I talk about performance all the time. The name of the H2F game is human performance optimization (HPO) for good reason. Performance is objective. It can be measured. This is useful in a world where most institutions advance narratives based on perspectives that have little if any relationship to reality. That said, focusing on performance can be deceptive in the grand scheme of life. Performance at what, exactly?
This is where some of the toughest, most intelligent, and most capable human beings can end up willingly walking up to a ledge 100 stories up and taking a metaphorical swan dive into the asphalt of life. Large bureaucratic institutions are eager to allow this to happen, and often encourage such myopia. Of course their rhetoric these days indicates the exact opposite, but it doesn’t really matter what an organization says. It matters what it does, and it will take everything you’re willing to give.
During my last year of undergraduate study at Arizona State I was in my military science class when all of the sudden a larger than life Special Forces Colonel walked in the door. He had his Command Sergeant Major with him and he was there to talk to us. This seemed like it was a surprise to our instructor as well as the rest of the class. From what I could tell, this wasn’t planned or previously coordinated and in retrospect, it is even crazier than it seemed at the time. He proceeded to tell us some war stories. He told us about how eventually, our service in the Army would come to an end, and that at that time all we would have is our family. He told us that he was married to the most beautiful woman in the world. He said that his body hurt from fast roping as a big dude with kit totaling well over 300lbs, but that he did his duty. He told us that he was looking forward to drinking bourbon on his back porch and spending time with his kids. He told us of things that he had done in his career that were challenging, but that a lot of it was ultimately a waste of time, or even counterproductive. He told us of a young Special Forces Captain in his command with 5 kids that submitted an application to try our for CAG and how he asked that young officer if he wanted his kids to grow up knowing their dad. He told us how that Captain pulled back his application saying “no one has ever said anything like that to me before, Sir.”
You see, these bureaucratic institutions are anti-human. They want you to perform at the highest level possible - for the institution. How you perform for your family? Well, that’s not their problem, especially if you can keep performing while your marriage falls apart and your children become accustomed to not having a father. Very high performance in certain areas necessarily sacrifices others. As my friend Chad Reilly once said, you can do anything, but you can’t do everything. Life is full of trade offs. For this reason, when you are chasing performance be sure that you are appreciating the big picture. Consider that accomplishing certain goals might make it impossible for you to achieve others. Know which ones are important to you, and don’t for one second think anyone can tell you what YOU want out of life (although they might be able to give you some clues). This is something we all have to figure out and this is a lot easier said than done.
All of the world’s propaganda is essentially designed to get you to want what is in the interests of others. You don’t have an identity? No worries, someone will sell one to you. Once you’ve bought it, you’ll be their customer for life. In this environment figuring out what you really want presents quite the challenge. I look to evolutionary psychology for clues and do my best to cultivate self-awareness. Some turn to traditional religion, but without insight and experience there are many within this space that seek to use you just like any other large institution.
What I’m trying to say here is that performance doesn’t mean anything by itself. It is simply a means to an end. Don’t get me wrong, the journey is important, perhaps even most important, but a journey is meaningless without a destination. Know and understand all the things you want out of life holistically, then go ahead and optimize performance towards those things such that you may become aligned. I’m pretty sure that full bird changed my life, if only because he made the decision to put my wife above the needs of the Army the easiest one I’ve ever made.
No matter what you do for a living or what you aspire to do, this is something that everyone needs to hear at least once. Unfortunately not everyone is ready to hear it. If you want to see what it looks like for one of the highest performing warriors of all time to learn this lesson the hard way right before it was too late, I highly encourage you to watch Kyle Morgan share his story with Shawn Ryan. I’ve linked it to start at a particularly relevant 5-10min segment, but you should really watch it from the beginning. Kyle’s self-awareness in retrospect is a masterclass in showing how critical this competency is to getting what YOU ultimately want out of life.
This was supposed to be about locus of control, but I had to save that for the next part of the series after watching this incredible interview. There’s a whole lot more I could say to discuss the profound insights here, but for now I’m just trying to digest them myself.
Grant, this is one of the best things I have ever read, and on such an important topic! You have so many great quotes in here. Extremely well done.
Kyle seems to be describing the epitome of tonic masculinity.