The blurred line between walk and talk

Any kind of mismatch is discord- the absence of harmony and the result is always negative. After the talk, there must be a walk and the two must match each other or output will suffer. Between the two however, the line can be very blurred for some. An alignment of the two makes full power performance possible. It is the presence of integrity which is the manifestation of a powerful structure.

You may be familiar with the phrase “talk is cheap”. Perhaps it should be followed by “walk is expensive”. Not everyone who talks the talk, walks the talk and there is a reason why. It appears though that everyone understands the importance of the talk. But a misapplication of the talk is to seek to create an image that cannot be backed by the walk that must follow. Read through a few resumes and you will see that everyone is highly efficient and willing to learn. They are all adoptive and have great interpersonal skills.  They are all great achievers and have done something wonderful for their last employers. They all have the wonderful intention of making a mark in the new job. They are all interested in helping the company achieve its goals. Of course this is what employers want to hear but does it happen when they get the job?

The case is not different when you read through corporate profiles and websites. The promises companies make hoping to entice the new client are interesting. Whether they keep these promises when given the opportunity is another story altogether. Somehow we all know what the right language is. These days you can even copy it from the big firms who have the cash to employ top experts to do their communication. It is not that hard to get the language right. The brief case businessman can sound as good as the multinational but that’s just the talk. When they get the chance to walk the talk, then there is a misalignment. The consequence for this is extremely damaging. But of course the reason behind this is the lack of understanding of the self and its capabilities. Those who hire us for a job whether we are staff or contractors want one thing-- high performance.  And since we know this we promise them that only to deliver average and less than average most of the times.

A person who wants to maximize their existence must deliver what they say and even exceed it. The reason is that to maximize our lives we need to maximize the opportunities it presents to us. To do this the integration between what we say we are and what we really are must be seamless. The line must begin to blur into nonexistence. Walk and talk are not love and hate. The talk must come from the walk. And when the two match, you deliver on promises and you have enough room for going the extra mile. Get that right and you won’t need a resume for your next job. The job will find you. When the internal you is aligned with the external you, an extremely potent force emerges- that’s what you need for full performance.

It is possible for everyone to walk the talk but the talk must start with a careful assessment of what we are truly capable of. We must build the talk around that and find exactly who it is that has a need for our true capability.

The following questions help check your levels.

Are there any gaps between your talk and your walk and how can it be addressed?

What do you think can be done to align the internal you and the external you into one powerful force?

Explain what you understand about the internal and external you?

How does it relate with the external you?

What will others who have experienced your performance say to others about you and how does that match what you say about you?

Do you really believe what you say about you?

Email the answers to  info@csdafrica.com to join our no-obligation,  one month free performance coaching program.

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Beat expectation in 15 minutes

Output is the result of your engagement in activity- performance. But Duty, usefulness and Standards are the means by which we can determine if we are performing well enough. Without them we are in a vacuum  It is a question of what we are giving out and how useful it is- especially to others. It is also the maximization of the opportunity of the larger spectrum of life itself through the maximization of the micro-opportunities that are made available to us everyday.It is not only what we expect of ourselves but also what others expect of us- and YES that counts a great deal. What others expect of us is a very complicated issue that is addressed in more detail in my work people dynamics in the SPiD-UP®  book series.

It starts with first understanding what is possible for us to be and taking the right steps in order to reach it. Peak performance is concerned with being of use- not to only  ourselves but to others as the means by which we can be happy. Indeed we can be our happiest when we are at our best but it is our duty to others that gives us the opportunity to be our best. Hence our happiness has everything to do with others. A man who goes through thick and thin and succeeds in providing the needs of his family sleeps well with satisfaction  He has fulfilled his obligations to others. It is the same when he is at work. When he leaves work at the end of the day knowing that he has done a great job, and his superiors, colleagues and customers are happy, he goes home with a good feeling. He might even attempt to meet that same standard the next day.

