Crafting a Life of Productivity Fuels Peak Performance

I pulled on my hel­met and gloves and gripped the wheel. Only two months before, I had left the race­track annoyed after a mediocre day.

This time — things were different.

Dri­ving cars at the lim­it has long been a pas­sion of mine. It pro­vides me an oppor­tu­ni­ty to feel inspired, alive and chal­lenged. It’s a time in which I feel I am get­ting to the core of who I am as a per­son. It is also a per­fect chance to dis­cov­er fun­da­men­tal rules relat­ing to high per­son­al performance.

On this par­tic­u­lar day, I joined some friends at the Pacif­ic Race­way in Seat­tle, Wash­ing­ton to give our cars a work­out on the track. The real­i­ty is that these days are easy for the cars and a real chal­lenge for the dri­vers! Unlike the last time I was there, I was absolute­ly fly­ing – effort­less­ly. I was locked in ​“flow” and it felt like I was float­ing around the track and could do no wrong. My car was doing things I did not think it was capa­ble of – danc­ing through the cor­ners faster than I ever had before and pass­ing tech­ni­cal­ly faster cars with ease. I left feel­ing amaz­ing and want­i­ng more.

Hours lat­er, as the adren­a­line wore off and I real­ized what I’d been doing, I asked myself, HOW was that pos­si­ble? The car always had this capa­bil­i­ty, but some­how I was able to pull it all togeth­er on that day.

I have found this amaz­ing place of peak per­for­mance a num­ber of times since, in some obvi­ous and some less obvi­ous places.

What I notice is that in those moments, not only am I able to do things much bet­ter than nor­mal­ly, but I also feel spec­tac­u­lar at the same time.

High-pro­duc­tiv­i­ty states are moments in time where every­thing feels easy and enjoy­able. Hours drip away. You sim­ply for­get every­thing that’s going on in your life. You become con­sumed with what is in front of you. Fear is absent. You feel lost in what­ev­er you’re doing. All of your atten­tion is used up on the task at hand. Every­thing appears simple.

What’s more is that when you’re in these states, you’re the ​“best” ver­sion of your­self. You will have instant clar­i­ty and focus. You reach fur­ther and high­er than nor­mal. You push your­self and meet the chal­lenge head on.

You feel brilliant.

Here’s the thing — you’re only going to expe­ri­ence this state when doing the right things. For me, it’s cars and coach­ing. Work­ing with high per­for­mance machines and high per­for­mance peo­ple push­es me towards the same state. Not only am I at my best when I’m dri­ving or coach­ing, but the feel­ing LASTS for hours after­ward and it spills over into the oth­er areas of my life.

Many lead­ers and CEOs will be famil­iar with this state and what it feels like. It is, quite sim­ply, when you do your best stuff. Deci­sions made are more like­ly to be accu­rate. You see the prob­lems your com­pa­ny is fac­ing more clear­ly. Solu­tions are there and for a few days after­ward, maybe you’ve noticed that life seems a lot better.

But there is a prob­lem. It’s that most peo­ple find them­selves there by ACCI­DENT. Instead of craft­ing a life of pro­duc­tiv­i­ty around doing work in opti­mal states and being bril­liant as often as pos­si­ble, many peo­ple drift from task to task. They occa­sion­al­ly drop into states where they are at their best, but it’s rare.

Flow Ver­sus Touch and Go

One of the big prob­lems that every leader faces is get­ting ​“caught up.” They are con­stant­ly fight­ing fires, sim­ply try­ing to keep up with the onslaught of respon­si­bil­i­ties that keep com­ing their way.

Occa­sion­al­ly, they drop into a high-pro­duc­tiv­i­ty state and work effec­tive­ly. But the moments are rare and they’re fleet­ing. Chances are, this sounds familiar.

The chal­lenge we face is har­ness­ing the pow­er of these moments by mov­ing away from acci­den­tal bril­liance and towards inten­tion­al. How do we do that? By cre­at­ing pur­pose­ful­ly pro­duc­tive states through the awe­some pow­er of habits and triggers.

Trig­gers can be almost any­thing. It can be fin­ish­ing a run, sit­ting down at a cer­tain cof­fee shop, hav­ing a dis­cus­sion with a trust­ed advi­sor or coach, or even as sim­ple as open­ing a cer­tain pro­gram on your com­put­er. But unless a leader builds a struc­ture around those trig­gers, they will always be touch and go and ​“core” states will remain elusive.

Turn­ing Trig­gers into Rituals

Coach­ing is a huge trig­ger for me. Sit­ting down in front of a dri­ven per­son who’s star­ing at a huge chal­lenge that they’re just stuck on. It drops me into that peak state almost instan­ta­neous­ly. As my clients and I set­tle into our dis­cus­sions, I notice time drop­ping away and my pas­sion for help­ing them ris­ing. It’s exhil­a­rat­ing and it’s one of the rea­sons I love what I do.

Anoth­er trig­ger is, and this might sound odd, is get­ting on an air­plane. Some peo­ple watch movies or read while fly­ing — I write and think. I brain­storm. I solve prob­lems that my clients are fac­ing. When­ev­er I sit down in one of those seats, I know that how­ev­er long the flight is, it will be a peri­od of pro­duc­tiv­i­ty for me. These days, it’s a guar­an­tee. I COUNT on that time being pro­duc­tive and insightful.

The key for me is the sim­ple act of writ­ing — I put pen to paper and instant­ly I feel more cre­ative, alive and get insights that sur­prise me.

Once you’re prop­er­ly able to iden­ti­fy what is a use­ful and pro­duc­tive peri­od of time for you; once you know what ​“get­ting to the core” real­ly feels like — only then can you start to work on recre­at­ing it for yourself.

You do that by fig­ur­ing out your trig­gers. As I men­tioned, one of my trig­gers is sit­ting down on a plane. Anoth­er one of my trig­gers is pulling on a hel­met and gloves when I’m about to race. For you, it could be any­thing. Here’s a list of some of the ones I’ve come across:

• Horse rid­ing
• Mar­tial arts
• Going on holiday
• Cof­fee shops
• Pub­lic speaking
• Feed­back from some­one that you respect.
• Brain­storm­ing
• Play­ing a musi­cal instrument
• Paint­ing
• Med­i­ta­tion / Yoga
• Clean­ing
• Gar­den­ing
• Fix­ing mechan­i­cal problems
• Doing a puzzle
• Archery

I would love to hear about the ones that work for you.

Now the tough part — you need to start mak­ing time for the trig­ger to take place, and for the peri­od of time after­wards. That’s how you’re going to start har­ness­ing the pow­er of your ​“acci­den­tal” bril­liance. And when you do this, you’re going to be at your best far more often.

When we max­i­mize the amount of time we spend in this state, we both improve and enjoy our lives more. This extends to far more than your career. What would your fam­i­ly life look like if you made a habit out of being bril­liant with your son, your daugh­ter or your part­ner? What if every morn­ing when you woke up, you were able to place your­self in this state?

Struc­ture your life around these moments. I’ve attempt­ed to do so for years and have reaped the ben­e­fits as a hus­band, as a father and as a coach. I want the same for you.

Have a great week.