broke them. But I argue that they
understood what rules they were
breaking. Too many times those who
are dabblers do things they deem
creative that are simply different but
not valued.
You want to watch a movie at
home? Wasn’t that many years ago
that you rented a video. That was
the rule. Reed Hastings at Netflix
asked why? He decided you could
mail a DVD to the house and you
could mail it back. That became the
“rule”…until streaming. You could
stream content to your TV, computer
or laptop. Now the conduit—the
“streamers” if you will—have moved
into content creation. The rules get
broken by those who aren’t confined
by best practices but who look for
better and next practices.
You offer a formula to help boost
performance: FIT (Frequency—
Intensity—Technique): Would you
break this down for us and explain
how these three concepts help to
maximize potential?
Mark: The same things that help you
build muscle help you get better.
Frequency is about how often you do
something. Working out three times
a week trumps working out once
a week. Reading 10 new books a
year increases learning much more
than reading 5 books a year. We get
better when we do anything more
frequently. But here’s the caveat: we
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have to do it correctly with intensity.
Intensity is about how much effort
you bring to what you are doing. I
love what one gym owner says: if
you aren’t sweating, I won’t talk to
you. How many people spend more
time checking their email than they
do exercising when they go to the
gym? Technique means first doing
it correctly and for the advanced
person, then doing it better. Go
to any gym and you’ll see people
fooling themselves. They are using
poor or even wrong technique. Not
only won’t they build muscle, they will
often injure themselves because they
were frequently and intensely doing
the wrong thing.
You encourage your readers to track
their progress, but how does this work
in real life? Not everything comes
with an analytical read-out. Can
you give us some examples of how
leaders can track their progress?
You measure what you treasure.
That’s almost a cliche, but it is true. If
you can’t measure it—quantifiably or
qualitatively—how do you know you
are improving?
You need a few dials on your
dashboard in life. Quantify how often
or how well you do something if
you can measure it. Things like sale,
revenue, customer sat scores, etc.
can all be measured quantitatively.
But if you can’t quantify it, create
a 1 to 10 qualitative scoring system.