Interview - The Art of Mental Training with DC Gonzalez

You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson.

More wisdom in less time. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to the Optimal Living Interview series. Today I am really excited to have D.C. gonzalez, Dan Gonzalez, here with us chatting about his great book, the Art of Mental Training, a guide to performance excellence. Dan has a really fascinating background. He is a peak performer himself. He's a best selling author and he's been at this since 1988, helping people reach newer levels of achievement and performance. And his background includes being a naval aviator, a federal agent, a military cybersecurity specialist, and a Brazilian jiu jitsu black belt and peak performance coach. Really cool mix. Again, I loved your book, Dan, and I really appreciate, appreciate you taking the time to be here today.

Thank you for having me. And it's good to be here. I really appreciate the opportunity to visit with you folks.

Right on. All right, well, let's have fun and just jump straight in. So the Art of Mental Training. This is one of the best books I've read on getting our minds right. But let's just start with the most basic concept. Why is it so important that we train our minds?

Well, you know, Brian, I guess what I've learned throughout the years in the different situations that I've been in, that a big part of succeeding is going to be mental. You know, you can develop your skills to a certain level and so can your competitors. And once that level of skill reaches a certain point, what takes you to the next level is going to be your mental skills. You can't just depend on the physical. There has to be. You have to tap an inner resource. And to tap that inner resource is, is what gets you to the next level. And what I try to teach and help people understand is that there's a way of thinking, there's the champion mindset. If we can wrap our arms around, wrap our heads around the champion mindset and how champions think, and we can put those principles to work in our, in our lives, then we are able to reach a higher level beyond what our training has, our skill set offers us. We bring another element in.

Yep. That's awesome. Okay, so then let's just go straight into that. So describe for us what a champion's mindset looks like.

Well, it's a combination of things. You know, a champion, he understands that attitude. The attitude that he has is very critical in that it must remain positive even when some of the things that are taking place aren't going his way. Okay. So he focuses on a control of his attitude, understanding that that's an important foundation now going on from there. He also becomes aware of the importance of self talk. And all of us have an internal voice, an internal chatter that pops up from time to time. Champions understand that you can't have an internal critic going, running loose inside your head. So they learn to control that by interrupting that pattern and immediately replacing the negative talk that might be popping up with by firing off a few positive affirmations, let's call them, or positive self talk statements that immediately take the power away from the negativity and start channeling into self confidence, self belief, and correcting the internal self talk that's going on. Ultimately, we would like to, as performers, not have any self talk going on. And we would like to get to the point where we're in that zone and that zone from where peak performance springs forth. But in order to get there, there's other elements of the champion mindset that all come together kind of in a synergistic way that leads us to that point where we're performing without thinking. But you know, the champion mindset also involves things like goal setting and the importance of goal setting and understanding that. Understanding that if you learn to control your. Your breathing, why, then you're more apt to begin to be able to control your mind and what's going on during your performance or your competition. So there's breathing, there's imagineering, there's learning how to enter this altered state of awareness I refer to as deep relaxation. Because it's when you learn how to get into that state of deep relaxation that your imagineering really becomes effective in helping to create stronger self confidence. Now, self confidence is a byproduct of stronger self belief. So we always the champion mindset, it can't neglect that we need to make sure that our self belief system, our internal self belief system, and a big, you know, many would say that most of our self belief is at an unconscious level, that it has to be as positive and as strong as possible. Because from self belief comes our self confidence. And those two together are what affect our performance. So there's a lot of things that come together and even other elements in the champion mindset of learning to control anger. And when that anger energy comes up, learning to use it to help you resolve instead of losing control to the anger, understanding how to perform well under pressure, you're going to feel the pressure, but you don't let it, you don't let it affect your performance. And the list goes on. Brian.

So, yeah, this is awesome. So this is basically you Just gave a highlight overview of what I was hoping to go into. So let's just. Let's go into some of those in more depth, one by one. Let's start with. I think the inner chat is pretty straightforward, but the idea that. And you make it really clear in the book of look, you need to be able to notice when you're having the negative chit chat going on and then step right in and have positive self talk. But can you just maybe give us an example, practically speaking, of what that might be like in our lives? Negative, and then how you stop that and then translate it into a positive.

Sure. You know, the thing that comes to.

Mind right away.

