USATF – Page 9 – Disney Employee Engagement Speaker

Lane 8 Business Cards

Lane 8 business cards have a unique beginning.

Do you have interesting stories about important moments in your life?

If so, then you realize that if we don’t find a way to capture that moment, it will disappear and be forever lost.

Great companies do this. Great Countries do this. Great religions do this. Holidays, milestones, traditions.

Three days before flying to Helsinki, Finland, it dawned on me that there were going to be 5,300 athletes from 80 countries and untold spectators. I needed business cards. Lots of business cards.

“Okay, you don’t have much time”, I said in a panic. “But you do have an enormous opportunity.”

I cut out a handful of business card size pieces of card stock (my wife always has stuff like this on hand).

In only three tries, I had what I wanted.

My wife commented that even the edges I had drawn weren’t straight. “Perfect“, I said.

Two days before the leaving the United States, I asked Kinkos/FedEx how much for 1,000 or 3,000 cards. And then I said, “How much for 5,000?”

The rest, as they say, is history.

Merry Christmas from Lane 8

And on this day was born a child. In a manger, at the stable. No room at the Inn. And they called him Emmanuel.

Impossible?

Perhaps nothing is impossible. Perhaps impossible is nothing.

Lane 8 is a simple website and blog. Even the first Lane 8 business card was handmade, in five minutes. And 5,000 were printed and taken to Finland.

August, 2009, in Lahti, Finland, the Master’s Track & Field World Championships drew 5,300 athletes from 80 Countries, with the same Olympic spirit as the official Olympic Games.

Many of the Master’s athletes celebrate Christmas, and that little boy everyone calls Emmanuel.

Lane 8 is simply a humble beginning. Not at all unlike a child born in a stable.

Merry Christmas from Lane 8.

Peace on Earth, good will toward men.

Lane 8 Optimism

What can we learn from defeat, loss, failure?

Many things to be sure. But only if we try hard to learn from setback. And only if we listen. And only if we then try again.

Are you listening? And I don’t mean, “Sleigh bells ring, are you listening”.

I mean, are you the kind of person that will pick yourself up after you fall?

Are you the type of person that finds a million ways to stay motivated?

You see, getting motivated is one thing. What makes winners is staying motivated.

Oh wait, you want to tell me something, right?

Okay, go ahead.

“Jeff, you don’t understand, my life is hard. It’s very difficult.”

Here’s a Christmas gift for you, and it is given with the most hopeful and sincere intent – “No one has it easy. Period. End of story.”

This may scare some people off, and I would hate to see that happen, but I can’t allow myself to make excuses.

How can I teach our son (9), that it’s okay to make excuses?

Pain In The

Have you ever had something really important or “big” in your life, a long-time dream perhaps, where you where getting close to the end of your journey?

And you were so close you could see the glorious end in sight, but then the unthinkable happened.

How did you deal with it? Did it work out for you?

Where you forced to compromise? Or maybe (gasp), quit?

Pain in the as foot.

Pain in my left foot. Still.

It plagued me during the August Master’s Track & Field World Championships. In fact, it has bothered me all year.

In the Spring, it seemed to be a dominant topic at Lane 8.

By June however, I pretty much had stopped writing about the pain, but not because it went away.

Eventually, I had to suck it up and do what needed to be done to make it happen.

In Finland, it didn’t turn out the way I had dreamed, but that’s the beautiful lesson – nothing turns out the way we dream.

It’s either better or worse, but never the same.

Masters Track?

Yes, Masters Track.

What do you do to stay motivated to reach and maintain your health goals?

Master’s athletes are defined as people over 30 years old.

There are other sports that have Masters competitions too. The thought of trying something completely out of my comfort zone actually seems possible – at a future time, of course.

Why?

Because the whole point of the competition, to me, is simply to find ways to stay motivated. When things get boring, I get less motivated.

This is a deadly place to be, literally.

Someday. maybe swimming. Or perhaps I’ll try Filed events, like the Discus, Shot Put, or, heaven forbid, the Pole Vault.

Whatever it takes. That’s one of the secrets to staying healthier. I figure everybody knows this, but it never hurts to say important things over and over.

Does it?