If you follow golf, you know about the sport’s birdies and eagles.

If you follow golf, you know about the sport’s birdies and eagles.

But do you know about monkeys?

When the British first colonized India, they built a golf course in Calcutta.

The course offered a unique challenge.

Monkeys.

The primates would run onto the fairway and greens, grab the balls, and throw them in all directions.

As you can imagine, this frustrated the golfers to no end.

Course management had to do something.

Their first idea?

Erect tall fences.

But as we know, monkeys are adept climbers.

The fences had little impact.

Course management had another idea.

Capture the monkeys.

But there were too many.

Every time they caught one, another appeared.

Out of ideas, course management came up with some else.

Change the course’s ground rules:

“Play the ball where the monkey drops it.”

What can we take from this story?

In our firms, monkeys grab and throw our balls too.

Last-minute client requests.

Team members abruptly quit.

RFPs with unrealistic timelines.

Things will happen outside of our control.

Big and small.

The wisdom lies in acceptance.

You can choose to be upset.

Lose your temper.

Be on edge.

Give up.

Or you can expect and accept.

Whatever happens, doesn’t matter.

What matters is how we respond.

Play the ball where the monkey drops it.