Scott Peltin & Jogi Rippel–Sink, Float, or Swim

Sustainable High Performance Doesn’t

Happen by Chance—It Happens by Choice

Scott Peltin & Jogi Rippel

Notice
This book was written for information purposes only and is not intended to replace the advice that
you may have obtained from your physician, psychotherapist, nutritionist, personal trainer, or any
other properly educated and certified expert. All forms of exercise and nutritional supplementation
pose some inherent risks, and therefore the writers, editors, and publishers advise readers to take full
responsibility for their own safety.

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thank those who promptly replied and we apologize to anyone whom we may have missed or may
not have been able to contact. If we misquoted, or in your opinion, misused any data in this book, we
look forward to hearing from you so that we can provide the most accurate information possible.

THIS BOOK IS A LIMITED PRERELEASE.

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The German National Library registers this publication in the German National Library.
Detailed bibliographic information can be retrieved at http://dnb.d-nb.

ISBN 978-3-86881-191-9

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© 2009 by Redline Verlag, FinanzbuchVerlag GmbH, Munich.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this
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Editor: Christine Buss

Cover Design: Janine Nemec
Book Design: Marko Puclin, Becklyn
Typesetting: Achim Trumpfheller, (Grafik-Schrubber)
Print: CPI–Ebner&Spiegel, Ulm.
Printed in Germany
Contents

Prologue

Dedication

Section I
Be a Swimmer in a World of Floaters

Chapter One
There Is A Swimmer In All Of Us

Chapter Two
All Good Leaders Must Learn to Swim

Chapter Three
Without Energy and Resilience Even Staying Afloat is Impossible

Chapter Four
Are You Sinking, Floating, or Swimming?

Section II
Getting Your Head Above Water

Chapter Five
What Is a High Performance Mindset?

Chapter Six
Create Your High Performance Mindset

Chapter Seven
Expand and Sustain Your High Performance Mindset

Section III
Fueling Up for The Big Swim

Chapter Eight
What You Eat and Drink Fuels What You Do

Chapter Nine
Prepare Your Swimmer’s Plate

Chapter Ten
Eating to keep swimming

Section IV
Without Movement You’ll Never Swim

Chapter Eleven
Get Set to Swim

Chapter Twelve
Movement to Keep Swimming

Section V
Without Rest We All Sink

Chapter Thirteen
Regenerate and Recharge to Swim

Chapter Fourteen
Sleep, Breathe, and Laugh to Swim

Chapter Fifteen
Swimming Is A Rhythm

Section VI
Swimming Into the Future

Chapter Sixteen
If You Know You Need to Swim, Why Aren’t You Doing It?

Chapter Seventeen
Does Your Team Have What It Takes to Swim?

Chapter Eighteen
Is Your Organization Sinking, Floating, or Swimming?

Chapter Nineteen
Time to Dive In

Epilogue
The Tignum Story

Acknowledgments

Notes and References

 Prologue

In November 2008, just after the US election, former President Bill Clinton
was asked by CNN Talk Asia correspondent Anjali Rao: “If you had to give
one piece of advice to offer President-elect Obama, what would it be?”

Clinton paused as he thought carefully, and then he replied that he would

tell the new world leader to be sure that he gets enough rest and to invest in
his own vitality, so that he can remain as energized, passionate, and focused
in the presidency as he was throughout his campaign.

With all the advice that a former world leader could offer another world
leader, you may find it surprising that he would choose the suggestion to get
enough rest and to invest in his own vitality. Did he offer this advice
because he was genuinely concerned about the new President’s health? No,
that’s unlikely. He gave the advice because he knows that energy, passion,
and focus are all about performance. They are critical ingredients to being a
high performer.

It would be easy to take this as wellness advice, just as it may be easy to

categorize this book as a wellness book. But that would be a mistake. This
book isn’t about politics or about health and wellness. This book is about
you, your habits, and your performance. This is a high performance
leadership book designed to assist you in achieving your full potential.

We say this with a bias because in our company Tignum, our passion, our
expertise, and our mission are all about teaching leaders the importance of
having strategies to improve their energy, resilience, brain performance, and
capacity so that they can become sustainable high performers.

If you are not familiar with sustainable high performance habits, then
you will want to keep reading. If you are familiar with some of these
strategies, then you will discover a more integrated approach to build
upon the habits you already have. In fact, by the time you reach the end
 of this book, you will not only understand the importance of sustainable
high performance habits, you will have learned some practical strategies
for easily implementing these habits into your daily life, both at work
and away from work.

Every day, in organizations all over the world, men and women are going to
work and using only a fraction of their full potential. They haven’t
consciously chosen to do this but they have unconsciously done so by their
habits. This is costly to the businesses they work for, and it is also costly to
their own sense of satisfaction. We have coined the term floater to describe
these people, and we have made it our mission to empower the floaters to
access their potential and become swimmers.

Of course, we started working with clients to increase their energy and

resilience to fight this comfortably numb state long before this current
recession hit the world. It was during the good times that we developed
these strategies and techniques to help leaders become sustainable high
performers. But it is now, in these challenging times, that this book is
needed more than ever.

We realize that if you were simply floating before this current crisis hit, you
may be dangerously close to sinking right now. But this doesn’t mean that
it’s too late. Every day is a new opportunity for you to eliminate an old low
performance habit (like working through lunch or not doing any movement)
and replace it with a new high performance habit (like using mental
imagery to prepare for a meeting or taking a strategic break to improve your
energy and creativity). This book is not so much about how far you’ve let
yourself slide as it is about how you can discover a new potential that you
may have forgotten exists.

When we first discussed writing this book, we had reservations about being
able to really capture the energy and zeal that is generated when we work
with our clients. We understand that translating experiential learning into
print isn’t always easy or successful. When your passion is improving
people’s performance and helping them consistently bring their best to
everything they do, there’s nothing worse than possibly falling short in a
book.

We also wondered if it was a smart business decision to share our

methodology, given that any competitor could attempt to replicate what we
do. Up until now, we have been the performance team behind some
extremely productive and successful business teams. Our work has been
discussed at length during internal strategy meetings but is relatively
unknown to the outside world.

A conversation with one of our clients, an executive board member of one

of the largest manufacturing companies in the world, was what pushed us
into our decision to write Sink, Float, or Swim. We were sitting in a hotel
lobby in London, and he was describing how far his team had come since
we had originally worked with them three years prior. He told us that the
demands on his team had grown, the pace of the work had increased, and
the expectations and need to succeed had exponentially grown but yet his
team was full of the energy, vitality, resilience, and capacity needed to meet
these challenges. He told us that it was working with Tignum that was the
impetus for the positive change in his team’s sustainability and
performance.

As we finished our green tea (something you’ll fully understand when you
read this book), he shook our hands, gave us both a hug, looked us in the
eye, and thanked us for what we do. Then he smiled and said, “You really
ought to write a book. The need is so great and if you really want to impact
people’s lives, you need to reach farther than just the work you do.”

So here we go ...

Put all of your preconceived notions about high performance and

leadership aside, and get ready to learn just how easy it is to become a
swimmer.
 Dedication

This book is dedicated to each and every one of our clients who have
allowed us to assist them in achieving their potential. You (especially the
cynics) have all inspired us deeply, and we hope that we have represented
you well in the stories we have shared.
Section I
Be A Swimmer In A World of Floaters

Quality of Time – maximizing your energy, resilience, brain

performance, and capacity to develop sustainable periods
where you are fully engaged, passionate, and highly
productive at work and away from work
Chapter One
There Is A Swimmer In All Of Us

A Recession in Human Potential

Your Future Performance
A Paradigm Shift
Actualize Your Potential
Make Your Choice

Chapter Two
All Good Leaders Must Learn to Swim

From Good Days to Great Every Day

The Sustainable Success High-Rise
The Missing Link in Leadership
Power Behind Tignum Strategies
Sustainable High Performance Leadership

Chapter Three
Without Energy and Resilience Even Staying Afloat is Impossible

Energy Creates Limitless Possibilities

Without Resilience, Failure Is Inevitable
Brain Performance for Full Potential
Left- and Right-Brain Coordination
Creativity Will Rule
Capacity—Is Your Gas Tank Big Enough?
Discover Your Potential
All Time Is Not Created Equal

Chapter Four
Are You Sinking, Floating, or Swimming?
Sinking = Burnout
Floating = Comfortably Numb
Mindlessness = Status Quo
Wellness Programs ≠ High Performance
Swimming = Sustainable High Performance
Personal Performance = Company Profitability
Is More Energy Enough?
The Rise of “Extreme Jobs”
 Chapter One
There Is A Swimmer In All Of Us

At the end of 2008, the CEOs of the Big Three US automakers testified
before Congress asking for a $37 billion dollar rescue loan. Congress
grilled these CEOs with questions. They asked about their strategies to
reinvigorate and innovate their companies. They asked how they were
going to retool their plants. They asked how they were going to guarantee
the lenders (the US taxpayers) that this considerable loan would ensure that
their companies would survive and become profitable again. These were all
fair and appropriate questions.

But the questions that they did NOT ask Rick Wagoner, CEO of General
Motors, Alan Mulally, CEO of Ford, and Bob Nardelli, CEO of Chrysler,
were even more critical to the success of their companies. They should have
also asked these leaders important questions about their own individual
performance, as well as the performance of their leadership teams:

What are your personal sustainable high performance strategies so we can

be assured that you will be able to perform your best during these and
future challenging times?

How will you keep your team energized and focused so that they can assist
you in inspiring and leading your entire organization through these and
future challenging times?

How will you change the culture within your company to support, inspire,
live, and breathe high performance?

What are you doing right now to increase your energy and resilience,
improve your brain performance, and grow your capacity for the future?

A Recession in Human Potential

We are on the heels of one of the most up-and-down economic years in
modern history. The US is in a recession, and the European Central Bank is
predicting a similar fate throughout Europe. The German Bank Chief
Economist Norbert Walter presented an equally pessimistic prognosis,
saying that this could be the biggest crisis since the founding of the country.

But this isn’t just a financial recession—it is also a recession in human

potential. It isn’t just a crisis of a shrinking economy—it is a crisis of
shrinking energy, passion, and fortitude of our leadership. We haven’t just
shrunk the economy. We have shrunk the investment that companies and
individual leaders are making, in terms of maximizing the performance of
those who must solve the current challenges.

At present, executive burnout rates are higher than ever. Two years ago, 30
to 50% of the global workforce was reported as having experienced
occupational stress or burnout. Today, burnout is on the rise across the
globe, and in the US alone, it is estimated that occupational stress costs
employers in excess of $200 billion per year.

Presenteeism (at work, but not really present) is costing the US over $150
billion annually. Companies are going broke trying to keep up with rising
employee healthcare costs. Leaders are distracted from producing results
because of low performance habits, fatigue, high stress, and poor health.

It would be easy to blame this recession in human potential on the current

economic crisis but this would be incorrect. Over the past 20 years as
technology has expanded at a neck-breaking pace, the demands placed on
business leaders and executives have exceeded the human physiological
capacity to handle it. Simply put, we were not built to handle the way we
currently work.

To make matters worse, the current approach to dealing with the side effects
of the enormous demands leaders face is also insufficient. There are some
excellent medical and wellness programs out there (even though many of
these will be the first thing to get cut in tough budget times), but these treat
the symptoms of the problem not necessarily the cause. These programs are
effective at catching diseases early, educating employees about unhealthy
habits, and reducing health insurance payouts; and these things are very
important. But we want you to think bigger because just being healthy
doesn’t ensure that you, or your team, will be high performers.

In the Financial Times, there was an insightful article by Donald Sull

entitled, “Why the worst times can also be the best of times.” It begins with:
“The world has changed. After years of benign economic conditions, the
four horsemen of financial apocalypse—credit crunch, recession, volatility,
and uncertainty—are blazing a trail across the horizon.” The article goes on
to describe that this current turbulence creates notable opportunities.
Executives, who are poised to capitalize on these opportunities, accelerate
change, communicate clearly to an uncertain workforce, and motivate
leadership will be the ones to profit greatly.

The problem is—who are these executives? Are they suffering from
leadership fatigue or are they energized to thrive? Are they exhausted and
overworked from tough budget cuts and shareholder pressures or are they
focused, passionate, full of energy, and ready to re-innovate themselves and
their companies?

Your Future Performance

The greatest “inconvenient truth” is not that global warming is out of

control. The greatest inconvenient truth is that the majority of world
leaders, corporate leaders, and executives have no plan to improve their
own personal sustainable high performance.

In our work, every time we meet with a group of executives, we ask:

How many people are going to retire in the next two years?
Consistently, no one raises a hand.
How about the next five years?
Usually, no one raises a hand.

How about the next 10 years?

Maybe two people raise their hands.

Is anyone concerned that you won’t have the energy to perform at a

high level for the next 10 years?
Almost every hand in the room goes up.

Then, we ask:

How many of you have a financial plan for your retirement?

Almost every hand goes up.

Next, we ask:

How many of you have planned for your own personal vitality and
health so you can enjoy your retirement?
Again, only a couple of people raise their hands. Team after team, company
after company, group after group, and the response is the same.
And then, we ask the toughest question of all:

How many of you feel that you could be better in five years than you
are now—that you can have more energy, focus, passion, concentration,
clarity, resilience, and capacity in five years?
Not one hand in the room has ever gone up.

This is the saddest moment of all, since the truth is that these things are
possible—and even more easily within reach than you can imagine!

Much of the way you perform in the next five minutes is due to the habits
you have had for the last three months. Much of how you will perform five
years from now will depend on the habits you will begin today. You are a
product of your habits, and there is no reason that you can’t become a
sustainable high performer in all areas of your life within the next three
months. It is simply a matter of awareness, choice, and habits.

Let us reiterate this compelling fact:

The way you will perform five years from now will depend on the
habits you begin today. You can change your habits today to feel better,
have more energy, build greater resilience and capacity, and become a
more effective leader five years from now.

A Paradigm Shift

This really is an exciting time to be alive and to be a leader. Martin Luther

King Jr. once said, “The ultimate measure of a man [or woman] is not
where he [or she] stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but
where he [or she] stands at times of challenge and controversy.” The
question is—what if you have the character and the conviction to handle the
crisis, but you’re just worn out? Your battery is low, your brain needs more
oxygen, your cells are screaming for nutrients, and your doctor has you on
medications for sleep problems, depression, hypertension, erectile
dysfunction, and ulcers. You’ve become a side effect of the new corporate
world of endless meetings, 24/7 e-mail and text messages, unrealistic
shareholder expectations, and the promotion competition to make it to the
next level. You are your greatest asset, and your habits will determine if you
will fall to mediocrity or rise to your potential. What if the greatest crisis
you need to solve is your own energy crisis so you can impact your team,
your company, your brand, and your family?

The truth is—you are not alone. We live in a time where there are a
multitude of brilliant leadership, business strategy, and financial
consultants. There are bookstores full of highly regarded books that provide
insights into how to be a better leader, negotiator, or project manager. But
what they all miss are the fundamental tools leaders will need to improve
their own energy and sustainability.
At Tignum, we believe that you must start with a strong foundation of
personal energy, resilience, brain performance, and capacity to become a
sustainable high performing leader. This foundation must be in place in
order to fully capitalize on all the other effective strategies in leadership and
business. This is especially true in these unstable economic times, but it can
not be overstated that this is always true.

Why do so many books and business schools miss this essential

foundation?

There are many reasons, which we will present later in this book, but the
fact is that most people take their own personal energy, resilience, brain
performance, and capacity for granted. They wait until a crisis happens
before they open their eyes. Even then, they think they are infallible. This
paradigm needs to shift. The future isn’t about survival—the future is about
achieving your potential. We could throw out a million clichés of living life
to its fullest, being the best you ... blah, blah, blah ... but you would
probably stop reading here.

If you’re like the thousands of leaders we have worked with, you want to
know that you have an impact. But making an impact in everything you do
requires sustainable high performance habits.

The bottom line is:

Do you want to make a difference?

Do you want to enjoy life?
Do you want to leave a legacy?

Hopefully, you aren’t too numb or too tired to answer these questions
honestly. And, contrary to what you may believe or expect, sustainable high
performance is not dependent on huge habit changes; it is built on simple,
small changes. This book is about teaching leaders basic high performance
strategies. The key, as you will discover in the following pages, is to do
these simple things consistently well.
 Open Your Mind. Challenge that age-old myth that you cannot be better
tomorrow. Plan for your own physical and mental performance and
sustainability just as you do for your financial performance. Discover
your untapped potential and make the changes in your habits today so
that you can enjoy the benefits now, and especially in the future.

Actualize Your Potential

At Tignum, we think the greatest untapped potential of an organization is

the performance of their leaders. Within these top players is an amazing
ability to inspire, motivate, and ignite the passion and innovation of an
entire organization. But in order for this potential to be expressed these
leaders must have the energy, resilience, brain performance, and capacity to
be their best. This is the foundation of every leader and the foundation of
every successful business. If you don’t first build a strong foundation for
sustainable performance for yourself and your organization, you are risking
a collapse.

Sadly, when organizations and leaders preach transformation, innovation,

and change, but fail to invest in the sustainability and performance of the
leadership and workforce, they are sending a deadly message. They are
saying that human capital has minimal value—and they will lose the talent
war, the innovation race, and the Darwinian survival challenge. Only
companies that spend the time, effort, and money to provide a high
performance workplace (with sustainable high performance leaders and
workers at the core) will win.

In a recent study by Accenture (a global management consulting,

technology services and outsourcing company), intangible assets—such as
reputation, intellectual capital, and other non-monetary items—accounted
for about 70% of the value of the S&P 500. This statistic is up from 20% in
1980. The companies that not only survive the current challenges but thrive
in the next decade will be those that master these intangibles.

Every real change, every great company must be built on a strong

foundation of energized leaders, a culture of high performance, and a
passion for sustainability for the business, the environment, the world, and
most importantly, the people. If your people are your organization’s greatest
asset, then prove it. If you are a leader, then begin by leading yourself first.

Make Your Choice

Play theorist Dr. Brian Sutton-Smith proclaims, “The opposite of play isn’t
work. It’s depression.” Furthermore, the opposite of success is not failure—
it is living a life where you are comfortably numb. You’ve seen it. People
who get through the day, barely achieving the status quo, who are numb to
how low their energy or productivity really is. Even worse, they are
unaware of how much unrealized potential they are leaving behind. Then
there are those who are energized, passionate, productive, and constantly
working to be their best.

Which would you rather be? Are you comfortably numb? Do you have the
knowledge, strategies, and habits to be energized, passionate, productive,
and sustainable?

Many leaders want to be the energy giver rather than the energy taker, but
unfortunately, they are often in survival mode. They think that if they can
just make it through this current crisis, they will recommit to some better
sustainable high performance habits. However, this is unlikely because
there will always another crisis to deal with.

Seize the Opportunity. The current economy and business challenges

require excellence more than ever. There has never been a time when
sustainable high performance habits are needed more. The time to
develop them is NOW!

There have been economic and financial crises in the 70s, 80s, 90s, and
early 2000; and now, in this century, we face the “biggest crisis since the
Great Depression,” (which lasted from 1929 through the end of the 30s or
early 40s for different countries).
The 1973 oil crisis, along with the US stock market crash that lasted from
January 1973 to December 1974, affected all major stock markets across the
globe. In the 1980s, developing countries across the world faced increasing
economic and social difficulties as they suffered from multiple debt crises.

In the US, the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s included the
failure of 747 savings and loans associations. There was the 1987 stock
market crash. And the slowdown in the finance industry and the real estate
market may have been contributing causes of the US 1990-1991 economic
recession.

In 1992, there was the collapse of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism
(ERM) and in 1994, the collapse of the Mexican peso. In 1997, the Thai
economy was in crisis with the devaluation of the Thai baht and the
collapse of the country’s real estate boom.

In this century, there have already been two recessions. There was one from
2001-2003 which affected largely western countries, the European Union in
2001-2002 and the US in 2002-2003, and the second one, which is
happening currently. The stock markets in the US, Europe, and Asia have
all been affected and show continued volatility.

But, the truth is that in every crisis, there are opportunities. Opportunities
for evaluation, for change, for reinvention, for innovation. And there will be
many more opportunities in the near future. The only way to survive, have
fun while you are doing it, and truly thrive in the future is to become a
sustainable high performer.

The critical question is—are you a sustainable high performer?

 Chapter Two
All Good Leaders Must Learn to Swim

Sustainable high performance is a condition where you are highly

motivated, your self-esteem is strong, your excitement to handle
challenges is evident, and your physical energy is abundant. People
perceive you as present, grounded, responsive, and focused. You
implement sound judgment and innovative solutions, maximizing your
impact on your team, company, brand, and the world. Sustainable high
performance is showing up consistently with your best game on.

In a 2001 Fast Company interview with Jim Collins, author of Good to

Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... And Others Don’t, Collins
was asked about his research to determine the best way to respond to the
economic slowdown.

Collins responded, “If I were running a company today, I would have one
priority above all others: to acquire as many of the best people as I could.
I’d put off everything else ... to fill my bus. Because things are going to
come back. My flywheel is going to start to turn. And the single biggest
constraint on growth and the success of my organization ... is the ability to
get and hang on to enough of the right people.”

This response reflects the belief that it is people (the right people) that lead
organizations out of difficult times, and it is these same people that make a
company move from good to great (and remain there). And we agree!

However, we would add another foundational element to Collins’ approach:

You need to make sure that your key people are energized, focused,
resilient, passionate, and ready to lead for the duration.

From Good Days to Great Every Day

In a 2007 interview, Matthias Malessa, Chief Human Resources (HR)
Officer of the adidas Group, was asked to address the major challenges for
HR management. He responded: “Like any good sports team we must
recruit talented players, managers and coaches. We need to develop them
into a team that trains hard, plays hard and draws on its passion for the
game to win. And we need to achieve this in every team, division, function,
region ... and brand ... In summary, it’s about having the right people with
the skills and passion to win in a responsible and fair way.”

Again, having the right people is a priority, but even more vital is making
sure these people are energized, focused, resilient, passionate, and ready to
act in the necessary moment.

We feel, even more so in the present environment, that leaders and A-

players need to be sustainable high performers. If they aren’t, then even the
most talented right people are fractionally functional. Great leaders can
occasionally have mediocre performances but when their energy levels
drop, their passion wavers, and their focus falters, their entire team suffers.

Any company can survive one bad performer (although when this is an A-
player, it can be very costly), but no company can win with mediocre-
performing teams. This means that the importance of every leader and A-
player being a sustainable high performer is paramount!

Leaders set the tone for the entire company culture. When a leader lives and
breathes sustainable high performance, and actively creates a high
performance business culture, everything changes. And everyone—
shareholders, CEOs, managers, staff, and customers—wins.

There are a wide variety of leadership theories (e.g., transformational

leadership, emotional intelligence, authentic leadership) throughout the
business world. But there is a common element, upon which all these
theories are built. The common element throughout all of these leadership
theories is to be the best you—a sustainable high performing, impactful
leader. The more self-aware you are, the more you can identify and use your
strengths, passions, and abilities to lead yourself, your team, and your
organization.

This advice sounds simple but unfortunately, it isn’t. It takes an amazing

amount of work, energy, and commitment to truly understand yourself,
control your emotions, and perform at your best every day. Many times,
leaders don’t have the energy to do this. Too often, they are just struggling
to stay afloat to meet their daily demands.

The Sustainable Success High-Rise

In the competitive business world of today, companies spend a lot of time,

energy, and money developing their leaders, focusing on the development
of their skills in execution, leadership, communication, project
management, negotiation, and time management. Companies address long-
term goals and sustainability (usually focused on financial, environmental,
and customer base), but they rarely discuss the sustainability of the leaders
themselves and of their workforce.

At the heart of leadership in any competitive business are passion, focus,

and creativity. These are key ingredients that leaders must have to in order
to create winning companies and sustainable high performance results.
Passion, focus, and creativity, in turn, require a strong foundation of
personal energy, resilience, brain performance, and capacity in order to be
truly sustainable.

While many companies may make the fatal mistake of perceiving these as a
bonus (if there is enough extra time and money), Tignum sees energy,
resilience, brain performance, and capacity as the foundation of sustainable
high performance. Furthermore, this sustainable high performance
foundation is built on Performance Mindset (covered in Section II),
Performance Nutrition (covered in Section III), Performance Movement
(covered in Section IV), and Performance Recovery (covered in Section V)
habits.
 The Tignum Performance Highrise

The Missing Link in Leadership

Clearly, energy, resilience, brain performance, and capacity are vital

components to being the best YOU. So if the foundation of all of these
leadership theories is a leader’s personal energy, resilience, brain
performance, and capacity, why are these critical elements so often left to
chance? Why do leaders see energy and resilience mostly as parameters of
wellness, rather than the foundation of performance? Why is it that CEOs
too often see energy and resilience as a nice-to-have rather than a strategic-
must? Why do organizations think that a corporate wellness program is
enough? Why do organizations think leaders’ capacity is an outcome of
their genetics rather than an outcome of their habits and environment?
 Why don’t business schools teach leaders how to develop their personal
energy, resilience, brain performance, and capacity?

Why do leaders talk about burnout only after one of their own team
members has crashed and burned?

Why don’t shareholders and analysts require leaders to develop their

own personal energy, resilience, brain performance, and capacity, as
well as that of their teams?

There are many answers to all of these questions, which will be covered
later, but perhaps the biggest reason that the energy, resilience, brain
performance, and capacity of individual leaders is left to chance is that there
is a lack of understanding of what sustainable high performance really looks
and feels like. Most people don’t begin to comprehend how much better
they can be.

Perhaps the questions to ask aren’t about why this has been missed, but
rather why you shouldn’t miss it. Ask yourself:

Do you want to come to work awake and energized, passionate about

attacking your to-do list, looking forward to the challenges that your
day presents, and capable of energizing those around you?

Would you like to attend high performance meetings where all the
participants prepare themselves as well as they prepare their content?
Where people are awake, alert, and full of passion and purpose? Where
the meetings are brief, powerful, and productive?

Would you like to feel the collective energy that is generated by a high
performance team of positive, solution-minded, creative thinkers?
Where negativity is immediately reframed into positive potential and
where, “Yes, let’s do it!” is the norm?

Do you want to walk into your home at the end of the day attentive and
focused on those who matter most to you? Where you are engaged in
the family discussions, are happy and enthusiastic, feel playful and want
 to have fun? Where you have the energy to be passionate about your
hobbies and to be creative to pursue your dreams?

The answers to these questions are obvious, but do you think your current
habits will get you there?

Power Behind Tignum Strategies

If there is one lesson we have learned at Tignum, it is that there is power2

in the total integration of Performance Mindset, Performance Nutrition,
Performance Movement, and Performance Recovery habits. Every day, we
speak with clients who have tried other approaches to improve their energy,
resilience, or performance by only addressing one area; and they have
failed. They didn’t fail because they didn’t try hard enough; they failed
because they didn’t try smart enough.

“I feel like I’m a pretty good performer except during the black-hole hours
of 1:30 to about 3:00 pm every afternoon. During this time, I struggle to
keep my eyes open. I go to meetings and unless it’s a life-or-death issue, I
can’t focus at all. I find myself craving biscuits, coffee with sugar, anything
sweet. I know better, I try to be strong, but I lose my self-control. I try to
avoid meetings during this time but that’s impossible. In the past two years,
I’ve put on a number of pounds, and this extra weight seems to only make
the situation worse.”

This is a common story that we hear from our clients. What is the real root
of the problem? Is it a sleep deprivation issue? A lack of movement issue?
An autonomic nervous system imbalance from too much stress and too little
recovery? Or could it be a nutrition issue? The answer is yes to all of these
—this all too common problem is almost always created by a combination
of issues and can only be solved through a totally integrated approach.
If you are sleep deprived, then your normal afternoon slump will be
exaggerated. When this happens, the brain reaches for the quickest source
of energy it knows—sugar. Similarly, if you are overstressed, your adrenal
glands will struggle to keep you energized throughout the entire day. Under
high stress, the elevated cortisol levels tell the brain to crave foods high in
sugar, salt, and fat. These are Recovery issues (which will be covered in
Section V). If you are eating a lunch with too many calories, too many
simple-sugar calories, too little protein, or even too little fat, then your
blood sugar levels will certainly dip between 1:30 and 3:00 pm. Your
energy will be zapped, and your concentration and productivity will suffer.

If you aren’t getting regular movement, especially neurologically

stimulating movement, then your brain is not getting the stimulation and
oxygen it needs to perform optimally. In addition, as your weight increases,
you are moving closer towards adult onset diabetes, hypertension, high
cholesterol, and even certain cancers. And, unfortunately, your challenges
will only get worse. Fatigue, weight gain, and a feeling of a loss of control
can quickly lead to apathy, frustration, and depression.

The downward spiral will continue and trying to solve it by addressing one
area simply will not work. The only way to solve a complex problem like
this (and not just apply a band-aid) is to use an integrated Mindset,
Nutrition, Movement, and Recovery approach. The kicker is that these high
performance strategies can be embarrassingly simple, yet when they are
done consistently (habitually) and synergistically, the positive results are
profound.

Sustainable High Performance Leadership

Although the energy, resilience, or performance you want may not seem
achievable right now, we can assure you that it is possible. We have been
working with leaders to implement these kinds of high performance
strategies, and this is the cornerstone on which Tignum was built.

You can build this enduring foundation through the total integration of
Performance Mindset, Performance Nutrition, Performance Movement, and
Performance Recovery strategies. These are Tignum strategies that you can
easily apply in your busy life every day.

We firmly believe in this approach, seeing firsthand the incredible impact it

has had on the companies with which we have worked. We have assisted
leaders in looking forward and understanding the requirements for
sustainable high performance in a constantly changing world. The
following client story exemplifies the results:

“I used to run these three- or four-hour meetings with my team. I remember

running straight into these meetings from another meeting. I would be
thirsty, hungry, and tired but I just accepted it. During these meetings, we
would have some great discussions but when I look back, I realize that there
was a lot of frustration just due to impatience from fatigue. We didn’t have
water for everyone, we didn’t have healthy snacks, and we didn’t move for
hours. It was crazy.

I thought of myself as a good leader but looking back there was no way I
was fully energized or very energizing to my team. The eye-opener was that
I wasn’t aware that I was not at my best. Even worse, I didn’t realize that it
didn’t have to be that way.

Now, my approach is completely different. In addition to preparing my

agenda and content for a meeting, I also mentally and physically prepare
myself. I see myself as a high performer who is capable of having huge
impact if I bring my best game to everything I do. My team really feels the
difference.

Now we finish meetings in less time, we get more done, and the team
leaves feeling energized and inspired to act.”

Consider the following:

What are your current strategies for staying energized and resilient?

What are your current strategies to improve your brain performance?

What are your current strategies to expand your capacity?

How can you build upon these strategies to develop and sustain the self-
awareness, passion, focus, and creativity that you need to be the best
leader you can be?
 Chapter Three
Without Energy and Resilience
Even Staying Afloat is Impossible

When we work with our clients, we ask them to write down their
expectations. What would they like to achieve from working with us? Their
lists are often long but the common themes demonstrate that leaders want to
be more productive (an increase in output) and have a greater impact on
their teams, their organizations, their customers, their families, and their
communities.

Similarly, they realize that without more energy, resilience, brain

performance, and capacity, they will never achieve these goals. They also
recognize that once they develop these elements, they will discover an
unused potential that is currently dormant.
 The Tignum Performance Sphere

Energy Creates Limitless Possibilities

Our research reveals an alarming trend among executives. Almost all of our
clients state that they have less energy at home than they have at work. This
means that they burn all of their gas at work and then often go home too
exhausted to fully engage in their home life. They don’t have the energy to
get the satisfaction out of the things that they value the most—their spouse,
children, friends, hobbies, and their away-from-work passions.

“4 Es of Leadership: A high-performing leader has to have positive energy

—be able to energize others—have edge (the ability to make tough calls)—
and the talent to execute. And, passion is the fifth essential trait of
leadership.”
Jack Welch, Business Writer and Former CEO of General Electric

Energy is a term that is commonly used but not so easy to define. Positive
energy is associated with motivation, exuberance, passion, confidence, and
optimism. There is also negative energy which is associated with anger,
tension, lethargy, depression, pessimism, and self-pity. There are energy
givers and energy takers. There are also many things that give you energy
or destroy your energy.

Throughout Sections II to V, we will share numerous Mindset, Nutrition,

Movement, and Recovery strategies to help you create more positive
energy. We will also give you strategies to reduce your risk for injury and to
keep your immune system functioning properly. Injuries or poor health can
quickly destroy your energy level. It is easy to underestimate the impact of
an injury on your energy level.

How do you currently try to raise your energy level?

What are your energy drainers?

What would you do if you had more energy?

 Without Resilience, Failure Is Inevitable

Resilience is the ability to stay focused and passionate about your goals
regardless of the normal or unexpected setbacks and challenges. It’s the
ability to look forward rather than backward, to consciously choose to get
up rather than stay down, and to push on rather than give up. Without
energy, there is no resilience. Highly resilient people use their temporary
setbacks to energize themselves to become more skilled, to do it better next
time.

Too often, others may view high performers as always successful at what
they do. However, they forget, or don’t realize, how many times these high
performers have had to pick themselves up from “failures.” Michael Jordan,
one of the greatest US professional basketball players to ever play the
game, best expressed the power of resilience. His response really hits the
mark:

“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300
games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot
and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is
why I succeed.”

Jordan’s proclamation captures the essence of resilience and its necessity

for success, especially in the business world. The fact is that business is
tough. Corporate culture isn’t always a nice environment. Critics aren’t
always complimentary. You can’t always win. If you want to be a leader, if
you want to be an impact player, if you want to participate in solving
difficult problems, you will definitely take some hard knocks.

In these challenging times, your resilience is a key component to your

sustainable high performance. It is not just pivotal to help you cope with
stress and catastrophe. It also enables you to deal with the normal setbacks
and frustrations that often come with collaboration, innovation, and
problem solving.

Brain Performance for Full Potential

While there is a lot that is unknown about how the brain actually works, it
is clear that maximizing your brain performance is essential to achieving
your full potential. Your speaking ability, confidence, recall, creativity, and
reasoning all impact your success or failure in a negotiation, a presentation,
or a strategy-development meeting.

The adult human brain weighs around three pounds (1.36 kilograms) and
contains more than 100 billion neurons. It has been called the most complex
organ in any creature on earth and it is a computing miracle.

The brain is the center of the nervous system and although it accounts for
less than 2% of a person’s weight, it consumes 20% of the body’s energy
and 20% of the body’s oxygen. It’s made up of approximately 80% water,
and every nerve cell is covered with a myelin sheath (80% lipid and 20%
protein) that is attributed with the amazing speed in which messages are
transmitted.

Nowhere is the total integration of Mindset, Nutrition, Movement, and

Recovery habits more important than for your brain performance. In order
to perform properly, the brain needs a constant source of oxygen and
glucose. Without these two things, it will quickly die.

Adequate sleep is also crucial to proper brain functioning. “One complete

night of sleep deprivation is as impairing in simulated driving tests as a
legally intoxicating blood-alcohol level,” according to Dr. Mark Mahowald,
Director of the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center at the
University of Minnesota Medical School.

In addition, the brain needs stimulation to be high performing. More and

more research is demonstrating that movement has a profound impact on
brain function. Movement improves the oxygen flow, provides neuro-
stimulation, and enhances right-and left-brain communication. What’s
more, the thoughts you feed your brain greatly influence the images it
creates and the outcomes produced.

But what if the stimulation is too much or if it is perceived as stress?

Although the body is designed to handle intermittent stress, when the stress
is constant and unrelenting, it can have a damaging effect on the brain.
Robert Sapolsky, a faculty member in the Stanford Institute for Neuro-
Innovation & Translational Neuroscience, has investigated stress and
documented that a prolonged flood of stress hormones can actually cause
shrinking in certain brain areas, particularly in the hippocampus (which
affects your short-term memory and spatial navigation). Sapolsky has
demonstrated how constant stress can actually erode memory and the ability
to learn. Thus, the key to minimizing the adverse effects of stress is to be
sure to get recovery between bouts of stress.

New research is showing that omega-3 fatty acids can help improve brain
circulation while high-sugar foods can lead to mood swings, poor decision-
making, and sluggishness. The only organ in the body that can’t store any
of its own energy, the brain is dependent upon specific foods in order to
perform optimally.

Dr. Daniel Amen, a leading brain expert, states, “If you don’t take care of
your brain, you lose an average of 85,000 brain cells a day.” This is what
causes aging, but with appropriate care and good habits, you can
dramatically slow the aging process.

A compelling reason to take care of your brain is to minimize the effects of

degeneration (aging and cognitive changes) that happen, as well as to
improve your day-to-day performance.

What do you consciously do on a daily basis to improve your brain

performance?

Your brain is mostly water—this means that hydration is a necessity. Do

you take care to fully hydrate yourself before a must-win negotiation or
presentation to enable your brain to function at its full capacity?

Do you strategically select certain foods before an important meeting to

ensure that your brain will function at its best?
 Left- and Right-Brain Coordination

Scientists describe the brain as consisting of two distinct halves. The left
brain is described as the half of the brain responsible for logic, analysis,
reasoning, language, math skills, and controlling the right side of the body.
The right brain is described as the half of the brain responsible for
imagination, creativity, intuition, big-picture thinking, art, music, and
controlling the left side of the body.

According to Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind: Why Right

Brainers Will Rule the Future, there has historically been a greater value
placed on left-brain thinking, but this is changing—and this change will
dramatically reshape our lives. Left-brain thinking used to be the driver and
right-brain thinking the passenger. However, as we move from the
information age to the conceptual age, the use of your right-brain abilities
will become more prevalent. Right-brain thinkers who can see the big
picture, take the long view, be more empathetic, and maximize their
creativity will be the ones to soar in the future.

Chris McManus shares another view with the importance of using your
whole brain. McManus writes in Right Hand, Left Hand: The Origins of
Asymmetry in Brains, Bodies, Atoms and Cultures: “However tempting it
is to talk of right and left hemispheres in isolation, they are actually two
half-brains, designed to work together as a smooth, single, integrated whole
in one entire, complete brain. The left hemisphere knows how to handle
logic and the right brain knows about the world. Put the two together and
one gets a powerful thinking machine. Use either on its own and the result
can be bizarre, or absurd.”

At Tignum, we believe that a high performance brain has to be a

coordinated contribution from both the right and left quadrants of the brain.
In Section II, we will examine the qualities, attributes, and skills of a High
Performance Mindset, and you will see that this requires the collaborative
functioning of both sides of the brain.

Creativity Will Rule

When you think about it, in our new world of constant connectivity, we all
have access to the same information. You can go to Google, type in the
word creativity, and over 62 million sources will come up. Not that long
ago, this type of information would be power, but this is no longer the case.
This type of information power is now shared by everyone. Or is it?

Kjell Nordström, coauthor of the international bestseller Karaoke

Capitalism: Management for Mankind, described it perfectly at a
conference in Düsseldorf: “Business today has turned into a karaoke bar.
Everything is a copy of a copy of a copy.” He explained that it is similar to
some untalented drunk patron in a bar singing someone else’s original song
—business is full of copy-cats. Nordström went on to say that only
“imagination and innovation will place societies, organizations, and
individuals center-stage.”

We wholeheartedly agree with Nordström—creativity is the commodity of

the future. Having the information is merely interesting. But taking the
same information that everybody else has and doing something unique,
useful, and impactful—this will be the ticket for success. At Tignum, we
believe this current brain research, along with the focus on creativity, means
that a sustainable high performer will need strategies to create a high
performance brain that is made up of a coordinated symphony of left- and
right-brain functions.

Unfortunately, most executives have no idea how their current habits

negatively impact the performance of their brain. They travel across time
zones with no strategies to combat jet lag which leaves them fatigued and
lethargic, decreases their concentration and focus, and reduces their brain
performance. They grab a quick cup of coffee and a cookie as they walk
into a meeting to keep themselves awake only to suffer an insulin crash that
destroys their memory, creativity, and problem-solving abilities. They take
the elevator up one floor to a big presentation, not knowing that walking up
the stairs would have oxygenated their brain, as well as improved their
ability to think on their feet by stimulating the right brain.
Too often, executives leave their brain performance to chance because they
aren’t even aware of the impact that their choices have on the brain. At
Tignum, we realize that high brain performance doesn’t happen by chance
—it happens by choice. We teach our clients how to make better choices to
ensure that their brain will be performing at its optimal capacity.

What type of choices are we talking about? These are High Performance
Mindset, Nutrition, Movement, and Recovery choices that provide the brain
with the stimulation, oxygenation, nutrition, and regeneration it needs to
perform its best. Even more importantly, it is the total integration of these
four pillars of Tignum strategies that will make your brain a sustainable,
high performing brain.

Capacity—Is Your Gas Tank Big Enough?

Everywhere in the world, companies are being forced to do more with less.
Our clients tell us repeatedly that they are being forced to do two or even
three jobs. This shift doesn’t just require energy, resilience, and a high
performing brain. It also requires a capacity to take on new challenges, to
grow, and to become efficient so that you can simply do more.

Traditionally, the lines delineating where one person’s area of responsibility

stops and another’s starts have been black and white. Today, these lines are
becoming gray and much less defined. Companies can’t afford to keep
executives who throw up their hands at every challenge with the response,
“That’s not my job.”

With the current trend of collaboration, both inside and outside of

companies, increasing your capacity to take on and meet new challenges is
a must. Your potential for growth, power to learn, and ability to perform
will be fundamental to the development of your capacity. In athletics,
capacity is built progressively through training and practice. In the business
world, it is built through the total integration of High Performance Mindset,
Nutrition, Movement, and Recovery strategies.
 Discover Your Potential

Sometimes acknowledging your potential can be scary. You see that you are
settling for less if you don’t achieve it, and you also see that much more is
possible if you’re willing to work to get there. But when you move past
your fears, there is nothing more inspiring than having a challenge in front
of you that is directly tied to you achieving your own greatness. In a world
where mediocrity is often the norm, actualizing potential is rarely
discussed, or expected. This is very costly.

In the International Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland—a

beautiful city nestled between the majestic Lake Geneva and the
whitecapped Savoy Alps—there is a simple, yet thought-provoking
sculpture. Placed among the marble statues of ancient Greek athletes
representing grace and sacrifice in sport, this rudimentary form made of
one-inch tubular steel portrays another message.

The placard below the sculpture explains that the very small box in the
upper right-hand corner represents human lung capacity at rest and the
much larger box to the left represents lung capacity during competition. For
Tignum, this basic image symbolizes that humankind is functioning at a
minute fraction of our potential. At the Olympic Museum, where the
greatest athletic feats in history are represented, it is recognized that we all
still have an enormous amount of untapped potential.

What untapped potential is lying dormant in you, in your team, and in your
organization?

Imagine what a leadership team would be like if every member on that team
consistently tapped her/his potential. Imagine the impact that this would
have on the rest of the leadership, on the workforce, on the organization, on
the brand, and on the consumers. Even more, think about the impact that
this would have on your family, your friends, and your legacy. Reaching
your potential will generate meaningful outcomes at work and away from
work.

So what will it take for you to achieve your true potential?

What do you need to tap into your large box of potential and live there?

Too often your habits have left you feeling that you have a greater potential
within but you are unable to hold it, to make it happen, to reach it.
Unfortunately, you may not be aware of what you repeatedly do.

Did you know that 95% of your behaviors are unconscious and automatic?

You may be unaware that you repeatedly skip breakfast, drink six cups of
coffee to get going, generally walk less than 10 steps before you sit, rarely
eat a vegetable, watch TV to fall asleep, or that you consistently play and
replay negative thoughts in your mind. Similarly, you may be unaware that
you feverishly check your e-mail on your Blackberry during meetings or
conversations, or that you rush into meetings late, appearing scattered and
unprepared. You are unaware because the brain has an auto-pilot mode that
allows you to repeat common patterns without conscious thought.

This paraconscious (between conscious and unconscious) state allows you

to perform activities that you are used to doing without attention or thought.
An example of this paraconscious state is reading your e-mail on your
Blackberry while you’re involved in a discussion. You perform this
behavior so often that you don’t even realize you’re doing it. This also
means that you are not really communicating because you are not focused
on the discussion, you are not fully listening, and you are not effectively
dialoguing. You are engaged in the habitual act of multi-tasking, and much
of this behavior is not through conscious thought.

The fact is that there are too many executives functioning at a fraction of
their potential, and we know that there is a much better way.

Knowing what to do is not enough.

Personal change and achieving personal potential is not just about knowing
what to do. It requires action. You have to move from knowing to doing and
then do the right things over and over again.

All Time Is Not Created Equal

We continually hear from our clients that they don’t have enough time.
When we inquire further, what they really mean is that they don’t have the
energy, resilience, brain performance, or capacity to accomplish the results
they want to achieve from the time they spend throughout their day.

Clients talk about a meeting being a waste of time or their greatest challenge
being a lack of time. Is it a lack of time or is it a lack of Quality of Time?
We see Quality of Time as a subjective assessment of time spent in your
sustainable high performance zone at work or away from work. It’s time
where you are fully engaged, in the moment, and at your best. It’s also a
time where you are producing your intended outcomes.

How do you accomplish Quality of Time?

Unfortunately, too many executives are just trying to prevent themselves

from sinking. They are trying to stay afloat with low performance habits
that leave them sick, hurt, numb, or fatigued. In fact, your shelves are
probably full of books that you’ve read but that didn’t lead to any
significant changes in your life.
We want you to know that this is not another book with wouldn’t-it-be-nice
stories and bet-you-didn’t-know-this headlines. This is a book with
strategies that will help you to change your habits, change your energy
level, change your productivity, and make your performance at work and
away from work truly sustainable. But make no mistake—there is no
replacement for ACTION. It is the key to achieving quality of time, high
performance, and sustainability.

Sustainable high performance doesn’t happen by chance—it’s a choice.

Every person has the choice to sink, float, or swim.

What will your choice be?

 Chapter Four
Are You Sinking, Floating, or Swimming?

After working with thousands of executives, we have found that they fall
into one of three categories. They are moving towards a serious crisis
(sinking), they are comfortably numb and performing at a fraction of their
potential (floating), or they are a sustainable high performer (swimming).
We have included a list of characteristics in each category below for you to
honestly assess where you are.

Are you a Sinker, a Floater, or a Swimmer?

A Sinker ...
_performs at low level of productivity
_doesn’t read or recognize body signals (fatigue and sleep or digestion
problems)
_suffers aches and pains for no apparent reason
_keeps working harder and harder but with less productivity
_struggles with business demands and feels pressured
_has sacrificed relationships for work
_is unaware of unproductive, low performance habits
_ignores personal sustainability until a crisis occurs
_always feels like s/he is one breath away from going under
_does not have a strategy for personal sustainable high performance
 _does not see the value in planning for personal performance
_is unaware that Mindset, Nutrition, Movement, and Recovery habits
impact her/his energy, resilience, brain performance, and capacity

A Floater ...
_performs at a level of mediocrity or unremarkable productivity
_occasionally recognizes body signals (fatigue and sleep or digestion
problems)
_may have occasional high performance productivity
_uses a lack of time as a common excuse for not investing more in
personal sustainability
_perceives constant pressure, deadlines, and change processes as an
endless battle
_prioritizes job sustainability over personal sustainability, sacrificing
some relationships
_is aware of unproductive, low performance habits, but doesn’t change
them due to limited awareness of performance potential
_believes what brought personal success in the past will lead to
personal success in the future
_feels like the status quo is as good as it gets
_does not plan for or invest in personal sustainable high performance
_sees sustainable high performance as a nice-to-have rather than a
strategic-must
_may implement certain performance Mindset, Nutrition, Movement,
or Recovery strategies but not in an integrated fashion

A Swimmer ...

_consistently performs at a high level

_is consciously aware of internal and external signs of being low on
gas
_has a high energy level and energizes others
_works smart rather than just hard
 _welcomes pressure, deadlines, and change processes but also
_schedules time for recovery and regeneration
_has fulfilling relationships at work and away from work
_continually improves habits and works toward potential
_has great resilience even after setbacks
_feels like life is full of opportunities and is ready to act on them
_plans for and invests in personal sustainability and builds a personal
_vitality profit margin in case a crisis hits
_recognizes sustainable high performance as a strategic-must
_fully integrates and understands that Mindset, Nutrition, Movement,
and
_Recovery strategies are the foundation for all performance

While you are at work, do you find yourself sinking, floating, or

swimming?

What percentage of the time do you spend in each place?

What about when you are away from work?

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a
habit.” Aristotle

Sinking = Burnout

There is one message that comes through loud and clear from every client
with whom we have worked. The demands on them as leaders, managers,
team members, husbands, wives, fathers, and mothers are enormous. We
always ask the question: Is your workload greater today than five years
ago? And, the answer is invariably an emphatic YES.

Our clients share that their biggest frustrations come from endless meetings,
e-mail overload, and a general feeling of a lack of control over their day. On
many days, it takes every ounce of energy they have to keep from sinking.
In addition, most executives have at least one story of someone on their
team who is either ready to burn out or has done so already. These very sad
stories, and you can feel the impact it has had on the entire team.

In the past 15 years, the rate of burnout has drastically increased. Even
more alarming, it is happening to the best performers (not the worst), and at
earlier and earlier ages. With the competitive war to get and retain the top
talent, and with the growing demands placed on business leaders, A-players
crashing and burning out can be very costly.