Is when I was learning to fly Navy jets. You know, some of those instructors are intense, and, you know, they're in the backseat trying to throw you off, and they're trying to throw your task focus and your task consciousness. They're trying to rattle you. Because if you can't keep your focus, and this is the same whether it be regardless of the type of work that you're doing or situation you might be in, if you're not task focused, if your opponent or if an adversary or if a competitor takes that away from you, things can start going downhill. And so a lot of times what happens is the self talk will come in. The internal critic, he'll pop up. He or she will pop up when you're beginning to get rattled, either by what's going on or what others are injecting into the situation. So one of the simplest things that one of my instructors taught me was the minute it comes up, you say to yourself, cancel, cancel. Because our minds in a lot of ways resemble a computer. And we can condition certain responses, certain things that are simple to condition. And if we notice something, some chatter going on that is clearly along the negative, cancel, cancel. And then immediately replace it with, I'm fast, I'm strong, I'm good, whatever it may be that you need, need at that point to reassure you and to try to take that energy and convert it into confidence as opposed to letting it go down that line of fear and that line of doubt. And then things start getting out of hand because we didn't immediately begin to take control in that simple way. Did I get away from your question?

Oh, that was perfect. So then. That's awesome. So we noticed the negative energy. And then for those of us who really competing in an athletic environment, the competitor or the challenge is just life. Right. Whether it's a boss or a spouse or a child or whatever, that Might be challenging us to notice when the negative comes in and then cancel, cancel or whatever we use to intercept that. And then I love firing off the positive of I'm great, this is good, I've got this, whatever it is that keeps us positive. And then I want to hear your thoughts a little bit more on the task focus. You know, and you talk about this a lot in the book too, that it's so easy to get carried away into fear or even excitement and lose the focus on what needs to get done right now. Can you tell us about that a little bit more?

Sure. You know, again, it kind of goes back to some of the intensity of the training in the military, but it can also go to some of the competition and in different sports and it can go into the challenges of relationships. You know, help me again. Let me hear your question again.

So just the idea of a task focus and just maintaining. You were saying that the. What made me think about that was you were mentioning your naval instructor who is, you know, the guys were just trying to get you rattled from the backseat and take you out of the moment. And so you intercept, cancel, cancel. You bring yourself positive and then you focus on what needs to get done. Right. Just be task oriented.

Exactly. And so I need to understand the situation going into it of what it takes to win in this situation, what it takes to be able to say I'm moving forward in a positive way in this situation, what it takes to beat my opponent, what it takes to not let this discussion turn into a negative anger management type of situation. Okay. So I have to have my idea in mind of what it will take to win and sometimes compromise, especially with relationships.

Right.

But in other cases, job related or work related or sports related, what's it going to take to succeed? So when I have that in mind, then I have my task consciousness, my task focus. I can't let anything take that away from me once I know what it takes to get there. Sometimes I use the word win, but again, it needs to be with relationships, it needs to be win, win.

But.

With a boss, it needs to be. Let me go back and make sure that I understand how to do this task. Okay? I know how to do this. Now. I have past experiences where I've been successful at this and I start feeding my self confidence and my self belief of being able to do this. And then I stay focused on the task no matter what is coming in from the side or from over my shoulder or from another direction. Same thing with flying at high speeds with an instructor that's trying to take your task focus away. Well, my goal is to get this platform over this specific spot at this specific time, and then totally change direction and course. And the mission changes in this way when I get there. So my task focus is always to achieve what I know I need to achieve to win in the situation, regardless of the chatter that's going on either from the outside or internally. And a lot of that can be helped with prepping beforehand through the practice of imagineering and seeing yourself succeed and stay in task focus under those extreme pressure situations or whatever your situation is, it has a mental rehearsal along the way always helps because the brain is then being conditioned to stay task focused despite what's going on.

I love it. So let's go there. So tell us about imagineering. You know, where that word comes from, why it's such a big idea, and how we can go about doing it.

