“If I miss one day’s practice, I notice it.
If I miss two days, the critics notice it.
If I miss three days, the audience notices it.”
Ignacy Paderewski, Pianist
[NOTE: An absence of practice for two days is merely a weekend!]
Top athletes understand that an absence of “conditioning” for anything longer than two days results in significantly compromised performance.
Military troops are engaged constantly in “conditioning” exercises.
Nobody has ever been able to estimate the “conditioning window” for the general work force, since “Peak Performance” is so rarely seen. And, where it threatens to occur, the very prospect attracts blatantly derogatory references such as: “Work-A-Holic”, “Apple Polisher”, “Butt-Kisser”, “Got-No-Life”, “Anal Compulsive”, and “Over-Achiever”.
Benchmarks of “fitness” or “conditioning” for the work-a-day world are tough to define. For some, forcing themselves out of bed before noon and showing up at work for 7.5 hours per day – give or take a few – is viewed as an heroic effort, never mind whether anything useful is accomplished!
If athletes were given medals based on levels of conditioning common in the work-a-day world, they would still be trying to break the 10-minute-mile and a 30 point basketball game!
“Conditioning” is important not only for Peak Performance and Peak Output when required on the field of battle, but also for reduced STRESS in preparing for and delivering the goods. Persons accustomed to practicing Peak Performance ___ i.e., maintaining job-mastery and life-mastery skills and continually cultivating new ones ___ will be much better equipped to carry the load and deliver the goods – while maintaining a healthy level of sanity and “living to fight another day”. (NOTE: There are scouting reports of a lot of “practicing” in the work place, but often not in any context applicable toward a corporate “bottom line”, personal advancement or sustainable engagement!)
Point to Ponder
Wildlife stay in peak condition because they have only two choices: either eat or be eaten. Bushmen in the savannahs of Africa and jungles of the Amazon are similarly “peak- conditioned”.
Domesticated cattle are only pressed to stay in “peak condition” for foraging … completely unaware of – and undaunted by – what’s coming at the end of the trail.
At the very least, let’s not be like domesticated cattle, and, at the very BEST, let’s find our own very highest PEAK and keep PEAK CONDITIONING! Quartermaster
