This boy from the dry desert of NM had no idea what was in store for him this weekend.   I thought I’d do a more in depth race report since this is also my first race as an Xterra Ambassador.    The Xterra family is really fantastic and I saw and experienced that first hand this race.  Anna and I drove from ABQ to Ardmore, OK (10 hr) on Friday and Saturday.   It rained most of the trip there and we definitely noticed the shift in humidity when we got to the campsite at Lake Murray.   

The venue was beautiful.   I’m not used to hardwood forests and lush green everywhere.  The scenery was gorgeous.   

Upon arrival and check in, I met Andy and Desiree, the R.D.’s, both uber friendly and helpful.  Then I met Annette and her husband, Xterra ambassadors as well.   This was just the beginning of many new friends made in just 24 hours. 

I decided to go out and preride the bike course as soon as we’d set up camp.   Thus began the mud.  

I’ve never encountered so much mud, so many various kinds of mud and gone so slow while working so hard in my life!  I made a decent tire selection on the back, Kenda small block 8 but could have done the same on the front if I’d had an extra.   As it was, I had a Kenda Nevegal on the front, and two spare tires I bought in ABQ but had bought the 29er’s instead of 26’s (stupid) and so had no real options.   The course wasn’t really that bad in terms of mud.   It hadn’t rained since the night before and so most of the trails had started to firm up.   Firm up means, that they were still muddy but not soupy muddy, and the clay sections that were super slick had hardened enough to get some catch if you were moving quick enough.

Beautiful layout, lots of twists and turns through the trees, a couple of technical rock gardens, nothing to major and then a final mile along a fire road that took what mud you hadn’t accumulated already and packed as much as possible onto the bike.   It was like riding through caliche clay from NM.  Every layer just continues to add another layer until you’re 25lb MTB weighs 55lb and you can’t even really walk with it very well.  

Pre-ride complete - cold beer in hand.

 The prerided quick enough.  But not without some major mechanical issues.  My rear brake pads were completely gone, the composite on the metal backing was worn off completely from the mud and grime so I started asking around for some spare parts because there are no bike shops within about 2 hours of Ardmore (none in Ardmore itself).   Luckily I ran into Steve and Linda Cole, Xterra Ambassador’s from Mississippi and he loaned me a set for the race.   Perfect!  

These were brand new brake pads...who knew mud could do that!?

 Race night – rain and thunder storms all night.  Race day – what mud had started to dry out the day before was no longer dry. 

Race morning was sunny and gorgeous, albeit it muddier than I could have imagined.    The race started about  1/3 mile down from the transition area at the Lake.   Swim was 2 – 500 meter loops.   My swim was really good.  I didn’t panic at all, the water was perfect, 70 degrees and really, didn’t need the wetsuit if I hadn’t wanted it.   1^st loop was great and then the 2^nd loop I drafted off an older guy that was swimming at a comfortable pace for me.   I was out of the water in 17 minutes, out of my wetsuit and headed up the road to transition.

The calm before the storm

Transition was quick, onto the bike – and then the fun began.  I went out pretty hard.   I passed 5-6 guys and then about mile 4 of the 5.5 mile loop I hit some really slick “clay” mud and downshifted to small ring (no-no),  popped my chain off on the inside and all 6 guys passed me before I was able to get enough mudd off the drivetrain to even find the chain.   Finally got back on the bike and continued.   It was really hard.   The mudd was either sandy frothy slick mudd like riding through a cappacino puddle or slick clay.   If you tried to steer through the sandy mudd, you’d loose all momentum and stop.   Most of the sandy mud sections had slick clay exits so you had to go fast enough to be able to climb out or you’d get stuck on the exits.   

There was this wonderful leafy stuff to the side of the slick clay that said “come on over here and ride on me, I’ll be good to you…” so I did.   Liars.   The leaves stuck to the clay and immediately the bike would lock up.  I think I did that three times before realizing that the leaves were lying to me.  

Coming into Transition on the first loop

One racer said it was like riding through peanut butter – true statement.    The last mile was really bad.   In fact, on my second loop I decided to run the bike all the way to the paved road, about .25miles up from transition, in part to get my blood flow regulated and also I actually think I moved quite a bit faster.   