Well, you know, it's a. It comes from different situations. People always claim to have invented the word, but the one source that I found that touched me was Walt Disney used the term to help his people, and he himself used the process to. To create. To create the reality that they wanted to create. So the process is really one of using your imagination to help you succeed at whatever is important to you. And. And you use your mind. You'll get yourself in a quiet spot and go through a relaxation process so that you're physically and mentally relaxed. And then you need to imagine your success. And I should correct that. Imagine, of course, you want to imagine successful outcomes, but you want to imagine yourself profound, forming and doing the things that need to be done to help you achieve that success. And you see yourself in that process. And you practice that mentally for, you know, 15, 20 minutes. And you do this in a consistent way in preparation for the challenges that either your career or your life or your sport are basically calling you to reach up and meet. And imagineering prepares the mind in a way that many would say is as important as the physical training. Because there's a part of our mind that doesn't really, really know the difference between what's real and what's vividly imagined. And once those images and feelings of success and of doing well in the situation are impressed upon the inner mind, the subconscious mind, in a consistent way through practice, through these sessions, then it accepts the nature of that subconscious mind. It accepts those images and ideas and feelings of success and, let's say, really good performance as being true. That's its nature. It's a goal striving mechanism so to speak. And when it says if this is true, what it does, it's. Well, it doesn't say if this is true. It says this is true. Therefore, these are my actions, this is my behavior. These are the things I must be doing in order for that to be true. And what happens is we start from the inside to have this volition and volition and this drive and this motivation to do the things that need to be done that really help us achieve those things that were important to us. That's it in a nutshell.

That's really cool. And I want to underscore a couple of things there. One, you made the really fine distinction that we're not imagining the outcome per se. We're imagining the performance or the process, the behaviors we need to engage in in order to make those outcomes a natural byproduct. And I think I mention this a lot in my work that I think a lot of times we get tripped up and we think that we need to stare at our vision board and imagine all the outcomes, and we forget that those are only going to come if we are able to perform at a really high level. So then what we want to visualize and imagineer, it's not the outcome per se, it's the things we're going to do. And for me, I love to imagine perfect days. You know, I get up, I do this, I do that, then I do this and I move through that obstacle. And that's kind of my own imagineering and just grooving that pattern of. That's like me to have a day like that. So I just. I think that's awesome. I appreciate the way that you shared it and that that lends well to. We kind of skipped some other stuff that you talk about in your book before you get to imagineering about the importance of being able to control our physiology. And you referenced this a bit when we were talking about the champion mindset. But can you tell us about why breathing is so important and being able to relax our body and consciousness? Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Sure. You know, there's a couple places where it becomes important. And just a quick point is, I just want to say you've got to do the work. You know, you can't just imagine performing well, while that will help, you also have to do the work. Because I've heard coaches say, oh, just don't think about making that basket. Just do it. Well, that's good at a certain point, but that's after you've done the work. Physically to train the neuromuscular connections. They have to be there in order for you to be able to at one point say, well, let me just get out of my own way. Okay, so that was kind of something I wanted to add, that it's not just imagineering.

Of course. Yeah, I love that.

But. Okay, back to your question again, one more time.

Yes, just the importance of controlling our physiology if we want to have mental strength, and that champions mindset. Tell us about the importance of breathing and what that does for us and why we want to master that.

Okay, so breathing is a fundamental principle in regards to bringing ourselves closer to finding that place from where peak performance brings forth, that place where we want to discover how we are in the present. And we don't know what really just happened, but. But it happened really well because our training took over. Breathing brings us back to the present. That's one of the most important things when you're a little. When your mind is going off and whether it be in a fearful way or you're losing confidence, Breathing brings us back to the. And it's that type of breathing described, you know, diaphragm breathing. And then it brings us back to the present because you begin to focus on your breathing when people want to, when they want to. Athletes want to say, well, you know, what about meditation? Okay, you know, you're trying to find that gap of no thought in between your thoughts. And you want that gap to get bigger and bigger and bigger. And one of the easiest ways is to clear your mind so that your training can take over or so you can find that gap for longer periods of time, is to focus on your breathing, is to watch your breathing. So it's a core fundamental for learning how to take control. Now I blend the breathing well, breathing sometimes by itself. It's just that quite core idea that we need to go back to our breathing right now. But when you blend it with other things, like the deep relaxation, of course, and then the imagineering, the three together are very powerful in helping you train the inner mind for success, the success that you envision at whatever is important. Now there's also point where breathing can be used to change your state, your emotional state. If you're in a disempowered state and you're about to compete, or if you're in a disempowered state and you're about to have a. You have to interact, let's say you have to get up for public speaking and all of a sudden you've got a bad case of the butterflies. We need to be able to change our state. So in, and I teach that in the Art of Mental Training and we have to also in the other books that are coming up, we touch upon it because our state, our emotional state affects the decisions that we make. And all the decisions that we make throughout our day and throughout our lives are what create our future decision by decision. And so our emotional state affects the quality of our decisions. When it comes to learning how to control your state or change your state, breathing is one of the fundamental places that we have to go and one of the fundamental things that we have to understand with changing your state will go into breathing like a champion. How would that champion be breathing before his competition? And then we add, what is the self talk of that champion right now before his competition? And then how is that champion moving his body right now before competition? How would he bring those three things together in a series of, say, in a chain of focus? First, how's the breathing of the champion? Second, after a little bit of time, what's his self talk? Okay, now those two are together. And then finally, how's he moving his physiology, his body, all three together? Then change your state. And at that point you either are stepping onto the mat or stepping into competition or stepping into your situation, whether it be public speaking or whatever you can imagine that you need, you are now entering that in an empowered state because beginning with the breathing, you were able to begin to take control of your physical state and change it from, from something that was a little bit out of control and disempowering and creating some thoughts that were not going to help you to a state of now I've become this champion prior to competition and I'm going to go out there and I'm going to own this and I'm going to do well. So breathing is the foundation of many techniques that we use in sports psychology.

