Coach Kip

So this will be a reboot in more than one ways.  First why I decided on a reboot and what I am rebooting.

Why the reboot?

I started to read The 4-Hour Chef at 5 am this morning.

Tim Ferris.  Yep I will blame it all on him.  I got his first book ordering it before it was released at a Boarders Book Store.  The Four Hour Work Week turned my life upside down.  I was totally not ready for it.  I implemented some things and believe that I have become very good at activity management.  I have found time where time was needed.  I expertly applied the ideals and techniques in teaching, which became very dangerous.

I experienced new things as a teacher that I had never experienced before.  Time.  Lots of extra time.  I developed a classroom that would run on its own.  I felt useless as if I should be doing something.  Fortunately our new evaluation system gave high praise to teachers who were facilitators in their classroom.  That was me and I quickly rose to the top of the evaluation system and busted right through the top scores of evaluation and student growth.

But now what.  I said my life was turned upside down.  That sounds really great.  The part that got me turned upside down was that I realized, like a giant light bulb exploding in a fiery death, I was better than many teachers who were getting paid way more than me just because they were older.  And I had no chance to increase my pay without getting another degree and getting older.  The system was flawed.

THE TEACHING PAY SYSTEM DOES NOT REWARD SUCCESS.  IT IS OLD AND ANTIQUATED AND MAKES NO SENSE IF WE ARE TO GET BETTER.

I had a great leadership training session recently where this great old gentleman with a grandfatherly voice told us that we knew what we were getting into when we started so there was no reason to grip about it.  And he is absolutely correct.  However when we receive new information we can make better decisions and we may have to change our thought patterns because we find out that they were wrong.  I was wrong.

The Reboot.

So with new information we can make new decisions.  For me it is like installing new software.  I am a Microsoft guy.  Not because I think that Microsoft is wonderful and can never be better but because it works (usually).  It is compatible with the world, it is usable because that is what I have always used, and it is widely available.  Not the best reasons but it is the reasons that we have.  I would love to be a Linux guy but it is another thing to learn and it is down the list a little bit.  So…the reboot.  We who use Microsoft equipment know all about the reboot.  But why do we do it?  Two reasons.

Things are running slowly.

Sometimes when our computers are running very slowly we do a reboot.  It clears out the temporary memory, stops ghost programs from running, and generally cleans things up.

We have Installed New Software

After we install new software most of the time the software calls for a reboot.  It does this to organize itself from a clean slate.

So now I am doing this with my brain.  I am rebooting it.  I am cleaning out all the old thought patterns that have gotten me to where I am and I am creating new ones so that I can go where I want to go.  The old thought patterns were great.  They allowed me to get to where I am and I am grateful for them.  Now it is time to move on, and move on I will.

I cracked open the 4 Hour Chef  this morning.  It inspired this post.  Another Tim Ferris book, this one on how to learn.  So another piece of this blog will be me marking my progress on learning something new.

I will apply the things I have learned in the 4 Hour Chef to learning how to trade and invest my hard earned money.  The goal is to retire at age 50 with enough investments giving me a steady income to live the way I want.  Yes the FU money.  A simple calculation tells us that I need $6,250,000 in assets that produce an average yearly rate of return of 8%.  That gives me $500,000 a year income to do with what I please.  I don’t know how I can possibly spend all that money but I will do my best to achieve it.

February always seems to be the beginning of new years for me.  It takes all of January to get organized and ready for a change.  It is February 10th, time for a new year of change.

Two goals this year.  Become a confident investor with a winning record and a 8% return on my investments.  Weight 170 pounds by my 40th birthday.  That is a half a pound loss every week.  I can do this.

Me trying to be cool

It is not so much turning 39 that has really turned my thinking introspective; it is the fact that the next birthday is going to be 40.  40 is a big number.  It is the number that I feel like I have to have done something, or on the way to doing it.  It is the number that I should be an adult, or at least act like one.  It is the number that I should have accomplished something, or at least feel that way.  Of course the last statement is not true, but in the global picture I do feel like I have not accomplished much.  I have a lot of little things under my belt, traveling the world, athletic achievements, a great family that I am so incredibly proud of.  So at 39 the big push is to become who I want to be, and that is what 40 is all about.

