My Fitness Milestones

2012 was the first year I had a REAL focus on improving my health, with eating better, portion control and regular exercise.  Well, 2012 is coming to a close and here's what I've accomplished this year.

- Over 600,000 Nike Fuel points earned

- Over 500 kilometers ran

- 25 pounds lost

- I can run 5 kilometers in under 23 minutes (much improved cardio)

- I'm in the best shape of my entire life.

Goals for 2013...

- Run another 500 kilometers

- Buy weights and build muscle mass (at least 5-10 pounds)

- Loose another 5 pounds of fat

Why do I put this out for people to read?  Not that I assume lots of people read this...  I do it for accountability to myself.  If I put it out there for people to potentially see if they happen to read my blog, it makes me want to keep going.  The difference between a dream and a goal is writing it down.

What are your fitness and health goals for 2013?  Can you stick with them all year?  I know you can.  If I can do it, anyone can do it.

What, How and Why.

I watched a TED Talk the other day by Simon Sinek titled, "How Great Leaders Inspire Action".  First off, if you've never watched a TED Talk and you've got a passion like I do for expanding your mind, then TED Talks are a great place to listen to Ideas Worth Spreading.

One of the topics in Simon's speech is the idea of What, How and Why, or more importantly, Why, How and What.  The more I've thought about this idea, I'm realizing that it's applicable to almost every area of my life.  Family, profession, health, education, religion, hobby, the list goes on.  With work; most of us focus on what we know, driving to learn more stuff.  Then we learn how to do the stuff we're learning, this is the how.  A lot of the time we stop there, with the What and the How a.k.a. knowledge and skills.  But a select few, the inspirational leaders as Simon puts it, get to the Why.  Why do you learn skills and knowledge? Why do you do what you do?  Why get out of bed and go to work everyday?  Why do you strive to achieve more?  Answering these questions for myself has been an enlightening experience.

Starting with Why, then How and ending with What will allow you to discover that it almost doesn't matter what the How and What are.  When you start with Why, you're starting with passion, drive, emotion and determination, and these things will take you anywhere you want to go.

Here's another way to think about it:
What = Knowledge, education, products, services, "stuff", features
How = Skills, abilities, systems, processes, company size, key performance indicators, tools, advantages
Why = Talent, paradigms, beliefs, character, passion, selfless, benefits

Don't start with What and How like everyone else, start with WHY and people will notice.  People will follow.  People will believe.  People will take up your cause.  People will be inspired.

START WITH WHY!!!

If you want to listen to the entire talk, here's the link.  I recommend it.  Enjoy!

http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html

Ideon Packaging, this is who we are in a few pictures.

4theKids... One of the reasons WHY we do what we do.

We adopted the street in front of our building/

Check out our building.

A good pat on the back for the entire Team.

Rule #7 - Play a Sport

Playing a sport can teach you many great skills for achieving success in both a sports career and a business career.  The key is to be open to these things and use them to your benefit so that you can grow from them.  When I was young I played a few sports that taught me these valuable fundamentals that would serve me in my business career.

You can always get better.  It doesn't matter if you're the best in the world at your sport, you can always get better.  If you want to be the best then this point should be one of your driving forces.  It's the people who think they're the best that usually become rapidly overtaken by someone else who has a better grip on this point.  Push yourself.  Get to the next level.  If you don't think there's another level then create one.  But no matter what, if success is your goal then you have to keep getting better no matter how good you think you are.

Play to win.  You're not always going to win, but you should always play to win.  This leads to many other topics like positive thinking and goal setting, but no matter what, play to win.  When one of those times comes that you don't win, be gracious.  The worst thing you could be a sore loser, this will brand you as a poor sport and people will not want to be associated with you.  Oh yeah, people don't like cocky either, it's a delicate balance.

Hard work is a must.  Think about it, in any professional sport it's only the top few that can actually make it to a level where they can make a decent living.  As an example, how many kids, teens and adults are playing hockey wanting to be in the NHL? Now, how many players are in the NHL?  There's only approximately 700 players in the NHL compared to the hundreds of thousands or more who play hockey and wish they could get to the NHL. The ones who make it know they have to work harder than everyone else.  In business or your industry, do you work harder than everyone else?  How high on the proverbial ladder do you want to climb?  To get to success you have to work harder than everyone else.

You're in charge of you.  You're the only person who's going to make you better.  There's nowhere else to look but in the mirror when you don't achieve what you set out for.  If you want it, then you have to go get it.  No one is going to come along, take you by the hand, and guide you to success.  Success comes from your own strength, discipline and hard work.

