Performance, Please!

ZAAG HQ is abuzz with internal deliberations on how we define performance. 
To us, performance is knowing what needs to be done, and then doing it to the best of your ability.

Of course, this opens itself up to subjectivity. But it also brings the idea into the everyday.

As much as the performances of world-class athletes can sometimes leave us in shock and awe, performance isn’t solely in the realm of the individuals who break through to the highest tiers.

Their performance serves as inspiration, and nourishment, for us to tap into in our own lives. Their laser individual focus reminds us of our innate capacity to deliver on promises to ourselves and hold ourselves accountable.

Responsibility has a huge part to play in the definition of performance. Those days when it strikes 8PM and you’ve finished work, put the kids to bed, prepped your meals, but you still open the notebook to plot goals for the year, continue your extra curricular studies or get into some accessory work, is as potent as achieving a personal best.

Edmund Hillary, the first man to reach the summit of Everest, said:

That is performance. 

The realisation of our potential. The insistence on striving.

That may be a couch to 5k, an ultra marathon, a side hustle or a passion project. You decide. Only you know when you’ve performed. That’s when you finish the day with an internal glow, knowing you tapped into your capacity. You delivered on the promises you set yourself. You satiated that spiritual itch to create, in the broadest terms. Whether creating force on a rowing machine, words on a page or experiences for a loved one… You did it.

Performance is as individual as the response to a Rorschach test. It’s a reaction to a stimulus. It’s a lifestyle; a life-long perspective that accommodates the ebbs and flows of motivation and intensity.

It’s getting points on the board, even on the weeks where everything goes to shit. It’s recouperating when your body reminds you that you’re mortal. It’s plotting and it’s action.

Performance is the lifeblood of being. 

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players." - Shakespeare

When all’s said and done, life is a performance. A series of outfits, of personalities, that we dial up and tune into to maximise our outcomes. 
You aren’t the same person in an interview as at the pub. Any self-aware person understands that different modes of performance are required at different times.

Sometimes you need to speak up – at others, it’s about shutting up and paying attention.

To perform, we must pivot. Constantly.

That might mean a week of intense graft that has you buckling at the knees. Or giving yourself a few days of uninterrupted rest to refill the well of ambition and capacity.

You won’t complete a marathon by sprinting, after all.

Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast And Slow outlined the two modes of thought:

System 1: fast, instinctive and emotional.
System 2: slower, deliberative and logical.

Maximising our mental performance requires equilibrium between these two modes.

Maximising athletic performance requires deep effort in expenditure and recovery. 

Maximising human performance relies upon our body having what it needs to deliver, through action, the goals and vision we conjure for ourselves.

Balancing effort and alleviation is real performance. It’s what we designed ZAAG to do, to deliver your body the vitamins, nootropics, adaptogens and amino acids that it needs to perform.

“This is not like any supplement I’ve tried before,” is what we hear time and time again. 

To see a difference in data, feel a difference in mood, and experience greater recovery… that’s how ZAAG performs. 

If you’ve tried, you’ll understand.

Try!