Erik Elsea

Loose is Fast!

If you watch racing much, you will hear the commentator make the comment, "Loose is fast." A loose race car is one that turns easily. A tight race car is one that doesn't want to turn even as the driver turns the steering wheel. When a car is loose you will also hear it referred to as "free." It has no problems turning in the corner.

A loose car can go barreling into the corner, pivot and power out. A tight race car has to be let off the gas a little so the front tires bite and make the turn instead of pushing across the track. Tires pushing across the track and having to slow down to gain traction combine to reduce lap times.

In life, loose is fast also. Being able to make decisions and trust that they will succeed allows you to speed toward your goals. Being a little loose-turning easily-makes it easier to get off the fence and go after what you want.

The goal here is to start making those decisions that you have been dreaming about for years. Quit talking about starting that new business and do it. Stop contemplating your returning to school and register for classes. Make a choice today that will allow you to go barreling toward your dream, and never look back.

Like everything else in life, too much of something is never a good thing. A race car can be too loose: the car turns so freely that the back end wants to come around on the driver. A person can also be too loose, but you can avoid this by making educated decisions. Get a coach or a mentor. Make a game plan and stick to it.

Yesterday we talked about all the things in life for which we are grateful. Hopefully you made that long list and tucked it away in your purse or wallet. Today I want you to be loose. I want you to get off the fence about what it is in your life that you want to accomplish. Make a move that sets you up for achieving that goal. Hire a coach or a trainer and make a game plan. Whatever your goal, make a decision today that moves you toward it. Get loose!

Erik Elsea

www.erikelsea.com

Quote of the Day! "Willingness without action is imagination" -unknown

The Big One!

I was inspired to speak about the Big One with NASCAR's being in Talladega this past weekend. The Big One usually happens at one of NASCAR's restrictor plate races. For those of you new to racing, restrictor plates are used to cut down the horsepower on race cars to keep them from exceeding speeds that would be unsafe for both the drivers and the spectators. Cutting down on speed causes the cars to run in a pack called the draft, because on these large tracks two cars running together are much faster than one by itself. Having large groups of cars running together makes for some exciting racing but can also cause some tense moments. When you have 43 cars doing 180 mph in one pack, all within approximately two seconds of each other, one mistake can cause a huge wreck.

In such close proximity one driver's mistake can set off a chain reaction leading to the Big One-a wreck taking out dozens of cars and tons of expensive equipment. To avoid the Big One, drivers need to be patient, pay extremely good attention, and choose their battles wisely. If they don't, the collateral damage caused by their poor judgment could be devastating.

I want to talk about this today as a reminder that what you do in your life affects people around you in either a good or bad way. I think that I have made a positive impact in many people's lives, but I may also have caused the Big One. My drinking and drug addictions have negatively affected many people. I have hurt many around me who were involved in my "wreck" because there was no way around it. Now that I am in recovery, however, I am more cognizant of how my actions affect others. By constantly reminding myself of my purpose on this Earth, I strive to be a better person and have a more positive impact on other people's lives.

As long as each of us is still on this Earth, we are not "totaled." Like a race car, you can be repaired after a wreck and race again another day. After the "Big One" at Talladega tempers flare and heated exchanges ensue. After a while, however, everyone calms down, and the guy you wrecked may be the one you push to victory at the next super speedway. Let this be a life lesson.

Remember we all make mistakes and should not be too hard on ourselves for them. As long as we realize that the choices we make affect others and we keep this at the forefront of every decision, we will make a positive impact on this Earth.

We have talked about being grateful in the past, but today I really want to focus on that. I want you to sit down and make a list of all of the things for which you are grateful. You should be able to come up with hundreds, if not thousands. Just write down as many as you can in ten minutes. Take a look at that sheet once you are finished and feel-concentrate on feeling-thankful. Keep it with you. On a bad day, pull it out and remind yourself of everything you have been blessed with...and smile.

Erik Elsea

www.erikelsea.com

Bump Drafting

This is a fitting topic as NASCAR heads to Talladega this weekend. The circuits largest and fastest track where drafting is a necessity. We have talked about drafting in previous blogs...where two cars run faster together than one car by itself. Bump drafting is when the car trailing gives a little push or a bump to get the lead car going faster. It's a pretty amazing sight to see a car being pushed at over 180 miles an hour. This technique is used to help make passes. I've also seen cars being bumped by a teammate or friendly competitor to the checkered flag for the win.

