How To Reach Your Goals: Pt 1

Teammates, how do you stay Fired UP? It’s a great question and one that I hear all the time. News flash – you’re not going to be Fired UP all the time…yep it’s true, "I'm sorry to say so but, sadly it's true that bang-ups and hang-ups can happen to you." Dr. Seuss continues,"unslumping yourself is hard to do.” This quotation is from one of my favorite all-time books Oh, the Places You'll Go by Dr. Seuss: it acknowledges what every one of us will deal with in life…and some of us will have more “bang-ups and hang-ups” as we dare to do things differently and we challenge ourselves in new ways. When you push the envelope in whatever you do – you will fail – failing is a fact of life – the key is understanding that you only ever fail if you never learn from your “failure". Thomas Edison once said he learned over 5,000 ways not to invent a light bulb – I learned 1,475,000 dollars worth of how NOT to launch a fitness product – in other words, you’re not learning if you’re not Failing!

So really, the key question is how do you stay Fired UP to keep trying – to keep doing – to keep persevering – to keep from quitting – to keep from giving up – to keep persisting – to keep pressing on after you’ve had your failures, or as Dr. Seuss would say, “your hang-ups and bang-ups.”?

Having failed many more times in life than I’ve succeeded, I humbly offer you my three “secrets” for staying Fired UP in the face of adversity – here goes:

1. When you set your goal – the thing you want to accomplish and are willing to devote time to it – first take the time to understand and visualize why this particular goal is important to you. Literally define the goal’s purpose – example: I want to create a fitness company – its purpose to me is: working in an industry that will always be a part of my daily life and the joy I receive from helping others take control of their bodies is immeasurable – furthermore, I want financial freedom and scheduling freedom to be with my family during the most precious years of their young adult lives. I’ve linked this purpose so strongly to my goal that failure to achieve isn’t an option – it’s a similar linkage I had when conducting SEAL training, my attitude was they (the instructors) would have to kill me before I’d quit. I promise you, if you spend the time creating this linkage of purpose with your goal and you visualize both the pleasure of achieving it with the pain of not achieving it, you will have a created a foundation for tireless perseverance and there will be no brick wall thick enough or tall enough to stop you.

Part 2: Secrets 2 and 3 to staying Fired Up in the face of adversity.

CHARLIE MIKE – (Continue Mission in military speak!) ALDEN

Fire in the Gut: Tim Grizzell Update

CHARLIE MIKE Teammates - I just wanted to provide all of you with an October update on the status of Fire in the Gut – Innovative Performance Shirts for Athletes with a Warrior Attitude (www.fireinthegut.com). We were supposed to go live last month in September. As I mentioned previously, not everything always executes as planned. We have had some unforeseen productions issues that caused a slight delay.

The formal launch of the company will be in the next few weeks. A newsletter for all of you is forthcoming – you can sign up at my website. I recently activated a Twitter Account (www.twitter.com/timgrizzell) where you can track live updates on the launch.

Also, here is a sneak peek of the men’s crew neck short sleeve shirt. I am fired up and I look forward to sharing the new products with you soon.

Tim Grizzell

P.S. Alden--Congratulations on CHARLIE MIKE reaching the 2-year mark--you are truly helping others unlock their potential! Fired up for you brother! Tim

Potential Entrepreneurs Pt 2

How will you grow, fight off imitators and keep your competitive edge? In a phrase: Passion Driven Purpose. Huh? It’s about linking your company – your values – your mission statement – to a purpose. If the sole focus of your company is to profiteer, then your goals will be aligned for the short-term “get-rich” schemes and it won’t deliver long-term value.

If your company’s goals are directly aligned with a higher purpose – in our case, helping people unlock their body’s potential (and our number one core value is WE CARE about the health of our customers), then some powerful forces with start to align with you.

* First, you’ll take a long-term and creative approach to bringing true value and success to your customers. The more you help your customers succeed, the more they will help you succeed. If it’s all about “taking” from your customers, then they have no incentive to “give” to you.

* Secondly, the true super-stars of talent out there work for much more than a paycheck – money itself isn’t enough. There’s a much more important value element that a profiteer company can’t deliver, that’s providing people with the value of delivering on a higher purpose – of giving back to society, to communities around us, and the environment.

When you start with goals that have a purpose, and build a team of like-minded teammates, then no competitor becomes a long term threat. And if a competitor chooses to truly bring purpose into their mission – then it raises the bar on all of us. And one final note – when a company knows its purpose, it Fires UP the passion in all the people it attracts, and when this occurs, work is no longer work and creates an unstoppable work ethic and crucible for creativity!

If you’re thinking of taking the leap to chart your own entrepreneurial path whether inside an existing company or out on your own, trust me when I tell you, you’ll never regret the journey – it won’t be easy, but in the words of a military recruiter: “It’ll be the hardest thing you’ll ever love.”

CHARLIE MIKE - ALDEN

Potential Entrepreneurs Pt 1

Teammates, having just returned from the INC 500 awards ceremony and a trip to London, I’ve been asked a series of questions that are surprisingly similar and thought that both the questions and the answers would be of interest to you. Many of the questions are from students in entrepreneur or public relations classes (Mike Lamothe and Carolyn Casnova to name a few), but what was particularly interesting to me was while meeting new retailers in England, the buyers asked me similar questions – here you go. Paging all the potential entrepreneurs out there!

How did you come up with the Perfect Pushup?

The funny thing is, I had this idea since the early 90s when I was a young SEAL officer, but thought it was so “ordinary” that it wouldn’t be of interest to people. I was looking for the really “extra-ordinary” breakthrough product, and I spent A LOT of money and even more time trying to make the invention work (which we called BODYREV). I nearly went bankrupt (along with my partner) trying to educate folks on the value of our invention. Finally, we came to our senses after four years and decided to adapt to the marketplace and put our efforts behind an innovation – which we called the Perfect Pushup.

What’s the difference between an Invention and Innovation?

This is a really important concept in my book. An invention is an idea that has no reference point – it’s completely new to the market – it defines an entirely new category, which by the way presents another challenge: what are you going to call the category? What’s the definition of the category? And how are you going to defend it with your limited resources?? Examples of a new category: Segway, the two-wheeled motorized scooter or Apple’s iPod or Xerox’s copier or Twitter. In the case of an innovation, the idea has a reference point. That is, people can reference something in the brain that is a launching pad for quickly understanding how the product works and then easily filing it in their brain and passing along the idea to others.

In our case of the Perfect Pushup, our reference point is pushup bars – U-shaped stationary handles and the innovation that we brought to the table was adding rotation so it better simulates the natural movement of your arms. Our mantra: engages more muscles – easier on the joints – like a punch. Super simple to explain and convey to others.

When you launch your own idea, first ask yourself, it is an innovation or an invention?

If you have really deep pockets and super patient, long-term investors, then knock yourself with leading with the invention, but if you’re just starting and with limited resources, go for the “ordinary” idea first – the innovation – that people can quickly grasp and understand.

Part 2: How will you grow, fight off imitators and keep your competitive edge?

CHARLIE MIKE -- ALDEN

Keep those questions coming! Send them to getfit@perfectpushup.com