So good. I want to recap those three things again. That kind of champion state. So imagine again, I love the way you framed it too. Whether you're going to go compete in an arena or giving a big speech or asking someone out on a date, you know, whatever it is that the range of stress is introducing itself into our lives from, think of your highest self, your champion state, and then how would that version of you breathe? And as you said, lock that in. How would that version of us talk to ourselves? And then how would we move and then go out and crush it? And you have a great story in the book about the young wrestler who was thought he knew what he was doing before he entered the arena and then he was freaking out. And then you worked with him for a matter of minutes to get him to do this stuff and went out and just was incredible in his performance. But I just love that champion state concept. And then can you just give us a quick primer on how you advocate. We bring like, what the actual. You mentioned breathing into our diaphragm, but is there a certain count that you like to focus on or depth or anything like that?

You know, the way that I was taught from one of my martial arts instructors is to basically draw your breath in through your nose in a relaxed way. Drawing it in and letting your diaphragm, your lower abs expand out as you draw that air in through your nose, all the way down to the bottom of your lungs, really filling up your lungs. Hold it for a second or two and then with your mouth slightly opened and the tongue touching the roof of your mouth right behind your front teeth, just let the air come out through your mouth. You exhale it and let the diaphragm come in, pushing that air out and then drawing in again. And you know, as far as a count goes or whatever, it really depends. You know, part of my routine in the mornings is to go. My workout is. My physical workout is a 20 minute intense type of thing. So sometimes they'll say, you do this for 20 seconds, you do this for 20 seconds, and then you do this for 20 seconds, AND then you get to rest for 40 seconds. Okay, well, my breathing at that point is pretty much whatever I need, but I'm using that form, you know what I'm saying?

Yep, yep.

So it's like, okay, my body is screaming for oxygen because that's the way the training is designed. And when I get those 4:40 seconds to feed it oxygen. As much as you just want to sit around without any form and just start breathing, what you do then is you just say, in through the nose, down, expand the diaphragm. I may only be able to hold it for a second and then boom, I'm forcing it out and then I'm drawing it in again. And that pace is a lot quicker than the pace I'm going to use when I haven't been intense physically. And I'm just going into a deep, relaxed state of awareness because I'm going to be doing imagineering, but the form is the same.

That's great. Yeah, I totally get that. That's awesome. Thanks for that insight. Super practical and helpful. Two more things I want to Talk about before, before. I have a couple of questions to wrap it up, but I want to hear about goal setting. So why is goal setting so important? And I'll leave it at that and then we'll talk about kind of the pragmatics of it. But tell us why goal setting is so important if we want to be strong mentally.

