Paula's PR skills need work

Here are some brief thoughts on a few other topics that caught my attention this past week:

Be excellent. Vern Gambetta is one of my favorite coaches because of the wholistic approach he takes to training athletes, regardless of their chosen sport. He recently identified a dozen qualities on athletic excellence that have stood out to him over the years. It’s a fantastic overview and I recommend checking it out, even if you don’t consider yourself much of an athlete. Ask yourself: How many of these 12 qualities do you possess? Which ones do you need to work on? Regardless of what level of athlete you are, or even if you’re not an athlete at all, answering these two questions is a good exercise to undertake as you begin your own pursuit of excellence in 2016.

Kobe crafting his own exit strategy. One of the biggest pieces of sports news over the weekend was Kobe Bryant announcing that he was retiring from basketball. The most interesting thing about the announcement was that Bryant didn’t make it at an emotional press conference, but instead via a simple Tweet that linked to a "Dear Basketball" poem/letter he wrote for Derek Jeter’s Players Tribune website (which is excellent, by the way). Not only was this a unique way for one of the most recognizable athletes in the world to announce he was hanging up his basketball sneaks, but it also serves as yet another wakeup call to traditional media outlets who would salivate over getting the “scoop” on such news. Brands—and professional athletes/other recognizable figures are as much of a brand as any tangible product—are in control of crafting their own narrative more than ever before, whether it’s through social media and/or unique websites like Jeter’s or Medium that provide a platform for first-person storytelling. Does that make these types of sites better than traditional media outlets? Hardly, but they’re certainly going to continue changing the way in which important information gets disseminated. More on this in a future issue of The Morning Shakeout. 

Listen up, kids. I got my start in journalism at the Worcester Telegram & Gazette in 2004, which means I’ve been at this writing and editing thing for a little over 11 years now. This piece by Kevin Pang—“What I’ve learned in 11 years working at the Chicago Tribune”—resonated with me on a number of levels. It’s full of experienced advice and a must-read for anyone looking to get into journalism, not to mention a solid refresher for those of us who have been in the game a while. Heck, much of it is even applicable to non-journalists, including solid suggestions like this one: “Invest in yourself. If you can spend $50 a month at a gym, why not take a writing class? A history course? I never knew I loved boxing and painting until I took a class.”

Where’s your focus? This article from Saturday’s New York Times was another one that hit close to home. Much to my chagrin, I can be easily distracted and get sidetracked by something seemingly more interesting than whatever it was that just had my attention. This “addiction to distraction” is a problem I’m constantly working on, and there’s some comfort in knowing I’m not alone in trying to solve it. Like many of you reading this, I have a bad habit of constantly reaching for my iPhone. In some cases, it’s a necessary action, but in most of the time it’s practically a reflex. In an effort to change my behavior, I recently disabled the biggest time suck on my phone—Facebook—and was amazed at how often I still reached for my device, even though I didn’t have an app to check. Thankfully that behavior has started to curb itself a bit of late. My next step will be a full-fledged social media detox the final week of the year in an effort to overcome this addiction to distraction. Who wants to join me?