Flow Driven Career: How To Find Unlimited Flow In Any Career

I'm devoting prefrontal or any brain circuitry to people's perception of me, I'm going to be off my game. I'm not performing nearly as well as I could. It's, it's all about resource allocation. I've talked about this acetylcholine-based circuit, like it's like a spotlight. It can be diffused, it can be very concentrated. You know, everything that we're talking about here is really about being able to bring that focus of attention while learning the craft as tightly as possible and drop into that, and then the appropriate circuits will open up and we talk, you know, the whole flow circuitry will reveal itself. But if we're focusing a lot on how we're being perceived, it's really detrimental to that process.

What does it take to do the impossible? What does it take to level up your game like never before? What does it take for individuals, organizations, for even institutions to achieve paradigm shifting? Nothing is ever the same again.

Our mission is to decode the neurobiology of flow and cognitive peak performance. Access the minds of maverick scientists, groundbreaking innovators, and world-leading experts to understand what it takes to achieve ultimate human performance so you can feel your best, perform your best, and accomplish your boldest goals. I'm your host, Rhian Dorris, and together with bestselling author Steven Kotler, I present to you Flow Research Collective Radio. First question, Brett, I want to throw to you and ask you a little bit about what it was like transitioning from the NFL and an environment like that. And I assume the experiences of flow and peak performance that are inevitable within that environment into business, into knowledge work. How was that transition and how did you go about attempting to recreate flow experiences and achieve peak performance after being in a situation like NFL?

Yeah, I appreciate the question, man. It was fucking hard, to be honest with you. There's nothing easy about playing in the NFL, playing, doing the thing that you love the most in life, right? Get into the top of— and this is a statistic that, you know, I used to say back when I was playing in the NFL— if you were a starter in the NFL, you are 1 in 32 people in the entire world that can do what you do. Right? And so you go from that to now not having a quote-unquote job, having to reinvent yourself, and then a loss of identity with ego wrapped all into that. I mean, it's, it's terrible. It's, it's absolutely terrible, to be completely honest with you. But, you know, having that mentality of the never-die attitude, the, you know, hey, I gotta go through whatever it takes, because that's exactly how I got into the NFL, um, that was really the, the mark in, in terms of how I started to transition. And so I was working on some business endeavors while I was playing. And, um, and so I kind of went down that path because that was my initial interest and that was kind of my proximity, right? Proximity is power. So the, the transition was difficult, but when you look at peak performance and you look at flow, the biggest challenge I think for me of getting back into flow was losing the ego. And I know when we talk about flow, you know, Stephen, you talk about it all the time, but when ego is involved, it's extremely difficult to get in the flow. Overcoming that and finding a new identity to who it was that I was, was one of the main conduits to how I started to gain, I would say, higher levels of flow, coupled with understanding the dynamics of what flow even is. When you come out of football, you're used to just playing, you're used to practicing, you're used to doing all those great things that give you the high-flow activities, but you don't necessarily understand it. Starting to understand what peak performance really was, was also, you know, something that helped get me to the next level.

Yeah, it's one of the things we talk about a lot that, you know, understanding flow science and the underlying mechanisms allows you to decouple the experience from the activity, such as obviously, you know, playing football and then being able to get into that same experience or state in other activities. What helped unravel or loosen that identity and switch, uh, into becoming a peak performer in a different domain?

You know, it's— it really started with a, with a standard and a, I would say, understanding that it's okay to be a beast off the field in whatever it is. A lot of times we get stuck into playing at the, the, the level that we think is normal in our industry, and then we realize that, you know, there's that 1% that excels and, and, and crushes it against pretty much all odds. And so how do you, how do you get around those people more often? Um, what are the tools in the, in the, the, the mindset that these type of people have? And so for, for me, it was really about surrounding myself with top performers again, um, and then understanding, doing my own personal development, personal research on, you know, in, in terms of myself, uh, and then also understanding, you know, when I started working with Stephen, this, the challenge skills balance, right? Because certain times I would try to take on these, these huge astronomical ventures, and I didn't have the skill set to be able to do so.

Right.

And so you get lost in the weeds, you know, things start to become overwhelming. You start dealing with stress and burnout, and then you look yourself in the mirror and you're like, do I even really like doing this? Right. And do I really love what I'm doing? And so really aligning myself, you know, and I know we talk about the habit of ferocity a lot. Right. But aligning yourself with what really drives you and motivates you to actually create impact in this world is really the main thing that's allowed me to kind of get back on this path.

We know flow shows up way more if you have mastery, craft mastery, skill mastery, right? All that stuff. I also think, though I haven't seen research on this, maybe Andrew can comment. I think it is a lot easier to deal, dial down ego when you actually have mastery than it is when you're trying, when you're trying to get somewhere, you sort of need the ego out front to sort of drive you there, right? Because you're not quite there. You're trying to fake your way there. And I find when you're in that situation, that's it. So I often wonder when we talk about the needing mastery for flow, if some of it is just literally like the confidence that dials back the ego and gets the prefrontal cortex out of the way.

Now, you're exactly right. It's the fake it till you make it syndrome, right? It's the affirmations, you know, that, you know, I'm a billionaire, I'm a billionaire, I'm a billionaire. Then you look in the mirror and you're what, you know, studio and you're like, no, this isn't adding up, right? And so there, there needs to be some correlation of reality to where, um, something is actually tangible, that it's real, that you're— that, that you can actually believe it's, it's happening, right? And so, um, that was a big thing for me, getting out of my own way, getting the ego out of the way, and just getting into the actual activity, um, is, is difficult. But reorganize— reorganizing my day Understanding, you know, when, when you can access flow, when are the better times to access flow, has really kind of taken my productivity over the last, call it, 6 months, specifically during COVID to the next level.

Hmm, that's interesting, bro.

The voodoo works.

