PNTV: It Takes What It Takes by Trevor Moawad (#394)

You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson. More wisdom in less time. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to Philosopher's Notes tv. Today we've got another great book, it takes what it takes by Trevor Moad. How to think neutrally in gain control of your life. This is an awesome book. I'm a big fan of mental toughness books in general and particularly those that are focused on elite performance in sports, Navy Seal kind of thing, et cetera. Trevor Moad is one of the world's leading mental toughness coaches. Russell Wilson, Seattle Seahawks super bowl winning quarterback, is one of his dear friends clients who wrote the foreword to the book. They have something called Limitless Minds. Check that out. Super cool project, but Trevor is just legit. This book is awesome. If you're into the mental toughness, peak performance, et cetera domain, I think you'll enjoy it as much as I did. We've got five big ideas here which are basically what we cover in the Philosopher's Note. We have 600 philosopher's notes, a bunch of other stuff. Optimize me. The team has set up a two free week, a free two week trial. Check it out. All right, so five big ideas. It takes what it takes. The number one, there's actually a ton of ideas in this book, but the central theme is what Trevor calls neutral thinking, which is genius. There's positive thinking and there's negative thinking. He says, look, negative thinking works every single time. It's not going to get you the results you want. Positive thinking, you know, sometimes it will work, but sometimes there's not a lot of positive stuff to think about. And then you need to have what he calls neutral thinking. Neutral thinking is judgment free, right? We're not negatively analyzing it, nor are we deluding ourselves into ignoring reality. We're neutral, right? We're basically judgment free, clear on what do we want then? What do we need to get done? He uses Russell Wilson as an example throughout the book. But to prove or to bring the point home in this context, he tells us about what he says was one of Russell's worst games in his young career. He's in the playoffs, he's thrown four interceptions, four interceptions, right? This is before he became a Super bowl champion. Four interceptions, they're down by 12 points and there's less than five minutes to play. And he can tell just watching him that he wasn't dipping into negative thinking. He didn't lose his poise, his kind of calm confidence on the sideline. And when he went on the field, he also Knew he wasn't thinking positively because there wasn't a whole lot to be thinking positively about. Four interceptions are down by 12. Playoffs make or break. Four minutes and 50 seconds left. What he did was think neutrally. It's very clear, what do I want to do? I want to win the game. I'm going to do what I do well. I'm not going to ruminate on the past. I'm not going to pretend anything other than the reality of the present moment, which is we're down by 12 points. We got 4 minutes and 50 seconds to go. Let's go. That type of leadership inspires people. You're not pretending you're in some fantasy land, nor are you moping around. It's boom. This is what we train for. Let's get to work. That's neutral thinking. As I say in the note, try it. It works. So as I was reading the book, I was sitting there in our living room. We've got these, like, I don't even know what they're called, but these pants, right, that you kind of blow up and it kind of whatever helps your recovery, etc. Alexander can tell us what they are. She got them. I just use them. Anyway, I'm reading the book and Emerson comes home. We start chatting about what it's about. Now, what's cool is that Trevor Moad's dad was one of the world's leading thinkers on self development. So I read the book, thinking of, ah, man, I'm excited to keep on doing my work and I'm really inspired to imagine where Emerson will be in X decades. You know, I kind of rubbed his head and told him that story. And I said, well, this book is about neutral thinking. He said, okay, what's that? And I said, well, I tried to think of an example. It wasn't hard to. I was thinking of the chickens. We just moved to the country out here outside of Austin, right on a little bit of land, and we've got, you know, whatever. We got some, a cool trail, etc. And one of the things we wanted to do was get chickens. That's kind of the moving from Southern California. We're officially on the ranch. Let's go. Let's get some chickens. So we got some chickens and they're super cool, the kids love them, etc. And I used to meditate outside on the back patio, right? So quick context and we'll get to neutral thinking in my life now. Awesome. The sun's rising. I'm sitting there. It's just idyllic right until the chickens moved in under the patio and they kind of started using that as their bathroom, shall we say? So the chicken poop's just wafting up. It's no longer quite as cool of a place to meditate. And I told them, okay, look, buddy, so negative thinking with the chicken poop would go something like this. Those chickens stink. We need to figure out the solution or we're getting rid of