To be a leader you don't have to personally be a better performer than those you lead.  In fact in many cases the people you lead will out perform you and that I believe is the ultimate reward for your hard work and leadership.

Several weeks ago I ended a very rewarding few months that ended in my 10 year old son completing his first ever cross country mountain bike race.  Completing the race course of 10.5 miles alone was an accomplishment for him under race conditions.  Single track trails that wind up and down some very large hills.  Not only did my son finish the race he far exceeded the goals that we both had set for him.  We determined a successful race day would be to compete and finish.  On race day he far exceeded the goal of finishing and placed 3rd overall in his age category winning himself a plaque.  In fact he was only 1 second behind the second place racer!  He and another racer battled head to head for many miles I was told by those who saw him on the tail along the way.  He is really fired up about his performance and now he has immediately set his goals for his next race.  

Our journey started last year as I introduced my daughter and both sons to the mountain bike trails and allowed them the experience of completing a good ride together on the trails.  The sense of accomplishment of getting up hills that are almost hard to walk up is a very great feeling once accomplished.   Our rides started small and got longer over time.  The kids bikes got upgraded in size as the year went along.

In conversation I mentioned that 7 years ago I raced 1 time.  Throughout the winter my 10 year old talked often about racing and wondered if kids could race?  We checked into the race schedule and sure enough there was an age bracket for 10 and under.

When snow melted this year the topic of racing immediately became a topic of conversation.  My son and I broke out the season with and 17 mile road ride on March 21st.  His drive in wanting to ride was contagious and he never let up.  We finally had a pretty serious conversation and I told him I was willing to sign up for the race and we would both race the race in early June.

We rode twice each week.  1 time each weekend and every Wednesday night.  Some days I was pushing him and some days he was pushing me to ride.  

I was successful in leading him in his preparation both physically and mentally for the race.  

On race day he rode the course faster then I did by almost 15 minutes.  

We were both proud.  He winning a plaque and being acknowledged for one of the fastest racing that day.  I was proud that I was able to lead and encourage him over several weeks and keeping us both focused on race day months out into the future.  

I was recently reminded that we all need to be careful about how we define the edge of what is possible when striving to achieve something great. 

If we set an artificially low vision of what we think is possible, we will sell ourselves short and worse yet get surpassed by someone who has the courage to push the limits further.

I was swimming with my 3 kids recently in a pool and they all started to challenge each other about swimming the length of the pool underwater in 1 single breath.  Something I am sure many of us spent hours doing in our childhood.  I watched them work and work and challenge each other to make that single length of the pool under water. 

Eventually my 13 year old and 10 year old made the length and were pretty proud of themselves.  My 8 year old fell just short but I was still very impressed with his effort and I know he will make it soon enough.

After the two of them were feeling proud and feeling like they had just accomplished the ultimate....... they turned to me and asked, "Dad, do you think you can make the length in one breath?"

I smiled and told them I thought I could actually do 2 lengths underwater in one breath. I said, "I can make it down and back."

They looked at me with amazement and were anxious for me to make my attempt.   Off I went and when I can up from the return lap making the 2 laps successfully they were yelling with excitement.

My son said out loud........"I didn't think anyone could do 2 laps!" 

Within minutes they both had also completed 2 laps themselves. Interesting how their perspective had changed in just a few minutes.  The impossible became possible.  I was happy to stretch their vision and push them further.

Let this be a reminder not to limit yourself when setting goals.........dream big, aim far, and expect to amaze yourself with what you can achieve! 

We all can do great things once we believe we can.

One of the critical success factors for me in being productive is to have clean, clear, and current next action lists.  A next action is properly written and defined when it clearly states the exact action that needs to happen.  I find that throughout my normal flow between my weekly reviews I add things to my lists and they are not properly defined.  I end up with a general place holder on my list versus an actual action.  They become more like some of the To-do lists I used to work with before GTD.  1 or 2 words jotted down about something that really does not describe an action like "front bushes."

When I perform my weekly review one of steps is to get my lists current and up to date.  During this phase I take the extra time to really reflect on each item on my list and determine if it is really defining the next action to be taken.  The key for me is to follow the guidance in the Getting Things Done book by David Allen and focus on using action verbs.  If the next action I have written does not contain a verb and a lowest level action I take this time in my review to correct the next action and rewrite a clearer statement.  The things on my lists that tend to hang around from review to review might actually be because they are not really a clearly defined next action.