One of our t-shirts. Andrew, I wanted to ask you generally about this phenomenon. I know, Andrew, you're friends with lots of athletes and, you know, you're in these worlds and with MP Performance, do you see this phenomenon a lot where, you know, you take an elite performer from one field and they are able to transition to another field and completely crush it and dominate in that field? And kind of what, what is underlying that, do you think?

Yeah, you know, it's, it's rare in science because people in science— science is one of those careers. I was told the day I got my lab, well, I was told 3 things all by very prominent scientists. One of them said, "Congratulations, welcome to schizophrenia," because suddenly you're managing people, I'm managing budgets, I'm doing tons of things that you weren't really trained to do. So you get just thrown into the deep end of the pool of running what is essentially a small business. So in science, it's really sink or swim. And occasionally you'll come across a scientist who does something else really well. Like a couple other things, maybe, but usually no, especially for people who are just trying to manage scientific career and a family. That's usually just a lot, more than enough. People that have changed careers, what you find, I think, is that they're very, they're very good at observing and they are comfortable going slow at first. So they might have that ferocious tone underneath the surface, right, that Brett was talking about, but they're very observant. And I think learning to be an observer of your field, whatever field that is, and really learning the culture is essential, whether or not you agree with the culture or not. All cultures and career cultures have issues. Just really being a good observer because they're going to be a certain set of basic skills you need to learn, but you got to throw yourself in. And without going into a lot of detail about it, When I was a kid, I got very involved in like skateboard culture. I was always listening and watching for like, you know, how was it done? I wasn't trying to mimic it, but I just thought, how is the— what is the industry like? What is the— what are the dynamics of the amateurs and pros? When I got into science, I always looked at people who were one step ahead of where I wanted to be. And it was sort of like as an assistant professor, I always tried to behave a little bit like a tenured professor. As a tenured professor, I'm trying to behave a little bit like somebody who's been in the field for 10 more years than I have. While still taking care of the duties you need to do. So you should always be looking up a couple rungs while also focusing on the rungs you're trying to climb on the ladder because you don't want to ever land in a culture you don't understand. And so the best way to do this, to make it practical, is to ask a lot of questions. And you don't want to be careerist. I think the people that are really good at moving from one career to another They don't have this careerist, what I call, I like to pick on the pre-meds, no pre-med mentality. Pre-med mentality means I don't care what the answer is, just tell me what I need to know so I can move forward and just get the A in whatever field, like, so I can just perform well. You want to have a very curious, thoughtful nature about the field you're in. Learn everything you can about the field you're in. That doesn't mean you have to do everything. So last example would be like right now, Steven was teasing me, you know, I'm not completing, but I'm working on a book. I'm learning about the publishing world, right? I'm learning about who does what. Steven will tell you, I'll call him sometimes, just, I just want to learn, just inform me about the world I'm in. I don't see myself as an editor someday, but I want to know what do they really do? Like, what's the mindset of the editor so I can meet those demands better? So I think people that do well when they, to take expertise in one area and translate to another, They're looking for the human universals that are present in every endeavor, and they're really trying to master their understanding in the field, but they are very focused in what they do. They don't try and play all those roles, but they really need to understand all those roles. And so be a student and really fall in love with being a student of your craft. I think that's really the key. That's what they all do. They fall in love with the study of whatever new endeavor they're in. And it's a lot of fun that way too, because you only have to do a few things, but you really need to learn the context that you are in. That's my, my observation, and that's what I've tried to do.

You know, Andrew, along those lines, uh, in, uh, The Art of Impossible, which comes out, uh, next January, there's a section where I examine what I've been loosely calling long-haul creativity. Basically, people who have had lifelong creative careers, which is very difficult because style keeps changing, everything keeps changing. If you look at even just studies of literature, literature styles last 10 to 20 years. So I learned to write in a style as an author in the 1990s that doesn't exist anymore. I couldn't— if I wrote a book in it right in the same style that I that as I wrote my first novel, nobody would read it now because it's changed so much. And I think to your point, there are— one of the things when you interview lots of people who have had really long careers, one of the things you hear a lot is sort of the same thing. Understand that you're playing a game inside a culture, and you don't have to— you don't have to like the game. You don't even have to play the game. But you have to know the game exists and sort of know what the rule books are. I always say the best example for me in writing, I think one of the biggest breaks forward I had as a journalist was when I realized that I wasn't being hired to write the best Stephen Kotler story I could possibly write. I was being hired to make my editor's job easier. And my editor was being hired to make his editor's job easier. And so they wanted a story that totally fit in the magazine form. They didn't want a fancy Steven thing. They wanted something that like was Wired magazine, so they would be happy and the editor-in-chief would be happy. And it was a culture thing. And once I figured out what my role was, I could really meet it. But until you figure that stuff out, I'm sure the NFL was the same way and business is definitely that way.

Yeah. One thing I'll just— this is not advice from me. This was advice that was given to me by my postdoctoral advisor who was extremely keen on everything going on around him and really knew how to navigate those waters. He said, anytime you meet somebody, you have to ask yourself, would I have been friends with them in high school? And because if you— if you— if the answer to that is yes, you probably can collaborate and work together. And if the answer is no, you probably need to learn how to work together with a little more distance. And that's actually been a good heuristic for me, like a good little shortcut. Like when I meet someone, I was like, would we be friends in high school?

Absolutely.

Okay, that's somebody that's—

now I understand why we're working together. Andrew, we were in high school.

Yeah, you would have been up to no good.

Not friends by circumstance, but friends like, is there a resonance? And because you need other people, you can't— you really can't go through it alone. You can learn a lot more about your field through the observations of 5 or 10 people that you really trust, and you're all sharing information. And this isn't about being sneaky, this is about just like, this is the world you're in. Who are, you know, who are the good guys? Who are the bad guys and gals?