Well, you know, we have to. I teach and some of my teachers that I've been fortunate to have along the way. We have to have a vision and we have to know where we want to go. Because if we don't have an idea, if we don't have a dream, then where are we going to wind up? We shouldn't leave that to chance. So again, remember, it's our decisions that we make along the way that are going to to determine what our future is. And one of the most important decisions that we can make is what's our dream? Okay, because what's our vision? What do we want? And it's okay that it changes along the way, but hey, let's set something out there that is what we're shooting for because then we can focus our efforts towards, even if they're small incremental steps moving towards something that's important to us. So once we have that vision, then we should set out to lay out a plan on how to get there. Create this plan. Now there's a few ways to do it. Some people will just lay it out. This is my long term goal. This is therefore let me get a medium term goal that helps me achieve my long term goal and then let me hit the short term goals, let me list those out. And those short term goals are what helped me achieve my midterm goals, which help me achieve my long term goal. And they put it together that way and that's all good. Now some people tell me, but I'm not really sure what I want. And trust me, that was me too. Even today I say, well ok, I've done some really neat things, what's next? So you have to constantly be asking yourself. And one of the ways that I think is kind of a neat way to approach it is if you just get a piece of paper, set a few minutes aside and clear your mind and say, here I am, my life five years from now or three years from now and just start writing a little bit about what's going on. Where are you? What have you achieved? What's your living conditions? Who are the people around you? Where are you living? What are you doing? You know, just let your imagination go as if you couldn't fail. Write it out, okay? And now before you know it, you've got four or five paragraphs on one sheet of paper that kind of describe your life in the future. And you know, three years, five years, however long you want to stretch it out, but you've laid it out. Now when you go back and you read that, what you're going to find within that narrative that you've described are things that represent the goals that you're going to need to achieve to get there. And you just have that, aha, well, okay, then let me pull this out. And this is something that I need to, along the way, have achieved. That's one of my goals. And then, oh, here's another one. And that's another goal of mine in order to have reached this ideal, me, five years from now, life situation, by reading through what you just wrote, because you're just letting that consciousness just come out and write as if you couldn't fail. You'll start noticing the things that you're gonna have to achieve along the way. Pull them out and start looking at, is that a long term goal or is that something I can start on right now? Is that something that's only gonna happen, say, after I finish college? Or is that something that's only gonna happen after I've gone out there and kept knocking on doors and I've reached this level of sales or, or this level of success in my current career path? Every no gets me closer to a yes. You know, I work with actors, I work with people from all walks of life and they each have their own set of challenges and their goals. And you have to kind of say, but what's the end result? Start with the end result and then back up. And your goals become clearer as to what you need to do along the way to get to your desired end result. Does that help?

Yeah, it totally does. That's awesome. I love that. And just that the importance of having something that fires us up, right? If we want to be strong, we have to have that dynamic tension between where we are and our ideal. And I love your exercise and people feeling inspired. Literally at the end of this, take the three to five minutes, if that's all you want to take, and just have fun imagining the next three to five years. You couldn't fail, as Dan said, and just imagine that, prime your brain for that and then back it up and see, well, what do I need to do now to start moving in that direction? I think that's really, really helpful. Love the insight Obviously we can talk about that all weekend, but what's go to at the end of your book you have a great discussion and not to do a spoiler alert but I want to talk about the number one thing that you're. And again, the way Dan wrote his book, it's this great narrative. It kind of reminds me of Dan Millman's way. The peaceful warrior with a great mentor who's guiding Dan through his journey. And they meet one another at different times. Super cool. And you guys are talking about the most important thing that you've learned and I wanted you to. Can you describe that for us a little bit? You've hit on it at different times here, but just kind of bring us back to that idea of self belief.

