Peak Performance: Elevate Your Game, Avoid Burnout, and Thrive with the New Science of Success by Brad StulbergMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book falls into one of my favorite genres, which is best described as how to be the best you can be. Peak Performance is authored by two guys, Brad and Steve, each of whom peaked rather dramatically (in business and in sports, respectively) but burned out. They met, shared beers and bios, and teamed up to write about a topic they both love – the science of performance.
What this book offers, which many others of this type do not, is pace and balance. It has the perfect combination of anecdote and science. The authors found the optimum time and space to devote to each topic. And the delivery is downright neighborly without sacrificing any of the heft one seeks in a book on best practices in productivity.
They refer to some of my very favorite authors/researchers and that made me smile: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Roy Baumeister, Kelly McGonigal, Adam Grant, Daniel Kahneman, Mason Curry, Walter Mischel, Tim Noakes, Daniel Pink, Viktor Frankl …. and many, many more.
Topics discussed included the importance of balancing rest with stress for success, establishing routines for minimizing decision fatigue, failing productively (struggles give birth to skills!), and becoming a minimalist in order to get the most bang for your attention-buck. Each chapter is summarized at the end, which is not a huge thing, but I found it useful, I did.
Peak Performance is a nifty distillation of the best current human performance science in both physical and cognitive realms and I enjoyed it from start to finish. You will be reminded about your potential, and you when you finish it, you will have more resolve to chip away at the nonsense and time-wasters which keep you from meeting your goals. You will feel ready for change.
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