Adventures of an Awkward Athlete: The Next Level

Steam poured off our bodies as the cool air wrapped its arms around us. Our workout was done for the day and we sat on the artificial turf catching our breath. A couple of our teammates got up and spoke. One, in tears, told about a particularly tough health challenge she is facing. Another told how coming out to workout had given her the mental strength to pull through a particularly cruel loss in her life.

It was a solid reminder that we’re all facing challenges. And it was an even more important reminder of why I spend the money to be out there. It’s group therapy. It’s how I have the strength to keep pushing on.

I know of several of my teammates who have faced challenges that would have brought average men and women to their knees. Their strength strengthens me. Their example pulls me through my own personal dark times.

When I first worked out, I did it for me. As time went on, I realized that there was more than just a physical level to the training — there was a mental one, too. I started paying attention to my teammates more and listening to their stories. I found our shared experiences to be healing.

We’re not alone in this journey. And if we can somehow quit thinking of ourselves for a moment and have empathy, life will get easier. I know the workout won’t — but that’s OK. Tough moments make tough people.

Paul Lacoste talks about the Next Level. It’s physical and mental. But it’s also having the strength to help your teammate when he or she needs it the most.

That’s life right there. That’s truly what living is all about.12006109_10156079227365721_31561077470876233_n

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Class Notes: October 15, 2015

TEST #2 TODAY! DON’T BE LATE — and DON’T MISS IT.

If you miss the test, you have to write a paper. I don’t give makeups (per the syllabus)

See you bright and early.

A clue for the bonus question.

A clue for the bonus question.

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Adventures of an Awkward Athlete: Being Tired

26.2 miles. That’s what the sticker read on my car. One hundred yards from it, I was winded. I could barely make it up to the door to the radio station.

Oh how the mighty had fallen.

Oct. 31, 2010, I weighted 195 lbs. and had completed the Marine Corps Marathon. A year later, I was pushing 250 and wheezing.

I was heart attack waiting to happen.

I looked at that 26.2 sticker and was embarrassed. How could I have let myself go? And how could it have happened so quickly? I tell you how. I had to pick up a second job and I was working my butt off. And I used sugary sodas to prop my energy up.

I was tired. And I was out of shape.

Five years later, I’m about to run my second marathon. I weigh 213 lbs. and work five jobs (six if you count freelance.) I have three kids who need taxiing around. I’m busier than ever.

I’m still tired. But now I’m in shape.

I can tell you this: Being tired when you are out of shape sucks a whole lot more than being tired when you are in shape. I have energy reserves I didn’t have back then. And I am getting so much more done.

People tell me they are too tired to exercise. I get that. But let me tell you from experience: You’re too tired not to exercise. It makes all the difference in the world.

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Class Notes October 13, 2015

The 2nd test will be Thursday, October 15.  Be on time. No makeups will be given. You, per the syllabus, can write a paper to make up your grade. I pick the topic.

The Test will be derived from the first three chapters of Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook.

We will review and go over Chapter 3 (about Facebook) today. Hope midterms are going well.

 

Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World by Gary Vaynerchuck. Chapters 1-3

 

