Why it’s hard
I just killed a Beast.
The particulars aren’t important, although it wasn’t easy and it wasn’t quick. But I can tell you I’m looking at a hot, steaming pile of freshly slain EXCUSE on my living room floor, and I moved one day closer to my personal goals.
Why it’s hard
It’s hard because it’s so much easier to come up with reasons not to do something versus reasons why you should:
- I’m tired
- I’ll do double tomorrow
- I don’t have enough time
- I’d rather do this other thing
- I have so many other things to do
- etc., etc.
Even more nefarious is the reasons not to do something always somehow seem to make more sense than the one or two reasons you should. “I’m really tired today and maybe getting sick” seems like a really good reason to not do your workout compared to “I know I should”.
So, how to make it easier?
Sorry, kids, I don’t have an answer for this one. If there was a secret, someone would be making millions off it, and if it was easy everyone would be doing it. But there isn’t, and it’s not. It’s a one day at a time affair; you against The Beast. All I can say is that when it comes right down to it, right now this second, you can either decide to DO what you’ve said/promised you will do, or you can decide to NOT do what you said/promised you will do. And making that decision, really, is pretty easy either way.
What’s the payoff for slaying the Beast?
Ah, that one I can tell you and it’s pretty sweet. You know that feeling when you decide not to do something you’ve promised yourself you would do? Feels pretty crappy, right? And it doesn’t feel any better tomorrow. Well the feeling you get when you slay that Beast, and you follow through on your promise, and you do what you promised yourself you would do, is a thousand times better.
And, as an added bonus, it may be tomorrow, it may be next week or next month, but the next time The Beast thinks about sniffing around your rodeo, I can guarantee you it will think twice.
Good hunting, my friends…
Welcoming “The Beast”
In my first review post, I wrote on a central theme of the book, the “secret to their success”, which is bringing a sense of joy to your life. This sense of joy is what the author largely credits to the Tarahumara Indian’s ability to run 100 miles or more, all with a smile on their face.
With this post, I’d like to focus on a short segment in the book that I found particularly inspiring. It’s about The Beasts the ultra-distance runners in the book encounter and how they respond to them. While the stories in the book are told by these runners, they nonetheless have just as much relevance for all of us. Even as most of these runners do what they do because they love it, a point that really stuck out for me is that when they race, they are challenging themselves by not only attempting something most rational people would think verges on the insane, but doing it while pitted against some of the best in the world that do the same thing. It dawned on me while reading the book that this is an apt metaphor for our own most aggressive, visionary and challenging goals, whether business or personal. Some use the term BHAG to stand for Big Hairy Audacious Goals. Those goals that will truly stretch us, where there is a good chance if not high probability of failure, and which (unfortunately) we are usually up against some world-class naysayers.
So, whether you’re running 135 miles through 130F heat, or tackling your own personal or professional BHAG, eventually you’ll bump up against The Beast.
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Personal Recap: Feb 2010
Those of you that have read my blog for a while remember a recurring feature I had called the DCO Reader. In each of the Readers I tried to share some interesting posts from around the web on all the topics I find interesting. It started as weekly, then monthly, then got kind of sporadic, then just disappeared. I’ve actually just removed all the Readers from the blog too. While most of what I included was interesting, it always felt like a shortcut to adding content on the site and I really wasn’t doing anything you all could do with an Internet connection and a well crafted search.
My recent post on rethinking and refocusing on how I wanted to approach this blog has reinvigorated me. I also appreciate the wisdom of fellow blogger John Ettorre when he speaks to the tapping into the “authentic you” when writing. I totally agree with John when he says writing from the authentic you is important because:
Nothing else is very interesting, and readers pick up on when you’re not being yourself.
Personally, I’ve definitely felt more passion lately when it comes to writing. Writing from your heart and your passions has so many benefits, not the least of which is joy. So with this post I thought I’d start a more personal series, sort of a monthly recap on what I’m up to with respect to my personal passions and what I learned throughout the month. I’ll be posting these recaps over the weekend, so feel free to ignore them if you’re just not that interested in what I’m up to. Really – you won’t hurt my feelings. I’ll be sticking to the “Personal Recap:” text in the title so it should be pretty easy to filter them out of your E-Mail if you want (at least in Outlook; I haven’t figured out filtering yet for Mail on Mac – anyone?)
I’m going to keep it short with this kickoff post (especially since we’re already a week into March), with a lead-in for what is sure to be an interesting recap for March.
