evening everybody
glad you made it out so in June of 2015
I suffer a back injury that essentially
presses pause on every aspect of my life
so for those you know me that’s not good
but there I am in bed
iPad in hand trying to recover surfing
YouTube when I get an email from one of
my employees and it’s got a link and I
click that link and it introduces me to
a gentleman named Paul Akers now Paul
deems himself to be a mean maniac and I
will tell you that is exactly what he is
but what was interesting was he and
introduced me to a concept that is a
tenet of lean called Kaizen so Kaizen
literally means continuous improvement
so that’s struck with me a little bit I
found that interesting and before I go
into that a little more I want to share
with you my opinion of self-help and and
discipline so all my life I think we
could take everything I’ve heard and put
it into this auditorium tonight and say
here’s all the self-help we’ve ever had
I think it all says the same thing and
to prove my point I’d give you the idea
that I’ve heard seize the day
or live like there’s no tomorrow and I
can tell you that never not once changed
the way I approached a problem change
the strategy stop banging my head
against the wall just an impact me and
it wasn’t until someone said to me hey
your life is like the minute sir of the
grains of sand in an hourglass and when
they run through that hourglass they’re
gone forever it gave me chills I had
this sudden sense of urgency it just it
made me almost terrified I said I just
wasted so much time on petty things that
don’t matter they bring though value
well those three things essentially mean
the same thing
but that one resonated with me so the
first point I make is listen for your
voice and whatever resonates with you
follow that and try to master it so what
Paul said resonated with me Kaizen so I
studied that and took that in during my
recovery and then I took it to work so I
came in and introduced it to my team of
five people and said hey here’s just
continuous improvement idea and over one
year we make a hundred and five
improvements over five people
so some people are like well what
constitutes an improvement so it’s
simple it could be anything from the way
we handle waste trash removal in our
processes all the way up to how we
deliver the service and the product to
our customer most important however is
what do you do to measure that so it’s
important you take your goal and you
measure improvements in the following
way
safety quality complexity and speed and
this is critical because each of those
things Trump the one below it so very
simply if it’s not safe you’re done
talking about it
so from that standpoint there’s a key
that comes out of that it removes the
personal nature of those improvements
they’re no longer my idea or your idea
they’re whether or not they measure
towards the goal that we agree we’re
trying to achieve if they do we put them
in place and if they don’t the
conversations over it’s very simple so
150 improvements see my guys took
through this thing like crazy it was
awesome and every day I would come home
and I would share this with my fiancee
Barbara and she’s awesome so she’d sit
there and she’d be like listening to
everything I had to say and ID look at
this video of this improvement we made
or this customer called us today and
shared this great idea with us they
thought how awesome it was we did this
and she was you know fantastic very
attentive but over the course of that
year I noticed something she was
becoming frustrated and I couldn’t
understand that until I realized Barbara
works for a traditional employer
someplace where she’s not empowered to
make any change that could impact her
bit job in that way and so I began to
wonder about that and wonder how it was
impacting our relationship so while
having coffee with a friend one day I
was sharing this idea and I said to Rob
hey I’m leaving the best part of my life
behind me I can’t share this with her
other than tell her what’s going on and
he comes up with a very simple concept
he says why don’t you set aside 90 days
and share it with her take her for 90
days and make a goal plan my goal wow
that’s a really simple idea why not do
that
well the key was I want to Barbara to
experience Kies end so I set it beside
thinking that through and realized that
Kaizen every 90 days with barb would
give us momentum and our relation
we’d be on the same page and constantly
working towards the same goals right so
I very simple so here’s how we went
about it the first thing as I mentioned
before you need a goal what’s your goal
for us is very simple we want to spend
more quality time together doing
meaningful things for some people that’s
experiences it might be physical assets
it might be other traveling goals things
like that but we defined what that was
for us not before I go any further it’s
important that I warn you this is a very
intimate process we’ve all seen
marriages that are 2530 years old they
don’t even talk about money so if that’s
you that your first Kaizen improvement
is to get that done get it out of the
