45,000 Minutes!

June 13, 2011 by Leave a comment

Rocky Balboa had been bullshitting for weeks. He was going through the motions, kidding himself that he was ready for his upcoming defense of the heavyweight title. And true to himself, Mickey, Rocky’s grumpy old trainer, told him like it was. “For a 45 minute fight,” he yells, “you gotta train hard for 45,000 minutes! 45,000!” He goes on to tell Rocky that he wasn’t doing nearly enough to be ready for a rematch with Apollo Creed, to whom he’d lost a close decision just a few months earlier. The message Mickey was trying to pound into his pupil’s head was simple. To go along with his rare combination of size, speed, and strength; Apollo now had extra incentive and motive, namely his desire to prove to the world that his beating of Rocky was no fluke. And Mickey knew he had to get Rocky ready.

Now I have to admit that I love the Rocky series. Yes, it’s extremely predictable, full of corny scenes, and far from cinema royalty. But I contend that within it are several messages to embrace, many life lessons to be learned. Read more of this post

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They’re Always Recruiting!

May 30, 2011 by 7 Comments

Mike Eskridge. That was his name. The guy who almost ruined the Summer of 1991 for me. I remember it like it was yesterday, a hot and muggy day in Davis, CA (about 20 miles outside of Sacramento). Shawn and I had just finished running, part of an intense offseason training program that, in all, totaled about six hours of work every day. Shawn was my roommate for most of my college career. Like me, he played defensive back and together, we were as disciplined and intense as you could be, dedicated to an offseason program we mostly designed ourselves that included running, lifting weights, stretching, countless football drills, and hours of film study. And in one conversation, all of it seemed futile.

We were chatting with our Defensive Coordinator. We’d already showered after our workout and were in the team’s film library, affectionately known as “the Cave” because it was on the top floor of our training center, in a dark corner office with no windows or natural light. It was the tail end of recruiting season and he was finishing up some paperwork and making a few final phone calls. The look on his face revealed that he was pleased, in an unusually pleasant mood. He, like many a defensive coach, tended to be surly. But not on this day. So I asked him, “What you so happy ’bout, Coach?” “Just had a good signing period,” he said. “That’s all.” I naturally had to ask him what kind of additions to our team we could expect. And the first name out of his mouth was Mike Eskridge, a cornerback from Monterey Peninsula College, a junior college located about fifteen minutes from where I’d attended high school. I’d worked out with Mike a few times during the summers while in high school and knew he was good. In fact, he was one of the smoothest and most natural defensive backs I’d ever seen. To say I was upset would be an understatement. I’d go so far as to say I was devastated. Read more of this post

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Calculated Decision-Making

May 22, 2011 by 1 Comment

Cracking the code to the safe is hard enough. You better write down the misses as you go along!

If you were trying to break into a safe that had a five-digit combination, how would you do it? Would you haphazardly guess at the sequence of numbers, hoping you’d stumble upon the correct digits in the right order? Not very efficient, right? Would you try to uncover any clues that might help you decipher what those numbers might be? A better approach, certainly, but still difficult. Knowing on what the combination was based—birthday, favorite numbers, anniversary maybe—is difficult enough. But then you’d need to figure out what the answer to those clues might be. Whatever approach taken, cracking the code of any safe is almost impossible. That’s a good thing, right? Unless you’re a thief, that is. With 100,000 combinations (10 possibilities, including ‘0’, for each digit, raised to the power of 5 for the number of digits in the combination), you have a better chance of becoming a pro athlete (a good thing: 1 in 22,000) or getting audited by the IRS (a bad thing: 1 in 175). But if you were stupid enough to try this feat, what would be the one thing you would have to do? Document all of the failed attempts. After all, if a combination is not correct, you surely don’t want to repeat it.

But that’s exactly what happens a lot of times in business. Especially in small businesses. Often, even, in successful ones. Let’s be honest; the reasons entrepreneurs start businesses are many. But one of the more common ones is to escape the rules, policies, and overall bureaucracy they have faced as employees in other companies. And as we can all attest, there are certainly reasons to dislike these rigid systems, often designed more to play ‘big brother’ and keep employees in line than to get real work done. Read more of this post

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The right to (bare) arms

May 18, 2011 by 10 Comments

People have always given me a hard time about my arms  It used to irritate– no, anger– me when people would insist that my arms were the only body part I worked on.  One of my best friends still teases me.  “Put some sleeves on for goodness sake!” he always tells me.

Okay, the truth is I do like to work on my biceps and triceps.  And even though I’ve always worked on my whole body– after all, one can’t really play college football without at least a little focus on chest, legs, and back–I’ll let the worst kept secret out of the bag; I like doing arms.  Heck, on most days I’ll even admit that I like the way they look.  Moreover, it’s become my signature body part.  Kind of like Angelina Jolie’s lips, “The Situation’s” abs, Frank Sinatra’s baby blues, or Kim Kardashian’s backside.  Well, maybe they’re not quite to those levels of fame and recognition.  But a guy can dream, right? Read more of this post

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Schock Your Abs into Summer Shape (and yes, I know how to spell shock!)

May 17, 2011 by 19 Comments

By: Julie Manriquez (jamwritingservices@gmail.com)

Congressman Aaron Schock's abs on the cover of June's Men's Health

Last week freshman congressman, Aaron Schock, opened his shirt for the cover of the June issue of Men’s Health. Holy House of Representatives, Batman! There’s no denying that even with the airbrushing and Photoshop® removal of every bodily hair, this 8-pack (yes, with the transverse abdominus, it’s an 8-pack) is worthy of some superhero Spandex. But, Mr. Schock is 29-years-old and a Republican, which means that gravity is currently working in his favor and he enjoys sporting at least a couple of guns at all times (I’m pretty sure I see them under the shirt sleeves!). Some of my best pals are Republicans and occasionally I find myself wavering in a moderate or even (gasp!) right hand direction on issues, but these conservative abs and hyper-masculine peacocking are simply not enough to urge this mostly leftwingin’ mother of two to inch my pinkie toe across the aisle. Mr. Schock’s stance on women’s rights (he voted to defund Planned Parenthood) and global warming (opposes the reduction of coal and oil usage and believes there is little, if any, evidence of global warming and it’s effects) does not fall in line with his reported desire to reach out to the MTV generation.

Not much makes me waver from my usual news sources (The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central, and Chelsea Lately on E!), but this kind of hypocrisy offers the kind of intrigue that even the most credible installment of TMZ might miss. Read more of this post

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