The art of performance

The Art of Performance
~ Jeroen De Flander
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Acknowledgement
This presentation deck is adopted from the book
“The Art of Performance” by Jeroen de Flander

Art of Performance by Jeroen De Flander
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=979Xv_MyWWU&t=13s

YK Png
15 Dec, 2016
The Performance Mindset
Chapter 1: The Power of Purpose:
~ Cultivate the Interest Spark
~ Dip into the Purpose Pools

Cultivate the Interest Spark: 4. Summit Syndrome
Activation via novelty is crucial during the initial stage. But novelty at later stages of
interest development is equally important. If we don’t, we stop our journey or worse,
move backwards and impact our performance negatively ➔ Summit Syndrome.
The Art of Performance: The Power of Purpose

Cultivate the Interest Spark: 4. The Summit Syndrome
1. Actively look for and appreciate nuances.
2. Find and ride the next wave.
– To move to the next level, we would have to become
(1) a better team leader.
(2) a better internal networker, playing a positive role in company wide task forces.
(3) learn new skills to develop innovative solutions.
3. Connect your Interest with Purpose.
– Passion is interest on steroids that need novelty and perceived value to keep going.
“Anticipating the Summit Syndrome and dealing with it in earliest stages can revitalize and propel
talented leaders to greater heights” ~ Parsons & Pascale
“A successful career is not a straight line to the top. It’s a series of s-curves, each of which begins
with a major promotion or job redefinition” ~ Parsons & Pascale
You have reached a Plateau and your interest seems to have disappeared, how to
get back on track?

Dip into the Purpose Pools 1. Why?
1. People look for at least 2 ways to find happiness: ~ Aristotle
1. Pleasure (Hedonic)
2. Purpose (Eudaimonic):
1. Those wo are able to match their Passion – deepened interest, with Purpose
performed far better than those who don’t.
Purpose is an extremely powerful long term performance engine

Dip into the Purpose Pools 2. Why (Organization)?
Companies must encourage communities of passion by allowing individuals to find a higher
calling within their work lives, by helping to connect employees who share similar
passions, and by better aligning the organization’s objectives with the natural interests of
its people.
Management /
Organization serves a
higher Purpose:
Socially significant and
noble goals
Enable communities of
Passion:
Employees to find higher
calling within work lives
Alignment of Company’s objectives with
the interests of its employees

Purpose requires an active approach to find an internal or external
community we can serve and visualize the connection (belongingness).
1. What’s the Community I want to serve?
– Community: Our family, friends, neighbours, co-workers, …
2. How can I contribute to the wellbeing of my community?
“Those with strong callings are more likely to take risk, to persist, and ultimately
succeed” ~ Daniel Heller
Dip into the Purpose Pools 3. Purpose is Cultivated

Purpose requires an active approach to find an internal or external
community we can serve and visualize the connection (belongingness).
1. Shared Purpose: People work harder, smarter, longer, more generously, and
more productively when they can see their work affects others.
2. Primal Cues: Shift from “what’s in it for me?” to “what’s in it for your
community?”
3. Belonging: “Positive words from beneficiaries of employees’ work –
colleagues, serve as an important source of motivation by strengthening the
workers’ sense of belongingness” ~ Francesca Gino
The spikes in motivation are driven uniquely by an enriched appreciation of
how our work benefits the wellbeing of others
Dip into the Purpose Pools 4. Shared Purpose

YK Png
15 Dec, 2016
Chapter 2: The Hidden Logic of Mastery:
~ Bust the Talent Myth
~ Embrace the 4 Rules of Deep Practice

The Art of Performance: Discussion
1. Why is talent overrated?
2. What is “chunking” and how can we apply it to our
lives?
3. What does the Mastery Curve look like? Where are
you today? What’s needed to get to the next level?
4. How can you practise better?

