Vince Poscente's Speed Blog

Better With More - or Less

Where did the term, rule of thumb come from? Why not just call it a rule? Or thumb to live by is kinda catchy. Here’s a thumb to live by – When traveling with buddies, pick the lesser of two eeeeechs. Another? The best short cuts take the long way around. Finally. Know when to quit.

 
1st Thumb to live by: Pick the lesser of two eeeeechs. Some people do their best thinking in the shower. Recently, the notable cerebral gymnastics happened after the shower. In fairness to our host, he did say, “Bring your own towel since none were at the ranch.” Correction, there was one towel. A luxurious, plush, bathroom hand towel. Perfect for an Oompa Loompa.

Traveling to a south Texas for a guy’s trip, none of us remembered our “bring a towel” suggestion. Combine that with the Darwinian, competitive nature of dudes relative to drying off with a used towel – you’ve got a formula for eeeeech.

With the shower turned off, the mind kicked on. “Okay, this used towel’s the size of a Chili’s menu. Where exactly has it been? Chances are most of said towellette’s real estate visited nether regions of the previous guy… eeeeech. Drip dry? Sure. Shake a leg. Then the other. Use hand to squeegee water back into tub. Not enough. How about - college hazing romp through the ranch house to do the ol’ commando air dry? No. Too weird. Bingo. Do T-shirt towel-off. Better to mitigate the effects of a shower with your own dirty T-shirt than a used Willy Wonka staff lounge towel.”

2^nd Thumb: The best short cuts take the long way around. Figuring out what it takes to win is a constant pursuit for anyone chasing higher ground. The short cut is; you get better results with more up-front effort.

David Sedaris’ brain doesn’t work like normal humans. His writing is offbeat and clever. He can morph any situation into a twist on rational thought. An interesting tidbit surfaced from Sedaris’ Chipmunk Seeks Squirrel promotional interview. For this latest book, he wrote 25 stories then took the very best 10.

Flashback to a comment in the Music World Entertainment studios where Beyoncé recorded her music. COO John Cawley said she recorded 32 songs to come up with the 12 best selections.

From these two examples you can interpret a 2.5 to 1 formula for excellence. If you’re single, you need to date at least three people to come up with one keeper. (Save time. Date all three at once.) Have kids? Odds are one will delight while the other couple require unconditional love. If you’re hiring a contractor, interview two and a half (which one the half is will be abundantly obvious). If you’re writing a proposal, take at least two or three shots at it and pick the best one. (Your competition will only write one.)

Opposing Digit 2.5: Know when to quit.

Leave Button Pressing to the Pros

The quickest way to agitate someone is to press his buttons. It’s hard to tell if a sibling, spouse or roommate does it to hurt, out of habit or for the pure sport of it all. I can say for sure, when someone near me (hypothetically speaking, let’s say my wife) presses my buttons, I get worked up. (Followed by a retreat where I fantasize about all the comebacks I should have said. For example: “I know you are. So what am I?” or “Oh ya, Miss Poopy Pants” or the ‘lpblpbslpbslpbslpbs’ raspberry accompanied by the international sign for donkey ears. 

In the great game of hockey, the term for the button pressers is “the Agitator.” Hockey (did I mention it’s a great game?) has role players: Goal Scorers, Enforcers, Grinders and Agitators. Each role helps the team win. Rough up a Goal Scorer and the Enforcer will pull your jersey over your head then relocate your nose with his fist. Grinders get the puck to the Goal Scorers. Agitators focus their attention on buttons - buttons on the opposing players – especially Gold Scorers.

 
Some Agitators take their role seriously. They want to get under your skin. Kenny Linesman from Boston then the Oilers’ glory days in the ‘70s and 80s was nicknamed The Rat. Claude Lemieux, who just retired, was nicknamed Pepe, as in Pepe LePew. One of the foremost agitators in the NHL today is Dallas’ Steve Ott (nicknamed Otter). Media have anointed Ott with a slogan, “Simply the Pest.

Ott realized early in his career a sharp tongue can rile up another team. In preparation for the 2001 World Juniors he learned insults in several languages. "I got in a little scrap with a Russian kid and he was just yelling in Russian, and I had no clue what he was saying, and he had no clue what I was saying," Ott said. "So I asked around, talked to some friends and found out a few things to say in other languages."