Like, who—

how are you going to navigate these waters? Because you're not going to change the culture of the field while you're coming up, but you can once you're far along.

Well, Andrew, one of the things you mentioned that I think is great there is the idea of the kind of underlying universal skills, um, or transferable skills. And Brett, I'm curious as to which of those sort of underlying traits or attributes or skills or whatever you want to call them you developed within NFL and then brought over and presumably still have with you now? Maybe the habit of ferocity is one of them that you mentioned.

Yeah, no, the habit of ferocity was definitely a huge skill that I developed. I, I remember when I first went through Zero to Dangerous and I started to unlock what, what really, you know, motivated me because specifically coming from the NFL, I think the first thing that we all think about, or anybody who's coming from a high-paying career, is like, how can I maintain this circumstance? How can I maintain this lifestyle? And for me, that was really the kind of the main goal when I left the NFL was, you know, how do I maintain my life? And so I started doing things based on monetary outcomes. And so That kind of led me down this path of business, but doing things that I wasn't necessarily as passionate about when playing football, right? And it wasn't until I started to look inwardly, which was, you know, going through my passions, understanding what drives me internally, not externally, to where I started to understand that it was the people that I was working with and the team that I was associated with that really— that was what made me excited and happy about playing football. It wasn't necessarily, you know, yeah, we love the big hits, we love, you know, crushing a guy, getting up and listening to the crowd yell. But, um, it was the relationships in the locker room, it was relationships in on the practice field, it was, you know, laughing at the dumb things that Bill Belichick would say in some of the meetings, right? Which, which is what made the, the game of football so fun, right? It was those relationships. And so going into, you know, where I'm at now, I understand that, you know, it's the relationships with with guys like yourself that are really the fruit of our labor. It's, if we were doing this thing by ourselves, it'd be extremely boring. You know, I tell you one thing, I wouldn't be any smarter than I was playing football, right? And so we all, we need this community, which is what Andrew's saying, of individuals, smart individuals with an interesting perspective to be able to grow on and build on those ideas.

That makes total sense. The money piece is interesting in terms of what you mentioned earlier around ego. And Andrew, I was curious as to whether you could kind of break down or tussle apart two different sort of forms of ego there. One is, I think, the kind of identity or overarching view of oneself. Antonio Damasio sort of refers to that as the autobiographical self. And then one is the actual loss of the sense of self, let's say, within a flow state. And I think that they are somewhat distinct from one another.

You're right. There, there are probably two very separate brain circuits, one for the actual activity that you're expected to do and that you're compensated for, and that the career metrics that are going to— you're going to be measured against, you know, are there's your craft and then there's the way that you're viewed for how well or how poorly you perform that craft. And so I think it really speaks to the key importance of being able— this is the ego, dismantling the ego, or temporary dismantling the ego that Brett's referring to. You have to be able to set aside people's perceptions of you and focus on learning your craft, right? Uh, you know, really focusing on the process. You know, a good friend of mine, Pat Dossett, talks about, you know, crawl, walk, run as the key to Essentially, all, all progress, all crap. You have to think crawl, walk, run. You're— there's— and, you know, I like to talk about sometimes there is no trampoline to the top floor. You have to put that in, and you have to be comfortable doing that. Now, that beginner's mind is great to talk about. It's a whole other thing if you're looking at it as you're doing it through the lens of how am I being perceived. And one thing that's been useful for me is to really be explicit about the fact that I don't know certain things. Of course, it's every stage, and then you learn and then you know. So my graduate advisor was very sage. She taught me the key importance of being able to say out loud to people, I don't know. Like, I would ask her a question about science and she'd say, I don't know. And I'm thinking, you're my mentor, you're supposed to know everything. And she's, I don't know. But pretty soon I realized she had— she knew a lot of other things. And she had an amazing ability to find knowledge and was a great resource for herself and for others. So I think you have to separate the craft from your perception of how people perceive you. It's actually called theory of mind. Simon Baron-Cohen, Sasha Baron-Cohen's brother, incidentally, Borat's brother, talked about the theory of mind, which is my perception of how you perceive me. It's a very human, very complex operation. You have to put aside your theory of mind to drop into your craft. And the irony is that— and the beauty of it really is that people's perception of you is going to be in direct relationship to how well you can set aside their perception of you, right? This means I have to— I have to think— I don't— I have to set aside what people are thinking and just focus on the crawl, walk, run, the craft. You have to learn your craft. If you're craft-focused, there's a brilliance to that. I think he was trying to improve.

I want to go back to something Ryan said that was in his question. He was talking a little bit about the difference between the sense of self that we lose in flow when the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex dials down, probably a bunch of other things happening, but this is just Charles Lim's research, versus the theory of mind self. Those are totally different circuits, correct?

Totally different. And, and if I'm devoting prefrontal or any brain circuitry to people's perception of me, I'm gonna be off my game. I'm not performing it nearly as well as I could. It's, it's all about resource allocation. I've talked about this acetylcholine-based circuit, like it's like a spotlight. It can be diffused, it can be very concentrated. You know, everything that we're talking about here is really about being able to bring that focus of attention while learning craft as tightly as possible and drop into that, and then the appropriate circuits will open up and we talk, you know, the whole flow circuitry will, will reveal itself. But if we're focusing a lot on how we're being perceived, it's really, it's really detrimental to that process. And this is the beauty of true creatives. When you see someone who really doesn't seem to care how other people are perceiving them and they're really in craft, you just hop— you tend to hop on their train and, and go with them because it's their lack of self-consciousness is contagious. Now, it's easier said than done. We all suffer from this. Many nights I go home repeating, like, should I have said that? Should I have said it that way? So many times now that I actually know that's part of the process. It's my decompress. That's my brain doing self-assessment, which is also healthy.

Hmm.

