Train. Grow. Rest. Repeat.

We can manage our careers like athletes manage theirs and create a lifetime of resilient, healthy progress. If we borrow from what coaches and athletes already know about endurance training and continuous improvement we can: 

• Improve our professional selves without fear or pain

• Continuously evolve throughout our careers without exhaustion or burnout

• Act on feedback without acting performatively

• Build managers who foster constant improvement without risking the company’s velocity or objective achievement

In late 2022 I started to get curious about how the benefits I was experiencing with Zone training as an endurance athlete could be applied to professional improvement. I spent much of 2023 researching ideas and developed an adjacent process that easily translates to an individual, a manager, or a company. After testing on actual humans, I found a perceived-effort-based improvement practice was a less stressful, more productive way to unlock lasting growth. The Zone 2 People method starts with the potential of self-directed, positive desire to grow. We work in 4-12 week cycles of intentional practice, using an 80/20 split between low effort and high effort to make that growth not just a possibility, but also a reality.

I believe individuals can easily learn to apply this practice to any part of their professional development for their entire careers.  I believe managers can learn to support the practice with minimal training. And I believe organizations can implement this practice to see the entire organization improve steadily over time while reducing the time and burden of the traditional review cycle.