With success being my Ultimate Goal, I have to first define what success means in my mind. So to be a success, this person must become a person who is continuing to grow emotionally, spiritually, in their relationships with family, friends and strangers. Be a contributor to everybody and everything that enters their realm. Totally successful financially by gaining ultimate financial freedom. Totally successful in business and career. Living a lifestyle admired by many. Success is somebody who is also totally in tune with their personal fitness, health and well-being. Someone who has profound knowledge, continuously learning and somebody who never settles for anything less than they deserve. Committing themselves 100% towards every outcome they desire. Constantly achieving and improving in EVERY area of their life. Taking all actions necessary to achieve all of the above and enjoying the process.

My page is a tool to help me achieve my Ultimate Goal. Every day I will answer the same 5 Questions. Every week I will write a journal entry summarising my life during the week. I will also periodically give you, the reader, an insight into certain areas of my life. So please, enjoy my posts, feel free to replicate the process. My journey starts now with these 5 Questions...

1. What did I learn today?

2. What improvements have I made?

3. What did I contribute today?

4. What did I enjoy?

5. What actions have I taken towards achieving my Ultimate Goal?

Another Working Weekend

Sat. 26 June and Sun. 27 June, 2010

1 Learn. Today was ridiculously busy during the weekend. At this time of year I spend 2 hours in the CBD a day. Over the weekend it would have totalled about 5 hours a day. What lesson was learnt? With Australian families on holiday, the cheap flights into town, the extra flights and the Queenstown Winter Festival off to a booming start, Queenstown is and will continue to be a hot spot for tourists and locals over the next week and a bit. Right now I'm at standing on a metaphorical beach, watching this tourism tsunami sweep through.

2 Improve. The game that got postponed on Wednesday got played on Sunday. I've been a bit off with my free throw shooting lately (since the Tuesday night league finals). At the start of the game things didn't look promising. I missed my first three attempts from the charity stripe. Luckily I found my touch again and hit my next 3 before half time putting me at a respectable 50%. What happened in the second half made me happy. I got fouled frequently as I tried to make plays and get points. It didn't matter what they did, I wasn't missing from the line. I went 12 from 12 in the second and my shooting was back in form.

3 Contribute. Sundays game was the first game of the season where my parents came to watch so we put on a show for them. Comprehensively beating the other team down with some sweet teamwork and stifling defense.

4 Enjoy. Same story. Another game, another win.We're getting good at this. That's 10 wins, zero losses with this team this season. Not sure what our streak over the past two seasons is but I'm sure it's up there. Expect more to come.
5 Action. Once again it's all work no play. My spare time was spent eating, sleeping and resting. Basketball was the only exception. I need to get into my routine so I can manage my time better. Once I do that I wont fall behind on my obligations, this blog being one. If I don't get a handle on it quickly, it's going to be a scramble to catch up. 0 comments

American Express Queenstown Winterfest 2010

Fri. 25 June, 2010

1 Learn. It's that time of year again. One of the biggest events on our calendar, Winterfest. With it brings the flurry of tourists, shoulder to shoulder crowds, lines for days, halting traffic but it's all worth it with all the enjoyable events that will take place over the next 10 days. What have I learnt so far from the first day of the 2010 Winterfest? Order a meal before you get hungry. Anticipate when you will need to satisfy your hunger well before your stomach starts rumbling. The reason I say this is because with the thousand of people in town, it's tough waiting in line for food. Even a fast food icon was struggling to keep up, McDonalds was moving at a snails pace. One thing I love about carnivals are the hotdogs and chips, but what makes them amazing is the carny tomato sauce. The hotdog trailer was in town tonight so we decided to join one of the lines there, about eight lines to choose from, being served by two people. I was starving, I needed a hotdog, the line wasn't moving as fast as my expectations, I learnt a lesson. Also, If you need a park in the CBD on a night like tonight, drive into town early, or alternatively use your contacts and park illegally outside their work for the time you're in there . One of my mates was working so he said to park up and he would keep an eye on it. Cheers bro!

2 Improve. There's so many things you can do with Google calendar, so many things to learn. I figured some of it out and spent a good hour on getting my timetable sorted. You can see the results on the Calndar page. I gave it a nudge and I think there's improvement there.