So, Brett, I got a question for you, just going off the back of this. Do you feel that you were able to stay mainly craft-focused when you were playing at the NFL? And if so, what kind of practices or tools or tips helped you stay craft-focused rather than overly indexing on the perception of others when you're basically a demigod within the NFL? Or perceived as that?

Yeah, you want to think you are, but you get there and you realize that you're replaceable very quickly. And so you start to understand that, you know, my last practice, my last game, is only, you know, a reflection of how good I was. And so you start to fixate on maintaining this peak, this level of peak performance day in and day out. I remember when I was, you know, first, when I first got into the league and I was playing on the Patriots, and it'd be like a Tuesday or off day, and I come into the facility to, you know, get some ice and stim and, you know, just take care of my body. And I would see players in the dome and coaches actually running these players through drills as if they were going to sign them.

Right?

And so every week in the NFL, they're bringing players in to see if they're— they can outperform players that are already there. And so it's this constant shuffling of, of peak performance, right? And it's like you being, you know, in your field, and every single week you have, you know, your, your employer bringing somebody in to see if they can replace you based on—

right?

It's, it's absolutely terrible. And so you understand that, one, you have to have the, the mentality that, um, I'm better than everybody else, um, even if you, you aren't. And I know that's, you know, we talk about ego, and that's sometimes why athletes— and I think a lot of times why athletes fail when they go into their next venture, because they say, well, I was, I was great at this one thing, I should be great at everything else, when that's not the case, right? We're talking about skills, right? The second thing that you start to realize is I have to start developing a competitive edge. I need to start understanding what can I do differently than everybody else to stay in this game. And when you look at what I was doing, I was constantly taking care of my body, constantly getting massages. I was getting 3 massages a week at one point to make sure that I could sustain, you know, the level of impact when you're taking these shots in the game. And so you quickly realize that it's all about— everything is about how good you are every single day you show up. And it's not about necessarily getting, you know, 2% or 3% or 4% better. It's about getting, you know, a, a tenth of a percent better, um, or, or a fifth of a percent better, right? Because you understand that there's nothing that, uh, that you can do outside of control everything that you can control. And that's the, the main thing I think when you're looking at top performers is they focus on what they can control and they eliminate everything else.

You kind of bring it just down to the small window of whether coach decides to put this guy in instead of me.

It has nothing to do with me, right? They, for instance, I'll give you a perfect example. Um, when I was on the Jets my last year, they drafted a guy in the second round. Um, I don't know what his signing bonus was, it was probably a half a million or somewhere, somewhere upwards of that, right? They put him in even though he would mess up day in and day out. They would consistently put him in because they wanted him to play because they had already paid for this, this guy to play. And so if I, if I sit there and worry about, hey, they keep putting this guy in, I'm better than him, I know I'm better than him, but I'm not getting the playing time— now it's almost like you self-sabotage yourself, right? Because you get this, this, this dialogue in your head of, hey, am I good enough? Hey, why am I not getting a chance? And so it becomes, oh, woe is me, instead of focusing on what you can control, which is when you get in the, in practice and in the game.

So the risk of replacement caused a lack of being craft-focused in a certain sense, which can then actually make itself a self-fulfilling prophecy, obviously, it sounds like.

Exactly.

Yeah, it's, that's super interesting. Any comments on that, Andrew? I got a question for you if not, but yeah, um, a couple things.

I mean, I think it's, that's great. I'm, I'm taking mental notes here as Brett's talking. I think, you know, science is, is weird, um, in that it's sort of like pinball. You never really win, you know, you're just trying to keep going. There's no There's no end goal. You eventually retire, and I learned a long time ago that no grant money, no science, no science, no nothing. It doesn't matter if you have tenure or anything. A lot of people don't realize this. So it's a pretty brutal career. The funding lines are— they never change. They never get much better, and only the top 25-30% of grants are going to go through. And so what you realize pretty quickly is that you're always on the chopping block, maybe not to the same extent. That Brett was talking about, that it's on a longer time cycle. But the way to deal with this, I think, is— I think there are two things. One is people have been asking a lot in the questions about how do you develop that focus. And one thing that I've been talking about a lot lately, and I think still works, is I— and I've been training for years— is, um, you can use your visual focus to guide your cognitive focus. And so how do you do this? Well, when I was a student, I would just sit there and my so-called meditation was how long can I maintain a fixed gaze, allowing blinking, on a crosshatch across the room? Where's my breakpoint? And trying to extend that a few minutes each day. I mean, the brain follows visual focus because those two things in front of your face are— your eyes are actually two pieces of brain. They're not connected to your brain, they're actual brain sticking outside your skull, and they guide through these structures called the frontal eye fields the rest of your focus circuitry. And it translates. If you can maintain focus for X number of minutes, that's how long you can maintain cognitive focus. And it's okay if your mind flickers on and off. Have a training. If you're really interested in building these skills up, have a program for this. Now, if you're very excited about something or interested in it, naturally going to engage these frontal eye fields and the associated circuitry. So you don't have to do that, right? But that's the difference of caring or not caring. But we all know that in any career, there can be a lot of things that are not valuable, or we think aren't valuable to us, we're going to be expected to listen and learn and pay attention. So you can build up your, your duration of focus. The other thing is learning to tolerate discomfort in that, you know, because Steve and I have talked about this a lot before, being able to tolerate levels of agitation in your nervous system and not react to that is so valuable. This is why I think things like ice baths, cold showers, those are teaching you, they're giving you a physically safe wall that you hit, and you're seeing if you can extend past it. I never liked the last reps of a set example. I think it's a stupid example because it doesn't translate to what we're talking about. When I'm lifting a weight or something, I'm like real exertion and like really trying to hammer it out. That is not what it's like to try and endure something that's uncomfortable. It's a different kind of pain because it's more of like maximum force exerted. This is more about learning to be still in the face of agitation and internal stress. The thing I think that's going to translate best, being able to stay situationally aware, stay awake, and that's about learning to be calm within the adrenaline response. And that's a gate to a lot of powerful things.

