Fitter, Faster, Stronger, Smarter: Training for the Performance of Life

Introduction

It’s 30 000 BC and a misty predawn light is starting to trail its way into your cave. You’re obviously the first awake because you can hear the rhythmic sound of heavy breathing coming from the other sleeping mats. As you yawn, stretch and contemplate the day to come, you notice that the fire has almost gone out at the mouth of the cave — not a positive sign of effective security.

Without warning, the silence is broken by a blood-curdling roar. A large lion pads into sight. It stops — its body filling the cave’s entrance — and eyes you hungrily.

Right now, your survival — and the survival of the others still asleep — depends on whether you’re thinking one of the following:

‘I’m toast!’

‘Great! I love pitting myself against giant carnivores! My super-charged, light-weight killer spear is handy, and I’m feeling strong.’

‘Run! I’m trapped, darn it. Didn’t I tell the builder that I needed that escape hatch fixed yesterday?’

‘I wish I’d paid more attention in the How to talk with lions class.’

‘I wonder if I should hide under the covers? If I can’t see it, maybe it can’t see me.’

‘Where’s Steve? He’s always claiming to be the lion tamer. Now here is his chance.’

‘Dear Moggins — hand-reared since a cub — is here for his breakfast. I just wish he’d turn down the volume on his wake-up call.’

In short, when people are faced with a challenge, they have behavioural choices from which to select. They can choose to give in to the challenge, fight it, run from it, reason with it, hide from it, pass it onto someone else or reframe it so that it no longer represents a challenge.

Although people may no longer be faced with quite the same life-or-death challenges, they still encounter metaphorical lions this side of the Ice Age. Their ability to manage them becomes crucial to their survival and success. That capability not only affects someone as an individual, but also the people around — and dependent on — that person. The approach people therefore take in the execution of their daily lives can carry considerable responsibility.

The fitter, faster, stronger, smarter mindset

The ability to plan for an encounter with a lion — or to reframe the encounter so that the lion becomes a kitten and is therefore infinitely more manageable — forms a significant component of the thinking that sets achievers and non-achievers apart. Sporting champions, corporate successes and resilient people understand this. They recognise a challenge and have strategies prepared to manage them; if those strategies aren’t in place, they will turn the challenge to their advantage. And it’s not just about encountering lions — it’s also about getting to where they want to be in the most effective and efficient manner possible.

Successful people have a mindset that elevates them above the bodies wallowing in the pond of mediocrity. They:

have better mental fitness — possessing a greater mental capacity to adapt to a given situation and a superior state of general mental wellbeing

are mentally faster — being quicker at seeing a potential outcome and then obtaining it, at resolving challenges and at returning to their designated path

are mentally stronger — having more power to resist attack or strain, and a greater capacity for effective action

are mentally smarter — being characterised by a quick and perceptive thought process and a shrewd approach to dealing with people and situations

All in all, successful people have a ‘fitter, faster, stronger, smarter’ mindset than most.

So what if you were to gather together some of these people, ask them some questions about their strategies for achievement and put their answers in a framework that you could use for your individual benefit? It should, at the very least, make for some interesting reading.

What’s in it for you

I don’t identify with people who don’t want to learn; I have nothing to say to them.

Archie Douglas

The guiding principle of this book is that your performance is a function of how well you achieve your goals. In other words, your performance is your behavioural execution — it means using your knowledge to achieve your goals, as distinguished from merely possessing that knowledge. Regardless of the nature of your goals — whether you want to be happier or healthier, or achieve in business, sport or at home — fitter, faster, stronger, smarter practices can impel you there with greater velocity. Elite sportspeople set performance targets both on and off the sports field, and then design and execute a program by which to achieve them. That same attitude to performance is paralleled by the successful elite in business and in life — demonstrating that people can train as effectively for life as athletes train for Olympic glory.

As a performance coach working with professional sports teams, elite amateur athletes and senior management personnel in business, I’ve seen — time and time again — an overlap between the principles for achieving success on the football field or netball court and success in the boardroom or in life.

Principles and factors are all very good, but to make these pages eminently more readable and relevant, I’ve included tales and tips from those in the field. As a performance coach, I have had the privilege of meeting and working with many people who have achieved great success in varied arenas, but whose principles for success are very similar. Offering you support, their stories and opinions will provide you with real-life examples of people who have implemented performance principles in their own lives. Pointers for all those looking to improve their life performance are contained in these pages.

Journeys need maps

Use this book to create and develop a ‘success map’ — a path to follow by which to achieve your goals. A success map is a one-page sheet that acts as a compass; it sets out your goals and how you’re going to meet them. By following each stage on your path from start to finish, you’ll set in motion an effective structure for getting to where you want to be.

