The Secret to Peak Performance

I haven’t posted in a while. I could make a bunch of excuses, but the truth is I just haven’t made the time. Diesel Pro launched a website, changed our ERP, and have made some other significant shifts. I’ve trained 397 hours in the past 365 days while managing relationships with my lovely girlfriend, family, and friends.

My hunger for self improvement hasn’t gone away, but changed. I feel like there was a period in my mid twenties were I was constantly consuming information and looking for the secret sauce to success in business, relationships, sport, religion, etc.

Through my struggles over the past 29 years, I’ve found some answers that have been in front of me the whole time. I would attribute these findings to the school of hard knocks. I am far from saying that I am certain of anything in life, but I’ve drawn some conclusions for the time being.

1. Consistency is key. Consistency without focus is useless

I learned this through both business and sport. In triathlon, I was looking for the perfect workout, the ideal training hours, the best equipment, optimal gps watch, fastest wheelset, the most beneficial youtube video for learning how to swim. And in 2018, I sucked. I walked out the finish of both of my Ironman 70.3 races, and got slower on the swim while maintaining a steady bike pace.

Fast forward to 2019, and I am breaking through in every discipline and have PR’ed EVERYTHING. I can’t take credit for this, as I have a coach who’s primary philosophy is based on consistency and simplicity. I rarely have days off. I workout hard on hard days, and super easy on easy days. I don’t think about it anymore. I just follow my schedule. I am focused on performing the workouts as prescribed. I consistently train, and never skip. Even when I don’t feel like it. Some say this isn’t healthy and I should be enjoying my 20’s. For now, it’s what I like to do and I’ll stick with it until I don’t like it anymore.

I am still working on applying this rule in business. I’ve been working on developing target customers, spending more time on what we are good at, and less time on things we are not. Consistent small improvements are key for us. Doing something every day to improve our product, our sales, our culture, or something else. This adds up. And there are whole books out there on focus. Jim Collins introduced me to the The Hedgehog and the Fox. in “Good to Great.” My job at Diesel Pro is to provide the company with direction and focus. I’ve got a lot of ideas and will provide updates as I figure things out.

2. Discipline Equals Freedom

Jocko Willink turned me on to this idea about a year ago and it stuck with me. I fight to be disciplined every day. Getting out of bed when I planned, having the coffee ready the night before, making sure I am at work for my “daily setup.”

There are so many distractions out there trying to pull us away from our dreams. Our phones being #1. My personal GMAIL account also being a primary offender. I check Strava way too many times every day. Some days I get into LinkedIn with their hooks they send in emails. Another favorite of mine is seeing what everyone else is doing. Other companies, athletes, friends, sales people, ect.

What’s the secret to Peak Performance? For me, its focus, consistency, and discipline. Who knows, my thoughts on this may change in a year.

Here’s a graph of my fitness level over the past 730 days. The blue line is fitness. Note how consistency has made a huge difference since January 1st of this year.