The feeling will be almost opposite if he knew he didn't meet the standards. People are involved in different task and outputs are not the same for everyone. However each task has a purpose and an objective: there is a reason why a specific person is chosen to do it. When one performs a task for themselves it still has a purpose and in most cases it will be a question of duty and responsibility. I get a good feeling when I am able to clean my house. Frankly it is not something I like doing but I do occasionally manage to create the right mindset to get it done because it needs to be done.

It is an obligation to myself and to others. But does it meet the standards? If I was paying someone to do my cleaning, how would I feel if they gave me the same standard I was giving myself. The answer to that and is not positive. In fact I had a lady friend walk in and ask me when I was going to clean up barely an hour after I had been cleaning. It takes an emotional intelligence guru not to take offence at such comments.  

It is important to find ways to measure what is coming out of the activity in terms of  quality and quantity but that is another story for another day. Our performance will be a waste of time if it was only about ourselves. Our scope of usefulness will be limited to ourselves and so will our influence. When others feel we are not meeting the accepted standards or not fulfilling our obligation, there is negative feedback. This negative feed back affects us whether we want to admit it or not but it is only an indicator of the effect of what we are or not doing. It affords us the opportunity to make the changes that are needed.  

Generally speaking however, positive feedback fuels performance  Being told you have done a good job generates the feeling you need to do more. To get that however, you have to ensure that you meet the standard making your output useful to others. Your objective as a peak performer however is to beat the standards and the exceed the expectation. Your own expectation and that of others. Something referred to as going the extra mile.

Expectations are driven by duty, responsibility  and usefulness and when output is alienated from these, we get the feedback we don‘t want. However, we can process the feedback we don't want into performing better so we can get the feedback we want and then use it to accelerate performance. For those who are in the right occupation this must happen without difficulty. It is the same with those who are with the right spouse. #spidup

Some questions you can use to check your levels. Email the answers to  csd.ghana@gmail.com to join our no-obligation,  one month free performance coaching program.

How can your performance today be better than that of yesterday?

How would you rate your performance at work and home with regards to duty and standards?

Are there shortfalls and how in your opinion can things be improved?

Describe the quality of your output in relation to the expectations of your colleagues and superiors?

How does the feedback you get from them affect your performance and how can things be improved?

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The inconsistency of inconsistence |REV-UP®

Consistency ensures that you are powering at full capacity. Every cycle adds to the power being generated by your activities. Whiles one cycle may not seem like much compared to the power you are looking for, it is the fundamental building block needed to reach your full capacity. When one cycle is missed therefore, you are one cycle short – that’s not your full power.

Take the engine of a car for the example. The pistons move up and down in the cylinders in order to generate the power the vehicle needs to move. The more cycles completed the more power generated. When one cycle is missed, the vehicles power is reduced. The more cycles missed the less power the vehicle will generate. Eventually the vehicle will stop and not reach the intended destination.

Your life is not that different. The cycles of your life are the crucial blocks that make up your entire life. Seconds becomes years through cycles. When a minute is one seconds short, it is not a minute. You may not consider some cycles very important yet they have a say in your final output. At work you are expected to come to work every day and spend an agreed number of hours doing something in particular.  Your work adds to the overall output of your team and organization. A single day or hour missed will affect the performance of the organization but not before it has taken away from your own performance- You are one cycle short.

Every single cycle no matter how small is important. They are the micro components of the macro life that you live and if you are to maximize your life, you must first maximize the small cycles that make it up. Imagine having a computer that decides for itself when it will work and when it won’t. My guess is you will get rid of it as soon as you can- for a more reliable one. That explains why you get fired when you don’t show up for work regularly. What about spouses and colleagues.  

My favorite fried yam seller is not there half of the time. I don’t particularly like walking all the way down there just to find out she didn't show today. That has happened one too many times so I gave up on her.  Yet she complains about not making enough money in her business. She doesn't seem to consider it important to be consistent in her work.  One customer short can hardly be described as being her best and the number of days she didn't fry any yams has everything to do with the poverty she complains about. A close friend of mine is contemplating dumping his girlfriend. As he put it…”Well she is never there when I need her”.

