Push…

Push is generally about the avoidance of pain. It’s the “away from” side of the motivational spectrum.” You’re actively pushing yourself away from either a source of current pain or the perception of an anticipated pain.

So, if you’re overweight and feeling bad about it, stressed and suffering, unable to do what you want because of bodily pain, are in a bad relationship or a bad job, every day brings with it the experience of current, realized pain. You don’t need to be reminded of it, it’s there with you every step. And this can be a powerful motivation, it can push you to act to remove the pain.

The quest to remove a current pain can be an incredibly powerful push toward action. But there’s a downside…

Once the pain’s removed, the motivation usually goes away. Because it moves you from wanting to remove a current pain over to wanting not to experience or re-experience a future pain. It moves you from the quest for a cure to the quest for prevention. All you have to do is look at the lifestyle behaviors of the vast majority of people and the mountain of marketing research from healthcare and pharmaceutical providers to know that people respond far more aggressively to the quest to cure a current pain than they do to the quest to prevent a future one.

Preventative action, beyond teeth-brushing, is and always will be a brutally hard sell.

It’s just the way we’re wired. Even after major health incidents, most people revert to the behaviors that led to the incidents. Not all, but most.

So, the “proactive” push away from a potential future pain is an extremely weak source of motivation. And, though powerful, the push away from a current pain is a strong motivator, but it’s “reactive” motivation – it doesn’t kick in until things get pretty bad. And it generally goes away as soon as enough of the pain goes away.

Does that mean that most of us won’t do anything until we’re mired in suffering?

Not necessary. There’s still the “Pull” side of the motivational spectrum.

Pull…

Pull-based motivation is about tapping the desire to achieve something.

It’s about establishing a quest and taking action not to remove a current pain, but to bring yourself closer to a deeply desired end. Maybe it’s completing a marathon or learning to play guitar. Could be hiking the Appalachian Trail or building a business that changes not only your life, but the lives of the thousands of people it serves. Maybe it’s becoming a chess master or creating a stunning collection of paintings. Maybe you just want to solve a big honking problem or make something insanely cool, because those are activities and pursuits that fill you up.

Pull is about activities and meaningful quests that, by their very existence, inspire action in the name of coming closer to the object of the quest. And the beautiful thing about setting pull-oriented motivational drivers is that they can be long-term, they can have intermediate benchmarks that serve our emotional need for intermittent reinforcement. And, once completed, they can either expand to create a new source of pull to an even cooler place. Or a new quest with an even stronger sense of pull that builds around the foundation of habits and actions laid in the prior quest can be set in motion.

Plus, done not from a place of blind ambition, but rather a sense of presence, engagement and joy, the mere experience of moving along the “pull-spectrum,” regardless of whether you actually hit the quest you’re working toward, can be immensely rewarding.

Death…

I once heard a story about the Dalai Lama. He meditated on death, I was told, six times a day. My first response was, “how morbid.” But, also, “how interesting” and, when framed as an honoring of the impermanence of everything…how life affirming.

Then I stumbled upon Steve Jobs now famous Stanford Graduation speech, where he shared:

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

I’ve circled around to the believe that honoring your own impermanence on a daily basis, owning the fact that you’re going to leave the planet and you don’t know when, can be an immensely freeing experience. Saddening at times, yes. But freeing and empowering nonetheless.

Because what doesn’t matter drops away, creating more space to explore what does matter, to take actions and risk pushing the bounds of certainty in name of defining powerful pull-based quests capable of creating magic in both your life and the world around you.

So, I wonder, where do you fall in the motivation spectrum?

What’s driving your current behavior?

Are you happy with your answer?

And, if not…what next?

I recently swung through NYC’s largest, hippest candy store with my wife and a small gaggle of 10 year old girls. It was wonderous (I started vibrating just from the sugar in the air, lol).

Then we hit one section where we saw the display in the image you’re looking at.

Which made me wonder…

Why is it illegal to advertise cigarettes to kids in the U.S., but in a setting built for kids, it’s okay to sell a product that creates a clear positive association with smoking for kids?

Curious, what do YOU think?

Is this okay?

It was a clean break, which means the bone was completely separated and there was a risk that the pieces would heal out of position if I continued to walk on it. So I was put into an air-cast, then spent the next month on crutches, followed by a second month walking on the foot in the air-cast.

When I was finally allowed back in shoes, every step still caused intense pain. I was sure something was wrong, so I called the doctor. Everything’s fine he said, the bone is healed. He then shared how my month on crutches, while necessary, also wreaked a bit of havoc. The muscle becomes seriously atrophied and the connective tissue becomes constricted.

“I know it hurts,” he said, “but you’ve got to keep walking through it.” That was the only way for the muscle to rebuild and the connective tissue to become unstuck and re-pattern itself back into something more functional.

So, I walked, still convinced something was wrong. It shouldn’t hurt this much, I thought. But it did. And I kept walking.