According to a study by the American Institute of Stress, the estimated

costs due to missed work and stress-related illness could be as high as $300
billion annually. In Canada, it is estimated that work-related mental health
issues resulted in an annual $3.5 billion productivity loss. In the European
Union, it is reported that burnout affects 28% of employees, 38% in the
United Kingdom, and possibly even more in the US.

Findings from the Hudson Burnout Britain Report (2005):

_More than half (52%) of Britain’s employees claim to have experienced
one or more
_symptoms of over-work or burnout in the last six months.
_One in two employees (49%) and employers (46%) thought the situation
_had worsened in the last five years.
_Employees (76%) and employers (78%) were most likely to believe that
the
_increased pace of business life was a cause of burnout.
_One in seven (14%) of the HR managers interviewed have lost one or
more members_of staff due to burnout.

With the economy worsening, competition increasing, and the demands

placed on executives rapidly growing, can a company really afford to have
this many people sinking? Burnout doesn’t just impact the bottom line—it
impacts the company morale, the organizational culture, the productivity,
and ultimately the shareholder value.
In the Scientific American Mind, Berlin science writer Ulrich Kraft
describes the burnout cycle and why it has become so prevalent. He notes
that part of the quicksand of burnout is that it doesn’t happen overnight—it
develops gradually over time. The cycle actually begins with a compulsion
to prove oneself, an expectation that any high performer embraces. Then, as
personal high expectations continue to grow, people take on more and more
work to support their inner notion of irreplaceability. Finally, they take the
plunge that often leads to their own sinking: they dismiss their own needs
for critical elements like sleep, exercise, food, friends, or fun. This self-
sacrifice is often perceived as the final proof of heroic performance.

Interestingly enough, Dr. John Sarno, from the NYU Langone Medical
Center, also describes this perfectionist type of personality as the greatest at
risk for low back, knee, and shoulder pain. In his book The Mindbody
Prescription: Healing the Body, Healing the Pain, he also associates other
common health conditions such as fibromyalgia, asthma, and arthritis to the
psychosomatic onset of a condition called tension myositis syndrome
(TMS). TMS causes a condition of oxygen deprivation in the tissues which
he attributes to the pain, most notably back pain.

At Tignum, we believe there is another way—a new way of working—

utilizing effective High Performance Mindset, Nutrition, Movement, and
Recovery strategies to access your potential and sustain your performance.
Our goal, and passion, is to help every person move towards becoming a
sustainable high performer. We can assure you that sustainable high
performers are not born this way. They are people who have committed
themselves to doing simple things consistently well in order to actualize
their potential.

Burnout is the result of constant and persistent stress without adequate

recovery to rebalance your autonomic nervous system (ANS). The ANS
controls involuntary activities in your body such as heart and respiration
rates, digestion, perspiration, urination, and sexual arousal.

There are numerous factors that contribute to burnout such as a lack of

control of the work environment, unrealistic expectations, perfectionism, a
bombardment of critical decisions (especially those that negatively impact
the lives of others), and a non-supportive work culture. But burnout is not
an absolute. Some people appear to be less resilient to burnout than others,
and this resiliency can be developed.

Physical signs of burnout: lack of energy, inability to get up to come to

work, lack of concentration, insomnia, aches and pains, physical
exhaustion, forgetfulness

Emotional signs of burnout: frustration and general irritability, feeling

isolated, emotionally drained, cynicism, despair, apathy, withdrawn, sense
of helplessness, and hopelessness

Burnout is a serious medical condition and can lead to suicide. If you

believe you are suffering from burnout, you need to seek medical attention
and the care of a qualified psychological and medical team.

“The last act of the stress cycle, burnout is a fitting epidemic for the
overwork age. Its total colonization of the mind, body, and spirit mirrors the
complete takeover of life by the job.” Joe Robinson, American Consultant
and Author of Work to Live: The Guide to Getting a Life

Floating = Comfortably Numb

Yet, this tells only one part of the story. There are rising catastrophic
burnout rates, but in addition to this alarming trend, there are also a large
percentage of executives that are simply trying to stay afloat. This means
they come to work every day, they do their best to achieve the status quo,
and then they go home exhausted hoping that tomorrow will be a better day.
They are treading water in the middle of a vast ocean of expectations,
increasing business challenges, reduced resources, and greater short-term
demands, without any glimpse of a rescue boat or the shore.

Although there are statistics that attempt to estimate the productivity loss
due to burnout, there aren’t any measurements of the cost of mediocrity
from a large part of your workforce just trying to stay afloat. These are the
comfortably numb leaders who have lost sight of what high performance
looks like, feels like, and smells like. Even worse, they don’t realize that
life can be better. They suffer compassion fatigue which destroys the
energy, productivity, and culture of high performance teams.

In an October 2004 article in the Harvard Business Review, Paul Hemp

defined presenteeism as the problem of being on the job but, because of
illness or other medical conditions, not fully functioning. The productivity
loss due to presenteeism in the US alone is estimated to be $150 billion
which is far more costly than absenteeism. Unlike absenteeism, the problem
with presenteeism is that it isn’t always apparent. People are at their desk,
appear to be fine, but inside they may be struggling with common ailments
like allergies, headaches, arthritis, back pain, depression, or some other
performance-hindering condition. Side effects of the medications they are
taking may also challenge and adversely affect their performance.

Average number of unproductive hours in a typical 8-hour day

Adapted from a study done by Cornell University Institute for Health and Productivity Studies
(IHPS)

Although the study of presenteeism is still young, it is our opinion that

these statistics are an underestimation of the true cost of pain and illness.
For example, researchers from Tufts New England Medical Center in
Boston reported that the incidence of chronic lower back pain was 21.3%
and depression only 13.9% in the Lockheed Martin study. In our medical
evaluations, we have found that closer to 50% of executives suffer from
consistent lower back pain, and the depression rates (especially those who
don’t take medications) are also far higher. Even more frightening, there is
an unknown percentage of executives who self-medicate, which surely
impacts their productivity and performance.

Another confounding factor to actually being able to measure the true

impact of presenteeism is the veil of secrecy that surrounds illness
(especially mental illness). We have had clients confide that they have
suffered medical maladies (even heart attacks) and never shared this
information with their bosses or with their company physicians.

Even further complicating the true cost of presenteeism is the fact that most
executives don’t get regular medical examinations, and they are often
unaware of underlying potential medical problems. In almost four years of
testing executives for our programs, we have found that 40% of our clients
have hypertension and 38% have abnormal blood results, and they had no
prior knowledge of these conditions. This has been a huge wake-up call for
Tignum and for our clients.

Do you know your blood pressure? Do you know your cholesterol level?
Do you have allergies? Do you regularly suffer from knee, back, or
shoulder pain? What medications do you take? What are the side effects of
these medications? When was your last medical examination? What do you
do every day to prevent illness, injury, or chronic pain? What do you do
every day to strengthen your immune system? Are your current habits
leading you towards being one of these statistics?

Mindlessness = Status Quo

In today’s world of business with downsizing, buyouts, constant

reorganization, and rapid change platforms, the emotional demands placed
on managers and leaders are growing exponentially. When examining
current leadership habits, Richard E. Boyatzis and Annie McKee, in their
book Resonant Leadership: Renewing Yourself and Connecting with Others
Through Mindfulness, Hope, and Compassion, also found that if leaders
were focused only on results, they often slipped into “a state of
mindlessness.” This mindlessness takes a toll on leaders both physically and
emotionally. It creates floaters of the best leaders in the short-term and
makes personal sustainability impossible in the long-term. Eventually, this
can lead to leaders who can no longer motivate themselves or their teams to
be creative and productive, which can severely wound the spirit of the
company. In a competitive world, this is how companies lose their
competitive edge.

Whether or not these leaders actually suffer heart attacks, their companies
will eventually suffer shareholder-value strokes; and the profitability of the
companies will be paralyzed. The reality is that business can be tough and
even cruel sometimes, and often only the strong survive. In a tough
economy, the smart money is on the leaders who realize that the corporate
culture must be in place to improve the energy, resilience, capacity, and
sustainability of every person in their company.

It’s interesting to note that many Fortune 100 companies have a policy that
the executive leadership team can never travel together in the same
airplane. This way, in the case of a catastrophic crash, the company will not
lose all of its leaders or its continuity. This policy implies that there is a
high value placed upon these key leaders, their contributions to the
company, and the importance of them being able to come to work.

If companies go to such lengths as to require that their top leaders not travel
together, why don’t they insist on a company culture built on sustainable
high performance? We asked one of the leading international business gurus
and bestselling authors, C.K. Prahalad, about some of these important
issues.

Why do you think so many leaders see their personal sustainability

(energy and resilience) as a nice-to-have rather than a strategic-must?

Prahalad: Most of these executives and CEOs start in these companies when
they are young. When you’re young you feel invincible—even if you’re
not. However, just because you can cope doesn’t mean you are at your best.
You don’t know how good you could be, and people won’t tell you when
you’re not at your peak. In addition, there are companies that invest in the
health of their leaders and workforce, but good health does not translate
directly to high performance. The mindset is the key.

It seems that in tough budget times, employee development and high

performance programs are often the first to get cut. What are your
thoughts on this approach?

Prahalad: It’s unfortunate and a knee-jerk reaction. It’s a mistake and

demonstrates very short-term thinking. I encourage leaders not to take this
approach—not to cut this type of vital leadership development. When they
make these kinds of cuts, they will surely pay for it later.

Why are you committed to your own personal sustainable high

performance?

Prahalad: The reason I am so committed to my sustainable high

performance is that my work requires much international travel, and there is
always the expectation that I am ready to go when I land and that I’ll be
highly focused. When I work with a company, I must be alert for long
periods of time. I have multiple roles as an academic, a writer, and a
consultant. My job requires that I’m mentally alert and physically fit.

Clearly, C. K. Prahalad is a swimmer.

Companies often fail to build a culture of high performance because of their

lack of awareness. When you are comfortably numb, you don’t always
know how bad you may be or how good you could be. You’ve probably
seen glimpses of your potential, but you’ve never gotten to swim in it so
you could really enjoy the benefits. You may not associate Mindset,
Nutrition, Movement, and Recovery habits with your business performance.
Instead, you may associate these strategies with wellness, health, or
physical appearance, and then wait for a performance or health crisis before
you do anything about your personal habits.

Wellness Programs ≠ High Performance

 This lack of awareness also contributes to the wellness program trap. Too
often, CEOs assume that if they have a company wellness program,
everyone must be well. This false assumption usually goes hand in hand
with the assumption that if the leaders and the workforce are well, they
must be functioning at full capacity.

Unfortunately, these assumptions cloud the real picture of performance:

_Annual checkups identify illness—they don’t prevent them.

_Corporate fitness centers are most used by those who are already fit.
_Presenteeism makes it look like everyone is well, but this is often not
the case.
_Everyone is not an athlete and “exercise” is not for everyone.

_Wellness programs are designed to help people stay afloat, to prevent them
from sinking, but not necessarily to help them become sustainable high
performers.

Wellness and health are definitely components of sustainable high

performance, but alone, they do not lead to high performance.

Swimming = Sustainable High Performance

Sustainable high performance is a condition that occurs when a person is

stretched beyond her/his comfort zone but not beyond her/his skill level. It
is a condition of high energy and passion, low anxiety, and maximum
productivity. It is not a one-time experience but rather a normal state where
mediocrity is unacceptable but perfection is not the objective. It is a
condition that yields high motivation, strong self-esteem, excitement to
handle challenges, and abundant physical energy. Sustainable high
performance is an outcome of excellent habits. It is a process and not a
destination.

Three years ago, one of our clients, Sandy Ogg, the Chief HR Officer of
Unilever, recognized that he and his team were struggling. He described
that they were facing insurmountable challenges and they were doing
everything they could to just stay afloat. This wasn’t a knock on himself or
his team. Rather, it was a byproduct of the enormous demands they were
facing along with their current habits.

At one of our meetings, Ogg stood up in front of his entire team and shared
his desire to become a swimmer. He told the group he knew it would
require some personal changes, but that he wanted to be a good example to
everyone and to improve his own sustainable performance. Since then, like
all of us, he hasn’t been perfect, but he has purposefully adopted a variety
of sustainable high performance habits.

He awakens every morning with a commitment to his own personal energy,

resilience, brain performance, and capacity. His morning starts with some
movement and a high performance breakfast. Next, he looks at his daily
agenda, and spends a few minutes setting his intentions and mentally
preparing for his day. He envisions his day as a series of performances, all
of which will require his full attention, energy, focus, and passion.

Once at work, Ogg prepares his brain for optimal performance (with the
proper thoughts, movement, and nutrition) before each meeting. He takes a
few minutes before to set his intentions and a few minutes after each
meeting to debrief. He understands that in each and every interaction he
has, there is the potential to impassion and energize company leaders or
leave them flat, uninspired, and feeling insignificant.

Do all of these strategies take a lot of time and energy?

Not really—because it’s a routine, a set of daily habits. Ogg understands

that his hectic schedule, relentless travel demands, and challenging
workload can, at any moment, drag him back into being a floater. But he
keeps focused, by having good sustainable high performance habits,
because he has made the choice to be a swimmer.

Is he perfect with these habits every day? No way. But he is committed.

And part of being a swimmer is realizing that every day is a work in
progress. Every action you take will either help you swim or make you sink.
 Personal Performance = Company Profitability

In a 2007 Fast Company article, Yuval Rosenburg looked at an evolving

trend of investment groups to examine not just short-term returns but also
sustainability. One such group, HIP Investor, Inc., has defined the practice
as Human Impact + Profit (HIP)™. HIP is a quantitative measurement of
how a company treats the environment, its employees, its customers, and
the community. HIP Investor founder and CEO R. Paul Herman shared with
us: “We want to measure how a company’s management approach drives
human impact and how that human impact drives higher profit. To do this,
we look at the impacts (health, wealth, earth, equality, and trust) of both
customers and employees, the impact on the environment, and the impact
on social equality. Clearly, we can see that the culture the leader sets
pervades the entire organization. We suspected that a company could do the
right thing in the short-term (for their employees, customers, and the
environment) and still be very successful in the long-term, and the HIP
Index’s metrics and financial outperformance prove that concept in real life.
We were right.”

This type of approach is in its early stage, but HIP is revolutionary,

certainly pushing the envelope in linking the health and well-being of a
company and its leadership approach directly to the long-term profitability
of the enterprise.

This focus on the health of company leadership is also reflected in The

Huffington Post headline, “Apple Shares Fall on Steve Jobs Health News.”
In this article, Jessica Mintz wrote: “Apple’s stock has surged and tumbled
over the last year in step with rumors or news about the CEO’s condition.
While the top executive’s health is an issue for investors of any company, at
Apple the concern reaches fever pitch because Jobs has a hand in
everything from ideas for new products to the way they’re marketed.”

While Steve Jobs is certainly not just any CEO, and the ethics of
speculators having access to personal medical information is questionable,
the point is that the health and well-being of the CEO and top leadership
always matters. In fact, we believe that when companies invest in the
sustainable high performance of their leaders, it should be heralded as good
for the company, good for the employees, and good for the investors.

Is More Energy Enough?

One of our favorite video clips is of a well-known CEO energizing his

company’s leaders. It shows him bouncing, skipping, screaming, and
cheering as he energizes the crowd. They are clapping, cheering, and egging
him on. You can see that they love their leader and the energy he is inciting
in them. The video clearly shows his passion and his intention for honoring
the company and his workforce.

Afterwards, the fatigued CEO leans on the podium as he catches his breath,
the effort and the excitement of delivering such an energetic entrance
evident. At this point, we always ask the question: Is this high energy? Of
course it is. Then we follow it up with:

Is it sustainable?

We are inspired by this CEO’s passion for his company, his effort to
energize himself and his employees. In the video clip, he emphatically
states four words: “I love this company!” However, even with his
tremendous love for his company, will this CEO have the energy and
resilience to sustain his personal performance?

When we address sinking, floating, or swimming, we are talking about men

and women who love their companies, love their jobs, love their teams, love
their spouses, and love their children. But, the reality is that when they sink,
everyone suffers.

“Your first and foremost job as a leader is to raise your own energy level
and then to help raise and orchestrate the energies of those around you.”
Peter Drucker, Austrian Management Consultant and Social Ecologist

The Rise of “Extreme Jobs”

Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Carolyn Buck Luce published a compelling article
in the Harvard Business Review on the dangerous allure of extreme jobs.
Their research in this area is based upon two surveys: one focusing on “high
earners in various professions across the US” and the other targeting “high-
earning managers in large multinational corporations.” In addition to the
surveys, they gathered information from 14 focus groups and 35 one-on-one
interviews. Hewlett and Luce defined extreme jobs utilizing the following
criteria:

“For the purposes of data analysis, we’ve said that survey respondents have
such jobs if they work 60 hours or more per week, are high earners, and
hold positions with at least five of these characteristics:

_unpredictable flow of work

_fast-paced work under tight deadlines
_inordinate scope of responsibility that amounts to more than one job
_work-related events outside regular work hours
_availability to clients 24/7
_responsibility for profit and loss
_responsibility for mentoring and recruiting
_large amount of travel
_large number of direct reports
_physical presence at workplace at least ten hours a day”

Using this definition, they identified that 21% of those surveyed in US

companies and 45% of those working in global companies had extreme
jobs. When asked why they did these extreme jobs, 90% of male and 82%
of the female respondents stated that their jobs were stimulating and
challenging, and their work gave them an adrenaline rush. The graph below
highlights some of the other reasons people gave.

Why Do You Do it?

Holders of extreme jobs indicated what motivates them to work long, stressful hours. They
answered the question “What are the main reasons you love your job?” Multiple responses were
allowed.
Hewlett and Luce also noted that “extreme jobs are no longer a rarity.” This
study was completed in 2006, and with our current economic demands, it is
important to acknowledge that today, extreme jobs are more prevalent than
ever before.

The truth is that just as there has been a rise in extreme sports, there will
always be an allure for certain individuals to do extreme jobs. There will
also be certain work cultures that recruit for, and brag about, their extreme
work environments. Is this okay or is this wrong? This is not for us to judge
because it is a personal choice that people make, and we respect that.

The better question—as Hewlett and Luce asked—is it sustainable?

Whether you choose an extreme or regular job (which, today, is looking

more and more extreme), we recognize that you are always seeking to reach
your potential, to become a sustainable high performer.

If you sink, it is a tragedy, impacting a wide spectrum of life. It is a business

tragedy that will impact your co-workers, your team, and your company.
And, it is also a personal tragedy since it impacts your spouse, your
children, and your personal community.

“The first time I saw a presentation about Tignum, I was intrigued. For the
six months leading up to that day, I had been struggling with burnout. Just
two months before, I had gone to my doctor because I was exhausted,
couldn’t focus, couldn’t sleep, and couldn’t even remember my assistant’s
name. My doctor diagnosed me with acute burnout, put me on sleeping
pills, and told me to stop doing all exercise and work for three weeks. This
forced check-out was then extended an additional two weeks. When I
started working with Tignum, I had been back to work on a part-time basis
for just three weeks. It was hard to say that I was back to work, though,
because it wasn’t really me, and I wasn’t really productive.
I was most interested in Tignum’s total integration approach. It was so
different from what my doctor had prescribed. When I showed up for my
pre-Tignum program evaluation, my hands were shaking and I was so
nervous, not because I was afraid, but because my system was so out of
balance.
As I proceeded with the different tests, the Tignum staff asked me specific
questions about my burnout: Had my doctor talked to me about my mindset
and how to manage my thoughts? Had he had suggested any nutritional
strategies to rebalance my autonomic nervous system? Had he
recommended some regenerating movements such as yoga, tai chi, qigong,
or stretching? Finally, they asked me if the doctor had given me any
relaxation, breathing, or sleep techniques.
For a split second my shaking stopped as I grinned and emphatically said,
“No, he recommended none of these.” I don’t have to tell you that, in that
moment, I realized that the Tignum approach was unique. For the first time,
I really felt like there was hope. Hope that I would get well and even more
importantly, hope that I could regain my old high performance ways.
I won’t tell you it has been easy, but I will tell you that once I consistently
implemented Mindset, Nutrition, Movement, and Recovery strategies, I
started to feel better. It took me a year, but my hope has turned into positive
results. I can tell you that I’m back to a top leadership role, and every day I
do something for my own sustainable high performance. I’ve learned my
lesson of not making my own energy and resilience a priority and finally, I
am excited about my future.”
Tignum Client

At Tignum, we unequivocally believe that every solution must be a total

integration of Mindset, Nutrition, Movement, and Recovery strategies. The
brain requires high performance nutrition, hydration, and energy to function
optimally. It also needs oxygen and neurological stimulation that can only
come from consistent movement. In addition, the brain needs rest and
regeneration to solidify memory and replenish vital brain chemicals.
Finally, when your mindset is optimistic, solution-oriented, confident,
focused, creative, and passionate, anything is possible. The mind and body
are intractably linked, and one needs the other to achieve sustainable high
performance.

It is important to note that the Tignum system is not a medical or health

program—our system is based upon a high performance approach. It is the
total integration of Performance Mindset, Performance Nutrition,
Performance Movement, and Performance Recovery strategies done
habitually to improve energy, resilience, brain performance, and capacity to
achieve sustainable high performance. This is the Tignum approach, and
our clients have proven that it works.

Do you have strategies that give you energy, resilience, capacity, and
high performance when you need it?

Will your current habits get you where you need to be tomorrow?
Section II
Getting Your Head Above Water

Performance Mindset – positively focusing on and

developing your thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, and vision to
improve cognitive and creative aptitude and produce
sustainable success
Chapter Five
What Is a High Performance Mindset?

Define a High Performance Mindset

Your Personal Performance Mindset
Benefits of a High Performance Mindset
Mental Performance Dictates Success
The Tignum Performance Mindset System

Chapter Six
Create Your High Performance Mindset

Level 1 – Develop Your Awareness

R! Reframe, Reframe, Reframe
Your Mind’s Fabrication of Stories
Natural Talent Is a Myth
Your Personal Review Process
Challenge the Status Quo
How Hardy Are You?
Capitalize on Your Personal Strengths

Chapter Seven
Expand and Sustain Your High Performance Mindset

Level 2 – Improve Your Energy, Clarity, and Creativity

Mental Imagery for Business Success
Identify and Visualize Must-Win Events
Level 3 – Strengthen Your Sustainability
Use Anchors as Shortcuts
Create and Utilize Performance Rituals
Evaluate Your Mindset Habits
Develop Your Performance Mindset Goals
 Chapter Five
What Is a High Performance Mindset?

“Every day, I come into work with what I think is a very positive mindset. I
feel like I’m happy and relaxed, but before I know it, I feel like my job has
sucked the life out of me. I become negative and unable to perform my best.
I often feel like the ball in a tennis match, and I’m being hit back and forth
with no control.”

You may identify with this Tignum client’s experience. Unfortunately, this
is common for too many executives. In every program, we begin our
Mindset discussion with this client experience and although everyone
laughs, they also cringe at the same time. We get this response because
people can relate to the challenges that seem to permeate their greatest
intentions of staying positive.

What are the things in your day that contribute to the destruction of your
positive Mindset?

What things wear on you, knock you off your game, drain your energy, and
take away your ability to stay in a High Performance Mindset?

Consistently, the answers we receive in response to these questions include

things like the traffic, weather, the commute, rude people, constant deluge
of e-mail messages, unrealistic expectations, too many or unnecessary
meetings, constantly changing priorities, personality conflicts, delayed
flights, long security lines, negative people in the office, money problems,
and office politics. This list is long but it is definitely not all-inclusive. You
can probably add a few items of your own to it.

We realize that this may seem like a negative beginning to a very positive
topic, but we feel it is necessary. This is an awareness exercise and
becoming aware of the negative thoughts that you have which impact your
Performance Mindset is critical.
 Define a High Performance Mindset

What is a Performance Mindset? Is it something you can describe? Is it

something you have experienced? Do you know a High Performance
Mindset when you see it? Is there a person (a colleague, a leader, an athlete,
a politician, a relative) that demonstrates what you consider to be a High
Performance Mindset? What are the qualities, attributes, and skills that you
want in your High Performance Mindset?

The more detailed your answers to these questions, the more meaningful
your High Performance Mindset. This is a significant part of developing a
clear picture of what you want your Mindset to become.

Throughout the work we have done with high performers, we have

developed a consistent (but not necessarily comprehensive) list of the
qualities, attributes, and skills that are necessary for creating this kind of
positive Mindset. These components always lead to great discussion, so we
have included a sampling to stimulate your Mindset list:

positive attitude

Concentration
The number of interruptions that people experience in the workplace is
immense. This fact has led to a new field of study called interruption
science. During an interview with BusinessWeek, Maggie Jackson, the
author of Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming of the Dark
Age, stated that the average American knowledge worker is disrupted once
every three minutes and tends to stay an average of 11 minutes on one
project. Jackson said studies by Gloria Mark and others show that once
interrupted, the average worker takes 25 minutes to return to their original
task.

Interruption science is an emerging field that studies the effect of

disruptions on job performance. This new science is not surprising when
you consider these statistics: 1 million IM messages sent every second, 2
million e-mails sent every second, 100 billion clicks on the internet each
day.

According to recent research in this area, this constant interruption leads to

an estimated productivity loss of $650 billion a year for US businesses,
alone. Clearly, the need to develop an environment and tools for
concentration is fundamental to creating your High Performance Mindset.

Control of Emotions
Have you ever watched an extraordinary athlete such as Steffi Graf play
point after point in a big match, appearing almost emotionless? How about
Tiger Woods as he sinks a winning 25-foot putt to capture a major
championship? Suddenly, the second the match is over, the gates open and
these athletes collapse in tears of joy. Where did these emotions suddenly
come from? Just a second ago, these high performers appeared so inhuman.
The fact is that it is impossible (unless there is a pathological condition) to
not feel some emotion. The challenge is to control your emotions, when
acting them out may not be conducive for high performance. What if you’re
feeling anger, frustration, or dissatisfaction, but you know that exhibiting
these emotions will destroy the trust or energy of the group? Learning to
control your emotions (not deny or eliminate feeling your emotions) is a
fundamental component to a High Performance Mindset.

Creativity
Just 10 years ago, creativity would probably not have made it onto this list.
It may have been preempted by knowledge (of business, competitors, and
customers). But as we previously discussed, creativity really is the
commodity of the future. In fact, we rarely lead a Mindset discussion where
someone doesn’t mention creativity and the rest of the group doesn’t
enthusiastically shake their heads in agreement. Creativity is, and will
continue to be, integral to business problem-solving and success.

Resilience
The road to success is definitely not linear. There are many ups and downs,
and the ability to rebound from setbacks, bad news, and failure is crucial. A
High Performance Mindset cannot be kept down. Most high performers
don’t perceive setbacks or failures as negative. They are so resilient that
they see them as steps on a staircase to achieving their ultimate goals and
fulfilling their vision.

Optimistic Outlook
This attribute commonly comes up in our discussions, eliciting lots of
passionate debate about the place for pessimism in a High Performance
Mindset. Great leaders can’t always be optimistic, because the facts must
speak for themselves. Although there is a positive relationship between
being optimistic and being resilient, there is also a solid argument for being
pessimistic and thoroughly questioning the assumptions or objectives. In
order to create your High Performance Mindset, you need to develop an
authentic optimism that high performance is indeed achievable and that the
problem at hand can be solved.

Positive Attitude
One attribute that always comes up in our discussions is a positive attitude.
Nothing destroys an individual’s and team’s energy like a negative attitude.
Whether it’s a business team, a project team, an athletic team, or a
firefighting crew, when one member (especially if it’s the leader) has a
negative attitude, everyone suffers. For this reason, maintaining a positive
attitude is paramount in developing your High Performance Mindset.

Fun
Too often, developing a High Performance Mindset is seen as all work and
no fun. This is a big mistake and can often lead to frustration. Human
beings are wired to seek enjoyment, and when you make your own personal
innovation a fun experience, you are far more likely to succeed. Finding
enjoyment in your own personal innovation is critical. Laughter is also an
essential component of our Recovery system, and the Mindset benefits of
fun are added value.

Goals
It goes without saying that goals are important to achieve anything. But as
we will discuss later, too often motivation is lost by writing long lists of
unemotional, uninspiring, dull goals. On the flip side, when you develop
meaningful, fun, and passionate goals, you will find it much easier to
remain disciplined.

Vision
A clear, detailed, sensory-rich vision is probably one of the most important,
and often overlooked, components of a High Performance Mindset. How
can you go into a board meeting and project confidence and conviction if
you can’t even see yourself with those attributes? Learning to see yourself
with a High Performance Mindset is one of the first and most powerful
steps to making it a reality. We will help you work on developing your
vision later in this section.

Plan
All the goals in the world won’t come to fruition if you don’t have a
concise, positive, and doable plan. Even the great Adidas catch phrase,
Impossible Is Nothing, cannot happen without a well-developed game plan.
Without a plan, you are leaving your success to chance, and that’s no way to
become a sustainable high performer.

Discipline
Without a doubt, discipline is an important element in developing a High
Performance Mindset. Discipline is not about being hardheaded but is more
about the ability to do the right things even when you don’t want to.
Discipline is having the self-control to do what is necessary to prepare and
plan for the many variables in any situation. One area that many executives
overlook is the discipline to individually prepare themselves mentally,
physically, and emotionally before they need to perform (at work and away
from work).
Confidence
No one has ever reached their full potential in becoming a high performer
without being self-confident. But what happens when your confidence
wavers? Have you ever prepared for weeks for a presentation only to have
your confidence crash the night before? Suddenly, you may find yourself
full of doubts, unable to quiet your negative self talk, and nervous about the
consequences of failing. Although this is a completely normal response,
there are strategies that can be used to quickly turn this Mindset around. We
will cover some of these later in this section.

Focus
Focus is not something you have or don’t have. Focus is a skill that can be
learned and practiced. It is the development of your ability to concentrate
strategically on the issue at hand, moving effectively from a wide to narrow
perspective, or from an inner to outer perspective, as required by each
situation.

You need to go into a meeting with the ability to widen your focus to take in
the mood of the room and yet, on demand, narrow your focus to the
individual slide you are presenting.

Solution-Oriented Approach
Developing a solution-oriented approach builds upon your ability to focus.
Every day, you will face many challenges and distractions. Sustainable high
performers know how to recognize distractions and how to choose to focus
on developing effective solutions. There are plenty of people who thrive on
the drama of being problem-oriented. A High Performance Mindset is
knowing how to identify the opportunities that each problem presents and
focusing on the solutions (rather than the problems).

Flexibility
On the surface, having flexibility may appear to be in direct conflict with
having discipline. However, upon deeper examination, these two skills
actually complement each other. Being flexible enough to step outside of
your comfort zone while remaining disciplined enough to not get pulled off
track is an extremely powerful skill. However, achieving this balance is
only possible when you are confident, focused, and solution-oriented.

Action-Oriented Approach (Knowing to Doing)

Of course, in every High Performance Mindset there has to be adequate
knowledge, but knowledge alone is never enough. In fact, when we were
researching the development of Tignum, we found a book published in
1828 called Sure Methods to Improving Health and Prolonging Life. The
chapters dealt with nutrition, sleep, exercise, fresh air, rest, and even
positive attitude. When we did recent internet research, we found millions
of sources on topics like performance, resilience, stress, fitness,
performance, nutrition, and mindset. The problem is definitely not a lack of
information. However, you need to be able to move from knowing to doing
in order to capitalize upon your High Performance Mindset.

Your Personal Performance Mindset

Now that you have been introduced to the components that our clients
commonly include, think about more of your own qualities, attributes, and
skills that you would add to this list for a High Performance Mindset. Then
consider:

How will you develop these qualities, attributes, and skills?

How much development or education have you gotten on the specific areas
on your list?

Why do you think you did not learn about many of these components to
develop a sustainable High Performance Mindset?

“I consider myself a high performer. I have an MBA from one of the

premier international business schools, and I have probably received over
1,000 hours of leadership development in my 20-year career. Every decision
I make potentially influences thousands of people at IBM. But in all of my
education and training, I have never been taught how to energize myself,
how to improve my focus, and how to personally prepare myself for a big
meeting, negotiation, or presentation.
I realize that I’ve always prepared my slides, prepared my notes, prepared
my calendar, but I left my personal performance to chance. I would usually
make an agenda for my team meetings, but I wouldn’t take even 10 seconds
to think about my own intentions or goals. The idea of doing some mental
imagery to create my state of mind and prepare my performance was
completely unknown to me.
Now, that I know how to get energized, improve my confidence, and prepare
my mind and body for a peak performance, I have moved from just being a
good leader to being a true high performer. It’s an incredible feeling to
raise my own expectations and then to meet them.” Tignum Client

Benefits of a High Performance Mindset

So let’s imagine that you acquired your High Performance Mindset, that
you developed every one of the qualities or abilities that you defined.

How would this High Performance Mindset change your performance at

work?

How would it change your performance away from work?

Consider these questions carefully, because this personal reflection is an

important step to building your awareness and setting the stage for making
real change. In addition, think about the outcome of transforming your
Mindset. How would you recognize this High Performance Mindset? This
question may seem odd, yet it is critical for lasting change.

If you lose 22 pounds (10 kilograms), you can see the physical results of
this change. If you improve your push-ups, you can count the increase in
the number that you complete. But since you can’t actually see your
Mindset grow and develop, how will you measure your success?

This is a vital question to contemplate because one highly intrinsic

motivator of personal change is recognizing and appreciating the progress
you have made. The only way to improve yourself is to practice, so it would
be most beneficial for you to also take note of the benefits that you have
attained in the process.

Following are a few measurements of success that our clients have shared
with us:

People around you treat you differently. They acknowledge your

contributions, they look to you for leadership, and they defer to you for
answers to serious challenges.

You feel more energized. The things that used to drag you down and
destroy your Mindset no longer have any impact.

You improve your communication with your co-workers, your spouse, your
children, and your friends.

You get positive feedback from your boss, your co-workers, and your direct
reports.

You are more productive, get more done, and therefore, are more
successful.

Mental Performance Dictates Success

When we ask professional and elite amateur athletes what percentage of

their performance is mental, they usually reply 90 to 95%. When we ask top
executives how much of their performance is mental, they usually respond
with 70 to 90%. This difference is interesting to note, since it is actually
athletes who require a greater physical ability of strength, power, agility,
speed, and sports skill.

So why do athletes rate the mental contribution for success so high?

At this high level of competition, they ALL possess the physical abilities
needed to win; therefore they recognize that it is the muscle between their
ears that actually dictates who will win. Similarly, when we begin working
with our clients, many of them think of their Mindset as just a head full of
knowledge. However, they quickly see how adding the qualities we listed
previously can give them the edge they need to win.

The brain has 100 billion neurons with over one quadrillion synapses. This
structure provides an amazing capacity to be trained. Although there
certainly may be some genetic differences that contribute to a person’s
Mindset, every single person can improve on the qualities, attributes, and
skills we have described.

Your mind is always learning and always practicing—so be careful what

you practice.

The Tignum Performance Mindset System

At Tignum, we use three different levels when teaching and implementing

Mindset strategies. Our approach first focuses on improving leaders’ self-
awareness to their own thoughts, self talk, and current state. We then teach
mental imagery techniques to help our clients self-regulate their current
state and to integrate the functioning of both their left and right brain.
Finally, we help leaders build a sustainable High Performance Mindset by
assisting them in the development of their own personal anchors and rituals.

The three levels of our Tignum Performance Mindset System include:

_Develop Your Awareness
_Improve Your Energy, Clarity, and Creativity
_Strengthen Your Sustainability

In each level, we help leaders design and incorporate the most effective
strategies for their individual needs. Much research has been done on each
of these areas, but the important thing is that you understand these concepts
and how easily they can be implemented into your daily life to improve
your High Performance Mindset.

How can you begin to create your High Performance Mindset?

 Chapter Six
Create Your High Performance Mindset

Awareness, the first level of Mindset strategies, is a foundational

component to personal growth, personal innovation, peak performance, and
sustainability. Awareness of your Mindset is all about YOU. The more you
get to know yourself (i.e., what makes you tick, your strengths, your beliefs,
your passions, your stressors, your limits), the more energy you will have.
When you combine energy with a Performance Mindset of clarity,
creativity, confidence, and a positive outlook, you will achieve sustainable
high performance in all areas of your life.

Your thoughts and self talk can be positive or negative. They can greatly
enhance your performance or significantly destroy it. To help become more
conscious of your thoughts and self talk, you need to catch nonproductive
thoughts and talk before they do damage. You need to stay alert to three
common self-talk traps: awfulizing, absolutes, and condemnation.

Dr. Betsy Shoenfelt, a sports psychologist, describes these traps in detail:

awfulizing – focusing on how bad or tragic a situation is and believing that

you cannot tolerate the situation,

absolutes – thinking in terms of always or never, (that there are either total
failures or a complete successes), and perceiving situations in extremes
rather than in degrees, or

condemnation – focusing on the blame of others or yourself.

Negative thoughts and self talk will stop you from creating a High
Performance Mindset, and they will most certainly affect your performance
in adverse ways. Aside from making you ineffective, negative self talk will
also lead to self-doubt and further poor performance.
 Level 1 – Develop Your Awareness

By developing an awareness of your thoughts and self talk, personal

feedback system, personal strengths, resilience, intentions, and your
choices, you will no longer be a victim to your unconscious habits.
Awareness of your Mindset enables you to set your intentions and to take
advantage of the many positive choices that are available. Once you
become aware of your thoughts, stories, and self talk, you can challenge
them and quickly make them more accurate and productive. The faster you
can catch negative thoughts, the sooner you can avoid the emotional
cascade that naturally follows. This approach can greatly reduce the overall
stress load on your entire body. In addition, the sooner you can generate
productive thoughts, the sooner you can benefit from the positive emotions
of achievement, love, and appreciation.

Tignum has gathered data from our clients on the workplace items that
create the most nonproductive thoughts and negative self talk. The top four
issues are meetings, e-mails, travel, and corporate change.

Meetings
“Oh great, another meeting. What a waste of time. How can I get anything
done when I have to go to all of these meetings?”

E-mails
“I don’t want to look in my in-box. I can’t keep up. I bet the majority of
these e-mails are a complete waste of my time.”

Travel
“Traveling can be a real pain in the neck. It seems like I spend my entire life
on the road.”

Change
“Here we go with another change. I’m sure this will be like all the other
changes, a big waste of time and energy. I’ve seen this suggestion before,
and this is the same stuff we tried five years ago that didn’t work.”
Make a list of some of the negative thoughts or self talk with which you
struggle. If you can’t think of anything immediately, carry a notecard
around for two days and jot down thoughts as they pop up. You may be very
surprised at what you discover when paying attention to your self talk.

R! Reframe, Reframe, Reframe

Reframing is a fundamental strategy for reducing the negative impact of

non-productive and low performance thoughts and self talk. It is also a
valuable tool for developing your sustainable High Performance Mindset.

Throughout your day, your inner dialogue is constantly running. The ability
to quickly stop nonproductive self talk and replace it with positive, high
performance thinking is critical to improving and sustaining your
Performance Mindset and habits.

The following reframe questions can help you in any situation. The more
you use reframing, the more quickly you will develop your High
Performance Mindset.

What is the dominant thought or self talk that you are struggling with?

Is this thought or self talk really true?

What is the benefit of keeping this thought?

How can you reframe this thought or self talk to be more high performance?

What is the benefit of doing this reframe?

What affirmation will help you rewire your brain to be more high
performance?

Can there actually be a benefit to a negative story or thought? Absolutely.

When people have the thought, “I can’t believe how many e-mail messages
I have—I’ll never get to all of these,” there is a hidden benefit. The benefit
may be that they support their feelings of being overwhelmed and they give
themselves permission to not feel like a failure if they can’t get them all
answered.

But what if they were to reframe this thought? They could reframe to: “I
have a lot of e-mail messages, so I better get focused and prioritize them so
that I can reply to the most important ones.”

Which thought is more likely to lead to successfully getting the e-mail

completed?

Which thought is more likely to lead to more stress and resistance?

Which thought is more likely to lead to a feeling of success and

accomplishment?

What will be the impact of this reframe throughout the rest of the day?

You can try this exercise any time that you want a physical representation of
how much negative self talk you are creating. Take 10 paper clips and put
them in your front pocket. Every time you have negative self talk, take a
paper clip from your front pocket and put it into your back pocket (or move
the paper clips from right- to left-side pockets). Time yourself to see how
long it takes to empty your front pocket. This is a very accurate reflection of
your current self-talk habits. If you practice our Mindset strategies, you
should see the time that it takes to empty your front pocket significantly
increase. This is a great sign of progress.

Your Mind’s Fabrication of Stories

It’s Monday morning, only 30 minutes until the weekly planning meeting
where everyone shares their progress on projects and assignments. You’re
sitting at your desk sipping your cup of coffee as you try to make a dent in
your e-mail messages. Suddenly your attention is drawn to the conversation
going on in your boss’ office and her conversation on the phone.
“Yeah, things don’t look good right now. This economy is really
challenging. No, I totally understand. There’s no other choice. This needs to
be done. When should we deliver the news?”

You can hear her side of the conversation perfectly. Suddenly, numerous
thoughts pop into your head: Who is she talking to? What is the choice?
What needs to be done? Is someone getting fired? Are we losing another
whole division? Is she going to drop the bomb on us at today’s meeting?

Your mind is telling the story as if you were reading it aloud.

You walk into the meeting room and take your seat. You scan the room and
think: Who could be the ones that may be getting the ax? Could I be one of
them? Who hasn’t made their numbers? Who hasn’t been on the right side
of the last couple of change initiatives?

Your mind is adding chapter two to your story.

Your boss comes in and sits down in her usual chair, clears her throat, and
begins the meeting. Like usual, she goes around the table to hear each
person’s progress report. You can hardly focus on the presentations because
your mind is so distracted.

When is she going to drop the bad news? Why does she keep glancing at
me? As quickly as this question enters your mind you think: I must be the
one who is going to get cut. Why else would she keep looking at me?

Your mind has concocted the worst possible outcome.

The meeting is almost done, and then your boss looks up from her notes and
says that she almost forgot to tell you the recent news. She starts talking
about the downturn in the economy and that the company is going to need
to make some changes. Then she drops the bomb: “Unfortunately, the
annual Holiday party is going to have to be cancelled.”

She looks directly at you and says, “Joe, I’m hoping you can still put
together the food drive, so we can do something nice for some needy
families. This year they are going to need it more than ever.”

Suddenly, you’re speechless. Not because your boss’ request was so

daunting. You’re speechless because the mismatch of what your boss just
said and the story you had going on in your head just crashed at the
intersection of what you thought was true and what was reality.

This story may sound silly, and most of the stories you constantly tell
yourself would sound equally silly if you were to write them down. But
these types of stories happen all the time. The human mind is always
creating stories to try to relieve itself of possible surprises. It’s a survival
mechanism that at one time in our evolution was probably amazingly
helpful, but now seems to lead us astray far more often than helping us to
survive.

Where do these stories come from?

They come from the thoughts that your own mind generates. It has been
estimated that the human mind has between 12,000 and 60,000 thoughts per
day. With this many thoughts generated a day, and our innate drive to
survive at all costs, it’s no wonder that we fabricate so many stories in our
minds.

Thoughts can arise from a belief or from an emotion. Sometimes you are
overwhelmed by an emotion such as fear or anger. Suddenly, your mind
supports that emotion with an array of thoughts, stories, and self talk. Other
times, you have a thought (sometimes a habitual thought or story), and your
body supports that thought with an emotion such as guilt, anger, sadness, or
anxiety. While thoughts are in your head, emotions are what you feel
throughout your body. Thoughts and emotions are intimately linked. Most
emotions arise from four primary feelings: love, fear, joy, and anger. Often
times, people are not aware of their thoughts and emotions, and therefore
they have no control over them. Even worse, when you are unaware of
these thoughts and emotions, you are being controlled by them.

The Magic of the High Performance Mindset

I have been thinking a lot lately about the magic key for improving Mindset.
I have organized and summarized all of the coaching calls I’ve had with
executives, the courtside conversations I’ve had with athletes, as well as the
things I’ve struggled with in the fire service and in my personal life. If I had
to categorize all these challenges with one word, it would be control.
It seems to me that the constant Mindset battle is really about trying to
change things that we can’t control. It could be the traffic, the late train, the
delayed flight, the number of meetings or e-mails in a day, the demands and
expectations of others, the needs of my spouse or kids, the price of fuel, the
state of the economy, the political opinion of my friend, the cost of my
children’s education, the gusty wind on the tennis court, or the mountain of
other challenges I face every day. The more I look at all of these things (that
appear completely unrelated), the more I realize that they all share one
common thread—I can’t control them.
Facing this earth-shattering truth, I realize that I only have two choices: I
can worry, complain, kick, scream, and suffer (a great way to move in the
direction of burnout) OR I can laugh and focus on only those things that I
can control (a great way to move in the direction of being a sustainable
high performer). This doesn’t mean I ignore all of those things I cannot
control. On the contrary, if I ignore them, they will control me, festering in
my subconscious and leaving me feeling inadequate and overwhelmed. The
answer is to be very aware of those things I can’t control AND to also
accept that I can’t control them.
Therefore, I need to work diligently to be aware of the situations in my life,
be painfully honest with myself on what I can control and what I can’t, and
be passionately committed to action on the things that I can control. The
key to making this fundamental yet monumental shift is to ask yourself:
What can I control? What can I do? Then do it with an unmatched
excellence. Tignum Blog

Natural Talent Is a Myth

There is a popular assumption that most high performers are born this way.
Geoff Colvin, author of Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-
Class Performers From Everybody Else, proclaims that this conventional
wisdom about natural talent is a myth. The real path to exceptional
performance is a matter of choice, as he explains: “The best performers
observe themselves closely. They are in effect able to step outside
themselves, monitor what is happening in their own minds, and ask how it’s
going. Researchers call this metacognition—knowledge about your own
knowledge, thinking about your own thinking. Top performers do this much
more systematically than others do; it’s an established part of their routine.”

This ability to detach yourself from your own thoughts and to evaluate them
objectively requires a high level of awareness, which can only come from
extensive practice. Once this awareness is achieved, though, it provides you
with an amazing ability to adapt to all kinds of changing conditions.

In the Fire Service, there is a perplexing commonality to most firefighter

fatalities. In almost every case, the firefighters in the vicinity of the collapse
or explosion (whatever killed the firefighter) had a gut feeling that
something was about to happen. They didn’t have extrasensory perception
—their brains were taking in thousands of subconscious clues and
something wasn’t adding up. They were all simultaneously recognizing
danger signs. Unfortunately, these firefighters and their company officers
lacked the awareness of recognizing their own feelings and thoughts; and
therefore they failed to act in a timely fashion.

Similarly, when business situations produce completely unexpected

problems, you can pause mentally and observe your own gut feelings and
reactions from the outside and purposefully ask these questions:

Why am I resisting this deal?

Where is my anger or frustration coming from?

Am I being hijacked by my emotions or are they trying to tell me something

important?

Do I need a different strategy here? If so, what should it be?

Your Personal Review Process

In developing your awareness, you can also examine how you mentally
review your own personal performances. After an important presentation,
do you go back to your desk and review how you did? Or do you just go on
with your day and forget about it? If you do review your performance, do
you only focus on what didn’t go well, what you did wrong? When you get
into an argument with a co-worker, or your spouse, do you take a moment
to reflect on what happened, how you reacted, what you were feeling? Or
do you just go on possibly stewing over the argument or the outcome all
day long?

The fact is that every interaction you have, every performance you have in
your day is a learning opportunity. It’s a metacognition opportunity to learn
more about who you are, what you feel, and how you react. It is also an
opportunity for you to see your diverse choices and develop new patterns,
new solutions, and a new High Performance Mindset.

Tiger Woods has described how he reviews each and every round of golf.
He reviews from a mechanical side, from a tactical side, and from a mental
side. He goes over what went wrong but more importantly, he goes over
what went right. The second part of this statement is what is most profound:
Woods reviews each and every performance for what went right. Why
would he do this?

When we work with clients, we ask how many of them consciously review
their performances (meetings, presentations, reviews, negotiations) after
they are done. Generally, about 50% of people raise their hands. When we
ask the 50% who don’t raise their hands why they don’t review their
performance, the answers vary. Sometimes they never thought of it.
Sometimes they are too busy to take the time. Sometimes they get
distracted. The point is that it is rarely out of laziness—it’s just not a
learned and applied strategy.

So what makes Tiger’s process so effective? He reviews every round of golf

for what went right. This means that he is mentally rehearsing (practicing)
high performance over and over and over again. Woods began golfing when
he was two years old. At age five, he broke 100 for the first time. Think
about how many rounds of golf Tiger Woods has completed in his lifetime
already. Imagine the impact on his metacognition, on his mechanics, on his
tactics, and on his confidence level by rehearsing his own high performance
over and over again.

Next, we ask our clients who consciously review their performances how
many of them review the things they did well. Generally, two people or less
respond affirmatively. Again, why is this? This self-performance review is
not taught in business schools, not discussed in leadership development
classes, and in many ways, goes against their natural instincts. They say,
instead, that they tend to play every mistake they made over and over again.

In contrast to Tiger Woods, what are people practicing when they focus on
their mistakes? They are mentally rehearsing their poor performance. So
what will they get good at? You got it—poor performance! Does this mean
you should ignore your mistakes? Absolutely not.

So how does Woods deal with his bad shots, his tactical errors, and his
mental lapses during his round of golf? (By the way, every round of golf is
full of these because perfection does not exist.) The key is to identify the
error (awareness) and then to mentally correct it immediately. What would
the shot have looked like and felt like if done correctly? Woods practices
this over and over again.

