Be Your Best

Todd Gifford - Success Coach

‘Hervae’, our family Hamster died this past month.  Very, very tough on Megan, our 8 year old Daughter.  Hervae’s cage was in her room for all 3 years of Hervae’s time with us, and I am convinced that his spinning ‘running’ wheel noise actually soothed her to sleep every night.  Everyone was very sad, but our girls actually bounced back a little bit when I mentioned that we would hold a funeral for little Hervae.  Lots of tears were shed, but it was nice, and it was the first funeral they have ever been to.  This event, as any event like it, reminds us that life is short, and you only get one shot (as far as I know) at it.

Hervae’s funeral got me thinking about how time flies by, and that fact reminded me of a list of “10 Ways to Stay Young” that I read from George Carlin some time back. These also strike me as great ways to maximize ‘life’ on this one-way journey we are all on.  See what you think:

• Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height. Let the doctors worry about them. That is why you pay them.
• Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down.
• Keep learning. Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever, even ham radio. Never let the brain idle. ‘An idle mind is the devil’s workshop.’ And the devil’s family name is Alzheimer’s.
• Enjoy the simple things.
• Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath.
• The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person, who is with us our entire life, is ourselves. Be ALIVE while you are alive.
• Surround yourself with what you love, whether it’s family, pets, keep sakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge.
• Cherish your health: If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.
• Don’t take ‘guilt trips’. Take a trip to the mall, even to the next county, or to a foreign country, but NOT to where the guilt is.
• Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.

AND, ALWAYS REMEMBER:
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. We all need to live life to its fullest each day!!

The ‘life is short’ thing really reinforces a couple of important points.  First, it is really important to jot down a list of goals or ‘things to get done during life’.  And second, it is super important to keep a personal focus on what is important to you.

Goal Setting: (Your Life ‘To-Do’ and Want List – the compass)

Although I talk about setting goals a lot and spend a fair bit of time on my own goal setting, I never feel that I do it enough.  The reality is that this process of dreaming up and writing down (somewhere) goals [aka: things to do or get done before I die (or sooner)] should be a constant, never-ending process.  Crossing things off that are completed, crossing things off that you don’t care about any more, and adding new things — should be happening all the time.  It’s not a New Year’s Resolution thing or a once/year thing —- to be really effective and meaningful, it should be a daily/weekly process.  It does not need to be pretty, but it’s gotta be near by so you can see it once in a while.  Oh, and get some ‘Due Dates’ on there too!

Personal Focus: (the Engine)

If setting goals is the compass for maximizing life, then Personal Focus is the engine that makes life go the direction the compass is pointed.  It is so easy today to be in constant distraction mode (often referred to as “multi-tasking”).  Distraction and lack of focus, whether it be at work or in your personal life, wastes precious time and dilutes your ability to get important things done.  If it is not moving you toward your goals, question whether it deserves your valuable time.  If it is causing you grief and wasted time (like a poor performing supplier!), then take action to change that situation so you can focus on your most important objectives.  There are all kinds of ways to free up your time from distractions to make life more productive, but you have to buy into the concept of: “Accomplishment” is more important than “Activity”.

Be Your Best,
Todd D. Gifford

Todd Gifford, President of DEE – #746 at Start of Triathlon Race

Well, I finished!  It was not pretty, and at certain points is was probably down-right ugly.  But it got done — one personal goal met — a Bucket list item completed and crossed off the list.  I mentioned a while back that I was embarking upon my first Triathlon race event.  I have been training for the past 12 weeks to get ready to Swim, then Bike, then Run in one contiguous event.  The day came last weekend.  Very exhilarating and intimidating and humbling all in one package.  It never ceases to amaze me how you plan and practice for whatever it is that you will be doing, and sure enough, the things that you least expect are the things that go wrong.  At the beginning of my training, I was worried about the swim portion of the race, so I focused heavily on that — to the point that I was swimming in training regularly over double the distance that was involved with the Triathlon race.  By the end of my training, I was no longer worried about the swim, and instead more concerned with the bike portion after the swim.