Over time, I started to notice something. Actually, I started to notice what I wasn’t noticing. The pain. It was, in fact, starting to ease. The doc was right. Over a period of months, my foot began to get better. In fact, it was this very lack of continued “forced” movement into pain after a shoulder reconstruction years earlier (don’t ask, I was a gymnast as a kid, ack!) that is very likely why my should never re-patterned or returned to normal function.

But, here’s the bigger issue…

I’m very body-aware. I’ve studied, practiced and taught various forms of movement for my entire life. But I still wasn’t equipped to determine whether the pain that followed my time on crutches was good pain (to be leaned into and worked through) or bad pain (a signal to stop doing what I was doing). I’d never been on crutches before or experienced the level of atrophy, constriction and loss of function that it led to. This was new territory for me and I couldn’t draw upon my normal database for answers.

Sometimes we can figure these things out through introspection, learning and intuition. But other times, we need to turn to others to help us know whether what we’re feeling is good pain or bad pain. Either because we’re too close to the pain, emotionally and physically to be able to make an intelligent decision. Or because we simply don’t have the knowledge needed to intelligently translate the signals.

And that’s not just about our bodies, it’s also about our businesses and lives. Self-awareness, observation and intuition can cover you in most situations. But sometimes, they’re still not enough.

One of the strongest moves we can make in business and in life is to own the need to occasionally surrender and be open to receiving guidance.

So, I’m curious, have you guys ever had a similar experience? With your body, your business or life?

And, if so, how do know whether the pain is good or bad?

And who do you turn to if you’re having trouble figuring it out?

My friend’s success had proven to the club the viability (and income potential) of a personal training program. So, as he headed out the door, they decided to ramp their own in-house program…and they had much deeper pockets. My friend was a little freaked about the prospect of now having to compete with them.

So he asked me what to do. And with his permission, I’m sharing my advice to him with you…

First, step back. Stop looking so tactically. Look big picture. Why do people come to you in the first place? Pretty sure its’ not because you suck. It’s because of (1) who YOU are, (2) the experience YOU create for them, (3) the family YOU build to deliver that experience, and (4) the way YOU AND THAT FAMILY make them feel.

F@#k the other guys. Let them do whatever it is they need to do. THEY ARE NOT YOU!!! Own that. Take who you are and how what you create is special and do it better than you’ve ever done it before. You’re not competing against them unless you give up what you do best and let them drag you into playing on their field and by their rules.

You are the place 85% of people who wanted to workout would never have gone before BECAUSE you were housed in a gym that scares the crap out of them. You are everything a gym is not. Own that. Relish it. Amplify it. Build your brand around it. Treat people like gods, blow their minds, know their names, make them feel welcome coming in and amazing walking out.

The next few weeks will pass. Whatever happens, doesn’t really matter in the scheme of what you are building. Market, first and foremost by realizing and revealing how you will be different. Blow peoples’ minds on a consistent basis. And that includes your employees, give them every reason in the world to fall in love with you. Lead them, treat them with respect and compassion, like family. Then encourage everyone at every level to evangelize what you’ve created.

Yes, let the press know, run promotions, launch [top secret pre-launch strategy]. Get crazy creative.

But DO NOT FORGET THE CORE…you are not competing against the gyms, you are everything they are not. Own it, amplify it, feature it.

Reading that, it may sound like I’m anti-gym, but I’m not. The current model works for a certain percentage of the population, the 15% of U.S. adults who dig how big box facilities are run and what they offer. And there are enough of those people to keep most facilities in business (though it’s getting harder and harder to compete).

Sadly, though, this same model also alienates about 85% of U.S. adults who refuse to join or stay members. That number has stayed pretty consistent for decades, no matter how many bells, whistles, machines or marketing campaigns are added. Because, as I’ve discussed in an earlier article, the the problem runs core and culture deep.

And that has created a massive opportunity for niche newcomers and outliers who solve problems, offer lifestyle experiences and solutions and do business in a radically different way from day one. This is exactly what I did when I launched and grew two companies in the health and fitness world.

I didn’t care about the giant facilities that surrounded me on all sides or the established players. They had their place and they served their 15%. I wasn’t competing with them, my market was the other 85%. I was creating my own new solution tailored specifically to those who’d never do the big gym thing. My own blue fitness ocean. I turned the very fact that I didn’t have rows of machine, tons of TVs, busy locker-rooms, entertainment systems, key tag sign-in and loud music into an asset. I was there to serve those the rest of the industry had stepped around.

“Not being a gym,” though, isn’t a business model. Nor is “not being an XXX” in any industry. It’s an opportunity and a point of differentiation. But the business model is about what opportunities to serve, solve and delight this counter-mainstream positioning affords you.

It’s often about doing things in a way others either don’t yet understand are aren’t willing to explore because there’s too much uncertainty in contrast to a business model that’s relatively proven, but operating at a fraction of its potential.

