Tag Archive for: peak performance

Do Your Job

Physical preparation. Mental preparation. The final thing that’s drilled in to the Patriots is to do their job and do it to the best of their ability. Don’t take it upon yourself to do someone else’s job because you want to help. Take care of your space, do what you’re supposed to do, and you will be in position to make the right play at the right time.

I’ve been in meetings where people took it upon themselves to suck the oxygen out of the room by talking out of turn and about things not in their area. Those are the type of meetings that lead to less than optimal results.

How does that relate to your health? The doctor does what he or she is supposed to do. The nurse draws blood, the lab tech runs the samples, and the data entry personnel make sure the results are input correctly. The medical team does everything they’re supposed to do.

You’re the final member of that team. You have a role to play whether it’s to eat a specific diet, take your medications at the proper time, or go to cardiac rehab or physical therapy. That job continues when you’re back on your own. It doesn’t mean you’re set for life; it means that now you know your role in getting and staying healthy. In that way, you can train to peak exactly when you need to peak.

Do your job! All you have to do is look in the mirror every morning and ask yourself one question:

What am I prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Peaking Mentally at the Right Time

It’s not enough to perform your best physically; you also have to be able to peak mentally. While the physical does impact the mental, you can’t just wing it if the task is important to you. To me, that was the difference in the Super Bowl. But the Patriots in particular seem to be able to consistently peak at the right time, and that’s how they’ve won six Super Bowls.

In the lead up to the game, I watched a clip of the head coach Bill Belichick. I’m a long-time Bills fan, so he is definitely not my favorite person. The clip I viewed was Belichick talking with his defense, telling them to keep doing what they were supposed to do, and later in the game they would get the results they wanted. Defense is his specialty. Whatever the Patriots were doing on defense worked the entire game. Not so much on offense. Except for the touchdown drive. They used a formation they hadn’t used before, used it four plays in a row, and scored the touchdown that decided the game. They were ready to peak at exactly the correct moment, because it seemed like a different team on that drive.

No matter what you do, remember that physical training is just part of the story. You have to practice and prepare mentally to execute at exactly when you need to perform. The physical and the mental work in concert, and to ignore one puts the other at risk. There’s still one more thing you have to do and I’ll finish this up on Saturday.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Peaking Physically at the Right Time

The New England Patriots won the Super Bowl again. You can love them or hate them, but you have to respect what they’ve accomplished. In fact, you have to respect the physical preparation of both teams leading up to the game. No one seemed winded or gasping for air, and no one seemed to be cramping or suffering other physical issues.

Tom Brady’s physical preparation is well known; at 41, he’s the oldest quarterback to win a Super Bowl. But both teams were physically ready to play, and they peaked at exactly the right time.

Wouldn’t you like to be able to do that? There are many paths that can get you there. On Super Bowl Sunday in my Super Bowl Webinar, I showed one way for you to have the energy to peak at just the right time. You can purchase the replay for the rest of the week and watch it any time up to two weeks after that.

But physical peaking is just one part of the story. You have to be prepared mentally as well and that decided the difference in the game. I’ll tell you why on Thursday.

What are you prepared to do today?  

        Dr. Chet

Plan Your Season

Tomorrow’s Super Bowl Kick-off is set for 6:30 p.m. Eastern Time. The location was set years ago, and the day and time were set immediately after last year’s game. There were no secrets. Everyone knew. Every team, coach, and player knew the details. Every team had the same time to train. They all played the same number of games during the season to qualify. The teams in tomorrow’s game played the exact same number of play-off games. In fact, they both played overtime games to qualify. Things couldn’t be more even. Who will win? I have no clue.

Many of you may not like football and won’t watch the game (or the commercials). That isn’t the point. I’m asking about you: when will your season begin? It’s February 1st—how many 2019 events will you have to prepare for? When do you have to be at your best? Is it a specific time of day? Particular days of the week? Vacation? Conference? Presentation? When is your first game? Your first play-off? Your Super Bowl? If you haven’t taken the time to figure out when that is, how do you plan to be ready for it? Take the time today or soon to figure that out.

I want to emphasize that planning for your peak day or season isn’t just for athletes or executives. If you’re going to be the mother of the bride sometime this summer, that day is a marathon and planning now will help you enjoy it beginning to end. If you’re a student and you’ll be taking the LSAT or the MCAT this year, that needs to be your best day all year. If you’re an accountant or tax attorney, you’re already into tax season, but you can still learn how to be ready for the end-of-season crunch. All of us can learn to target our energy levels for whatever our peak season will be, no matter our current fitness level.


The 9th Annual Super Bowl Webinar

The Memos I’ve written this week give you information on why you should track your diet and fitness efforts, the top trends in nutrition and diet, and why you need to know when you need to be at your best. You can use the information to plan your 2019. If you’d like some direction in using the information to make 2019 your best year yet, join me for my annual Super Bowl Webinar tomorrow at noon ET. I’ve done the heavy lifting so you can benefit from what I’m going to teach you.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Personal Productivity: Improving Performance

The study of time management began before the turn of the last century, but technology has changed dramatically since then; from home to the office, we have more timesaving devices than ever before. So why are we not more productive? Why do we still not have the time to eat better and exercise?

You could go the blame route and say you need to manage time better; there are more books written on that topic than almost anything else on the self-help category. I'm all for reading books that help us think and keep us focusing on our . . .

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