Today, Ott specializes in Finnish phrases. Recently he wanted to learn, "I'm going to come at you like a spider monkey," from the movie Talladega Nights. Now, if I said that to you, “Aion tulla milloin haluat hämähäkki apina,” you’d likely think I had a Cheeto stuck in my throat. But if you’re Finnish I might sufficiently take you off your game.

The bottom line is this. If you get paid to press buttons, then be the best gosh-darn Agitator you can be. Prepare with the verve of Steve Ott and you will instantly help your team.

Conversely, if you instinctively button-press, a talent perfected by some (like this friend of mine’s wife has where it really, really annoys him – which makes my friend mention it in passive aggressive ways), then hopefully you’d rethink your motivation. Otherwise you could end up hearing the comeback, “Aion tulla milloin haluat hämähäkki apina - lpblpbslpbslpbslpbs!”

Better Decision Making

We tend to go through life assuming we will make good decisions in our future. Yet, the quality decisions you make in the future will likely be similar to the quality of decisions you've made in the past. List the defining moments from your past and you will see the "decision making habits" you have formed over the years. Recognizing these habits allows you to choose the quality of decisions you will make in the future. Here is a Keynote Quickie from Vince Poscente's Down to BUSINESS, Up to SPEED http://www.vinceposcente.com

Whack a Mole Parenting

Parenting feels like a game of Whack a Mole but you’re in a sleep-deprived, warped dimension where you are the Mole and the Whacker at the same time.

One requirement on the Parenting Curriculum Vitae is disciplining. As you try to administer punishment you never know if you’re flailing or failing. We discipline to teach the concept of consequence. How can you expect your child to be ready to leave home after 18 years if the kid doesn’t understand the concept of cause and effect? So we play Whack a Mole with best-guess parenting.

Last year, teachers informed us our son was out of line and rightfully looked at us to solve “the problem.” So we took away Max’s band for six weeks. He had gigs and practices. Our intention: teach him the concept of consequence. You step out of line you get punished. The problem was we beat him down more than the teachers were already doing five days a week. Max was miserable.

Amidst our Whack A Mole parenting we sought the advice from Candace Fitzpatrick, President of Core Clarity. Candace knows a lot about helping children and teachers maximize the strengths of students for measurable benefits in the classroom. When we shared our strategy with her, we expected the same response we got from all parents we told. (Parents do this when they get together. They talk about their kids to the point of hives, uncontrollable twitching and medical attention.) The universal response was always, “Good for you. It’s hard to punish your kid but you have to do it. I bet he sure learned his lesson.”

Yet Candace said immediately, “That was a mistake. What you did was take away something that gave him joy and energy. This creates less enthusiasm and more problems.” She was right. Our punishment didn’t solve anything. It wasn’t until months later we discovered Max had dyslexia and was acting-out from frustration. This year we moved him to a school for children with learning differences.

The joy and enthusiasm is back. But he’s still a kid with lapses in good judgment. Recently we found out he was signing my name on homework sheets instead of proper authorization. Meanwhile his marks were suffering and Max was just getting by. We needed to punish him but Candace’s advice was not lost on us.

This time the six-week punishment involved two things. In his room by 8:30 pm. (Max loves to stay up late.) And his cell phone charges in the mudroom. (Eliminating interruptions or texting distractions at night.)

The net effect? Max gets more sleep. His “punishment” is over but his marks have gone up and his level of joy and enthusiasm is even higher. We asked Max if he thought continuing the curfew was a good idea and he did.

So in the world of good parenting I guess we can “whack a mole” every once in a while.

Respond - Win. React - Lose.

I first noticed the respond vs. react juxtaposition in an Aikido class. Lynn Sensei kept saying, you must respond, not react.

When you flinch, recoil or push back you’ve reacted. Do this and you’ve lost control. Yet if you step off the line, keep your extension and blend with the energy you’ve responded and maintained control.

 In an unstable economy companies make decision to either react or respond. Reacting by canceling a meeting might seem like control but it sends the exact opposite message. The organization’s shift to panic mode with sweeping budget cuts leaves a damaging effect. Companies canceling meetings is a huge mistake!

