PNTV: No Limits by Michael Phelps & Alan Abrahamson (#239)

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Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to Philosopher's Notes tv. Today, another great book, no Limits by Michael Phelps. No Limits. Michael Phelps is, as I'm sure you know, the most decorated Olympian in Olympics history. Won eight gold medals in the 2008 Beijing Games and just an extraordinary athlete. Philosopher's note, Bunch of my favorite big ideas. This is a fun biography. If you're into sports and peak performance.

I think you'll dig it.

It's really a case study in deliberate practice. The whole 10,000 hour talent is overrated concept. Phelps is constantly looking at how he can improve the tiniest parts of his game to achieve ridiculously high goals. No limits, anything is possible is the basic idea. Most people thought achieving eight gold medals in one Olympics was pretty much impossible. He proved them wrong. Pretty awesome. Here are some ideas on how he did it and a practical application to our lives. First, big idea. 365 times five and a seventh. So Bob Bowman, Phelps's coach, he talks about him a lot in the book and all the wisdom he gained from him. Bob liked to say that successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do. Earl Nightingale wisdom. And they decided they wanted to achieve some extraordinary things. They would create a goal sheet every season, every year that they would both look at and commit to certain times and certain performances and different events and goals that they wanted to achieve. And they'd hit those times within a fraction of a second nearly all the time, which is pretty amazing. Whole other conversation. But they also decided these high goals they were going to hit through conscientious, consistent action. They were going to train every single day of the year, 365 days a year. They did that for five years. And the idea was, look, we're going to do what most people aren't willing to do. We're going to work that seventh day and you know what? We're going to get a seventh better. Every Sunday. We're going to show up, we're going to get just a little bit better, a little bit better, a little bit better. So when you think of Michael Phelps, and my hunch is you probably caught some of that, we're tempted to think, gosh, that guy's just a born genius. He's just a natural at this. And sure, he's 64 and he's got certain attributes, but there are a lot of six, four guys who are with big hands and flexible joints and big feet and all that good stuff. He worked Harder than any of us can possibly imagine. Just remarkable. 365 times five. He missed two days when he got his wisdom teeth pulled out, and he missed another day in a snowstorm. Otherwise, he was there. And he jokingly says, look, my birthday, I'm at the pool. Christmas, Thanksgiving, I'll see you at the pool. Sponsor obligations. Figure that out around my practices. He was a master in showing up diligently, patiently, persistently. He was bound to be successful. Extraordinarily cool stuff. Really inspiring. Second, big idea. Win W I n. This is another Bob Bowman idea. Win. What's important now is what that's an acronym for. Let's write that down. What.

Important. Now.

W I n. His coach said that one of the things that made Michael different was the fact that most people, when they didn't feel good, didn't perform well. Not with Michael. It didn't matter how he felt. He showed up. We talk about this all the time. What does feeling like it have to do with it? Most of the time we're too driven by our emotions and we're checking in and asking ourselves, what do I feel like doing right now? How do I feel? Insert whiny voice. How do I feel?

Right.

That's the dominant dialogue for a lot of people a lot of times. And for all of us, some of the time, most of us anyway. Right now, this is a much better question. What's important now? Doesn't matter what you feel like. What's important now? Get your mind to where it needs to be such that you can take the action you need to take and just do it. In the note, we talk about some other ideas here. Michael Beckwith, Spiritual Liberation, Spiritual Teacher. He talks about this in the context of meditation and developing your spiritual practice. He says, look, what does feeling like it have to do with anything? You said you're going to do it. You made a commitment, now do it. It's called discipline. And of course, if you haven't done that consistently, you need to train it, which is our next big idea. You don't get to a point where you snap your fingers and say, oh, yeah, okay, cool, I'm just going to do what I say I'm going to do, and I'm going to succeed at that every single time. It's not going to happen. That's the equivalent of you jumping off the couch, dusting off the Cheetos, and go running a marathon. If you haven't run in years, it's not going to happen. You need to discipline yourself and incrementally Get a little bit better, a little bit better, a little bit better. And over the long run, we develop a sense of mastery and an ability to ask this question consistently and to answer it impeccably. Mind training next big idea. So in all of our mental training sports books, we come back to the idea that performance is 90% mental. And it's not just in sports. Clearly, when you have physically talented guys going out or women going out and competing, their biggest difference in performance, going from peak performance to championship performance. Phelps says, it's their mind. It's your mental training. Now, we need to train ourselves for pressure situations in our lives. Most of us aren't competing in the Olympics or going for eight medals in one Olympics. But we all have our challenges, we all have our pressures. We all need to train our minds in order to step in between stimulus and response. There's a gap.

I talk about this in the note.

