I live in the Denver metro area. Our population, at least according to the statistics has grown about 6% in the last four years. I’m not buying it.

EVERYTHING AND EVERYPLACE is way more crowded than ever before and the location of the largest overcrowding is one place: the roads.

Now maybe it’s not true, maybe it’s just that it just seems more crowded…. And more crazy. But more crowded and more crazy is more dangerous. Yesterday when one of my fellow drivers performed an act that was probably illegal in about six ways, my wife lamented, “didn’t you ever learn to drive?”

In the last episode, I shared sleep benefits from Matthew Walker’s book Why We Sleep.

Today, let’s focus on three tips to a better sleep, subjectively chosen by me.

1.Regularity. Go to bed and wake up at the same time every night. For me, that has been an easy pattern, I’m an 8 hour guy, usually 9:30- 5:30. The regularity is what our systems need to insure all those benefits previously discussed. The awesome idea here is that while many people use a wake upalarm, few use the to-bed alarm. Hmmmmm

2.If you wake up in the middle of the night, which we all do, and you can’t get back to sleep,

After hearing him on several podcasts, I decided to read Matthew Walker’s book, “Why We Sleep.”

Now while I have listened to all of the podcasts, I have yet to finish the book, so while I haver the overall JIST of what he wants me to know, I am lacking some of the deepest details….. Maybe.

Nonetheless, having been exposed to Walker’s research as well as that of Dr Andrew Huberman at the Huberman lab, I am suitably petrified to not get proper sleep.

I have an iPad2. Perfectly happy with it.

My Macbook is a 2018. It’s awesome.

My watch is half of an apple watch 6.

Clearly, I don’t need updates. In fact, is it just me or do our gadgets seem to have to updated CONSTANTLY?

Hey tech makers, let’s update LESS and get it right MORE!

The last time an update really got me excited was when Keynote added the Anvil animation effect (and that was a while ago).

Sometimes we over build up the greats of our professions. We put them on a pedestal, and maybe they deserve it. I don’t know.

What I do know is that once you place someone up there, you’re actually tellingyourself they are better than you and maybe even limiting yourself in your own quest to be great.

In 1972, Frank Shorter won the Olympic Marathon. His training had been consistent. One of his training partners, Kenny Moore placed 4th.

They were on an easy run the day following his win and Shorter said this to his partner:

Experience is a great thing. Those with experience generally have a tremendous advantage over their peers in any endeavor.

There’s another side of experience that doesn’t get so much press and that is having so much experience that you take what you do for granted, sometimes even go through the motions.

Mike Smith, the cross country coach at Northern Arizona, who’s teams have won 4 of the last 5 NCAA cross country championships works hard to avoid this take it for granted thing.

“If you have that belief - pure belief in your heart - that you want to be successful then you can talk to your mind and your mind will control you to be successful.”

Mind over fear, right?

It is amazing how much of running, business and life are mental

"Somewhere in the world, someone is training when you are not. When you race him, he will win." - Tom Fleming -

I revisited a great quote today from Des Linden, 2018 Boston Marathon champion and the new world record holder for the 50K distance and I like it so much that I thought it would make a good RICHual

And while Des is certainly a great runner, this quote works for business and life in general.

“Some days it just flows and I feel like I'm born to do this, other days it feels like I'm trudging through hell. Every day I make the choice to show up and see what I've got, and to try and be better."

Earlier in the week, we talked about customer service NOT being a passive thing. It's active. Customer service is active, even PROactive, not passive. It’s an action, not a reaction. It has life and a purpose. “Well done is better than well said,” were the words of Benjamin Franklin. Yoda proclaimed, “Do or do not. There is no try.” Customer service is about DOING.

With that in mind, here are the Eight Irrefutable Laws of Customer Service.