I don’t think I have said anything new here. Everyone knows what it means to be consistent and how it can be beneficial for one’s performance. But why then are many people so inconsistent even when they really want to be consistent. INTEREST and MOTIVATION and their effects on choice!  When interest and motivation are weak you find one of the waiting millions of reasons not to be there. To get the most out of yourself, you have to be there all the time. Not some of the time. You have to be at full power all the time not some of the time. One cycle short is not full power. |REV-UP®  

Some questions you can use to check your levels. Email the answers to  csd.ghana@gmail.com to join our no-obligation,  one month free performance coaching program.

When the last time you missed work was and what reason did you give?

Did your reason match the truth?

What is the real reason why you do what you do where you do it?

Do you find it hard to be consistent at anything at all in your life?

Give an example

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For Performance, Try True Love

If your life was a house, love will be the mortar that holds the bricks together. With that, it cannot be very hard to see that without love your life will fall apart. It is the very essence of your being and also the most efficient fuel for your performance. To get the best out of yourself therefore, you must inject love into all aspects of your life. The more love you inject the better results you will get from work, relationships and the entire spectrum of your life. Ultimately, love has everything to do with your performance.

If you have been reading my other works, you are probably already familiar with the ultra-performance model of powering your life with your occupation- the one thing that takes most of the short time you have on planet earth. Love comes in very handy in terms of powering your occupation and that’s the focus of this article. 

Anybody who is good at anything has a very significant amount of love for what they do. It is the only reason they will spend more time doing that thing than anybody else. It is just like falling in love with another person and wanting to be around them all the time. If you truly love this person they will not have to beg you to be around them. The feeling you have even when you think about them can make you smile for no apparent reason. Now that feeling is a powerful force that when managed and applied the right way can catapult your performance to the peak.

Because true love is a mutual thing, your vocation will give you something back in return for all the time and attention give it. But for this to be possible you need to understand that you do not only choose the person you want to be with. This person must choose you too or there will be imbalance. When one person is pretending in the relationship, it is a matter of time before it shows and it can only lead to discord. Love is harmony between two people (or perhaps at this point I should use the word entities) but only when it is mutual.

The more you love it the more it will love you back and give you its rewards. When the feeling is right, you will spend so much time with this vocation that you will learn its secrets. The depth of your knowledge will certainly set you apart from the rest of the crowd. Soon everyone thinks you are the best at it. Just like a human, the more time you spend with somebody there more you know about them. So when others want to know something about this person, they must ask you. This is what makes you important.

Love is a positive force that produces positive results. If you have been to a home where there is a lot of love, you will feel it as soon as you walk in. It has the power of transforming negativity into positive.  To be the best that you can be, you must ensure that the relationship between you and your profession is love and that it chose you as much as you chose it- making your relationship a mutually beneficial and harmonious one. You must ensure that you and your profession understand each other in detail and you know how to treat her better than anybody else. The extent of the love you put into the relationship will determine how much you will get out of it. But be careful, when love trips over, it becomes obsession. Believe me; you do not want that.

Some questions you should ask yourself. Email the answers to  csd.ghana@gmail.com to join our no-obligation,  one month free performance coaching program.

How did you choose your current occupation?

What is the nature of your relationship with your current occupation?

What percentage best describes how much you love your occupation?

What do others think about your performance in your occupation?

What is the nature of the gap between you and the best people in your industry?

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The Love-Logic of performance

Regardless of what we are involved in, it is the quality of your relationship with it that determines the quality of the outcome. When a person has a bad relationship with their spouse, it reflects in how they treat them. A bad treatment from a spouse might affect the entire family. In the same manner, a bad relationship with an item you possess is reflected in the state of the item itself. The principle applies to an occupation as well. Give your work the best you can give it and it will return the love. However this might seem an impossible thing to do if you don’t love it enough.