We talked about it with George Mumford, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant's coach. One of his big ideas, can you step in between stimulus and response? Viktor Frankl said, that's where your freedom exists. That's where your power exists. You're not knee jerk reacting to everything in life. You're consciously choosing your optimal response. Well, you can train for that. In the Note, I talk about three ways that I personally love to do it. Number one, meditation. We talk about this all the time. But when you meditate, every minute you meditate, you're literally building the gray matter in your brain, which allows you to do exactly what we're talking about. Step in between stimulus and response. Meditation 101. I'll put a link to that below. Check it out. We talk about this all the time. That's number one, meditation. Number two is to practice this all the time. That's mental training. When you say, now what needs to be done? What's important now? What do I need to get done? Whether I feel like it or not, what do I need to get done? And train yourself to do that. That's mental training. That's really powerful mental training. More powerful than the meditation, frankly. The meditation just helps you. It's warm up, as Eknath Eswron says, for the rest of your day, but the rest of your day you get to practice. That's the second idea, asking yourself this question.

This.

The third one is what I call the Equanimity Game, inspired by Marcus Aurelius. I'll put a link to a video on that as well. The idea here is when you find yourself off balance, right? So here's your balance point, your equanimity, which literally means balanced mind. Boom. You get knocked off. Could be someone cutting you off on the freeway, who annoys you, or a spouse or colleague who says something that you, for whatever reason find off putting, right, you're off bounds. The game is how fast can you get back on balance. Like one of those little bouncy blow up dolls. You can knock around, right? You bounce it down and it comes back up. Down comes back up. Make that a practice, make that a game. You find yourself off balance, how quickly can you regain your equanimity? That's mental training. You put those three things together. Meditation, asking yourself now what needs to get done and consistently doing it. And this equanimity game. And you're cultivating the strength with little things such that you can handle the big things with more and more grace. That's quick. Look at how we can get our mind training on the fourth. Big idea. Phelps talks about the fact that a lot of people think that just because you declare something and oh, I want to do this, I want to achieve this great thing, that it's just going to happen quickly and automatically. He said he swam with a lot of people who wanted to do great things, but he said they weren't really all in, they weren't really committed because they didn't show up with the time and the energy and the heart and the soul to navigate that gap. We talked about the lag that Todd Henry described in die Empty. You have your excitement. Results are over here somewhere. There's a long lag. Well, in that lag, you need to exert your mental strength and put your soul into it and work diligently, patiently, persistently. Phelps and Bowman, they like to see how many consecutive days they could do of intense training. Build that muscle, pour your heart and soul into what you're all about. Huge idea. That's how you navigate the lag. Then the fifth big idea is can't versus won't. Again referencing his coach, Bob, who told him when he was young, he'd tell Phelps he needed to do whatever set right. And Phelps talked about the training that he went through, which is just literally just crazy making right. And he'd be at the end of this workout, just could barely move. And his coach would say, okay, I want you to do this, this and this. And when he was a kid, his eyes would go super wide and say, I can't do that. And Bob would tell him, really, you can't or you won't? There's a Big difference between can't and won't. And he said can't. That's a tough word. If we throw around the word can't all the time or too often, we're going to limit what we can do. I can't do that. Really. Maybe it's just you won't do that. You actually could do this, but you've convinced yourself your upper threshold is here. Your limit is here. We want to bust through those limits and realize it's a choice. We can choose not to do something and choose that we won't do it. That's very, very, very different than can't. So notice how often you say can't in your life and make it a more deliberate decision to either choose to do it or not do it. But don't say that you can't do it. Can't and won't. Remember the lag between your vision and the end. I talk again about Arambasura, a hero in the beginning in Sanskrit, Aurambashura, someone who gets all fired up. I'm going to do this forever. I'm going to do this for 30 days or 65 days, and it gets boring after 5 or 10 and I'm done. You need to navigate the lack. You got to anticipate it and then pour yourself into it. Do that via training your mind. We talked about three things. Meditation. Now it needs to get done. What's important now? And what was the third one? Equanimity game Win what's important now. What you feel like should not be the determining variable in what you do. 365 times five equals a seventh. Get a little bit better than you were yesterday. Apply this to your life and every moment gives you an opportunity to grow. Whether you're parenting or in a dialogue with your spouse or at work or meeting someone at the grocery store or communicating with the woman that's checking you out or the guy that's checking you out for your groceries. Every moment gives you an opportunity to be in integrity with your highest ideals. Live with arete, all that good stuff.

There you go.

No limits. I hope you enjoyed and I look.

Forward to sharing more with you soon.

Have another awesome day.

See you.

See you. Hi, this is Brian. I hope you enjoyed that PNTV episode.

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