Understand this…

Uncertainty, properly harnessed, is manna for innovation.

Lean into it. Dance with it.

The challenge is to focus not on how to be incrementally better, but how to change the game.

It ain’t easy, but if you can pull it off, it’s worth it.

Curious, how might this apply to your current career, business or life?

So I know the metrics well. Still, when I stumbled upon this sentence in a fitness chain’s public disclosure report, it bothered me:

Operating margin was 8.0% for Q4 2010, which includes the benefit of $2.7 million of revenue from unused and expired personal training sessions.

The clubs benefited from being able to take in $2.7 million in personal training revenue from people who paid for their services, but then bailed on their programs.

Benefited…BENEFITED?!

Yes, I realize that as a business owner, you cannot be held accountable for your customers’ actions. You cannot force someone who has paid real money for your services to to then show up and actually use those services. And there may be at least a partial argument in there when it comes to general memberships (more on this in a sec).

But, when people are willing to plunk down $2.7 for high-touch, individualized, results-driven services, then walk away without receiving value, can you honestly say it’s really all about them?

Doesn’t that make you wonder about you?

Where are you dropping the ball that so many people would rather walk away from their investment than avail themselves of the services they’ve already paid for?

Is leaving 17% (that’s what it came out to) of your most-motivated, committed, results-driven customers so unhappy with the service you provided and the promises you made they’d rather walk away than get their money’s worth really a “benefit?”

As long as we’re having this conversation, let’s broaden the lens.

One of the things that’s bugged me about the fitness industry for a long time is the fact that a high-percentage of paying quitters or non-attenders are built into the model. In fact, most clubs would go broke if everyone who paid them actually used their services. Because they’d have to expand their space, add a ton of classes and equipment to handle the load.

Clubs bank on the fact that many members will either never or rarely ever come.

They know that a large percentage of their members will pay, then stop coming fairly rapidly, but keep paying for a while. Because canceling the monthly auto-pay is tantamount to saying “I give up,” and that’s a tough psychological pill for most people to swallow. So, even after they’ve stopped going, the money keeps flowing for a while. Eventually, 40% will work up the nerve to quit and stop paying.

Same thing with the personal service packages they offer. Many expire with substantial chunks unused and this is built into the model.

Yes, there are standouts who defy these metrics, but sadly, they are the outliers, not the norm.

As much as the mainstream fitness industry claims publicly to be working like crazy to figure out how to up participation and retention, fact is very few providers have made even the slightest dent in their awful numbers.

Because the fundamental model is built on the backs of paying quitters.

They can’t push too hard to get people to love them because if they do, everyone would start showing up, demanding more and stressing facilities, services and staff that are built on the assumption that a huge number of paying members will never or rarely-ever actually show up.

That provides a huge disincentive for club owners and service providers to make the extensive changes to the model needed to build their businesses around services, solutions and experiences that are so enchanting and delightful that people can’t get enough, then charging what needs to be charged to deliver on the promise of lifestyle genius.

The industry says:

We can’t do that, people aren’t willing to pay what it would really take for us to create an experience that consistently blows their minds.

Um, no.

People aren’t willing to pay for the repackaged, lip-service modifications of the same old same old that tend to be offered up, then dismissed as failures.

They are willing to pay for “Sweet Mother of God, if I’d known it could be like this, I’d have been doing it decades ago.”

C’mon, industry, for years…YEARS…more than 90% of us adults have been saying we believe in our hearts that exercise is mandatory if we want to live well into the second half of our lives.

You don’t need to do any convincing! We’re sold.

But at the same time, for just as long, 85% refuse to participate in mainstream health clubs.

Hello, Beuler…BEULER?!

Okay, let’s make this easy for you:

• We want to have more energy,
• We want to be more pain-free,
• We want to sleep better,
• We want to be less-stressed,
• We want to feel great,
• We want to feel connected,
• We want to look hotter (yep, even old dudes like me), and…
• We WILL PAY if you can deliver on that promise.

But what you’re offering, at least for 85% of us is so devoid of the ability to make us feel this way and it’s being delivered in a setting, manner and mode that’s so insanely unappealing, guess what, we run like hell from it.

So, to the mainstream fitness industry, I’ve got a message.

Wake up! What got you here ain’t gonna get you there!

When millions of dollars of personal training services go abandoned and 40% of your members say I’d kill to get what you claim to deliver, but then quit, that’s not a “benefit” to your organization.

We want more. We want better. And, yes, we are willing to pay for it.

But, you’ve got to give us something that works not just for you, but for us.

Capisce?

Back in my fitness/yoga entrepreneur days, I landed a number of nice features in The New York Times.

But yesterday, I found my way back into the pages of the Style section in an article that takes a contrarian look at the big-box health club industry and asks why 90% of American adults agree that fitness is critical for their lifestyles, but for more than 30 years, 85% still refuse to join health clubs.

