Get Along Little Doggies! The Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup 

On Tuesday March 1st I set out to challenge myself to write 31 posts in 31 days.

The point of the exercise was to see if I could maximize my output with the tips I preach within the blog.

So far, the most difficult aspect has been deciding on the type of content to write and in what order.

With that in mind, Monday's will emphasize what has already been written. It's a roundup of all my articles the previous week here at http://david.writerlife.me

So, without further ado - here's the roundup for March 1-7.

Tuesday March 1 - How To Get S#!T Done!

It's all about the process and this post discusses my individual challenges about trying to write, and publish, multiple articles in a week.

In this post, I discuss the value of showing your work, as discussed by Austin Kleon in his book "Show Your Work"- a short, quick read that I have gotten into lately.

I used the image of a sausage maker for you, the reader, to grasp the analogy that it's all about the process and me showing you how I go about blogging.

Wednesday March 2 - How To Invert Your Publishing Calendar And Engage More Readers

This is the actual announcement that I'm on a 31 day publishing challenge.  I discuss why publishing the first two articles actually makes more sense.

By being out of sequence the idea was to generate some interest in the challenge by showing my process before announcing my publishing ambitions.

One caveat here: That announcing my goals is proven to actually limit the chances of success.  In the post I discuss (and link) an article that discusses the research behind it.  You can click (and link) to see the article, or click HERE.

Thursday March 3 - How To Make Your Success EPIC

Rarely do you hear someone say; "Man I enjoy being mediocre."  For those that do aspire for the average, this post isn't for them.

In it, the emphasis is by getting off your "duff" and do something.  Fear is for the timid.  Doing is for the brave.

Make It Epic

The point is, we learn more by doing than sitting on the sidelines and if you have something you want to accomplish, the only way to see it happen is to MAKE it happen.

Friday March 4 - The Myth Of Hyper-Productivity

Having just preached that you need to get off your butt and do something, along comes a contradictory warning about the dangers, and lies, of doing too much.

Everywhere we turn these days, we're inundated with the concept that success is by hustling more than others.

It's a myth that we developed as a society, one that is as antiquated as it is based on falsehoods.

There's plenty of research you can find that proves we need to rest as much as we are active, and productivity research shows that without periods of reset, we actually reach a point of diminishing returns much faster.

Good luck with running that marathon after going on a 100 mile bike-ride...

Saturday March 5 - The Executioner's Revenge (Part One)

In Part One of this two-part article, I lay out 4 necessary steps that will guarantee success for any goal, or objective, you set out to accomplish.

As we've discussed earlier, it's about the process that gives you the highest chance for success.

Phase 1 is to plan.  Plan as if you know every minor detail, every major hurdle that will come your way.  But know that there are going to be circumstances beyond your control.

Phase 2 is to take action.  You can kill yourself in the details, if you allow it.  But by taking action, often before you feel ready, you're going to learn what is, and is not, going to work for you.

Knowledge is experiential, and you can only learn by doing.

So sit down and make a plan.  Then get off the couch and get running, or jumping, or whatever.

But just get started on something.

Because it's all about phase 3 that is the most important factor to your success.

Why?




Sunday March 6 - The Executioner's Revenge PART TWO

In Part One of this two-part article, I lay out the need for planning and action as two of the four most important factors influencing whether you're successful or not.

In Part Two,  I discuss the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR toward your chance at success.

That deciding factor is: Recalibrate your self.

First, you planned. Next you acted.  But now you need to take stock of where you are, how far you've gone and what changes you need to make in order to create the clearest path to your goals.  If you're able to be flexible and reset your trajectory, you have the best chance for success.


So that's the week 1 round-up.  As Lloyd Christmas says in the movie Dumb and Dumber:

Knowing How To Execute Is The Most Important Factor Toward Your Success

The Executioner's Revenge Part Two

(To Read Part One - Just Click Anywhere On This Link)

There once was a famous football coach in the US.

He coached the Trojans of USC to some Rose Bowl victories and 4 National Championships (kinda big deal), but he grew bored with college, joined an expansion team in the National Football League in 1976.