way because if you can’t talk about that
you’re not going to not going to be
successful with this so we didn’t have
that problem we were to identify our
goal and we knew what we wanted to do
but we did realize to be successful we
needed to have some rules of engagement
and so those are very simple I’m gonna
walk you through them now the first one
was frequency so we kind of covered that
right 90 days and we looked at it but we
couldn’t find anything that really was
better every plan or every financial
planner fiscal calendars everything’s 90
days so why reinvent the wheel is just
this easy fit for what we were going to
try to do the next one was sequester so
as you can imagine I’m easily identified
when we’re out so we knew that if we go
to have a cup of coffee you’re gonna run
into three people and you’re just not
gonna be able to talk so we need to be
able to give ourselves away from
everybody or we could both talk
privately and share without interruption
and get something done travel time so
again I’m the problem here I’m not coach
friendly you’re not gonna put me in a
small package it’s just not gonna work
so we decided immediately we were gonna
drive well that limited our range right
so we don’t want to be in the car all
day so we put a five-hour perimeter on
it so five hours from utica though is
great there’s a ton of adventures you
can take within five hours of here
so a really easy one for us next part of
that is the destination has to be
walkable so we don’t want to be stuck in
cars and uber and all that we want to be
able to walk where we’re gonna go why is
that key because you’re gonna share the
entire time you know people try the
walk-in text it doesn’t usually work
very well
so you’re gonna be talking to each other
you’ll be experiencing everything you
see along the way you’re not gonna be
catching each other up you’re gonna be
on target together
this one’s key right discipline you got
to do your work and then you get
rewarded we all know it but we don’t
tend to do it so when we get to our
destination we can’t have a good time
first we got a plan what’s going on we
got to get it together and so I’m gonna
head there huh
so respect is the second for the next
second is the last one and that is where
we talked about you’ve got to respect
your partner you need to know that your
partner and you are on the same page
that you can talk openly and you’re
gonna because you’re trying to how do we
do this measure our goal it’s not
personal
we’re gonna work forward so it’s okay is
that reach the goal we’re after or
doesn’t it so we know there’s respect
there and then as you see the next step
for us is self-awareness self-awareness
what works for you you need to know your
hang-ups your issues because you gotta
learn how to overcome them so you can be
successful together what tools do you
need do you work with a pencil you work
with a tablet what do you need so you
can go and you can get it done so here’s
what it looks like for us it’s a
three-day trip always at the end of the
week and we’ll get back to that in just
a minute but Wednesday through Friday so
I’m gonna take you through each of those
days very simply Wednesday it’s travel
day five hours that works out really
nice
if you’re doing a five-hour trip it gets
you in town two to 2:30 most places
allow you to check in by three o’clock
so it’s usually not an issue we get in
we drop everything off and then we hit
the town grab our phones we’re off we’re
gonna go out we’re gonna see what’s
local what’s the local culture what kind
of shows are there what kind of is there
a band playing is an open mic night
somewheres or a trivia night whatever
all the time keeping our eyes open for a
place that we can sequester ourselves
right someplace that we can go and work
privately tomorrow when we need to get
some work done and be successful for why
we’re here on our trip in our first
place we do that for a few hours and we
come back to the hotel we get cleaned up
and it’s date night I don’t know the
last time you had a date night sometimes
it’s been a while but you’re gonna go
out it’s just the two of you there’s
nobody to check in with you’re gonna go
and it’s an adventure because you’ve
never been any of these places before in
most cases face time together walking
spend the night have a good time you’re
not talking about your work and I’m
talking about your plan
you’re just there together so that
Knights in the books everything’s great
you’ve gotten a good night’s sleep it’s
Thursday morning it’s time for the
rubber to meet the road guys it’s time
to get it going so now you’re going to
grab your tools
you’re gonna go have a good breakfast
you’re gonna go off to where you decided
to stay for the day so that’s really
easy we’ve got a together agenda we’re
gonna work through so the first piece is
what’s unfinished if we’ve done a trip
before what did we not accomplish is it
relevant I think you will find in most
cases your life has changed so much in
90 days it no longer matters that pieces
off and we don’t worry about it the next
piece is financials this is critical