I’ve had lots to say on this in my posts about the unfortunate way the mainstream health club and fitness industry has evolved, focusing on boredom and distraction, rather than engagement and community.

You can check out what I suggested was one major problem with the modern-day health club model in yesterday’s New York Times article.

Fire Starter With Danielle LaPorte: Replay

On Wednesday evening, Danielle LaPorte lit up 250 maxed-out conference-call lines with a live Fire Starter session.

Two people, Jessica Swift and Dave Ursillo were the lucky recipients of her tremendous insights, wisdom and hard-core practical strategies.

As I anticipated when I announced the call, way more people (650) signed up than we had lines for (250), so a lot of people got closed out.

The great news is…we recorded the entire jam-session.

So, if you’d like to listen in, click over to the podcast of Danielle, me, Jessica and Dave rocking out for more than 70-minutes (yeah, we went a little over, but be sure to listen to the end, because Danielle answered a bunch of bonus questions from the comments).

You can either listen live or just download the mp3.

AND…If you’d like to learn more about Danielle’s Fire Starter Session home-program, click here

Your tribe doesn’t want a lecture, they want to pull up a chair.

Ah, the allure of an audience.

It’s so tempting to succumb to the belief that just because people show up to try you on for size, you’ve now earned the right to preach to them.

Some leaders, bloggers, speakers, writers, teachers, innovators and creators do this. And they do it really well. Building giant followings and brands.

And, yes, you guys have endured a rant or two (maybe three, lol) from me. But…

Every time I feel myself drawn over to the preaching side of the isle, I start to break out in ass-wipe hives.

Just not my preferred modus operandi.

Maybe it’s because I still consider myself very much along the same journey as everyone else. I just have the luxury of getting paid to spend a whole lot more time asking the questions everyone else asks, researching the answers, acting, testing and experimenting with the results, then sharing what I’ve discovered.

So, for me, a really important guiding principle has been…

Your tribe doesn’t want a lecture, they want to pull up a chair.

At least, that’s how I like to run this place, more like a digital cafe.

It’s actually something that was taught to me by one of my earlier mentors in the blogosphere, Liz Strauss. And it’s something she learned from her dad, who just happened to run a real-life tavern when she was growing up.

So, I’m curious, what’s the tone you most vibe with?

“Voice of God” or “c’mon, let’s talk?”

And, what’s the tone you set in the way YOU communicate? Share your thoughts in the comments…

++++

[FTC Disclosure: 1. Danielle is insanely cool. 2. I love introducing you to insanely cool people. 3. You may want to work with Danielle or buy her stuff after you hear what she just did on the conference-call and you realize how ridiculously smart, savvy and cool she is. 4. If you do click on the above link, then buy her stuff, I get rich. Not just a little bit rich. Like, stupid, gobs of bling, Jonny's got a new grill rich. 5. Fieldsy needs a new grill. 6. Not really. 7. I never liked Maraschino cherries. 8. No offense intended to Mr. Maraschino. 9. The Dude abides.]

Two years ago, I did a 12-day Cool Whip experiment to demonstrate to my daughter the impact of chemicals on food…and on us.

The outcome was so bizarre, it left quite an impression.

And, I shared the results in this very post. But, I felt the need to “refresh” the post and revisit the experiment after what unfolded yesterday.

Talk about the power of “seeing is believing,” last night—two years later—we were out a restaurant with the family. When our waiter brought my daughter a glass of hot chocolate with whipped cream on top, she gleefully dove in with a spoon. Scooping up a dollop, she noticed it was unusually thick. She tasted a bit.

Then turned to me and whispered,

“daddy, this tastes like Cool Whip”

…and promptly slid the glass away.

To understand why, you’ve got to see what unfolded in the original experiment…

It all started as a simple way to demonstrate to my daughter the difference between real-food and fake food. But, man-oh-man, did this thing go horribly wrong!

As the son of a mad-baker, I had a lot off whipped-cream growing up. But, not the kind you get from a can or a plastic tub. Mom used to whip it up fresh from heavy cream, vanilla and sugar. Okay, so we know that’s not the best thing for your body these day…but wait’ll you see this!

The Great 12-day Cool Whip experiment…documented in photos!

I decided to do a little experiment to see just how fake some food was and show my daughter, because pictures speak so much louder than words. So, I picked up a small tub of Cool Whip Lite whipped “topping,” and I also made up a quick batch of fresh whipped-cream. I dropped a big scoop of each into two little bowls and set them on the table.

Not surprising, within minutes, the real stuff began to melt away to nothing. An hour later, it was just a puddle of cream and sugar.

But, what unfolded next not only shocked, but horrified us…

The Cool Whip appeared unchanged…for 12 straight days!

Don’t believe me? See for yourself.

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

Day 9

Day 10

Day 11

Day 12

After Day 12, I finally got the guts to touch it and found that it had begun to harden into a plastic-like substance…

So, I decided to run two final tests on it…

The sideways gravitational-pull study…

and, the drawing-a-smiley-face-on-it study…

Sufficed to say…my little girl won’t be eating Cool Whip anytime soon!

