Call Me What You Want's List: Training

• Start work on any red tasks first — however awful, boring or frightening they are. The trick to keeping calm and balanced is simple: forget about all the complex planning. Work out what truly needs to be done next and do it. When it's done, repeat the procedure.
• Start on the orange tasks next. Don't even think about any yellow ones until all the reds and oranges are done. If any new tasks arrive, give them a color and put them on the list. Next morning, make a new list and reallocate the tasks into the colors.

Keep track of your progress.




• After one week, take 15 minutes to go through the yellow (month) items.
• Cross all those that have solved themselves off the list. Do the same for those that you can now see were never important anyway. You'll be amazed how many there are.
• Underline those you can remove by: delegating them, using technology rather than your time and attention, or creating a routine for handling them so you can delegate or pass them to someone else. Make a red item to deal with them right away by whatever means is appropriate.

I know this is true for me. I constantly battle with first identifying and then knocking out these deep seeded fears that challenge my ability to achieve my vision of success.

The problem with our deepest challenges, is that they are often so latent that we don’t even know they exist and therefore we don’t know how to tackle them.

For the past several weeks, I’ve been pushing beyond my comfort zone. It has been exciting, uncomfortable, and exhilarating all at the same time. In this post, I’ll share some techniques I have used recently and in the past to hunt down and tackle my innermost fears and challenges:

Note: None of these suggestions will be of any value whatsoever without ACTION. All require pulling the damn trigger, and making the tough choices to go after what you want with vigilance.

Bring More Silence Into Your Life

When I first left my job, I cut off most forms of information from my life. I had no television, stopped listening to music on the radio, ditched my cell phone, and moved far away from anyone I knew. This lasted for about 2 years. I’ve mentioned this before, but I never mentioned why.

I wanted to create a silence so that I could better hear my own thoughts. Without any way to drown these thoughts with pointless noise, I was forced to deal with them in the silence of my own mind. It is much easier to find your own challenges without the constant drone of television, radio, or long chit-chatty phone conversations to take your mind off of the problem.

I’m not suggesting that this is the right path for everyone, but instead to become comfortable with silence. Try spending an hour or more in silence every day. If we allow ourselves to be constantly fed information, then we never have the time to discover our own.

Force Accountability Upon Yourself

Right now there are things you are avoiding that you KNOW damn well will get you closer to your goal. Yet you’re not doing them. I know this because I do the same thing. You’re probably avoiding them because just below the surface lurks a big nasty fear that you don’t want to face. Other people have achieved these things. These things are not impossible. These are things that only seem impossible to you right now because of your current way of thinking about the situation.

Have Someone Call You Out on Your Own Lies

The challenges we are most afraid to face - the ones that truly hold us back - are often so much a part of our personality and belief system that they are invisible to us. However, others can see the actions we are doing to cover up these inadequacies. If you really want to know what’s holding you back, maybe it’s time to ask someone the hard questions - the ones you don’t really want the answers to.

Since taking Dave Navarro’s time management challenge, I uncovered a cave of dark challenges - a scene very similar to turning over a railroad tie and finding a horde of wriggling worms and critters scurrying to find darkness again.

My lie was that I was “too busy” to take on the challenges I knew I needed to take in order to get to the next level. I created that lie by filling my time with busywork that wasn’t entirely necessary. Once Dave showed me how to free up my time so that being “too busy” would no longer be a valid excuse, I was left to stare my own deepest inadequacies right in the face.

Over the past month, I’ve been incredibly busy - but I’ve been busy acting on Dave’s advice and therefore creating a plan of action that will get me to the next level. I suspect that the “too busy” lie is one that many people hide behind. If you’re “too busy” then you don’t have time to face all the hard challenges that you already know need to be done.

Silence is golden…as they say. And while it’s terribly frightening, it works. Take away our vices (tv, books, internet, food, smoking, etc) and watch out. The mind is a busy place for many of us, and it can wreak serious havoc when we try to quiet it down. As a meditation instructor, I recommend to people that they start with only a few minutes and work their way up to longer periods of time.

I believe that by taking responsibility and holding myself accountable I keep the power to achieve success in my hands. I give away my power when I place blame or create excuses.