There are some very lucky people in the world who know exactly who they are and they act that way their entire life.  There are some of us who are very talented at something and take on that persona, they receive accolades, success, and achievement through that talent.  Then they have the means and the ability to be

Look how nice of a guy I am, giving the Fonzie Thumbs Up!

who they truly are.

Then there are the rest of us who struggle all our lives to discover who we really are when who we are has been there all along.  You don’t have to go searching for you, just listen.  Stop trying to be someone else.  We are all unique and we are all loved for who we are when we are that person.  I could go on and on about how if we all simply be who we are we have a happier and more satisfying life but I also know it is not that easy.  It took me a long time to listen to myself to be who I am.  It took a wife who loved me for me, and a child who will always see through all my different facades and see only her Daddy.

My 39 years of life have taught me something.  Nike capitalized on it, Journey wrote about it, and I have learned it. The key to success is simply doing something and believing in who you are.

Oh I know.  It can’t be that easy.  What about a plan and goals?  How do we have it in us to just set out to do something and be successful beyond our dreams?

Look out Cool Guy sighting

I Don’t Know.  I was in search of a reason why, but I don’t think that we can find an answer that has the proper words to describe it.  I do know this, and I have learned this: It just works!  Call it God, Call it the Universe, Call it Allah, Call it Energy, call it anything that you want when you don’t fully understand how things work.  It just works.

I leave you with this: GET OUT THERE, DO SOMETHING, HAVE FUN, AND BELIEVE IN YOURSELF.  You can do it, you really can.

Me?  Oh yeah! I will be out there too.  I have a lot to do in the year before I turn 40.

Look out I am getting excited

Oh I am excited about my birthday, look even have two thumbs up.

Oh know the excitement is building.

Oh lordy I can’t contain my excitement for what my birthday may bring me. Good luck keeping up with me next year.

I mean I have, you know, fallen, but you get up. You don’t fall, you don’t learn anything

The world is full of lessons if you listen hard enough.  This lesson is from a Vet who now has artificial legs.  No it is not that you have to go through some tremendous tragedy before you can enjoy life.  The lesson is that if you are not failing on a consistent basis you are not learning.  I know I forget sometimes that when I fail at something it does not make me a failure.  I am only a failure if I stop trying.  Failing only means that there is another lesson to be learned.

If everything is going perfectly for you, then you are not growing, you are not getting better.  From an athletic perspective think of it this way:  Let’s take the bench press for example.  If you are a power lifter you want to be able to press as much as possible one time.  Lets say your goal is 500 pounds.  If you are an NFL prospect the scouts want to see how many times you can press 225 pounds.  Lets say your goal is 25 times.  Body builders may just want to use the bench press to gain mass and then use more specific lifts to sculpt their bodies for competition.

What we all know is that in none of these examples do any of the athletes simply go out and hit their goal on the first try.  They have to work at it over  time.  They have many failures along the way.  Many times they will have workouts where the goal is to fail.  And they happily accomplish failure because they know that they cannot succeed until they have failed.

Listen to the interview of Nick Staback on NPR.  Listen to how it begins as another Vet who has come home and has changed.  There seems to be nothing unique about the story until you learn that he has lost his legs.  Then listen to how the tone and the interview changes.  It is not the loss of his legs that has made the big difference, it is not the change to his perspective of life.  It is that he has learned that he needs to keep pushing himself to learn how to use his new legs better.  He knows that he is strong and will have a normal life and falling is part of succeeding in his new life.

So rejoice failure, failing, and challenge yourself.  See if you can fail.  See where failure can lead you.

NPR Interview - http://www.npr.org/2012/10/24/163469815/vet-walks-on-new-legs-with-a-little-help-from-mom

Believing in oneself, in a goal, in a dream, in anything is the most important and most overlooked step toward success.  Belief creates everything.

If you do not believe there is no motivation.

If you do not believe there is no vision.

If you do not believe there is no reason to set a goal.

Believe in yourself.

Believe in your abilities.

Believe that anything is possible.

Creating belief changes everything around you.  When people see that you believe in a cause, or in a goal, they rally around you.  Things begin to change for you with belief.  You begin to notice differences in your actions.  You begin to notice differences in your thoughts.  You begin to notice differences in the people around you.  Everything changes.