The Art of Performance: The Hidden Logic of Mastery
Bust the Talent Myth The Mastery Curve
Genius is NOT born, but
is educated and trained
• Everyone starts out as a Novice
• If interest isn’t constantly triggered, we will
quickly drop out
• Focus is on “Play” (or core principles) rather
than practice
• Might take years. At this stage, we will have
internalize some motivation to feed our interest
• Progress is based on amount of practice
• Risk for “arrested development”, doing same
activity, stop improving.➔ Need to push
ourselves, liberated effort to improve
• Motivation has been deeply internalized
➔ Passionate
• Clear commitment to push forward using
intensive practice of techniques
• The Pathfinders (top 3%)
• To move forward, they have to innovate
• Strong drive to become the best, and to
leave behind the legacy in their chosen field
•Constantly seeking out areas
they are not good at, and do
better.
•Not only need to train hard,
but train in the right way.

The Art of Performance
How to keep going when the going gets tough?
“A successful career is not a straight line to the
top. It’s a series of s-curves, each of which
begins with a major promotion or job
redefinition” ~ Parsons & Pascale

YK Png
15 Dec, 2016
Chapter 3: The Necessity of Grit:
~ Solve the Success / Failure Paradox
~ Unlock Your Hidden Energizers

1. Why do Optimists swim faster than Pessimists after failure?
2. What’s Learned Helplessness? How can we concur it?
3. How Resilient are you? What can you do to improve?
4. What’s the Growth Mindset? How do you get one?
5. What’s the Progress Principle? How can you apply this to
your own life?

The Art of Performance: The Necessity of Grit
Solve the Success/Failure Paradox
• Our mindset triggers our reaction to failure. The way we think about failure
determines our reaction to it.
• “Fixed mindset”: produces a negative outcome after failure.
• “Growth mindset”: produces a positive outcome after failure.
• Our reaction to failure (our mindset) can be changed.
Losing
to Win
A fixed mindset:
• Robs people of their coping strategies.
• Failure is seen as an end state (I failed)
and is personalised (I’m a failure).
• Failure is brutal and we need to deal with it when it happens. ➔ Face it. If you
don’t, failure won’t lead you to anything!
• Failure does not define us. It’s a wake-up call to try harder and try different things
to be successful.
• Find new ways!
Failure is an inevitable part on the mastery curve
A Growth mindset:
• What do we do after we have
failed?

• Emotional triggers of trauma don’t go away, even when we are resilient
• Ability to bounce back from failure depends on the way we think about failure, and
how we react afterwards.
• Our mindset not only defines if we overcome failure.
• Also defines if we learn from it and grow stronger or not.
• The events must trigger learnings, and therefore growth.
Getting
up is Not
Enough
• Failures that offer opportunity for growth: the outcome is not so much related to skill
building, but character building. ➔ It’s a growth mindset booster.
“That which does not kill us, makes us stronger” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
• Our growth curve is triggered by failure (Not success!), and the learnings that follow
failure.
• Failure makes us grow, success is what keep us motivated.
Failure is not an option, it’s a must!

• Resilience: Quality that allows some people to be knocked down by life
and come back stronger!
• Our capacity for resilience is not genetically fixed. We can all become
grittier. ➔ we just have to mould our mindset into a more resilient one,
unlocking our hidden energizers.
Resilience

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3a65C4kT-8
The HORRID Pain of Learned Helplessness

Previous learning impacts behaviour ➔ Learned Helplessness.
➔ Stop trying to avoid the discomfort. Even when opportunities to escape are
presented, this learned helplessness prevents action.
➔ It limits growth. Rather than looking at difficulties and failures in life as
opportunities or lessons to grow and improve, we start to believe we can hide
from pain and failure by not trying at all.
➔ Non trying become security blanket and a psychological prison.
➔ Trapped in the past, accepting a role as a victim.
➔ Self-fulfilling prophecy. Believing they are powerless, these people shy from
opportunities to change, strengthening that same feeling.
1.
What do
You
Believe?
A fixed mindset:
• Robs people of their coping
strategies.
• Failure is seen as an end
state (I failed) and is
personalised (I’m a failure).
➔ Learned Helplessness can be triggered by
verbal cues alone.
➔ Perception is the key.
➔ Learned Helplessness is a mental state, a
mindset.
➔ It is developed, not born.
Unlock Your Hidden Energizers

