Three Minute Leadership- Creating Your Life’s Context of Superior Performance
To: The Great Leaders Who Have a Passion for Continuous Learning
Ryan Walter, leadership motivational speaker and former NHL hockey great, in his book, Hungry – Fuelling Your Best Game, teaches great leaders the importance of context in establishing a “superior performance environment.” He quotes Robert Cialdini, professor and author: “It’s what you do before what you do that counts.” It is this context or atmosphere, Walter suggests, that is critical for creating a winning context for highly successful teams and individuals. He writes:
“Olympic decathlon gold medalist Bruce Jenner was said to have arranged his entire apartment so it would remind him every day of his goal. He put equipment from each of the ten sports in the decathlon in places where he couldn’t help but encounter them during his non-training hours. Since the high hurdle was his weakest skill, he placed a hurdle in the middle of the living room where he had to step over it as many as thirty time a day. His doorstop was an iron shot. His barbells were on the patio. Vaulting poles and javelins rose from behind the couch. And his closets held the uniforms of his sport: seat suits and running shoes. The unusual décor, Bruce said, helped him improve his form as he prepared for (and won) Olympic gold medals.”
Eliel Saarinen, renowned Finnish architect, wrote: “Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context – a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.” Great leaders, architects’ of their lives, start with a core context of values and principles. Choices of direction, goals, career and friends add furthers depth and definition to their context. Their dreams and visions add rich luster and brilliance and further broaden the context of their lives.
You are the magnificent architect of your extraordinary and wonderful life. Continue to build a robust, exciting and dream-filled context for your life that will push you to explore your limits… and go beyond… to be more than you ever dreamed you could be… and more… so much more.
Have a beautiful day and an awesome week!!!
Mike