Recently I had a great realization about my business. There were things I was putting off and not getting done and finally one day I realized “You know what, I don’t want those activities to be part of my business plan”. That was very freeing. So it may be things aren’t getting done because they really don’t need to!

Wow Stacy - you are so right. Maybe a few minutes a day is a good start. There was a time when I couldn’t even fall asleep without the TV on, because that’s when the thoughts would come racing in. I remember my first period of silence - there was a lot to face after ignoring things for so long. Now I find that noise bothers me. I prefer the silence.

I love your last point and have been experiencing a very similar realization - it is very freeing!

xcellent post Christine.

Your points about forced accountability and having some one to call on your lies are spot on. And so is your point about silence… for half the population.

I would add: Know yourself.

So many folks try to do something just because they see others doing it. You’ve got to know yourself to break down the barriers that are holding YOU down.

For eg: 51% of the world is extroverts. 49% is introverts. Many of the 51% extroverts (the most extreme extroverts) will become worse at their work if they try bringing more silence in their lives.

Richard Feynman - the great quantum physicist (who also won the nobel prize) - used to go to strip clubs and sit and think and theorize there. He needed loud music to think clearly.

Taking an MBTI test helps a lot in letting you know yourself better.

Stop bitching. It's the Fake-lympics. From the fake footprints to the lip-syncing to the uber-slick swimsuits, the 39th Olympiad is more about tech that athleticism. Once you accept it, you can move on to watching better, more entertaining channels.

Also, why is beach volleyball in the Olympics while rugby and cricket (one of the most popular sports in the world) are not? Seems to me that if the Olympics were about the universality of sport and athletic achievement, two sports played around the world should be in the Olympics while gratuitous displays of T&A should not.

i can easily see why it helps people.

i noticed them, and i thought it would be like cheating, as the tape runs mostly exctly the same format of the muscles they are on top, and with it "elastic" abillities, it surely could help someone to stay in a relaxed position with the muscles on the right tension (people just tend to trhow their body forwards in a relaxed position, but it forces the muscles a bit, it's because we are sitting all day, leaning backwards and not doing any exercises, so the muscles don't balance each others tention) and thus, human efficiency could be greatly increased in a long time.

for me, it's cheating. Anyway, i'm not a doctor, i'm just an artist who studies some Anatomy to improve my work, so don't worry if i just said a bunch of bullshit, i just got that conclusion just by watching the woman, i mean, olympics.

I don't think the suit in itself constitutes cheating, nor is it "all about tech". I look at it as removing all other factors out of the equation besides the human's performance. As Greg Lemond once said, "as you get better, it doesn't get easier - you only go faster" (he was a former olympic cyclist). In a sport like cycling, it's all about the technology, and yet it isn't because there is a level playing field- the most important part by far is still the athlete.

As I see it, the problem isn't in the suits, the athletes, but the contracts the teams have with suit manufacturers that prevent some of the teams from getting them.

As for Phelps - it's a non issue. He's one of the greatest swimmers of all time, and they gave him the best technology of all time. Of course he's going to break records. IT would be interesting to see some of the former world record holders, at their peak, with this technology- but the same could be said for training methods, nutrition, even a larger field of athletes being more likely to produce a record-breaking swimmer.

Saying we should stop all technological development at this point is kind of like trying to put all the demons back in pandorra's box, it ain't going to happen. The same could be said about many things, i.e stem cells, computers, the internet... even evolution. but it all boils down to change or die.

Because beach volleyball is an American sport, which means large sponsorship/advertising deals.

At one point in recent years, the previous 8 sports added to the Olympics were all American sports (and ones which were hardly played elsewhere in the world - like beach volleyball).

The decision to make the suit available to all other countries came after the brouha over it started. It's not the first time this happened either. The Sharkskin used in 2000 courted similar controversy.

There are a lot of things going on leading to the records being broken. The suit is part of it. The pool is another part of it; because it's deeper and wider, water turbulence is altered and has led to faster times.

I know the suit helps some but did you know that Mark Spitz only had to race 4 individual races when he won his 7 and Phelps raced 5 individual and 3 relay events? Even if the suit gives Phelps any advantage he beat specialists in every event he competed in and he won more Golds than any other in a better way than any other. Only two other Olympians have had 5 individual golds at a single olympics and they weren't swimmers.

