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Learn More By Leading A Group

February 27, 2012

Group DiscussionHas there ever been something you wanted to learn but you do not find it easy to learn out of a book? Try leading/facilitating a training session or group discussion and learn along with the rest of the group!

In December of 2010 I ordered and blasted through “The Total Money Makeover” and I wanted to learn more. I found out Dave Ramsey has a class called Financial Peace University and was amped to take it.  I lucked out and was able to put together a class with a lot of help from my friend Andy which allowed my to not only participate by to facilitate.  This allowed me to learn a lot more and forced me to put more effort into it.  I also learned how to be a better facilitator next time.

I was speaking to Dallas Page a couple of weeks ago and we were talking about the benefits of TeamDDPYoga which is a group site dedicated to his workout program and he discussed the importance of having this extra support.  He said when he was teaching at the Power Plant (a former professional wrestling school) that he learned so much more and got better the more he helped other people in his group.

Next time you are wanting to learn something or you are passionate about a subject find a way you can help teach it in a group setting.  It will make you better, learn more, and hopefully make the lives of those you are teaching better.  What can be better than that?

Photo Credit: Michael Coghlan

Filed Under: People Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Day 54 – Red Hot Core

February 27, 2012

Day 54 I did Red Hot Core again.  This is the one I do most often as it is quick and can fit into my schedule easily.  It also focuses on the area I want to do the most work on.  It is not the easiest of the series to do by any means.  You will walk away sore after doing this one.

Yesterday was the first time I have missed doing DDPYoga in 53 days.  I have to admit it felt good to take a little break but it felt even better to come straight in from work and start again.  I did get a workout yesterday walking about 30 flights of steps and a couple of blocks so I won’t say I took the day off – I just did a different workout.

As for my weight, well, it seems that both of the scales we have in the house are not quite accurate so I am not sure where I am at this point.  I know where I started and am going to weigh myself on an accurate scale as soon as I have the chance.  I can say that say based on my belt that I have lost weight and I have gained muscle in my arms and legs.

I aim to write at least once a week for the next four weeks about DDPYoga and then it will be on an occasion from there.  It has been fun doing this series and we have one more month to go!

Filed Under: DDP Yoga, Fitness Tagged With: , , , , ,

Day 47 – It’s Electric

February 20, 2012

Day 47 and I still have not missed a day!

Nothing new to report.  This morning was the second time that I have done Wake Up! right after waking up.  It felt a lot better this time than last time.  Last time I tried was right after I started doing DDPYoga so it put me in a bad mood (I am not a morning person most of the time) but since I have done this for a while now and loosened up quite a bit it felt really good to do this first thing.

I have not weighed myself in over a week.  Trying to limit that as I was doing it every few days but I should be able to report something one way or another in my next post.  Until then keep pushing the limits!

Filed Under: DDP Yoga Tagged With: , , , ,

Nothing Is Impossible

February 19, 2012

 

 

Source: Michael Hyatt – Intentional Leadership

Filed Under: Motivational Tagged With: , ,

Overcomplicated

February 19, 2012

overcomplicatedOne of the worst things you can do for your customers is to make things overcomplicated for them.  Take a look at the picture to the right of the school sign in Michigan (source).  Do you think this is good “customer service” to the tax payers?

I recently had a problem with my cell carrier.  My wife’s phone had a battery problem.  Granted, the phone was four years old but all I wanted to do was pay them for a phone and sign a new contract extending my time with them.  The problem being we were not eligible for an upgrade on that line for 14 days!  When I called customer service they told me they could upgrade me to another phone but not the one she wanted to get.  That one would have to wait.  So I call one of their stores and am told we can upgrade as long as it is in the same month – GREAT!  The upgrade as coming in on the 29th, oh, wait, because it is a leap year they moved us to March 1 meaning we were not in the current month.  Hmmmm…

So, I went to Twitter and within ten minutes got a response from someone who was customer friendly and helped us upgrade the phone, pay them for the phone, pay the upgrade fee, and sign a contract.  It took three different customer service reps and five phone calls to get approved to upgrade a phone two weeks early.  I was literally asking them to allow me to hand them money and it took this many steps to get someone who could take care of it.

This is a simple issue of over complicating an issue in an organization.  The first person I spoke with sh0uld have had the authority to make a two week decision.  Do your customer service people have the tools and power to take care of your customers?  If not, why not?  If you can’t trust them then you have the wrong people in that position.

