Tag Archives: performance

When 99 is more than 100

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As a young man, I spent my 20s focused on taking myself to the limit. In my 30s, I discovered triathlon and shifted my life towards a devotion to personal excellence. In both periods, I was unable to understand why anyone would bother “being average” at anything.

Whether your focus is academics, finance, wealth or sport — if you spend your time in a group that consists of the top 1% then you’ll be at risk for certain errors.

The first error is a skewed definition of “average.”

Athletics is a great field to see this in action as we’re much less likely offend anyone by telling the truth! Here’s a quote from a former coach…

He’s constantly disappointed in himself because he thinks that he should be able to roll out of bed and drop an 8:35 Ironman.

In other words, our friend has a baseline that requires him to outperform 99.99999715% of the planet.

That’s an extreme case but, if you listen to the dialogue surrounding your favorite sports team then, you can see this pattern repeating itself throughout our elite classes.

As an amateur triathlete, I could beat 98.5% of the field at any Ironman race in the world, yet my performance wouldn’t even register for the top 1% of performers, who benchmark themselves on their peers.

My point, isn’t to correct the attitudes of the elites – an extreme way of thinking is useful to drive extreme action.

My point, is to encourage you to stop and ask, “Is It True?”

When your peers lack diversity, your views are at risk from becoming detached from reality. You will see it most easily in your definition of average and decent.

  • What’s a decent athlete?
  • What’s a wealthy family?
  • What’s a successful child?

Outliers living in the 1% are unable to see the extreme nature of their lives and that can lead to ruin.

It’s not just about aging athletes ruining their joints.

I had a very close friend that ended up financially ruined because he was unable to be satisfied with being more wealthy than 98% of his peers.

Others ruin relationships with children, who are unable to measure up to an unreasonable standard.

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Another risk – the best are lazy.

Lazy?

  • …but I train 25 hours a week
  • …but I work 65 hours a week
  • …but I read 100 books a year
  • …but I add more value than anyone at this firm

My capacity for extreme workload requires me to drop everything in my life.

In fact, dropping everything is a “secret” of success.

However, it makes me very lazy outside my domain.

As the youngest partner in my private equity firm, I had staff to shop, to sort my CDs, to open my mail, to cook my meals, to take out my trash… the list went on and on. My approach was to throw other people’s time at any issue that prevented me from spending time on my goals.

Ultimately, behaving like a plutocrat wasn’t the main drawback.

By not placing “love” as a primary goal, I created a pattern of behavior that would have driven every relationship from my life.

It wasn’t until 15 years after my divorce that my family received the dividend of a man becoming a little less successful and far less lazy.

Micro Courage

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axel_lionHow do I cultivate deep strength and resiliency?

We might describe resiliency as…

  • The capacity to continue despite life’s setbacks
  • The ability to become stronger due to stress (anti-fragility)
  • The strength to handle anything

They sound great, grand and completely unattainable!

I’m going to guide you through how I break it down into something that I can action in my daily living.

Start by flipping it on it’s head, what are the characteristics of the not-resilient? Think of the biggest head case you know…

  • Angry
  • Anxious
  • Depressed

When I think about anger and anxiety, they strike me as cultural expressions of fear. At some level, we see angry men and anxious women as normal. I feel both emotions all the time and they make me less effective.

What to do?

Over the last two years, I’ve been experimenting with micro-courage.

I started by printing up 50 life lessons and highlighting the ones that I wanted to focus on (11, 12, 18, 26, 27, 28, 37, 42, 49). If you come by my office, you’ll see they are taped near my printer…

lifelessonsReflecting on the lessons, I paid particular attention to three:

  • Let your children see you cry
  • Forgive everyone everything
  • Yield

I’d encourage you to find your own (triggers).

The game is to focus your actions on situations at the edge of what you can handle.

Here’s an example:

  • There are lots of homeless folks on the Boulder Creek Bike Path. Some of these folks are violent, others are mentally ill, still others are addicts. As a group, they scare the crap out of me.
  • While I have pals that work with the homeless, I don’t have any clue how to “fix” this problem and often wish the problem would go away (so I don’t have to deal with my inability to deal with it!).
  • Anyhow, there’s one guy that sits by the creek in the 28th St underpass and says good morning to everyone that runs, rides and walks past him. He’s a drinker and can get a little sloppy towards the end of the day.
  • I can’t fix the city’s homeless challenges but I can offer the guy a bit of human connection as I ride by. I look at him, smile and take a breath in. On the face of it, I’m smiling at him but, in reality, I’m staying open to the fear within myself. That’s micro-courage.