When a man does not treat his car very well, it is only a matter of time before the car registers its displeasure. It is a simple question of not servicing your car as regularly as is required to keep it in shape. When this becomes something you forget and or cannot be bothered with because you have more important things to do, the quality of your relationship can be called into question and the state of the car will reveal the real state of affairs. Cars do not understand excuses. Not giving your car the best you can give it then forces the car to not give you the best it can give you. This is all based on your input and when your car begins to fail you, all other aspects of your life begins to suffer.

The role of relationship in performance is great indeed. There is a relationship between you and the occupation you are involved in just as there is with your spouse. The nature of this relationship is reflected in how you think about the occupation. How you think about anything determines your behavior towards that thing. This is true even for your spouse. It will in the long run determine if they love you back or not. To get the best out of an occupation it must see that you truly love it and not just pretending because of what you can get out of it. It then chooses you. YES chooses you! To get involved in an occupation, you must register your interest and when it sees that the interest is genuine and that you indeed have what it needs, it accepts your application. The unity is then created and the performance is high because you have the double impact of you and the occupation working in harmony. After that you must maintain and service this relationship by continuous improvement- finding better ways in which you can show your more love. You must contribute to the industry and not just take from it. You must profess it and show others its beauty. You must genuinely love it with all your heart. 

It then continuous to give you better rewards in return. Remember the more you put in, the more you will get out of it and when the love is true, this will require very little effort. A person who is the best at something has a deep relationship with that thing and understands it in a way that nobody else does. They can tell you things about it that you would never have found out for yourself. They spend more time with that thing than anybody else does. But it must be a mutual relationship.  If you have seen the relationship between a master craftsman and his tools, you already know what I am trying to say.

I woke up one day and realized that a shirt has been lying on the floor for a few days. I asked myself what will happen if it stayed there much longer. How does the shirt feel about the whole situation? How would I feel if I was lying on the floor for a few days and being stepped on occasionally? What will it take for me to pick up the shirt and put it in a place where it will be happier? Can an unhappy shirt make me happy? Does this explain why I am always badly dressed? Will I eventually lose my shirt because I didn’t treat it well? Should I do something before the shirt leaves the realm of usability? Truth; I was not loving the shirt enough…. I began to think about how this shirt came from the best shirt I had and to the one the spends days on the floor

I remember the woman I used to love telling me that I did not move heaven and earth for her. I think she meant that I was not sacrificing enough for her and that obviously brought my so called love for her under scrutiny. A few months down the line, she had left me. I used write computer software until a few years ago. In those days I spent a lot of time learning other people’s methods and even occasionally copying codes which I modified to create my own applications getting some applause here and there. I made some money whiles I was at it but not like Bill Gates. The quality of my relationship with programming was nowhere near what bill had. There are programmers out there writing codes for the fun of it; posting them on the internet for people like me to copy. They wrote tutorials and post them for others to learn and be better. The industry loves these guys because they are contributors. They are the chosen ones. Not surprising they know all the secrets. Me I just took from it and gave very little back. I learnt only what others taught me and never really discovered much on my own.  But don’t just take from it, contribute to it. If you find in your occupation that you are unable to do so… something is wrong.

In my software writing days some thought I was a genius; I did not feel that way about myself. In time I did not want to do it anymore. It was not true love and like all false things, they don’t last forever. The countless seemingly impressive hours I had spent with her was all for taking and my personal gratification. So I can look like a genius. So I can make money. So I can get all the applause and I did get some but only for a while. When I finally broke down, it was other people’s fault. It will take three years before I will find my true love. When it happened, I just knew everything was right. In a short period I am contributing more to her than many who have been on the road longer than me. I don’t even have to try. And even though she continues to test my commitment, I have no problem passing the test all as I genuinely love her. When I get applause now no matter how small, it feels incredibly right! This is not an unusual case. Most people are caught in such situations with many doing jobs they should not be doing out fear of losing security. Some just want to belong and they work very hard at this.  The lack of real love make living their life a great challenge and they are never really above average in the things they work so hard at. They have not developed the right relationship with their occupation or I should say they are not a match made in heaven. 