because this is what allows us to do
what we do this is the thing that causes
most people anxiety so let’s just get it
out of the way so we’re going to talk
about the financials what’s coming up
did we have any unexpected expenditures
do we have anything on the horizon that
we didn’t expect anything we need to
plan for and did we hit our savings and
retirement goals now for us we have
children so if you have children there
next we talk about our kids who’s going
to college who’s got a dance who’s got
sports what’s gonna happen do we need to
travel get all that stuff does it going
to impact our calendar and our
deliverables for what we’re going to do
later with everything that we serve out
of the way we talk about us so this is
important right big deal so we come with
a 30-day and a 90-day goal for ourselves
personally and then one that we want to
share with our partner so when it’s on a
piece of paper there’s ain’t goals
altogether eight of them for shared too
personal you sitting together we measure
those do they reach the goals that we’ve
defined if so you might adopt one too
for all of them
you’re gonna put those in place and then
you’re gonna proceed forward with those
out of the way you’ve measured those
you’ve measured your financial goals
everything’s together you’re done for
the day for us it’s four to six hours
maybe with a coffee break in there now
you get to go back out on the town it’s
yours clean up don’t have an adventure
you have date night 2.0 taking a show do
something different whatever you want to
do but the nice yours it’s your reward
for spending all this time in your
relationship and sadly that’s more than
a lot of us dedicate to what we do so
that’s done we’ve had a great night
Friday comes this is a simple but
critical day this is the accountability
day we get up again grab our breakfast
we
somewhere quietly we open up the
calendar the calendar is important
because it’s our accountability coach
it’s not my idea or Barbara’s idea of
being accountable we agree when do we
want to hit that goal it goes on the
calendar now no one needs to remind me I
just looked at the calendar and I know
when I’m due to have something finished
that’s what this is about to be
successful so we put it on the calendar
we work our way through it if you get to
something that doesn’t make sense to you
it’s simple cross it off and discard it
because trust me you probably have more
than you can get done in 90 days that’s
our usual finding so when you’re done
with that you’re gonna go one front one
step further and that’s plan your next
trip now if you don’t do this trust me
it will not be a 90 day trip it’ll be a
120 day trip it’ll be a 180 day trip it
won’t happen at all if you go home
without planning your trip you will not
get it done so take an hour make some
phone calls
inevitably you’ve looked at other
destinations so look around call the
hotels find out what’s walkable is it
feasible is that a good locale for you
get that done book it and get it on the
books you’re done it’s noon your day is
yours you’re only five hours from home
now I think some people would choose to
have a long weekend that’s fine we
always choose to come home on Friday and
there’s a reason for that so I talked
about this being at the end of the work
week here’s why you went in on Monday
like everybody else you work through the
Tuesday to wrap up your business you’re
gone for the week if you come in on
Monday and you know if you’re gone
Monday Tuesday Wednesday and come in on
Thursday you’re playing catch-up all
everybody else is winding down their
week and then also in your weekends and
you don’t feel successful at all you’ve
sat there and struggled through your
work that it’s no good so now we’ve had
this great success in our relationship
it’s noon on Friday we go shopping we
walk around we you know we take in some
more sights if we want to and then we
travel home or home by 10 o’clock and
now we were able to start Monday like
everybody else but we’re on the same
page so we’ve got this great thing
called momentum again now we spend our
weekends being successful working the
things that we’ve put on our agenda so
now not only we have a great trip but by
Monday we’ve gotten all these other
things checked off our list or we’re
working towards our goals already and
we’re in sync we are ready to rock and
roll it’s fantastic so that’s that’s
what our travel trip looks like
so very simple and then we wind up and
we do it again so what I’d like to do
here is first of all I’d like to thank
Barbara she’s out there and without her
none of this would be possible and
secondly I’d like to say if you’d like
more about this if you want to follow
along with us we are on social media be
happy to answer any questions that you
have go into a little deeper dive for
this the the third piece of that is I
would encourage you we’re going into the
weekend press pause on all those things
that don’t matter and make some time for
you to get momentum in your relationship
because it really is awesome right thank
you very much
[Applause]