These are some of the common action verbs I use in my next action statements:

• Call
• Buy
• Purge
• Organize
• Complete
• Think
• Decide
• Draft
• Read
• Study
• Find
• Research
• Clean

A real example for me was for several weeks I had "front bushes" on my @home context list.  After several weeks of reading over this I finally notice that there is no action in that.  I can't do "front bushes."  I rewrote the next action as "Trim front bushes."  I completed that action soon after.

I find there is power in the visualization of being able to see in your mind what doing looks like on particular task and an action verb is key.  A successful next action allows you to read it and just decide to do it now.  Not have to rethink what that particular thing means to you all over again.

How often do you review your lists and make sure they are truly actions?

Stopping can be a risk when you are trying to reach a successful outcome.  Most people would easily agree with the statement that in order to get something completed you must keep on working until it is finished.  But do we always remember that when we are in the heat of the battle?  

I find I am constantly having to learn the hard lesson that when you stop something restarting can sometimes be even harder than when you first started.  Many of the habits we try and add to our life on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis can be almost forgotten when we stop for a period of time.  

In extreme cases we might not even realize that we stopped until we have been stopped for a longer period of time than we planned.  Then when we attempt to restart it feels almost like starting from scratch.  Restarting can require extra effort.

In the last 2 months I have done at least 2 mountain bike rides each week with my son ranging from 6 miles to 16 miles each.  Even though we always feel a great sense of accomplishment after a ride, during the ride we don't always have a big bright smile.  Some parts of the ride are tough for us.  As we tackle the big hills and navigate through some of the rocky downhills there can be times when we just feel like stopping.  

Most of this urge to stop I feel is mental and not so much of a physical need.

During the ride it seems appropriate to stop sometimes and rest for a while giving in to the mental urge.  The interesting thing that I have really paid attention to lately is that for myself after we stop and get off the bikes and rest a few minutes the rest of the ride almost always seems harder to me than before we stopped.  These rest stops for me seem to do more harm than good.

When we keep the wheels rolling and the pedals spinning the experience of the ride ultimately is more enjoyable and the finish even seems better.  

I think we all need to remind ourselves that keeping our momentum moving forward on projects, habits, and those big events in life will work to our advantage by allowing us to eliminate the extra effort needed to restart things that we stopped.  Moving forward at a slower pace to me is always a better choice then stopping.

The fastest mountain bike riders that I have seen on the trail almost always keep pedaling at the top of a hill when most riders stop and coast. 

Keep pushing ahead and use the momentum you have created to your advantage.

Have you ever quit or stopped something that you wished you wouldn't have?

A calendar represents the commitments we make to ourselves on where we will be at a specific time.  In GTD terminology the calendar represents things we have made a firm commitment to.  These things have a hard edge.  This edge is either a specific time or at a minimum a specific date.  

For many years I have used a calendar.  Years before I ever learned of the methodology of GTD I followed the recommendation of using only 1 calendar.  Committing to using only 1 calendar for everything in my life.  22 years ago my first tool of choice was a pocket Day-Timer.  Through the past 22 years I have worked with all sizes of Franklin Planners, several different Palm devices synced with Outlook, and now Google Calendar synced with an iPhone.  We use outlook in my office for scheduling but my Google Calendar is still my master calendar for my life.  For work commitments that might be outside of my usual office hours I will make an entry onto my Google calendar to keep myself in sync.

The common theme to all these various tools is that I took the ownership and the responsibility of keeping my own calendar.   Until I put something on my calendar I really have not committed to it myself.  You can’t rely on all the other various calendars at various places to somehow make a master calendar for yourself.  You must compile them into one place to be successful.

For you calendar to be effective you need to review it regularly.   I review my calendar early each morning usually within the first half hour of waking.  One of the best features that I have found of Google Calendar is that you can set a default to email you your daily calendar each day.  At 4:45 am each day my daily calendar arrives into my mailbox.  This is a quick way for me to scan my daily schedule and commitments before I get to far into my day.  I usually do this via my iPhone.  I also share my calendar through Google Calendar so my wife can view my calendar.  This has been very helpful.