On race day, I get up to the start line, take off and head into the water for the swim, and it was like I was doing a sport I had never practiced at all!  Probably a combination of nerves, the difference of swimming open lake water vs. pool, and all the other racers in the water — I was struggling.  I simply had not expected for it to be this difficult so early in the race.  At this point, I was concerned about just finishing the swim, let alone the entire race.  The only thing that seemed to help was that I mentally started breaking down the swim into little bite-sized pieces…”ok, just make it to the next buoy 50 yards away”…”great, now make it to the next buoy…” I felt people running into me, and occasionally, I would run into someone else.  Once I reached the half way point of the swim, I was absolutely exhausted and gassed.  This was not like my training at all!  I am sure that my training really did prepare me for this physically and mentally, but it sure did not feel like it half way through the swim.

It was at this point that I simply started to get angry at myself and I had to “bushwhack my way through my own cr@p” to get this thing done.  I could sense that I was in my own way and potentially preventing myself from reaching the goal.  Sometimes you yourself are your biggest obstacle, and you have to know when that is.  This being the situation, I refocused my energy on the goal, the end point of the swim vs. the process of getting there.  Now time started to move by a little quicker and I started getting closer to shore.  All perfect form and technique was out the door and it was all about getting to shore.  Hitting the sand beach, the swim was finally over.

In preparing for the Triathlon, I worked on creating a transition area layout such that it would take as little time as possible to put on my bike gear from the swim, and the same thing going from bike to run.  I never thought much about just “getting to the transition area” from the swim.  As I came out of the water, I was relieved, but running to my bike area was almost impossible.  Again, completely unexpected.  I was so happy to be out of water, though, it did not matter.

The rest of the race went pretty smooth, and I finished respectably in my age group.  Now that it’s done, I have more respect than ever for the long distance Triathlons and Triathletes.  It is something that I want to do again at a longer distance.  Probably the biggest lesson I learned during the race was that I was my own biggest roadblock to succeeding.  Things just don’t go as planned on the way to achieving goals.  You have to be prepared to overrule yourself when necessary.  And it may require a big stick!

Be Your Best,
Todd Gifford

Todd Gifford - Success Coach

Several different highly successful business people I admire and respect all have mentioned to me in the past that they use a simple and inexpensive tool that can have a substantial impact on your results.  I listened to them and actually now have 4-5 of these cheap little tools sitting at all the places where I tend to do work from.  That tool is a household kitchen timer that you can pick up at any store for about 7 bucks.  So, how can a kitchen timer positively impact your business results?

A bunch of different ways:

Improved Brain Performance—it is well documented that your most productive time is in the morning.  It is known that your brain can focus hard non-stop effectively for about 50 minutes to 1 hour at a time before your ’brain power’ performance severely drops off and needs some rest to rejuvenate.  Unfortunately, most of us get in to work, open up email, check messages, and do not pay much attention to the time being allocated.  By using a kitchen timer that counts down, you can set 60 minutes on the clock, and begin to become aware of when you need to take a quick break to allow your mind to rest a bit.  All that is required is to take a couple minutes break from the project being focused on, maybe have a quick snack, and you are ready to go again at max potential.  It is not uncommon for most of us to go 3 hours straight without any concept of time and without taking a quick break to let our brain rejuvenate.  I know this sounds a little odd having a timer going monitoring your own time, but trust me, it works.

Improved Concentration Skills—It is also well documented in studies that the average person can focus on one single topic for only about 2.5 minutes.  The reason is that we have trained our brains to jump from one topic to the next constantly though out the day because of all the incoming information and distractions coming at us.  The really bad news is that it has also been documented through studies that it takes between 5 and 20 minutes to refocus on a project after we have been distracted from it.  There is a huge amount of wasted time during the day or week just from being distracted from a key task or project, trying to get back into it again. 

The kitchen timer tool helps significantly to ‘chunk’ focus time and make you aware of how long you are actually staying focused on a given topic.  For example, I use the timer to set a certain amount of time that I am going to put 100% undistracted focus on a given task or project that has to be completed.  When I start the timer to count down, it creates a heightened awareness of my focus and forces accountability to stay focused and not allow myself to get distracted.  What happens over time is this tool begins to train you to be able to stay more focused for longer periods of time.  More focus and longer focus intensity = greater results.