glad you made it out so in June of 2015
I suffer a back injury that essentially
presses pause on every aspect of my life
so for those you know me that’s not good
but there I am in bed
iPad in hand trying to recover surfing
YouTube when I get an email from one of
my employees and it’s got a link and I
click that link and it introduces me to
a gentleman named Paul Akers now Paul
deems himself to be a mean maniac and I
will tell you that is exactly what he is
but what was interesting was he and
introduced me to a concept that is a
tenet of lean called Kaizen so Kaizen
literally means continuous improvement
so that’s struck with me a little bit I
found that interesting and before I go
into that a little more I want to share
with you my opinion of self-help and and
discipline so all my life I think we
could take everything I’ve heard and put
it into this auditorium tonight and say
here’s all the self-help we’ve ever had
I think it all says the same thing and
to prove my point I’d give you the idea
that I’ve heard seize the day
or live like there’s no tomorrow and I
can tell you that never not once changed
the way I approached a problem change
the strategy stop banging my head
against the wall just an impact me and
it wasn’t until someone said to me hey
your life is like the minute sir of the
grains of sand in an hourglass and when
they run through that hourglass they’re
gone forever it gave me chills I had
this sudden sense of urgency it just it
made me almost terrified I said I just
wasted so much time on petty things that
don’t matter they bring though value
well those three things essentially mean
the same thing
but that one resonated with me so the
first point I make is listen for your
voice and whatever resonates with you
follow that and try to master it so what
Paul said resonated with me Kaizen so I
studied that and took that in during my
recovery and then I took it to work so I
came in and introduced it to my team of
five people and said hey here’s just
continuous improvement idea and over one
year we make a hundred and five
improvements over five people
so some people are like well what
constitutes an improvement so it’s
simple it could be anything from the way
we handle waste trash removal in our
processes all the way up to how we
deliver the service and the product to
our customer most important however is
what do you do to measure that so it’s
important you take your goal and you
measure improvements in the following
way
safety quality complexity and speed and
this is critical because each of those
things Trump the one below it so very
simply if it’s not safe you’re done
talking about it
so from that standpoint there’s a key
that comes out of that it removes the
personal nature of those improvements
they’re no longer my idea or your idea
they’re whether or not they measure
towards the goal that we agree we’re
trying to achieve if they do we put them
in place and if they don’t the
conversations over it’s very simple so
150 improvements see my guys took
through this thing like crazy it was
awesome and every day I would come home
and I would share this with my fiancee
Barbara and she’s awesome so she’d sit
there and she’d be like listening to
everything I had to say and ID look at
this video of this improvement we made
or this customer called us today and
shared this great idea with us they
thought how awesome it was we did this
and she was you know fantastic very
attentive but over the course of that
year I noticed something she was
becoming frustrated and I couldn’t
understand that until I realized Barbara
works for a traditional employer
someplace where she’s not empowered to
make any change that could impact her
bit job in that way and so I began to
wonder about that and wonder how it was
impacting our relationship so while
having coffee with a friend one day I
was sharing this idea and I said to Rob
hey I’m leaving the best part of my life
behind me I can’t share this with her
other than tell her what’s going on and
he comes up with a very simple concept
he says why don’t you set aside 90 days
and share it with her take her for 90
days and make a goal plan my goal wow
that’s a really simple idea why not do
that
well the key was I want to Barbara to
experience Kies end so I set it beside
thinking that through and realized that
Kaizen every 90 days with barb would
give us momentum and our relation
we’d be on the same page and constantly
working towards the same goals right so
I very simple so here’s how we went
about it the first thing as I mentioned
before you need a goal what’s your goal
for us is very simple we want to spend
more quality time together doing
meaningful things for some people that’s
experiences it might be physical assets
it might be other traveling goals things
like that but we defined what that was
for us not before I go any further it’s
important that I warn you this is a very
intimate process we’ve all seen
marriages that are 2530 years old they
don’t even talk about money so if that’s
you that your first Kaizen improvement
is to get that done get it out of the
way because if you can’t talk about that