I agree with everything you just said. What I was wondering is, do you think learning to tolerate internal agitation is something that was especially hard for you? Meaning like, When I think about personally, when I want to train that same sort of like the getting comfortable with uncomfortable, I usually do something like I'll put, I'll put on a weight vest and hike uphill. It's not a, it's not a strength training workout. Yeah, it's just a constant like uncomfortableness that I have to live with and continue to march through.

Right, because the weight example is an artificial— it's the one everyone defaults to, but it's not the right one in my opinion, because there's only a maximum amount of force you can provide and then you can't continue. Whereas when you're walking uphill with a weight vest or you're feeling discomfort in that burn, the quit reflex— we now know there's a paper published in Cell last year, not by my lab, showing that as an animal or human accumulates trials of something, eventually they quit because the level of norepinephrine which is adrenaline in the brainstem, not from the adrenals, in the brainstem, it's a certain threshold, and then the animal or person just quits. That's it. They quit. It's literally a quitting reflex in the brain. It's the I-quit reflex. And so if you can learn to push past that or to stay calm and keep that level of noradrenaline or adrenaline below that threshold and continue in forward action, then you're doing something pretty remarkable, and you're building out you're building that threshold higher and higher, and it does translate. Remember, the beauty of Mother Nature is she built neural circuits that are very generic so they could apply to any situation where this agitation is coming into play. One practice I haven't done, but again, I'll reference Pat Dossett. He told me about this. I think it's called the hour of pain, where you're supposed to sit in a contorted position for an hour and just endure that. I've been very curious to try that. I'm curious if anyone's tried it.

I think it's called the hour of pain.

But that's one that, you know, I think again, all you have to do is just move, right? That would relieve that. But so there's a translation across these different domains. And look, Brett is an elite athlete, right? And so the way he was talking about taking these scenarios from football and just conceptualizing them and translating them, that to me really speaks to the cognitive component that we can use our thinking brain too to say, This is just like the discomfort of not knowing if I'm going to get, you know, second string or, you know, cut. I'm sorry, I'm using the wrong nomenclature here. And you can translate that to anything. So thinking about your craft is, is really key and really understanding it to be able to do that translation. It's not just all physical.

And I have a question about that. How important are our goals? Because a lot of times we get stuck on our craft and we, we're getting locked in on maybe understanding, you know, one component about it, but we lose focus of the larger goal, or maybe we don't even have a goal. It's just like, hey, we're learning this.

Yeah, I can relate to that because, you know, I often forget, like, when people say, like, what's the big mission? What are you really trying to do, Andrew? It's kind of a lot of times I'm like, well, okay, I want to publish this. Like, I'm very like incremental goals. And I just— so the goal, defining those big goals is key. I, you know, I'm a big believer in setting those internal rewards and those milestones that are closer in. I mean, this is the— I believe the— if there is a secret sauce to high performance, it's understanding crawl, walk, run is non-negotiable. Just don't even try and beat that. You won't, um, not with a device, not with anything, not with a supplement.

Can you break that down a little more, Andrew? Crawl, walk, run. For—

I'll walk, run. I'm borrowing again. I'm— I think I'm quoting Pat a lot, you know, maybe because we've been spending a lot of time together recently, but former Navy SEAL, now in the business sector. But he talks about crawl, walk, run. You know, when you look at communities of people that do incredible things, there's this kind of perception that they're superhuman. But every— all of that is built up on gradual accumulation of new skills, layering down a foundation that is like paper thin, paper thin, paper thin, until eventually it's building high. But there's no— there's no trampolining to the top. It's crawl, then walk, then run everything. Now, what you were asking, Brett, you know, in terms of setting goals, the key is every time you lay down a thin layer of foundation that you get some level of mastery. I'm a big believer in tickling that dopamine circuit so that what you're actually rewarding is those setting those milestones, you know, or what we sometimes call moving the horizon. Pat and I in those discussions, moving the horizon. So you're trying to build up incrementally. And if you're thinking about the degree or the Super Bowl ring or the, the giant payday or the, the things you're gonna get, that's the wrong way to think about. The right way to think about it is small goals, but reward them. Like, okay, I'm, I'm grabbing rungs. As long as I'm grabbing rungs, metaphorically speaking, grabbing rungs and looking up and keeping and keeping going, rewarding the, the grab and pull process— that growth mindset. That's Carol Dweck's growth mindset. So internal rewards and learning how to tap into that is key because those internal rewards allow you to push back on the noradrenergic system. You get more juice. You literally get more energy by telling yourself, I may not be at the ultimate goal, but I'm doing the right things.

That's, that's huge. That's huge because, you know, come week 8 in the middle of the NFL season, You're beat up, your muscles aren't firing like they used to, legs are heavy, and so you need something to pull you through that when you still got another half of the season left. I love that.

And football is a beautiful example. I never played football, but just that you have to get to first down. Touchdowns can be made through beautiful long-distance passes or runs down the field, but they can also just— you see this when a team just decides, we're just going to chop our way down the field. And those first downs are those dopamine hits that reset you, right? So that's a very concrete— there's literally a line and they bring a flag and they're like, there it is, and they post it. That's the same process. If ever there was a kind of translating of what we're talking about here to the real world, like, you want to imagine first downs and they reset you. They're not just first downs. Like, the reason they— I love that, uh, you know, the football example is because First down resets a set of energy. It's all— and but think about it, you're exerting energy over and over. It should be decremental. We get a first down, it's like it becomes a little bit sawtooth, right? So it's like exertion, exertion, first down, you got a little bit more in you, first down. And my proof that it has to be neurochemical is you look at the team that wins the Super Bowl or any game. Both teams have been grinding the entire time. What happens to the team that wins? They've got energy to jump around. Like crazy. There must have been something in the reserve tank.

