Anne Giles Clelland

Circuit Training

I find lessons for myself as an entrepreneur in sprint triathlon training and wrote recently that being able to show up as an entrepreneur - to exert consistent effort - may explain some of the beginnings of success emerging as year two of Handshake 2.0 begins.

Since July, 2006, with few misses or reschedulings, I have shown up for a Saturday, 10:00 AM appointment for personal training with Don Belote at the University Mall location of The Weight Club in Blacksburg, Virginia.

On day two of Handshake 2.0's second year, as I continue to reflect on year one, I am wondering if showing up as an entrepreneur or as a company leader is enough.  The passion of the entrepreneur is spoken and written of frequently.  For me, even passion isn't enough.  I have to show up with intense acuteness.

I began circuit training with Don Belote at the end of 2008.

Several people have asked me about circuit training.  I describe our system below.  My one-hour appointment with Don begins on the hour, so I arrive approximately 30 minutes early to warm up and ready myself. 

The Weight Club has an elevated track 1/9 mile in length.  While I run laps in between sets, Don mans the weight machine we're currently using, or sets up the next one.

Pre-appointment
1 mile run on elevated track.
Stretch.
Up to 5/9 of a mile more if time permits.
Stretch.

On the Hour
Meet Don at first weight machine, an arm press.
Do 12 lifts.
Leave the machine, begin to jog, run up the stairs two at a time to the elevated track, run 1/9 mile, run down the stairs, jog/walk to the machine.
Do 12 lifts.
Leave the machine, begin to jog, run up the stairs two at a time to the elevated track, run 1/9 mile, run down the stairs, jog/walk to the machine.
Do 12 lifts.
Leave the machine, begin to jog, run up the stairs two at a time to the elevated track, run 1/9 mile, run down the stairs, jog/walk to the next machine.

Total:  1 machine, 3 sets of 12 lifts = 36 lifts, 1/3 mile running completed.

Do 12 lifts on second machine.
Leave the machine, begin to jog, run up the stairs two at a time to the elevated track, run 1/9 mile, run down the stairs, jog/walk to the machine.
Do 12 lifts.
Leave the machine, begin to jog, run up the stairs two at a time to the elevated track, run 1/9 mile, run down the stairs, jog/walk to the machine.
Do 12 lifts.
Leave the machine, begin to jog, run up the stairs two at a time to the elevated track, run 1/9 mile, run down the stairs, jog/walk to the next machine.

Total:  2 machines, 6 sets of 12 lifts = 72 lifts, 2/3 mile running completed.

Total when appointment ends:  6 machines, 18 sets of 12 lifts = 216 lifts, 1 8/9 miles.

Personal record (PR) for 6 machines, 3 sets each of 12 on each machine, 1 8/9 miles:  52:30 minutes

Post-appointment
1 1/9 mile run, 10 laps, for a total session run of 4 miles.
Solo core strengthening.
Solo lower body strengthening (minimal to avoid injury after hard running).
Stretch.

Total workout time:  2 hours.

When my PR drops to 50:00 minutes, we can add a seventh machine.

I love my intense, acutely lived life.

What I Learned on My Summer Vacation from My BlackBerry

No amount of thumbing the tiny track ball through email on my new pink BlackBerry turned up a single mission critical action item. 

If we use figures of a seven-day vacation for two, including airfare, hotels, and meals costing $2100, hours awake at 16, then every vacation hour costs $18.75, or about $20 per hour.

A $20 vacation hour spent reading and answering email on the BlackBerry was like sitting still in a taxi with the meter running and not even looking out the window.

As a start-up company leader, creation and connection energize me.  Tedious managerial tasks leave me weary.  In the latter category, entering data into QuickBooks comes to mind.  Doing email on a BlackBerry without access to my creative tools on a laptop - Microsoft Word and TypePad foremost among them - ended up being a tedious managerial task.  On vacation, then, I brought the very least invigorating part of my work with me.

Having the Internet in my pocket was a different story.

While I love vacation, I love the people already in my life, too.  I missed them while I was gone.  “What are you doing?” was the question I most wanted to ask.  That answer is on Twitter and my BlackBerry called up my text-based Twitter stream quickly and readily.  Since I’m still a slow BlackBerry typist, I didn’t correspond with the people I follow, but I felt very comforted that, while I was missing them, I wasn’t missing everything they were doing.

And Twitter was my one creative outlet.  Letting a picture be worth a thousand words, I took a photo or got one taken here and there, mostly blurry - I’ll learn - wanting to share my wild and crazy vacation with people who care - and sent a TwitPic with an inexpertly typed caption.  I found it often quite moving to send them.  More than the “Wish you were here” postcard sentiment, I was feeling, “Oh, l so want to share this with you.”

To find out how Lance Armstrong was doing in the Tour de France, did I access the slow-loading, vacation-minute-dollars-are-ticking-away Versus.com?  Nope, I called up Lance’s Twitter stream and found out from him myself.

“Where is that restaurant/theater/hotel/museum?”  Google.  'Nough said.

My last vacation was two years ago and the next may well be two years from now.  While I understand that founding a company assigned me the fiduciary responsibility of being available to it 24-7 - I can’t sometimes lead a company, and sometimes not lead it - for my next vacation, I will leave these words in my email auto-responder:

"Call me."

Any Random Raindrop

I got a late life master’s degree in counseling, in part, to answer this question:  Why do people do what they do?  While I am now well-schooled in the nature vs. nurture origins of people’s thoughts, feelings, and actions, ultimately, for me, why people do what they do remains an enchanting, enraging, tragic mystery.

Another mystery to me is why we end up with whom we do.  Why is this person my neighbor and not that one?  Why is this person my colleague and not that one in line at the grocery store?  Why is it this mother and not that one?  Why is my boss someone who values this, and not another person who values that?  That these people populate my world and not those people seems to me random, arbitrary, even chaotic.

So, I don’t know why people do what they do, I can only invite them to value me, not make them do so, and whom they happen to be anyway has as much meaning as a raindrop falling on my punkin' head instead of someone else’s.  Great.

My conclusion?  With regard to power to control others in any way, I ain’t got none.

How do I handle that?  My vision.  I see the vista of where I’m going and why and I keep my face turned toward that.  Some people will join me for a time, I will join others for a time, some people will be indifferent to what I see, some people will scoff at it.  People come and go, though.  I make sure my mind and heart are right with the vision so I can love it and believe in it so I can keep going with it.  And I do.

I’m just back to small town living after almost two decades in the city.  In a city, I can more easily remember that a world with more than six billion souls has plenty of room for my vision.  In a small town, I find myself tending to see my vision through the eyes of so few.  I catch myself.  I love my vision too much to let anyone, even someone from this small town I treasure, take it from me.