Alex Mann

How do you get stuff done that you hate doing?

Well there are only two ways?

1.       Give it someone else, this is called delegation and it’s rather effective. There are a couple of things that you must take into account and those are firstly the time that you have to spend organising for the task to be done and the second thing whom will you get to do it?

2.       Reframe the task/job, this is the somewhat more difficult thing to undertake but in my experience with a little discipline and practice can really have you feeling peaceful about things you have to do. How?

a.   Ask these questions in relation to the task you don't want to do

                 i.      Why should I do this?

                                                            
        ii.      What result would I get if I did this job?

               iii.      Who would benefit if I did this job?

                iv.      How would I feel if I did this task?

b.      Vocalise or write down the task as if you have done it along with the result...as example

“I followed up on my new prospect and have secured a profitable new client”

“I did interval training this morning in order to beat my cycling mates”

This process starts to help us understand why we should do the things we have to leaving us feeling more powerful when doing those tasks

Don’t attack too early

My biggest fault in cycle racing is the temptation to get excited and attack too early, this only serves to wear me out, leave me exposed to other counter attacks I can’t cover and ultimately leaves me with no legs to sprint when it really matters.

Time after time you often see the race being won by the wirily vet that sits quietly in the bunch seeking shelter, cleverly looking like they’re working and then sprint past us all at the end. What lessons can we learn from these patient old sprinters?

1.       Prepare for the long term, don't work 12 hour days year after year thinking that success is around the corner, sure be a hard worker but how many millions of employees on fixed & low incomes work hard and long... heaps, so don't confuse success with hard work. Understand that hard work is just one of many components of success.

2.      Surround yourself with great people, employ them, socialise with them or be mentored by them. You don’t always need to be the most talented to win. This is heartening for those of us that don’t posses natural talents (like Tiger Woods or Lance Armstrong) but in order to be delivered to the finish line you had better follow the talented closely.

We only have the power of choice

“While we all have the power to create whatever we desire in life, it all depends upon our own choices that which we do solely create.”

This resent twitter sent by one my friends, is a commonly held truth to attain success both in cycling and life. As much as I would like this statement to be true I do feel that there is more hope than actual truth to the statement.

The first sentence assumes that we have all been given the same physical and mental talents.  Tell that to the Aids inflicted toddler living in Africa with no parents, no organised education system and no real stable economy. It is quoted by some fortunate and talented people “If I can you then you can too” in an attempt to justify their success. I’ve always felt that this is fuelled by the inability to accept Gods talents and blessings.

The truth in the statement that I totally agree with, and has psychological but also biblical backing is that we have freedom of choice.

So then how do we make the right choices....?

1.       As Tony Robins says it’s not the answers we should focus on but the questions we ask. Ask yourself lots of questions What and How are great to start with

2.       Have an end result, this has you focus on questions that may fuel the activity to get what you want, so you want to win the 7 stage cycling tour, you’ll be asking which stages do I need to place high in? Which is different to the questions a KOM winner will asking (in my case is this the hill with points??)

3.       Reduce asking Why, this can often lead to introspective and negative thinking which ultimately leads to either poor decisions or no decision and no action

4.       Ask more than one or two people, as a market researcher I face this most days and fight the assumptions of my business clients and their world view opposed to the view their customers may have.

5.       Once you have an answer make your choice and back yourself.

*My one disclaimer is that yes, the choices we make do indeed determine the heights that we climb, but it does not guarantee the level you may be aiming. Remember you’re making choices at the same time others are making decisions which is something you have no control over... 

Wow what a great weekend (not), it rained for both days ...

The principal of Timing.

Whenever discussing this point with people it most often meets with some resistance, believing that I am preaching a sermon on “Luck”,  but first let me outline the concept.