The next day, when Woods is faced with the same hole, what is he more
likely to do? Will he repeat his poor performance or his rehearsed high
performance? The answer is evident by his successful record: Woods was
selected as the 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, and 2007
Player of the Year by the PGA TOUR (Jack Nicklaus Award), the PGA of
America, and the Golf Writers Association of America.

Think back to one of your recent performances. It can be a work

performance such as a presentation, a meeting, an employee review, or a
negotiation. Or, it can be an away-from-work performance like a
conversation with your spouse, an interaction with one of your children, or
an interaction with a neighbor.
Write down five things that you did well. (Don’t worry if this task is difficult
at first. For many of our clients, this is new and uncharted territory.)
Now that you have your list of examples of high performance, read over it
five times. How does this make you feel? Can you feel your self-confidence
and positive feelings growing?
Now write down two things that you could have done better. These are
generally much easier to remember. (This is a reflection of where you
usually place your attention.)
Now rewrite these two things to have high performance outcomes. Write
them as if you were watching yourself perform them perfectly. Add as much
detail as possible. How do you feel while you are performing this way?
How are people around you reacting? What are the outcomes?
Now read these high performance statements (rewritten experiences) 10
times. If you do the math, you just practiced high performance 45 times and
low performance twice. Imagine if you did this every day, with multiple
performances, at work and away from work.

Does this take a conscious effort? Absolutely.

Will it change your performance for the better? Absolutely.

Challenge the Status Quo

When you are unaware of your thoughts, you don’t have a chance to
consciously ask yourself, “Is this thought or story really true?” Can you
imagine making a decision based upon half-facts or even fiction? Without a
high level of awareness, honesty, and introspection, you actually end up
making these kinds of ineffectual decisions over and over again.

Human beings are creatures of habit. We tend to stick with things which
have worked in the past. The problem with this approach is that often we
create stories in our minds that helped us survive when we were young,
inexperienced, and ill-prepared to deal with the situation. This is especially
common with children who grow up with physically abusive parents.
However, the verbal abuse that comes from comments our parents, friends,
teachers, and others have made also stick with us.
For example, comments like “you’re so lazy” can lead to a compensatory
pattern of never feeling like you can work hard enough or take a break.
Comments like “eat this and you’ll feel better” can lead to a pattern where
certain foods are used as comfort foods to take away pain. Comments like
“money is the root of all evil” can lead to an aversion of financial success
where you always sabotage yourself just when you are reaching your goal.

When you’re growing up and hearing these statements, you do whatever it

takes to survive in the moment. The problem is that your survival
mechanism often leads to keeping deep-rooted, distorted stories that
continue to play in your mind, which then prevent you from achieving your
potential. Becoming aware of these patterns, stories, and the thoughts they
generate is crucial to developing new high performance patterns and to
creating optimal health (mental and physical).

One Mindset pioneer, Byron Katie, aggressively challenges the stories that
clients internalize that not only sabotage their success but also often destroy
their health. In her work, the first question to be answered is: Is this true?
This question is followed by: Do you absolutely know this to be true?

It is amazing to watch people’s beliefs crumble under such simple

questions, as they realize that what they tell themselves is rarely true. This
isn’t to say that people are liars. It’s just that they have learned to accept an
untruth to try to protect themselves or to create a false significance that in
reality isn’t effective or necessary.

What will you do to change your thoughts, self talk, and stories to develop a
High Performance Mindset?

Following is a poignant Mindset story that one of our clients shared with us:

“When I worked with Tignum, I felt like I got a lot out of their strategies.
Mostly, I focused on the benefits for my work and my productivity. As I
improved my mindset, I was amazed at how much more effective I was. I
had always struggled with negative thinking and I think changing my
attitude at work was a huge step for me.
Away from work, however, it was a different story. For years, my husband
and I were trying to have a baby. I went through test after test and I began to
get pessimistic about my chances. One night, I was thinking about my day,
what had gone well and what I would want to change. And, I suddenly
became aware of the negative thoughts that I had about my chances for
getting pregnant. Then it occurred to me that I could use the same paper-
clip exercise that had been so helpful at work to help me change my
thoughts about getting pregnant. At least, I figured it couldn’t hurt to try it.

I became diligent so that every time I had a negative thought about getting
pregnant, I moved a paper clip. Quickly, I learned that by reframing my
negative thoughts, I could change my entire attitude. I started thinking
positively about my own body, my likelihood to get pregnant, and my
ability to be a great mother. I could tell that I felt different, but it seemed so
silly to me that I didn’t want to tell anyone. Nonetheless, I stuck to it and in
the end, I changed my entire outlook.

This would have been good enough for me, because I had turned a stressful
situation into something I could handle. But when I found out I was
pregnant three months later, I was in utter disbelief.

During my work with Tignum, they talked about how our thoughts change
our entire physiology, and I am living proof that it really does. I had given
up on all other methods and interventions but when I changed my thoughts,
I truly changed the physiology of my body. And, now I have a beautiful
daughter to show as the results of this change!”

The outcome of this person’s experience exemplifies that everything is

influenced by your thoughts—your body, your health, your outlook, your
actions, and most of all, your performance. Have you ever stepped outside
and winced because it is raining? Suddenly your posture changes, you
become tense, you lose a little bounce in your step. These physical things
you can actually see and feel, but think about what is also happening on the
inside your body. What impact did this have on your brain chemistry, your
blood pressure, and your hormonal balance? The fact is that your thoughts
definitely influence all of these things, big and small.
What impact are your thoughts having on your physiology?

Are your thoughts making you more healthy or sick?

Are your thoughts giving you energy or destroying your energy?

Are your thoughts making you a high performer or keeping you stuck in
mediocrity?

How Hardy Are You?

Dr. Suzanne Kobasa is a leader in the field of hardiness (stress resistance).

She developed the concept of hardiness at City College in New York after
studying groups of people with highly stressful occupations. Her most
famous research was done with AT&T, following over 500 executives
during eight of their toughest years (in the battle of the deregulation of the
phone industry). Dr. Kobasa found those who coped best with their job
stress and continued to perform well, and stay healthy, had a certain
hardiness which she defined by three specific characteristics: commitment,
challenge, and control.

Commitment
Kobasa described commitment as being involved rather than alienated from
aspects of one’s life. People who find meaning in their work, their families,
and their lives experience life as worthwhile and interesting. Viktor Frankl,
a psychotherapist who survived the Holocaust and the author of Man’s
Search for Meaning, also observed that having a deep sense of meaning and
purpose was a key factor in surviving torture, starvation, and disease. Those
who did not have this commitment to life perished.

Challenge
Challenge is based on the belief that change is a constant in one’s life.
Successful people tend to see change as an exciting challenge to embrace
and master rather than as a stressor to avoid. They welcome new
opportunities to learn, grow, and change when faced with challenges and do
not perceive these opportunities as threats.
Control
The feeling of control or ownership is at the root of almost every theory of
effectiveness and motivation. People who are able to make critical decisions
and to make change happen have developed this sense of control. In fact,
when you develop your discipline to focus your energy on those events that
you have control over rather than on situations beyond your control, you
become more resistant to stress and also more effective and fulfilled.

By reflecting on the following questions, you can examine your approach

(as well as your hardiness) in life. For the majority of our clients, the initial
answers tend to be shallow and without much depth. The more honest you
are, the more time you reflect on these questions, and the deeper you dig,
the better your answers will become. Building this awareness will help you
improve your Mindset and your performance.
Commitment – What are you committed to? What is the purpose of your
job? Why do you get up every morning and go to work? What in your work
makes you passionate? Where do you find meaning in what you do?
Challenge – Do you see things as a problem or as a challenge? Do you
resist change or do you see it as a challenge? Where do you find challenge
in your life? When you are challenged, do you get excited or do you
immediately feel overwhelmed?
Control – Do you spend energy worrying about others? Do you find it
difficult to let others handle their problems? How often do you worry about
things that are out of your control? What things are within your control?

When we work with our clients, issues around commitment, challenge, and
control constantly come up. However, when they create more positive ways
to deal with these issues, our clients tell us that they can really feel the
difference in their energy, outlook, ability to bounce back after setbacks,
and their resistance to stress. At Tignum, we believe that developing your
hardiness is the foundational step to building your overall resilience.

Capitalize on Your Personal Strengths

At Tignum, we also work with our clients to assist them in becoming aware
of their individual strengths, their communication styles, the things that
sabotage their success, and their approaches to solving problems. There are
many different behavioral and psychological evaluations available, but our
goal is to keep the process simple yet effective. The tool we use is the DISC
assessment from Target Training International (TTI). This is an efficient
tool for evaluation of behavioral preferences because it is quick and easy to
take. According to our clients, it is also concise, accurate, meaningful, and
easily applied to their Mindset, Nutrition, Movement, and Recovery
strategies.

Whether you use a specific tool to determine your personal strengths, or

whether you do some self-reflection, the important thing is that you learn as
much about your strengths as you can. Knowing how to use your strengths
to your advantage will set you up for success. As demonstrated by the
tactics used by two infamous tennis players, a key to winning is to know
your strengths and then to use them mercilessly against your opponent.

Ranked number one in the world for seven years and one of the most
successful tennis players, Martina Navratilova was a brilliant serve and
volleyer. It’s not that her ground strokes were awful, but without coming to
the net, she probably would have never won most of her 18 singles and 41
doubles Grand Slam titles. By knowing her strength and attacking the net
every chance she got, Navratilova won more singles matches than anyone
in tennis history. In contrast, her greatest rival, Chris Evert, recognized that
her greatest strength was her amazingly consistent ground strokes from the
back of the court. By using this strength, Evert won more than half the
tournaments she entered throughout her 20-year career and made at least the
semifinals in 90% of all the events she entered. Two outstanding tennis
players, two totally different strengths, two legendary successful careers.

In business, the same approach rings true. Marcus Buckingham, the

bestselling author of numerous publications, including his latest book, The
Truth About You: Your Secret to Success, has coined the “strengths
revolution,” after interviewing thousands of employees at every career
stage. He believes that individuals need to focus on, develop, and use their
strengths. When you do this you increase your confidence, you develop
your talents, you become more passionate, and you enjoy your work more.
According to Buckingham, this strengths revolution is “the key to finding
the most effective route to personal success and the missing link to the
efficiency, competency, and success for which many companies constantly
strive.” Everyone wins—you improve your creativity and innovation, and
your company improves its chances for success.

The common thread of most leadership theories is to be the best you. This is
why becoming aware of who you are, what your strengths are, what you
like to do, and what you’re good at is critical. There are great leaders who
are introverted, quiet, and in some descriptions, even passive. On the
surface, these traits seem to be contrary to the description of the proverbial
“strong lead from the front leader.” But these same leaders may also be
great listeners who know how to bring out the best in everyone around them
by encouraging them to step forward, take ownership, and rise to each
occasion.

In contrast, there are also many great leaders who apply the famous Israeli
Army line, “Follow me.” They put themselves out there, they direct
everyone and everything. They give moving speeches, set tough goals, and
tirelessly push everyone to achieve them. These leaders have a completely
different set of strengths and they, too, can be very successful.

The most important thing is to be authentic and effective. You can only do
this by discovering and developing your strengths. Throughout this chapter,
we have asked a number of awareness development questions that may
have helped you better understand yourself, your strengths, your challenges,
and your stories. Consider the following questions, and discover even more
about yourself:

Are you introverted or extroverted?

When you’re socializing with people, do you get energized or fatigued?

Do you need details or do you prefer focusing on the big picture?

In your lifetime, what was your favorite job or position? What specifically
did you like about it?

When you work on a team, what is the one role that you wish you would
always get?

When you get your evaluation feedback, what is the one thing that your
boss always compliments you on?

What are you really good at?

What are you really bad at?

If you could design your perfect job, what would it be? Why?
 Chapter Seven
Expand and Sustain Your High Performance Mindset

It is always amazing for us to see how much our clients naturally change
their behaviors and performance levels simply by becoming more aware.
They change so much during this initial awareness phase, yet often they
don’t give themselves credit for the progress they have made. Make sure to
take a moment to reflect on the changes that you have already made. After
working to improve your awareness of your thoughts, your performance
reviews, your approach to change and challenges, your behavioral and
personal strengths, and the stories you tell yourself, it’s now time to take it
to the next level.

In the Tignum Performance Mindset system, you will utilize your new
knowledge and awareness to purposefully develop your Mindset of energy,
clarity, and creativity. We use the word purposefully because this is an
essential component. It is only through purposeful, habitual practice that
you will cultivate and sustain a High Performance Mindset.

Level 2 – Improve Your Energy, Clarity, and Creativity

This second level works on the development of high performance patterns

through research-proven mental visualization techniques. In this level, peak
performance is not only possible but highly probable. When you combine
the proper energy levels with the clarity of focus and the creativity of
imagery, you will be amazed at the potential of your mind.

Every day, you use mental imagery whether you realize it or not. In your
mind, you perceive things as going well or going badly. You fantasize about
how you would like things to unfold or you awfulize your images to the
ultimate doom that you expect to happen. The bottom line is that the brain
(specifically, the right hemisphere) is designed to imagine a multitude of
“what ifs.” These images then alter your entire physiology, motor
patterning, and ultimately your performance. Learning how to consciously
develop the most high performance and healthy images is a huge step in
improving your energy, resilience, capacity, performance, and sustainability.

“When the stakes are big, like they were in the following client
presentation, there is no second chance for a first impression. In a world-
class setting with top business executives, you can’t miss the mark when you
are trying to convince them that investing in your company is a win-win for
all of you.
When I arrived, the first thing I did was ask my colleague to take me to the
boardroom where we would be presenting. As I walked in I took in every
detail. I considered: How big is the room? Where will I be standing? Where
will the participants be sitting? How many participants will there be? Will
they fill this room or will there be gaps? How will I make eye contact with
them? How will I feel if I am connecting with them or missing the mark?
Where will the screen be? Where will the flip charts and white boards be
located so that I can make my points without turning my back to my
audience? Where will my laptop be? How much space will there be for me
to walk as I talk so that I can remain relaxed, energized, and engaging to
everyone in the crowd? What will the temperature in the room be? What
will the lighting in the room be like? Where will I sit when my team
members are presenting? How will I transition myself into the presentation
so it comes across as integrated and not disjointed?
Next, our team went to lunch, and we discussed the final details for our
presentation. We considered: What types of questions do you think they will
ask? Are there any people who may oppose our views? Are there any
cultural differences that we should be sensitive to? Are there any personal
stories within the group? We combed over our content until we knew there
was no stone left unturned. We left feeling confident that we understood our
client’s needs and we could help meet them.
That night in my hotel room, I mentally rehearsed my presentation at least
100 times. I felt myself deliver our message, I felt my posture, I felt my voice
as it resonated in my throat on each inflection, I felt the group’s eyes
locking on mine. I saw the slides, the room, the participants’ faces and
interest, my team members sitting on the side. I rehearsed every single
detail over and over again in my mind.
 I also practiced every ‘what if’ I could imagine. What if the person in the
third seat is falling asleep? What if the person to my left in the second row
tells me I’m full of crap? What if the person to my right in the first row
doesn’t seem to be following my English because I’m going too fast and it’s
her second language? What if the projector stops working or the videos lose
their sound? The next day, we delivered a fantastic presentation. To say that
we blew them away is an understatement. This was the beginning of a
multimillion-dollar relationship with this company. Even more importantly,
it was the turning point in my career.”
Tignum Client

Mental imagery is a skill that can be developed with purposeful practice. In

order to use it successfully, you need to:

_understand the skill

_value the difference it can make in your Mindset and your performance
_put the time and energy into practicing it consistently

_create mental imagery visions/scripts that are multi-sensory, rich in details,

and realistic, with high performance outcomes

There are numerous theories and speculations as to why and how mental
imagery works. The intent of our discussion is not for you to become a
psychologist, but to understand and to be able to use this powerful tool.

Imagine an old-time slide projector. (Before PowerPoint, we actually used

slides for the major points we wanted to present.) Each click of the remote
rotates the projector carousel around so the next slide drops in front of the
light, and everyone in your audience sees the image. In your brain, every
experience you have ever had (or imagined) can be perceived as a slide or
an assortment of slides. This means that when you come upon a new
situation, your brain quickly spins your slide carousel, searching for a slide
that either matches or closely matches this experience.

Once you create these vivid images, and you play them over and over again
in your mind, your body fires the same muscles as if you were actually
doing the activity. This experience has been measured in the laboratory
using electromyography with athletes. When athletes imagine themselves
running a race, hitting a tennis volley, or shooting a game-winning jump
shot, the actual muscles that they would use in these activities actually fire
during their mental practice.

Mental Imagery for Business Success

Many leaders don’t realize that their high performance has a huge physical
element to it, as well. Their state (calm, cool, excited, or nervous), their
posture, their voice, their eye contact, their mannerisms, their focus—all of
these are physical actions similar to the actions used to kick a soccer ball.

Therefore, you can mentally create purposeful practice and actually

improve your performance. This mental imagery is critical to developing a
High Performance Mindset. In fact, our clients tell us that they sometimes
use mental imagery throughout their work day. They may want to change
their current state, such as moving from being solemn to more energized, or
from cautious to more confident. Or, they use mental imagery to develop
and improve their skills in listening, presentation, and negotiation, or in
their tennis or golf games.

Another reason to use mental imagery is to improve upon past

performances. This is similar to Tiger Woods’ approach, where he reviews
his past performance for things he may not have done well, but then he rips
up that slide in his brain and replaces it with a high performance slide.
Using this technique, you can use mental imagery to build new high
performance patterns even if you just had a poor performance.

What if you had to deliver an employee performance appraisal to one of

your direct reports who has a very abrasive communication style? And let’s
say that during your discussion, he verbally attacks your management style
and implies that he should have gotten your job when you were promoted.
In total reaction, you explode and let him know in no uncertain terms that
he works for you and if he doesn’t keep his mouth shut, you will get him
fired.
Of course, everything that happened in this scenario could have been true,
but it definitely wasn’t a high performance experience. And, there certainly
wasn’t an outcome that will lead to a better performance tomorrow. After
this meeting, you could have replayed the entire conversation focusing on
what you did wrong.

But, instead, this time ...

Envision yourself as calm, prepared, and confident. You are friendly and
accepting but still very direct and accurate in your appraisal feedback.
Instead of over-reacting to his abrasive comments, you listen attentively to
his comments, you acknowledge his competencies, you identify the things
you agree with, and then you reiterate your specific expectations for him in
the future.

In this way, by envisioning a positive experience, you have just created a

slide in your brain that will more than likely create a high performance
outcome in the future.

Identify and Visualize Must-Win Events

There are many must-win events that you may want to identify and prepare
for in your day. Must-win events are those events that when handled with
precision, focus, attention, and the proper emotions produce a win-win
outcome. These can include the obvious ones like presentations, critical
negotiations, meetings with the board, or job interviews. But there are also
plenty of must-win (or high-impact) events that often go unnoticed.

Prepare for the beginning of your day ...

What are the benefits to walking into the office in a positive state of mind,
energized, and ready to begin your day? You can do this by looking at your
schedule for the day, taking note of its flow, acknowledging the must-win
events of your day, and identifying your opportunities to recharge and
regenerate. Then you can do a brief (two-to-three-minute) mental imagery
practice envisioning yourself walking into the office, going through your
day, and being in total control all day long.
Prepare for an important meeting ...
A great place to start before every meeting is to set the primary intentions
for what you want to accomplish. Be careful not to focus on the most
obvious ones such as closing the big deal, getting the million-dollar
contract, or making everyone agree with your proposed actions. Think more
meaningful, think long-term, think deeply. Intentions such as creating an
atmosphere of trust, letting clients know that you care about their
challenges and limitations, or letting your team know that you value their
thoughts and opinions can pay huge dividends if you regularly achieve
these outcomes.

By clearly setting your intentions, you can discover how easily your actions
fall into line. Suddenly, you aren’t reacting with a knee-jerk but you are
actually responding and performing at high level. What types of details can
you include in your mental imagery? Remember, the more details you
include, the more vivid your images, the more benefits you will experience.

Prepare for the transition from work to home ...

If you put effort into preparing for work, doesn’t it make sense to prepare
for your arrival at home so you can have the positive attitude, focus, energy,
and compassion that you want? How many times have you walked through
the door, still on your cell phone doing business, while your spouse and
children beg for your attention? What was the rest of your evening like?
Where do you get the most satisfaction and love? In answering these
questions, it seems to us that most people would also define many activities
at home as high-impact events.

Prepare to go to sleep ...

As you will discover in the Recovery section, nothing is more important for
your energy, regeneration, and brain performance than getting a good night
of quality sleep. Why would you leave it to chance?

The practice of appreciation is a mental imagery technique that we teach

our clients—a technique that has been extremely successful for reducing the
time to fall asleep, quickly quieting a racing mind, and improving the
subjective rating for quality of sleep. Instead of lying in bed and letting
your mind obsess over all of the negative things that went wrong during
your day, go backwards through your day and identify all the things that
went well.

A Mental Imagery Exercise

Develop a clear purpose of what you want to achieve. What would be your
best outcome? Set your intentions. Identify what feelings and emotions will
be involved. Decide upon the perspective you will use to envision what you
want. You may do well with an external perspective, as if you are watching
yourself in a movie. Or you may do better with an internal perspective, as if
you are seeing things unfold from your own eyes. Both of these techniques
are effective so experiment with which perspective works best for you.
Include as many rich, sensory-based experiences as possible. What will you
see, feel, hear, taste, and smell? Develop the events in this imagery in a
chronological way. Be sure you use positive and affirmative language to go
with your imagery. Avoid negative phrases or words. Avoid soft language
that implies this may happen. Develop your imagery as if this movie will
happen.

After visualizing your specific experience, you can also write it as a mental
imagery script. From there, you can record your own voice reading it so you
can play it back when you need it. Or you can have someone else read it to
you as you relax and listen. Or you can re-read your own script like you
were reading a book and visualize the story coming alive as you read. The
more you practice this conscious mental imagery exercise, the more natural
it will become. Even the act of writing your script will make you familiar
with the outcomes and images you are creating.

The more vivid you make your imagery, the more successful and potent the
exercise will be. The more you exaggerate and emphasize what you will
feel, see, hear, taste, and smell, the more powerful the visualization will be.

If you have difficulty accessing certain states on demand, you can start by
remembering a time in your life when you felt the way you are trying to re-
create. Then, tap into what you saw, felt, and heard. If you struggle to think
of such a time, simply imagine it.
The more often you do this, the more easily you will be able to access any
state you want. With enough practice, scripts will develop on the run,
images will appear at will, and sustainable peak performance will become
your norm. As an additional benefit, your body will be filled with hormones
that produce positive effects, and you will become more healthy, energetic,
and in control.

If you struggle with mastering mental imagery, you may have more luck
using imagery from a disassociated perspective. In this method, you can
imagine someone else, perhaps a mentor or an idol, performing exactly
what you wish you could do. Once this image is clear and vivid, you can
shift to an associated perspective. Simply picture yourself stepping into this
person as if you were putting them on like your clothes. Now repeat this
ideal performance seeing yourself as the peak performer.

“My secret is simple—practice. Whatever I practice, I get good at.”

Tiger Woods

Level 3 – Strengthen Your Sustainability

Although the second level will create peak performances, this level offers
the techniques and tools to sustain these performances. One element of
being a swimmer instead of a floater is your commitment to consistent high
performance habits, rather than leaving your performance to chance. Two
great ways to firmly commit to your performance habits are to develop
personal anchors and use rituals that will help you stay on track.

Mindset Under Pressure

I encountered one of the most powerful examples of Mindset I have ever
seen on the NBC Today Show. Ann Curry was interviewing Ingrid
Betancourt, the recently freed former Colombian presidential candidate
who was captured in 2002 by FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia).
In the interview, Ann Curry was making the point that the usual response to
this experience, after six years of captivity and torture, would be hate ...
anger ... vengeance. As Curry was saying these words, Betancourt shook
her head—saying “No, no, no.”
Curry asked, “Why not vengeance?” Betancourt looked Curry in the eye
and with calmness and compassion answered, “Because vengeance is a
chain, and I don’t want to be chained to that jungle anymore. When the
helicopter left the ground, and I looked from the window, I thought I am not
going to take any of this to my future life ... There is no room for hate or for
revenge. I could have compassion for them.”
Betancourt reiterated that she wanted to be free in the future; and hate,
anger, and vengeance would only keep her a prisoner. This response struck
me so deeply. The power of the thoughts and stories we choose to keep in
our minds either frees us or imprisons us. Is making these choices easy?
No, not at all! Yet, each Mindset choice we make will significantly impact
our actions in life. High performance requires constant attention, reframing
negative thoughts, and implementing positive habits. If Ingrid Betancourt
can make the choice to eliminate negative and imprisoning thoughts that
will control her mind and her future actions, then certainly we can
eliminate the destructive thoughts and self talk that sabotage our success.
Today, when you are opening your 200 e-mails, standing in the security line
at the airport, stuck in rush-hour traffic, or in your eighth meeting of the
day, ask yourself if your thoughts are helping you to perform your best or
holding you back.
Tignum Blog

Use Anchors as Shortcuts

Anchors are like shortcuts on your desktop that take you straight to the
program that you want to access. By creating, practicing, and then using an
anchor, you can quickly elicit the High Performance Mindset you want. An
anchor can be a word, a phrase, or a visual cue. An example of a word
anchor is the word “focus.” As you practice your performance through
mental imagery, you insert the word focus as your brain makes the
connection to ignore distractions and create more conscious focus. Another
great anchor is the word “breathe,” which reminds you to take a deep,
cleansing breath and to release your tension and relax.
“Confidence” is a word anchor used by one of our clients. Just before she
goes in front of an audience to make her presentation, she takes a deep
breath and says the word confidence. Quickly, her brain knows to improve
her posture, to walk with confidence, to make eye contact, and to speak
with authority. Of course, these are all behaviors she has mentally rehearsed
and physically practiced, in association with her anchor. This way the brain
knows exactly what her word anchor means.

An example of a phrase anchor is “let it happen” or “positive physical

response.” The meaning of these phrases may vary, but for the person using
them, the meaning should be crystal clear. For example, one of our clients
had a counterproductive habit of overreacting to bad news during
negotiations. If a client’s counteroffer was significantly different than his
offer, he would visibly show disappointment or even disgust. This wasn’t
just a deal breaker; sometimes, it was a relationship breaker. However, by
mentally and physically practicing his positive physical response, such as a
soft nod of the head, a friendly smile, and inquisitive eye contact, he
completely changed what had before been an unconscious negative
response. Before every meeting with a client, he would anchor himself with
the phrase positive physical response.

Many people use a visual anchor which can be a great way to also stimulate
the right (creative) brain. One client was a huge fan of sailing. He kept a
photo on his desk of the 12-meter sailboat that he and his wife enjoyed
every chance they could. Every time he looked at this photo, it would
remind him to not fight the winds of change, but rather to use the change to
find new opportunities. This client, who had a reputation for being
inflexible, quickly changed his habitual response and consequently, his
Mindset. At one of our follow-up meetings, people on his team were
commenting on his remarkable evolution and its impact on the entire team.

For some, an anchor may be a bracelet that reminds them to not sweat the
small stuff or a bracelet like Lance Armstrong’s that reminds him to
“LIVESTRONG.” Some clients use something as simple as a rubber band
around their wrist, and when they need to refocus or increase their energy
level, they snap it to reinforce their positive mental imagery.
It is important to remember that anchors do not, in themselves, create the
change in your Mindset. The anchor is simply the reminder, the switch that
completes the circuit. But first you need to build the circuit through
awareness, mental visualization, and physical practice.

Create and Utilize Performance Rituals

Rituals are very important because they bring order and structure to chaos
and change. We are creatures of habit, and it is our habits that make us sink,
float, or swim. High performance rituals increase your personal control and
provide comfort during unpredictable storms of stress. Rituals, however,
only work when they are consistently implemented.

One of our clients shared that he would invariably be on his cell phone all
the way home from work. He would walk into his house as he was finishing
up his conversations. This would really infringe on his time with his wife
and children, setting the stage for a rough transition from work. In order to
encourage a more positive transition from work to home, he started
stopping at a nearby park to finish his calls. Then, he would drive around
the block one time to symbolize that he was no longer at work and he was
100% at home with his family. This simple, small ritual changed his life.
His attitude and attention changed so significantly towards his wife and
children that this allowed him to not only develop his own focus but also to
gain their support.

Another of our clients used to struggle with her Mindset when she initially
got to work. She would feel overwhelmed with her to-do list and
bombardment of e-mails, her assistant’s reminders, and the pile of budget
requests she had to sign. She felt like she was walking into a lion’s den
completely defenseless. Through coaching, we helped her develop a ritual
where she would get off the Tube (London’s metro rail) two stops before
her office. She would walk the last three-quarters-of-a-mile and use this
time as a warm-up. She would begin to visualize her office and what was
waiting for her. She would see herself as completely relaxed and in control
as she knocked off one task after another. This walk became a powerful
ritual that helped her create the High Performance Mindset she wanted.
Consequently, she also lost some weight, improved her fitness, and reduced
her stress.

Rituals do take time and effort, but the benefits are significant. Most clients
have told us that although initially it did take some real conscious effort,
quickly the ritual became habitual and seemed almost effortless.

Evaluate Your Mindset Habits

Everyone has the potential to have a great Mindset. Some of us simply need
more practice than others. You WILL get good at whatever you practice.
The more you increase your awareness and practice the Mindset strategies
we have presented, the better your performance will be. Sustainable high
performance begins with becoming aware of your habits, your needs, and
the benefits you want to attain. Too often people leave their Mindset to
chance. Huge potential lies within reach if you are willing to shift from just
knowing to doing.

Do you want to sink, float, or swim?

The choice is always yours.

You have Mindset habits that will make you sink if you:

_lead an unconscious life where you are unaware of your thoughts, self
talk, and the stories you tell yourself
_are unaware of your strengths but very aware of your weaknesses
_are reactive to everything and respond to frustration with anger
_are unaware of what you are passionate about
_are pessimistic and immediately see change as negative
_constantly complain about things that are out of your control
_simply show up to meetings (no mental preparation or intention
setting)
_dwell on your negative performances (what went wrong)
 _do not prepare for home-to-work or work-to-home transitions
_do not use mental visualization to improve your performance
_do not have any high performance anchors
_do not have any high performance rituals
_are unaware of the impact of and do not use Mindset, Nutrition,
Movement, and Recovery habits to improve your performance

You have Mindset habits to enable you to float if you:

_are aware of your thoughts, self talk, and stories but rarely try to
reframe them
_are aware of your strengths but spend lots of energy thinking about
your weaknesses
_have occasional losses of emotional control but see this as part of
being passionate
_understand that change can be a great opportunity but still struggle
with adopting this approach consistently
_occasionally focus on or complain about things that are out of your
control
_prepare your content and presentation for your meetings and must-win
events but not your Mindset
_review most of your performances but rarely make the effort to
immediately reframe your mistakes so you won’t make them again
_occasionally use Mindset strategies to transition from work to home
or home to work, but not consistently
_occasionally use mental visualization to prepare for high-impact
events
_have identified an anchor to help you with your Mindset but do not
consistently use it
_do not have any consistent rituals to help you access your High
Performance Mindset
_are aware of the qualities, attributes, and skills of a High Performance
Mindset but rarely work on improving your Mindset
_are somewhat aware of the impact of but do not use Nutrition,
Movement, and Recovery habits in an integrated manner to improve
your Mindset

You have Mindset habits to swim if you:

_lead a highly evolved life where you are aware of your thoughts, self
talk,
_and the stories you tell (high level of metacognition)
_consistently challenge your thoughts, self talk, and stories to see if
they
_are accurate and high performance
_reframe any low performance thoughts, self talk, or stories
_are aware of your strengths and use them consistently
_see change as an opportunity
_focus on the things within your control
_prepare content, presentation, and your Performance Mindset for your
_meetings and must-win events
_review your performances for what you did well and reframe what
you
_didn’t do well
_consistently use Mindset strategies to transition from work to home
_and home to work
_consistently mentally prepare for high-impact events by setting your
_intentions and using mental visualization
_use anchors to sustain your High Performance Mindset
_have consistent rituals that sustain your High Performance Mindset
_consistently work on improving your Mindset through an awareness
of
_the qualities, attributes, and skills that you want to develop
_integrate Nutrition, Movement, and Recovery habits with your
Mindset
 _strategies to improve your Performance Mindset

Develop Your Performance Mindset Goals

The sustainable High Performance Mindset strategies presented in this

section are designed to be integrated with our Performance Nutrition,
Performance Movement, and Performance Recovery strategies. These
Mindset strategies alone will not necessarily make you a high performer or
increase the sustainability of your performance. In fact, it is very unlikely
that you can have a High Performance Mindset if you are overtired,
hypoglycemic, malnourished, or sedentary. The four Tignum pillars of
sustainable high performance are intricately interwoven and dependent
upon one another. The true power of personal innovation comes with the
integration of Mindset, Nutrition, Movement, and Recovery habits.

In order to take everything you have learned and create a High Performance
Mindset, you need to develop Mindset goals that are meaningful to you. To
begin this process, consider the following questions:

What three action steps can you take now to help you improve your
Mindset?

If you were to have a High Performance Mindset day, how will your
thoughts and self talk be different?

How will you reframe your negative beliefs, thoughts, and self talk,
specifically to review or prepare for your performances?

What is the anchor will you use to remind you of your High
Performance Mindset and your sustainable high performance goals?

How will you implement Mindset strategies to increase your energy,

resilience, brain performance, and capacity for sustainable high
performance?
Section III
Fueling Up for The Big Swim

Performance Nutrition – purposefully choosing food (while

not sacrificing the pleasure) to improve your energy,
resilience, brain performance, and capacity in order to
develop focus and clarity and produce sustainable success
Chapter Eight
What You Eat and Drink Fuels What You Do

Can What You Eat Really Impact Your Performance?

Why We Need Food Vs. Why We Eat Food
Protein Improves Your Immunity
Nutrition Impacts Your Brain Performance
Move From Awareness to Performance Nutrition
Factors That Influence What Goes on Your Plate
The Tignum Performance Nutrition System
Level 1 – Hydrate for High Performance
The Skinny on Coffee

Chapter Nine
Prepare Your Swimmer’s Plate

Level 2 – Balance Blood Glucose for Peak Performance

Start With Breakfast
Strategic Snacks Boost Your Energy
Make the Best Nutritional Choices
Plan for High Performance
Level 3 – Choose Nutrient Dense Foods to Enhance Performance
The Color of High Performance Foods
Use Food Labels to Make Better Choices

Chapter Ten Eating to keep swimming

Level 4 – Utilize Nutrition for Sustainability

The Benefits of Detoxification

Use Supplements for Sustainability
Business Dinner Strategies
Airport Eating for High Performance
High Performance Nutrition for Must-Win Events
Evaluate Your Nutrition Habits
Develop Your Performance Nutrition Goals
 Chapter Eight
What You Eat and Drink Fuels What You Do

“If I wear a pair of Armani underpants they do not become a part of me. If I
eat a slice of ham, it becomes a part of me. That is why I worry more about
ham than fashion.”
Carlo Petrini, Founder of the Slow Food Movement

It’s 2 pm and you’re completing your final preparation for your client
presentation at 2:30. You worked through your lunch break, making sure
every slide is as close to perfect as you can make it. You double-checked
your figures and spruced up your fonts. You did your final research to be
sure to understand your client’s needs. You’ve gone through the slides three
times in order to be sure that you know what slide comes next, and which
slide after that.

You run to the bathroom one last time. On the way out, you check your
appearance and everything looks good, although you notice that you look a
little tired. You realize that you are feeling a little flat, a bit low on energy.
On the way back, it hits you that you never ate lunch. Your stomach is
growling, and you’re craving something sweet. With 15 minutes left, you
still have time to hit the vending machine and grab a quick snack.

You get to the small kitchen area and luckily, there’s still some coffee in the
pot. You pour yourself a cup, and add some artificial creamer and two
packets of sugar. You stir it, take a sip—not great, but it will do. You need
something quick to eat so you scan the choices: milk chocolate bar, apple
Danish, cinnamon roll, potato chips, pretzels. You choose the apple Danish.

You head back to your desk. It’s 2:21, time to unplug your laptop and head
into the presentation. You slam down your apple Danish, take a couple of
swigs of coffee, and you’re on the run. You head into the conference room,
you quickly set up your laptop, and you’re ready to go.
Or are you?

Nutrition is a topic of passion, a topic of pleasure, a topic of habit, and often

a topic of frustration. Every single human being is a nutritionist at some
level. Every human being needs food to sustain life and nourishment to
support every bodily function. Unfortunately, nutrition is often marred with
myth and misinformation. Nutrition is generally approached scientifically
with little regard to the joy that comes with learning how to eat for
fulfillment or for sustainable performance. We are here to change that
approach!

Food is meant to be celebrated, and we don’t want to take away from this
tenet. Positive emotions actually enhance digestion, and so these feelings
must be maximized. Our goal is to encourage you to make 80% of your
choices to enhance your performance and health, and leave 20% of your
food choices to indulgence and celebration. This approach (aka Tignum’s
80 – 20 Guideline) allows the pleasure centers of the brain to be stimulated
while reinforcing the positive self-esteem that comes with making overall
healthy and high performance choices.

The relationship that you have with your food is a deeply personal one. It is
a relationship that is formed by your family history, biochemical
individuality, cultural beliefs, experiences with food, personal taste
preferences, and the thoughts that you have when you think of food. The
more aware you become of why you eat, when you eat, how much you eat,
and the impact that your eating has on your energy level, immune system,
brain functioning, and your performance, the better choices you will make.

“When I heard the word nutrition, I always thought of going on a diet. I

thought of cutting out the stuff that I knew wasn’t healthy. To me, nutrition
was always about losing some weight, trying to reduce my cholesterol, and
reducing my risk for heart disease, diabetes, and maybe even cancer.
One of the greatest lessons for me was discovering the connection between
what I eat and how I feel. Even more important is the connection between
what I eat and my performance in a meeting or in a presentation. This isn’t
something you learn in business school. It isn’t something your boss tells
you about in your performance review. It isn’t something people talk about
in a boardroom.
When you think of athletes, it makes total sense that they must eat in a high
performance way. You hear them talk about pre-competition meals, post-
competition recovery meals, even special snacks for during competition.
When you watch the Tour de France, you see the riders actually eating
during the race to keep their energy up and to remain competitive. Many
days, my day is like the Tour de France—I’m running from meeting to
meeting with few or no breaks.
When I learned to think differently about food, to think about the connection
between what I was eating and the consequences on my upcoming
performance, it really made a huge difference. Suddenly my brain fog was
gone. No more falling asleep in meetings after lunch. No more mid-morning
dips where I was starving, irritable, and unable to concentrate. Finally
recognizing that food has a substantial impact on my performance has
really given me the performance edge.”
Tignum Client

Can What You Eat Really Impact Your Performance?

In 2004, British Celebrity Chef Jamie Oliver made a journey into the British
school system to examine what was being served for lunch. Just like the
US, Great Britain has been struggling with a growing childhood obesity
problem. As Oliver learned more about what was being served, he
attempted to revamp the school menu, while sticking to the smallest budget
possible. For only 37 pence (approximately 54 US cents) per student, he
created alternative menus that included healthy protein sources with lower
saturated fats, vegetables, and fruits. His new menus also featured a drastic
reduction in the traditional processed foods.

As expected, initially he ran into resistance from the food servers (most
notably the head chef), and the children who knew more about McDonald’s
and Domino’s Pizza than they knew about asparagus. But as the students
started eating the new alternative meals, the results were startling. Within a
month, the teachers noted a significant difference in students’ attention
spans, memory, overall behavior, and in their test scores. Similarly, the
school nurse noticed a sharp reduction in the amount of medication she was
administering and in the number of students coming to her office with
asthma or other illnesses.

If school lunches have this great of an impact on these children, what

impact do you think your food choices can have on you?

Back to the opening story ... This executive was so committed to delivering
a high performance presentation that s/he even worked through lunch. Over
60% of the executives who have worked with us state that skipping lunch is
a common occurrence to ensure they get their work done. They also report
that they frequently use coffee and high-sugar snacks to make it through
their afternoons. Even more alarming, though, is that less than 5% have
responded that they have strategically selected their lunch to improve their
afternoon performance. In this way, they are just like the students in the
lunchroom—at the mercy of the school’s established menu or vending
machines.

Why We Need Food Vs. Why We Eat Food

Every function in the body requires energy. This energy comes from the
foods you eat. Besides producing energy, food is critical in supplying the
building blocks that make up every cell and organ in the body. Every
second of life, the body is participating in thousands and thousands of
chemical reactions. These reactions need catalysts to perform properly, and
these catalysts come from vitamins, minerals, and trace elements supplied
from your food.

Many people don’t realize that their bodies are under continual renewal. In
fact, every single day, your body replaces more than 300 billion cells. The
integrity of this renewal determines how healthy you will be and how well
you will age. The solution is to keep producing healthy cells, which can be
accomplished by making better food choices—ultimately leading to healthy
cell regeneration.
But remember, cell regeneration isn’t just about health; it also impacts your
performance. If you recall the presenteeism statistics, when your health
suffers, so does your productivity and performance. Similarly, your body is
an integrated unit so when one organ suffers, your body as a whole suffers,
and this includes the functioning of your brain.

The food and lifestyle choices you make today will impact the cell renewal
of every organ in your body in the future. This incredible opportunity to
enhance cell renewal is why we encourage you to think differently about
food. These choices will not only impact your performance today but also
your sustainability for years to come.

Protein Improves Your Immunity

Protein is essential for more than the body’s muscle mass. Its primary
function is to nourish and regenerate the immune system, which contains
cells that are made up of mostly protein. The quality of protein in your diet
directly impacts the reproduction and functioning of these cells. Inadequate
protein intake can impact the immune system’s ability to fight illness and
can also lower your resilience to daily stress, travel demands, and jet lag.

Properly balancing protein in meals and snacks throughout the day can
steady your glucose levels and help boost your energy level and resilience,
while also nourishing your immune system and improving your brain
performance. Excellent sources of protein can be found in dairy foods
(yogurt, cheese, cow’s milk), eggs, meats, fish, poultry, beans, soy products,
legumes, nuts, and seeds.

When you look at the various layers of your immune system—from your
skin and the linings of your digestive tract (mucosal layer) all the way down
to the production of white blood cells—you can understand why your body
needs proper nutrition to protect itself. Your skin, the major barrier between
the inside and the outside of the body, regenerates itself every two weeks.
Therefore, good Nutrition habits are vital to ensuring that your immune
system functions at its best.
 The way you eat doesn’t just affect the way you look. It impacts your
energy level, your performance, your health, and your sustainability.
With the proper Nutrition strategies, your brain performance and quality
of time can be significantly improved.

Nutrition Impacts Your Brain Performance

At the Amen Clinic, our colleague Dr. Daniel Amen is using nutrition to
help his patients improve their brain functions. Although a person’s diet is
rarely associated with ailments such as brain fog (loss of memory, slow to
form thoughts, forgetting thoughts in the middle of sentences), anxiety,
attention deficit disorder, depression, and dementia, Amen’s research and
clinical experience suggests something quite different. In fact, he is
experiencing considerable success in using dietary changes and nutritional
supplements to reduce these conditions where previously only medications
were used.

In a study done by University Laboratory of Physiology at Oxford

University, researchers studied over 1,000 young prisoners and the impact
of fish oil supplements on their violent behavior. After one year, the group
on the supplements reduced their violent behavior by approximately 33%.
One researcher noted, “Our initial findings indicated that improving what
people eat could lead them to behave more sociably as well as improving
their health. This is not an area currently considered in standards of dietary
adequacy. We are not saying nutrition is the only influence on behavior but
we seem to have seriously underestimated its importance.”

Imagine the huge economic savings if we could reduce violent behavior in

our society by 33%. But the real lesson here isn’t simply about violent
behavior—it is about the link between nutrition and behavior. Imagine if
you could increase attention span, improve creativity and self-control, and
decrease brain fog by changing the nutritional choices you make.

At Tignum, we want you to think differently about the foods that you eat.
Every choice you make is a choice that will impact your brain. High
performance and sustainability are clearly linked to what you eat and drink.
Up to 40% of the way you feel right now is due to your last meal. The foods
you eat directly impact the functioning of your brain.

Move From Awareness to Performance Nutrition

Awareness of what you eat, why you eat, when you eat, how much you eat,
and the benefits you hope to feel after you eat is an essential component of
the Tignum Performance Nutrition pillar. The more aware you become of
your choices and the associated impact they have on your energy level,
immune system, and overall performance, the easier it will be to change
your nutritional habits. With a high level of metacognition or what drives
your choices, especially the unconscious ones, you will develop control
over your eating habits.

Increasing your awareness of your nutritional habits and motivations is a

vital first step to developing personal strategies to move from eating to
Performance Nutrition. Many people can’t remember what they ate the day
before. This may be because they don’t really think about what they are
eating, but rather they eat out of habit.

How many meals do you eat each day?

What are the most common reasons that you eat?

How do you determine your portion size?

Do you stop eating before you’re full?

Do you always eat everything on your plate even if it makes you feel
uncomfortably full?

Do you ever take note of how you feel 30 minutes after a meal?

Factors That Influence What Goes on Your Plate

Hunger
On the surface, hunger seems like it would be the most important factor in
determining what foods you eat. However, studies have shown that people
eat less than 25% of the time for true physiologic hunger, even though
every innate mechanism in the body to regulate when and how much they
eat is based upon this primal drive.

Social Habits
In the business world, attending business lunches and dinners is often part
of the job. It makes sense that the pleasure of eating should be shared with
the pleasure of getting together with business and social friends. Many
executives complain that the frequency and food choices of these
engagements make high performance eating very challenging. Frequently,
business dinners begin with wine and bread. These choices alone can cause
a rapid rise in blood glucose and subsequent food cravings and overeating.
They can also leave you feeling lethargic and fighting to stay alert during
and after dinner.

Time Constraints
Time constraints definitely impact your choices and the speed in which you
eat. With more and more time constraints, many people not only seek
convenience foods that require less time for preparation but they also
consume foods faster. This goes against the body’s normal gearing-up
mechanism for eating, which produces the enzymes needed to digest the
food that is coming.

In the US, studies have shown that many meals eaten are consumed within
three to five minutes. Digestive enzymes are not fully activated until 20
minutes into a meal. Can you say indigestion?

Family and Culture

Food is part of the celebration of life, and every culture has some ritual and
social structure around eating. Unfortunately, in many cultures, these social
rituals can lead to obesity. In many families, food is equated with love.
Parents demonstrate their love by feeding children their favorite foods, with
little regard for calories or nutrients. As noted earlier, childhood obesity is a
growing concern and top health issue in the US and the UK.

Stress
Stress has a big impact on why you eat as well as on what you eat. When
your body is stressed, it responds with the fight-or-flight response. This
response requires blood sugar for your brain and muscles to be ready for
action. This is why when you’re under high stress, your body craves high-
sugar and high-fat food.

However, stress impacts everyone differently. Studies show that about 50%
of people eat more under stress while the other 50% don’t eat at all.
Individual responses are dependent upon your physiological makeup and
the blood flow to your digestive tract during stress. Neither of these
responses (eating more or eating less) is high performance or sustainable.

Travel
Traveling can definitely impact the way you eat. A study in the US tracked
people who travel and found that those who travel regularly consume up to
10 pounds (4.5 kilograms) more preservatives and chemicals, 10 to 15
pounds (4.5 to 7 kilograms) of extra sugar, and two times the trans fats that
they eat at home.

Sleep
Sleep deprivation has a significant impact on the food choices you make.
When the quality or quantity of sleep is not enough to meet your sleep
needs, you will crave high-sugar, high-fat foods. This is because the brain
knows it needs energy, and the quickest way for it to try to meet that need is
to get sugar (even if it doesn’t really need it). In addition, without adequate
sleep, you may crave caffeine which can dehydrate your body and decrease
brain performance even more.

The Benefits of Eating Slowly

Not too far back in the history of our species, gathering and preparing our
food required a full day’s work. Now the time it takes to whip up a meal or
find a fast food substitute to eat is more like a sprint in our day.
When I did individual nutritional counseling, some of the most enlightening
feedback I received from clients was that when they slowed down to really
experience and appreciate their meals, they felt better! They also felt like
they were sharper, more focused, and more apt to remember things.
I think there are many factors involved with this phenomenon of slow
eating, feeling better, and performing better. One outcome of eating food
slowly is that it positively impacts our digestion, since we are wired
physiologically to release digestive enzymes at least 20 minutes after food is
in the digestive tract. So by eating slowly, you help with the proper timing of
these enzymes. This elevation of digestive enzymes leads to a greater
assimilation of nutrients into the brain and the other vital organs. I suspect
there are other factors—savoring the aroma of the meal, enjoying your time
with companions, and appreciating the overall meal ambiance—that can
also create authentic Recovery breaks. All of these, in conjunction with
reducing the stress hormones which can be attributed to eating too quickly,
can certainly lead to improved creativity, concentration, recall, and
composure.
Tignum Blog

The Tignum Performance Nutrition System

We have developed our system to improve our clients’ self-awareness of

current eating habits (why they eat what they eat when they eat) and the
impact that these eating habits have on their energy, resilience, capacity,
performance, and sustainability. We teach strategies to assist our clients in
self-regulating their nutritional choices to maintain steady blood glucose,
improve the nutrient density of their foods, reduce the exposure of toxins to
their immune systems, and optimize their sustainable performance and
health.

