IT’S THE BASE THAT’S IMPORTANT

Step 1: IT’S THE BASE THAT’S IMPORTANT

Somewhere here is a map of how it can be done – Ben Stein

READ IT:

I grew up in a small town in SouthDakota. When I say small, it’s a place that when I did something wrong at 10:00 pm – my folks knew about it before I got home at 10:15 pm! It was known as the “Hay Capital of the World”. To this day it still is. We even have a “Hay Day’s” to celebrate the distinguished title. In a town of 400 folks, we didn’t have a McDonalds or Burger King to get summer jobs or part time work after school. To make money in our town, you did what you did if you were a young man growing up in the “Hay Capital of the World” – you piled hay.

I don’t know if you are familiar with piling hay or stacking hay. We would pile, stack, or load hay on trucks, in barns, in fields, on trailers, in enclosed furniture semi-trucks…you name it
and we put hay on it, in it, under it, and on top of it! The hay we handled and loaded were small
bales, called square bales; even though they weren’t square and at 80-100 pounds per bale, at times they didn’t seem small! The name locals fondly labeled those wire bundles were “Idiot Blocks”. (Years later, my brothers and cousins wondered, if they were called idiot blocks, what
did the people in town call the folks that carried them around??)

No matter where we stacked the bales, the early lesson taught was that the most important thing to stacking bales was to make sure the base was right. My dad use to say “It’s the bottom tier (base or bales at the bottom) that’s important. If that’s off, when you get to the top you’ll have problems.” He was right. If we took the time and effort to make sure the bales were started
correctly, the whole process was easier and we had fewer problems as we worked. If we hurried, and we just set the bales down and didn’t make a good base – as the stack went up, it would be a struggle to make the bales fit in place, and at times, even have the stack stay up.

Performance is a lot like stacking hay! It’s the base that’s important. If you start off on the right foot, get some help and have an understanding of your program, what you’re doing, why you’re doing what you’re doing and how doing it will benefit you – you’ll have greater success as you “stack things up” and add more to the program. Just as it took time to build the base and then put tier after tier and tier to build the hay stack, with performance it’s about taking small steps, seeing small gains until you’ve constructed the components that make up a better you! You can’t rush the process and be in a hurry, or the whole thing my tumble. Just like a hay stack, the different parts of your performance are under construction and the bigger and more stable the base, the more stable the structure will be and the higher the peak you’ll achieve! It takes time, dedication and some work, as it did putting up those bales, but what we found was the more hay we stacked, the easier it became. We learned how to handle the bales, how to use our bodies to move around the stack and how to do things the best and quickest way possible. You can do the
same with your performance program – if you stick with it over the long haul.

DO IT

This week, start to learn to build a base on your area of Performance Improvement.

1. Pick an area you want to make a change in, get better at, or work on. Maybe it’s in the
physical realm and you want to start to workout or get back to working out. Maybe you need to change up your workout. In the social realm, maybe you’ve wanted to join a certain group or get more involved with an organization. You might be looking to develop from the emotional standpoint and want to find someone to share your ideas with.

2. Find an expert in the area you are looking to make a change or work toward improving. Look
for a mentor that has taken the steps before you and can show you how to build the bottom tier of your success stack.

Contact them and set up a meeting THIS WEEK. Maybe it’s a personal trainer, maybe it’s the
president of a club, maybe it’s a councilor who can give insight on your situation and will give true and correct feedback. Make an appointment and get with them NOW.

3. At the meeting, tell them exactly what you want to do, what you want to accomplish. Lay out
what you want – know and see your future vision. This may take some time, but you taking some
time now will mean a lot to the person that is taking their time to help you out – and it will help during your other 51 Steps! Plan for the meeting and put your dream on paper – they will help you build the first tier to your base of success. ALSO – MAKE A VIDEO OF YOURSELF (get a video camera or find a friend that has one!) SAYING YOUR GOALS!

Wishing you the best of success and taking one step closer to reaching your PEAK PERFORMANCE.

Rock n Rout -

Mark "Rozy" Roozen

PS - for the worksheet with Step 1 - don't forget to email and request it at rozyroozen@gmail.com