you’re not going to not going to be
successful with this so we didn’t have
that problem we were to identify our
goal and we knew what we wanted to do
but we did realize to be successful we
needed to have some rules of engagement
and so those are very simple I’m gonna
walk you through them now the first one
was frequency so we kind of covered that
right 90 days and we looked at it but we
couldn’t find anything that really was
better every plan or every financial
planner fiscal calendars everything’s 90
days so why reinvent the wheel is just
this easy fit for what we were going to
try to do the next one was sequester so
as you can imagine I’m easily identified
when we’re out so we knew that if we go
to have a cup of coffee you’re gonna run
into three people and you’re just not
gonna be able to talk so we need to be
able to give ourselves away from
everybody or we could both talk
privately and share without interruption
and get something done travel time so
again I’m the problem here I’m not coach
friendly you’re not gonna put me in a
small package it’s just not gonna work
so we decided immediately we were gonna
drive well that limited our range right
so we don’t want to be in the car all
day so we put a five-hour perimeter on
it so five hours from utica though is
great there’s a ton of adventures you
can take within five hours of here
so a really easy one for us next part of
that is the destination has to be
walkable so we don’t want to be stuck in
cars and uber and all that we want to be
able to walk where we’re gonna go why is
that key because you’re gonna share the
entire time you know people try the
walk-in text it doesn’t usually work
very well
so you’re gonna be talking to each other
you’ll be experiencing everything you
see along the way you’re not gonna be
catching each other up you’re gonna be
on target together
this one’s key right discipline you got
to do your work and then you get
rewarded we all know it but we don’t
tend to do it so when we get to our
destination we can’t have a good time
first we got a plan what’s going on we
got to get it together and so I’m gonna
head there huh
so respect is the second for the next
second is the last one and that is where
we talked about you’ve got to respect
your partner you need to know that your
partner and you are on the same page
that you can talk openly and you’re
gonna because you’re trying to how do we
do this measure our goal it’s not
personal
we’re gonna work forward so it’s okay is
that reach the goal we’re after or
doesn’t it so we know there’s respect
there and then as you see the next step
for us is self-awareness self-awareness
what works for you you need to know your
hang-ups your issues because you gotta
learn how to overcome them so you can be
successful together what tools do you
need do you work with a pencil you work
with a tablet what do you need so you
can go and you can get it done so here’s
what it looks like for us it’s a
three-day trip always at the end of the
week and we’ll get back to that in just
a minute but Wednesday through Friday so
I’m gonna take you through each of those
days very simply Wednesday it’s travel
day five hours that works out really
nice
if you’re doing a five-hour trip it gets
you in town two to 2:30 most places
allow you to check in by three o’clock
so it’s usually not an issue we get in
we drop everything off and then we hit
the town grab our phones we’re off we’re
gonna go out we’re gonna see what’s
local what’s the local culture what kind
of shows are there what kind of is there
a band playing is an open mic night
somewheres or a trivia night whatever
all the time keeping our eyes open for a
place that we can sequester ourselves
right someplace that we can go and work
privately tomorrow when we need to get
some work done and be successful for why
we’re here on our trip in our first
place we do that for a few hours and we
come back to the hotel we get cleaned up
and it’s date night I don’t know the
last time you had a date night sometimes
it’s been a while but you’re gonna go
out it’s just the two of you there’s
nobody to check in with you’re gonna go
and it’s an adventure because you’ve
never been any of these places before in
most cases face time together walking
spend the night have a good time you’re
not talking about your work and I’m
talking about your plan
you’re just there together so that
Knights in the books everything’s great
you’ve gotten a good night’s sleep it’s
Thursday morning it’s time for the
rubber to meet the road guys it’s time
to get it going so now you’re going to
grab your tools
you’re gonna go have a good breakfast
you’re gonna go off to where you decided
to stay for the day so that’s really
easy we’ve got a together agenda we’re
gonna work through so the first piece is
what’s unfinished if we’ve done a trip
before what did we not accomplish is it
relevant I think you will find in most
cases your life has changed so much in
90 days it no longer matters that pieces
off and we don’t worry about it the next
piece is financials this is critical
because this is what allows us to do
