Foster Performance by Fostering Community

The other day I went out to do some wind sprints in preparation for my Aussie Rules Football team’s upcoming finals. I hate wind sprints, and normally I would never do them. So what is it that drives me to inflict this pain willingly upon myself in my spare time?

When we play as a team on the field, everyone relies on one another. We take hits for each other, get bloodied up, injured, bruised, and broken for the sake of the team. We encourage each other through opposition, which is especially important when we are being beaten by the other team, and this teamwork fosters a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. In essence, it’s a community.

So why is it that I put myself through more pain even when I’m off the field? It’s the very basic human need to belong to community. I want to be a part of the team, so I go above and beyond in my spare time to be a better performer during game time. Others rely on me.

The same concepts apply to any group of individuals, be it a workplace or a family. At work, once you feel like you are part of the team, you begin to associate yourself with the corporate community. This will naturally lead you to work longer hours, do extra homework, etc. to ensure the success of ‘your’ company. If you have ever felt like quitting a job, you can almost pin point that moment of disassociation in your mind where you no longer care about your contribution, since you are no longer part of the company, even before you leave. The rest of the time there is spent doing ‘just enough’, and it feels like a chore.

As managers, parents, teammates, or spouses, we can all do our part to increase the performance of our respective communities, whatever they are. The idea is to make people feel like they belong, by actually making them belong. It’s in our hardwiring to want to be part of something bigger.

Mortgage Broker Humor

A Mortgage Broker died and met St. Peter at the Pearly Gates to present himself for admittance to Heaven. Peter said, “You did a lot of good helping people get into homes and you donated a lot to charity. You even worked on that Habitat house. But you told too many lies to the underwriters and were very unkind to both your processor and office staff.We aren’t sure where you’re going to fit…so, we’ve decided to show you around both Heaven and Hell and see where you feel comfortable.”

As they toured Heaven, the Mortgage Broker really liked the big mansions and the streets paved with gold, but the harp music did get on his nerves a little.Then, when they showed him around Hell, he noticed everyone had their choice of playing golf or tennis, hanging out by the pool smoking and drinking, or dancing and playing cards in the clubhouse. He told St. Peter…”Oh, this is going to be hard! Can I sleep on it?”So he was allowed to think it over during the night.

The next morning they asked him for his decision. He quickly replied, “Oh please send me to Hell!”They opened up the doors of Hell, but the whole picture had changed! It was just like you have always heard with lots of fire and brimstone. People were burning and being tortured and screaming! Oh, it was so hot and horrible!!

“Hey that’s not what you showed me yesterday!!” the Loan Officer cried.St. Peter’s reply was cold and abrupt: “I know, you should have locked it in yesterday.”

Just do it. NOW.

Another quick Friday cogitation.

I love Fridays almost as much as I love Mondays. No joke. Fridays I like because the work week has come to an end, you get to hang up the gloves for two days and enjoy the fruits of your labor. Fridays are celebratory. Mondays, however, are where the real excitement lies: you have the entire week ahead of you to go out into the world and make things happen!

That was actually a nice segue into the reason for my post. I love Nike, and I was a huge fan of their slogan a little while back. Point is there really is no point in waiting to do what you want to do in life. Stop talking about it and just go do it, man. That guy that got hit by a bus and you read about him in the newspaper the other day? Well – you don’t want to be sitting around in the afterlife in some dingy bar with your thumb up your butt going “I swear, I never thought it could happen to me. Goddamn TTC bus drivers…”

Well it does happen. And you never know when. So whatever you want to do in this life, take the first step today. Put together a game plan and execute it, because no one else in this world is going to do it for you. Like Gandhi said,  you must be the change you want to see in this world.

Find Total Freedom by Taking Total Accountability

I wake up most mornings between 5.45am and 6.30am, and I am just about ecstatic to get out of bed. I can’t wait to sink my teeth into the day. Today, I want to share one of the techniques that I stumbled into that has been instrumental in the continual upkeep of my day-to-day happiness and drive. Make no mistake, much like relationships, happiness does not happen on it’s own. It takes work.