Say whatever you want about the suit, Phelps is amazing. His body is a machine which was discussed this week by how his blood is tested often and his recovery time is incredible. This is what really caused him to win all the events, not his suit.

I don't know why I care about this topic since I am not a swim fan other than I think Phelps deserves all the credit in the world for what he has done. What is the value in finding something wrong with a true champion?

I haven't heard much about this stuff before, but it really stinks of quackery. Let's see...

1. This thing is very strongly promoted by various chiropractics websites. Further, I haven't found any credible medical website suggesting its use. Red flag.

I wore similar tape for over a year after tearing up my shoulder.

It is like wearing your ligaments on the outside and works very very very very well. Without the tape I would be in constant pain. With the tape correctly applied it stabilized my shoulder and kept it from sliding out in and out of the socket.

To those who are calling bullshit. It's not. It does restrict your mobility some but it's less restrictive than something like a knee brace.

OMG! Ponies! is right! any advancement within the Olympic games should be outlawed! let's not stop at the medical tape, or the streamline swimwear, let's go back to the true Olympics with naked men, no women, and pure brute strength to throw a piece of clay across a field! screw the drive to make humans faster and stronger even if some of the side affects of these creations helps children with cerebral palsy, they just need to toughen up any damn way! i mean, people didn't always wear shoes while sprinting in the Olympics, so why should they now? those little caps on swimmers heads? that is the cheater's way! let the hair slow them down! chalk on gymnasts hands? fuck that, let the little girls (and guys) fall on their face when the slip off the bars, it is only fair! i am with OMG! Ponies! to rid ourselves of these unnatural competing aids. the only provide an unfair advantage because we all know that EVERY FUCKING OLYMPIC COMPETITOR does not use them!

just... wow

You define my previous post that this tape is not for the layperson.

1. This thing is very strongly promoted by various chiropractics websites. Further, I haven't found any credible medical website suggesting its use. Red flag.

The Journal of Orthopedic Sports and Physical Therapy, The Journal of Science and Medicine in Sports and the American Journal of Occupational Therapy to name a few have all performed peer reviewed clinical trials testing the efficacy of Kinesiotape. I'm pretty sure webMD.com won't have any info as to these studies.

3. The supposed fact that a large portion of their business is from legit medical professionals may well be the result of lobbying by quack organizations, so it's a damp squib, assuming it's even true. Yellow flag.

As I said before I have been using this tape for over 3 years now and when I took the certification course it was only being offered to Chiropractors and athletic trainers. Since then they have opened it up to MD's but they were not originally in the list because MD's like to own things and shut anyone out of business that could possibly remove a revenue stream from them. No "lobbying" was ever necessary.

4. Looking at the product, it looks very much like a glorified band-aid. Unless it's made of some really, really tough material that pulls really really hard, I can't see this providing support of any kind. I don't know about you, but the skin on that model does not look particularly streched. Hell, they don't even bother trying to explain how its "wave patterned-adhesive" does anything. Red flag.

You really don't know what you are talking about. The whole purpose of the tape is not to restrict movement. They already have white athletic tape or braces for that. This tape is meant to ENCOURAGE motion. There are different techniques whereby you can apply a percentage of a stretch to the tape that can provide a light support to a joint but again, this is why a doctor should apply it as they will be the ones to know when this is needed. The wave pattern allows for the stretching of the tape. The tape goes on the backing at a percentage of stretch. If you where to take a blank piece of tape under maximum stretch the wavy lines are straighter, under no stretch, maximum wave. Again, your doctor would know when and why to use this.

5. What really bugs me is the tape's purported application technique. I could understand having the tape go in the direction of the muscle. However, the claim that it needs to be applied to the skin from a muscle's insertion to its origin, and that going the other way could cause cramping, reeks of bullshit. Here's the thing: muscles don't contract in a direction. A free muscle fiber would just pull itself in without any bias toward one direction or the other. Let's also not forget that this is tape applied to skin, not any sort of splint or brace. Skin is pretty damn strechy, and it's not like it's solidly fused to the underlying tissue, so I can't see this having a particularly notable effect. Red flag.