Artificial Deadlines—we all know that deadlines get things done.  Unfortunately, if something does not have a deadline, it can get pushed off to the side and procrastinated on.  It is also a fact that deadlines actually cause people to become more efficient, because people tend to make quicker decisions and process information faster when there is an imminent deadline in front of them.  I use the kitchen timer tool as a method of creating artificial deadlines in order to get more done.  For example, I may have a project in front of me that I need to get done due to importance, but potentially no urgent deadline (Important, but not Urgent).  Ironically, these Important/non-urgent projects are many times the biggest impact projects you can work on to create extraordinary results vs. all the urgent stuff being thrown at you.  Anyway, for a project like this, I take my timer and punch in 50 or 60 minutes, and hit go.  Mentally, I am now on the clock, and it is counting down.  Not only do I go into undistracted focus mode, but I have mentally established a deadline, and I am trying to complete as much of that project as I can in that 50/60 minutes.  Even if I do not finish, I can tell that I complete much more of the project than I thought was possible in that timeframe.

Realization of how much time you have—since I started using the kitchen timer to block out chunks of the day, I have become much more aware and sensitive to how long things actually take, and how precious the time during the day is.  Most things take longer that I ’think’ they should take in almost every situation.  You begin to be more careful with your time and have a greater respect for the value of undisturbed time as you put yourself on the timer.  What this does is train you to protect your valuable time and work towards maximizing that time.  One result of this is gaining more control over the early part of your day, when your brain is at its highest productivity level.

Increased Efficiency of Meetings—something I backed into by using the timer was how it can make meetings or conference calls much more efficient.  In certain meetings, I use the timer to set the maximum amount of time the meeting should take, and then start it counting down.  By doing this, everyone in the meeting becomes more acutely aware that there is a fixed amount of time and that it is ticking away.  Instant productivity booster!  Then, as the time winds down, it forces you to move on to key agenda points knowing you  only have X minutes left.  Just like a time clock at a basketball game—when the time is out, the game is over.

It’s pretty effective.  Give it try and test it.  Some people may look at you funny at first, but the results are worth it.  It may be the most powerful $7.00 tool you can find for improving business results.

Be Your Best.
Take Care,
Todd Gifford

Todd Gifford - Success Coach

Mother’s Day just happened a little bit ago, and of course, I called my Mom to wish her a Happy Mother’s Day.  Unfortunately, we do not live in the same city, so she typically gets a gift or flowers and a phone call from me each year.  I was reflecting more so this year than other years about what my mom has done for me.  Of course, I think about all the obvious things like the fact that she loves me, took care of me as a child, cooked most of the meals we ate, probably cleaned up my room for me a thousand times (I can’t remember that far back cleaning up my room ever, but I must have a couple times), took care of our family, hauled me to my youth hockey practices at ridiculous hours of the morning and night (and helping me tie my skate laces when really young), and countless other things that I can’t think of right now.  But, one thing that I never have thought about until recently with respect to my mom is developing in me a trait of persistence (aka tenacity, determination, discipline, and perseverance).  My mom was “mom”, and she was a housewife, mother, and took care of the family.  I don’t remember her sitting down with me and providing me with verbal ‘life lessons’ or ‘keys to success’ — but I do believe that most of my personal determination, persistence, discipline, and desire to achieve goals (small or big) is largely because of my mom.  Yes, my dad obviously had a large positive impact on me too in many ways, but my mom’s impact is less obvious… but possibly more profound.  Why?

Well, it’s because of what she did, not because of what she said.  All the way through the time I was a young child to the time I moved out of the house on my own, I never once recall seeing my mom do any sports, engaged in business challenges, doing anything ‘competitive’, setting any goals, etc…  She was a typical mom of the time I think.

But then….something happened.  I don’t remember exactly when it happened.  I think she was in her late 50’s.  My mom decided that she was going to be an Aerobics Instructor.  What?!?!  Just like that, she dove into the fitness world (from being what I would consider near sedentary) and became an Aerobics fitness instructor.  It really sticks in my mind because I remember her sending me a newspaper article about her from the front page of the local sports page and there was a big photo of my mom leading an aerobics class called ‘Young at Heart’.  Some years went by and then my mom tells me that she is doing a lot of running.  Running every day, and long distances.  What?!?!  She then started running in races, 5K, 10K, 15K, and even a 26 mile marathon (in her 60’s)!  Setting some age group records at the time for long distance running, my mom was starting to instill into me some very important fundamental principles without ever discussing them.  All I thought at the time was ‘is my mom going crazy?’.  But as I get older, I appreciate more and more the power of her goal setting, determination, and persistence.  My mom never called it goal setting, but that’s exactly what she was doing.  She said “I am going to do __________, and that’s that.”  At the time, ‘stubborn’ is the word I thought of —- but now I think of ‘determined’, ‘disciplined’, ‘persistent’, and….’tenacious’, as the correct words to describe her.

