Big Brother

Most of us have read the literary masterpiece, 1984 by George Orwells. The book was published in 1949 and “focused on a repressive, totalitarian regime”. The novel symbolizes the way in which governments surveillance's and encroaches on the rights of individuals. The term ‘Big Brother” was where this ideology was first heard, “Big Brother is watching you.” In the story, these words dominated the lives of the characters, as well as two-way television (the telescreen) encroached on the private and public spaces of the city.

This past week, I visited the infamous Las Vegas. This city is a draw dropping spectacle in every shape and form. The hotels are humongous with mini cities inside each hotel, thousands of restaurants, amazing performing acrobatics shows, concerts, and money being spent at every hour of the day.

Las Vegas is a place that everyone should see at least once, however, I honestly had the feeling that I was under the “Big Brother” ideology like the 1984 novel. There are no clocks anywhere, making us not realize the idea of time so we would spend more time in the casinos. There are no seats besides the ones in the restaurant, by a slot machine or gambling table. At the end of the trip when I had seen pretty much all of the main spots on the Vegas a strip, I truly just wanted to sit outside in the sunshine and read a book, but there was not a place to sit outside and only one or two restaurants that I saw that had seating outside. It felt like I was forced to go inside and spend money, either sitting in a restaurant buying a drink or in the casino. Another example is that they were hardly any windows, the hotels are so big with much to see inside the hotel that if you did not wonder outside you might never know what type of day it was.

The Big Brother ideology behind Vegas is to spend money and they do that by not giving anything away for free. Personally there were two big things that got to me. Firstly, the lack of a coffee machines in the room. I love to have a cup of tea in the morning and I had specifically brought tea bags to boil water and have a cup of tea. However, I had to wonder down through the casino to a coffee shop to get a cup of tea. Secondly, the hotel we were staying at did not have an exercise gym, you had to go and pay $25-$40 to use the spa’s exercise room. In other places around the world, hotels you stay out which are half the price of the Las Vegas rooms will have an equipment room. These little things that we take for granted at other hotels in the world were not available in these hotels.

I was truly amazed on how influenced Las Vegas is. I enjoyed the whole spectacle behind the different themed hotels, the amazing shows, the different restaurants and the numerous amount of shops. However if you are not careful you will be influenced by the Big Brother to spend more money than you perhaps bargain for.

Negative Self-Talk

Researchers estimate that it’s necessary for the ratio of positive-to-negative comments to be at least five to one for a relationship to be healthy and survive long-term. For these reasons, we’re taught not to let others put us down, but sometimes the person eroding our sense of self-worth and limiting our potential is us! That’s right, our self talk, or the words our inner dialogue uses when we think, can increase our stress levels, limit our potential, and color our experience with a negative pen.

Self-Limitation: If you say "I can’t handle this", you more likely can’t. This is because your subconscious mind tends to believe the thoughts it hears. You can limit your abilities by telling yourself you "can’t", that "this is too hard" or that you ‘shouldn’t even try’.

Limited Thinking: When you tell yourself you can’t handle something (or some other self-limiting thought), you tend to stop looking for solutions. For example, notice the difference between telling yourself you can’t handle something and asking yourself how you will handle something. Doesn’t the second thought feel more hopeful and produce more creativity? Negative self talk tends to be a self-fulfilling prophecy!

Change Self-Limiting Statements to Questions: Self-limiting statements like “I can’t handle this!” or “This is impossible!” are particularly damaging because they increase your stress in a given situation and they stop you from searching for solutions. The next time you find yourself thinking something that limits the possibilities of a given situation, turn it into a question. Doesn’t “How can I handle this?” or “How is this possible?” sound more hopeful and open up your imagination to new possibilities?

Ignorance Isn't Bliss

Everyone has the impression that they're relatively well informed. You would be very hard pressed to find somebody who would openly admit to being flat out ignorant when it comes to any issue. But let's face it... there are many ignorant people out there and there are situations in which we're all guilty. With the state of the world economy it is no secret that we should all be more cautious when it comes to spending and that we should all have a safety net for volatile times. It is also becoming ever more important to be well informed, to pay attention to your money and to continually ask yourself: "In this particular situation, do I really know what's going on"?