  1. Your number one-job is to tell your story to the consumer wherever they are, and preferably at the moment they are deciding to make a purchase.
  2. 325 million phone subscriptions in the United States.
  3. ½ are on social media
  4. 71% of the people in America are on Facebook. Half a billion are on Twitter globally and check it at least once a day.
  5. Social media has altered how people fall in and out of relationships, stay in touch with family and friends and find jobs.
  6. One in four use Social Media to inform purchasing decisions.
  7. Boomers, who control 70% of the spending, have increased their Social Media use by 42%
  8. Social Media is no longer tied to laptops and PCs.
  9. There are three types of media: Traditional (radio, TV, print), digital (websites, banner ads, e-mails, SEO – search engine optimizations) and Social Media. Social Media is pulling away from the first two.
  10. IT took 38 years before 50 million people gained access to radios
  11. It took TV 13 years.
  12. It took Instagram a year and a half.
  13. The fastest-growing marketing sector getting people’s attention is Social Media.
  14. All forms of Marketing must contain Social Media yet 1% of ad budgest going to Social Media.
  15. You can’t just repurpose your content across different platforms.
  16. Great Marketing is about telling your story in such a way that it compels people to buy what you’re selling. That’s a constant. What’s always in flux, especially in this noise, mobile world is how, when and where the story gets told and who gets to tell all of it.
  17. “Jabs” are the lightweight pieces of content that benefit your customers by making them laugh, snicker, ponder, play a game, feel appreciated or escape, “right hooks” are calls to action that benefit your business.
  18. Tradition marketing campaigns would sit back and see what happened. Today there is no six-month campaign. There’s now a 365-day campaign.
  19. Like boxers, great story tellers are observant and self aware. And attuned to his or her audience.
  20. Today, real-time feedback that Social Media allows makes it possible for brands and businesses to test and retest with scientific precision.
  21. A great marketing story is one that sells stuff. It creates emotion that makes consumers want to motivate people.
  22. Your story is not powerful enough if all it does is lead the horse to water. It has to inspire the horse to drink – the only story that can achieve that goal is the story told with native content.
  23. Native content amps up your story’s power. It is crafted to mimic everything that makes a platform attractive and valuable to a consumer.
  24. Whatever story you tell must remain true to the brand.
  25. Different platforms allow you to highlight different aspects of your brand identity. Each jab tells a different part of your story. Have fun with it.
  26. A perfect right hook always includes three characteristics: A. They make the call to action simple and easy to understand B. They are perfectly crafted for mobile devices. C. They respect the nuances of the social network for which you are making content.
  27. Content for the sake of content is pointless. Only OUTSTANDING content can cut through the noise.
  28. Outstanding content’s six rules: 1. It’s Native Content – Content is king, but context is God. You can put out good content, but if it ignores the context of the platform on which it appears, it can fall flat. Consumers are on social media for value. Science – social networking sites light up people’s dopamine pathways and the pleasure centers of the brain. In the right social-media savvy hands, a brand that masters native content becomes human. 2. It doesn’t interrupt. It has to be the entertainment. (think about today’s ad-skipping services). 3. It doesn’t make demands – often. Make it simple, make it memorable, make it inviting to look at and make it fun to read. And make it for the audience, now yourself. Be generous, informative, be funny, be inspiring. 4. Leverages Pop Culture. Create content that reveals your understanding of the human condition – issues and news that matters to them. 5. It’s micro: Think of content as micro-content. Tiny unique nuggets of info, humor content or inspiration. 6. It’s consistent and self-aware.
  29. Want to know what content people find valuable? Look on their phone home screens. 1. Most popular apps – social networking (people). 2. Entertainment (escape) 3. Utility (value service – Google maps for example) So your content must fall within these three areas. It can’t be information that makes people realize they are being sold. MUST make emotional connection.
  30. Facebook: Founded in 2004.
  31. Was called Thefacebook.com until August 2005.
  32. The Like Button was originally supposed to be called the “Awesome” button.
  33. Mark Zuckerberg initially rejected photo sharing, he had to be persuaded that it was a good idea by then-president Sean Parker
  34. There were a billion monthly active users as of December 2012
  35. There were 680 million monthly active users of Facebook mobile products as of December 2012.
  36. One out of ever five page views in the U.S. is on Facebook.
  37. Facebook wants users to see things that they find relevant, fun and useful – not annoying and pointless or else they’ll abandon the site. Which means you’d better create content that’s relative, fun and useful, too.
  38. Facebook settled on an algorithm called EdgeRank. Every interaction a person has with Facebook, from posting a status update or a photo to liking, sharing or commenting is called and “edge.” And theoretically, every edge channels into the news stream. But no everyone who could see these edges actually does, because EdgeRank is constantly reading algorithmic tea leaves to determine which edges are most interesting to the most number of people. It tracks all the engagement a user’s own content receives and well as the engagement a user has with other people’s or brand’s content. The most engagement a user has with a piece of content, the stronger the EdgeRank believes that a user’s interest will be in a similar content and it filters that person’s news stream accordingly. A randomizer ensures that occasionally we’ll see a post from someone we haven’t talked to in years—thus keeping Facebook “fresh.” For example, EdgeRank makes sure that a user who often likes or comments on a friend’s photos, but who ignores that friend’s plain-text status update, will see more of that friend’s photos and fewer of his status updates. Every engagement, whether between friends or between users and brands, strengthens their connection and the likelihood that EdgeRank will push appropriate content from those friends and brands to the top of a user’s News Feed. That’s of course where you, the marketer , what to see your brand or business. It’s the user’s response to the “jab” that matters most. Through EdgeRank, Facebook weighs like, comments and shares. But it currently does not give greater weight to click throughs or any other action that leads to sales. Facebook doesn’t care – their greatest priority is making the platform valuable to the consumer, not to you the marketer. On Facebook, the definition of great content is not the content that makes the most sales, but the content that people most want to share with others. The only way to reach those consumers is to get them to engage, then its up to you to create not just great content , but content that’s so great they want to engage with it. Facebook constantly changes the algorithm. So what works today won’t necessarily work tomorrow.
  39. January 2013, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook should now be considered a mobile company.
  40. Six months later Facebook reported 41 percent of its ad revenue came from mobile, equaling $1.6 billion in the second quarter of 2014.
  41. No space on the mobile for ads per se. Your content – your micro-content, has to be the ad.
  42. Sponsored stories. Launched in 2011 but it was the fall of 2012 they came into their own because Facebook adjusted the algorithmic adjustment that would purposely limit how many people would organically see a brand’s posts even if they had already become fans by liking the brands page.
  43. By Sept. 2013, Facebook’s algorithm will only allow your content to reach about 3 to 5% of our fans. To reach more, you have to post some extremely engaging content. Or your have to pay.
  44. Unlike TV, your content’s reach increases only when you’ve put content that people actually want to see and think others do, too.
  45. Explanation of sponsored stories: 1. Simply extends your chosen piece of content to the news streams of a larger number of your fans than the regular 3 to 5% that would normally see it. That’s called a Page Post. 2: The other extends your reach the same way, but it allows you to highlight the fact that a fan has engaged with your content and tell that fan’s friends about it. You can choose to create this kind of sponsored story around a check-in, a like and several other actions.
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The world needs more Louis Zamperinis

