Working a Straight Line to Success

This is going to be a short post, but one I believe is super-import to anyone's success.   Once again, it stars one of my favorite fitness, Internet and business gurus, Bedros Keuilian.

If you'll take a look at the title, notice the "straight line" part.  Ya, that's the gist of Bedros' talk, suggesting that if we work on that straight line, we're going to reach our goal faster than any other way.

Now, I spliced together the following video from Keuilian's longer one (provided at the end).  Have a listen to Bedros, and I'll catch you on the other side...

Do you get that straight line concept?  Ya, I'm sure you do.  It's pure common sense.  I hope you also noticed those hills and dales Bedros drew up and down along the line, as he suggested the potential for a lot of things that can drag you (or me) off course.  

In fact, that whole discussion should remind you of an earlier post of mine, that entitled "Dealing with Bumps in the Road".  In it, if you'll recall, there was a similar sketch, that showing a straight, upward forward line and a whole bunch of those bumps in the road...

As I was listening to Bedros, I was reminded of some experiences from when I was an older teen -- 19, I think.  I was playing semi-pro football at the time, and I'd struggled for my last few years of high school attempting to put on more strength and weight.  My struggles mirrored Bedros's presentation, though, as I tried this lifting program and that one, this and that diet, and every exercise you can imagine.  Yup, I was jumping around with no real direction, and going everywhere but on a straight line.  Suddenly, something struck me...  What if I settled on the best training program I knew, and just stuck with it for 90-days?  That was the promise several programs had made, ya know:  "Stick with this and you'll experience miracles in just 90-days!"  So, I picked a program -- I just trusted it for 90-days, and went from 140- to 180-pounds in that span.  Amazing it was, but it was also just a matter of staying as close to ye olde straight line as possible.

This aside...  My dad had helped me build the start of my own home gym back then, that to include a basic weight set and a safety rack (for safety, and for working out alone).  As for doing heavier and heavier lifts, I found myself spending a good part of my paycheck on extra plates every few weeks. I tell this short tale to suggest that it was far easier for me to do my lifting at home, and not have to spend an extra hour or so per day traveling to an outside gym, and waiting in line for some machine or weight station.

My strength gains were also a matter of saying, "No," too..  I mean, everyone knew that I wasn't doing anything else until my workout was finished, and that went for a girlfriend who eventually learned to be very understanding.

Actually, I'm betting that most folks who read this have had their own straight line experiences, and maybe also dealt with some distractions or bumps in the road.  It's all common sense, though -- isn't it?

So is that thing about learning to say, "No!"  As I've mentioned in a few other posts, I'm frequently asked by family and friends to do this and do that when I'm in the middle of a project, and I've only recently gotten into the habit of sticking to my guns.

Then, one last thing...  I'm going to suggest that working the straight line can even overcome some wrong moves.  In other words, I'm guessing that the strength program I chose wasn't the best one out there.  Yet sticking to it -- or maybe sticking to any strength program for the prescribed amount of time -- was going to get me some pretty good results.  And, I'm further guessing that the same goes for the route we take in business -- or doing anything else.  Sure, there have to be better ways, but perhaps sticking with something we truly believe in -- sticking with it and sticking with it -- is going to also achieve the results we want. 

Lastly, if you have kids, I wonder if this might be a good principle to share with them.  I tend to think so.

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For some interesting reading, I recommend an article I did long ago for CoachChic.com, where I describe breaking skills (and other tasks) into small, do-able steps:  "The Best Advice I Could Ever Share"

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Here's that full-length video I promised.  And, if you like Bedros Keuilian, you might click through to his YouTube.com channel where you can discover a lot more...

A Challenge: For Life Beyond Limits

This post is a quickie, and maybe not appropriate to everyone -- except if one wants to truly reach the heights in whatever he or she does, or wants to ultimately do.

With that, here's an awesome video by Dr. Sanjay Gupta, talking about "Life Beyond Limits"...

I hope it didn't go unnoticed what Dr. Gupta said about "what makes these people the best..."  I mean, he said that they weren't necessarily genetically different -- like the biggest or strongest, but the common trait among them was "pure determination".

With that, I also hope readers are familiar with Malcolm Gladwell, Dan Coyle, and a number of others who in recent times have echoed Gupta's feelings (or actually led that parade).

In his book entitled Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell describes how it takes roughly ten thousand hours of practice to achieve mastery in a given field. How did he arrive at such a conclusion? Gladwell studied the lives of numerous extremely successful people to find out how they achieved success.  Along the way, he discovered a lessened significance of genetics, and instead the importance of working at ones craft.  Thus his claim that putting in something on the order of 10,000 hours of deliberate practice towards a goal would ultimately outweigh any God-given talents.  (Every time I think about that theory, it reminds me that there are some potential Mensa Society members sleeping on park benches tonight, while quite a few Ordinary Joes (or Janes) are leading extraordinary lives due to good, old fashion elbow-grease.)

So, if you happen to run across the phrase "nature versus nurture", you should henceforth know that "nature = genetics, and nurture = deliberate practice".

Dr Gupta goes on to suggest that willpower is a major trait among those he studied -- and again, I'll suggest that goes hand in hand with the beliefs of Gladwell, et al.

Roger Bannister

I also love it that the good doctor described how the athletes he studied kept telling themselves that, "I can do it.  I can do it."  Ya, and that brings to mind the story about the 4-minute mile...  For, there was a time in sport history when it was believed that no one would ever run the mile in less than 4-minutes.  In fact, the fear was that a human might come to some harm by attempting such a pace.  The comical part of that story?  Once Roger Bannister did just that -- running a sub-4-minute mile, everyone else on the planet started believing it could be done, and they dawgone did it!

If there was something surprising to me in Gupta's presentation, it was that most athletes told him they strove for special goals for themselves, and not for the recognition.  I loved his explanation, though, in that they liked to compete against themselves.

In closing, Gupta emphasizes in the end how impressed -- or how inspired -- he and others working on that project were.  So, if there's a take-away for my readers, it's that "we are capable" of doing some things that almost seem unattainable.  Or, as he suggests, we might all have the ability for "making the impossible the possible."

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Unfortunately, I haven't found access to the actual CNN program that must have aired by now.  If a reader finds such, however, I'd love to know.

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Hey, if you're into podcasts, I'd love hockey folks to stop by my new site, the Hockey Secrets Podcast.  If nothing else, you'll get to hear me speak "Boston-ese".  :)