The Great Dana J

Making Realistic Goals

May 14, 2012 By DanaJ Leave a Comment

I know I’ve mentioned it before, but I won the lottery and will be running my first ever Peachtree Road Race this year. I’ve also talked about goal making and how I’m working on making smarter goals. I’m a huge fan of Michael Hyatt’s blog. His personal mission statement is “I help people live and lead on purpose” two things I definitely need help with. Things in our lives don’t happen by accident and rarely do things happen by chance. Success comes to those who prepare. I know that, I’ve seen it in action. So, I personally want to make sure what I’m doing will intentionally set me up to achieve my goals. With that being said, on to my Peachtree Road Race goals.

I told myself that I wanted to run the Peachtree Road Race at a time not based on my last 3 races. Those races would be ING Miami Half Marathon, Sweetwater 420 5k and The Dirty Girl Mud Run. Here is my last half marathon time:

Somewhere in that race, before mile 6 or so I stopped to use the bathroom with a long line. So that messed with my time I had on my Garmin and I stopped it. So the time I had was less than 2:29. Well anyway, there are a few things that I need to do before the Peachtree. A realistic goal time to finish the race based on my times for ING, Sweetwater, and the Dirty Girl is 50-55 minutes. That’s if I work very hard and push myself to train. My original goal was 45 minutes, but realistically looking at the numbers I don’t think that will happen. I crossed the 10k mark at around 50 minutes for the ING, and you can’t really factor in adrenaline so maybe it’s possible…but I will have to check my times throughout the next few weeks training. I never thought I’d become that blogger who obsessed over this, however, after a few races I noticed the competitive fire within was blazing aflame even more. (sounds kind of cheesy doesn’t it?)

Well, off to make this goal a reality. Happy Monday, and have a wonderful week

Filed Under: Fitness, Life & More Tagged With: goals, peachtree road race, running, smart goals, training

My Chick-fil-A Leadercast Experience

May 5, 2012 By DanaJ Leave a Comment

I’ve known about Chick fil A Leadercast for the last 2-3 years and I’ve always wanted to go. The best thing that I could do was follow all of the inspirational tweets using their hashtag while doing my daily job at work. It just wasn’t the same though. I wanted to go so badly this year. Funny enough over the last 2 weeks I’ve heard Dan Cathy speak at the Fayette Young Professionals event at the Fayette Chamber in Fayetteville (lots of Fayette used in that sentence, forgive me ). He brought his inspirational leadership toolkit. I was so excited because I’ve been inspired by his blog for years. Then last Friday, I heard Dwain Cox, Chick fil A Innovator at Creative Mornings Atlanta. Both were inspiring and motivated me for sure. Their discussions focused on “leadership”. That’s one area that we all can benefit by growing in and I know it’s an area of my life that needs developing. By the way, not only did I get to here those great speeches, but while on a date in Hapeville looking for TCBY, I had to tell my guy about The Original Dwarf House. He’s not from Georgia and didn’t know they existed. We happened to stop this Thursday and Dan Cathy was in there filming. By the way, the TCBY is closed in Hapeville, I was so sad because I really wanted some but at least we found that Chick fil A instead

I went to bed Thursday night not really thinking any of this was a coincident and wishing that I could attend Leadercast. I almost bought a ticket to one of the satellite locations but since I lost my job mid April (another blog post entirely), I decided not to. I woke up Friday morning with an invitation to attend Leadercast from a Twitter follower who has since become my friend over time named Kentara. We went to West Georgia, but our relationship has grown because of social media. Working in social media, I always get questioned on the value of using these tools. This, amongst many other amazingly wonderful things that has happened in my life simply due to using social media should serve as examples. Kentara won her Leadercast tickets. The person who was coming with her cancelled. So at 6:59 am on Friday I had to push myself to get ready and arrive at the Georgia World Congress Center before 8:30 am. I didn’t think I could because I stayed up way too late Thursday having a “woe is me moment” and feeling a little down. I’m so glad that I motivated myself to get going! Leadercast was worth me getting up and so much more!

