First, there is Jay…

Over on my CoolCaroftheDay.com blog, I recently wrote about a friend of mine that is an Ambassador of 4wheeling.  He actually has a name tag from the United Four Wheel Drive Association that gives him the title of Ambassador.  And he truly is an Ambassador for the sport, hobby and recreational opportunities it brings.  In Jay’s case, ice cream is the conduit.  He hands it out on the trail… and you’ll need to skill over to the second link above to read the story of the mountain bikers in Utah… ice cream in the desert heat.

DSCN3218 (Photo credit: lane.bailey)

Jay is an avid 4wheeler and has been on trails all over the US in his yellow Land Rover Defender 90.  He has given countless hours to volunteering in multiple roles to further 4wheeling and demonstrate that there are responsible and respectful enthusiasts using public lands for motorized recreation.  He makes it personal… handing out ice cream and talking with people one-on-one.

… and then there is Dan.

My friend Dan Sullivan is also an Ambassador.  In his case, he is an Ambassador for the sport of Ice Hockey.  His conduit is a Hockey Camp called Come And Get It (CAGI).  He’s been doing the camp in the Atlanta area for 4 years.  In addition to teaching kids how to play better hockey, he also teaches leadership, perseverance, responsibility and respect.  I’ve written about him on LaneBailey.com.

The kids at camp love him.  And they respect him.  He works them hard, but at the same time he gives so much more than he takes.  He wants kids on the ice that want to play.  The ability to buy their way into camp is WAY less important than their desire to play.  In fact, their level of skill is also less important than their desire to play.  There are a lot of stories that demonstrate exactly who Dan is.  The first is the story of Razor.  You really should click the link and read about him.

So what about you?

Chances are, you ARE an Ambassador.  The question that remains is WHAT are you an Ambassador for?  Jay in an Ambassador for his hobby.  Dan is an Ambassador for his business and his sport (he is a full-time professional Coach now that he is retired as an active professional player).

Are you an Ambassador fro your business… your brand?

There are a lot of people in the social media realm that want others to be Evangelists for their brand.  But until you are a great Ambassador, you will have a hard time finding Evangelists.

Check it out.  They haven’t set it up to be embeddable, so I just have to link to it.  But it is worth hopping over there to take a look at it.  They grabbed a bunch of the Social Media sites that pop straight into your mind… like FaceBook, Google+, Twitter and Pinterest… and compared them in users, revenue and employees with some that you may NOT have thought of… like Club Penguin and Tagged.

Image via CrunchBase

The results might surprise you.  It might not alter your social media strategy (you do have a strategy, right?), but might give you some food for thought.

Social Media Ranking on Mashable.

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I have never really been a “ball sports” fan.  I’ve always been more into “octane sports”.  But, when I was a youngster, I had a few books that were filled with short biographies of famous professional athletes.  Oddly, I really enjoyed reading about them, even though I didn’t watch them that much.

Deuce Lutui displays his musical talents along with Pfc. Ernest Tisdale, foreground, during a Pros vs. GI Joes event at the Cardinals training facility in Tempe, Ariz. on Sept. 22. Pros vs. GI Joes is a non-profit organization that arranges video events between professional athletes and deployed service members. The competition in this event were members of the Ariz. Army national Guard's 1404th Transportation Company presently deployed in Iraq. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

One of my favorites was a Running Back for the Rams.  I think his name was Sammy White.  He was a smaller guy in a field dominated by really big guys… but he was quite successful.  He attributed a lot of that to coached he’d had as a young player… and one thing in particular.

He had a coach that told him to “always keep your legs moving.”  In other words, keep running all of the time.  When you get hit, pick up your legs for a moment and then put them back down and run some more.

As a ball carrier, he used that advice a LOT.  I do recall watching games where he was hit and would “float” along with the defensive player, not trying to over-power him, but rather just keeping his composure.  Soon enough, he would get his legs ack under him and he would break the tackle and take off again.

The parallel rule that was also coached was to spin when hit.  This made it hard for attackers to keep a grip.

What can we take away from this professionally?

To begin with, when we encounter an attacker (a professional set-back), we can try to power through, but maybe instead we need to just keep our legs moving… keep running… spin.  Whether it is the market, our competition or even ourselves, we have the power to think it through and find a better way to attack.  We can change up our marketing or introduce a new tactic.  Maybe we can redouble our social media, or hit some neighborhoods and walk out a few door-hangers.  Some people might even do a little cold-calling.

