Curious about the Flywheel? The Perfect Metaphor for Many Endeavors

In Jim Collins’ excellent and enlightening book, Good to Great, he uses the metaphor of a flywheel. It is heavy and massive - weighing 5,000 pounds. He asks us to, "Imagine that your task is to get the flywheel rotating on the axle as fast and long as possible."

You almost feel the effort of pushing and pushing, just to get it started a bit. Then you keep on until "at some point - breakthrough! The momentum of the thing kicks in in your favor, hurling the flywheel forward, turn after turn … whoosh!"

Collins goes on to point out that if someone asked you what was the one push that caused it to go so fast, we wouldn’t be able to answer. "No! It was all of them added together in an overall accumulation of effort applied in a consistent direction."

One of my fitness students just shared that she was having problems losing weight until she started taking my weight lifting class. She has been working hard in the step, the stability ball and the toning classes, but hadn’t stayed for the weight lifting. In three weeks - with no other changes - she has lost 6 pounds.

What a great example of the flywheel. Yes, she has added the weight lifting, but I seriously feel that it was the consistent working out and then adding that extra hard "push" that caused her "breakthrough." So often we give up on a goal because the initial pushing is hard - and can be discouraging.

I know from experience that it takes time, effort, discipline, persistence and heavy pushing to get the flywheel in motion.

It may be in the field of fitness - so many quit because it isn’t easy and can even hurt. I still remember the first weekend back in 1983 when I started my new membership at a fitness facility. By Sunday I told my children not to even make me smile - my abdominal muscles hurt so much.

As an independent professional, free agent and freelancer, I have times that are slower than others. During the slower months I remind myself to keep plugging away and pushing the flywheel. Right now it has lots of momentum, but as Collins reminds us, "Good to great comes about by a cumulative process - step by step, action by action, decision by decision, turn by turn of the flywheel - that adds up to sustained and spectacular results." The operative words here are "cumulative" and "sustained."

As always, I was curious about others approach to momentum, so here are a few of the quotes I found:

• I wonder if Virgil was referring to a flywheel back in B.C. when he wrote, "She acquires momentum as she advances."
• Annie Lennox was right on when she said, "When you're that successful, things have a momentum, and at a certain point you can't really tell whether you have created the momentum or it's creating you."
• My mentor and favorite motivator, Tony Robbins, expressed it perfectly, "Success comes from taking the initiative and following up... persisting... eloquently expressing the depth of your love. What simple action could you take today to produce a new momentum toward success in your life?"
• And Michael Korda sums it all up, "One way to keep momentum going is to have constantly greater goals."

You will find some great material on Jim Collins’ website. Click HERE for his page on BHAGs (Big Hairy Audacious Goals).

And, do keep pushing that flywheel! A breakthrough may be close!

Curiosity about Excuses: Are You Plagued by Excusitis?

“People spend too much time finding other people to blame, too much energy finding excuses for not being what they are capable of being, and not enough energy putting themselves on the line, growing out of the past, and getting on with their lives.” - J. Michael Straczynski

I just returned from a terrific conference - loaded with ideas, information and action steps to take.

Unfortunately, I know, as many other speakers, trainers, writers and gurus know, that very few of the recipients of these useful messages will ever put them into practice. Why is it that we feel motivated, but don’t follow through? Why is it that we know we have a great idea, but never move to execute it? Why is it that we buy and/or download books, but never open them?

Instead we make excuses (and don’t think that I am not guilty of this too!). Bo Bennett said it so well, “Not managing your time and making excuses are two bad habits. Don't put them both together by claiming you ‘don't have the time.’” But isn’t that the excuse we make so often?

When I find myself making excuses for not pursuing a certain project, I need to ask “Why are you putting this off? What are you afraid of?” You see, I feel that it all comes down to fear. We don’t like to admit it, but we all make excuses rather than facing the fear of failure, of criticism, of poverty, of success, and of looking foolish - to name just a few of the big ones.

When I teach my class called, “How to Discover Your Core Passion,” I tell the participants that I feel we already know what our core passion is. But, if we admit to it, we have to pursue it and that is the scary part.

