Month: February 2020

The one book you should read this year.

I am constantly trying to enhance the performance of my brain. I don’t do it with aftermarket parts. Or with surgery. Or with drugs. Although I have heard some really good things about drugs from my crack dealer friends.

Reading Rainbow

I enhance the performance of my brain by reading books. I read as much as I can. As a result, my thinking keeps improving. With each book I read I become more capable, insightful, empathetic and resourceful. I am collecting dots and connecting dots. And today I arrive at better ideas faster than ever before. Granted, I had a lot of room for improvement.

The One Recommendation

If you want to improve your thinking and your doing, I highly recommend reading The One Thing, by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan. This #1 Wall Street Journal Best Seller is one of the most influential books I have read in the past 20 years.

Focus

The One Thing’s main focus is to teach you how to focus your thinking and your efforts. We are often faced with a brazillion things we could do with our time. As a result, we often do nothing. Or the easiest thing, the closest thing, or the most urgent thing. But not the one most important thing to help us get to our goals.

There is no trickery to this book. It is simple and logical. Yet it is eye-opening and insightful. (Although opening your eyes is typically outsightful, right?)

Dominoes Delivers

The books starts by encouraging you to look at your actions like knocking down dominoes (the game piece, not the pizza joint). We need to focus on the first domino, and then the next, with purpose. By doing so we can make great things happen, one domino at a time.

Dominos from the one thing
This is how your actions work.

Determining Your Priorities.

The book shines a spotlight on the erroneous short term thinking that typically fills our daily to-do list. It points out the critical difference between a To-do list and a Success List. A key lesson here is, ‘That which matters most should never take a backseat to that which matters least.’  In other words, your priorities need to call ‘Shotgun!’

80/20

Keller and Papasan explore the 80/20 rule of Pareto Efficiency, which states that 80 percent of your results come from 20% of your effort. (Not that 80-years olds should not make out with 20-year olds. But that should also be a rule.) They then propose applying the 80/20 rule to your 20% activities. This enables you to find the most important of the most important activities to focus on.

Multitasking Vs Monotasking

The book blasts the notion of multitasking. It instead promotes the idea of complete focus. Or what I called ToFo, in the post Why you should invest more of your time in Total Focus.

66 Day Magic

The book breaks down the critical difference between self discipline, which is hard, and habits, which become easy and automatic. I loved learning that on average it takes us 66 days to create a new habit. Which means that if you made a resolution to start a new activity on January 1st, and could make it to the end of the first week of March, you would likely keep that habit rolling forever. But most people quit in January or February, and never create a new habit. Then again, those resolutioners stop coming to the gym by the beginning of February, leaving more room for me, so I am not complaining.

66 Day Habits
By 66 days habit kicks in, and self discipline is no longer necessary. You will know when you are there because a big red star fish will appear on your line.

Forget The Balanced Life

The authors share the idea that a balanced life doesn’t enable us to do amazing things. Instead we need to be constantly balancing our lives, so that we can go all in on our goals for long stretches, to create extraordinary results. Then we can balance those periods with longer stretches of time with family and friends, relaxing and recreating. But if we never get ourselves out of balance by going all-in on one thing, we will never achieve great things.

The Focusing Question

Finally, the book introduces the key focusing question for your life:

‘What is the one thing that I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?’  -The One Thing By Gary Keller and Jay Papasan

This question can be asked as a big picture question, and as a small, focusing question. Meaning, it can help you discover the one thing you should be doing with your life, and what is the one thing you can do, right now, to make it happen.

The one Thing for all areas
The One Thing applies to all areas of your life.

Key Takeaway

If you want to supercharge your thinking and your actions, pick up this book. It will teach you how to focus, prioritize and act to get the most out of your precious time. It will help you think about your long term goals, and what you need to do now to achieve them. And it will help you say no to things that just don’t matter.

*If you know someone who could benefit from this book, please share this with them.

The unbelievable ending to this basketball team manager’s senior year is straight out of Hollywood.

You can never have too many friends, or hear too many inspirational stories. This weekend one of my close friends sent me an unbelievable story about a special high school basketball team manager in Atlanta. The story made my jaw drop, my heart warm and my gooses bump. Here it is.

Pace Academy

This year, the Pace Academy basketball coach, Sharman White, wanted to send his high school seniors off with a memorable ending. All of his seniors.

Before the last home game of their regular season the coach circled up his team, and thanked senior team manger Daniel Lucke for his faithful loyalty to the team. He then surprised Lucke by announcing that he would be suiting up for Senior Night.

The team went crazy for Daniel. They cheered, hugged and encircled him. Clearly this was a guy the rest of the team really loved. And now, in the last game of his senior, the manager was going to get to wear a team uniform, just like the rest of the players on the team.

And this is what happened…

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Daniel put on his uniform, and his family insisted on taking pics. Daniel gave the camera his best, aw-come-on-mom look.