Let’s just lay it out there with no setup:

“Everything that happens to you in your life is 100% your fault.”

There.

Now you can believe me, or you can disagree with me, it doesn’t really matter. The choice is yours on how to live your life. I am just telling you that once I bought into this philosophy, things have been much, much better. Let’s go over a few examples.

1. My profession is sales. Accordingly, I am judged every month/quarter by the money I bring into the company. When I meet with my boss and I have not hit my targets, he naturally asks why. In this situation my typical response will be: “I did not set up enough meetings. With this account, I did not position our products properly. With this account, I did not account for the guy in purchasing. With this account, I did not collect enough intelligence. Etc, etc.” I hear a lot of sales people in this world saying things like: “The economy is down, this guy went on vacation, that guy didn’t like me, the product wasn’t strong enough, blah blah blah.” When I hear this sometimes I want to grab them by the shirt and tell them to stop bitching. It’s all your fault, damn it. Take responsibility. Then I remember that I can’t change people. Sigh.
   
2. You go for a drive on the freeway and hit the brakes when a raccoon runs across the road. The idiot behind you who was tailing you is too slow to react and rear ends you because he did not leave enough room between your cars considering the speeds you were both traveling at. Guess what? Yup – this one is also your fault too, even though it may not seem like it at first. YOU chose to get in the car and get on the highway. YOU understood the risks of driving, the statistics are out there for everyone to see. YOU know that there are idiots on the road, or people driving when they are not in the right state of mind to do so responsibly. So yes, you should still go after the guy for damages etc., but never forget that everything that happens to you in this life IS YOUR FAULT . This will help you be at peace with incidents such as this. You wouldn’t get mad at a fish for swimming in water, then why would you get mad at a jackass driving a car like a jackass? It’s not your job to fix him/her. Worry about yourself.
   Oh yeah and as a side note, all that yelling and screaming and lecturing and cursing that you are directing to that person that just hit your car – all that nonsense – you realize that is for you right? You understand that all of that huffing and puffing is a form of therapy designed to help YOU feel better about what just happened? Because the newsflash is that the person on the other end of the line didn’t even care enough about you to drive in a manner so as to not put your life in danger, and now you think they are going to care about what your opinion of their driving habits is? You are fooling yourself. So lecture, scream, or shout, whatever your style is. Do you feel better now? Good. Your car is still in pieces. Deal with it.
3. Someone you love gets a stupid disease like cancer and dies for no apparent reason. It hurts so much you don’t know what to do with yourself. You can replay the last 10 years over and over in your head, but the reality is that there was nothing you could have done differently to stop this particular outcome from taking place. You are powerless and a victim of circumstance. But it is still your fault. Falling in love, having family, having friends, etc., these are all things that are not without their inherent risks. Everything is a cost-benefit analysis. If you don’t want to feel the pain, then don’t fall in love. If you hate the feeling of loss, then isolate yourself from human relationships. You are free to do whatever you want in this life, nothing is forced upon you. In my opinion, the benefits of having family, friends, and loved ones in your life far outweighs the pain of losing them when dumb shit happens. Dumb shit, however, unexplained as it may be, is a fact of life.
   
4. You win the lottery. It is your fault. Again, in my opinion, luck is just a concept we invented to help us make sense of these events. I don’t much care for it.

So, in summary:

“Everything that happens to you is your fault.”

And

“You don’t really control anything except for your reaction to the cards you were dealt.”

Happy Monday!

My Birthday Post

On my 28^th year of being alive, for those that know me well and for those that don’t, I thought I would share some interesting facts about me that most of you likely do not know.

