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DAY 67

Finally, a Friday is upon us...

Update: Friday, 29-Apr-2005 9:09 PM

Below are some excerpts from an article from the Investors Business Daily about setting goals. The subject interviewed is the swimming coach from Stanford University, Coach Richard Quick (a very appropriate name in this case)

------CREDIT to the PUBLISHER

The Publication Details: IBD; Date:2005 Apr 28; Section:Leaders & Success; Page Number: A3

Swimming In The Talent Pool: Laps Ahead: Coach Richard Quick teaches his athletes to own their goals

BY MICHAEL MINK FOR INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY (I have placed the above link to the paper, if you wish to subscribe or get a free trial. There's nothing in it for me, but there's a lot to learn from the paper!)

------END CREDIT: Below is the Article...

The way swimming coach Richard Quick sees it, it’s simple: Setting goals is one thing, but determining the right goals for yourself takes a little more careful thought.

Quick, who will retire at the end of this summer’s season as head coach of the women’s swim team at Stanford, has coached 12 National Collegiate Athletic Association swimming teams to titles, more than any other coach in history. To help his swimmers maximize their abilities, Quick helps each one establish goals that are attainable for that person.

“To me, a goal is what you are going to accomplish,” Quick said in a recent telephone interview. “It’s not what you hope you can accomplish, or wish you could do, or what you dream about.”

Quick says unrealistic goal setting won’t get you anywhere. (1)

“I want the goal to be something that you absolutely are going to do, and therefore it changes everything about you,” Quick, 62, said. “It changes the way you think. It changes the way you prepare and train. It changes the way you handle yourself in and outside of the pool.”
Quick says an unreachable goal, or one that skips too many steps in between, doesn’t trigger change in people because deep down they don’t believe they can do it.
Once one goal is reached, Quick encourages another in the same spirit. “My job as a coach is to sell somebody on the idea that they’re better than they think they are,” he said.(2)

All the while he makes sure the goal is what the person wants.

“The goal has to be your goal,” he said. “Yes, it does have to be attainable, but it can’t be what I think you can do. It’s not what your parents think you can do. It’s not what your teammates need you to do. It’s none of those things. It’s your goal.(3) If it’s my goal (or someone else’s), then they don’t have responsibility for it.”

In addition to his collegiate success, which spans 29 years, Quick was the head U.S. Olympic swimming coach in 1988. In 1996 and 2000, he led the women’s U.S. Olympic swim teams. Quick’s teams won a combined 59 Olympic medals. His record 12 national titles, all with his women’s teams, include five in a row at Stanford (1992-96) and at Texas (1984-88). Quick has coached 41 NCAA champions to a combined 63 national individual titles and 29 NCAA relay crowns.

Quick was the NCAA Coach of the Year five times, and his overall record in dual meets is 212-39 for a winning percentage of .845.

“Richard is probably the most passionate man about swimming that I have ever met,” said Tara Kirk, the 2003-04 Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year and a 2004 Olympian.

Be Consistent

While a few people in athletics and other walks of life have such overwhelming talent that they begin with a natural advantage over others, Quick believes the great equalizer is consistency.(4)

“It’s something we talk about all the time. It’s so simple, it’s basic,” Quick said. “Small steps taken consistently will eventually get to the end of the trip, or move you along in your journey. Work consistently toward those goals through the temporary setbacks and plateaus that you inevitably are going to have.”

Little things done well over and over are far more important than spectacular achievement done every once in a while, Quick adds. (5)

Quick always looks for ways to give lift [to] his athletes. He introduced Pilates training before it became standard for swim teams.

“Richard wants to leave no stone unturned,” Kirk said. “He’s always changing things around, always trying to be innovative, always trying to be on the cutting edge of swimming.”

For Quick, taking a personal interest in his athletes as people has always come naturally. It’s a practice he recommends for others who are in management positions.

“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care,” Quick said. “I think it’s important if you’re going to be a leader, to really care about your people as people first, and athletes or workers secondly. People will perform better for you.”