3 Contribute. Extra people means extra rubbish. It's my job to keep this town clean and I'm going to do a good job dang it. I did more runs through the CBD today and kept the place tidy. People won't notice my work, but if I wasn't out there people would notice the mess. At this time of year Queenstown can't afford to have that image.

4 Enjoy. The Winterfest opening ceremony. Earnslaw Park was packed with people, with all the entertainment to enjoy from the fireworks, to the food stalls, the music, the entertainers and of course the mulled wine from the Lion's tent, it was easy to see why everybody was attracted to that area of town. I had my daughter in a backpack and we were trying to find a decent position so we could see the floating stage (a custom built stage contructed with scaffolding over top of the lake). It was a mission trying to weave through the people but we found a good area just in time to see our Prime Minister John Key take the stage with Darth Vader, some storm troopers and Boba Fett. He opened the festival and called for the fireworks to start. It was a decent display of explosives with an awesome soundtrack to go with it. At that stage we took our daughter out of the backpack and she sat in my arms dancing to and enjoying the music. Great way to kick things off and looking forward to the next nine days of celebration.

5 Action. Get more organised to increase productivity by doing my calendar. Increasing my happiness by joining the population at the lakefront festivities. This weekend stay on top of the trash around town. It's going to be busy 0 comments

Positive Ten Experience

Thu. 24 June, 2010

1 Learn. In an earlier post I referenced the power of scarcity and in that I gave you a scale that measured desire on a scale of -10 to +10. Today I realised that you can use that scale for any emotion you want to make happen. For example. If I wanted to feel happy, I would measure my happiness on a scale with +10 being euphoric and -10 being depressed. I furthered that thinking and started asking how I could think, feel, believe and do with my body to get to different areas of the scale. That part was easy, +10 think of a time when I was at my happiest and think of this moment being the last moment I could be like that again. -10 focus on losing my daughter in a situation in which something could have been done to prevent the loss. Then I took that distinction up another step. We all want a positive 8 or above experience for every emotion which gives us pleasure. Ask the question "What has to happen to make this a +10 experience?". What happens next? You start to come up with rules. Some rules are helpful: If I blink more than 3 times then I'm +10 in happiness. Some rules don't help at all: If the sun sets from the east then I'm happy. It all depends on how you set up your rules. So try this... before you are about to enter a situation ask yourself the question "what needs to happen in order for me to have a positive 10 experience? Then decide to make your rules really easy to meet and with outcome that you can control. I guarantee if you do it properly then anything that seemed like a pain you can turn into fun.

2 Improve. My whole day was helped with the use of that new tool for new thought. I managed to find myself enjoying situations I normally wouldn't. Thursday is generally my busiest day of the week and some days its tough to find the motivation to work. The morning was spent dragging my feet, procrastinating and getting distracted by the solitaire application on my phone. Then I used the above tool to get me going. While I'm working, if I didn't stop for a break at any moment during the day, then I would have a +10 experience. Guess what happened? I went from tired and unmotivated, to having an amazing time doing something I normally find tedious. Now to apply it to other things in my life.

3 Contribute. Trademe.co.nz My partners addicted to it. I fueled her addiction by picking up a set of three pairs of pants for our daughter, those which had she won on the online auction site. It wasn't a coincidence that I was driving past the seller's house today. I drive past that residence every Thursday. I also made you use the +10 experience tool didn't I?

4 Enjoy. Queenstown is getting busy!!! It's a winter wonderland and people are stampeding into town. It's pretty fun watching the different types of people who come in and out of this place. It's hard to know who the real locals are but that's all good.

5 Action. Going to bed early tonight so I wont be doing much action towards my goals. Getting more sleep could technically be considered as an action taken. I have a good reason to go to bed early. Basketball training in the morning but more importantly our national soccer team is playing the current FIFA World Cup champions, Italy, in the early hours of Friday. I'm not too confident of a positive result for them but I am confident I can have a +10 experience otherwise. Do the calendar tomorrow!

Search Amazon.com for FIFA world cup 2010 0 comments

Snow Day

Wed. 23 June, 2010

1 Learn. Winter has officially hit Queenstown. We had a pretty big dump of snow overnight. There was about 8cm on the ground where I live. What have I learnt from this situation? How not to drive when the roads are layered with snow. As we were driving to work we approached a steep hill going down. At the first corner was a bus... Grill first into the side of a rock wall. That's how not to drive. I also learnt how to drive in those conditions. Speed stays constant, Brakes don't get touched. I was also enlightened when I had to put snow chains on the ute.

