The Drum Corps Way

Over the last little while I have been reading a book called the Ripple Effect by Dr. Greg Wells. I

became interested in Dr. Greg Wells work when he spoke at a workshop for the Hamilton Wentworth Catholic District School Board. His 1% theory really intrigued me. Even though I have not finished reading his book I started to put some of the things I am learning in the book into practice. The first thing I did was start is focusing on what he called bookends for my day. In the drum corps world, we could call these starts and stops or attacks and releases of phrases. When I’m teaching Drumline we always focus on starts and stops of phrases, before we even start to worry about what’s happening in between. And this is now what I am doing for my life.

The first area I started working on was the evenings. In his book he talks about defending my last hour, and this is where I started. It took me about four days to get down a routine that works for me. There is a lot of trial and error in this process. But this is what I have come up with, the first thing because I have a smart home at 9:15 PM my lights start to dim and turn off at different times. At 9:00 PM I start to make a checklist of things I need to do for the next day. I always make a new list I never carry over the list from the day before. This helps me to feel that I have a brand-new start the next day. As soon as my list is completed, I then turn all my screens down to the lowest setting and I turn them on do not disturb. At this point I start to listen to a couple playlist that I have created to help me kind of wind down. The next thing I do is I organize my space put everything back to where it belongs, which helps me feel more organized and ready for the next day. After that is completed, I wash my face brush my teeth and I use a moisturizer, on my feet my hands in my face. Last thing I do before I go to bed as I do some stretching. I tried to do bedtime yoga but it was a little bit too much for me so I just do some easy stretches that I can do and then I am off to bed. At 10 PM I am lying in my bed and my fan clicks on automatically. I get my Google home to play sounds of the ocean and on my cell phone I start asleep story from my Calm app. And then it is off to sleep for me. A couple other things that I am doing throughout the day to help prepare myself for sleep is I do not drink any caffeine after 2 PM I drink water only after 6 PM and I have a healthy protein snack at 7:30 PM.

Since I have been doing this consistently, I fall asleep faster and I feel better in the morning when I wake up.

Now my focus for this week is to work on the attacks the start of my day. When I have a consistent start to my day, and I have now focused on the attack and the release of my day will come back and update you guys again.

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog this week. Always remember to believe in yourself and be you.

Always love Corey a.k.a. Biggie