Why Gymnastics Prepares You For Life.
They had the AC cranked and it was uncomfortably cold in the conference room at the hotel so I ran up in between lectures to put on long pants and shirt.
I’d been introduced, I knew this lecture back to front, I had polished the PowerPoint presentation and the opening video was being projected on the screen. I welcome the audience, thank them for coming to this regions mini-congress. I get about 6 slides in and THE ROOM GOES BLACK. The emergency lights flicker on, there is enough light to keep going but there is no power to the projector.
I wait 1 or 2 minutes, someone from the hotel says that there is no power on the entire block. We are safe to keep going. No AC, a room filled with 200+ people. I start to sweat. I unplug the projector spin my laptop around and put it up on chair on top of the table and keep going. Showing every slide twice. First to the left side or the room, then to the right side.
Practice Your Mistakes: Know How to Fall
The idea of practicing mistakes is something I do quite often. Very rarely (if ever?) does anyone in the gym complete a skill or exercise without room for improvement. In a routine a pirouette is missed or a turn goes too far.
What do you do, Stop? Try again?
When I speak at congresses or seminars I rely on many pieces of technology to execute “flawless” performances. It’s rare when not at least one thing goes wrong. It be could be as small as forgetting to put batteries in the microphone, to something big like a hard drive crash (please knock on wood that this never happens to me).
But when things do go wrong, it’s usually an operator error (me, myself and I).Things usually do not go terribly wrong, because I’ve likely practiced the mistake ahead of time. Just like what we do in the gym every day.
Falls are common in every gym. Equipment failure can occur. A grip can break, a mat can slip. When you walk into anyone’s gym you will see quality gymnasts take missteps and have GRACEFUL FALLS. It’s as if they anticipated their fall, readied their body and as best they could do, gently fall to the floor below.
Almost like they practiced it and I’ll bet you they did. For every great flight series we see, how many falls do you see to get there?
Perfect Mistake Practice Makes Perfect
It’s been said that practice makes perfect. Or perfect practice makes perfect. But the reality is, rarely anything is flawlessly executed. We can train and practice. We can study and go through scenarios over and over inside our head, but there is nothing that can actually simulate for “showtime.” There is nothing that can emulate the nerves, the environmental conditions, a mat deciding to slip, and a host of other issues that all tend to rear their heads at the wrong time.
This isn’t about having a backup plan, which you should also have. Backup plans and encountering mistakes are two different things.
A back-up plan is having another PowerPoint remote, or an extra set of grips. But could your really prepare for a TOTAL POWER OUTAGE? The only way you can be prepared is to practice our mistakes. Practice our falls. The better you get at that, the better you will get at making on the fly adjustments and continuing.
In the gym it seems we are always practicing routines. Once one season ends we have a few short weeks before we are already trying to put new skills into next seasons routines. We practice when things go right and we practice when things go wrong.
In the business world you must also practice when things go right and when things go wrong. I do NOT believe is rising to the occasion. I believe in sinking to the level of training.
In the business world I’m an advocate for practicing our mistakes, or running through those catastrophic scenarios that make you think, “I’m dead, there’s nothing I can do, show’s over.”
But if you’ve gone through those scenarios before, then it’s not a catastrophe, it’s a slight detour from the original plan. You know exactly what to do to fix the problem because you’ve practiced this before.
AND- IF YOU ARE IN THE HIRING DEPARTMENT OF A COMPANY, HIRE A GYMNAST. WE KNOW HOW TO STUMBLE AND POSSIBLY FALL, MAKE ADJUSTMENTS AND KEEP GOING.
