Omer Aziz, SVP at Sysomos, TEDX speaker on Peak Performance, an inspiring role model for the next ge

I met with Omer Aziz, SVP at Sysomos, TEDX speaker on Peak Performance, an inspiring role model for the next generation:

Failure is….

“There’s a line. If you are not on that line, you won’t achieve peak performance. And that line is on the very edge of failing or not failing. Because you are pushing yourself to the limits.

So if you are not failing regularly, you are not practicing hard enough. Failure is not a sign of failure. Failure is a sign that you are on the edge. So the best time you learn, is when you fail.

You have to look at practice as a cycle. And failure is just one part on that cycle. As soon you fail, you learn everything you can about the failure. Then you do it again.

Because life is a cycle, that’s the beauty of it. Everything you learn on the cycle, you can apply it on the next cycle. It leads to the beauty of future improvements.

Find your playground (your gifts/ Talents/ Strong moment)

“One of my favorite books is “The Art of Writing”, by Stephen king. One of his idea is the idea of the playground. He writes about 3 to 4 hours in the morning, and then he is done by 11am. Then he has the rest of his day to do tasks that needs to be done. But that 3 hour period is his playground.

Like any playground, you get to do what you want. You play.

So everyone should have their own playground for whatever they do. During your playground, don’t let what doesn’t belong to the playground, be on the playground. Don’t let interruptions happen. Protect your playground. My playground is using my mind for mind mapping, learning, and come up with good ideas. So my playground is spending 3 hours, doing that. Then I do the actions that come out of it. When I get several ideas from the playground, I twit them at night.” Part 2

How to find your playground….

“The way to know your playground is to know when it shows up in very little moments of time. In that moment in time, you really really enjoyed yourself. Then you performed at your peak. It might have lasted only 30 seconds. But it is the ability to notice them, even in a short time. When you notice enough of them, then you start to see the pattern. The pattern is your playground.

I call these moments, a strong moment. So I did an experiment. In the course of 6 months, I started noticing when I had strong moments experiments. I wrote them down. And all you have to write is, what happened. Why is it a strong moment, and what would you call it? So I would write it down. So I captured 336 strong moments. And I could see a theme.

A theme that is very recurring in my playground, is what happens in the idea the people are interested in it. They discuss it and more idea emerges. So I leave the discussion with 20 or 30 more ideas related to the initial idea. That’s why it’s a strong moment for me. So you have to start to notice your own. “