Head down & #crushit.
There is so much I love about this photo from the stain washed jeans, mullet, and arguably one of the best 90’s cartoons DUCK TALES.
Fast forward to 2013 insert myself, add Madden to the TV screen, red Magic card deck to the table, CIV 5 figurines hanging, and Tom Brady posters to the wall and you have a carbon copy of my life.
Do you believe that there is something you could specifically do in the next 3 weeks that could make your personal life, financial life, and business life WORSE?
Do you believe that there is something you could specifically do in the next 3 weeks that could make your personal life, financial life, and business life BETTER?
Do you believe that the choice to better or worse your life is yours?
Do you believe that every choice has an end result?
If you answered yes to the above questions then you agree that you can dominate in any economy, any situation, and in any pursuit that you strive to achieve.
Being negative is one of the easiest things that we do. It’s always someones else’s fault and there is always something to be criticized. With so much knowledge floating around there is always a reason why.
When we are constantly searching for answers as to why we never leave enough time to do.
Invest in yourself. Invest for your future and start doing today.
Thanks to the late Zig Ziglar who brought these questions to life
This quote is making it’s rounds this morning and I think about everything Gary says here, almost to a fault. I get so ooo-rah about it and I want to just tell everyone I come across what I feel and about my experiences to hopefully fire them up to follow their own passions.
On the flip side of that I don’t want to come across preachy. No one wants to be told what to do. Over the past few years I have struggled with this. How much is to much? How far can I actually push that message. How many people that see posts that I make think I’m crazy for always talking about doing what you love…every, single, day.
I worry that people will think that “it worked for him but my situation is different.”
It’s not different.
Here’s what I believe.
You have to make the decision that you are going to go all in. Not partially but all the way. You have to make the decision that you are going to give yourself a chance at happiness within your work/career that you could have never imagined. Passion is a big part of this. Yes, you should attempt to do something that you love and that keeps you excited every day. You should also make sure that when you set out that you are going to be the very best “window washer” that exists on the planet. Who cares what other people think. Wash that damn window better then anyone has ever washed it before. Care about making that window sparkle every time the Sun shines through.
If you don’t go all in you will continue to make excuses as to why things didn’t work out. I have seen myself do this over the past few years. I want to talk more about helping others achieve goals they never even imagined but I have always been afraid. Afraid of what people might think. Afraid I wasn’t good enough. Unfortunately if we don’t try we won’t be good enough.
Here’s how you can start living out your dream.
Step 1: Go to http://www.tumblr.com and create an account (there are a number of other blogging sites but I have found Tumblr is extremely easy to use)
Step 2: Start writing or recording (video/audio) what it is you care the most about in the world. Whatever it is that you love more then anything else, start immediately doing that. People are searching for your expertise, they want to hear what you have to say.
Step 3: Become apart of the community. Search and find the people that are talking about whatever it is that you care about. This can be online and this can be offline. Become a member of that world and interact with those people.
Step 4: Solve a problem for those people. This is how you can potentially start making money off of what you are doing. You are the expert and you can help others and not feel bad about it.
Step 5: Never stop learning and never stop asking questions. Throughout the process you are going to feel like you can’t move forward because you “don’t know how” or “don’t have the time”. Learn how and make time.
Step 6: Never for one second be embarrassed or think that you can’t do it. Never
Step 7: If you have questions along the way. Please. Email me. sgibs7@gmail.com
One of the hardest things you can do is simply making the decision that you are going to give yourself the chance to achieve everything you have ever wanted. Believe that you can do it and you will do it.
I believe that you can do it.
sgibs7@gmail.com
@sgibs7
How to Hard Boil an Egg (to Perfection)
I’m the self proclaimed best egg cooker/preparer that you can find in the current Greater Boston Area.
Doesn’t matter if it’s a fried egg (don’t ask for medium or hard, you only get easy) hard boiled, or scrambled. I just have a natural ability to cook eggs to perfection.
Bold.
Absolutely.
Today though I want to specifically talk about how to cook a Hard Boiled Egg to Perfection. The steps I use to cook my hard boiled eggs have been tweaked for the past 14 years.
Step 1: Use small sauce pa
Step 2: Fill 3/4 full of HOT water from your faucet (however hot you can get it.)
Step 3: Turn heat up on stove as high as possible
Step 4: Cover with lid and let boil
Step 5: Use a ladle to drop eggs in
Step 6: Time exactly 7 minutes
Step 7: Remove sauce pan from stove and fill with cold water from sink (do this until the water in the pan is completely cold)
Step 8: Begin peeling eggs
Step 9: Add Salt and Pepper
If you follow the easy directions above you will get perfect “hard boiled” eggs every time. No, they aren’t exactly hard boiled but who likes chalky yolk anyways? This is a tweaner egg. It won’t be completely runny and destroy the rest of your plate and it won’t be all chalk.
