BUILDING COHESIVE TEAMS

Team cohesion is dependent on the context and what the team is trying to accomplish i.e., sports, military, business, etc. My approach towards developing cohesion amongst a team would vary and depend on what their one common goal is. However, there are some common practices that apply to most. I will discuss five of the approaches I would use and also speak broadly about some techniques that work for specific instances:

• Shared Misery- Each team has to share the ability to accomplish something together that requires hard work. This works in all levels whether it is military and or the sports field. That is why we have boot camp, two-a-days for football players, and sometimes a grueling application/onboard process for new executives. People that suffer together build bonds together because there is nothing that can replace the experience that they experienced together. As a consultant, it's sometimes expressed in giving business leaders the ability to have a weekend retreat where they all go together unconnected from the workplace and conduct a series of leadership exercises together.

• Finding Common Ground- Many teams are separated because they have different backgrounds, cultures, races, etc. They are allowed to form cliques and work with those they are most comfortable with and continue to make and form subjective opinions about each other without any real context. As a consultant, it's imperative to find a venue where opposites can work together on a task and work out any shortcomings together. Sometimes in a business atmosphere, it is valuable to conduct personality tests like the Myers Briggs or DISC test which can be used as a tool to show commonality amongst individuals that otherwise would seem different from the outside.

• Refining the Mission- Sometimes the institutional mission is convoluted and therefore everyone is working in a vacuum without and perspective about what the institution is doing. As a consultant, it is imperative to review the institution’s mission and discuss with the leadership what it is they believe is the mission. Therefore everyone can have a clear understanding of how they contribute to the entire mission. Every person must feel that they are a valuable cog in the wheel so that they understand or feel that their contribution affects the overall accomplishment of that mission.

• Start at the Top- See who is in charge and see if they are leading by example. A team is usually only as good as the hands that lead it. As a consultant, it is imperative that a vetting process of both values, proficiency, etc. is objectively applied to the leadership team from an outside perspective so that they can see their deficiencies. Many leaders in institutions are unaware of their misleading’s and the workforce is too afraid to confront them. Leaders need a fresh perspective from an outside source without bias. Some television shows like Bar Rescue or Kitchen Nightmares show a subject matter expert entering the facility and giving the leadership unbiased opinions about the restaurant. The value of the show is that it demonstrates that outside perspectives help to reinvigorate the success of the restaurant.

• Listen and Thank the Workforce- The workforce is the only reason most institutions stand and also have very good knowledge about what the shortcomings are of the team. Many leaders do not listen to their workforce nor thank them enough for what they do. As a consultant, it would be valuable to discuss either face-to-face or survey with all the team members about their opinions about what the deficiencies are. In the process, it would be valuable to advise leadership to thank their teammates for their work and contributions in a way to increase their morale and motivation. This also creates buy-in from the workforce and provides a foundation for relationship-building amongst teammates.

As a consultant, I think these refining and implementing some of these practices, as mentioned, would help increase cohesion amongst a team. Another valuable approach is to also look at system processes and how some of the processes and procedures are managed and conducted in the institution. Clearly identifying any inefficiencies in system processes helps to alleviate undue stress and pressure that can affect teams.

THE METAPHORICAL WEIGHT VEST

The metaphorical weight vest pertains to the physical mask we have to now wear in society. In CrossFit we constantly strive to be better in unpredictable situations and events. We work every day in different time domains, modalities, weight, weather, etc. and even increase the difficulty for how we do our workouts by increasing the weight, going Rx, and wearing a weight vest. Why all of a sudden do we smirk and cry when it comes to wearing a mere weightless 1oz piece of cloth over our face. Is it because it is truly hard to breath or are, we just being uncomfortable with the unpredictable? Being uncomfortable with something we cant control? As a small community of fitness driven athletes, we embrace challenges and even embrace the proverbial suck as we look to constantly challenge our human potential and tolerance. We challenge you to embrace this impediment, to wear your mask as if it were a weight vest in a challenging workout, and to take it as an opportunity to become better with the unpredictable. For life is not about how well you plan and execute, but for how well you can execute when things go unplanned.

