After posting a 60 second video where I explained three things I wanted to learn in the next year I was chosen to be one of the students at The 4-Hour™ Life: Healthy, Wealthy and Wise. I thought the odds of being chosen were reasonably good, but it was still a surprise to be told I was in. This was Thursday night before the next Tuesday when I would have to be across the country in Seattle. For about five seconds I made up excuses why going just didn’t seem reasonable but fortunately that mindset evaporated quickly. Time to hustle.
Our master teacher was to be, of course, Tim Ferriss. I didn’t get a photo with him or autograph, but the truth is I was probably the biggest fanboy there. I’ve given away more copies of The 4-Hour Body than I can count and talked many other people into buying it for themselves. (Everyone I meet seems to already own The 4-Hour Work Week.) A couple weeks before the event Damien and I interviewed Tim for well over an hour for our site WallStCheatSheet.com. Prior to the interview we received a digital copy of The 4-Hour Chef. In my opinion this is his best book yet. That, coupled with a very relaxed and enjoyable interview, where Tim was more than happy to discuss anything, made me even more of a fan.
Monday morning, the day before all us lucky students hit the road, I fired off the first email to our group of classmates suggesting we get together the night before. Followed a few minutes later by an email from Seth, who had already researched and found a good restaurant for us. He also set up a private Facebook group to help us coordinate. Anjali set us up on Group.me so we could easily text the group while we were there. Moira got tons of group photos during the breaks from shooting. And Sergio set up a Dropbox folder so we could all share photos. Then he even scheduled some accountability check-ins and group reunions. Talk about a “self-organizing group”!
A self-organizing group isa collective whose members are surprised and delighted by what they become and do together. These collectives create themselves and contain members who become increasingly aware that the group is giving them more than they could imagine and plan as individuals. Self-aware self-organizing groups: groups in which members recognize that the group itself is something special. Read more
Eben Pagan says his company relies on self-organizing groups, but they do assign people they feel would be complementary to the groups. That said, they are flat and no one is put “in charge.” I’ve always wanted to experience that firsthand. Our small PR firm does operate this way but it’s only a handful of people, and at Cheat Sheet we’re slightly more hierarchical. Seeing how a dozen people can just naturally, and spontaneously, collaborate to create a very productive and just plain fun experience was amazing. In fact, it’s not over yet so the amazement continues.
I also re-learned the value of pushing out the boundaries of your comfort zone. I have to admit that it’s been a while since I did that in a meaningful way outside of racing bicycles. It’s not that I wasn’t fully aware of how important this is to personal growth, but after a while of staying in the same workaday groove, or rut, it’s easy to forget how joyous the upside of getting a little uncomfortable, of participating in an event like this, with great people, can be. And if that means some anxiety for a short time while you adapt to the situation, it’s a bargain. I considered just submitting a video to be a success. Everything after that was gravy.
I had planned to mention some of the highlights but the list is just too long. Suffice it to say to that at the top of the list was meeting so many great people. Every Monday morning I write down three goals for the week. This week my number one goal was “have maximum fun.” That was checked off, in a big way. The perfect conclusion to the trip was meeting my old friend Jeff for dinner the night before I came home. It’s been years but it felt as familiar and welcome as ever.
In the short clip below, everyone in the archery demo was able to hit the bullseye in the waning seconds of the show. See that hugging and high-fiving excitement? That’s what the whole trip felt like.
Prepare for success. I do not mean: prepare so you can be successful, but be prepared for when you do succeed. It’s been known to happen.
I think it pays to think at least one step ahead. Ask yourself, if this thing actually works what’s my next move so I can make the most of the momentum? I’m not suggesting you hire extra customer service reps just in case your next product launch blows the roof off. But what if it does? Do you know what to do next?
We recently did a small product launch and sales were decent from go. But they kept getting better. I wanted to monitor it and then decide what to do next. If I had planned to deal with success we would have had product bundling ready, maybe some “upsells” to more expensive products, etc. The work to have this stuff ready was pretty minor and if it had been in the work queue already we could have increased the average dollars per transaction, guaranteed. So that’s some easy money we left on the table while we tried to catch up to our initial launch success.
“Iterating” with “minimum viable products” is smart and it certainly mitigates risk, but a little extra planning doesn’t take much effort or money. With a plan for next steps, you’re ready to pounce when things go right.
P.S. I also believe thinking this way also improves your awareness of new opportunities.
What a great trip this was. We got to visit our daughter at college, and I convinced the family to ride with me to see the first ever Vintage Speed and Custom Revival, presented by The Rodder’s Journal, at the Pimlico racetrack near Baltimore.
The quality of the cars there was overall very high. It was genuinely exciting, for me at least, to see some of these famous vehicles in person. There were many magazine cover cars at the show, both old and new.
Two favorites were Dan Webb’s So-Cal Streamliner recreation and the Golden Submarine tribute car. (WebbAutomotiveArt.com) I was standing right next to him for a bit and would have loved to ask about the cars in person, but, alas, he was in conversation with someone he knew and I got tired of lurking.
I have a growing list of things I want to do sometime in my life. The sooner the better for most of them. Some are physically demanding, a few dangerous, and some more mentally challenging. All of them require focus and will power. I’m also realizing they need hard deadlines. I’m not going attempt to schedule out all my activities for the rest of my life. That said, I do think going goal by goal and always having a deadline for next one to conquer is a good idea.
