Dr. Charles Garfield, team member of NASA's historic Apollo Moon Landing and
President of Performance Sciences Institute in Berkley, California, compiled hundreds
of description of this state from athletes and business people. He came up with a
fascinating description of this :State of Excellence".
In his years of research, certain characteristics have emerged which are common, at
one time or another, in the lives of peak performers or super achievers. In my life
working with thousands of people, the most important ingredient is passion.
P: 
The first letter of PASSION stands for Purpose. Having a mission, goal or
direction in your life to complete. Something that gets you out of bed in the
morning. (The key is doing what you love.) When we follow our interests,
enchantments or fantasies, we are naturally on purpose. Each day becomes a
joy. Not that we are not exhausted at night but it is a delightful exhaustion, like
the one after a day of playing your favorite game. Your work, your life, becomes
more like play and you have the feeling of needing to pinch yourself to see if it is
real. "Another day when I get to do what I love to do and get paid for it? Wow! I
must be blessed." There are thousands of stories where people, for one reason
or another, follow their hearts and become financial successes. Remember,
there is not one thing in this world that you love to do that someone somewhere
isn't getting paid to do -- think about it.
A: The second letter of PASSION represents Ability. To be peak performers, we
must have a grasp of the basic and "core competencies" of our work. Whether
we are mechanics, stock brokers, doctors, nurses or parents, there are specific
tools to master. Some tools are more valuable than others. Remember the
20/80 law? Twenty percent of the tools in your personal toolbox perform 80
percent of your tasks, 20 percent of your calls result in 80 percent of your
closings or 20 percent of your customers account for 80 percent of your
earnings. It is a useful generality.
S: There is a Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) concept called Stretching that
gives us our "S" in PASSION. Everyone has experienced times where life dares
us to make a Quantum Leap, a jump into the unknown. In a way, it is an act of
faith in yourself and in life to force yourself to break out of a rut, take a risk,
stretching beyond your own "comfort zone", beyond what has become habitual.
Not everyone stretches as frequently or as far as others. We must all respect
our own rhythm and yet continue our movement forward. Too much stretching
causes burnout, too little results in boredom. The point in between is sometimes
called "dancing on the razor's edge". Goethe, the great German poet and
philosopher, once said: "What ever you can do or dream, you can do. Begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.."
S: Stretching beyond what we consider to be our limitations leads us to discovering
personal resources we may not have even known we possessed. And there is
the added bonus, when we stretch, of accessing the powerful state known as
The Second Wind. Marathon runners experience a burning fatigue around the
19th mile, known as "the wall" where their minds and bodies demand they stop.
They feel at this point that they cannot go another step. And yet, when the
runner ignores that limitation, takes two steps beyond it, suddenly a deeper
resource is tapped, and like magic the pain disappears. They feel as if they had
stopped and are refreshed. Where did this new energy come from? And what
do you have inside yourself that is just waiting for you to explore?
I: The uses of Imagery have been well documented by the most rigorous scientific
research. Dr. Karl Pribram's work at Stanford showing how the mind works
neurologically through imagery has revolutionized the field. Visualization of
specif images affect everything in our lives. It is the rudder by which we steer
our ship. "No wind blows in favor of a ship that has no port of destination." The
two main components are relaxation and visualization. Peak performers know
how to use these tools and take the time to relax and imagine their goals in a
very specific way. They have many different ways of handling stress and use
them regularly.
O: One of the most powerful characteristics of peak performers is an Open Heart.
It is fired by the twin engines of love and forgiveness. "Someday, after we have
mastered the winds, the tides and gravity, we will harness for good the energies
of love and then for the second time in the history of the world, man will have
discovered fire", wrote Teillhard de Cardin. Forgiveness is the ability to
understand the nature of mistakes and failures and to let go of the obsession
with perfection. Mistakes and failures are information for correction, for
adjustment to change. No matter how well someone showed you how to drive a
car, you had to stall it. No matter how well anyone explained how to cut a 2 x 4
or swim -- you had to try it, make mistakes and correct yourself. Dr. Garfield
points out that the flight of the Apollo from the Earth to the Moon was off course
more than 90 percent of the time yet it arrived successfully. It was simply shifting
the attention to correction rather than failure. We learn to make lemonade out of
lemons, every kick becomes a boost, every "no" brings us statistically close to a
"yes".
N: Nexus, our last letter of PASSION, is defined as a bond, link or tie between
members of a group, a means of connection between things. "We are the world"
has become a common theme in the last few years. One of the positive things to
come out of the stock market downturn of 1987 was the painful realization that
even financially we are a global unit and must begin thinking in that frame. We
all have personal, local, group, national and global connections. It has been
reported that peak performers are people who act as team members rather than
the Lone Ranger. They have replaced a more secretive style of interaction
within that group, toward one of collaboration, knowing how, when and where to
ask for support. At the top of their priority list are love, family and friends.
These elements of PASSION can help us electrify our lives. People who are
considered "peak", as Dr. Garfield points out, are not born special. They are ordinary
people who have made their lives extraordinary. They move through life with
PASSION!
The foregoing article was originally published at page 36 of volume 4, Number 4 of the trade
journal "Unlimited Human". The author retained the copyright on material printed by them per
Jillian LeVelle, President, International Association of Counselors and Therapists.
