"Out of the past come the standards for judging the present."
- George P. Baker
Setting Standards: Speed vs. Excellence,
Part 1
By Michael Masterson
After graduating from high school, two friends and I started a business installing aboveground pools. After a shaky start, the business took off. To finish the nine or 10 jobs that we were selling per day, we each headed up a crew of workers. This created an unavoidable and unspoken competition among us - in two arenas:
1. Who could build more pools?
2. Who could build better pools?
Each of us - Peter, Eric, and I - wanted to win both ribbons every day. But because of our differing personalities, ambitions, and work habits, our crews' pace and attention to detail produced different results. By the end of that first summer, our crews had established themselves this way:
. Peter's built the best pools.
. Mine built them fastest.
. And Eric's was somewhere in the middle.
In the nearly 40 years that have elapsed since that summer, I have started or helped start dozens of businesses, big and small. At one time or another during the growth of each of those businesses, I've had to make decisions about product development and marketing that pitted speed against excellence. And every time I've been in that situation, I've thought back to that pool business and what I learned from working with Peter and Eric.
When you create something - a business, a book, a wedding, or a craft project - you have to make countless decisions that involve speed and excellence. By opting for speed, you create action - and action gives you the momentum you need to get your goal accomplished. By opting for excellence, you can create something that is better than what everyone else is creating ... and, in business, that can put you ahead of your competition.
Longtime readers of ETR will not be surprised to hear that, particularly in business, I favor speed over excellence - at least, in the beginning. Ready. Fire. Aim. That's my motto. Figure out - quickly - if the idea is worth testing. (Ready.) Test it. (Fire.) If it works but only marginally, kill it or fix it. (Aim.) Then move on to the next thing.
If you don't get things going quickly and keep them going, you will find that progress on the business you are starting (or the trip you are planning ... or the poem you are writing ... or the garden you are planting) will slow and eventually stall. But if all you care about is speed, your business will eventually face another terminal danger. If the quality of your product and/or service starts out as "okay" and doesn't get better, you will have a very hard time "selling" it to the world. They will recognize (even if you don't) the mediocrity you have created and will look elsewhere for something similar but better.
The pool-building business that Peter, Eric, and I created that year was just as much about excellence as it was about speed. We eventually developed techniques (clever ways of doing routine things) that more than doubled the speed at which we worked - and, thus, our daily profits. We used some of the extra cash and time that we created to buy more equipment and develop more techniques to make our pools better than anyone else's.
If we hadn't been willing to favor speed over excellence in the beginning, we could never have kept up with our workload. If we'd gotten too far behind on our schedule, we would have lost our business. And if we hadn't been dedicated to improving the quality of everything we did - from the way we answered the phone to the way we cleaned up after every job - we wouldn't have developed the reputation that allowed the business to be successful for so many years.
What I'm saying is that our business eventually operated on two sets of standards - one based on speed and one based on excellence. Although Peter tended to be more hands-on and spent more time checking details, his crew still worked fast - fast enough to keep them "in the contest." And although I rushed my crew from one job to another, we never failed to follow all the proper protocols to make sure every pool was well built and free of problems.
As I said, you should apply these same standards to just about anything worthwhile that you create, not just a business. In my next article, I'll explain how I apply speed and excellence to my writing.
____________________
Today's Action Plan
To achieve any goal, you need to establish standards for speed and excellence. You need enough speed to overcome inertia and move your project to completion. And you need enough quality to produce results that will be valued.
Are these the standards that you measure your work against? Does a different set of standards work better for you?
______________________________
Energy-Dense vs. Nutrient-Dense Foods
By Jon Herring
Most snack foods pack hundreds of calories into very small portions. Potato chips, carbonated drinks, and candy bars are all examples of "energy-dense" foods. And while they are convenient, they provide excess calories in a small volume of food that will not satiate hunger. That's part of the reason they can lead to weight gain.
Instead of snacking on energy-dense foods, add low-calorie foods that can be eaten in high volume to fuel your fat-loss nutrition plan. These "nutrient-dense" foods include most soups, fiber-rich vegetables, and lean sources of protein.
Researchers at Penn State University tested the ability of nutrient-dense foods to help weight loss. The study followed 200 men and women for a year. All subjects were instructed to follow a calorie-restricted diet. One group had two servings of nutrient-dense soup every day. Another group ate an equivalent number of calories in energy-dense snack foods. While both groups lost weight, the subjects who ate the soup lost twice as much. Why? Because their appetites were satisfied and that made them less inclined to "cheat" on the diet.
It should go without saying ... if you want to lose weight, focus on nutrient-dense, low-calorie foods such as fruits, vegetables, lean sources of protein, and calorie-free beverages (like water and green tea). These foods will fill you up, but they won't make you fat.
______________________________
Word to the Wise: Conterminous
Things that are "conterminous" (kun-TUR-muh-nus) have the same scope, range of meaning, or duration. The word is derived from the Latin for "boundary."
Example (as used by David Nasaw, writing in The New York Times): "The collapse of the swing phenomenon was conterminous with the emergence of bebop."
Michael Masterson
__________________________________________________
These articles appear courtesy of Early to Rise [Issue #1723, 05-08-06], the Internet's most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com/.