TRUE TEST OF EFFECTIVE FITNESS PROGRAMS

The true test of any fitness program is its ability to work through diversity. Your physical fitness regime and program should be fluid. It should be able to adapt when life happens. When something interrupts your routine, your program and overall fitness should only suffer a momentary setback which allows you to re-calibrate and start again. Most fitness programs are good only if they are conducted to the "T" and nothing interrupts them. They have to be done as a routine without complication and interruptions. The reality is, interruptions will occur. Life will occur. Programs are doomed when we go into them thinking that the world has to bend to the program instead of the program bending to our individual lives. For example, the world has recently gone through some significant changes and many people have decided to allow the events of the world to dictate the effectiveness and results of their programs i.e. gaining excess weight, increased stress etc. Your fitness program should be fluid enough to adapt to the situation and allow you to work through any diversity.If you think your program is good, did you suffer a set back during recent world events? If you did, no matter what your excuse, its not a matter of whether the degree of the issue was debilitating, it was the efficiency of your program through diversity. Don’t confine yourself to a certain place, technique, habit and/or routine. Routine in many instances becomes the enemy when it comes to true fitness.

Life does happen and unfortunately routine becomes a double edged sword. Routine is what helps develop consistency and keeps you accountable. However, it becomes subject to complacency. A routine program can breed complacency and comfort-ability. Both are ingredients towards failure. Sometimes the best routine is having no routine. To be fluid. To be able to apply your fitness program when there is time, not when it is ideal, but when you can complete it i.e. you have to workout in the mornings, late night, and afternoon. There are ideals but then there are necessities. Moving and conducting activity is a necessity. Which time you do it, is not. For instance, in a new life obstacle keeps you from working out at your usual morning time. Adapt and workout out at night. Routine is not the enemy in and of itself, the program itself must innately be fluid.

Diversity is going to occur in life. Why commit to a program that is dead set on only working at a certain time, place, with certain gear, certain people etc? We automatically set ourselves up for failure when we commit to a routine and program that is not fluid. The solution is to find fitness program that you can commit to that keeps you moving through any life challenge. Keeps you accountable and keeps you from stagnation. To ultimately find a fitness program that works through any diversity. 

REST FOR STUDENTS & ATHLETES

Believe it or not, the same rigors and rest requirements that take place in the athletic setting and in training, pertain to the same requirements that are needed in the academic setting. As a former professional athlete, professional coach, and now working on my doctoral program, I have learned that the same rest and recovery techniques I use as an athlete pertain to the same ones I use in school. Most of these recovery techniques are developed around resting the mind and recovering from the psychological drain of high intensity physical/mental training. As a doctoral student, I feel the same mental drain and physical demands that are similar to athletic training. The stimulus for training is different. But the effects are very similar. Psychological problems are frequently related to under-recovery, the integration of efficient recovery into athletes' training and competition routines appears to be a buffer against psychological problems such as burnout and depression (Kellman et al., 2018). Either way, rest and recovery is key to optimal performance for both athletes and scholars. One technique to efficiently ensure people are adequately resting in sports, academic setting, and or life, in general, is to have someone track and identify what resting techniques are being used, how often they are being used, and how effective they are. Mentors, athletic coaches, parents, teachers, etc can provide guidance and track their students resting protocols so that they are ensuring the student is receiving adequate rest. I think Coaches and Teachers do a disservice to their athletes and students when they don't take an active role in learning about what their proteges are doing in their off-time. What students do outside the classroom and gym is just as important as what they do inside.

Reference:

Kellman, M., Bertollo, M., Bosquet, L., Brink, M., Coutts, A. J., & Duffield, R. (2018). Recovery and performance in sport: consensus statement. International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 13(2), 240-245. http://dx.doi.org/10.1123/ijspp.2017-0759

GOAL SETTING IN HIGH STRESS ENVIRONMENTS

This is a class given during COVID to help with goal setting while at home.

“Goal Setting in High Stress Environments.” As a disclaimer, stress is subjective. IT is different for everyone and is different as a matter of perspective. I selected this subject because of the current state of the world and how, while many may feel varied levels of stress, the foundational concepts of essence, desire, outcomes, and small achievements in regards to goal setting is objective and applies in all environments. To receive the full benefits of this class, you will need something to write on and with. Make sure to try and be in an undistracted environment. Other than that, be present. 

