+1: #965 Asking for Qualities
17 Dec 2025 · 4 min
Brian Johnson explains Tim Gallwey's technique of acting like a top professional to improve performance. Adopt the mannerisms, confident swing, and mindset of someone at the top of their field across work, love, and energy. Pair it with Gallwey's other practices: drop judgment and visualize outcomes.
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You're listening to Optimize with Brian Johnson. More wisdom in less time. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another optimize +1. In our last +1 we spent some time with Todd Herman, Batman, Dora the Explorer and your most heroic self. Today we're going to connect all that goodness to wisdom from the classic peak performance book, the Inner Game of Tennis by Tim Galway. Here's how he puts it. He says, quote, asking for qualities. Asking for qualities describes the other kind of role playing. When introducing this idea, I usually say something like this. Imagine that I am the director of a television series. Knowing that you are an actor that plays tennis, I ask if you would like to do a bit part as a top flight tennis player. I assure you that you needn't worry about hitting the ball out or into the net because the camera will only be focused on you and will not follow the ball. What I'm mainly interested in is that you adopt professional mannerisms and that you swing your racket with super self assurance. Above all, your face must express no self doubt. You should look as if you are hitting every ball exactly where you want to really get into the role. Hit as hard as you like and ignore where the ball is actually going. End quote. Asking for equalities. That's one of Galway's three practices for communicating with what he calls self two, which is basically your optimist best self and that innately knows how to crush it if we'd simply get out of our own way. The other two practices, letting go of judgment and the art of creating images of the outcome you want to see. Today we're going to walk onto the set of the movie that is our lives. You're the star. Go you. Well, technically we're all just bit players in the game of life, so perhaps we should adopt that view, eh? So what roles are you playing these days? Perhaps you can use the big three identities for energy, work and love. Now, how would you show up in your life if you acted like a top flight pro in your given field, adopted professional mannerisms and did your thing with super, super self assurance, with no doubt and pure confidence? Let's act like that today. Seriously, how would you walk, talk, breathe and be if you were acting like the best possible version of yourself? Be that and let's watch our performance and enjoyment soar. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Optimize with Brian Johnson. To find out more, go to Optimize Me. Hey guys, this is Brian with a quick little P.S. i'm really excited to let you know about an event we're working on. Plan is to make it the premier self optimizing event of 2020. We're calling it Optimize 2020. You the modern hero. Basic idea, five days, 101 world class luminaries, 1 million people. You can learn more and get your tickets to the online and offline event at Optimize Me 2020. Again, that's Optimize Me2020. Hope to see you there.
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