1. In grade 5 I saw my favourite movie, Terminator 2. I cried when Arnie lowered himself into the lava at the end. Cried like a little girl. To this day, I am preparing for the eventual rise of Skynet.
2. During my wee years, I used to come home after school every day and watch Star Trek: The Next Generation with my dad. I still idolize Patrick Stewart. I still think Data is cool. I still fantasize sometimes about becoming a Borg and travelling the galaxy in my space cube assimilating everything.
3. Since today is my birthday, I reserve the right to walk around with my fly undone.
4. I used to wrestle with my dad in the living room floor incessantly as a child, until he was annoyed and left. I have always enjoyed fighting.
5. Like I told someone in grade two, my dad can sooooo kick your dad’s ass.
6. For the record, I have likely lost just as many street fights as I have won. However, I was always the last man standing, and I never ever quit. And I never hit anyone unless I thought they deserved it.
7. I truly believe that I can do anything I set my mind to in this life.
8. In my mid twenties, I suffered from a medium case of depression that lasted about a year and a half. During the worst of times, I entertained the idea of suicide, but I never acted on it. I managed to beat it without the help of drugs or doctors because I looked within, I identified what in my life was causing it, and I tried everything to beat it. Eventually, with enough trial and error, I did. I am confident those feelings will never again come back, because I have learned the right skills. If you are ever feeling depressed, call a doctor. Or me, cuz I’m cooler. Depression? Yeah, I slayed that demon. Who wants a piece next?
9. I used to draw a lot and write poetry. Don’t laugh. I was the best artist in my gradeschool by miles, and I won numerous competitions. Then one day in grade 6 sex-ed class, Mr. Tierney decided to tell the class that “most artistic people are gay.” The rest of my life up until high school was a living hell. I have not drawn a single sketch since then nor do I have any desire to do so. Fuck you Tierney – at least I don’t tuck my track pants into my socks. I hope one day you break a law by accident and have to spend a night in jail with 3 jacked “artistic” guys with massive paint brushes. Fucker.
10. There is nothing in this world I love more than Jenn Mooney.
11. Except scotch. I like scotch so much that if we were standing in a room and having a  normal conversation, and you told me you don’t like scotch, I might just punch you in the neck. If you don’t have anything good to say, then don’t say anything.
12. I never met my dad until I was 4 years old. I refused to call him dad because of it, and have called him by his first name most of my life. We still joke about it.
13. Have you seen the movie “Taken” with Liam Neeson? I can’t wait to have a daughter just so I can be him. As a matter of fact, I can’t wait till my daughter brings home her first bf. That poor kid probably isn’t even alive yet, but he has NO IDEA what he’s in for. Fate – it’s a mother fucker.
14. I failed my final year thesis project at McMaster as an engineer. It was a great experience.
15. I wish I learned how to play hockey. More so than that, I wish I was born in Texas as a cowboy and played football.
16. Come to think of it, nah, I am just fine right here. I take number 15 back.
17. I hate paying asking price. Everything in life is a negotiation weather you believe it or not.
18. This is a picture of my father when he was in his prime. This photo was actually taken moments before he birthed me, and just after he had destroyed Dolph Lundgren in an arm wrestling match. Dolph was of course allowed to use both hands. Much like Chuck Norris, my father did not require a female in order to conceive. He actually taught this trick to Chuck in 1979, who then taught it to the most interesting man in the world.
19. 

One of my favorite scenes:

IMPORTANT – Fire Safety

Ricky Bobby and Cal Naughton Jr. on Fire Safety

Fire Safety week is right around the corner, and here are a few important tips you might wanna listen to.

1. Wrapping your kids in newspaper at bedtime sounds like a good idea. Keeps ‘em warm. But guess what? That stuff is flammable.
2. Hey, we’ve all run around with an empty milk jug full of gasoline and lit it in an open field…but make sure there is a parent close by.
3. What’s better than a nap? A nap with a cigarette, I know. I’d do it.
4. If you’re gonna sleep in bed, make it a hammock so if it lights on fire, you fall down and wake up.
5. We’ve all wondered what gasoline tastes like. Don’t drink it.
6. Fire safety begins in your brain, at home.
7. Shoplifting’s fun, we’ve all done it. But if you’re gonna steal fireworks – forget it.
8. When them Chinese folks wrote on that label “light fuse and run away”, they meant it. Get the heck outta there.
9. Remember, stealing’s not good, but if you’re gonna do it, don’t steal fireworks. It’s the law.

