PNTV - Finding Your Zone by Dr. Michael Lardon

You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson. More wisdom in less time. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to Philosopher's Nerds. Tv. Today we've got another great book, finding your Zone. Finding youg Zone by Dr. Michael Larden, MD. Dr. Larden is a professor down at the University of California, San Diego, teaches psychiatry, and he's also worked with elite athletes basically for his entire career studying the science of finding your zone. PGA golfers, NFL athletes, Olympic athletes. What do they do consistently to play from and in that zone? That's what this book is all about. We've got a philosopher's note looking at some of my favorite big ideas from his 10 core lessons that he's discovered. Good stuff. Let's look at five of them right now. We'll start with what is your zone? Let's define that really quickly. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi called it flow. Abraham Maslow called it peak. Experiences the zone. Four primary aspects to it that the good doctor tells us about. Number one, we're super focused. We're engaged in the moment and really focused. Number two, time slows down. Number three, we're detached from external stimulation things going on. And four, our performance soars. That's the basic idea of the zone. And how do we get into that is obviously what this book is all about. So let's look at our five big ideas here. The first one is two scorecards. Really cool idea, PGA golfers. You've got your traditional scorecard, pretty straightforward how you did on each hole. And Dr. Martin said, look, you need to create a second scorecard, and the second one is actually more important than the results scorecard. So can you guess what he wanted them to measure in this other scorecard? If you've watched many of these videos, you probably know by this point that it's the process side of things. So he wants his golfers to have a scorecard where they're tracking their process. Our world is obsessed with results, as we've discussed so many times in these episodes. But the process is what produces the results. So he had his golfers keep track of the a few things. One, did they visualize their shot before they took it? Did they see the outcome they wanted to see in any given shot? Two, did they step up and hit the shot with full commitment? No doubt, no ambivalence. They decided what they were going to do and then they did they do it with a full commitment. That's exciting in golf and in life and everything else we're ever going to do. And three, if they had any doubt while they were over the ball, did they step back, gather the thoughts, get positive, visualize again and step up and commit? Those three things formed the core of his golfers process and they either did that or they didn't. So at the end of the round they can see they either had a 100% commitment to their process or something less. He found that most of them had something like 60%. These are the top performing athletes and he said, how do you think you'd perform if you were able to drive up that percentage to 70 or 80%? Unequivocal, their results would go up. So again, two scorecards, process and results. The results we're always going to be thinking about, that's not hard to make sure we focus on. It's the process we want to identify. So what things do you need to do on a day to day basis? The systems that are going to keep you in the game such that your results are a byproduct. Think about that. Then keep score, have another scorecard where you can track that down. Big idea. Second big idea. If you want to get into the zone, you need to reduce comparisons. You basically need to learn to turn your mind off all the chit chat going on in your mind about how you're appearing to other people and whether other people do things better than you do. Focusing on those things is a great way to unplug from the zone. You're not going to be able to hang out you and perform at a high level consistently if your mind is constantly everywhere because you're violating rule number one of being in the zone, being super focused. When you're super focused, you don't have room for all that other stuff. It's a big idea. And specifically on the comparisons we know, not only does it unplug you from the zone, but all the positive psychologists tell us the happiest among us think about what other people are doing the least. There's an inverse correlation. The happier you are, the less you think about what other people are doing. And when you do think about them, you're celebrating their wins. You're not silently wishing they didn't succeed so much or feeling bad about it or envious. You're excited for them. So reduce your social comparison. Reduce the overall chitchat in your brain in general. And specifically if you want to tap into the zone, that's the second big idea. Third one, which is another one of the core 10 lessons, is to have pure motivation. Pure motivation, what's that mean? Well, Just like we talk about process versus outcome all the time, we also talk quite a bit about intrinsic versus extrinsic. If your. Where's my tea? If your motivation is extrinsic, if you're trying to get wealthy, you're trying to get famous, it's all outside of yourself. The doctor says you're going to have a tough time performing at your highest level. You're going to have a tough time being in your zone consistently. If you love what you do, if your motivation is intrinsic, you just love what you're doing, you have fun doing what you're doing, you're going to have a higher likelihood of being in the zone. So check in on