Sorry- No Crashes Here. Just some CRAZY FLIPS from Monte Carlo.
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Wit and Wisdom
PARAPROSDOKIANS: (Winston Churchill loved them.)
Here is the definition:
“Figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected; frequently used in a humorous situation.”
“Where there’s a will, I want to be in it,” is a type of Paraprosdokian.
1. Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
2. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it’s still on my list.
3. Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
4. If I agreed with you, we’d both be wrong.
5. We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.
6. War does not determine who is right – only who is left..
7. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
8. Evening news is where they begin with ‘Good Evening,’ and then proceed to tell you why it isn’t.
9. To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.
10. A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station.
11. I thought I wanted a career. Turns out I just wanted paychecks.
12. Whenever I fill out an application, in the part that says, ‘In case of emergency, notify:’ I put ‘DOCTOR.’
13. I didn’t say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.
14. Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy.
15. Behind every successful man is his woman. Behind the fall of a successful man is usually another woman.
16. A clear conscience is the sign of a fuzzy memory.
17. You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.
18. Money can’t buy happiness, but it sure makes misery easier to live with.
19. There’s a fine line between cuddling and holding someone down so they can’t get away.
20. I used to be indecisive. Now I’m not so sure.
21. You’re never too old to learn something stupid.
22. To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.
23. Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.
24. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
25. Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.
26. Where there’s a will, there’s relatives.
Staff Goals and Motivation
Does it feel like it takes you less time to do something than if you were to give the job to an employee? Whether they’re part time college students or full-time employees, slow-moving, uninspired workers are the bane of many gyms existence.
How can you get workers fired up and motivated to achieve your company’s goals? Here are seven tips:
1. Hire right. Start down the road to motivated employees by hiring the right person for the right job. Too often, time-strapped owners will hire a former gymnast because they don’t want to sift through a big stack of resumes. Instead, take the time to properly vet candidates. Then, hire someone who is qualified for the job and, more importantly, is a fit with your gyms culture.
2. Offer clear goals. Do your coaches know what their top priorities are, and what needs to be done by what deadline? Vagueness is a big motivation-killer.
3. Manage by walking around. The owner of a successful chain of gymnastics clubs once shared with me that he constantly popped in at his various gym locations, with no set schedule. Productivity stayed high, as workers never knew when he’d be back. “Workers do what you inspect,” he explained to me. “Not what you expect.”
4. Share your finances. I know several club owners who have an “open book” policy at their gym, where they share revenue, expenses and other financial figures with full time staff. This transparency can be a big win — coaches feel they’re privy to inside information, and they understand exactly how much business they need to get in the door for the company to grow. This makes profit-sharing programs really work, as employees know exactly what it takes to hit the profit point. Owners may fear releasing this information but I don’t think there is any harm in showing the staff where the money is coming from so that they know what they will need to do to make more money themselves.
5. Do incentives right. Incentive programs can backfire if they are a way to entice staff to do something that makes them uncomfortable or that they feel is not achievable. Set realistic benchmarks and make sure they are relevant and enticing to your staff, or the program may just lead to more lethargy and inaction.
6. Build trust. Workers do things for leaders they believe in. To increase trust, admit your own mistakes, show empathy for workers’ concerns, and be honest about how difficult it will be to meet your goals. Instead of making pronouncements, listen and involve workers in decisions.
7. Treat workers like people. Do you know your workers’ personal aspirations? Tap into their personal desires, and you will be able to motivate them to excel.
How do you motivate your workers? Leave a comment and add your approach.
MANCINO MARCH MADNESS! Craziest Pre-Meet Rituals
MANCINO MARCH MADNESS!
Win a $100 Mancino Gift Certificate by telling us about your gymnasts CRAZIEST PRE-MEET RITUAL.
We’ve teamed up again with our friends from Mancino to offer one lucky Gym Momentum community member a $100 Mancino Gift Certificate!
How do I win?
Use the form below and tell us about the CRAZIEST PRE-MEET RITUAL in your gym. Entries must be received by 11:59 PM EST, Sunday, March 25th.
What can I win?
1st prize – $100 Mancino Gift Certificate
2nd prize – Gym Momentum T-shirt
Who will pick the winner?
The Official Judging Panel consists of myself, and my website guru, Doug Ridley, and is completely subjective.
When will I announce winners?
We will announce the winners on Wednesday, March 28. We will also share all our entries as well. if you’d like us to link to your gym’s website please include the link in the form below.
Leg Extension Exercises
Vault Drill for Layout
Crash of The Week
Another Submission from Joey Lawrence. This was from Stanford Open a few years ago.
Joey- call John at DGS and get some different grips. 800-932-3339. PLEASE
WIT AND WISDOM 3/2
PEOPLE DON'T NOTICE WHETHER IT IS WINTER OR SUMMER WHEN THEY'RE HAPPY
“It doesn’t cost you anything to be nice to someone”. submitted by my friend Erik Saunders
“Confidence is what you have before you understand the problem.” Woody Allen
“Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.” George Bernard Shaw
“If Mark Twain had had Twitter, he would have been amazing at it. But he probably wouldn’t have gotten around to writing Huckleberry Finn.” Humorist Andy Borowitz
“Many of life’s failures are men who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” Thomas Edison
“Chastity- the most unnatural of all sexual perversions.” Aldous Huxley
“Alcohol may lead nowhere, but it sure is the scenic route.” Molly Ivins
“If you survive long enough, you are revered, rather like an old building.” Katherine Hepburn
“My friend James Cameron and I made three films together – True Lies, The Terminator and Terminator 2. Of course, that was during his early, low-budget, art-house period.” Arnold Schwarzenegger, 1998 Academy Awards
Are We Raising a Generation of Helpless Kids?
