that I already had a deep sense of trust - so deep that I was prepared to email my address and T-shirt size to a complete stranger!!
I had been intending to read this book for a while and was not disappointed - it’s a fantastic read! Hawk and Cupps have taken the lessons that they have learned across their combined 25+ years of coaching and of interviewing 600+ inspiring guests, to consider how to grow “excellence in yourself and those you lead.” They believe that the key is to ignore external competition and judgement (which focus on the result) in favour of measuring success against an internal scoreboard (which focuses on the process).
The book is a wonderful balance of anecdotes and advice; of wisdom shared from others and personal experiences; of tasks for the reader to complete and shared examples which explain things incredibly clearly. Towards the end they write that the two main messages are to “embrace the pack and focus on the process,” but there are so many more great learnings here and each chapter deserves time and personal reflection in order for the lessons to be put into practice.
Having listened faithfully to Hawk’s podcast for years now, many of the stories were familiar to me and contained powerful messaging which I enjoyed revisiting. From the ‘Don’t mess with Texas’ campaign to explain how to encourage commitment rather than compliance, to the study of happiness in Bhutan, where a constant reminder of death and the transience of life makes every day a gift - each story provides a stimulus for change. Questions and actions at the end of each chapter then encourage the reader to take small steps to improve.
There is a great deal of focus on values, behaviours and mantras, with some wonderful imagery shared by both Hawk and Cupps as they each write about what drives them and what this looks like on a daily basis. “We always begin with our core values. These serve as guardrails that keep us on track, preventing us from veering too far off the central theme of the narrative.”
The main message that I come away with, however, is that excellence is built in the consistent day-to-day routines and acts - in other words, keeping an eye on the process:
“Excellence is accomplished through the doing of actions, ordinary in themselves, performed consistently and carefully, habitualized, compounded together, added up over time.”
There are so many take-aways from this book: metaphors, legends, success stories and quotes, that I found myself utterly inspired. As I eagerly underlined and made notes in the column, I also noticed a shift in myself: a determination to be more like the authors; a desire to be purpose and values driven and to focus on perfecting each small step. By completing the end of chapter actions I have found that I have a renewed drive, some new daily routines, and a better understanding of what I want to achieve.
I know that excellence means going one step beyond, and that daily small steps result in being consistent, predictable, known and trustworthy, which in turn build trust. By considering their questions, and completing their tasks, I now know the score that matters to me.
A brilliant book - I highly recommend it!