When asked about the difference between College and the Pros, he was quoted as saying;

"I  don’t know what this pro football mystique is. I’ve gone to the pro camps. They throw the ball; they catch the ball. Many of them are ex-USC players. I’m not amazed at what they do. I’ve watched the pros play. They run traps; they pitch the ball, they sweep. What else is there?
- John McKay, in Sports Illustrated"

3) Evaluate And Rededicate

You set out to make some changes, to set some goals and accomplish them.

What you did so far is:

1) Make a plan

2) Set that plan in motion

And now things aren't where they should be. You aren't getting the results you wanted or expected.

After you take action, probably the most important step is to evaluate what has gone right and what went wrong.

It's this third phase that is perhaps the most important in determining your odds for success.

John McKay is instructive on the importance of evaluation.  He chose to deal with his team their struggles through humor.

That team? The hapless, bumbling Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Even though these were professional athletes in a professional league, they had some serious limitations.

Some of the players were over-the-hill and too old for peak performance.  Some were just not that talented and hence, why they were allowed to be exposed to an expansion draft in the first place.

Regardless, these were men who had played a sport at the highest collegiate levels; men who worked to perfect their craft over decades of repetition.  Yet they still were bad as a team.

Horrible even.

They set a record for single-season futility at 0-14 (losing every game) that lasted for over 32 years.



They also set a record for most consecutive losses between the 1976 and 1977 losing the next 10 games.

At the depths of it all, Coach John McKay was asked about how poorly his team had played and his reaction to their lackluster showing.


In a moment that is forever linked between what he should've filtered and absolute honesty, the coach was asked a series of questions culminating in one timeless exchange:

"Coach! What do you think about your offense's execution?"

At which he replied, "I'm in favor of it."

Some of his more notable quips included these classics:

After a lackluster defensive effort in a game with a lot of miscues:

Reporter: "Coach, what are your thoughts on those missed tackles?"

John McKay: "We didn't tackle well, but we made up for it by not blocking."

And

On the concept that a newly built team such as his expansion NFL Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the late '70's:

Reporter: "Coach how much does experience play into your lack of wins so far, and going into the upcoming season, how will your experience as a team effect this year's wins and losses?"

John McKay: "If you have everyone back from a team that lost ten games, experience isn't too important."

The point of these quotes from Coach McKay is that it doesn't matter your experience, or your game plan if you can't execute and evaluate your plan, it doesn't matter.

4) Recalibrate Your Trajectory And Blast Off

How you set out to plan is important.

More important is how you act once your plan is in motion.

Because for every plan you create, there are inevitable factors that create uncontrolled circumstances.

Things that you absolutely cannot plan for and things that cause you to be more flexible than you imagined.

As the Robert Burns poem - To A Mouse, On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With A Plough - warns the reader:

"...the best laid plans of mice and men, often go awry."

So in the end, you need to plan; do, evaluate and create new action from the original plan. There's always going to be some disruption to your goal.  But by knowing this ahead of time, you create a circular flow toward the most important factor toward your success:


Execution.

How Executing These 4 Steps Will Guarantee You Succeed At Anything

It's All About The Execution - The Executioner's Revenge Part One

(To read Part Two Click This Link)

Too often we think about the results of what we want, and get lost in the big picture.  It's often what is difference between our chance for success and the possibility of failure.

What separates the truly successful from those that get-by?

The successful know that the difference between success and failure is minute, but the minute details are what make the difference.



This post is a two-part discussion about the differences between success and failure and what is ultimately, the factor most important.

And that is the execution of a plan.

Bear with me.

This post is going to have plenty of sports metaphors - and will be published in two parts - but the point of the post is that the difference between success and failure is often one of execution.

Success and failure are often separated by mere inches, or seconds, in sports.

In life and business that line is one that is often times subjective.

It's subjective to an opinion of the audience and can shift just as a line is drawn in the sand -which, is why I don't like the term, line in the sand - if the wind blows, what then?

Success and failure are twins often separated by a razor fine line

Sure, if you're keeping score, the one with the highest score at the end is the winner.

