63. Read, Reflect, Refine

Turning Knowledge into Personalized Action

Last year, I read a book by Novak Djokovic called “Serve to Win”. Novak Djokovic is not an author. He’s a tennis player. In fact, one of the greatest tennis players of all time. After reading his book, I thought to myself “he’ll probably have to stick to winning tennis tournaments”. It wasn’t good, but I’m always intrigued by books about and by world class performers, which is why I read the book. In this instance, reading the book further cemented something I already believed to be an important consideration when gathering information.

Just because it worked for the world number 1 tennis player, doesn’t mean it will work for you too.

Furthermore, just because it worked for me doesn’t mean it will work for you and vice versa.

Jim Rohn said it best: “Don’t be a follower, be a student.” “Come to your own conclusions.”

Novak Djokovic became the best tennis player in the world, and he wrote a book about how he did it. It’s quite interesting, but his advice was more or less “be like me.” If you’d like to know what that entails I’ll just tell you. Go on an extremely strict gluten and dairy free diet.

I know you’re probably not trying to become the best tennis player in the world, but what if you were? Would you think to yourself “Novak did it this way and it worked so I guess I better too.”?

I hope not!

It’s not that eating a gluten free diet can’t be effective. Evidently, it can be the difference between winning and losing when playing tennis against Rafael Nadal, but my point is only that we need to do a better job analyzing and implementing the information we consume.

Just because there’s a book about it doesn’t mean it’s true.

Just because there’s a best selling book about it doesn’t mean it’s true.

Go ahead. Read the book. In fact, read others just like it. Read as much as you possibly can about the subject. Then, with intentional thought, come to your own conclusions about what you’ll implement into your own very unique, very important life you’re living.

If your conclusions end up aligning with Novak or others with polarizing tactics about how to achieve high performance, I’ll be the first one to support you.

This is why math teachers demand students show their work. They may have come to the correct conclusion, but without a clear path of how they got there, who knows if they even learned anything.

Why would we not care to learn a bit more about our own intricacies before adopting those of others? Well, perhaps because people can be so convincing.

Just look at social media these days. You can find a video supporting any opinion you might have. Not only that, but you can find a professional quality video that’s been ‘liked’ by 50,000 people that supports any opinion you might have.

But does that really prove your point? Because I can find another video that disproves it. Watch your video, watch mine, then come to your own conclusion.

Each of us are so incredibly unique. Not just in our life experiences, but in how we think, how we interpret information and we react to our natural environments.

To advise someone to “do it like me” is simply an ignorant request.

Something may have worked extremely well for someone in a specific circumstance and they may have documented it for our benefit. This is just not proof that it would be the same for you.

Heck, the stars may have been aligned perfectly and the perfect sequence of events may have happened in order for a desired outcome to occur for that person. Could that happen again?

Maybe. But not necessarily.

What’s working well right now may not work well forever. What’s working well for you may not work well for your neighbour.

The perfect morning routine described in “The 5am Club” may not be plausible for everyone all the time. I say so because it’s not very practical for my current lifestyle.

At the same time, I’m quite enjoying working through this book, and I’ll surely be better for reading it.

I’ll have more knowledge and more examples of excellence. I’ll have more ideas and I’ll relate better to more people. I’ll have a greater understanding of brain chemistry and I’ll certainly come away with at least one immediate action I can take.

But I won’t follow the instructions in the book.

It’s not wrong, and my morning routine isn’t wrong, they’re just different. I take the information from this book and others, along with my own experiences and trials so far, and I’ve come up with my own ideal morning routine.

At 5am, I’m on the training floor of Warehouse Gym Co. helping people with their fitness. Each day is a bit different, and each person requires different patterns.

There is no one size fits all. Vast knowledge of workouts, anatomy and psychology help me greatly when deciding how to lead people through a workout, but I don’t claim to have the perfect form of exercise.

What works for my 5am client won’t work for the person who rolls in at 6am. They might be the same age and have the same goals, but they can’t just do the same thing.

There is no one size fits all, and there is no one size fits forever.

I’ve written before about the perils of being skeptical, so I hope that’s not the conclusion I’m leading you to. What I’d suggest is to be curious.

When you hear or see something quite bold in nature from someone, let is spike your interest. Don’t scoff and don’t become an immediate disciple.

Become a curious student. Let it make you wonder, then freely wonder about it.

There’s plenty of brilliant people in our world sharing their ideas, just trying to make a name for themselves. Like you and me, those people won’t always be right, and they certainly won’t always know what’s best for you, but I bet they have intelligent things to say that might just lead you closer to the conclusion you need.

— Cody

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See you next Thursday.