It’s better to respond. Economize the budget but maintain control. Bring your team together under more austere terms and motivate them to rally around the challenge. Lead by example. Prove that you are in control and responding to the situation.

We face choices of reacting or responding everyday.

Look at leaders, teachers, customer service representatives, parents, teenagers, spouses, newspaper editors - anyone with a pulse. Evidence of reacting versus responding is quickly evident.

One time I was speaking to a group and there was an interpreter for the handful of hearing impaired people in the hall. If you’re hearing impaired… FOR THE HEARING IMPAIRED. (sorry, couldn’t help it…) She was lower and off to my right, yet still visible to all 1,000 people in the room.

For some speakers this might be distracting. A reaction would be to move further away on the platform or comment on how distracted you are.

As you know, my filterless dorkiness is always waiting for a chance to jump in and play. In mid sentence I turned to the interpreter and said, “Shmur, shmur, shmur.” The interpreter stared straight ahead and made a rubbing action with her hands.

I jumped in and said, “Cool, this means shmur.” Then I said, “Oogada boogada.”

All eyes shifted to the interpreter who continued to stare straight. She then proceeded to hold her index finger towards the right side of her head and rotate said finger in a clockwise fashion (a.k.a. the international sign for cuckoo). She glanced sideways with a knowing grin.

The place erupted in laughter. The playful interchange was a dance of responding as opposed to a reactionary tussle. She stepped off the line, blended with the energy and continued on with her job.

What stuff in your organization or personal life is pushing you to react? Take a moment to think of a response that keeps you in control of the situation.

Response keeps the pace up. Reaction grinds things down to an agonizing stop.

When you respond you win. When you react you lose.

This blog is posted for those of you who want to react or respond.

Inter - ruption

There’s a reasonable chance that before you finish this article (in 70 seconds from now) you will be interrupted. Although we have found our way to tolerate interruptions, I believe…

Hold on.

My text message just dinged. It’s my buddy with Cowboys tickets for next Sunday.

I’m back.

 A recent study found; people get interrupted every eight minutes. In another study specific to task interruptions, people were interrupted on average 11 minutes into a task. They were able to get back on task 30 minutes later, if at all. Translation: you and I are interrupted about 50 times per day. That means that you…

Hold on, it’s the home phone.

It’s Nordstrom’s make-up counter calling to tell my wife the new Lancôme night cream is in. FABULOUS!

I’m yours again. Where was I?

Oh yeah, interruptions are slowing us down. This is not news but it seems to be largely ignored in our world today. We allow the interruptions and somehow, at the end of a day, wonder why we are so exhausted while feeling like we accomplished less than we should have.

Interruptions last five minutes in a typical day. If you do the math, that’s up to four hours or 50% of every workday. But get this, researchers found that 80% of interruptions were rated as “little or no value.” We’re being sucked into the black hole of interruptions and we don’t even know it.

If there’s one thing that…

Hold on. My daughter needs help on scanning a photo.

I’m back.

I forget the “one thing” I was going to say, but I bet it was good.

Anyway, if you add up all the little or no value interruptions, we have about three hours of every workday wasted. (The phone just rang, I’m ignoring it).

This means that every person wastes about 744 hours every year on interruptions.

Multiply this by the number of people that you work in your company.

10 employees = 7,440 hours wasted.
100 employees = 74,400 hours down the drain.
1,000 employees = 744,000 hours in the “little or no value” abyss.
10,000 employees = 7,440,000 hours of a major corporate disease.

Interruptions are a drag. They are a drag on execution, efficiency, productivity and even mental health. Get this; frequent email interruptions cause a drop in IQ two and a half times greater than the drop in IQ from smoking marijuana. You know it’s bad when HR breaks out the bong.

Listen; before I get interrupted again, the point is to take control of your time. Happiness in the Age of Speed has a lot to do with how you manage interruptions. Turn the email dinger off your PDA and computer. Turn off your cell phone while you are supposed to be present with that person sitting across from you or talking with in your car. Improve one thing each day until I visit your email box next week.

Whew, we made it without one last interrup… RING, RING.

Flinchlessness - Mental Toughness in Sales and Life

You flinch… you lose.

Imagine skiing at over 130 mph and you catch an edge. One instinctive flinch to catch your balance and you lose any chance at winning the race.  The challenge is overcoming the protective instinct to throw your hands out for balance while maintaining stability and maintaining your line.