The four levels of our Tignum Performance Nutrition System include:

_Hydrate for High Performance
_Balance Blood Glucose for Peak Performance
_Choose Nutrient Dense Foods to Enhance Performance
_Utilize Nutrition for Sustainability
In each level, we help leaders design and incorporate the most effective
strategies for their individual needs. Much research has been done on each
of these areas, but the important thing is that you understand these concepts
and how easily they can be implemented into your daily life to improve
your High Performance Nutrition habits.

Level 1 – Hydrate for High Performance

Water is a large component of the human body, making up 45 to 75% of

total body weight. On the average, the brain is made up of 80% water, lean
muscle tissue contains 75% water, blood contains 95% water, and bone has
22% water. Thus, hydration is critical to mental and physical performance
and your overall health. This level focuses on hydration strategies to build
the foundation for all your nutritional habits.

Water is essential for all life. It helps your immune system, removes toxins
and wastes from your body, assists in your digestion, improves your energy,
and increases your mental and physical performance.

Conversely, dehydration weakens your immune system, negatively impacts

your digestion, decreases the ability for fat cells to metabolize (making it
harder to lose weight), negatively impacts your concentration, makes your
heart work harder, and reduces the efficiency of your cardiovascular
system. Dehydration also affects the transport of nutrients and oxygen, the
ability to dissipate heat properly, and the ability of your muscular system to
operate effectively.

Water is the principal chemical component of the human body. Every system
in your body depends on water.

Normal brain function requires that brain cells are fully hydrated. Since the
brain is 80% water, dehydration will lead to brain fog. Dehydration can
decrease your attention and concentration by as much as 13% and reduce
your short-term memory recall by 7%.
 Dehydrated Brain = Low Performance

Hydrated Brain = High Performance

Photographs provided by Dr. Daniel Amen from Amen Clinics, Inc.

How much water should you drink each day?

The exact amount is difficult to determine, since each individual’s hydration
needs are different. The amount of water you need is dependent on many
factors, including your health, activity level, medications you take, your
diet, and the altitude, weather, and humidity where you live.

Drinking a glass of water in the morning when you get up—to flush out the
toxins your body has produced during the night—will give you a positive
jump-start on the day. Drinking a glass of water with your meals, or
drinking water before you get thirsty are other ways to prevent dehydration.

We encourage our clients to carry a one liter, non-BPA water bottle (without
the toxic chemical bisphenol A in the plastic) with them to remind them to
drink water consistently throughout the day. Drinking an adequate amount
of water is not only important for brain performance, immune function,
cardiovascular health, detoxification, and adrenal function; water can also
help keep your stomach full and act as a natural appetite suppressant.
Therefore, developing good hydration habits can also help you achieve and
maintain a healthy weight.

It is important to recognize that not all fluids you drink will hydrate you.
Certain liquids can actually dehydrate you. We call these drinks hydration-
robbers and have categorized them into four types:

_alcohol (wine, beer, hard liquor)

_caffeine (coffee, tea, sodas, energy boosters)
_phosphates (fizzy drinks)
_high-sugar drinks (juices, sodas)

Note: people who consistently drink coffee or tea will adapt to the effects of
caffeine and actually experience a reduced dehydrating effect.

Do you need to completely avoid these hydration-robbers? No, but you do

need hydration strategies to compensate for drinking them. We recommend
that you drink one to two glasses of water for every glass of hydration-
robbers that you drink.

How will you know if you are fully hydrated? The easiest way to
measure your hydration is to monitor the quantity and color of your urine.
According to the Mayo Clinic, “... if you drink enough fluid so that you
rarely feel thirsty and produce 1.5 liters (6.3 cups) or more of colorless or
slightly yellow urine a day, your fluid intake is probably adequate.”

Executives have commonly shared with us that they have gone almost a full
day at the office without urinating. This is definitely a sign of dehydration.
In addition, dark or concentrated urine is a dependable sign of inadequate
hydration.

US Government research recommends ingesting 0.25 liters (8.5 ounces) of

fluid every hour that you’re awake. This means a minimum of 4 liters (4.25
quarts) of water a day, depending on how much you perspire.
So, is water the only drink that we recommend?
Not necessarily. We understand that many times you may crave something
with flavor or bubbles or a refreshment that can directly stimulate you. For
this reason, we have compiled a short list of drinks that meet our
performance criteria.

Performance drinks

sparkling water
Research evidence suggests that sparkling water can support digestion
especially for those with indigestion or sluggish digestion. And, there is no
evidence that sparkling water disrupts bone health or destroys teeth like
soda drinks.

fresh-squeezed lemonade
Lemons are an excellent source of vitamin C, and the stringent nature of
lemons has been used throughout history as natural support to the body’s
detoxification system.

vegetable juices
Fresh vegetable juices offer essential vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients
(plant-derived compounds associated with positive benefits) to support
cellular function. Some good choices are beet root, carrot-ginger, and
celery-cucumbertomato blend.

green tea
High in polyphenol and flavonoids, green tea has been shown to improve
immune and cognitive functioning and fight off free radicals. The
recommended intake in current research is two to four cups of green tea
every day.

coffee
Caffeine has been extensively researched for its performance-enhancing
benefits, both physically and mentally. It has been shown to increase
alertness and reduce fatigue, especially in low arousal situations (as in shift
work at night). Additionally, caffeine in coffee has been shown to improve a
person’s performance on both simple and complex tasks.
What are free radicals?
Free radicals are a byproduct of metabolism within the body. They are
formed when the molecular bonds are broken and an odd, unpaired electron
is left over. Once a free radical is formed, it can be detrimental to the other
cells so the body tries to quickly stabilize it. If these free radicals are not
stabilized, they can contribute to cancer and heart disease. Antioxidants
that you get from a high performance diet can help neutralize these free
radicals by donating one of their electrons. Our Tignum Performance
Nutrition strategies are designed to provide your body with an array of
antioxidants to help fight off the free radical production from stress, toxins,
and your own metabolism.

The Skinny on Coffee

There is so much misinformation out there about coffee. Contrary to some

things you may read, coffee is not the worst drink for you. But that doesn’t
mean you can drink unlimited amounts. Research suggests that there may
be individual differences in the way caffeine is metabolized. Some people
can metabolize caffeine quickly while others may keep caffeine in their
system longer (which is potentially more dangerous).

While much more research is needed in this area, it should be noted that
most of these research studies were done with moderate doses of caffeine,
defined as one to two cups per day. Similarly, in moderate doses, coffee
provides healthy antioxidants that can protect you from dangerous free
radicals. All of this is good news for those of you who love a steaming cup
of coffee to refresh you and get ready for your day. (Keep in mind that some
mugs can actually be the equivalent of three cups of coffee.)

In higher doses, however, caffeine in coffee may cause additional stress on

your cardiovascular, digestive, and adrenal systems. It may also dehydrate
your body and deplete important minerals and vitamins. The following
client story highlights the positive effects of changing harmful coffee
habits:
“Before working with Tignum, I was a coffee addict. I drank three or four
cups to get going in the morning and another two or three after lunch to get
ready for the afternoon. On some days, I drank another two cups around 4
pm just to make it to the end of the day. Not only was this an expensive
habit, but I had always wondered if it was also dangerous.

After working with Tignum, I decided to change my coffee habits. It wasn’t

simply because so much coffee was bad for me. It was also because I didn’t
want to feel like I had a vice like this that I depended upon just to stay
awake. When I implemented the Tignum strategies of drinking a full glass
of water as soon as I woke up, doing 10 to 15 minutes of daily prep
movements, and then drinking another full glass of water, my craving for
morning coffee disappeared. I can’t explain it but I felt more energized, and
my desire for coffee just vanished. I also felt much better around 10 in the
morning than I used to.

I still drink one cup of coffee after lunch but more because I love it. I find it
relaxing, and it stimulates my digestion and gives me a little kick to start the
afternoon. And, when I hydrate well throughout the afternoon I rarely, if
ever, feel like I need a cup at 4 pm.

Now after six months of developing high performance hydration habits, I

really feel much better. Especially since I don’t feel like I have this vice
anymore—I no longer need coffee to make it through the day. I never would
have believed it, but hydration is critical to feeling and performing my
absolute best.”

The awareness question to consider is—why do you drink so much coffee?

If you drink coffee to generate artificial energy to make it through your day,
you may be in the danger zone. In this case, it is important to develop good
Mindset, Nutrition, Movement, and Recovery habits and use coffee only
when needed or for your enjoyment choices (Tignum’s 80 – 20 Guideline).

During the day, what kinds of fluids do you drink that hydrate you?

What hydration-robbers do you drink?

How long do you take to eat your meals?

How does stress affect your appetite?

What types of foods do you crave or eat when you are stressed or overtired?

What kind of foods do you eat when you travel?

 Chapter Nine
Prepare Your Swimmer’s Plate

One of the most important strategies in high performance eating is to

maintain a steady blood glucose level. When blood glucose fluctuates
throughout the day, it affects a multitude of hormones and ultimately affects
your energy level, mental acuity, memory, and even your immune system.

The best way to maintain steady blood glucose is to avoid skipping meals
and to spread your daily calories throughout the day. By eating five smaller
meals per day instead of two or three larger ones, you will supply your body
and brain with the constant energy it needs to perform at its best.

Level 2 – Balance Blood Glucose for Peak Performance

Steady blood glucose is essential to a high performing brain. Our High

Performance Nutrition strategies in this level are designed to eliminate
spikes in your blood glucose and to give your body’s cells a steady source
of energy and nutrients.

When you eat large meals, your body responds by shifting blood away from
the muscles and brain, and sending it into the stomach and intestines. It also
raises your blood glucose, which can lead to a rebound hypoglycemia and a
mental fog or energy dip. Avoiding blood glucose spikes and dips is critical
for reducing brain fog, preventing energy slumps, stabilizing many
hormones, and enhancing your immune system.
 Spikes in Glucose = Low Performance

Steady Glucose = High Performance

At Tignum, we recommend a simple way to determine the proper portion

sizes to prevent blood glucose spikes and to maximize steady energy levels.
Even better, you carry the measuring instruments with you at all times—
your hands.

protein = size of your palm (thickness and area)

starch (carbohydrate) = size of your closed fist

vegetables/fruit = size of an open hand (palm and fingers)

Professor Paul E. Gold, a faculty member in the Neuroscience Program and

College of Medicine at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has
studied the impact of blood glucose levels on performance. He states,
“Glucose enhances learning and memory not only in rats but also in many
populations of humans. For schoolchildren, this implies that the contents
and timing of meals may need to be coordinated with academic activities to
have the most beneficial cognitive effects that enhance learning.”

Given this research, low performance from unhealthy eating habits or

poorly timed meals should come as no surprise. Since the brain cannot store
any of its own energy, it depends on a steady source of glucose in the blood.
Imagine the impact that coordinating children’s meals and snacks
(maximizing their learning) would have on their performance.

What does this mean for executives?

Simply put, the choices you make in terms of what you eat, when you eat,
and how much you eat impact your memory, creativity, performance in
meetings, and ultimately your productivity.

Studies have shown that executives under stress score higher on retention
tests when they eat in a way that keeps their blood glucose steady.

Start With Breakfast

Research clearly shows that “breaking the fast” with a high performance
meal is linked to improved focus and mental alertness, a decrease in mid-
morning energy dips, enhanced resilience to stress, and more effective
weight control. A high performance breakfast also supplies essential
vitamins, minerals, and fatty acids necessary for cellular rejuvenation.

A high performance breakfast consists of three elements:

high-quality protein source such as eggs, cheese, yogurt, nuts or nut

butter, lean meats, fish, chicken, soya, beans

source of complex, high-fiber carbohydrates such as whole grain breads,

cereals, granola, fruits, and vegetables
source of essential fatty acids from oils found in olive oil, flaxseed,
sesame, nuts, avocado, wheat germ, whole grains, and fish

Note: A blend of these essential fats is also found in eggs, soya, dairy, and
some vegetables.

It is also important to note that skipping meals disrupts your body’s

metabolism and causes erratic fluctuations in blood glucose balance. These
fluctuations can disrupt the way your body burns calories and slow the
metabolism, leading to weight gain.

In addition, sleep studies reveal that one of the more common reasons for
poor sleep quality is a drop in blood glucose. This drop is likely due to poor
timing of meals or too much sugar or alcohol before bedtime. A small, high
performance snack before bedtime can actually help you sleep more
soundly.

Skipping meals contributes to food cravings and weight gain, poor

concentration, mood swings, and poor sleep quality.

Strategic Snacks Boost Your Energy

Strategic snacks are critical for maintaining your energy level and also
increasing your nutrient intake. When you are eating the correct (smaller)
portions, you may find yourself experiencing a subtle hunger two to three
hours after a meal. In order to keep your blood glucose steady, you need to
have a strategic snack that has a blend of protein, some carbohydrates,
moderate-to-low fat, and some fiber.

In the US, there is a comprehensive market of nutritional bars to meet this

need. Unfortunately, choosing a high performance snack bar can be a bit
tricky, since some are more like candy bars than real food. Historically, the
original performance bars were designed and developed to quickly provide
glucose (sugar) to exercising muscles. Today, these bars have evolved to
provide nutritional supplementation, and in some cases, they can be used as
a meal replacement.
However, if you choose a nutritional bar or any snack that is too high in
sugar, too low in fiber, or too low in adequate protein or unsaturated fats,
there is a high likelihood that you will find yourself feeling sluggish and
tired, as well as experiencing brain fog. This is the opposite of the high
performance state that we want you to develop.

Make the Best Nutritional Choices

There are lots of different health bars, but just because a bar has the word
“health” on it doesn’t make it a high performance bar. The best choice is to
select real food, but with your busy schedules, travel demands, and the
unavailability of refrigeration, we recognize that this choice is not always
possible. In these cases, we recommend that you use the following factors
to choose the best bar or snack:

carbohydrate-to-protein ratio
Try to keep a ratio as close to 2 grams of carbohydrate for every 1 gram of
protein. For example, if there are 22 grams of carbohydrate, there should be
approximately 11 grams of protein.

fat
Look for a bar that contains 5 to 10 grams of fat. Preferably the majority of
this fat should be monounsaturated. Be sure there are no trans fatty acids
such as hydrogenated fats or partially hydrogenated oils.

fiber
Aim for 3 to 5 grams of fiber. Fiber is very important for digestive system
function and for maintaining steady blood glucose.

sugar-to-carbohydrate ratio
Try to keep the ratio of sugar to total carbohydrate to no more than 1 to 2.
For example, if there are 22 grams of carbohydrates in a snack or bar, there
should be no more than 11 grams of sugar.

portion size
A snack or bar should ideally provide 200 to 280 calories of energy. This is
adequate to support high performance brain functioning while stimulating
metabolism and not leading to unhealthy weight gain.

In addition to high performance bars, we recommend the following choices

for high performance snacks:

_a piece of fruit with nuts

_yogurt with fruit
_cottage cheese with fruit
_cheese with whole wheat crackers
_hardboiled eggs and whole grain or sprouted bread
_trail mix with dried fruit
_hummus with whole grain crackers and red pepper or carrot strips
_a small cup of soup with whole grain roll
_peanut butter with a banana or apple
_half of a turkey and Swiss cheese sandwich

Power Your Brain by Going Nuts

Our clients are often looking for a high power snack to stabilize their blood
glucose and to improve their brain performance. Research suggests that
nuts and seeds may boost cognitive performance, stabilize moods, and
support steady blood glucose levels, which will ultimately maintain
sustainable energy.
Nuts and seeds are rich in essential fatty acids known as omega-3 fatty
acids, a major component of brain tissue and important for both mood
stabilization and brain performance. Omega-3 fatty acids support adequate
levels of the brain hormone serotonin, which helps control both mood and
appetite, thus playing a role in weight control, emotional well-being, and
the reduction of mental fatigue.
B vitamins and micronutrients such as selenium, magnesium, and chromium
—also found in nuts and seeds—have been linked to optimizing overall
cognitive function such as memory retrieval, alertness, and mental stamina.
In addition, nuts (especially almonds and walnuts) have been shown to play
a part in protecting brain cells from oxidative damage and supporting a
healthy aging process and brain cell functioning.
The next time you need an easy, all natural, brain-boosting snack, I
recommend you just
Go Nuts ...
Tignum Blog

Plan for High Performance

One of the best strategies to have control over your food choices is to bring
a portable food bag. This may be a change in your Mindset, but it will
prevent you from being at the mercy of others. You can bring your own
snacks to meetings or keep snacks in your office. Examples of good snacks
include individual protein shake packets (just add water or juice), nuts or
seeds, dry cereals with dried fruits, energy bars, cheese, hummus, yogurt,
and hardboiled eggs.

How many times have you been to a restaurant, looked at the menu, and
wondered what was the best choice for high performance?

Restaurants often serve about 25-40% larger portions than what you need
and use more saturated fats than home-cooked meals. The key to restaurant
eating is to fill up without filling out. If you are a business person who
travels and has to eat out, understanding how to make good choices can
significantly impact your energy levels, your performance, and your health.

Dos and Don’ts to Maintain Steady Blood Glucose

Do
_have small regular meals

_have strategic snacks (nuts, seeds, hummus, energy bars)

_eat complex carbohydrates (whole grains, fruits, vegetables)
_eat food rich in B vitamins (whole grains, beans, nuts, fish, poultry,
bananas, avocados, green leafy vegetables)
_eat foods rich in chromium (whole grains, mushrooms, beets,
grapes/raisins, broccoli)
 _combine protein foods with complex carbohydrates
_limit caffeinated and high-sugar drinks
_limit alcoholic drinks

Don’t
_skip meals
_eat oversized portions or large meals that overfill you
_eat refined carbohydrates (white flours, cakes, biscuits, sweets, hidden
sugar in foods)
_eat mostly processed foods
_drink mostly caffeinated or high-sugar drinks
_drink alcohol in excess

Level 3 – Choose Nutrient Dense Foods to Enhance Performance

Every food can be evaluated by the number of nutrients it has in relation to

the number of calories it contains. Studies have shown that a nutrient dense
diet has a positive impact on performance, health, and weight control. Our
High Performance Nutrition strategies in this level are designed to
maximize every calorie you eat by choosing nutrient dense foods and
avoiding empty calories (with little nutrient concentration).

Traditionally, the American diet has been famous for producing overfed yet
malnourished people. Unfortunately, this trend has spread to the UK and
many of the other European Union countries. The reason is simple: In a
society where so many people eat fast food, highly processed foods, and
foods that aren’t taken straight from the earth, the chances of eating lots of
calories with few nutrients is very high. On the surface, this may seem like
a bad trend only in terms of weight gain and obesity. Unfortunately, the
impact on brain fog, energy levels, performance, sustainability, and health is
also deleterious.

Statistics show that by simply adding fresh fruits and vegetables to two out
of three meals or snacks eaten in a day, the nutrient intake for your day can
be increased by 35 to 42%. This is a significant improvement in getting
essential nutrients.

What are these nutrients? They are vitamins, minerals, and other
phytonutrients. Although they don’t provide energy themselves, they are
critical in the reactions that release energy from carbohydrates, proteins,
and fats. They also support every single bodily function and are essential
for high performance, immune function, and cellular regeneration.

With eating comes choice. For some, it’s a choice of which fast food
establishment to go to. For others, it’s a choice at a vending machine. For
others, it may be a choice of which entrees to order off the menu. For
others, it’s a choice of what food to prepare at home. In today’s society,
there are a multitude of choices.

Nutrient Dense Foods

garlic, leafy green vegetables, salmon, olive oil, ginger, beans, kiwi, berries,
apricot, mango, papaya, bok choy, squash, kale, sweet potato, beet roots,
and quinoa (high-protein whole grain grown in South America)

Dr. Joel Fuhrman, a US family physician and one of the leading experts on
nutrition and natural healing, has proven that eating a nutrient dense diet is
the key to optimal health, high performance, and weight control. Through
his research and hundreds of nutritional science studies, Fuhrman has found
that life span is lengthened significantly when subjects eat a high nutrient
diet. He has developed the following equation for eating to live:

Health = Nutrients/Calories

Using this equation is simple. To achieve good health, you need to eat foods
with high nutrients and low calories. If you eat a diet that is mostly
composed of live foods (such as fresh vegetables and fruits), you will
improve the nutrient density of your diet and ultimately your performance
and health. Dark green vegetables are the best choice, since they have the
most nutrients of all.
 The Color of High Performance Foods

In order to help our clients think differently about the food choices they
make, our Director of Nutrition Patti Milligan developed the Tignum Color
Code of Restorative Nutrition. This diagram evolved from a meta-analysis
of numerous studies and reports on food pigmentation and its impact on
physiological function. The color codes were created to help simplify the
importance of eating a variety of foods on a regular basis.

So often, people underestimate the impact of the choices they make. The
Tignum Color Code Body shows the profound impact that various
pigmented fruits and vegetables have on the many systems in your body. By
increasing your awareness of the benefits of the choices you make in
selecting your foods, you can improve your energy, resilience, brain
performance, and health, as well as increasing your capacity, sustainability,
and overall performance.

We have provided some examples of food choices below, using the system
outlined in our Tignum Color Code Body.

Yellow foods optimize your brain functions:

_yellow squash
_corn
_yellow peppers
_pineapple

Red foods support your heart and circulatory systems:

_strawberries
_red peppers
_cranberries
_beets

Green foods rejuvenate your muscles and bones:

 _spinach
_kale
_broccoli
_squash
_green leafy vegetables

White foods enhance your immune and lymphatic systems, and improve
your cellular recovery:

_onion
_garlic
_ginger
_cauliflower

Orange foods support your skin and digestive tract:

_papaya
_mango
_sweet potato
_carrots

Purple foods promote your microcirculation:

_eggplant
_prunes
_plums
_blueberries
_blackberries

“We are often taught to eat a rainbow, in terms of the colors of our food
choices. I could easily recite this directive, but it didn’t have any meaning to
me. When I saw the color code body for the first time, I had an aha moment.
When I actually saw the benefits of eating different color foods, it made
perfect sense.
Now, whether I’m preparing my own meals or eating out in restaurants, I
find myself looking for a variety of colored foods. This approach not only
improves the amount of nutrients I eat, but it also reduces the amount of
processed foods I consume. Since I travel a lot, it is also a great way to eat
high performance foods, regardless of which country I am in. The foods
may change, but my drive to get the color of foods I need doesn’t.
Making this simple change in my diet resulted in a weight loss of nine
pounds (four kilograms) in my first month after working with Tignum. And,
eating more colored foods has made me feel better and definitely more
energetic.”
Tignum Client

The following illustration exemplifies two different days with two different
sets of performance outcomes. On the low nutrient density day, you can see
that the foods eaten are very high in calories, very low in nutrients, high in
saturated fats, and high in sugar. The impact on your performance from this
type of eating will be significant. You will be lethargic and sleepy, and you
may experience mood swings and brain fog. These food choices will
negatively impact your performance in any must-win events that you have
on your schedule.

On the high nutrient density day, you can see that the caloric load is lower,
the amount of nutrients is much higher, and the foods eaten are high in fiber
and high in healthy (monounsaturated) fats. The impact on your
performance from this type of eating will also be significant, but directly
opposite of the previous example. You will have improved energy, better
cognitive functioning, increased concentration, and enhanced mental clarity.
These kinds of food choices will also have a positive impact on your heart,
blood vessels, brain, and ultimately, your health. You will be ready and able
to effectively deal with any meeting, negotiation, or must-win event of your
day.
 Use Food Labels to Make Better Choices

Learning to read food labels is another way to increase your awareness

about what you are eating and to make better choices. However, keep in
mind that each country’s governing body has its own laws regarding what
goes on the label.

Most importantly, if you are reviewing a label on a food product, generally

it means that it is not fresh food. Therefore, it already falls into a category
with some degree of processing. You need to weigh how much or how often
you want to use processed foods. It is always better to choose fresh foods
when you have this option and the time to prepare them.

Tignum Guidelines

Choose foods with a 4 to 1 carbohydrate-to-protein ratio.

Labels usually list the amount of macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates,
fats) that are contributing to the calories of the product. Look at the ratio of
these nutrients in order to pick a food that will help steady your blood sugar.
Try to choose an item that has no more than a 4-to-1 ratio of carbohydrate
to protein. This is critical for keeping your blood glucose steady. For
example, if you are examining a label that has 35 grams of carbohydrate,
then it should have at least 9 grams of protein or more. (Note: This is a
higher ratio than our recommendation for high performance snacks because
you will be getting the majority of your protein from foods without labels.)

Choose foods with healthy fats.

Review the type of fats. You should reduce or eliminate all hydrogenated
trans fats and partially hydrogenated fats. Additionally, most of your fats
should be monounsaturated. The higher the percentage of the total fats that
are unsaturated, the better the choice.

Choose foods that are lower in carbohydrates and sugar.

Review the total amount and type of carbohydrates. With a high
performance food choice, the sugar grams should be less than half of the
total carbohydrate grams. For example, if the carbohydrate level is 34
grams, there should be no more than 17 grams of sugar.

Choose foods with fewer preservatives and chemicals.

Review the list of ingredients and see how many you can pronounce. When
a product contains chemical preservatives, food colorings, dyes, and
artificial ingredients, the words are usually unfamiliar, unless you have an
extensive chemistry background. If you can’t pronounce it, then you
probably don’t need or want it.

To download the Tignum Color Code Body, go to

www.tignum.com/sinkfloatswim. Log in with the password “swimmer” to
access our High Performance Nutrition information.

Now that you know some High Performance Nutrition strategies, consider
the following:

What are some high performance snacks that you can keep at the office to
maintain your blood glucose level throughout the day?
What specific foods (or colors of foods) do you need to eat more of?

What different kinds of choices can you make during your day to eat in a
high performance way?

What are some high performance foods that you can eat with a busy
schedule or while you travel?
 Chapter Ten
Eating to keep swimming

Once you have increased your nutritional awareness and changed your
eating habits to stay hydrated, keep your blood glucose steady, and increase
your nutrients, you will be well on your way to becoming a sustainable high
performer.

In order to maintain sustainable high performance, you need to address the

toxins that are found in a diet containing processed foods and artificial
ingredients. Although your body naturally detoxifies itself daily, eating
certain foods and avoiding other foods can support and further this
detoxification. In addition, due to highly demanding lives, it may be
difficult to get all of the nutrients you need in your daily diet. Sometimes,
supplementation may be warranted and beneficial.

Level 4 – Utilize Nutrition for Sustainability

This level of our Tignum Performance Nutrition System will take you even
further, promoting opportunities to detoxify your body, to use supplements
to eliminate any deficits you may have in your diet, and to develop
individual strategies. You will also learn to use specific Nutrition strategies
to effectively deal with business luncheons or dinners, busy travel
schedules, and must-win or high-impact events.

Your body is naturally and constantly detoxifying itself. Even when you are
unaware that it’s happening, your body is working to maintain its balance
and to create an optimal internal environment for its functions. There are
five systems involved with detoxification and the elimination of waste
products from the body. These include the respiratory, gastrointestinal (GI),
urinary, skin, and lymphatic systems. When all of these systems are
functioning properly, detoxification happens naturally and effectively.
Over time, however, toxins can accumulate and your body’s capability to
detoxify may be reduced. With toxins coming from so many sources, people
are being exposed to higher quantities and strengths of environmental
toxins. These toxins include pollutants, pesticides, chemicals,
electromagnetic fields, and radiation. Additionally, there are toxins in your
food from preservatives, chemical additives, artificial colorings, artificial
sweeteners, and hormones.

The Benefits of Detoxification

For thousands of years, eastern philosophies have taught the value of

seasonal detoxification (detox) rituals. More recently, western researchers
looking to understand the underlying causes of certain diseases are finding
that there are links between disease and the body’s inability to clear out
toxins. As these toxins accumulate, they increase the risk of heart disease,
cancer, irritable bowel syndrome, emotional stress, joint pain, and anxiety.
This can lead to a systemic inflammation and negatively impact the
communication among cells. Since the body is an integrated unit, this can
also lead to a lack of energy and the onset of disease, chronic body pain,
and decreased performance.

How can you reduce the amount of toxins you take in through your diet?

How can you reduce the toxins from your environment?

There are many different approaches and methods to detoxifying your body;
however, most of these are outside the scope of this book. We recommend
that before you participate in any advanced detox program that you contact
your doctor or another qualified health professional.

If you have implemented the first three levels of strategies from the Tignum
Performance Nutrition System, you are already doing a mild and natural
detox. The following foods and drinks will also contribute to your body’s
detoxification:

_deep green vegetables

 _unsweetened cranberry juice
_ginger
_green tea

Use Supplements for Sustainability

In theory, you should be able to get all of your nutrient needs met through
your diet. Unfortunately, with our current farming and transportation
practices, you would need to eat in excess of 5,000 to 6,000 calories a day
just to meet your optimal restorative health requirements. At this rate, most
people would become obese. This is why we advocate eating nutrient dense
foods and avoiding empty calorie foods (with high sugar / low nutrients) as
much as possible.

It is also important to recognize that there is no one diet that fits everyone.
In fact, Ayurveda, the science of life, prevention, and longevity—
considered the oldest and most holistic medical system practiced in India—
has addressed this individuality for 5,000 years. The Ayurvedic diet takes
into account a person’s age, gender, and constitution (dosha), as well as the
season.

Similarly, Roger J. Williams, PhD, author of Biochemical Individuality:

Key to Understanding What Shapes Your Health, confirms that we are all
different, and this diversity is critical to the survival of our species. These
differences create variations in your ability to digest and assimilate foods
(enzymatic make-up), your endocrine response to foods, and your body’s
ability to excrete foods. Ultimately, this variation in your body chemistry
creates your unique nutritional needs.

Dr. William Wolcott, author of The Metabolic Typing Diet, also feels that
the rising obesity rates, the prevalence of cancer and heart disease, as well
as many other diet-related diseases are partially due to our metabolic
individuality. He states that our individuality creates serious dietary
deficiencies when we try to eat in a one-size-fits-all manner.
So, why is this individuality important?

It’s important because when it comes to taking nutritional supplements,

what’s good for one person isn’t always good for another. Therefore, the
only way to truly utilize supplements in a beneficial and high performance
way is to work with a qualified health practitioner who thoroughly
understands your needs. With that said, generally speaking there are a few
nutritional supplements that may benefit certain people.

General recommendations:
_Busy people who are under high stress should take a multivitamin /
mineral.
_Most women should take iron (for anemia due to menstruation), as
well as calcium/magnesium and boron (for bone health), and folic
acid (to support red blood cells).
_Soda drinkers and those who eat high-sugar diets need selenium,
magnesium, and B vitamins (for metabolism and to replace water-
soluble vitamins excreted in urine).
_Smokers should consider taking Vitamin C (an antioxidant), and zinc
(an immune system booster).
_People who exercise intensely and regularly should take an
antioxidant cocktail that includes beta carotene, Vitamin C, Vitamin
E, and selenium (to combat free radicals created during exercise).
_Finally, new research suggests that people who spend more than 80%
of their time indoors (unfortunately, this is becoming more common)
will also benefit from a multivitamin / mineral that contains adequate
Vitamin D (for calcium absorption and bone modeling).

Business Dinner Strategies

Business dinners often provide opportunities to develop relationships and

accomplish important business negotiations. But these things can happen
only if you are fully awake, perceptive, creative, energetic, and focused.
The following tips are designed to ensure you are at your best for the entire
dinner meeting:

Remember that your business dinner actually begins at breakfast.

Eating a good breakfast and lunch, and having small strategic snacks
throughout the day will tame your appetite, give you energy, and prevent
binging at dinner.

Eat a small balanced snack (with protein and some fat) before arriving
at your business dinner. This will prevent your blood glucose from falling
and keep your brain alert during the socializing time before dinner arrives.
A small snack also helps absorb alcohol and prevents you from getting
sleepy.

Make water your primary drink throughout dinner. This will help you
stay hydrated, reduce the amount of alcohol you drink, avoid overeacting,
and improve your digestion.

Strategically select foods that stabilize your blood glucose. Foods like
nuts, cheese, beans, and meat will stabilize your blood glucose, while
breads and pastries will cause your blood glucose to spike and then crash.

If you are going to eat dessert, you may want to trade some of your
carbohydrates from your appetizer and your meal. Instead of choosing
bread, pasta, rice, or potatoes to go with your meal, select a delicious
dessert. This will help you stay within the Tignum 80 – 20 Guideline and
get enjoyment from your meal.

Watch your portion size. Many restaurants serve meals that could actually
be the equivalent of three or four servings. Eating too much food will create
brain fog and indigestion and also lead to unhealthy weight gain.

Conclude the meal with ginger, peppermint, or chamomile tea. These

choices will facilitate good digestion and prepare you for a good night’s
sleep.
Note: If you are in charge of planning the business dinner, choose a
restaurant that makes eating in a high performance way easier.

“My biggest joy has been to see so many executives increase their
awareness to make better nutritional choices, and then experience firsthand
how great they can feel and perform.
Tignum is not about deprivation. Instead, we believe that simple choices
can collectively make a significant difference. Whether it is getting rid of
brain fog, increasing energy levels, improving performance, or enhancing
resilience ... I love that moment when our clients realize that what they ate
made the difference.”
Patti Milligan, Tignum Director of Nutrition

Airport Eating for High Performance

As noted previously, research has found that frequent travelers consume

many more preservatives, chemicals, sugar, and trans fats than those who
eat at home. This not only leads to unhealthy weight gain, but it also
contributes to jet lag, frequent illness, and poor performance. The following
tips are designed to help you make better choices and improve your
performance while traveling:

Develop a travel food list. Taking some high performance snacks with you
when you travel will prevent you from being at the mercy of the airport
food and also help you avoid becoming too hungry. Suggestions for travel
foods include:

_dried fruits (dried apricots, raisins, cranberries, mango, figs)

_whole fruits (bananas, oranges, apples, grapefruits)
_beef jerky
_nuts and seeds (almonds, sunflower seeds, pecans, soyanuts, walnuts)
_trail mixes or peanut butter pretzels
_ready-to-eat energy bars (follow the recommendations previously
presented)
_carrots, celery, pea pods, or edamame (soy beans)
 _instant oatmeal or other hot cereals (you can always find hot water
and a cup to prepare it yourself)
_teas (green, ginger, chamomile)
_packets of Emergen-C supplement (source of Vitamin C, B vitamins,
and minerals)

Start the trip with a good breakfast. This is the beginning of your trip, so
start it off with a nutritional breakfast that stabilizes your blood glucose and
nourishes your body and brain.

Stay hydrated. Airplanes are pressurized to an atmospheric pressure equal

to 2,400 meters (8,000 feet), which can quickly dehydrate you. Making sure
you stay hydrated is crucial to preventing or reducing jet lag and keeping
your immune system healthy. Whenever possible, plan ahead by bringing
your own water bottle. Reduce or avoid caffeinated drinks, high-sugar
drinks, and alcohol since these will dehydrate you.

Eat every three to four hours. This will prevent blood glucose dips and
excessive hunger. Remember that flights can be delayed, so don’t count on
the meal on the airplane. Consider eating a small snack before boarding.
You don’t have to eat the entire meal on the plane if everything goes as
scheduled.

Avoid foods that are high in sugar or that have heavy sauces. If you
need to eat at the airport, avoid sugary pastries, sweetbreads, and
doughnuts. These foods disrupt blood glucose levels and do not add the
nutrient-rich vitamins and minerals needed for traveling. Select foods that
provide you with a balance of carbohydrates, protein, fat, and fiber.

Watch portion sizes. Airports and airplanes are like restaurants—each

meal usually exceeds our recommended portion size. Optimal lunch or
dinner choices include:

_grilled fish or chicken

_lean meats (lean pork stir-fry or small grilled hamburger)
_fresh green salad or steamed vegetables
 _fruit and yogurt
_deli sandwiches on pita or flatbread
_beans or grilled meats and vegetables on whole wheat tortilla
_baked potato or sweet potato (with vegetable add-ons, salsa, and
limited sour cream or butter)

High Performance Nutrition for Must-Win Events

It’s 2 pm and you’re doing your final preparation for your client
presentation at 2:30. You ate a light lunch that consisted of a mixed green
salad with seared salmon, so you feel great. When you returned to the
office, you made a couple small changes to your slides, inspired by some
thoughts you had while you were walking back to the office. You double-
checked your figures and spruced up your fonts. You did your final research
to be sure to understand your client’s needs. You’ve integrated all the what
ifs you can imagine. You’ve gone through the slides several times and
completed your mental imagery to energize and focus yourself.

You run to the bathroom one last time. On the way out, you stop by the
small kitchen to fill your water bottle. You notice the coffee left in the pot
but you feel energized, so it doesn’t even tempt you. You get back to your
desk and do a few breathing squats and a quick posture check. (These
strategies will be covered in the next chapter.)

It’s 2:21, time to unplug your laptop and head into the presentation. You
grab your strategic snack (almonds and dried cranberries), your water,
your notes, and your laptop. You head into the conference room, set up your
laptop, take a few deep breaths, do your final posture check, and smile,
because you’re ready to go.

In fact, you are 100% effectively prepared to deliver a winning

performance!

Evaluate Your Nutrition Habits

Each person has a unique relationship with food, and this relationship
impacts your nutritional habits. An important concept for sustainable high
performance is becoming aware of your habits, your needs, and the benefits
you get from your food. As you increase awareness of the way that you feel
after you eat, you will experience a new motivation for improving your
nutritional habits. The great thing about Nutrition is that you are only one
meal away from getting back on track.

Do you want to sink, float, or swim?

The choice is always yours.

You have Nutrition habits that will make you sink if you:

_are unaware of why you eat, when you eat, and how much you eat
_eat fast food more than three times a week
_eat a diet that is high in processed foods
_rarely eat vegetables or fruit
_consistently eat until you are stuffed and uncomfortable
_wait to eat until you are starving
_drink soda as your beverage of choice at most meals
_rarely drink water (consciously)
_drink more than four cups of coffee or other caffeinated drinks every
day and depend on these to wake up and stay awake or engaged in
meetings
_drink more than three alcoholic drinks more than three days per week
_follow the 80 – 20 rule where 80% of your food choices are
indulgences
_consistently skip meals, especially at work
_fail to plan ahead for meetings, travel, and business dinners
_are unaware that Mindset, Nutrition, Movement, and Recovery habits
impact your energy, resilience, brain performance, and capacity

You have Nutrition habits that will enable you to float if you:
_are aware of why you eat, when you eat, and how much you eat but
only occasionally make better choices
_choose to eat the majority of your meals from frozen or prepackaged
items
_eat processed meals or snacks more than four times per week
_occasionally eat vegetables and fruits
_often overeat to the point of being uncomfortably full
_eat high-sugar snacks on most days
_drink two or three sodas on most days
_drink three to four glasses of water a day
_need coffee or other caffeinated drinks to wake up or make it through
the day on most days
_drink more than two alcoholic drinks on most days
_occasionally plan meals and snacks for your workday
_often work while you eat lunch
_eat in restaurants and make choices with no thought for high
performance after the meal
_rarely prepare for meetings, travel, or business dinners by consciously
implementing High Performance Nutrition strategies
_have limited awareness of the impact that your food has on your
performance, rarely using Mindset, Nutrition, Movement, and
Recovery habits to improve

You have Nutrition habits to swim if you:

_are always aware of why you eat, when you eat, and how much you
eat;
_and you consciously use this information to make good Nutrition
choices
_rarely, if ever, eat fast food
_balance meals and snacks with protein, healthy fats, and complex
_carbohydrates
_eat nutrient dense vegetables at almost every meal
 _start every day with a high performance breakfast that includes
protein
_and complex carbohydrates
_rarely overeat (stop eating when comfortably full regardless of
outside
_influences)
_wake up and drink a glass of water and then drink water as your main
_drink of choice throughout the day
_limit coffee and other caffeinated beverages to no more than two per
day
_limit alcohol to no more than one drink per day
_include strategic snacks in the planning of your workday
_never skip meals at work or away from work
_stick to our Tignum 80 – 20 Guideline, especially when eating out in
_restaurants where high performance is required after the meal
_strategically plan meals and snacks to maximize your performance
_prepare for meetings, travel, and business dinners by consciously
_selecting high performance foods and drinks
_effectively utilize Nutrition strategies, along with Mindset,
Movement,
_and Recovery strategies to improve your energy, resilience, brain
_performance, and capacity

Develop Your Performance Nutrition Goals

The sustainable High Performance Nutrition strategies presented in this

section are designed to be integrated with our Performance Mindset,
Performance Movement, and Performance Recovery strategies. These
Nutrition strategies alone will not necessarily make you a high performer or
increase the sustainability of your performance. In fact, it is very unlikely
that you will make High Performance Nutrition choices if you are overtired,
do very little physical movement, or have a negative attitude. The four
Tignum pillars of sustainable high performance are intricately interwoven
and dependent upon each other. The true power of personal innovation
comes with the integration of Mindset, Nutrition, Movement, and Recovery
habits.

In order to take everything you have learned and create High Performance
Nutrition, you need to develop Nutrition goals that are meaningful to you.
To begin this process, consider the following questions:

What three action steps can you take now to help you improve your
Nutrition?

If you were to have a High Performance Nutrition day, what would

your eating and drinking choices be?

How will you keep hydrated throughout the day?

How will you use High Performance Nutrition strategies to positively

impact your business luncheons and dinners, travel time, and must-win
events?

How will you use Nutrition strategies to increase your energy,

resilience, brain performance, and capacity for sustainable high
performance?
Section IV
Without Movement You’ll Never Swim

Performance Movement – utilizing physical motion to

reduce pain, generate energy, increase resilience, improve
brain performance, maximize capacity, and produce
sustainable success
Chapter Eleven
Get Set to Swim

How Much Do You Move?

A Revolutionary Approach
Movement Patterns of Daily Living
The Importance of Posture
The Tignum Performance Movement System
Level 1 – Increase Blood Flow and Enhance Your Immune System
Level 2 – Improve Your Mobility, Stability, and Balance

Chapter Twelve
Movement to Keep Swimming

Level 3 – Expand Your Capacity Through ESD

Energy Systems for Training
Benefits of ESD Training
Estimate Your Heart Rate Training Zones
How to Implement ESD Training
Level 4 – Build Sustainability Through Functional Strength
Integrate the Tignum Levels of Movement
Evaluate Your Movement Habits
Develop Your Performance Movement Goals
 Chapter Eleven
Get Set to Swim

“I used to think of movement as something that had to do with sports,

fitness, or losing weight. I never thought it was relevant to improving my
performance in my business. Most surprising to me is that when I do my
Daily Prep movements in the morning, take the stairs every chance I get,
and just move more, I am energized throughout the entire day. I stand taller,
I feel better, and I am more confident and passionate.
These things aren’t fitness-related. These are key pieces to the puzzle of
being a high performer. Now I see movement completely differently. I can’t
imagine a day without doing some kind of movement. I use movement to get
started in the morning, to get energized and focused for meetings, to take a
break at lunch, and to unwind at the end of the day.”
Tignum Client

The human body’s ability to adapt to regular activity and exercise by

becoming stronger, and more efficient, sustainable, and resistant to injury
and illness exemplifies its unique design. The design of your anatomy from
the type, location, and function of your joints and bones; to the layout and
adaptability of your muscles; to the expansiveness of your circulatory
system; to the complexity of your nervous system demonstrates that your
body is meant to move.

Most people are aware that regular exercise has enormous health benefits,
such as lowering cholesterol levels; decreasing the risk for heart disease,
cancer, and diabetes; and reducing stress, high blood pressure, lower back
pain, and obesity. A recent study published in the Archives of Internal
Medicine has shown even more benefits. Did you know that by walking
moderately or briskly for just 30 minutes for five or more days per week
you can not only improve your fitness and quality of life, but also increase
your life span an average of three-and-a-half years? Not only that, this study
showed that these years were enjoyed almost heart-disease free,
demonstrating that regular Movement definitely means higher quality and
quantity of life.

Fewer people are aware that consistent Movement can also improve self-
esteem and confidence, enhance left-right brain balance, increase mental
ability and quality of sleep, and decrease depression. The most recent
research on exercise and the brain may surprise you. Harvard Medical
School has found that regular exercise (specifically aerobic exercise five
days a week) stimulates the growth of new brain cells and may even prevent
or slow the progress of Alzheimer’s disease. Exercise has also been shown
to stimulate and strengthen neurochemical brain functions. Clearly,
Movement is not only great for the body—it is also great for the brain.

Many people are searching for that magic fountain of youth, and regular
Movement can certainly contribute to that fountain. Regular Movement
increases your heart’s efficiency, the number of blood vessels feeding your
heart, the amount of oxygen carried in your blood, as well as your self-
esteem, creativity, and performance.

How Much Do You Move?

Starting today, begin expanding your awareness of your Movement. Pay

attention to the type of Movement that you do on a daily basis. Do you take
the elevator or do you take the stairs? When you are at the airport, do you
take the people-mover or do you walk? Do you drive around the parking lot
looking for the closest parking space? How good is your balance? Can you
touch your toes? These questions are important because they can provide
you with a new awareness of your Movement habits and the impact that
they have on your energy.

To build upon your awareness, consider the following:

Do you sit at your desk for hours at a time without getting up to take a
walk, stretch, or do a couple of exercises?

Do you ignore how your body feels and the signals it gives you?
Do you resist getting daily Movement?

Your body adapts to activity and exercise by becoming stronger and

enhancing your resistance to injury and illness. On the contrary, when you
stop or limit your Movement, your body regresses into a multitude of
illnesses. Lack of exercise also significantly affects your moods and
diminishes your Quality of Time. In fact, there is a plethora of research that
has shown specific health risks associated with leading a sedentary life.
And, without regular Movement, your performance at work and away from
work is diminished.

Experts also speculate that movements that require balance, coordination,

rotation, rhythm, and multiplanar patterns may stimulate left-right brain
integration. This makes logical sense since the left brain controls the right
side of the body, and the right brain controls the left side of the body.
Similarly, movements that require complex neurological involvement such
as balancing, moving in multiple directions or planes, and integrating
rhythm or coordination require a high level of feeling or proprioception
(right brain), as well as feedback analysis (left brain). As noted previously,
when both sides of your brain work together seamlessly, you will have a
high performance brain.

At Tignum, we believe that any Movement system must be functional. That

is, it must make you feel better, help you recover quicker, perform your
activities of daily living easier, and allow you to fully enjoy life. Most
exercise programs focus on how much muscle you can build, how many
miles you can run, or how many hours you can spend in the gym. The fact
is, if you can run 60 kilometers (37 miles) per week but you are exhausted,
in pain, and frequently getting ill, you are off track. And, just because you
have low body fat, bulging muscles, and a 90-minute, five-day-a-week
weight training program does not mean that you are healthy and balanced
on the inside.

The key to maximizing the benefits of Movement is to make it a daily

habit. Few choices pay higher dividends in improving your performance
than good Movement habits.
 A Revolutionary Approach

The Tignum Performance Movement System is simple yet revolutionary. It

focuses on the basic Movement patterns that are integrated into your neural
programming. It combines movements and energy systems in a way to
maximize impact while minimizing time. Our strategies are designed to
enhance your brain function, improve your immune function, develop and
strengthen your posture, rebalance your autonomic nervous system (ANS),
build your capacity, improve your performance in your activities of daily
living, increase your bone density, and enhance your neuromuscular system.
Simply put, the Tignum Performance Movement System will improve your
performance, at work and away from work.

What are the benefits of Movement?

Movement increases
_oxidation of fat
_number of coronary blood vessels
_efficiency of heart
_efficiency of peripheral blood distribution and return
_electron transport capacity
_fibrinolytic (clot-dissolving) capability
_arterial oxygen content
_red blood cells and blood volume
_thyroid function
_growth hormone production
_left-right brain balance
_creativity and mental focus
_self-esteem and confidence
_resilience to stress

Movement decreases
_serum cholesterol and triglycerides (blood fats)
_glucose tolerance (reducing your risk for diabetes)
 _obesity
_platelet stickiness (inadvertent clotting)
_arterial blood pressure
_resting heart rate
_vulnerability to dysrhythmias (heart attacks)
_overreaction to hormones
_illness, injury, and risk for some diseases
_anxiety
_depression

Our philosophy on Movement is unique. We combine movements from tai

chi, qigong, yoga, and competitive athletics. We recognize that for most
corporate executives, time and equipment are hindering factors. We also
understand that many people who travel extensively, sit in meetings, and
work under high-stress conditions need Movement that rebuilds their body,
rebalances their ANS, and refills their energy reserves. Our approach is to
provide our clients with solutions that build the immune system; generate
energy; improve brain performance, mobility, stability, and balance; and
build capacity and strength in the least amount of time.

Movement Patterns of Daily Living

Every time you pick up your briefcase, suitcase, or your child, you must
stabilize your trunk to protect your spine and to anchor the forces necessary
to perform the task. Every time you run up a flight of stairs, run to catch a
plane or bus, play tag with your child, or take a hike, you must engage a
series of energy systems and your cardiovascular system to deliver the
necessary energy to get the job done.

Although the demands of your daily life may vary from those of an athlete,
your body still requires mobility, stability, balance, and strength, as well as
endurance to perform at its best.
In order to perform the activities of daily living, there are basic Movement
patterns that must be performed. All human movement is one, or a
combination, of these:

_standing and locomotion (moving forwards, backwards, and side to

side)
_raising / lowering center of mass
_pushing and pulling
_rotation

In order to move properly, without compensation or pain, you must be able

to perform these basic Movement patterns efficiently with perfect posture.
Unfortunately, too many people mindlessly go to the gym to add muscle
mass or strength to dysfunctional Movement patterns, only to create an
injury, pain, or fatigue. This is why we so firmly believe, as Gray Cook,
author of Athletic Body in Balance, states: the key to all performance
enhancement and injury reduction is good Movement patterns.