51m7P+bJfALThe world needs more Louis Zamperinis. And if you don’t know who he is, you obviously haven’t read the best selling novel Unbroken or watched the movie of the same name. He was an athlete in the 1936 Berlin Olympics and then later a prisoner of war during World War II. Zamperini recently died at the age of 96 — after living a full, amazing life.

Zamperini survived torture at the hands of Japanese prison guards by will and then later defeated PTSD by faith. He could have chosen a path of victimhood (and had every right to do so) but didn’t. After being forced to go to a Billy Graham revival by his wife, he chose the path of forgiveness. His torment, nightmares and alcoholism ceased. He went on to pay that blessing forward by helping scores of underprivileged kids throughout the years.

He chose forgiveness. He ceased being a victim. He changed the script playing in his head.

And for that he’s my hero. I see so many people who are being held prisoner by past events — I know I am at times. I think about how many blessings I’ve missed because of my anger.

I highly recommend that you read Laura Hillenbrand’s excellent book if you haven’t (she also wrote the amazing Seabiscuit, too.) The world needs more Louis Zamperinis. And Lord knows, I need his spirit.

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Fatigue’s Siren Song

Fatigue is a liar. Like a perverted siren, it will call you until you crumble upon its rocks. It’s song is negativity. Negativity that steals your hope. Your purpose. And at times, your will.

Last night, I heard its song. My schedule is mad these days and I honestly have lost sight of the big picture. I’m thrashing around, praying I won’t slip beneath the surface. Fatigue makes you fear failure. Fatigue is a liar.

Sure, failure is a possibility. I have so many moving pieces in my life right now that I could easy screw up any one of them. But where fatigue is truly lying is that failure isn’t always a bad thing. Hang in there with me — I am not delusional. And I know, winning is the only thing. But sometimes you need to take a step back to take two steps forward. As long as you learn from that step back, you will sail past your fears.

I’m sore and tired. The big picture is a bit fuzzy, too. Plus, I have a lot of questions about the future.

But right now, I’m going to get some caffeine, have a little hope, put on my headphones and ignore fatigue’s song. I have something to prove. I’m going to prove my doubts wrong.

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The Chauffeur

This is the last year I’ll ever drive my oldest son to school.

It’s a long tradition that started many, many years ago when I’d take him to Mother’s Morning Out. Back then, I saw a round cherub face in my mirror. Now I see a handsome 15-year-old sitting next to me.

I hate the traffic but I do cherish the time. Time that I know I need to hang onto for dear life.

Sometimes we sit in silence. He’ll text and I’ll listen to a song on the radio. Other times, we’ll talk about our currency — things that we have in common to talk about. He and I did Paul Lacoste training last summer, so we talk about my workout and his latest run. My dad and I had UT football. Dad has dementia now so we can’t have those discussions. Like I said, I hang onto these moments with my son for dear life.

I hope he knows how much I love him. I know how much my dad loves me — even though his light is slowly flickering out. I see him light up when I walk into the door of where he lives now. I can see the love in his eyes, even when he’s struggling to remember. I have that look in my eyes when I see my son. As I do when I see his brothers.

I’ve discovered love is not guaranteed. You sometimes don’t get it from the people you should. But my boys will always get it from me. That’s a guarantee. I will be proud to be their father until the day I die — and then beyond.

This morning we talked about the one thing we truly have control about is how we respond to things. That people in situations worse than ours succeed. We spoke about why that was. And how lame it was to make excuses and blame others for your problems. He told me a few things I needed to hear. For 15, he shows flashes of brilliance.

For the next few months, we’ll drive through traffic on those mornings when he needs to go to school. He’ll be in a hurry to get to school. I’ll be trying to slow time down to a crawl.