Of course, I have some great quotes to get you in the mood to stop making excuses:

• George Washington Carver said that, “Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses.”
• Melvyn Douglas advises, “Don't make excuses and Don't talk about it. Do it.”
• Doug Hall agrees, “Don't make excuses. Make things happen. Make changes. Then make history.”
• The successful James Cash Penney expressed strong feelings, “I do not believe in excuses. I believe in hard work as the prime solvent of life's problems.”
• Even O. J. Simpson feels that, “The day you take complete responsibility for yourself, the day you stop making any excuses, that's the day you start to the top.”

So, how do we deal with the fear and forget the excuses and “excusitis” that keeps so many of us from fulfilling our dreams and goals?

First of all, realize and believe there is always a net to catch us. In her enlightening and beautifully written autobiography, Blood Memory, Martha Graham wrote, “Ben Belitt’s poetry more than once animated me to work on a ballet. There is that wonderful phrase of his, ‘Acrobats of God.” What is an Acrobat of God? I feel it is a person, not necessarily a dancer, who lives fully and completely. It is taking your chances whether you fall or not.”

Secondly, know that the more times we fail and make mistakes, the more we learn and even faster than we can imagine.

And when you find yourself making an excuse: “I don’t have the time.” “I can’t resist chocolate.” “That computer stuff is too technical for me.” “I am too _____ (fill in the blank).” “I don’t have the ______ (fill in the blank).” “My metabolism is too slow.” Just stop yourself before you come up with another excuse. You get the idea.

G. M. Trevelyan is right, “The best job goes to the person who can get it done without passing the buck or coming back with excuses.”

And Goran Ivanisevic has the perfect attitude, “As soon as I step on the court I just try to play tennis and don't find excuses. You know, I just lost because I lost, not because my arm was sore.”

So, let’s all of us work together to STOP the excuses and excusitis. Yes, Henry Ward Beecher was correct when he wrote, “The real man is one who always finds excuses for others, but never excuses himself.”

Curious about Foxes and Hedgehogs: Which Are You?

Being a ‘generalist’ (or what some would call a ‘fox’), I have often been criticized for the fact that I pursue so many different careers, studies, subjects and interests. If I have heard “focus, focus, focus” once, I have actually heard it dozens of times. The Fox and the Hedgehog parable describes the daily encounter between the fox and the hedgehog.

The cunning fox has many ideas of ways to wage a sneak attack on the hedgehog. As the fox bounds toward him, the hedgehog thinks, “Here we go again. Will he ever learn?” He - as always - rolls up into a sphere of sharp spikes and the fox, seeing this defense calls off his attack.

In 1953, Sir Isaiah Berlin wrote, “There is a line among the fragments of the Greek poet Archilochus which says: 'The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing'. Scholars have differed about the correct interpretation of these dark words, which may mean no more than that the fox, for all his cunning, is defeated by the hedgehog's one defense. But, taken figuratively, the words can be made to yield a sense in which they mark one of the deepest differences which divide writers and thinkers, and, it may be, human beings in general.

“For there exists a great chasm between those, on one side (i.e. the hedgehogs), who relate everything to a single central vision ... and those (i.e. the foxes) who lead lives, perform acts, and entertain ideas that are centrifugal rather than centripetal, their thought is scattered or diffused ...” For more of the article, click HERE.

In the past few months I have been reading Jim Collins’ Good to Great in which he writes about the ‘Hedgehog Concept’ - “A Hedgehog Concept is not a goal to be the best, a strategy to be the best, and intention to be the best, a plan to be the best. It is an understanding of what you can be the best at. The distinction is absolutely crucial.”

I have also been preparing for a presentation I will be giving about creativity and finding that “one great idea.” So, also being a storyteller, I thought this parable - or one similar - might fit well with my theme. And, I guess that in the usual definition of a being a fox - "their thought is scattered or diffused," I became quite interested in the whole discussion and idea of separating people and businesses into either foxes or hedgehogs.

I was feeling a bit distraught about being a typical fox, until I found the article by Ralph Estling that appeared in May, 2000 in the Skeptical Inquirer. You can read it HERE.

Estling wrote, “There is a third category, which Berlin doesn't mention because, I guess, it's so awfully rare, which includes people like Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Thomas Jefferson, who combine in their natures both fox and hedgehog. Home run sluggers are strictly hedgehogs, while the little guys who regularly poke scratch singles through all parts of the infield, get to first base on bunts, and make it a habit to steal second, are your foxes. Babe Ruth was your quintessential hedgehog. Wee Willie Keeler, who ‘just hit em where they ain't,’ was your fox par excellence. Politicians and popes are almost always foxes, economists and saints almost without exception hedgehogs."