Atlanta-based freelance writer Mickey Goodman focuses on social issues, lifestyles, design and travel. Her articles have appeared in Thomson-Reuters, People, Veranda, Southern Living and more. Mickey’s book, Nine Lives of a Marriage – A Curious Journey,”with Holocaust survivor Eva Friedlander, was published in August.
This is an excerpt from a great article I read this morning. Read the entire article HERE
Warning signs
When a college freshman received a C- on her first test, she literally had a meltdown in class. Sobbing, she texted her mother who called back, demanding to talk to the professor immediately (he, of course, declined). Another mother accompanied her child on a job interview, then wondered why he didn’t get the job.
Where did we go wrong?
• We’ve told our kids to dream big – and now any small act seems insignificant. In the great scheme of things, kids can’t instantly change the world. They have to take small, first steps – which seem like no progress at all to them. Nothing short of instant fame is good enough. “It’s time we tell them that doing great things starts with accomplishing small goals,” he says.
• We’ve told our kids that they are special – for no reason, even though they didn’t display excellent character or skill, and now they demand special treatment. The problem is that kids assumed they didn’t have to do anything special in order to be special.
• We gave our kids every comfort – and now they can’t delay gratification. And we heard the message loud and clear. We, too, pace in front of the microwave, become angry when things don’t go our way at work, rage at traffic. “Now it’s time to relay the importance of waiting for the things we want, deferring to the wishes of others and surrendering personal desires in the pursuit of something bigger than ‘me,'” Elmore says.
• We made our kid’s happiness a central goal – and now it’s difficult for them to generate happiness — the by-product of living a meaningful life. “It’s time we tell them that our goal is to enable them to discover their gifts, passions and purposes in life so they can help others. Happiness comes as a result.”
The uncomfortable solutions:
“We need to let our kids fail at 12 – which is far better than at 42,” he says. “We need to tell them the truth (with grace) that the notion of ‘you can do anything you want’ is not necessarily true.”
Kids need to align their dreams with their gifts. Every girl with a lovely voice won’t sing at the Met; every Little League baseball star won’t play for the major leagues.
• Allow them to get into trouble and accept the consequences. It’s okay to make a “C-.” Next time, they’ll try harder to make an “A”.
• Balance autonomy with responsibility. If your son borrows the car, he also has to re-fill the tank.
• Collaborate with the teacher, but don’t do the work for your child. If he fails a test, let him take the consequences.
“We need to become velvet bricks,” Elmore says, “soft on the outside and hard on the inside and allow children to fail while they are young in order to succeed when they are adults.”
Read something recently that you would like to share? Keep the momentum going– SHARE
REVIVE YOUR NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION
Many people woke up on January 1st and vowed to turn over a new leaf. You imagined a better you! You set goals and for a while it seemed to work. Then you got into the busiest part of your competition season and you slipped back into your old habits.
Now you ask you self- IS CHANGE REALLY POSSIBLE?
Society seems to conspire against us making any real change. Let’s face it, TOTAL FITNESS IN 5 MINUTES A DAY was a nation wide best seller. The coach in us knows that real change takes a lot of willpower. It doesn’t have to be that way. Willpower is not the brute strength to resist temptation, but “the ability to do what you really want to do when part of you really wants to do it,” says Kelly McGonigal, a health psychologist at Stanford University and the author of The Willpower Instinct. “It’s remembering what you really want, your bigger goals, in the face of your immediate desires.” And it’s a skill you can strengthen. Science may not yet have devised a surefire formula for keeping your resolution, but it has lately revealed some tips to help all of us make real and lasting change.
1. Accept that you are a busy and often stressed out person. This is the busiest part of your season!
According to McGonigal, people often fail to make change because they view their future selves with Herculean powers of self control. Don’t wait for the efficient person who resists all temptations to show up.” Take action now and understand that you are human. You will have some setbacks. Get over it and get going.
2. Pick your battles.
Like many people, I had a goal to loose some weight after the holidays. It certainly takes will power to eat right. Being at a competition where I have 7 back to back sessions over the weekend and I am staying at a hotel makes that difficult. So I just do the best I can and not stress over it. Studies also suggest that glucose in the bloodstream fuels willpower; when levels are low, it’s harder to stay the course. When you engage in acts of self control all day- it depletes your glucose levels. Prioritize and pick your battles.
3. Rethink your environment.
When your surroundings stay the same, so do your ingrained habits. Tweak your environment to help you make healthy choices. My mother was a smoker for years. When she finally decided to quit- the first thing she did was get rid of “her chair”. The place where she would sit and have her evening smoke. Just that small change of furniture made it easier for her. What can you change in your environment to help you reach your goals? Are you the coach who on your way home from practice stops and gets a slice a pizza and a beer? Try driving a different route home.
4. Start Small
Many people are too ambitious in their goals. Instead of vowing to run a marathon in May. Start with a 10 minute daily walk. If you stick with that goal for a week, congratulate yourself and up the ante the following week.
5. Envision how you’ll achieve your goal.
We ask the athletes we work with everyday to visualize their corrections, their routines or vault. But visualization can also boost our odds of success. A 2011 study from McGill University on Montreal found that among people who set a goal of eating more fruit, those who pictures when, and where, and how they would buy, prepare and eat it consumed twice as much fruit as those who didn’t. You also need to anticipate challenges- the plate of cookies one of your gymnasts brings you, the end of the day fatigue that makes you want to skip your own workout- and imagine how you’ll overcome them.
IS YOUR GOAL TO CONTRIBUTE TO GYM MOMENTUM? Keep the MOMENTUM going! Contact