It’s all about shaking things up and making something happen.  It’s all up to us…

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Česky: Závodící anglický chrt English: Greyhound racing Français : Lévrier durant une course. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Another thing I learned in racing school was called “Eyes on the Prize”.  The short lesson was that as drivers were supposed to do everything in our power to train our focus on the spot on the track we wanted the car to go to.  It didn’t matter if we were working on putting down a hot lap, or trying to drive out of a mistake, or clearing an accident on the track… Keep the eyes on the prize, and the prize was the spot we wanted the car to go.

Steering into the skid is a technique.  Threshold braking is a technique.  There are a lot of techniques, and racing schools are about learning the techniques more completely in order to drive at the limit.

As a side note, some say “comfortably drive at the limit”.  If you are comfortable, you aren’t at the limit. 

There are a lot of “Life Coaches” and others that teach this same lesson, applying it to other aspects of our lives.  Sometimes it means taping a goal on the mirror so that we see it every morning… Eyes on the Prize.

What is YOUR prize? 

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I’m not going to say that I’ve “learned” them… but I have heard them and I try to apply them.

4 Levels of Competence

Skip Barber Racing School Hosts 'The Young Leaders Society' (Photo credit: Skip Barber Racing School)

Here is a lesson straight from Racing School that applies to EVERYTHING. We all operate in one of 4 levels of competence in just about everything we do.  See where you are…

Unconscious Incompetent – “You don’t know what you don’t know.”  Most of us have progressed past this level in most of our pursuits.  At this level, we don’t know that we aren’t doing it right.  We can’t move past this until we figure out that we are wrong…

Conscious Incompetent – “Trying to figure it out.”  Here, we know that we aren’t doing it right, but we don’t know the right way yet.  This is the stage where we are open to learning and/or getting a coach.

Conscious Competent – “Head down, eye on the ball, follow through.”  I know a lot of golf folks that are here.  This is where we know the right way, and we can do it, but it requires thought and practice.  It is good… but not automatic.  Most good athletes are here… good, but not great.

Unconscious Competent – “Muscle Memory takes over.”  Reflex.  Automatic.  This is the aspiration.  Fluid reaction with the right response.  Steering into the skid, almost before noticing the skid.  Threshold braking into a turn.  There are so many ways to describe this… but the bottom line is that it is the level of performance that we all aspire to reach.  The great athletes and performers are at this level.

Photo of 500 metres short track heat at the 2004 World Cup in Saguenay. Apolo Ohno (USA) leads Thibaut Fauconnet (FRA), Mark McNee (AUS) and Sergei Prankevitch (RUS) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’m not a big sports guy… I like octane sports, but the traditional stick and ball games have never been that interesting to me.  But, as a kid I played baseball, basketball and ice hockey.  I also was a short track speed (roller) skater, sprinter and high jumper.  It is fair to say that I wasn’t really good… in fact, about the only one I was really any good at was speed skating.  I was pretty fast for 500M.  I did the rest… and learned a lot.  In fact, in short races (500M is a very short race on speed skates), I was WAY faster than my coach.  But I learned how to be faster from him all of the time.

Sports are a GREAT training ground for kids.  But it isn’t so much the “character building” that we all hear about from our parents as we struggle to get better at a given sport.  The reason it is such a great training ground is that it is an opportunity to learn how to be coached.

Back in the days when professional athletes didn’t make boatloads of money very quickly in their careers (or looking at sports where the money isn’t cubic, like many Olympic sports), it was quite common to see great athletes have great careers in business after leaving the sports arena.

I think that the reason for this is that they became great athletes because they learned how to be coached.  They also learned how to learn and practice when they didn’t know what to do.

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BCS Playoff Bracket (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Social Media Breakfast Atlanta is going to host a Blog Brawl this summer.  What?  You don’t know what a Blog Brawl is?  We can help you with that…

We will put together a bunch of blog battles.  There will be brackets like the NCAA Basketball Finals.  We’ll take 16 blogs and pair them up.  The blog that gets the most votes from each pair will advance to the next round… and it will happen again.  Only one blog will emerge victorious.

The brawl will be open to Atlanta area business blogs.  Starting date and details will be released in the next few weeks.  There will likely be some surprise twists and turns.

The goal will be to bring more attention to each of the bloggers participating in the brawl.

Next up, we will be looking for some groovy cool sponsors to put together a prize package for the winning blogs.  But every blog will be a winner… more exposure and new readers will be the prize.

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