Unleash Your Potential

Do you know how to train fleas? Apparently, you can train fleas to not jump out of a glass jar by placing a lid on the jar for three days. Initially, the fleas repeatedly bang their heads on the lid until they condition themselves to jump slightly below the lid to avoid the pain. After three days you can take the lid off and voil`a! Despite having the potential to jump much higher, the fleas will never jump out of the jar.

Navy SEAL and elite athlete, David Goggins, alludes to this idea in his book Can’t Hurt Me. He calls it the 40% rule. According to Goggins, our minds are conditioned to stop us when we are at 40% of our limit. Whether you are running a marathon, writing a book or going about your day to day work, your brain will tell you that you are at 100% when you are only at 40%.

I love this idea. Imagine having another 60% left in the tank, when your brain is telling you it’s time to pull the pin. Imagine that the stories we are telling ourselves when we are at 40% are just “fake news” that we have somehow bought into. Imagine there was no self-imposed lid on our jar.

According to Goggins, the way to tap into our remaining 60% is to recondition ourselves to acknowledge the physical and emotional pain we may be feeling at the time, ignore the initial impulse to quit and push on a little bit further. Essentially, it’s all about delaying quitting. By delaying quitting each time our mind tells us we are at our limit, we can lift the lid on our own potential and leap to greater heights.

I’m interested in your thoughts: have you seen the 40% rule play out in your life?

Mark Windust is an influential Thought Leader in the areas of Sales Strategy, Sales Leadership and Sales Performance. Since launching his consulting practice in 2007, Mark has worked with 1000's of business leaders, salespeople and entrepreneurs’ to help them transform their sales results.