Combining my ever-present need to be inspired/challenged by crazy goals with the book Born to Run that I just finished (and am writing about), I’ve set upon the goal of transforming myself from a short to middle distance runner into a long distance runner. I’ll talk a bit more about this next month, but I’ve set myself two goals:
- Run 15 miles in one outing by the end of 2010
- Run a 30 mile race (or outing) by the end of 2011
Since we’re already one week into March I’ll cheat a bit and tell you things have been going well, but I can say it is a completely different feeling running longer and more consistently than my normal 3 miles, 3 or 4 times a week.
I’ve also just received the book Fascinate by Sally Hogshead, and if I get it finished in March, I’ll be sharing some thoughts on it.
That’s it for now – should be an interesting update for March. Talk to you then.
Plenty of lessons in here for all of us…
Following is a “farewell” op-ed letter from Evan Bayh, courtesy of the New York Times. Now before any of you cry foul, accuse me of political leftism, or rightism, or being too centric, please read the letter below in the context of two of this blog’s goals: positive leadership and personal excellence. The lengthy discourses on filibusters and campaign finances aside, I find lots of suggestions and lessons in this letter for all of us.
So what?
At one point in my career I worked for the U.S. division of a large, international consulting firm. I held a variety of positions, the last being account executive. This company wasn’t as rigid as some I’ve seen with enforcement of “officially sanctioned” sales presentations, but toward the end of my time there, they became more prevalent. The presentations themselves were actually well done with one exception. I always got a chuckle out of the “Key Differentiators” slide. They were things like:
- On-time delivery
- Project management expertise
- Local presence
- Senior staff
I remember thinking these sounded more like must-haves as opposed to key differentiators. The thing is if you’re going to start talking about key differentiators, aspects of your business that set you apart from your competitors, they really should be different.
So was born the seeds of my “so what” question. I’ve since turned the question into a facilitated process I run entrepreneurs and personal clients through. It can be helpful in a variety of ways, but I find it’s best suited to helping companies get to the bottom of what is really special about their company/product/service.
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The Secret to Success from Mexican Outback Runners
So what’s their secret?
Well, my take on it is a bit more involved than the writer is, but in a nutshell their secret appears to be something we all remember fondly, is well within our grasp, but we (wittingly, or unwittingly) choose to live without on a day to day basis.
Their secret is to combine their running with pure, childlike joy.
Yea, right, I hear you saying. For many of us, it wouldn’t matter how much you smile, you wouldn’t be able to run 10 miles, let alone 100. Let alone without resting. And there is where the book gets more complicated, but also where I think the message gets more relevant and more broadly applicable. In fact, I’m taking notes and hope to write a small series on the personal growth and excellence lessons I’m learning out of this book. For now, I’ll tell you the following story.
I AM a runner. I’ve had my ups and downs over the years, but I do enjoy the sport. Much like the Tarahumara, I generally shun sidewalks and roads and do almost all my running on trails. I tend to be a short to middle distance runner preferring outings between three to six miles. Luckily, I’m blessed to live in an area of Ohio loaded with nature trails in that range that are not only beautiful, but challenging to run. There’s nothing like flying down a hill, half running, half jumping, testing your legs (and the trail) with a do-or-die proposition: either I’ve still got the energy after four miles to jump these three steps and still stay running, or I slide headfirst down the rest of this hill and probably end up in emergency. (Yes – it helps to be a little crazy to be a trail runner. Or trail runners just are a little crazy, I’m not sure which).
But that’s the essence of the book – because I can guarantee you whenever I’m running down those stairs, jumping two or three at a time and challenging my body to keep me upright, I’ve got a huge smile on my face. And anything you’re doing, personally or professionally, that you do with a smile on your face, gets done better and feels better doing it.
I tested this theory out over the last week. I like to stay in shape over the winter so I run treadmill a lot in my basement. I’m sure many of you can sympathize with me when I say treadmill running is boring at best, a grind at worst. There is nothing joyful about running on a treadmill. Or is there? In anticipation of better weather, I have been slowly increasing my distance, which correspondingly was increasing my boredom and ability to stay focused. So the other day midway through a 5 mile run on the treadmill, I started imagining myself running outside, jumping from rock to rock on a hillside trail overlooking a beautiful vista. A half-smile came to my face which I let blossom into a full-blown one. Immediately, I could feel a change happening to my body. A slight energy increase, a lessening of fatigue, a greater connection with that “runner’s high”. Literally before I knew it, I had put in my last two miles or so.