The story repeats itself in every part of my life that I want to close off.

I try to “stay open” as many times a day as I can.

The problem can be homelessness, litter, aggression, poor driving, manners, food quality… keep it small, remember to breathe in through your nose with a tiny smile.

Staying open to a small fear, a slight inconvenience, a little bit of sadness… I call it micro-courage.

The habit has been transformative in situations that I used to find overwhelming.

This is what I meant when I wrote that strength comes from staying open to little fears.

Courage is a powerful antidote to fear, anxiety and anger.

Be brave.

True Strength

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g_aqua

One of my coaches, Mark Allen, made the observation that to get our race in order, we need to get our lives in order. Racing, like any other form of stress, can strip away our filters.

Mark’s advice is an example of an athletic lesson with a wide application into everyday living.

We share a desire to be strong. This desire is expressed by building up and adding to one’s self.

  • Adding size through muscles, bulk, heels, boots
  • Adding tension from taking on obligations
  • Adding palmares from victories
  • Adding possessions and external signs of power

I’ve done it all: cowboy boots; academic honors; powerlifting; fancy cars; big houses; jewelry for my wife…

Adding, adding, adding.

The list above is about our external life. Building up is a projection of strength, but it isn’t true strength. I think Mark is pointing us towards something that might become resiliency. An integrated life where we are in harmony with our external projection and OK with all aspects of our experience (strong/weak, happy/sad). This harmony lets us cope with the tests of our races (and lives).

Perhaps you’ve had a situation where you tell yourself to be “strong” but a more accurate description is a fear that our inner storm might show through. Having completely fallen apart a few times, isn’t that big of a deal. I don’t want to make a habit of it but I also don’t want to spend my life holding tight and letting the pressure build within me.

When tired, when grieving, when sick, when stressed… life has a way of stripping our filters away.

But how can we process our inner life?

  • Exercise works well for me – moderate effort, repeated movements
  • Others prefer meditation – cultivating stillness and observing one’s mind
  • Many find the combination of breathing and movement in yoga to be effective
  • Thrill seekers tend towards extreme risk and peak experience – works for them but doesn’t work for the larger goals of my family

If we keep peeling away our layers then we might find that the joke is on us.

Why?

Ultimately, every individual unravels.

It can be terrifying when we bump into this reality. You may have experienced this fear through the death of friends, parents and grandparents.

Ultimately, we might find comfort in defining resiliency in terms of something larger than ourselves – family, legacy, lineage, tradition.

Cultivate courage by staying open towards little fears.

It Wasn’t Good For Me

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gnomeA number of my pals triathlon’ed from Vancouver to Calgary over the last two weeks. They did the journey as part of something called Epic Camp and I highly recommend Scott Molina’s blog about the trip. I’ve been chuckling along as the crew drill themselves daily across the Canadian Rockies.

In reading Molina’s diary of their adventure, I’ve been feeling three emotions…

Joy that Scott is able to keep on trucking. The guy’s 54 years old and he’s still able to love training at the edge of human endurance. Epic Camp is about the mental component of performance and Scott personifies joy from suffering.

Continuing amazement at what people can accomplish. It’s tempting to put ultra-athletes into a separate category as genetic freaks. The reality is most ultra-athletes are fairly normal physically. The differences arise in their capacity to embrace obsession and the way they experience fatigue & suffering.

Finally, I experience a deep sense of gratitude for my life in Boulder. When I was living my life of extreme athletic performance, I couldn’t see the cost of my status quo.

By the way, lots of people talk about the health risks of extreme exercise. I think that you are right but you’re missing the point. See the camp for what it is… a binge. I’ve always enjoyed a good binge. It’s something I need to watch. Also, so long as you don’t go banana’s with the running, the main short-term risk (to your kidneys) is limited.

Scott knows, and shares, the requirements for athletic success. He’s far more open than any other triathlon writer, myself included.

What’s yet to be published is the total reality of seeking our ultimate triathlon potential. Outside of triathlon, Sam Fussell gave it a shot with bodybuilding. His book, Muscle, is an entertaining account of the life of a full-time amateur (AKA a life similar to most tri-pros). Leaving the extreme drug use to one side, the parallels with my life are many.