10.4 miles of biking took 1:46 minutes.   Crazy.  

The run was fantastic.  I had the 2^nd fastest run split at 35:30.  The run course was about 4.25 miles.  I thought I’d run faster but felt like I was going all out!   Not much mud on the run course although in the future I will remember to bring along extra metal screws to put in the bottoms of my shoe (along with spare brake pads for the bike) for races where the course might be slick.  It would have helped to have a little extra traction.     

Finished!

We met some incredible people at this race.   I know I really wrestle with where to put my training energies and time, Xterra, Ultramarathon, Adventure Racing, MTB racing…but I meet the coolest peole doing Xterra.    It is really a fantastic crowd to train and race with.

Harry and I swapping stories about the mud

I must thank my lovely bride Anna for being my greatest race supporter, fan, support crew, co-driver home and encourager.   Babe – you handle so many details so I can focus on racing, thank you!

So Glad to be done. A great time!

Xterra Red River

For more info on Xterra.

My wife is an amazing baker.  She could start her own bakery and make millions.    This would cause a few problems, not the least of which is that I’d need to buy larger size pants.  My favorite thing is Anna’s carrot cake.   It’s heavenly. 

My wife has learned how to make her carrot cake “stick;”  the smell, the taste, the expectation of the cream cheese frosting…oh my.  I can’t help but share with others how good her carrot cake is.   And once they’ve had a piece, it’s all over.   I recently ran into an old co-worker I’d not seen in 2 years.   The first thing out of her mouth was, “It’s been too long since I’ve had your wife’s carrot cake.”  

She didn’t even say hi. 

Anna has successfully done what authors Dan and Chip Heath write about in their book Made to Stick.   She’s found a way to take a message, in this case – yummy carrot cake – and make it so memorable and sticky in the mind of her audience that they are compelled to talk about it, share it with others and in this case even use it as a metaphor in a blog post.     

Wouldn’t it be great if your vision or purpose statement was that sticky?  Is it possible to communicate a message in a way that creates much greater reception and influence by simply applying a few key properties to every message? 

Dan and Chip Heath believe it is.    And so do I.  

Below are my key learnings from the book.  To read the actual introduction of the book click here.

THOUGHTS FROM BOOK

Pg 8 - Definition of Stickyness “when your ideas are understood and remembered, and have a lasting impact – they change your audience’s opinions or behavior
Pp 16-18 – The Six Principles of Sticky Ideas (SUCCESs)

1. Simplicity
2. Unexpectedness
3. Concreteness
4. Crediblity
5. Emotions
6. Story

Pg 20 – Beware: The Curse of Knowledge.   This has immediate impact for anybody that has a message they want to communicate.  Curse of Knowledge – when I as the message sender assume that you know what I know. 

SIMPLICTY

• Find the CORE of an idea.  
• Two great questions as you schedule a day or a week:
  • If I do nothing else during tomorrow’s ___________ (meeting, day, seminar, etc), I must ____________.
  • The single, most important thing that I must accomplish tomorrow is _________________.
• Finding the CORE requires “Forced Prioritization.”   This is a great concept.   When we decide what is most important we are forced to prioritize around that.  It sounds simple and easy but in reality this is tough for leaders to be clear on. 

 “A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”  Antoine de Saint-Exupery

• Simple = CORE + Compact   The message has to have both variables to be simple.    They will not work if one is left out.  Another way of putting it is that ideas need to be compact enough to be sticky and meaningful enough to make a difference….otherwise it probably doesn’t need to be said.

UNEXPECTED

• To get someone’s attention you have to find a way to break the pattern.
• To make our communication more effective, we need to shift our thinking from:

“What information do I need to convey? ========> to “What questions do I want my audience to ask?

CONCRETE

• Big takeaway for me was the idea that a message will not grow if it is ambiguous.    It must have skin, bones and flesh; it has to have feet on the ground. 

Concreteness makes the abstract accessible.

• The Velcro Theory of Memory: Our brains function in much the same way as Velcro.   The more hooks an idea has, the better it will cling to memory.  
• Pg 111 A powerful and moving story that illustrates the power of CONCRETE titled Brown Eyes, Blue Eyes.