Once again I refer to Malcolm Gladwells book “Outliers” in which he raises the point that Timing is a huge variable in the result of success. He maintains that we don't profit in a vacuum, and some stages of history suited differing talents and skills than at other times. A cycling example would be the resent rein of Lance Armstrong and the Tour de France,  not a great time to rock up to the Tour and try and win, he was intellectually, and physically talented with a determination that made even the best pro’s at the time look like weekend warriors.

But here’s a tip to having this principal work for you, ...

Don’t just wait for the right time, keep looking, stay in action and keep training as you don't know when that right time may pop up.

Tom Boonen was being interviewed after winning a stage in the 2007 Tour de France & was asked why he had not won for such a long time. He responded with “just hadn’t got into any breaks and today I did”, had he stopped racing, NO, he kept fronting up to races knowing that maybe this one was the one...

This is the first of several blogs drawing the lessons that I've learnt from road cycle racing for the last 12 years (Shit am I that old!)

The reason I love cycling is for the same reason that I love being in business, its all about strategy, tactics, psychology, anthropology & making money (yes we get paid money for winning in cycling)

Anyway here is the first principal..

Be Prepared

Very rarely have I seen a unfit and fat bugger come into a cycle race and win....hmmmm, nope never. They may have a great sprint on them but generally they just don't last the distance (I personally have much pleasure in making their race very painful by attacking out of corners, into side winds and up hills)

The fact is that if you want to win, either in business or on the road you have to have trained and PREPARED, there is no success for those that wake up one day and strike out in business and just become wealthy. In Malcolm Gladwells latest book he talks about the 10,000 hour rule read an exert here. Essentially he maintains that for anyone to become great they have to have practiced at their trade for approximately 10,000 hours.

So in order to become an specialist you may not need 10,000 hours, but you had better start to get some specific knowledge or experience.

Yesterday I was so pleased to witness an act of kindness between one human being and another, from seeing this there was a couple of things I noticed and wanted to share...

1. The giver was moved emotionally as much as the recipient. It reminded that one of the best things in life is our ability to GIVE and SHARE 

2. The second point I noted was that the person giving gave when it actually cost them, it's one thing to give out of your abundance but what I saw yesterday was someone giving even when they were stretched as wel.

I found myself asking, what should I learn from seeing this, but then decided to resist that thought process and just chose to enjoy being part of the human interaction... sometimes there's no where to get

Some days you just feel like you want to just turn off, I get this from time to time, we all do.

So how do we recover from these days?

... here's my strategy

1. Look for something to do that you know you are good at, for me its ringing a past client and saying hi, it has me feel like I have progressed my business and connected to people and takes the focus off what may also be happening in my life.

2. Then pick one wee thing that has been put off for a while, (doing an admin job) finishing it will help you feel like you're over coming and achieving things that are difficult.

3. Obviously for me, it's going for a training ride (it maybe different for you) but remember to reward yourself as this has you feel successful in life.

above is a funny cartoon that inspired this Blog entry...enjoy

Alex

Hi All,

Using twitter has become more main stream in the last two to three months, I've noticed that many more are following my own twitter feed ... So as business people how should we use the forum to promote without annoying others and getting the most out of the time invested in twittering...here are some things I've learn't

1. Only follow people or organisations that you are interested in hearing from, I blocked a person I was following, not on the grounds of content, but the volume of tweets had increased and it was difficult to read the tweets I was interested in occasionally missing other tweets from others that I was really interested in...

2. Dont advertise, I find it frustrating enough that my television viewing is interupted by ads so I don't need yours, this does not mean you don't share 'deals' with your followers occasionally, but don't be so crude about it. Remember that people volutarilly follow you so you don't need to be insecure and hammer what you do 5 times a day!

3. Tweet about your life occasionally, as humans we are interested in each other why did we follow whom we follow in the first place???

4. Share Share Share, the tweeterers I enjoy following are the ones that share their's & others' blogs, interesting info on websites and resources even offline.

5. Reply and send direct messages from time to time, its shows you are watching, listening and are personally interested in whom you have chosen to follow... thnk about it, what person do we all love to be around...thats right generally the sort of person that is interested in us