I was recently in the office of one of my coaching clients who had just successfully paid of all of his debt. Every dollar. Nothing but assets left on his balance sheet. Weird. But was he ever happy and did it ever feel great to be in his presence that day.
I am not out of debt at the moment and it is my goal for sooner rather than later, but I did get a glimpse into what it might feel like to be debt free. I caught the buzz.
I then realized the difference between my client and me, at least in this area, is the history of financial choices we have both made. In the period leading up to the retirement of his debt, he made different choices than I would have made, and in fact did make. Thus his results are different than mine and results speak.
Just before the New Year, I had drifted enough from my ideal weight that I got to the point that I was ready to do something about it.
Now, 8 weeks later, I have shed 4 pounds–a nice half pound per week pace. One pound is 3500 calories and so the weight loss was due to a calorie deficit of about 250 calories per day.
In this case my results also reflect my choices, notably the choice to work out every day and the choice to cut the bulk of the flour, starch and sugar out of my diet, which are both becoming permanent habits and lifestyle changes. I make these choices dozens of times per day and am making ones that work relative to my weight loss goals.
The achievement of bigger goals requires larger strings of more constructive choices. It's the proportion of constructive and destructive choices that ultimately determines whether I reach my goals and how quickly I reach them. Like everyone else, there are areas where I'm making choices that support my goals and areas where I'm not. I'm learning to make different financial choices now, fueled by the increasing connection I'm making to being debt free. For better or worse, I am the sum of my choices.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
the hole in the sum of the parts
I watched the Canadian Olympic dream team get off to a relatively slow start and then seemingly kick-in to win their first game 8-0. Given the collective talent I thought it was an appropriate margin of victory. Then something cracked: they barely won the the next game and lost the one after than.
If there is a spiritual centre for Canadian patriotism it is surely hockey. It is, after all, our game. But the initial results do not seem to match the spirit.
I've always thought it was unusual to assemble a bunch of millionaires who are otherwise trying to beat each other, give them a short break from their real jobs and kluge them together as a finely tuned performance machine with very little practice.
If they come together as a team, it's certainly during the tournament, rather than before when it happens.
To me it shows the possibility of the power of a team to prevail over a collection of great individuals. There are many apparently less talent groups of individuals who ultimately win over the dream teams whether they be in business or sport. The promise of every group is to become more than the sum of their parts. If they fulfill that promise they become one as a team.
If there is a spiritual centre for Canadian patriotism it is surely hockey. It is, after all, our game. But the initial results do not seem to match the spirit.
I've always thought it was unusual to assemble a bunch of millionaires who are otherwise trying to beat each other, give them a short break from their real jobs and kluge them together as a finely tuned performance machine with very little practice.
If they come together as a team, it's certainly during the tournament, rather than before when it happens.
To me it shows the possibility of the power of a team to prevail over a collection of great individuals. There are many apparently less talent groups of individuals who ultimately win over the dream teams whether they be in business or sport. The promise of every group is to become more than the sum of their parts. If they fulfill that promise they become one as a team.
Friday, February 19, 2010
catching tiger by the tale
Tiger Woods emerged in a press conference after many months of silence and mystery following the exposure of his substantial marital infidelity and the subsequent controversy and fall from grace.
At the conference he admitted to his errors. He apologized to his family. And he acknowledged the breach of integrity and moral character that was a huge disappointment to his fans, colleagues, sponsors and families around the world who had bestowed role model status upon him.
The question is: was it sincere or strategic?
During his presentation, he did not seem as emotional as one might expect from the truly contrite. But then again, one of the reasons he is as successful as he is as a top performer is his lack of affect. Nothing seems to faze him.
Tiger Woods is also a huge national brand and getting caught doing what he was doing was and will continue to be very expensive. Regardless, I do admire the courage it takes anyone to own up to what they've done, regardless of what we all might speculate about their motives for doing so.
I suspect Tiger's core driver is towards excellence and his infidelities are clearly by his own standards sub-excellent. Perhaps such infidelity is the darkside of all excellence. Like yin and yang they live together. Would we really appreciate excellence as much if we did not have an example to compare it with?
Whether Tiger's attempt to make amends is believable or not perhaps says more about us than him: maybe it says something interesting about our own weaknesses, fears, self-doubts, addictions and general biases towards optimism and pessimism.
