There is a great feeling of clarity and certainty that comes from this exercise. It prepares you to move forward with confidence and a growing passion for your chosen field. The pro athletes that have done this exercise were surprised how simple and easy it was to find another pursuit that they could be excited about. For those in transition it gave clarity and for those still actively playing it provided a comfort by knowing that they could be developing themselves beyond football. It is easy to be content with the money made from your sport, but whether or not you need the money, it is a known fact that all of us want to feel productive by contributing and sacrificing, so it is still important to do even for a pro with a lot of money. If you’re ready for a career change, give it some thought, try the yellow pad exercise, and don’t be surprised if you end up in a much better place!
One athlete I worked with said, “I wish I had done better in school. I would like to have been a physical therapist in a sport medicine setting.” I asked, “Why can’t you be a physical therapist?” He looked at me as if to say, “Are you kidding? I was terrible in math and science, and I am twenty-five years old! It’s too late for me now.” This athlete was a very smart guy but he never applied himself to learning the prerequisites needed for a career in allied health while he was in high school and college. I said to him, “If you applied yourself to pursuing a career as a therapist in the same way that you did to become a professional athlete, I have no doubt that you could become a physical therapist. No matter how poorly you did in math and science, you could go back as far as necessary and learn all that is required for the degree and license.” He looked at me with some doubt and I continued, “How long are you going to live? “Eighty-five,” he quickly stated. “Okay, eighty-five. Let’s say that it takes you three years to take all the courses you should have taken in college. Then, say it takes you two more years to get through a masters program and five more to finish your doctorate. You would have your doctorate in physical therapy and you would be thirty-five years old. You said that you might live to eighty-five. You would have fifty years of being a physical therapist. You would be a physical therapist for longer than you would have been alive on the day you earned your degree!” You may use some of the same words “I can’t”, “I’m too old”, “it’s too late”, and they limit you from becoming what you want to be, what you are capable of being. Often these limitations are self imposed and further reinforced by an arbitrary set of rules placed on you by society. The word “can’t” means not able. Don’t artificially limit yourself from doing something good that you want to and can do!
After one of my sports performance presentations a crowd of about thirty people, mostly coaches, physical therapists, and athletic trainers, approached me to ask some additional questions. They had surrounded me and I was doing my best to listen and to respond while maintaining some order. I heard someone start to ask me a question from almost behind me. As I turned to my left I was confronted by a Jewish Rabbi who was about 5’5”, dressed in all black, wearing a long overcoat, hat, and a single ringlet of hair hanging down on each side of his temples. By the way, these ringlets of hair are called peyots and are worn to symbolize the separation between the front part of the brain, the more intellectual, and the rear part representing the physical, and conveys that the individual is keenly aware of the differences and proper use of each. You can imagine my surprise to see someone dressed like this amidst the colorful collage of Nike and Adidas workout sweats and shoes. He stepped forward and I shook his hand as he said, “I really enjoyed your talk and I just wish my son could have been here to hear it. I was never an athlete, and I am not athletic, so I can’t show him anything about how to play baseball better.” I looked him in the eye and smiled saying, “Come over here for a minute.” Everyone who was still listening or waiting to ask a question stood back and formed a large circle of spectators around the two of us. During the presentation I had demonstrated how to use several balls at once to increase an athlete’s focus and reaction time. So I said to the Rabbi, “You are going to go back and teach your son these ball drills.” “But I can’t catch,” he said. I began slowly, and without going into all of the details here, he gradually started catching one ball and within ten minutes he was catching two balls at high speed and looking like a professional athlete. The crowd went wild applauding his performance. His smile could not be contained as he beamed, “I thought I couldn’t catch!” That one word “couldn’t,” which he used to describe his ability to catch, had held him back all of his life. That self-imposed word had come to limit him and prevent him from playing with his son. Are you sure you can’t… ?
It is important to choose your words wisely. Even words that seem positive can subtly affect you in the wrong way. How often have you heard or said, “I am proud of you” or “That makes me proud?” You use the words pride and proud often intending to convey your feelings of joy for the accomplishments of yourself and others, but pride is a vice. It is an inordinate opinion of one’s own dignity, importance, merit, or superiority that is believed to reflect credit upon oneself for something done or owned. Pride is focused on you and not the person you are attempting to praise. “You make me proud,” is basically saying, “Something you just did somehow makes me feel the center of attention and deserving of all the credit.” Why not say what you really mean? “You bring me great joy!” It is really joy for the accomplishment of another person that you are trying to express. It is amazing to see the difference in reactions when using the word pride versus joy. I use to say to athletes, “I am very proud of you,” and they barely took notice or reacted to it. But now I say, “You bring me great joy!” You should see the look on their faces. They are taken aback for a moment and then they beam with happiness because it was their success or accomplishment which created joy for others.
