May 2007 Archives

UPDATE: the original article below describes my first ten months training with SCT. Here are additional links to updated results:

Fitness Results Over One Year: Transforming My Body Through Fitness and Nutrition (January 13, 2008)

Strength Training: Unpacking New "Streamline SR" Fitness Equipment (August 25, 2007)

Fitness Results: Break Out Quarter! (Quarterly report, August 29, 2007: gained another 6.1 pounds of muscle; lost another 2.85 pounds of fat):

Strength Training with Static Contraction Training: results after ten months (Quarterly report, May 17, 2007: gained another 1.2 pounds of muscle; lost another 2.95 pounds of fat )

Strength Training with Static Contraction Training: results after four months (November 23, 2006)

I joined my company's fitness club when I started my new job in February 2006. After building a base of cardiovascular fitness, I added a type of strength training to my workout routine called "Static Contraction Training" (SCT) that has yielded outstanding results.

I started the program ten months ago and I'm amazed at the increase in strength I've achieved.

This past week I attended a presentation "Beating the Odds: Characteristics of a Successful Business" by business teacher and author Keith Cunningham.

Here are some of the most interesting things I heard Cunningham say about the "6 big mistakes that people make in business."

1. An obsession with the product -- to the exclusion of good business judgment. Entrepreneurs fall in love with the idea for their product and develop blinders as a result. As Cunningham described it: "Mothers love their babies, and entrepreneurs love their ideas."

   The key point Cunningham made: a great product does not necessarily equal money. It's never what you do, it's how you do it that will determine your success. And how you do it is about management. It's not about the product.

2. The need for speed. Speed creates short term perspectives. Cunningham described two categories of time: that which relates to a crisis and requires speed; and everything else. People often throw the wrong kind of time at a problem.

   "Most entrepreneurs think that if they try to get 9 women pregnant, they can have a baby in one month," Cunningham said. "It doesn't work that way. It requires time."

   The faster you go, the greater the impact if things go wrong. If you're going fast on a bicycle and you fall, you might skin your knee. If you're going fast in an F16 fighter jet and you crash, people die! Taking the analogy further: two things are needed if you want to go fast, and people don't often think of these: experience; and a lot of dials and instrumentation (like in the cockpit of an F16).

   "All my problems started as a good idea," Cunningham said. "At the core of all my problems lies instant gratifcation, which is about speed."

3. Technical skills. The people who invent an Indy 500 race car don't drive it. The people who invent the space shuttle don't fly it. Being successful in business isn't dependent on technical competence.

   Cunningham argues that people with great technical skills acquired over 20 years often got one year of experience repeated each year for 20 years - and not 20 years of experience.

4. Irrational exuberance. Also known as "optimism on steroids."

   Irrational exuberance manifests itself in these forms: an inability to listen ("I'm the guru."); ignoring obvious risks; strengths morphing into weaknesses (for example, self confident morphs into arrogant); and an intense need to be right.

5. Failure to have a second idea. Because they love their first idea! Entrepreneurs all think they know enough, so they spend all their time defending their idea instead of learning from what they don't know.

6. Run out of cash. Cunningham remarked: "Running out of cash is a little like saying, 'how did he die? Well he stopped breathing.' But that doesn't tell the whole story."

   Some of the underlying reasons businesses run out of cash: lack of planning, obsession with the product, no niche, no value-add, no business skills, the need for speed, no cushion.

   In Part 3 of this report, I'll cover the most interesting things I heard Cunningham say about the solutions to the 6 big mistakes that people make in business.

Related link: Part 1: "Beating the Odds: Characteristics of a Successful Business". Notes from presentation by Keith Cunningham

(Photo credit: keystothevault.com)

This past week I attended a presentation by business teacher and author Keith Cunningham.

In his presentation "Beating the Odds: Characteristics of a Successful Business", Cunningham drew on his over 30 years experience launching numerous ventures and raising hundreds of millions of dollars for his own ventures to offer lots of practical advice on business.

His straight talk about business reminded me of lessons I have learned over my own career, but that all of us seem to forget or not commonly apply.

Here are some of the most interesting things I heard from the first part of his presentation:

I recently attended a speech by Tinker Hatfield, Vice President of Innovation at Nike. Here is a summary of the most interesting things I heard about his innovation process.

By way of background, Hatfield is the renowned designer of many of Nike's most popular and innovative sneaker designs. He oversees Nike's "Innovation Kitchen".

* Hatfield doesn't design in a vacuum -- but he also doesn't listen to focus groups too much. As an innovator trying to do something new, he says he needs to seek the truth and have his info as unedited as possible. "Focus groups are an unreal environment where people are not truly themselves," he says.

* Instead, he gets out in the field and talks with athletes, gets to know about their needs directly. For example, he cycles with Lance Armstrong, etc.

* "Designing is like competition." (DE: interesting perspective, from a person who spends a lot of time with athletes who are competitive at the highest levels.) Phil Knight often says that business is like war without the bullets. (DE: the athletic shoe industry is intensely competitive, I can see how they feel that way. I like that sense of urgency to win against tough competition.)

* "I'm paid to think outside the box, disrupt, do things other people have never done before. You need to push yourself to find the truth, and go outside normal processes."

* Nike nurtures and cherishes the creative process, the process of innovation. "Phil Knight wouldn't know a good show if he saw it. He doesn't understand the product or how it got there. But he believes in other people and he has trust. That makes him different than many other CEO's."

* As companies get bigger, with more layers, a process of trust is critically important.

* Hatfield's secret to getting resources and doing special things: wield clout from the company you keep (ie, Michael Jordan, Lance Armstrong, etc).

* "You may be a business person or a creative person, but when you start to look at issues from a variety of directions, you have an advantage."

* Identify consumer groups looking for the next new thing. At Nike, we are leaders. When we fail is when we are followers."

* When Nike was seeking to sign baseball star Alex Rodriguez, he had one question: "If I sign with you, does that mean you will make me a pair of the Air Jordan IX's?" Because when he was a kid, he wanted a pair and his mom couldn't afford them. Hearing how powerful that is, seeing things from the customer's point of view, changed how Tinker looked at developing new products.

* "When you sit down to create something new, what you do is a combination of everything you've done and seen in your life."

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