1. First tactic is to truly believe your efforts improve your future.
2.
The Progress
Principle
“My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will.” ~ William James
(Father of American psychology)
If we feel in control, we change our outlook for the future: our
happiness, confidence and resilience.
Experiment 1 (Nursing Homes): Each group
given a houseplant.
• Group 1: Was told that the plant’s care
was in their hands.
• Group 2: Plant was taken care by a staff
member.
30% of the members
in Group 2 had died,
compared to only
15% in Group 1.
Experiment 2 (Nursing Homes): college
students were paired with the residents.
• Group 1: Able to dictate when the
students would visit.
• Group 2: Could not control when the
students would come, the students would
set the appointment date.
After 2 months…
Group 1: Happier,
healthier and more
active than Group 2.
Can learned
helplessness
be unlearned?

Can learned helplessness be unlearned?
2.
The Progress
Principle
2.Second tactic is start with anything.
➔ Move from cause-oriented thinking, which is brain paralyzing,
to response-oriented action.
➔ Action isn’t just the effect of motivation, it’s also the cause of
it.

• Action is 3rd motivational trigger ➔ Action-triggered
Motivation.
2.
The Progress
Principle
It takes time before interest is well-developed and intrinsic motivation kicks
in . . .
Highly developed interest ➔ Internal Motivational Trigger ➔ Action ➔
Reward
At the start . . .
External Motivational Trigger ➔ Action ➔ Rewards/Avoid Punishment
Action in itself is a 3rd motivational trigger we can cleverly use. It’s called
action-triggered motivation . . .
Small Action ➔ Reward ➔ Motivation ➔ Bigger Action ➔ Bigger Reward

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQKfPjMhgTE&list=PL8ZeGnc1nuKG5-VMrhrJ58CjxcV7sgvo9&index=8&t=0s
127 Hours - Epic Amputation Scene. Aron Ralston

3. We make our progress visible.
2.
The Progress
Principle
What’s the single most important element that motivates people?
Answer: making progress
• Create the conditions to make progress, shining a light on that progress,
and celebrating the distance covered, and we get a motivational boost.
• We should create, track, and celebrate intermediate levels – signposts –
that tell us we are on track and made progress.

Optimistic swimmers did better, pessimistic swimmers
got slower ~ Seligman Swimmer Experiment
3.
Why Some
Swimmers
Go Faster?
Matt Bondi - eleven-time Olympic medalist, and former world record-holder in five events

Optimistic swimmers did better, pessimistic swimmers
got slower ~ Seligman Swimmer Experiment
3.
Why Some
Swimmers
Go Faster?
Matt Bondi - eleven-time Olympic medalist,
and former world record-holder in five events
Pessimists ➔ Crushed by failure, find
it psychologically challenging to
overcome the setback, resulting in an
even worse performance on
subsequent try.
Optimistic mindset ➔ Overcome
failure quickly and bounce back to
higher levels of performance. They
are also healthier and happier
people.

4.
How Our
Mind Thinks
About
Failure?
Optimist vs Pessimist
Control
Impact
Breath
Duration
Impact:
• Pessimists: Will downplay their own
impact on improving the situation (I
swam at maximum capacity and I
can’t swim faster)
• Optimists: See the positive effects of
their actions (If I focus on my starts, I
probably will be faster)
Breath:
• Pessimists: Don’t contain the
underlying cause of a crisis (I don’t
perform under pressure)
• Optimists: Do (I only swam one bad
run)
Duration:
• Pessimists: Believe crisis will last (I
will perform badly at the Olympics)
• Optimists: Don’t (I use the learnings
from my first run and I’m back on
track)
Control:
• Pessimists: Focus on analysing what
went wrong and keep playing re-runs
of the analysts (why did I swim
badly?)
• Optimists: Will look for ways to
improve (How can I swim faster next
time?)

