The DNA of Peak Performance

Episode #306 The DNA of Peak Performance

WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THE BEST OF THE BEST?

I’ve always been fascinated by people who transcend the limits of human performance, in any field. They lead the way, expanding our perspective on what’s possible and giving us something to aspire to.

When we look at the microcosm of our own team’s performance, we are the ones who get to choose the standard, so it’s useful to reflect on what each of us perceives to be exceptional performance. Unfortunately, so many leaders bandy around the term “high performance” that it’s at risk of becoming a meaningless cliché.

How do we give ourselves a reality check? What do we use as a benchmark? How do we calibrate our efforts and set our own sights on what we might consider to be superior performance?

Over the years, I’ve produced a few podcast episodes that examine the feats of genuine high performance. And, while these people would be considered to be extreme statistical outliers, they demonstrate a standard that we can aspire to – this is what the pointy end of the performance spectrum actually looks like!

Stopping every so often to take a few deep breaths and look at what the best of the best are doing in their quest to achieve world-class performance helps us to calibrate our own standards.

I’m going to start this newsletter by examining the DNA of peak performance. I’ll then take a closer look at the lessons that Tom Brady left us with, on the occasion of his induction into the New England Patriots Hall of Fame. And I’ll finish with my five-step process that’s guaranteed to move you and your team just a little closer to true high performance.

THERE’S NO SHORTAGE OF EXAMPLES

I’ve always held a fascination for people who are at the absolute top of their game, enabling them to do incredible things – Roger Bannister, breaking the four-minute mile… Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reaching the summit of Mount Everest… Ernest Shackleton’s incredible leadership that saved the lives of his crew on the back of their disastrous Antarctic expedition. Then, of course, there’s a plethora of contemporary peak performers who show us every day what’s truly possible.

Trust me when I say that I’m more like you than them. But, equally, I’m not oblivious to what the gap is between where I am now and where I could be if I chose to dedicate single-minded focus to one thing in particular, to the exclusion of everything else.

Let’s face it – this is often what it takes…

I like to read about and listen to the people who are clearly on the top of their game, the leaders in their field:

• In business, it’s the likes of Alex Hormozi, Marie Forleo, Tom Bilyeu, Alan Mulally;

• We have the great thought leaders, like Scott Galloway, Malcolm Gladwell, Michael Lewis;

• There are people who redefine what self-discipline and peak physical performance look like – Jocko Willink and David Goggins;

• When it comes to sport, well, there’s quite a few excellent examples; and

• When it comes to leadership, well… not so much!

Over the years, I’ve looked at a number of high performers who’ve broken the mold with their achievements. I’m not going to go into these in any detail, but each has some rich lessons in what makes peak performers tick. I look at the good, the bad, and the ugly of some of these stories.

It’s definitely worth making the effort to listen to these episodes. They’re a little hard to find in our podcast content catalog, so I want to give you enough information here to help you to work out what might resonate most with you:

In Ep.29: Winning Without Self-Interest, I tell the story of Tom Brady, the greatest NFL quarterback of all time, who defied the aging process in one of the toughest sports on the planet – but more on Tom shortly.

In Ep.81: Jack’s Legacy, I commemorated the passing of Jack Welch. As CEO of General Electric for 20 years, Welch gave a masterclass on how to lead for performance. Of course, he became less fashionable later on as markets changed and social expectations evolved. But there’s a lot we can learn from Jack’s journey.

In Ep.92: The Leadership Dance, I looked at the groundbreaking performance of Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls in the 1990s, and I dissected the fundamental elements of that team to work out what drove the extraordinary performance.

In Ep.107: Resilience, Faith and Optimism, I looked at the stunning survival story of Admiral Jim Stockdale, a prisoner of war in Vietnam who spent seven years in captivity with the Viet Cong. Not only did he manage to survive, but his strong leadership also helped many of his fellow prisoners of war to make it home alive.

Ep.133: Elite Athlete to Top Executive, was one of the very rare interviews that I do on this podcast. I interviewed Luc Robitaille, one of the greatest ice hockey players of all time, who’s also managed to transition to an incredibly successful executive career as president of the LA Kings NHL franchise.

In Ep.179: Survival of the Fittest, I had a look at the ruthless sport of Formula 1 motor racing, where millions of dollars are often separated by only a few thousandths of a second. Is that the path to peak performance?

There are lots of stories out there to demonstrate what it truly takes to achieve superior performance, which is why, when I talk about the teams I led as a corporate executive, I’m under no illusions as to the relative standard of performance that we managed to achieve.

