by ed jennings ~

Welcome to life, congratulations on joining our high-performance team! To help with your onboarding please read the below as a quick guide on what is expected of you now you’ve joined our ranks. It’s all really straight forward stuff so don’t stress, in fact, that’s probably a good point to start with, it’s really important that you never stress, stress is very bad and results in all sorts of other problems so if at any point the following guide makes you feel stressed, whatever you do, do not get stressed.

1. Standards

First things first, we like things done well, in fact better than well, they really need to be excellent. Everything you do needs to ooze perfection. To help we’ve created a number of initiatives to promote this. Medals are for winners, prizes reward excellence, scholarships are for the best. It’s really a case of quality and quantity, do lots but do it all well. We will provide feedback continuously to ensure you understand that being second rate doesn’t cut it. In fact, even when you’re doing well, we will make sure you’re aware that you could still do better. We’ve recently been testing a system where we show a continuous feed of images to stare at showing people doing things better than them so you can constantly compare yourself and see where you can improve.

2. Attitude

You can always do more. Always. Be more productive, more efficient, more creative, more dynamic. Work hard, play harder though. Be more fun! Let your hair down. Be chatty, be funny. But also be supportive, listen, no don’t just listen, actually listen. Enjoy every moment of this precious journey. Be sure to knuckle down though, hard work pays off, have some grit, have some drive, get shit done. Be calmer, and be more present, but not too present as then you could become narrow-sighted. Always think outside the box, but for god’s sake don’t be wishy washy or airy fairy, they are two big no-noes.

3. Wellness

Go and do some exercise! But when you’re back make sure you meditate, then fetch those ingredients for an authentic Israeli dinner. Don’t eat rubbish, but don’t feel guilty if you do eat rubbish, best not to eat rubbish though. Keep fit and love your body, whatever your body type, just embrace it. However, if you don’t like your body type we will show you lots of much better body types you can try and aim for. You will never achieve them and may have severe mental health repercussions as a result but if this happens whatever you do don’t panic or stress and just seek out some help. Try and feel better quite quickly though as we really do require you to return to full productivity within 7 days.

4. Work

Your work should be rewarding, you can’t spend all that time there and not enjoy it. We will provide some very clear guidance on what work you should do. This will be conducted prior to adulthood and can span a wide range of careers from Accountant to Air Traffic Controller. In the unlikely event that you do not pursue a career in the field we choose for you then don’t worry too much as there are a wide range of jobs which are almost identical and involve sitting in a chair for 8-10 hours a day with a few short walks in between and occasionally some free biscuits (see “3. Wellness” for guidance on biscuit eating).

5. Extra-Curricular

Make sure you have a side hustle, something to keep you interested outside of work. This can range from a charity saving donkeys to a small ethical clothing business. You should really aim for your side hustle to end up being your full-time job so that you can stop enjoying it and find a new side hustle to take your mind off it. Other extra-curricular pursuits should be closely linked with wellness and result in reducing any anticipated “free time” to under 30mins/week. If your free-time does extend beyond this guide then please launch a donkey clothing business or an ethical charity immediately.

~

Hopefully, that provides a good starting point for you to get going, normally we would be running face-to-face inductions in a few weeks’ time but we have had to move these to Zoom so watch out for an invite to one of these soon (make sure you speak on the Zoom call or we will assume you are watching The OC in bed and be forced to enrol you into a productivity workshop which will also be via Zoom but we will disable the ability to mute your microphone or turn off your camera).

Good luck out there.

Ed is the founder of Lung Club, a platform encouraging the use of exercise to help mental health and wellbeing. Train the Lungs. To help the mind. For more information, you can watch Ed discuss lung club here.