World Class Experience

I'm always inspired watching the Olympic athletes exhibit the incredible degree of peak performance they've worked so hard to achieve.  As many of you know, I teach Judo, and when I was younger, was fortunate enough to train with many of our nation's top Judo players at the US Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.  Ever since my teen years, peak performance of all kinds has held a deep fascination for me.  It's much akin to magic, in that those who go far beyond the norm achieve seemingly impossible results.

How is this possible?  As I discuss in my book, peak performance, as well as self actualization, both come quite often from surprising sources.  Yes, hard work and determination most definitely play a huge part.  But paradoxically, true achievement often comes in those moments where we simply allow ourselves to become completely immersed in the moment.

Rather than trying harder to be more, to do more, a certain surrender also comes into play.  Surrender to the experience of the moment:  body and mind merge into a single, highly focused field of experience, a one-pointed, yet relaxed level of heightened awareness.  This, the 'Magical Moment' experience, is often where we transcend our limitations and go beyond mere 'trying'.

The 'in the zone' experience that many athletes describe is one form of what Abraham Maslow described as a "peak experience", and they are common to those who are peak performers in all fields of human endeavor.  In the words of that great philosopher Jedi, "Do.  Or do not.  There is no 'try'."

And that's the real magic of achievement.

Magic in Our Day

As previously announced, my new self-improvement book (tentatively titled, A Life of Magic) is set to be released later this year.  As I write this, we're about half way through the editing process and beginning work on cover design.  Over the coming weeks, I hope to share a few previews and "sneak peaks" into the subject matter in the book.  One of the things I talk about is the powerful transformative quality of "magical moments", or moments of awe, wonder, and what psychologist, Abraham Maslow, referred to as "peak experiences".

Allowing ourselves to "lose ourselves" in a moment in which we appreciate the beauty of a sunset, in which we are immersed in meaningful work, or where we simply rest in a moment of stillness can be incredibly empowering and transformative.  So this is just a little reminder to stay alert to the extraordinary that's all around us all the time as we go through our day.