Well, in her mid-70’s now, guess what she decided to do.  She decided that she would get her college degree, something that she started 55+ years ago; but could not complete due to money issues.  So, my mom is now sitting in class these days with kids 55+ years younger than her (she is by far the oldest person on campus at her college, including the faculty!).  Were any of these things easy for her to do?  No.  I remember her telling me how many people told her “you’re  crazy thinking you can be an aerobics instructor at your age and not being athletic”.  I remember her describing to me how her big toenails would fall off after running many miles, and the aches and pains of completing those long distances.  And now, studying for her college exams when she could be gardening or watching TV.  So, each Mother’s Day, when reflecting on what our moms have done for us, some of their biggest gifts may not be the obvious, as is the case for me.

Take Care and Be Your Best,
Todd Gifford

Todd Gifford - Success Coach

You are riding in the car and have a brainstorm great idea.  You find a scrap piece of paper, hopefully, and write it down.  You are in a meeting and someone in the group identifies an excellent concept or idea, and you make note of it.  While taking a shower, an excellent strategic idea comes to mind.  Well, somehow you retain it to get it written down before it is gone.

All this is about capturing the ideas as they are created, and is critically important.  However, the more important aspect of the ideas is what is done with them after they are identified.  How many great ideas lose steam after a week or a month, and when you look at them, they just do not have the sizzle that they had when they were hatched?  The impact is just not there like it was, and it is difficult to retain the same energy and enthusiasm behind the idea after this time goes by.  It happens a lot.  If fact, it happens most of the time with good ideas.  There is some science behind why this happens.

When an idea is conceived and then subsequently written down, there is a whole lot more about the idea that is critical to the essence of the idea that does not get captured in the written description or note of the idea.  These are details that make the idea great or unique.  Many times the ‘broad’ idea is nothing new, but the details of the idea as developed make it special or powerful.

The ‘24 Hour Rule for Preserving the Genius in Ideas,’ that I picked up from Michael Masterson, best selling author and multiple large business’ entrepreneur, says that if you do not act upon your new idea within 24 hours (and preferably less than 6 hours), you quickly begin to lose those critical details and the essence of why the idea is great and unique.  Ideas that are left in limbo, for even a few days, lose details, obstacles start getting in the way, and energy begins to fade.  Yes, you still have it written down, but it starts getting harder and harder to implement.  Those little details that were not written down, or potentially even difficult to put into words at the time of the idea, start floating away and getting lost.  I find that my brain tends to want to oversimplify or summarize things over time, so some of those crucial details get condensed or ‘smoothed’ over to simplify the concept.  There are a few courses of action to prevent this situation from happening to you.

First and foremost, we need to begin to take action literally at the moment of inception of the idea, before any of the essence is lost or forgotten.  That could be a quick phone call to move it forward, or an email communication to the person where next action is required, or quickly drawing a flowchart or image, etc… Instead of having the feeling of ‘I feel great that I captured that great idea’ (as I personally have had many times in the past — feeling like if I captured the idea, I was half way home on moving it ahead), the approach should be: a) capture the idea, but then immediately…. b) what 2-3 things can I do right now to move this idea ahead before it starts to lose its essence and power.  Perfect is the evil of Good.  At this point, you want to be focused on actions that are ‘good enough’, not perfect.  Things can be tweaked down the line.

Another strategy that you can employ to better capture and retain the details and essence of new ideas is to record the idea creation process, so you can go back and replay it to pick up those little details.  This can be as simple as recording your own ideas in the car or wherever, or recording brainstorming meetings, etc…  With a $35 micro digital recorder, you can capture the details and then delete them when the idea is off the ground and running.

