Monthly Archives: May 2012

“iCan” _______?

Posted on by
1

What are some phrases that you love to hear? Phrases that encourage you? Phrases that lift you up?  I try to surround myself with positive people that look at life as an adventure, that look at setbacks in their life as experiences to learn from, and people that realize you may give your best effort but not always “win the game”. What type of individuals do you gravitate towards? On the flip-side, are there personalities that you flee from?

If you have been following this blog, the past three weeks has been about The 5 Laws to Stratospheric Success (Significance); what is it, how do you get it? Basically, the premise to getting success is by GIVING. Everyone can give, it can be giving of your time, talent, or treasure but to get you must GIVE. How you choose to give is unique to you, it should be natural, and it should attract others. Me? I love to give free workouts… simple, natural, and  it gives me energy to give my energy to others.

It all started two years ago when I met a guy named Joe. Joe lives in Colorado and GIVES away free workouts. Hundreds of people show up for Joe’s workouts and in return Joe’s business has exploded (in a positive way). Joe’s passion and willingness to GIVE of himself energized me to start a similar workout in Des Moines called the Wednesday Night Suffer-Fest. “What’s the catch?” was asked often. “Why are you GIVING away free workouts?” No catch other than we had the “change bucket”. Attendees were asked to throw their loose change (treasures) into a bucket thus the name “change bucket”, pretty clever, heh?  Each month we chose a different group or charity for our donation. Each month the amount of change grew in number. Some months the “change” became new & used shoes we ultimately shipped to Ghana, Africa.  What was cool to see was that what started as 5-8 regular attendees grew into 40-50 people. It wasn’t the workout, ok maybe part of it was the workout, but people really like to GIVE. One individual brought in 300 coloring books and crayon boxes to ship with the shoes to Ghana. Examples of GIVING just kept coming in, people wanted to GIVE. Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

Wednesday Night Suffer-Fest had a great run, due to space limitations and time conflicts it did not continue this past year. If anyone knows of a big open indoor space that is available the Suffer-Fest could be re-ignited!

Going back to the first paragraph, I love “can do” people! But I also realize that not everyone is wired that way. Call it the classic battle between Nature Vs Nurture, maybe it is a lack of role models, maybe it is not just who they are, the list goes on. My life has been blessed by many people with  ”can-do” attitudes; my parents, coaches, business mentors, and friends. They have GIVEN me the power to say “iCan”!

In the spirit of paying it forward, Coach Loran wants to help individuals say “iCan” to two things; run a marathon, and GIVE. Introducing the “iCan” Project for Central Iowa (insert drum roll). What is the “iCan” Project? Twelve people (6 male and 6 female) will be selected form a pool of thousands (hopefully) that have said, “I CAN’T run a marathon”. Whatever the reason each person says “I can’t” will be different; maybe it is time, ability, motivation. Coach Loran will work with each individual but the change has to come from within, nobody can change you, you must be willing to work on yourself.

Each participant will receive 16 weeks of customized training, running form analysis, weekly group runs, and unlimited support from Coach Loran so on Sunday, October 21st, 2012 they will be standing on the starting line for the IMT Des Moines Marathon saying, “”iCan” do this!” Then within a few hours the “iCan” will be turned into “iDid”.

Catch? Yep, there are two catches. Catch number one, each participant must pay their own entry fee into the marathon so they have “some skin in the game”. Catch number two, each participant will receive from Coach Loran a copy of the book The Go-Giver by Bob Burg. Each participant must read the book by week 4 in the training to continue on with the program. That’s it!

Details:

  1. To be considered for the program, individuals must complete an on-line application found here: iCan Application. 
  2. Applications are due by June 10, 2012. Selection and notification will be done by June 18, 2012. Training starts on June 25, 2012.
  3. Participants must pay their entry fee to the IMT Des Moines Marathon by June 25, 2012.
  4. Participants will be GIVEN a copy of the book The Go-Giver.
  5. Participants must have read the book by Sunday, July 22, 2012 to continue on the program.

It’s that simple. What can you do? Help by sharing this with as many people as you can, thank you!

“It is better to (blank) than to (blank)”

Posted on by
Reply

We have all heard the age-old proverb of “It is better to GIVE than to RECEIVE”, right? What if I were to tell you that receiving is natural result of giving. All over the planet billions of humans and animals are breathing (receiving) in oxygen and discharging (giving) carbon dioxide. At this same time, billions upon billions of organisms of the plant kingdom are breathing (receiving) in carbon dioxide and discharging (giving) oxygen. Their giving is our receiving, ad our giving is their receiving.

Every giving can only happen because it is also a receiving. Here completes our Fifth, and final, Law to Stratospheric Success. “The key to effective giving is staying receptive to receiving”. Confused? All the giving in the world will not bring success, it will not bring the results you want, unless you make yourself willing to receive. If you do not allow yourself to receive then you are refusing the gifts of others- and thus you shut down the flow. By holding your breathe you are shutting down the gift of oxygen from our plant friends…how’s that treating you?

Simple, the secret to success, to really gaining it, to having it, is to give, give, give! The secret to getting it is giving. And the secret to giving is making yourself open to receiving.  Having big dreams, being curious, believing in ourselves- those are all just aspects of being receptive. There you have it, the Five Laws to Stratospheric Success, in a formula form, “V” x “S” x “I” x “A” x “R”= Success.

One thing I have never been accused of is being called the smartest or most talented man on the planet! What I do know about myself is that I possess a high-energy level for an old man, love connecting people, and really enjoy motivating & energizing people through exercise. Healthy body, healthy mind..right? I always wanted a part of my business to have a giving component to it, either time, talent, or treasure.