The Importance of Posture

A fundamental strategy for producing and managing energy, as well as

reducing your risk of injury and illness, is to maintain good posture. Your
body is designed to have a certain alignment with built-in curves and shock
absorbers. When this alignment is altered, it affects every function of your
body. It even affects your confidence and self-esteem. When your posture is
in alignment, you have more energy because you are more efficient. When
your posture is compromised, you begin a chain reaction of muscular
tension that can drain your energy, affect your blood flow and nervous
system function, and create pain. Many of your daily activities (e.g., sitting
at a computer, driving a car, or walking in high heels) can alter your posture
without you even being aware of it.

Posture is both static (without movement, as when you are sitting or

standing) and dynamic (with movement, as when you are exercising). Your
head is like a bowling ball weighing approximately 11 pounds (5
kilograms). Imagine the strain on your neck joints, ligaments, and muscles
when your head is thrust forward, as is often the case when you are working
on a computer.

You need to become aware of your posture at all times.

A place to start is: Think about your bowling ball (head) as you move
throughout the day and work to keep this ball centered perfectly on a
properly aligned support system.

In addition, perfect posture for the rest of your body means that your knees
should be aligned over your ankles, your hips should be aligned over your
knees, your shoulders should be aligned over your hips, and your ears
should be aligned over your shoulders.

The Tignum Performance Movement System

We have designed our system to increase your self-awareness of current
Movement habits and to utilize the many opportunities to incorporate
Movement into your daily schedule. We then focus on improving mobility,
stability, and balance, which research has shown will reduce the risk of
musculoskeletal injury and pain. This will also enable you to participate in a
multitude of activities for daily living, ultimately enhancing your health,
performance, and quality of life. Next, our system helps build your capacity
through a highly effective and efficient method of cardiovascular training.
The final level, designed to improve your functional strength, includes a
circuit strength training program designed to improve function, strength,
and endurance, and to reduce the risk of injury.

The four levels of our Tignum Performance Movement System include:

_Increase Blood Flow and Enhance Your Immune System
_Improve Your Mobility, Stability, and Balance
_Expand Your Capacity Through Energy System Development (ESD)
_Build Sustainability Through Functional Strength

In each level, we help leaders design and incorporate the most effective
strategies for their individual needs. Much research has been done on each
of these areas, but the important thing is that you understand these concepts
and how easily they can be implemented into your daily life to improve
your High Performance Movement habits.

Level 1 – Increase Blood Flow and Enhance

Your Immune System

Wake up your body, release tension, and perform better.

The first level of Movement is a MUST. Often the excuse for not moving
more is that there is not enough time. The truth is that there are a multitude
of opportunities to move throughout your day. By simply taking advantage
of these opportunities, you can easily keep moving to increase blood flow
and enhance your immune system. Every time you move, your lymph flow
is increased, which transports antigen-presenting cells and stimulates your
immune response.

In this level, we encourage you to look for opportunities to move more on a

daily basis. Make the choice to take the stairs rather than the escalator. Walk
instead of using the automatic people-mover at the airport. Park farther
from the entrances so that you can walk to your appointments. Perform
some self-massage (see Tennis Ball Massage below) every day. Avoid
sitting for long periods by going for a short walk or doing some stretches
every 90 minutes or so. By setting your goals for Movement to happen
every day, studies have shown that you will actually meet your goal at least
five times a week.

Tennis Ball Massage

At Tignum, we love simple solutions with big impact. This is why we love
the tennis ball. It’s small, easy to carry, inexpensive, and it can help you
reduce pain and tension, improve your blood flow, enhance your immune
system, and even stimulate your right brain. Tennis ball massage is a simple
and practical way to massage away your tension. It is a great way to start or
end your day, take a break, or just release tension after a challenging
meeting or event.

Practice
_Take off your shoes.
_Stand on one foot and place the tennis ball under your other foot.
_Now, slowly put your weight down on the ball and massage your foot in
the process.
_Roll the ball forwards, backwards, side-to-side, and pay attention to any
tender spots on your foot.
_Apply steady pressure for 10 to 30 seconds on each tender area until the
pain starts to dissipate.
_Next, roll the ball all around the area that you massaged to circulate all of
the waste products that were just released.
_Move on to the next spot.
_You can also use your tennis ball to explore your body for other tight and
painful areas. Try using it on your neck, chest, thighs, calves, or anywhere
 that tension builds up in your body.
_Best of all, throw your tennis ball into your briefcase or suitcase, and you
have your own traveling masseuse.

Level 2 – Improve Your Mobility, Stability, and Balance

Challenge your nervous and muscular system, develop your core, and
re-balance your stress hormonal system to perform your best.

Building mobility, stability, and balance is also a MUST. For this level, we
have designed Tignum Daily Prep, which combines movements from yoga,
tai chi, qigong, and sports training. If you go through the Daily Prep
movements a minimum of three times a week, you will not believe the
impact it will have on your energy and productivity. This series of exercises
takes less than 15 minutes and can be performed at any time during your
day.

You can also incorporate Movement strategies from our Meeting Prep,
which includes three simple movements that can be done in business attire,
in your office, and in less than one minute.

Tignum Daily Prep provides fantastic full-body mobility, stability, and

balance enhancement movements. Combining these with your breathing,
you will enhance your energy flow and improve the oxygenation of your
body and brain. These movements will challenge your neurological system,
as well as your muscular system, which will also stimulate your right brain.
In addition, this series of movements will have a restorative function for
your immune system and will improve your ANS balance.

These movements are an excellent way to start your day, prepare for an
activity, energize you anytime during the day, or help you eliminate stress
and relax at the end of a hectic day. Many of our clients begin their
Movement program by simply doing these movements. They gradually
(over three weeks) build up to 10 repetitions of each movement and then
suddenly find that they feel energized and motivated to do even more
activities. For those who aren’t doing any Movement at all, this is a good
way to start and an effective gateway to better Movement habits.

Tignum Meeting Prep uses three simple movements to energize and focus
you prior to a critical meeting. These movements reverse the detrimental
effects of desk life and prepare your posture for high-impact or must-win
events. These movements are also designed to stimulate your right brain to
improve creativity.

When you have an upcoming presentation or meeting, your body is often

full of stress and tension. The body’s normal response is to want to fight or
take flight. Performing a quick pre-performance set of movements before
going into your event can reduce the impact of stress, enhance your
creativity, eliminate nervous energy, and improve your self-esteem. All of
these are crucial to performing your best.

Go to www.tignum.com/sinkfloatswim to view our Tignum Daily Prep and

Meeting Prep movements, complete with visuals and in-depth instructions.
Log in with the password “swimmer” to access these High Performance
Movement strategies.

Consider the following:

What is your posture like and how can you improve it?

What can you do TODAY to move more?

What other activities would you love to do if you could improve your
mobility, stability, and balance with your Daily Prep movements?

On a scale of 1-10, how committed are you to regular Movement?

 Chapter Twelve
Movement to Keep Swimming

After developing your foundation (Movement patterns), improving your

posture, and utilizing every opportunity in your day to move, you can now
kick it into high gear to receive the maximum benefits of Movement. In this
chapter, we will address how you can use Movement to increase your
capacity and enhance your functional strength. We will assist you in
achieving high performance in the most efficient and effective ways.

When many of our clients hear the word “exercise,” they think of
cardiovascular exercise, which usually means going for long runs or putting
lots of kilometers or miles on their bicycles. Although this may be the way
cardiovascular exercise has been done traditionally, at Tignum, we approach
it much differently.

We understand that you usually have limited time or may not like long,
strenuous workout sessions. By developing a time-efficient workout that fits
your individual needs, we have created a way that you can experience all
the benefits of cardiovascular (aerobic) training, without an extensive time
commitment. These benefits include:

_better health by reducing cardiovascular risk factors (e.g., body

composition, blood lipid profile, blood pressure)
_reduced mental anxiety
_enhanced quality of sleep
_increased energy levels
_improved brain performance
_strengthened resilience
_weight management

Level 3 – Expand Your Capacity Through ESD

Build your capacity with interval training to maximize
your performance.

In this level, we introduce the Tignum ESD interval training program,

which is a very efficient and effective method of cardiovascular exercise.
Energy system development (ESD) is a model of training designed by our
world-class partners at Athletes’ Performance. It is an excellent way to
develop your body’s multiple energy systems, and High Performance Coach
Paul Robbins uses these methods to train some of the most elite athletes in
the world.

By utilizing these methods, you will maximize your energy, resilience, and
capacity in the least amount of time. If you are committed to taking this
next step, then implementing the Tignum ESD training program only two
times a week for 20 to 30 minutes will give you outstanding benefits. Even
if you’re a person who usually hates cardiovascular training, you will find
our approach appealing and fun.

At Tignum, the first step is to run our clients through a battery of

evaluations. We use the iMETT Metabolic Cardiovascular Testing System,
a specialized machine that measures aerobic fitness (oxygen consumption)
and ventilatory threshold. These results provide us with the following
valuable information for each individual, making it possible to design a
customized training program:

_First, we get a clear picture of our clients’ aerobic fitness. This

evaluation tells us how well our clients’ bodies can take oxygen from
the air, transport it to the working muscles, and then use it to produce
energy.
_Second, the evaluation provides us with the specific training heart
rates that our clients should use during their various workout days.
Each one of our Tignum clients leaves with an individually designed
training program.

_Third, it shows us how well our clients can recover after pushing
themselves. This gives us a snapshot of each person’s level of resilience. If
a person can push her/himself hard but recover quickly, we know that this is
a highly resilient and extremely fit individual.

Energy Systems for Training

For the purpose of this book, we are going to provide you with an
alternative method to determine your training heart rates for each energy
system (zone). However, before we introduce this method, you need to
understand what each heart rate zone represents.

Aerobic Energy System

The body has three main energy systems that it can utilize to provide energy
when moving or breathing. The one that is most commonly known is the
aerobic energy system (Zone 1) which is used to move at lower intensities.
This energy system utilizes carbohydrates, proteins, and fats in the presence
of ample amounts of oxygen to produce energy. The aerobic energy system
is fairly efficient which means it produces very little waste (lactic acid), and
therefore can be used for long distances or long periods of time.

This is the energy source that you use when you walk from the subway or
go for an easy jog. This is also the energy system that long-distance
runners, cyclists, or any other endurance athlete relies upon most.

Aerobic capacity is commonly reported as the VO2 max (maximum amount

of oxygen you can utilize during intense exercise). The VO2 max varies
significantly among individuals and is dependent upon genetics, age,
gender, altitude, and of course, training. An average VO2 max for a person
who does not exercise is approximately 35 ml / kg / min. In contrast, Lance
Armstrong has been reported to have an aerobic capacity of 85ml / kg / min,
which is almost twice that of an extremely fit 45-year-old male.
While even extensive training will not increase your aerobic capacity to
Armstrong’s level, consistent training will help improve your aerobic
capacity. This becomes a very useful asset in recovering from the stress of
business, especially when combined with training your other energy
systems.

The Anaerobic Threshold

As the intensity of your efforts increase, there is a shift from using your
aerobic energy system to using your anaerobic energy system. This occurs
naturally and you will recognize it as the point where you starting breathing
much deeper and faster, and find it challenging to hold a comfortable
conversation. This point is called the anaerobic threshold (Zone 2) and is
very important for interval training, as well as for improving your
performance.

Anaerobic Energy System

The anaerobic energy system (Zone 3) is used for short bouts (from 10
seconds up to three minutes) of more intense Movement. This energy
system is designed to produce energy in the absence of adequate oxygen,
but not without a cost. The anaerobic energy system can only burn
carbohydrates and protein (not fat) as an energy source, and to do so,
produces the byproduct lactic acid. The accumulation of lactic acid leads to
the burning sensation you feel in the exercising muscles.

This is the energy source that you use when you run up a flight of stairs or
have to run fast to catch the train. Because your body builds up lactic acid
when using this energy system, you are eventually forced to slow down or
stop running if you continue at this high intensity.

ATP-PC System
The final energy system is used for short-duration, highly explosive
movements such as lifting something heavy or jumping out of the way of a
swerving car. This system is called ATP-PC (ATP stands for Adenosine Tri
Phosphate) and will only provide you with energy for 10 seconds or less.
You will train this energy system in Level 4 of the Tignum Performance
Movement System when you implement our No Excuse Workout.
 Benefits of ESD Training

ESD training uses an interval approach which trains the body to burn fats
more efficiently and to recover more quickly. In addition, many of our
clients find it mentally stimulating (with all the interval changes), less time-
consuming, and considerably less boring and uncomfortable (since you only
stay in each interval for a short time).

For executives who want the most benefit for the time invested, ESD
training is the high performance solution. In just 15 minutes, you can begin
to see and feel the benefits. In fact, many of our clients find that after just
four weeks of ESD training, they recover quicker, fall asleep faster, feel
more energetic, and are already getting leaner.

Too often, after traveling across time zones or attending high stress
meetings, clients will go for a run which only compounds the level of stress
on their ANS. Before using our ESD approach, they have shared that they
would often get sick or overtired the day after pushing themselves too hard.
Is this high performance? No, this is overtraining, and it is working hard
rather than smart.

However, when clients monitor their heart rates, they quickly notice that in
order to stay in their assigned heart rate zones they need to slow down, to
take it easier. Does this mean they are being wimpy? No, not at all. Their
heart rates are telling them that on that day, at that time, their bodies are not
capable of pushing harder without overstressing themselves.

In our experience, this is one of the greatest benefits of using heart-rate-

based ESD training. The heart rate monitor helps you adjust your training
based upon your body’s ability to handle the current demand placed upon it.
This objective assessment is an excellent way to see if you are on the right
track, doing too much, and how well you are recovering.

In utilizing ESD training, you will be

_training smart rather than training hard

_more motivated
 _training multiple energy systems
_teaching your body to recover more quickly
_enabling your body to burn fat more efficiently
_burning more calories
_utilizing your time more efficiently

Estimate Your Heart Rate Training Zones

Although the most accurate method of determining your heart rates for the
three training zones is to get tested, we are providing an alternative method
to estimate your proper heart rates. Please remember that, as always, you
should get clearance from your personal physician before starting any
exercise program.

In the following chart, you will note that we included how to compute your
training heart rates along with a description of what you should be feeling at
that specific heart rate. We did this for two reasons. First, it will allow you
to adjust your heart rates based upon how you feel (since this is only an
estimate). Second, we included both so that you can use ESD training even
if you don’t have a heart rate monitor. Of course, this is not the most
accurate way to train, but it is a simple and inexpensive method.
As an example, let’s imagine that you are 48 years old. To complete the
Aerobic Energy System (Zone 1) equations, you would use:

(200–48) × 0.65 = 152 × 0.65 = 98.8

(the minimum number for your heart rate in this zone)

(200–48) × 0.75 = 152 × 0.75 = 114

(the maximum number for your heart rate in this zone)

Therefore, the heart rate range for your Training Zone 1 is approximately 99
to 114 beats per minute.

“I used to gauge my running only on how fast I thought I should be

running. If I was tired, I would push myself as hard as I could to keep my
predetermined pace. When I started heart-rate-based training, I quickly
learned that there were many times that I was pushing myself too hard and
also a few times when I could have pushed myself harder.
My heart rate monitor gives me insights into what my body is capable of in
the moment and then it helps me adjust the intensity of my exercise to match
it. Since using my heart rate monitor, along with the Tignum ESD program,
I have run my personal best 10K and half marathon. Even more important
to me, I haven’t gotten sick or injured one time.”
Tignum Client

How to Implement ESD Training

Once you have computed your three sets of training zone heart rates, you
are ready to get started. Even though it is not required, we recommend that
you purchase a heart rate monitor to make your training sessions as
effective and productive as possible.

Stage One ESD Training:

for beginners, unconditioned individuals, or anyone who has not done ESD
training before.

_Start slowly and gradually build up to 20 to 60 minutes of Movement

in Zone 1. This can be done by walking, jogging, hiking, swimming,
rowing, bicycling, or any form of Movement that you enjoy. The
longer you move, the more calories you will burn, but please don’t
feel pressured to do more and more time.

_In the beginning, you may only be able to stay in Zone 1 for 5
minutes. Remember, even a marathon can be run 5 minutes at a time.
The big thing is to get moving and to not let your heart rate go above
your Zone 1 range.

_If your heart rate begins creeping up, simply slow down (maybe even
walk slowly) until it drops into your Zone 1 range.

_Similarly, be sure to not let your heart rate fall below your Zone 1
range if you can.

_Ideally, you should repeat Stage One Training three to five times a
week.
Stage Two ESD Training:
for those people who have completed Stage One or have some experience
with ESD training and a moderate level of fitness.

_Begin with a warm-up in Stage One for 5 minutes. During this warm-
up, you should gradually increase the intensity to get your heart rate
into your Zone 1 range, but not above it.

_At the 5-minute mark, increase the intensity of your Movement (for 2
minutes) so that your heart rate increases to your Zone 2 range. It’s
not critical where it is as long as it is within the range. If your heart
rate begins to go too high, simply slow down and reduce the intensity
so that your body can lower your heart rate.

_At the end of 2 minutes in Zone 2, slow down and reduce your
intensity for 3 minutes so your heart rate can return to your Zone 1
range. Be sure not to let your heart rate fall below your Zone 1 range.
Make a mental note of how quickly your heart rate returns to your
Zone 1 because your ultimate goal will be to recover faster.

_Repeat this sequence of Zone 2 (2 minutes) and Zone 1 (3 minutes) for

as much time as you have in this training session. Preferably you can
repeat this sequence three to five times.

_At the end of your session, be sure to end with 3 to 5 minutes in Zone
1 for a cool-down.

Stage Three ESD Training:

for those people who have completed Stage Two ESD training or are very
fit.

_Begin with a warm-up in Stage One for 5 minutes. During this warm-
up, you should gradually increase the intensity to get your heart rate
into your Zone 1 range but not above it.

_At the 5-minute mark, increase the intensity of your Movement (for 1
minute) so that your heart rate increases to your Zone 2 range. It is not
 critical where it is as long as it is within the range. If your heart rate
begins to go too high, simply slow down and reduce the intensity so
that your body can lower your heart rate.

_At the end of 1 minute in Zone 2, increase your Movement intensity

for an additional 30 seconds. Initially, your heart rate may not reach
your Zone 3 range but with some practice, it will.

_At the end of your 30 seconds in Zone 3, slow down and reduce your
intensity for 2 minutes so your heart rate can return to Zone 1. Be sure
not to let your heart rate fall below your Zone 1 range. Make a mental
note how quickly your heart rate returns to your Zone 1 range because
your ultimate goal will be to recover faster.

_Repeat this sequence of Zone 2 (1 minute), Zone 3 (30 seconds) and

Zone 1 (2 minutes) for as much time as you have in this training
session. Preferably, repeat this sequence three to five times.

_At the end of your session, be sure to end with 3 to 5 minutes in Zone
1 for a cool-down.

Perfection Is Not a Worthy Goal

I often meet high performers that think that the only satisfaction they can
ever celebrate and enjoy is being perfect. While I’m a huge advocate of
never-ending improvement, I’m a firm believer that nothing destroys
progress like perfectionism. I have found that behind most perfectionists is
an underlying fear that is neither healthy nor productive.
When I work with clients who are in the process of their personal
innovation, the ones who are most successful are the ones who successfully
manage their fears. The biggest fear that must be overcome is the fear that
they may not accomplish every goal they have set. Although this fear is
normal, especially in the beginning, I try to help them realize that every
step towards their goal is an accomplishment.
I remember one client who rated her day on Movement only 5 on a scale of
10, because she only got to run five miles and she wanted to run eight miles.
On a perfect day (a fictional thing that really doesn’t exist), her goal may
have been to run eight miles; yet, on that busy and chaotic day, her
accomplishment of running five miles was truly amazing. The problem is
that with her old thinking she would have skipped the five-mile run because
it was short of her “perfect” goal.
However, once she overcame her fear of not being perfect, she learned to
take each day in stride and to celebrate each step she made towards her
personal innovation. Several months later, she ran her personal best half
marathon but even more importantly, she had achieved most of her goals in
Mindset, Nutrition, and Recovery, as well.
Performance living is about setting meaningful goals, developing a
reasonable and achievable plan, training smart rather than hard, being
consistent in doing simple things savagely well, and celebrating and
enjoying your progress towards your potential.
Overcoming any fears you may have of not being perfect is the first step
towards a new level of performance living that you will truly enjoy.
Tignum Blog

Level 4 – Build Sustainability Through Functional Strength

Be prepared for your daily demands and sustain your high

performance.

In this level, we introduce the Tignum strength workout to build the

functional strength that you can use to make your activities of daily living
easier. This work-out is designed to help you develop or maintain your
muscle mass so that you can increase your metabolism and decrease your
risk of injury. We also call it our No Excuse Workout since it is time-
efficient, involves minimal equipment, and can be done anywhere.

In strength training there is a term “absolute strength,” which represents the

absolute number of pounds (kilograms) that can be lifted one time. For
powerlifters and some strength-based sports this may be necessary, but for
executives, it’s probably not. This is why we work with and use the term
functional strength in Level 4 of our Tignum Movement System.
“Functional strength” is about making it easier for you to perform your
activities of daily living.

Daily living activities may include climbing stairs, getting in and out of
your car, lifting a box in the office, or carrying your child at home. The
smart approach is to spend the time to build the strength that you will need
to be more efficient everywhere in your life. Nothing more and nothing less.

This type of functional training, through our No Excuse Workout, provides

you with all of the benefits of traditional strength (resistance) training such
as:

_increased muscular strength and muscular endurance

_enhanced bone density
_faster metabolism
_improved body composition

It also improves your coordination, core stability, and calorie expenditure

while reducing your risk of getting injured and suffering from joint pain.
This means that you not only move more efficiently, but it takes less effort
for you to perform your activities of daily living. This leaves more energy
for you to perform at work, as well as away from work.

We have found that many executives have not done any strength
(resistance) Movement prior to working with Tignum. Because of this, their
muscle mass has markedly decreased since they were in their mid-20s. For
females, this decrease is often more exaggerated because they don’t have
the levels of testosterone that males have. This may not seem like a big
deal, but it actually is more significant than you may realize. Muscle mass
is a major contributor to your basal metabolic rate. This means the more
muscle mass you have, the more calories you will burn 24 hours a day,
seven days a week, 52 weeks a year.

The American Council on Exercise proclaims: “For each decade after the
age of 25, 3-5% of muscle mass is lost.” This is due to changes in lifestyle
and a decreased use of the neuromuscular system. However, studies have
shown significant gains in previously sedentary older adults following a
program of regular strength training. In short, if you don’t use it, you will
lose it. But more importantly, if you begin now, you can turn back the
atrophying effects of age.

Our No Excuse Workout uses minimal equipment so you can complete it

anywhere. Whether you’re on the road, stuck in your office, or at home,
with a couple of bands or portable rubber tubes, you can complete our
entire workout. This doesn’t mean that you can’t use weights or other
equipment, but it does mean that it isn’t a requirement.

Our system is also time-efficient. We realize that you are usually stretched
thin for time. Therefore, we designed our program to use your time
effectively and to actually deliver the benefits that, in some programs,
require hours of exercise to achieve. By using full body exercises with a
circuit design, you will not only develop better functional strength but also
burn more calories and develop additional cardiovascular conditioning.

In our approach, every exercise trains your entire body from your legs to
your core to your upper body. This is the way your body works in the real
world, so we believe it should be trained this same way. It is also the reason
why you will notice immediate benefits in your Movement for daily
activities.

Integrate the Tignum Levels of Movement

A frequent question that we are asked is how often to incorporate these four
Tignum Levels of Movement. Our answer is two-fold and based upon your
answers to the following questions:

What is your current level of overall stress?

What benefits do you wish to attain?

If your overall level of stress is high and you feel overwhelmed, exhausted,
apathetic, unable to sleep well, short-fused, or extremely unfit, then you
should remain in Level 1 and Level 2 until you begin to feel better. You can
perform these levels every day, and you will see and feel the results within a
couple of weeks.

Once you are feeling better, or if you are full of energy and have good
health to begin with, we recommend that you implement all four levels
immediately. Contrary to what you might think, this will not take a huge
amount of time, but it will require some consistency. The following are
Tignum recommendations on how often to incorporate these levels of
Movement into your weekly schedule:

Level 1 – Increase Blood Flow and Enhance Your Immune System, Daily

Level 2 – Improve Your Mobility, Stability, and Balance

Three to five times a week (15 minutes each session)

Level 3 – Expand Your Capacity Through ESD

Two to five times a week (15 to 30 minutes each session)

Level 4 – Build Sustainability Through Functional Strength

Two to three times a week (10 to 30 minutes each session)

Go to www.tignum.com/sinkfloatswim and log in with the password

“swimmer” to view the specific exercises in our No Excuse Workout and
our recommendations for the integration of Tignum Levels of Movement.

Evaluate Your Movement Habits

Whether you’re an athlete or not, the fact is that your body was built to
move. If you lead a sedentary life, there is no way that you are generating
the energy, resilience, brain performance, and capacity that you need. The
Tignum program is not about becoming a triathlete, a marathoner, a
competitive athlete, or even a fitness buff. It is about making the link
between your brain and your body, achieving your potential, and feeling
and performing better both at work and away from work. Too often people
see Movement as something they did when they were younger, but now it is
just too difficult, too time-consuming, or just a nice-to-do. Nothing can be
further from the truth.

Do you want to sink, float, or swim?

The choice is always yours.

You have Movement habits that will make you sink if you:

_avoid moving at all costs

_take the elevator even if you are just going up one flight of stairs
_always circle the parking lot looking for the closest parking spot
_always use the people-mover at the airport rather than walk
_sit at your desk for more than two hours at a time without getting up
to move
_sit for an entire flight rather than getting up and stretching
_do not do any regular Movement or stretching at all
_are consistently in pain and don’t do anything about it
_can’t bend over and touch your toes while keeping your legs straight
_can’t walk up one flight of stairs without being out of breath
_have trouble getting in and out of your car
_watch more than five hours of television on weekend days
_ignore the signs that your body sends you regarding under- or
overdoing it
_never use Movement to prepare for meetings
_are unaware that Movement is linked to your work performance
_only perceive Movement as related to health

You have Movement habits to enable you to float if you:

_are aware of opportunities to move but rarely act on them

_take the stairs only when you have to
_sometimes park farther away so that you have to walk, but not often
_usually take the people-mover at the airport, but not always
_sometimes sit for more than two hours before getting up to move
_only get up occasionally during long flights to stretch and move
_do regular Movement only two to three times per week
_stretch only when you’re sore
_do some (resistance) strength training but inconsistently
_only do Movement activities on weekends
_plan to get Movement in regularly but then don’t make it a priority, so
it usually doesn’t happen
_only do cardiovascular training but no resistance (strength) or
mobility Movement
_only do resistance (strength) training
_jump into an exercise program that is way over your head
_set exercise goals such as a marathon or half marathon, but then train
only partially or improperly
_train hard rather than smart
_believe that if there is no pain, there is no gain
_occasionally prepare for meetings by using Movement
_perceive Movement as somewhat important but don’t make its
connection to performance

You have Movement habits to swim if you:

_always look for opportunities to move and do it

_choose to take the stairs whenever possible rather than the elevator
_or escalator
_choose to walk rather than use the people-mover at airports
_rarely sit for more than 90 minutes before getting up to move
_regularly get up during long flights to stretch and move
_use Movement daily to increase blood flow, enhance immune
function,
_and reduce pain
_activate your nervous system with a morning Movement routine
 _at least five days per week
_use self-massage techniques on most days to eliminate muscle pain
_and tension and to improve blood flow
_integrate Movement to improve mobility, stability, and balance
_into your daily schedule
_use functional resistance training two to three times per week
_use interval training at least two times per week
_train smart rather than hard
_are aware of the signals your body sends you regarding the need for
_Movement and rest
_prepare for almost all meetings by energizing yourself with some
_Movement
_recognize that Movement is linked to your brain performance and
_your overall performance
_integrate Movement with Mindset, Nutrition, and Recovery strategies
to
_improve and sustain your high performance at work and away from
work

Develop Your Performance Movement Goals

The sustainable High Performance Movement strategies presented in this

chapter are designed to be integrated with our Performance Mindset,
Performance Nutrition, and Performance Recovery strategies. These
Movement strategies alone will not necessarily make you a high performer
or increase the sustainability of your performance. In fact, the limiting
factor of overcoming most sedentary habits is developing the right Mindset.
If you can’t envision yourself as loving to move, it won’t happen. The four
Tignum pillars of sustainable high performance are intricately interwoven
and dependent upon each other. The true power of personal innovation
comes with the integration of Mindset, Nutrition, Movement, and Recovery
habits.
In order to take everything you have learned and create High Performance
Movement, you need to develop Movement goals that are meaningful to
you. To begin this process, consider the following questions:

What three action steps can you take now to help you improve your
Movement?

If you were to have a High Performance Movement day, what kinds of

activities would you incorporate?

How will you use High Performance Movement strategies to positively

impact your business meetings and must-win events?

How will you use Movement strategies to increase your energy,

resilience, brain performance, and capacity for sustainable high
performance?
Section V
Without Rest We All Sink

Performance Recovery – purposefully oscillating and

regenerating to develop your energy, resilience, brain
performance, and capacity to enhance your passion and
purpose and produce sustainable success
Chapter Thirteen
Regenerate and Recharge to Swim

Make Recovery a Strategic-Must

What Are You All Stressed Out About?
Recognize the Stress Cycle
The ANS Balancing Act
The Tignum Performance Recovery System

Chapter Fourteen
Sleep, Breathe, and Laugh to Swim

Level 1 – Eliminate Sleep Deprivation

Techniques That Will Put You to Sleep
Level 2 – Rebalance and Reenergize
Breathing Takes Practice
Laugh Your Way to Recovery

Chapter Fifteen
Swimming Is A Rhythm

Level 3 – Strategically Oscillate

The Benefits of Relieving Tension
Use Nutrition for Performance Recovery
Incorporate Movement for Performance Recovery
Evaluate Your Recovery Habits
Develop Your Performance Recovery Goals
 Chapter Thirteen
Regenerate and Recharge to Swim

The unchallenged myth that only the weak need recovery has contributed to
the downward spiral of productivity and explosive burnout rates in the
business world.

When you look at top athletes and what prevents them from achieving their
potential, you will rarely find that they aren’t working hard enough. They
may not always be working on the right things, but they are usually
working as hard as they can. Instead, what they usually are not doing is
paying enough attention to their Recovery and regeneration. This prevents
their bodies and minds from benefiting from the training they are doing.

The same is true in the business world. Often high performing executives
think of Recovery as something that only the weak need. This myth has
helped fuel the increasing loss in productivity, decreasing effectiveness and
performance, and rising burnout rates. By shifting paradigms and defining
Recovery as a critical performance strategy, burnout can be prevented and
sustainable high performance can be achieved.

When you walk into the Arizona training facility of our world-class training
partner Athletes’ Performance, the first thing you notice is that there is an
area dedicated to work and an area dedicated to rest. Do they create this rest
area because their athletes are lazy and need a place to lie around? Of
course not. They have created space for both work and Recovery because
they understand that physiologically the body (and the mind) requires
adequate rest to perform its best. In other words, rest is a strategic part of
their high performance formula.

Make Recovery a Strategic-Must

Ironically, when you look at the business world, there is very little
understanding of the physiological need for Recovery. Even the best
business schools in the world are just beginning to comprehend that
working harder and harder is not necessarily sustainable or more
productive. But unlike Athletes’ Performance, these schools have not yet
recognized Recovery as a strategic-must.

When you hear the word “recovery,” you may think of taking a vacation,
working less hours, or just saying no to new projects. Or perhaps recovery
for you means a program that people go through when they have an
addiction and want to get better. Our clients’ initial responses to recovery
are even more illuminating.

Many feel that Recovery is:

_for weak people

_something to worry about when they hit the wall
_for lazy people
_for people who aren’t very busy
_for people who aren’t real go-getters
_totally unproductive time
_a form of procrastination

However, we disagree with these responses and firmly believe that

Recovery is an essential component of sustainable high performance. And
so, we must reiterate: Recovery is a strategic-must.

Just as a Formula One car must make pit stops if it wants to win, so must a
high performing executive. But just like a race car, these executive “pit
stops” must be quick, highly productive, and strategic. The Recovery
strategies that we have developed are just that—time-efficient and effective
—done in your office, sitting in a meeting, or standing in line at the airport.
We see Performance Recovery as an integral part of working smart.

Because of the many preconceived negative ideas about Recovery, it is

important to first focus on your Mindset. In order to change your thoughts,
and ultimately your habits, you need to consider all the benefits that
Performance Recovery strategies will give you. These benefits include:

_improved energy
_decreased muscle tension and joint pain
_strengthened immune function
_heightened clarity
_enhanced mood stability
_increased creativity (right-brain functioning)
_expanded capacity
_better job satisfaction
_more passion for life!

Which of these benefits will personally help you to be more productive, at

work and away from work?

Do you strategically plan for your Recovery or do you leave it chance?

How do you know when you need more Recovery?

In 1931, Dr. Hans Selye developed the General Adaptation Syndrome

(GAS), which described the disastrous performance and health
consequences of being placed under constant stress without adequate and
frequent Recovery. He also introduced the concept of oscillation where a
person who is stressed is then provided strategies to fully recover from
these periods of stress.

Further research by Selye led to the development of the supercompensation

theory (commonly used in peak performance). Researchers have found that
when people are placed under a progressive stress overload interlaced with
active Recovery periods, they not only recover to their previous levels, but
actually recover at higher (more advanced) performance levels. This
discovery has led to the current periodized (or oscillating) method of
training athletes, in which Recovery is considered as important as the
intensity and amount of overload (training).
“I have attended several high performance programs. They all stressed the
need to get more motivated, to push yourself harder, and to work through
the pain (no pain–no gain approach). I was always excited after these
programs, but my motivation died out because the strategies just weren’t
sustainable.
I think my biggest take-away from Tignum is how important recovery is for
my performance.
I always thought that taking a break was something that my weaker
colleagues needed. Now, I realize that making my personal recovery a
priority is the most important thing that I can do to be a sustainable high
performer. It is the foundation of my performance.
Since adding a few simple and short recovery breaks, I feel more
productive, more focused, and definitely less stressed. It has also been funny
to see my colleagues’ reactions because the last thing they ever thought
they’d see was a workaholic like me taking a break to go for a short walk or
do a breathing technique. But even they admit that they like this new me.
I’m way less reactive, much calmer, easier to be around, and I definitely get
more done.”
Tignum Client

What Are You All Stressed Out About?

Whether you are an athlete or a corporate executive, one of the main factors
to how well you can perform and how long you can sustain your
performance is dependent upon how well you can recover from stress. The
first step to implementing Performance Recovery strategies is to understand
where your stress comes from.

Often people are unaware of how much stress they are under. There are
many different types of stressors that affect your overall stress load and
challenge your autonomic nervous and hormonal systems to remain in
balance. Becoming aware of where your stress is coming from is essential
to being able to develop your own Recovery strategies.

Stressors
Environmental:

_temperature extremes >32 °C or <0 °C

_humidity >?60% or <?20%
_altitude change (any change over 300 meters in past week)
_pollution (air, water, electromagnetic fields)

Psychological/Social:

_conflicts with boss or co-worker

_overwhelmed at work
_organizational change (policies, procedures, focus)
_change of job
_change in living arrangement
_doing home improvements
_attending school
_boredom
_lack of true friends/support
_lack of fun and enjoyment
_taking a vacation
_new baby
_child going to college
_separation or divorce
_family member in poor health
_loss of a family member or close friend
_mortgage 80-90% of market value
_high debt

Physiological/Biochemical:

_high-sugar diet
_high-gluten diet
_low-protein diet
 _taking prescription or over-the-counter medications
_asthma
_cold or flu
_intestinal parasites
_fungal infection (yeast, athlete’s foot)
_diabetes
_high blood pressure
_sleep deprivation
_sleep disorder (apnea, restless leg syndrome)
_alcohol (more than 14 drinks/week)

Anatomical/Structural:

_poor posture
_current injury
_lower back or neck pain
_any consistent pain
_recent surgery
_intense exercise >4 days/week

In reviewing this list, consider where your stress comes from:

Which three stressors produce the most stress for you?

What additional sources of stress do you have in your life?

What are you currently doing to manage these stressors?

Can you manage all of your current stressors?

Recognize the Stress Cycle

Our bodies are built for short intermittent bursts of stress. With each
stressor, the body responds to enhance its chances of high performance and
short-term survival. The system is perfectly designed as long as your body
gets adequate Recovery between bouts of stress to rebuild itself. In fact,
acute stress makes you stronger, but chronic stress (an absence of
Recovery) tears you down. The stress response is a combination of the
nervous and endocrine systems’ responses through a complex system called
the HPA (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal) axis. This axis is not designed for
constant stress, but rather for short bursts of stress with adequate Recovery.
During this Recovery, the hormones are rebalanced and the feedback
receptor sensitivity is reset.

Selye identified the stress cycle and its relationship to the HPA axis when
he saw people getting ill from the stress they experienced during the tough
times of the depression. In 1956, he published a book, which has since been
updated and republished, called The Stress of Life. Selye proposed a three-
stage response to stress—alarm, resistance, and exhaustion—and described
an array of illnesses caused by stress.

The Alarm Phase

People experience stress differently in their bodies. Some feel it as neck or

back tightness or pain. Some may experience indigestion or heartburn. Still
others get headaches or ringing in the ears (tinnitus). The more aware you
are of where your body feels stress, the better you will become at
responding early to rebalance your autonomic nervous system.
Symptoms of the Alarm Phase include:
_increase in heart rate
_increase in respirations
_decrease in pain
_heightened awareness
_improved focus
_improved performance

The Resistance Phase

Initially, the body responds perfectly to stress, and in fact, performance is

enhanced. If there is an opportunity to oscillate (recover from the stress),
performance continues to be enhanced and the body remains healthy. If
there is not adequate Recovery, performance is compromised and the body
will move into the resistance phase.

As you move into resistance, symptoms include:

_dry mouth and skin
_nervous stomach or heartburn
_tiredness
_breaks in concentration
_difficulty falling asleep
_early morning wake-ups with racing thoughts
_sweet cravings
_coffee cravings
_agitated feelings
_decreased patience
_slight depression

Moving further into resistance but not quite into exhaustion, symptoms
include:
_nervousness, shakiness, cold feeling
_heart palpitations
 _lightheadedness when quickly standing up
_constipation with occasional diarrhea
_frequent wake-ups during middle of night or insomnia
_difficulty getting up in the morning
_food cravings (high in sugar, fat, and salt)
_coffee cravings
_alcohol cravings
_lethargic except immediately after eating
_weight gain (especially around the waist)
_amenorrhea (women)
_decreased immune system (get more frequent colds, flu, skin lesions)
_inability to recover from exercise (muscle and joint pain, tired
muscles)
_unexplainable fatigue even after a good night of sleep
_unexplained muscular pain syndromes (low back pain, neck pain,
elbow pain)
_decreased sex drive
_mood swings
_apathy
_overreactive temper
_brain fog
_avoidance of conflict or challenge

The Exhaustion Phase

The problem is that with constant stress, your HPA axis may remain out of
balance, and you sink, sometimes permanently, into the exhaustion phase.
At this stage, cortisol levels are so high feedback loops become less
sensitive, and you become more susceptible to these imbalances. Prolonged
stress specifically devastates the endocrine, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal,
neurological, and immune systems. High blood cortisol levels also disrupt
the circadian rhythms and elevate blood glucose levels, both of which
further fatigue. This may ultimately lead to chronic fatigue, chronic
inflammatory diseases, and even death.
As you move into exhaustion (burnout), symptoms include:
_myocardial contractures (permanent deformation of heart muscle
cells)
_illness, some of which is possibly irreversible (ulcers, tinnitus,
diabetes, hypertension, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, cancer,
dementia, and congestive heart failure)
_loss of memory
_depression
_sudden death

The following client story highlights how even minor stress can turn into
burnout if you fail to take Recovery breaks and don’t pay close attention to
the symptoms:

“When I developed burnout I never saw it coming. I didn’t go through a

major event such as a divorce, a job loss, or a death in my family. I had the
‘normal’ stress of being a corporate comptroller. As I eventually found out
from my doctor, my problem was that I simply never got a break. I just
went from one project, one stressor, to the next.

To make matters worse, because it gradually accumulated, I never paid

attention to the stress in my body. It snuck up on me. Had I been more
aware of what I was feeling, I would have recognized the danger I was in.

I am a high potential in my company and I have always been a high

performer. I was the last person I ever thought would experience burnout.”

The ANS Balancing Act

Your body has a nervous system that automatically deals with everything
that is going on at this moment. This is called the autonomic nervous
system (ANS), which is made up of a sympathetic nervous system (the gas
pedal) and a parasympathetic nervous system (the brakes). The balance of
these systems is critical to maintaining your energy and arousal levels, your
physical response to stress, and ultimately your performance and health.
These two primary systems, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic, both
have a purpose and a function. When a stress (challenge) occurs, the
sympathetic nervous system quickly prepares your body to respond. It does
this by immediately causing the release of adrenaline (epinephrine and
norepinephrine) which increases heart rate, blood pressure, respiratory
rates, and focus. It also causes the release of the stress hormone cortisol to
help reduce pain and inflammation. All of this is designed for the short-term
immediate response to fight or run from a stressor.

Sympathetic
_fight or flight (or freeze)
_break down for action
_trade the long-term needs for immediate needs

The parasympathetic nervous system keeps everything in check. It is

responsible for relaxation, regeneration, and restoring the body to its pre-
stress condition.

Parasympathetic
_rest and digest
_build up for the next fight or flight
_recovery for long-term needs

Neither system is good or bad; in fact, they are both needed. Your body
works to stay in balance, but current work environments and societal
demands tend to over-stimulate your sympathetic system and under-
stimulate your parasympathetic system. This imbalance robs your body of
energy and weakens your immune system. Remember that the immune
system is built for a long-term response from diseases that take time to
develop. However, it will be sacrificed for a more immediate short-term
emergency if necessary.

Many people talk about stress management, and it’s even become a cliché
to say to someone: “You must be under too much stress.” The problem is
that this statement doesn’t take into account that you cannot always control
(or manage) the challenges and demands that you face on a daily basis. And
sometimes, telling people to manage their stress becomes an additional
stressor.

This is why we think it’s really more about ANS balance. It’s about
working with the framework of how your body is built to respond to the
stressors you face. Our strategies are all designed to synergistically create
ANS balance, which will ultimately help you have sustainable high
performance, more energy, and better health.

Stress to Perform Your Best

Every day I turn on the news, and there is always a story about fighting
stress or how to avoid having too much stress in your life. The problem
with this approach is that it fails to recognize that we actually need
stress.
We need stress? Does this shock you?
That’s right. We need stress to perform our best. In fact, the body is
designed to meet challenges with energy, focus, passion, and power.
There is an excellent description of this response in Mihály
Csíkszentmihályi’s bestselling book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal
Experience.
He succinctly describes flow—a high performance state where peak
performance is unconscious and even effortless. In the athletic world, it
is sometimes known as being in the zone. Interestingly enough, one of
the most important components of getting into your flow is to have a
challenge greater than your norm. And, what is a challenge greater
than your norm? It’s stress. You got it—stress can bring out the best in
you.
What an interesting paradox: The key to sustainable high performance
and getting in the flow is not to eliminate stress. Instead, you need to
create Mindset, Nutrition, Movement, and Recovery habits that will
ensure the positive use of stress for sustainable high performance. How
good are your habits?
Tignum Blog
 The Tignum Performance Recovery System

Our system focuses on teaching practical strategies to rebalance the ANS to

avoid adrenal insufficiency, exhaustion, or collapse, and to support the brain
and the body for high performance. The foundation of this work is
increasing self-awareness to the body’s natural oscillatory cycles such as
the sleep cycle and circadian rhythms.

So, how can you perform your best even when you’re under intense
pressure? The key is to implement strategies that will maximize your body’s
normal rhythms.

Our Tignum Performance Recovery System is designed to do just that

and consists of three levels:

_Eliminate Sleep Deprivation

_Rebalance and Reenergize
_Strategically Oscillate

In each level, we help leaders design and incorporate the most effective
strategies for their individual needs. Much research has been done on each
of these areas, but the important thing is that you understand these concepts
and how easily they can be implemented into your daily life to improve
your High Performance Recovery.

Consider the following:

How do you define Recovery?

How do you know when you need a Recovery break?

When are the best times in your day to implement Recovery breaks?
 Chapter Fourteen
Sleep, Breathe, and Laugh to Swim

If there was a magic pill that could improve your performance, raise your
energy level, improve your mental alertness, enhance your immune system,
slow the aging process, help prevent obesity, and reduce the risk of
premature death, would you take it?

The fact is that there is such a pill and you take it every night. It’s called
sleep but unfortunately you probably take too little. In fact, research
suggests that 74% of adults report that they do not get enough sleep and
46% may have significant sleep deprivation.

Level 1 – Eliminate Sleep Deprivation

Sleep is nature’s way of regularly providing regeneration to the brain and

the body. This first level includes strategies to help you fall asleep, as well
as improve your quality of sleep.

During the first three hours of sleep, your body secretes the greatest amount
of growth hormone to help itself repair the damage that occurred throughout
the day. This may explain why it is so exhausting to be awakened during the
initial stage of sleep. Early researchers believed that sleep cycles occurred
every 90 minutes and that healthy sleep should therefore fit into these 90-
minute blocks.

Current sleep research shows, however, that sleep cycles actually vary
throughout the night, with the first and final stages lasting close to an hour,
and the middle stages lasting up to two hours. This finding is important
because in its quest to eliminate sleep debt, the body actually adjusts the
length and number of sleep cycles based upon its needs each night. This is
why consistent sleep patterns (bedtime and wake time) are the most
conducive to restorative sleep, and inconsistent sleep patterns (like those of
a traveling corporate executive) are the most likely to lead to sleep
deprivation.

Business Travel Statistics (British Airways, July 2005):

How has lack of sleep from business travel affected work?
_23% of business travelers stated that they fell asleep in a meeting
_18% stated that a presentation went badly
_14% missed a meeting or flight

Following are some general tips to help you fall asleep quickly and improve
the quality of your sleep:

Go to bed and awaken at the same time every day including weekends.
When you alter your bedtime, you often awaken in the middle of a sleep
cycle and do not feel refreshed. A regular waking time in the morning
strengthens the circadian function and can help with sleep onset at night.

Establish a regular, relaxing bedtime routine such as breathing

exercises, reading a book, or listening to soothing music. A relaxing,
routine activity right before bedtime conducted away from bright lights
helps separate your sleep time from activities that can cause excitement,
stress, or anxiety. Avoid arousing activities before bedtime like working,
paying bills, engaging in competitive games, or family problem-solving. In
addition, avoid exposure to bright lights 30 minutes before bedtime because
it signals the neurons that help control the sleep-wake cycle that it is time to
awaken, not to sleep.

Create a sleep-conducive environment that is dark, quiet, comfortable,

cool, and free of interruptions. Make your bedroom reflective of the value
you place on sleep. Check your room for noise or other distractions, such as
your bed partner’s snoring, noisy appliances, traffic noise, light, and a dry
or excessively hot environment. Consider using blackout curtains, eye
shades, ear plugs, white noise, humidifiers, fans, or other sleep devices.

Sleep on a comfortable mattress and pillow. Make sure your mattress is

comfortable and supportive. The one you have been using for years may
have exceeded its life expectancy, which is about seven or eight years for
most good quality mattresses. Use comfortable pillows and make the room
attractive and inviting for sleep but also free of allergens that might affect
you.

Use your bedroom only for bedroom activities. It is best to take work
materials, computers, and televisions out of the sleeping environment. Use
your bed only for sleep and sex to strengthen the association between bed
and sleep. If you associate a particular activity or item with anxiety about
sleeping, eliminate it from your bedtime routine. For example, if looking at
a bedroom clock makes you anxious about how much time you have before
you must get up, move the clock out of sight.

Limit heavy eating within two hours before your regular bedtime.
Eating or drinking too much may make you less comfortable when settling
down for bed. It is best to avoid a heavy meal too close to bedtime. Also,
spicy foods may cause heartburn, which leads to difficulty falling asleep
and discomfort during the night. A small, well-balanced snack before
bedtime can help improve the quality of your sleep. It is also best to restrict
fluids close to bedtime to prevent nighttime awakenings to go to the
bathroom. However, some people find milk or herbal, caffeine-free teas to
be soothing and a helpful part of their bedtime routine.

Exercise regularly but avoid intense workouts within two hours before
bedtime. Exercising regularly makes it easier to fall asleep and contributes
to sounder sleep. However, exercising sporadically or right before going to
bed may make falling asleep more difficult. In addition to making you more
alert, your body temperature rises during exercise and takes as much as six
hours to begin to drop. A cooler body temperature is associated with sleep
onset. Finish your exercise at least two hours before bedtime. Late
afternoon exercise is the perfect way to help you fall asleep at night.

Avoid caffeine (coffee, tea, soda, chocolate) close to bedtime. Caffeine

products remain in the body on average from three to five hours, but they
can affect some people up to 12 hours later. Even if you do not think
caffeine affects you, it may be disrupting and changing the quality of your
sleep. Avoiding caffeine within six to eight hours of going to bed can help
improve sleep quality.