Yet another key strategy is to convey this concept to your team and teammates that the space of time that stands between the generation of an idea and it execution is filled with the potential for failure.

Everyone knows that setting Goals is critical to success.  However, the Goal itself that is crafted can have as much or more to do with the outcome as the goal setting process.  What I have found in my own experiences, as well as reading about and talking to other highly successful people in business/sport, is that selecting a goal that is way higher/bigger than desired, or nearly unachievable, actually makes it easier to attain your true goals.  It’s an irony that I often forget, but keep reminding myself through real life examples.  And it works very effectively at many different levels.  Let me give you some examples.

Take my personal dream goal of ultimately finishing the Iron Man Triathlon event at some point….a nearly unachievable goal for me.  However, by setting that as my big Goal, even though it is nearly unachievable , it has made achieving some lesser important, but still big milestones for me possible.  Why?

When the brain is acclimated to a new big goal, everything along the way to that goal seems easier than it did prior to the uncomfortable goal being set.  It works at a more tactical level as well.  Within the ‘Triathlon Goal’ example for me, the training process itself is filled with many new goals.  Some of those are way outside my previous comfort zone, like the distances of swimming, running, and cycling.  Take the running — although I am a routine runner/jogger, I have never run over 4 miles at a time (and I usually only go about 2.5-3 miles at a time — and I am ‘done’).  Within the training plan in week #4, there is a 60 minute run (about 6.5 miles).  When I put that goal into my head, it was interesting how I ‘adjusted’ to the point where on that run, the 4-mile mark did not seem that big of a deal any longer.  In other words, my brain said “I am going for 60 minutes”, and it began to disregard any previous thoughts like “30 minutes is my limit and I am done.”

It’s an irony that has some pretty powerful possibilities for achieving results in any field of endeavor.

Take Care,
Todd Gifford

Todd Gifford - Success Coach

Have you ever been in a situation, whether it be a work project, personal or work task, trip, etc… where you do everything you should do for it to go perfect….except for one little thing?

The most recent example of this for me was a trip that my family took over my kids’ spring break.  Worked on planning the trip for weeks, researching the lowest cost hotel, lowest cost airfare, arranging transportation options, best place to get discounts on food and stuff to do, and on and on.  You know the drill.  I mean I was into it.  I had everything mapped out and covered — feelin’ good.  “But just one little thing” I failed to do was understand that we were flying into the wrong airport.  Unfortunately, I figured this out while we were in the air with my family heading to our destination.  You may ask ‘how could you not know what airport you were flying to?’ and that is a fair question.  Well, I had it in my mind there was only 1 International Airport in Orlando.  Nope.  There are 2.

While enjoying a smooth flight with my wife and kids, a lady sitting by us asked us if we were going to visit the Disney area by chance.  We all said yes.  She said ‘I am sure you realize the airport we are headed to is not the Orlando airport that is near the area where everyone flies into, and I just found this out myself a couple of days ago”.  Of course I am thinking to myself, while I am starting to sweat bullets, tell her: ‘oh yea, I know that.’  But my natural reaction was “what do you mean — is there more than one Orlando International Airport?”  Well, the ‘well-planned trip’ went from fun to panic, because we were arriving at about 11 pm, and now we have no transportation to get to our destination over 1 hour away.  I botched it.  Had everything covered except for this one small detail: wrong airport.  Stupid.

I am sure you all of have had situations where just the smallest little thing transformed your whole experience into a bad experience.  Everything is right except for that ‘one little thing’.  But that one little ‘thing’ overrides everything else and drives your overall feeling.  It might have been a situation where you were at a restaurant and everything was great except the waiter or waitress disappeared and forgot to bring you the bill so you could leave.  Maybe it was at a hotel, where your request for an extra pillow got a response like ‘we don’t have extra pillows’.  What are seemingly these little minor things can just devastate the experience for us.  More importantly, these little things are so basic to the equation.  Just like my oversight of which airport I booked our tickets to fly into (of course trying to get the lowest price—does not mean the best “value”), these little things are basic and fundamental to the outcome.  I spent way more time on stuff that basically had no bearing on our experience, yet I missed a basic little thing that had a major impact on the experience and outcome.