And this is an open question. Goal setting theory. I asked this in the questions. You want to have 3 levels of goals, right? You want your mission statement for your life goals. Then you want what are called high, hard goals, right? Mission statement is I want to be the greatest author in history. High, hard goals are I want to write 10 this book. And then you need your clear goals, which are what Andrew's been really talking about, right? Your first downs, your daily. Process goals, the things that give you little bits of dopamine, drive you forward. One of the questions I've been toying with is, is there another layer in there that is useful that hasn't sort of showed up? And I've also been wondering, maybe this is a question for you, Andrew, in thinking about how we set goals, I've been playing with instead of like, we talk a lot about process goals. I want to, I don't want to I don't want to finish a chapter. I want to write 500 words kind of thing, right? Which keeps you focused on your craft. But I've also been toying with adding in how I want the thing that I'm trying to accomplish to make me feel, to see if that's even more motivating. That's what I've been playing with.

I think that the goals that you can't really shoot for, but that you have to just trust will show up as you go for these more incremental goals, let's call them first downs. The cool thing is there are these additional dopamine hits that are actually far more powerful and start amplifying you. And those— and you should never focus on these outright, but they'll come to you if you're in your craft and you're a student of your craft— is relationships you're going to form while doing first down dopamine hits, small win, next play. If you are doing that and you're doing it in a way that's supportive of the people around you, and you're a good listener and you lend support in a genuine way, I don't care what field you're on, a football field or the scientific field or business. If you— the relationships that form around that, everybody, everybody— I've got friends who are Nobel Prize winners who will say it was all about the relationships, but not like that's what they were trying to attain. That's like these— it's almost like there's like a dopamine plus that is the social bonds and the connections that you feel. And it's amplifying because then the next time you walk out on the field and you see those people, it's a felt thing. And the field, again, metaphorically, it might be football, might be something else. And you're like, you feel secure, you get a boost. And those relationships are everything. I'm telling you, because there comes a day when those first downs don't come. Those are important.

Do you think those relationships, if you, if you look into the, into the purpose literature, you see Purpose— passion conveys a lot of advantages predominantly in and around dopamine and focus, as you might imagine, and a little bit of flow. When you turn passion into purpose, you get a whole bunch of other stuff that doesn't normally show up. And a lot of it seems to relate to the fact that you're getting a hell of a lot of more social— purpose involves other people by definition. Purpose is something outside yourself. Involves other people. And it seems to give you more— you said earlier, you think it's all neurochemical. Is that that added drive you're talking about? It's not really dopamine, it's all the other social neurochemicals.

Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, serotonin, right? That's what we're talking about there.

Yeah. And without going too long, Mother Nature has that second set of reward systems that are more about us feeling really safe. Dopamine is not about feeling safe. Dopamine is about getting the thing that's outside you. It's about the first down and you're not at the— you're not there. It's about extending your arms and extending your efforts and your mind to things that are outside you. The serotonin-oxytocin system is the one that's kicked in after a good meal, social connection, but they toggle back and forth, those two reward systems. And when you feel secure, I mean, there is nothing— I didn't play many team sports growing up, but like, there's nothing for me. It was like I'd roll out to the where you see people and you're like, yes, you feel safe. And yeah, Brett's nodding because there's nothing like that. I can only imagine what it's like in a team sport. It's that we're powerful because we're safe. And now we can go do the— we can make ourselves vulnerable. We can actually physically vulnerable, mentally vulnerable, emotionally vulnerable. And so, but you can't go out and try and form those relationships and just be like, let's be safe, then let's go crawl, walk, run. You have to get there by doing. It's always by doing and being aware and being a good listener. And people poison the waters by being too focused on first downs and not hearing the noise around them and, you know, coming to them. So this is kind of neuroscience metaphor for a number of things that have been said many times before. But this is why having an awareness of where you fit into the world that you're in and the landscape. But yeah, you got to be able to— Focus, dilate. Focus, dilate. Hmm.

Hey, it's Joshua with the production team. Thanks for listening to Flow Research Collective Radio. Before we dive back into our conversation, there's something to consider. It may be that today we are under-challenged. We're drowning in comfort. Now, in his book Antifragile, statistician Nassim Taleb pointed out something that's of key importance. Quote, undercompensation from the absence of challenge degrades the best of the best. The best horses lose when they compete with slower ones and win against better rivals. Now, put another way, who we could be, or our highest potential, is squandered by safety, coddled by comfort. If you want to train with us at the Flow Research Collective, it will require boldness. But what's life without a little adventure, right? To learn more about how you can get more flow in your life and achieve your professional and personal goals in less time and with more ease, go to getmoreflow.com. If you're a good fit, we'd love to train with you.

All the best.

Brad, you want to speak to that for a sec?

Yeah, now as Andrew is talking, I'm thinking about the process of before— I mean, most everybody sees that's outside of the team, they see the game, right? They see, you know, first game of the season all the way till 16 games in, Super Bowl, playoffs, and then Super Bowl if you make it. But they don't see training camp. And as Andrew's talking, and about, you know, teaming in the relationships, I think about those, those times in training camp where you're doing two a days. They don't have many more, but when I was playing, we're doing two a days, then we'd have one a day, we'd go back to two a day practices. And during that time, it's the relationships that drive you, because if you're just doing it for yourself, uh, you know, whether it's, it's, you know, your family that's behind you, that's pushing you, your, your mom or dad, or your, your kid, your children that you have You're doing it for some type of relationship. A lot of times you're building these bonds during training camp, and that's really why finding your identity in training camp is so important for a team. I know coaches talk about it a lot in NFL. It's like, we need to find our identity, and that's why practicing and deliberate practice is so important during those critical stages of developing a team, particularly when you have a new team or a new head coach. Or for instance, like Tom Brady's on the Buccaneers this year. It's critical to be able to build and develop those fundamental relationships and and culture in that organization. So that was kind of where my mind was going as you were talking, Andrew.