Good luck & please send me your delicious looking eggs via email.
sgibs@maddentips.com
@sgibs7
Step one. Watch the below video.
Step two. How do you feel?
If you are like me you got the shivers and the hair on the back of your neck stood up.
Why?
In one short minute video Google was able to connect with just about every single one of us emotionally. Jess and Elliot are identifiable for most . The difficulties of being shipped off to college, the introduction of a significant other, good times and bad, and then at the very end they deliver the knockout punch.
They connected all that emotion with their brand. They transferred everything you felt and made you feel great about Google and what they do.
This is the single best piece of marketing I have ever seen or come across. They connected deeper then any other brand I have come across in my twenty -six years on this planet.
Recently my Sister bought my parents a Google Chrome Book as a replacement for their old school Dell laptop. This past weekend I was home visiting and found the shiny new laptop sitting on the table. I picked it up and started checking it out. As I logged on to www.MaddenTips.com (naturally) I blurted out to the room “Mom how do you like this computer? It’s really small and light. Google really cares about their customers especially with this price”.
Immediately afterwards I couldn’t believe the words that came out of my mouth. I didn’t say anything bad but I was completely shocked about one specific thing that I said.
“Google really cares about their customers especially with this price”.
I literally have no idea about what Google cares about nor do I know their intentions. So, why did I say it? What I do know is that they have deeply connected with me on a level that no other brand has because of Jess & Elliot. Is this why I yelled out that Google cares? If so that’s a great thing for Google because word of mouth marketing has a extremely high close rate.
I always like to sit back and analyze just about everything that happens in my life and to summarize this experience I will leave you with this. From an early age we are told that being kind and caring is the most important thing. Taking care of others and treating others how you would like to be treated is how you get ahead in life. Relationships are what matter not the latest trend.
Yet somewhere along the way that message gets distorted. It starts getting cloudy; we start seeing much more negativity surrounding us. We are told by some the exact opposite of what we learn early on in life.
The amazing thing is…what we learned in those early years…is true.
Thank you Google. Thank you for caring.
follow me on twitter @sgibs7
I have thought long and hard over the past few years about why we do the things we do. I have also thought about why we don’t do things.
I’m most interested in the second of these two thoughts.
I think it’s easy to understand the reasoning behind many of the things we do. We go to work to make money. We go to the gym for our health. We watch movies to be entertained and we read to be inspired. But what about why we don’t do things? Why don’t we invest more time in ourselves? Why don’t we spend more time creating? Why don’t we go to the gym? Why do we have such a hard time starting ANYTHING?
Fear.
Fear of the Unknown
Fear of Criticism
Fear of the First Step
We all are creatures of habits. We like things the way we like them. We don’t want change. When taking on new tasks or even goals its hard to follow through with them because we don’t know what’s behind door #1. We don’t know what the outcome of today’s decisions will bring. Instead we feel better to just do what we have always done because we have a better understanding of what to expect. What type of formula for success is that?
A bad one.
Think about all the positive life changing events in your life. Imagine if you didn’t go for that interview? Imagine if you didn’t go on that first date? Imagine if you never took that chance? How different would your life be? Every time fear of the unknown creeps into the back of your head think about all those positive events and remember to at least give it a shot.
I equate Fear of the Unknown to the following. I like hamburgers. In fact I typically shy away from just about everything on a typical menu in fear of not enjoying my decision. So I stick to what I know I like and that’s that. I’m just now starting to realize how pathetic that is. Take a chance dude. Live a little. Think of all the great food I have missed out on because I was to afraid to try something new.
It was better to stick to what I knew, and prohibit further enjoyment, than to risk losing the expected enjoyment from the typical hamburger. Make this decision once in your life and you will be fine. Do this everyday and you can expect to be just as mediocre as that hamburger.
Fear of the Unknown is something that affects every single one of us. It has taken me two years to finally start putting my thoughts down on this blog, but why? Why was it so easy for me to tell the world about Madden but so hard to about anything else?
Fear of Criticism.