2 Improve. When I finally made it home after a long, slow day out working, I went to work on improving my blogs appearance. It's early days yet but I found a template that made my blog look a little bit better. I'll continually work at making it better in the future too.

3 Contribute. Due to the extreme weather, we rescheduled our men's league game over in Wanaka. Trying to get through the Crown Range would have been close to suicide so we're playing the game on Sunday instead. With all of my team mates having the night off, we decided to have a training session to work on some offensive plays. We are going to be running the same plays as the high school team therefore my knowledge of them has just one superior, the coach, who is also in my men's team. I shared what I knew with the other players to try help them pick it up as fast as possible. This will probably be the last training session we have until tournament and we're not too fluent at the plays yet so I'm not too sure how well it will work in a real game situation. Let's just wait and see.

4 Enjoy. The Snow. Waking up to the whole town covered in white was pretty sweet.

 
5 Action. Going to practice, training, doing my calendar. Those were a few things I did today. Still need more work on my calendar, I think if I spend 20 minutes a day on the calendar it should be great. 0 comments

Who Am I Really?

Tue. 22 June, 2010

1 Learn. Check out my Who Am I page. I learnt that if I generalise my answers to that question then I get a whole list of attributes to go along with that answer. For example: If I believe in my heart that who I am is a professional basketball player, when I dunk on somebody and they ask me why I did that, my reply would be "because im a professional basketball player and it's what I do". What else do professional basketball players do? Why limit my brain into thinking that I'm just another player. It seems like semantics, but if I can believe it then why can't I do it?

2 Improve. So I made some generalisations about who I want to become. Check them out on my Who Am I? page.

3 Contibute. This distinction is a very powerful tool to condition your mind into believing in your capabilities. Therefore I'm making you use it right now. Make a list, think of the person you want to become, be general, you look at my page for inspiration. When you believe that's who you are then you get a whole set of new behaviours and take actions you might of never taken before. If you change who you believe you are now, your goals that seemed out of reach will be closer than ever. That is my contribution to you.

4 Enjoy. No basketball today! Tuesday night basketball is over for the season after the loss in the final last week. I've been so busy lately that a day with no basketball is actually pleasurable. Just relaxing and doing a little bit of work is just what I needed.

5 Action. I spent a bit of time working on my calendar. Getting my life organised. I also advertised this blog onvarious sites. Technorati was one. I'm also creating a lens on Squidoo about my blog. Going to try and Lift my Twitter (follow me!) profile soon and working on the facebook page which will soon be just as big as this blog. Tomorrow I'm going to try change the look of this blog. Hopefully make it a bit more appealing.
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Air Up There

Mon. 21 June, 2010

1 Learn. I explained in an earlier post that I needed to find an online planner or calendar so I could schedule my life and plan my days and weeks ahead. I failed miserably. That was until I looked right under my nose and found Google calendars. How could I miss that? I already use so many other Google services, this blog for one. There's also Reader, Gmail, YouTube, AdSense, Picasa and Docs which I use on a regular basis. The calendar that Google have is very close to what I was looking for originally so I'm going to take a bit of time to learn how to use it effectively. You can soon call me Mr Organised.

2 Improve. This afternoon at basketball training I was feeling rather explosive. It felt as though I could leap to the roof of the gymnasium with no effort at all. As we were warming up I used that feeling to throw down dunks at a ferocious intensity. I managed to get a clean flush on a one leg takeoff, two handed tomahawk, running at full pace towards the basket, which I haven't ever done before. It was an awesome feeling knowing that my jumping ability is still rising.

3 Contribute. I shared with the boys in the basketball team some more items from the vast pool of basketball knowledge that is stored within my brain. I seem to talk a lot, but when the pressures on they seem to forget what they only just learnt. It goes in one ear and out the other. Can you really expect more from teenagers? Maybe one day it will click for them, until then I'll keep doing what I do.