Bump drafting is about people working together to accomplish a common goal. Usually passing a competitor. Do you push your teammates to succeed? Do you nudge the people in your life so that you can all accomplish the common goal? Are you allowing the people in your life to push you to achieve what you are capable of?

Now let me be clear. I am not talking about going around being pushy. I've seen many times on the track where a driver bumped another car too hard or pushed him in the middle of a turn causing a huge crash. Bump drafting takes skill. You have to know how much to push and when to do it. In life it takes the same kinds of skills. There is a time and a place to push someone to achieve their greatness. Don't push to hard or you could cause a wreck.

But with the right tact you should be able to motivate and inspire others to perform to their fullest capabilities. You might have to give them a little push but together you can win the race of life.

Today I'm going to bump draft you a little. I want you to schedule a time in your planner this week for something that you've been meaning to do but haven't done. If you've been meaning to get on that treadmill but haven't done it then I want you to mark it on the calendar. Block off time for zero interruptions. If you've been meaning to work on your relationship then I want you to get with your partner and schedule some time to spend together. Do something out of the ordinary this week, make a commitment to it, and keep it.

Erik Elsea

www.erikelsea.com

Quote of the Day!-" What you do today will determine how you feel tomorrow." - Marshall Sylver

Adjustments

During the course of a race, a racing team will make many adjustments to the car to improve its handling and increase its speed. These are done during the pit stops and can dramatically improve the results of the race, if the team makes the right adjustments at the right time. Watch a race sometime and listen to the pit crew's conversation. Some adjustments are as simple as changing the tires' air pressure to increase traction or adding tape to the grill to create more down force. A crew can also make adjustments to the suspension or move weight around on the car by adjusting the springs for better handling.

A key to continually winning races and being competitive is a racing team's ability to work on the car throughout the race to improve it. Making good adjustments gives its driver the best possible set-up for ending the race.

Thinking of your life as a race, ask yourself, "Am I making adjustments constantly and consistently to improve my chances of winning? Am I doing the little things that will make my life more successful?" Look at your goal. Is it to improve your health? Then the adjustments could be to join a gym, take supplements or eat fresh fruit instead of that doughnut for breakfast. Is it to advance your career? Adjustments could include streamlining your daily activities, organizing your time better or eliminating busy work. Is your goal to improve a relationship? Make adjustments in the way you relate and show your love.

A key to being competitive in the race of life is to constantly work on yourself, to improve as the race goes on, to make those good adjustments that will give you the best chance of winning.

Erik Elsea

www.erikelsea.com

Word of the Day! Competition-the act or process of competing.

Are we doing all we can do to be competitive in the race of life?

Quote of the Day! "Good habits are hard to make but easy to live with. Bad habits are easy to make but hard to live with." -unknown

My story (cont.)

I learned what I thought was a lot about right and wrong when I was a child. I thought I also learned a lot of good lessons. We were very polite children for the most part. We were what I considered a religious family. We went to church every Sunday. My mother ended up later in life becoming director of Christian Education for that same church we grew up in. So that may tell you a little about our upbringing.

But we learned most of our real lessons from our father. Unfortunately not the father above. Now my dad was what I consider a good man. He worked very hard as an insurance agent specializing in Agricultural things like crop insurance which then led to getting the farmers' business for their home, auto, and life. He was very skilled not so much in sales but in delivering customer satisfaction. You see his work ethic led him to study corn future prices, cattle future prices. All kinds of topics that only farmers really pay attention to. But he wanted to be able to talk shop with them and show genuine interest in their business.

But by and far what earned him the most business and total customer loyalty were those devastating spring storms that the Midwest is so famous for. Not just tornadoes but hail storms, wind storms, flooding. You see when a storm came through in the middle of the night Larry was the first one out after it. He was great friends with the claims adjuster in the office and they would leave in the middle of the night to go to his client farms in the dark, in the mud, at all hours to check on their crops. Now who heard of a suit and tie paper pushing insurance salesman showing up at your farm in boots tramping around in your field to assess the damage and get a claim started at 4:00 am in the morning?

This impressed most of them and it didn't take long for word to spread in that close knit community of farmers that Larry gave the best service above and beyond in the business. I learned a lot about business from watching him. I wanted to be just like him when I was growing up...like most children look up to there father. Unfortunately many of the choices I made when I entered the business world my father would have never made.

Business skills weren't the only thing I learned from Larry. I should explain the Larry thing. See when we were growing up we spent a lot of time with babysitters and my grandparents. I guess they all referred to my parents as Audrey and Larry and we just picked it up. As long as I can remember they were always Audrey and Larry and they didn't seem to mind me calling them that because they never said anything so it stuck. Now a lot of people around us growing up were appalled that we addressed them by their first name. But we never changed.