Of course their should be limits and boundaries.  I have been involved with customer service for over a decade and some of the requests from customers can be quite outlandish.  You must put barriers up somewhere but you have to give enough freedom for your reps to make decisions and exceptions when needed.

Bottom Line:  Allow those that have direct contact with your customers be able to serve your customers.  You will be rewarded many times over with happier employees and much happier and loyal customers.

Filed Under: Careers, Customer Service, Leadership Tagged With: , , , , ,

30 Days

February 15, 2012

30 Days with Morgan SpurlockIt is often said it takes 21 says to form or break a habit. I am not sure how true this is but that is about right for me. If I keep doing something each day somewhere between 21-30 days it starts being routine. Many people want to start or stop habits but think it will be hard or take a lot of time. It may very well be hard if you are curbing an addiction or trying to exercise daily when you have never done it in your life but you have to start the journey.

Morgan Spurlock did his show “30 Days” where he placed himself or another willing participant in a situation for, you guessed it, 30 days.  There were 18 episodes in the original run from 2005-2008 (source: IMDB).  If memory serves, those 30 days were always an eye opener for the participant and those around them and many good things seem to come out of the days they spent together.

Imagine if you looked within yourself and decided to do one thing you always wanted to do and committed to doing it for 30 days.  Would it change your life?  Better yet, would it hurt you in any way?  I ask the hurt question because if the answer is a resounding ‘no’ that it wouldn’t hurt and you could commit the time for a 30 day span then why not try it?

This article was completely inspired by a TEDTalk I ran across a few days ago that was given in 2011 by Matt Cutts.  It is only 3 1/2 minutes and I encourage you to give it a brief watch and see if it inspires you to try something new for just 30 days.


Filed Under: Goal Setting, Life Coaching Tagged With: , , , , ,

Persistence

February 15, 2012

Fort Fisher AquariumYou need persistence in life.  It is a fact to winning in just about everything you do.  If you don’t keep moving forward and moving obstacles you will fail before you get to the finish line.

What brings up this topic is a place in North Carolina.  It is the aquarium at Fort Fisher and I can only assume the other aquariums in the state do this as well.  We visited back in 2006 and upon walking into the lobby you are greeted and asked if you would like to have your picture taken at no charge.  You can see the picture we had taken just under 6 years ago to the left.

This seemed innocent enough and, of course, we knew they would want to sell us a package which we did not buy as we were on a budget for the trip.  However, once we got home I received an e-mail asking if I would like to purchase the picture now.  I deleted it and kept going.  Then I got another one, and another one, and another one.  Just earlier this month I received another one offering my Valentine’s borders and gifts of the picture we took several years ago.

I in no way look at this as a bad thing.  I could always opt out of the e-mails if I decided to.  However, I get to relive the memory of this trip and this moment each time they send out the marketing e-mail.  Their persistence turns into a trip down memory lane for me and you never know, someday I may purchase a high resolution version of the picture.

Bottom line is you need to be persistent if you want something.  Do not annoy and nag but don’t be willing to settle for less than you deserve and push through the rough spots and WIN!

 

Filed Under: Customer Service, Goal Setting Tagged With: , , ,

Day 38 – Double Black Diamond

February 11, 2012

WHEW! For the first time today I tried the “Double Black Diamond” DVD which was over an hour long. Few modifications but all in all I feel I rocked it. Felt good to make it through the whole workout especially regretting it a tad after about ten minutes into it.

DDP takes great care to get you stretched out from the start and prepare for the remainder of the workout. It is more demanding than any of the other workouts in the series that I have completed. I was absolutely soaked at the end of this one. My least favorite parts – Exploding Pushups and Down Dog.

I hate the exploding pushups but they motivate me to try harder and I am getting stronger by doing them. You basically lower down really close to the ground and hold for a set interval and then explode up. I still have some upper body work to do before really getting this down.

Down Dog is not my friend. I am feeling it getting easier and one day soon we may become acquaintances but that is a little ways down the road. I think this has a lot to do with upper body work as well, especially my arm strength so I am not giving up on the dog just yet.

One of my favorite moves from this workout is the Chicken Wing. It isn’t what I would call easy but it stretches you out pretty good. You can see it demonstrated in the video below about three minutes in.