4.
How Our
Mind Thinks
About
Failure?
In Summary:
• Pessimists:
• Personalize bad life events attributing them to permanent, unsolvable
causes.
• Their projection of the past into the future causes hopelessness.
• Optimists:
• Externalize bad life events, seeing them as temporary and solvable.
• Result ➔ failure is a positive trigger to learn (try more, try different
things).
失败乃成功之母

Learned Optimism - Upgrade your Thinking System with a Proven 5-Step Model
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-JOAM9G404

5.
Learned
Optimism
evidence
Alternatives
Usefulness
Implications
Learned Optimism
1. Evidence:
• Look for information showing that your
negative beliefs are factually incorrect.
• “What’s the evidence for this belief?”
• (I swam 49.9, 50.4 and 50.2 last week.
This 52.2 is an exception in a solid
performance series).
2. Alternatives::
• Ask yourself if there are different ways
to look at the failure which are less
damaging to you.
• Focus in particular on changeable
causes (I was tired), the specific (my
start was slower than usual), and the
non-personal (the coach made the
training too hard yesterday and I
haven’t yet recovered fully),
3. Implications::
• Even if we still take a negative
view of what we have done,
we can still de-catastrophize
(yes, I’m slower than I used to
be, but I will make it to the
Olympics for the third time).
4. Usefulness::
• Question the usefulness of your beliefs.
• it can be useful to realize that even
negative situations can work out well in
the long run (my swimming career will
stop soon and I can start a family, …).
• We can also realize that some of our
beliefs, even true, don’t add any value at
all and turn us into a grump (I don’t want
to be a person who is negative the whole
time, I’m making myself unhappy).

Moulding our mindset to be more resilient one, unlocking our hidden energizers.
How?
1. We truly have to believe our
efforts improve our future.
2. “There is a big problem with no
solution” to “there is no solution yet
but my efforts will improve my
situation”.
Be in control of our destiny.
Small Action ➔ Reward ➔
Motivation ➔ Bigger Action ➔
Bigger Reward
Track progress
3. Reframe our past as an optimist.
Optimistic mindset ➔ Overcome
failure quickly and bounce back to
higher levels of performance. They
are also healthier and happier
people.

1.What is the Flow Corridor? How can you get into
it? Identify examples and situations?
2.How does Flow differ from Deep Practice? Use the
Donut to explain.

6.
The Flow
Corridor
Flow: besides health factors and happiness, flow has a positive
impact on our productivity and creativity.
(5x more productive, 7x more creative ~ McKinsey).
Anxious
Bored
Challenge
Skills
Is Flow = Deep Practice?
Deep Practice Flow
Helps to build new skills.
Requires a lot of mental
energy.
That state where our
abilities match the
challenge at hand. This
mental state provides
energy.
Is for preparation. Is for performance and
motivation. Without
regular flow activities, we
run out of energy very
quickly and stop practicing.

Not challenged.
Skills not used.
BORED
Match between Current
Skillset & Challenge
FLOW
Skillsgap <>Challenge
-Too Big-
A N X I O U SGrow Skills to Face
New Challenge
D E E P P R A C T I C E
Flow is a major energizer
• Our skills are under-utilized and
we’re not challenged.
• It’s energy draining and we are
not learning. ➔ Double negative
➔ Boredom kicks in.
• The Donut itself is the flow rate.
There’s a match between our
current skill set and the
challenge we face.
• It’s energizing, but there’s not
much learning.
• This is where we operate at peak
performance and refill our
energy tanks.
• If we go too far,
we lack most
skills and we are
over-challenged.
• Another double
negative. ➔
Anxious kicks in.
6.
The Flow
Corridor
• Outside the Donut is our stretched state.
• The challenge itself is more complex, but we see
what skill chunks we have to develop to master
the challenge, using deep practice.

