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Elite Performance - Do You Have What It Takes?
Posted by Joseph Riggio on Sunday, January 27, 2008Everyday I get dozens of promotional emails offering me the opportunity to get rich ... get thin ... get strong ... get successful ... without having to do much at all, except of course to buy the program on offer. Yet every time I look at what it really takes to join the ranks of world-class elite level performers I find that the price of entry virtually always includes serious work. The question then becomes, “Do you have what it takes?”
Good Evening All,
I've been a busy little bee ... in part doing projects for clients (I've been back and forth to Europe about twice a month for the last six months), preparing for upcoming programs (we've got a MythoSelf Intensive coming up in Italy this summer, an Intentional Performance Retreat coming up in Denmark this July, and we're planning a MythoSelf Facilitator's/Trainer's Training in NJ later this year ... and that's just what I have on the boards right now ...), I've been writing and reading like a madman as well (to tell the truth the proper sequence is reading and writing).
So it would be fair to say on average I've been at it somewhere between ten and twelve hours a day between five and seven days a week for months on end. But, what I wanted to share has to do with the simple realization that what it takes to perform at elite levels includes the persistence to stay with it through the intensity of prolonged exertion - either physical and/or mental.
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
Princeton, NJ
PS - Stay tuned for the details of the 2008 upcoming programs with Joseph ... or drop a note to Nancy if you just can't wait!
(8) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
Joseph,
You are an EXTREMELY beautiful person...PERIOD..
Hi Joseph. The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary! I had a coach growing up who always said that…
How does someone find their “fascination?” Do you think that someone who is truly on his path will find his fascination? I’m thinking that if someone finds his fascination then that could serve as a sign that he is on the “right” path. So, fascination could serve as sort of evidence that he’s on the right path. Thoughts??
Thank you very much for your post,
Allison
Allison,
I think it goes both ways ...
Functionally, finding your fascination begins with “noticing for it.” You already have your fascination, you always have ... it’s just that most people learn to push their fascination off to one side in favor of “"what’s important"” ... getting an education, getting a job, making money, being in a relationship ... you name it.
Your fascination is what you dream about doing after you’ve won the lottery! `;~>
There are other ways to “find your fascination” - but none of them is a mystery when you get the idea of “noticing for it.”
Joseph
This post is such a wonderful respite from all of the typical NLP/Personal Development/Tony Robbins hyperbole that is constantly thrown in our faces day after day after day. (BTW I’m not in any way comparing what you do to NLP or Tony… Really… Seriously… this is not that =)
Having worked with Tony and been involved in the NLP community for a number of years it seems to me that in regards to peak performance all that was ever promulgated was “modeling”. “Oh, all you have to do is model the excellence of this or that achiever and you can accomplish the same things… even faster, because you’ll be able to bypass years of trial and error.” And while some of this, or maybe even all of this may be true, the one thing that nobody ever wants to talk about is the sheer number of hours/days/years that exceptional performers take to become that way. For instance, in my own experience, having been an SOF soldier, the one thing I know for sure is that we were taught to model our trainers from the moment we got off the bus. Because I was on the track laid out for me by the U.S. Army, I, along with my cohorts were indoctrinated into the beliefs and behaviors of the men that trained us. This is an organization that has spent millions of man hours learning how to train and develop the worlds finest special operators. These guys ARE the model. So did all we have to do is act like these guys and talk like these guys? Hell no! We spent tens of thousand of hours not just in physical training, but also tactical training, going over and over again the skills required to accomplish the mission and keep ourselves and each other alive. The level of expertise to perform when it counted was honed into us through sheer repetition and our instructors keeping us focused with laser like precision.
That brings me to natural proclivity. I did not understand it then, but our instructors told us that 90% of us were not going to make it. It didn’t matter that you were going to work as hard as you ever had in your life. You either had it, or you didn’t. “It” being that natural proclivity that you speak of Joseph. Now there was times that I learned that I had something more in me that up until that point I didn’t know that I had. And there were times that my instructors chided me and goaded me into realizing more of my potential. But it was there to be discovered. It wasn’t taught, it didn’t mysteriously show up. It was there for the opportunity in the moment to bring it out of me and make that personality trait or skill set manifest.
This, to me Joseph, is what “being” is all about. When I am at my best, when “being” is the natural proclivity because I am in alignment with that which is a natural fascination I find myself in a stream of information (data) that I can stand in, and allowing it wash over me, I can in that moment utilize what is most useful for myself to become even more of what I am in that moment. Opportunity, quite literally surrounds me. And if I am aware of this “beingness” (which, truly is more difficult than I like to admit) I also have the opportunity to step out of the stream for a moment and observe it from a different perspective. It is almost as if I can observe where the data is coming from and therefor I can also attend to the fact that from whence the data comes from also changes the data that I am observing in that moment. It is in these moments that I am dancing with my magnificent obsession and what may be perceived as hard work or long periods of work, to me is just enjoying my day.
Great stuff Joseph! As usual.
All the Best,
Allen
Straight to the heart of the matter--this is not a lazy person’s game.
I’ve been doing some work at the university level recently. The strange complex of disillusionment, lack of direction and lack of motivation are alarmingly well entrenched by this age.
That said, there’s an inspiring resilience among the students i’ve worked with when reminded of the bliss that could be their lives. It’s been really rewarding to meet so many students willing to give up lazy attitudes for a life which fascinates them.
And it’s good to have a blog post that reminds us that fascination and work are a married pair.
Grateful for your constant dose of “keepin’ it real.”
~Devon
it is great to read about your insights i enjoy reading your articles
Allen,
Thanks ... I appreciate that you are out there reading ‘em!
Joseph
It takes!
