I want my first post to focus on why I believe in Performance Enrichment, as well as why I use the word enrichment as opposed to enhancement. My hope is that if you connect to why I choose this profession and why this site and practice are important and meaningful to me, then you’ll be interested in what I can do for you!

Background

If you look closely enough, you will find patterns all throughout your life. If you’ve been lucky, hopefully at some point you became awakened to what those patterns were and used them to direct, or maybe re-direct, the rest of your life’s journey. Yes, I have been lucky enough to be awake. What I’ve discovered in my life is that I love being a leader and leading for altruistic reasons. I really mean that too. I receive immense satisfaction from seeing others make progress, achieve milestones, experience peak performances, and succeed in obtaining happiness and satisfaction.

I can remember back to when I first started school. At the age of five, I was rounding up the other kindergartners to put together a makeshift stage so we could have a talent show during recess. There I was taking the lead, identifying the talents of classmates, and coaxing them onto our little stage to perform. In high school, I was already coaching youth basketball where the focus was on fun, enjoyment of the game, and self-improvement. In undergrad, while majoring in elementary education, I was coaching both boys’ and girls’ high school basketball. Ironically, my focus in coaching the high school athletes was not much different than it was coaching the little ones. If you get people to focus on the right things–purpose, improvement, enjoyment–then more often than not, they will experience optimal experiences and intense satisfaction. That’s called flow by the way, but I save that topic for a future post.

After completing my degree in education and having been successful as a high school coach, I thought I could possibly succeed at the collegiate level. That led me to grad school for my Master’s. Originally, the intent was to study Educational Leadership, but luckily, I accidentally found out about another program concentrated in Sport Psychology. I remember thinking to myself, “Why focus on coaching one team, when I can be a coach to all?” And now, here I am: A Master’s in Sport Psychology and a Ph.D. in Human Performance later, and I’m ready to embark on my dream of building a business of helping others enrich their performances and lives.

Performance Enrichment

So what the heck is this performance enrichment stuff?

Sport psychology focuses primarily on performance enhancement and how to “stretch” athletes’ capabilities and potential. Performance enhancement is about making you mentally prepared and ready to perform at your best. The techniques used in the performance enhancement field are great for anyone in a world where results and bottom-lines matter.

Performance enhancement training alone is good for making you better at something , and you can gain significant accomplishments if you dedicate yourself, but it’s my philosophy that we should make sure we’re dedicating ourselves to the somethings that matter. I think it’s important to find the connection between what we do and who we are trying to be. Performance enrichment is about making what you do and the goals you have for yourself meaningful, purposeful, and to help you discover what sources of happiness really are in your life.

What’s to Come from Peaks Within Reach?

PWR is a branded extension of myself. I’ll be using the blog to share a lot of what I’ve learned (and still learning) from the academic disciplines of positive and sport psychology along with the performance enhancement and leadership development professions, but I’m going to add my own twist to all of it. I’m going to focus on helping you enrich your performance holistically. You’ll see a lot of emphasis on the why , as we talk about the what and the how.

I am also working on completing on my first of what I hope to be many books! I’ll be adding another page to this site in the future that will provide a variety of books, tools, and other resources available to you to aide in your journey! There’s a lot of great stuff out there, and I won’t pretend to be the authority on everything, but my perspective is fresh and unique!

Thanks for reading!