6.
The Flow
Corridor
Flow is a major energizer
Flow is a major energizer. It’s essential to counterbalance the
energy drain from deep practice.
Track the progress to figure out which activities push you in
your flow corridor.
Flow is experienced in the present.

YK Png
15 Dec, 2016
Summary: Your Path to Greatness

The Art of Performance:
1. What drive great performance?
2. How can we use this knowledge to help us maximize the
potential in our own lives and the lives of those around us?
The Art of Performance: Your Path to Greatness

Talent isn’t the great driver that separate the best from the rest.
Neither is luck, IQ, or previous successes.
Lesson 1:
• Passion and Purpose are an endless energy sources.
• Passion provides activation energy – the initial motivation. It grows out
of interest.
• Passion is the sprint muscle, triggered by our human need for novelty. It
gives us a reason to start.
• Purpose, on the other hand, is the marathon muscle, triggered by our
need to find meaning and belonging.
• It gives us a reason to keep going.
• Passion ignites
performance.
• Purpose makes it last.
• To boost
performance, we
need both.
• To become truly passionate, we need to cultivate
our interest.
• Purpose – the intention to contribute to the
wellbeing of others – offers us psychological
benefits, as long as long term performance boost.
• We need to find an internal and external
community we can serve.

Lesson 2:
• To become a world class
expert (Master), we
should grow our skills
using “Deep Practice”
technique.
• Greatness isn’t born, it’s grown.
• It’s not talent that brings us to the top of the mastery curve. It’s a long term
training ➔ “Deep Practice”.
• Improvement is a mater of figuring out the right way to practice.

Lesson 3:
•Growth requires Failure.
•Our growth curve is
triggered by failure and
the learnings that follow
failure.
•Resilient people
understand that failures
are not an end-point.
They learned how to stop
being overwhelmed, and
tackle problems
thoughtfully and
thoroughly.
• Failure is not an option, it’s a must.
• We need a mindset that approaches failure the right way.
• Resilience enables us to achieve at the highest levels at work, … Resilient
people seek out new and challenging experiences because they’ve learned
that it’s only through struggle, pushing themselves, …, that they will expand
their horizons.

Lesson 4:
• Tap into our energizers in the
present. ➔ The Flow Corridor.

Lesson 2:
• To become a world
class expert (Master),
we should grow our
skills using “Deep
Practice” technique.
Lesson 3:
• Growth requires Failure.
• Our growth curve is triggered by failure and the learnings
that follow failure.
• Resilient people understand that failures are not an end-
point. They learned how to stop being overwhelmed, and
tackle problems thoughtfully and thoroughly.
Lesson 1:
• Passion and Purpose are an endless energy sources.
• Passion is the sprint muscle, triggered by our human
need for novelty. It gives us a reason to start.
• Purpose, on the other hand, is the marathon muscle,
triggered by our need to find meaning and belonging.
Lesson 4:
• Tap into our
energizers in the
present. ➔ The Flow
Corridor.

1. What drive our Passion?
2. How do Purpose and Passion interact?
3. What are the 3 levels Bloom
discovered?
4. When does Summit Syndrome occur?
How can we avoid it?
1. Why is talent overrated?
2. What is “chunking” and how can we
apply it to our lives?
3. What does the Mastery Curve look
like? Where are you today? What’s
needed to get to the next level?
4. How can you practise batter?
1. Why do Optimists swim faster than
Pessimists after failure?
2. What’s learned helplessness? How
can we concur it?
3. How resilient are you? What can you
do to improve?
4. What’s the growth mindset? How do
you get one?
5. What’s the Progress Principle? How
can you apply this to your own life?
1. What is the Flow Corridor? How can
you get into it? Identify examples and
situations?
2. How does Flow differ from Deep
Practice? Use the Donut to explain.
Identify 3 practical things you will start doing tomorrow
to boost your greatness.

YK Png
15 Dec, 2016
Thank You

The art of performance

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