Take any aspect of your life you are not happy with. Or even a possession that is in a bad state. Take a close look and you will realize it is in a bad state because of your treatment of it. Love cannot be faked for long. In fact hate often masquerades as love- fake love. So if you are pretending to love your occupation, you actually hate it and it knows. To find and do what you love is a blessing to your performance. A good relationship with your occupation is very efficient fuel for your performance. This idea is based on LOVE-LOGIC.

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“DO” less “BE” more

Often when people want to know how we earn our living they will ask; what do you do? This is because most people see earning a living as work and work is supposed to be hard and painful. It is something that you must put a lot of effort into and still produce average. They do not believe it must be easy, yet those who are the best at what they do are said to make look easy what others struggle to do. There is a difference between being and doing besides the obvious.

Being refers to allowing what one already is-- it is freedom in performance. Doing is trying to be- it is an attempt at the real thing. Doing is therefore a struggle. This is why the better question to ask when you want to know how a person earns their living will be, What are you? But then again, you might confuse the situation with that because most people are doing which is why we have more average performers than high performers. This idea is better explained by my favorite performance theorist Abraham Maslow with his self-actualization idea;

“Self-actualization is the intrinsic growth of what is already in the organism, or more accurately, of what the organism is”. (Psychological Review, 1949)

“A musician must make music, an artist must paint, and a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be.” (Motivation and Personality, 1954.)

When a person is endowed with natural skills and naturally gravitates towards something, all his resources both internal and external must be directed at that specific activity. This gives him a head start when others have to struggle to pick up the basics. This when polished by training intensifies the level of skills so that a task becomes effortless. This is the difference between peak performance and what some refer to as hard work with the former being the most potent. Being also means to be united with something-- an occupation for our purpose. It is when a person is so good at something he becomes an icon for that activity. This comes about because of the depth of his involvement in that activity.  When one unites with the task he begins to access a new level of intelligence as the task begins to reveal its secrets to him. His love for that vocation is rewarded with the love of the vocation and they are united as in a kind of performance intercourse. As a general rule, love begets love and lover is likely to divulge her secrets only to the love of her life.

So that Lionel Messi is an icon of football because of the depth of his involvement and the quality of his output. This depth has a lot to do with love. For this he receives the best reward football can give. Such persons when undertaking the tasks, sheds all their physiological needs and travels to a place in the mind where there is total bliss as the task tends to be the only thing that matters. A sense of security and happiness also creeps in; so much so that working for the sheer enjoyment is primary and monetary gains become secondary. It is a kind of Occupational orgasm that is experienced by so few people, it is a rarity.

A person in the being state enjoys focus, persistence and determination all by default and never by effort. When a person is doing, they need to create focus. Creating focus becomes a task in itself as it needs to be cultivated with effort. Whiles this can be really difficult, it also reduces the amount of energy actually spent on performing the task itself. The effort to create focus could have been better spent on performing the task itself. This can be compared to putting some task on autopilot so you can direct all your energy into what you are really about. The feeling is similar to spending time with someone you don’t really like and having to tolerate them. You struggle to maintain a conversation. The conversation itself becomes stressful and may often lead to conflict.

Words like determination and persistence imply friction. It means forcing oneself to do something they are not made for. Any kind of friction leads to faster wear and tear which equals stress in humans. Stress on the other hand is known to be responsible for most diseases and an unhappy life. One’s life becomes difficult and going to work or undertaking a task requires a lot of effort in the middle of pain and reluctance. Even the people at work are not friendly and the world becomes a burden. All things being equal a person who performs the same task effortlessly will always be ahead while a persistent person may think of himself as working hard with little or no results. When one experiences this feeling, it will be time to re-examine the motives behind one’s involvement in the specific task or vocation. From the above we must see that a person who has identified his or her life purpose is a more likely to attain peak performance.