Find your Essence

For the first exercise. I want you to think. If there were three words that would define who you are principally, morally, and encompass your entire essence as a person. I want you to write them down. Mine are Family, Fitness, and Leadership. These three words would similarly be the ones that if anyone knew you, would be the ones they immediately would relate to you or in essence be the ones that eventually would be stamped on your headstone. Think hard about what encompasses you as a person, the very fabric of your daily thoughts, motivations, and has directed your life forever. These are those words. These are your essence. Take some time to conduct some critical thinking and to come up with our words. Go ahead and keep those and we will revisit. 

Our Desire

Now let's talk about something called, “motivation.” Motivation is by definition in the Merriam Webster Dictionary, “a motivating force, stimulus, or influence.” In large part, motivation is an emotional state. Emotions are temporary and therefore unreliable. Moving forward, I want to find something in your lives that is more than just an emotion. Something that is similar to those three words that develop your essence. 

I want you to think about what inspires you. I want you to think about what is in large part the reason why you get up in the morning to do what you do. What is it drives you regardless of your emotional state, day and or time. Inspiration is developed over time and through experience, these things that you think of are the very reason why you do what you do every day. My personal example is to make sure that I stay healthy enough to protect my wife and family everyday. Take some time to write down three things that inspire you.

Goals

Now let's move onto our goals. We have theoretically defined what makes up who we are, or the type of person we are. We have also defined what drives us and what keeps us moving. Now we have to find out where we want to go. Identifying our theoretical life map will help us to develop that focus we clearly learned is easily influenced in our first exercise. I want everyone to approach your goals very targeted and with laser focus. Identify 5 things that are very specific. These can be something for your career, your continued education, increasing your finances, for your family, can be artistic, developing your attitude, increasing physical performance, increasing pleasure etc. My personal goal is to be the 67kg Masters 40-45 Weightlifting World Champion. I want you to take some time to write down 5 things that are very specific. 

Now that we are done, I want you to label these goals as “outcomes.” These outcomes are going to occur as a result of smaller goals. These are overarching and endstates that are a result of achieving multiple similar but smaller goals. Why do we do this? Now we get to some meat and potatoes of the process. The key to achieving any outcome is the process and/or identifying, embracing, and achieving small wins. Let's talk more specific about this.

Small Achievements

The Marine Corps is known for its hellacious ability to break men. In January 2005, I attended the Marine Corps Officer Candidate School, better known as OCS in Quantico, Va. Ten weeks of being cold, wet, hungry, getting yelled at, and being entirely under scrutiny for everything from how I walked to how my breath smelled. Literally, the hardest Officer school in the world.

Every week had tested events posted on the wall, i.e. long hikes, obstacle course tests, weighted runs and everything that was going to be used to assess and evaluate my ability to potentially lead Marines in combat.  Every week there would be days that I did not know if I would be able to make it through. Every week was overwhelming, not to mention just the thought of the weeks coming. However, what I realized after OCS was that it was not about mentally wrapping my head around finishing OCS, the weeks training, or even the day. IT was about getting to the next meal. I knew that if I could get to the next meal, then I was that much closer to getting through the day. Sometimes when we look at goals, and now our outcomes, we tend to look at it holistically. Like the entire achievement without thinking about the steps, the process, and or things we need to do before accomplishing that feat. Getting to that next meal was a small win. Our next exercise and lesson is to understand the value of small goals and small wins. Teresa Amaibale from Harvard stated, “ the practice of recording our progress helps us appreciate our small wins which in turn boosts our sense of confidence. We can then leverage that competence toward subsequent, larger successes.

This is because any accomplishment, no matter how small, activates the reward circuitry in our brains. When this pathway is opened some key chemicals are released that give us a feeling of achievement and pride.

In particular, the neurotransmitter dopamine is released which energizes us and gives us a feel-good aura. This chemical enables us not only to get that sweet feeling of reward, but also to take action to move toward what triggered it’s release in the first place.

This is the very same substance that gets people hooked on gambling, nicotine and alcohol so what the people in the study had essentially created was an addiction to progress. How neat is that?

In essence, we must be able to see what meals we are going to get to to achieve our outcome. Three small goals for me to be World Champion are to conduct daily programming three days a week, maintain body weight at 149# or less without losing strength, and increase my split jerk to 300#. For this, please write down three small goals under each of your outcomes. Remember these are small goals. They are realistic and attainable but necessary to the success and ultimate reach of your outcome. 

