Race report #2 (Preview) Antelope Canyon 55K

Nothing Changes on New Year’s Day

I am pretty sure that the only New Year’s resolution that I have ever truly kept was when I resolved never to make another New Year’s resolution. I can unequivocally say that I have kept that one! I am not a believer in resolutions, but I am a big believer in goal setting. In his seminal work “Good to Great”, Jim Collins espoused the concept of BHAG’s (Big Hairy Audacious Goals). I am not necessarily a fan of that acronym, but I am a huge believer in setting big goals and developing a plan for achievement.

So, it’s already January 22nd. I postponed this post so that I could see whether my hypothesis was correct. So…If you made a New Year’s resolution, are you still on track or is it already in the rearview mirror?

By almost any measure, New Year’s resolutions fail…and fail fast. Statistically, only 8% of those that make a change commitment at New Years are successful. So, what happens with the 92% that fail?

Without genuine internal commitment to change, few have the discipline to adopt a strict change regimen for the 21-60 days that it takes for a behavior change to become a habit. So, the start of a new calendar year often isn’t enough of a catalyst to be completely determined to make a meaningful life change. If it is truly a change that you want to make, why wait until the new calendar shows up? Having resolve and making resolutions are two very different things.

There are few other ways that can help you get into that exclusive 8% club.

One of the ways that people set themselves up for failure is by trying to tackle too many things at once. Let’s face it…change is hard. Trying to make one significant life change at a time is difficult to manage, so trying to make several or many almost guarantees failure. Choose one, maybe two really meaningful changes that you are genuinely committed too, and then move to step 2…the plan.

Going into a change without a plan adds substantial risk to success. I focus on two things that I know must be addressed in my plan, which I call “triggers” and “barriers”. Triggers are situations and behaviors that you know will imperil your goal. Trying to quit smoking, but you know that if you go to the bar with your friends that smoke will trigger your old behavior? Have a plan to avoid that situation. Barriers are the things that prevent you from achieving your objective. As an example, I won’t exercise if I haven’t actually put it on the calendar in a time that I know that I can honor, and I know that if I put it off until the end of the day and my run is competing with a glass of wine…let’s just say that the run doesn’t always happen.

Once you have pared down your target list, it’s time to get SMART.

Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic
Time bound

These are the foundations of effective goal setting. Without employing this framework, you might have wishes, hopes, and dreams…but you don’t really have goals and tangible objectives. In his seminal work “Good to Great”, Jim Collins espoused the concept of BHAG’s (Big Hairy Audacious Goals). I am not necessarily a fan of that acronym, but I am a huge believer in setting big goals and having a SMART plan to achieve them.

The good news is that New Year’s Day is in the past, so any goals you set right now aren’t really New Year’s resolutions. They are carefully considered lifestyle changes that are achievable with the right planning, motivation, and discipline!

Change happens-

“Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis” – (Latin, attributed to Ovid)

Times change, and we change with them.

Stay tuned….

5 Key Steps to More Effective QA Automation within DevOps

Practical advice on achieving quality driven DevOps…

DevOps White Paper_122015_final_

Thought for the day-

If you think about it…

Today you are as old as you have ever been.

You are also as young as you will ever be.

May as well make it a great day.

The two ways to get fooled…

There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.

Why I am ditching United ( and everyone else) for Southwest

By just about any measure, I am a frequent traveler. My rough calculations show that I have flown somewhere between 3.5 and 4 million miles over the last 25 years or so. Not sure what that equates to in terms of how much time I have invested in going to/from airports, time at airports and the time spent sitting on an airplane. Just the thought of all of those hours makes me wince.

So, for someone that spends that kind of time engaged in air travel, the kinds of things that make air travel tolerable are certainly magnified. Decent fares, good customer service, on time arrivals, baggage that gets there when I have to check it, customer service…all essentials.