I never really thought that this was something that affected me. “I don’t care what people think” but I totally do. Otherwise I would have started this two years ago. Why is criticism such a hard pill to swallow? At a very early age society as a whole tells us that different is bad. We should want to be like this person and we should do things the way they do it. To voice your opinion on anything means that you allow yourself to be judged and in todays world placing judgment on things is bad. Nothing can be better then anything else because then that would mean there is a reason behind it. Not all things are fair and not all things are equal. This opens our thoughts and beliefs up to this wonderful world of Criticism. For me it’s easily the most frightening fear but its something that we all need to overcome. As long as you are doing great work don’t be afraid. Fear of Criticism is also the most upsetting to me. Think about all the great things we don’t accomplish because we are afraid of what others think?
Fear of Criticsm not only prevents us from doing great things but it also robs us of our individual identities. When we are afraid to voice our opinion it makes us all identical to one another. Not sure what I mean? Next time a National Event takes place take a quick look at your Facebook Feed and look at what everyone’s saying ( Super Bowl)
Fear of the First Step.
Is their anything harder then getting up off the couch and heading to the gym in 20 degree weather? How do you feel after the workout?
Taking the First Step always seems to be the last thing that prevents us from accomplishing our goals. I’ll start back up on Saturday. I’ll start that blog once I learn how to use wordpress. I’ll do this and that…once I…
Get the picture?
It seems that we are always waiting on something in order to eventually get to what we want to do. For some reason we are never satisfied with the present. It’s always better to procrastinate. The easiest thing that I have found that helps me with this type of behavior is to give myself only ONE thing to accomplish each day. I will go to the grocery store. I will write that blog post today. I will work on my resume tonight. Allowing myself only one thing per day to focus on makes me not feel so overwhelmed with a million inevitable things. It also makes me feel great that I accomplished today’s goal. Put less on your plate and the stress and anxiety of accomplishing things will diminish.
What I really want is for all of us to start doing the things that we enjoy. Start investing in yourself. Stop thinking you can’t and start thinking I will. Dig deep and think about what’s preventing you from doing some of the things you have always dreamed of.
I don’t just think you can do it.
I know you can do it.
Podcast - A podcast is a type of digital media consisting of an episodic series of audio radio, video, PDF, or ePub files subscribed to and downloaded through web syndication or streamed online to a computer or mobile device.
Up until a couple years ago I had no idea what a podcast was. Sounds weird but I really didn’t know what it was. I had heard of the name before but I never really cared.
I just listened to the radio instead.
My beef with this mindset is the following…
Radio sucks.
Radio is mindless entertainment.
You don’t learn anything from the radio.
This doesn’t mean that every single radio station is terrible and that there is no value in listening to the radio. It means that if you are looking for easily consumed entertainment then the radio is great and when your favorite song comes on its even better. Sometimes we all need that and its also great for Sports Talk. Overall I think it’s a bottomless pit of mindless information.
I started measuring all the time I spent listening to the radio and the same songs over and over each day of the week. My current commute to the office is about 30 minutes in the morning and 60 minutes in the evening.
That’s 8.5 hours a week! A full work day!
I never saw a issue with this until I started podcasting. I didn’t know it was a problem to begin with. Podcasting can be ANYTHING you want. Whatever you are into you can find valuable information about it and spend your spare time soaking up this valuable information. The best part – you won’t want your commutes to end. You will look forward to both. I get so lost into what I’m listening to I forget about everything.
One of the biggest issues I have found as I get older is how abruptly learning stops. It literally just stops unless you don’t allow it to. Podcasting as allowed me to continue my “real world” MBA on whatever I want to learn about. I consider audio books “podcasting” as well so throw that in the mix as well. This is a real problem though. I was literally getting dumber day after day never expanding my mind. I wasn’t thinking. I was walking around the world as a mindless “adult”. I was told by the World that I was smart ( I have a B.S. in Criminal Justice) so that must be true.
WRONG.
Learning and continuing our education, as we get older is up to us and I see no better ( and cheaper ) alternative then podcasting. The best part is that you don’t have to find time in your day to fit it in. Just stop listening to Call Me Maybe.
Below are a few Podcasts that I listen to…
The Adam Carolla Show – This is by far my favorite podcast. Adam is so real. He tells it how it is. This show isn’t for the faint of heart. He is up in your face and talks about every hot topic in the book. Yet I agree with him on so many of the things he says. Keep it up Ace man. You rock.
Ted Talks – Typically when I know I don’t have a long drive I will listen to a Ted Talk. They are shorter in length but they allow me to listen to specific categories of my choosing (business, motivation, science etc)
HBR IdeaCast – The Harvard Business Review is another format similar to Ted Talks but is less presentation oriented and more free flow speech with different hosts and new interviews.