Avoid nicotine (cigarettes, tobacco products) close to bedtime. Because

nicotine is a stimulant, smoking before bedtime makes it more difficult to
fall asleep. You also experience withdrawal symptoms from nicotine, which
causes sleep problems. In addition, nicotine can cause problems waking in
the morning and may also cause nightmares. Difficulty sleeping is just one
more reason to quit smoking.

Avoid alcohol close to bedtime. Although it may help you to fall asleep,
alcohol actually alters your sleep patterns and can lead to a less restful
sleep. When the alcohol wears off in the middle of the night, your brain
thinks it’s time to wake up. Alcohol is also a diuretic and the need to urinate
may also make you wake up.

Techniques That Will Put You to Sleep

There are many common recommendations for getting better sleep, and we
have found the following techniques to work quite well for our clients.
Besides improving the quality and quantity of your sleep, they will also
help rebalance your ANS.

Progressive Relaxation
Progressive relaxation (originally developed by Edmund Jacobson, PhD) is
a highly effective technique to help you relax and fall asleep when you have
muscle tension. It works on the theory that opposites can’t coexist.
Therefore, if you are tense you create more tension until the only option is
to completely relax. In progressive relaxation, you tense the muscles
starting at the feet and then hold that contraction for a count of 10. At the
end of this contraction, your muscles will be tired of being tense, and you
will then be able to fully relax them. As you systematically move up from
your feet, repeat this contract-and-relax method for all the major muscles in
your body. It should be noted that many of our clients never make it through
their entire body because they fall asleep before they are finished.
Autogenic Relaxation
Autogenic relaxation (developed by German psychiatrist Johannes Schultz)
is a technique to help you relax and fall asleep when you can’t turn your
mind off. It takes advantage of the fact that your brain wants something to
think about so it strategically obliges it. By using autogenic suggestions
(verbal cues and images), you focus on one area of the body and then
consciously connect your breathing and relaxing thoughts to that area.
Autogenic relaxation is also a great technique for relieving pain or tension
in a particular part of the body and for encouraging natural healing.

Mental Imagery Techniques

Changing your thoughts before you go to bed is often a necessity in order to
help your body relax.

Do you find yourself lying in bed with your mind racing?

Are you thinking of tomorrow and all the tasks that you have to do?

Whether you know it or not, your thoughts are creating the release of a
cascade of stress hormones. This not only reduces the quality of your sleep,
it also destroys your performance and damages your health.

Performing a mental imagery exercise like envisioning a restful image or

place, or focusing on the things you appreciate from your day has been
proven to be effective for generating quality sleep. One approach that has
been very successful with our clients is mentally visualizing yourself
completely relaxed and melting into your bed. Clients who consistently
wake up in the middle of the night find that this image (calm and deeply
relaxed—the opposite of an image of getting stressed about not being able
to sleep) helps them quickly fall back asleep.

This bedtime ritual is a simple but very powerful technique that many of our
clients use to let go of their day, positively change their Mindset, turn off
their stress response, and improve the quality of their sleep.
Just before you are ready to retire for the evening, lie flat on your bed with
your eyes closed. Take three deep, slow breaths in through your nose and
out through your relaxed lips.
With each breath, focus on your abdomen rising and falling (diaphragmatic
breathing) rather than your chest. Feel your lower back expand and sink
into your bed with each breath.
Now, go backwards and consciously identify all the things that you
appreciate from your day. Examples may include the workout you
completed, the hug you got from your son, the time you spent with your
daughter reading to her, the way you handled an irate client, your
preparations for a strategic meeting, a high performance meal that you ate,
or any other event that resonates positively with you. There are no limits to
what things, people, and events you may appreciate from your day.
Initially, you may only be able to recall two or three things, but as you
practice this ritual, you will remember more and more! The feeling of
appreciation has been shown to improve your entire physiology, to relax
your body, and to rebalance your ANS.
What if you wake up in the middle of the night and your mind is racing
again?
Simply go back to your list of the things you did well during the day and
once again, this technique will work like a charm to put you peacefully back
to sleep.

Power Naps and Strategic Napping

The human body has innate cycles including 24-hour circadian rhythms.
These are crucial for regulating many bodily functions such as hormone
levels, body temperature, and metabolic rate. When you take the time to
track your own circadian rhythms, you will quickly realize that there are
times during the day when you consistently feel tired. There is also a time
when your body is telling you to go to sleep. These rhythms are completely
normal and during these low circadian rhythms, it is a perfect time to take a
power nap.

The US military has studied power naps extensively and their value to
increasing alertness and decreasing fatigue. In general, the high
performance way to nap is to limit naps to no longer than 30 minutes.
Longer naps have been shown to create sleep inertia, which can actually
make you feel sluggish and more fatigued for up to an hour after your nap.
Power naps of 20 minutes or less reenergize you, and they have virtually no
negative impact on your normal nightly sleep cycles.

Naps have also been shown to maintain or improve subsequent

performance, physiological and subjective alertness, and mood. In fact,
British Airways requires their pilots to take a nap on transoceanic flights to
make them more alert for landing.

Nap Times
to quickly shed sleepiness 1 to 5 minutes
to increase performance 5 to 30 minutes
to make up for lost sleep (away from work) 90+ minutes

Note: The 90-minute nap is a good way to diminish sleep deprivation on the
weekends. It is a full sleep cycle so it shouldn’t cause sleep inertia which
could put a damper on the rest of your day.

Napping Enhances Productivity!

An afternoon nap increases productivity by 35% and decision-making
ability by up to 50%. Source: NASA

Level 2 – Rebalance and Reenergize

In the second level, we work on rebalancing and reenergizing your brain

and body through active Recovery techniques that will give you more
energy, passion, focus, and enthusiasm at work and away from work. These
strategies include breathing techniques, laughter, and reenergizing
movement. The techniques are simple, require little or no planning, and can
be done any time throughout your day.

As we noted earlier, we want you to think differently about stress and

Recovery. Rather than focusing on stress management, our goal is to help
you rebalance your ANS to tap into the natural regenerative processes. It is
important to remember that the problem isn’t necessarily too much stress;
more often, it’s the absence of oscillation to allow your body and brain to
fully recover.
One of the most natural, efficient, and equipment-free methods to rebalance
and reenergize is through focused breathing. Many people never stop to
think about their breathing, since their bodies are built to breathe
automatically, inhaling a constant source of oxygen and exhaling the waste
product carbon dioxide.

If you think that your breathing cannot have an impact on your

performance, think again. One of our Tignum clients recently shared:
“When I first worked with Tignum, I thought the breathing techniques were
a little hokey. But after practicing them now for several months, I’m
amazed at what a big impact it has on my recovery and performance.”

Take a Deep Breath!

I recently read an article about the power of a strong mindset in race car
drivers. At 200 mph (322 kilometers per hour)—just slightly under the
current speed of business—the unprepared brain will trigger a panicky jolt
of energy that floods the body with adrenalin and cortisol. When this
happens, the natural tendency is to hold your breath, which leads to panic,
and then all reasonable thinking is shut down.
When Patrick Jacobs worked with Indianapolis 500 winner, Gil de Ferran,
he coached him to resist this primal instinct with controlled breathing
techniques learned through prana yoga. This approach demonstrates that
with practice, breathing can help anyone handle stress, think clearly, and
perform her/his best, even under the highest amount of pressure.
If these techniques can be used at 200 mph, they can also be used during a
meeting, during a negotiation, or any time that you need sustainable high
performance.
Tignum Blog

Breathing Takes Practice

Western scientists have identified that breath is the natural balancer of the
ANS. Every inhalation stimulates your sympathetic (fight or flight) nervous
system, and every exhalation stimulates your parasympathetic (Recovery)
nervous system. Learning to breathe properly can create a mini-recovery
break anytime and any place you need it.

In addition, eastern philosophy, for thousands of years, has taught that

breath is the connection between the mind and the body. Many cultures
have practices that revolve around the incredible power of breath, your life
source. There are many different breathing techniques that are used for
various benefits and purposes.

When we work with clients, we teach four different techniques and we

spend time practicing them to proficiency. For the purposes of this book, we
have selected two simple but powerful techniques that are easy to learn and
apply, and that will provide maximum benefits. The key to all breathing
techniques is practice, practice, practice.

Diaphragmatic Breathing
The flow of inhalation and exhalation provides a natural opportunity for a
balance within the ANS. One type of breathing, diaphragmatic breathing,
actually stimulates a parasympathetic nerve called the vagus nerve, which
starts in the brainstem and conveys sensory information to your central
nervous system. The vagus nerve is responsible for a variety of bodily
functions such as your heart rate, sweating, contractions for digestion,
speech, and muscle movement in your mouth.

_To perform diaphragmatic breathing, place your right hand on your chest
and your left hand on your abdomen just above your belly button.
_First breathe normally and become aware of which hand is doing most of
the rising and falling.
_Breathe in and out through your nose.
_After a minute or so, consciously shift your breathing to keep your right
hand (on your chest) almost still while your left hand (on your abdomen)
rises and falls with each inhalation and exhalation.
_As you practice, close your eyes so you can really focus on breathing fully
through your diaphragm.
Diaphragmatic breathing is a simple technique that can be used anytime
anywhere to stimulate your parasympathetic nervous system, rebalance
your ANS, turn on your right brain (creativity), and reduce the effects of
stress. This technique is especially effective in combination with mental
imagery.

Ratio Breathing
Since inhalation stimulates your sympathetic (fight or flight) nervous
system and exhalation stimulates your parasympathetic (calming and
restorative) nervous system, you can vary the response you get by changing
the ratio of inhalation to exhalation. By equalizing your inhalation and
exhalation in both rate and depth, you can bring your ANS back into
balance. This technique is also effective for lowering your heart rate and
improving heart rate variability.
_To perform ratio breathing, first begin with diaphragmatic breathing,
breathing in and out through your nose.
_There are many variations to ratio breathing but a good place to start is
4:4 breathing. Simply inhale for a count of four and then exhale for a
count of four.
_To increase the parasympathetic response (a way to quickly calm
yourself), you can shift to a ratio of 4:8. Simply inhale for a count of four
and then exhale for a count of eight.
_To increase the sympathetic response (a way to increase your energy or
focus), you can shift to a ratio of 8:4. Simply inhale for a count of 8 and
then exhale for a count of 4. This type of pattern is very common for
public speakers who feel they need to psyche themselves up right before
they step up to perform.

As you master ratio breathing, you can begin to increase these numbers as
long as you maintain the proper ratio for the benefits you want to achieve.
This counting is also an excellent way to quiet an overactive mind as you
are forced to concentrate on the count of your breathing as you practice
your ratios. Experiment with these ratios and become aware of the way they
make you feel.
Breathing is a built-in Recovery break that you can take anytime ... while
you are in a negotiation, sitting in traffic, on the phone, or after stressful
interactions. Take control of your oscillation and breathe for high
performance.

“At age 61, odd as it sounds, I have begun to learn to breathe... and it has
saved my life and is helping to save (or at least helping me find) my soul. I
start the morning with Chi Gong, and take 20-minute breathing meditation
breaks twice a day—as well as ‘mini-med’ breaks hourly. Hey, I even
practiced walking breathing-meditation while in the seemingly endless
Denver airport security line last week. And, yikes, it worked.”
Tom Peters, American Business Consultant and Author

Laugh Your Way to Recovery

It is no joke that laughter improves your state of mind and sense of well-
being. And, laughter has also been shown to improve physical health in
various ways. For instance, laughter helps relieve stress by releasing
endorphins and reducing stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. This
results in a feeling of a natural high.

Recent studies have shown that laughter is good for your heart, your body,
and your immune system. When you laugh, your blood vessels expand,
increasing your circulation, ultimately lessening the risk of heart disease.
When you laugh, there is also an increase in the cells that kill tumors and
viruses, and humor has been show to speed up Recovery from illness and
injury.

In addition, when you laugh vigorously out loud, you are forced to breathe
more deeply and your oxygen intake increases. This actually produces deep
relaxation, as well as an energizing effect.

Humor has also been shown to improve creativity and memory. Learning
that is fun or filled with humor is highly effective, and the information
associated with humor is more easily retained. Laughter assists in creativity,
allowing you to be more open to ideas, more innovative, and more artistic.
Furthermore, current studies on humor in the workplace have demonstrated
that laughter also helps in building better relationships with others. In
addition to being a tool for social bonding, laughter also aids in
communication at the office. In fact, companies that have an atmosphere of
humor usually perform better and more consistently. Offices that embrace
humor also tend to be more organized and more equipped to handle
stressful situations.

In one specific study, Chris Robert, assistant professor in Missouri

University’s Robert J. Trulaske Sr. College of Business, along with a
business doctoral student Wan Yan, found that humor has a meaningful
impact on the quality of communication, cohesiveness of relationships, and
overall performance in the workplace.

Robert stated, “The ability to appreciate humor, the ability to laugh and
make other people laugh actually has physiological effects on the body that
cause people to become more bonded.”

The Healing Effects of Laughter

I read a recent Japanese study that examined the effect of laughter on
diabetes patients.
The researchers were measuring the effects of laughter on blood sugar
levels and immune cell function. The study intervention was carried out
over two days.
The first day, participants were exposed to comic videos and during the
laughter, blood samples were taken during three different time periods to
measure blood glucose levels and immune cell response. The next day was
the control day, and no humor was introduced, but the same blood
parameters were measured.
Results revealed that after the period of laughter on the first day, the blood
glucose levels over the course of four hours (even with a meal) were better
controlled and more steady than the day without laughter. The researchers
also reported that on the first day, the increase in natural killer cells
suggested that laughter also could have an impact on the immune system.
The Japanese doctors that conducted the study concluded that the results
add to the growing body of evidence pointing to the healing effects of
laughter.
When we work with our clients, we discuss how laughter can offer Recovery
and rejuvenation to positively impact performance and sustainability. I
always get excited when we can find clinical evidence that is measurable
that links the Tignum strategies to performance enhancement and achieving
optimal health. By employing laughter as a Recovery tool, you can steady
blood sugar and positively impact your immune system—both essential
elements for sustainability and peak performance (mentally and physically).
How do you incorporate laughter into your day? I go to YouTube and get
my chuckles in with all their humorous video clips.
Tignum Blog

You can also smile to rebalance your ANS. Of the 45 muscles in the face,
40 of them are used to make facial expressions. Researchers have identified
over 1,000 facial expressions. These facial expressions provide a window
into your thoughts and emotions. Truly, you do wear your emotions on your
face.

But can you change your emotions and your physiology by changing your
face?

Dr. Paul Ekman, PhD, professor emeritus in the Department of Psychiatry

at the University of California Medical School, believes so. Ekman, better
known for using facial expressions to determine if a person is telling the
truth has been studying the link between facial expressions and emotions
for over 32 years. In one of his studies, he had a group of college students
make different faces. Then he measured their vital signs including blood
pressure and pulse. Sure enough, by simply smiling, participants
experienced decreased blood pressure and heart rates. As Ekman notes:
“Facial expressions aren’t a clue to the mental state; they are the mental
state.”

Have you ever presented in front of a very intense audience, where you
could feel the pressure from their stares, when suddenly you crack a smile
and not only did you change, but so did your audience?
How often do you walk around frowning, deep in thought, while your
sympathetic nervous system is in fight-or-flight mode? Watch how few
people smile as you pass by them. When you become aware of this, you can
try smiling at people and saying hello. This is not only great for them, it’s
great for you.

Every time you smile, you create a Recovery break for yourself. You
rebalance your ANS by reducing cortisol and by decreasing your heart rate
and your blood pressure.

To download sound-file instructions on breathing and relaxation

techniques, go to www.tignum.com/sinkfloatswim and log in with
“swimmer.”

What are simple Recovery strategies that you can begin using today?

How will you know that your Recovery has improved?

On a scale of 1-10, how committed are you to improving your Recovery?

 Chapter Fifteen
Swimming Is A Rhythm

One of the most fundamental principles of exercise is the adaptation

principle. In order for people to get stronger or faster, they need to be sure
that they overload the muscle and then, just as importantly, they must be
sure that the body gets adequate Recovery time. During this Recovery, the
muscles not only repair but the repair supercompensates for the overload it
received, so the muscles actually get stronger in anticipation of future
overloads.

Mentally, you respond exactly the same as you do physically. You need to
be pushed, challenged, and stressed, and with adequate Recovery, your
mind will improve in its capacity to think, focus, and respond quickly. But
if you don’t get the Recovery time that you need, you will not improve, and
in fact, you will get worse. Even if the stress is minimal, without adequate
Recovery, your performance will begin to diminish and eventually you
could burn out.

The typical (linear) approach is to think that the harder you work, the
greater your performance. While this approach does originally work, it
eventually leads to less energy and a weakened immune system. As you
keep trying harder and harder, and working longer and longer, your
performance eventually plateaus and then it declines. Worse yet, your
energy levels decrease and your immune system becomes unable to
adequately protect you. This approach is not sustainable.

Level 3 – Strategically Oscillate

This level requires planning to ensure that you oscillate between work and
Recovery on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. The daily
oscillation involves planning strategic breaks during the day where you
implement our level two techniques. On a weekly basis, it is critical to have
some regeneration time where you can relax, have some fun, and enjoy
being “fully off.” On a monthly and yearly basis, you should ideally plan
vacations where you can allow your mind and body to be fully off for
several days in succession. These breaks are vital to your performance and
your sustainability.

As the diagram below illustrates, the oscillating approach builds in hard

work, along with adequate Recovery. With this approach, performance
continues to improve, burnout is prevented, and you are ready for the next
challenge. In other words, you become a sustainable high performer—a
swimmer.

At this point, you should have developed some useful practical strategies
for Recovery, to oscillate throughout your day, your week, and your month.
The strategies that we’ve covered thus far such as power naps, breathing
techniques, and laughing all provide simple but highly beneficial Recovery
and regeneration opportunities in your day.

Ultimately, our goal is to make Performance Recovery through oscillation a

strategic-must for you. This means you don’t leave it to chance, you don’t
wait for someone else to plan it for you, and you don’t wait until you feel
like you’re losing it. No, you take the proactive and smart approach—you
plan your Recovery.

In addition to the methods we have already presented, there are many other
ways to oscillate. These strategies include self-massage, nutritious snacks,
and even movement breaks.

How will you plan for your oscillation during your upcoming week, month,
or year?

Watch Top Athletes at the Olympics—and Learn!

During the 2008 Olympics, Dara Torres won a silver medal, missing the
gold by only .01 of a second. What was her secret to perform at such a high
level, at the age of 41, against the best swimmers in the world?
The Dara Torres story really resonates with all of us who have jumped past
40 years old. Torres was the oldest swimmer to medal when she was age 33.
But that was already two Olympics ago! Like many of us, she is also a
parent (with all the extra demands that come with that), and like many of
us, she realizes that she doesn’t bounce back like she did at her first inter
national race when she was 14 years old.
After many injuries and setbacks, Torres realized that it wasn’t just about
how hard or how often she trained. She recognized that it was how well she
recovered that really made the difference. The performance strategies that
launched Torres onto that medal stand included training only half as much
as she did in the past, focusing more on stretching and other restorative
modalities, and keeping a mindset that it is the quality of movement that
matters most.
In addition, if you watch Torres before and after her races, and in all her
interviews, she’s always taking advantage of her best relaxation tool—her
smile. She is a fantastic role model for sustainable high performers!
Tignum Blog

The Benefits of Relieving Tension

Massage has been around for centuries. Its ability to increase muscle and
skin temperature, elicit a relaxation response, decrease resting heart rates
and blood pressure, improve mood, and increase the feelings of well-being
have been well established. There are many different types of massage (e.g.,
Swedish, Deep Tissue, Trigger Point, Thai, Hot Stone) and they all offer
these benefits. The important thing is for you to find a good masseuse that
provides you with the style and pressure that you find regenerating.

In Section IV Performance Movement, we introduced tennis ball massage

as a practical way to perform myofascial release on yourself. As we noted,
tennis ball massage will reduce muscle tension and pain, and create an
opportunity to oscillate. Sitting at your desk, you can take off your shoes
and roll the ball under your feet. You can cross your leg and roll the ball
over the tight areas on your lateral hips. Or, you can roll the ball on your
chest or up and down your neck to prevent headaches or neck pain.

These techniques are easy and effective, but they aren’t very common in the
workplace. They aren’t common because most people don’t realize that
using a tennis ball can be a quick performance enhancer, especially when
they’re tense, in pain, or they’ve been diligently working for hours in one
spot.

Use Nutrition for Performance Recovery

Nutrition is a natural Recovery opportunity. Unfortunately, for too many

people, eating can become another stressor. This is because they force feed
themselves at their desks while they do work, they eat so fast that they
forget to swallow (so they can get back to the office), or they eat a meal that
is high in sugar, preservatives, or other performance-reducing ingredients.

Skipping lunch is a badge of courage for many executives. It is viewed as

proof (so you think) to the rest of the team that you are a performer who is
so committed to your work that you have no time to take a lunch break.
This is not smart, it is not sustainable, and it is not the behavior of a
swimmer.

Eating nutrient dense foods will provide your body with the nutrients
necessary to reset your HPA axis and help you avoid the exhaustion phase
of the stress response. Similarly, eating slowly, enjoying your food, and
taking the time to chew your food thoroughly stimulates the
parasympathetic nervous system. Foods rich in tryptophan are excellent for
relaxation. These include seafood, whole grains, eggs, dairy, hazelnuts,
peanuts, soy products, beans, and hummus. Interestingly enough, these
foods are also powerful brain foods. What a high performance way to begin
the second half of your day!

Another place where nutrition can be helpful in Recovery is with quality

sleep. Bedtime snacks that facilitate better sleep include whole grain cereal
with milk (provides calcium and magnesium, as well) or a PBJ (peanut
butter and jelly) sandwich. Lighter meals will give you a more restful sleep
while high fat and large portions will interfere with your sleep. Chamomile
tea is also a natural relaxing herb that is very soothing late at night and an
ancient sleep aid.

“Lunch used to be a necessary evil in my day. I would either skip it

completely to finish my work or I would rush through it so fast that I
couldn’t remember what I ate 10 minutes later. When I learned to think of
my day as two separate days, both starting with a high performance meal,
my thinking really changed. Suddenly lunch became the most important
meal of the second half of my day. When I approached this strategically, it
doubled my performance for my afternoons.
Now I pack a lunch full of high performance foods and I always leave the
office to get a change of scenery. If the weather is nice, I go to the park and
I focus on breathing while I chew my food. Then when I’m done I go for a
brisk walk for 15 or 20 minutes to help my digestion and to get mentally
prepared for my afternoon meetings.
Miraculously, my afternoon dip is gone and my focus, concentration, and
energy level has improved so much. This small shift in my thinking has
really helped.”
Tignum Client

Incorporate Movement for Performance Recovery

Movement is another excellent tool for Recovery. Full body movements can
be very restorative. The increase in circulation, improvement in mobility,
neuro-stimulation, and metabolism of stress hormones are all essential to
achieving Recovery. The Tignum Daily Prep exercises, climbing a few
flights of stairs, or simply going for a walk are all effective Movement
strategies to enhance Recovery.

There are many benefits of going for a walk when you are feeling stressed.
A walk provides more than a change in scenery; it also improves the blood
flow to the brain and stimulates the right brain. It may be difficult to believe
that something as simple as a walk can be so powerful, but think about
when you had your last breakthrough moment. Was it sitting at your desk?
In a highly stressful meeting? Or was it while you were taking a walk or
during some other Recovery break?

Another simple way to improve your Recovery is to incorporate static

stretches into your daily routine. These stretches are less active than our
Daily Prep exercises, but they work well for reducing tension and
lengthening muscles back to their relaxed state.

The key is not to leave these opportunities for Recovery to chance. Plan
them into your day, week, and month. Use them strategically to oscillate for
high performance.

Do you oscillate or do you wait until you are exhausted?

Evaluate Your Recovery Habits

The more you increase your awareness and practice the Performance
Recovery strategies we have presented, the better your performance will be.
Many of these strategies require minimal time and doing them consistently
will yield amazing results. Incorporate them into your workday whether you
are at the office or traveling, if you want to work smart rather than hard.

Too often people leave their Recovery to chance. One of our clients
declared: “If you want to know what’s important to people, just look at their
daily calendars.” Today is the best day for you to schedule some
Performance Recovery. Better yet, look at your week and your month to see
where your tough days are. Where does it look like your workload is too
linear? Where can you add some oscillation?

Note that our Recovery approach is not necessarily focused on working

less. We can appreciate the fact that many of our clients love to work. They
love their jobs, they’re committed to getting everything done, and they
really find joy in what they can accomplish at work. If you fit into this
category, we say that it will only be through oscillation that you will be able
to remain a high performer. With the work smart approach, rather than the
work hard approach, you will actually be able to work longer, be more
efficient, and produce better results. Although you may not take many days
off of work, you can, and must, take several Performance Recovery breaks
throughout your day.

Do you want to sink, float, or swim?

The choice is always yours.

You have Recovery habits that will make you sink if you:

_are unaware of where your stress comes from or where you feel it in
your body
_spend little or no time reflecting on how you feel and what makes you
feel good
_ignore the signs that you are becoming overwhelmed
_have no conscious or planned daily Recovery time because you
perceive recovery breaks as a sign of weakness
_rarely laugh or smile
_rarely take power naps even if you are tired because you see them as a
sign of laziness
_sleep less than seven hours on most nights and do not go to sleep at a
consistent time
_go to sleep after 10:30 pm on most nights and often do work in your
bedroom
_have no ritual or routine to wind down before going to sleep
 _rely on medication to sleep when under you’re under stress or
traveling
_do not plan for fun time in your day, week, month, or year
_rarely take vacation days and work on almost all of your days off
_never implement any relaxation techniques even when you feel
extremely tense
_are unaware of your breathing patterns and their impact on your
autonomic nervous system
_are unaware of the role of relaxation and Recovery on your brain
performance
_are unaware that Mindset, Nutrition, Movement, and Recovery impact
your energy, resilience, brain performance, and capacity

You have Recovery habits that will enable you to float if you:

_are aware of where your stress comes from and where you feel stress
in your body, but don’t really address it
_try to take regular Recovery breaks but you don’t strategically plan for
them
_laugh or smile occasionally, but it is not a regular occurrence
_occasionally take power naps but only if you are extremely tired
_generally sleep seven hours on most nights but are inconsistent with
the time you go to bed
_go to sleep after 10:30 pm at least two or three nights a week, and
occasionally do work in your bedroom
_have a routine to wind down before going to sleep but don’t use it
consistently
_occasionally plan for fun time in your day, week, month, or year
_occasionally take vacation days but you feel guilty for missing work,
and usually work on some of your time off
_implement relaxation techniques but only when you feel extremely
tense
_are aware of your breathing patterns and their impact on your
autonomic nervous system but only use breathing techniques
occasionally to help you reduce stress and tension
_use a relaxation technique to focus before a must-win presentation or
meeting, but not consistently
_are somewhat aware of the role of relaxation and Recovery strategies
on your brain performance, but do not integrate them with Mindset,
Nutrition, and Movement strategies

You have Recovery habits to swim if you:

_are aware of where your stress comes from and proactively manage it
to avoid becoming overwhelmed
_frequently reflect on how you feel and what makes you feel good
_consciously plan Recovery time for every day because you recognize
this as a sign of strength and working smart
_often find things to make you laugh or smile each day
_take power naps if you are tired during the day since you recognize
their importance as a tool for sustainable high performance
_sleep close to eight or nine hours on most nights and go to sleep at the
same time almost every night
_rarely go to sleep after 10:30 pm and never do work in your bedroom
_have a ritual or routine to wind down before going to sleep and
habitually use it
_plan for fun time in your day, week, month, or year
_take your vacation days and use them for fun and regenerating
activities, and rarely, if ever, work on your time off
_implement relaxation techniques when you feel any sign of tension
_are aware of your breathing patterns and their impact on your
autonomic nervous system and frequently use them to help you
reduce your stress and tension
_use a relaxation technique to focus before almost all of your
presentations or must-win events
 _are aware of the role of relaxation and Recovery on your brain
performance and strategically use it to improve your creativity,
passion, and focus
_effectively integrate your Performance Mindset, Performance
Nutrition, and Performance Movement habits with your Performance
Recovery strategies

Develop Your Performance Recovery Goals

The sustainable High Performance Recovery strategies presented in this

chapter are designed to be integrated with our Performance Mindset,
Performance Nutrition, and Performance Movement strategies. These
Recovery strategies alone will not necessarily make you a high performer or
increase the sustainability of your performance. In fact, it is very unlikely
that you can have High Performance Recovery if you are hypoglycemic,
malnourished, or sedentary. The four Tignum pillars of sustainable high
performance are intricately interwoven and dependent upon each other. The
true power of personal innovation comes with the integration of Mindset,
Nutrition, Movement, and Recovery habits.

In order to take everything you have learned and create High Performance
Recovery, you need to develop Recovery goals that are meaningful to you.
To begin this process, consider the following questions:

What three action steps can you take now to help you improve your
Recovery?

If you were to have a High Performance Recovery day, what will your
day look like?

How will you know when you need a Recovery break?

What are the benefits of moving from a linear approach to oscillating

for Recovery?
How will you use Performance Recovery strategies to help you increase
your energy, resilience, brain performance, and capacity for
sustainable high performance?
Section VI
Swimming Into the Future

High Performance Culture – an environment in which

leaders foster a passion for creativity, productivity, and the
achievement of individual, team, organization, and brand
potential
Chapter Sixteen
If You Know You Need to Swim, Why Aren’t You Doing It?

What’s Wrong With Goals?

Compelling Goals Move You to Action
The Tignum Benefit Attainment Process
Make Lasting Change
The Benefits of Being Your Best
Develop and Activate Your Support System
Use Setbacks to Refocus, Recommit, and Ignite Motivation
Maximize Motivation and Build Momentum

Chapter Seventeen
Does Your Team Have What It Takes to Swim?
Team Performance Mindset
Team Performance Nutrition
Team Performance Movement
Team Performance Recovery
Bringing Tignum to the Team
Simple Things Done Savagely Well

Chapter Eighteen
Is Your Organization Sinking, Floating, or Swimming?

What Stops Organizations From Taking Action?

The Shareholder Value Hurdle
The It’s-a-Tough-Time Hurdle
The Incentive Hurdle
The Return on Investment Hurdle
The Perception Hurdle
Maximize Human Performance by Optimizing Culture
Gut Check
Chapter Nineteen
Time to Dive In

Reframe Your Perspective

Prepare for the Future
Why Waste Your Potential?
All Habits Begin With One Step
 Chapter Sixteen
If You Know You Need to Swim, Why Aren’t You Doing It?

Have you ever tried to make a personal change and failed? Have you ever
attended a training course or leadership program, been thoroughly
impressed and motivated, but then failed to make any sustainable changes?
It happens all the time. In fact, when we work with our clients, their initial
apprehension is commonly rooted in their frustration from previous
attempts (and failures) to make real changes in their lives. What is the
disconnect here? Why does this happen so often? The answers to these
questions haunted us when we first began Tignum, because we were firmly
committed to making an impact, which translated into making real change.

There is a commonly accepted belief that people don’t change because they
do not know WHAT to do. In our opinion, the reason most people don’t
change is because they do not have a deeply meaningful reason WHY they
should change. There are often many different HOWs or ways to change
but without the WHY, change won’t happen.

Nothing motivates real change like facing a crisis. True or false?

Unfortunately, this is a myth. In a Fast Company article entitled “Change or

Die,” published in May 2005, author Alan Deutschman shared a staggering
statistic. In the US, only two years after suffering a heart attack and
receiving a coronary bypass, 90% of the 600,000 bypass patients did not
change their lifestyles. This means even the risk of another heart attack,
another heart surgery, or even worse—death—is not enough of a motivator
for the majority of people to make a change in their lives.

People don’t embrace change because it’s the right thing to do or because
they are logically convinced to make the change. People change because of
the benefits associated with the change. Simply stated, they change for the
emotional payback, the feelings that come with making the change.
What kinds of things motivate you to change?

Why have you made changes in the past?

How did you feel after making a significant change?

What’s Wrong With Goals?

In business, there is a preponderance of goal setting, which is perceived as

crucial for measuring results and creating accountability. The type of goals
most commonly used are SMART goals. (SMART stands for Specific,
Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-based goals.) These types of
goals are very concise, tangible, and logical. Unfortunately, they lack one
very significant element that is necessary for real and lasting change, and
that is the emotion.

We have observed that one of the biggest factors in our clients’ success is
developing emotional and meaningful goals. If a goal has no meaning and
doesn’t touch an emotional chord, then the chances of achieving it are very
unlikely. Similarly, when you look at many positive-thinking programs,
they stress to-have goals. These include lofty goals of making millions of
dollars, having a beach villa, driving the latest high performance car, or
living in a dream home. The thought is that these tangible items, which may
appear to be just out of reach, will provide an emotional connection to
change behavior.

The problem with this approach is that these goals focus on extrinsic
motivation, which research has shown to be a weak and short-term
motivator. People don’t change because of a plan or goals—they change
because of an emotional connection. They change because of the feeling
that the achievement of the goal will evoke. This doesn’t mean that SMART
goals are necessarily bad or ineffective. It only means that they often are not
enough.

At Tignum, we see four common flaws when people develop their goal and
objective statements. They set goals that:
 _they have no burning desire to achieve
_are imprecise and difficult to visualize
_do not match their self-image
_are outcome-oriented rather than performance-oriented

Compelling Goals Move You to Action

First of all, goals must be personally meaningful. In most cases, people will
not be motivated to meet goals that have come from a boss or someone else,
or if they have been motivated by social expectations. We always ask our
clients why they want to accomplish a certain goal that they’ve identified.
They are often not able to articulate a specific (or meaningful) reason. Their
answers sound like this: My doctor told me I should lose weight or my boss
says I need to be more solution-oriented. As soon as we hear statements like
these, we challenge them to find the specific reason for why they want to
accomplish the goal.

So, the first step to developing goals that will move you to action is to ask:

Why is accomplishing this goal important to YOU?

If you can’t find a meaningful answer this question, you either need to dig
deeper to find personal meaning or change the goal. Finding this meaning
will give your goal the emotion necessary to move you to action.

Second, in order for a goal to be achieved, people must be able to visualize

themselves achieving it. Too often we see clients set great goals, but they
are completely outside of their scope of experiences. Unfortunately, once a
habit is developed, most people struggle immensely to envision themselves
behaving differently. Being able to envision yourself achieving your goals
is critical to realizing them. Changing your mental map is the initial step to
real change.

For example, we worked with a client who was a true junk food addict. He
couldn’t go to a meeting or have a meal without a piece of cake, some
candy, or some low nutrient/high calorie food. He knew that these food
choices were contributing to his decreased energy in the afternoons, as well
as his lack of attention and focus in meetings. So, logically, the reason for
making a change made sense. He wanted to improve his performance in
meetings, especially after lunch. He was motivated to change this behavior,
but he kept sliding back to his old habit.

With some work, we helped him create a clear vision of himself changing
this behavior. He started to see himself making different choices and
experiencing the benefits. He saw himself as a highly attentive, focused
contributor at his afternoon meetings. Within three weeks (with lots of
repetition of mentally rehearsing this positive image), he completely
changed his behavior.

Third, matching the goal to self-image (goal congruency) is crucial to

bridging the gap between where people are now and where they want to be
in the future. In our experience, most people can use work on their self-
image, and this is why developing To Be goals is vital to making change.

It’s one thing to be able to visualize yourself achieving a goal but it’s
another thing to believe that you will achieve it. The Tignum Benefit
Attainment system, with practical tools like our Personal Innovation Map,
is designed with the steps and the reps (repetitions of high performance
habits) to build this belief.

Lastly, while outcome goals may seem logical, they can become pressure
traps because the outcomes are often out of people’s control. Performance-
oriented goals, on the other hand, are within their circle of control and when
accomplished can help develop self-esteem and self-confidence. Following
are some examples of performance goals:

_I will use mental imagery to prepare for every meeting that I have this
week.
_I will only drink water at meetings.
_I will do Daily Prep movements five times this week.
 _I will take a short Recovery break every 90 minutes during my
workday.

Performance goals are usually tangible, narrower in focus, and easy to

accomplish. They are often underrated because of this, but when they are
done consistently, they lead to significant results. In addition, the
momentum that is created from habitually performing the actions you
identified will pay huge dividends as you move forward.

The Tignum Benefit Attainment Process

We believe that all people have the inherent ability to solve their own
problems especially if they are given the correct tools, encouraged to use
their strengths, and supported along the way. We believe that intrinsic,
rather than extrinsic, motivation is the key. People are only going to change
if it will make them feel fulfilled and allow them to reach their potential.
That is how and why we have developed our Benefit Attainment Process.

Why do we call it benefit attainment rather than change management?

The term “change management” has deep roots in organizational change

initiatives and often elicits a sense of apprehension. Many of our clients
have shared with us that just the word “change” can create resistance. We
have found, that especially in the business world, the phrase change
management often evokes a vision of getting on the change treadmill and
mucking through yet another set of check-off lists.

But when you approach it differently—you reframe change to be focused

on the benefits—you have the potential to make meaningful and lasting
change. While animals are often trained through avoidance of pain and
discomfort, human beings are more motivated by benefits. This is evident
by the amount of pain that many people will endure to achieve something
they really want. In our opinion, people don’t fail to change because they
think it will be uncomfortable. They usually fail to change because they
either were not focused on the benefits or they never really found the
benefits from the change very meaningful.
Look at the amount of pain and discomfort that Olympic athletes will
endure for years on end, because they are focused on the feelings and
benefits they will attain if they win a medal. This is the big difference
between sustainable high performers (swimmers), in both business and
sports, and those who continue to float or even sink. Swimmers stay
focused on the benefits and see every sacrifice and setback as a part of
achieving those benefits.

Make Lasting Change

John Kotter, Harvard Business School Professor and leading authority on

leadership and change, notes: “Behavior change happens mostly by
speaking to people’s feelings. This is true even in organizations that are
very focused on analysis and quantitative measurement.” In other words,
making change is all about your emotional connection to that change.

A very effective way to create an emotional connection is to develop a clear

and compelling image of who you want to be in the future (To Be goals).
This is different from what you want to do, what you want to have, or
similar types of goals. The vision of your best self has less to do with your
current job or role and more to do with the qualities and attributes you want
to have. It also has to do with the legacy you want to leave and the way you
want people to feel when they are around you.

Developing a vision of your best self is not always easy to do. It requires
getting past the image that you currently have of yourself. This image can
sometimes be self-defeating, because it is based on your frailties and
limitations. The following example is one of our client’s articulated visions
of best self:

“I see myself waking up and immediately starting my day. I do some

movement and then quickly review my daily schedule and prepare my
mindset. Throughout the day, I am focused and attentive in every
conversation I have. I can see the connection I am making with my team. I
am patient and totally in control of my emotions. I am proactive rather than
reactive. I have good posture and I exude confidence. I see myself
constantly oscillating, moving from one high performance If You Know
You Need to Swim, Why Aren’t You Doing It?

event to the next. On the way home, I am relaxed and I leave my work and
worries at the office. At home, I see myself smiling and excited while my
daughter shares the details of her day. I see myself engaged with my wife
and excited to share my day and hear about her day. I am patient and totally
nonjudgmental.”

Amazingly, we have found that once our clients develop a detailed and
explicit vision of their best self, they often begin to see their thoughts,
behaviors, and habits change almost simultaneously. In addition, they have
a clear image with which to compare their current actions.

Some daily questions to ask yourself when you are making a personal
change include:

Did I do the necessary things today to create my best self?

If not, how can I change my behaviors tomorrow to achieve my goal?

The career path of Andre Agassi provides an excellent illustration of the use
of To Be goals. Throughout tennis history, Agassi had many peaks and
setbacks in his career. One of his worst setbacks was in 1993 when he had
wrist surgery and his world ranking plummeted. During his recovery time,
Agassi developed the vision of his best self, as he recognized and defined
the legacy he wanted to leave on the game of tennis. This vision became his
driving force when he went back into the trenches of competition. He
committed to a new set of habits and rituals that not only changed him
forever, but also left a lasting legacy on the tennis world.

Upon retiring from professional tennis, when Agassi gave his final farewell
speech, he didn’t mention how many tournaments or championships he had
won. Instead, he spoke about the journey he had taken, the relationships he
had experienced with his fans and competitors, and the man it had made
him. He talked about the benefits he had personally received from the hard
work and sacrifices he had made. There wasn’t a dry eye in the stadium,
because everyone was moved by the person that Agassi had become.

After leaving the stadium, Agassi walked into the players’ locker room and
was greeted with a standing ovation by all the players and sports writers. It
was an experience that one sports writer said he had never witnessed before.
This was impact, and this represented the legacy Agassi had left not only on
tennis, but on the world. This is the power of deeply meaningful To Be
goals.

Power of the To Be Goal

Occasionally, I have clients who are going through a life challenge or a
true crisis. Perhaps they have an impossible job, they have to live away
from their family, or they are going through a divorce, a serious illness, or
even a death in their family. During these times, I always remind my clients
that these situations are temporary, but the opportunities they offer for true
transformation could last forever.
These types of events can really exhaust you, throw you off your course, or
take away your passion for work or life. They can be real performance
busters. But the reality is that discomfort, and even pain, is a great teacher
if you take the time to reflect on the lessons it can teach you. The key,
though, is to always have a To Be goal.
Who do you want to be when this crisis is over?
What are the benefits of you becoming this person?
Can you envision yourself being this person?
If you focus on the answers to these questions, you will suddenly find the
discomfort and pain bearable—because the new you will be worth the
effort.
Tignum Blog

The Benefits of Being Your Best

After developing a precise To Be (best self) vision, the next step is to

identify the benefits of making it a reality. As we stated earlier, benefits are
critical to increasing drive and motivation, and ultimately achieving your
potential. External benefits such as getting more pay, a promotion, or an
award tend to be short-lived but effective for providing initial motivation.
Internal benefits such as a feeling of achievement, being respected, feeling
loved, and connecting with others provide more long-term motivation and
real meaning.

When we work with our clients, we use several techniques to help them
discover their meaningful benefits for embarking on their personal
innovation journey. There are many ways to brainstorm and develop a list
of benefits, but one very popular approach is to create mind maps. Mind
mapping has been used for centuries by educators, engineers, psychologists,
and others for brainstorming, learning, and problem-solving.

Mind maps are an excellent visual tool to develop a comprehensive list of

deeper ideas and thoughts. By focusing on benefits, you can brainstorm all
the ways that your To Be vision will benefit you, grouping your reasons in a
nonlinear way and drawing connections as you make them.

Initially, many of our clients struggle with uncovering meaningful benefits

of achieving their To Be goals, but we always push them to keep digging.
Every time they come up with a benefit we ask them—why? This helps
them take it one level deeper. In our experience, virtually no one really
discovers meaningful benefits on their first attempt. This is an exercise that
takes some genuine exploration and deep reflection.

The point to remember:

The more meaningful the benefit, the more powerful it will be to help you
achieve real and lasting change.

Develop and Activate Your Support System

Some people love to work alone while others love to work in groups. The
same is true when it comes to personal change, but after working with
thousands of executives, we have definitely found that all people need
someone to support their efforts in achieving their personal innovation. One
critical component in effectively handling setbacks and difficult times is a
strong support system. Thus, the next step to achieving your To Be goals is
to develop your support system. This support can be found through
mentors, friends, family, co-workers, or even role models you may not
know personally.

In fact, our clients often have role models, people whom they have never
personally met but whom they admire. They may see many of the same
qualities and attributes that they want to achieve in these people. We
encourage you to include these people as part of your support system, since
you can reflect on what they would offer for advice if you were to speak
with them.

In our work, we have also found that members within a team often support
each other and build some of the deepest and most meaningful bonds they
have ever experienced. This makes complete sense to us, because what
could be a more authentic team-building experience than helping a
colleague achieve her/his personal To Be vision?

There are many ways to use your support system and they vary
considerably from one person to the next. However, one thing that does
seem to consistently help our clients is sharing their Personal Innovation
Map with their support system. This builds in an element of accountability
and enables your support system to provide you with the encouragement
you may need to remain on track.

Use Setbacks to Refocus, Recommit, and Ignite Motivation

One lesson we have learned from working with our clients, is that the path
to developing new high performance habits (or any change for that matter)
is never linear. There will definitely be setbacks. At first glance, these
setbacks can appear to be moments of failure. They can appear to be proof
to yourself that you don’t have the discipline or the commitment to really
change, but nothing could be further from the truth.
Failure Feeds Success
There are always a few people who comment that this time they don’t want
to fail like they have in previous attempts to change. I love this comment
because it demonstrates their commitment, but it also shows their fear of
falling into the same traps they have experienced before. At Tignum, we
realize that changing habits is never easy. We also realize that every change
has mini-setbacks (or dips).
For some clients, their previous failures have been so prevalent or
emotional that they truly can’t see themselves being successful. Instead, the
only image they have is being initially excited and motivated, and then
looking at themselves in the mirror one day and asking what happened.
This is totally normal because that’s the way the brain works.
But, it doesn’t have to be this way.
In fact, research has shown that one of the best indicators of future success
in developing new habits may be how many times you’ve previously failed.
This is because each time you try to change yourself, you learn something
new about yourself, you become more motivated, and you get closer to
success. Therefore, a quick reframe of previous failures is to see them as
practice sessions for making the real change.
And, as we affirm again and again—you are only one day away from being
right on track! Tignum Blog

Seth Godin, in his book The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to
Quit, clearly identifies the dips in a change process as expected and
necessary for exceptional performance. In fact, he identifies several reasons
that people may fail to make a change:

“You
_run out of time (and quit)
_run out of money (and quit)
_get scared (and quit)
_are not serious about it (and quit)
_lose interest or enthusiasm (take your eye off of your vision) or settle
for being mediocre (and quit)
 _focus on the short-term instead of the long-term (and quit when the
short-term gets too hard)”

As you can deduce, the common element here for all of these failures is
quitting. But remember, quitting is a choice. Sometimes it can mean that the
benefit you were chasing wasn’t that important to you, but many times
quitting is the wrong choice. The truth is that almost everything in life
worth doing is controlled by the dip. The dip is the long slump between
starting something new and mastering it. It’s the long stretch between
beginner’s luck and real accomplishment.

The reality is that setbacks are actually an opportunity for change, and it’s
really all about how you perceive and respond to these setbacks. Successful
people don’t just ride out their dips. They don’t just buckle down and
survive. No, they lean into it. They see each setback as an opportunity to
push harder, to change the rules, to develop better skills, and to win at all
odds. The confidence that comes from this approach is remarkable and so is
the momentum and experience. This doesn’t mean that you enjoy the dip. It
just means that you don’t quit—you do everything that you can to whittle it
down. We have found that our clients who have learned to push on and
conquer their setbacks have always become more confident, more
impactful, and better performers because of it.

It is vital to always remember that personal, and organizational, sustainable

performance is an ongoing work in progress. This is completely normal
since no one can be on the top of her/his game at all times. The nature of
change and of improvement is that you make progress, you have small
setbacks, you reinspire yourself (by revisiting your benefits and best vision
of self), and then you get back to your new habits.

Another common path on the journey of personal innovation is the

misconception that with any setback you are right back where you started.
You begin your benefit attainment process and two months later, you feel
like you have come full circle. You’re struggling with the same things that
you were struggling with before. This can be demoralizing because you
thought you were past this struggle. You thought you were on to a bigger
and better struggle or challenge.

The truth is that you are never back at the same place you started. You are
more aware, smarter, more experienced, and better prepared to tackle this
challenge the next time. It’s like an upward spiral. You have come full circle
but you’re at a higher place in the spiral. You’re looking at the same issue
from a different angle, and you should feel good about this.

A Crisis Is the Perfect Time to Redefine Success

I just got off the phone with one of our clients. She was very frustrated
because no matter what she does she can’t close a deal. Being a highly
successful sales VP for a very big software company, this type of resistance
is something she has never experienced before. We discussed her Mindset
and the challenges she is facing with trying to reframe her frustrations and
rejections to make her thoughts and self talk more high performance and
positive.
As we talked, I recognized that one thing that has shifted in these tough
times is the definition of success. If you are married to your quarterly
projections, your gross income, or your net profits, you are clearly set up
for failure. The solution, not just during this crisis but all the time, is to
become more process-oriented in your goals. That is, focus on the processes
that you know lead to success.
Recently, Geoff Colvin, in his enlightening book Talent is Overrated: What
Really Separates World-Class Performers From Everybody Else, presents
some compelling research on goal setting and success. The poorest
performers don’t set any goals at all. Mediocre performers set goals that
are general and often focused simply on achieving a good outcome. But the
best performers set goals that are not about outcomes, but rather about the
processes of reaching the outcomes.
So the big question is: What are these processes?
These processes are the ones that increase your energy level, your
resilience, your brain performance, and your capacity. If you let these
processes go, you don’t have a chance of being a sustainable high
performer or surviving these tough times. Once you commit to the processes
necessary for your Performance Mindset, Performance Nutrition,
Performance Movement, and Performance Recovery habits, you will
quickly enjoy the benefits of being more passionate, confident, focused, and
creative. With these qualities, you will be ready to get back to your
fundamentals and plant all the seeds that will lead to future success.
Tignum Blog

You also need to recognize your small victories in redefining the meaning
of success.