them, right? And just, you know, whatever. And that might have had a certain tone like that in my more frustrated, less enlightened moment. So he knew exactly what I was talking about. He shook his head. He's like, yeah, that's negative thinking. Then I said, okay, so positive thinking would go something like this, Ah, whatever. It's not that bad. You know, the chickens are so cool. And he immediately laughed. And he's like, well, that wouldn't be true. No, because the chicken poop, it smells like chicken poop and it isn't that cool. And chickens are great, but let's not ignore reality. So then I said, neutral thinking is, hey, look, the chickens are pooping under the. Under the patio in the back. I like hanging out back there. We got to do something about it. So what can we do? Neutral thinking, non judgment or judgment free. What do I want? What do I need to get done? And I kind of evolved it into what I'm calling targeted thinking. So it's taken the basic aspect of that's a target, in case you were wondering. Basic thought of neutral thinking. And then for us, we talk a lot about being teleological, right? So ancient Greeks, we are teleological beings. We need targets, telos, we're target driven. So as we're playing with these ideas, we're talking about, hey, look, what do you want? What's your target? And then what do you need to get? What do you need to do now? So what do I want and then what's important now? Pretty straightforward. So Russell Wilson, what did he want? He wanted to win the football game. What did he need to do? Charge the field and lead? I wanted to get rid of the chicken poop. What did I need to do? Well, we wound up deciding to get some different things. I won't bore you with the details, but some barbed wire, potentially, we can kind of make it so they can't go under there. Or we got some little sprinkle stuff that takes the smell away. In case you're looking for that product. Go ahead and look that up. Then the next morning, to bring the point home with one more Example, Then we'll move on. The next morning, Emerson and I are going to work out. I work out with the kids. After my deep work time block, I give Alexander some time. And I train with the kids now, right? Spend an hour with them, eating, training, and we run around. We either play walkie talkie tag running on our little trail around the property, or Emerson likes to ride his bike. Now he's got this cool lime green, big old thick mountain bike tire bike. Only this morning, the day after I taught him this lesson, his tire is flat. He's super bummed. He's seven and a half years old. He starts crying, oh man. I cruise over and I say, hey buddy, I get it. You're bummed out, the tire's flat, you want to ride your bike. But you remember what we talked about yesterday? You remember that? Neutral thinking, negative thinking, positive thinking. We quickly walked our way through it. Negative thinking is, oh, my tire is flat. That just oh, wah wah, right? Positive thinking is, oh, no big deal, the tire's flat. Neutral thinking is. But he'd still be bummed. He'd be denying reality. Neutral thinking is, the tire is flat, I want to ride it, therefore I need to pump it up and or replace it. Which is exactly what we did. So there you go, Russell Wilson en route to the Super bowl, super chicken poop and super bike tires. Think about how you can apply neutral thinking and targeted thinking to your life a la Trevor's wisdom. That's our first idea. Second big idea is a really good one. So he talks about. Russell is, as you may know, one of the greatest quarterbacks in the NFL with the highest paid player in NFL's history until very recently won a Super bowl in his second year. Sure, it was the second season, right? Then he comes back, which is unheard of, led to a tremendous contract, etc. And then he. And again Trevor's, his mental toughness. Coach, he comes back to the super bowl the next year and 121 million people are watching the super bowl against the Patriots. It's the largest, highest viewed thing in US television history. It's amazing. 120 million people are watching it right now. They're down. And he drives him to the goal line with time expiring, right? And he's ready to throw the game winning touchdown. And he throws an interception. It's called the play because everyone expected him to do a running play. He did a pass play, interception, just heartbreaking interception, 120 million people watching it and he throws the interception again. It's such A big play that it has a name they'll play. So what Russell do? Well, Trevor tells us he pulled himself together. He conducted himself with poise in the post game interview after experiencing that neutral thinking style. Right. What does he want? He wants to be a professional. What's he need to do? Show up like a professional. And then almost immediately after that game, he calls up Trevor and says, let's go. And he used that off season to get better than he'd ever been. And that's a powerful idea. Now years later, he's doing something called QB to qb. I don't have tv so I don't see these kinds of things, but apparently it's a show on ESPN and he's sitting here talking to another quarterback and they're working through on this huge