PNTV: The Mental Edge by Kenneth Baum

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, another great book, the Mental Edge by Kenneth Baum. The Mental Edge Subtitle Maximize youe Sports Potential with the Mind Body Connection. Now, if you've watched many of these or listened to many of these, you know that I'm into sports books because I think they provide a great concrete context for us to come up with big ideas we can apply to our lives. And I'm really into mental training books. So when a member recommended this book, I thought it looked great. And I want to create as kind of comprehensive of a collection of mental training books that I can. So checked it out now. It's old school, written in 1999. At the time it was written, the Mind Body connection was kind of cutting edge. These days a lot of the big ideas explored are common practice. But it's a nice recap of a lot of the things we talk about and I'm excited to share some of my favorite big ideas, a bunch of them in the Note 5 here. Rule number one of the Mental Edge. If we want to optimize our performance, we have to have strong desire. He says we need an inferno desire. He says weak desires lead to weak results. Strong desires lead to strong results. Now that might sound obvious, but check in. How are your desires? Are they strong? We got to remember the activation energy required to start a fire. We've talked about this a number of times, right? But it's 451 degrees. 451 degrees is if you're rubbing sticks together. The activation energy, the heat required in order to activate that fire, that energy. If you only get up to 450, might as well not have tried. You're not going to get the activation energy required. You need to be intense. Pierce Steele, who wrote the book on the procrastination equation, says same thing. He has an equation for it. You need to have strong expectancy times value. You need to expect to achieve something you actually want to achieve. If you don't have that, your impulsiveness is going to drive the show and you're not going to have strong motivation consistently. You won't be able to ignore all the distractions and to move through the obstacles you're going to need to move through to achieve your goals. Yesterday I interviewed Scott Adams, who wrote the great book how to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big. He created Dilbert, right? So one of the most successful and popular comic strips ever. And one of the ideas we chatted about in our interview was the difference between wanting something, even having a strong desire, right, Wishing for something and deciding to do whatever it takes to get it. And he shared just an incredible story where he was doing a bunch of different things and then he got a break in cartooning. He was picked up, wasn't established yet, but he had a shot. So he said, look, I'm going to do whatever it takes for however long it takes to make this work. Now, I'm still not guaranteed to succeed, but at the end of the day I'm not going to be able to say I didn't try enough, I didn't work hard enough. And he said that for 10 years he didn't take a day off. And he literally, he worked like two jobs, plus he was writing a book. Three jobs. He would run from one thing to another. He'd run to go to the bathroom or to get some water or to get some food. He called the 10 years where he didn't take a day off the, the running days. He had an incredibly strong desire and he decided that he was going to pay the price to get what he wanted to get, which for him was to become a famous, well paid cartoonist. Check out the interview for that. But amazing. How's your desire? Check in. Now, one of the things that Kenneth has us do is create a desire statement. What do you want? State it clearly. What's your number one desire? Write it out in a brief statement. Then when you do that, create a reward statement. If you do this desire. I'm sorry, you want this, right? Desire. You will experience this feeling. Your reward will be this desire statement. Reward statement. I want to be a famous cartoonist to use Scott as a potential example. And the reward will be. It's going to be awesome. I'm going to be wealthy. I'm going to be able to do what I want. I'm going to be able to create in a really powerful way and inspire a lot of people, be useful, et cetera. Desire statement, reward statement. And then he says, you need to then look at the obstacles and create a plan. Now when I'm reading books, I'm always trying to connect them to other books, right? So old ideas to new ideas. How do I weave them together? And as you know, if you've watched these lately, I'm really into woop right now. The New Science of Motivation. Gabrielle Oettingen, Rethinking Positive Thinking. She says science proves the best way to approach your goals is to whoop them. What's your wish? What's your outcome? What's your obstacle? What's your plan? Well, Kenneth is saying the exact same thing. What's your desire? That is wish. What's your reward? That is outcome that you're going to get? And then what's your obstacle you're going to face and what's your plan? So in the note, I walk you through that again. How do you create your drop whoop, drop, whoop approach to your goal? Get clear on what you want with what you're going to experience. When you achieve that, then take the time to rub it up against reality. As Gabrielle Oettingen says, don't just imagine what you want. Imagine what's going to get in the way. And then that's going to challenge you to figure out the plan. If that obstacle occurs, then you're going to do what I do this literally all day, every day. Drop, whoop. Check out the note for more. Third big idea is H2O talk. So he talks about power talk. Now again, you can't go through a mental training book and not read about how important your internal dialogue is. If you're constantly telling yourself you're kind of an idiot and you can't do it and you don't have the self confidence, self efficacy to even think you can do it, you're never going to get that activation energy 451 degrees. It doesn't matter how strong your desire is or how much the reward means something to you if you're constantly berating yourself in your head. So he uses a cool metaphor. He says, imagine a faucet and you've got a glass that has some dirty water in it, some negative thinking, right? Dirty water. He says, if you turn on the faucet and you just let water run into that faucet, right. Eventually into that glass, rather, eventually the glass of water will get clean. That dirty water will be displaced by the clean water. He says it's the same thing with our minds. That's a little more complex, right, than the metaphor. But if you consistently run good thoughts into the glass that might currently have some negativity in it, some dirtiness in it, eventually you're going to get clean. So think about that metaphor. And then when you're constantly thinking negative things, imagine throwing dirt into that glass of water. Well, you're going to create more dirt. Run clean, pure thoughts through your mind as often as possible. In the note, I reference what to say when you talk to yourself. An entire book all about this, that a number of mental training books Reference. Powerful stuff. Fourth big idea. So another big idea. You always see when you read about mental training and about spiritual development, by the way, a lot of times they're saying similar things, obviously different contexts. But breathing. Training yourself to breathe well is incredibly important if you want to gain control over your mind. And he throws out a stat that I thought was crazy. 