No matter how many dirty looks you throw at your colleagues who come into work sick, they just seem to keep on doing it, don’t they? So how do you get the team engaged and throwing high fives during cold and flu season this winter?

Easy… the “Foot Five.”

Three ”Foot Five” Innovations

We’ve spent the better part of the morning concocting three ways to show your co-workers that you appreciate them without spreading germs that lead to illness. Here they are in order of difficulty to perform:

The Mule Kick:  Inspired by the P90x Tae-Kwon-Do workout DVD, the Mule Kick is probably the easiest way for two colleagues to throw a foot five with one another. Simply give an individual a knowing glance as you walk by them, turn around, and kick your foot out backward.

TIP: For best results, each person must use the foot closest to the other party during the walk by.

The Kid’n Play Kick Step:  That’s right, I used to rock 2 Hype on cassette back in the day… There’s no shame in that.  House Party 1, 2, 3 and 4 were amazing movies, by the way. Now you can relive the magic of the 80s at work, with the Kid’n Play Kick Step Foot Five.

Tip: Check out this video, at minute 1:20, for a complete demonstration.

The Crane:  Sweep the leg, Johnny, with this awesome foot five innovation. The Crane is probably the most difficult “Foot Five” to coordinate and maintain for the purposes of taking a photo, but it is definitely one of the most fun “Foot Five” innovations that our team came up with … Bonus points if you look each other in the eye with willful determination just prior to performing this kick.

Share With Us

Now that you know how to conquer cold and flu season at work, once and for all, take a picture of yourself performing a “Foot Five” and share the link with us in the comments below.

Special shout out thanks to LT and Shane for being awesome…

I hope the last post was helpful.  If you all have any questions or if something doesn’t make sense, please drop a comment on the blog and I will try to answer it to the best of my ability.  So this week’s tip is…….

Tip #2 – Set a Weight Loss Goal

This week’s tip is kind of self explanatory, but surprisingly some people forget to do this before they begin their weight loss journey.  Before any of us set a foot on the Ranch, the first thing we had to do was set a weight loss goal for ourselves.  If you are familiar with the show, a goal of 50 pounds just isn’t going to cut it, so I set for myself a goal of at least 150 pounds weight loss.  When those words first came out of my mouth, “Hi my name is Antoine Dove, and I want to lose a total of 150 pounds,” I laughed on the inside.  I said to myself, “what in the heck am I thinking?”  A total weight loss of 150 pounds is going to be extremely tough and seems impossible.  However, setting a goal as high as 150 pounds pushed me even harder because I didn’t want to let myself down by not reaching my goal by the finale. Whenever I enter the gym that goal is always in the front of my mind and it gives me something to work toward.

So far I am only 23 pounds away from my goal, which is very exciting, but most importantly it’s rewarding to know I accomplished something that seemed impossible at first sight!  It lets me know that nothing is impossible and I can do anything I put my mind to. 

What is your goal for your weight loss journey?  If you don’t have one, then let’s set one today.

When setting a goal, it’s important to remember:

• The goal must be something that seems unattainable. That way you will push yourself to get to it.
• Be sure to set a timeline on how long it’s going to take you to reach that goal. Don’t set a timeline of three years for 50 pounds weight loss. Make it challenging!! Maybe set a goal such as lose 50 pounds in one year or even try losing 50 pounds in 6-8 months.
• If you don’t have a target weight loss number, then try inches in waist, hips, chest etc.  For example, maybe you want to drop 10 inches in your waist as opposed to losing 80 pounds in a year.  This is OK also!!
• Most importantly, once the goal is set do not change it. 

Remember this is your journey and YOU set the parameters. Don’t cheat yourself out of your full potential by sand bagging on your weight loss goal.  You are STRONG. You are RELENTLESS. You will SUCCEED!!  Thank you all for reading this post and hit me up if you have any questions.

Antoine Dove

Biggest Loser Season 8

“Believe in yourself. Trust the Process. Change forever.”

Image via Wikipedia

Halloween signifies the end of the scary season, and the start of a healthy one. Movember, formally known as November, is a month dedicated to men’s health. More specifically, Movember is a moustache growing charity event held during November each year that raises funds and awareness for cancers that affect men.

