AFA News 12 November 2020. How are you placed to lead yourself and your team during challenging times? Sleep, wellness, exercise, recovery and heart rate variability are all examples of factors that Darren Burgess, as the high-performance coach for the Melbourne Football Club, carefully measures and monitors for every individual player – every day. These factors influence how we show up, how effective we are, how we perform in running our businesses, running our families, and running ourselves. Darren stresses the importance of being aware of the signs your body is giving you. For example – players are measured for when they fatigue and what their stress triggers are, so knowing these factors and when they are likely to occur during a game ensures Darren and the team can optimise who is on the field and for how long. The same applies for you…. when do you fatigue, what are the signals? What are your stress triggers and how do you best manage stress relief? Darren cites that another important factor for high performers is to ‘avoid your comfort zone at all costs’. A lot of people seek their comfort zone. Nothing good, no adaptation happens within your comfort zone. If you continue to avoid conflict, avoid the tough conversations, avoid difficult work-outs, avoid exercising because it’s too hard or because it’s too early, too late or too cold, you won’t get anything done. Equally important is understanding that pressure or stress is your perception of events. It’s not the event. You can’t control the event and the event itself doesn’t have a feeling – so it’s important to be cognizant of your emotions and how you deal with challenging circumstances.
At the end of the day, Darren explains, it comes down to circumstances you can control and circumstances you can’t control. We all lead busy lives, full of interruptions and external factors and demands, many of which we can’t control. But there are areas we can control. One of the areas Darren’s cites that is absolutely something that we can control is our health. The majority of leading causes of death (i.e. heart disease, cancer etc.) can all be reduced by improving your well-being (for example watching your sugar intake). As Darren says, ‘There is absolutely no excuse not to be healthy”.
For more hard-hitting truths and practical insights on how to build high performance and resilience and lead yourself and your team through adversity, check out Darren’s keynote speech. It is not surprising this was the highest-watched keynote on Day 2 of our virtual conference. We thank Zurich and OnePath for bringing Darren to our conference. Members wishing to watch Darren’s keynote (and who have not previously registered for conference) can register for the on-demand conference content at a reduced rate by visiting the conference website here.
Issued 12.11.2020. AFA News