I really loved the colors and setup done by Giant Impact. It didn’t even feel like the Georgia Dome anymore with the cool touches they added.

I enjoyed every single speaker. They all offered something unique and special for me to take away about leadership and service. Here are a few powerful quotes that motivated me:

“Uncertainty drives us crazy and makes us leaders.” – Andy Stanley

“Growth is not automatic, it’s intentional.” – John C. Maxwell

“We are all the sum of our choices, effective leaders empower others and themselves with choices.” – Dr. Sheena Iyengar

“Kids will live down or up to whatever expectations we have for them.” – Dr. Roland Fryer

I was also incredibly motivated by the Burberry CEO, Angela Ahrendts. She discussed how she put what’s best for the Burberry brand first and allowed young people in her company to embrace and flourish in creative and leadership roles. Using their advice, Burberry launched the very successful Art of the Trench and established their digital presence. (The site also has some great original music) I admired her ability to admit that she doesn’t speak “digital” but she had the wisdom to seek out opinions of younger employees for their opinion and she respected their advice. That’s hard for many CEOs to admit.

I also enjoyed learning more about Tim Tebow outside of Twitter trends, media commentary and online opinions of others. He is doing so much for the community and for others. His outreach is admirable and he spoke eloquently about service and compassion.

The volunteers were so nice and helpful. My least favorite thing about the conference was the tight seating arrangements. I felt like we were squeezed in like sardines! However, Tripp Crosby the emcee announced that the Leadercast event has outgrown the Georgia World Congress Center and next year will be held at the Gwinnett Arena. That’s great, I could definitely tell it was a bit cramped in there. I’m so thankful that I had the opportunity to attend. Amazing how things fall into place Have a great Saturday!

Filed Under: Leadership Tagged With: chick fil a, chik-fil-a, georgia world congress center, leadercast, leadership

Z is for Zoom Zoom Zoom

May 1, 2012 By DanaJ 2 Comments

Here me out on this one. I have been thinking about Z for the longest time with this challenge. Mainly because I knew I would write about Zenon.

{from Wikipedia}

When I was younger, I loved watching reruns of this movie on the Disney Channel. Besides Jett Jackson, the movie was my favorite thing on the channel for sometime. The movie had 2 sequels but they just weren’t the same as the first. They didn’t even compare! Reminisce with me:

Zoom zoom zoom! Did you watch the Disney Channel growing up? What was your favorite thing to see?

Filed Under: Life & More Tagged With: atozchallenge, zenon girl of the 21st century

X is for 10

May 1, 2012 By DanaJ Leave a Comment

X is a hard letter. I could have taken the easy route and centered my post around the Xzibit song “X”. I don’t really like that song though and I also don’t know what I’d write about it anyway. So I decided to write about 10 which is X in Roman numerals. Much better topic! So here are 10 reasons why I’m glad that I did this challenge:

1. It gave me topics to write about everyday. Some days were a challenge, but others were just really fun.

2. I learned a lot about myself. With a goal set, I can actually post here every (week) day.

3. Honestly, I couldn’t make all of the weekend posts happen. But I’m cool with that.

4. This challenge helped me really narrow down what I want my blog to be about. I’m happy about that

5. I have had an increase in traffic. Hello new readers!

6. I got some great feedback about my posts.

7. It was fun! I had fun deciding what to write about and I feel excited to be almost done. Feels good to complete a goal!

8. I connected with some great new people.

9. I enjoyed reading everyone else’s posts.

10. I’d do it again next year!

Filed Under: Life & More Tagged With: 10, atozchallenge

W is for Wendy’s

April 30, 2012 By DanaJ Leave a Comment

Late last year I started following the Girl Behind Six campaign that Wendys created. When thinking of W, that’s the first thing that came to my mind: Wendy’s. The funny thing is, the Girl Behind Six campaign was created to promote Wendy’s newest burger called The “W”. The “W” would become Meal #6 on the Wendy’s menu. There comes the name, Girl Behind Six. How perfect!