The Dave Ramsey Show – Finance. Why are you broke? Why do you have no money? Dave teaches you not only how to get your finances in order but he tells you straight up how stupid you actually are with your money. My first year after graduating from college I use to get my paycheck from work and I literally had the mindset of the following…”I made $XXXX amount of dollars. That means I have $XXXX amount to SPEND UNTIL I get paid again.” So dumb.
Yes, the New England Patriots lost this past weekend. I couldn’t sleep that night. I stayed up watching post game highlights and tortured myself until I finally gave in to my fatigue. The next day I was traveling home and I still felt terrible beyond anything I had experienced before. For some reason this loss was really bothering me. I thought about it all day and finally I realized what was wrong.
The HOPE I had was gone.
For the previous 5 months I had HOPE that New England Patriots would go out and win the Super Bowl. I wanted them to win so badly but why? It’s because they gave me hope.
Hope of a new game the next weekend.
Something to cheer for on Sundays.
Something to believe in each week.
Something to look forward to.
For a brief stint I lost all excitement and motivation of the future. It was as if there was nothing to live for.
What I’m most interested in is how I felt not only after they lost but every single second leading up to the loss as well.
We all need something that we can attach ourselves to. It’s in our DNA. Something that we can call ours. Something that we can believe in. Something that helps to define our everyday lives.
Whether it be sports, art, music, or anything else we might enjoy we all need something. It’s what allows each of us to do great things and accomplish goals. Without HOPE we have nothing.
I believe that far to often our hopes and dreams are looked down upon as being to self righteous or even to far fetched. The American Dream is something we are all told we can accomplish yet far to many never realize this dream. The negativity from others that comes along with success and accomplishments is what slows down each and every single one of us.
Don’t allow it. Dream as big as you want. Believe in whatever you want to believe. Hope that one day you will be what you set out to be.
2013 is upon us and yes New Years Resolutions have come and gone. Let this be the year where you allow HOPE to dominate your life.
I started back in June with a goal to break a score of 100 in Golf. I also have a goal to consistently break 100. I can officially report that I have accomplished the first of these goals.
Last week I was away on vacation in Maine and in Vermont and was able to play two rounds of 18 and one round of 9. My first round of 18 was just miserable as I shot a terrible score of 117. I played at Champlain Country Club in St. Albans, VT. It was another of those rounds where I couldn’t even make solid contact with the ball. I felt defeated and really didn’t know where to go or who to turn to.
As the week went on there were plans of playing another round of 18 but I wasn’t really looking forward to playing. I knew that I should play as there is no bad day on the golf course but overall I just didn’t feel excited as I expected that I would once again shoot in the high hundred teens.
I decided to go regardless and I started game planning in my head how I wanted to play my round. I tried to visualize each tee shot and what I wanted to focus on. Below you will see the goals that I had for the day.
Accurate Tee Shots -A lot of my struggles come from the Tee. In my mind I know I can stroke the ball 250 and straight, as I have done it on rare occasion, so I think on many occasions “this is one of those times”. Deep down I know I havent had enough practice to feel confident in this club so I try and fight the urge to use it.
Chip and Run 100 Yards and In - I’m actually really good for some reason at using my 8 iron to chip and run from 100 yards and in. When i try and use finesse and flop it on the green I always seemt o miss and just create more work for myself. My goal for the day was to chip and run everything and see how it helps my game.
Two Putt - If I can two putt every hole I will break 100 consistently. Simple.
Stay Composed - I’m learning so I cant beat myself up if I hit a poor shot. I want to play and have my playing partnes have no idea how I’m personally playing.
This leads us to the first tee shot. Often times this is where I lose all my confidence for the entire day. Usually I step to the tee box praying that I hit a nice shot with my driver but on this day I decided I would use my 3 iron hybrid and look to get it about 200 yards and straight.
The first hole at Alburg Country Club is a dog leg right that forces you to get the ball about 210 out in order to clear trees and have a nice shot to the green. I stepped up and pushed the ball a little right and didn’t hit the ball completely flush. I hit it about 190 just off the right fairway and found myself in a situation I was familiar with. The only shot I had was to try and run it up to the green with a low burner.
That is exactly what I did. I stuck it about 20 yards off the green and this was a HUGE confidence booster. I chipped on and was looking at a 15 ft par putt. I stuck it about 2 ft from the cup and tapped in for a bogey 5.
I was feeling good.
Things were going well for the entire front 9. I played lights out (for me) and even scored a par on the 4th.
As the day went on I started to feel the pressure of “Breaking 100” push down on me. I stepped to the last tee and knew that I had to score a 7 in order to get a 99.