I’ve often wanted to write the “whole truth” about my life. I’m most open with the non-racing spouses of my training pals. They know enough about my world to be entertained but aren’t so invested that I challenge their identities with my observations.

I looked deeper into my motivation and saw a desire to protect my children from my near misses. However, my children’s obsession is certainly going to be different than my own and they will resent being told what to do by their, ultimately, sixty-something father.

Here’s where Sam’s book comes into it’s own. The hero in Sam’s book is his mom. She keeps the lines of communication open, accepts Sam for who he his and frees him to change his mind on his own timetable.

As we ascend to the top, we can lose the goodness of our youth. It’s no accident that the highest-achievers had very difficult childhoods. It’s a rare person that becomes more kind under extreme stress – at Epic Camp, Bevan James Eyles is the best example that comes to mind. He was always part of the solution. The rest of us acted like wolves, or hyenas.

What helps everyone is encouragement to hold onto a piece of goodness and stay open when the little voice says, “this isn’t good for you.”

…and while I have no idea who is doing the talking… I know that following that voice has led me to a wonderful life.

Lex

Hometown Hero

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820My buddy, Justin Daerr, won Ironman Boulder this month. Even bigger, the ladies at my health club have started chatting about him!

He’s truly made it.

Not many people make the transition from average to champion. I was along for the ride.

epic_konaIn October of 2004, Justin came out to Hawaii for a camp that we were hosting. He had a big week of training and finished third in his age group in Kona. I didn’t know it at the time but October 2004 marked the high-water mark of my athletic career.

hawaii_run18 months before that camp, Scott Molina asked me, “What if that’s it?” At the time, I replied, “There’s always more.” Scott was a little early with his question but it was a good one.

What’s next?

After Justin became really good, he put in another 10,000 hours to become great. It’s the profile of a clean athlete, many years of plugging away. No quantum leaps.

runI like to focus athletes on 1,000 days of effort. After 1,000 days, of racing pro Justin was going far faster but didn’t have a whole lot to show for his efforts. He was a long way off the top athletes and, like me, only competitive over long distances.

The link in the paragraph above shows J’s results. He was speedy for a long time. Thing is, everyone else at his level is speedy too! Eight years of consistent sub-9 Ironman times. That’s really fast, for a very long time.

How do I measure my return on investment?

…is a question we should ask

…especially about time we will spend

Absent conscious effort, we will default to the values of our community. My athletic community values vanity and victory. These values rule what I see around me and lead to athletic errors.

As a champion, expectations and self-image change. My champion pals, closer to my age, experience pain with the inevitable transitions that life brings. Whenever that transition happens, I hope Justin keeps what’s best from the last decade.

  • He was willing to inconvenience himself to do the right thing.
  • He persisted in the face of evidence that he might not make it – a good lesson for me to re-learn!
  • He never mentioned the slings and arrows that were tossed at him. Justin’s non-response made me a better person.

These are the good old days.

Remember to enjoy them!

Four Hidden Hazards – for aging athletes

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Ron KonaBecause the big money lies in helping sick folks, athlete health is likely to remain a poorly understood niche. Here are three hazards that most people miss.

Lifestyle & Nutrition Stress

As an elite athlete, my blood markers would indicate kidney stress. I coached a kidney doc and did a consult to rule out kidney disease. Where we ended up was acknowledging the stress of the athletic lifestyle:

  • High calorie diet
  • High protein diet
  • High sugar diet
  • Constant muscle breakdown

Now, there are many ways that my athletic lifestyle reduces stress (body composition, blood pressure). However, a high-performance lifestyle increases stress, when compared to an active lifestyle.

From 2001 to 2008, I was “fast” but I carried around an immune system that was chronically suppressed.

Around 2010, I cut my training in half, and my blood markers went from good to outstanding.

My kidney function cleared up, my immune system strengthened and my HDL/LDL cholesterol improved. (82/84 mg/dL).

I put this out there because I had a fear that I would “lose everything” if I backed off.

The reality => Moderation improved my health and my marriage.

Passing Out & Crashing

I’ve been exercising daily for ~20 years and it’s the best investment I’ve made.

If you want to slow the aging process:

  • Get enough sleep
  • Don’t smoke
  • Take it easy on the booze
  • Eat real food
  • Move daily

The flip side of being a long-term exerciser is I can go a long, long way on nothing. It’s a trait that can get an older athlete into trouble.

When tired, depleted or “open” from exercise, my blood pressure can dip suddenly. So far, I have never passed out but I’ve felt lightheaded on many occasions.

