MeDirected

Dreams

mike — Thu, 17 May 2012 23:15:15 +0000

All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.

The Key to Doing Great Work…

mike — Wed, 16 May 2012 19:33:17 +0000

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.

More Reinvention

mike — Tue, 15 May 2012 23:18:15 +0000

As mentioned recently, I’m in the process of a reinvention of sorts. I’m trying to put my ‘track & field guy’ identity on hold and reinvent myself as a soccer fitness coach. This requires both an attitudinal adjustment as well a commitment to reeducation. Over the years, I’ve found one of the best ways to learn is to teach. So with that, I’ve started a new soccer specific blog with the objective of both sharing info with others and learning in the process. To learn…teach.

Fit For Futbol

Success and Failure

mike — Mon, 14 May 2012 23:09:20 +0000

If you’re not headed one way you’re headed the other.

Bittersweet Outcomes

mike — Sun, 13 May 2012 23:49:36 +0000

For 3 years I poured every ounce of my being in to my training center. All my relationships during that time period either stemmed from or had to tag on for the ride during that time period. It was grueling but I loved every moment of developing a business, my passion, from nothing. Taking huge risks and then putting the work in to make them come to fruition. 10 weeks ago I left all of that in the hands of trusted friends and business partners as I moved to Vancouver to train the Whitecaps of the MLS. During this time period, I’ve been training others to do what I was doing, following up to make sure standards were being kept, and basically just nervously watching over ‘my baby.’ The entire goal was to make sure Athletic Lab could operate fine without me. And now it is. My first assistant at Athletic Lab recently reported the following in his latest email:

As of right now, I think things have made a full transition to a Mike-less Athletic Lab so there’s not a lot to report (which might be a good thing).

Just as a parent wants there child to one day become independent, they likewise fear the day when it might actually come. Here’s to growing up big and strong.

The Employment Test

mike — Sat, 12 May 2012 19:06:12 +0000

One thing I’ve found extremely useful in hiring staff at Athletic Lab is our internship program. We started it out very informally. By demand from people looking to see what we do. It’s gradually morphed in to a fairly structured internship that has lead to several hires. In fact, every current staff member we have at Athletic Lab has done at 400s of hours of mentorship. In some cases some of this has come as athletes who’ve later been hired. In other cases, they come through our formalized internship program. Either way, the mentorship or internship program is essentially a long interview. One where you can get to know more out the work ethic and personality of the potential hires and they can learn your system so they integrate better when and if they’re hired. There’s no expectation of being hired and both you and the intern / mentored person get something out of the relationship. I can’t even imagine hiring on a resume and interview alone.

Excuses

mike — Wed, 09 May 2012 19:55:00 +0000

Care more

mike — Wed, 09 May 2012 04:48:02 +0000

Care more. I’m convinced that’s one of the most important keys to business success. You should care more and you should find employees who care more. If it’s just a job for either of you you’re not invested enough to deal with the early days, the tough times; and don’t care enough to do the little things that will put you over the top to be the best. People who care do things before they’re asked to do because they know it should be done. People who don’t care avoid doing those same things in the hope that no one notices. People who care come in early and stay late without complaint. People who don’t care clock in, clock out, pick up their pay check and leave. People who care treat clients like people all the time. People who don’t care treat clients like clients.

Steve Jobs explains the rules for success

mike — Tue, 08 May 2012 05:31:43 +0000

Get what you pay for

mike — Mon, 07 May 2012 20:06:21 +0000

A couple month’s ago, one of the professional teams that I was training at Athletic Lab changed head coaches and decided to look elsewhere for training. While training at Athletic Lab they were the top in their league for 2 consecutive years and set plenty of club and league records for success on the field due in no small part to their physical dominance over their opponents. As mentioned, they decided to train with a competitor this year who offered their services for free in exchange for them for marketing. The president outright told us that we were too expensive even though we had already offered them an hourly rate that was less than many of my personal training clients even though I was training 20-25 professional athletes in a single session. This barely covered our amortized rent, utilities and cleaning costs for those sessions. In return, we were also given a marketing package (field advertisements, announcements, etc) that helped to offset our time and financial investment. They thought it was too much and some at the top of the organization didn’t see the value in what they were receiving. We decided not to fold and either dumb down our services or lower our already low cost. We would do fine without them.

Flash forward to the new season…the team is winless in their first 7 games and at the absolute bottom of their league playing with a less fit and athletic team. That’s right….from first to worst in one year. Ticket sales are down. Fans are abandoning the team. And being the hyper-competitive person that I am, I can’t say I’m shedding any tears.

While there’s rarely good reason to pay for the most expensive option. There’s almost never good reason to seek the lowest priced option unless your primary driver is cost rather than value.

Read these:

Price vs. Value

Free doesn’t pay