Why you work hard to underachieve Pt. 2

There were a few questions that arose from my last post regarding the assets and liability idea. So I decided to do another post to bring some clarification to the matter. I believe these posts are going to lead us in a whole new direction forcing me to bring up topics that I had not planned to treat. It appears a discussion on people dynamics and people-centrism is will make an apt top up.

I said in my last post that anything you can prefix with the word “MY” will automatically fall in one category- asset or liability. This means literally everything you can claim any degree of ownership to. We already know that assets fire you towards your goal and liabilities do the very opposite in more than one way. My plan is to clarify the idea better by providing some examples.

The things you own includes people in a sense and I am not challenging the notion that people have their personal freedoms which must it must be respected at all cost. But you do refer to your parents as My parents and your pastor as MY pastor as you will refer to your shoes as MY shoes. The word MY therefore attempts (no matter how feeble) to shave off the sovereignty of the people in your life. They are a part of your world and to some extent tools in your hand. How you use these tools and the outcomes of that usage will either push you towards your goal or hinder your progress. This of course makes people-centrism and people dynamics important topics and I shall treat them in my next post.

Spouses are major elements in any person’s life or world. This means that your spouse plays a key role in your attempt to maximize your existence. If the spouse turns out to be an asset person then you function with double power. This gives meaning to the point made in the book of proverbs; “he who finds a wife finds a good thing” (Proverbs 18:22). Now without digressing to far I should clarify that a wife is only a wife is she is an asset person. This is because a wife is supposed to be a helpmeet. Being supportive to a husband is really what makes a woman into a wife. For this reason a woman is not a wife until there is a husband to help. This is reversible to for husbands as there is such a thing as an asset man or husband.

For this reason no one person is functioning at full power unless united with a spouse who fires them towards their goal. Regardless of how successful a person is, they can always be more with the support of a wife. As we all know two heads are better than one. The upshot of this is that, the one who intends to maximize their existence is careful in their choice of a spouse. There must be a common interest between one’s life enterprise and the choice of a spouse. As Benny Hinn said to a group of young leaders, “find the calling before you choose the spouse”. Where there is a mismatch, one cannot maximize their occupation and therefore cannot maximize their existence.

So people in your life can be assets or liabilities. Your parents, children, friends, siblings, colleagues will all fall into one group or the other. What is an asset to one person might actually be a liability to another. If you drive one of those cars that take more out of you than it gives you; liability. Project the assets and loose or minimize the liabilities and you will gain more power.

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Why you work hard to underachieve

Following my post about the success of Yvonne Nelson’s movie premier, I feel compelled to share with you what I meant by assets and why they influence performance. The idea was borrowed from the Uptimetrics® foundation training program.

Gaining full performance is possible when you identify all your assets and aligned them all into a working unit in your favor. This is based on the presupposition that all entities or people if you like, have assets and liabilities. Assets fire you forward whiles liabilities obstruct you, weigh you down and set you back. To gain full speed in your performance therefore, it is important not only align your assets but also to either eliminate, convert or minimize your liabilities (the things that fight your performance).

Often when people become aware of their assets, there is an enthusiasm to engage and the feeling is fantastic. Soon however, it becomes evident that the individual is not peaking. This will happen when the liability factor has not been dealt with. Liabilities often manifest as leakages that keeps you in the same place no matter how much power you are generating from your assets. What is liability or asset is not the same for everyone. Remember; one of my favorite mantras; there is no-one-size-fits-all solution to anything.  Perhaps you have seen one of those vehicles that make all the noise yet don’t move much. In the same manner there are people who work really hard but achieve very little.

In truth many of us are at this stage as we are not clear about what our assets and liabilities are. This is not so easy to figure out with the number of things we have to deal with these days. This is where a performance coach can help. If athletes need  coaches to ensure they get the right results then so do you. Some of the most successful people around the world have personal coaches who work with them on very regular basis. Some have coaches without really knowing they have one. A person who is not in your situation may see things about you that you don’t see about yourself. He might also be able to assess your condition in a more dispassionate manner than you can. And if he has experience he will be able to share with you how to deal with some issues.

This idea brings structure to your engagement which transforms your chaotic situation into an orderly one. Order is one of the beautiful attributes of structure as it brings clarity. Clarity doesn’t mean your problems are solved. It just simply allows you to easily identify trouble spots and deal with them with an improved degree of ease. Of course there is more to the idea than what I can tell you in one blog post. It is better captured in my second book of the SPiD-UP book series which will be available soon.