Ok I can get off tangent and go for a long time like this.  It truly is amazing when you understand the power of simply believing in something.  But how is it done?

Fake it.  When you are first starting and you are not sure what to do, or how to act, or you have some doubts yourself.  Fake it.  Act as if you have total belief that something is going to happen.  Act as if you completely believe with all your body, soul, and actions that it is going to happen.

While you are faking it something will happen.  You will begin to believe it yourself.  You will begin to take action.  You will begin to subconsciously take control of your actions and begin to move toward your goals.

Don’t believe me?  Try it, take control, begin Believing, strange things will happen.  You will find yourself acting in different ways.  How bad do you want success?

Believe in yourself, you may just surprise yourself with what you can do.

Believe It!

Coach Kip

The first part of any adventure, project, or rebuilding of one self is Conceive It.  Conceive It is simply setting goals, determining how one is going to reach those goals, and setting a time line for those goals.  Sounds simple, but we have all done these many times, sometimes with success, sometimes without.  What makes the difference between being successful and not?  Taking the right approach.

Starting off on the right foot is never given enough credit.  Probably because too many people use it as a cliché.  The true meaning of Conceive It is getting your ideas in order, reflecting or meditating on it, and setting up a process that cannot fail.  We can all do this, and this is how:

Setting Goals:  This will soon be another post on the subject, but we can set up some standards here.  Goals should be set in two ways.  Always set goals in a positive manner.  Never be anti something, never be against something.  Always set goals in a way that achieves something.  This can be a little tricky at first but it gets easier as you get the hang of it.  Always set goals in the now.  By setting goals in the now we begin to act as if we already have it, or have done it.  Setting goals in the now also makes you review constantly to see if you have achieved that goal.  Quick example:

Bad Goal:  I will lose 20 lbs by next year.
Reason Why:

1. It is negative.  Lose is a negative word.  We don’t want to see negative words all the time.  What fun is trying to get something that is negative.
2. It is in the future.  If I have not lost 20 lbs then that is ok because I have not failed in my goal.  I still want to lose 20 lbs, so I still have that goal.
3. Not a firm deadline.  Next year is vague.  What happens in 2008?  Well if I have not lost 20 lbs then I still can in 2009.  No goal reached, no goal to reach.

Good Goal:  I weight 170 lbs on January 24th of 2008.
Reason Why:

1. It is in the positive.  I weigh.  Nothing negative about that.
2. It is as if I already weigh 170 lbs.  At the time of writing this I have just come off of a 6 month season of constant coaching.  Unfortunately this also means stress.  When I get stressed I drink soda, coffee, and I eat sugar.  I currently weight almost 190 lbs.  I have a small frame so that is big for me.  Saying I weigh 170 lbs and seeing that goal all the time gives me something to work towards.  It is a constant reminder that this is where I need to be at.
3. It has a definite time line.  I gave myself until the 24th.  That is just before the Superbowl.  This will give me time to get through the holidays, and a few extra weeks for watching the rest of the football season.

Learning:  Part of the Conceive it part is learning just what it takes to get what you want.  As you are setting goals you are learning.  You are learning from yourself just what it is that you want.  As you are learning you are adjusting your goals to make them realistic and to narrow them into what you want.  It is human nature to change.  As you learn about what you are trying to Achieve you are narrowing in on the final result.  This is part of the Conceive process.  You are forming and reforming your ideas, and your goals.

Doing:  Once the goals are refined, and the research into what you really want is done, it is time to start doing.  This is the ending of the Conceive stage.  Initially as you begin there will be adjustments and refinements to goals and to what you want as your end result.  It is ok to make mistakes, as long as you learn from these mistakes.  Edison said he did not fail 10,000 times before he made the light bulb work.  He just found 10,000 ways that it does not work.  It is part of the Conceive stage.  Action always beats inaction.  Standing still never got anyone anywhere.  If you are making mistakes then that is one less that you have to make on your way to success.  If you are standing still you still have to go through all those mistakes before success anyway.  So move forward.  Get going.  Get doing.

