After over two years and 106 Tuesday Morning blog posts, we’ve successfully completed the Afterburner Success Course. Now what? We start again!
Introduction
I’d like to think that you have been with me most every Tuesday morning for the past 26 months, reading these posts and taking all the actions, and you are well on your way to achieving your dreams and living your best life. If you have been, congratulations, you are in the 1% club!
Like a successful sports team, military campaign, or political victory, what’s next? That’s right, we do it again! If you have not been with me that long or simply want reinforcement of what you’ve learned, then we are going to start again. I’m updating each post and tweaking most of them a bit because, you know, I’m learning too, and I want to pass that experience along. Let’s get going!
The On Time Machine
In 1990, when I was working for American Airlines, we were enjoying a really good run of excellent performance. There was a great commercial touting American's on-time record. You may remember that time, as there were plenty of TV commercials touting that airline metric. Seeing these commercials made me proud to work at American. Click on the link in Note 1 to see one such commercial.
It was sometime around 1995, a long time ago, and somewhat after that 1990 commercial, when another event occurred that was both memorable and again made me proud to work for American. As I recall, we had been making concerted efforts to improve our on-time performance, having enjoyed a really good run highlighted by that 1990 TV commercial.
If you are an airline passenger, there are several factors to consider when booking a flight. For the leisure traveler, price is always the first thing. It may or may not be that important for a business passenger, as they may or may not be able to plan their travel in advance. After price, customers consider an airline’s schedule, in-flight amenities, lost baggage rate, and dependability. Dependability typically consists of a few metrics, including on-time departures and arrivals and flight completion (e.g., cancellations). And then there are frequent flyer rewards that tend to keep passengers loyal to a particular airline. Interestingly, few passengers actually consider safety, and I think that is a testament to the industry-government partnership and the highly trained employees who have made air travel so safe that it’s rarely a consideration on United States-registered airlines. There may be a few airlines in certain parts of the world that I would not want to fly with because I would be worried about their safety. You may feel that way, too.
So for some period of time (a year, quarter, I don’t remember), of all the various airlines that flew into Dallas-Ft. Worth (DFW), American’s largest hub, we were first in on-time performance. It was a big deal, because all the efforts were paying off, and that made for good advertising. In this case, they made a poster touting the performance during that period. They took a DC-10 aircraft and placed it in a hangar in DFW. They set up a bunch of stands and had a bunch of mechanics pose around the aircraft, performing various maintenance tasks. Then they turned out the hangar lights, and the spotlights set up behind the aircraft and in other strategic positions shone through the windows, illuminating the aircraft silhouette and the mechanics working on it. It was the coolest picture, and if you happened to work in aircraft maintenance as I did, it made you proud. The public rarely hears about the important work the maintenance folks do, so this was a really big deal. I was able to get a copy of that poster and framed it. It was in my office until I retired, some 20 years later.
At the bottom of the poster, there were these words (or to this effect, as I said, it was a long time ago):
When you are the best on-time airline in DFW, what do you do next? Get back to work!
And so we start again
And so it is with Afterburner Success Partners (ASP) and our course, book, and blog posts. We’ve successfully developed and offered the course, written the book, and, over a two-year period, completed all the blog posts so that you, dear reader, can have all the information you need to develop a plan to…You know what’s coming…Achieve your dreams and live your best life! Yes! Of course!
Interestingly but not surprisingly, like the principles we espouse at ASP, there is nothing new here. In the LEAN concept of Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA), we continually evaluate our performance, make adjustments as needed, and repeat for as long as we continue to achieve successful results. And as you know, following the Afterburner Success Partners plan will almost guarantee success!
The phrase “And so we start again” carries various emotional meanings, such as renewal, persistence, and hope. Renewal implies a blank slate, an opportunity to reset ourselves, and, if necessary, pivot from what we are doing to what we need to be doing. While we are not wiping the slate clean, it is a new beginning, should you or someone you love or care about need it.
What comes next?
Every blog post I’ve ever written is on my website in the date order they were written. Almost every Tuesday morning since July 2024, I’ve posted the course in bite-sized pieces. Later, I added a Monday morning post where I write about topics that I think will help you in your quest to live your best life. I then began posting recipes from my cookbook on Thursdays.
Going forward, the Monday and Thursday posts will continue as they have. What I will be doing with the course posts that come out on Tuesday is this: Beginning with the first post that came out on July 31, 2024, I will remove one post each week. I will repost the previous course posts, revised and updated as needed, to restart the course. Readers will still have access to the complete course at any time, but new posts will be numbered and reposted as new. Those not yet updated will remain on the website. The content is still valid for your use.
What this means is that all 106 posts for the Afterburner Success Partners Course are available to you at any time. This is possible since last week was the final post in the complete course. It will remain this way even though we are undergoing a continuous refresh program.
Why?
Why am I doing this? As you may know from following social media, search engines reward new and current material by displaying it on the first pages, and older material, unless it is accessed a lot, is pushed further down in the search results. Often so far down as to be, for all intents and purposes, unretrievable. I also don’t want to have the same post in two different versions on my website, and therefore available on the web like this. I trust this makes sense to you.
Summary
Starting on Tuesday, September 15, 2026, the old Tuesday posts will come down one at a time and be replaced by refreshed posts. You can still find the older ones on the website, should you desire to view them. The bottom line is that the entire course is available to you to view at any time. Is that a deal or what?
And, oh, don’t forget that all my posts are available on Pinterest as well, and the same methodology will apply. All the posts are currently on Pinterest for you to view. Simply open Pinterest and type "Afterburner Success Partners" into the search bar.
That’s all for this week!
Let’s help our friends and loved ones, shall we?
If you find the information in this post useful or enjoyable, please forward it to those you care about.
Then, simply say, “Search the internet for Afterburner Success Partners
to learn how to achieve your dreams and live your best life!”
When we’ve reached the top, we start again!
Afterburner Success Partners
http://absuccesspartners.com/
What’s in it for me?
If you want to get ahead in life, if you want to achieve your dreams and live your best life, you must take meaningful, deliberate action that follows a proven path. Getting ahead is about learning what to do and then doing it over time.
Call to Action
Just. Do. Something. Make a decision on what you want or need to do, define the path, and get after it. Do it today.
Recommended Resources
See notes below for either of my books.
Up Next
Summary
Notes
Please note that as an Amazon Affiliate, I may earn a small commission on the sale of any of these recommended resources.
1990 American Airlines The On Time Machine Commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV0K4JptWVA
Achieve Your Dreams: A Complete Guide to Live Your Best Life, by David Giustozzi: https://amzn.to/3IxEFgy
Everyday Cooking for Everyday People Like Us, by David Giustozzi: https://amzn.to/437OhVQ