I’m sure to many of you this sounds like new-age hocus pocus, and that’s fine. If you’re a runner, or if you just like interesting stories, the book is still a great read. Runners especially will appreciate all the information on how all the foot, shin and knee injuries that 80-90% of us experience every year, started occurring only after the introduction of the high-tech running shoe! I’ll be talking about the Tarahumara’s answer to that one too. The stories about some of the ultra long distance runners and races where the Tarahumara ran with them are simply a blast to read as a runner. You will really enjoy this book.
But for those of you committed to excellence, whether personal or professional (or both), try a simple experiment. The next time you’re doing something that is complete drudgery, remember a time it wasn’t drudgery or tie it in your mind to something else that makes you smile and brings a bit of joy to the activity. I’ll be interested in hearing your feedback, even though I already know what will happen…
Look forward to more on this book in future posts.
Rethinking / Refocusing
I read a couple blog posts over the last few weeks that have me thinking. The first was written by a pretty successful blogger who writes on the topic of professional blogging. His point was not to look at the “A List” bloggers for inspiration or ideas on how to make money on your blog. His point was that those folks had so many resources, so much more support, etc. that you shouldn’t use them as your model as how to be successful. Instead, this blogger (whose opinions I respect) advised going deep instead of wide and tightening down your topic content to be much more focused: become an authority, write from your heart, take a stand.
Shortly after that I read a post by another blogger I follow. He was recounting a lunch he had with a friend of his. When his friend asks him what he’s been up to and he says blogging, his friend rolls his eyes and says “you’re still blogging? When are you going to give that up? Are you making ANY money?” The guy took it as a challenge and read his recent blog posts, asking the question “If I wasn’t me and just happened across this blog, would any of this stuff mean anything to me?”
His answer was no. (Kudos to that guy for the brutal self-honesty).
Well, I went through the same process and honestly – came up with the same answer.
I’ve had plenty of distractions, both personal and professional, over the last year to blame for both both the lack of quality and quantity of posts, and in some cases validly so. But a quick review of my last couple months of blogging has really convinced me that not only have I been playing it safe, but I’ve spent way too much time on topics, or at least contexts within topics, that I’m either not passionate about or knowledgeable about.
So, some things are going to change. First – I want to re-focus on what I’m truly passionate about and can speak from authority. So while that will still include plenty of business and personal topics, I’ll be mixing in a fair dose of technology articles, re-focusing most of my business writing on small to medium-sized companies, and speaking on Leadership more from the point of view of the individual, as opposed to corporate leadership. I’m also going to write a little bit more about things that may be considered off-topic, but are interesting nonetheless.
Extending the conversation
If all this post did, was recap some personal musings on this little blog, then it would be of little value to you. I think the bigger point is that if you are committed to continuous personal and professional improvement, then it helps to:
- Stick your head out of your shell once in a while and take a look around,
- Be honest with yourself about where you’re at, and
- Change course if necessary.
So what do you all think? Make sense? Is this something you do, and if so what’s the process you go through? I’m interested in how others think through what they are doing in the moment versus the path they set out on and where they want to get. How have you changed course recently and why?
10 Questions With… Rich Fialkoff of Chide.it
I’ve written a couple times before about a one question survey, even investigated different customer surveying models. Obviously, I’m a self-admitted fan of customer surveys. There are also different kinds of surveys for different audiences. On this blog I’ve mostly talked about surveys that fall in the “customer satisfaction” heading, but your customers are only one of your audiences and their satisfaction is only one measure of success (and frankly of interest to a limited, but important, audience).
I manage an incubator for high-growth technology companies. As a good portion of my funding comes ultimately from public sources, it’s important for me to be able to show the success of my program – what my funders might call “leverage”. So while I do some satisfaction surveying here and there, the majority of the surveys I perform with my customers (the entrepreneurs in my incubator) is geared toward capturing information to help prove the success of my program and the leverage on the public dollars entrusted in my program. I, along with my sister incubators across the State of Ohio, use something called Table 3. Table 3 captures a myriad of relevant growth statistics on our tenants, but for many the stats on revenue, investment and job creation are important metrics on how much leverage an incubation program has created with their funding. (If you’re interested, I recently published my 2009 year-end statistics.)
All this is to say – “I know me some surveying” – and have used a number of offline and online tools over the years. When the National Business Incubation Association announced a strategic partnership with chide.it, offering a free account for their FluidSurveys product, I was eager to sign up. I was happy with my current provider (PollDaddy), but it’s hard to argue with a free basic account, which is what FluidSurveys was offering any incubation program through the partnership with NBIA. That said – so called “free” programs sometimes aren’t worth it, so I did a little homework before signing up.