So, can I get a nice, juicy, collective YYYUUUCCCKKKK in the comments?

Tony’s new book, The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working is available everywhere. Buy it, take it out from the library, whatever fits your budget, I know I’ll be referring to it as I lay out some changes in the way I work over the next few months.

And, you can find out about all the other cool stuff he’s working on at TheEnergyProject.com

[As always, I must disclose that (a) Tony's a friend, (b) he plays tennis, a word I also know how to spell, (c) he gave me a copy of the book, we met on the corner and I didn't pay him a dime because, well, I was wearing speedos and had nowhere to keep my wallet (I often stroll the Bronx in speedos), and (d) the link above is an affiliate link, so if a billion of you buy the book with it, I get rich, rich, rich!]

So, here we are at the final stop in our three part series.

In Daily Practices That Fuel Epic Journeys, we learned how powerful Building-In Space away from a challenge is in finding a breakout solutions. In part two, we discovered the power of Attentional Training, a tool that allows you to master stress, cultivate your professional edge and boost critical thinking and problem solving abilities. Now, it’s time for the final “A.”

Time to get “A”ctive!

Huh? That’s right. The final piece in the peak-performance puzzle is exercise…but, not for the reasons you might think.

Sure, we all know we’re supposed to be exercising for our health, to lose and keep of weight, to stop bone loss, to decrease risk of a host of life-limiting disease and to look better naked. But, what you may not know is that certain types of exercise actually have a profound impact on your cognitive and creative processes. One type even grows new brain cells, something thought impossible until just a few years ago.

Put another way, the right kinds of exercise can make you smarter and add to your ability to cultivate and maintain your business edge. But, before we get there, lets take a quick look at two often missed professional benefit of exercise.

Exercise lets you work longer and harder than your competition

The ancient sages of Aristotle’s time knew the impact of exercise on intellect. In fact, back then, a critical element of your training as a scholar was intense daily exercise. Why? Because thinking critically and solving problems, pondering complex mathematical equations or philosophical issues was grueling work. It took a toll on both the body and the mind. And, here is where the connection comes in.

When you are out of shape, inactive, overweight, overtired or physically compromised, your physical state crushes your ability to excel intellectually in two distinct ways.

One, pain and discomfort become a constant distraction to your ability to fully engage your mind in the process of thinking. We all know this to be true through own experience. Think about it. If your back is constantly aching, if your weight is drenching you in sweat, if something hurts from the time you open your eyes until the moment you go to bed, those sensations become constant distractions to the work that needs to get done.

The great yogic sages of India knew this, too, though the process was a bit different. In yoga the quest is more for enlightenment or unification with your divine self. One of the most effective ways to attain this ultimate state was through increasing bouts of daily meditation, often for extended periods of time.

To be able to sit for that long, though, was extremely difficult. Because, within minutes, every previously minor nagging discomfort would blossom into full blown, hugely distracting pain and discomfort. So, they created a system of physical practices that included exercise in order to better prepare the body to no longer distract the mind for the process of evolving. Which bring us to the second realization about exercise and the thinking process…

Two – Just as an out-of-shape, pained body becomes a constant distraction to hard intellectual work, a fit, able body becomes bio-chemical, structural and emotional support system that allows you to work harder, longer and more intensely than most others around you. Your “physical” abilities actually translate to an increased ability to develop your intellectual capacity.

This is especially true because you will likely be competing against many others who do not take care of their bodies and are likely battling the thought-distracting impact of their unconditioned state. Don’t expect this to last long, though, because more and more professionals, especially at the highest levels are becoming hip to the professional impact of exercise. So, if you are looking to compete on their level, exercise is simply a mandatory part of the equation.

Exercise “biggifies” your brain (and makes you hotter, but that’s for another post)!

For those not convinced by the wisdom of the sages and the growing experience of high-level exec’s all over the world, there is a growing body of science that now proves the impact of exercise on your brain’s everyday and “executive” functions—complex problem-solving, decision-making and planning.

• Exercise doubles late-day efficiency – A classic NASA study contrasted the work-efficiency of employees who exercised versus that of those who did not. During the last two-hours of an eight-hour day, the non-exercisers efficiency dropped dramatically by 50%. At the same time, those employees who exercised maintained near 100% efficiency, allowing them to accomplish twice the amount of work in the final two hours of the day. Exercise actually breeds efficiency.

• Fittest bodies yield the fittest brains – In a 2007 study of 259 third and fourth graders, kids who were the fittest, as measured by a variety of flexibility, strength and cardiovascular benchmarks, scored higher in math and reading than their less fit counterparts in statewide standardized tests, even controlling for socio-economic and other outside factors.