Except in golf.  That s#!t's cray-cray.

The lowest score wins the hole, but it's kept track by the honor system.  When I hear people talk about their golf scores, their handicaps and how far they can drive the ball, a couple of thoughts come to mind.

1. I'm reminded of Mark Twain's quote; "Golf is a good walk ruined."
2. Regarding scorekeeping I think: "You walk around, often drinking, keeping score with a small pencil on a pad.  You keep your own score, and there isn't a judge or monitor to see you're recording it correctly.  And then I think if accountants were able to be this loose and free while drinking mind you, would you still hire them to do your taxes?
3. When they talk about their drive game, basically they are telling you they have advanced degrees in surveying.  How else can the professionals drive an average of 280+ yards, but any amateur is driving 285+ yards.  Then I wonder to myself, "wow - all these golfers are experts at determining distances, what did I miss in school that I can't tell 6 inches from half a foot?"
4. Once again I'm reminded of Mark Twain's quote; "Golf is a good walk ruined."  

It doesn't matter the strengths and weaknesses of the plan.

There are 4 stages of planning and most important, executing that plan that will dictate the best opportunity for success.

Those stages each feed on the other and if done properly, bring you full circle.

1) The Planning Stage: Think of all things that you want to accomplish.


2) The Doing Stage: Get out there and get started.


3) Evaluation Stage: Mistakes are made.  Things happen.


4) The Success Stage - Execution come full circle - You need to use the data from all three previous stages and get back to work on your path.

1) If You Plan For Success, You Succeed At Planning

Every plan has holes; every day has ups and downs.  In concept, it's the understanding of those fluctuations that make a plan an effective one.

While it's definitely important to make a plan, it's also crucial you act.

Think about everything you want to accomplish. What are some of the larger tasks?  Some of the smaller ones that may be lower hanging fruit - the tasks that may be easier to accomplish in shorter time and with less energy?

By planning ahead and thinking about all the potential hurdles that may get in the way, you have a better, more sure-footed path toward accomplishing your goals.


By acting on a plan, we discover where those pitfalls may be.

2) Get Off Your Butt And Get Doing

Discovering what works and what doesn't is the input you need before the evaluation phase of your plan.

It tells you whether or not your plan is on the right trajectory.

But you need to first do something to enact your plan before you can evaluate the data.

Because after you act on your plan, it's going to look a little, or a lot, different than you first began.

Knowledge is experiential.  That means that we learn by doing, not by thinking, reading and dreaming.  We are kinetic learners on a biological scale, we learn by doing.

It's the meat, the spices and casing of the sausage making process.

Like I wrote before, making sausage is about putting everything together, some things that may or may not appear to work together, but with proper testing and planning, you know are awesome fits.

After you get started, there's bound to be some bumps and bruises.  It's part of the learning process that is called trial and error. By doing, we're gaining data that allows us to properly set up our next course adjustments, which are the most important part of how you adapt your execution of your plan.

Above all else, adapting and recalibrating is the primary difference in determining your success and failure.


Part Two Of The Executioner's Revenge

The Myth Of Hyper-Productivity

What's Your Hustle

Everywhere you look these days, there's a glorification of busy.  From business leaders, entrepreneurs, athletes, politicians and more, the idea that working 24-7 is one that has run its course.

The problem isn't that being busy is a bad thing.

There are plenty of studies that claim we are better at managing our tasks and our time when it's more finite.

What we need to stop glorifying is the idea that we need to be constantly on the go, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365(+) days a year.

To paraphrase John Wooden, the famous UCLA basketball icon, we're confusing the idea of activity for accomplishment.

And that is at the risk of our success, and most importantly, our health.

It's A Lie The Puritans In Salem Tried To Sell Us

Piling on hours of work just to be busy doesn't guarantee we're accomplishing more.  Research shows that we are in fact, achieving a higher volume of lower quality.

No doubt it was once a great survival mechanism for the early settlers in New England, especially the Puritans.