26,000 breaths a day, according to Kenneth, is what the average adult takes. How many breaths? The average adult takes 26,000 breaths in an average day. Now, that sounded like a big number. So I busted out the old calculator, punched it in. That's 18 breaths per minute. 18 breaths per minute. That's a lot of breathing. And it's a lot of breathing right up here. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Guess what? Your brain's not getting oxygenated if you're breathing 18 times a minute. Your cells aren't getting what they need to replenish themselves. And in the note, I talk about my interview with Mark Devine, the Navy SEAL commander who talks about breathing in his book Unbeatable Mind. And he said, gaining control of your breath is absolutely essential to elite performance. These elite warriors, the Navy SEALs, have trained themselves in the most stressful situations to slow down their breathing the most. And I mentioned I practice this all the time. I've always heard it. Intellectually, I've kind of got it. Then I realized, wait, this is really important. Let me practice this more often. So when I'm meditating, obviously, I'm breathing deeply. When I'm reading, when I'm writing, when I'm waiting, when I'm driving. Before I do these, taking deep breaths and training ourselves to take deep, consistent breaths. Now, pick your favorite breathing pattern, but you may want to start with an inventory. Count how many breaths you're taking right now. When this is done, count how many breaths you're taking in a minute. I'd be surprised if it was 18. That sounds like a really high number. But we want to get it down. Mark Divine talks about getting it down. We can get it down to wherever you want. He can breathe as deeply as he wants. And you'll find that when you practice it, breathing four times per minute actually isn't that hard. If you breathe into six, hold for two, and exhale to seven, which is what I do every time I start my meditation, whenever I do a little napitation, and every time before I go to bed, when I'm in the car, that's the breathing pattern I have fun with, along with some other things. But that's the core One, that's four breaths per minute. So let's practice one right now. Breathe into six, hold for two and exhale for seven. So let's breathe into six, Hold for two and exhale for seven. Amazing, right? Just brings everything down. That exhale a little longer than the inhale is important. Inhale to six, hold for two, exhale to seven. That's one pattern I love. Practice it. Get your number down. 5th Big Idea is the Maslow warning. So I've shared this thought from Abraham Maslow, who of course told us what one can be, one must be. He also said, I warn you, if you deliberately commit to being less than what you're capable of being, you're going to be miserable for the rest of your life. He basically says that super intense language. If you deliberately commit to being less than you're capable of being, you're going to be miserable for the rest of your life. We have an impulse to become that which we're capable of being. And in that state of engaging in being our highest selves is when we feel most alive. And if we don't deliberately commit and recommit and recommit to that process, we're going to feel miserable. Now, of course, part of that you is self compassion where we allow ourselves to fall short. That's good. You're stretching. You have high standards. Fantastic. Now forgive yourself, dust yourself off when you fall down and realize, well, maybe I was stretching too far. Maybe I had a goal that was too challenging and I need to make it more feasible. Right? Awesome growth mindset. You're getting a little bit better. But if you're just going through the motions day in and day out, Maslow tells us you're going to be miserable. So now you wouldn't be at this stage of this video unless you had a commitment to doing more and optimizing and actualizing. But keep that in mind. This is a fundamental human need to evolve, to optimize, to actualize, and to ultimately transcend ourselves and give ourselves most fully to the world. Thank you for the warning, Maslow. 26,000 breaths. We want to reduce that oxygenate our brains and cells and body, et cetera. H2O talk. Remember the faucet with water cleaning the dirty glass. If you run it long enough, it's going to get clean water. Think positive thoughts, reframe, challenge your negative thoughts, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Use all the different tools we talk about. Drop, whoop, desire, reward, obstacles, plan matches our whoop process, get clear and practice it and then desire inferno. If you don't have a strong desire, you're not going to do whatever it takes for however long it takes to make it happen. Think of Scott Adams, his 10 years. He called those his running years because he ran from everything, one thing to another, just to get it done. Now he looks back at that and laughs. And it's a big part of why he is who he is. So cultivate your desire and cultivate your impeccable action. We didn't talk about another idea that I mentioned in the note, but cra Constant resilient action, he says. Show up day in and day out. Get a little bit better. 4% 4% 4% and actualize. All right. I hope you enjoyed. I look forward to sharing more soon. Have another awesome day. See ya. Isn't it a bit odd that we went from math to science to history, but somehow missed the class on how to live? For some wacky reason, optimal living 101 never made the schedule. Of course, it's too late to go back and change that and you're too busy to read full time to catch up. Yet. If you're like us, you're all about optimizing your life and actualizing your potential. So imagine this. Imagine having someone read the best books on optimal living and pulling out the big ideas that can truly change your life. You know those sections you asterisk and underline and mark all up? Then imagine that guy me, connecting those ideas to other great books and helping you apply them to your life today. Well, that's what I do with something we call Philosopher's Notes where I break down each great book into a simple 6 page PDF, 20 minute MP3 and 10 minute Philosopher's Notes TV episode. Then imagine me taking the absolute best big ideas from those great books and sharing them with you in fun, inspiring, super practical optimal living 101 classes on stuff like purpose 101, confidence 101, business 101, meditation 101, that sort of thing. You've got a personal trainer? I'm kind of like your personal philosopher. Ancient Wisdom plus Modern Science plus Common Sense plus Virtue plus Mastery plus Fun. That's what our optimized membership program is all about. We'd love to have you join us. Check us out at BrianJohnson. Me join.