Review

Please look at what you have written down. These are now tangible. Statistically, goals that are written down and more likely to occur because they are no longer a thought or visualization. They are a tangible figure. We have discussed the power of essence and how these three words identify who you are what it is that makes up your fabric. These are the foundations of not only how you do something but the style by which you do it. It is you and all of the idiosyncrasies that make up your individual techniques. Knowing this will help you develop your overall outcomes and goals. We have identified your desires which is the fuel that drives your ability to do anything in life. It is not temporary. It is permanently ingrained in you and is not something controlled by emotion but is the vary thing that curbs it. We have identified your overarching goals and/or outcomes. These are the mountains for which you wish to climb. They are fueled by your desire and the way you climb them is shaped by your essence. Lastly, we discussed how to achieve your outcomes by way of small wins. We have learned that through small wins we can sustain and increase the efficiency of our desires to achieve our outcomes. 

During this time where you can be overwhelmed with changes in your life and the world around you, it is imperative to make sure that you use what we have discussed and written down today to move forward and achieve what it is that you want. In our next session, we will discuss, “Mental Toughness in High Stress Environments.” This is meant to build on Goal Setting so that now that we have a proper plan on how to achieve and set our goals, we will be able to maintain a bulletproof mindset that allows us to follow through with our goals when everything around us is not going according to plan. 

WHAT WE SEEK

“I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center." Kurt Vonnegut 

We have always been deeply fascinated with human will and resilience; For someone who is in the wake of destruction somehow triumph to victory. As a company that thrives on preparation, durability, and commitment to self-mastery, we seek to find people that are jolting past life’s obstacles and are still managing to achieve extraordinary feats. Our intent is to seek out and find these people. To explore what traits and habits these people exhibit and to learn about their unique ability to materialize their goals despite fear, failure, and doubt. More specifically, we want to know what drives these people, what their daily routines are, what their backgrounds are, what do they read, and what advice do they have for others. This information when analyzed may help to provide you insight into patterns of activity which may provide you tools that you can use to develop your skills in your professional and personal lives and learn how to live to your true human potential. 

Stay connected and follow our quest to explore the state of Hawaii as we introduce you to the people and ideas that will help you actually find your true potential.

SELF REFLECTION

In fitness, self reflection is key in the proper development of goals and being aware of who you are and where you can go. “Human self-reflection is the capacity of humans to exercise introspection and the willingness to learn more about their fundamental nature, purpose and essence.” Ever had a job interview and they ask what your greatest weakness is or your greatest strengths? The point of these questions is not necessarily to evaluate a person’s answers as much as it is to evaluate if that person has done some self reflection. The answers can show if a person is genuinely aware of who they are, what they are capable of, and who they are not. Self reflection in this sense helps to identify candidates that are coachable, and understand who they are and what they bring to the table minus the ego. “In learning environments, reflection is an important part of the loop to go through in order to maximize the utility of having experiences. Rather than moving on to the next 'task' we can review the process and outcome of the task and – with the benefit of a little distance (lapsed time) we can reconsider what the value of experience might be for us and for the context of which it was a part.” What’s your greatest weakness?

GOING ALL IN

Going all in...
Going all in requires a level of mental acceptance that when confronted, ignores any physical/mental pain. There are certain workouts, tasks, goals, life achievements that require a mental acceptance and commitment required to go all in. For example, we all at some level have seen a workout/task and have known that it was going to hurt. Some of us accept the pain and push ourselves deep into that pain cave and others let up right before it hurts, or even quit when the pain starts. I can tell you that this is reflective in not only their workouts but every aspect of their life. If you are afraid of pain, committing to anything that might provoke pain, and/or quit before it gets painful, you are self sabotaging your potential. Going all in and accepting the fact that it may be painful with anything in life is the first step in committing to success. Going all in from the beginning helps to mentally push past any pain when it arrives, for when it does, you have already mentally accepted it from the beginning and are better prepared to adapt and move through it. Go all in with everything you do. If you don’t think going all in with something like one workout is going to carry over to other commitments in your life, you are wrong. Think about it this way, if you can’t go all in for one small workout, what says you will for larger more important things in your life. -AT