Find the Killzones in Your Life

We have been taught in society to always try and do “the right thing”. Whatever your right thing is, we have this predisposition not to stir the pot, (or smoke it), not to upset the status quo, and not to be shit disturbers. Usually, it’s is a lot less painful to not make a stink about things and accept them as they are. It is certainly a lot less risky, and who likes risk?

This can be a good thing at times, however it can also put your life in danger.

A short story: I was driving to lunch today, and I was stopped at a red right. Stupidly, I was writing a text msg. I rationalize it to myself that somehow doing this while stopped at a red light makes it OK. So I am not paying as much attention to the road as I should.

The light turns green.

I glance up, hit the gas, and go back to the blackberry for a split second to punch in that last letter or two before hitting send.

The car that was travelling perpendicular to the direction of the road I was on runs his red light. He realizes what he had just done pretty much the moment his tires pass the white line that marks the beginning of the intersection.

Now the critical moment occurs. You have entered an active intersection from the wrong side and you are travelling at 25km/h. You are in the kill zone and your life is at risk. Think fast – what do you do?

In my opinion, this guy did the worst thing he could have. And I totally understand why he did it. He realized his mistake and tried to correct it. It’s a normal reaction. He slammed his brakes, screeched to a halt – in the dead middle of the kill zone – hit reverse, and hastily zoomed back out of the intersection. If I hadn’t looked up from my cell phone in time to slam my brakes right after hitting “SEND”, I would have glided into the driver side door at a gingerly 20 km/h or so. Had I not been starting from a dead stop, things would be different.

I have always been interested in catastrophes and why they occur, like Chernobyl, BP, plane crashes, etc. From my understanding, these breakdowns never happen from any single event gone wrong. There is no magic failed component. Rather it is a series of compounding errors that on their own normally would have been insignificant. But often the whole is greater than the sum, as in the case of these deadly concoctions.

If this guy had just hit the gas, he would have cut down his exposure time in the kill zone to fractions of what it was. Yeah, you just made a mistake. Yes, you are wrong. But in this case, it would have been better to push forward even though you were wrong until you reach safety. Better to be wrong and resolute than right and dead.

Moral of the story: We have killzones scattered all over throughout our lives. The trick is identifying them. The risk of spending too much time inside a killzone is not the risk of actually being killed, but the opportunity cost of your time. Killzones kill time, and time is the only non renewable resource you have. Its scarcity only increases with each passing second, and you are obligated to maximize your utility from it. Killzones can be jobs that are not giving you full satisfaction, they could be anything really. Don’t worry that much about being wrong or right all of the time, just act and get to safety!!

The Best Advice My Mother Ever Gave Me

She gave me a reprint of these for Christmas 2009. I hope you find it as insightful as I do. It has shaped me as a person.

An Eschatological Laundry List: A Partial Register of the 927 (or was it 928?) Eternal Truths.