Being also has spiritual dimension. In his book “the Tao of Jeet Kune Do” Bruce Lee the world famous martial artist wrote about a psychological state: where actions become effortless. In martial arts, students are taught to be united with a punch in order to produce maximum impact. They are encouraged to pack every inch of energy (ki or spirit) in their very being into one punch so that for a split second, the whole being is concentrated in the one punch- unity. This makes possible the breaking of bricks and the other seemingly impossible things they do.  The potential of a punch then goes beyond what can be seen and it is at its best when it is united with that which cannot be seen. When one’s energies (both physical and non-physical) are disconnected, the impact of the punch is reduced to the amount of physical strength exerted and the effect is minimal. Because of this the student must first clear their minds of everything else in order to focus on that which matters. It is a mastery over the various dimensions of one’s very being. It is a complete control over internal and external resources in a determined direction. It is therefore the unity of the two- the tangible and the intangible that ensures maximum impact. When the balance is right one requires little or no effort at all to create miracles. This is what happens with those we call geniuses. In this state one is inseparable with the task at hand. It is the state where something greater has taken over the operation of the person and he does not know where the information, creativity and performance is coming from. It is when one finds it difficult to stop even to meet bodily needs. Actions become effortless and output surpasses normal and one beats their personal best.

Eastern philosophers refer is to a state of mind as the "action of inaction" or "doing without doing". This is the same state referred to as flow by Czicksentmihalyi. Many high performers have described this state as having occurred to them in various disciplines including athletics.

"No longer conscious of my movement, I discovered a new unity with nature. I had found a new source of power and beauty, a source I never dreamt existed."

Those were the words of Roger Banister in description of the state he was in when he first achieved the four minute mile record. He tells us what he is

I was always a great bundle of energy. As a child, instead of walking, I would run. And so running, which is a pain to a lot of people, was always a pleasure to me because it was so easy.

In running therefore he was being. The expression be yourself is therefore well placed. It must be clear at this point that it is in this state of mind that one is able to go what is described as the extra mile and explains why it is very difficult for others to achieve this no matter how well known the idea itself is. Being the best we can be is therefore not a matter of just knowing and practicing a trade. It is about being the trade. It is perfect unity only found in the action of inaction. Scientifically this has been proven.

The following questions help you make a valuable assessment.

Re examine the reasons why you are involved in your current occupation and clearly explain how it makes you feel.

Does it allow you to be your best consistently?

Is there another occupation you think you can be better at and why?

Do you have trouble focusing on your work?
Interested in a One month free performance coaching?  

Email the answers to  info@csdafrica.com to join our no-obligation,  one month free performance coaching program.

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A bag full of confidence

A bag-full of confidence

The lessons I have learnt from the man Usain Bolt since he got on the track is mind blowing if you consider the fact that all he has done really;  is run a race that lasted for less than a minute. This also demonstrates the quantum of meaning that can be captured from a single event. It demonstrates the infinite nature of life and learning. Nothing really has limits because within those seconds of sprinting lies a wealth of learning- I must not stray too far. This one is about confidence-- one thing Mr. Bolt has never been short of as far doing what he does best is concerned. My warning though is that this article will disappoint you if you are looking for the usual discussion on confidence.

The titans of performance theory insist that one of the key influences on performance is confidence. It is born out of the belief that one is capable and that one is doing the right thing based on the right choice. Confidence sits comfortably at the very foundation of any achievement. Now if we take away belief from most of the great achievers in the history of mankind, it is possible that the world as we know it will come crumbling down into something significantly different. Belief triggers action and confidence ensure engagement with certainty and power. So if confidence is so important why is it so lacking. Is it a deficiency from birth? In my work as a performance coach, I have had the opportunity to peek under the hood working with some individuals. Knowing that it is generated by various elements of our very being makes it almost shocking that it is in such short supply. It appears though that, we all start off with a bag-full but somewhere along the way, some loose theirs whiles others grow theirs. The factors responsible for this are both internal and external.