Many times, clients believe that they haven’t made any changes because
they have often been too busy or stressed out to notice them. But upon
further reflection, they realize that they are drinking more water, snacking
on high performance foods, preparing mentally for meetings, having more
positive thoughts, taking short walks for Recovery, and climbing the stairs
(sometimes many flights) every day.

This revelation hits them almost immediately—they actually have made

many changes. But since they are so aware now of what they are not doing,
they temporarily lost their focus. Once they regain their positive focus, they
realize that they are handling more, working smarter, getting more done;
and it’s all due to the small, daily improvements they have already made.

Maximize Motivation and Build Momentum

Sir Isaac Newton’s First Law of Motion states that an object at rest tends to
stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion. Once people
begin to make personal changes to improve their energy, resilience, brain
performance, and capacity, it is important to keep the motivation going and
build momentum. Below are some examples of strategies that our clients
have successfully used to do this.

This list is not necessarily comprehensive, so don’t feel like you have to
limit yourself to these suggestions. Develop your own list of personalized
strategies because everyone is different, and only you can determine what
will be effective for you.
Develop Social Networks. Change is contagious and developing a social
network of people who are going through the same process can help keep
your motivation strong.

Create Anchors. Having a word, an object, a song, a photo, or some other

item that immediately reminds you of the changes you want to make can be
an effective tool for reenergizing your commitment to change.

Use Rituals. Anything done consistently rewires the brain and creates an
exponential impact. Rituals such as drinking a glass of water upon getting
up, doing your Daily Prep in the mornings, doing mental imagery before
meetings, or taking a few rhythmic breaths every time you hang up the
phone can help you stay on track.

Send Yourself Reminders. Life happens and sometimes you just need a
reminder about what you are trying to achieve. Adding reminders to team
meetings, having an alarm in your phone to remind you to take a break, or
having your assistant remind you to pack high performance snacks for a
business trip can be excellent ways to keep you on track.

Take the Challenge. Just as some of you will love a social network, some
of you will love a good challenge. Creating challenges with yourself, your
support system, or your team members can be a productive way to keep you
performing your best. One note: challenges around effort and action (e.g.,
performing your movements three days consistently) are usually more
powerful than challenges focused on outcomes (e.g., how fast you run or
how many pounds you lose).

The Tignum Benefit Attainment Process

In order to help you to move from knowing to doing, we have developed a
process that will systematically help you achieve the personal innovation
that you desire.
Go to www.tignum.com/sinkfloatswim and login with the password
“swimmer” to download a template for your Personal Innovation Map.

At this point, you may have already identified several changes that you
would like to make. Consider the following:
What three actions can you start tomorrow?

What will be the benefits of making these small changes?

How will you measure your success?

 Chapter Seventeen
Does Your Team Have What It Takes to Swim?

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

African Proverb

Cisco’s CEO John Chambers is heralded as a role model in the use of

collaboration to improve productivity, efficiency, and profitability. In a
2008 Fast Company article, “How Cisco’s CEO John Chambers is Turning
the Tech Giant Socialist,” author Ellen McGirt explains that Chamber’s
goal “... is to spread the company’s leadership and decision making far
wider than any big company has attempted before, to working groups that
currently involve 500 executives. This move, Chambers says, reflects a new
philosophy about how business can best work in a networked world.”

Chambers is implementing this change because he recognizes that this is the

only way to rapidly respond to clients’ needs in the dynamic Web 2.0
world. This is an evolving world full of teleconferences, web meetings,
blogging, vlogging, and social networking.

To some, this online collaboration may appear to be a world of chaos. To

others, it will be a world full of opportunities and possibilities. When
collaboration is the norm, the team effectiveness and efficiency will hinge
on every member being a contributor. It will depend on a high level of trust
and a commitment by every person to be a sustainable high performer. This
commitment will require a team approach to Performance Mindset,
Performance Nutrition, Performance Movement, and Performance
Recovery habits.

In business everything is built on high performance teams. It may be a

finance team, a leadership team, a project team, or even a team put together
to handle a current crisis. In the previous chapters, we discussed the
importance of leaders’ ability to first energize themselves so that they could
then energize those around them. Creating teams with the energy, focus,
resiliency, and capacity to win their battles cannot be left to chance. Like
personal sustainable high performance, team or organizational high
performance is a choice that must be made.

When you look around your organization, surely you can identify teams that
are sinking, teams that may be floating along, and those rare high
performance teams that are swimming. Imagine being part of a team where
every single person has a High Performance Mindset, is nourished through
Nutrition to have a high performing brain, is energized and pain free
through regular Movement, and is fully rested and regenerated through
consistent Recovery habits.

What would your meetings be like with a high performance team?

How would you feel during and after those meetings?

Team Performance Mindset

Is a Mindset contagious? This is a question we always ask our clients. At

first, the reaction is interesting because people look at us like we’re trying
to give them a virus. But after a little thought, the answer is always a
resounding “yes.” There are numerous stories about how Michael Jordon
transformed the Chicago Bulls with his positive attitude and his relentless
commitment to excellence. Similarly, in his autobiography Winning!: The
Story of England’s Rise to Rugby World Cup Glory, Clive Woodward tells
story after story of how he planted Mindset seeds to turn the England
National Rugby team around to win the 2003 World Cup.

Anne Mulcahy, CEO of Xerox and one of America’s most influential

leaders, provides one of the best examples of how contagious a Mindset can
be. After taking over the company in the middle of a financial meltdown,
she led a legendary turnaround by infusing both the customer base and the
company culture with her optimism, pragmatism, and passion for Xerox.
Her Mindset helped transform the company, and her unbending focus on
clients’ needs, rather than on financial engineering, is a preeminent example
of innovation used in many business schools.

Whether it’s an athletic team, a project team, a leadership team, or any other
type of team, most people do believe that a Mindset is contagious. If one
team member, especially if it’s the leader, has confidence, optimism, or
simply a positive attitude, everyone on the team is positively impacted.
Similarly, if a team member is pessimistic, problem-oriented (rather than
solution-oriented), angry, and negative, the entire team is negatively
impacted.

What is your team’s Mindset like?

Does your Mindset improve or diminish the team’s Mindset?

What could you personally do to improve your team’s Mindset?

In discussions with our clients, we ask them to share how they would
implement the Tignum Mindset strategies within their team and their
organization. Following are some solutions that they have identified to
develop a team or organizational Performance Mindset:

_Develop a description of what you want your team Mindset to be like.

_Challenge each other (in a supportive and positive way) to eliminate
attitudes and actions that bring the team’s Mindset down.
_Encourage each other to mentally prepare for your must-win events.
_Provide useful and frequent feedback to each other to help everyone
improve.
_Use the paper-clip exercise during your team meetings to encourage
everyone to reframe negative low performance thoughts into positive
high performance thoughts.
_Review your past performances, focusing on what you did well so that
you can repeat it.

How can you incorporate some of these Mindset strategies in your team?
How about in your organization?

Team Performance Nutrition

As you learned in the Nutrition chapters of this book, what you eat
significantly impacts your energy, resilience, brain performance, and
capacity. Most importantly, you now recognize that the food you eat
directly impacts your performance and your team’s performance. So, with
this in mind, consider the following:

Who plans the food choices for your meetings?

Who determines the food choices in your vending machines or office

kitchen?

How can you work with your food vendor or canteen to offer better
choices?

Do you provide water during meetings or do you serve only hydration-

robbers?

In discussions with our clients, we ask them to share how they would
implement the Tignum Nutrition strategies within their team and their
organization. Following are some solutions that they have identified to
develop a team or organizational Performance Nutrition approach:

_Provide high performance snacks in vending machines and the office

kitchen.
_Get one-liter water bottles for all of the team members and encourage
them to drink one full bottle in the morning and another one in the
afternoon.
_Provide high performance snacks such as nuts, dried fruit, fresh fruit,
yogurt, and energy bars to positively impact brain performance.
_Plan nutrition for all meetings—in weekly, brainstorming, off-site,
and strategy meetings.
 _Educate all staff about high performance requirements for meetings.
_Create a list of vendors that will follow Tignum high performance
recommendations to cater meetings and events.
_Select restaurants for business dinners and team meetings that have
high performance menu options.

How can you incorporate some of these Nutrition strategies in your team?

How about in your organization?

Team Performance Movement

It often amazes us how seldom people move during their day. They take the
elevator up one flight of stairs or even more commonly, they send
colleagues an e-mail or an instant message rather than walking down the
hall or up the stairs to talk with them in person. Unfortunately, in many
organizations, the stairwells are cold, dark, and difficult to find (even in the
case of an emergency). Although this may be an excuse for taking the
elevator, it isn’t the best choice if you want to become a swimmer.

If you were to take the stairs (rather than the elevator) three floors each day,
you would save approximately 5,000 watt/hours of electricity a year. This
doesn’t seem like a huge savings, but multiply this by the number or people
in your organization and the number of high-rises in your city. The savings
add up quickly.

Furthermore, the average person will burn approximately 10 calories for

every minute s/he climbs the stairs. If you assume a minimum of 10
minutes per workday, this would mean 500 additional calories per week
which is approximately 24,000 calories per year. This is the equivalent of 7
pounds (3.18 kilograms) of weight loss each year.

At the Mayo Clinic, endocrinologist James Levine, MD, PhD, performed a

study in 2007 to evaluate the impact of the elimination of chairs and
traditional desk seating in order to encourage walking. Walking tracks were
installed with electronic smart boards strategically placed to capture notes.
In addition, desks were attached to treadmills to create walking
workstations.

During the six-month study, the participants averaged almost nine pounds
(4.1 kilograms) of weight loss. “Another key finding—no productivity was
lost due to the new environment. In fact, company officials say revenue rose
nearly 10 percent during the first three months of the study, and the
company recorded its highest-ever monthly revenue in January 2008—the
study’s midpoint.”

Imagine taking a five-minute movement break every morning and afternoon

to walk the stairs. Talk about win-win solutions. What if your entire team
participated? Talk about energy! As we say at Tignum—if you’re on top of
things, why take the elevator?

In discussions with our clients, we ask our clients to brainstorm how they
would implement the Tignum Movement strategies within their team and
their organization. Following are some solutions that they have identified to
develop a team or organizational Performance Movement approach:

_Encourage the use of the stairs (rather than the elevator) as often as
possible.
_Utilize the stairwells, making them a fun and exciting place to go.
_Encourage standing meetings.
_Have walking meetings. (This solves the long meeting dilemma, too.)
_Have the team prepare for meetings with a group two-minute
movement session. You can also repeat this activity after each break.
_Set up scheduled daily movement sessions for Daily Prep in the
mornings.

How can you incorporate some of these Movement strategies in your team?

How about in your organization?

Team Performance Recovery

In bicycle racing, the leading riders form a peloton, which is a pack of
riders who break away from the larger group and ride very closely together.
They don’t ride together because they like each other or because they need
a social break. They form the peloton to increase their efficiency in pulling
away from the pack. They do this by drafting off of each other, which
makes the whole group faster. When they do this, each rider takes a turn
pulling at the front of the pack for a short distance and then rotating to the
rear to rest and be pulled by the others.

Why do they join together?

Simple, because they share a common goal of trying to create some distance
between themselves and the pack. Sounds like a business, doesn’t it. Does it
work? There are reports that the reduction in drag can be dramatic: “... in
the middle of a well-developed group it can be as much as 40%.” The
energy savings from drafting is huge, but it also has a significant impact on
the group’s overall productivity and speed. This is an excellent example of
working smart rather than working hard.

Working hard would be every rider riding as fast and as hard as s/he can for
the entire race. On the surface, this seems logical but anyone who knows
about the physical demands of cycling knows that this would quickly lead
to fatigue and the eventual breakdown of the riders.

Yet, this is exactly what happens every day in businesses around the world.
Rather than strategically shifting work demands to allow each member of
the team to oscillate, most corporate teams perceive this as a sign of
weakness and instead burn out perfectly capable team members. They work
hard rather than smart.

How can you use the concept of drafting to help your team stay fresh and
improve their productivity?

What is the benefit to the team and the organization of strategically

oscillating your team members?
In discussions with our clients, we ask them to share how they would
implement the Tignum Recovery strategies within their team and their
organization. Following are some solutions that they have identified to
develop a team or organizational Performance Recovery approach:

_Schedule meetings to end at 15 minutes before the hour rather than

always making them end on the hour. This will provide some time to
recover from one meeting and change gears for the next meeting.
_Plan breaks in long meetings so continuous meeting time never
exceeds 90 minutes at a time.
_Set up a Recovery room on each floor with some noise-proof
headphones, a mat to take a power nap or stretch, a stability ball (for
movement), and perhaps a hydration and strategic snack bar.
_Encourage team Recovery breaks. Many teams comment that smokers
take frequent breaks to smoke, but nonsmokers are perceived as lazy
when they stand outside for a break. Instead, call them Recovery
breaks and encourage them (without the smoking, of course). When
the team takes them together, they gain acceptance.
_Encourage power naps. You may need to develop a clever sign that
lets others know not to interrupt a team member for the 15 minutes
they are turning fully off.
_Develop Recovery buddies who remind each other to take consistent
breaks.
_Encourage no e-mail messages on weekends and evenings, unless it’s
an emergency.

How can you incorporate some of these Recovery strategies in your team?

How about in your organization?

Recovery Instead of Smoking Rooms

In a recent discussion with a group of clients, we asked the question: How
can you, as leaders in your organization, impact the sustainable
performance of your company, or at least your direct section?
The group was sent out to discuss this topic in small teams and then came
back to the larger group to present their thoughts and ideas. During our
discussion the following questions came up:
Why do companies provide (at a significant expense) smoking rooms for
workers but not Recovery rooms?
Why is it okay for a person to take as many smoking breaks as they want
during the day, but if someone wants to take a power nap or go for a walk
for a break the company culture sees that as a negative?
Why do some companies provide all the free candy or ice cream you want
eat, but it’s a stretch to get more than one apple a week?
Can you imagine what would happen if every boss sent out a memo stating:
Weekends are for Recovery—no e-mail allowed?
Would these small changes to the workplace help team members become
sustainable high performers?
These questions all led to more ideas and dialogue, and although the
questions aren’t always easy to answer, it does remind me of one thing.
When we think differently and ask uncommon kinds of questions, we will
eventually come up with some sustainable high performance answers.
Tignum Blog

Bringing Tignum to the Team

Some leaders immediately understand the need for sustainable high

performance, and Alan Johnson, Chief Auditor of Unilever, is one of these
leaders. As soon as Johnson was introduced to our work with sustainable
high performance, he knew that Tignum was a strategic-must for his teams.
After all, the audit job is one of the most demanding and challenging jobs
within Unilever.

In an audit, a team is sent to a specific location to thoroughly audit the

practices and policies of that business unit. As you can imagine, not every
business unit leader is happy to get audited. To make it even more
challenging, the people that perform the audits often have to stay on
location for up to six weeks at a time. The travel demands are immense, the
workloads are never-ending, and the attention to detail required for the task
is mind-boggling.
When we first met Johnson and his team, the positive impact that the
leader’s Mindset had on his team was quite evident. There was a genuine
commitment that Johnson made to his teams’ performance and every
person’s vitality. In fact, Johnson stressed the importance of every member
taking what they had learned from Tignum and implementing it at home as
much as at work. He emphasized the need to be a high performer
everywhere in your life since no one deserves your best more than your
family.

At Tignum, we believe that sustainable high performance is about

performing well in life—this means at work and away from work. Alan
Johnson understood this philosophy and obviously lives it. He was so
committed to the need for sustainable high performance that he pledged that
every member of every audit team in Unilever would work with Tignum to
develop the best individual and team strategies. As he put it, “These guys
and girls give their lives to Unilever for over two years. They pick up and
go anywhere that they are asked to. They work long hours and they produce
great work. This job takes an enormous toll on everyone, and I know that
the investment of sending everyone through the Tignum program will pay
huge dividends.”

Over the past three years, Tignum has trained every single member of the
Unilever audit teams. In our work, we have challenged the teams to
implement their Performance Mindset, Performance Nutrition, Performance
Movement, and Performance Recovery strategies as a group to experience
the difference it would make. The results of their team approach is
described in the account below.

Simple Things Done Savagely Well

The Vietnam audit began with a high performance kick-off because the
audit director Ram Mallya set an excellent example from the start. He
assigned one member of his team to Mindset, one to Nutrition, one to
Movement, and one to Recovery. Each one of these leaders was given the
latitude to manage and support their strategies however they saw fit.
To address Mindset, the team completed a mind-mapping chart of the main
Mindset elements that would be required to be sustainable high performers
throughout this audit. They set up a jar that was used to collect payments
from anyone who made a negative statement. Every Friday night, these
proceeds were used for some celebration (the 80 – 20 Guideline in action).
Next, they agreed to help each other mentally rehearse and prepare for each
presentation and meeting that they had throughout the audit. Finally, each
morning, they set some daily intentions and also took the time to recognize
the things they did well the day before.

To address Nutrition, the team members reminded everyone of the need to

stay hydrated. They purchased a refillable one-liter bottle for each person so
they could measure how much water they were actually drinking. They
planned high performance snacks and made them available throughout the
audit. Next, they identified the best (high performance) places to eat and let
everyone on the team know where these were. Then they reminded each
other at the beginning of the audit about the proper portion sizes (using their
hands as the guide). Finally, they planned for their 20% celebration time by
having dessert, a beer, or something that was purely a pleasure food.

To address Movement, the team looked for every opportunity to walk. They
walked to and from the audit, they took the stairs every chance they could,
and they reminded each other to take breaks, and get up and move
throughout the day. They encouraged everyone in the group to participate as
a team in some tennis ball massage and the Daily Prep movements three
days a week. They did a fantastic job of incorporating movement into their
daily activities. They also planned dinner one hour later than usual so those
that wanted could go for a run or complete the No Excuse Workout prior to
eating.

To address Recovery, the team put up sticky notes that read, “Work smart.
Rest hard.” This was to remind everyone that rest was as important as work.
They recommended everyone take two breathing breaks a day, one in the
morning and one in the afternoon. They set up some mats in their room so
that everyone could take a short power nap after lunch. This was a big hit
and a powerful energizer that helped them get the most out of their
afternoons.

At the end of this audit, following is the e-mail message that Tignum
received:

Hi Scott,

I’ve just returned from holiday after my audit in Vietnam.

This was the first time I experienced an audit where the whole team fully
embraced the Tignum strategies. At the onset, the team members agreed to
volunteer as champions to lead each of the various Tignum pillars
(Mindset, Nutrition, Movement, and Recovery). We held daily movement
sessions, set aside an area for power naps, had nutritious snacks, etc., and
all of these strategies were sustained throughout the audit. It worked and it
made for a positive and effective team. In my view, it had an impact beyond
our expectations by making us less stressed and much more efficient.

There is nothing new here, but it’s clear that implementing these strategies
has an impact on our abilities at an individual and team level. Having one
motivated person in a team is great, but when everyone is firing on all
cylinders, it sure does make a difference.

Regards,
RC

This is a real-world example of how one team implemented Performance

Mindset, Performance Nutrition, Performance Movement, and Performance
Recovery strategies to improve the productivity of their team. Your teams
may implement strategies in different ways that work better for them based
upon their make-up, their expertise, and the nature of their challenges. The
point is that you understand the importance and benefits of taking a team
approach to improving the team’s, as well as each individual’s,
sustainability and performance.
How can your team consistently implement Mindset, Nutrition, Movement,
and Recovery strategies to make it a high performing team?
 Chapter Eighteen
Is Your Organization Sinking, Floating, or Swimming?

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent
that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”
Charles Darwin, English Naturalist

It is often an assumption that leaders can energize their teams with charisma
alone, but this is a false premise. This is as foolish as thinking you can grow
a bountiful garden with organic seeds and lousy soil. The truth is that a high
performing organization can only be built by developing a high
performance culture.

As noted previously, a common misperception is that having a full battery is

all that you need to be a high performer. The problem is that there are a
mountain of daily events that can easily run your battery down. Nothing can
do this more than a low performance, or sinking, organizational culture.

Most organizations describe their culture in their mission statement, internal

training manuals, or press releases. Unfortunately, reality does not always
match the described organizational culture. The real culture is the one that
every employee operates within, feels daily, and knows is present. The real
organizational culture often flies under the radar, yet it definitely impacts all
performance.

One of the world’s renowned nutrition, health, and wellness companies has
a beautiful glass building on the shore of Lake Geneva. The architecture is
aweinspiring and the view of this building is stunning. In fact, as you
approach it, you can see through the lobby to a lush, colorful garden and the
glimmering lake behind it.

During a meeting there, we made an interesting observation. After almost

two hours, we realized that we had not seen one person outside in the
garden. Not one person went outside for a walk, for a conversation, not
even for a smoke. Alarmed by this observation, we asked our meeting host
why there were no employees taking advantage of this inspiring natural
environment.

“Are you crazy?” he replied. “We work in an all-glass building. If

employees were to walk outside, everyone would wonder why they weren’t
getting their work done. Everyone would say that they must not have
enough work to do.”

As he heard his own words, he started to chuckle and added: “I guess, after
presenting your Tignum approach, this attitude must seem pretty
dysfunctional.”

We laughed with him and shared that this is a problem in too many
organizations. After all, taking a short walk outside is an effective way to
clear your mind, stretch your legs, recover from work stress, and
significantly improve your performance. Yet, organizations often do not
support or encourage many of the simple high performance strategies we
have presented.

What would you think if you saw someone at your office taking a
Movement break?
What is the attitude of your organizational culture towards employees using
Recovery breaks and oscillation strategies such as taking a power nap or
doing some breathing exercises?

Are foods at your events strategically chosen to enhance performance or are

they selected because they are inexpensive or easy to get?

What is the attitude of your organizational culture toward negative talk,

rumors, internal stories full of unnecessary drama, or awfulizing?

Being aware of your own individual biases, as well as your organizational

beliefs, is the first step to changing the culture. The next step is moving
from knowing to doing.

What Stops Organizations From Taking Action?

Working with organizations worldwide, we have been bombarded by the

resounding positive response for the need of sustainable high performance
strategies in business. Leaders share story after story of key players within
their organizations who are sinking. Even worse, they also see the negative
shift where more and more executives are struggling just to stay afloat.
Despite these experiences and concerns, we still encounter resistance to
take action when we get in front of a group of decision makers. It’s not
logical resistance but rather habitual resistance—a reflex that comes with
naturally defending the status quo and habitually rejecting any new idea,
program, or change.

What stops you from thinking differently when it comes to sustainable high
performance?

Where does your resistance come from?

We have noticed some trends to this resistance and have categorized them
into five basic categories:

_Shareholder Value Hurdle

 _It’s-a-Tough-Time Hurdle
_Incentive Hurdle
_Return on Investment Hurdle
_Perception Hurdle

The Shareholder Value Hurdle

This is probably the toughest hurdle to get over because the driving forces
behind it are not always rational. As stock prices are influenced by the
emotions of the market, leaders are continually being pressured to increase
the shareholder value. The common mantra is: Increase revenues, decrease
costs, create a compelling success story, and do it yesterday. Even when
organizations meet their projected revenues, there is no guarantee that
shareholders will respond positively. This irrational, and at times
unpredictable, relationship can make a CEO and the executive board crazy.
This confusion can lead to decisions that increase the immediate stress, to
obtain short-term gains at the sacrifice of long-term sustainable high
performance.

We believe that the Tignum strategies we have shared not only give
shareholders the best chance for short-term success but also the only chance
for sustainable success. In order to achieve this success, organizations need
more productive teams and a more productive workforce. Increasing
shareholder value should also mean improved productivity in all areas of
the business system from research and development to production,
marketing, and sales. Improving productivity requires energy, passion,
creativity, perceptive thinking, focus, innovation, resilience, and capacity.
Yet, very few organizations strategically invest in and develop these
qualities within their leadership ranks, their corporate culture, or their
workforce.

Throughout our coaching with clients, one theme that is consistently shared
with us is that corporate life in most large companies is psychologically
toxic. Too often, executives find themselves in no-win situations trying to
do more with less, while running on empty.
This is why in challenging times the knee-jerk reaction to immediately cut
employee development programs makes absolutely no sense. As C. K.
Prahalad noted in our earlier interview, “This reflects very short-term
thinking and it is business suicide.” Bernhard Lobmueller, a retired IBM
executive, also agrees: “Sustainable high performance programs should be
the second to last thing that is cut. The last thing should be the toilet paper.”

The good news is that venture capitalists and market analysts are beginning
to inquire about the sustainable high performance of the leaders within a
company. Some companies are even developing long-term bonus structures
for CEOs that require the assessment of the long-term consequences of their
policies and programs. This will hopefully lead CEOs and executive boards
to realize that the investment in the energy, resilience, brain performance,
and capacity of their leadership (and their workforce) is the only way to
increase shareholder value, in the short- and long-term.

The It’s-a-Tough-Time Hurdle

This hurdle is especially visible in challenging times but it is an excuse used

in any climate. Organizations are always in a tough time. It’s a tough time
because raw material prices are up. It’s a tough time because fuel prices are
up. It’s a tough time because we are in the middle of a reorganization or
retooling. It’s a tough time because we just got a new CEO, and s/he is
going to change everything.

Invariably, when we engage leaders within an organization in the discussion

of the need for sustainable high performance, they throw up the it’s-a-
tough-time card. Now is not the right time to discuss this option, they say,
because we are in a very tough time. The problem is that NOW is exactly
the time to discuss sustainable high performance, because if you don’t
address it now, there will be an even bigger crisis in the future.

Consider the following example when evaluating your tough time:

If there is a building on fire and you see a firetruck responding, you may
sigh with relief because you know that help is on the way. But what if the
firefighting team on the truck is understaffed, inadequately trained,
physically exhausted, mentally unprepared, or simply burned out?

Just because you see the firetruck going to the burning building doesn’t
mean the people in the building will be rescued or that the fire will be put
out in the most efficient and productive way. Yes, eventually all fires do go
out! But some burn down four blocks of buildings, spew off toxic chemicals,
and kill lots of people in the process.

This is true in business, too, that eventually all fires will go out. But, we ask
you to consider: What is the cost? The only way to truly solve a tough time,
to move from sinking to swimming (high performance and profitability), is
to be sure that the people who need to fight the fires are high performers.
This means you need to invest in a solid foundation to build their energy,
resilience, brain performance, and capacity.

In our research, we have estimated that approximately 95% of all

executives are currently either floating (80%) or sinking (15%). This means
they are not performing at their full potential and more than likely are
costing your organization money. We estimate this cost to be between
27,000 to 45,000 euros ($38,000 to $63,000 US) per person per year. And
all of this data was collected in normal economic times. This is startling
when you consider the investment that an organization makes in these
leaders in terms of salary, benefits, and development. These figures make it
a tough time for any organization, regardless of the economic times.

The Incentive Hurdle

High performers deserve compensation for their hard work and their
contributions to the organization. In fact, many organizations use incentives
to inspire leaders to meet their financial or performance goals. Sometimes
these incentives include lavish trips, high-end conferences, or even
luxurious team retreats. In good times, most of these incentive packages
went unnoticed and were socially acceptable. But times have changed and
today public (and shareholder) scrutiny is intense. The problem is, who gets
to determine what is lavish, what is excessive, what is an incentive, and
what is absolutely necessary to improve performance?

In the absence of clear criteria, many organizations take the all-or-none

approach. Unfortunately, this is shortsighted and can have a huge
performance cost to the organization, to the shareholders, and in certain
cases, to the entire economy. When the stakes are high and high
performance is a must, organizations must invest in the high performance of
its leaders. This investment in these leaders is not an incentive—it is a
strategic necessity.

As we’ve shared throughout this book, many leaders realize that their
leadership teams are definitely sliding towards sinking due to the inordinate
pressures they face and their lack of sustainable high performance
strategies. But the dilemma, they say, is that if they were to attend a two-
day sustainable high performance program, the perception may be that they
were frolicking at a resort at the cost of the business’ success.

Leaders get paid to make tough decisions and to stand up to defend these
decisions. This is true even in tough times and even when public scrutiny is
high. In our opinion, there is no decision more important than investing in
the sustainable high performance of the organization’s most vital asset—its
talent. This is not a lavish incentive; it’s a strategic-must.

The Return on Investment Hurdle

There is a big challenge when it comes to measuring return on investment

(ROI). In the infamous words of Albert Einstein: “Not everything that
counts can be counted; and not everything that can be counted, counts.”
Think of leadership development programs, or high potential programs, or
even project management training programs. Do these programs work?
How do you know? The only way you can truly be sure would be to
perform controlled studies with groups that participated in the training and
those that didn’t. But how often can a company afford to do this? The
problem is that most companies are extremely dynamic, and therefore they
can’t land the plane to fix it; they have to fix it while it continues to fly.
In Beyond HR: The New Science of Human Capital, John W. Boudreau and
Peter M. Ramstad examined the challenges associated with standard ROI
measurements. In one of their findings, they state: “Typical ROI
calculations focus on one HR investment at a time and fail to consider how
those investments work together as a portfolio. Training may produce value
beyond its cost, but would that value be even higher if it were combined
with proper investments in individual incentives related to the training
outcomes? Understanding ROI and putting it into a decision context
requires a framework that distinguishes and integrates efficiency,
effectiveness, and impact.”

Is it possible to measure the ROI of improving the energy, resilience, brain

performance, and capacity of leaders and their teams?

We believe that there is a way, but we also recognize the plethora of

confounding factors. First, these factors are the foundation of all
performance. Therefore, it is difficult to measure these in isolation of all
other types of performance enhancement programs such as leadership
development, negotiation skill training, and project management training.
Second, business performance is impacted by many external factors such as
the economy, world events, the fluctuations of the stock market, and the
cost of materials and fuel. How can these be factored into ROI calculations?

In 2006, we worked with a global HR leadership team. It was a very trying

time as the company was in the middle of a large reorganization that
involved significant workforce reductions, as well as a complex outsourcing
of some key HR functions. The stress was enormous, and several team
members were on the verge of burnout. The team leader brought Tignum in
because he was afraid that it would get worse.

Almost three years later, we asked this leader if our work had helped his
team. At first, he paused and replied honestly that he wasn’t really sure.
After a moment of contemplation, he answered: “In the last three years, the
demands on my team have drastically increased. The speed in which they
must act has increased and so has their responsibility. But in these most
challenging times, my team is doing great. They have more energy, they’re
passionate about their jobs, they’re engaged, and they’re healthy. Definitely
the strategies we learned from Tignum played a big part in that.”

We believe that ROI should be measured in ways that provide more

accurate results. But, perhaps the more important questions are:

How well do you (and your team members) perform when your energy is
low, you are exhausted, you have brain fog, and you can’t focus?

What is the cost to your team or organization if leaders are lower

performers?

What is the benefit if your leaders are sustainable high performers?

What happens if your pivotal players suffer burnout? What happens to the
stock prices? What happens to the morale and productivity of your entire
team?

The Perception Hurdle

Almost every leader will have to lead significant cost-cutting initiatives.

This usually means taking the pressure they receive from the board, or
CEO, and implementing cost-cutting strategies throughout their teams.
These cuts often present major challenges for everybody involved.

At the same time, good leaders know that they should do something to
develop, support, and energize their teams. Unfortunately, stopping the
speed train for even two days for these teams, to invest in their sustainable
high performance, could be perceived as the opposite of cost cutting. Even
if it leads to a real improvement in the team’s performance and decreases
the costs of presenteeism and mediocre productivity, many leaders are
afraid. They are afraid of the perception of being weak, of spending money
when they have been told to cut spending, and of “taking a break” when the
demands are high. As many leaders have privately shared with us, they
know they need to invest in their leaders and their teams to make them
swimmers, but if they do they will get fired. And we ask: Is this just
perception or is reality?

What are you willing to do to improve the performance and sustainability of

your teams?

The second element to the perception hurdle is what we presented at the

beginning of this book. When you see the words Mindset, Nutrition,
Movement, and Recovery, what is your response? Do you perceive these as
critical for impacting your personal and team’s performance? Or do you
perceive them to influence only your health and your wellness?

The problem with perception is that it becomes the lens through which you
see things. Your perception will become your reality. If there is one
message we hope you get from this book, it is that the total integration of
your Mindset, Nutrition, Movement, and Recovery habits will determine
whether you sink, float, or swim. The reality is that this is not a health or
wellness issue—it is a performance issue and it will determine your future.

You may want to consider: What is the perception of your clients, your
shareholders, and your strategic partners when your leaders are floaters?
What would the benefit be to your brands and your talent acquisition if your
organization was perceived as a swimmer? Successful and sustainable
leaders understand that they should advertise the investments they make in
the sustainable high performance of their organization, not hide them.

Maximize Human Performance by Optimizing Culture

Over the past 20 years, there has been a huge evolution in business
technology in order to optimize organizations’ efficiency and increase
productivity. Today, we need to work towards optimizing human
performance and the organizational culture. Becoming a swimmer yourself
is important, but creating a swimming organizational culture is the only way
to truly win in this competitive market.
So what are the critical elements for implementing sustainable high
performance on an organizational level?

The first element has to be the full buy-in and participation of the CEO and
her/his senior leadership team. When these influential leaders begin to
demonstrate a high level of sustainable energy, an authentic resilience, an
expanded capacity, and a High Performance Mindset on a daily basis, both
the shareholders and organizational leadership will take notice. This is a
huge step in overcoming inertia.

The next step is to infuse sustainable high performance strategies into the
senior leaders direct report leadership teams (leaders from across the
functional areas of an organization). These teams are usually where the
rubber meets the road when it comes to driving corporate change. It’s at this
level that organizational transformation happens when these leaders are
passionate, engaged, alert, creative, and solution-oriented. But this can only
happen if they have the necessary Performance Mindset, Performance
Nutrition, Performance Movement, and Performance Recovery habits.

Finally, you need to develop an organization-wide strategy to integrate

sustainable high performance as the red thread through all organizational
functions. This strategy must take into account that one size will not fit all.
The approach needs to be multifaceted, pragmatic, and doable at all levels
of the organization. Following are some strategies that have worked with
our clients:

Respect individuality. If there is one thing we have learned, it is that

everyone is different. We all bring our own experiences, our own baggage,
our own needs and our own desires. One guaranteed way to fail is the I’m-
a-marathoner-so-everyone-should-run-a-marathon-together approach.
Therefore, if a performance enhancement program is going to be successful
it needs to be individualized.

Understand behavioral change. As we noted earlier, change doesn’t

happen because of SMART goals; it comes out of emotion, emotion, and
more emotion. Therefore, the implementation of an organization-wide
sustainable high performance program must be authentic and speak to
people’s emotions and feelings. People won’t change because they know
they should; they’ll change because they feel they want to.

Focus on benefits rather than change. Every change process will create
some pain, but if it’s right then the benefits will outweigh the pain.
Therefore, the campaign, the messaging, and most of the discussions have
to focus on the benefits of achieving your full potential.

Make it easy to practice the habits. Human beings naturally take the path
of least resistance. Therefore, if you want your organization’s performance
to improve, you have to make it easy for your members to practice the
habits you have learned throughout this book. If the organization Recovery
room is in the farthest corner of the campus, chances are that no one will
use it, and they will doubt the commitment of the leadership.

Design your office space for high performance. Create the proper
physical and emotional space for high performance to grow and develop.
Some factors to consider are lighting, air flow, furniture, colors, layout, and
access to open spaces.

Proactively design your culture. We have covered some factors that

influence an organizational culture, but you really need a director of
sustainable high performance. Too often organizations create policies,
procedures, and programs that send conflicting messages to the workforce,
and this ultimately destroys trust and commitment. Therefore, you should
create an organized and orchestrated approach to making your
organizational culture a high performance culture. You also need to be
proactive and do it before your organization starts sinking.

Integrate all four pillars. At Tignum, we have had our clients share story
after story of attempts they have made to improve their energy and
resilience by only focusing on one pillar such as nutrition or exercise.
Unfortunately, their attempts always end in failure. Human beings are
complex and we live as an integrated unit; therefore, we have to approach
our sustainable high performance in an integrated fashion. To be successful,
you need to integrate simple strategies from all of the Performance Mindset,
Nutrition, Movement, and Recovery pillars.

Focus on performance, not on health. Many organizations have

implemented great health programs but as we discussed earlier, these
programs are designed to prevent you from sinking rather than helping you
swim. A performance program moves sinkers and floaters towards
becoming swimmers. Additionally, many of our clients are apprehensive to
share their medical information with their boss, or even their company
doctor. Performance, on the other hand, is an organizational issue, and it is
easy to focus on performance in a noninvasive and supportive way. Note
that a good performance program does not devalue the importance of good
health; it merely takes a more proactive and less sensitive approach.

Keep it fun. When we talk about high performance, it is easy to think that
it’s all work. In Section V, we discussed the importance of laughter for
Recovery and the importance of fun for intrinsic motivation. The fact is that
very few changes will last if it is not fun to be part of the change.

Practice what you preach. This may sound a little cliché but it rings true
over and over again. There is nothing that will destroy the implementation
of an organizational sustainable high performance program faster than
seeing the leadership say one thing and do another. For this reason, it’s
paramount that the leaders model the high performance habits they want
their teams to develop.

Make sustainable high performance part of the employee value

proposition (EVP). Exceptional organizations value their talent, and one
way to demonstrate that is to commit to their employees’ energy, resilience,
brain performance, and capacity. Financial packages can definitely attract
talent but they rarely keep talent. Talented leaders know that they are
always in demand. They also know that they can frequently negotiate better
deals elsewhere. What high performers value is being in an organization
that supports them to achieve their full potential. This means not simply
talking about how important employees are—it means proving it.
Include expectations and benchmarks for sustainable high
performance on annual performance reviews and in the bonus
structure. Reward swimmers (not just for their performance but for their
habits) more than floaters. (This makes sense since they probably contribute
more to your profitability). This also means that you should reward leaders
that contribute to making the organizational culture more high performance.

Gut Check

By reviewing the following descriptors of sinking, floating, or swimming

cultures, you can identify the things you can easily change within your
organization to move your culture more towards swimming. Incredible
organizational potential lies within reach if you are willing to shift from just
knowing to doing.

Does your organization want to sink, float, or swim?

The choice is always yours.

Your organizational culture is sinking when ...

_there is a team Mindset that is negative and problem-focused

_leaders foster negativity by ignoring it or buying into it
_leaders hold back one-on-one feedback and instead criticize through
rumors
_many people use coffee as the drug of choice to make it through the
day
_the organization provides only high-sugar or processed food for
snacks
_there are long, unproductive meetings without breaks where people
are distracted and not engaged
_leaders perceive Recovery breaks as a sign of laziness or weakness
_the working environment cultivates individualism rather than
collaboration
 _leaders criticize rather than support personal innovation
_no one is held accountable
_the focus is placed on being busy rather than getting results
_personal development and sustainable high performance programs are
the first to be cut during tough budget times
_there is a mission that states that human resources are the priority, but
all of the organizational actions contradict this statement
_leaders and team members are unaware that Mindset, Nutrition,
Movement, and Recovery habits impact the energy, resilience, brain
performance, and capacity of the team or organization

Your organizational culture is floating when ...

_there is a fluctuating team Mindset that changes from moment to

moment
_leaders talk about trust and empathy but their actions don’t always
match
_leaders talk about the importance of authentic feedback but then
criticize it
_snacks for meetings are chosen for convenience or cost rather than for
their impact on performance
_leaders talk about not working through lunch but then plan or expect
working lunches
_there is discussion about making meetings more productive and
strategic but no follow-through
_recovery rooms are provided but there is no support for people to use
them
_leaders avoid dealing with conflict whenever they can
_leaders talk about the need to work smart rather than hard, but then
criticize people for taking breaks
_personal development programs are seen as nice-to-have, not a
strategic-must
_there is a mission that states that human resources are the priority, but
many of the organizational actions contradict this statement
_leaders only address sustainable high performance of team members
when there is a crisis within the team (such as a burnout)
_leaders and team members are somewhat aware that Mindset,
Nutrition, Movement, and Recovery habits are important but do not
make the connection with performance

Your organizational culture is swimming when ...

_there is a team Mindset that is positive and solution-focused

_leaders challenge negativity by reframing it in the positive
_leaders provide authentic and productive feedback
_all members are encouraged to mentally and physically prepare for
_must-win events
_the organization supports Performance Nutrition and provides high
_performance foods
_there are highly productive meetings with high performance
hydration
_options and snacks, and scheduled strategic breaks
_there are many opportunities created for members to move
throughout
_the day
_leaders expect and support members to take regeneration breaks
_and power naps
_there is support across the organization for personal innovation
_leaders approach setbacks and change as opportunities
_everyone is held accountable and there is a results-only work
environment
_the actions of the organization prove every day that its people are the
_most important asset
_there is a high performance work environment that implements
 _performance reviews and employee value propositions
_leaders and team members integrate Mindset, Nutrition, Movement,
_and Recovery strategies to effectively utilize the energy, resilience,
brain
_performance, and capacity of the team or organization

At Tignum, we operate on the premise that simple things done savagely

well can produce significant and long-lasting results. This is how a high
performance culture is built, one simple thing at a time. But it is essential to
remember that cultures are made up of individuals, and therefore, everyone
has the ability and responsibility to make the organization better.

How will you take responsibility to make your organization productive and
profitable?

What role will you play in building a sustainable high performance culture?
 Chapter Nineteen
Time to Dive In

“Sustainable high performance doesn’t happen by chance—it happens by

choice.”

The world is rapidly evolving and the demands are growing exponentially.
The strategies that you used to get yourself to this point probably will not
be enough to help you succeed in the future. There will be new pressures
and challenges, and they will either help you reach your potential (swim),
keep you comfortably numb (float), or they will crush you (sink). You get to
choose.

In an interview with Rita McGrath, PhD, Columbia Business School

Associate Professor and consultant for Global 500 companies, she
discussed the importance of managing your focus and integrating
information: “The information age has changed the way you get
information, process information, and deal with interruptions. You used to
have just a few TV channels and one phone line. Now you have infinite
sources of information and it’s not about managing distractions, it’s about
managing your focus. You have to be able to get all the information you
need and then quickly integrate it into your strategy.”

Unfortunately, this can be particularly overwhelming and exhausting if you

don’t have high performance habits. Similarly, as we noted in the previous
chapter, corporate environments can be psychologically toxic. Not because
of an inherent deceit or dysfunction, but rather from the sheer complexity
and bureaucracy that comes when many people with diverse backgrounds,
cultures, personalities, and expertise try to work towards a common
solution. In these environments, personal control must be redefined, and
measurements of personal achievement and success must be redrawn.
Focus on What You Want to Grow
I remember an interview with Andre Agassi on a terribly windy day when a
reporter asked him if the wind bothered him. Agassi smiled and replied:
Wind? I didn’t even notice the wind. I grew up in Las Vegas where it’s
always windy. I love the wind. His response seems ironic, when you
consider that Agassi’s opponent blamed his own loss on the terrible weather
conditions.
What’s the wind that is drawing your focus and ruining your performance?
After working with thousands of executives, I’m convinced that many people
don’t take responsibility for their own focus. Or perhaps they’re not always
aware of where they have placed their focus. If you really want to quickly
improve your performance, take control of your focus and place it only on
what you want to grow.
Tignum Blog

Reframe Your Perspective

Like Andre Agassi’s experience, whatever you focus on will grow.

Unfortunately, right now too many executives are focusing on the negative
economy, the stock exchange fluctuations, the layoffs, the cutbacks, and the
internal struggles. If you focus on these, you will find plenty of reasons to
be afraid, to be exhausted, and to simply want to give up. But if you take
the Agassi approach and you focus on the things that you can control
(especially your own personal high performance strategies), you will realize
that there are many opportunities for excellence.

One of our clients summed it up best, when he shared, “I sit on my

commute home every night and I ask myself: ‘Am I being the best boss I
can be? Am I being the best husband I can be? Am I being the best father I
can be?’ And when I think of the answers, I get frustrated and
demoralized.”

The truth is that the answer to these questions is often no. Not because
leaders are not trying, but rather because they don’t have the energy to give
their best efforts, or perhaps their image of perfection is unrealistic.
On the contrary, if you reframe these questions, suddenly there is not only a
light at the end of the tunnel, there’s an opportunity for you to realize that
this is a work in progress, and every day you get a new chance to make
better choices for you, your team, and your organization.

In reframing your perspective, consider the following:

Did you implement the habits to create and maximize your energy?

Did you focus on the things you could control today?

Did you do something for yourself today in order to expand your capacity,
move towards your potential, and increase your impact?

Did you do everything that you know how to do to prepare yourself to

successfully compete in your must-win events today?

Did you do something to positively impact your team or your organization?

Did you bring energy to those you influence?

Why is your organization better today because you came to work?

There is no doubt that all indicators point to the business world of tomorrow
being full of challenges; and it will be exhausting for those who aren’t
prepared. But when our clients focus on the questions above, they quickly
realize that by incorporating simple habits in Performance Mindset,
Performance Nutrition, Performance Movement, and Performance
Recovery, they can be more prepared to meet their daily challenges and
move their teams and organizations towards sustainable high performance.

One person who is reframing his perspective, especially when it comes to

selecting the companies in which he will invest is Kurt Ehmann, Financial
Advisor for Financial Network in Los Angeles. Ehmann states: “I tell my
clients that they should be investing their money in the companies that are
continuing to invest in the high performance of their leaders and their
workforce. These are the companies that will have the power and the energy
to be innovative and to execute their business model. These are the
companies that are going to catapult out of this recession and who are going
to give you the greatest returns on your investments. Right now, I’m doing
my research to find the companies that are not buried in short-term crisis
thinking but who are boldly looking to the future. With everyone’s share
prices down, these companies are going to be the prime investment
opportunities.”

Prepare for the Future

Yes, the world is changing and you must be prepared to change with it. A
recent report predicted employment trends for the next 12 years. The
projected trend is that very few workers will be able to retire at current
retirement ages of 59 to 64.

Why? Due to the challenges businesses are facing with the Generation Y
workforce, older executives will be asked to continue working to provide
leadership and experience. With the market sensitivity and the growing debt
of many nations, it is unlikely that the current government retirement
benefit plans will remain solvent enough to support our current retirement
ages. Finally, with the progress of modern medicine, the life expectancy is
growing longer and longer.

Can you imagine ...

Working as hard as you do today when you are in your 70s?

But aside from just living longer, there are other trends that will surely
change the way we work. The current recession has led to record layoffs as
organizations have been forced to downsize. These new, leaner
organizations will be forced to do more with less people. This means the
days of working harder and harder until you eventually burnout and retire
are gone. The new paradigm will be dependent upon leaders, executives,
and workers who have sustainable high performance habits and who work
in high performance cultures. Everyone will have to be a swimmer, since
organizations that are made up of floaters will certainly not survive.
Are your habits currently capable of giving you the energy and resilience
you will need for the future?

Is your organizational culture going to energize your executives or zap their

energy?

Are you a swimmer or are you a floater?

Finally, as organizations get smaller there will be a growing number of

consultants, freelancers, and independent problem-solvers who will be
called in on a project-by-project basis to create winning solutions. You may
become one of these freelancers yourself.

In this situation, companies won’t provide benefits or long-term security, so

each consultant will be responsible for her/his own sustainable high
performance. In this new business world, the opportunities for those who
can produce and those who can consistently swim will be incredible. They
will get paid well and they will have the freedom to take on only the
assignments that interest them.

Today, and in the future, the scarce resource will be human energy, human
brain power, and human ability. The environmental challenges, the
economic challenges, and the social challenges we will face will require an
abundance of high performing leaders. You will need the Performance
Mindset, Performance Nutrition, Performance Movement, and Performance
Recovery habits to have the energy, resilience, and focus you will need.
Without these, you will have no passion, and that will be the worst crisis of
all.

“Successful and unsuccessful people do not vary greatly in their abilities.

They vary in their desires to reach their potential.”
John Maxwell, International Leadership Expert and Author

Why Waste Your Potential?

We chose the following letter as an ending because it is honest and telling ...
a description of one client’s journey, complete with his challenges,
triumphs, and passion for wanting to perform better.

Dear Scott, Jogi, and the entire Tignum Team,

I am writing this letter to share my thoughts and gratitude after working

with Tignum. Before I worked with Tignum, I was overwhelmed with work,
home pressures, and my own doubts. Our global team was new, and there
was friction among the group. The negative team dynamics were draining
almost all of us. My wife and I were also struggling, and for the first time in
my life, I was beginning to doubt my capabilities.

After the first evening of your program I felt great. What we had learned
about our behavioral styles, our testing results, and all of the Tignum
pillars was quite eye-opening. What shocked me the most, though, were the
discussions that we all had at dinner. We were talking about our team
mindset, achieving our potential, appreciating each other’s differences, and
sharing our own personal strengths and what we brought to the team. Even
more surprising, members of our team who had not been proponents of
exercise or healthy eating were talking about supporting each other and
teaming up to help each other change their habits.

At the end of the next day, after a challenging 14 hours, we were all
astonished at how much energy we still had. The movement sessions, the
high performance meals and snacks, the power nap, the breathing breaks ...
everything came together to make an unbelievably productive and life-
changing day.

The next day, we learned how to bring our new strategies together, and I
have to admit that everything we learned and every tool we were given was
immediately applicable. But what impacted me the most was the
development of my personal innovation map. In the reflection time, I
developed my To Be goals and for me, this was the turning point. It was
during this exercise that I realized that I had the potential to be a great
husband and father, a compassionate team leader, and an inspirational role
model for my team.