Personally I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. No one will ever fully know why he did what he did and in the end he stood up and accepted the consequences like a man. Better than many world leaders and business executives.
At the conference he admitted to his errors. He apologized to his family. And he acknowledged the breach of integrity and moral character that was a huge disappointment to his fans, colleagues, sponsors and families around the world who had bestowed role model status upon him.
The question is: was it sincere or strategic?
During his presentation, he did not seem as emotional as one might expect from the truly contrite. But then again, one of the reasons he is as successful as he is as a top performer is his lack of affect. Nothing seems to faze him.
Tiger Woods is also a huge national brand and getting caught doing what he was doing was and will continue to be very expensive. Regardless, I do admire the courage it takes anyone to own up to what they've done, regardless of what we all might speculate about their motives for doing so.
I suspect Tiger's core driver is towards excellence and his infidelities are clearly by his own standards sub-excellent. Perhaps such infidelity is the darkside of all excellence. Like yin and yang they live together. Would we really appreciate excellence as much if we did not have an example to compare it with?
Whether Tiger's attempt to make amends is believable or not perhaps says more about us than him: maybe it says something interesting about our own weaknesses, fears, self-doubts, addictions and general biases towards optimism and pessimism.
Personally I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. No one will ever fully know why he did what he did and in the end he stood up and accepted the consequences like a man. Better than many world leaders and business executives.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
what ice climbing has to do with business
I was out ice climbing with Chris Carrier today teaching him the ropes in a new sport he's taken an interest in. Chris is very athletic, very clever and has a lot of natural climbing talent. And he's new at it.
On the last climb of the day, I picked a dead vertical column of ice and Chris got spanked about halfway up, as his forearms lost strength and he could no longer physically hold onto the ice axes.
The reason? Chris had not yet learned to use his legs to support his weight; he used too much of his arm strength to hold himself up. Arms are not as strong as legs, which are much bigger.
Chris runs a very successful cleaning business (window works; http://www.soyoudonthaveto.com/) and I asked him how this ice climbing lesson might apply to his business. His answer, not surprising was very profound. In business his arms and hands represent what he does himself in the business: it literally means to be "hands-on". His legs and feet are the equivalents of his team of very capable people. If he does not use his people as much as he could, he does too much himself and might tire himself out trying to overcome a business issue on his own. Leadership on ice and leadership in business seem to be one in the same.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
random acts of success
Nylon is one of the more useful human inventions and its discovery was an accident. Someone forgot to turn a bunsen burner off in the lab and in the morning there was a stringy mess in the beaker of chemicals that was there the previous night. It took quite an effort to reproduce the process and eventually a very viable commercial product resulted.
Every year I get a cool book from my father-in-law, who seems to always find an author to send a skud missile directly into the heart of my most cherished beliefs and ways of thinking.
Last December's effort was a book called the "Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules our Lives." Like the Black Swan, this book argued convincingly that a vast amount of what goes on in business and life is random and has little to do with talent and ability. These of course play a role on success but not as great as we like to think in North America.
As a designer, I grew up believing that anything that does not happen by accident, happens by design. I believe in choice rather than fluke. But as a coach who has a very successful coaching practice, I am now looking back on my success with a great deal more humility.
Although I have become a very skilled coach out of sheer practice (I've logged over 10,000 hours coaching professionally), much of my success has nothing to do with my coaching skills and more to do with the fact I started thirteen years ago. There was very little competition back then and I have always been a good sales person. I started getting clients when I actually had very little coaching skill. Most of the skills I have developed have been a direct result of the clients I have worked with. I coach very sophisticated, very successful, very high networth entrepreneurs. These people demand a lot from me and they have forced me to grow. The first one I coached led to everyone else and that first one was a random act. He came out of the blue at a chance meeting. I don't think I'd want to be starting out now. No offense to me (none taken).
Luck, as the saying goes, is when opportunity meets preparation. Chance does favour the prepared mind. Bill Gates was prepared. Steve Jobs too. And it helps to be born in a particular 5 year period if you want to be a tech billionaire. Are they talented and skilled. Obviously. But that's just entry into the arena. They made the best of what came along and what came along was largely outside of their control.