CREDIBLE

• Vivid details boost credibility
• Statistics will, and should, almost always be used to illustrate a relationship.  It’s more important for people to remember the relationship than the number.

EMOTIONAL

• The most basic way to make people care is to form an association between something they don’t yet care about and something they do care about.
• Pg. 203 To get people to care about our ideas, we have to get them to take off their analytical hats.   We create empathy for specific individuals.  We show how our ideas are associated with things that people already care about.  We appeal to their self-interest, but we also appeal to their identities—not only to the people they are right now but also to the people they would like to be.

STORIES

• Story provides simulation (knowledge) and inspiration (motivation to ACT) 

FAVORITE QUOTE FROM THE BOOK

“If you’re a great spotter (of ideas, creativity and the principles from the book), you’ll always trump a great creator.   Why?  Because the world will always produce more great ideas than any single individual, even the most creative one.”

HOW TO APPLY THIS TO YOUR VISION MESSAGE.

1. Write out in detail the current situation behind the message.  What is the reason for the message or the aim of the message?
2. Write out what the existing message to the end user is currently.  What is the current message being communicated? 
3. Then create and write out a second message trying to use the SUCCESS principles from the book.
4. As a team create a scorecard (see below)
5. As a team evaluate which message has more points, based on the SUCCESS principles.  The more points, the better the chance the message will stick.

Scorecard (how do the 2 messages compare based on the following criterea?)

Checklist                     Message 1                    Message 2

Simple
Unexpected
Concrete
Credible
Emotional
Story

NEXT ACTION:

1. Read the book.  This post does only a cursory overview of some great writing and illustrations.   One of the best parts of the book is that it’s written in a way that helps it stick, the whole book is an example of what they are writing on.
2. Also, at the end of the book is a bulleted list of all the key concepts and core messages from the book for quick reference.
3. Subscribe to the Author’s blog on their website: www.madetostick.com

What other great books or ideas have you learned for making vision sticky?  (Yes, Making Vision Stick by Andy Stanley would be a GREAT example. )

Img Ginnerobot

STOP!

Have you taken a review of your life lately?

Take a moment to celebrate 10 accomplishments, big or small,  you’ve had in the last 30-90 days.    Think about it, and write them down.   And, share them with me, I’d love to celebrate with you. 

Here’s my list:

1. Successfully moved my wife and myself from Oregon back to Albuquerque.
2. Paid all bills and obligations in the midst of crazy financial times.
3. Competed and finished 4 Xterra races.
4. Competed and finished Wild West Relay.
5. Grew my blog readership from 1 to 7.
6. Stayed on track with Reading through the Bible in a Year.
7. Found a Church in Albuquerque.
8. Started commuting to work at least 3x per week.
9. Began to reach back out into relational world once again.
10. Started a new job

The goal of this activity isn’t to boast.    It’s a good practice to regularly go back and review what you’ve done over a period of time and celebrate it.   Share it.   Never underestimate the power of looking back over past accomplishments; a practice which can help build personal accountability and encouragement for the look forward.

What a gift it is to be listened too, to know at the other end of your words there is someone who is attentive, interested and actively listening.    Two of the primary skill sets for any successful coach, mentor or leader is listening and asking great questions.  

I loved what Bob Logan had to share about the cardinal rules of listening in his book Coaching 101.

FOCUS: Give complete and undivided attention to the person communicating.

SUMMARIZE: Mirror back what you think you’ve heard without interpreting, evaluating or projecting feelings onto their statements.

INVITE: When they stop talking, ask for more.  

UNPACK: Exhaust the resources of the person speaking before sharing anything yourself.  

CLARIFY: Check your assumptions.  “Here’s what I’m hearing you say so far…Is that accurate?”

The challenge at the end of chapter 1 is to try a disciplined approach to asking questions, unpacking the thinking of others before contributing your own thoughts for 30-days and see what impact it has in the people you lead and coach.

I’m in. 

Wanna join me?

For the next 30-days, I’m going to focus very hard on asking great questions, and listening really well in all situations.   I’ll let you know how it goes on September 19th.