In a sale, negotiation or even a debate, flinch and you lose ground.  In a world of incredible speed the lost ground might be too much to recover from.

Imagine you are a sales person selling a high-ticket product and the prospect questions your intentions. Picture negotiating a deal where the other side gets the notion you might settle for less. Suppose you are debating a point and you pause with a wide-eyed blink at a critical point. In any of these three situations a shrewd challenger will likely counter punch with his agenda.

How then do you overcome instinct and not flinch?

Think of something in your job or life where you would benefit from not flinching. There are three approaches that can assist in your quest for flinchlessness:

1. Expand your risk tolerance – When speed skiing it was clear that being mentally tough would translate into better results. Overcoming the instinct to flinch on the racecourse could be prepared for in unconventional ways.

On my non-speed skiing days I would take to the slopes on short, flexible slalom skis at high speed. Skis made for slower finesse turns would become chaotic boards akin to squirrels on crack. I would train my body to relax while the skis drastically shot every which way.

In the summer I would rocket down rocky slopes on my mountain bike. Instead of putting a death grip on my handlebars I would teach my nervous system to relax and let the bike bounce and shimmy underneath me.

Expand your risk tolerance by putting yourself in higher risk situations.

2. Anticipate problems – Before your sale, negotiation or debate, anticipate inflection points, objections or problem areas. By simply being aware of what might happen during real time speed, you can get the feeling “Hot dog, everything is going as planned.” as opposed to “Oh crap, now what do I do?”

3. Breath deeply – Use simple physiology to your advantage.  Oxygenate that five inches between your ears. There’s a part of the brain called the amygdala and it is triggered into fight or flight with shallow breathing. Fight of flight is an instinctual stress response. If you hand over your reactions to instinct, get ready to flinch. Stay calm and flinchlessness is yours. So breath deep before and during your sale, negotiation or debate.

Now get out there and conquer the flinch.

A Fun Look at eMail and Mental Health

If you send excessive emails and texts, you may have a mental illness. According to study in the American Journal of Psychiatry, addiction to texting and emailing could be another form of mental sickness.

Dr Jerald Block, the author of this study, states there are four indicators of this kind of addiction:

1. Withdraw symptoms if a computer cannot be accessed. Which I would think is followed by howling at the moon and delusions of all buttons being “send/recieve” buttons.
2. An increased need for better equipment. No comment.
3. An intense need for more time to text or email. If it feels like your life is similar to the maniacal flurry of a Nascar pit crew, you’ve got a problem.
4. And, experiencing the negative repercussions of your addiction. Repercussions like skipping bathing for a week or two, channeling Bill Gates or phantom vibrations in your pocket every 3.2 seconds.

Instead of expensive medication, hours of psychotherapy or a lifetime of twelve step meetings, (“Hi, I’m Vince and I’m an email-aholic. Hi Vince!”) let’s find the solutions on our own.

First, recognize that the gadgets and computers that you hold so dear are designed to work for you not control you. This may sound simple but rethink the purpose of your Blackberry. It is designed to save you time. Emails were invented to improve connectivity. If you feel a disintegration of your time or the value of connectivity you must take steps to get back to basics.

Second, as the saying goes, Tony Roma’s wasn’t built in a day. Undoing years of disintegration is a process. Reverse your addiction one step at a time. The cornerstone of AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) is, “One day at a time.” (Not to be confused with the other AA - American Airlines. Theirs is, “One delay at a time.”)

Third, seek an outside perspective. Ask friends and family to keep you accountable. If you slip and need to sneak a gadget peak at a movie, show or child’s play, give them license to remind you of your commitment.

The Age of Speed is about managing our time for the significant things in life.

If you have read this far and don’t feel you have an issue. Remember that denial is the first sign of a problem ;-)

Endless Happiness is Dangerous and Boring - Happiness vs Fullfillment

How’s that for an attention grabber? Dr. Eric Wilson in his book Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy concludes “happy types” that run from sorrow are cheating themselves from a richer, more creative life.

Dr. Wilson states, “I really feel strongly that Americans’ addiction to happiness is dangerous. In some ways it’s leading to a kind of superficiality and vapidity that cuts away a lot of creativity.”