1. This is it!
2. There are no hidden meanings.
3. You can’t get there from here, and besides there’s no place else to go.
4. We are all already dying, and we will be dead for a long time.
5. Nothing lasts.
6. There is no way of getting all you want.
7. You can’t have anything unless you let go of it.
8. You only get to keep what you give away.
9. There is no particular reason why you lost out on some things.
10. The world is not necessarily just. Being good often does not pay off and there is no compensation for misfortune.
11. You have a responsibility to do your best nonetheless.
12. It is a random universe to which we bring meaning.
13. You don’t really control anything.
14. You can’t make anyone love you.
15. No one is any stronger or any weaker than anyone else.
16. Everyone is, in his own way, vulnerable.
17. There are no great men.
18. If you have a hero, look again. You have diminished yourself in some way.
19. Everyone lies, cheats, pretends, (yes, you too, and most certainly I myself).
20. All evil is potential vitality in need of transformation.
21. All of you is worth something, if you will only own it.
22. Progress is an illusion.
23. Evil can be displaced but never eradicated, as all solutions breed new problems.
24. Yet it is necessary to keep on struggling towards a solution.
25. Childhood is a nightmare.
26. But it is so very hard to be an on-your-own, take-care-of-yourself-cause-there-is-no-one-else-to-do-it-for-you grown-up.
27. Each of us is ultimately alone.
28. The most important things, each man must do for himself.
29. Love is not enough, but it sure helps.
30. We have only ourselves, and one another. That may not be much, but that’s all there is.
31. How strange, that so often, it all seems worth it.
32. We must live within the ambiguity of partial freedom, partial power, and partial knowledge.
33. All important decisions must be made on the basis of insufficient data.
34. Yet we are responsible for everything we do.
35. No excuses will be accepted.
36. You can run, but you can’t hide.
37. It is most important to run out of scapegoats.
38. We must learn the power of living with our helplessness.
39. The only victory lies in surrender to oneself.
40. All of the significant battles are waged within the self.
41. You are free to do whatever you like. You need only to face the consequences.
42. What do you know…for sure…anyway?
43. Learn to forgive yourself, again and again and again and again…

By Sheldon B Kopp, PhD, and American psychotherapist and writer (1929-1999), author of the book “If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him.”

How to Save More Money, How to be Better at Saving, and How to Increase Your Chances of Being Rich

This article is going to discuss the most likely outcomes from adhering to one of my personal favourite life principles. If you apply this principle correctly, you will be able to do the following:

1. Increase the amount of money you save
2. Decrease dumb purchases
3. Get nicer, better quality things
4. Increase your chances of becoming wealthy

As with most things in life, the trick to becoming rich is actually an oxymoron: you must save more AND you must spend more. You just need to modify your habits to do these activities in the right way.

The principal I make reference to is the following:

“The Principal of Full Commitment.” Or as I like to call it, going balls to the wall. What it means is that you should never do anything half-assed. Only get in it to win it. If you don’t have all the odds stacked in your favour, and you aren’t willing to make the sacrifices that are required to be the best, then don’t even bother trying. There is no glory in being average, and there is no shame in losing – as long as you understand why you lost and reassess. Actually, I believe there is plenty of glory in losing gracefully. But to be content with being average –  yuck.

To sum up one of my favourite quotes from one of my favourite movies: “If you’re not first, you’re last.” How true. No one ever remembers second place.

How does this help you in your finances?

Let’s use a story to demonstrate, since stories are great vehicles to both entertain and share knowledge at the same time. The lead characters in our story will be: Superstar Sandra, Average Andrew , and Dumb-shit Drew. Let’s say they all want to buy a new car, and they all make the same amount of annual income. Let’s take a look at how they seek to satisfy their wants:

Dumb-shit Drew has no savings in the bank, but he wants a new car NOW. He goes out to get financing, which his bank, Smart-Shit & Greedy Bank, happily provides. He buys the best and most expensive car he can afford.

Average Andrew has no savings in the bank, but he wants a new car NOW. He decides to save a little money to pay for a down-payment on a new lease, and goes out and picks up a mid range vehicle that has moderate performance, great mileage, and good reliability. Because of his ability to save some money, and his smart purchase, he can maintain his standard of living comfortably, and was able to make some short term sacrifices to satisfy a need, ie the need for a vehicle. He is comfortable with some pain for the sake of the big picture.

Superstar Sandra has no savings in the bank, but she wants a new car NOW. She is not average, and she is not afraid of sacrifice. She also wants the best of breed – not just any car. She demands it. She saves a lot longer than Average Andrew, because she is more committed to her vision. Because all 3 people make the same income, Sandra is forced to develop good spending habits and be mindful of leaks in her financial pipeline. She understands that a Strabucks a day will make it more difficult to get that new car. She is driven by unity of purpose, and she has no problem making the sacrifices that need to happen to get the job done. Like many athletes, she actually enjoys the pain and discomfort because in her twisted little mind, she associates pain with results. She knows scarcity breeds value, and her reward is a great car that she can afford. Chances are that she applies the same mentality to her job, and chances are that in 5 years her income will be significantly more than Average Andrew’s. She will also have nicer stuff, and she will be a stronger person.

