During the next few weeks, Lt. Col. Bruce Bright, USMC (Ret), president and CEO of The Bright Group, will offer his thoughts in a series of short articles on "Peak Performance" for you and your organization. The objective of these articles is to help get you thinking about becoming a "Peak Performer" and empowering your family, friends and employees. This series is intended to enhance the keynote talk Lt. Col. Bright will give on Saturday morning at the 17th Annual Improving Profitability, and Business and Legal Issues for ASCs Conference on "Peak Performance: How to Achieve Peak Performance as a Person and an Organization."
"We do not see the world as it is, we see it as we are" — Anais Nin
Peak Performance starts with a solid foundation in life. If you want to be a top performer, begin by ensuring you are working from a foundation that can withstand the pressures that will come as you make your way to the top. Three areas that you should focus on are your health, head, and heart.
Health. Without your health it will be very difficult to perform much less be a peak performer. Weight loss programs are a billion dollar industry. We clearly understand that our health is important but Americans continue to get larger each year. According to the CDC, in 1960, 13 percent of Americans were obese. Today that number has grown to 34 percent. Worst yet, our children are now showing trends of increased obesity. Here are some numbers that should awaken us. Children obesity rates today: 2-5 years: 10 percent; 6-11 years: 20 percent, 12-19 years: 18 percent. To reverse this trend I recommend that you set smart goals (more on what I think are S.M.A.R.T. goals in October) for yourself and stick to them. Between now and the conference in October I challenge you to set one small goal for healthy living. Write it down and put it in a place you will see it daily. Use the questions below to determine if you have made a wise choice, the desire to succeed and a clearly defined time for completion. I look forward to hearing about your success in a few weeks.
Head. You must "choose" to be a Peak Performer. You are free to choose your future, by not choosing you have made a choice. William Jennings Bryan said, "Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice: It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved." I want to encourage you to use your head to make wise choices and then have the discipline to follow what you have chosen. If you are having trouble staying disciplined, ask yourself these questions: Why is this decision important to me? On a scale of 1-10, how important is this decision? What is one small step I can take to make this decision a reality? What is my timeline for completion? If you get positive answers to these questions, you are off to a great start; if not, you may not be interested enough in the idea to succeed.
In the next article I will discuss the most important factor in building your foundation: your heart.
To learn more about Lt. Col. Bruce Bright and becoming a Peak Performer, visit www.pilotbright.com or contact Lt. Col. Bruce Bright at bruce@pilotbright.com.