What I Learned from Elite Athletes

"Distance and difference are the secret tonic of creativity. When we get home, home is still the same. But something in our mind has been changed, and that changes everything."
-Jonah Lehrer


This is a quote from a book I read called "Steal Like an Artist," by Austin Kleon. I read it while working down in Phoenix, AZ this past week. It struck me how true this statement was this past week. Working with the UK Track and Field athletes while being in a facility with lots of NFL players, one can not help but notice the pace, structure, work, and mindset of the elite.

Naturally, one starts to internalize the information and figure out how you yourself can apply that your life. I had become way to lax with diet. It helps to be hanging out with 5% body fat world class sprinters to realize, yea I can do better.

Watching an NFL athlete work so hard, they give up their cookies, to say, when's the last time I worked that hard?

Learning that one UK athlete keeps such a detailed log of training, food, meals, sleep, thoughts on that sprint, that jump, to ask where can I focus in with more attention to detail to improve my life, job, work, family?

Speaking with coaches and therapist on what they are reading, seeing, contemplating, working on, experimenting with, to reinforce the need to keep doing exactly that.

So I leave you with those same questions to ponder.

-train out pain and train in performance!