Skill is not necessarily a cause of success. Success and skill are highly correlated for sure but the most skilled are not always the winners. Take Steven Bradbury who won the Gold medal in 2002 in the 1000m speed skate after everyone in front of him crashed.
And let's don't even get started on mutual fund managers where it takes decades to determine if there results are truly due to their abilities. Most of the time they aren't.
The conclusion of this book: if you're really successful, don't get too cocky; if you are struggling, don't get too depressed. It seems that one of the biggest factors in success is simply to be in the game. Pick a game, learn to play it well and watch for the scoring chances when they pop out.
Every year I get a cool book from my father-in-law, who seems to always find an author to send a skud missile directly into the heart of my most cherished beliefs and ways of thinking.
Last December's effort was a book called the "Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules our Lives." Like the Black Swan, this book argued convincingly that a vast amount of what goes on in business and life is random and has little to do with talent and ability. These of course play a role on success but not as great as we like to think in North America.
As a designer, I grew up believing that anything that does not happen by accident, happens by design. I believe in choice rather than fluke. But as a coach who has a very successful coaching practice, I am now looking back on my success with a great deal more humility.
Although I have become a very skilled coach out of sheer practice (I've logged over 10,000 hours coaching professionally), much of my success has nothing to do with my coaching skills and more to do with the fact I started thirteen years ago. There was very little competition back then and I have always been a good sales person. I started getting clients when I actually had very little coaching skill. Most of the skills I have developed have been a direct result of the clients I have worked with. I coach very sophisticated, very successful, very high networth entrepreneurs. These people demand a lot from me and they have forced me to grow. The first one I coached led to everyone else and that first one was a random act. He came out of the blue at a chance meeting. I don't think I'd want to be starting out now. No offense to me (none taken).
Luck, as the saying goes, is when opportunity meets preparation. Chance does favour the prepared mind. Bill Gates was prepared. Steve Jobs too. And it helps to be born in a particular 5 year period if you want to be a tech billionaire. Are they talented and skilled. Obviously. But that's just entry into the arena. They made the best of what came along and what came along was largely outside of their control.
Skill is not necessarily a cause of success. Success and skill are highly correlated for sure but the most skilled are not always the winners. Take Steven Bradbury who won the Gold medal in 2002 in the 1000m speed skate after everyone in front of him crashed.
And let's don't even get started on mutual fund managers where it takes decades to determine if there results are truly due to their abilities. Most of the time they aren't.
The conclusion of this book: if you're really successful, don't get too cocky; if you are struggling, don't get too depressed. It seems that one of the biggest factors in success is simply to be in the game. Pick a game, learn to play it well and watch for the scoring chances when they pop out.
Friday, February 12, 2010
automammophobia
My wife Tania turned 46 this year and is about 6 minutes from breaking the 3 hour mark in the marathon. Despite the normal tendency for elite female runners to get slower after their 37th birthdays, Tania has strung together a series of personal bests in those 9 years. She's not supposed to be getting faster, but she is.
This January we hired the sports nutritionist that works with my partner Aly's husband Jeff Pain, the 2006 olympic silver medalist in the skeleton. For the past six weeks tania has cut every bit of sugar and flour out of her diet, among other things. As lean as she was, she has already come down 6 pounds and will drop another 6 before she's done.
When she runs the New York marathon this December, she will do it 12 pounds lighter. Each pound translates into 1 to 2 seconds off her per mile time. Twelve pounds could mean anywhere from 12 to 24 seconds per mile or over the 26 mile course or 5 to 10 minutes off her total time. It's the simple math of biomechanics.
When I was a teenager and my dad used to barbecue in the backyard without a shirt on, I saw my future: man breasts. I think breasts look great on my wife regardless of her weight but I think us men can do without.
In the same 9 years my wife was shedding time from her runs, I was beginning to ever so slightly take on my father's genetic heritage. Not so good.
In January I began virtually the same diet and have leaned right out in my chest and stomach area. The culprit? Flour and sugar. I've had almost none in the past six weeks, even though I'm not as strict as Tania is with her diet. And we eat way more vegetables, healthy snacks and appropriate portions. Combined with our generally active lifestyles, we are hitting our marks.
This January we hired the sports nutritionist that works with my partner Aly's husband Jeff Pain, the 2006 olympic silver medalist in the skeleton. For the past six weeks tania has cut every bit of sugar and flour out of her diet, among other things. As lean as she was, she has already come down 6 pounds and will drop another 6 before she's done.
