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It was a great way to give a little something back. The International contractor I was employed by also maintained about a thousand general laborers. Many of them worked directly under my supervision. The company, in a rare moment of forward thinking, initiated a program called Alternative Education. Simply, any managers or directors who wanted to share their experience, education, special skills or talents with the work force, mainly Filipinos and Mauritians, could do so. It was pretty cool with syllabus ranging from Electronics 101 to Advanced Polka. Coming into this position I had been sales and marketing manager for a publishing company, so chose to offer my experiences and lessons learned in a class called The Basics of Successful Marketing. To my surprise about 50 people signed up for the free, twice weekly sessions. And we were underway.

Although it required a lot of my time for class preparation, the hour sessions themselves we of high reciprocal value. By the second week we had created a powerful and positive group bond, fostered by a technique, known in the motivational speaking circles, as anchoring. It is a Pavlovian tactic designed to create a response from a signal. This is important in sales. The old getting to yes idea. I smile and you smile. I create a atmosphere of trust and you agree to my suggestions. In this particular case we used the anchor of awareness. I was big on that at the time. Still am. The thinking being that if you are 100% in the moment, cognizant of everything surrounding you, accidents are (significantly) reduced. This was an important theme at the time with the military, for what should be obvious reasons. My strategy was to build awareness first and everything after that would be OK. It was, I felt, a solid foundational concept with which to build a successful marketing plan upon. 

I asked for daily practice. Our anchor was to be a right hand tug on the right ear lobe. Whenever one of us passed in the Admin building, in the mess hall, on the ballfield or on the way to church, the power of the present moment was reinforced by the lobe tug. It bound us in camaraderie, and pretty soon there were a hundred of us acknowledging each others presence and strengthening our commitment to the power of the now. That exclusive club went on to achieve a level of performance and safety soon to be the company standard. We won awards and provided an outstanding service to our customers, the men and women of the United States Navy. 

Somebody asked me one day what all that had to do with Marketing. I replied  that marketing was the manifestation of paying attention to the needs of a demographic group and creating solutions to satisfy their wants, needs or desires. We were simply practicing paying attention, the first phase of the curriculum. 

"Oh." 

I share all this with you today because yesterday I felt a quart low on focus. My membership in that small but powerful group of special forces felt more like a bored game of solitaire. Distraction came seemingly from all directions. My back hurt. The check in the mail is lost. More rain is the forecast. No call came from someone just wanting to say hi. Worse, I felt barraged by media. An assault on my anchoring. Some silly global event that in my cynicism I find grossly irrelevant. One of those events that we will get updates on for what will seem like forever.

And here is my response:

Starting today, every time you hear about the Duchess of Cambridge carrying her royal baby, please anchor with the thought that you need to ride your bike. 

Kate = Go spin

That should get us some serious training miles for the next nine months. Cheers!

By the T here.