4 Enjoy. We run a drill at training called one minute of defense. There are two lines either side of the court, 2 balls in each line. As soon as you get the ball you dribble towards the basket looking to score in any way possible. Problem is there's one person standing in the way. Sometimes you can get away with a cheeky basket while the defender is still preoccupied with the person who went before you. It's the defenders job not to let that happen and contest every shot. I was in a situation during the exercise where I got the ball early, so I decided to try get one of those cheeky buckets and maybe put a bit of flair in it by hammering a slam down. I thought I was in for the money because the person who went in before me was taking their time putting their shot up. As I leapt into the air,  the defender all of a sudden turned to me. He gave up on the previous defensive assignment because it wasn't worth his time. He had two options at this stage with only a split second to react. There was nowhere he could move to so he could either stand there and sample the salty seasoning of my sweaty shorts or he could push me away to try prevent the embarassment of having a face full of nut sack. He chose the latter, but instead of pushing me away from the basket, he pushed me up and towards it. What happened next was one of the greatest experiences of my playing days. I was so high in the air I was looking down ito the basket. My shoulders were level with the rim which is 10 feet from the ground.What happened next? I panicked. Instead of reaching out and grabbing the rim, creating a dunk which was worthy of a placing on SportsCenter's top 10, I got over excited and didn't really know what to do. I managed to finish off the play, a sexy wee finger roll with my forearm parrallel to the ground. I wish I got a courtside photo of the play, then it would probably be one of my most prized possesions.

5 Action. Jumped into the trading room today to see if I could catch some trades. I need to try and condition myself into spending the time in the trading room to enhance my financial situation. I'll work out that Google calendar tomorrow. 0 comments

Recharge

Sat. 19 and Sun. 20 June, 2010

1 Learn. Not the relaxing weekend I had planned. I thought I could get the chance to get some work done over the two days I had off. That wasn't the case. People to visit, things to do, games to watch. Obligations getting in the way of progress. What did I learn from this experience? Speeding is bad. We stayed in Alex a bit too long on Sunday so I tried to make up that time by speeding back to Queenstown. 30 kms down the road, in the wet and all of a sudden the red and blue lights start to flash and the patrol car turns and chases. 27kph over the 100 kph speed limit equals a $230 fine and 35 demerit points. The gain for my speeding? About a minute in total travel time which got eaten immediately when I got pulled up. The potential cost? Losing my family in a horrific car crash. I learnt my lesson and realise nothing is worth that price. NOTHING.

2 Improve. The reason I sped was to get to basketball training on time. It was going to be one of our last trainings before we go away to tournament. I made it there late and was in no mood to play. I warmed up on my own and my angry state wasn't at all productive. I started dunking resulting in the breakage of the the hoop I was warming up on. When I eventually started to play I was still feeling sour. The whole time we played I played hard and fast. The peak of my strength was reached when I received a great pass while cutting down the paint. Instead of doing what I normally do and softly putting the ball in the air for an easy basket, I decided to leap between two defenders, throw the ball down with authority and attempt to rip the rim off the backboard stamping my name on that bucket. A few plays later I made another aggressive move by trying to go through my defender on a driving dunk attempt. Unfortunately I didn't quite hit him hard enough and my hand fell just short of grabbing the ring again. My anger drove the improvement in my aggression.

3 Contribute. One of my good mates has a baby boy who is 3 weeks younger than my daughter. His birthday party was on Saturday afternoon so we got him a wee Tonka truck for his birthday present. It was a fun occasion with a lot of other babies there and catching up with my mates family who I haven't seen in years was a bonus for me.

4 Enjoy. The All Blacks played their first real test of the season on Saturday night vs Wales. The 66-28 drubbing of the Irish national team a week earlier didn't count because of the red card that was dealt to Jamie Heaslip in the 14th minute for twice using his knee on an All Black players head. The Welsh put up a tough and even contest in the first half, but Dan Carter showed his brilliance in the 2nd and led the team to a dominant 42-9 victory. It was also the last test match to be held at Carisbrook, Dunedin's aging football ground. Starting the farewell with the stirring Kapa-O-Pango haka and finishing it all off with an historic win, the old House Of Pain will always be remembered. Also, the aforementioned slam dunk put a smile on my face for a moment.

