Michael & Liz are Bloggable

I realize I still need to blog about the Bengals game from this past weekend, and when I get time to mess with pictures, I will do that. But for now I only have time to jot some thoughts down as a blog post and that's better than nothin!

I mentioned not too long ago something from the book called "7 Habits of Highly Successful People" by Stephen Covey. I am now in the middle of reading it and the first section/chapter was very thought provoking. Actually so much so, that I feel like I'd have to pause for a few days to think about almost every page. He even says in the book, this isn't a book to just read straight through and then put down. It needs to be digested and practiced. I completely understand what he means, but since I got it from the library, reading it straight through and then putting it down is exactly what I'll be doing. Sorry Stevey!

The part that stuck with me was the concept of taking care of your production and production capability, or as he calls it the P/PC. His example is a story of a farmer who has a goose who lays a golden egg once every day. The farmer loves it and starts to get rich but gets too anxious and wants more eggs. So one day, instead of waiting another day for another egg, he cuts open the goose to get all of them. Of course this kills the goose and it's egg laying capacity. Stephen's point is that you need to take care of your PC (the goose) in order to expect any of the P (golden eggs).

It got me thinking how that can be applied to our lives. I want so badly to be a faster runner. Speed and better times of course are my production. But how can I expect to get faster if I don't spend time working on myself both physically and nutritionally. I can't neglect the production capability aspect and expect production. It goes back to my "Becoming a Machine" post at the first of the year, you can't expect to not take care of a car and still want it to drive 200K miles over it's lifetime.


I'm sure you may be reading this thinking "yeah sure, of course". But I've never heard it in those terms before, production vs. production capability. It applies to anything and everything. I want Gryffin to learn tricks? I have to spend time with him. You want some deliciously amazing chocolate chip pumpkin bread? You can't use crappy ingredients. You want that stove to cook the bread at the right temperature? You get the point...

I think we can all find something in our life that this simple formula applies to. If nothing else, it certainly made me eat healthier the last few days... I want some golden eggs!