Exposure µ Performance
For years I thought the more I locked myself away, worked on myself and ensured I wasn’t influenced by people who would bring me down, I thought I would surpass everyone else.
When my youngest brother made the biggest move of his life to chase his dream in futsal and relocate to Brazil practically broke, amongst all the fear he encompassed he shared probably one of the greatest gifts. He told me, if you were to graph performance, it would be linearly proportionate to exposure. He went on to explain that, “the more one decides to expose himself/herself to life’s experiences, the higher they will perform indefinitely.” Figure 1 below illustrates the relationship.
Figure 1. Performance vs. Exposure
When this image was placed in front of me, it made me think of the greats. Robert Kiyosaki served the military and became one of the greatest educators of all time; Donald Trump served the military and eventually became one of the greatest property developers ever; Bill Gates dropped out of college and opened his own business that eventually served to be one of the greatest computer company’s ever; Arnold Schwarzenegger served the military and moved to America where opportunities flourished in front of his eyes before he could even imagine them, and the list goes on.
In order for a powerlifter to maximise their strength capacity, deadlifts, squats and bench press cannot be the only exercises performed on a training basis – it simply pays no benefit. There is no coincidence a powerlifter undertakes pendlay rows, chin ups, box squats, paused squats, cleans, glute hamstring raises and all the other accessory exercises you can perform. The fact is, powerlifters require exposure. The more you expose the athlete to exercises that they have not yet experienced, the higher their performance increases. The same phenomenon applies to all activities, and in general, life.
For years I practiced the general hypertrophy training recommended by most training institutions, ‘8-12 reps x 3 sets.’ I saw minimal change, and whatever change I did experience was within the first month; from there the change was just maintained as my body became accustomed to the habitual routine. Once I experimented and went against the current norms with things like low rep squats for multiple sets and sets of 50 curls.
My performance as an individual started to match those who I struggled to challenge, and in most cases, I excelled past them. What was learnt from being an athlete was soon applied to the idea of living, and with that barriers were torn down faster than I could keep up. Opportunities were being thrown at my face and all I could do was take; there was no room to think, just act. It was the fact I chose to expose myself, accept that there was no perfect, just experience.
We think that the most important thing is to serve others, be selfless and be a contributor. The fact is, we have to be selfish. We can work as a team for so long but at the end of the day, if we do not have a sense of ourselves, we will become lost in a world that is infinitely growing. At the end of the day, what is important is what we think of ourselves. If we cannot wake up early in the morning smiling with ourselves, there is no point to continue doing what we do. It is happiness that defines where we are as people, without happiness we all may as well die.
Before you go on to believe that performance is the result of hiding yourself away from the crowds, remember that with exposure comes performance.
Great share Nat ... Love that exposure and service are vitally important to performance but that, being happy with yourself is first and foremost!
Posted by: Roz | May 11, 2016 at 08:16 AM
Thank you so much Roz, and thank you for taking the time
Posted by: Nat | May 11, 2016 at 07:59 PM