Passing out is a serious medical condition – Part One and Part Two on the Athlete’s Heart Blog will tell you more.

If you share my profile then be aware that falls and crashes are different as we age. A key part of aging well is avoiding the strength and muscle losses that come from extended breaks.

I have changed my approach to improve my risk profile.

The Scalpel of Eternal Youth

Here’s how I categorize WEEKLY run mileage:

  • 20 miles = “not running”
  • 30 miles = “light week”
  • 40 miles = “basic maintenance”
  • 50 miles = “good week”
  • 60 miles = “enough to run a decent marathon”
  • 75 miles or more = “stretch week”

Follow this running protocol long enough and you’re likely to deal with orthopedic issues.

The most effective treatment for chronic injury is lifestyle modification.

Your orthopedic surgeon makes NO money from this truth!

A surprising thing about middle age => moderation turned out of be healthy and enjoyable.

Who Knew?

Minimum Effective Dose

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gordo_crunchMinimum effective dose is a concept popular in athletics. The first time I heard about it was through Joe Friel.  I think Joe defined it as, “the minimum dose of the most specific training to achieve the goal”

Contrast this with my (historical) default strategy of “a little more than the maximum dose that my life can possibly withstand.” At the time Joe shared his observation, I was trying to train about five-hours per day!

Last winter, Monica started doing mini-walks when the kids were napping. We live on a hill and she’d powerwalk a quarter mile up, then a quarter mile down.

For a guy that used to aim for five hours of exercise a day, a half mile walk is a “why bother” level of activity. I’d sit at my desk, watch her leave and ask myself, “what the heck is she doing?!” At the time, she was knocking out 45 miles a week on our treadmill.

I was in a depressive funk and, perhaps, the mini-walks were her way of showing me the value of something rather than nothing.

Well, it worked. I started my mini-walks and they turned into some of the most pleasant time of my day. I moved through my funk.

The medical literature that I read is mixed on the value of exercise beyond about an hour a day. However, the value of movement (across a day) gets universal praise.

You can expand this concept beyond walking.

  • My relationship with my kids
  • Getting more efficient with my spending
  • Moderating my consumption of chocolate, beer or wine
  • Creating an ability to give a nice “no thanks”
  • Building a key relationship

A self-directed life comes from a habit of incremental change (but I have to constantly remind myself that the little things are worth it).

Values Game

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I came across a free eBook from Tony Robbins. In the book, Tony asks the reader to rank pleasure values. His suggested list: love, success, freedom, intimacy, security, adventure, power, passion, comfort, health.

I took the bait and ranked things:

  • Freedom
  • Success
  • Adventure
  • Health
  • Love
  • Power
  • Passion
  • Security
  • Intimacy
  • Comfort

Tony then shared that we will do a lot more to avoid pain than to attract pleasure. So he asked the reader to rank aversions to: rejection, anger, frustration, loneliness, depression, failure, humiliation, and guilt.

Once again I mapped it out:

  • Failure
  • Anger
  • Frustration
  • Depression
  • Rejection
  • Humiliation
  • Guilt
  • Loneliness

In the book, he gave examples on how values conflicts can set up misery. For example, do we know our spouse’s rankings? Do our (more powerful) aversions operate to sabotage our desires. For example, see Success vs Failure in my lists.

Having done the work to rank my pleasure/pain values, Tony recommended writing down the rules associated with our top drivers. I didn’t think too hard and wrote quickly…

  • Freedom – when I control my day and have space in my schedule
  • Success – I am already successful
  • Adventure – when I have new experiences
  • Health – vanity, use my body for adventure
  • Failure – when my kids don’t behave or yell at me
  • Anger – when my kids don’t behave or yell at me
  • Frustration – when my kids don’t behave or yell at me
  • Depression – when my kids don’t behave or yell at me

Pretty clear how my rules are creating periods of parental misery! As well, my rules are completely impractical for living with young kids.

When my oldest was young, she could quickly bring me to tears by crying. I got past that pain by borrowing my mother-in-law’s rule that “babies need to cry.”

I also created my own rule, “when they’re crying, they are alive.” My rule addressing my fear that my kids might die (!) if I didn’t cater to their every whim.

Some mantras:

  • I am free when I breathe through the energy of strong emotions
  • I am successful when I let my actions be the lesson
  • The randomness of life is an adventure in itself
  • Let go of outcome, be the brand

All of the above are lessons that I taught myself in athletics and need to relearn inside my house!

