Welcome to e-NOTE

San Diego Copy giving back to the community!

For several years San Diego Copy has partnered with Calicinto Ranch. This non-profit organization aims to break the cycle of at-risk children of incarcerated parents. Calicinto Ranch has helped create life changing experiences for youth in Southern California by allowing them to participate in week long camping experiences. These camps give the children a momentary break from the stresses of everyday city life, while offering “character first” instruction and guidance. The camp organizes a myriad of activities to keep the children engaged, smiling and inspired.

For over 8 years, Jeff McKinley has served on the Calicinto Ranch Board of Directors. He has also been instrumental in developing and overseeing the Barcelo Classic Golf Tournament, with proceeds benefiting the ranch. We encourage everyone to give to this worthy charity and help invest in changing the lives of at-risk youth now, before they possibly make the same mistakes their parents made. For more information about the ranch, please visit our website at www.sandiegocopy.com and click the charity box.

If you are interested in giving to the Calicinto Ranch, there are three ways to donate:

The 5th annual Barcelo Classic Golf Tournament is taking place on May 7th at The Country Club at Soboba Springs. Sponsorships are still available for this great event which includes a round of golf, an auction and drawing, and a full breakfast, lunch, and dinner package.
Please contact Jeff at info@sandiegocopy.com for more information on what is sure to be a memorable day!

On May 22nd, Jeff McKinley will be participating in the San Diego Century, a 100 mile bike tour of Northern San Diego County a long with a couple of friends. San Diego Copy is currently looking for mileage sponsors for the riders, with all proceeds benefiting Calicinto Ranch. For more information, or to make a mileage donation for this event, please call 858.581.3534 or contact us at info@sandiegocopy.com

The third and final way to support Calicinto Ranch is through purchasing Amazon.com products using the link within our website. As an Amazon Associate partner, we are able to donate a percentage of each purchase made through our link, to Calicinto Ranch. Next time you are thinking about buying anything through Amazon.com, please visit our website and purchase through our link. It’s a win, win situation! Simply go to www.sandiegocopy.com and click on our Amazon Associates box, click the Amazon link and browse as you normally would.

Talent Is Overrated

reviewed by Jeff McKinley

What makes a world-class performer? We read and hear that those who we consider world-class; Tiger Woods, Jack Welch, Mozart, Warren Buffett, and in the sport of cycling Lance Armstrong and Mark Cavendish have some sort of extra talent. What is it? Where does it come from? Do we all have the ability to become World-Class Performers or do we just lack the talent?

Geoff Colvin has put together some incredible research about people who we all look up to in many different areas of life not because of talent or hard work, but because they never stop challenging themselves to achieve world class greatness. He tells their stories in a way that we could see ourselves having the same success if we had done many of the same things until he starts to talk about their inward drive, their use of coaching or consultants, and their incredible habits of practicing the right things. He tells of Shizuka Arakawa who won the gold medal in the 2006 Winter Olympics and what it takes to have a flawless performance at the highest level of competition. “A study of figure skaters found that sub-elite skaters spent lots of time working on jumps they can already do, while skaters at the highest levels spent more time on the jumps they couldn’t do, the kind that ultimately win Olympic medals and that involve lots of falling down before they’re mastered.” He goes on to say that her success came by landing on her butt twenty thousand times on hard cold ice knowing that it would be years before any rewards would come. Where does that kind of passion come from?

While reading this book I was struck by an article in “Cycle Sport America” magazine May 2010 issue about the passion Mark Cavendish has to win. He has won more professional races than anyone else the past two years. The article starts “Nobody particularly likes making mistakes. But Mark Cavendish hates it. Loathes it.”…  I’m obsessive about it. ‘I rarely make a mistake,’ he seethes. ‘It’s all about minimizing the risk of failure.” The article goes on to talk about the attention to detail that goes in to planning each day of training as well as racing. They asked Mark how long he thinks he can keep up these winning ways and he replied, “I really don’t know. I’m not lying if I say the pressure’s incredible. Not just to train, but the extracurricular stuff, little details I’m known for, the team, the videos, studying opponents, studying my team, studying races. It’s not pressure to win-it’s pressure to stop failing, and all the things you have to do to stop failure. I train and it’s tiring. But mentally it’s exhausting.” I look at what I do in both work here at San Diego Copy and my own training on a bike and as much as I would like to say I put in the same effort as Mark. I can see I have a large area to improve.

For me this book has shown that wherever I am I can always be improving. I need to put the right people around me, set the right goals, and most important, no matter how painful, do the right things. The principles of this book apply to every area of life, family, work, and sport. This is a book that at some point I will have both of my children read because it will give them the background of where success comes from.

Young Readers

The Lightning Thief      

reviewed by Victoria McKinley