Elite Performance - Do You Have What It Takes? by Joseph RiggioThis newsletter is the bulk of an article from Joseph Riggio's blogg last month that really resonated with us at S2 Performance.Posted by Joseph Riggio on Sunday, January 27, 2008
In examining what elite performance looks like in various contexts ... academia, athletics, business, politics ... one thing becomes immediately evident: elite performers work harder and longer than mediocre performers. It may be most interesting that these elite performers perceive this particular quality of working harder and longer not as work at all. For elite performers, what would be perceived by ordinary folks as extreme amounts of work ... i.e.: mental and/or physical exertion ... simply becomes what they do. Despite the tendency and proliferation of offers to minimize the work it takes to succeed, elite performers tend to work harder and longer than most mediocre performers would be able to attain or sustain. While it may be most obvious to recognize such high-level output in physical activities, like professional or olympic sporting events, the same kind of exertion exists among virtually all world-class, elite performers ... like top academics for instance. These folks tend to read more, write more and interact professionally more than all their colleagues who do not perform at the same world-class, elite levels. When we look at world-class, elite entrepreneurs/executives they simply work harder and longer than virtually all their contemporaries. World-class, elite business professionals do more, e.g.: close more deals, have more meetings, manage more people and they spend more time ... on average over sixty-five hours per week on actual work activities - not just time spent sitting at their desks. In my experience there are at least two aspects to this phenomena of world-class, elite performance:
The second aspect, Education/Training/Practice/Experience, are mulitple expressions of the same phenomena ... i.e.: conditioning the system to respond when it counts. For arguments sake we could call this aspect, learning. To be more specific we should call it something like "effective learning" ... i.e.: learning to perform when it counts to produce results that count. This may be especially true when everyone around you thinks your down for the count! However, I believe we have to consider another less obvious and most critical factor ... DRIVE! What I mean by "drive" includes the internal motivation an elite, world-class performer brings to the task. Elite performers decide that they will succeed ... despite the condition ... despite the evidence to the contrary ... despite what would prevent or stop others from succeeding ... these folks simply have the personal drive to succeed at all cost to themselves. In the old days my boxing coach would call this drive to succeed, HEART ... in fact it was the single most praiseful thing that he would say to or about anyone ... "You/They have HEART." It takes great HEART to succeed. This translates into the willingness and the ability to persist and do what it takes to succeed. I haven't ever met, heard about or read about a world-class, elite performer who doesn't have heart. Even the folks who appear to be lost souls ... drunks, drug addicts, social misfits ... you name it ... who are nonetheless world-class elite performers have heart where it counts in regard to their domain of performance. We can all think of them ... actors, actresses, musicians, athletes ... who have ruined their lives by their extreme inappropriate habits and/or behaviors ... who are nonetheless world-class, elite performers in their domain of expertise. Yes, when you look into their lives you find that they have innate capability—even genetic advantages for their particular skills, they have the best training/coaching available to them, and often they also have full-time handlers that can run interference for them when they misbehave. However, these folks also do what it takes to perform at the levels they do ... hundreds and thousands of hours of practice that no one ever sees ... a lifetime of interest and attention on their area of expertise ... precision focus on details unimaginable to folks less capable ... they have what it takes, and I'd argue it all begins with the drive they have to do it. So what am I on about? Simply, that most people don't and won't do what it takes to succeed at a world-class, elite level of performance. I'd guess that for some folks the idea that what it takes to succeed includes extraordinary effort ... working harder and longer than most people can ... signals an unpleasant scenario given what they'd like to believe. Yet what becomes incredibly obvious to anyone willing to look beyond the "I can make you rich ... thin ... successful ..." promises you'll find so many modern day gurus offering, are that the most successful world-class, elite performers are capable of extraordinary amounts of work and the kind output, learning, results and successes that come with it. I'd like to share in closing that the simple solution to all this hard work, the solution that almost all world-class, elite performers find for themselves, begins with focusing your efforts on something meaningful and significant enough to you to capture you completely. I love Joseph Campbell's language for this kind of focus ... FASCINATION. Simple ... find your FASCINATION and find yourself in the company of world-class, elite performers. Joseph Riggio, Performance Development Specialist The original article is published at: http://www.josephriggio.com/index.php/_share/comments/elite_performance_do_you_have_what_it_takes/ |
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