what we do this is the thing that causes
most people anxiety so let’s just get it
out of the way so we’re going to talk
about the financials what’s coming up
did we have any unexpected expenditures
do we have anything on the horizon that
we didn’t expect anything we need to
plan for and did we hit our savings and
retirement goals now for us we have
children so if you have children there
next we talk about our kids who’s going
to college who’s got a dance who’s got
sports what’s gonna happen do we need to
travel get all that stuff does it going
to impact our calendar and our
deliverables for what we’re going to do
later with everything that we serve out
of the way we talk about us so this is
important right big deal so we come with
a 30-day and a 90-day goal for ourselves
personally and then one that we want to
share with our partner so when it’s on a
piece of paper there’s ain’t goals
altogether eight of them for shared too
personal you sitting together we measure
those do they reach the goals that we’ve
defined if so you might adopt one too
for all of them
you’re gonna put those in place and then
you’re gonna proceed forward with those
out of the way you’ve measured those
you’ve measured your financial goals
everything’s together you’re done for
the day for us it’s four to six hours
maybe with a coffee break in there now
you get to go back out on the town it’s
yours clean up don’t have an adventure
you have date night 2.0 taking a show do
something different whatever you want to
do but the nice yours it’s your reward
for spending all this time in your
relationship and sadly that’s more than
a lot of us dedicate to what we do so
that’s done we’ve had a great night
Friday comes this is a simple but
critical day this is the accountability
day we get up again grab our breakfast
we
somewhere quietly we open up the
calendar the calendar is important
because it’s our accountability coach
it’s not my idea or Barbara’s idea of
being accountable we agree when do we
want to hit that goal it goes on the
calendar now no one needs to remind me I
just looked at the calendar and I know
when I’m due to have something finished
that’s what this is about to be
successful so we put it on the calendar
we work our way through it if you get to
something that doesn’t make sense to you
it’s simple cross it off and discard it
because trust me you probably have more
than you can get done in 90 days that’s
our usual finding so when you’re done
with that you’re gonna go one front one
step further and that’s plan your next
trip now if you don’t do this trust me
it will not be a 90 day trip it’ll be a
120 day trip it’ll be a 180 day trip it
won’t happen at all if you go home
without planning your trip you will not
get it done so take an hour make some
phone calls
inevitably you’ve looked at other
destinations so look around call the
hotels find out what’s walkable is it
feasible is that a good locale for you
get that done book it and get it on the
books you’re done it’s noon your day is
yours you’re only five hours from home
now I think some people would choose to
have a long weekend that’s fine we
always choose to come home on Friday and
there’s a reason for that so I talked
about this being at the end of the work
week here’s why you went in on Monday
like everybody else you work through the
Tuesday to wrap up your business you’re
gone for the week if you come in on
Monday and you know if you’re gone
Monday Tuesday Wednesday and come in on
Thursday you’re playing catch-up all
everybody else is winding down their
week and then also in your weekends and
you don’t feel successful at all you’ve
sat there and struggled through your
work that it’s no good so now we’ve had
this great success in our relationship
it’s noon on Friday we go shopping we
walk around we you know we take in some
more sights if we want to and then we
travel home or home by 10 o’clock and
now we were able to start Monday like
everybody else but we’re on the same
page so we’ve got this great thing
called momentum again now we spend our
weekends being successful working the
things that we’ve put on our agenda so
now not only we have a great trip but by
Monday we’ve gotten all these other
things checked off our list or we’re
working towards our goals already and
we’re in sync we are ready to rock and
roll it’s fantastic so that’s that’s
what our travel trip looks like
so very simple and then we wind up and
we do it again so what I’d like to do
here is first of all I’d like to thank
Barbara she’s out there and without her
none of this would be possible and
secondly I’d like to say if you’d like
more about this if you want to follow
along with us we are on social media be
happy to answer any questions that you
have go into a little deeper dive for
this the the third piece of that is I
would encourage you we’re going into the
weekend press pause on all those things
that don’t matter and make some time for
you to get momentum in your relationship
because it really is awesome right thank
you very much
[Applause]
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