Performing at the Highest Level: Evolving through the Stages

Welcome to another episode of Halftime Talks. My name is Rahim Rasul, and you’re listening to the podcast that recognizes that in the middle of your game of life, whether you’re up by 10 or down by 20, we all need halftime talks to uplift us, inspire us and challenge us to bring that level of performance it’s gonna take to win the game.

As you’re showing up, we’re committed to showing out, and part of that showing out is letting you know that these are evergreen episodes. You can go back into our catalog and check out our list of episodes we’ve already done. And to begin this, let’s begin with some appreciation today. Today, I want to appreciate that momentum wave that you could be writing. There’s nothing in the world that feels as cool or as fly, as feeling the momentum of progress, the momentum of watching things come into place, to have that idea and now be the beneficiary, watching the elements conspire on your behalf, show themselves and line up what was once a vision.

I appreciate that feeling that you’re invincible, that feeling that everything’s working out on your behalf, that feeling that the momentum is taking you toward the destination that you conceived in your imagination, and riding that feeling is priceless.

Really excited to present you guys with this episode this week, performing at the highest level and all the ambitions that we hold for the different aspects of our life, our career, our personal life, we want to play at that high level. Not only do we want to play at that high level, we want to consistently be able to engage in the skills and abilities that imply that ultimate level of performance and from where we stand, sometimes we are foreign to what it takes to play at that level. So in this episode, we’re going to talk about it. And so get ready for this episode. We got a bunch of cool things that we want to share with you.

And hey, here we go. Without question, without any question, the overwhelming majority of us have no idea what it takes to play at the highest level. Do you understand all the training, all the preparation, all the priming, all the conceptual models that must be understood to play at the highest level. Do you understand that this goes way beyond natural talent and unique ability to play at the highest level? For example, let’s take it into the domain of sports. Halftime talks right at the beginning of the 2017 2018 NBA season, there were 491 players on opening day rosters. The NFL, obviously there’s more roster spots. Had 16 196 players.

Do you realize how exclusive of a fraternity This is? Do you understand right now, in the world, there’s underneath 2000 billionaires. It’s less common than we think. These exclusive fraternities are there for a reason, because they represent the people with the greatest ability in this domain to bring this home. Years ago, I’d be playing basketball on a weekly basis at a local gym, and in this gym, it had ex college players, ex NFL players, ex or even current NBL Major League Baseball players. And it’ll be interesting watching each of these classes of individuals play like the NFL player was a guy, he played for the Packers, and he could just dip his shoulder right into you and create so much space two points, and it was hard, because he’d also come past half court, and his strength and his coordination were just in a way that he could just shoot from half court, like two steps into half court, he would.

Watch the ball. It just didn’t make any sense with its accuracy and precision. To do that over and over again, you’d have some people who are the ex college players just smoking hot, just catch, shoot, kill. And you’d be like, Yo How come I’ve never heard of this person before, and one day that stands out beyond all others. Typically on basketball courts, people guard each other based upon height, and I happen to be six two, so I have to guard six two and up if there’s nobody taller than me. And this one day, I’m guarding this guy about 6667, and it’s an interesting matchup. He didn’t really look like he had talent.

But once the game started, it was another story. He’s crossing me over and shooting. So I’m like, I’m gonna take away a shot. So I I cried him, and as soon as I cried him, he drives past me. And then I give him space, and I, you know, put the hands up like he is a threat, a triple threat, to pass, shoot or drive. It all culminates in this one play where he gives me a little hesit and then takes off past me and dunks on my own player. I put my head down, dejected, go home, say to myself, Man, that was a poor showing.

I only stopped. Stopped him defensively a few times. So I come back to the gym the next day. You know, had hat in hand, and a couple of people who were there the previous day was like, Yo Rahim, you didn’t do a bad job against the NBA player yesterday. You mean, I was playing a current NBA player, interesting. So I go to the bleachers and I Google who they said this gentleman was, and I’m familiar with who he was, but he didn’t look familiar. This is a guy who barely came off the bench that you and I would typically call bum, but his ability was far beyond anything I had ever played against up to that point.