With confidence, you have won before you have started - Marcus Mosiah Garvey

Information is a key trigger that releases confidence. When we see somebody with extreme confidence we must begin to ask; what does this person know or perhaps a more loaded question will be; what he or she is thinking? On the part of the honorable Bolt, being raised in a country that produces more world class sprinters than most nations is a key driving factor although not the only one. He has the benefit of many forerunners. Besides that he also has feedback from his trainers, friends and family that ensures his certainty about what he is involved in.

In a documentary I saw recently, Bolt made a profound statement about how having a capability like his can help him play his role in society. The depth of his awareness was interesting given he was only twenty three years old when he made the statement. Most importantly it seems he understood the idea of “Autonomy within integration”. Does this build confidence? The untrained mind could easily be fooled into saying no. But the kind of power such an almost esoteric idea holds is incredible if you understand it correctly. I shall address the matter in a later writing but here is what it means to have confidence based on your integration with a larger whole.

To get the most out of ourselves, we must first understand that:
We all have roles to play and we do need to identify this role in order to fulfill the grand mission that though we are a part of, is beyond us (please do not say this is confusing). We need to acknowledge the unity of all things and how the whole is greater than ourselves- an idea which was captured beautifully by Ken Wilber’s and his Holons idea. This demands that we have a good understanding of ourselves as units of a larger whole with a purpose we must serve in order for the whole to work. This makes us important instantly. Any level of distortion in this area will lead to ambiguity and confusion; and confusion saps confidence and negatively affects performance. We need clarity of purpose, and an awareness that transcends everything else in order to formulate the basis of our very existence. Knowing what power we posses and how to use it; builds confidence, self appreciation and the self esteem we need to engage with power. Confidence rest within the bigger picture of thought in which there is such a thing as internal dialogue. So that what we tell ourselves plays a role but its true source of power is knowledge of ourselves and the larger system we are a part of as well as the certainty of our roles in the larger scheme of things. This is what I have broken down in my writing as occupational and life performance.

If we truly understand the nature of our being as spirits in material bodies, we will know what we are capable of. This is an experience like no other. If we lack confidence therefore, we need to know that it is an absence of self knowledge, and that we are capable of correcting this by changing the images we have of ourselves.

We also need awareness of the much talked about incredible power that lies within and what it is capable of and how to activate it. We need to know the mechanism we posses that can enable the expression this power. We need to know that the use of this power is not just about us; but feeds into a larger picture. And that we are interconnected with everything else as we are made of the one substance. And that our reward depends on the extent to which we have served our purpose in the grand scheme of things as it comes from the larger entity (please do not say this is confusing either).

We need to know; that our very existence depends on the existence of others and as such, there is no need for losers. That we are not here to serve the same purposes, our unique combination will depict a unique mission very different from the next person and therefore we cannot be in competition with each other. Instead, serving each other is where our survival truly lies. Goals must not in any way go against the progress of humanity as a whole as it will mean defect and the effect cannot be a good one. In order to reach high performance therefore, we must live a mission that serves the larger purpose. Living a mission in my experience makes life painless and almost effortless, for every single step you take feels good because it is purposeful. The mission must excite you enough to wake you up in the morning on the right side of your bed almost every day. Your attitude towards this mission must be outrageous in a good way and your high level of discipline must be almost by default.

People around you must be amazed because they cannot understand why you can be so into something they might consider worthless. They don’t understand why walking in the forest all day can be a sensible thing to do. They don’t understand why a certain river is of such concern to you. They don’t understand why a grown man can spend so much time with children. They don’t understand why that building fascinates you so much. Of course they don’t.  They can’t. Yet your confidence that the one thing you must do is spend all your time studying one building must remain intact courtesy internal dialogue. Nothing can shake it. No one can see what you can see. It is a lonely yet exhilarating journey full of certainty.

