I can still hear my defensive coach from high school.  I can see him out of the corner of my eye, pacing around the team and insisting that “life is a series of adjustments.”  Very few – I mean very few – phrases have stuck with me over the years.  But Coach Lecher (“lek-er”) had a phrase that I’ll never forget.  He used it in such a brilliant context – defensive football.

In the game of football, the defense can game plan and strategize all they want.  But often the defensive unit will succeed based on their ability to adjust to what the offense is doing and find a way to stop it – make and adjustment.  “Life is a series of adjustments.”

In part 1 of this series we talked about recognizing previous failures at exercise and using this as a learning tool for moving towards a successful plan.  In part 2 we talked about SMART goals.  Part 3 had to do with keeping detailed records of your fitness routine.

Today I’d like to encourage you to listen to Coach Lecher with me – “life is a series of adjustments.”  You’ve undoubtedly had weeks where you didn’t get all your workouts in.  You’ve had workouts where you couldn’t workout as long as you had hoped.  One day of lifting was you vs. the weights, and the weights won.  This happens all the time in exercise. You’re good, but if you’re so good that you never have setbacks, what are you really accomplishing?  (You need more challenge.)

Life happens – and we need to adjust.  I’m learning this right now with our adjustment to life with a kid, and soon two kids.  My time gets pulled in new directions in this stage of life.  I’m also a personal trainer – I hear the excuses all the time.  (I think I heard the worst one this week, but I better keep it to myself in case he’s reading.)  We all have a list of things that take up time and then other lists of things that seem to just pop up and take even more of our time.

So when things get in the way of your workouts, or a workout beats you up pretty good one day, what’s your response?  Will you be passive and allow the set-back to just happen?  Will you promise yourself it will never happen again?  Will you play the blame game?  Will you chalk it up to bad luck?  Or will you process the set-back, regroup, and find a way to move towards your SMART goal?  Tim Sanders wrote about this last week.

Engage with your workouts.  Engage with your goals.  Engage with all the details of your life and then come up with a game plan.  When you get knocked around a bit, try to hear the words of my defensive coach, “Life is a series of adjustments.”  Big or small – make that adjustment and take another step towards your goals.

Admit it – you haven’t had that much success in this area.  You’ve had a few exercise routines come and go over the years.  Maybe you’ve tried running or getting on the bike, but it didn’t last more than a couple weeks.  You’ve tried some diets that didn’t produce the results you expected.  And weight lifting – after a week you were so sore you never made it back to the gym.

Although sleeper seats had long existed in first class, airlines had not yet adopted them for business class. Virgin was the first to announce it would be offering “a bed in business,” says Joe Ferry, Virgin’s head of design, who led the design of the J2000 seats. Within a year, however, Virgin’s idea was one-upped by its chief competitor, British Airways PLC (BAB ), which rolled out a truly flat bed. While customers were initially enthusiastic about the J2000, some complained about sliding and discomfort. In the end, says McCallum, it “was wildly unsuccessful. Everybody acknowledged that it was not as good a product as our principal competitors’.” Agrees Ferry: “We were an also-ran, which didn’t really sit well with us.”

But Ferry didn’t get fired.  In fact, CEO Gordon McCallum entrusted Ferry with more money – $127 million to over-haul the upper-class seats.  The new version, launched in 2003, has been a solid success.  Called the “upper-class suite,” Ferry’s makeover made a design leap beyond merely being flat.  Flight attendants flip over teh back and seat cushions to make the bed, allowing for different foam consistencies for sitting and sleeping.  While Ferry hoped the new seats would eventually improve Virgin’s business-class market share by 1%, they’ve already exceeded that goal.  (Source: businessweek.com)


Failure is not the end of the story.  Many leadership experts and business professionals would testify that failure is in fact necessary for success.  So we begin J2K with a look at our failure.


When you think back to your attempts at creating an exercise program for yourself, what has gotten in the way?  What’s made your routine fall apart?  What one aspect would you do differently to improve your chances at success?


The first part of the J2K Fitness Challenge is to get one piece of paper for some thoughts.  Write “J2K Fitness Challenge” at the top and brain-storm a couple reasons why exercise hasn’t worked for you in the past.  That’s it.  Come back in a couple days and we’ll talk about what to do with those thoughts and we’ll formulate some goals.  But not just any goals – we’ll formulate S.M.A.R.T. Goals.