• Exercise has immediate impact on productivity and interpersonal performance at work – A 2005 study of 210 workers by Professor Jim McKenna at Leeds Metropolitan University revealed that, on the day that employees exercise, not only their mood, but their work performance was substantially improved, as measured by their ability to manage their time, increase output, and improve mental and interpersonal performance.

• Aerobic exercise grows brain cells responsible for executive function – According to an October 2007 Newsweek article, a series of recent studies by Professor Arthur Kramer, a psychologist at the University of Illinois and others, show daily aerobic exercise can actually grow new brain cells, especially in the hippocampus, the area that controls memory and learning, and the frontal lobes, which are chiefly responsible for executive functions. Dozens of studies back this up, yielding improved performance on psychological tests, the ability to answer question more quickly and accurately. Interestingly, the research also seems to show that there is a use it or lose effect once you are well into adulthood. Stop exercising and the increases quickly fade.

Top executives turn to exercise to keep their edge

Beyond the research and history of exercise and its impact upon professional performance, you only need to look at the make-up of the executive suite these days to know the critical nature of exercise in professional excellence. Increasingly, those who aspire to professional greatness hold their daily workout sacred and those seeking to hold onto their seats at the table view fitness not just as a way to look and feel better, but a mission-critical business tool.

So, now the ball’s in your court

If you are not yet exercising or it’s been a while, now is the time to get back into the active flow. Added to Building-in Space and Training Your Attention—you have three powerful daily practices whose impact will quickly compound to yield some pretty astonishing changes in your thought-processes and professional performance.

“Stepping Away” from challenges and Building-in Space is a practice that you can deliberately integrate into the way you approach your professional problem-solving strategy. You can begin it today and see it’s affect nearly immediately.

“Training Your Attention” will take a bit more time, but is eminently worth the effort. 

“Getting Active” will require you to do a number of things. One, if you’ve been inactive for more than a few months or you have any other medical or orthopedic conditions that might weigh on your choice of and approach to getting active, you’ll need to make a quick visit to your qualified health care provider to get her/his input.

Once approved, you’ll need to make time in your day. And, as we’ve seen above, carving out this time will make you so much more efficient that the process of exercising, itself, literally creates the extra time needed to exercise. It’s a gorgeous positive reinforcement cycle, once you’ve begun.

Next, and this will likely be your greatest challenge, you’ll need to explore activities, setting and guides/trainers/instructors to find what works best for you and inspires not boredom, hatred and drop-out, but joy, comradery and a enjoyment. If that sounds like a mega-challenge, honestly, it is.

But, IT IS POSSIBLE to love exercise if you know how to approach the process. In fact, done right, you may even learn to love exercise more than sex!

Please share your comments, questions and thoughts in the comment section below.

Back in my corporate lawyer days, there was one guy who everyone hated. Not because he was mean or underhanded or cut-throat. He was actually quite nice and always willing to help. People hated him because he was good. Superstar good.

While everyone else fretted and froze under the dizzying pace and pressure of the job, he seemed to always keep it together, to thrive and even come alive as the fire got hotter.

He wasn’t an adrenaline junkie or cowboy. He was actually a pretty level-headed guy. But he just seemed to process things faster, do things differently and see things everyone else missed. And that gave him an edge. An edge everyone else wished they had.

I used to wonder what he was doing differently. Whether he was just wired that way. Maybe it was genetic. Or perhaps there was something else going on. All I knew is I wanted an answer.

Because if it wasn’t genetic, if it was something that could be learned, I wanted to know.

I never figured it out before I left the law. But I also never gave up the quest, because I began to see this phenomenon across all professions and all industries. A handful of seemingly bright, but regular people regularly dusted everyone around them. And, it wouldn’t be long until my experience as an entrepreneur in the lifestyle and wellness industry and my exposure to certain Eastern-derived practices began to fill in the gaps.

Turns out, there are a handful of things most super-performers do different that underlie or, at least substantially accelerate their success.

Time for Mindset Domination Strategy #2.

In part 1 of this series, we introduced the first of three little-known practices that turbo-charge your creativity, productivity and develop breakout problem-solving ability—Building In Space. We showed how completely removing yourself from the creative or problem solving process can often be the fastest path to an innovative, revolutionary solution.

Now, it’s time to add to our arsenal with strategy #2 – – Attentional Training

There’s one very special thing that many do, religiously, that really helps push them over the edge from good to professional super-power good. And while many do it intentionally, far more don’t even realize they do it. Or, they don’t realize how or why it works or how critical it is to their success.

I wonder when the last time you felt any of these was?

• Stressed,
• Anxious,
• Tired,
• Unfocused,
• Depressed,
• Moody or
• Burned-out.

Reality is, everyone experiences these on some level virtually every day, but your ability to handle, quickly recover from and master these states so often makes the difference between worker-bee and executive suite in the high stakes world of business. Think about it, what is the corollary to the above states?