Many of the other skills I learned form Larry included the basics or they used to be the basics. Yes mam, no mam. Yes sir, no sir. Please and thank you. Opening doors for women including our mother and our sister. In general respect for others. In fact as long as I can remember as a child the big event of the week was Friday night at the country club. All of the local elite would be there for dinner. It was what I considered at the time to be a very eloquent dining room. We would show up in our Sunday best all five of us. The place would be packed. Everyone knew everyone else. The local business men in the community would come by our table and greet my father and our family. They would spend a few minutes talking small talk, discussing light amounts of business. Making a few jokes before moving a long to the next table. Larry would also make the rounds, shaking hands, kissing the wives on the cheek.

We children got to know almost everyone on a first name basis. And boy those older folks really took a liking to us. That might be because we were the only children in the place. The reason for that is everyone else got babysitters for their kids on Friday night. My parents waited till Saturday night for that. I'm pretty sure the reason for that was Larry loved showing off his family. How well behaved and proper his children were in public. That was the other reason there weren't any other children there our age. You see the place was packed. The service was horrific. We sometimes had to wait as long as an hour to eat and we usually didn't even get there till seven. Now not many five year old kids could sit still that long. But not a peep out of us. No temper tantrums. No whining. No running around.

That is because we knew better. You see Larry was also a very strict disciplinarian. There were plenty of spankings to go around. And all it took was a slight raise of or sternness in his voice with that look that shot through you like needles for us to know to pipe down. I guess we were pretty smart kids because it usually didn't take us too many times of screwing up to learn our lesson.

Now I don't want to make this blog for or against corporal punishment of children. That is a whole different debate for a different time but I can tell you as strict as Larry was there was never a spanking I didn't have coming to me. You see every time I received a spanking I knew why I was getting it. In fact the thing I did before I got caught misbehaving I probably knew was going to earn me on of those hands across my butt...if not more than one. It didn't take a whole lot of spankings before I didn't do bad things anymore. The moral of this is that I sometimes wish today I knew that I had my dad to spank me before I made a choice. Because I probably would have made a different decision.

I told you my mother ended up being the director of Christian education at our church although when I was very much older. But to describe by mother to strangers I used to always tell people That if she and Mother Theresa died and they were both standing at the pearly gates but St. Peter could only let one of them in....I'm not sure which one he would pick but I know he'd have one hell of a decision. I'm sorry I couldn't pardon the pun.

Audrey was so caring so kind. There isn't a mean bone in her body. Everyone in our town loved her and so did we. Everyone in town knew her. It was a small town and her family had been there for ever. Literally they owned the first stage coach stop in town. She was a popular cheerleader, near the top of her class. Active in local events and church. But what seemed most important to her in life was being a Mom. For most of our childhood she was a stay at home mom. She proofread books but she could do that at home.

Like I said we spent most of our days either at school or outside. Now I'm not really sure what Audrey did all the time. She was a stay at home mother. But she didn't take us to school. I already told you that we spent the majority of our summers alone at the country club. We had to ride the bus to and from school for the most part. We had a cleaning lady for most of my childhood because if we didn't our house would have been a disaster. So I'm not sure if proofreading took all of her time. I mean they were really big books. Mostly medical books and journals written in languages like Russian and Spanish. Or maybe it was her volunteering with the church or the heart society or whatever charity or event that she couldn't say no to.

But when we were with her she was great. There was no problem having all the neighborhood kids to the house to play or for a snack. We were a little spoiled by her. I hardly recall a time walking in to Wal-Mart when we didn't walk out with some new toy. She took us to McDonalds for Happy Meals often. We had a great relationship with our mother and loved her very much. However we would treat her differently than Larry. Even though we loved her in some case I would say more than Larry we didn't give her the respect we gave him. See she was so sweet. She could hardly raise her voice and when she did she was normally bluffing. In the very extreme circumstance and I mean maybe once maybe twice in my life she paddled me with a flimsy almost cardboard paddle. You know the ones with the rubber band that's attached to a ball.

How come then I would make choices around her that I would never make around Larry? Is it because the bad choices I made would never result in the consequences that they would if Larry was around? But if I loved her more how could I disrespect her more. How come the people you are closest with or love the most you are willing to hurt the most with the choices you make?

Erik Elsea

www.erikelsea.com