A Training Program for High Performers

High-performing athletes have a training regimen that includes individual and group workouts. In basketball, there’s daily team practices, time in the weight room and individual time working out for strength, flexibility and agility.

Serena Williams is considered by many to be the greatest female tennis player of all time. Her incredible fitness is credited to her strict diet and extensive workout routine.

As an on-air and podcast performer, what is your daily training schedule? Like star athletes and championship teams, the highest performing shows have both group and individual preparation routines. Although every show and talent have different approaches, here’s a typical day in the life of most successful shows.

Group planning

The post show meeting is held to discuss the highs and lows of the show just finished. Then they roll into planning content for the next day. The team leaves the meeting with at least a skeleton plan in place.

Show members stay connected throughout the day exchanging ideas via text, Google Drive or Salesforce. Some shows have a brief conference call to update the show plan late afternoon or early evening. The show plan is finalized in the pre-show meeting shortly before the show begins.

Individual training

Your primary role as a performer is to make creative contributions to the show. Top talents break their training practices into three key areas.

• Body – Nutrition is priority for all-star athletes like Tom Brady who is famous for eating a strict plant-based diet. After starting his day with electrolyte water and a healthy breakfast, Tom goes through an extensive physical workout. His diet and workouts are designed to give him maximum energy.

Time in the gym and doing cardio exercises like walking, running, cycling and swimming not only help keep you fit, they are also perfect for brain parking. When your conscious mind is parked on a repetitive activity, ideas come to you through your subconscious mind.

Save those late nights and brews for the weekend, and give your body plenty of rest so your mind is sharp for the show.

• Mind – After perusing a list of websites for topical stories, videos and ideas, much time is devoted to planning and editing content segments and stories. The best shows apply our Execution Rule of 4 (setup, exit, POV, what else) (LINK) to each show segment.

An effective practice is to study documentaries for tips on structuring content segments with storytelling, staging and pattern disruptors.

• Spirit/Soul – I start my days with a period of meditation to still my mind and boost my energy and creativity. Howard Stern and Jerry Seinfeld have been practicing meditation daily for years as part of their personal training program.
  Legendary basketball coach Phil Jackson included meditation as part of the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers team training program.

Journaling is an effective exercise to clear the emotional junk from your system and to stimulate your creative juices. We like Julia Cameron’s “Morning Pages” journaling method from her book The Artist’s Way.

A digital detox (taking time out from all screens and media) is also beneficial to help you get in touch with your own ideas.

Photo by Ruben Leija on Unsplash