I recently attended a freediving workshop with one of the best freedivers in the world. He’s been a world record holder in the hardest discipline of freediving for over 15 years, with nobody ever coming close to contesting it.
While I completely sucked at the workshop, embarrassed myself and began questioning whether I should even continue with this sport, there was one big lesson I got out of it.
Namely,
true elite performers are wired completely differently than a regular person. COMPLETELY differently. And whatever notions you have, you’re probably still missing the mark. If you think you’re an elite performer, you’re most likely fooling yourself.
Here are just some of the things that were completely normal to him:
1. He shared an extremely hard training table for freediving that is so hard that your brain pretty much shuts off while doing it as you’re in a constant state of wanting to breathe. I tried a version of it that was probably at most 0.1% as hard and failed in the first minute.
Just to give a rough comparison with an easier to understand sport, it would be sort of like doing an all-out sprint for 20 seconds, taking 5 seconds to rest and doing it again—and continuing so for 30-40 MINUTES, each time maintaining the same proper technique and speed.
He recommended doing this table at least 2-3x a week.
Someone asked: “I assume you reduce the intensity of this table so you can do it a few times a week?” He replied: “You assume wrong. I do this table 4-5x a week, each time all-out, for months on end when preparing for a competition.”
And I know he’s not bullshitting because he has a track record to prove it. So imagine doing the hardest possible workout you can do that makes you hate your life and then doing it 4-5x a week your entire life.
2. He’s been testing every single tiniest thing in freediving throughout his entire career. Whatever someone asked him, he has tested it extensively. Exact timing of every movement in relation to another movement. Exact position of every single body part. 0.5 second adjustments to his training to make it even harder.
He created a technique (which he demonstrated live) in which he was able to drop his heart rate from 78 bpm to 36 bpm in a matter of seconds. It was crazy to watch because on the outside nothing was happening. He was hooked up to a precise pulse oximeter so everyone could see his heart rate and oxygen saturation (which stayed at a constant 100%).
In slightly colder water he noticed that his speed of freefall (when you’re deeper, you’re negatively buoyant and are falling) was slightly slower than in warmer water. So he learned that cold water has slightly more density which makes him just a tiny bit more buoyant. He calculated exactly how much weight to add to his weight belt to counter that effect (about 300 grams) and keep his freefall speed consistent across different diving locations.
He came up with some incredibly dangerous exercises that subject your body to the same crushing forces as if you were at up to 300 meters of depth (it’s all done dry, with your own body). He doesn’t even share these exercises publicly (only privately with the top freedivers) as he doesn’t want to be responsible for some serious injuries if an untrained person does this.
3. When he began freediving, he got so obsessed with training that he tried to stay in a hypercapnic state the entire day (hypercapnic means you have increased carbon dioxide levels in your blood; carbon dioxide levels go up as you hold your breath and this makes you have an urge to breathe).
So he was constantly counting his breaths, under-breathing, and aiming to have no more than 5 breaths per minute. For hours. Every day. All so he could get better even when he wasn’t diving.
Now, What Does This Have to Do With Business?
If you think that you’re an elite performer, think again. Unless you display the same crazy level of obsession, you’re not playing in the same league. Not even anywhere close to it.
Yeah, maybe you’re better than an average person. But this doesn’t make you elite. Most likely, in the grand scheme of things, compared to that guy, you’re still closer to that lazy fat slob on the couch than to this guy. He’s that good, and so is every single true elite performer.
Now, I don’t mean it in a negative way, to lower your expectations or stop being ambitious. Perhaps you really ARE that elite performer and if you are, that’s awesome.
I’m sharing this to offer a few thoughts for a discussion:
1. Meeting a true elite performer can humble you and inspire you to step up your game. There’s a reason why you always want to be the least capable person in the room (I definitely was in that workshop, and failed dramatically).
You can only look up. You’re not getting any satisfaction from being better because everyone else is miles ahead of you. Your standards are transformed and you see what’s truly possible. Stagnation is not acceptable. The only way is up or else you’re out of the group because you won’t keep up.
2. Or meeting a true elite performer can discourage you from further trying when you realize how vast the difference is between a regular mortal and the best of the best. This in itself signals that you’re probably NOT an elite performer at heart (otherwise it wouldn’t discourage you; you’d just use it as fuel to go harder).
3. If you assess that objectively you’re incapable of ever getting remotely close to the elite performer or unwilling to put in the work to get there, you need to evaluate your capabilities and see where you can win.
This of course depends on the context. If you’re running for basic fitness, you’re not going to give up just because you can’t ever beat Usain Bolt or Eliud Kipchoge. In the same way, a weekend warrior at a bouldering gym can’t compare himself to Nirmal Purja.
But if we’re talking about business and making any considerable amount of money, entering any field where you’re dealing with multiple elite performers all but guarantees failure if you can’t ever objectively match their work ethic, capabilities, and resources.
4. So what are we left with if you want to win?
You pick wide fields with fewer elite performers or ideally, fields where nobody is truly obsessed about them.
This is one of the core reasons why it’s so hard to win in any industries where people are extremely passionate about, such as the film industry, music, sports, etc. People absolutely love these things and many are capable of practicing virtually 24/7. Good luck winning against people who have been essentially bred to become top performers. Unless you’re absolutely sure you’re of the same stock, you don’t stand a chance.
5. In business, for those who realistically know they’ll never be elite performers, this leaves us with:
- Opportunities that aren’t related to an obsession. If you want to make woodworking products, there’s probably a guy who spends 14 hours a day woodworking who will outcompete you. In contrast, you’re unlikely to encounter a true elite performer offering a service for septic tank cleaners because nobody is that obsessed about it. Same goes for your typical boring but essential services like waste management, gutter cleaning, or towing.
- Probably skip any content-based or software-based businesses. Both attract thousands of true elite performers (think Mr. Beast for video or any egg-headed Silicon Valley developer programming 18 hours a day). Many inspirational stories come from these fields and yet these are the ones where the survivorship bias is one of the strongest (“Mr. Beast succeeded so I can, too,” discounting millions who failed).
- If you still want to go after fields where elite performers are common, specialize in something that doesn’t interest a wider audience but still addresses a painful need. You won’t beat a company made up of hardcore surfers selling surfboards. But you may specialize in selling gear for cold water surfers because much fewer people are obsessed about surfing in cold water.
- Another way is to go after a more local market. Even in crowded fields, if you change your competition from global to national, state, or city-wide, you’ll automatically dramatically increase your chances of winning. For example, if you don't come from an English-speaking country, you may never outcompete Brandon Sanderson in writing fantasy and sci-fi but you may win in a smaller market such as Poland, like Andrzej Sapkowski (the creator of the Witcher).
Prior to the workshop, I had studied countless elite performers but only through books, podcast interviews, etc. There are many online gurus, authors, podcasters etc. talking about elite performance but in reality very few people are at this level. Getting to know one in person has dramatically changed my perspective on the top performers. It has made me realize that I’ve never been one and am unlikely to ever be one as I have too broad interests and I'm too weak.
Have you ever met any elite performers? What were they like? What have you learned?
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