With my tee shot I hit a perfect drive and was about 150 from the hole. This is right where I didn’t want to be though. My biggest weak spot right now is about 170-100 yards. I don’t have a club I feel comfortable with so said to myself I will just hit two 8 iron chip and runs and look to get on the green, two putt and get out with a 5 and call it a day.
Well I chunked the chip and run about 10 yards, left the second chip and run short of the green by about 30 yards. I chunked the next chip to get on the green and was sitting on shot 5 knowing that I had to hit it close in order to give myself a confident two putt situation.
I stepped up to the ball and never felt more nervous playing Golf. My brother in law screamed out “are you going to do it?” I smiled and said nothing and stepped up to the ball again. I brought my putter back and rolled it by the cup by about a foot. My playing partners said I was “good” and picked my ball up.
I immediately screamed for them to put the ball back to where it was. I wanted to make this put to finish out the first official Breaking 100 round of my life. They thought it was silly, maybe it was, but it meant a lot to me.
I put the ball down and sank the 1 ft put for a final score of 99.
The best part about shooting the 99 is the confidence I have that I can be a good golfer. I played lights out on the front 9 and missed a handful of puts that rimmed out. On the back 9 I played SUPER tight towards the end as I knew i was close to breaking 100 so i think I could possibly duplicate the front 46. I honestly felt like I could have shot a 90 overall. Who knows though.
Some other exciting news. I have my official handicap. I’m a 26. This doesn’t include my 117 or 99 which will be added in after August 15th.
Can’t wait to hit the links early tomorrow morning! Also needed to seriously get involved in a workout plan. I haven’t spent the time needed to really dedicate myself to it. I need a better schedule for all this.
Golf Tip #1 get a handicap. Whats the quickest way to improve in Golf overnight? Register for a GHIN number via your local golf course. I registered for one this past week at my course Fresh Pond in Cambridge, MA.
For those not familiar with a GHIN number I’ll explain. First and foremost GHIN stands for Golfers Handicap Index Number. You pay a yearly fee to register for this number which is given to you to track your golf rounds. The fee I paid this year is $45 and it will last the rest of the season. At the end of each round you hop online and enter in your score via www.ghin.com in combination with your GHIN number. You need to play at least 5 full rounds for the system to calculate your handicap. I feel like I took a big step by registering and look forward to track my rounds as the year goes on.
I played this morning at Old Marsh Golf Course in Wells, ME. This course is only about a 90 minutes away from Boston, MA which makes it not to crazy of a travel from home. I made a tee time for 7:10 AM and woke up excited to hit the links. Literally the links, I think this was a “links” golf course. The forecast didn’t look promising so we actually ended up canceling and my Dad and I decided to go and get a coffee instead.
After talking about our games and what we were both working on we noticed that the rain had let up and it looked like it was ok weather to play in. We had been talking about playing to the point we both got so excited that we would have played in any weather at that point.
At this point my right rib is still sore but not as bad as it was a few days ago. I was concerned about it going in since I had read a bit online about this type of injury being common amongst amateur golfers, especially new golfers. My first shot of the day was a bullet. I hit it about 225 dead straight in the middle of the fairway. My next shot wasn’t nearly as good and thats when my round fell apart.
Blame it on the weather, blame it on the pain, blame it on whatever but once again I couldn’t hit a iron to save my life. Not a long iron, short iron, or even my new 56 degree wedge. I will say this though about my round, I hit my driver extremely well and putted awesome. Maybe it was all that practice this week? I have been visiting The Sand Trap over the past few weeks and have found a ton of help via their forums. I have been implementing the 65/25/10 rule that I spoke about previously. This might be why my driver and putter were so on today.
The best hole of the day was the Par 4 5th. It is a 410 dog leg left that I was on the green in two! I hit my drive about 210 and pushed it towards the right rough. I didn’t have a terrible lie and was sitting about 200 from the green. The sprinklers were also on for this shot which made it pretty entertaining. I don’t know what I did correctly with this shot but I hit my 4iron hybrid perfectly. It felt like I didn’t even touch the ball. I landed it on the green about 25ft from the cup.
Then I 3 putted.
I still only bogied the hole which right now is what I’m looking to do on every hole, bogey golf. Another positive was my putting I two putted every hole besides the 5th. Now if I could only string together my putting from every other hole and my drive and approach from the 5th and I would have major progress.
This upcoming week I will be playing 18 holes at least twice and hopefully three times. My goal with those upcoming rounds is to continue my driver and putter hot streak. I’m looking forward to those rounds and will be sure to talk about them.
Hope you all have a great weekend and are able to enjoy some nice weather.
I almost forgot I shot a 60 today on the front 9…
