The 11th rep
🥇 - The 11th rep
Reps is short for repetitions and are the action of one complete strength or aerobic training exercise, such as one push-up.
A set is how many reps you do in a row, e.g. ten push-up repetitions might make up a set. Using reps and sets as a workout guide helps monitor progress made to achieving your fitness goals.
A large proportion of people are members of a gym. They will either get up early to burn calories and build muscles before they arrive at the office or perhaps fit in a lunchtime cardio session. While the rest prefer an evening workout before heading home to their family or friends.
Whatever time it is scheduled, it will be precious and carefully inserted into no doubt what is a hectic work schedule.
So I find it bizarre the way in which many people perform their workout routines in the gym.
Have you noticed how many people will add an unnecessary 11th rep to their set?
After completing their set of ten dumbbell curls, chest presses or squats, they will unlock their phones and check the activity on their social platforms or start messaging back and forth.
Tick tock, 3, 4, maybe even 5 minutes later, they start on their next set.
If you pay for a personal trainer, there is no chance they would give you time to check your phone to see what everyone is getting on with in their lives. Or if you did, more fool you as the 45min workout you paid for becomes 30 minutes and 15 minutes of padding, waste and fluff that won't help you achieve the desired outcomes.
This added 11th rep is unnecessary and is the reason a focused 45-minute workout balloons to something easily taking an hour or more. Yet, no doubt, these very same people will complain about being so busy and always rushing from one thing to the next.
Do you see how this 11th gym rep is symptomatic with real life and the things we introduce into our hectic personal lives and the time we spend in the workplace?
Yet we will all be guilty of complaining. There are too many priorities or back-to-back meetings, or you don't have the time to step back. To think strategically or to plan the reorganisation of your team, business or projects that deep down you know is required - tasks that are far more crucial than the shallow work that takes up much of the days.
If you are feeling brave, ask yourself the question:
How are you complicit in creating the conditions you say you don't want?
Perhaps this 11th rep you unnecessarily have introduced, whether working out at the gym or during your hectic work schedule, contributes to the distraction and noise rather than providing clarity and focus.
📫 - Favourite quote
"Let us go down and confuse their language so that they may not understand one another."
The Book of Genesis 11:7
🧐 - Newly discovered content of interest
This short video highlights the importance of skin in the game. From the level of the individual, Steve Jobs says that working as a consultant slows down learning because you only get a two-dimensional picture of what's happening inside the company. The more you are forced to take ownership over your decisions, the faster you'll learn, and the more three-dimensional your understanding will be.
🧾 - An absorbing and insightful (short) read
Are you starting leadership development too late?
From Zenger | Folkman
My view is yes.
Habits and behaviours are more challenging to change once they become ingrained. And often executives become uncoachable - some people like themselves too much. They are not open to making changes because they like the outcomes they are getting. But they draw the wrong lessons from good outcomes. Their success is often despite their behaviour.
Seth Godin's avocado principles apply here. There are five:
1 - If you wait until you really want an avocado, the market won't have any ripe ones. You need to buy them in advance.
2 - If you eat an avocado that's not quite ripe, you won't enjoy it. And, you won't have a chance to enjoy it tomorrow, when it would have been perfect if you had only waited.
3 - If you live your life based on instant gratification and little planning, you'll either never have a good avocado or pay more than you should to someone else who planned ahead.
4 - Buy more avocados than you think you need because the hassles are always greater than the cost, so you might as well invest.
5 - And since you have so many, share them when they're ripe. What goes around comes around.
All of these truths lead to the real insight. The metaphor that's just waiting to be lived in all ways: If you get ahead of the cycle, you can live an entire life eating ripe avocados. On the other hand, if impatience and poor planning get you behind the cycle, you'll be just as likely to waste every one you ever eat.
Plant your tree before you need the shade.
🐣 - Something I am doing differently or entirely new
I have started to use the Substack publishing platform. Substack lets independent writers publish directly to their audience. It is a WIN | WIN as it makes it easier for me to publish and communicate with my audience. And my Monthly Musings remain free to you while making it easier to access archives, share, or even unsubscribe.
This monthly newsletter will be exclusively shared via Substack later this year, so you will need to move across to continue reading it.
⚖ - Et cetera
Perhaps the following will provide insight and be of help with a problem you are currently facing:
Do you need a new perspective on a challenge you're struggling with?
Are you starting a new role and want to make a positive impact and quickly establish credibility?
My latest article is here - "Every problem doesn't have to be your problem."
The RYSE Journal - "A coach in your pocket."
All the best, until next month.
Rob