Collapse

I am in California in meetings today including a detailed review of my performance. A consultant did a 360 review. Talked to 35 people – peers, superiors (they had to stretch since Bob Huang is the only person I have ever worked for in the past 25 years so they used board chairs from some of the boards I sit on), customers and vendors. Interesting process and interesting results.

It sure highlights vividly any areas of strength or weakness.

I have a philosophy of working more and capitalizing more on my strengths. Of course I want to make sure my weaknesses are not show stoppers.

For someone like myself who takes self development very seriously, this was an interesting and worthwhile exercise. Now the work begins.

On the flight down, I read Collapse by Jared Diamond. This is an awesome must read book. It talks about why empires or cultures collapse. The author is an anthropologist/historian who obviously spent years researching the topic. He approaches the subject scientifically. It is a bit of a tough read (long and not well organized for speed reading) but it is the best book I have read in a while. I will not spill the punchline except to say that societies tend to collapse fairly quickly and that we need to care for our environment.

Challenging thoughts on Learning

My mother reads my blog. I think she is worried I am trying too hard to learn everything. She sent me the following quote.

"There are too many things to be learned, and life is too short to learn everything. Let us complete what we have begun rather than dabbling in many things."

-Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey,

Thought provoking.

Off to California today for quarterly meetings this weekend and next part of next week.

The Art of Possibility and reframing

Long day yesterday 6 until 9 and I missed my workout.

I finished a book last night - “The Art of Possibility”. Great title but not as inspiring as I had hoped. It did have one quote that I liked. A great maestro, Herbert von Karajan jumped into a taxi and shouted to the driver “Hurry, hurry”. “Very good sir – where to?” said the driver. “It does not matter”said von Karajan. “I am needed everywhere”.

That’s the way I felt yesterday. Full of people needing my time. In person, on the phone and on email.

Part of how I deal with stress is by reframing. I could say “isn’t it awful to not have enough time.”. Instead I say “isn’t it great that so many people want me”. Much of stress in life is caused by how I think of things.

Lots of preparation for my California trip on Friday night.

Off to the gym now.

Katrina and the "Don't do" list

Sore from an aggressive workout this morning. Third in duplicate bridge tonight. Who says I am not balanced.

I think we are all touched by what we see happening in the aftermath of Katrina. It is horrific to imagine the plight of those who have lost their loved ones, their homes, their jobs and the life they knew. I am thankful for the employee who approached me to have SYNNEX contribute to the relief effort – we will be contributing.

I will not comment on the politics of the situation. Why – because I don’t do politics.

This is my time tip tonight. Have a “don’t do” list. This saves me a lot of time. I don’t do politics so do not have to go to political meetings, do fund raising etc. I don’t yet play golf; again saving hours (I could likely play almost every day in the summer if I wanted to). I don’t fundraise. I give generously and support others that do but I don’t currently fundraise. The better I know myself the better I am able to construct my “don’t do list”.

One way I do it is by tracking my time and logging what I like doing (and hence am usually good at) and what I do not like doing. Taking things from my don’t like list and adding them to my don’t do list is a great time saver.

Notice the word yet or currently. I don’t YET/CURRENTLY. This gives me to option to take it up at some future date when I feel I have the time or the inclination.

Bruce Johnson’s blog with further expands this topic.

I will dream Tomatoes and the 5th Power Tip

Sunday was a lazy day. No work out. Minor household chores (but not enough). Read lots though. Elizabeth ran/cycled a Duathlon (and won 3rd in her age) on Saturday but was not as tired as me and still went on a run.

Today, Elizabeth and I helped can 10 bushels of tomatoes. We are friends with an older Italian couple who as tradition invite a group over to make tomato sauce. Fun social time and enough tomato sauce for the winter.

Ran 5 K. Still feeling sluggish from the triathlon.

Now I am spending time on my goals. This is something I do quite frequently but there are 2 special times of year – New Years and now that feel like new beginnings so I spend an extra amount of time on them. I have a book that I keep my goals in. Reviewing them tends to keep me on track. It helps me come up with action plans on what the next steps are.

For me, I only work on 4-5 goals at once. Any goal that I am not prepared to spend at least an hour per week on cannot be a real goal. I constantly drop and add goals to my list as things are accomplished or become habits.

If you want to get from Toronto to Kingston, you will get there faster if you check a map first than by just driving 150K/hour.

This is my 5th Power Time Tip. Replace your clock with a compass. It is better to know the direction you want to go than to try to move quickly. Effectiveness is more important than efficiency. It is more important to work on the right thing than to simply work quickly.

Triathlon and the Power of 3 Goals

Yesterday I did the Guelph Lake Triathlon. I did the sprint distance which was 750M swim, 19 Km cycle and 5K run. I had not trained for it but, like a half marathon, I always want to be in good enough shape to do a sprint tri. It was my first time swimming this year. Sounds like excuses. My times were poor. 1:36:42 total.

The swim was hard and seemed long. Half way through the swim I decided I was not going to do another tri today. There is an Olympic distance (twice as far as the one I did) today and I had half thought I might do that today. I rarely swim in open water. Kicked many times unintentionally by the crowd. The water was choppy.

My cycle time was slow as I realized I need to get more comfortable with speed. I braked on some of the hills and was passed by 30 riders (although I did pass 10 or so on the up hills). I also need many more hours getting good with my shoe clips and gearing.

The run was the only part that I did OK placing 120 out of 385 with a time of 23:43. Not a record time by any means – partly because of the heat which I am particularly sensitive to. I figure anything under 25 after the swim and bike is not bad.

My transitions were slow and I should practice – 2:54 and 1:22 respectively. So I could feel bad because of my poor showing but…

This brings me to the next Power Tip which I read once in a running book. The Power of 3 goals. My 3 goals were to finish, to finish in the top half and to place in my age category. I finished so I did accomplish one goal. I was not in the top half (272 out of 385) and clearly I did not place. I use this trick in many areas of my life. On sales calls – one goal might be to introduce myself to their executives and explain more about SYNNEX, the second might be to win their HP business and the third might be to win primary status on all lines that we sell.

By having 3 goals, I can come away from almost any situation with a sense of satisfaction.

The Third Time Power

The work out came early today since I went to the warehouse for a couple of hours after work last night and did not get home until almost 1. It was the end of our quarter, so an important shipping day. I am glad that I did not miss my work out.

The third time power (and I think my favourite) is "do the worst thing first thing". If you swallow a frog first thing, the rest of the day has to look better. First thing when I arrive in the office I look at my to do list and choose the toughest, worst thing on it and put in just 15 minutes on that task. If it is completed in that 15 minutes, great. If not, I give myself permission to stop doing it (although by then I often have momentum and just finish it). I have extended this habit to first thing after lunch also. Why not have 2 first things.

We are a product of our habits. This one habit has taken me further than most of my other habits combined.

Do the worst thing first thing.