What motivated me to do this today? Well, I got the chance to talk to the man himself Diamond Dallas Page last night (thanks Bambi). We had a brief conversation on how DDPYoga has changed our lives and we are just over a month in. We talked a little about nutrition and changing the way we eat. One thing he recommended that I think you pop drinkers might want to look at is Zevia which is a soda that comes in several flavors but has no calories, no fat, no gluten, zero net carbs, and is low sodium.  It is a bit pricey which can be a turn off, however, if you are trying to eliminate soda from your diet this could be a good step to take for a week or two to wean yourself off of it.

Filed Under: DDP Yoga, Fitness Tagged With: , , , , ,

Savings Snowball

February 9, 2012

snowballIf you have researched paying off debt in any form more than likely you have come across the “Debt Snowball” method of paying off debt.  Many people have talked about it but most notably of those is Dave Ramsey.

Ramsey suggests in order to pay of debts quicker and get a psychological advantage in your process you start with your smallest debt and work up to the highest balance debt until you are debt free.  I was thinking a few weeks ago, why not try this with my savings accounts?  And so I have and thusfar has worked like a charm.

I have several savings accounts which gets money automatically transferred into them on a set interval.  These accounts are my budgeted items – you could call them my electronic envelopes.  They are named for what they are to be used for such as car maintenance, clothing, birthdays, Christmas, etc.  I know how much I want in each of these to consider them “fully funded”.

I make a list of these accounts and how much each one needs in it in order to be maxed out at from the smallest one to the largest one.  Now, the money that is budgeted for is put into these accounts with the most going into the smallest one each pay day.  Once that one is fully funded I move to the next one on the list and put the budgeted amount into that account plus what was budgeted for the first account.  We continue this until all of the accounts are fully funded and then everything that was budgeted for them starts going into my emergency fund.

I find this to be a natural progression if you use the “Baby Steps” as part of your personal finance plan.  It easy to keep up with, you already understand the snowball, and it gives you another set of financial goals whose whole purpose is to keep you from getting back into the debt trap again.

Photo courtesy of Ryan Grimm.

Filed Under: Goal Setting, Money Saving, Personal Finance Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Have you started saving for Christmas?

February 8, 2012

Plaza ChristmasIt is almost that time of year again! What? It isn’t? Oh, it is just time to start saving for that time of year. That is what I wanted to discuss.

Every year I see first hand hundreds of people waiting until the last minute to purchase presents for Christmas because they do not plan throughout the year. They wait and wait and at the last minute it is like a ghost that was leftover from Halloween screamed “BOO!” and they are rushing to get gifts or get money for the holidays. Want to have a less stressful season in 10 months? Start saving now!

You don’t have to be stressed this year.  I promise you, if you will follow a few simple steps you can have the easiest holiday season you have ever had.  Everything feels different when you have the money saved, you pay with cash, and you know you won’t have a huge credit card bill come January that may very well stick around until the following Christmas.

All you have to do are a few simple steps:

  1. Write down everyone you want to buy for.
  2. Double check that list.  Are you sure you want to buy something for everyone on that list?
  3. Can you make something for some of those people (including food items) instead of buying them an expensive gift?  If so, move them to the side of the list.
  4. Write down how much you want to spend on each person beside their name.
  5. Total that number up.
  6. Divide it by how many times you will get paid between now and your last pay check before Christmas.
  7. BAM!  You just decided how much you needed to save each pay day to pay in full in cash for Christmas this year and not have the stress of running around at the last minute.

You must be realistic on what you want to spend on each person.  If you make $20,000 a year you need to spend what you can afford.  If you feel bad for this, then let the people know now that you can’t afford it and settle on a mutual amount to spend on each other based on what you can spend.  Don’t let the people who put everything on credit cards tell you how much you should spend on them.

If you want to go a little further figure out how much it will cost for the supplies to make the people at the side your list their gifts and budget for that as well.  Or, better yet, of you aren’t making them a food item figure out how many items you need to make each month to be finished for Christmas and you can save that stress at the end of the year as well.

Have A Merry February Everyone!

More Information:

What Dave Ramsey says about saving for Christmas

Photo courtesy of David DeHetre

 

Filed Under: Goal Setting, Money Saving Tagged With: , , , ,
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