• Calm
• Content
• Energized
• Highly-focused
• Upbeat
• Even-keeled and
• Optimistic

There is a simple daily practice that has the ability to not only make the dramatic changes in mindset and operating state noted above, but alter your “attentional” abilities to literally allow you to see things others miss.

This hugely-beneficial daily practice is called Attentional Training (AT) and it comes in many formats, both active and seated (heck, even lying down). Regardless of how it pursed, though, the critical elements always include the cultivation of high-levels of sustained focus that are required either by instruction or by the intrinsic nature of the activity.

How powerful is this practice?

Done right, AT induces a psycho-physiological state where your heart-rate, blood pressure and levels of stressor hormones all drop precipitously, while your attention becomes highly-focused. And, inducing this state on a regular basis not only helps your mindset, it dramatically lowers your risk for heart-disease, diabetes, and various other life-limiting conditions. It helps you sleep deeper, longer and wake fewer times at night and it can lower anxiety, stress and depression. That’s where the focus has been in most of the research.

More recently, though, we’ve discovered these practices have a monumental impact on professional performance.

Back in 2007, a team of researchers from China and the University of Oregon reported a study that showed improvements in a person’s attention and response to stress after only 5-days of practicing their specialized IBMT protocol (more on this later). The lead investigator’s wrote, “after training the experimental group showed less cortisol release, indicating a greater improvement stress regulation. The experimental group also showed lower levels of anxiety, depression, anger and fatigue than was the case in the control group.”

Other studies back up these conclusions and one fascinating study reported in Live Science even revealed improvement in what has been termed “attentional blink” after 3-months of a more intensive form of training.

How to see what everyone else misses…

Apparently when we’re shown two images in rapid succession, most of us don’t see the second image, because we are busy processing the first. It’s almost as if we had blinked. That means, all day long, we are literally not seeing things that are right in front of us. In fact, most of the time, we don’t even see a good part of the first image. Don’t believe me?

Take a look back at the photo of the monkeys above and see if there’s something, oh, just a bit unusual about the one on the left.

Researchers studying a very intensive form of AT called insight meditation discovered that, after three months of training, people were able to see far more of the “second” images than those who were not similarly trained.

With Attentional Training, they could literally see what everyone around them missed.

I wonder how much of an edge that would give you in business and life?

The C-Suite climbs on board

Constantly driven to be better at what they do, the mounting research has led more and more C-suite leaders and thinkers to engage in this practice.

According to an article in Fortune Magazine:

Devotees include junk-bond-king-turned-philanthropist Mike Milken; Bill George, the former Medtronic CEO; ad industry mogul Renetta McCann; and NBA coach Phil Jackson. Silicon Valley is full of meditators, such as Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce.com, and Larry Brilliant, head of Google’s philanthropic efforts. Naturally, a crew of Google employees has organized twice-weekly open meditation hours, at which it has hosted Tibetan monks and a team of mind-science researchers….Particularly hard-core is Bob Shapiro, the former CEO of Monsanto, who has done three ten-day silent retreats and is considering a 30-day tour.

In that same article, bestselling author of Never Eat Alone and master business networker, Keith Ferrazzi, reveals the key to connecting is “not being an asshole” and cites the most effective path to be AT.

It works, whether you want it to or not

Well, that sounds interesting, comes the reply, but I don’t go for that namby-pamby mindset voodoo crap. Plus, I can tell you that most of the people I know with that magical professional edge don’t do all of the things mentioned above.

Maybe not, at least in the formalized way I just laid out. But, here’s the interesting thing—though few people have a dedicated AT practice, many super-performers actually do bring the critical elements of this practice into their lives every day without even knowing it. And, it’s those unwitting AT practitioners who tend to lead the professional pack. As you pour through the variety of ways to access the AT state below, this will become much clearer.

Okay, so that’s the what, now let’s get into the how…

AT takes many forms and, different approaches tend to work better with different people. So, here are 7 different approaches, each studied and considered to be highly-effective.

• Active-AT – This I how the vast majority of business super-performers get their AT in. In fact, many of us invoke the major elements of AT during specific types of sports, serious hobbies like painting, composing or playing music, knitting or outdoor activities without even realizing it. Look for activities that either: (a) by their intrinsic nature, require an intense state of concentration for an extended period of time, or (b) are repetitive and deliberate, allowing you melt into that elusive “zone” state. So, trail-running, which requires intense observation, concentration and adjustment would be example of the first, while track running would be an example of the second. The point is, the right kind of physical activity can induce the relaxation-response state. And, over time that psycho-physiological training filters past health to business performance. Ask any top-level executive who runs every day and they’ll tell you. It’s not just about fitness, but about the effect on mindset and creation of the “edge.”