I also find it interesting how we describe the good and bad things that happen to us in life. Have you ever noticed that when something really wonderful happens most people will say something like, “Boy, are you lucky!” But when the disaster strikes they are ever ready with, “Why did God do that?” Good is lucky? Bad is God? I don’t think so. At least be fair and consistent, either all good and bad is luck or all of it is willed directly or allowed by God.
Have you ever watched one of those old 1950’s newsreels about all of the inventions that would transform your life and make life a virtual vacation. The words they used to describe these remarkable advancements left the audience in awe and wonder. The viewer was told that once they had things like dishwashers, plastic bowls, blenders, microwave ovens, and other time saving miracles, they would have six to eight hours of additional free time each day! The question the narrator would seriously ask the stupefied viewer, “What are you going to do with all that free time?” His words seemed to imply that we would be desperate to fill our time since there would be practically nothing left to do.
Fast forward sixty years and you might be saying, “You’ve got to be kidding me! Now we’re expected to do the work of ten people and there isn’t a free minute left in the day.” Technology and information has surpassed your brain’s ability to take it all in. Like the viewers who believed the announcer, my Irish born grandfather, Popa King, believed that there was this thing called retirement. As he worked three jobs to make ends meet to feed, clothe and shelter my mother’s family, he was told that at sixty-five you would be able to retire. This seemed too good to be true since he had come from a country where you worked until you dropped.
Like the technology of the 1950’s newsreel, retirement was a new invention. The concept was to work very hard when you were young and then one day in the future you would be able to stop working and basically be on a perpetual vacation until you died. He believed those words. The words unfortunately misled him and set up a false expectation in his mind about what it meant to live a good and happy life. Keep in mind that retirement may have been set at age sixty-five but life expectancy at the time was only sixty-seven. Popa King lived to be
ninety-six. That was thirty-one years after he retired! One third of his entire life!
Our grandparents were incredible people. They were disciplined, dedicated, and persevered under every circumstance and many made the final sacrifice in protecting our freedom and liberty. They knew how to love and sacrifice for someone other than themselves. They wanted their children and their children’s children to have a better life than they had. The disservice to this great generation was in convincing them that at sixty-five life was basically over. No longer were they expected to sacrifice or work. Sure they would able to take some well deserved rest and maybe even travel to a few places that they had only read about but that didn’t require, in Popa King’s case, thirty-one years. Look around the shopping malls today and you will see many elderly people walking around trying to fill their day and maintain some precious contact with other people while trying to ward off the loneliness and feeling of uselessness they experience in each day of retirement.
There are, however, some people who didn’t drink the Kool-Aid and in some ways may be more active helping others than when they were in their prime. I know many people in their seventies who are on multiple boards of charities, roll up their sleeves and work directly with the poor, and spend time loving and mentoring their grandchildren. Their lives are full. There really is no such thing as retirement, only a change in activity. As you get older you may back off in ways appropriate to your health and age but the good life is in the sacrifice and not the never ending time-off. Words, created in your mind or heard from outside, are powerful and can determine the kind of life you will lead. As a close friend of mine said,” At the end of my life, I want to be like a wet rag that has been rung out with not a drop left to give.” How about you?
TAKE AWAY
The words that you use to describe your life reveal what you believe and feel about whatever you are doing. I must, I have to, I should, create the false perception of “pressure” and they make you feel like a prisoner or victim of circumstance. It is important that your words reflect reality, what is actually, objectively, true. Use words that help you remain calm, focused and performing at your best. Phrases like, “I want, I would like, I will, I can, I do not want to do that, I will not do that, I cannot do that”, free you up to do the right thing and to enjoy all that life has to offer you.
Even with the right words and a better understanding ourselves and others, we can become frustrated when we fail to use all of our skills talents and abilities. We know they are there. We have seen them come out on occasion but they often fail to appear when we most want them to. Forget about how you measure up to the person next to you. It’s time to start using all of your talents all of the time.
PART TWO
MAKING PEAK PERFORMANCE A COMMON OCCURRENCE
CHAPTER 6
WALKING ON WATER
COULD there be any greater peak performance than walking on water? One of the all time greatest peak performances is recorded in the Gospel of St. Matthew when Christ came walking on the sea toward his disciples while they were fishing one night. But when they saw him, they were terrified, and said, “It is a ghost!” But Jesus responded calmly, “Take heart, it is I; have no fear.” And Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, bid me come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” Peter got out of the boat and began walking on the water toward Jesus. But the wind began to blow and Peter became afraid. He began to sink, and he yelled: “Lord, save me.” Jesus reached out and caught him, and said, “O man of little faith, why did you doubt?” When they got back to the boat, the wind died down, and the disciples worshipped Jesus: “Truly you are the Son of God.”
You might be thinking, “That is a miracle and not a peak performance. Peter had nothing to do with it.” But consider what happened. Peter was not forced to leave the boat. He wanted to leave the boat and he wanted to go to Jesus. Christ made it possible but required all of Peter’s attention and love. His free will was fully intact, and in order to walk to Jesus he had to act. When Peter stepped out of the boat onto the water he was completely focused on Christ. In fact, he was so totally absorbed in the present moment and focused on Christ that he actually began walking on the water! If he had chosen to remain absorbed and focused on Christ he would have reached him.
