“The quality of your life is dependent upon the quality of the questions that you ask”
– Tony Robbins
Positive thinking clichés
We all have heard repetitive clichés emanating from the mouths of our parents, teachers, friends and family such as:
- “Just work hard and you shall be rewarded”
- “What you sow you shall reap”
- “Think positively and all will be better”
- “Do not worry tomorrow will be a better day”
Yet most family members and friends will complain that they work hard but that, in their minds, they are overworked and under paid. Besides paying lip service to “positive thinking” what is the reality behind hard work and the remuneration for it?
The purpose of hard work
“Whatsoever your deepest driving desire is, so shall your thoughts be, as your thoughts are, so shall your deeds be, and your deeds shall echo in all eternity” – Upanishads
“As a man thinketh so is he.” –Proverbs
The only real reason for hard work is to build perseverance and “strengthen your spine” because it is very hard to give up on a cause if you have sincerely put in a lot of hard work. However take the time to consider that when you really love what you do and you live your purpose, long hours do not feel so long and hard work can even be energising as opposed to making you tired all the time. When you are driven by purpose and love what you do there is less stress involved within your efforts and better performance will result.
Of the upmost importance is the quality of the work that you put in versus the amount of hours spent doing your work. A razor sharp focus on the activities that serves your business purpose and vision which in turn increases profits is a requirement of smart work.
The Pareto principle applies here:
On average team members spend only 20% of their time on the activities that really serves the business purpose and vision and brings in the desired business results and 80% on activities that does not fully support business results or only to a very small degree. Smart and quality work is therefore ensuring a razor sharp focus and spending 80% of your time on the 20% of the activities that really drives business results.
“The quality of your life is dependant on the quality of the questions that you ask”
– Tony Robbins
How do I identify the twenty percent of the activities that bring in the profits and serves our collective purpose? Now, that is already a better quality question than for example: “Why am I so tired? Why am I so de-motivated? When you ask high quality questions you are already starting to train your brain to come up with better quality answers that will lead up to better quality actions, that is if the reader is brave enough to venture outside of the self-imposed boundaries of his or her own comfort zone.
The following table clearly highlights the difference between high and low quality questions. High quality questions that is answered and acted upon consistently leads to peak performance and lowered stress levels.
Low quality questions often leads to excuses that are void of solution driven thinking and increased stress levels:
High quality question. (Peak performers should ask) | Low quality question. (That generally leads to poor performance) |
What creative solutions can we come up with in order to generate more leads from our marketing campaigns? | Why is it so difficult to get leads? |
Which accurate metric system can we put in place in order to measure all activities that will reveal which ones drive the most profit? | Why am I so overwhelmed by everything that needs to be done? |
What type of candidate with which type of characteristics do we need to serve our collective purpose? | Why is it so hard to find the right person? |
How can we align all our processes and systems and remove waste (waste of time and waste of effort) to deliver better results? | I am so tired and demotivated, why is this not working? |
The three pillars of peak performance in business and any area of life
1. A laser focus on Purpose
Being purpose driven and doing what you love is a key factor in producing the desired results and delivering a great performance consistently. Then people start acting out of own accord and no longer have to be asked to do their work.
2. People skills
Sincerely care for people. Study and learn until you know how to speak to different personality types and respect different world views in order to get the best out of each individual. Inspire people to want to do what they sincerely love instead of constantly telling them what to do. Ask high quality questions to your team members to help them to train their brains to come up with high quality answers and solutions. Study human behaviour to understand your clients better and improve upon your people skills in order to enhance your customers’ experience of your product and service.
3. Technical skills
A high level of product knowledge, sales skills, and knowledge of all business processes and systems is of course a requirement of sustainable success. Technical skills only however becomes a potent driver of sought after business results when combined with highly developed people skills.
A peak performance equation
Carefully selecting from the key points of this article the following “peak performance” equation is created:
Being Purpose driven x Asking high quality questions x taking immediate action (no procrastination) x developing to a high level of people skills x developing to a high level of technical skill x Removal of waste (Time wasters and a waste of effort) = Peak performance.
**** Multiplication is used within this equation to portray the fact that all elements within this equation is necessary to create a peak performance environment. Therefore if one element equates to zero the answer is zero, and will not lead to a peak performance environment.