It just reminds me of how important it is to not overlook the little things in any endeavor.  Getting everything right but missing that one little thing can really cause problems.  It’s not always ‘fair’ how tough it can be to have to do everything right — but that is the way it is.  When you are serving and providing value to clients as Dee Electronics does, you have to do everything right, including the little things.  And we work super hard at Dee in doing that.  We do not want to ever make excuses like “but just this one little mistake”.  That little problem can affect the entire experience and benefit we provide to our clients.

I want you to know that we take everything we do very seriously, and we want to make sure everything is done correctly and the way you want it, even the little things.  Should you see something that you don’t like or you want to change, please let us know.  Same goes for something you want us to provide but we are not currently.  Although we work hard every day to provide exceptional hassle-free service and trusted responsiveness and reliability, occasionally we could overlook something.  We want to know about it because there is nothing ‘too little’ to ensure it is done right.  Trust me, I know from experience!

Take Care,
Todd Gifford

Todd Gifford - Success Coach

In the past 45 days, I decided that I was going to take a step towards achieving a life/dream goal (on my ‘bucket list’) of finishing the Iron Man Triathlon, held each year on the Big Island of Hawaii.  Not sure if I will ever complete that dream goal — it is an insane event where you Swim 2.4 miles in open water, followed by a 110 mile bicycle race, followed yet by a 26.2 mile running marathon, all in one continuous event.  Honestly, this is something that I have wanted to complete just once in my lifetime since I was very young and would see the Ironman covered on TV each year.  Kind of like the ultimate athletic/fitness achievement that I could probably ever attain.  However, I have never seriously even attempted to move toward that goal until about a month ago.  Around my birthday last month, I was reviewing my bucket list and started to feel that time was slipping away on a number of things on my list, so I guess that got me motivated.  Each year that rolls by its going to be harder and harder to do this triathlon thing.

The Ironman event is a pretty intimidating goal.  It seems nearly unachievable to me despite seeing some ‘normal’ people complete the event on TV (although they do look like a heavy toll has been taken on them as they cross the finish line — the ‘price’ is high).  The significant physical conditioning required on a Triathlon is menacing, not to mention where do I find the time?  It’s a bit overwhelming, not unlike a lot of goals all of us face at work.  Stick with me.

I came across some good information from a guy named Ron Scolastico, who teaches the concept: “If you would go every day to a very large tree and take five swings at it with a very sharp ax, eventually, no matter how large the tree, it would have to come down.”  It’s another way of answering the question “How do you eat an elephant?” “One bite at a time.”  Same as the ‘Flywheel’ concept for companies in the best selling book “Good to Great” by Jim Collins.  Which small swing of the ax made the big tree fall?

I have been pretty conditioned over time, like many of us, to expect results to happen fast with whatever I am doing.  Whether it is work or personal life, I like to see near immediate results from my efforts (mowing the lawn—instant gratification in how the lawn looks; make a decision at work, put something into motion, and see some results of that action fairly quickly,  make a change in my golf swing — see the immediate change in ball flight, etc…).  I believe this built-in expectation can actually prevent a lot of people, including myself, from aggressively taking on big long-range goals.  They can be perceived to be so big and so far off that shorter term goals look more attractive.  Results happen faster.  I am confident that is why I have not taken steps toward achieving the Iron Man Triathlon goal previously, even though it was on my bucket list of goals for many years.

I decided to take this ‘Rule of 5’ concept and put it into practice with respect to the Ironman Triathlon dream goal.  I determined that the first ‘swing of the ax’ would be to sign up for a Triathlon even though I am not ready.  Signed up for a normal length Triathlon, paid the money, and am now committed.  Swing of the ax #2—tell people what I am doing to hold myself accountable.  Can’t back out because it would be too embarrassing.  How close am I to my ultimate goal?  Not very close.  But, closer than a month ago.  Swing of the ax #3—got a book on how to train for my 1st Triathlon.  Swing of the ax #4—signed up at a health club with a swimming pool (the swim portion of the Triathlon I perceive to be the toughest for me).  Ax swing #5: started daily training (7 new ax ‘swings’/week).  12 weeks away from my first Triathlon, I have started to train according to a pretty rigid daily plan laid out in that book I bought.  I run quite a bit already, but layering in the swimming, bicycling, and strength training is challenging.  The first big hurdle was that the training plan has me running further in a day than I have ever run before.  I was concerned about how to ‘step up’ to that level — the book said to back off my speed.  Routinely running at about 7.2 mph, I backed off the speed to 6.4 mph.