- George P. Baker
Setting Standards: Speed vs. Excellence,
Part 1
By Michael Masterson
After graduating from high school, two friends and I started a business installing aboveground pools. After a shaky start, the business took off. To finish the nine or 10 jobs that we were selling per day, we each headed up a crew of workers. This created an unavoidable and unspoken competition among us - in two arenas:
1. Who could build more pools?
2. Who could build better pools?
Each of us - Peter, Eric, and I - wanted to win both ribbons every day. But because of our differing personalities, ambitions, and work habits, our crews' pace and attention to detail produced different results. By the end of that first summer, our crews had established themselves this way:
. Peter's built the best pools.
. Mine built them fastest.
. And Eric's was somewhere in the middle.
In the nearly 40 years that have elapsed since that summer, I have started or helped start dozens of businesses, big and small. At one time or another during the growth of each of those businesses, I've had to make decisions about product development and marketing that pitted speed against excellence. And every time I've been in that situation, I've thought back to that pool business and what I learned from working with Peter and Eric.
When you create something - a business, a book, a wedding, or a craft project - you have to make countless decisions that involve speed and excellence. By opting for speed, you create action - and action gives you the momentum you need to get your goal accomplished. By opting for excellence, you can create something that is better than what everyone else is creating ... and, in business, that can put you ahead of your competition.
Longtime readers of ETR will not be surprised to hear that, particularly in business, I favor speed over excellence - at least, in the beginning. Ready. Fire. Aim. That's my motto. Figure out - quickly - if the idea is worth testing. (Ready.) Test it. (Fire.) If it works but only marginally, kill it or fix it. (Aim.) Then move on to the next thing.
If you don't get things going quickly and keep them going, you will find that progress on the business you are starting (or the trip you are planning ... or the poem you are writing ... or the garden you are planting) will slow and eventually stall. But if all you care about is speed, your business will eventually face another terminal danger. If the quality of your product and/or service starts out as "okay" and doesn't get better, you will have a very hard time "selling" it to the world. They will recognize (even if you don't) the mediocrity you have created and will look elsewhere for something similar but better.
The pool-building business that Peter, Eric, and I created that year was just as much about excellence as it was about speed. We eventually developed techniques (clever ways of doing routine things) that more than doubled the speed at which we worked - and, thus, our daily profits. We used some of the extra cash and time that we created to buy more equipment and develop more techniques to make our pools better than anyone else's.
If we hadn't been willing to favor speed over excellence in the beginning, we could never have kept up with our workload. If we'd gotten too far behind on our schedule, we would have lost our business. And if we hadn't been dedicated to improving the quality of everything we did - from the way we answered the phone to the way we cleaned up after every job - we wouldn't have developed the reputation that allowed the business to be successful for so many years.
What I'm saying is that our business eventually operated on two sets of standards - one based on speed and one based on excellence. Although Peter tended to be more hands-on and spent more time checking details, his crew still worked fast - fast enough to keep them "in the contest." And although I rushed my crew from one job to another, we never failed to follow all the proper protocols to make sure every pool was well built and free of problems.
As I said, you should apply these same standards to just about anything worthwhile that you create, not just a business. In my next article, I'll explain how I apply speed and excellence to my writing.
____________________
Today's Action Plan
To achieve any goal, you need to establish standards for speed and excellence. You need enough speed to overcome inertia and move your project to completion. And you need enough quality to produce results that will be valued.
Are these the standards that you measure your work against? Does a different set of standards work better for you?
______________________________
Energy-Dense vs. Nutrient-Dense Foods
By Jon Herring
Most snack foods pack hundreds of calories into very small portions. Potato chips, carbonated drinks, and candy bars are all examples of "energy-dense" foods. And while they are convenient, they provide excess calories in a small volume of food that will not satiate hunger. That's part of the reason they can lead to weight gain.
Instead of snacking on energy-dense foods, add low-calorie foods that can be eaten in high volume to fuel your fat-loss nutrition plan. These "nutrient-dense" foods include most soups, fiber-rich vegetables, and lean sources of protein.
Researchers at Penn State University tested the ability of nutrient-dense foods to help weight loss. The study followed 200 men and women for a year. All subjects were instructed to follow a calorie-restricted diet. One group had two servings of nutrient-dense soup every day. Another group ate an equivalent number of calories in energy-dense snack foods. While both groups lost weight, the subjects who ate the soup lost twice as much. Why? Because their appetites were satisfied and that made them less inclined to "cheat" on the diet.
It should go without saying ... if you want to lose weight, focus on nutrient-dense, low-calorie foods such as fruits, vegetables, lean sources of protein, and calorie-free beverages (like water and green tea). These foods will fill you up, but they won't make you fat.
______________________________
Word to the Wise: Conterminous
Things that are "conterminous" (kun-TUR-muh-nus) have the same scope, range of meaning, or duration. The word is derived from the Latin for "boundary."
Example (as used by David Nasaw, writing in The New York Times): "The collapse of the swing phenomenon was conterminous with the emergence of bebop."
Michael Masterson
__________________________________________________
These articles appear courtesy of Early to Rise [Issue #1723, 05-08-06], the Internet's most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com/.
posted by Oak Stone at 6:20 PM
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