I’m happy to say that not only is the free account chide.it offered to us incubators was really free, it was also a fully functional account, limited only by the absence of some advanced features that I don’t use. The best part is chide.it has agreed to renew our incubator’s free account every year. Thanks chide.it!
The person in charge of the partnership between chide.it and NBIA is Rich Fialkoff. Rich was included in all the introductory E-mails NBIA sent out and responded promptly to all the questions I had about the tool and the partnership. Given that Rich is responsible for the U.S. introduction of chide.it products, this responsiveness was even more impressive. After getting to know a bit more about chide.it (somewhat of a start-up themselves) and Rich (created and led several start-up business within larger companies and founded a consultancy focused on software startups), I asked Rich if he’d be willing to participate in my 10 Questions With… series.
If you run an incubator and you’re a member of NBIA, be sure to check out FluidSurveys – not only is it free through the NBIA partner program, but it’s a great tool and just makes it so darn easy to create a survey. (If you’re not a member of NBIA, then you really should be. It’s a great organization with extremely helpful members and two very useful conference every year.) Chide.it is offering it’s second product, MyReviewRoom, at a discount to NBIA members. MyReviewRoom helps teams facilitate application acceptance, evaluation and decision making. I have an application process for the incubator that would be greatly facilitated by this product and I’m looking forward to the demo Rich has promised me.
So, on with the interview…
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How to be Lucky in Business
Chris Brogan answers whether he’s been “lucky” in business. I love his challenge at the end of the video for all us to examine how we spend our time and whether we are getting what we want out of the business side of our lives. If you’re not – how about that old cliche I think of from time to time in these situtations:
Luck favors the prepared.
How to be successful AND stay married
I’m a huge fan of Inc. Magazine. I love two things about it. First, it just works – the magazine is laid out intelligently, offers great content and just looks good. More importantly, and the real reason I’m such a fan, is the real-world context that permeates almost all of the articles, whether written by guest columnist or staff writers. This pragmatism is in effect across the entrepreneurship spectrum – whether it’s a lifestyle entrepreneur writing about her five figure business, or executives discussing businesses with a couple additional zeros – I rarely read articles tainted by the arrogance of intellect or success.
I especially liked a quick little article in the recent December 2009 issue entitled House Rules: Ten gentle suggestions for keeping the domestic seas tranquil. Written by Meg Hirshfeld, writer and wife of Gary Hirshberg (who just happens to be CEO of Stonyfield Yogurt), the article lays out a list of simple suggestions Meg and Gary developed together for “entrepreneurs who aspire to a happy marriage and thriving family life.”
I’ll bullet the list here, but I highly suggest you click over to the article for Meg and Gary’s more complete thoughts for each suggestion. It’s a quick read.
- You are not the boss at home.
- Set the bar low. But set it somewhere. (As in, make time for time together. As Meg so aptly puts it “Being together reminds you that you enjoy being together. And that reminds both of you why this enormous undertaking is worthwhile.”
- Please, turn off the Blackberry.
- When a big business decision looms, give your spouse a seat at the table.
- Enter your spouse’s universe from time to time.
- Make her communications a priority.
- Don’t squeeze her in.
- Treat your spouse like she’s your most important client.
- Acknowledge her role.
- Take frequent inventory.
My thoughts
I’ve been doing a lot of research over the last year on the topic of interpersonal relationships: why certain people gravitate together, the dynamics of relationship stages, and the difficulties in developing and maintaining long-term, constructive, meaningful relationships. This focused research has taken place on top of my normal business reading, both books and magazines.
What’s surprised me a bit is not just how much both bodies of work have in common, but how applicable each is to the other. While Meg’s list above is written from the context of keeping your marriage happy when one spouse is a workaholic entrepreneur, the suggestions are just as applicable for any couple. Likewise, all the material I’ve been reading about interpersonal relationships contain a wealth of actionable thoughts on developing and maintaining authentic relationships based on respect and trust at work. Something I think we can all agree is often in short supply.
Perhaps my thoughts are colored by the stage of life I’m at. Being later in my career with much more responsibility than I had in earlier jobs, the line between my business and personal life has blurred quite a bit over the years. But while it’s a fair question to ask, I would suggest that the answer really doesn’t matter. If we can strengthen, even deepen, our relationships at work and at home, who cares what aisle of the bookstore helped us?
Comments are open
What do you think? Do you agree that relationships, whether at work or at home, follow similar “rules”? Is there a relationship lesson you’ve learned professionally that you applied in your personal life, or vice versa? What suggestions would you offer entrepreneurs to keep a happy marriage and a thriving family life?
