Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsPeak Performance - Learning the Principles, Doing the work, and developing your path to success
Reviewed in the United States on June 11, 2017
This is a thoughtful, well-written and practical work on ways to improve your performance based on principles developed from both real-world examples (across many fields) and the latest science (across multiple disciplines). This is a "Do the work" book - if you are looking for the success and flourishing equivalent of a get rich quick scheme, then look elsewhere. If you are willing to do the work, try some new things (and/or stop doing some others), then this book will provide a wealth of ideas and information to help you on your journey.
The book is broken into 3 sections based on their key principles of:
* The Growth Equation (stress + rest = growth)
* Priming - the power of developing optimal routines and designing your day
* Purpose - to keep you focused and motivated
There are many valuable ideas and insights in each chapter. My favorite feature of the book are the "performance practices" - these are callout boxes that distill key ideas into actions you can take right away to start to improve.
I learned and was challenged throughout the book - my 2 favorite chapters are:
* minimalist to be a maximalist - life is about choices and it is important to be highly focused in some areas and minimize the decisions and attention we give to other areas. I loved this quote from Michael Joyner - "You need to say no to a lot of things so that when it is time to say yes, you can do so with all your energy." The key is to be intentional and to make habits for the areas that are needed but not part of your focus.
* transcend your "self". This chapter is on purpose and it challenges a lot of my thinking. I plan to work with some of the ideas mentioned here (and do the exercise on purpose that they recommend) and see how this works for me. I want to understand both the theory and practice in this area so I will be reading some of the works mentioned here in the near future. I am a strong believer in purpose but not "self-transcendence" and that is what I want to understand more.
The book is truly action oriented and I have already starting using the ideas as I read the book over the last few days. I recommend the book highly and for those who are coaches or leaders, I would encourage you to share the ideas with your teams (and encourage them to read the book).
Two additional thoughts - any critical thinker will find areas they disagree with in most books and this is no exception. The power of this book is that it is encouraging me to explore those areas in more detail. Additionally, most of us know that psychology and the social sciences have been plagued with a "reproduce-ability crisis" with many studies. While this work is very evidence based, it is important to remember that these ideas and findings will continue to evolve and change. For those with a growth mindset, that is just another piece of the puzzle in long-term learning and growth.
I hope this book gets a wide audience and helps others in their personnel success and flourishing.
