Hey Team,

Hope everyone is having a great week so far – I know for me just waking up and knowing that it isn’t going to be 40-degrees today…well, that’s good news!  Last Wednesday in particular was a pretty brutal one in the gym – I know for me I think my shirt was ‘thick’ with sweat from sometime around the half-way mark of the 9am class right the way through until close!  Gross!

With the challenge starting tomorrow I thought I would share some thoughts about a book I read recently – “Hidden Potential” by Adam Grant.  As it says in the blurb, this book will ‘Shatter your assumptions about what it takes to succeed’…so it starts out with a bold claim.  Simplistically, the book – and I would place it in the same category as other excellent reads as ‘The Talent Code’ (Daniel Coyle) and ‘Bounce – The Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice’ (Matthew Syed) it suggests that ‘WE’ (both individuals and organisations) think about accomplishments all wrong – we give too much credit to innate ability and simply don’t place enough emphasis on learning.  I guess where he goes is that meaningful learning is almost always painful – and that improvement (and ultimately) Mastery requires not talent but a willingness to lean into discomfort.

Now – in his book Grant he covers a fair bit of ground but in a story that everyone can relate too he references the famous “Marshmallow” test from the 1970s where Walter Mischel and his team at Stanford sat preschoolers down with a marshmallow in front of them. The kids were told they could eat the treat now, or, if they waited until the researcher returned a few minutes later, they could have two marshmallows.  The idea was it was a test of delayed gratification. Mischel and colleagues then followed the kids in the years that followed and found that those – and we’re generalising now – who could resist the temptation of the marshmallow had better SAT scores, were generally healthier (simple BMI measurements) and were more likely to have finished high school, attended college etc.

Of course, it’s 2024 now so the world is now full of parents and teachers conducting their own versions of this test with their kids/students and – ‘cos it’s 2024 – posting the videos up on SnapFace, TikBook and the likes.  The author – because he’s a pretty smart guy who saw this as an opportunity to learn spent time WATCHING all these videos and came to an interesting conclusion.  Rather than seeing a subset of kids who had SUPERIOR willpower – as he had expected – what he saw was a subset of kids who REMOVED the need for willpower…they had developed different coping mechanisms…which means (of course), if they can learn them, so can we!

If you search ‘Marshmallow Test’ on YouTube (here’s a link that will do it for you – https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=marshmallow+test) then what you will find is a heap of kids who lock-in on the marshmallow – they give it 100% of their attention, staring at it, holding it, squishing it, licking it…even nibbling it.  Then there are other kids who get away from the marshmallow – some cover their eyes, others walk/dance around the room, talk to the other kid next to them…basically, they use different ‘distracting’ strategies (with, it must be said) varying degrees of success.

With the challenge starting tomorrow – and if you haven’t joined yet, you really should as it is a great way to get your training year off to success – (https://round1fitness.com.au/february-challenge/) remember the lessons taught to us by Grant in his awesome new book – you overcome ‘temptation’ not through sheer willpower…but by creating for yourself a coping mechanism.  Replace the after dinner chocolate with a cup of herbal tea.  Arrange to go for a walk with your partner after dinner rather than sitting in front of tv.  Create a date with a gym buddy for a session on Saturday morning if that is the ‘extra’ class you need to get done to get to the end.

Willpower isn’t the answer for kids who want marshmallows – and it is 100% not the answer for adults who are in the habit of having a glass of wine with dinner each night.  Set yourself up for success in the 28-days-Later challenge.  Create a series of ‘distractions’ that will benefit you as well as keeping you on the straight and narrow path.

See you in the gym,

Michael.