The shocker for me was when I realized that this Tignum work had really
nothing to do with my marathon running (although I set a personal best
marathon time four months later). It really had to do with my performance
at work and at home. It was more about creating the best me and then
sustaining it. I know it sounds corny, but there is nothing more liberating
than looking in the mirror and realizing that you can and must be
responsible for your own actions and solve your own challenges.

I must admit, though, that when I hit my first dip I lost all of my motivation
and I almost panicked. Even though the Tignum coaches had warned us, I
thought briefly that I was going to fail at a personal change plan yet again.
But, you quickly got me back on track, and that dip became an excellent
motivator for the next four months.

The total integration of Mindset, Nutrition, Movement, and Recovery

strategies, along with some positive coaching and support, has changed my
life. I saved my marriage, I transformed my team, I became a high
performer, and it has been a blast.

It’s been over two years now, and I have to admit that I am not perfect with
utilizing my strategies. I have some good days, some great days, and even
some pretty bad days. But now, I am aware of my habits and their
consequences so I don’t panic. I just get back on track the next day.

The thing is, I have more energy at work and I get more done in less time
because I’m so focused. I feel much better, even though I’m getting older.
You challenged us in the beginning to see if we could be better in five years
than we were on that first day, and I have to humbly admit, I’m on my way.

Thanks to all of you at Team Tignum. What you have done for me and my
team has been amazing!

Tignum Client
 All Habits Begin With One Step

So how do you move yourself, your team, and your organization forward?
Throughout this book, we have posed many reflective questions to help
improve your awareness and begin developing a plan. We have also given
you practical tips and examples of high performance strategies. In addition,
at the end of each section, we have provided you with a way to measure
whether you, your team, or your organizational culture are sinking, floating,
or swimming. These tools, along with all the other information we have
provided, will enable you, your team, and your organization to develop
clear actions that you can build into daily life to improve the energy,
resilience, brain performance, and capacity of your organization.

Finally, we have created a place on our website where you can get
additional information. At Tignum, we are always researching which tools
or strategies work best for our clients. By frequently visiting our website,
you will be able to learn about these new strategies and tools, read our
blogs, download our podcasts, and take your own sustainable high
performance to a higher level.

It is important to remember is that there is no perfection. We don’t live in a

perfect world, and there is no such thing as a perfect person. Therefore, we
recommend that you envision your sustainable high performance as a
process or a work in progress. There is no end destination, because the
benefits are cumulative and the process is dynamic.

When it comes to taking your first step to change your habits, we would
like to leave you with the following words for action:

First, only you can change your habits. We can give you all the
information, all the tools, and all the strategies, but ultimately only you can
make it happen.

Second, change is a process AND the benefits are expansive. These

benefits won’t only impact you; they will also impact your family, your
friends, your team, your company, and even your brand.
Third, setbacks are not only normal, they are predictable. They are also
an effective source of motivation because they force you to recommit to
your To Be goals and to the reasons why you want to change. In this
process, you will find the most powerful intrinsic motivation ever.

Fourth, human beings are complex, and everything you do has a

consequence on something else in your body or mind. Therefore, only an
integrated solution will lead to lasting change. This approach doesn’t
require that you do everything, but it does require that you complete some
small action in each one of the pillars.

Finally, we began this book with a dedication to all of our clients because
YOU are what motivates us. Your sustainable high performance is truly our
passion. When you share your stories, like the ones we have featured in this
book, you don’t simply make us happy; you help make us better at creating
sustainable high performance strategies that work.

Every day, we discuss ways in which Tignum can more effectively serve
our clients. Writing this book has played a large part in refining our vision
and strategies, ultimately making us better at what we do. We thank each
and every one of you for sharing in this experience. And we look forward to
hearing from you in the future. Remember to check out our website at
www.tignum.com for updated information, tools, blogs, podcasts, and more.

The choice is always yours.

Epilogue
The Tignum Story

Tignum – a Latin word meaning “beam”

illuminating you with new information, strategies, and
motivations (a beam of light); and supporting you especially
during times of change and challenge (a structural beam)
 Epilogue
The Tignum Story

You may be wondering—what is Tignum, exactly? And, how did Jogi

Rippel and Scott Peltin come together? What compelled us to act upon
fulfilling this need for sustainable high performance strategies for
executives and business leaders? How did a business entrepreneur and a
firefighter from very different backgrounds, from countries that are across
the Atlantic Ocean (Germany and the United States) meet and put together
such a powerful concept?

Our clients frequently ask these questions, so we decided to end with a few
vignettes that describe our journey to create Tignum.

Jogi

It was the spring of 1999 when my father entered his last year of work
before retirement. It was also almost exactly a year before he planned to
hand over his company, when he was diagnosed with cancer. My dad was
an entrepreneur, and he worked hard his entire life with a clear focus to
slow down when he finally retired. Only 18 months later, my dad passed
away, and I’ll never forget what he told me in one of the many
conversations we had during his battle with cancer.

He said, “Jogi, please don’t make the mistake I made. Don’t disregard your
own health and vitality like I did. It is your core asset. Don’t take it for
granted and don’t wait until a crisis hits before you address it.”

His words will stay with me for the rest of my life. And, my father’s words
were the beginning of a journey that would lead to the creation of Tignum.

Scott

From the first day that I walked into a fire station, I was motivated by the
opportunity to impact other people’s lives with my own high performance. I
remember doing mental imagery exercises as I ran around Greenbelt Lake
—picturing myself kicking in a door; making it down a dark, hot, and smoky
hallway; and performing a rescue under the worst of conditions.

Throughout my years in the Fire Service, the idea of how to improve

performance was more than just a curiosity to me; it was a burning passion.
Even when some of the old-school guys challenged the benefits of mental
training, the importance of functional training, the value of quality recovery
on the fire ground, and the need to teach new firefighters how to deal with
their stress and emotions; I was always driven to researching best practices
and challenging the status quo.

Being blessed with a fantastic Fire Chief Alan Brunacini, in the Phoenix
Fire Department I was fortunate to be able to explore and develop many
different ideas on improving the mental, physical, and emotional
development of firefighters. I was also fortunate to be a member of several
national committees working to address key issues that were influencing the
health, wellness, safety, and performance of firefighters across the United
States.

Jogi

After my father died I knew that I had to rethink my career path. I had been
an entrepreneur with my own marketing company before I attended the
MBA program at IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland. I wanted
to have more impact. I saw my father’s story being played over and over
again with many of the corporate executives that were coming through
IMD. They were working long hours, traveling constantly, and struggling
with one corporate change initiative after another; and you could see the
negative impact on their health and performance.

I would go for walks on the path around Lake Geneva and I would ask
myself: Why do so many people wait until it’s too late to make changes in
their lifestyle habits? Why don’t they see that they are sacrificing their
performance at work and at home, as well as killing themselves simply to
get ahead? I knew that it was too late to help my father, but I believed that
finding the answers to these questions and helping these leaders learn a
better way had to be the foundation of Tignum.

Throughout the early development of Tignum, I was fortunate to have the

support of Professor Sean Meehan from IMD. He asked me to share my
ideas with the new MBA students so that they could learn from my
experiences and hopefully make some changes in their habits. It was during
one of these presentations that I met Pieter-Christian van Oranje, a member
of the Dutch Royal Family. He was an accomplished marathoner and a
dedicated philanthropist, so the idea of helping business leaders improve
their performance to deepen their impact really resonated with him.

Shortly after meeting Pieter-Christian, he and I decided to collaborate and

develop the business plan for Tignum. We strategized who our potential
clients would be and the partners we would need to make our deliverables
world-class. We decided that I would travel to the US to meet with some
possible high performance partners, and Pieter-Christian would work on
opening some doors to potential clients. This led me to Athletes’
Performance, the world leader in training elite athletes across a multitude
of sports, in Tempe, Arizona.

Scott

When I was thinking about retiring from the Fire Service, I started
exploring all the potential avenues I could think of. I had worked on the
front line as a firefighter and as a captain. I had led several battalions and
varied areas of the fire department, as a battalion and division chief. I spent
25 years developing programs to help firefighters and leaders in the Fire
Service become high performers in the worst of situations under the highest
levels of stress. Now it was time to see if what I had to share had any value
outside the fire department.

A scientist by training, I did my research. I asked every executive I could

find about the challenges he or she faced. What was a day in their shoes
like? The answer was always the same. “I basically put out fires all day,”
they would reply.
“What training have you received on putting out fires?” I would respond.
Their faces would go blank, their eyebrows would raise slightly, and almost
every time they would smile just a bit and state “none.” Interesting, I
thought, because that was exactly what I had been trained to do for my
entire adult life.

A short time later, I developed a presentation called “Igniting Personal

Excellence” for the annual Phoenix Fire Department Health and Wellness
Symposium. It was all about the elements that are necessary to ignite a fire.
In the fire tetrahedron you need fuel, oxygen, heat, and a chain reaction in
order for any fire to start. I immediately recognized that these same
elements were necessary to achieve personal excellence. Fuel came from
nutrition. Oxygen came from doing regular exercise. Heat came from
having a purpose, passion, or mission in life. A chain reaction was either
created or destroyed by the habits a person had, including sleep and stress
management habits. And, as I began delivering this presentation around the
country, I could see that this message resonated with my audiences, opening
people’s eyes to the things they needed to do to achieve their full potential.

At the same time, I was asked by Athletes’ Performance to consult on the

development of a firefighter physical training program. With the similarities
of the demands of performing on the fire ground and on the athletic ground,
it seemed a natural fit for Athletes’ Performance to implement their
methodology with firefighters. With my strong background in functional
training, I was honored and intrigued to meet Mark Verstegen, the founder
and president of Athletes’ Performance. It was this set of circumstances that
serendipitously led me to meet Jogi.

Jogi

When I got to Athletes’ Performance I was very impressed with Mark

Verstegen’s passion for helping his athletes achieve their potential and
extend their careers. Taking athletes who were already high performers and
helping them take their performance to the next level while simultaneously
improving their sustainability really inspired me. Both Mark and I
immediately saw the parallel need in the business world. In addition, the
COO of Athletes’ Performance Dan Burns, a Harvard MBA graduate,
joined us in our discussions as I explained my vision. Little did I know that
this early vision paled in comparison to what Tignum would eventually
become.

During my week in Arizona, I was able to experience what it felt like to be

an athlete going through the Athletes’ Performance methodology. As a
former competitive tennis player I loved the systems they used, the
approach of the highly professional coaches, and the strategic blend of
work and rest that Mark had developed.

And, it was during a recovery break in the cold plunge that I met Scott. I
remember looking across the frigid pool and asking him, “Why would a
firefighter come train at Athletes’ Performance?” Maybe it was
hypothermia, or maybe it was Scott’s witty response to my common-sense
question, but I knew this guy had a different way of looking at things. He
grinned (as only Scott can) and simply replied: “Would you rather have the
firefighter who comes to save your life be a high performer or the overpaid
athlete that you read about in the newspaper?”

Cold Plunge
A cold plunge is a small pool that is kept at approximately 55 °F (12.8 °C)
and is used to help athletes improve the quality and speed of their recovery.
The water is painfully cold and in the beginning, it is a struggle to stay
immersed for even 10 seconds. During training at Athletes’ Performance,
the cold plunge is a vital step to maximizing recovery. The goal is for
athletes to spend 1 to 10 minutes immersed in cold and then immediately
jump into the hot tub (a pleasant 102 °F or 38.9 °C).

Scott

When I met Jogi in the cold plunge, I was curious about who he was. I
observed that he was being whisked around Athletes’ Performance like a
VIP and knew that he wasn’t simply another athlete being trained. When we
got into the hot plunge (a much better place to hold a conversation), I asked
him about his reason for being there. As Jogi told me about his father and
his journey, I was taken aback. My father had also died too young, at 53
years old, and it was part of my motivation in always staying healthy (even
in a highly hazardous occupation like firefighting).

When Jogi told me about his vision for Tignum, I felt an even bigger jolt.
Not because we had just jumped back into the cold plunge, but because I
was going down a similar path with my “Igniting Personal Excellence”
program.

I’m not sure if it was Jogi’s great vision, the similarity in our father’s
stories, our shared love for tennis, or if it was something much larger ... but
when I went home that night I knew our meeting that day wasn’t a
coincidence. I knew that I would become a part of Tignum, and together,
Jogi and I would create something that would make a profound difference
in people’s lives.

Tignum—A Collaboration With a Different Approach

From our initial concepts, we spent the next year developing what is now
Tignum content. It is the collaborative effort of many talented people who
all share a fundamental drive to assist leaders in achieving their full
potential so they can expand their positive impact on their organization,
their brands, their customers, and their families.

Tignum is an international team of high performance coaches and business

consultants from various fields including organizational behavior, brain
performance, leadership, innovation management, high performance
medicine (western, eastern, holistic, and sports medicine), performance
nutrition, performance movement, and performance recovery.

Since 2003, Tignum has worked with over 2,000 top executives (board
members, CEOs, and senior leaders) from diverse companies in over 20
countries. Our clients include Fortune 500 companies such as IBM,
Unilever, Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline, Accenture, DSM, and Adidas.
 What Tignum Is/Not

Over the years we have had numerous conversations with CEOs, top
executives, HR leaders, and even travelers sitting next to us on an airplane
(a place where we have spent way too much time). As we describe Tignum
in these conversations, we often get the response, “Oh, you guys are a
health and wellness program.”

We always bounce back with: “No, we are a company focused on

developing high performance in business, and improving your health and
wellness just happens to be a beneficial side effect.” After further
discussion, people always understand that what we do is definitely about
improving performance, but for some reason it isn’t always easy to quickly
and succinctly paint the picture of our work.

Perhaps some of the comparisons our clients have shared with us will help
you clearly see who we are.

Tignum is ... ... not

individualized one-size-fits-all
an excuse annihilator an enabler
a change catalyst complacent
pragmatic and tangible philosophical or theoretical
energizing exhausting
a long-term solution a quick fix
flexible rigid
integrated (multidisciplinary) uni-disciplinary
out-of-the-box thinking status quo
thought and action provoking knowledge dumping
a team builder a team divider
an asset to an organization a cost to an organization
what could be what is
 Our Mission

We have written this book to address the missing links in sustainable high
performance leadership. In these tough times, too many leaders are simply
focused on survival. We hope we have challenged you to shift your focus in
order to discover the ways that you can increase your response-ability
(ability to respond to high demands) and your perform-ability (ability to
perform at your potential). We are passionate and committed to helping you
build the capacity required to consistently perform at your best.

We invite you to become engaged in our process, which is designed to assist

you in identifying current ineffective habits, developing more effective
strategies, and implementing new high performance behaviors and routines.
In our work, these strategies have been proven to be effective, simple,
synergistic, and practical to fit the highly demanding lives of top
performing leaders.

Above all, we hope to inspire you to develop and implement the strategies
and habits necessary to perform at your best today, develop your potential
for tomorrow, and get more out of everything you do every day.

www.tignum.com
 Acknowledgments

Sink, Float, or Swim Acknowledgments

At this point, thanks are not enough for all the people who have personally
and professionally influenced us. Throughout both of our lives, we have
been blessed to have numerous people who have taught us, pushed us,
coached us, loved us, and at times, kicked our butts. We are a product of all
of you, and this book is a result of our experiences with all of you.
Therefore, please know that it would take another entire book to properly
thank you all, but since we are short on time, we hope these few pages will
suffice.

It would be impossible to begin without thanking each other first. There are
people you meet with whom you become instant friends, but we have
become far more than that. So often, we have been in different countries
only to wake up and find that we had both sent an e-mail to each other with
the identical idea. These would have remained thoughts, but we always
challenged each other to turn these ideas into reality. From the first day we
met, we both shared a passion for making Tignum a special company, a
unique project with far-reaching impact that inspires others to be their best.
We have never had a doubt or faltered in our commitment to our four core
values of fun, freedom, innovation, and impact.

At the end of every day, we can both say that we are better people for
having met, and this book is one step in the dream we set out to fulfill.
People say we fight like a married couple and we think like we share one
brain, but we always push each other to be better, to make Tignum better,
and to make our legacy an authentic one. Thanks for the thought-provoking
discussions and amazing discoveries, and most of all, for so many fun
matches on the tennis court.

We are forever grateful for Christine Buss. You fell out of the sky and
helped immensely to bring our ideas together. You are a workhorse, and
your incredible attention to detail and your resilience under our myriad
demands made this book a reality.

Tignum would not be possible without our partners (and other founders)
Pieter Christiaan van Oranje, Mark Verstegen, Dan Burns, and the entire
Athletes’ Performance family. Creating anything of significance is always
the product of much brainstorming, lots of idea sharing, and a few favors to
open some doors. Without every one of you, there would be no Tignum.

From the beginning, we have been fortunate to attract an extraordinarily

talented team. Everything at Tignum, and especially this book, has been a
team effort. Patti Milligan, Duncan Coombe, and Andre Hartwich—thanks
so much for your unselfish sharing and giving from the start. You were not
only patient; you always believed in our vision for Tignum and then did
everything you could to make it come true. Without you, our Mindset,
Nutrition, Movement, Recovery, and Benefit Attainment content would not
be the world-class program that it has become. Patti, you are the best
nutritionist we have ever met and without you, this book and Tignum would
not be the same. Tanis Shelly, you have been a godsend. You are a terrier,
willing to take on any task, and attack it with zeal. Dr. Lutz Graumann,
Stefan Schaidnagel, Alexander Putz, Karen Arnold, and Adrianne Bowden
—you are dedicated teammates and your support has helped make this book
and Tignum a huge success. As we thank our Tignum team, we would be
remiss if we didn’t also send out a special thank you to Paul Preston and
James Henderson. Both of you have taken us under your wing and
passionately believed in the power of our work.

The design of a book is what makes the reader comfortable and open to the
messages the words try to convey. Our designers Marko Puclin, Janine
Nemec, and Achim Trumpfheller are awesome. Thanks so much for your
creativity, your patience, and your hard work.

Finally, we would like to thank Sandy Ogg for having the trust to engage us
in our first program. It was a real privilege to work with your team, and we
are forever grateful for the opportunity to exceed your expectations.
 Scott’s Acknowledgements

I want to begin by thanking my wife Karen. Your belief in me and in

Tignum has been amazing. Through all of my late nights, endless phone
calls, miles of travel, and yes, even a few obsessions with perfection, you
have supported me. Your patience with my last minute edits and impossible
deadlines has been angelic. I also want to thank Kristina and Daniel. You
are my inspiration to achieve my potential, and I hope to become worthy of
being called your dad. And, thanks to Boozer (our Queensland Heeler) for
keeping me company on so many late nights of writing.

When I think of the people who have influenced me and made an impact on
my life, I have to put Chief Alan Brunacini at the top. You have been an
inspiration, a motivator, and a father figure to me. Your belief in me and
your openness to all of my wild ideas helped me form my opinions and
grow into the person that I am today. You are not only the greatest Fire
Chief there ever was, you are the greatest mentor. Thank you for
everything.

I want to thank my mom (Deanne Lange) and my father (Izzy Peltin). Mom,
your work ethic and no-nonsense approach to life has helped shape me, and
always enabled me to move from knowing to doing. You taught me how
important it is to think for myself, develop my own opinions, and speak up.
Dad, I know you never got to see who I have become as a man, but you
were my first coach and gave me the coaching gene in my DNA. You left us
too early, and it is this fact that has driven me to assist our clients in
changing their habits. I also want to thank my in-laws, Gerry and Sheila
Chaney, for all of your help and support. The 5:30 a.m. chats, the critical
review of the chapters, your book and article reviews, and of course, the
talks at the BBQ all helped tremendously.

Finally, I have to say that much of what I have learned has been through the
projects I have been a part of and the experiences I have had as a coach and
on the Phoenix Fire Department. I would like to thank my friends Tom and
Rhonda Hascall, Wendy Ballas, Derek Alkonis, Jeff Case, Warren Bowden,
Joe Bledsoe, Olivia Templeton, and Bill Whitaker. You all have a special
place in my heart and in my development, and I thank you all for your
friendship and support. Lastly, I want to thank Deby and Brad Harper for
opening my eyes to the DISC Profile System and expanding my horizons.
Deby, you are way ahead of your time.

Jogi’s Acknowledgements

My biggest thank you goes to my wife Doris. You are my greatest

supporter. Thanks so much for believing in me and sharing my passion for
Tignum. Your critical questions, creative input, and dedication to quality
brought us to another level. Thanks also for your patience while I was on
the phone with Scott on so many nights and weekends.

I want to thank my parents Inge and Hermann Rippel for showing me the
world of entrepreneurship and for always letting me go my way. Thanks,
Dad, for the inspiring talks we had during your cancer journey. You left us
way too early, but with the creation of Tignum, your death has brought great
meaning. Every person we impact, we impact because of you.

Also, a big thank you to my wonderful friends Thomas Mayer and Yvonne
Baur. You always believed in my crazy ideas. Thanks for making me a part
of your family and for your endless hours of consulting.

The Tignum idea actually started at the IMD business school in Lausanne,
Switzerland. Thanks to Tanja and Martijn Hol (and for all the nights at the
Hol Hilton) and Katis and Fred Bergegard for all your support, challenging
questions, and strategic input. Thanks also to my IMD buddies Bogdan
Madzar, Mirko and Helen Giacomo, and Michelle Burke who worked with
me on the cancer project. A warm hug to Rosie Daniels who is a role model
that truly makes a difference and to Sean Meehan for my first opportunity
to lecture at IMD.

Many good friends supported me in the creation and development of

Tignum. Giorgio Bottega—your passion for sustainability and your
architecture is beyond description. You are a true visionary. I promise we
will build a Tignum facility soon. Andre Steck—our dream lawyer—thanks
for your remarkable energy and brilliant input. Roger Kehl, my old school
friend, thank you for always searching for an open door for us. Jürgen Dürr,
Mr. Blackroll—thanks for your continual and sound input. Jacek Jonczyk—
your digital input made a difference and brought us many compliments.
Thank you all for your friendship.
Notes and References

Prologue

Interview with former President Bill Clinton: The Role of a Former President, November
2008, television program, CNN’s Talk Asia, Japan.

Chapter One

Burnout rates: G. K. Kulkarni, “Burnout,” Indian Journal of Occupational and Environmental

Medicine, October 2006, pp. 3-4.

Cost of presenteeism: Paul Hemp, “Presenteeism—At Work But Out of It,” Harvard Business
Review, October 2004, p. 3.

Financial Times article: Donald Sull, “Why the Worst Times Can Also Be the Best of Times,”
Financial Times, December 1, 2008, p. 1.

Martin Luther King Jr. quote: Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love (First Fortress Press,
1981), p.15.

Study by Accenture: Individual Investors Enthusiastic About Stock Market but Lack
Capabilities to Measure Companies’ True Value and Growth Prospects, Accenture Study Finds,
March 2006, press release, Accenture, US, viewed October 28, 2008,
<http://newsroom.accenture.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=4317>.

Dr. Brian Sutton-Smith quote: Bernie DeKoven, The Opposite of Play, March 2007, online
article, DeepFUN, US, viewed July 12, 2008, <http://www.deepfun.com/2007/03/opposite-of-
play.html>.

Chapter Two

Jim Collins interview: Alan M. Webber, Good Questions, Great Answers, December 2007, web
interview, Fast Company, US, viewed December 13, 2008,
<http://www.fastcompany.com/articles/2001/09/collins.html?page=0%2C0>.

Matthias Malessa interview: Giving 110%: Our Efforts to be a Responsible Business in 2007,
corporate review, adidas Group, Germany, viewed November 21, 2008,
<http://www.corporateregister.com/a10723/AdidasGr07rev-csr-de.pdf>.

Chapter Three

Jack Welch quote: Jack Welch, Are Leaders Born or Made?, December 2005, web blog, The
Welch Way, US, viewed June 22, 2008,
<http://www.welchway.com/Management/Leadership/What-Makes-a-Leader/Are-Leaders-Born-
or-Made.aspx>.

Michael Jordan quote: Phil Gordon, Still No Bracelet, August 16, 2007, online article, ESPN,
US, viewed February 2, 2009, <http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=2977179&type=story>.

Brain performance and potential: Carla J. Shatz, “The Developing Brain,” The Scientific
American Book of the Brain (Scientific American, 1993), p. 3.

Brain statistics: Daniel Drubach, The Brain Explained (Prentice Hall, 1999), pp. 36-37.

Adequate sleep: Printed with permission of Dr. Mark Mahowald, MD, Director of the
Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center. For additional information, see
<http://www.hcmc.org/medical%20expert%20bios/mahowaldmark.htm >.

Dan Ephron, Singing for Your Sleep, October 30, 2006, online article, Newsweek, US, viewed
August 22, 2008, <http://www.newsweek.com/id/45162>.

Stress and the brain: Robert Sapolsky, Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers (Henry Holt and
Company, 2004), pp. 202-225.

Omega-3 fatty acids research: Patricia E. Wainwright, “Omega-3 Fatty Acids and the Brain,”
Nutrition, Nov/Dec 1991, pp. 443-446.

Irwin H. Rosenberg, “Rethinking Brain Food,” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition,

November 2007, pp. 1259-1260.

Brain cells and aging: Dr. Daniel Amen, Cool Brain Facts, online article, Amen Clinics, US,
viewed January 2, 2009, <http://www.amenclinics.com/brain-science/cool-brain-science/cool-
brain-facts/>.

Right-brain thinking: Daniel Pink, A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to
the Conceptual Age (The Penguin Group, 2005), p. 25.

Daniel Pink, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future, (Berkley Pub Group,
2006).

Whole-brain thinking: Chris McManus, Right Hand, Left Hand: The Origins of Asymmetry in
Brains, Bodies, Atoms and Cultures (Harvard University Press, 2004), pp. 183-184.

Business and karaoke: Kjell Nordström, DSM Internal High Performance Conference, keynote
address, Düsseldorf, Germany, March 8, 2007.

Chapter Four
Costs of stress: What Is Burn-out and Depression?, 2008, online article, Douglas Institute,
Canada, viewed January 4, 2009, <http://burnout.douglas.qc.ca/burn-out/facts-and-
figures.html>.

Prepared by Cardiff University and Queen Mary University of London for the Health and Safety
Executive, “Ethnicity, Work Characteristics, Stress and Health,” 2005, pp. 6-8.

Burnout study: “Burnout Britain: Raising the Alarm for Employers,” A Hudson Report, 2005,
pp. 2-3.

Burnout cycle: Ulrich Kraft, “Burned Out,” Scientific American Mind, June 2006, pp. 28-33.

Tension myositis syndrome: John Sarno, The Mindbody Prescription: Healing the Body,
Healing the Pain (Warner Books, 1999).

Joe Robinson quote: Joe Robinson, Work to Live: The Guide to Getting a Life (Perigee, 2003),
p. 30.

Definition of presenteeism: Paul Hemp, “Presenteeism—At Work But Out of It,” Harvard
Business Review, October 2004, pp. 3-4.

Unproductive hours chart: adapted from original by Cornell University Institute for Health and
Productivity Studies (IHPS), CDC-NIOSH Steps to a Healthier U.S. Workforce Symposium,
October 26-28, 2004, Washington, DC.

Lockheed Martin study: Paul Hemp, “Presenteeism—At Work But Out of It,” Harvard
Business Review, October 2004, p. 6.

Leadership and mindlessness: Richard E. Boyatzis and Annie McKee, Resonant Leadership:
Renewing Yourself and Connecting with Others Through Mindfulness, Hope, and Compassion
(Harvard Business School Publishing, 2005), p. 130.

C. K. Prahalad: Personal interview with Tignum, January 19, 2009.

Trends for investment groups: Yuval Rosenburg, “Measured Progress,” Fast Company, April
2007.

R. Paul Herman: Personal interview with Tignum. December 18, 2008.

Steve Jobs’ health: Jessica Mintz, “Apple Shares Fall on Steve Jobs Health News,” The
Huffington Post, January 15, 2009.

Peter Drucker quote: Robert K. Cooper, “Excelling Under Pressure: Increasing Your Energy
for Leadership and Innovation in a World of Stress, Change and Unprecedented Opportunities,”
Strategy and Leadership, January 2001, p. 15.

Study of high-earners and work: Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Carolyn Buck Luce, “Extreme Jobs:
The Dangerous Allure of the 70-Hour Workweek,” Harvard Business Review, December 2007,
pp. 62-64.

Chapter Five

Interruption science: BusinessWeek Video 2008, Maggie Jackson’s book Distracted, online
Businessweek Video Library, US, viewed June 11, 2008, <http://feedroom.businessweek.com/>.

E-mail and web statistics: The World Wide Web Is One Big Machine, August 4, 2008, online
article with statistics from Kevin Kelly of Wired Magazine, US, viewed November 6, 2008,
<http://www.sayyestono.org/DasBlog/PermaLink,guid,f2eb3d19-12d8-4b3e-9e7b-
2adaeaa4b1ae.aspx>.

1800s health book: Thomas John Graham, Sure Methods to Improving Health and Prolonging
Life (London, 1828).

Chapter Six

Common self-talk traps: Betsy Shoenfelt, Self-Talk: The Power of Positive Thinking, online
article, Department of Psychology, Western Kentucky University, US, viewed February 23,
2009, <http://edtech.tph.wku.edu/~bshoenfe/mentalskillsselftalk.htm>.

Metacognition and performance: Geoff Colvin, Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates
World-Class Performers from Everybody Else (Tantor Media, 2008), p. 11.

Tiger Woods reviews and practice: Tiger – The Authorized DVD Collection, DVD, Buena
Vista Home Entertainment, 2004.

Tiger Woods record: Tiger Woods Official Website, 2009, Tiger Woods, US, viewed January 5,
2009, <http://www.tigerwoods.com>.

Hardiness study: S. C. Kobasa, “Stressful Life Events, Personality, and Health: An Inquiry into
Hardiness,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, January 1979, pp. 1-11.

The strengths revolution: Printed with permission from Marcus Buckingham. For additional
information, see <http://www.marcusbuckingham.com>.

Chapter Seven

Tiger Woods Quote: Tiger – The Authorized DVD Collection, DVD, Buena Vista Home
Entertainment, 2004.

Betancourt and Mindset: Free at Last: Columbian Hostage One-On-One, July 2008, television
program, NBC Today Show, US.

Chapter Eight
Carlo Petrini and the slow food movement: Carlo Petrini, Slow Food Nation: Why Our Food
Should be Good, Clean and Fair (Rizzoli Ex Libris, 2007).

Changing British school menus: The Naked Chef: Series 1-3, DVD, 2006, BBC Series,
Universal Pictures, produced by Kent Weed.

Protein and immunity: Bill Campbell et al, “International Society of Sports Nutrition Position
Stand: Protein and Exercise,” Journal of International Society of Sports Nutrition, 4:8, 2007.

W. M. Rand et al, “Meta-Analysis of Nitrogen Balance Studies for Estimating Protein

Requirements in Healthy Adults,” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, January 2003, pp.
109-127.

Nutrition and brain functioning: Amen Clinics, Dr. Daniel Amen, US, viewed July 23, 2008,
<http://www.amenclinics.com/>.

Prisoner and fish oil study: Jeremy Laurance, “Prison Study to Investigate Link Between Junk
Food and Violence,” The Independent, January 2008.

Impact of food and physiologic hunger: Food and Eating Module: American Time Use Survey,
USDA Study, 2003.

Slow Food, Slow Food USA, 2008, viewed June 9, 2008, <http://www.slowfoodusa.org>.

The Weston A. Price Foundation for Wise Traditions, US, viewed May 29, 2008,
<http://westonaprice.org/>.

Digestive enzymes: Melvin R. Werbach, MD, Nutritional Influences on Illness (Third Line
Press, 1993).

Childhood obesity: Healthy Youth! Childhood Obesity, October 2008, online article and
resources, CDC: National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, US,
viewed September 5, 2008, <http://www.cdc.gov/HealthyYouth/obesity/index.htm>.

Eating and stress: Dr. Jonathan Collin, MD, Editor-in-Chief, Townsend Letter for Doctors and
Patients, 2004.

Melvin R. Werbach, MD, Nutritional Influences on Illness (Third Line Press, 1993).

Michael Cutler, MD, The Untold Truth Series, Wasatch Research Institute, 2004.

Eating and travel: Food Standards Agency, 2009, Food Standards, UK, viewed October 23,
2008, <http://www.food.gov.uk/>.
Water and dehydration: M.-M. G. Wilson, “Impaired Cognitive Function and Mental
Performance in Mild Dehydration,” European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, December 2003.

P. J. Rogers et al, “A Drink of Water Can Improve or Impair Mental Performance Depending on
Small Differences in Thirst, Appetite, (36), 2001, pp. 57-58.

S. M. Kleiner, “Water: An Essential But Overlooked Nutrient,” Journal of the American Dietetic
Association, February 1999, pp. 200-206.

Hydrated and dehydrated brain photos: Photographs provided by Dr. Daniel Amen from
Amen Clinics, Inc. For additional information, see <http://www.amenclinics.com/>.

Hydration measures: Mayo Clinic Staff, Water: How Much Should You Drink Every Day?,
online article, April 2008, Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research (MFMER),
US, viewed December 18, 2008,
<http://www.mayoclinic.com/print/water/NU00283/METHOD=print>.

Benefits of performance drinks: K. L. Tucker et al, “Colas, But Not Other Carbonated
Beverages, Are Associated with Low Bone Mineral Density in Older Women: The Framingham
Osteoporosis Study,” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, October 2006, pp. 936-942.

K. Rezai-Zadeh et al, “Green Tea Epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) Reduces beta-amyloid

Mediated Cognitive Impairment and Modulates Tau Pathology in Alzheimer Transgenic Mice,
Brain Research, June 2008, pp. 177-187.

Qi Dai, MD, Phd, et al, “Fruit and Vegetable Juices and Alzheimer’s Disease: The Kame
Project,” The American Journal of Medicine, September 2006, pp. 751-759.

R. Cuomo et al, “Effects of Carbonated Water on Dyspepsia and Constipation,” European

Journal of Gastroeneterology and Hepatology, 14 (9), 2002.

S. Schoppen et al, “A Sodium Rich Carbonated Mineral Water Reduces Cardiovascular Risk in
Postmenopausal Women,” The Journal of Nutrition, May 2004, pp. 1058-1063.

University of Oxford, “Chocolate, Wine and Tea Improve Brain Performance,” ScienceDaily,
December 2008.

Coffee, performance, and information: C. F. Brice and A. P. Smith, “Effects of Caffeine on

Mood and Performance: A Study of Realistic Consumption,” Psychopharmacology, 164, 2002,
pp. 188-192.

M. C. Cornelis et al, “Coffee, CYP1A2 Genotype, and Risk of Myocardial Infarction,” The
Journal of the American Medical Association, (295), 2006, pp.1135-1141.

M. H. Bonnet and D.L. Arand, “The Use of Prophylactic Naps and Caffeine to Maintain
Performance During a Continuous Operation,” Ergonomics, 37(6), 1994, pp.1009-1020.
National Coffee Association, 2009, Coffee Science Source, US, viewed June 24, 2008,
<http://www.coffeescience.org/>.

Free radicals: Understanding Free Radicals and Antioxidants, 2009, online article, Health
Check Systems, US, viewed November 21, 2008,
<http://www.healthchecksystems.com/antioxid.htm>.

Chapter Nine

Blood glucose fluctuations: American Association Scientific Sessions 2007, Orange County
Convention Center, Orlando, Florida, Nov 4-7, 2007.

M. P. Mattson and R. Wan, “Beneficial Effects of Intermittent Fasting and Caloric Restriction on
the Cardiovascular and Cerebrovascular Systems,” Journal of Nutrition Biochemistry, March
2005, pp. 129-137.

R. M. Anson et al, “Intermittent Fasting Dissociates Beneficial Effects of Dietary Restriction on

Glucose Metabolism and Neuronal Resistance to Injury from Calorie Intake,” Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, May 2003, pp. 6216-6220.

Blood glucose and performance: Research from Paul E. Gold, PhD, Professor of Psychology,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. For additional information, see
<http://www.psych.uiuc.edu/people/showprofile.php?id=51>.

Retention tests and blood glucose: R. Gruetter et al, “Steady-State Cerebral Glucose
Concentrations and Transport in the Human Brain,” Journal of Neurochemistry, (70)1, 1998, pp.
397-408.

Skipping meals and blood glucose: e! Science News, 2009, Eureka! Science News, USA,
viewed July 9, 2008, <http://esciencenews.com/>.

Poor sleep and blood glucose: S. Seicean et al, “Sleep-Disordered Breathing and Impaired
Glucose Metabolism in Normal-Weight and Overweight/Obese Individuals: The Sleep Heart
Health Study,” Diabetes Care, May 2008, pp. 1001-1006.

Nuts research: D. Jenkins et al, “Almonds Decrease Postprandial Glycemia, Insulinemia, and
Oxidative Damage in Healthy Individuals,” The Journal of Nutrition, December 2006, p. 2987-
2992.

E. Huskisson, S. Maggini, and M. Ruf, “The Influence of Micronutrients on Cognitive Function

and Performance,” The Journal of International Medical Research, 35(1), 2007, pp. 1-19.

M. F. Muldoon, S. Conklin, C. M. Ryan, J. Yao, J. Hibbeln, and S. B. Manuck, “Cognitive

Function and Omega-6 and Omega-3 Fatty Acid Balance,” American Psychosomatic Society
Annual Meeting, March 2007, Budapest, Hungary, abstract.
R. K. McNamara and S. E. Carlson, “Role of Omega-3 Fatty Acids in Brain Development and
Function: Potential Implications for the Pathogenesis and Prevention of Psychopathology,”
Prostaglandins Leukotrienes and Essential Fatty Acids, October 2006, pp. 329-349.

S. M. Conklin, J. I. Harris, S. B. Manuck, et al, “Serum Omega-3 Fatty Acids Are Associated
With Variation in Mood, Personality and Behavior in Hypercholesterolemic Community
Volunteers,” Psychiatry Research, July 30, 2007, pp. 1-10.

S. M. Conklin, P. J. Gianaros, S. M. Brown, et al, “Long-Chain Omega-3 Fatty Acid Intake Is

Associated Positively with Corticolimbic Gray Matter Volume in Healthy Adults,” Neuroscience
Letters, June 2007, pp. 209-212.

S. M. Conklin, S. B. Manuck, J. K. Yao, J. R. Hibbeln, J. D. Flory, and M. F. Muldoon, “Serum

Phospholipid Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids Are Associated With Mood, Behavior and Personality
in Healthy Community Adults,” American Psychosomatic Society Annual Meeting, March 2007,
Budapest, Hungary, abstract 1718.

Nutrient intake: W. Broekmans et al, TNO Nutrition and Food Research and TNOWU Centre
for Micronutrient Research, The Netherlands.

Formula for nutrient dense diet: Joel Fuhrman, MD, Eat to Live: The Revolutionary Formula
for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss (Little, Brown and Company, 2003), p. 7.

Tignum Color Code Body: Developed by Tignum Director of Nutrition Patti Milligan. Codes
are based upon meta-anlaysis studies, major reports on pigments and their physiologic
functionality. Various disciplines of phytochemical, nutritional, biochemical, and functional food
research, including:

ORAC work by Dr. Bruce Ames,

<http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/feb99/aging0299.htm>.

Birgit Holst and Gary Williamson, “Nutrients and Phytochemicals: From Bioavailability to
Bioefficacy Beyond Antioxidants,” Current Opinion in Biotechnology, April 2008, pp. 73-82.

C. Gemma et al, “Diets Enriched in Foods with High Antioxidant Activity Reverse Age-Induced
Decreases in Cerebellar A-adrenergic Function and Increases in Pro-inflammatory Cytokines,”
Journal of Neuroscience, July 2002, pp. 6114-6120.

G. Cao et al, “Hyperoxia-Induced Changes in Antioxidant Capacity and the Effect of Dietary
Antioxidants,” Journal of Applied Physiology, June 1999, pp. 1817-1822.

Institut Scientifique et Technique de la Nutrition et de l’Alimentation, Paris, France.

Jeanelle Boyer and Rui Hai Liu, “Apple Phytochemicals and Their Health Benefits,” Nutrition
Journal, 3:5, 2004.

Judy McBride, USDA, Agricultural Research Service, August 9, 1999.

Life Extension Foundation research at <www.lef.org>.

N. Darmon et al, “A Nutrient Density Standard for Vegetables and Fruits: Nutrients Per Calorie
and Nutrients Per Unit Cost,” Journal of the American Dietetic Association, December 2005, pp.
1881-1887.

Ronald Prior, James Joseph, Guohua Cao, Barbara Shukitt-Hale, Jean Mayer, USDA Human
Nutrition Research Center on Aging, Tufts University, Boston, Massachusetts.

Chapter Ten

Foods and drinks for detoxification: “Symposium on Phytochemicals: Biochemistry and

Physiology American Society for Nutritional Sciences,” Journal of Nutrition, 129, 1999, pp.
7565-7575.

Calories for nutrient needs: S. B. Eaton and M. J. Konner, “Paleolithic Nutrition Revisted: A
Twelve-Year Retrospection on Its Nature and Implications,” European Journal of Clinical
Nutrition, 51, 1991, pp. 207-216.

S. Boyd Eaton, MD, Marjorie Shostak, and Melvin Konner, The Paleolithic Prescription: A
Program of Diet & Exercise and a Design for Living (Harpercollins, 1988).

Ayurveda: The National Institute of Ayurvedic Medicine, 2008, US, Scott Gerson, MD, viewed
June 4, 2008,<http://niam.com>.

Variation in body chemistry: Roger J. Williams, PhD, Biochemical Individuality: Key to

Understanding What Shapes Your Health (Keats Publishing, 1998).

Diet-related diseases: William L. Wolcott and Trish Fahey, The Metabolic Typing Diet:
Customize Your Diet to Your Own Unique & Ever Changing Nutritional Needs (Bantam Books,
2002).

Chapter Eleven

Exercise and health: American Association for Cancer Research, Exercise and Rest Reduce
Cancer Risk, November 2008, online article, ScienceDaily, US, viewed December 3, 2008,
<http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081117153154.htm>.

Associated Press, Walking and Longevity Study: Exercise Can Add 3 Years to Life Expectancy,
2005, online article, MSNBC, US, viewed July 18, 2008,
<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10039577/>.

Benefits of Exercise in Cancer Care, 2006, online article, ExerciseWorks of Boston, US, viewed
August 15, 2008,
<http://www.bostonexerciseworks.com/CancerWellnessProgram/exercise.html>.
Exercise ‘Prevents and Treats’ Cancer, May 2008, online article, NHS Choices, England,
viewed June 3, 2008,
<http://www.nhs.uk/news/2008/05May/Pages/Exercisepreventsandtreatscancer.aspx>.

Exercise and Alzheimer’s disease: John Ratey, Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of
Exercise and the Brain (Little, Brown and Company, 2008).

Movement, balance, and brain integration: The Brain Muscle Workout 2007, The Brain
Muscle Workout Fitness Program, US, viewed June 23, 2008,
<http://www.thebrainmuscleworkout.com>.

PBS – Scientific American Frontiers, 2002, Brainy Putting, online video, viewed August 12,
2008, <http://www.pbs.org/saf/1206/video/watchonline.htm>.

Patterns of Movement: Juan Carlos Santana, Functional Training: Breaking the Bonds of
Traditionalism (Juan Carlos Santana, 2000).

Good Movement patterns: Gray Cook, Athletic Body in Balance (Human Kinetics, 2003).

Posture graphic: Adapted from graphic developed by Mark Verstegen, Athletes’ Performance,
Tempe, Arizona. For additional information, see <http://www.athletesperformance.com/>.

Chapter Twelve

ESD training program: Athletes’ Performance, Tempe, Arizona. For additional information,
see <http://www.athletesperformance.com/>.

VO2 Max: Elizabeth Quinn, VO2 Max Measures Aerobic Fitness and Maximal Oxygen Uptake,
June 2008, online article, About.com: Sports Medicine, viewed July 8, 2008,
<http://sportsmedicine.about.com/od/anatomyandphysiology/a/VO2_max.htm>.

Exercise and muscle mass: ACE, 2009, American Council on Exercise, US, viewed August 15,
2008, <http://www.acefitness.org/>.

Chapter Thirteen

Selye’s research on stress: Hans Seyle, Stress Without Distress (New Amer Library, 1991).

Hans Selye, The Nature of Stress, online article, International Center for Nutritional Research,
Inc., US, viewed July 23, 2008, <http://www.icnr.com/articles/thenatureofstress.html>.

Hans Seyle, The Stress of Life (McGraw-Hill, 1978).

Stress and flow: Mihály Csíkszentmihályi. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
(HarperPerennial, 1990).
Chapter Fourteen

Sleep research: William C. Dement and C. Vaughan, The Promise of Sleep: A Pioneer in Sleep
Medicine Explores the Vital Connection Between Health, Happiness, and a Good Night’s Sleep
(Bantam Dell Publishing Group, 1999).

Sleep Facts and Stats, National Sleep Foundation, US, viewed November 22, 2008,
<http://www.sleepfoundation.org/site/c.huIXKjM0IxF/b.2419253/k.7989/Sleep_Facts_and_Stats
.htm>.

Sleep and travel: Business Travel Statistics, British Airways July 2005 statistics, Entrepreneur,
US, viewed September 12, 2008,
<http://www.entrepreneur.com/encyclopedia/statistics/article82014.html>.

US Military studies on power naps: E. Williams, et al, “Human Performance,” Internal

Government Report, unclassified, JSR-07-625, March 2008.

NASA research on naps: Michael B. Mann, NASA Study, Office of Aero-Space Technology
National Aeronautics and Space Administration, August 3, 1999.

Tom Peters quote: Printed with permission of Tom Peters. For additional information, see
<http://www.tompeters.com>.

Laughter and Recovery: L. S. Berk, D. L. Felten, S. A. Tan, B. B. Bittman, J. Westengard,

“Modulation of Neuroimmune Parameters During the Eustress of Humor-Associated Mirthful
Laughter,” Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, March 2001.

M. P. Bennett, C. Lengacher, “Humor and Laughter May Influence Health: III. Laughter and
Health Outcomes,” Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, March 2008, pp
37-40.

M. P. Bennett, J. M. Zeller, L. Rosenberg, J. McCann, “The Effect of Mirthful Laughter on

Stress and Natural Killer Cell Activity,” Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, March –
April 2003.

N. Skinner, N. Brewer, “The Dynamics of Threat and Challenge Appraisals Prior to Stressful
Achievement Events,”Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, September 2002.

Humor in the workplace: University of Missouri-Columbia, Light Humor in the Workplace Is a

Good Thing, Review Shows, November 2007, online article, ScienceDaily, US, viewed May 5,
2008, <http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2007/10/071031130917.htm>.

Laughter and diabetes study: T. Hayashi, S. Tsujii, et al, “Laughter Up-Regulates the Genes
Related to NK Cell Activity in Diabetes,” Biomedical Research, December 2007, pp. 281-285.

Paul Ekman on facial expressions: Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without
Thinking (Little, Brown and Company, 2005), pp. 206-208.
Chapter Sixteen

Heart attacks and change: Alan Deutschman, “Change or Die,” Fast Company, May 2005.

Tignum Benefit Attainment Process: Developed with Duncan Coombe, an organizational

behavior expert and leadership consultant from Case Western University.

John Kotter on behavior change: Alan Deutschman, “Change or Die,” Fast Company, May
2005, p. 54.

Quitting and the dip: Seth Godin, The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and
When to Stick) (Penguin Books, 2007), p. 33.

Performance and goal setting: Geoff Colvin, Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates
World-Class Performers From Everybody Else (Tantor Media, 2008).

Chapter Seventeen

Collaboration in business: Ellen McGirt, “How Cisco’s CEO John Chambers is Turning the
Tech Giant Socialist,” Fast Company, December 2008.

Clive Woodward and Mindset: Clive Woodward, Winning!: The Story of England’s Rise to
Rugby World Cup Glory (Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 2005).

Anne Mulcahy and Mindset: Bill George, “America’s Best Leaders: Anne Mulcahy, Xerox
CEO,” US News and World Report, November 2008.

Climbing stairs saves energy: How Much Energy Does It Take to Use an Elevator for One
Floor or How Much Money Does It Cost to Use an Elevator Lift for One Floor? WikiAnswers,
viewed December 5, 2008, <http://wiki.answers.com/Q/>.

Climbing stairs burns calories: How to Estimate the Number of Calories You Burn Walking Up
the Stairs, eHow, viewed December 5, 2008, <http://ehow.com/how_4670381>.

Walking workstation study: “Office of the Future” Environment Study, August 2008, online
article, Mayo Clinic, US, viewed December 5, 2008, <http://www.mayoclinic.org/news2008-
rst/4924.html>.

Reduction in drag: Edmund Burke, High-Tech Cycling (Human Kinetics, 1996).

Chapter Eighteen

Business suicide: C.K. Prahalad, Personal interview with Tignum, January 19, 2009.

Bernhard Lobmueller on cuts: Personal interview with Tignum, January 13, 2009.

Measuring ROI: John W. Boudreau and Peter M. Ramstad, Beyond HR: The New Science of
Human Capital (Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation, 2007).
Chapter Nineteen

Rita McGrath’s view: Personal interview with Tignum, February 26, 2009.

Investing in high performance companies: Printed with permission from Kurt Ehmann,
Financial Advisor for Financial Network, Los Angeles, California.

Employment trends: Matthew Guthridge, Asmus B. Komm, and Emily Lawson, “Making
Talent a Strategic Priority,” The McKinsey Quarterly, January 2008, pp. 50-59.

John Maxwell quote: Printed with permission from John Maxwell. For additional information,
see <www.johnmaxwell.com>.
Notes

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