Then…

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His sister Katie, Dad (Jim), and Mom (Stephanie), proudly escorted Danny when his name was announced.
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Jim and Coach bro-hugged, while Katie thought, ‘Aww… they are bro-hugging.’
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Danny got to participate in team warmups. And a little boy who walked in the gym wearing a blue jacket thought Danny looked legit.
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Danny joined his teammates on the sideline and totally looks like he fits in. He is number 14 (just like he was in the other 4 photos above).

The Game

The Pace Academy Knights proceeded to dominate their opponents from The Lovett School. Which also happens to be the alma mater of my friend Adam Nelson, who won the Olympic Gold Medal in the shot put in Athens in 2000. (Apparently having a Gold Medalist shot putting alum doesn’t help your team dominate in basketball a couple decades later. #gofigure)

The Moment

With 1:30 left in the game, and the win assured, Coach White did something he will never forget. He called Daniel Lucke’s name. And the told the faithful team manager that it was his turn to play.

All of Danny’s service, sacrifice, support and unselfishness over the past 2 years got him 90 seconds of playing time in the last game home game of his senior year. It was a dream come true. But the dream wasn’t over.

Rising To The Occasion

With just seconds left in the game, Danny was passed the ball under the opponents basket, and quickly dribbled up court. After crossing the half-court line, Danny executed an NBA-caliber crossover dribble, behind his back! The move left the poor defender guarding him flat on his bumski. And the crowd went wild.

Then, Danny dribbled to the top of the key, and launched a 3-point shot just before the final buzzer. The whole crowd held their breath, and watched as the final shot of the game arced through the air. And into the basket.

The Reaction

The crowd went cray-cray. The student section poured onto the court, surrounding Danny, and completing a dream-like finale to the team manager’s high school basketball experience.

The Proof

Here is a video of both the announcement that Danny would suit up, and the final play of the game.

Going Viral

Videos of D-Lucke’s buzzer beating shot immediately went viral. The story made news outlets across the country. Within hours, the video had been seen by millions of people. And the world had one more great inspirational story to share.

Danny The Kid

Danny is a great kid. I’m not just saying that because his coach said that. Or because his teammates and classmates obviously loved him. I know Danny.

The person who sent me Danny’s story was his Mom, my close friend Stephanie Herbst-Lucke. She is a fellow University of Wisconsin track athlete. And she is one of the most giving people I know.

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Daniel’s Mom, Stephanie Herbst-Lucke (second from left) was an outstanding track and cross country runner at Wisconsin. But D-Lucke’s crossover dribble skillz must have come from Jim.

Stephanie currently serves as the President of Wisconsin’s W Letterwinner’s Club for Wisconsin Alumni athletes, where she stands out as a special person among special people.

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Until Senior Night, my favorite shot of D-Lucke’s was this pic he took of me and some fellow UW track and field alum at a gathering at the Lucke’s home in Atlanta.

I feel lucky to know the Luckes. Jim and Stephanie are great people. They have clearly taught Daniel and his older sister’s Katie and Maddie well. They selflessly serve others. And when you do that, great things happen. Thank you Coach White for making this happen. And for setting the stage for such a wonderful life lesson.

Key Takeaway

Be like Daniel Lucke. Give unselfishly. Help any way you can. Lean in. Participate. Invest in your relationships. And prepare yourself for the opportunities that come your way.

*If you know someone who could benefit from this story, please share it with them.

Entrepreneurs are 125% more successful if they do this.

The idea of starting your own business can be scary. The statistics say that there is a high probability of your dream business failing. But then again, there is a really, really high probably that your heart will fail at some point too. And when that happens none of your other failures matter anymore anyway.

A Safer Bet

But there is a way to practice safe entrepreneurship. It’s not perfectly safe. Just like there is no perfectly safe sex. At least not any that involves other people.

Do what you know.

If you want to become an entrepreneur, but your tolerance for risk is sweet n’ low, the safe thing to do is to start a business in an industry you have already worked in.

It turns out that entrepreneurs are 125% more successful if they’ve previously worked in the industry they start their own business in.

Keep on rocking in the free world.

This should be encouraging to those of you who are rockstars in your current job and think you could do it even better on your own. That’s what I did. Okay, so I am not really a rockstar. I am more like a bluegrass artist with a loyal local following, that consists mostly of my family and the hard of hearing.

The Weaponry

After working for other advertising agencies for 19 years, I launched my own advertising and idea agency in 2016. Today, The Weaponry is nearly 4 years old. And I have been able to pour all of my industry experience directly into my entrepreneurial adventure. And in return, it has poured some sugar on me.

Key Takeaway

If you really want to start your own business, and I hope you do, consider starting a business in the industry you are already working in. Your experience and connections give you a major advantage. You do have connections don’t you? If not, work on building that parachute before you jump out of your current airplane.

Fun note: I am writing this on a plane as I fly to Florida to film the CEO of one of our greatest clients. We work with this great client because my friend and former coworker, Erin Lovett recommended us. But don’t worry. I won’t jump out of the plane. It would put a quick end to my 125% advantage.