It puts it into a little bit of perspective. Not only does it put this into perspective, but it makes you think. It forces you to imagine, if he’s at this level, and a delta between myself and him are at this level, we can visibly see the delta between him and the people playing at the highest of the highest level. If there’s only 491 NBA players in the world, and he’s one of them at the time. And the world between him and Kobe or him and LeBron are like oceans apart. It gives you a firmer understanding of what it takes to perform at the highest level, what the people at the highest level have pushed themselves beyond into an unrelatable uncharted territory.

So what are the skills that it takes to push beyond the atmosphere of normal and then the atmosphere of exceptional to be playing at the highest level in the NBA, you see somebody like Kevin Garnett, who played from 1995 till maybe 2005 20 years in the NBA, you have Kobe Bryant, 96 through 2006 what does it take to play at the highest level? You saw Grant Hill. You saw Jason Kidd in their advanced careers, and I’m talking at this point about duration, that consistent performance over time, duration, and you hear the stories of the the massages, the non negotiables that they have to incorporate in their life to play at the highest level, not only do you have to train your mind, but you also have to train your body like each domain that we take on.

So say you’re a computer programmer. You have to understand something beyond the technical ability of programming, because so many people can program. You have a lot of people on YouTube. You have to go beyond the capacity to capture the shot, you have to go beyond the capacity to to know the camera and the operational perspective. You have to be able to tell a story. You have to be able to engage an audience, to play at the highest level, to have your name mentioned in the pantheon of those who preceded you. What is necessary. And these are not questions that you can answer in an afternoon journal session.

These are things that, if playing at the highest level is something that you want to accomplish, you will make this a life’s investigation. Conversation. The difference between the NBA and the rest of life is that there is a finite window, and for you playing at the level that you want to achieve, you have until you exit. Make your exit off of this planet. You can improve. You can iterate. You can build the library, the Bank of conceptual models within your domain you can cross, contextualize and bring two disparate fields together to accelerate and expand on the existing knowledge, but to play at the highest level, I challenge you.

It challenges you that you have to develop so many parts of your game, your leadership, your preparation. You have to peak at the right time. You have to understand how to work within the dynamics of multiple kinds of teams. You have to understand the rhythms and flows of your body, the fuel that it takes to perform at that highest level. You have to understand yourself in relationship to each fear that you operate in. So I challenge you to respect the domain that you’re moving into. They make it look easy, but what you can similarly do is only a sprint. It is only a interval within the broader context of what’s required to perform on a consistent basis, the person who averages 27 a game is not somebody who made 27 points.

It’s that they do it on a night in, night out basis. It’s enough to recognize that each level that you move on to from high school to college to pros, requires a different cultivation of skills and abilities. Hitting an open jumper is cool, but can you hit an open jumper playing against the best offender in the world, and know that there is no line skipping, you cannot just show up to the best league where the other best performers are playing, and expect to keep up, you will be ran off the court. You will be relegated to where your skill and ability is. So this trust, this this sacrilege, trust is earned.

It’s never given, because there are millions of people in line that want to be exactly where you are. So this gentleman that I play ball with was a role player, and it’s deceptive. It’s deceptive to think that his role represented the totality of his skill. Now, as we go about this, as we continue, sometimes to be these armchair analysts, we have to expand our conception of what it takes even to get there, what it takes for the people that we admire, the chips on the shoulder that we may have and the domains that we may want to enter. Our ambition is not enough. Our fuel is not enough to light the way into these new domains of exceptionalism.

I challenge you. I challenge you at the highest level of My Spirit, as it calls you through this microphone, I challenge you to commit to the process. Commit that it may take as long as it takes for you to understand certain things, but there is no limit outside of your reach if you commit to the long game, and you will be able to perform at the highest level that who you are, your proclivities, all your ability, your inclinations, your personality, is capable of bringing to the world. So I challenge you to find that level, and even go beyond that peace. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you go back in our catalog and check out episode number 111, strike while the iron is hot.

Episode number 78 cultivating an expertise. Episode 56 within arm’s reach. And episode number 54 what we consider rare. Our entire library is available on our website, halftimetalks.net, as well as the iTunes podcast library. While you’re on there, do us a favor, SUBSCRIBE and leave a review. Not only would we love it, but it would also make our podcast more findable, discoverable for other people like you who can gain benefit from the podcast. So until next time, go out there in the second half of the game and play to win, be sure to join us next week as we discuss using counterintuitive. Techniques to your advantage. Peace you.