Dan Coughlin's Acceleration Blog

Citizen Coughlin

Seems to me we get two ways to add value to the U.S. just by being a U.S. citizen.

First, we get the opportunity to vote. When I was younger, I used to say, "I don't know enough about the candidates to vote, and besides what's one vote going to matter." I no longer think that way. I get the OPPORTUNITY to vote. That's a very big deal. That affects the future of a country, a state, or a community. It takes maybe 30 minutes out of one day to vote, maybe an hour.

The other opportunity we get is to serve on a jury. The whole judicial system is based on evidence being presented to a jury of 12 people to make a unanimous decision or to say, "We just couldn't agree." I served on a jury last week. It was very intense and very exhausting. There had been a murder. We deliberated for eight hours. Every person in the room was mentally exhausted at the end of our four days of serving jury duty. In the end I know we did our very best to make the best decision we could with what we were given.

Serve on a jury. Don't try to get out. Don't try to think of someone you know that will cause you not to get selected. Serve on the jury and do the best you can.

Go to the voting booth and do the best you can.

If we want our country to accelerate, we need to all take a role in adding the value we can in the opportunities we are given.

Democratizing Great Performance

When I was a high school teacher back in my 20s and early 30s, I told the students on the first day of class that my goal was for every student to get an A. I never graded on a bell curve. Over the ten years I was a teacher I had 42 classes of between 25 and 35 students in each class. I had four or five classes where more than five students received Fs and almost no students received As. I had other classes where there were something like 20 As and 12 Bs and nothing lower than a B. Same teacher, same books, same types of questions on the tests, and yet the results were all over the board.

One of the things I learned from those ten years is that great performance is neither guaranteed nor rare. You can have a group with no great performers and you can have a group with a vast majority of great performers.

Don't ever think great performance is reserved for just a few people. I believe everyone is capable of great performance in life, particularly since every person can choose an area of life to concentrate on that allows him or her to use their specific strengths and passions.

Unlike my math students who had to be in the classroom, life provides every individual electives to choose from that he or she can excel within. What is needed for a great performance is an understanding of what it takes to achieve a great performance and the selection of a specific performance area that the person has a passion and strength within.

My life's work is about trying to hone and explain practical processes anyone can use to deliver a great performance within the specific area he or she has chosen to focus on.

Reward Yourself in Rewarding Ways

A tough lesson I learned that took a lot of time to learn was that the way I reward myself is critically important. Two of my important goals are to be in better physical and financial condition.

However, when I did something well and wanted to reward myself I spent money and ate poorly. I would buy a book or a music CD or eat chicken wings or a huge dessert. In other words, I was creating short-term solutions to long-term problems. My "rewards" were taking me away from my desired outcomes. Consequently, the more I "achieved" the farther I got away from my desired achievements.

Has that ever happened to you?

Find Rewards with Positive After Effects

Now I try to reward myself doing free things that are good for me like taking time to relax, watch a movie, read a book, listen to music, go for a walk, or play with my kids in the backyard. Those are real "rewards" that have positive after effects.

How Technology Fuels Greatness

I used to think "technology" meant "electronics, computers, and software." That's not what it means at all.

The definition of technology in Webster's dictionary is "science applied in a practical way."

"Science" means "knowledge gained by systematic study or a skill, especially reflecting a precise application of facts or principles."

Here are some people who systematically studied a particular field and then applied their learnings in a precise and practical way:

Tiger Woods, golf

Walt Disney, story-telling

Michael Jordan, basketball

Jonathan Ive, chief designer of the iPod

Johnny Carson, entertaining conversations

Oprah Winfrey, insightful conversations

If you want to be truly great at something, study the underlying principles in a systematic manner and then apply them in a practical manner.

Generational Differences

I gave a keynote presentation yesterday at Boeing. At the end, a young lady came up to me and said she didn't have a business card, but that she would send me an e-mail. She said, "It's probably a generational thing. People in my generation don't usually carry a business card."

Then she realized she had basically just called me OLLLDDD, and quickly said, "Although you're probably not much older than me." Nice try, I thought, considering I'm probably twenty years older at least.

I said, "You know, I really don't buy into the generational differences that much. I think people are people."

She said something like, "Well, when we webex someone the control-c usually means you're mad so it was confusing to receive that idea."

I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. She said, "You don't know what I'm talking about, do you?" I said, "No, but I now believe in generational differences."

Common Sense by Thomas Paine

I just finished reading perhaps the most important manifesto in U.S. history: Common Sense by Thomas Paine. It is written in a logical, common sense manner with penetrating power. It essentially was the document that inspired tens of thousands of colonists to rally together to fight for true independence. It still has world-wide relevance today. And if you ever want an example of how to write in a precise, penetrating manner, this book is a great model.