Nothing short of unbelievable as to how much of a difference that made in terms of the ability to go further.  This has been a good learning lesson to apply elsewhere—adjusting something just by a fraction in how you approach it can make a huge difference in accomplishing tasks.  Previously I was not open to change because I had my ‘routine’.  With the new training plan, I have no choice but to change.

Now I am wondering about all the other areas where I can make small changes to get better results!

Take Care,
Todd Gifford

Todd Gifford - Success Coach

The other night I watched a little bit of the Academy Awards  recognizing all the best movies and movie performances of the past year.  It dawned on me while watching all the people come up to the stage to receive their Awards (‘Oscar’ statues) and speak to the audience, that what was really happening is that these people were realizing/completing the achievement of a goal or resolution of some type.  Somewhere along the way everybody in the movie business has set a goal or dream to win an Oscar.  I seriously doubt very many actors, directors, producers, etc… who win an Oscar did not have that moment in their mind as a goal or life dream.  Not rocket science I know, but I will tie back to that in a minute…

Last month I had another birthday come and go.  I have typically used my birthdays as a time of reflection on my personal goals (both work and non-work) and what I am trying to do with my time on the planet.  I have spoken of my ‘bucket’ list in the past, and I look at that important list as well.  Call them ‘goals’, ‘dreams’, ‘stuff I want to do before kicking the bucket’ or call them whatever you want — they are the foundation of about everything if you think about it.  I know most people make ‘New Year’s resolutions’, but I have never done that for whatever reason.  I make ‘life resolutions’ (isn’t ‘resolution’ just another name for a ‘goal’?) whenever I think they need to be made.  Why wait for January 1st?  Heck, I could accomplish the goal by then!  On or around my birthday, I do a review of all of these to make sure I know where I am at.  It’s kind of my Annual Performance Review, and I am sure I am tougher on myself than anyone else could ever be.  Anyway, I guess my main point here is that nothing of any magnitude gets done without a goal or resolution of some kind.  The real secret is that setting a Goal makes things infinitely easier to accomplish.  Why?  The magic in identifying the ‘goal’ and transforming it into something other than a passing thought is that your brain starts to work on it whether you want to or not.  Small steps start getting taken towards the end goal.  “Setting goals” has a bad wrap because it is always positioned as such a ‘corporate’/’business’ thing to do.  But the reality is that if you decide you want to accomplish something (and you reallllly want to do it): if you write it down (on a napkin is fine), tell as many people as you can you are going to do it, and keep that goal in view somewhere consistently — it will happen, sure as shoot’in a very high % of the time.  Even if it does not get fully accomplished, good stuff happens regardless.  A quick tip on setting goals for yourself — use the ‘SMART’ technique: goals should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and the big one —- Time bound.

Ok, so here goes.  I just recently decided that I am going to do a Triathlon (you know, where you Swim a long way, then you Bike a long way, and then you finish with a long Run, all in one event).  Came up with that goal last month around my birthday.  I have never run more than 4 miles in one shot, never swam more than a couple hundred yards at one time, and I don’t bicycle hardly ever.  Why do I want to do this?  Not 100% sure, but I think it has to do with ‘because I think it will make me feel really good if I can do it’.  A related Bucket List dream goal I have is to do the ‘Ironman’ Triathlon before I kick the bucket, which is a ridiculous race where you Swim 2.4 miles, followed by a 112 mile bike race, followed by a 26.2 mile marathon run, all in one continuous event.  Not sure I will ever get that done, but I figured the only way to get there is to start somewhere, and that somewhere is a regular Triathlon event.  Finishing the ‘Ironman’ Triathlon is like winning an Oscar for me.  My first Triathlon is in June, 2010, so I will keep you posted.  I have started my training (which is based on the goal of being ‘ready’ for the event and just finishing the race—I don’t care about my time) which has all kinds of little goals within that plan.  This goal-stuff can be exhausting, but also a lot of fun!

Take Care,
Todd Gifford