Quick’s attitude seems to resonate with his swimmers. Shelly Ripple, a 23-time Stanford swimming All-American, said in the school’s media guide, “He inspires me not only by his attitude and enthusiasm on a daily basis, but also by the sincere belief he showed in every one of his swimmers.”

The same things that keep Quick hungry as a coach helped him get to the top in the first place. (6)

“Every day that I go to the pool to train an athlete and I see dreams in their eyes, that’s what drives me,” he said. “I really want to be a partner with them so that they can live the dreams of their life, both athletically and every other way.”

Dana Kirk, a 2004 Olympian and nine-time All-American, applauds Quick’s respect for swimmers. “I don’t think I would have made the Olympic team if it had not been for Richard telling me every day to believe that I belonged on that team,” Kirk said in the media guide.

The Best Policy

When it comes to recruiting athletes, Quick strives to give potential recruits a clear idea of what they can expect at Stanford in terms of swimming and academics. “Integrity and honesty in recruiting is a real important thing,” he said.

He looks for athletes who are positive and enhance their teammates rather than drain energy from them due to selfishness. Self-centered athletes, Quick said, “can’t score enough points at meets to make up for what they’re taking away point wise from all the other team members. The main rule that I would have is you can’t consistently detract from the team effort, regardless of how good an athlete you are.”

Reaching the top of his field and tasting victory haven’t changed Quick’s perspective on what he regards as the big picture: (7)

“Swimming fast, winning championships, winning gold medals, I really don’t think any of that is important unless in the process of the journey to those high goals you learn principles and values that are going to help you have a better world for yourself and have a better world for (other people),” he said. (8)

----End of IBD Article.

Comments from Webmaster*SAM... At times along comes some words that are very eloquently said and those that I don't want to change -even a letter. Thus, I have duplicated the above article from the Investors Business Daily paper.

The reason I did so was to share with you what I have been calling the "essence of this project" and the article covered the essence of this entire project in so few words.

I will try to interview Coach Quick myself for the blog, as I will be in Southern California later this year. Anyway, let me get back to some of the items that I highlighted

1. Unrealistic Goals: According to Coach Quick these types of goal setting don't get 'you' anywhere.

Absolutely right. Had I said that I would start with $10,000 to do the project and reach STEP 31 or something more than what a person earns in a year -in the remotest parts of the world, then I would have put 80% of the readers 'out of business' and others never would have gotten started. Perhaps, I may not have gone to all this trouble either, as I would have focused on making sure the funds keep growing in the markets.

I may have even set out to do it too fast. There's nothing like greed to kill an investment return.

That would not have been a mistake, but these early STEPS have given me the opportunity to work my the inner core of my being and building on things that have been "on the fringes" of my existence, but never as my priority.

A good example of that was my "to do" lists. At various times I have had several lists and gotten them done, but never for a large project like this. However, in the end the way that I have dealt with it is to break down the tasks to many "mini-projects" and complete each one by one, and bit by bit. By doing that a lot has gotten done. At this time the "thorny" item that I haven't completed is the PRESS RELEASES that I had planned.

Other than that, it's smooth sailing as I keep building and blog' in along.

I don't regret any of the rules that I posted, either. I have stuck to them. There have been various times that I had gotten funds that I could have allocated to this project, but each time I have resisted.

Now I realize that by starting with the original penny I found at a parking lot by a Radio Shack on Super bowl Sunday in 2002, I made it a lot of fun and then kept challenging myself. Now, at this point, I haven't gotten too far, but that was because I didn't want to turn to the obvious ways that I could fulfill this endeavor. I wanted to make strict limitations that I would stick to. I have.

Hope you don't mind, but this discussion is going to take a day or two and I'll use that to my advantage, as this is a holiday weekend in the Netherlands and there is no rule that I cannot "get ahead" when I do this. REM: I set the code! Click to "NEXT" to continue...I'll write the Saturday blog now.

YESTERDAY 66 | TODAY 67 | NEXT DAY 68 -CONTINUED..