screen the play. And Russell tells him, look, this is what happened there. But if you want to be able to throw a touchdown in that context, you got to be willing to throw the interception. And Trevor says, quoting Derek Jeter, that if you want to be able, if you want to hit the game winning home run in game seven of the World Series, you need to be willing to strike out in the same batter's box. You want to hit the game winning home run. Awesome. You better be willing to strike out in that same box. Batter's box. Now that's goats and goats. So a goat in sports terminology is kind of like the, the guy that fails to show up on the big play. Right? The goat. Ah man, he let us down. The goat. Right. If you want to be the greatest of all time, G O a t greatest of all time, you got to be willing to be the goat. You got to be willing to strike out in the same batter's box. You hit the home run, you got to be willing to throw an interception right at the goal line where you could throw a touchdown. You got to be willing to go. You have to be willing to accept the failure as you go for the great win. And I talked about Joseph Campbell, Mr. Hero's journey. He says the exact same thing. He says when you follow your bliss and you follow your hero's journey, he says there's always a chance for bliss, but there's also always a chance for fiasco. There's no safety, he says, on the hero's journey. And the greatest among us are the ones who can embrace that failure goes with success. Alan Watts goes with. Some things go together so well. You need a word goes with strikeouts or home runs. Strikeouts, TDs, interceptions. So in your life, as you Step up into the next best, most heroic version of yourself. You got to be willing to fail. And then you take your neutral thinking to work. Boom. Now, what needs to get done? What do I want? I want to get better. Win or learn. Fantastic. Use the data, move forward. Next idea is called the law of substitution. Again, Trevor's a mental toughness coach, and he does all kinds of cool stuff with Russell. Check it out. Limitless minds. And obviously get the book. One of the ideas he talks about is a breakfast of champions. So literally, while Russell eats his breakfast, at least leading up to the super bowl, if not every single morning, he's eating his breakfast from his nutritionist, etc. Right? And then Trevor put together a highlight reel of him at his absolute best, and he's eating that for breakfast. That is ultimately the breakfast of champions. Getting your mind right and focusing it where you want to focus it. The law of substitution is basically, Trevor tells us, your mind can only focus on one thing at a time. Now, when you've got a crowd that's just roaring at you at a Super bowl or you're feeling everything rise in your own head, you need to get really good on focusing your mind, because your mind can only focus on that one thing. And you're not blocking out distractions per se. You're just focusing on what's truly important right now. Now, we talk about this a lot, a lot in various contexts. But if you're constantly reacting to inputs all day, every day, and you never give yourself a chance to actually train your ability to shine the spotlight of your attention, which is what scientists call it, the spotlight of attention, to be able to put it where you want, when you want, for how long you want is a hallmark of healthy, happy people. In fact, research says that a wandering mind where you can't control your mind is an unhappy mind. So we want to develop our focus. Remember the law of substitution meditation. Practice going deep in your work. These are ways to practice that. The fourth idea, neutral thinking, is epic. The illusion of choice is also really, really, really good. Trevor goes off on this. The idea here is that if you are committed, truly, truly committed, like the sacred vow we talked about with Abraham Maslow, all, all in committed to actualizing your potential, to being the best version of yourself, in service to the world. There is no choice. Life becomes a lot simpler. Yeah, you got different options that you can explore among many different options. But you've made your choice. You're going to do your best. You're going to listen to your inner daimon as we would say, and step forward into growth to express the best version of yourself moment to moment to moment. And the reality is, you know what you could be doing moment to moment to moment. And if you're able to just decide decier to cut off other options with that ultimate choice, all the other choices become a lot easier. And he says, look, mediocrity is when you think you have choice, you do not have choice ultimately on what you're going to do and how you're going to express the best version of yourself when you have officially gone all in. GSP George St. Pierre, the great martial artist, arguably the greatest mixed martial artist of all time. He said that when he was a garbage man collecting garbage as a young man, he decided that he was going to be the best in the world at what he did, his craft, right as a fighter, mixed martial artist. And then he made a decision. He didn't make sacrifices, he made a decision. And that decision was he was going to be