Here’s a photo of the burger:

{from Wendy’s website which is pretty and full of fresh food photos}

It was suspenseful because for weeks no one knew who the Girl Behind Six was. They also heavily promoted the campaign with Sponsored tweets, and a promoted trend campaign.

It’s... Wendy’s! Who guessed it?!?!

November 15, 2011 1:51 am via webReply RetweetFavorite

@GirlBehindSix

Girl Behind Six

The big reveal by Wendys

The campaign was a “140 game show” with giveaways and all. I thought this was a great idea. It kept my attention for weeks following and wondering who in the world is Girl Behind Six. I think Wendy’s did a great job generating buzz. I know this campaign ended in November 2011. The only thing is, I had no clue what the campaign was about until I went to research the blog. I thought it was just to promote Wendy’s, build buzz and create excitement about their brand. I didn’t know it was to promote a burger. The burger is a pretty important part of the campaign, true, but the brand recognition matters as well. I think Wendy’s did a great job on that front. The campaign impact:

- Recently, Wendy’s was announced the #2 burger restaurant after McDonald’s beating Burger King for the first time since Wendy’s opened in 1969.

- The campaign generated 33,000 followers within a month of conception

- The campaign generated 500,000+ consumer behaviors

Here’s a cool video about the campaign that I found on Vimeo if you are interested in learning more.

Filed Under: Marketing & Social Media Tagged With: atozchallenge, girl behind six, Social media

Dirty Girl Run Recap

April 30, 2012 By DanaJ Leave a Comment

This weekend I participated in the first Dirty Girl Mud Run in Atlanta! The weather was perfect. Here are my most and least favorite parts of the race:

The Best parts:

1. Watching teams encourage each other. I saw one woman stuck at the top of the “get a grip” station. Her team cheered for her to keep going and climb down. That was inspiring. They waited on her at the bottom and cheered until she climbed down.

2. Get as muddy as you want to: As you can see from my race photos, I did NOT get very muddy at all. I’m glad that the challenges allowed us the option to get as muddy as we wanted to or not. All of the “dirty” photos that you see from the race are from people who head dived into the mud or jumped in. I did not! The mud didn’t wash out of my shirt though. But that’s okay.

3. Race parking: Race parking was plentiful and free

4. The “Rinse off”: the rinse off area was for women only and it was great to rinse the mud off and cheer on the racers who were just passing by.

5. Shoe donation: I like that they let you throw shoes into a pile for donation. I took my muddy shoes home though.

6. Team outfits: I thought that the matching outfits were fun and some of them were incredibly creative.

7. The fun names of each mud station: I couldn’t help but chuckle when I saw “Utopian Tubes”. The names were fun and female friendly. Including PMS (Pretty Muddy Stuff)

8. The music: The music at the start and finish line was great. It kept me motivated. I enjoyed hearing it on the course too.

The Worst Parts:

- Volunteers: I think next year they could use a few more volunteers. The check in line was long and I heard the wait for bag check was over an hour. I also wanted more signs around the front entry. Getting volunteers is hard though I’m sure.

- Announcements: I couldn’t hear the announcements over the music and excitement. Thankfully, I didn’t get hurt and neither did anyone else around me

-The backup: One station had lines so long I ended up running around it after waiting. No one could figure out how to get through it and the line was pretty backed up. I was sad about skipping skip it.

- Nose bleeds and headaches: No fault to the run, but I got a little sick after finishing. I had a nosebleed and then the rest of the day I had a terrible headache. I blame allergies. I was better the next morning!

Overall, I’d do the mud run again. Next year I will have to get a group together and make some cool festive outfits. This year I just wore a men’s white shirt. Not that cool, but it was very comfy. I finished in 32 minutes! I was excited Would you ever do a mud run/obstacle course? Here are some action and before and after shots: