I feel I am what I would call a master of getting stuff done. Creating multiple guinness world records, writing a book, writing blogs, 6 kids, 1 wife, and 2 busy restaurants, Operator consultant for 2 licensed locations (like a Mini Chick-fil-A), board member on multiple boards, and on the Chick-fil-A Operator Innovations team, these things do not happen by accident. Here is one of the ways I look at productivity if your looking to get more done in the day:
I have figured this out for myself, but it might be useful question to ask: What do your opportunities look like? I have found that when I plan out my choices, it makes the consequences much more productive. Plan out my choices? What in the world does that mean?
Map out on a piece of paper what your typical day looks like. Here is how mine would look:
Most of us, generally do the same things over and over, same routine. It may even include some choices we make through the day that could be better planned. For example, I know that there are some days that when I am running the kids around town for band, for school, etc. that I end up spending a lot of time in the car. I will routinely pull out my phone and check on what is going on in my friends’ lives via FB. Most of it is just nonsense or quotes, but it is entertaining.
If you are not paying attention, how many 5 minute opportunities did you use through the day?
What if I planned for some of my down time? What if I brought some reports with me to go over so I can be prepared for my next meeting? What if I brought that book with me that I need to complete? You know, the one you made a commitment to read 6 months ago that you have not finished because you “don’t have the time.”
If you are being real, how many opportunities do you come across each day? I will use my day as example.
- When I am waiting on the Dr for an appointment I had.
- When I am waiting for my son to get out of school
- When I am ready to go, and I am waiting on my wife to finish getting ready.
Ok… maybe you don’t have downtimes like I do, but EVERYBODY poops!!
According to research done in the United Kingdom, a man spends an average of an hour and 45 min per week on the toilet, where a woman spends an hour and 20 min. On another note, the average person can read 48 pages per hour…… This means that potentially a man could read about 84 pages per week, or possibly a 300 page book per month.
When you create a plan of what to do when you come across moments of opportunity, you will find that the things you plan for will happen.
What do your opportunities look like?
I recently performed at the finale show for Tom McCloud’s “Lose It for the Kids.” Tom lost 95 pounds in 10 months while working out with me this year, but that’s not the amazing thing! Yes, losing 95 pound in 10 months without surgery, diet pills, or some extreme plan is amazing in itself, but there’s much more to the story.
I knew Tom from a few years before when he interviewed me after winning The Biggest Loser for his magazine Community Spirit. One morning last year I was working out at Fitness Together Jenks/Riverside with Michael Watkins when Tom showed up to take some pictures of me for a monthly column that I write. When I saw him, I gently asked, “Tom, why don’t you get in here and hook up with Michael and lose some weight with me?” His answer: “Well Danny, I broke my neck a few years back and I don’t think I could.” I replied with, “Tom, that will stop you as long as you let it stop you. We can work around that.” It took a while, but he finally got inspired and gave me a call. This is where it gets exciting.
You see, Tom devised a plan. He thought, “If I’m going to do this, why not make it something BIG!” He asked me to be his workout partner, and devised “Lose It for the Kids,” so his weight-loss journey could benefit someone in need. He made a website and asked people to pledge money per pound he lost for Contact Missions, a ministry of Tulsa Neighborhood Network who recently began a campaign for outreach to kids in West Tulsa who are underserved. They tutor, mentor, and coach them, providing school programs and expanding their subsidized summer-long camps focused on building both faith and character. He began to see how his losing weight could also benefit those kids – which is a product of THINKING BIG! He raised over $50,000 for the kids, and lost almost 100 pounds to boot! Now that’s a WIN-WIN!
You see, thinking small might be just thinking of him. Why think small when you can THINK BIG? What have you got to give? Some may have money, while others may have time. Some may bring a gift like music, while others bring the gift of love and service. What do you have that can benefit others? Whatever you have, you can use it for contribution to someone else while it also accomplishes what you set out to do.
Winning The Biggest Loser has provided me with a platform I never thought I would have. I get to speak all over the world (7 countries & 45 states) to help motivate and inspire others to reach for their dreams. I am blessed to be able to pay it forward and help others in my Bootcamp here in Tulsa, where Christy C. has lost 70 pounds in 4 months and Jeff S. has lost 80 pounds. I have taken what I have and given it to others.
My friend Arthur Greeno once told me, “People want to be a part of something BIG.” I urge you to THINK BIG. What is it you can do for others while you achieve the success you have been striving for? Arthur is a part of Keith’s Ice Cold Lemonade Stand, where this summer he helped a young man named Keith, who has Cerebral Palsy, raise over $120,000 for The Little Lighthouse – simply by selling lemonade. Yes, Keith’s could have been a single lemonade stand, but Arthur chose to THINK BIG, get sponsors and volunteers, and make a BIG difference for others.
The facilitator’s of The Journey Training found freedom we could never imagine, causing our vision and lives to become MUCH BIGGER than we ever thought possible. We decided to pay if forward and create The Journey Training in Tulsa, Oklahoma. If you want to THINK BIG, why don’t you sign up for the next Threshold class at www.thejourneytraining.com? What have you got to lose – except the small thinking!
In review, we’ve talked about your WHY, your WHO, and your WHAT. I want you to grasp tightly to the reasons WHY you are doing something. If you have a WHY, then the work isn’t just work – it has purpose! Also, you can’t be all you can be alone – you need some WHO’s in your life to teach you, support you, and help you! Also, you need to know exactly WHAT it is you want or you will just be chasing the wind!
Today, let’s talk about your WHEN. I often hear people say, “When we have enough money, we’ll get married.” I’ve got news for them – that hardly ever happens! Why would you let your net-worth affect the date you begin spending your life with the one you love? I also hear, “I’ll start my diet on Monday – after I eat this cheeseburger.” Tomorrow never comes and you’re just wasting time. If you could get exactly what you want, why would you put it off? You’re robbing yourself of time with what you want!
Your WHEN happens when you decide to take the first step. It’s not when you stand on the scale and hit your goal weight! It’s when you make a decision to change. It’s not when you pay the last debt payment! It’s when you cut up the cards and start paying more than the minimum payment. The length of the journey is not what is important – it’s the journey itself. The size of the step isn’t important, either. It’s simply taking one – one single step that begins a new direction, bringing you closer to where you eventually want to be! This can be with any goal; diet, business, relationship, or spiritual goal!
Too many times we are waiting for the right time, or the right place, or the right economy, or something else to begin our journey. Does what you want depend on external situations? If so, change your mind about that! Here are a few facts for you to consider:
- Proctor & Gamble was started during the Panic of 1837, the greatest economic decline since the birth of the country! Proctor & Gamble’s revenue in 2013 was $84.17 Billion.
- The three founding companies that merged in 1911 to form IBM, all were founded during the Long Depression of 1873-1896.
- General Electric was born during the Panic of 1873 which shut down the NYSE for days! The Panic didn’t stop the company who in 2013 had revenues of $146 Billion Dollars. Not bad, huh?
- General Motors was founded after the Panic of 1907, which caused major runs in which many financial institutions did not survive.
- FedEx was founded during the Oil Crisis of 1973. Really? A delivery company founded during a fuel crisis? Whoulda thunk?
My point is to stop making excuses and start taking steps. Your WHEN is today! You don’t have to know the whole plan! You don’t even have to know half the plan. You just need to know the dream or goal in your heart, and then find the next right thing to do. Your Journey begins with a single step.
In continuing with my last two blogs, perhaps some of you aren’t even at the point that you know WHAT it is that you want to do or achieve. When we don’t quite know WHAT it is that we want, it can be quite hard to get it! Think of your life as a journey, and you have a GPS (or as Herman Cain calls it, Guiding Principles of Success). WHAT do you need to know? Well, the first WHAT is your current coordinates!
We all want to go somewhere, but if you don’t know where to start, how can you take the first step? I always tell people who join my Simply Lose It™ bootcamp to weigh in before beginning to get a starting point! Otherwise, you could be making progress towards your goal and not even know it! We need small victories to continue to motivate us toward our goal! Otherwise, we just might quit when we feel defeated. We also may even be sabotaging our success and moving backwards! How would you even know if you never acquired your current coordinates?
Second, you need to know your destination. If you use your GPS without placing your ending coordinates as the destination, you simply have something that shows you where you currently are; not where you are going. To make progress in your Journey, you must have your WHAT, or a specific goal in mind. How you get there may go left, right, even a few steps back at times, but you should be continually making progress. The speed isn’t always important, and sometimes you have to stop to smell the roses, but making some sort of progress is important! So the second WHAT you need is your goal.
The third WHAT you need is a plan. It may be a complex plan, or just a simple plan! But there must be a plan. I see many people that want something, but they have no idea how to get there, and that’s okay, but you need to figure that out before you embark on your journey. Otherwise, you may be going in the wrong direction, or even creating things you’ll need to fix or change later. Once, my dad asked me to dig the grass out of an area in the yard and level it for our new above ground pool. There was a trailer I was going to put the dirt in, so I just began to dig. I threw the dirt towards the trailer, and when I was finished, about a third of the dirt actually made it in the trailer. Then I had to do twice the work to finish the job! Why didn’t I take the time and devise the plan to get the dirt in the trailer the first time? This is what you may be doing by not pausing to devise a plan – a business, weight-loss, marriage, or savings plan. Find help if you need it, get the information you need, and devise a plan!
The fourth WHAT you need is the courage and motivation you’ll need to stay the course. It may look like you aren’t making progress at times, but if you know where you began, know where you are going, have a plan, and take periodic spot checks to assure you are on course, you’ll find the faith that every step you are taking is making a difference! Some days you’ll find it harder than others to get moving, but always remember that WHY we talked about a few weeks ago and that should keep you motivated. Sometimes the next step you need to take will be a little scary, but again, remember that WHY and also call on your WHOs to keep you motivated, accountable, and to help you continue along the journey!
So WHAT are your starting coordinates, WHAT are your ending coordinates, WHAT is your plan, and WHAT will keep you motivated and give you courage to make it happen? With these, you’ll soon be closer than you ever dreamed to WHAT you really want!
In The Journey Training, we believe that goal setting is important. In each class we help people set goals and find action steps to take to begin. If you’ve been having trouble moving forward, join the next Threshold class and begin your Journey now!
“You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win.” ~ Zig Ziglar
I’ve learned by traveling the world as a motivational speaker that you have to know where you’re going before you can get there. When I left for The Biggest Loser in 2009, I knew two things: God gave me this opportunity, and it was my responsibility to act on it.
180 pounds was my destination – quite a long road from 430 pounds! But if I never set the destination, how I would I ever get there? There are two things you must know to navigate to your destination: Where you are and where you are going. The first step is to acknowledge where you are. If you don’t know where you are, how can you know where you want to go? You cannot heal or change what you don’t acknowledge. The second step is defining where you want to be. These destinations could be health, finance, relationship, career, any number of things. Only when you know where you are and where you are going can you then “map” a road to success. In my case, once I knew where I was going, and I had less than 7 months to get there, so I had to devise a plan for success.
Plan For Success in Health
I learned that 3,500 calories equaled a pound. I made a goal of losing of 1½ pounds per day – a 5,250 calorie deficit. If I ate 2,000 calories, I would need to burn 7,250 calories per day to reach my goal. This gave me a mark to hit – a target! Some days I would fail, some days I would succeed, and other days I would exceed the mark. The show’s nutritionist Cheryl Forberg and Trainer Jillian Michaels taught me what to eat, and Bob Harper and Jillian taught me how to burn calories – SWEAT! Then I hit GO on my GPS.
Plan For Success in Finances
This principle has helped me in areas other than losing weight. Finances are also an important area in which to plan for success. When you are in debt it can seem overwhelming. The reason I know this is because at one time Darci and I owed $62,700 of unsecured debt. Darci and I paid off that debt in just a few years – WITH A PLAN! On my YouTube channel you can see the video of Darci and me seen on Joyce Meyer describing our journey. It took a plan and self discipline to get there.
In marriage, it is wise to counsel with your fiancé and learn each other’s goals BEFORE saying I do! Then you can know where you both presently are and where you both want to go – and you can agree on plan for success in your marriage.
In whatever area you are looking to change – health, finances, marriage, parenting, any area – you must devise a plan. I urge you to find wisdom from good people who can help you such as your pastor, a counselor, or a trusted friend or support group. Those who have gone through The Journey Training have buddies and small groups to help when they need encouragement or ideas. Then you can follow a plan to focus on the future you want, not the future you just might happen upon! As Benjamin Franklin said, “If you fail to plan you are planning to fail.”
