Finding a New Way to Think or React

An interesting theme has developed with my day today. First, I was reading an article in the NY Times while my flight was boarding and landed on a business article about a guy named Dan Schneider, founder of SIB. He is a high school dropout that founded his first business when he was 16 and had his first store at 18. Since then, he has built other companies which brings me to his most recent. What the company is does not matter. He has some work practices that I find absolutely excellent.
1) Unless it is a dire emergency, nobody is allowed to bring bad news to him after 3 PM. It provokes a culture where people are motivated to leave good situations to share at the end of the day which is what will be on your mind when you go home to your family and friends.

2) When someone makes a mistake that costs them time or money, rather than rant, rave and swear (like he said he used to), he makes that person go buy everyone ice cream complete with toppings which they all sit around and eat as a team. Like he describes, "Even when a little league team loses, they get ice cream!" It changes the culture about how we handle mistakes and ties a positive to it. He said errors have dropped significantly which is the desired outcome. They have only had ice cream 3 or 4 times since the first time.

3) Lastly, he handles employee retention by rewarding employees that stay 5 years with $50,000 and again after each additional 5 years! WOW! This keeps retraining costs down as well as a positive motivation to keep employees engaged, doing their best job they can. In my line of work, ramping up new employees is difficult and then when they bolt after 1-2 years, you really lose more money and productivity than a company realizes.

Then, I jumped on the Gogo Inflight and saw that my buddy Jeff Ford posted a new blog about one of his recent half marathons. He talked about running with the outright women's champion and her awesome sportsmanship. I'd tell you about it but I think you should read it for yourself by following this link!

While I spent 4 weeks at Hilton Head Health, the piece of the journey that I did not expect was the 'SELF' piece. We respond to the condition of our mind. If our mind is not in a good place, we will have a tendency to treat ourselves or others near us poorly. Positivity counts. Find a new way of thinking like the examples above. It will pay back to you ten-fold. Wellness is a multi-faceted task to embrace!

How will you change the way you think or react starting today?

Beginning My Next Chapter

Since finding my way to Hilton Head Health in April, my life has not been better.  It was the beginning of this incredible journey towards personal wellness.  We will call that chapter 1.  My stay of 28 days at H3 was great and was very difficult to leave.  I wondered how great it would have been to have been able to do a stay of 3 months or even 6 months as others have done.  My success at home was just as great despite not being able to do it in a 'bubble' having classes with Jeff, Bob, Amber, Karla, Louise and others. 

My leaving H3 had 2 key goals for the upcoming months. 
1) No more use of a seatbelt extender on ANY airplane.    I still carry the old extender with...more as a reminder of where I was.
2) Return to H3 to run Devin's Dash on 10/8/11 without walking   Not only did I complete this but I did one on September 17th in Minneapolis.  Placing 2nd in my age group at H3 was so uplifting and will push me to do more races and get faster! 

Now with the goals met, it is time to start the next chapter in this journey.  I have not yet decided on the goals which surprisingly is the most difficult thing for me to do.  Keep in mind that the goals are behavior or activity based and not based on a number such as pounds lost or size clothing to be in.  The weight lost and clothing changes are just the beautiful by-product of reaching for the behavior goals.

I know that my future goals will include involving others at work and my great friends that I met at H3, especially those that were on the TV show filmed there, HEAVY. 

As I returned to H3 this week, I realized how many people are reading this blog or have watched my now very old H3 testimonial video on YouTube.  I felt like a celebrity!  A big thanks to Jeff for talking me up and using me as an example.  I am so glad that Jeff is my at home coach.  I want to thank everyone at H3, at work, in my hometown and my family for the support. 

You all inspire me to continue this trek!