It all depends on what your personal benchmark is for performance. For me, I just like to be pretty mindful of not falling into the trap of boasting about being the world’s tallest five-year-old.

LESSONS FROM THE G.O.A.T.

I had the idea for this topic while watching Tom Brady’s induction into the New England Patriots Hall of Fame. For those of you who don’t follow American football, Tom Brady has been dubbed the “G.O.A.T.” – the greatest of all time.

During his 23-year playing career in the NFL, he completely defied the aging process. Not only did he break almost every record possible, he also demonstrated a level of selflessness and personal character that enabled him to lead his teams to unparalleled success. But, more on this shortly.

Just to give you a brief rundown:

Brady was selected as the 199th pick in the NFL draft. Just think about that – the NFL talent scouts collectively believed that there were 198 players who were better than Tom in his college graduating class in the year 2000.

When you put that into context with the existing cadre of stars already playing in the NFL, he wouldn’t have been a particularly good candidate for water boy!

But, on joining the Patriots organization, Brady’s work ethic saw him quickly climb up the depth chart, until he became the backup to starting quarterback, Drew Bledsoe. When Bledsoe was injured early in the 2001 season, Brady stepped in to replace him… and he never looked back!

• In his first four seasons as quarterback for the Patriots, Brady led the team to three Superbowl championships (2001, 2003, and 2004);

• After a rebuilding period, the Patriots went on to win three more championships in 2014, 2016, and 2018, with Brady showing some of the best form of his career… as a 41-year-old!

• In an 18-year span, the Patriots appeared in nine Superbowl championships, winning six of them.

• You’re not supposed to be able to do that! With salary cap restrictions and draft pick protocols structured to favor the weaker teams, winning streaks in the NFL are pretty rare.

• Six Superbowls in 18 years, in one of the most competitive competitions on the planet is nothing short of freakish.

• But that wasn’t the end of Tom – in 2020, he won a seventh Superbowl championship with a completely different team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Brady won seven Superbowl championships personally across the length of his career. No team in its history has won that many championships since the Superbowl era commenced in 1966. The Patriots and the Pittsburgh Steelers have each won six Superbowls.

And there are 12 teams that are still yet to win their first.

TAKING ONE FOR THE TEAM… LITERALLY!

Let me get back to my comment about Brady’s selflessness. After his first set of wins in the early 2000s he could have commanded the highest paid player contracts in the NFL, but he chose not to. He didn’t go down the path we see most successful sports people pursue – the path of self-enrichment and ego gratification.

Brady settled for relatively modest contracts. Why? Because he wanted plenty of room in the Patriots budget to be able to afford better players in other positions.

Lots of people talk about being a team player, but Brady truly walked the talk. Winning championships was way more important than his personal rewards.

I know, it’s not like he was struggling to put food in the fridge. Apart from his own wealth, he was also married to Brazilian supermodel and businesswoman Gisele Bundchen who, quite independently of Brady, has a sizable net worth.

But Brady knew how to play the long game. If his goal was to be the best and to win the most, he showed us all how that could be done by putting his short-term interests aside, and focusing on the big picture.

BRADY’S CORE MESSAGE

I was fascinated to hear what Brady might say during his Hall of Fame induction speech.

After a career like that, after all of the lessons he learned along the way, what would he focus on? What would he want his children to hear and remember? How would he put his legacy into perspective?

Look, I know that a lot of this stuff is just boilerplate – you say what everyone expects you to say… you thank the people who everyone expects you to thank. But once we got through all of the compulsory niceties, there was one passage where Brady spoke about his success over those two decades with the Patriots.

I just want to quote this brief passage, in Brady’s words:

“The foundation of a successful team, a family, or business is asking what you can do to support the mission. The Patriots embodied that. Everyone was committed to winning. Everyone was selfless. Everyone was always asking, “What can I do to help the team win?”’

As the great John Wooden said, “Happiness begins where selfishness ends.” I get asked a lot if my kids play football. My response is that I’ll support them in any of their dreams. Whatever makes them happy, makes me happy.

But I would encourage everyone to play football for the simple reason that – it’s hard!

It’s hard when you are young to wake up in the offseason at 6:00 AM to go train and work out, knowing that all your friends are sleeping in and eating pancakes.

It’s hard when you’re on your way to practice, weighed down with all your gear, and it’s 90 degrees out and all the other kids are at the pool or at the beach and your body is already completely exhausted from workouts and two-a-days.

It’s hard to throw, catch, block, and tackle, and hit kids when they’re way bigger and way more developed than you are, only to go home that night bruised and battered and strained, but knowing you have to show up again the next day for just the chance to try again.