Upton Sinclair once proclaimed,

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it".

Allow me to put this into context and explain why I feel that we should all establish this as a mantra. Businesses survive by making money which requires spending on the part of consumers. Now I am by no means insinuating that the majority of people have greedy and malicious intentions. But I do feel that there are situations where the consumer is persuaded into believing that they need a product or service when it is in fact superfluous. In this case the consumer would have to be considered uninformed (or ignorant). Consider the following examples:

• Dentist appointment: "You need your wisdom teeth out for precautionary reasons".
• Visit with the mechanic: "While under the hood you should get the water pump replaced as well".
• Buying a new house: "Opt for the mortgage plan with 0% down. What a great opportunity".
• Meeting with the stock broker: "This is the investment you're looking for. Move in all your chips".
• Doctor appointment: "We should put you on this prescription, just in case".

It is imperative to scrutinize each and every situation that requires you to spend money and ask "Why am I being told to do this"? The answer likely falls in one of the following categories:

• It is 0% for your well-being and 100% for their pocket.
• It is 50% for your well-being and 50% for their pocket.
• It is 100% for your well-being and you truly need the commodity. It is worth spending your hard earned money.

Clearly it is ideal to maximize the number of decisions reflecting the latter. Unfortunately it is unrealistic to be informed on all fronts; we can't be experts on everything. But we need to be able to identify situations where we are ignorant, do some research and become informed so we can critically examine the way in which we spend our money. Heed this advice and you may be able to prevent that one mistake that causes real financial hardship.

The Art of Delegation

Do you feel stressed and overloaded? If so, then you may need to brush up your delegation skills! A very productive manager or leader is great at delegating tasks to fellow teammates. Furthermore, it is important for the fellow teammates to see how the task which they are being delegated will help both them and the team.

If you work on your own, there’s only a limited amount that you can do, no matter how hard you work. We have all been there and delegating is something that I would love to improve on. You can only work so many hours in a day and there are only so many tasks you can complete in these hours. If there is only a limited number people on your team who understand the art of delegation, then your success is limited.
However, if you’re good at your job, people will want much more than this from you.
This can lead to a real sense of pressure and work overload: You can’t do everything that everyone wants, and this can leave you stressed, unhappy, and feeling that you’re letting people down.
On the positive side, however, you’re being given a tremendous opportunity if you can find a way around this limitation. If you can realize this opportunity, you can be genuinely successful!
One of the most common ways of overcoming this limitation is to learn how to delegate your work to other people. If you do this well, you can quickly build a strong and successful team of people, well able to meet the demands that others place.
This is why delegation is such an important skill, and is one that you absolutely have to learn.

Why People Don’t Delegate:

To figure out how to delegate properly, it’s important to understand why people avoid it. Quite simply, people don’t delegate because it takes a lot of up-front effort.
After all, which is easier: designing and writing content for a brochure that promotes a new service you helped spearhead, or having other members of your team do it?
You know the content inside and out. You can spew benefit statements in your sleep. It would be relatively straightforward for you to sit down and write it. It would even be fun! The question is, “Would it be a good use of your time?”

When to Delegate:

Delegation is a win-win when done appropriately, however that does not mean that you can delegate just anything. To determine when delegation is most appropriate there are five key questions you need to ask yourself:

1.) Is there someone else who has (or can be given) the necessary information or expertise to complete the task? Essentially is this a task that someone else can do, or is it critical that you do it yourself?
2.) Does the task provide an opportunity to grow and develop another person’s skills?
3.) Is this a task that will recur, in a similar form, in the future?
4.) Do you have enough time to delegate the job effectively? Time must be available for adequate training, for questions and answers, for opportunities to check progress, and for rework if that is necessary.
5.) Is this a task that I should delegate? Tasks critical for long-term success (for example, recruiting the right people for your team) genuinely do need your attention.