Yeah. And, you know, I wish I had played football because I feel like I've been always chosen these very individual paths. And in lab, like, so when I was a postdoc, 25 of us in this lab, super cutthroat. There were literally physical fights in the hallway of the lab next door. I won't name the lab, Nobel Prize-winning lab, like literally physical fights. I had to go out there and separate them. Separating scientists usually isn't too Crazy stuff because it's such a pressure cooker. And you know what you start to realize is that people— there's going to be people that are like, they love to spread toxic stress about hierarchy. They'll be like, did you hear this? And there's always those negative voices. If that becomes the dominant culture, it can really be terrible. I'll be honest, I was —so individual that I used to make these crazy statements. People would say to me, "You need to slow down. You're going to burn out." I'd be like, "You don't even have a fire to go out." I was pretty aggro back then. I started to realize this is going to cost me. I'd go into my lab, and there are all these people— not my lab, but back then I was in someone else's lab training. How about this? When you walk into an environment, you should ask yourself, "Does my adrenaline level go up, or do I feel safe?" And I used to think, you know, if you ever have a conflict with somebody at work, you both sit down and you know, you're like, oh God, you try to do your work, it takes you off your game. And so learning how to work out relationships when there's stress and conflict is really important. Obviously physical altercations, bad, especially in the world I'm in, that's not allowed. So learning how to smooth that and loosen those, it's the only way you're going to be able to progress for a long period of time. People that really isolate themselves in high-performing environments, I don't care how good they are, sooner or later they're on the chopping block. That you can't do well. So even in non-team format, there's a team component. And anytime you go in, like, for a job interview or something, you can feel that adrenaline rush. How am I being perceived? How am I being perceived?

That's normal.

Learning quickly how to make those relationships and focus on your craft, doing your work, that's the way to when we talk about dilate, contract, like contract, those are the major skills. Focus on your craft, learn the context you're in, form real friendships, real connections, and support each other. And I haven't seen anyone do those things and not flourish. It's when you're super focused and you pay attention to anyone else, or you get these people that are like all about the social relationships but they don't grind. Well, then you can't really— they don't go far because it's not a, it's not a social circle, right?

What was your best skate trick?

I wasn't a very good skateboarder, but I'll tell you to this day that the best feeling in the world for me was rolling in the skatepark. I can admit, before I put my helmet on, I don't like riding with a helmet, never liked it. You should drop in and just catch like a really nice frontside grind on, on concrete coping. Is the best feeling in the world. Everyone knows that. Everyone knows that. Best feeling in the world. I can remember those. But yeah, so that was it. No, I was not— frontside nosegrind? No, frontside back truck grind on concrete coping. Can't believe we're talking about it.

Nice, I love it.

I used to be a skater, believe it or not. So I was a rollerblader and then I was a skater. So, you know, I was rocking DCs and Vans before it was cool for black guys to wear that kind of stuff, right? So I'm right there with you, Andrew. You can't wear a helmet and skater. That doesn't work.

I know, but kids, wear your helmet. But that's still a great feeling. I miss it quite a lot. There's nothing quite like it. I, I— it's, it's a beautiful sport. But the— but I think there, you know, the social structure was a big part of it for me. I needed a home and a community, and I didn't— that was my home and my community. Science eventually became my home and community. That's one of the scary things, you know, Brad. I'm curious, like, that team thing. I'm so envious of that. People who are in the military, people who play team sports, that that when you, when you went out into the world afterward, how did that— what did that feel like to, you know, that everyone didn't have a jersey and like, you know, what's that like, that transition?

Yeah, it's difficult just trying to navigate and understand the, the dynamic of, of the world because for most of us we've always been kind of taken care of. Athletes are kind of the prima donnas, so, you know, you have a schedule when you go to college, all your classes, you get to choose classes before Guys like you would choose your classes. So I don't think we had any guys that were, you know, studying neuroscience at UCLA, but, you know, we were, we were kind of put ahead of everyone else. And so when you're put ahead of everyone else your entire life and then the, the world kind of says, hey, we don't want you anymore, um, it's a rude awakening reality. And so you have to take a step back and really say, like, well, why am I here? You know, is it, is it really about me or is it about other people? And, you know, I, I say this a lot, and I, you know, I really came to this realization a few back, but it's not about me, it's not about us, right? It's about everyone else out there making an impact. And when you're on that team, you know, a lot of times, especially in the NFL, it's ego, right? You got this guy who's a star, especially playing on some of the bigger teams like the Patriots, you know, Tom Brady, Randy Moss, uh, Julian Edelman. You have huge stars, Rob Gronkowski, and sometimes you get overshadowed by them. And every, every day it's a reminder because, you know, right after practice they let the media in. And so the media runs in the locker room, you're, you're barely in a towel yet you got, you know, the media right behind you sitting next to, you know, the locker next to you interviewing one of the bigger players. And so it's almost this, this ego punch if you're not that guy, um, specifically if you like attention like, like myself. And I don't know where I get that from, but, you know, I've always liked attention, right? And so, um, you have to start asking yourself, you know, is it about me or is it about the team? And that's That's really where you see the teams flourish. And that's why the Patriots have done so well over the last decade, because when you get on the Patriots, you know 3 things. You know that you have to be a team player. You know you have to do your job at the highest capacity or you won't be there. And you have to keep everything internally inside the team or you also won't be there. There's this big thing about talking about what goes on inside the team with people externally, so media, people on other teams, so on and so forth. So you can kind of have that culture built into the system when you get there. And so it's just trying to navigate throughout that culture as you're there and perform at the highest level.