Years ago I had the chance to hear Tony Campolo speak in his home city, Philadelphia. As a Caucasian Pastor in a predominantly African American congregation he was a dude that was bound to have a unique perspective. As an aside, he ended up being the “expert” who counseled Bill Clinton in the aftermath of his Monica scandal. (Wouldn’t you have loved to be a fly on the wall for that conversation? Well Tony I really don’t know why I did what I did. -- Well Bill, I’d say President Johnson doesn’t need to be making any more executive decisions for starters.)

Let’s get back on track. The thing that caught my attention in Campolo’s speech was when he asked everyone, “Parents, what do you want your kids to be?”  In a chorus of agreement, one word was fed back in remarkable unison. “Happy!”

“Happy?” he said. “No, it’s not happy. You can take a pill and be happy. Happy is something of a temporary state. It’s fulfilled. We want our kids to be fulfilled.”

Dr. Wilson’s point is congruent. He feels “standing against happiness” opens the door to for joy. Joy grows out of melancholy whereas happiness is a cursory state. The polarity of joy and sorrow, to Dr. Wilson, is a more complete, authentic human experience. Just as the natural interplay between opposites of day and night and up and down.

Seeking fulfillment in our fast paced world can be challenging. The Age of Speed has us looking for quick fixes. But let’s not be so swift that we vilify instant gratification. If something can improve your experience of life then it can be a good thing.

Consider the BlackBerry for example. The seeming addiction some people have to their PDA can be downright destructive. “Hey, we’re having lunch here. Do you think you could put the CrackBerry away for 30 minutes?’ But, if it’s used in another scenario to allow more time for the significant things in life, it’s a positive tool.

The idea behind pushing against happiness has to do with the broader pursuit of a deeper, richer and more vital life. Being fulfilled truly is the higher order of the human condition.

Zipping past sadness with a pill or the amazingly effective Hagen Daaz coffee ice cream can be a temporary solution. The lure of a beeping email or a frisky intern can be addictive distractions. Dear reader, a full life is not for the timid.

The valuable alternative is to fully engage, embrace and harness those pesky melancholic moments on a path to greater fulfillment and joy.

Which would you rather be? Happy or fulfilled?

Finding Clarity in the Backyard - Life Balance in the Balance

Most of us are looking for ways to find more balance and less busyness in a society that has its foot firmly planted on the accelerator. It’s like my not-so-eloquent buddy says, “I’m busier than a one armed cab driver with crabs.”

My wife and I have jobs that more than fill our days. Our kids are 10, 9 and 7 and they have their weekly commitments with school, sports, music and their friends. Pile on the list of things necessary to sustain our busy gaggle and you’d think there’s no time to think, let alone relax.

Down time is not only precious it is essential. That’s why we have a household VP of Operations named Mary. More about Mary later.

If you were a subscriber 18 months ago you will remember that I was particularly proud of my backyard creation; a 26-foot cascading stone creek and picturesque pond. The adjacent fire pit makes for a serene spot amongst the trees in our backyard.

After my wife and I put the kids to bed I pop out to the fire pit, sit in a rocking chair, take a deep breath and listen to the sound of the running water. Some might think it’s an escape from any number of the honey-do’s that could be delivered on a scroll across the room like a runaway roll of paper towels. I like to think of it as a chance to find clarity without an agenda. Pure downtime.

So there I was in the backyard, either hiding from honey-do’s or looking for clarity, and it occurred to me how we have come to rely on the people that give us the luxury of this kind of freedom.

Instead of spending a few hours each day cleaning, doing laundry, getting meals ready, shopping and picking the kids up from school we hired Mary as our household manager. The pay we offer Mary more than offsets the value of the extra time to hang with the kids, go on a date with my wife or escape to the creek.

Help like this used to be the exclusive domain of old-money families. According to a 2006 US Census, there were over two million people making in excess of $250,000 per year. This is almost twice the number just five years prior. This rise in family income overlaps with an apparent surge in our ability to fit more life in the same period of time.

In the Age of Speed look for trusted destinations, like Mary, to shift a frenetic existence into a life of more balance and less busyness.

There you go. That’s what occurred to me in the backyard the other night. A little clarity and no honey-do’s thank you very much.