Second anniversary with my beautiful wife! Steamboat Springs, Colorado.
Sometimes, clarity takes time. Sometimes, people never wake up to reality because they are stubborn or refuse to face facts.
Barack Obama - The One Term President
For the exact reasons Jimmy Carter was a one-term president, President Obama will only serve once as well. I will also throw in, it will be for the reason Clinton got a second term… “it’s the economy, stupid.” Reagan inherited mortgage rates nearing 20% and unemployment rates nearing 10% — instead of blaming his predecessor for all of his woes and standing idly by, he cut both of those numbers in half by the end of his presidency.
Do you remember the voting conditions in 2008 when Obama “connected with suburban voters… aka… Carmel soccer moms? The country was incredibly sick of the endless war, were at the beginnings of a financial meltdown, and uh… HATED George Bush. What a PERFECT time for a young, charismatic senator from Illinois to be thrust into the public spotlight!
It didn’t matter if the Republican party put up Mickey Mouse as a candidate — moderates were going to vote AGAINST GEORGE BUSH… and they did indeed do just that. The “middle-right” majority switched to the left and cast their vote for Obama. He moved the entire nation with his message of hope and change and enlisted the ranks of youths across the nation to usher in some of the best voter turnout EVER in the under 25 range. Let’s also not forget he is black. That’s not a racist comment, but moreso, pointing out the fact that he got another voting bloc to the polls that historically hasn’t shown up.
Now, fast forward four years, when many (most?) of his policies have failed. His stimulus that he said was required and promised that unemployment wouldn’t go above 8% if passed was a bust and unemployment climbed to over 10% (but I’m sure that’s Bush’s fault), and remains that high today! Wait, I’m sure you’ll tell me that number is lower and fall in line with the rest of the people who are using math and counting errors to their advantage when they REMOVE those who have taken themselves out of the employment hunt and those who are underemployed working minimum wage jobs just to get by.
In 2012, the middle-right “independents” are fed up and will either move back to the right or not vote at all. The youth and black voting bloc will stay home, again, like they historically have. Why? Why will it be different? There’s nothing magical about this run… we’ve already elected our first black president, and well… George Bush isn’t showing up on the other side. And lastly, “it’s the economy, stupid.”
You work your tail off for 15 years, and you are suddenly, an overnight success
Eat That Frog!
To start of the New Year, I decided to re-read Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time
There’s an old saying: if you eat a live frog first thing each morning, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that it’s probably the worst thing you’ll do all day.
Tracy lays out 21 principles to stop procrastinating and get things done. Two of them really stand out to me:
- Forced Efficiency – there’s never enough time to do everything, but there’s always enough time to do the most important things. What are they?
- ABCDE Method –think on paper and place a letter next to each before you perform the first task
- A – “must do”
- B – “should do”
- C – “would be nice to do”
- D – “delegate to someone else”
- E – “eliminate all together”
While the concepts are not earth-shattering, it always helps me to be reminded of the power of focus. By planning your day around the most important tasks and getting those out of the way, you always put yourself in the best position to succeed. Secondly, by learning to delegate or “outsource” tasks, you can free up even more of your time to further focus on the things that really advance your goals.
All of this coincides well with my 2012 plan of creating a “default calendar” – scheduling my weeks on purpose before they happen and then just filling in the details as they happen.
Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
Addicted to Breaking Bad
I don’t watch much tv. Well at least “tv shows” that is. I’ll use it as background noise when I’m tired of music or political talk radio, but I mostly watch sports and movies. However, I must admit I’m addicted to Breaking Bad.
I kept seeing tweets from several friends about it being “time for Breaking Bad” and how great the show was. Then, as I started inquiring about it, I was told it was the best show on tv. “Better than Dexter,” I said with a *gasp*. “Yes, better than Dexter,” I was told. So, I gave it a shot.
Breaking Bad is a Vince Gilligan production shown on AMC. The quickest description I can give you is that it’s about a local high school chemistry teacher who finds out he has stage two lung cancer and turns to “cooking” meth as a way to support his family.
I’ll admit, the show started off pretty slow. Through five episodes I started asking, “this is really the show you guys are raving about?” I was urged to give it time to develop and boy am I glad I did. Now, in the span of the last two weeks, I’ve caught up on the first three seasons. Yes, I said *seasons*, plural.
The addiction was so bad that yesterday I did two crazy things… first, I woke up at 6 am with the only intention of watching two episodes of Breaking Bad before I left for work. Then, and this one is worse, I had a trip to Chicago in the evening… three hours in a car… the only thing I could think of was watching the LAST TWO episodes of season three. So, I mounted my phone on the dashboard like a GPS and… thanks to Netflix… watched the last two J
Now, I have to wait for season four to hit Netflix… agh!
Celebrating Success
This week, the entire Slingshot SEO sales team was in the “home office” (Indianapolis) for the first time, well… ever. Hard to believe only a year ago there were but three of us. Fast forward a bit and now we have over 10 from all over the country (IN, NJ, FL, TX, and CA).
We had several training sessions planned, but the real magic happened Wednesday night when just the sales team went out for dinner and drinks. We got a chance to break bread with our fellow reps and get to know them on a personal level. More importantly, we got to celebrate the successes we’ve all had over the last twelve months.
A few highlights:
- 58th fastest growing private company in the country
- Over 150% growth year over year
- Over 100% quota attainment for Q4 with December left to go
So, to Daren, Joe, Jackie, Eric, Brian G, Brian T, Shaun, Patrick, and Justin… here’s to the best damn sales team in the business! Can’t wait to continue winning with you guys!
Recharged.
With over 10,000 miles in the air and meetings in six different cities over the last month, to say that my batteries were drained would be an understatement. By no means should this be construed as complaining. I knew what I was getting into when I joined the top SEO firm in the country.
The point of this post is to reflect upon the holiday weekend and the ability to recharge my batteries. For the first time in quite a while, I took four consecutive days to do, well, nothing. I didn’t open my laptop, I didn’t check my email, I just unplugged… and it was great.
Both Thursday and Friday were spent eating great food (way too much) and participating in good conversations with my family. Saturday was spent doing some shopping with my wife and capped off with dinner with friends. I went to the Colts game on Sunday and then vegged on the coach with my wife watching some mind numbing tv… and it was great.
As a result, today I started fresh and was ready to attack the remainder of the year and exceed my personal and professional goals. I’ll have two weeks of unused vacation at the end of the year, which is a shame. Next year, I’ll use that vacation – not to “get away from work,” but rather to perform better at work when I’m actually there.
Focused.
Committed.
Recharged.
Today is the day.
All of us are guilty of procrastination at some point in time, but when you are actually able to take control of your time and focus on what actually matters, you’ll be amazed by what you can accomplish.
Musings, Passions, Exploration.