Being certified, you learn that the "tails" of the tape are laid down in a certain way and as a biomechanical specialist and a chiropractor you know how origins and insertions of muscles work and that depending on certain movements these can switch. The origin of the muscle is the non moving bony attachment, the insertion is the mobile boney attachment. Knowing this with certain taping you can, over the course of an activity, alter the way the muscle pulls if taped incorrectly thus leading to cramping. If you don't believe me, tie a piece of string around your thigh the next time you go jogging and see what happens. The tape doesn't have to be "braced" to the underlying tissue because it is meant to affect the underlying fascia. Which is beneath the skin but covers the muscles. A proper taping job would create convultions that apply an effect to the fascia, thus affecting the muscle.

6. It's very fishy that a simple product like this requires certification, the highest levels of which are listed as a benefit of membership. Sure, doctors can take seminars on what situation to use a particular new drug in, or how to apply a particular medical device, but certification for an individual product is nothing short of profiteering. Red flag.

Doctors get trained on individual products all the time, yes it does cost money to become certified but it really is a great product and for it to draw any publicity to my profession is good. I have helped many people with kinesiotape and for a company to want to make money to offset research and development and to pay for instructors to fly around the country to teach other doctors and for the amazing seminar books I received, the money I spent was highly worth it.

If you think this is not professionally or ethically acceptable you are entitled to your opinion. I can tell you don't think highly of chiropractors but when it comes to my family I would much rather put tape on them then have them take ANY of the common household and prescribed drugs that kill people every single day.

I had it for a shoulder injury.
They sprayed a glue on my shoulder skin and glued on Kinesio tape (which has glue already). It stayed on for a good 6 ~ 7 days. I used it for 3 weeks.
Kinesio tape stretches and it as a weave pattern of elastic strands that help support the muscles and tendons by you skin.
Weird but it works. It helps....

In the end, accupuncture did one hell of a lot better job than tape, chiropractors and drugs.

It actually amazes me that Kinesio-Tape hits the US-market this late. Kinesio-Tape and the follow-up taping principle Medi-Tape have been widely and extremely successfully used in Europe for over a decade. I live in Germany and am working very closely with athletes from several athletic fields. Kinesio- and/or Medi-Tape have become extremely common in amateur and professional sports over here. This taping principle doesn't have much to do with common, supportive taping with normal athletic tape.

For all the placebo-guessers: It works. Fact is that it works so extremely well that trainers here often tend to not use it too often or on a long term because it relieves patients/athletes of their pain problems too quickly and too efficently without tackling the reason/source of the pain itself. The principle is extremely easy: Apply the tape under tension on a pre-stretched area of the skin so that it shrivels when You return into a relaxed body posture. When the patient/athlete moves, that area on which the tape is applied constantly gets shrivelled and stretched again. This additional movement constantly stimulates Your movement receptors which overrule Your pain receptors. Tadaaaa, the pain is gone.

Overall, what this tape does is not a miracle, it's very simple and it also has its downsides. But for acute problems which must be solved quickly (for example athletes who have a competition coming up), this tape is absolutely ideal.

Now that the Kinesio gets so much US media attention, I wonder how long it is going to take until Nike brings out its own 30$ version with the swoosh on every yard of the tape...

Here is a link to some of the studies currently being done with Kinesio Tape. [kinesiotaping.com]

I want to help you understand a little bit how "origin-insertion" works and feels. This example will give you a small insight into the most basic of KT applications works.

Let your right arm hang down by your side. Do a few simple bicep curls with no resistance to feel the ease of movement. Now to make the movement easier and effet the bucep muscle through the skin, shift the skin over your bicep up toward your shoulder (Origin) with a flat hand. Now bicep curl again. You have just facilitated muscle contraction.

You can also inhibit or relax the same muscle (great for strains or spasms) by shifting the skin down torawrd the elbow. Bicep curl again. It should be a little more difficult to do because you are now shifting the skin towards the muscle's insertion. This can be done with a Kinesio tape application over ANY muscle in the body, as long as the angle and anchor of the tape is correct. It does not matter how deep the muscle is, it can still be affected with the tape.

And by the way everyone. The blue and pink tape are for color therapy. Beige conceals it and black just looks cool and gets a lot of attention when it's on national tv.

The final stage of Woo is to secure both individual and organizational commitments. "One of the most common mistakes people make in selling ideas," says Shell, "is to think that their job is finished once they succeed in getting someone to say 'yes' to their proposal. That's only the beginning. Research shows that in most organizations, a minimum of eight people will need to sign off on even simple ideas. The number goes up from there. So after you move the individual, you also have to move the organization."