Which brings me to my switch. I have been an extremely loyal United flyer, having recently exceeded 2 million air-miles with them! I have flown roughly the equivalent of going around the planet 80 times with United. On the flight that I cracked the 2 million mile barrier, I did get a handwritten thank you card from the crew…delivered to me in the back of the plane. They also offered me a free drink, but I had to pass as it was 8:00 in the morning, although I will confess to considering a bloody mary.

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So…why change? Why move carriers after all of the status that I have earned? It comes down to three things, all of which play in Southwest’s favor.

First, we all know that accumulating and using miles is important. Airlines reward loyalty by granting perks and mileage increase awards based upon your travel volume. These miles are valuable…nothing like a free trip right? (As though I want to get on another plane).

United has devalued their miles to the point that they are almost meaningless. They claim that there are “saver” seats available for a 25K round-trip, but I cannot ever find them, regardless of how far in advance I am booking. Case in point…recently tried booking two round-trip seats for late September to St Louis, a reasonably short hop from Denver. 3 month advance booking….50,000 miles each, for a total of 100,000 miles. A full years’ worth of travel to fly the two of us 90 minutes away! Similarly, when trying to use miles for a trip to Peru, I didn’t have enough miles in the bank for two tickets as I needed 300,000. Contrast that with a recent trip to Salt Lake City on Southwest where we spent a grand total of 17,000 miles for two seats.

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Secondly, the matter of change fees. Some airlines have gotten very creative with the various ways that you can be charged, from bags to drinks to meals to which seat you select. Change fees fall into this category. The $100 change fee, plus the fare difference (which I can understand) seems usurious. Maybe after 2 million miles we could show a little flexibility? In the age where most bookings and modifications are all self service and done on the website as a kiosk without any support from the airline personnel, it becomes obvious that this is simply a penalty and another means for pure profit for the airline at the expense of customer service/convenience. I recall standing at the gate of a Frontier flight that was almost empty, but couldn’t go standby unless I paid a $150 fee. No cost to the airline to accommodate me…as a result I haven’t flown Frontier since.

Lastly, no one that I know gives high marks to a US carrier for customer service. Fly Air Singapore, Cathay Pacific or Virgin, as examples, and you notice the differences immediately. Most lists of top global airlines don’t have a US based carrier in the top 20. But for those of us who travel mostly or exclusively in the USA, you find Alaska Airlines, Virgin, Jet Blue and Southwest typically at the top of the list. However, if you value mileage programs, customer service with transparent fare pricing and travel flexibility, and just as importantly network and frequency of flights, Southwest separates from the pack.

Yes, the Southwest boarding process is a little funky, but everyone seems to get it and it works. Not really much different that the zone boarding used by United anyway.

One more thing that matters, although this is very subjective. I think that the Southwest crews are a lot friendlier than any other airline (apologies to my friend Lisa!). It seems to be the case of reality meeting the marketing hype, but it can make the drudgery of flying just a little less onerous when the flight attendants are cracking jokes and plying you with free drinks and the ubiquitous packs of peanuts and pretzels. You can fake a smile at the boarding door but it has to be hard to pretend you are happy for the entire flight! I couldn’t pull it off, myself.

My change isn’t 100%, or permanent. I will still shop for the best fare (within reason, which leaves out Frontier and Spirit), and international flying is a whole different animal. But my loyalty comes with a price, and when I am rewarded with stiff senseless fees, devalued miles, less than decent service…my business is up for grabs.

Taking the plunge!

I have been considering launching a blog for a long time…a very long time.  It is finally time to take the plunge!

 

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This Is Not Complicated is one of my favorite business sayings…usually in the context of a situation where it is easy to get lost in the details and lose sight of what is important and relevant.  Hopefully on occasion you will find these posts interesting and/or relevant.

The blog will contain a combination of business related themes and personal observations, trip reviews, running & race reports and anything else fun that comes to mind.  Business posts will go to LinkedIn;  personal posts will go to Facebook.  If you are interested enough you can just subscribe and you will see everything.

Many thanks to Tony Kraayenbrink at In Form Creations for getting this site up and running.  Tony is awesome to work with so if you want to take the plunge yourself he is a great resource.

More soon!