And came to the conclusion, “A world run by experts would be a disaster. Unless the hedgehog is also a fox, the specialist also a pretty fair generalist, Earth is doomed if ruled by experts. And if we can't have the combination of fox and hedgehog (and we almost certainly can't, it is much too improbable) and must choose only the one, let it be the good generalist, the all-rounder.”

Phew!

You will find a quick, down and dirty summary of the whole discussion with links by clicking HERE. Even Hobart and William Smith Colleges extol the virtues of a liberal arts education (and, yes, my college was liberal arts all the way - we had a great science department, but the approach was still liberal arts - lots of foxes!).

I found only one different - and fun - quote at my favorite www.brainyquote.com site:

Douglas Adams wrote, “If somebody thinks they're a hedgehog, presumably you just give 'em a mirror and a few pictures of hedgehogs and tell them to sort it out for themselves.”

So what do you think? And which are you? I would love to read your comments.

Curious about Labor: What Does It Mean to You?

Lewis Thomas wrote, “Ants are so much like human beings as to be an embarrassment. They farm fungi, raise aphids as livestock, launch armies into war, use chemical sprays to alarm and confuse enemies, capture slaves, engage in child labor, exchange information ceaselessly. They do everything but watch television.”

You may notice that I picked the Labor Day weekend theme for this Saturday’s blog instead of the hurricane Katrina topic. So many of my good storytelling friends have been affected by this terrible and devastating disaster, I wanted to wait a bit longer before I tackle that curiosity.

The amazing part about the word “labor” is the huge disparity of feelings about it and what it means. When I looked for quotations, I found that there were more quotes using the word “labor” than any other word I have ever searched. There were also so many different approaches to “labor” - both positive and negative.

Before I start sharing some of the quotes and my opinions, why don’t you take a moment to stop reading and jot down what the word “labor” means to you. When I think of labor, I think of:

• Unions - even though I have never belonged to one, and yet know how much good and bad has been generated by them.
• Working hard - coming in after a day of digging in the garden, moving heavy rocks and planting - but feeling great afterwards.
• Giving birth - I can remember exactly the length of labor for every single one of my five children (most mothers can and will love sharing this fact with other pregnant women).
• Labor Days in the restaurant - for my many years of restaurant work, I usually worked on the holidays and especially on Labor Day. If it rained and we were under staffed, I recall making lots of cash.

For me, the word “labor” doesn’t come with unfavorable connotations, but it certainly spans both ends of the scale for others. Here are just a few of the dozens and dozens and dozens of quotes:

• Sophocles was succinct and definite in his beliefs, “Without labor nothing prospers.”
• George Jean Nathan, however, viewed labor in a completely different way, “A life spent in constant labor is a life wasted, save a man be such a fool as to regard a fulsome obituary notice as ample reward.”
• While the serious Henry A. Kissinger had this to say, “Art is man's expression of his joy in labor.”
• And, I would be remiss if I didn’t include the thoughts of Gloria Steinem when she wrote, “No man can call himself liberal, or radical, or even a conservative advocate of fair play, if his work depends in any way on the unpaid or underpaid labor of women at home, or in the office.”

As I look over the other quotes that I chose to keep, I notice that the rest tend toward the positive. I am sure that you are not surprised:

• One of our greatest speakers, Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.”
• One of my favorite speakers of today, Liz Curtis Higgs, said, “The head thinks, the hands labor, but it's the heart that laughs.”
• Menander (342-292 BC) wrote, “He who labors diligently need never despair; for all things are accomplished by diligence and labor.”
• While Liberty Hyde Bailey agrees with me (or I agree with her), “There is no excellence without labor. One cannot dream oneself into either usefulness or happiness.”

Before I sign off, there are two more quotations that I hope will make you think different thoughts from the usual - I know they did me, especially the last one:

• Thomas Arnold suggests, “One's age should be tranquil, as childhood should be playful. Hard work at either extremity of life seems out of place. At midday the sun may burn, and men labor under it; but the morning and evening should be alike calm and cheerful.”
• And, Alexander Pope wrote, “A person who is too nice an observer of the business of the crowd, like one who is too curious in observing the labor of bees, will often be stung for his curiosity.”

Oops! Is he referring to me? Please send your comments (hint!).