But understand this – life is hard. No matter who you are. There are bumps and hits and bruises along the way, and my advice is to prepare yourself, because football lessons teach us that success and achievement come from overcoming adversity. And the team accomplishment far exceeds anyone’s individual goals.

To be successful at anything, the truth is, you don’t have to be special. You just have to be what most people aren’t: consistent, determined, and willing to work for it. No shortcuts!“

OK, SO IF IT’S JUST WORK, WHAT IS THE WORK?

“You just have to be what most people aren’t…”

Think about that for a moment. If you live your life with a belief that it’s enough to just do what everyone else does, you’ll inevitably reach a place of disappointment.

The reason I study these extreme cases of peak performance is to look for the common threads – to look for what I can apply to take me just that little bit closer to where I imagine my own peak performance could be, which ultimately leads to my personal success and happiness.

I know we’re not playing professional football in the NFL, or running a Formula 1 racing team, but the concept of being willing to do more than the next person is a universal success principle. Just ask anyone who’s successful and happy in any area of their life, and they will undoubtedly mention this principle right at the top of their list.

Last year, I interviewed Scott Jeffrey Miller, host of the FranklinCovey podcast On Leadership. Scott has interviewed the ‘who’s who’ of leaders, and people who’ve done extraordinary things in many walks of life. When I asked him what the common theme was in all of these top performers, Scott said, without hesitation, “The number one thing is hard work.“

Of course, there’s a lot more to it than that, but hard work is just table stakes.

If you want to be a better leader, then hard work is just going to be in your path. But hard work doesn’t mean 80-hour weeks. Hard work means doing the things that most people won’t do.

I promised you a takeaway for today. What can you do immediately to improve as a leader?

Of course, for each of you, it’s going to be something different:

• depending on where you are and your leadership journey…

• depending on your boss’s expectations and style and competence…

• depending on your past experiences…

• depending on the culture you currently have in your team…

• depending on what you’re afraid of, or resistant to…

• depending on your belief system…

• depending on your level of confidence.

FIVE STEPS CLOSER TO YOUR PEAK

I’m going to finish by giving you a few simple steps that you can take – right now. This might seem trite, but I guarantee that if you do this today, you’ll be in a much better place tomorrow.

There are five steps, but don’t be fooled by their apparent simplicity. These are incredibly powerful.

1. Write down the one thing that you’ve been avoiding the most. You’ll be really surprised how much power there is in this one, simple act. It may have been bouncing around in your head for years, but putting it down on paper, in black and white, is going to help you to overcome your rationalization and avoidance.

2. Write down the one thing that you could do to take a decisive step forward. This doesn’t have to be the biggest thing in the world. Start with baby steps and just build on them. You’re looking for something simple that’s going to give you confidence that you don’t have to continue to avoid or ignore this – something that trains you in the mindset that, even though it might be hard, it’s not fatal and it’s worth it. You’ll feel the satisfaction after you take action, I can promise you that.

3. Write down the day and time that you are going to do that thing. You may feel as though you are unprepared right now to do whatever it is that you’ve committed to doing, so just give yourself a little runway to prepare. But set the action in concrete and don’t leave yourself any wiggle room to back out later. Once you commit, you need to make it happen!

4. Take the action. Don’t agonize over it. Just prepare sufficiently so that your head’s in the right space to attack it wholeheartedly, and do it on the date and time that you originally committed to.

5. Congratulate yourself. To be honest, it doesn’t really matter what the outcome was from your action. This is your first step, so even if it was disastrous, that’s okay. The real outcome is that you did something you’ve been avoiding, possibly for years. That took courage, commitment, and strength of will. Now, you’re on your way!

BUT, AREN’T WE JUST MERE MORTALS?!

Can the DNA of peak performance really be captured in these five simple steps? Clearly not!

Many of the examples I’ve spoken about today are illustrations of elite individuals performing at levels not previously imagined. We don’t all have to aspire to that level.

While we have to be realistic about our own physical and mental limitations, we can’t just allow ourselves to use those limitations as an excuse – that will just keep us captive in our own mediocrity.

Our path is to imagine what’s possible for us, and then to set a bar that’s high enough to bring out our own peak performance, whatever that may be.

I know that, for myself, I’ll never be quite so single-minded about any one thing that I could become the G.O.A.T. – that would require an almost dysfunctional level of commitment!

But I know that I can set my own personal performance standard at a level that will enable me to do extraordinary things. And, if I’m honest with myself and I take action when I need to, that’s my surest path to success, happiness, and peak performance.