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Adventures of an Awkward Athlete: Chapter 15 The Glory and the Suck

 

At the very last moments of today’s of workout, I was lying on the turf with my hands on my head, holding my feet at six inches off the ground. I listened to Coach Clark count down from 10.

9.

8.

7.

6.

5.

4.

3.

2.

1.

I exhaled and put my feet on the turf. At some point during our final workout of the day (which was core), I heard Coach Neil say something about ignoring the suck.

I didn’t think it sucked at all. In fact, I was thankful for the pain. I even craved more.

We started by doing jumping jacks every five yards (adding one each line) to the 50. Then we switched to burpees. From there, we ran up and down the stadium stairs and did a lap around the school’s road. We came back into the stadium and ran up and down the visitor’s stands. Then we ran up and down the hill in endzone. From there, we sprinted 100 yards and then sprinted another 100 yards while zig-zagging in and out of the numbers. When we got to the other end zone, we bear crawled for 30 yards, frog leaped for 40 and then crab crawled for another 30.

I looked like a dog rubbing his butt on the carpet.

Then we zig-zagged in and out of the numbers and ended it with a final 100-yard sprint. I figure we probably ran between 2.5 and 3 miles. I ran it faster than I normally do — and I yes, it was painful at times.

Then the core workout began. I know I did over 50 sit-ups — even maybe closer to 100. We did side crunches and in-outs while raising our feet.

But whatever pain I felt was washed away by the confidence from succeeding. I did everything. I did everything (except the crab crawls) well. I focused each step of the drill and I did it.

I did it.

Life is hard. But there is no sense of complaining about it, whining or blaming other people. Instead, you have to take action. You have to feel positive pain. That makes the bad pain go away.

When I was done running, I went back went out and crab-crawled with another struggling team mate. I counted down each yard and encouraged him along the way and cheered when he finished, too.

No, today’s workout didn’t suck. Yes it did hurt at times. But in a strange way, it was painfully glorious.

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When the teacher becomes a student

I come from a family of teachers and preachers. My great great grandfather (who was a preacher) co-founded Wood College in Mathiston. His daughter was a college professor. Her daughter taught kindergarten. So did my mom’s mom. Mom taught art. My sister teaches history. My aunt teaches math. My cousin talks about having the heart of a teacher. My wife (who has a huge heart) teaches elementary school art.

There are a lot of teachers in my family.

But not me. I liked being the uncle not the parent — I could zip in a class, be funny man and zip out.

This fall, I’m teaching a Social Media class at Jackson State University. Teaching Social Media to college students is like teaching a school of fish to swim — they have been doing it from birth. I wish I had all my family’s teaching super powers. I’m sure my class does, too.

I’m learning as I go.

Let me tell you this, though: It’s a most rewarding experience. Oh sure, there are days when my students roll their eyes at me. And sometimes I roll mine right back. But there are moments — moments when I connect. It’s those moments that energize me. I had one of those moments today. I watched one of my students show off (rightfully) her YouTube Channel. She’s doing amazing work. It made me want to try new things and grow.

The energy in the classroom flowed both ways.

My career is changing by the second. My students’ will, too. It’s that energy that will propel all of us through these changes.

I’ve learned one thing from the experience: Sometimes the teacher can be the student.

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Why You Should Really Love The Martian

martian-gallery2-gallery-image-1940x1043Hang on a second. I need to put down my glass of Tang.

OK. Let’s talk about the movie The Martian for a second. I saw Ridley Scott’s fantastic new film this weekend — and as you might guess, I loved it. Matt Damon, who makes it a habit of having to be rescued in movies, was spot on as Mark Watney, the astronaut left behind. And as you can probably tell by my Tang reference, I’m a space geek. My imagination was tweaked by the Apollo missions. I cheered Skylab. I loved the Shuttle. I believe in the hope that exploration brings. And astronauts are just darn cool.

So as a space geek, I enjoyed the movie. It was a big wet kiss to NASA. And it was very well done. Scott stayed true to the book (which is also excellent). You got all its hope and grit.

But I liked it for a deeper reason — a reason why I loved the early space program. It wasn’t about what we can’t do. Or whose fault it is. It was about, “Houston, we have a problem — how can we fix it?”

Mark Watney didn’t blame his fellow astronauts for leaving him behind. He didn’t blame NASA for not leaving him enough supplies. He didn’t whine about it being a conservative/liberal plot. Nope. He used his wit, his knowledge and got busy to save his stranded butt.

My son and I talked about that on the way home. The emphasis on science appealed to him (he is taking engineering in 10th grade). But Watney’s no excuses/can-do attitude really impressed me.

That’s what makes us great. Not excuses. Anyone can make excuses.

The Martian is a great movie. And on a day when I don’t have hope, I’ll go see it again.

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