Teamwork.  As much as individual performance can earn you a high level of recognition, you're not going to be the best without the help of a team.  Moreover, a team that works as a cohesive unit, where everyone knows their role on the team and performs it to the best of their ability.  Even golfers have a team, think of how important their caddy is and how well they need to work together.  Being able to work in a team is vitally important in sports and business, I can't think of a single business where you work completely on your own, without colleagues, suppliers or customers.  Treat everyone like a teammate, helping each other to win.

Here's a thought to leave you with.  Professional athletes and people trying to become professional athletes practice many, many hours a week to get better.  Do you want to have a successful business career?  How much do you practice?  How much do you read to expand your mind?  How much do you train yourself to be a better leader?  How are you improving your communication and people skills?  Practice, practice, practice...  Your parents and coach told you this all the time when you were young, it's the same for business.

When Do You Workout?

When considering the best time of the day to workout a lot of people will say that first thing in the morning is the best.  Moreover, by working out first thing in the morning you will bring up your energy level at the start of the day so you will have more energy throughout the day.

I'm not going to say this is wrong, everyone needs to form their own opinion, but I've got a different view.

I work out at the end of the day.  After dinner, after playing with my kids and getting them into bed, after doing some writing, after doing some work or playing guitar, that's when I workout.  What?!?  Why on earth would you possibly want to workout at the end of the day when most people are thinking about shutting down and relaxing after a long day?  Maybe you're saying, "That's when all my favorite TV shows are on!"  You can make your own choice as to when you're going to workout.  Please, just make sure you're choosing to get some exercise and not making excuses, life is too short.  

This system of working out at the end of the day works for me because I've trained my body to not only perform throughout the day, but my body knows that come the end of the day it still needs to perform at an even higher level.  Thus, maintaining and increasing my energy during the day.  Rather than having your energy peak with a morning workout and then slowly declining over the rest of the day, I've trained my body and energy level to perform at a high level throughout the day and at the end of the day jump to an even higher level.  Somewhere between 8PM and 9PM I'm either starting 30-45 minutes of Insanity or going for a +5 kilometer run.  Believe me, it's hard in the beginning to get yourself psyched up to go for a run or workout in the late evening, but push through this.  Habits take 30 days to build.  Since starting this I've lost over 20 pounds combined with a balanced diet and portion control.

This system has worked for me, I'm not going to say it will work for you, but at minimum I hope to have conveyed that exercise is important and no matter when you can fit it you should do it.  DO NOT NEGLECT YOUR HEALTH or else you'll be looking back at some point in your life wishing you would have done more to maintain and improve your health.

It's your choice.  What do you choose?

What 4theKids Means to Ideon

Here's a video put together to help show what 4theKids means to all of us at Ideon Packaging.  Enjoy.

Rule #6 - Enjoy Life

Stop and smell the roses, we've all heard that many times but sometimes forget about it.  In the grand scheme of things we're not on this planet for very long, so making sure you enjoy every moment is vitally important.  Life is too short.  There can be many potential hurdles that can derail you from enjoying everyday of your life, so your goal needs to be not only enjoying the good times but to find the positivity in the hurdles.

Life isn't about the big moments, it's about the journey between them.  All too often people put to much emphasis on getting enjoyment from the big happy moments in their lives.  However, in order to achieve true enjoyment we need to understand that it's all about the journey and not the destination.  Find happiness everyday and don't hope it comes at the end of the week, month or year.

Be positive, it's the key to happiness.  If you're walking around grumpy, critical and/or pessimistic these  behaviours are a guaranteed way to ensure you won't enjoy life.  So why do this to yourself?  What are you getting out of being negative?  Does it make you feel better?  I'd bet dimes to donuts that you'd probably be happier getting some joy and fulfillment out of life.  Don't forget, this is all a choice.

I use Vision Boards to keep me focused on achieving things and moments that are going to bring me joy.  Stuff like travel, kids growing up and being successful, balance, cool cars, and the list goes on.  Another version of vision boards are bucket lists, which a lot of people have.  Whatever you're aiming for just make sure you write it down and/or put it to paper with a picture because the difference between a dream and a goal is writing it down and looking at it everyday.

Through all this, one thing to remember is to NOT enjoy life too much, striving too much for joy can lead you to lose sight on balance in your life.  You shouldn't aim to do anything in excess.  Focusing too much time on the pursuit of joy can lead to over-extending yourself.  This can negatively affect your financial well being and potentially drive you into debt or bankruptcy.   Beyond financial problems you could simply burn yourself out, which could lead to health problems.  Everything in moderation.

Make joy happen and get some enjoyment out of everyday, even if only in a small way.