We should never read a book by its cover

We should never read a book by its cover but we need to know how.

A customer walks in and gets on the treadmill like any other day. As they walk through the door their name is called and an uncomfortable smile crosses their face. They are quickly swallowed up by the loud music, energy and fad into the background. As the treadmill buzzes along, they begin their usual pre-workout warm up. As the clock strikes the hour the coach walks up with a towel and wearing a sparkle in their eye.
’how are we today?’, they ask.
’fine, you?’, the customer replies…

Stop right there…we can not see as we read but there is the body behavior of something greater here that may go unnoticed.

‘I’m good’, says the coach, ‘how’s your low back, did you get in to see the physio like we spoke about?’

A small tear is forming in the eye of the customer as they run, avoiding eyes and an uncomfortable feeling fills the air.

‘hey, lets go outside for our warm up’, the coach suggests.

With the care needed, the coach hits the stop button and proceeds to the door where they both head into the fresh air.

‘it’s better out here right now’, the coach recommends….

We should never read a book by its cover and or judge a situation but when we see the signs of something bigger than expected it’s important to take control.

We are not only personal coaches, we are professional advisers. By no means are we to prescribe medication but we have the opportunity to be a shoulder or an ear to listen.

There is a turning point in our coaching carrier where having the chats about sports and weekend beers just won’t cut it. There is a point where we must dig a little deeper and make ourselves vulnerable to feelings and emotions.

Take that step and take the next step into coaching and mentorship.

Not everyone is coming to see us to get fit. If you don’t know the stats, please ask because there’s a whole world out there that is passing you by.

When are you going to take that next step?

Over the weekend, I had the pleasure of talking to a principle that works in the Inner School District of Vancouver. We were talking about how they are handling the Olympics and incorporating it into a 2 week educational theme with the students.

Most of these students that attend the inner schools are from families that are on welfare or single parent families and are in area with high crime rates. The students and their families cannot afford to go to the games themselves nor some of them never been able to go out side of their district due to lack of funds to even travel on public transportation.

However the Inner City school board is taking full advantage to educate the students, realizing that this is a once in a life time event and all should benefit the experience that is arriving in Vancouver in less than a month. The school are providing full field day trips to certain free Olympic venues across the city. Organizing these full day field trip, the students get to experience the atmosphere, be involved in the celebration of countries coming together and watch the olympics on the big screen TV’’s with thousands of other people from all over the world. On the days that they are not venturing into the city, University students are coming out to there schools. A specific example is the engineers from UBC are teaching/showing the students how to build certain Olympic structures, like the luge and the ski jump. I think this is an excellent chance to allow the students to study and learn information that is relevant to what is currently happening.

How are you going to engage yourself over the Olympics? Will you walk around downtown? Do you have tickets to events? Will you mingle with the visitors from all over the world?

If you are stuck, here is a website of free events that the city is offering:

http://www.citycaucus.com/2010freevenues#5362

Pushing the Boundaries

So January First it became illegal to talk on your cel phone while driving. We had plenty of time to prepare, radio and news media running stories for months, allowing people time to purchase Bluetooth equipment as holiday gifts and mentally prepare for quiet commutes.

Now as you are aware I am also a commuter (just under 2 hours a day 5 days a week) and I was one of those individuals who received a Bluetooth for Christmas. Nevertheless, on a daily basis, I see distracted drivers looking guiltily back at me, chatting nervously on their phones while in rush hour traffic. It has been advertised that tickets will not be issued until February 1st but really, why do some individuals either a) just not care b) believe they are capable where others are not or c) so resistant to change that they procrastinate until the last moment.

6,000 people were killed last year alone by cel phone using drivers. Drivers texting while driving are 8 times more likely to be in an accident, that's double the statistic of a driver under the influence of alcohol.

A co-worker has the mantra "be the change you want to see" which of course we should all live by but is that enough? Why is it so hard for people to do the right thing or break bad habits?

-Angela Tames

How Not to Host a Party

A little backstory:

I hate New Year's Eve. In my eyes, it becomes a matter of spending 1.5x what you normally would, being around a lot of people you don't know well, having trouble getting home and, after all is said and done - having a fairly average evening. I much prefer spending it at home with my wife and maybe a few close friends, having dinner and getting to bed - allowing me a full day on the 1st to enjoy the fresh start of a new year.

This year, my brother (who lives with us) decided to have a New Year's Party - full decorated, lots of alcohol and suit-and-tie dress code. When he told me about it, I realized I had two choices - I could be a grade "A" a**hole and lock myself in my room, resplendent in my bitterness... or I could grit my teeth, put on a smile with my suit and spend some time with my brother and his friends - thereby making the best of it. I chose the latter option.