the best. And then that meant that he wasn't going to go clubbing with his friends anymore, he wasn't going to drink, he wasn't going to do these other things. He had no choice because he had made the ultimate choice and he had no illusion of choice. He was all in made the decision, cut off other options, and he didn't even make sacrifices. It wasn't a sacrifice to not do those things. He was a gift to himself in his actualization to fulfill what he's here to do. The illusion of choice is a good one. Ah, I like that. And then the final idea here is there's 12 different chapters to the book. It takes. So it takes a bunch of different things, right? And then it comes back to it takes what it takes. And he tells the story of Marcus Luttrell, lone survivor book, et cetera, who is on a Navy SEAL mission, lost his buddies on the mission. They were all killed. He had his back broken, knees are blown out, he bit off part of his tongue, nose is broken. Everything that could go wrong was wrong. In the middle of nowhere, seven miles away from where he needed to be to have any shot at safety. Literally could barely move his body. And what Marcus said was he drew a line, he got a rock and he drew a line in the sand and he said, get to that line, got to that line, drew another line and got to that line. And Trevor says, look, that's neutral thinking. We're not going negative, we're not going positive. What do I want now? It needs to get done. Let's Go, let's do it. And as I said in the note, reminded me of Joe decenna in Spartan Up, Spartan Fit, and all of that. He tells a story. Joe Decenta is the founder of Spartan Race, elite, gritty, ultra endurance athlete who's become a dear friend over the last. Since I've done this, over the last couple years, I've gotten into Spartan Race. Our coaches, when they go through the optimized coach program, have to do a Spartan race or the equivalent in order to graduate. You need to demonstrate that you're in your energetic, best shape of your life so you can give yourself fully to your work and your love. So you and I have become friends. We had the second largest team in Spartan history. Over 500 of our coaches flew out to LA from around the world. When Covid does its thing and kind of figures itself out, we're excited to get back. We're gonna have a thousand of us go set the record for largest team ever. But Joe tells us, when you're doing something big, whether it's running a marathon or an ultra marathon, or trying to create a business or fill in the blank, raise a family, et cetera, you can get overwhelmed with the iceberg of pain, he says, with everything that needs to come down the line in order for your goal to come to fruition. He says, don't do that to yourself. Just get to the next telephone pole. So his metaphor is the next telephone pole. That's all you need to do. Get there. When you get there, go get to the next telephone pole. Focus on what's important right now, and then go crush it. While keeping neutral thinking in mind. Goats. You got to be willing to have fiasco if you want to have the bliss. I love that line. Isn't that great? You gotta be willing to strike out in the same batter's box you hit a home run. Thank you, Derek Jeter. The law of substitution. Your mind can only focus on one thing. The question is, can you focus on the thing that's most important right now? And Trevor talks about, Your voice is 10 times more powerful than external voices, but you got to get control over it and you got to make sure that it isn't polluting you, which is one of the things he talks about in the book. With negative things, then we have the illusion of choice. If you're all in, there is no choice, which paradoxically makes your life a lot easier. There's a book called the Paradox of Choice. We've done one of these on choice is good. Some choice is good. Too much is not. You don't want to have to rethink every single thing you're doing every day. Make the decision to be your best. Then have all of your little protocols running throughout the day algorithmically so you can show up and be your best as you draw your line and get there. Repeat, but only forever. It takes what it takes. The power. How to think neutrally and gain control of your life. Hope you enjoyed. What's one idea that jumped out and landed? Go get on that. Make that a more integrated part of your day today, Trevor. Thanks for the great book, everybody. Have another awesome day. See you. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Optimize with Brian Johnson. To find out more, go to Optimize Me. Hey guys, this is Bry. Hope you enjoyed that video. We have a lot of people ask us what Optymyze is all about, so I just wanted to give you a super quick tour of our site. Tell you what we do. We do two primary things. We have an Optimize core membership and we have an Optimize Coach certification program for people that want to go from theory to practice to mastery. So the core membership is basically 10 bucks a month depending on whether you do monthly or annual. And you get instant access to over 500 philosopher's notes, the six page PDF, you know, 25 minute or so MP3 recordings of these great books. 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