During my Weekly Review (which occasionally is only be bi-weekly) I go through the suggested routine of scanning my past calendar and scanning my future calendar for upcoming commitments.  I specifically look for the next week, next 4 weeks, and the next month looking for key triggers.

During my weekly reviews I follow some general practices with my calendar that have helped me be successful.

• I look for days where I have a hard commitment to end my day in the office at a specific time for a family commitment.  That goes on my calendar and I make that a priority in how I schedule my time.  On days I need this hard edge I honor these commitments.  Many days this is more flexible. 
• I schedule a minimum of 2 - 90 minute blocks of time each week to work on key projects I have committed to getting done.  This is time I control and define my work and move away from the usual mode of catching work as it comes to me.
• I schedule a 1 hour block to complete my weekly review each week.
• I schedule at least 1 non-work related lunch each week for networking or just fun.  Many times I am fortunate this is with my wife.  A good chance to communicate in a setting outside the business of our home and our kids.
• I schedule consistent one-on-one time with each of my direct reports each week.  I make this routine and make it consistent.  This time is 30 minutes for each of my direct reports.
• I involve my kids in a brainstorming about once a quarter and we develop a list of things we want to do as a family.  They have some great ideas and then I do some large block planning where I work to slot them into what makes sense.  This eliminates the ongoing conversations like, “Dad, when will we go canoeing again? “ and me replying “some day”.  Problem with this scenario I have found is that someday might never come.  Even worse is that I carry it around in the back of my mind.  This is basically moving something from our someday maybe brainstorm list and making it a real event sometime in the future.  Some of our most memorable family memories have come from just such events.   Now I just schedule them and we possibly adjust as we get nearer in my weekly reviews.  This is a real example…as of this writing we are planning on going down the river July 18 on our canoe trip.
• I tentatively schedule some things as placeholders only.  For things I want to show up in my weekly planning sessions but I have not totally committed to I put them onto my calendar with a "???” after.  This tells me this is just a placeholder.  At some point I delete it off or remove the "???”.  An example right now is the Chicago Blues Festival the second weekend in June.  That has been on my calendar for months now and only in the next couple of weeks will I really make the firm decision go or no go.
• I try and schedule some margin in our family schedules.  With a wife and 3 kids sometimes we just need to slow down for a day.  I find this is accomplished by blocking a day on my calendar and the schedule is "nothing".  This is an honest recognition that sometimes my kids just need some flex time to recharge and this allows them to get creative with their time.  
• I don’t put reoccurring tasks onto my calendar.  For these things I use Toodledo to manage all my GTD lists.  I have many of these set up to reoccur based on completion date.  This keeps my calendar cleaner by only showing my firm commitments.  Many of my so-called weekly or monthly routines can be done over the course of a few days.  They are really more triggers and reminders then firm commitments for completion dates.  That is why I find Toodledo a better place to hold them.  Especially since I can have them associated with a proper Context.

My suggestion to anyone who struggles with managing their time and dates is to get 1 single calendar, make a commitment to themselves to put everything onto this 1 calendar. 

Review it often, with various perspectives such as daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly.

Do you have a favorite practice for keeping your calendar?

When someone asks me for help I usually say yes.  More and more lately I say yes without much thought at all.  Only after I say yes do I spend time to evaluate how exactly I might help the person and to what extent.  I try to always say yes and help in some fashion.

I say yes because I have realized that asking for help is very difficult for most people.  Some people never have the courage to ask at all.  I actually think asking is harder for some people then helping.

If you are anything like me, you probably have had difficulty asking for help yourself at some point.  I know there are times when I never had the courage to ask and I really needed to.  That is why now when someone asks me, I say yes.

By helping people you will get a personal sense of satisfaction.  You will build stronger relationships and a stronger reputation for yourself.  In the future you can rely on many of these experiences and relationships when you find yourself in need.

The best way to help someone is with a great attitude.  I try to always remind myself of Zig Ziglar's recommendation that we need to change our "Got to's" to "Get to's". 

Remember next time someone asks you for help, you don't have to help you can choose to make it an opportunity that you get to help.