• Mindfullness-based stress reduction™ – Developed by now world-famous psychologist and bestselling author of Full Catastrophe Living, Jon Kabat-Zinn, more than 20,000 people, from all walks of life have now completed this training with remarkable results. This is an 8-week program that can either be done live in Massachussetts, though trained affiliates or at home with Kabat-Zinn’s book and audio CDs (or mp3s). I have done it and highly recommend it, though, the 45-minutes a day required can be a bit of a struggle in the beginning.
  • iTunes – Mindfulness Meditations for Tranquility and Insight
  • App - Mindfulness Meditation

• Insight Training/Meditation – this is the technique that was studied with regard to reducing the attentional blink. It is a specialized form of meditation/AT that grows out of Buddhism (though you do not need to be a Buddhist to practice or benefit from it) and is highly effective at delivering a wide range of benefits. But the training can be fairly intensive, even requiring 10 hours a day for weeks at a time. So, though it is incredibly powerful, for most, it is not an easily accessible first-step. Interestingly, though, it appears similar benefits are derived from the other forms of AT and, upon further study, the reduction in attentional blink may, in fact, be a benefit of most sustained AT practices. Future research will tell. Insight resources include:
  • Insight Meditation Audio Course (aff)
  • Seeking The Heart Of Wisdom (book) (aff)
  • Wiki on Vipassana or Insight meditation
  • Insight retreats and centers
  • Apps – Guided Insight (iphone & Android)

• Biofeedback – Biofeedback has been around for decades and has been well-studied as a form of stress-management and state-change. It is a great tool for those more “science” oriented who want immediate, objective feedback. There are many approaches, but, generally, you use a simple machine that reads various biological markers, like pulse, galvanic skin response, temperature, and then direct your focus on changing those markers to bring them into a target range. Biofeedback machines and audio program are now very inexpensive and can be learned and used at home. Some resources include:
  • Stress Eraser – very cool, iPod-size, high-tech biofeedback device
  • BioMedical.com – online clearinghouse for devices, information and audio/video

• Classical meditation – A vast array of approaches to meditation abound, with the similar element of requiring you to train your attention on anything from your breath to a prayer, phrase, candle-flame, set of numbers and more. While highly-effective over time, many people find it extremely challenging to keep focus, get frustrated and give up on a practice that could have become hugely impactful. Reality is, it takes a long time before you feel any level of mastery and impact with this approach, which makes it important to find a technique, tool or teacher that really resonates with and supports your quest. Some resources include:
  • HealthJourneys.com – offers an extensive library of audio, video and downloads, plus detailed information on a wide variety of techniques.
  • Shambala Meditation Centers – directory of worldwide locations
  • Kripalu – one of the largest destination mindbody centers in the world with an extensive catalog or courses
  • Apps – Zen Timer, Relax with Andrew Johnson

• Psychoacoustics – In the 1970s, neuroscientists developed a technology that delivered slightly different, often inaudible tones into each ear simultaneously and found that by manipulating the frequency different between these tones, they were able to entrain brain waves in specific states. It was hailed by many as meditation for those who couldn’t meditate, because it seemed to work without the participant having to maintain a rigid point of focus. Since then, A number of researchers have build goal-specific audio programs and tools around this technology in an effort to allow more people to use these tools. Resources include:
  • Centerpointe Research Institute
  • Learning Strategies Paraliminals
  • Apps – AmbiScience Pure Meditation, Brainwave Entrainment Binaural Beats

• Integrative body mind training (IBMT) – This is the form of AT that was used in the University Oregon study discussed above. You can learn more about the science and the practice at Dr. Yi Yuan’s website. It seems to offer all of the benefits of AT, but three unique features may, in fact, lead this to become amongst the fastest adopted and most widely form of AT to hit the U.S. in a long time.
  • One, it does not require rigid focusing of the mind on one thing for an extended period of time, a practice that most people find extremely difficult.
  • Two, it appears the benefits can be experienced extremely quickly, in as little as 5-days, and
  • Three, the practice can be done fairly quickly, allowing almost anyone to fit it into their day.

Wanna jump right in today?

Here’s a simple technique and to get you started with a very basic, accessible 10-minute daily seated practice.

1. Find a quiet place
2. Sit in a comfortable upright position with your hands on your knees
3. Close your eyes and take 10 breaths, letting your exhale get longer and longe with each one
4. Starting at a very gentle pace, begin to count backwards from 100 by threes, saying each number softly or just sub-lingualizing them with every inhale and exhale. So, for example, inhale and think and say 100, exhale, think and say 97, inhale, think and say 94 and so on. If you get a number wrong, just let it go, say the right one and move one.
5. When this becomes easy or a few days or week in, pick up the pace a little bit until it becomes easy again. Then, bump the top number by 25 and keep practicing and bumping pace until it gets easy again. Keep at this until the whole practice takes about 20-minutes and give it a few weeks.
6. Let go of any expectations and see what unfolds…we’re all meant to suck at it in the beginning!

There are so many ways to explore AT and access the states that it creates. And, it is important to note that, while the focus of this article is on the “professional” impact of these practice, there is also a very clear and profound impact that reaches deeply into all aspects of your life. That discussion is for a future article.

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