I want to recommend to you a wonderful movement based on a wonderful concept. April 4 will be Pay It Forward Day. This event is the brainchild of Blake Beattie and is worthy of our support. Besides, it might even be fun. Some of Blake’s thoughts are below, but I recommend you visit www.payitforwardday.com and learn more, put it in your calendar … even start early and perform a random act of kindness today!

Great work Blake! 

A message from Blake Beattie (Pay It Forward Day Founder)

‘Pay it Forward Day’ is a brilliant concept by Catherine Ryan Hyde from her book of the same title. Some people were originally quite sceptical of the whole idea: they said that it was good in theory, but not in practise. I challenged this point of view believing that people are genuinely giving by nature, but many get caught up in the hustle and bustle of every day life. April 4 is a time when each of us can get to experience the ‘Power of Giving’ and the ripple effect begins.

Michael Jordan once said:

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

 If you feel like you’re failing at something important in this season of your life, I just have two things to tell you:

1. You deserve credit for getting in there and “giving it a go”! You could have retired to the sidelines or abandoned ship, but you haven’t. Be proud of that.
2. If you know what you’re trying to achieve, and you’re clear on why and how, it’s largely a matter of time until the ball goes through that hoop and the game is won. Repetition, learning, persistence and just plain showing-up: these are the main ingredients of success.

nana-korobi, ya-oki:  fall down seven times, get up eight times

- Old Japanese Saying

I watched as he was interviewed on a Breakfast TV program. He was asked “Will you still play on after the 2007 World Cup?” and he was already chuckling before the question was over. He replied “I only think about getting through the next Test. That’s always been my focus.”

His reply had a strangely liberating effect on me. I’ve always chastised myself for either not sustaining long campaigns or for completing them grudgingly. It suddenly occurred to me that in the many races of our lives we are sometimes long distance runners and sometimes we are sprinters. In physical terms I have always been a sprinter. I enjoyed weight training: a set of 10-15 repetitions, rest, another set, rest, change exercises. In high school I never trained for anything but ran 100 metres in under twelve seconds. Last man in the pool, I would take my relay team from third place to first.

But commit to a team sport and play for hours? Train twice weekly?! You gotta be kidding! Thankfully, I’m not always like that. When it comes to marriage, my kids, faith: my commitment never wavers and my actions are deeply rooted in who I am. In these things I am the long distance athlete.

And yet when it comes to health and fitness, spiritual disciplines, executing my long range business plans – my energy and attention come in fits and starts. It sounds to me that in terms of his career Gregan is a sprinter. I don’t mean he can’t go the distance – his record above proves he certainly can!

What I mean is: by breaking his big-picture vision (to play as well as he can for as long as he can) into short term targets and goals, he is able to go harder for each of series of short-range goals.

These short-term “sprints” (where his brilliance shines continually) add up to a long-term achievement. In any area of your life or business, where you have faced repeated difficulty in maintaining focus, perhaps you are simply not the marathon runner here.

Consider and tweak these steps to tap into your brilliance as a sprinter:

1. Have a reason which transcends emotion even while drawing on it.

2. Capture that big picture/vision/motivation in some way. Have an image or a thought that embodies it. Hang a picture on your wall. Buy a three dimensional object or symbol that lives in your car or on your desk.

3. Make a commitment that immerses you in the world of that vision: pay for your year’s subjects up front; register that patent; move house; hire an agent.

4. Break down the big campaign into small increments where you can go hard for shorter periods of time. Follow each increment up (plan this in your calendar or diary) with a period of recreation or a change of activity. For instance, four hours’ resource writing may have drained your creativity bank and you might try some of the smaller items on your two do list to get the best from the rest of the day and to start fresh tomorrow.

5. If you know ahead of time that you tend to accelerate into deadlines, stagger your deadlines as much as possible. Also, leave diary-space in the lead-up to the deadline in order to do the task well – followed by some margin to catch up one of the area’s comfortably.

One of my pet hates with my own society is its increasing tendency to play the blame game:

• “Something went wrong in my life. Whose fault is it?”
• “I didn’t get what I wanted; who can I make pay?”
• “Yes, I’m a bad-tempered egotistical pain-in-the-rear, but if you want to complain, go talk to my parents; I’m their handiwork.”
• “No, I didn’t make a mistake, it happened because I wasn’t trained properly or superbised”
• “SuperBised?? See I can’t even spell because no teacher took the time to help me do it propally!!”

and blah blah blah, on it goes.

The natural follow-on for many people unfortunately is “Who can I sue?” But I digress ….

Wayne Arthurs is a breath of fresh air for me. He is an older tennis player (Yeh! 35 is sooooo old – but then again he’s the oldest guy in this year Australian Open); as an older player, he’s still giving it his best shot to do as well as he can.  

But he’s also self-defined, circumspect and a gentleman.

Here’s what I mean. A simple injection for pain relief caused him (to quote a journalist)

“more hurt than he could ever have imagined. It got him bundled out of the Australian Open as his biggest moment in tennis beckoned.  Arthurs’ relief from nagging pain in his hip turned to heartache when he became one of the one-in-1000 patients to suffer an adverse reaction to the medication. His muscles went into spasm and he lost control of his right leg.”

Imagine it. You’re psyched up, ready to go, wondering if this your last hurrah and how far you can take it, and then 3 games in, you lose all feeling in one of your legs.

And so he retires from the match. Soon, he’s in the press conference, presumably still smarting emotionally from this blow to his career. 

When asked the typically journalistic question, “Do you put the blame on anybody” (which translated means, “here’s your chance, point the finger and give us a sensational by-line” ), Arthurs replies sincerely:

“I don’t blame the doctor, no. I’ve been told it’s a one-in-a-thousand thing. I’ve reacted to it like one in a thousand person would. I’m not putting blame on anybody.”

It may have gone unnoticed by many people, but for that answer and that attitude (if not for anything else, Wayne), my hat is off to you. You are a champion and role model and I wish you the kind of meaningful success in the year ahead that more than makes up for your loss.

What a great Australian.