Hi everyone, this is Mike Lipkin. I am thrilled to share this message with you at this perfect time of the year. I hope you’re making summer count. This is a time to relax your body, recharge your spirit, reset your goals and reengage your life. It’s called regenesis. That means recreating yourself all over again so you can rise in the fall.
Did you know that summer is not just a time of year. It’s also defined as the period of finest development, perfection, or beauty in one’s life. So that’s what I want to help you achieve between now and September 23, which is the official end of summer according to the Calendar. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to live like a champion
Seriously, I’m going to paraphrase the legendary writer James Michener, when he said “The champion in the art of living makes little distinction between her work and her play, her labor and her leisure, her mind and her body, her information and her recreation. She hardly knows which is which. She simply pursues her vision of excellence at whatever she does, leaving others to decide whether she is working or playing. To her she’s always doing both.”
The secret of success is that there is no secret. It’s hard work. Trust me. I know. I’m a motivational speaker. I have to act happy even when I’m far from happy. My role is to inspire people in difficult situations. Excuses don’t count because they’re irrelevant.
Just like me, you are all motivational speakers. When you speak, you motivate others. You’re a force multiplier. You enable your customer and your colleagues to achieve results that they could not achieve on their own. Everyday, you are the one that they’ve been waiting for to help them win.
Some days are easier than others. but, as my mentor once told me, amateurs wait for inspiration. Professionals just get down to work. So let’s light ourselves up from the inside out.
Welcome to the checklist of champions.
Champions see themselves as Champions. They are the ones they’ve been waiting for. They believe they can and their belief becomes self-fulfilling. They have their own date with destiny and they do whatever it takes to meet it. Champions don’t give in, they dig in.
In my book, there are no ex-Champions. Once a Champion, always a Champion. The fields may change, but the Champions always rise to the top. They have a spark that burns forever. They go from citius, altius, fortius – faster, higher, stronger – to senior sapientior fortior – older, wiser, stronger.
Champions are people who win. Season after season, they prove they are best in class. Their results speak for themselves. They are demonstrably superior to their peers. They consistently outperform their competition.
Champions are inspired by their cause. They are animated by their purpose. Their enthusiasm energizes their actions. There is no such thing as an apathetic champion. Passion is their high octane fuel and they never run on empty.
Champions are born and they are made. They have the gift and they become worthy of their gift. They plan their practice and they practice their plan. They do the right things right and they don’t get the wrong things wrong. They dream but they don’t daydream. They chase the big stuff and they sweat the small stuff.
Champions talk the talk and they walk the walk. Their words inspire action. Every hour, every day, every week, every month, every year, champions do what needs to be done. No alibis allowed, no excuses permitted, no easy ways out. Champions become the standard by holding themselves to a higher standard.
It’s that simple but it’s not that easy.
Like trains have a track, Champions have a checklist. It focuses them while it sets them free. It’s a way of being and doing at the same time.
I study Champions for a living. I live with them. I work with them. I coach them. I brand myself as the Championator. My mission is to literally turn people into champions. I help people play at their best so they become the best. 80% of success in life is not just showing up. It’s learning to play at your best at what you can be the best at. Let me read that sentence again: 80% of success in life is learning to play at your best at what you can be the best at.
So I will play at my best at communication and coaching because I can be the best in the world at those disciplines. That’s the dream that I’m chasing in this book. But I can only catch my dream if you catch yours. So let’s go catch our dreams together with the checklist of champions.
In the December 10 2007 issue of the New Yorker magazine, Atul Gawande shares the modern origin of the checklist:
“On October 30, 1935, at Wright Air Field in Dayton, Ohio, the U.S. Army Air Corps held a flight competition for airplane manufacturers vying to build its next-generation long-range bomber. In early evaluations, the Boeing Corporation’s Model 299 had trounced the designs of Martin and Douglas. Boeing’s plane could carry five times as many bombs as the Army had requested; it could fly faster than previous bombers, and almost twice as far.
The Boeing Model 299 test plane taxied onto the runway. The plane lifted off smoothly, and climbed sharply to three hundred feet. Then it stalled, turned on one wing, and crashed in a fiery explosion. Two of the five crew members died, including the pilot.
An investigation revealed that nothing mechanical had gone wrong. The crash had been due to “pilot error,” the report said. Substantially more complex than previous aircraft, the new plane was deemed, “too much airplane for one man to fly.”
Still, the Army purchased a few aircraft from Boeing as test planes, and some insiders remained convinced that the aircraft was flyable. So a group of test pilots got together and considered what to do. They came up with an ingeniously simple approach: they created a pilot’s checklist, with step-by-step checks for takeoff, flight, landing, and taxiing.
With the checklist in hand, the pilots went on to fly the Model 299 a total of 1.8 million miles without one accident. The Army ultimately ordered almost thirteen thousand of the aircraft, which it dubbed the B-17. And the Army gained a decisive air advantage in the Second World War.”
In the age of VUCA, all our lives are substantially more complex than a Boeing B-17. VUCA stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity. Everything is changing all the time. Just when you think you have a handle on something, it morphs into something else. Without a tool to guide us through the chaos, it’s impossible to guard against OAF – Overwhelm, Anxiety and Fatigue. That tool is the Checklist of Champions.
The Champions make an impact because they do what matters. They work on themselves as much as they work on their job. They have a ritual not just a routine. A ritual is a mindful rhythm that is deeply conscious. It’s designed to connect one with one’s higher self and multiply one’s power. A routine, on the other hand, is automatic. It’s a regular schedule that is applied mostly by habit. A routine alone will help you survive but not thrive. Thriving is the province of ritual.
Before every game, The New Zealand rugby team (AKA The All Blacks) publicly perform the HAKA. The HAKA is an ancient Maori war dance that is acted out ferociously by the players. It’s a ritual that declares their intention to decimate their competition before every game. Translated from Maori, it says, “All Blacks, let me become one with the land
This is our land that rumbles. It’s my time! It’s my moment!
This defines us as the All Blacks. It’s my time! It’s my moment!
Our dominance, our supremacy will triumph. And will be properly revered, placed on high. Silver fern! All Blacks!
While other teams are forced to watch the All Blacks perform their HAKA, with all its gestures and antics, the All Blacks are psyching themselves up for victory. It’s no coincidence that they are the reigning world champions.
We all need our personal HAKA, also known as The Checklist of Champions. As a result of researching Champions for over 25 years around the world, I have discovered that they continuously, and consciously take seven actions that enable them to win:
- They identify themselves as a Champion
- They dream like a Champion
- They plan like a Champion
- They feel like a Champion
- They act like a Champion
- They learn like a Champion
- They inspire like a Champion
These are the actions in the checklist of champions that we’ll be exploring in forthcoming episodes. In the meantime, create your checklist of champion actions that enable you to thrive, not just survive. I’ll be back to coach you next month.
Until then, remember, “You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.” Champions know it’s always day one. It all begins all over again every day. As the Navy Seals say, “The only easy day was yesterday”. So let’s go celebrate the struggle.
Fantastic (as always) Mike. Thank you!