Conceive It

Coach Kip

I have found, and I now teach to my students, players, and clients, that all processes can be broken down into three easy parts.  You can handle three things right?  Of course, we all can.  So if we break everything down into just three parts then it makes everything just a little easier.

What I have found is that the key to true life happiness is Healthy – Wealthy – Wise.  Further explained: Healthy; take care of your body, Wealthy; not just rich but having time and money, Wise; always learning, always growing.

In my own education I found that every part of the three step process can be broken down even further.  Then each individual step can be broken down even further and so fourth.   Healthy – Wealthy – Wise can be broken into Conceive It – Believe It – Achieve It.  That can be broken down into Define – Learn – Do and so on.

For example lets say that we want to work on our Health.  Here is how it would work:

Step 1 Conceive It – The first step would be to decide what your goals are going to be, what your time line is, and just what it is that you want to gain with your health. You Define what you want.
Next you figure out just how you are going to do it.  You need to do the research and Learn how it is done.  Finally you just Do it.

Step 2 Believe It – Nothing comes easy, and absolutely nothing comes without belief.  You must know for sure that you are going to get what you want.  You must Define that belief.  How are you going to trust yourself that you will achieve what you want.  You then need to Learn how to get that belief deep seeded not just in your mind, but in your body and soul.  Finally you just have to Do it.  It may seem like you are faking it at first, but eventually you will become that.  You will Believe.

Step 3 Achieve It – Now you are beginning to get to your goals.  You have to be ready to Achieve what you want.  If you are not ready the slightest misstep can change your results.  You must Define exactly what it is to have reached your goal.  You them must Learn about how to make that happen.  Learning is a continuous process.  Keep Doing.  That is the final part.  As you get close do not quit.  Keep going, keep trying, keep Achieving.

It may be kind of vague but this post is just a bridge to get to where we want to go.  To get to defining the Conceive It – Believe It – Achieve It.

More to come

Coach Kip.

As most of you know I frequently sign my posts with Conceive It, Believe It, Achieve It. It begs the question; so what is it? It is a mantra or a motto that I learned way back in high school, I just did not understand it until recently. Now that I know what it is and how to use it, it is something that I repeat frequently, hence signing at the end of my posts.

Let me give a little history of how it came to be. My first big mentor was my High School Football Coach Jim Ooley. He was at the time of his retirement the greatest high school football coach in Michigan. Anyone who followed high school football in Michigan from the early 1970′s to the early 1990′s knew of Jim Ooley and Traverse City Football. I played for him during his final year. Err, I was on the team. I did not play much at all my Senior year compared to my Junior year. Maybe it was due to some nagging minor injuries or maybe it was because I was 145 pounds trying to play for the biggest school in Michigan and the #1 ranked team in the State.

I can’t recall how many times I heard Conceive It, Believe It, Achieve It, while I was playing for him. I did not completely understand it then. At the time I knew that the reason we were told that is because we were small, slow, and weak. We were frequently over matched athletically on the football field, but we rarely lost. Actually we only lost three games my entire Junior and Senior years, two in the semi finals, and one to our rival where we completely overlooked them. I knew that we needed to play as a team, and we needed to believe that we could win. I don’t remember a time that we did not think that we could win, and except for that one game. At the same time there was no time that we thought we could just walk in and beat anyone with ease. We knew we would win if we played as a team and played as close to mistake free as possible.

We simply had great coaching, and an undying belief that we could do it. It was not the X’s and O’s as we football coaches call it. In laymen terms it was not due to the plays that we won. It was how we were coached. I understood that part. What I did not understand was the rest.

While my wife and I were transforming our lives we kept running into things that were grouped in threes.

Be – Do – Have
Define – Learn – Do
Healthy – Wealthy – Wise
Ask – Believe – Receive
Conceive It – Believe It – Achieve It

and many more. It was then that suddenly I knew exactly what it was. It is a process for life.

Everything that you ever want to do, ever want to have, ever want to achieve can be broken down into a three step process. All those steps can be broken down even further, and further, and so on.

So what is next? First I will break down the different steps and what exactly they mean, then I will give some examples of how they can be used.

Until Then

Conceive It, Believe It, Achieve It

Coach Kip