Expelled from England, living in dire situations in the middle of brutal winters and with mortality rates being astronomical, it would make sense that someone would have to work constantly.

You had very little help.

But that was hundreds of years ago.

The Puritans definitely couldn't have imagined centralized air and heating, an iPhone much less the Internet or the current Presidential contests for that matter.

So why do we Americans uniquely obsess over a survival mechanism that is outdated as the New England Witch Trials?

If you don't know what the witch trials were, it was a test that was thought to prove whether a person was a witch/warlock or not.

If accused of witchcraft, a person was tied to a rock and thrown into a body of water.  If the person floats to the surface, they were "proven" to be a witch.  If they drowned, their innocence was proven.

Not much good that did for the innocent.

It's a fact that our attention spans are much shorter than we assume.  The Atlantic published an article that backs up the claim that our attention spans are finite and much less durable than previously believed.

The idea that you can work 12, 14, 16 hours a day and not have a point of diminishing returns is factually false.

In fact, working less, with much longer breaks in duration is a concept that is rightfully gaining a lot of steam.

Interval training for athletes with long breaks between performance is an area that has proven to be a strategy for peak performance and one that should - and hopefully may - be moved into the working world.

Again, the idea of those monster "all-nighters" to reach a point of maximal productivity is simply wrong.

It's actually a race to diminished returns.

Which is a great strategy for the makers of trolls. You know those little plastic toys with the whips hair that you could place on the tips of your pencils.

While it may be a great tactic if you need to build millions of little pencils with trolls on their erasure tips, it's not much help if you're trying to get something of value accomplished.

Again, thinking that being active is ideal for a lifestyle and goal achievement, being busy and always active is proven as to be not so great a tactic.

No, the key to being successful and happy is to focus on one task and to see it to completion.  Or concentrate on learning just one skill and see it to mastery.

Then and only then, is it best to move to a new task or skill.

How To Make Your Success EPIC

There's One Simple Thing You're Not Doing That's Limiting You From Achieving Your Goals

Become By Doing

Every musician knows that you don't get better at playing an instrument by just reading music.

Similarly, every basketball player knows that you can't improve your shooting in a game any better without getting off the bench.

Accomplishing a goal is no different.

The first thing you need to do is decide what you want to try to accomplish.

That's the dreamer part.

It's easy.

Everyone has dreams, ideas and "goals."

The hard part is setting in motion the things you need to do for the proper sequence to happen that will make you successful at your goal.

Especially if you don't know what to do in the first place.

Let's say you want to learn how to cook.  I mean really cook, like the chefs you see on TV.

When you think about what it takes to get there, what's the first thing you think you need?

An education?

That may help but doesn't guarantee that Rhubarb (gross and tart) and Strawberries (sweet and yum!) go together.

But they do.

Only by tasting the pairing of Rhubarb and Strawberries can you find out they actually complement each other.

You can study all you want, but without tasting the flavors together, you may try to add some citrus, or pepper, or something that may not work.

But how would you know if you didn't taste it?

Doing is how we learn.

You Want To Get Something Done?  Get Off Your Ass

As an athlete, nobody ever says, "Boy I hope I get some serious bench time in the game tonight."

The point of playing the game is to earn a chance to play.  It doesn't matter how often you've watched a drill or skill at practice until you've tried to master the task, you have no idea how to replicate it.

That's why many coaching and teaching methods emphasize a process of modeling.

First you explain an aspect of the overall task and challenge.

Next you demonstrate the skill.

Then you have the players/students work together on acquiring the technical components of the skill.

Finally, you examine the attempts, refine as necessary and re-demonstrate the skill before trying to work on it again.

The objective is to learn mastery of the skill before the competition and the only way you learn the steps necessary for mastery is by doing.

Acquiring better habits, learning new skills to accomplish your goals are all the same aspects of skill mastery.

It takes one direct action to learn a skill and build a better habit.  Repetition of those newly acquired tasks are the necessary building blocks of mastery.

If you want to master a new task, build better habits, or improve on something you already know, the only proven path is through action.

So get off the bench, get on your feet and get going.