So there it, you have been given a sample helping of the philosophy of peak performance. To increase your performance, take stock of everything you can prefix with My. Analyze them all through and decide which one pushes you towards your goal and which one does the opposite. Eliminate and align accordingly and be a superman …erm woman too.

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Yvonne Nelson long legs magic

Lately there have been a lot of discussions on both traditional and new media about the success of the Yvonne Nelson new movie premier and its record breaking success. While I have not seen the movie itself and I doubt if  I will, I am intrigued by the fact that she has been able to achieve what has been referred to as the highest sales of all time for a movie premier. In Ghana of course but I have no reason whatsoever why she shouldn't set a world record too if she so wishes.

Really it all comes down to how far you are willing to go and what you are willing to do. It is simply how the world works!  Setting a new record is of course taking things to the next level. Becoming the new standard and this only happens when we have done something new. As a general rule old ways doesn't bring new results. It is simply how the world works!

She had apparently taken to the streets to distribute flyers to motorist with the best of the cast and personally invited people to attend the premier. Now I have to tell you, I am not particularly an Yvonne Nelson fan per se, I don’t remember finishing a movie with her in it. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against her talent except I like a different genre of movies and she doesn't come across to me as the philosophical type. But I can assure you if she walks up to me and asked me to come to a premier, no hailstorm could have stopped me.

I am sure the whole exercise would have left her first-class-flying famous long legs with unbearable aches and pains. It shouldn't take rocket science to anticipate that but she did it anyway and she brought a bunch of her friends along with her. So here is the clearer picture

She had assets; her image, her friends, a set of long legs you want to see- and she knew how to use them. She combined them to do something new so she was bound to get new results; there is no other way around this. All of us want new results except not all of us are willing to do new things.

Higher performing people are responsible for the new achievements we see every day. Once the standard has been set, average people try to meet it until another high performer sets a new standard. Clearly it is those who are willing to do outstanding things that can bring outstanding results. It didn’t happen because she made a movie, it is because she was willing to walk the streets and invite people personally to the premier. Do something new today and get new results.#spidup wherever you are.

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Contextualizing your performance

The context of performance idea was born out of the many questions I received when I posted an early version of my book performance awareness online critique. The exercise forced me to rethink some of the ideas in the book which in fact contains the core of what I teach in the Uptimetrics® foundation class. In the end I had to add two new chapters one of which covers the context of performance.

Performance cannot be measured in the same way for any two people as no two people are the same even if they demonstrate strength in the same area. For this reason it is necessary to provide key indicators that will help decide when a person has done enough based on their nature. An employer might list the specific number of things that must happen within a certain period to determine whether an employee is performing or not. Whiles this criterion might be set for a specific role, he must understand that no two people will deliver it in the same manner.

There are some individuals categorized as cheetahs and I am not referring to professor Ayittey’s Cheetahs in his Hippos and cheetahs idea. The cheetah is the fastest land animal. Yet it does not run consistently as a horse will. The cheetah runs in short bursts. This 

means it run and stops intermittently. For the untrained mind, a person of the cheetah character is easily misunderstood as one who is not consistent. However the cheetah character is among the highest performers once we put their performance in the right context.

Context of performance is dependent on three things; Character (nature), Circumstance and Capability (I christened them the 3 Cs). Character here refers to the nature of a person. Since people are at their best when they are more of what they already are, we must quickly see the important role of character in reaching one’s best. We could use a pocket knife to cut bread but like any kitchen neophyte like me knows, it is best done with a bread knife on a flat surface and never in your palm. But pocket knives are best used in certain situations and we deprive them of peak performance if we use the otherwise. It is a question of the right tool for the right job.

Being human is easy… or is it? There are some things we can all do as basic. But there are those who are the best at those things due to their very makeup. This will become clearer if I put you and Husein Bolt together in a 100m race. We are each built for something and functioning out of that role does not allow our best. But you already knew that didn’t you.

So whether in a current occupation or in your larger life (don’t forget the two must seamlessly integrate for best output) there is a context in which you can be your best. These days, businesses hire people based on their nature and not necessarily qualifications. They look for a kind of person they believe will fit the role. That should tell you a thing or two. For a person to ensure they are their best, self-awareness is of extreme importance. When we understand our own context of performance, we know how to fit into any situation and what to do even if it is not the right one for us.

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