What’s the last thing you want to do after 30 push-ups?  One more push-up. Yet, that’s exactly how the RCMP trains its officers, and that’s how they trained me when I was at the RCMP Youth Academy back in 2005.

The picture above is of me and the Corporal (I forget his last name).  In addition to the work he’s done for the RCMP, he helped train the British troops before they were sent to Iraq.  I remember when our bus pulled up to the academy, he came on the bus with his cane and yelled, “Everyone off!  Give me two straight lines!”

*silence*

“WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!”  At which point we understood and everyone clamoured for the door.  I found the situation amusing, so I started laughing.  And that’s how I received the honour of being the first cadet to receive push-up punishments from the Corporal.

It wasn’t the last time I’d be doing push-ups there.  Aside from the 5:30a.m. personal training push-ups, people did push-ups for all sorts of mistakes: dozing off in workshops, having your pillow at the wrong end of the bed during inspection, or even calling an officer “sir” instead of their rank (“sirs don’t work for their money” being the common retort).

At the end of each set of push-ups, which we counted out loud, we were instructed to yell, “And one more for the Queen!”, at which point we would do one more push-up.

I’m not espousing a return to the monarchy; rather, I’m espousing the spirit of doing one more when you feel like you can’t anymore.  Because you can, and it often pays off.

Since then, whenever I’ve had to slog through something, I’ve always tried to do one more at the very end.  It could be when I was knocking on doors drumming up sales for my College Pro franchise, doing practice questions for an exam, or when I feel like calling it after 29 straight days of coding.  And each time I do it, I find myself picking up one more lead, getting one more question right, or discovering one more bug.  It’s like magic.

The other day I spent the entire afternoon reaching out to people who might be good Time Auction rewards.  I wanted to stop, but I figured I should do one more.  And that’s how I was able to get the Editor in Chief of the Toronto Star to be a Time Auction reward.

So whatever it is you do, do one more.