Each of the following sections will help you construct your own success map — and you can choose to put it together in whatever way best suits you. The point to remember is it has to be tailored to you as an individual, and it has to act as a reminder and a guide. You should keep returning to it to review your progress and direction, just as you’d navigate with a compass on a long journey. Australian Bennett King, the head coach of the West Indian cricket team and the successful, former head coach of Queensland Cricket, refers to himself, in his coaching capacity, as ‘the compass’. He clarifies by saying, ‘I give the direction to the players; I’m the one who sets out how to get us there and I’m the one who resets direction when we start getting lost’. Many people don’t have access to a coach to keep them on track in their life performance, but everyone can access their own success map.

A success map — if it’s put together well and used effectively — acts like the directive component of coaching. Firstly, map your course towards achievement of your goals, and then regularly review your success map to keep you aligned to those goals and to re-align you when your path becomes cloudy. To give a clearer picture, there is an example of a success map framework in appendix A.

Much of what will appear in this book has probably been sitting in your brain all along, so most of it shouldn’t come as a surprise. They are issues that you have likely pushed to the bottom of your importance pile and then forgotten — along with your New Year’s fitness or life-balance resolution, or any other commitment you made long ago but let fall by the wayside. Reading through should trigger a resurfacing of your resolve to apply yourself to improving all important areas in your life. It will also enable you to discover some fresh perspectives and tools to integrate with your newfound resolve — helping you to stay on track.

For simplicity — and to reinforce a focus on performance development — this book is divided into chapters that include ponder points at the end of each one. They provide you with opportunities to focus your own reflections, and they include some suggested summarised directions for implementing the information you’ve absorbed in the relevant chapter. After contemplating those points, outline — in the form of a to do list — the things missing from your current portfolio of actions that you have identified as being significant to the achievement of your success.

At the conclusion of the book, compile and prioritise your to do list and it will provide you with much of the content for a detailed success map. It’s then up to you to make the commitment to follow it.

Choose to change

He which hath no stomach to this fight, let him depart.

William Shakespeare, Henry V

Change, as a general rule, is not something that human beings do particularly well. They prefer the comfort of knowing the next line in the script and ensconcing themselves in beds of familiarity.

Change can upset your equilibrium because it usually means taking a step back from your daily existence and assessing if what you’re doing is effective or not. Change is also hard work, so you need to prepare yourself for putting in more effort than usual during those periods of change. However, just as you can steel yourself to shift a heavy object, you can also ready your body and mind for the challenge of change.

Surfing or being dumped

Extensive research done with elite athletes, both professional and amateur, making the move from sport to another career path found that the transition was easiest for those who voluntarily made the move — they marked their wave, lined up the board and rode it to shore. By contrast, the research also showed that athletes who involuntarily departed from their sport often found themselves at a loss — dumped on the sandy bottom as the waves swept over the top of them. The impact of involuntary departure from sport can only be mitigated by athletes by planning for their next career step before the departure day actually arrives. The biggest challenge for athletes in this predicament is that life after sport is seen by them as less appealing than a life framed around their sporting pursuit. Life after sport is another world — another ball game with different rules and competencies. It’s unfamiliar. It’s usually the reason why some athletes can live in constant denial of retirement from their sport right up until the day arrives — thereby leaving them at the mercy of chance.

Corporate life isn’t wildly different. Research has found that the average person will make about seven career changes — let alone job changes within each field — in a working life. Some of those changes may be straightforward; indeed, they may even be anticipated with pleasure. However, many are involuntary, unexpected, unattractive and unfamiliar. Therefore, considering that change is highly likely, you’re in a far stronger position if you have prepared a plan or two, so you at least stand the chance of turning that change into an opportunity rather than an obstacle.

Do you create change or does it more frequently come up from behind and swamp you? The more control you have over change, the more comfortable you’ll be with the processes. Most people have the power of choice — people are never too old to change. It’s true that time and practice embeds habits — particularly over long periods of time. But deeply embedded habits are comfortable — sometimes even perceived as safe — because the alternatives are unfamiliar and potentially challenging. In fact, you can subconsciously choose to forget that you even have a choice. However, once you are aware of the alternatives, you can learn to anticipate, manage and possibly initiate change to work it to your advantage.

As mentioned earlier, change is a state that is inherently effort intensive, even if that change is positive. Knowing that you’re likely to feel stress, even when you’re experiencing positive change, can provide welcome relief from confusion you may feel. People often assume that they shouldn’t be stressed when they’re experiencing change for the good. But any change is stressful — and once you know this, it will encourage you to deal with your stress, rather than denying it because you think it’s foolish to feel it.

For example, you may have just achieved that much coveted promotion at work or been awarded the best and fairest award at the end of your sporting season, and as a result you become a role model to those aspiring to do the same. Your mind would have to adapt to the increased pressure placed on you, role-related change and even a change in your environment. Those issues inflict stress on the body’s systems — even when the changes bringing them about are positive