When she runs the New York marathon this December, she will do it 12 pounds lighter. Each pound translates into 1 to 2 seconds off her per mile time. Twelve pounds could mean anywhere from 12 to 24 seconds per mile or over the 26 mile course or 5 to 10 minutes off her total time. It's the simple math of biomechanics.
When I was a teenager and my dad used to barbecue in the backyard without a shirt on, I saw my future: man breasts. I think breasts look great on my wife regardless of her weight but I think us men can do without.
In the same 9 years my wife was shedding time from her runs, I was beginning to ever so slightly take on my father's genetic heritage. Not so good.
In January I began virtually the same diet and have leaned right out in my chest and stomach area. The culprit? Flour and sugar. I've had almost none in the past six weeks, even though I'm not as strict as Tania is with her diet. And we eat way more vegetables, healthy snacks and appropriate portions. Combined with our generally active lifestyles, we are hitting our marks.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
don't forget the onion rings
Everyday for lunch I have pretty much the same thing: a small steak and a salad. It's the best lunch for me from a food combination and portion size perspective.
Lunch comes with two small onion rings. From a purest perspective, these detract from the nutritional value of the lunch, but from a flavour perspective (grease) they add way more value to lunch. It keeps lunch from getting tedious. The benefit outweighs the cost.
In any activity that requires self-discipline, an "onion ring" adds a bit of flavour without being overly destructive.
My personal trainer, knows to add one exercize in the middle of my otherwise very intense routine to break up it up and some fun and interest. It's not always the most constructive exercize but it gives me some added "flavour."
I also add an "onion ring" to my lunchtime cardio routine by taking a walk by the river; a short blast of pleasure in an otherwise rigourous routine.
Onion rings keep the balance and it keep me in the game without burning out.
Lunch comes with two small onion rings. From a purest perspective, these detract from the nutritional value of the lunch, but from a flavour perspective (grease) they add way more value to lunch. It keeps lunch from getting tedious. The benefit outweighs the cost.
In any activity that requires self-discipline, an "onion ring" adds a bit of flavour without being overly destructive.
My personal trainer, knows to add one exercize in the middle of my otherwise very intense routine to break up it up and some fun and interest. It's not always the most constructive exercize but it gives me some added "flavour."
I also add an "onion ring" to my lunchtime cardio routine by taking a walk by the river; a short blast of pleasure in an otherwise rigourous routine.
Onion rings keep the balance and it keep me in the game without burning out.
Friday, February 5, 2010
necessity is the mother of intention
The road to failure, is as they say, paved with good intentions.
When I'm halfway up a pitch of dead vertical, fragile and friable frozen ice, my intention appears to be very clear and simple: to get to the top. However my true intention is often less clear and often less simple, which is why so many of us fail at something we say is important. Sometimes my intention is to stay comfortable and warm which is jarringly at odds with my other so-called intention of getting to the top. It's my net intention, the sum of all the forces working towards getting me to the top (like a need for achievement and challenge and a desire to use my skills and experience in a meaningful way) minus the forces working against (like fear, self-doubt, ego) that determines whether I succeed at my goal. My "goal" is not then my full intention. It's only part of the picture.
Goals are notoriously easy to set and famously difficult to reach. Many goals are in the category of "nice to have" rather than "must have."
At the start of the season, my goal to get to the top of the ice climbs I went out on were more in the nice-to-have category. Kind of like when someone says: "I'd like to have my own business", or "I'd like to finish a marathon" or "I'd like to be a millionaire". People utter the bulk of these statements without force, in the face of a large fantasy about how nice they'd be to have and without consideration of what it would take to actually have them.
My mountain guide Patrick has unfortunately figured this out about me and I'm now busted. He just doesn't let me down until I get to the top. The inclusion of Patrick in my life has made a nice-to-have into a must-have. I could of course not go with Patrick, knowing this about him, but, he has fortified my intention to reach my goal. The goal has not changed, but my intention is now much stronger. How do I know? Because I've gotten to the top every route I've tried in the last month. The goal has become the result. That's the value of good support. And every time I get to the top of one climb my intention is stronger to get to the top of the next one.
Learn more about good support at http://www.stepup.net/.
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