Good morning and welcome to the Increase Your Impact Podcast. I'm Justin Sua, episode 1,981.

And today we're talking about teamwork and focusing and aligning your direction and your effort as a team.

This reminds me of a story that Ben Hunt Davis told when he was the captain of Great Britain's male rowing eight team. So in 1998,

they were consistently failing to win a medal and they couldn't even break into the final of the

major competitions. So Ben, the captain of the team, came up with a simple role. To every activity

that the team thought about doing, they would ask,

will it make the boat go faster? They would ask the same question with every action they took.

When the team dreaded the 20 kilometer morning run, they would ask each other,

will it make the boat go faster? The answer was yes, and so they ran. When someone thought

about doing something that could hurt the team outside the water,

they would ask, will it make the boat go faster?

The answer to that question would cause them to refrain from doing so.

Their focus became singular.

Their effort became unified.

At the Sydney Olympics in 2000, the team became the first British team to win Olympic gold

since 1912. And members of the team attribute their success to constantly answering that simple question,

will it make the boat go faster? So the lesson is set your future self up for success by identifying what you want

by identifying what you want and then ask yourself, will this get me closer to my goal? A simple pause

to ask yourself this question will help you stack small wins towards the best version of yourself. And so you want to ask

yourself, will this get me closer to my goal before you do anything that's going to help be helpful

or do anything that's going to be hurtful? And the answer should nudge you towards the direction

you want to go. That's your version of will it make the boat go faster. Have a great day and we'll

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