It is then and only then that the building will begin to reveal its secrets to you. It is then that any occupation will start rewarding you with its treasures. The more you get out of the building or the occupation, the more your confidence will grow. Many only saw the Bolt when he ran in the Beijing Olympic. He has been running much longer than that. He has faced many challenges including loosing races he was expected to win. Some people lose their confidence at that point.

If you have trouble believing how delicate this confidence issue can be, scan through the list of world class athletes, politicians, and others you think of as great people. Find out how many challenges they have had and how their confidence has failed them in the most crucial moments. And how they have had to be rescued by those who understand what is happening to them. Anthony Robbins is in possession of such a list. There is a reason why you are weird and you understanding of it will give you the confidence you need.

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Meet Peak Performance PT 1 | Occupational orgasm

Not a day goes by without one person asking me what this whole peak performance thing is all about. That’s because not a day goes by without someone referring to me as a motivational speaker and I have to quickly correct them. I have tried to answer the question in many ways and this article will be another attempt to bring clarity to the matter.

We have all had that magical moment when you did something beyond what you believed to be our standard. That moment when you surprised yourself and everyone else; you felt fantastic and rightfully so. It is a powerful moment when you felt on top of the world. Not even superman could stop you. The downside of this phenomenon is that, whiles it is impossible to forget, it also seems impossible to repeat. You have thought about it and longed for it to happen again but that has at best, remained an exercise in futility. So you gave up and called it a fluke. Perhaps you have even imagined what a wonderful life you will have if you can repeat it regularly and permanently be this phenomenal person. Won’t it be wonderful?

That is peak performance and here is a piece of comforting news; according to psychologists this moment can be repeated consistently if you could trace all the events that led to it and follow it again to the letter. It is a state of mind that triggers a physical output that has always been there. You just didn't know. For this reason it can be triggered at will only if you knew how. In most cases one will need the help of an expert – a coach. Someone who understands the mechanism that creates the state in which this peak performance can be experienced and how to create it at will. There are many people who experience it almost by default. Whiles it appears to be natural for some, some have found it by accident. Others are very aware of it and have taken steps to find it. Yet many are they who know nothing about it all (You will not among that lot from today).

Most people do not know that some of the world’s top performers go through certain specific routines before they engage. Many have personal coaches who ensure they are always tuned up to perform at their peak. It doesn't really matter what it is they are involved in. An entrepreneur needs a performance coach as much as an athlete does.

In sports they refer to it as being in "the zone”. Some refer to it as "flow". It is when you enjoyed what you are doing so much that you become one with the task you are performing. You are functioning from somewhere deep within. You are so united with the task that you seem to be on autopilot. The feeling is earth shattering. Writers experience this very often: that moment when you are punching away on a keyboard and you do not even know where the information is coming from. You totally ignore all the physiological needs and you continue to type as if that is all there is to life. You do not want to stop! You cannot see a separate you from what you are doing. You and the task are one. You have found beauty and it is worth dying for so you give it the best and you do not even have to try. Actually it is not you trying to do something anymore. It is something using you to manifest itself. It is what I described in my book “the philosophy of peak performance” as occupational orgasm. You can experience this feeling regardless of what you do. The world’s best psychologists have studied it and shared their findings with the world. It is not a secret anymore and you too can learn to be the best that’s possible for you to be in your occupation and in your larger life.

Roger Banister is one person who describes this very clearly. His comment after his four-minuet-mile record is one of my very favorite quotes ever;

"No longer conscious of my movement, I discovered a new unity with nature. I had found a new source of power and beauty, a source I never dreamt existed."

Please readthe part two here. I noticed long articles are intimidating for some so I broke them into parts for easy reading. That’s because I really want you to get this thing.:)

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