These stories are not meant to be some sort of socio-economic commentary, they are just here to illustrate one simple concept: go out there and be the best you can be, or don’t go out there at all.

How to Beat The Hangover for The Rest of Your Life

Ok, Stop. Lets get it out of the way. If you are going to read this article and try and dissect it, disprove it, or over-think it, you will continue to suffer from your hangovers for the foreseeable future without and change. I need to ask you for some faith here. I need you to believe me that this can help you even before I show you how. You need to trust me, trust in the fact that I had 6 pints and 3 glasses of Scotch, (Talisker 10 year, if you must ask), went to bed sometime between 1.30am and 2.00am, and rolled out of bed at 5.40 am this morning, 20 minutes ahead of schedule. And I am likey going to do it all over again tonight.

Damn it feels good to beat the alarm clock.

Stupid alarm clock.

Always trying to tell me what to do and when to do it.

Sure, I’m 28 years old, and that definitely helps. But I wasn’t always like this when it came to hangovers. I used to really suffer. They used to inspire the fear of God in me. You see, I don’t know about you but I love to socialize and hang out. And when I socialize, I love to drink. I used to roll out of bed with the worst hangovers, head just pounding, and trudged along through my 9-5 routine just counting the seconds as they went by, one by one. God did they go by slowly. I could have sworn that if there was a Hell, I was already there. I bet you that the real Hell was like an eternity of being hung over as sh*t and forced to sit in a cubicle doing excel spreadsheets for a million hours, with no hope of being given any task that would be remotely engaging enough to take your mind off of your sorry-ass situation. Nope. Just a hung over little rat in a cage, doing data entry, ditch digging with your brain. Hung like a rat, if you will.

But I digress.

One more thing we should get out of the way. If you went out last night and did something extra silly like drink a litre of vodka, only one thing has the power to save you now and his name rhymes with Beezus. My little system doesn’t stand a chance against a litre of vodka. But, it will still help.

Beating a hangover is really a two pronged strategy – you have to win at the physical game, and you have to win at the mental game. I would say each play an equally important in role in your fight to regain normalcy.

Your physical game is going to be fairly simple and easy to execute. A hangover is for the most part your brain and your body being dehydrated. So drink a lot of water. Drink a glass of water with every alcoholic drink. It’s not the most efficient system since a lot of that water is going to get passed through your body, but hey. Also, its inefficient because now you are going to spend more time going to the bathroom, which takes away from your drinking time. Also keep drinking water all day long the day after to help speed recovery, even if you do not think you are thirsty.

The mental game is also quite simply in theory, but a little more challenging to execute. If you wake up and roll out of bed on the morning of your hangover and say “Oh great. I feel like crap, I can’t even remember how I got home, there is a pretty high likelihood I made some pretty bad decisions, plus I can’t wait to play detective d*ckweed and try and piece my night back together. Time to go through my blackberry and look at my outbound text messages from last night and do some damage control. This is going to be the worst day of my life.” If that’s what you say to yourself first thing, then you have already lost. You lost the mental game before you even stepped on the field.

The right mentality would be: “Yes I got hammed last night. Yes I am a bit hung. But today? Today is going to be different. Today, I am going into battle. It’s me vs. The Hangover. And guess what? I am going to beat this Hangover into submission, into nothing more than a little stinky brown stain on my little white undies. No, scratch that. When I am done, this hangover will be even less than that. It’s not even going to exist. I will not allow it the satisfaction of letting the outside world even acknowledge its existence. Except if there is a really really funny story attached to it, but that’s it. No moaning, no groaning, no whining and bitching.” If that’s what you say, and what you keep reminding yourself throughout the day, then you will have the mental game under control, and this will be reflected in how your brain processes the physical symptoms of your hangover.