Here are some basic questions to get us started: (from Coaching 101)

• What are your deepest passions?
• What really satisfies and fulfills you?
• What energizes you?
• What drains your energy?
• What legacy do you want to leave?
• How do you want to be remembered?
• What are your strengths?
• Where are you gifted?
• What’s one thing you’d like to change about yourself?

In addition,  here are 3 rules to keep in mind:

1. Don’t give advice
2. Don’t tell people something they can discover on their own.
3. Don’t fix the problem for them

What questions would you add, or subtract?

Just finished a second read through of Making Vision Stick by Andy Stanley. (the picture is a copy of my notes in the front of the book, something I learned from Tim Sanders)  Andy is the lead teaching pastor at Northpoint Church in Atlanta. I’ve never been to the church but can’t help but see the great influence of their ministry across all sorts of platforms from worship, to books to conferences, resources and tweets by their staff. Very cool stuff.

The book was a timely read for me. It’s one that was easy to digest and had great reminders of key vision points especially as it relates to leadership.

Here were the highlights for me:

• Vision doesn’t stick without constant care and attention
• The passage of time is hard on vision
• Complexity distracts leaders from their vision
• Vision is about what could be and should be; life is about right now
• When it comes to making your vision stick the most important thing to remember: YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE
• 5 keys to making vision sticky
  • State it simply
  • Cast it convincingly
  • Repeat it regularly
  • Celebrate it systematically
  • Embrace it personally
• It’s better to have an incomplete vision that is memorable than a complete one that is forgettable
• What’s celebrated gets repeated
• Embody the vision of an organization personally – then people know it’s not a just a job
• You want people who choose to follow you to end their journey with more respect for you than when they began
• The questions you ask communicate what is of value to you
• We pray for what we are most burdened by
• Vision requires daily commitment, daily action

Of those thoughts, any stick out to you as memorable?   What could you do today that would be specific and measurable that would increase the stickiness of your vision?

One of the things I learned early in my sales career was the power of having a short, passionate statement that described my unique selling proposition.   Sometimes referred to as an “Elevator Speech”, a Lift-off statement is a paragraph that encapsulates your passion or product in the amount of time you’d have to share with someone on an elevator.   

I was going through some files on my computer today and found this one from my last position and was reflecting on how true it still is.   

“I am blessed to wake up every morning and spend all day living out my dream.  I get to inspire & encourage people to advance in their lives towards the goals and objectives that they’d like to achieve.  I get to come alongside people & help them intentionally live out thier life with balance & power so that they experience all that they can every day!”

Just reading through that got me fired up!    And that’s when I realized that one of the most important reasons to have a statement like that is for days when I can’t seem to get the engine going; the countdown is at zero and there’s no fire coming from the jets.   Someday’s are just like that and a Lift-off statement is a great tool for punching through it.   It gives you clarity about who and what is most important to you.   

I guess there’s probably a difference between a lift-off statement and a vision or purpose statement but rather than get into the differences in this post, if you’ve never crafted a lift-off statement, try it.  Here are 3 simple questions to get yourself started.

1. Who do you work for?
2. What do you do?
3. Why do you do it?

Then just start writing.   When you’ve got it down to a short paragraph try it out on a close friend or family member who will give you some good feedback.  I’d love to hear how it goes and what you come up with!

My wife and I have been listening to Mark Driscoll’s teaching series called Trials. Mark’s the teaching pastor at Mars Hill Church in Seattle.  It’s a verse by verse walk through 1st and 2nd Peter. It’s been a very challenging and transforming experience for us. We’re excited to be a part of the Mars Hill campus starting here in Albuquerque later this summer.

His last message on 1st Peter was on Humility and I was extremely challenged by what he shared.   Here are 8 questions he gave as an evaluation of sorts of where you are in regards to growing in humility.  I submit them here for thought and contemplation.

1. Am I teachable?
2. How do I respond to correction and rebuke?
3. Do I repent quickly and thoroughly?
4. Am I considerate of other people?
5. Do I serve and receive service well?
6. Am I consistently aware of God’s grace in my life?
7. Do I disagree agreeably?
8. How much attention and affirmation do I require?