your motivation. If you're feeling a little burned out, you've probably leaned a little too far into the extrinsic side of things. See if you can rekindle and recapture the fun of why you did what you did, why you started doing what you do. Now get your motivation pure. Third big idea in finding your zone. The fourth one, the confidence garden. Confidence comes from the Latin confidere, which means to have full trust or with intense trust. Confidence is trust in ourselves. We're doing a class on confidence. I'm really excited about next month in our little program. Sign up for that and join us if you want. We're going to go over confidence 101, how to create indestructible trust in yourself. This is one of the core 10 lessons. All the peak performance mental training gurus say confidence is your number one thing. Scientists call it self efficacy, your belief in yourself. Dr. Larden talks about all of that in this chapter. Great stuff, but he uses the metaphor of a garden. So imagine your confidence is like a garden in a garden. If it's going to produce the way we want it to produce, whether it's flowers or kale or whatever, it needs to be tended to. You can't let the weeds of negative thought and doubt stifle out all the things you want to see flourish. You've got to get on your hands and knees and pull the weeds and tend it and water it and take care of a garden if you want it to flourish. Same thing with your mind. We've got to tend it. Pema Chodron goes so far as to say that if you allow the negativity to come in consistently, you might as well pour concrete over your garden. You're not going to grow a whole lot in a concrete area. Good luck with that. So tend your garden, tend your confidence. Build your belief in yourself by Stopping the negative chatter. When you see it come up, let it go out. Practice all the things we talk about here. Do the things you know you should be doing. That's the best way to cultivate your confidence. I share a quote from David Reynolds in the note. He says, look, the most powerful thing you can do for yourself is to be the type of person who does what needs to get done whether you feel like it or not. That's someone who's mastered themselves. They know that they will do what needs to get done whether they feel like it or not. That's the truest source of confidence you're ever going to find. So confidence garden, big idea. Fifth big idea is a really cool one. And we call it here 451 degrees, please. The idea is activation energy. Activation energy. So chemical reaction requires activating energy and activation energy. Did you know that it takes 451 degrees to burn paper to create fire? 451 degrees. Now. 450 degrees won't do it. 423 definitely won't. 382 definitely won't. 451 degrees is what it takes. So if you're sitting out there in the forest, you're alone, you're stranded and you're trying to create some warmth and you're rubbing sticks together, you need to get that heat up to 451 degrees to spark a fire such that it can sustain itself. You can rub and rub and rub and get all the way up to 450 degrees and that won't do it. You've got to put in that final degree in order to have the activation energy present to ignite the fire. It's exactly like what we talked about with Orison Sweatt Marden. We had an idea which was 212 degrees, please. He was all about early 1900s, the steam engine. 212 degrees is what it takes to boil water, which is what it takes to power a steam engine. 190 degrees won't do it. 200 degrees won't do it. 210 degrees won't do it. 212 degrees will do it. So the point here is that there's a tiny immeasurable difference Dr. Larden says, between good and great. It's often one degree. But you've got to be willing to put in that little bit extra effort, that little bit extra perseverance so you can actually create the heat so you can activate your highest potential. Huge idea. So think about that. What can you do to turn up the heat just a little bit. Can you increase your heat by a degree or maybe 2 or 3 degrees? What can you do to consistently show up? Activate 451 degrees please cultivate your confidence garden pure motivation intrinsic versus extrinsic when you keep on coming back to this because all the great teachers think about it and talk about it. Reduce your comparisons. Not helpful thinking about how you're appearing to other people and if you're as good as other people or better or not so good, etc. Reduce that. Have a hyper focus on what you're doing and focus on your two scorecards with an emphasis on your process, your systems, the things that keep you plugged in that allow you the greatest chance to crush it. Hope you enjoyed and I look forward to sharing more with you soon. Enjoy your time in the zone. Have an awesome day. See you. Hi, this is Brian. I hope you enjoyed that Philosopher's Notes TV episode. If so, I think you'll enjoy everything else we offer at BrianJohnson me two basic things one our free newsletter. It's called the Optimizer. Over 50,000 people start their day with it and they tell us it's pretty awesome. And 2 our optimal living membership program. This is where I put all my best stuff. 10 bucks a month for a ton of wisdom. Two primary things in there philosopher's notes plus optimal living 101 classes when you sign up, you'll get instant access to 250 philosopher's notes, which are basically six page PDFs and 20 minute MP3s where I capture my favorite big ideas for from great books. The PNTV episodes are kind of a mini version of all that goodness. You'll also get instant access to all my Optimal Living classes. 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