I had a wry smile when I realized that I was closed to Tony’s teaching because of his happiness!

Difficult Conversations

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Over the last year, I have been travelling to learn about my friends’ lives. The trips are short, and we have the opportunity to talk a lot. By keeping the trip short, and going to my pals, the quality of the conversation is high and the inconvenience to my family is small. The trips have a large payoff for me:

  • Gratitude for the life I have
  • Learn what’s good about their lives – try to figure out the payoff from living like them
  • Make sure I see friends that I want to keep in my life
  • Learn about an aspect of their lives where they have different knowledge than me (teenagers, aging, the transition to adulthood, healthcare, performance psychology, grief & loss).
  • Do something random to generate new opportunities.

One of my favorite discussion topics is managing difficult conversations. For example, a challenging situation for doctors is telling the mirror image of themselves about the arrival of their greatest medical fear – cancer or terminal illness.

I ask questions about.. How to cope? How to be effective? What is best practice?

These skills are useful at work and are essential to create an exceptional family web. I’ll share what I’ve learned so far.

Before a difficult conversation, pause and remember:

  • This situation is not about me
  • I am part of the solution
  • Be cautious
  • Understand that I will make incorrect assumptions about everything around me

The points above get me in a relaxed frame of mind, especially when combined with my Big Meeting Protocol. The mental preparation works best when combined with an on-going process of self-reflection (that I like to do while cycling). You’ll be surprised that you can mute your emotional triggers by awareness that they exist.

Understand your hot bottons – examples might be: not caring, not doing enough, letting someone down, past mistakes where I’ve yet to ask for forgiveness, or not addressing areas in my own life where I need to make change.

Know your desired outcome – examples might be: clear communication, exit a relationship, create consensus, make better decisions.

Follow up in writing – if the conversation triggers fear, or anger, in the other person they are unlikely to remember the conversation. Even if you’re hearing each other, everyone hears a different conversation. Certainly, everyone remembers a different conversation.

Focus on helping the other person – I’m more likely to get my desired outcome if I help the other person achieve their own goals. A doctor might ask a terminally ill patient, “is there an up-coming event that we can focus on getting you to attend?” Alternatively, a family member might have concerns about public perception, confidentiality or independence.

Remembering my tendency to make incorrect assumptions – I like to gather information from the other party so I can better serve their needs. Often, a person’s needs are as straightforward as being listened to, respected and valued.

Finally, I remember that my mission isn’t to change others…

  • …because I don’t know best
  • …because I have my hands full with myself
  • …because my life is my source

Talk To The Hands

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…because the head don’t want to know!

Consider how you move your body when you are nervous.

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We had a meeting with my daughter’s preschool teacher to chat about whether she was ready for kindergarten. Lex is big for her age and her default approach is physical. We wonder if bumping her forward a year might give an incentive to negotiate a bit more. I was always the youngest in my class – not great for my physical self-esteem but it worked well for my academic drive, which carried through to my adult life.

Separate from fretting about the academic track of a three year old (who’s going to be fine whatever we decide), I wanted to get tips about managing anxiety in kids.

An anxious young woman, growing up in Boulder, with two former elite athletes for parents… I’m smart enough to see that our daughters will be at a high risk for eating disorders. Equipping them with the capacity to relax is one way I can help them prepare for young adulthood.

So I was holding forth with great pride about how I explain behavioral psychology to my (three year old) daughter. The teacher was patient and said that was a useful approach. However, something else I should remember is young kids don’t have the capacity to connect their body to their heads.

Oh yeah, she’s three, not thirty-three!

+++

When Lex is anxious she does one of three things:

  • bites nails
  • pulls fists inwards to her body
  • grinds teeth

My own markers are:

  • shoulders rise
  • tightness in my jaw
  • turn body away from source of stress and look upwards

Rather than speaking to the head, help the child (and yourself) by releasing the physical tension.

Literal Dad: Sweetie, remember that you have a choice about how you feel. Choose to be happy and relaxed.

Effective Dad: Sweetie, have a look at your hands. How do they feel? How do they feel when you open them up?

As a coach, using physical pathways to effect psychological change immediately hit home. Much of the value I receive from coaching comes from watching a physical pursuit improve an athlete’s internal life.

I wanted to pass this tip along, as my change in approach was immediately effective at helping her, and me.

Look for the physical expression of anxiety, release the body, the mind will follow.