Really want to take these questions to heart?  Don’t answer them yourself.   Have those closest to you rate you on a scale of 1 to 10.

Pursuing humilty by the grace of God…

I was leaving the gym the other day and as I walked out the main doors there were some young kids, probably 4th or 5th graders running towards the doors to go in and swim.

Two of the boys were trying to race for the door on the outside that has the Handicapped Assistance Button to manually open the door.

One yelled at the other one, ” I want to be handicapped, I want to be handicapped…”

I haven’t been able to get this out of my head. To this kid, he was saying something so disconnected from reality but to him was everything in that moment. It was to him the same as wanting to call shotgun or get the biggest steak. All things aside, he just wanted to push the blue button and be first.

In what ways to we do this?

Anna and I went to a new church today.   We’d visited there once before when we first moved to Bend, but hadn’t returned since.   No reason really, just at that time we knew it wasn’t where we needed to be.  It was a great service and as expected, the teaching was really good.   Antioch Church in Bend.

Pastor Ken shared a story about taking a group of 11-12 year old troubled youth from LA to the mountains for a retreat back when he was in college.    Late one night, he “snuck out” with the kids and they all took their bed rolls out to a hillside and watched the twinkling of the stars well into the night.  For every single kid, it was the first time that they had been able to see the stars.   They were astonished.  The light pollution in LA had been so severe and none of them had ever been above it so they’d never seens stars.  Can you imagine that?   They had no idea the glory of looking into a clear night sky and seeing million of God’s most wonderful creations twinkling down at them.

He was driving towards how religion can many times be the same as light pollution.  It can be a distraction and get between people and God making it actually harder for them to see and find Him, or what He is bringing.  Religion should rather encourage, get behind people, come alongside and encourage, empower and assist them toward God.

I immediately wondered if I do that as a coach.  I believe that coaching, discipling, mentoring takes an enormous amount of humility and submitting to the Holy Spirit as well as a sound foundation of biblical truth.   But it’s still very easy to find ourselves swayed by the current thought or philosophy of the day.  Not all of it is bad of course and there’s nothing wrong with bringing good wisdom and teaching into the life of leaders BUT I (we) need to guard against getting between people and God and rather, stay behind or alongside of them encouraging, cheering them on and assisting them to be and do – who and what  GOD desires.

What do you think?

“Let anyone who thinks he stands take heed, lest he fall.”

I’ve been reflecting this past couple days on thoughts that seem to be summed up in this statement.  I’m working through a book called the Emotional Healthy Church by Pete Scazzero.

The main takeaway for me has been the incredible need that all leaders have to make sure they’ve taken a good look at their emotional health.

I would say in my limited experience that we give very little attention to this area of health.   Really.  I believe in leadership circles, both in and out of  “the church” we give it lip service but there is a sense that really focusing on emotional health is a weakness, or it’s too touchy-feely, or it’s simply not for us.    There’s a underlying current that people who would focus on anything having to do with serious emotional introspection need counseling and somehow have “problems.”

Like the rest of us don’t.   I guess maybe that’s the point.   Take a good hard look on your emotional state of being.   Do some reflection.   Take a day or a morning to fast and pray and find out if there’s some areas to shore up here.   I would say I’m a fairly stable emotional person but after reading this and spending some time in prayer, I’m “readjusting” my perspective. 

When compared with the emotional health of Jesus, I’d have to say, I’ve got some growing to do.  Here’s a list for Scazzero’s book.

• Jesus was greatly disturbed in spirt and deeply moved
• Jesus wept at the gravesite of Lazarus and over teh city of jerusalem
• Jesus was angry with his disciples
• Jesus was furious at the crass commercialism in the temple
• Jesus showed astonishment
• Jesus had an emotional longing to be with the twelve apostles
• Jesus had compassion for widows, lepers and blind men

More to come on this topic as I finish the book.  I have a feeling that I’ll be parked on some of this material for a while and I sense that personally I will be doing some introspection on it for sure.

I’d be curious of how this idea of “Emotional Health” stacks up with thoughts from Daniel Goleman’s book Emotional Intelligence.  I’ve not had a chance to read that yet, but will as soon as I can get my hands on a copy.  Our local library doesn’t have it!  Lame.