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1-Page Summary of Peak Performance
Overview
Helping others makes you feel good, and that positive feeling reinforces your desire to help them. That’s why giving back is a great way to motivate yourself. Olympic athletes, master violinists, and CEOs all have one thing in common: they’re at the peak of their performance. In today’s competitive job market or corporate environment where there are so many people vying for top positions, being at the top of your game is more important than ever before.”
But how do you get there? It’s important to find the right balance between work and play.
You’ll learn that rest is more important than we might think, why you should stop multitasking right now, and which routines will get you to peak performance.
Big Idea #1: Due to technology, the job market is globalized and competition has increased.
In the past, it was fairly easy to get a job. As long as you stood out from other applicants within your local area, you had a good chance of getting that job. But today, that’s not true at all because technology has made it possible for people to work from anywhere in the world and apply for jobs online. That means there are many more people competing for fewer jobs than ever before. Also, lots of people are trying to break world records these days which makes standing out even harder than before. For example in 1954 when Sir Roger Bannister ran a mile under four minutes most thought he’d reached the outer limits of human performance but now over twenty Americans run under four minutes every year so new standards have been set since then making it harder to stand out from others applying for those same positions
And finally, computers and robots are replacing human jobs. Take e-commerce company Amazon for example, which is making its employees redundant by using technology. Since it operates entirely online, there’s no need for cashiers or salespeople; Amazon doesn’t even need to pay rent on storefronts.
Amazon is an online retailer that has taken over the world. It has made brick-and-mortar businesses like Borders go bankrupt, and it’s now looking into using drones to deliver its products without requiring human workers at all.
Big Idea #2: People are being driven to take performance-enhancing drugs because the standards are impossibly high.
In today’s competitive world, people are looking for any advantage they can get. They’re going to extremes to try and succeed. For example, many students are using Adderall (a drug that is similar to speed) in order to focus better at school and do better on tests. Although the drug is used mainly by people who have ADHD, only five or six percent of the population actually has this disorder. So most of these students aren’t really sick; they just want an edge on their classmates so they can get a good job later in life.
Because of the benefits, Kimberly Dennis has seen a rise in Adderall use among professionals between the ages of 25 and 45. One such professional is Elizabeth, who founded her own health-technology company. She took Adderall to work longer hours because she didn’t feel like working hard enough was going to be enough for success.
But it’s not just students and professionals who use drugs. A lot of athletes take them, too – about 40 percent of them, in fact. And only about two percent of those are caught.
Although it’s easy to work long hours, that way of thinking is unsustainable. It results in burnout and can even be fatal. For example, Moritz Erhardt died in 2013 after working for 72 hours straight as an intern at Bank of America due to a lack of sleep. This has gotten so bad that medical residents are suffering from burnout too. 57% meet the criteria for burnout, while 46% physicians do too.