Yeah, you know, that's the core. And if there's one message that the book is meant to help you understand and grasp is that the champion mindset, it really begins and ends with self belief. You know, if we don't have. And I'm talking about at a deep level, at an unconscious level and you learn through the book and even some of these other short courses that are coming out that I'm finishing. Unstoppable Confidence and Personal Best and Goal Achievement. Short little Kindle books that are going to just give you these foundations. They all, you know how to move forward. They all have to. It comes down to self belief. And the thing that's interesting is that our self belief system is really in. Our self image is really determined at an early age and it's accepted as being true by our inner mind and it affects our achievement potential as adults. And we're running on this program, let's call it this set of ideas, this self belief system that because we're human and that's basically part of our development was created by outside influence, influences and our experiences at an early age and our failures at an early age. And there's a part of our mind that is always accessing that at an unconscious level and saying can I do this? Can I really? Am I able to achieve this? Of course that happens without us realizing it, but we're always accessing that and then it affects our performance on a daily basis and whatever our challenges are. So if there's a message that's strong about the book is that the champions, the champions have a strong self belief system and they know that imagineering and that process of relaxation that helps bypass the critical mind and let those images and feel feelings of performing well and doing well under the situations that you're facing through Repetition, they know that that practice leads to improving the self belief system. In other words, plowing over any limiting beliefs that may be within that self belief system that we have at an unconscious level. Once we improve the self belief system, that improves our self confidence, that leads to improved self, that leads to improved performance and achievement. Because now when the inner mind is having this quick conversation, looking at your challenge and it's telling you of course you can achieve that, then you set out to achieve that, of course you can do this, then you act as if you can do that and you begin to do that because from within that self belief system is what drives you. So along the way there are many lessons and many things that come together to help create the champion mindset and the story and the approach that I took based on, inspired by true events to try, try to teach those principles. And towards the end there's that question because trust me, I've seen a lot of things that didn't necessarily work out the way I was thinking they would. And instead of giving in, my teacher says, well okay, he knows that I'm pretty disillusioned with everything at this point and I'm really feeling somewhat lost at that point. And he tries to snap me out of it and he just says about all the lessons and all the things that you've learned along the way, you know, think about it, you know, they all come together but which one do you think I would say okay, you really got it. If you told me this is the one thing that is most important of all the things and that's where it really, that's the foundation of what I teach. Because if your self belief isn't there, your physical abilities will only take you to a certain level. If your self belief isn't there, it doesn't matter how bad you want something, if there's something within you that is telling you there's no way that little voice, there's no way you can ever achieve that. What are you thinking? That internal critic, if that isn't reinforced and turned into an empowering self belief system, then that's always going to hold you back. So that's when I kind of, I got what he was trying to tell me. It's like, hey Dan, you're losing your self belief here and that's the one thing you can't lose. And that's the one thing you have to always work on. And as a coach or someone who cares about others, you need to be building them up, you need to help them with their self esteem. You need to help them with their self belief and their self confidence. And then you learn in the Art of Mental Training and some of these follow up Kindles that are coming up, you'll learn the method that top performers that pay the big bucks to people like my instructor at one time, Pete Siegel or whatever, you know, Tony Robbins, they pay the big bucks to learn these techniques on how to improve their self belief because that's what gets everything going and moving in the direction of achievement. Greater achievements, bigger success, bigger personal feelings of fulfillment because you're moving towards what's important to you. Because you have a dream, you have a vision, you've laid out your goals that'll help you get there. You have that self belief that moves you in that direction. And then you have all these tools, these mental tools that when this pops up, oh yeah, let me focus on my breathing, let me come back to the present, let me. All these things come together. But the foundation is you gotta believe.

I love it. And I want to ask you two more questions, more about what you're up to these days personally and habitually. But just a brief kind of mini commercial if you will. The Art of Mental Training is an awesome place to start with Dan's work. And then Dan shared with me some of the stuff he's working on now, which he's bit a little alluded to a couple of times of these smaller Kindle based books, which my understanding is they're going to have some audio components as well to really help us get access to that subconscious programming so we can actually develop the belief, the powerful confidence and all these other things. So I can't, I personally can't wait to see them, Dan. And for some people when they listen to this right off the gate, it won't be out yet. For others, if they listen to it down the road, it'll be available. But really excited about that. Do you want to tell us briefly about that?

