Learned Excellence

one quote: 

The best performers in the world are not born excellent -- they learn excellence. They practice the principles we have outlined in this book so they can get better at their craft every day. They start with deeply understanding their identity: What are their values? What motivates them? My clients codify this in their personal credo, which they use to help make decisions.

They set big goals across six aspects of their lives: work, relationships, health, spirituality, hobbies, and legacy. What do they want to be true in each of these areas in one, three, and six months? They develop action plans to bring those goals to fruition.

They select a mindset that will serve them best, with characteristics such as grit and growth that help them in their quest to constantly improve. They activate that mindset through the things they can control: their attitude, effort, and behavior. They stretch themselves to take on risks and sometimes fail, using those experiences as opportunities to practice their mindset. They adjust their mindset based on the different roles they play in life, since what creates excellence in one realm may be very different from what does so in another.

They prioritize process over outcome. They know that if they focus relentlessly on their process, the wins will come. They have the same twenty-four hours in their day as the rest of us, but they adopt practices to ensure they get the very most out of that time. They prize consistency, making changes methodically and only after consulting valid and vetted sources. When they alter some part of their process, they do so incrementally, seeing how it works rather than blowing everything up and starting over. They have an approach for turning failure into success.

They practice and employ techniques to help them manage their human stress response. These include visualization, contingency planning, self-awareness, 4444 breathing, pre- and post-performance routines, goal segmentation, countering fixed beliefs, black-boxing, unpacking the box after the event, and remembering their teammates. Understanding and practicing these techniques helps them stay calm and focused under the stress of performance.

They know how to maintain balance and give themselves the space to recover after performances. They invest in multiple aspects of their lives, not just the ones where they perform the most. When time and circumstances make this impossible, they are aware of the imbalance and have a plan to put things right. They actively practice recovery, using techniques that range from mundane (sleep, taking the kids to the park) to exotic (nature bathing, sensory deprivation tanks).

Kane's Summary

Eric Potterat describes his life experiences, from designing the BUD/S seals mental toughness program to coaching world class athletes on being calm under pressure. From the front cover flap jacket, "In Learned Excellence, Eric distills his insights into five mental disciplines: Values & Goals, Mindset, Process, Adversity Tolerance, and Balance & Recovery".

While Eric's teachings result from years of experience dealing with top performers, all of us can take these lessons and apply them to our own lives. Even if you don't consider yourself a "top performer" per se, you can still make use of the mindsets and practices of those people in your daily thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors.

Throughout the book, Dr. Potterat gives short stories about some of the clients he has served. We get to hear about cliff divers, Olympians, Navy Seals, CIA executives, nuerosurgeons, top lawyers, firefighters, and others. Each story illustrates one aspect of the five mental disciplines. They give practical options about how to think and respond in a variety of situations.

This book overlaps a lot with some of the other self-help material I've read, and reminds me of Heroic and of Stoicism. I like that Dr Potterat's ideas are grounded in science. Love the final quote of the book also... Will Durant quote: "we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."

My Favorite Ideas

1. Control the Controllables

"Controllables are simply the things within your control. You can't control whether or not it's going to rain; you can control if you bring an umbrella."

"There is attitude: the way you think about a thing or person. There is effort: how hard you work. And there is behavior: the actions you take. That's it, that's all you can control: your attitude, your effort, and your behavior. The rest, ignore. Greek philosopher Epictetus noted, 'There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.'"

'Stay in the circle' is something you can say when you're worrying about other stuff that you can't control.

2. Predicting BUD/S Success

When Dr. Potterat joined the Navy Seals organization, he "was tasked with creating a psychological assessment mechanism to help identify which candidates were likely to succeed in BUD/S training and which were likely to fail". The predictor test took 18 months to research and develop, and accurately predicted the recruits' completion with 97 percent accuracy. They used the test to filter out 20% of new trainees, and the completion rates increased from 25% to 40%.

The test was designed to see who was mentally prepared for extreme duress. Who could power through the abuse. Who could endure hell week. It wasn't about how physically fit you were or your academics, it was about how deep your convictions, how you deal with adversity, how you respond to challenges, and how you talk to yourself. This success led to the development of a curriculum to help teach people the skills and mindsets they would need to overcome BUD/S. 

3. Self-awareness Check

1. life: finances, career, well-being of loved ones.
2. sleep: getting enough?
3. climate: vibe at workplace and home.
4. health: any issues? pain, headaches, etc?
5. mood: cloud 9? grumpy?
6. substance: alcohol, caffeine, others?
7. concentration: can you focus? or monkey brain?
8. stress: how do these factors add up? What's the stress level?

4. ABC's of Belief Formation

ABC of belief formations. Activation Event --> Belief --> Consequence. Then subsequent events that fit the belief make you expect and assume the consequence. This can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. "Top performers learn to question and control their belief system. We can't control past events and their outcomes, but we can control how we react to them." ... "fixed, irrational beliefs often show up as negative self talk."

5. Stress and Distress

Good stress vs. distress. I like this distinction. "one's mindset about stress is in itself a variable affecting the human stress response. Most of us believe that stress is harmful; this "stress-is-debilitating" mindset actually exacerbates the negative effects of stress. It's our own special stress-and-mindset vicious circle. On the other hand, flipping that belief around can create a "stress-is-enhancing mindset", which is in itself a stress-controlling technique."

Dr. Kelly McGonigal in the upside of stress... "stress is what arises when something you care about is at stake."

The more rounded your roles and identities are (you're not only defined by your work), the less critical each aspect becomes. I can fail as an employee at a time when I am winning as a dad and husband. etc. Each area of your life has important roles and the more you embrace them, the more tolerant of stress you become. You can't be the best at everything all the time. You have to let some balls drop.

6. Identities and Roles

Roles: "To be a successful ____, I need to be (more) ____."
"What are the personality characteristics we want to bring to bear on each of our roles? For the most part we don't want to change our values, we want to understand them. But mindset traits, those are changeable. If reaching our fullest potential requires a different mindset, we can make that happen."

Carol Dweck quote... "Individuals who believe their talents can be developed (through hard work, good strategies, and input from others) have a growth mindset. Those  who believe their talents are innate gifts possess a more fixed mindset. People with growth mindsets tend to achieve more than those with fixed mindsets because they worry less about looking smart and invest more energy into learning."