Working Lunch with Jack Bergstrom

“I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things.” ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I love flying airplanes. One of my uncles took me flying in his private plane when I was 6 or 7 years old and I can still see the way the ground looked from up high, and this more than 40 years later. The entire experience was wonderful.

When I was 18, I considered joining the Air Force to get my wings, but I worn glasses, then as now, and I was told that I could not fly jets with glasses. This made me sad. My father had flown for the Army Air Corp in World War II and I had hoped to follow in his footsteps - it was not meant to be. I would need to wait awhile longer for my “magic carpet”. Read the rest of this entry »

“I love deadlines. I especially like the whooshing sound they make as they go flying by.” ~Douglas Adams, 03/11/1952 - 05/11/2001 - English humorist & science fiction novelist

I found out today that one of my favorite authors was dead - not just dead, but dead for more than 7 years already. Wow. The quote above is from Douglas Adams - dead at 49 from a heart attack while working out at a private gym in Santa Barbara. I think he would have appreciated the irony in that statement. If you aren’t familiar with his work and you like British humor, go buy some of his stuff. You will be in for a treat - I still smile when I think of the dolphins from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe series - “So long, and thanks for all the fish!”

I’m not sure why his death affected me so deeply tonight. I was thinking of the upcoming deadline for my first book, September 17th, 2008 to remind myself again, and I went searching for nice quotes about deadlines. I found this one from DNA, as he was known to many of his friends and attached to it was a date of death. Wowsers!

My entire idea for this blog entry changed and I started to think about deadlines in a different way. None of us knows the date of our personal life “deadline” but as my mother is known to say: “No one gets out alive, make the most of today.” I think that is good advice and maybe I’ll take it to heart.

Till next time…Jack

“A deadline is negative inspiration. Still, it’s better than no inspiration at all.” ~Rita Mae Brown

“Nutrimentum spiritus (food for the soul).” ~Inscription at The Berlin Royal Library

When was the last time that you went to a library?  If it has been awhile treat yourself and go browsing.  I went to the library tonight and I had a wonderful time.  I have loved libraries since I was a little boy - they have always seemed magical to me.  I can remember every library I have ever been inside and I have been inside a great many over the years.  One of the first places I go when I visit a new city is the public library.  I get a feel for the city just from looking at the layout of the library and the books in the recently returned  bins.

When I was in 3rd or perhaps 4th grade, I believed, for a short time, that I could read every book that had ever been written.  My local library at that time was fairly small and I had just discovered that I had the gift of very rapid reading.  I could easily read a book in those days, a book years above my age grading, in an evening.  I read history, math, science; really anything except girl directed romances were of interest to me.  (Romance novels still frighten me today.  I believe merely being in the presence of these “Bodice Rippers” can cause a dangerous loss in my life force!) So, I made an estimation of how many shelves were in the library.  Then I estimated how many books were on each shelf - multiplied to get the total number of books and divided by the number of days I estimated that I would live.  This was going to be easy!  I only had to read 4 books a week and I would have in my brain the sum of all human knowledge!  I was so excited!  I remembered that excitement tonight, that excitement of the much younger Jack, as I walked thru the stacks of books at the main Des Moines public library - and I smiled.

I never will read every book that is written.  Turns out that many new books are published each and every year - more new books every year than I could read in a lifetime.  It also turns out that my early library did not have all of the books that existed at that time.  So, with regret, I had to give up the goal of reading every book ever written - the math just did not work out.

Still, I read and that has made all of the difference for me and it can for you as well.  Read 3 books on just one subject and you will know more that virtually anyone that you are likely to meet about that topic.  Read a dozen books on a subject and you are a multi-state master.  Read 30 or more and there will be just a few people in the world that know more about a subject than you.  Now I do not believe that knowledge is power - but combine knowledge with focused action - now things get really exciting.  And I want you to experience that excitement!

Till next time…Jack

“Libraries:  The medicine chest of the soul.” ~Inscription over the door at The Library at Thebes, Greece

“Things do not change; we change.” ~Henry David Thoreau

Questions. I love a good question. Good questions take my brain in new directions and put me into different and useful perspectives. Let me ask you a few questions today:

• How is your company doing this year? Is it doing all that you want or need?
• When was the last time that you evaluated how you and your company perform critical tasks?
• When was the last time that you brought in an outside (not already part of your company culture) trainer or consultant?
• Did you know that there is a very strong correlation between you and your company’s commitment to ongoing training (especially outside training) and the ultimate success of your company?

I asked you these questions today to “prime you” for a testimonial. I had the pleasure of sharing the stage earlier this year with an outstanding trainer and consultant: Tim Murray of “A Simple Twist”. Tim immediately grabbed the attention of the audience, entertained the heck out of them, gave them some memorable new ideas and left them energized. He can breathe new life into material that you already need your employees to learn and he comes already equipped with a great breadth of timely and critical trainings that it would serve you and your employees very well indeed to see. If your budget permits, do yourself and your future a favor, and have a conversation with Tim about what he can do for you. Read the rest of this entry »

“In Europe we thought of wine as something as healthy and normal as food and also a great giver of happiness and well being and delight. Drinking wine was not a snobbism nor a sign of sophistication nor a cult; it was as natural as eating and to me as necessary.” ~Ernest Hemingway - A Moveable Feast

What are you doing next Saturday (June 28th, 2008) ? If you live or happen to be traveling anywhere in the Colorado Front Range or Wyoming, I would like to make a suggestion. How about going to the Boulder Food & Wine Festival? If I was in town you can bet I would be there. My good friends at BookCliff Vineyards have helped to organize this event and I am sure it will be a hoot! ( And you wouldn’t want to miss a chance for a good hootage would you? )

The link to the website for The Boulder Food & Wine Festival is here.