Well, yeah, Brian, you know, the thing is that after the book, the book has really done real well. I mean, I'm humbled by that. You get feedback, the majority of it of course, very, very positive. And then people are asking, where do you go from here? And that's what got me thinking at one point, you know, when I was working with Pete, he was quite a Pete Siegel, he's passed away, but he was quite, quite the teacher. And I remember a conversation where I was telling him, you know, I can help you get this out there because there's this thing now, it's called the Internet, you know, and, and he was like, well what do you need me for? You know, I said everything you've taught me, you know, you have this that can be put together and then, and then placed out there. And he was saying do it yourself. And that's kind of what I set out to do. Now what I'm teaching in these follow ups is what people are asking for is is there anything another level that I can go to? Because you know, a lot of the sports psychology books, they're kind of the same body of knowledge just being passed forward in a slightly different form flavor by depending on who the teacher is. And that's all very valid, but one of the things that I personally saw that was missing was this very focused approach to success conditioning is what I refer to it as, and others like Pete would refer to it as. Because what we're trying to do is, and what we're working to do through the process that you'll be shown is create neuro associative conditioning. And we're helping build that self belief system that is so fortified that it drives you from within to achieve and perform at higher levels closer to your true potential. And actually one of the most important things is that you learn how to enter that state of deep relaxation so that that training is going to be there. And then the actual success conditioning program which has the empowering set of ideas that we need to make sure become part of us, part of our makeup. So that any limiting and disempowering beliefs that might be lingering there at the unconscious level are basically plowed over by these empowering, this empowering set of ideas and beliefs that are then going to be helping us work and achieve and perform at a level more indicative of our true potential not being held back. And that process is then complemented by, in the beginning of the book, the core principles of what I call the psychology of change. Look, if you understand this and you get it, then from now on you should be a lot better. And that's not sabotaging yourself. You should be a lot better at saying wait a minute. The reason I'm not moving forward is because, you know, because of this principle and if I only apply this idea correctly, then I'm more likely to have this type of result moving forward. So there's some powerful psychology of change ideas that you use on yourself to gain leverage over yourself and your behavior to move in the direction that you want. And that's, you know, it's all available, but it's not really, it hasn't hit the Niche market of sports psychology and in my case also martial arts, which is where my current book and where my books, the Deep, these other ones will be available in a short period of time. If I can put it in front of those types of readers. All of a sudden they're going to be able to explore something in a very simple way that the other sport books aren't really teaching, and they're going to be able to practice it, because in the audio version, that's where the power of repetition really comes in and it becomes part of you. So really excited to get that out there.

Yeah, Right on. I'm excited to see it as well. So how can people connect with you? What's the best way? Obviously, on Amazon we've got your book. Is there anywhere else you'd recommend us to go?

Yeah. In regards to just reaching out, if people wanted to reach out.

Yeah. Or just, you know, learn more about you and your work, etc.

Yeah. Okay. So in any case, you know, I'm not too much of a social networking guy because of the work I do for the government and they really frown upon it. It's like you need to not be known. They actually kind of look at the work with the book and raise an eyebrow. But that's just.

If you want to be clandestine and top secret, we'll just send people to Amazon. That's all good.

No, it's all good. I have the. The business. The business email, which is Gonzo G O N Z O Lane L a n e Gonzolane. I think it's gonzolanemediamail.com.

Perfect. Yeah.

And, you know, that's where publishers have found us. You know, the book has been picked up and translated into Russian by the biggest publisher in Russia. The book has been picked up and translated into German by the biggest publisher in Germany. And there's two publishers in Japan that are looking at translations and trying to. So the way those folks and anybody really can reach out to me is through gonzolane Mediama.

Top secret access here.

Yeah, you know, I do go there and then I try to answer questions if people have them. So in any case, that's probably the easiest way.

Good stuff. Well, I appreciate you taking so much time. Again, such a big fan of the art mental training. I'm so excited about the translations and the new work and we'll put links to the book and to the note and my TV episode and all that stuff below. But, Dan, thank you again so much. Thrilled to be connected and appreciate you and your support.

Thank you for the opportunity. And thank you for the kind words. Your philosopher notes on the art of mental training kind of blew us away. And it's so refreshing when people.

Really.

Get it, you know, when they see, okay, he's presented this in a simple to understand way and hopefully they find it entertaining. And that was the whole thing. Can I keep you turning pages to where by the time you get done, you're not all tired about it and you kind of say, wow, that was an easy read, but boy, there was a lot there. Let me pop in and out of this book again as I need to, because there was some good stuff in there, but the point is we were able to expose you to it and now you realize, wow, there are some really neat, simple things that I can do to help myself achieve whatever is important to me. And when people like you recognize it and then try to let others know it just makes it all worth it. And I really appreciate it.

Right on, man. Well, I appreciate that and I read it twice and I had the exact experience you described. Read it on my Kindle and I'm like, this is just so good. I got it on my normal book, which I never do. And so I had exactly the experience you described. I really hope more people. Well, I know more people are going to continue to enjoy this and I hope people listening to this take advantage of it and just get their wisdom on. So look forward to connecting again and thank you once more, Dan.

Thank you.

Hi, this is Brian. I hope you enjoyed that interview. If so, I think you'll enjoy everything else we offer at BrianJohnson.

Me.

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