Disney Employee Engagement Speaker
Five daily blogs about life's 5 big choices on five different sites.
When I came home last night from visiting Epcot at Walt Disney World, my Google Alerts captured this entry for Lane 8, from Finland Travel Vacations.
Watching that video made me want to share this one, a new world record, also shot in Lahti, Finland at last year’s WMA World Championships.
So the second week, I ran two mailboxes a day. Third week, three mailboxes a day.
Yes, many of you have heard this before. Which is one of the secrets to excellent results – repetition. Never get tired of doing the basic, common sense things.
Stories are critical to perpetuating past success and moving to even greater success. You already knew that right?
Eventually, the goals became impossible, but their pursuit was compelling.
What’s fascinating is how intense it was to rise to the level of representing the United States at the 2009 Master’s Track & Field World Championships, without anyone knowing.
Neighbors. Family. Work. Ten years. Ten years of dedicated, relentless effort.
Invisible to everyone around me. For a decade.
Now, neighbors know. And Family knows. Yet to this day, most where I work have no idea.
And so the question today is this, “What is your impossible goal and will you persue it without any fanfare or glory, but just for the sake that it’s a noble goal?”
Let’s shake it up a little bit today. You good with that? Good. Let’s go back to this past summer.
Here’s the scene. Early August, 2009. Sunny, clear, 70 degrees.
Finland.
Master’s Track & Field 2009 World Championships. Men’s 400 meters, 70-74 year old age group.
Enter a German man.
Click here to see the secret this “old man” reveals about getting and staying healthy.
PS. If you are too busy to follow this and invest two more minutes, please go look in the mirror and say something like, “I really do want to get healthy and stay healthy, but I just really don’t want to work very hard at it.”
Lane 8 business cards have a unique beginning.
Do you have interesting stories about important moments in your life?
If so, then you realize that if we don’t find a way to capture that moment, it will disappear and be forever lost.
Great companies do this. Great Countries do this. Great religions do this. Holidays, milestones, traditions.
Three days before flying to Helsinki, Finland, it dawned on me that there were going to be 5,300 athletes from 80 countries and untold spectators. I needed business cards. Lots of business cards.
“Okay, you don’t have much time”, I said in a panic. “But you do have an enormous opportunity.”
I cut out a handful of business card size pieces of card stock (my wife always has stuff like this on hand).
In only three tries, I had what I wanted.
My wife commented that even the edges I had drawn weren’t straight. “Perfect“, I said.
Two days before the leaving the United States, I asked Kinkos/FedEx how much for 1,000 or 3,000 cards. And then I said, “How much for 5,000?”
The rest, as they say, is history.
What can we learn from defeat, loss, failure?
Many things to be sure. But only if we try hard to learn from setback. And only if we listen. And only if we then try again.
Are you listening? And I don’t mean, “Sleigh bells ring, are you listening”.
I mean, are you the kind of person that will pick yourself up after you fall?
Are you the type of person that finds a million ways to stay motivated?
You see, getting motivated is one thing. What makes winners is staying motivated.
Oh wait, you want to tell me something, right?
Okay, go ahead.
“Jeff, you don’t understand, my life is hard. It’s very difficult.”
Here’s a Christmas gift for you, and it is given with the most hopeful and sincere intent – “No one has it easy. Period. End of story.”
This may scare some people off, and I would hate to see that happen, but I can’t allow myself to make excuses.
How can I teach our son (9), that it’s okay to make excuses?