5 Action. I'd be lying if I said I took deliberate action over the weekend towards my personal development. I planned to do some work but the spare time I did get was filled with distraction and procrastination. I could reach for an answer and say I took the action of watching a sport that I love to improve the happiness in my life...
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It Doesn't Get Any Bigger

Fri. 18 June, 2010

1 Learn. In my sport, as you should know by now is basketball, there is one event that rules every other. This one contest between two teams has no rival. What is it? The seventh game of the NBA finals. It hardly ever happens because one team is clearly superior to the other. And when it does happen there should be a holiday in my opinion. Both teams have worked their behinds off during post season workouts, battled through a gruelling 82 game regular season, three rounds of playoffs tallying 12 wins and the occasional loss to that, adding another 3 wins each in the finals series leading up to this one deciding game to reveal the champion. No matter what happens, the winner deserves the trophy. So what did I learn while enjoying this spectacle? I learnt that Kobe still has nothing on MJ. He choked big time. He shot bad (6 makes from 24 attempts), he made bad decisions, he didn't even make the big play that everybody expected him to make (Artest and Fisher made those). He couldn't handle the occasion and his team mates held the team together for him. Luckily it's a team sport. Kobe, you may have only one less ring than His Airness, but you still have a loooong way to go before I will compare your accomplishments to his. Get five more MVP's and four more finals MVP's and then I'll concede.

2 Improve. To have the time to watch the game, I had to find a 4 hour lunch break during work. I had to use my time perfectly so I could manage my runs, catch the action and get ready for the weekend. I did a shift in the morning straight after morning training with no breakfast, I made it home to wash up and eat, did some more work, made it to a mates place just in time for the game to start, exited just after the trophy was presented, made it to the transfer station to empty the ute just before it closed and finished my last run just as it was getting dark. All in all, I think I did a pretty good job at effectively using my time, something that in the past has been a weak part of my organisational skills.

3 Contribute. Tonight I gave my time, my (limited) energy and most importantly my driving qualifications (manual shift, full car license) in getting my family to Alexandra for the weekend. After a hectic day it was tough trying to drive 90kms at 10:00 at night but we got there safely. The relaxation during my time off work would be worth it.

4 Enjoy. Did I not just say there was a game 7 of the NBA finals on today. What more do I need to enjoy myself? I would have been happier if it were a Suns vs Bulls final but watching the two most storied franchises hit it out against each other was the next best thing. BOS 79 - 83 LAL final score. Congratulations LA Lakers. 2010 NBA champions.

5 Action. Way too busy to focus on any business related actions so I'll say I took action to fill my time effectively. 0 comments

Morning Trainings

Fri. 4 June, 2010
1 Learn. Today I learned that the metaphors I use control the beliefs I have. For example I now use the metaphor "my business is like basketball". If I put in enough preparation, if i do the work, if i have a game plan, if I execute my plays with smart decisions and quick action, then there's no challenge that I won't eventually overcome. Let's look at Kobe's game today. Game 1 NBA finals vs the Celtic's. He applied those principals to his game and made an assortment of shots on his way to 30 points. He was able to overcome the challenges with what seemed like ease. Now that I can relate I will be able to apply that to the challenge that is business. I also learned that there's nobody in the world who can shut down Kobe.
2 Improve. So we had basketball training at the high school this morning. I'm the assistant coach of the local high school boys basketball team. Their trainings start at 6:30am on Friday's and I always join in so I can lead by example. We did a lot of running to warm up, a few shooting drills then it was into running some offensive sets to get the boys ready for their first game of the season which is coming up soon. For those that don't know what an offensive set is, I would simply say its similar to a choreographed dance routine with specific players moving to specific spots on the court to try and create an easy shot for one of their team mates. watch a simple example here. So we practiced that for a bit then played some 5 on 5. I ended up finishing the training with no energy left but felt I hadn't done enough to improve my skill set. As everybody else left the gym, I spent the next 20 minutes working on my jumping ability by exercising my legs, doing different jumping exercises. After that extra training I really felt that I had put in the work to increase and improve my vertical leap.
3 Contribute. My contribution for the day? I got posterised by one of the high school kids. He had an open basket and I busted my ass to catch up with him. I tried to go for the ball going under him but was there half a second too late. He leaped, I looked up and all I saw was a clean one-handed dunk and heard the sound of the rim being pulled down. So I'm glad I could contribute to this kids self-esteem and confidence. Now I wasn't postered to this level but here's a good compilation to give you an idea of what happened.
4 Enjoy. Lakers vs Celtics. The first game of the 2010 NBA Finals. The whole season leading up to these last few games. Today's game did not disappoint. Final score LAL 102 - 89 BOS
5 Action. I took the action of waking up and making it to training on time. As a result my health and fitness has improved. I also wrote a second post!
 
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