If you can answer “yes” to at least some of the above questions, then it could well be worth delegating this job.

Problem and Solution

I was re-reading sections of "Question Behind the Question" the other day, and something occurred to me.

You ever notice, the people who complain the most and the loudest... are often the ones who are doing the very things that they're complaining about?

"I work too many hours without getting paid..."

"Why should I submit that form? I know the details..."

"People here are just asked to do far too much..."

The other irony of this? Due to the people who are complaining, others have to come in and pick up their slack... and suddenly, little things that would have been handled/maintained easily by a large group of people, are being heaped on the small group of people who DON'T complain... which means that the people who are doing the most work are also the ones who don't bitch about it.

Moral of the story can be summed up in one word: TEAM. And believe me, if I ever decide to have kids, they WILL play a team sport... not just for the physical health and benefit, but because of the real-world lessons that can be learned by participating.

Go team.

~Guy

Rules, who needs em?

We do – we need guidelines to keep us in check. We need structure to keep ourselves heading in the right direction…or at least the best direction for overall.
What kind or rules are important? Rules for driving, cooking – yes. We even have rules for health and fitness. We know them, or at least we know the ones we say on a daily basis. It’s important to streamline some of these rules and keep the message consistent.
Simple rules to life – weekly, we need…
A half day of light cardio
A vigorous workout
A core stability class like yoga or Pilates
Berries, nuts, fruits, grains, vegetables, clean meats and water
To laugh out loud
To be challenged to be better than the day before..
Now we could go on for ever about all the different rules (and we do) but the last rule seems to stand out.
I was talking with a friend last night. She had text me the day before ‘rich, I need a meal plan that I can follow’
When I got home I emailed her, attached a copy of our 30day cleanse and simply wrote ‘when you read this thoroughly, you will be able to make an educated decision on what you can follow’
A couple hours later I received a call from her and she was pumped. She hadn’t read the attachment yet, but she was loving the underlying tone of the challenge being placed upon her. I told her that I would hold her accountable to what she decided to do – but that I didn’t want to waste my time if she couldn’t commit to a proper challenge.
We began to talk about some simple rules to go by and it was then that I told her about some simple rules for ones week. It was like something clicked – she was hooked.
‘oh, ya – no problem, I really appreciate this’, she replied.
We said goodbye and set a time to talk mid week after she would had thoroughly read the nutrition document.
He last words that night - ‘thanks for the challenge’

Importance of group training!

What makes group training so affected? Why do people skip workouts if there are by themselves yet when meeting a group they will be the first ones there.

The concepts of group training are simple.

1) It holds you accountable.

If you did not show up to your group training, you would be letting someone down, you would get behind in the training and you would feel guilty for not showing up. With group training, you specifically put aside time to meet up with the group to go for a bike ride or swim.
For example, this past Saturday I met up with a customer at 7am to go swimming. I know that if we had not made this arrangement, I probably would of gone later, instead of just getting it done earlier. We both held each other accountable and we both did not want to let each other down.

2) Group training provides you with support.

We all love to be supported and most of us are lucky to be supported in some shape or form.
I believe that when a big group is training for an event it becomes contagious and more people want to be involved. If you look at the Oliver Half Iron Man event this year, we have over 20 customers and coaches taking part. It felt that as soon as one person decided to sign up, everyone else followed. That is the prime reason I am participating in it this year. I love the aspect of having numerous training partners, having that group camaraderie both during the training and on race day, and having the support from everyone.

The Oliver Half Iron Man is just one scenario that I have mentioned. There are many other events with this sort of concept, Sun Run, riding across Canada/Australia, and West Coast Trail, just to name a few.

The training that you do together creates special bonds between the group, with memories, laughter and conversations that you have during the long rides and runs. During the race you know that you will finish because at the finish line there will be someone there to congratulate you, hug you and say 'Yes we did it'.

When you reflect on the event you probably will not remember how many miles you ran or kilometers you biked. But you will remember the fun times you had with the group and how at your darkest moments in your training, you had a team there 100% supporting and motivating you to finish. The beauty of group training!