The Ashley Book of Knots
A long time ago I read an interview with high-power CEO who had some esoteric hobbies. Doesn’t matter what they were. He said something that made an impression on me – “If you find something boring it’s because you don’t know enough about it.” If you think baseball, model trains, or maybe even accounting principles are boring I can almost guarantee you don’t know much about those topics.
This brings to me knot tying. Yep, it’s on my list. I know some basics, and last had a refresher several years ago when my son was in Scouts. I decided to find at least 10 interesting and highly useful knots to master. The more I researched and learned, the more I realized there is to learn.
I was somewhat surprised how many people are really into knots, full-on knot nerds. I might be turning into one myself. Post a video about tying a knot and if the Internet trolls don’t agree with your method the sniping will be intense. Of course, there are many ways to tie some knots. For the “Trucker’s Hitch” I found several different methods. I even came across videos of actual truckers tying the knot. They all did it differently. I picked the one that made the most sense to me.
The video below shows a dozen of my favorite knots, bends and hitches. It’s not a how-to video. It’s strictly for me, proof to myself that I got it done.
Below this video I’ve included some of the links and videos that I found either interesting or useful. Be careful. You might learn too much, and get interested enough to add The Ashley Book of Knots to your wishlist.
On almost every long road trip I get an idea. I think that’s because I don’t listen to music much and prefer to talk or think. On a recent ride back to Asheville Mary and I came up with an idea for a restaurant.
French Toast – nothing else.
No Belgian waffles, pancakes, omelettes, etc. All French toast all the time.
I think a French toast-only restaurant would kill it in any tourist-oriented city, or otherwise large urban environment. Who doesn’t like French toast? Everyone I’ve mentioned this to got excited about it. And I learned a lot from my more sophisticated foodie friends about the wide variety of French toast options.
Suffice it to say the ingredients would be a big deal. Artisanal breads, fillings, and toppings. Local, organic, unusual, and so on.
They may appear similar, but there is a difference. Being a perfectionist/uptight/anal retentive even “conscientious”, particularly with regard to things that are not life-changing or life-threatening, causes internal stress and anxiety. Being disciplined reduces stress and anxiety. I often confuse the two.
Why do you do what you do? What do you truly believe?
I’m convinced that if you can answer those questions all other business challenges will be made more manageable because your vision will be clear. Your clear purpose will inspire your organization to not only be in alignment but also to be motivated to succeed, however you measure that.
Not knowing “why” you do what you do will make it impossible to have a compelling vision. And an organization without a shared vision results in a lack of focus and probably bad decision-making. Reaching your goals may not be possible.
You’ll be “stuck.” John Jantsch says:
The thing that moves people to act beyond what they are currently doing is a vision to do something so compelling that it forces them to change their behaviors in ways that would make it so.
The problem with most business owners is that they are only looking towards next week or next month. What if you looked at making your business and your life multiple times bigger and better than it is right now?
What would that force you to change? What would that force you to stop doing? Where would that compel you to take massive action first?
Easy enough to say, but how do you get to that compelling vision? Simon Sinek tells us to start with “Why” we are doing what we do. His concept is the “Golden Circle” of Why, How, What with Why at the center of it all. Read the rest of this entry »
I’m pretty sure it does. How can Empathy, Focus and even “Impute” not apply to any business?
For Christmas I invariably come away with a stack of interesting books to read. I knew I wanted Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson but after hearing Kevin Rose mention he started reading the book and switched to over the audio version, I added the latter to my wish list. The unabridged version is over 24 hours!
Somewhere in the third hour Mike Markkula and his now famous Apple Marketing Philosophy are discussed. I’ve listened to this two minute segment probably a dozen times.
Markkula was a young venture capitalist with his fortune coming from stock options he received while at Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel. He became an investor in Apple when the company was just Jobs and Wozniak, and later even was company president. According to Isaacson he also became a “father figure” to Jobs and taught him about marketing and sales. Read the rest of this entry »
Christmas Card 2011 – Gingerbread People (Click it to see it bigger at Flickr.)
This year instead of using our bodies to make something we decided to use something to make our bodies. Gingerbread is the obvious seasonal choice for a medium. Yes, they/we taste good too…
Christmas card 2011 back photo
On the inside we decided to do a Sigler version of Mad Libs. Sorry Mad Libs for using your logo. Consider it free advertising. Mad Libs are fun and this idea gets out of long handwritten notes on every card. Nobody else seems to do that anyhow. Click the images for a closer view.
Want to know what it's like to have brain surgery? Well here's the long version of my experience. Complete with pictures and videos! Read all about the Brain Surgery Experience.
(The A-Team)
Our master teacher was to be, of course, Tim Ferriss. I didn’t get a photo with him or autograph, but the truth is I was probably the biggest fanboy there. I’ve given away more copies of The 4-Hour Body than I can count and talked many other people into buying it for themselves. (Everyone I meet seems to already own The 4-Hour Work Week.) A couple weeks before the event Damien and I interviewed Tim for well over an hour for our site WallStCheatSheet.com. Prior to the interview we received a digital copy of The 4-Hour Chef. In my opinion this is his best book yet. That, coupled with a very relaxed and enjoyable interview, where Tim was more than happy to discuss anything, made me even more of a fan.
