A few days ago, I received an email forward from a friend with a link to a YouTube video. I must confess that I skip most general-interest-email-forwards that I receive due to lack of time. However, the title of this one – The Real Story of an inspirational love between a father and son - made me want to read it and I saved it for later.

When I eventually got to click on the link and watch the video, I was simply blown away by the commitment displayed by Team Hoyt – father Dick Hoyt and son Rick – over the years.
Since the first race they entered, Team Hoyt has been competing in marathons, triathlons and other races. In 1992, they biked and ran across the United States in 45 days, a distance of 3,735 miles. Till date they have participated in 984 events, including 229 triathlons, 20 duathlons and 66 marathons! For a father whose son was born with cerebral palsy these achievements do not happen if he doesn’t set goals for himself! That these goals were driven by Rick by using his simulated voice from brain impulses to communicate and reconfirm his dad’s conviction shows team work and prioritization! That Rick is 47 and Dick is pushing 69 years of age makes their achievement unbelievably sublime! This is the stuff that great champions are made of!
 
Here, we should not forget the people behind the scenes who made Team Hoyt a success story. From Doctor Fitzgerald who encouraged the parents of Rick to experience “risks” by taking Rick to go sledding, rolling him down a small grassy slope or taking him swimming when he was a baby, Rick’s mother Judy who spent hours teaching him the alphabet, engineers at Tuft’s University who developed a cursor for a computer that was attached to Rick’s head, people who helped Judy and Dick raise the money to build this computer, Rick’s gym teacher Doctor Steve Sartori, at Westfield Middle School, who motivated Dick and Rick to participate in their first 5-mile run in 1977, to the millions of fans who encourage them with their support, Team Hoyt is indeed a team story!

Formula One racing, they say, is a sport where the champion driver who wins the grand prix is only a small cog in the wheel (pun intended!) and that the team, as a whole, makes the race win possible. From the strategists who plan the whole year’s performance parameters, the tacticians who arrive at a game plan for the specific race, the statisticians who run the computer simulations for the fuel-load, choice of tyres, pit-stop timing, the mechanics who build and maintain the engines and refuel the car to the tyre manufacturer, Formula One represents the best in a team game and the ultimate in time management.
 
Efficiency is the rate at which one does work, while effectiveness adds the dimension of a “time period” within which the work is to be completed successfully. To be effective one has to plan, allocate resources, set goals, delegate, analyze progress, monitor, organize, schedule and most importantly prioritize. This is, simply put, time management.

We at Vox have set targets for ourselves for this year and beyond. We promise to achieve these targets by effectively practicing time management. For all those at Vox World who help us drive our companies forward, I would like to convey my sincere appreciation. Thank you for being there!