the blueprint
olympic level sprint coach, stuart mcmillian has a good philosophy for what works for peak performance.
he's arguably one of the best coaches across all domains as he has worked with 35 olympic medalists and countless world champions in sprint and power sports.
olympic level athlete's require a system
human performance is super complex. complex systems have all of these interacting parts. if you try to optimize them all, you end up with unintended consequences and a whole lot of stress. but if you can be a 7 or an 8 out of 10 across all of the parts, then the whole ends up being incredible (hear more).
what this mean's for the sprinter is a coaching approach to improve the core factors that lead to better performance:
- technique and agility
- muscle strength
- recovery (food and sleep)
- mindset
if you optimize for only one, there are limits to peak performance and unintended consequences like burnout.
it's about achieving 8/10 across all of them for sustained peak peformance. you are only as good as your worst day.
what does this system look like for founders, builders, and innovators?
to build a system of practice, it's about learning what the best in the world do, implement what works for you, and move on from what doesn't.
that's how matt mochary built up his core method for ceo coaching: constantly learning and iterating from the best in the world.
while at tks, we had to understand this from first principles to help teens achieve more than what conventional wisdom says is possible at a given age.
we drew inspiration from mit and stanford entrepreneurs, best practices from large companies like google and mckinsey, as well as from individual insights from people like sam altman, vinod khosla, paul graham, sara blakely, and more.
the core parts of an innovator's individual system for success include:
- mindsets
- network
- skillsets
- knowledge
- wisdom
h/t navid, co-founder of tks, for the structure.
mindsets
similar to plato's virtues, these are values that must be practiced through taking action.
it's not enough to think or talk about them for them to be effective.
- figure it out
- bias towards action
- seek understanding
- high standards
- think for yourself
network
cultivating strong, medium, and weak networks help unlock support and resources to accomplish ambitious goals.
- strong networks = team members, mentors, personal relationships
- medium networks = investors, advisers, customers
- weak networks = followers and fans across socials
skillsets
having the ability to get different kind of tasks done as well as empowering others to make progress ends up looking more like a swiss army knife to tackle challenges than a single tool.
- communication: blog writing, sales pitch, ted talk, youtube video, loom video
- team: project management, stand up meetings, personal user manuals, okrs
- design: slides, ux/ui, rendering, diagrams, standalone decks, websites, personal branding
- coding: python, tensor flow, flask, matlab
- tools: bezi, blender, benchling, comsol, figma, photoshop
knowledge
developing domain expertise across multiple areas of emerging technologies and science can unlock new possibilities.
- artificial intelligence
- gene editing
- fusion energy
- quantum computing
- nanotechnology
- robotics
- spatial computing
wisdom
learning from the best in the world thinkers and philosophers from the last couple of thousand of years as well as modern day thought leaders.
each of the above has it's own set of practices and playbooks
curious to learn more? let's chat.