For the 2010 Olympics, we, as a host city, have the same choice. Yes, there problems with it - the traffic will be a nightmare, it will inconvenience us terribly, we will probably be overbudget, our handling of the homeless will most likely be inadequate, and our mascots are some bizarre Japanese anime joke. But, when the 100th person on a day asks us where the seabus station is, or how to get to Robson Street, we can either say "It's at the corner of 'Get a Map' and 'Piss Off'", or we can smile, point them in the right direction and wish them a happy stay.

We don't gain anything at this point by coming across like a city of d***heads - and in the end, it has less to do with "being a host city", and more to do with the simple, common courtesy of being a host.

Let's show them what we can do, Vancouver - let's welcome the world.

~Guy

.black out.

Yesterday was like any other day. Alarm went off at 5am; shower on and on the road with a packed lunch by 5:20. The highway was a bit out of the ordinary though…there were some tree branches littering the path and the car seemed light on air in the tires because it was harder the handle. Turns out the wind was on overtime and not only was it pushing the car around, it was sending debris onto the road.

As I parked the car the wind howled and pushed against the car. It was apparent that it was heavy when I opened the door and it closed behind me with a gust. Wow I thought, it is windy…about the same time I noticed the warm breeze on my face. Odd for January but no biggie...then it happened…it was like someone had control of the surrounding light in the neighborhood. Everything flicked on and off several times before the lights went out. All the lights of the block went out and the street seemed quiet…

The walk to work took 2minutes and I was met by a couple teammates in our dark facility. The emergency lights were on and we quickly realized that the morning was now not what we expected…

The point of this story is not to shed light on the fact that we had a blackout but to illustrate that no matter what one expects, expect the unexpected.

Right away the west van team took charge and started the day right. We rolled towels in the faint light of the exit sign and reviewed the week prep off of a black berry. With only one customer training at 6am (outside bootcamp) the remaining team rallied together and cleaned what we could see and prepped for the day because we know that it was only a matter of time before the lights would be coming on again…

The moral of the story completely is that with every action there needs to be a tight reaction. Even though the lights were off and the WiFi was off, part of the team bonded with a workout and the rest stretched and or clicked away on black berry’s until there was enough light to continue to prep for that moment in the morning where everything came back to order in the form of electricity.

LIFe must move on in the case of adversity in any form so get ready cause it’s not if, it’s when…

In a Time of Need!

Watching and reading the news over the weekend, it is unbelievable how supportive and generous the world is being to the disaster stricken country of Haiti. The world is coming together and raising funds, but due to this crisis, the supplies and human support is not coming fast enough. The people in Haiti have no homes, no food, running water is sparse and there is not enough medical services to meet the demand.

However, the positive aspect of this natural catastrophe is that the world is doing everything one can to help this country. Charities such as, Unicef is deploying clean water, sanitation supplies, therapeutic food, medical supplies and temporary shelter to Haiti, the CARE organization plans to start food distribution of high protein biscuits to Haiti, and the red cross is accepting donation for Haiti Relief development and have raised more than 8 million dollars thus far. High end businessmen and celebrities are also raising funds to help out.

Short help is what is needed immediately but one should think about the long term effect that this will have on this country in a year, 5year and 10 years time.The long term project of rebuilding Haiti is of a great importance. The United Nations are taken a step in the right direction. They have launched an appeal for 562 million dollars to help fund a six month relief effort.

So yes, please donate now to a humanitarian organizations to help the current situation, however remember that this country has to rebuild itself from scratch, so don’t forget about then in 6 months time!

Presentation

So a friend of ours was in town for Christmas and during a particularly raucous visit he proceeds to tell us a story about a new Sushi restaurant that has opened in his hometown named Kai. The big draw for the $150 an hour meals is that they serve Sushi on live, nude young women. Now we are enjoying his tale of mayhem immensely as he describes this poor girl lying on a table surrounded by techies, all knee deep in Saki, chatting away with her enjoying and the fact that she isn't supposed to talk as they are simultaneously looking for the wasabi.

A couple of days later I was thinking about this idea that has been around for decades in Japan and the art of presentation. It is amazing that as a result of a very expensive dinner this restaurant is now the topic of conversation for the fifteen attendees for countless further dinner parties! That is advertising you just can't make up.

The moral of the story I suppose is next time I present an idea, argument or myself I will think back to the importance of the first impression and presentation.

- Angela Tames