However, something happened to prevent him from attaining his goal. At the instant he lost focus on Christ he began to focus on the wind and the waves and he became terrified. No longer focused on his goal, he began to sink! At least Peter had enough presence of mind that as he began to be swallowed up by the sea he called out to Christ who saved him. Certainly walking on water qualifies for miracle status but it required Peter’s cooperation, his 100 percent attention, his peak performance. As you read the following examples you will find many similarities to this story. These extraordinary performances were possible but they required the full focus and attention of each individual. Like Peter, it was their cooperation with grace that results in a peak performance.
Alec Kornacki was working underneath the rear end of his thirty-five hundred pound BMW when it shifted and fell onto his chest. His twenty-two year old daughter Lauren was there and raced to the back of the car where she gripped the rear wheel-well lifted it and threw the back end of the vehicle off of her father. Her mother described hearing a primal scream from Lauren and an order to call 911. As Lauren pulled her father away from the vehicle he was not breathing and his heart had stopped. She immediately began CPR and was able to resuscitate her father before the ambulance arrived. He spent a long time in the hospital’s ICU ward but he is alive!
Another remarkable story of super human performance at the exact moment it was needed involved a nine-year-old boy, Jeremy Schill, lifted a car estimated to weigh 4,800 pounds, off of his father’s chest. His dad, Rique, a farmer, had been working under the Ford LTD, which he had propped up on four jacks. As he was working the car shifted, and the front end of the car fell on his chest. “I started to panic because I couldn’t breathe,” he said. His nine-year-old son, weighing only sixty-five pounds, ran over to the front of the car and was able to lift the front end of the car just enough so that his dad could breathe. “Somehow he lifted it enough for me to get some air. I don’t know how he did it,” said his Dad.
You hear stories like this and think, “Well, isn’t that extraordinary.” But think about what this actually means. A nine year old, who never lifted a weight, never took steroids or human growth hormone, and who weighs a mere sixty-five pounds, was able to lift a 4,800 lb. car to save his Dad. You might say, “Well it was an emergency, he had adrenaline, something caused it to happen…” Of course, something caused it to happen. But regardless of the circumstances, it was a normal nine-year-old human body that lifted the car. The fact is that a human being can do this kind of incredible thing, but for some reason we have a hard time tapping into our full potential outside of extraordinary circumstances. And yet it’s possible.
Peak performances can and do happen outside of extreme life and death situations. Consider Bob Beamon shattering the long jump world record by almost two feet in the 1968 Mexico Olympic Games. To put that in perspective, the long jump world record had only been broken thirteen times since 1901. The average increase of each record was two and a half inches. Bob Beamon broke the record by twenty-one and three quarter inches! Spanish cyclist, Miguel Indurain’s resting heart rate of twenty eight beats per minute is one of the lowest ever recorded under normal conditions. Champion free-diver, Francisco “Pipin” Ferreras has the world record for diving without any external breathing apparatus. He has gone as deep as 561 ft. and is reported to have lowered his heart rate to 5 to 10 beats per minute while holding his breath for ten minutes. Research has been done on lamas and yogis who are capable of slowing their heart rate and respiration down to near imperceptible levels, in some cases taking less than three breaths per minute for extended periods of time.
Again, you may say, “But these are world-class athletes and holy men who live on mountai
n tops in Tibet, what does it have to do with me? Can a ‘normal’ person experience peak performances?” Absolutely yes! They are happening everyday all around you but often you are not paying attention to them.
One day I was in the garage cleaning out the car. My son Joseph was about four years-old at the time and he was exploring all the riches of a family garage as I vacuumed the floor of the car. At one point I looked up through the windshield to check on him and to make sure he hadn’t discovered anything that would require a visit to the emergency room. I saw him staring at the peg board paneling on one of the walls of the garage. I don’t know why I didn’t go back to vacuuming but for some reason I watched him for a moment and thought, “That’s odd, he is just standing there staring at the wall.” As I watched him watch the wall, I noticed that he had a paint brush in his hand. Not one for painting the house but one of those fine art paint brushes. I puzzled over what he could possibly be doing. Suddenly, he raised the paintbrush above his shoulder and threw it at the wall. Spinning around and around in the air like a fan blade the tip went “thwump” and stuck straight in one of the holes! The holes in the pegboard were the exact diameter of the paintbrush. I just looked at it sticking straight out from the wall and exclaimed, “Joseph! How did you do that?” and he kind of shrugged and gave me an, “I don’t know.” I thought, “Well, maybe it’s not that hard to do,” and spent the next fifteen minutes trying to throw that paintbrush into one of those little holes in the wall. I even got up very close and rather than spinning it I tried to spear it into the hole. Not even close. But clearly it was possible. Joseph had actually done it. The challenge was in reproducing it. And this was not the only time something like that happened.
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