On vacation one summer in Colorado I heard about a guy named Joe that is famous in the Denver market for giving away free group workouts. Curiosity kicked in and I had to meet Joe. A little research on the internet led me to “It Burns Joe Fitness” (
http://www.redrocksfitness.com/
). It is billed as the hardest 3 hour workout on the planet, after all I am a 7 time Ironman finisher so I said to myself, “How hard can it be?”.  What I thought would be 20 groupies and Joe working out for 3 hours turned out to be 250 hard-bodies just giving Coach Loran the beat-down of his life. Ten minutes into the workout I had done 75 frog jumps and 150 pushups on the bleachers to Red Rocks Amphitheater. “Rest is for the weak” is one of my mantras. For three hours I was carrying people on my back, doing spider-man pushups on bleachers, ab crunches, etc…all the time I wanted rest. Did I forget to mention that Red Rocks is at 7000 feet of elevation. I survived…. but my curiosity about Joe and how he gave away 2-3 group workouts per week to 250+ people just blew my mind.

After the workout I sought out Joe. What I heard out of his mouth was basically the Five Laws to Stratospheric Success. By giving a little bit of his time each week his business was blessing lives, changing behaviors, instilling confidence, and creating community. Was he open to receiving?  Next time you are in Denver, stop by and ask Joe.

Next up? Learn how Coach Loran is creating an “iCan” attitude in Central Iowa.

18 year lease on kids….

Posted on by
Reply

Every year about this time is birthday-palooza at the Storts house. Four of the five members of my family have celebrated birthdays in the past 30 days. Sleep-overs, gifts, cake, and favorite restaurants are all part of the festivities. For whatever reason this year the idea of “lease periods” has resonated in my head; after all we only have a “lease period” of 18 years with our kids before we set them off into the world. My oldest daughter turned 15 yesterday, that means over 83% of my lease with her has expired! It struck me when this morning on the way to school she started to talk about which colleges she is interested in attending, eeek! Hopefully, we have trained her well, equipped her with the right tools, and given her the confidence that they truly can live a life of significance. The same holds true for my 12 year old daughter and 8 year old son, we just have a little more lease period left with the two of them.

Each of my children are uniquely crafted, they have many similarities yet are completely opposite in so many other ways. How can the same parents create such different children? Pretty simple answer…WE all have been UNIQUELY crafted. Just as our fingerprints are unique to us, so are our personalities, our passions and our gifts. Like it or not, there is no one else like you so might as well embrace your uniqueness.

If you have been following along with my most recent blog postings, I have been discussing the Five Laws to Stratospheric Success, with the meaning of “success” equaling significance. There is a formula that we are building on that through last week looked like this, “V” x “S” x “I” . Today, we are adding an “A” to the formula with the “A” representing Authenticity. If you are embracing the concept of “Giving” as a way to reach Stratospheric Success then you understand this idea applies at work, at home, in friendships, in marriage, anywhere! In business we talk about improving your financial balance sheet, but this idea of giving improve’s your life’s balance sheet.

Plain and simple, the most valuable gift you can offer, and/or Give, to others is yourself! If you want to be successful, or significant, just be yourself. What is at your core? How do you like to give? Is it that you have time to give, or talents that can be used, or did you do well financially so you can give your treasures. As we already discussed, giving attracts people, people attract other people, and so on and so on….

How does this all tie back into birthday-palooza? I love my wife, I love my kids, I love all their unique abilities, I love that they are different physically/mentally/spiritually, I love that they have different passions, I love them. What I hope I teach them is that to be significant they need to GIVE, and the best thing they can Give is to Give of themselves! Embrace their unique design because they are “one of a kind”.

Next up is the Fifth Law of Stratospheric Success….give and you shall receive! Have a great day!

Coincidence or giving?

Posted on by
Reply

Every day is a great day in my life, I truly believe that! Reflect back on my April 26, 2012 blog post, it was all about the First Law of Stratospheric Success. Basically, it is a simple example of giving. So, on Wednesday night a friend who I had not seen for 3-4 months stopped by our house. Laced into our conversation about life & kids she was excited to share with me a cool thing that had happened to her that day. Here is where I stop believing in coincidence and call it just plain “too cool”. While in line at Caribou for her morning coffee she had a pleasant surprise as she pulled out her money to pay, the individual in front of her had already paid for her coffee. Hmmm? Winner, winner, chicken dinner! My question to my friend was, “Did you keep it going? Did you pay for the next person’s order?” More on her response in a later post.

OK, the giving formula is growing “V” x “S” x “I”. What does the “I” stand for? It stands for “Influence”. The Third Law of Stratospheric Success states that your “Influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people’s interest first”. Each of us has someone in our life that magnetizes other people; they always have a crowd around them, they also energize others, they always are highly-spoken of by others, and they have an aura about them that is hard to describe. Go ahead, think of that person that you know. What is it? Answer? Pretty simple, they are givers and givers attract (magnetize) other people.

These individuals don’t look at life through the lens of creating “win-win” situations & relationships. They focus on one thing, the other person’s win. Because focusing on a “win-win” relationship is really a disguised way of keeping score. Making sure we all are equal, “Even Steven”, “I do this so you will ‘owe’ me own”. It doesn’t work in relationships because it creates a creditor environment. The only winning proposition is when you focus 100% on the other indiviudual, you focus on their win.

Your mission should you choose to accept it (ok, directly out the show Mission Impossible), think about three people you know that are true people magnets. Invite one person to lunch, or coffee, and ask them one question, “How do you serve others by giving of your three T’s (time, treasure, or talent)?” Then just listen. You may hear how they have been blessed, and again being blessed is not always about monetary success. I think what you will hear is the common denominator of they give, give, give.

Next up “V” x “S” x “I” x “A”…..