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1-Page Summary of Elevate
Overview
Everyone feels pressure to perform at work, school or in sports. This is a good thing because it forces us to improve ourselves and helps us compete against others. The modern world has created a war for jobs where we have to fight not only our competition but also machines.
People are increasingly turning to drugs such as Adderall, which is intended to help people focus. However, it’s being used by students and workers who need to perform at a high level. This short-term solution can lead to long-term problems like burnout, anxiety and depression. It might even cause death if you work 72 hours straight without sleep or rest. In the case of Moritz Erhardt (a Merrill Lynch intern), exhaustion was likely a factor in his seizure that led to his death in the shower during one of those 72 hour work sessions.
But there are scientifically proven ways to improve performance without burning yourself out or using illegal substances. In this summary, you’ll learn the best practices to boost your performance and avoid burnout.
The Growth Equation
The key to growth is balance. When it comes to physical training, you need a balance between stress and rest. If you don’t give your muscles time to recover, they will burn out faster than if you let them rest for a day or two before lifting again. The same applies to the mind and heart—they need a balance of stress and rest in order to grow. To reach our goals, we should follow this four-part cycle: isolate what we want to work on; place that area under some stress (but not too much); give it time off from further work; then put more pressure on the area when we repeat the process with less pressure than before.
When stress is managed properly, it can be a good thing. Some stress is healthy and necessary for growth. For example, solving difficult puzzles can help you learn new skills. It’s important to seek out manageable challenges that lie on the threshold of your current ability level; if you are too confident in yourself, then you aren’t challenging yourself enough. If you’re nervous or anxious about something, then it might be time to take things down a notch so that they become more manageable for you.
The dangers of complacency have been proven by a study conducted at UC Berkeley. The findings show that doctors who spend most of their time in the office are not as good as those who consistently seek out challenges, even if they’re just slightly beyond the doctor’s skill level. To become an expert in any field requires deliberate practice and training that pushes you to your limits but doesn’t exceed them. For example, playing Pachelbel’s Canon in D will not make you a great violinist; instead, you should look for more challenging pieces or adapt songs to different meters or bowing patterns to increase your skill level.
Another important thing is to be fully present while practicing. You can’t just stare at a computer screen for three hours straight. It’s more effective if you break up your time into chunks and focus on specific, concrete tasks during each chunk (such as reviewing the previous day’s writing or researching an important historical fact).
Phones are a huge distraction to doctors and nurses. They’re not used to having them around, so they can’t stop looking at them. The best thing is to put the phone on silent mode and face it down somewhere you can’t see it or feel it (even just knowing that its there).
Stress
The best way to incorporate stress into your life is to add it in manageable blocks. The goal is to stay at the point where you’re stressed out but not overwhelmed. Instead of taking on long, stressful marathons, work in blocks of 50-90 minutes with 7-20 minutes for recovery time between them. This allows you to gradually increase your workload without getting overwhelmed.