Till next time,

Jack

“In vino veritas” (In wine is truth). ~Proverb quoted by Plato and also attributed to Pliny the Elder

“All we have of freedom, all we use or know - This our fathers bought for us long and long ago.” ~Rudyard Kipling, The Old Issue, 1899

The next batch of articles will all be about my time in Des Moines, Iowa. As many of you know, my original intention for the summer of 2008 was to travel the world with my family. The health of my mother and sister, both living in Des Moines, made it prudent for me to go to Iowa for awhile. ( Since I have lived virtually my entire life so far avoiding or neglecting all things ‘prudent’, I decided, for variety, to go to Iowa. ) My younger daughter and wife were left with the task of world travel. You can read about their adventures on my wife’s blog. My adventures will be chronicled here.

My father is buried in Iowa. When I lived out of state, I made a point of visiting his grave-site whenever I was in town and tidying up the area. Since he is buried next to his parents and one of his sisters and her husband, I would also tidy up their areas. I happened to be in town for Memorial Day this time and made a point of visiting on that day. The pictures that follow are of the American flags on display, the watchtower that my father is buried near and the Masonic part of the cemetery. My Swedish grandfather and my father were both involved with the Masons, a requirement to be buried in this part of the cemetery. ( For fans of the Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, I don’t think either of them knew the location of the Holy Grail, but they died before I could ask them. )

I never served in the United States Military. My father did. He fought in World War II in what was then called the Army Air Force and survived horrible times fighting for a cause that he believed in. He would never talk about the war, unless really pressed, and none of his three children really know a great deal about his time there. He did instill in me a great respect for the many men that served and died in the military and I have that respect still. To the armed forces of the United States, living and dead, thank you!

I miss my father still. He died in 1985, after a short, but valiantly fought, battle with cancer. He was a vibrant, intelligent and charismatic man. I hope he would be proud of some of the things I have done - I like to think he would.

Till next time,

From the flood and mosquito capital of the world - Des Moines,

Jack

“A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.” ~Joseph Campbell

“The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.” ~Michelangelo

What do I want specifically?  And why should you  care?  Well, you should care because I am going to show you a process of achieving more in less time and feeling great along the way.  That should, and I mean should, interest you.  So, what do I want specifically?

I want a book published by September 17th.  I want it available in a least 2 formats: 1) A downloadable Ebook and 2) A printed version.  I want all of the ground work done, the work behind the scenes, so that this book is a great seller for me.  This is my Outcome - the O in my OPA project.  I am as specific as I can be here so that I can focus my energy and my attention.  In the next entry we will look at Purpose - the P in my OPA project and this is where things will start to really move!

Till next time…Jack

“One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries.” ~A. A. Milne

“Never measure the height of a mountain, until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was.” -Dag Hammarskjold

I will have a book published and for sale by the end of the business day Wednesday September 17th. Great! I have made that commitment. Now, how do I make sure that happens? (Especially since I still have not yet selected the topic of this book.)

First I will put these three pieces together. 1) I will figure out what I want. (My Outcome - as specific as I can determine this early on in the process.) 2) Why do I want it. (My Purpose - what it will mean to me to have it done.) 3) What do I need to do, and by when, to make this happen? (My Actions - what specifically do I need to do.) In my language, I will put together an OPA Project - Outcome, Purpose, Action.

The concept of an OPA Project is not mine. It comes from my time with the great coach and speaker Anthony Robbins. Thanks Tony. I encourage you to watch how I lay out this project over the next 3 months. I think you will find it interesting and useful.

Till next time…Jack

“Challenge is the space between what is and what can be.” ~ Joshua L. Hilley

“How am I going to live today in order to create the tomorrow I’m committed to?” ~Anthony Robbins

Yesterday, I made a public commitment that I would have my first book for sale, in at least 2 formats, by 5pm Central Time on Wednesday September 17th, 2008.  Why did I make that commitment here on this blog?  I did it to get leverage on myself.

For me, and for most people that I know, it is easy to break promises that are made just to ourselves.  When the promise is made to someone else however, someone that I like and respect, I feel terrible if I don’t fulfill that promise.  Since I know this, if I am having an issue getting something done, then it is time to make a public commitment.  This is exactly what I did on this blog yesterday and I can feel the power of this working already.

This is negative motivation and it is very powerful.  I do most of my work, with myself and with others, from a place of positive motivation.  There are times however, and this is one of them for me, when I also need the away from “push” of a strong negative motivator.  I don’t want to feel the bad feelings that would be there for me should I not achieve my public goal; so I know I will take the actions that I have been putting off.

This power of the commitment to someone else, someone that you like and respect, is one of the reasons that coaching can be so effective.  A good coach will be asking you to make well-planned and achievable commitments each and every time you work with them.  What is well-planned and achievable?  That is another conversation.

Till next time…Jack

“Nothing interferes with my concentration.  You could put on an orgy in my office and I wouldn’t look up.  Well, maybe once.” ~Isaac Asimov

“I may not be there yet, but I’m closer than I was yesterday.” ~Author Unknown

I have been trying to write a book, actually a number of books, for nearly 3 years now.  Some are nearly done, others are ready to present to publishers - title, 3 chapters or so, concept and market research; still none of them are done!  Time to change that.

The reasons for completing the first book are compelling.  The excuses for why the first book is not yet published are seeming trivial now.  So here is my commitment: By 5pm, Central Time Zone, Wednesday September 17th, my first book will be for sale - in at least 2 versions - in at least a physical paper version and a downloadable version.  That is my commitment to myself, my readers, my family and friends and my clients.

What will the book be about?  I haven’t decided which one to bring out first. I will make that decision soon and you can read about it here.

Till next time…Jack

“People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are.  I don’t believe in circumstances.  The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them.” ~G.B. Shaw, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, 1893