Shell and Moussa use a number of cases from business history to illustrate this point. For example, they tell the story of Charles F. Kettering, a brilliant inventor and engineer from the 1930s whom many consider an equal of Thomas Edison. Kettering invented such things as the automatic transmission and safety plate glass, but one of his best ideas -- the air-cooled automobile engine -- sat on the shelf for decades until the Volkswagen Beetle incorporated it. Kettering convinced Alfred Sloan, GM's top executive, that producing the air-cooled engine was a good idea, and the company's executive committee gave the go-ahead to make a limited number of cars with the prototype. But instead of following the idea through, Kettering went back to his lab to concentrate on the technical aspects of the project. The committee handed the production assignment to the Chevrolet division, whose top managers had never been brought into the persuasion process. They let the idea languish and it was eventually abandoned. "Kettering made a fundamental mistake: He didn't follow up and keep the pressure on," Shell notes. "He didn't do the political coalition-building needed to implement his idea."

Andy Grove's 'Constructive Confrontation'

Individual personality plays a key role in how you influence others, Shell adds. The book therefore includes two personalized "diagnostic" tests that readers can take to discover their persuasion strengths and weaknesses. One of the diagnostics is the "Six Channels Survey," which is designed to help people learn which of the key channels of influence they feel compelled to use most often at work and which they would prefer to use if given a choice. These channels include Authority, Rationality, Vision, Relationships, Interests and Politics. The idea is to help readers understand both how these six channels work and when they should adjust their pitch -- as Bono did with Senator Helms and Mandela did on Robben Island -- to appeal to different kinds of audiences.

A second self-administered test, the Persuasion Styles Assessment, helps readers determine the degrees of assertiveness and natural social intelligence they bring to the idea-selling process. The authors point out that there is no one "correct" style of persuasion; rather, the key is being self-aware so you know how you perform and how others will perceive you.

For example, Shell and Moussa illustrate the "Driver" style (a highly assertive type who gives only limited attention to the social environment) by examining how Intel CEO Andy Grove managed the persuasion process at Intel during his years as that company's leader. Labeled the "screamer," Grove could be intimidating to people who didn't know him well. But he was also willing to listen if people stood up to him and matched his passion. To facilitate communication, Grove instituted what he called a culture of "constructive confrontation" that freed everyone to be as blunt and assertive as he was. The result was a high-stress environment, but one in which everyone could speak their minds.

Asking Out That Lovely Someone You Adore:

There was this girl I really liked back in high school. At first I was scared of asking her out even though we shared a decent friendship. K was absolutely gorgeous - her eyes, her smile, the way she walked… all so very gorgeous. I wanted to tell her but I just couldn’t. I was afraid of getting the same vicious “no” I got from another girl previously.

Then one day, a seemingly super popular guy asked K out. She rejected him! It turned out, what seemed popular to many people, wasn’t to her.

Eventually I built up the courage to ask K out and to my happy surprise, she said yes. We dated for about a year and it was great. Today K and I are very close friends and so far, we’ve known each other for almost eight years. :-)

Make your move. If you get a “no”, sure, it might sting a bit - momentarily. But at least you won’t be busy wondering what if the answer was “yes”. At least you’ll know and with time, the fear of approaching someone you adore will go away.

Getting rejected by that special someone you like is not a dangerous thing. It doesn’t have to make you fearful. Redefine it!

2- Ride the Roller Coaster

Fear can have the power to cripple you - if you allow it to. It can also be a very powerful thing that motivates you. The secondary real key is not overcoming fear but utilizing it to your own advantage.

Have you ever been on a roller coaster? It’s scary seeing that thing twisting and turning. Worse still are the shouts and screams. Well, at least that’s how it was like the first time I went to ride one. I didn’t. Just before running to the queue I remembered an article I read about some guy who fell off one and died.

All the kids had fun that day. Some went on the roller coaster more than twice. All of them enjoyed it except me. I went back home feeling bitter and full of regret.

About two months later we went to the theme park again. I thought to myself, the probability of dying in a car accident is probably more than that of falling off the exciting joyride. And so on that unforgettable afternoon, I went on the roller coaster three times. In a row.

I did it because I was afraid… afraid of missing the fun.