Man Lifts Car in Display of Super-Human Strength

Variations of this headline have crossed our vision enough times that it’s become cliché. Similarly, the creative output you accomplish in one “it’s due at 8am?!” all-nighter in college dwarfs what we accomplish in our regular 9-5.  What a person becomes when transformed by adrenaline is regarded as something beyond what we are normally capable of.

Except… It’s not.

Adrenaline, and the associated chemical releases, simply optimize the performance of various bodily systems, from oxygen & glycogen delivery to tendon activation. It doesn’t do anything TO our body except grant the sympathetic nervous system permission to have access to our full range of capabilities. The actual tensile strength of our muscles, the neural firepower to tear down a challenging creative problem is already there. All the adrenaline does is take our abilities off the leash.

While medical science reminds us that the heightened state adrenaline brings is by no means sustainable, there are numerous Work Better/Smarter texts out there (my current favorite is Tony Schwartz’s The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working) teaching us how to access higher performance levels for longer periods of time. But while you’re waiting for whisper-synch to deliver the latest curriculum, ponder me this:

That adrenaline, norepinephrine and even old-fashioned caffeine doesn’t grant super-human abilities; its just grants access to capabilities that have been there all along.

How much higher can we perform without a crisis state (or a venti-mocha-hoo-ha-with-an-extra-shot) simply by recognizing that those abilities are already there, waiting to be turned on?