The Movember bunch has teamed up with the Prostrate Cancer Foundation and the Lance Armstrong Foundation and all proceeds are divided evenly at the end of the month.

What I really like about Movember is that it’s non-exclusionary. That’s right, “Mo Mamas” can participate in Movember as well. I also just really like the vibe around the whole event. It’s a serious cause, but that doesn’t mean people can’t have fun with it.

I’m personally growing a Mo this month, much to my wife’s chagrin, to help raise awareness for the cause. If you’re able, I think you should too.

I used to subscribe to the theory that I could pay off a week of getting four hours of sleep per night by sleeping late on the weekends. Not anymore. This New York Times article: The Claim: A Person Can Pay Off Sleep Debt by Sleeping Late on Weekends shows that sleep debt isn’t that easy to pay off.

What Is Sleep Debt

Wikipedia calls sleep debt: the cumulative effect of not getting enough sleep. A large sleep debt may lead to mental and/or physical fatigue.

I first learned about the term while in college, where I would routinely get four hours of sleep or less each week night and try to find ways to supplement my sleep in between classes and on weekends. The habits I developed there have carried over into my professional life, and I’m now finding out just how unhealthy it is to not sleep.

How Much Sleep Do You Need

The consensus seems to be that sleep needs vary by age and by person. Although data can not link sleep deprivation directly to chronic illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes and obesity, there seems to be some kind of a connection. This New York Times article: At Every Age, Feeling the Effects of Too Little Sleep talks about the perils of not getting enough sleep and how the vicious cycle starts in most adults when they hit puberty.

What Can You Do?

The best answer seems to be to listen to your body, although I realize how hard that can be. The Internet is a strong influencer in my personal struggle with getting enough sleep. It seems that no matter how hard I try, I am unable to fit everything that needs to be done into my day. That makes it very hard for me to pull myself away from the computer late at night…  which leads to worry and consternation from my better half.

Setting bedtime goals, as funny as that sounds, and making a lights out commitment is the path that I’m currently headed down. The key I think will lie in consistency over time.

How Much Sleep Do You Get?

Is it hard for you to keep your eyes open at night? Do you find yourself dozing off throughout the day? What have you done to change your sleep habits? Please share with us in the comments below.

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Guess where the world series epicenter is?

The 2009 World Series won’t just be settled on the field … just like most other significant “real-life” events, half the fun is happening on twitter.

Anyone who’s been to a professional conference in the last year has probably been surprised to see a growing number of heads hunched over laptops and iPhones – and talking about weird things called “hashtags.”

And it is a little strange at first … but the backchannel can be almost as interesting (ok, sometimes more interesting) than the main event.  For the first time, that should be the case in the world series as well.  If you’ve been spending any time on TPS lately (and judging from our Google Analytics account, you have!), you’ve probably noticed that the New York/Philly/Boston corridor tends to generate a lot of noise great content.  Naturally with the Phillies playing the Yankees in the World Series, that situation is only going to be exacerbated.

It’s been fascinating to watch the Yankees search over the last few days.  Yankees fans are normally full of bravado, but it only took one dominant performance from Cliff Lee in game one for them to adopt an air of uncertainty.  As they went on to win the next 3 games, guess what – the bravado was back!

The Phillies search is a microcosm of Phils fans themselves … You can follow the emotional expletives that are the equivalent of the home fans booing the home team, and the just-as-emotional support after a big win.  I definitely plan to have both searches updating live as I watch game six … and, no offense to the Yankees fans out there, but I can tell you that I am definitely hoping for a game seven!

So baseball-geography-watching is another use for TPS and its geo-search functions; I’ve been using it to connect with fans of the Arizona Fall League (kind of a “minor league all-stars league”).  It’s a rather esoteric fan-base limited to serious baseball geeks (I’m meeting one of the folks I “met” for a game when I visit Phoenix next week) – which makes it perfect for using TPS as the find-and-interact tool, since you can follow, re-tweet and reply right from the tool.

How are you using TPS?  Is it a part of your business yet?  We’d love to know – the comments are all yours!