Reader Questions
Lance Armstrong
The seven-time Tour de France champ on his favorite work-out music and the possibility of competing in an Ironman…(we`ll skip the music part)

Will you ever do the Ironman? You’ve got a lot of triathlon fans out their desperate for an answer.

Yeah. Whenever I’m done with this [comeback]. I can unequivocally say yes to that. That’s a fact. And I get asked that question every day. I don’t know when it was, less than a year ago, that I got some of these Ironman DVDs. I said, Let’s see what that’s all about. So we’ve been watching them for the past year. I’m definitely motivated to do an Ironman. We’ll go back and I’ll be close to 40, but I’ve swam more in the last three years than before that. And I don’t want to just do an Ironman. I don’t want to approach it like I approached the marathons. I want to do it as fast as I can.

- From Outside Magazine.

Can I unequivocally say that we had all better get in shape to get to Kona, because Lance will be there in his first year. I want to be at the swim start with him.

Do you think he`ll have bodyguards there?

Will he change the sport of Ironman with his security?

Will he do the underpants run?

Realistically, I reckon he`s out to murder Jalabert. He would be good for a hour swim, 4:40 bike (I reckon not much faster) and a 3:10 marathon (based on his 2:46 marathon split at the Boston Marathon). Total just under 9 hours. Still, I reckon he`d be 30 minutes off the pace on a perfect day…

What are your thoughts?

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remember, boys and girls think differently…

click for a big view, they are quite funny.

The process of getting to drinks.

The mating process

The toilet process

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a few weeks ago we went on training camp to test our limits, ourselves, and take our training up a notch. not only is this approach core to how I approach my training, my coaching, and my life, but this is a tried and tested method of getting to your best. (more…)

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Yes, you heard me right.

If you never hit your goals – you`re boring. Your product not a success – why are you aiming to be remarkable? If people aren’t discussing your products, your services, your cause, your movement or your career, there’s a reason.

The reason is that you’re boring and you’re probably boring on purpose (I can see your anger already at this). You have boring pricing because that’s safer and easier to justify, because you dont really believe in your product. You have a boring location because to do otherwise would be nuts. You have boring products because that’s what the market wants. That boring staff? They’re perfectly well qualified…

You don’t get unboring for free. Remarkable costs time and money and effort, but most of all, remarkable costs a willingness to be wrong.

Take the chance to be wrong, too expensive, too out there. Hire staff who are smarter than you are. Friends who tell you when you are wrong.

Take the chance to be remarkable. Who knows – you might shoot for exceptional next…

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It’s not surprising that Malcolm Gladwell’s new book has made a splash. All his thought-provoking writing does and deserves to.

The argument of Outliers:

* Where you’re born and when you’re born have an enormous amount to do with whether or not you’re successful.
* Becoming a superstar takes about 10,000 hours of hard work.
* Both of the bullet points above are far more important than the magical talent myth.

Bill Gates, the Beatles, Beethoven, Bill Joy, Tiger Woods–do the math, 10,000 hours of work.

In some ways, this is a restatement of the Dip. Being the best in the world brings extraordinary benefits, but it’s not easy to get there.

For me, though, some of the 10k analysis doesn’t hold up. The Doors (or Devo or the Bee Gees) for example, didn’t play together for 10,000 hours before they invented a new kind of rock*. If the Doors had encountered significantly more competition for their brand of music, it’s not clear that they could have gotten away with succeeding as quickly as they did. Hey, Miley Cyrus wasn’t even 10,000 hours awake before she became a hit.

Doc Searls and Scoble didn’t blog for 10,000 hours before they became the best, most important bloggers in the world. Molly Katzen didn’t work on her recipes for 10,000 hours before she wrote the Moosewood Cookbook either.

*(There were bar bands in Buffalo, where I grew up, that put in far more than 10,000 playing mediocre music… didn’t help. Hard work may be necessary, but not sufficient).

Here’s my take on it:
You win when you become the best in the world, however ‘best’ and ‘world’ are defined by your market. In many mature markets, it takes 10,000 hours of preparation to win because most people give up after 5,000 hours. That’s the only magic thing about 10k… it’s a hard number to reach, so most people bail.

Yo Yo Ma isn’t perfect… he’s just better than everyone else. He pushed through the Dip that others chose not to. I’m guessing that there are endeavors (like being CEO of a Fortune 500 company or partner at a big law firm) where the rewards are so huge that the number is closer to 20,000 hours or more to get through the Dip.

But, ready for this? The Dip is much closer in niche areas, new areas, unexplored areas. You can get through the Dip in an online network or with a new kind of music because being seen as the best in that area is easier (at least for now). You can get through the Dip as a real estate broker in a new, growing town a lot quicker than someone in midtown Manhattan. The competition is thinner and probably less motivated.

Yes, it matters where and when you were born. It matters that you get lucky. And it matters most of all that you saw the Dip, realized how far away it was and chose to push through it.

- Seth Godin.

I cant imagine a better way of putting this, and its something my good advisor Gordo has said too.

The concept of it taking 10,000 hours of hard work to being truly a world leader, makes more sense to an Ironman than most people. I spent that in the pool alone as a kid growing up. I reckon I am going to add that in my life running and on the bike at least. 30,000 hours exploring beautiful places, meeting amazing people, experiencing life and employing my talents.

Awesome.

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If you are presenting on American Idol…. you should know that!

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This time of the year there are two schools of thought once you are back at work.

The first school is one of excitement and being totally motivated being back in the mix. This is ideal and if you managed to get this right, clearly you are on the right track. I would imagine less than 10% of the worlds work force fits in here.

The other school is one of “what am I doing here?” This, clearly, is less than what you would expect from life. Surely, after a rest break, you should be fired up and ready to kick some butt at work. Ready to make it happen. But 90% of us aren’t feeling this way, right now.

How do you get to being part of the first school? How do I find joy in my job? I find a couple of things really help.

1. Personal Planning. Making sure you know what stimulates you and makes you happy, and having a clear plan on the future gives your life meaning, hope and reason to get up in the morning.
2. Goals. Making sure you know why you are at work will spruce you up until at least midday.
3. Single tasking. My buzz word for 2009. Stop doing 6 things at once at work. Plan your day and do one at a time and you will get more done.
4. Find your strengths and weaknesses and align your work with the strengths. I personally find that by focussing on improving my weaknesses I tend to cut myself short and should be working to make my strengths stronger and my weaknesses naturally drag themselves into shape to keep up.

The new year is always spent getting back into normal sleep patterns, eating patterns and life (work) patterns. It always takes a bit more energy to get into these, so a bit of a natural low can be expected. Just let it slide…

If you have something particular that motivates you or has motivated you in the past, make sure that it’s a part of your daily routine. Talking to plants, watering the garden and writing opera is also allowed. Whatever it takes to keep you motivated and keep you on the path do doing your best and achieving your goals on a month, daily, hourly basis – do it!

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I know dude….

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wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.

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SO, I follow Lance on insert text that will display as the link here Twitter and if you`re not on twitter….poo on you.

Right this second, he has posted the first full pics of his new bike for the Tour Down Under via his cell camera. This, for you…. ahead of the media.

Blogging rocks.

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