Brett, now that you've been— I don't know how many years you've been kind of studying and learning about peak performance— what are some of the main things you would go back and tell your former self when still playing now that you know and that you, you wish you'd known back then?

Yeah, that— I, I have a lot, but I think it all centers around focus. Focus and keep the main thing the main thing. I know, you know, you get a lot of money at 23, and, you know, the stars are all shining and everything looks, looks like a, you know, a diamond. And so you want to do everything that you really didn't have the time to, and sometimes you, you tend to neglect that main thing. And so, you know, when I, when I look at my career and I look at what I had done It's like, hey, if you had just focused a little bit more, if you had eliminated some of these distractions and made sure you took care of the on-the-field activities, you may still be playing. Because there's still some guys that I played with that are still in the NFL, right? And yet injuries and things of that nature come into play. But I think there's a certain energy, and Andrew was talking about this, about getting small first downs. If you continue consistently to get these small first downs, you know, throughout your life and throughout your career, it builds momentum in your life. And when you, you can't get that momentum— I was hurt, I was, I was injured 3 years in a row on the Patriots. So first year I tore my groin at the end of the season. Next year, come back, I tear my pec, my pectoral muscle, first, first practice of the season, out for the year. And then third season I come back and I tear my groin, right? And I look at everything I was doing in between there, and, and there wasn't a consistent focus of, hey, I'm going to become the best NFL safety as humanly possible. And so the main thing, anything— and I think Andrew can attest to this outside of several other things— is focus.

My younger brother's 20, he's 21 now, he's a professional rugby player here in Ireland. And so I'm curious from that perspective, what, what are— what were the main distractions? What are the things you would have blocked out that would have helped you enhance focus and keep the main thing the main thing?

You know, there's, there's a component of, of being an athlete to where you're not just an athlete, but you're also a brand. And you start dealing with, you know, sponsorships and, you know, wanting to have someone manage you and trying to do those type of things. And sometimes that can get in the way of performing at your, your ultimate height. And so, you know, being able to delegate, being a master delegator and finding the right team is crucial to your success immediately. Finding the right team in terms of professionals who can help you take care of your body, whether it's a masseuse professionals, you know, Tom Brady, the reason why Tom Brady has played for the last 20 years, there's a guy named Alex and I forget his last name, but Alex is his kind of masseuse. He runs his company called TB12 right now, which is a supplement company, but Alex has been taking care of his body pretty much his entire career. And I truly believe it's one of the reasons Tom is still able to play outside of a little bit of luck. But he has a team of professionals that are constantly around him. Also habits and routines. I don't think I really had a habit, you know, some days would be a little bit different, but just having that routine that you constantly stick to and finding the way, I guess finding ways to tweak it so that it doesn't get mundane and you still get those dopamine hits, you know, particularly going into games, you know, you need a certain level of energy to be able to perform. So there's a few routines that I may have shifted and changed, um, particularly centered around, um, you know, exertion and things outside of football, um, that I would take back. But really just building a routine and a habit and constantly having a feedback loop. I don't think I had a feedback loop. That was a big thing. It was like you kind of go through it, you do it, and the feedback loop was whether you played well or you didn't play well. But you didn't have a feedback loop of what you did during that week. But like, I didn't take a look back and say, okay, what did I do this past week that led to me playing the way that I did, right?

So more reflection, which is tough for, you know, at that age, I imagine. Andrew, you were going to mention there—

I want to say just a couple of things before I log off here. First of all, thanks for having me on. It's always a delight. I'd be happy to come on and talk more anytime these guys invite me. Second of all, um, it's an honor to talk alongside you, Brett, and to learn. I think, um, I think the football example really works. And the first downs, I just want to Make one point, which is that that first down is dynamic. You get to control with that first down, and it's not— they aren't fixed lines in the regime that we're talking about. We're exporting to the real world. And with that, I apologize for having to log off.

So thank you, thank you, thank you. Continue. Thanks, boss. Thank you, Andrew. I appreciate it, bro. I wanted to ask you there, and it's interesting you mentioned feedback already, um, but what does the NFL get right? In terms of flow triggers? And, uh, what do you think you could have benefited more from in terms of flow triggers? And then off the back of that, what were some of the biggest flow blockers that you had to overcome and work around?

Yeah, you know, the, the big thing with, uh, the NFL is they, they help give you, uh, I would say individual flow triggers, you know, novelty Each week is a little bit different. Obviously you're playing a different team, so we have a new game plan. We have new installations for that game plan. There's new key players that we're focusing on and targeting from stopping that week. So you get that novelty from, you know, day to day. The risk reward is extremely high. The difference between you going in to make a tackle and you going in to try to intercept the ball or go block a ball is huge, right? One is, hey, I can secure the tackle and we can line up and do it again. The other one is, hey, I take a risk because I think I can get this ball, and if I miss this ball, this guy may go score a touchdown and we can possibly lose this game. And so there's a huge unpredictability factor in that. And then you also get an immediate feedback to where you're like, hey, uh, that didn't work. I probably shouldn't go in and hit this 250-pound guy that hard again because, um, I'm feeling it in my head. So there's, there's that, right? And then the goals can't be more clear when you're talking about individual flow triggers. There's, there's a very clear goal. It's, it's win, point blank period. It's win or you will not be there. And so I think, you know, those are some of the main ones. You can also talk about the, the autonomy. Even though you're, you have a team sport, there's this huge autonomy factor that each position has to play their part. Every 10— there's 11 guys on the football field on each side of the ball. 10 guys can do their job precisely, they can crush it. One guy does not do his job the proper way and it could be the difference between a stop or a touchdown, right? And so that it's critical to have that. Um, there's also a huge, uh, challenge kind of skill balance ratio every single week, and it's— and you get to find out very, very quickly who you're— who, who's, you know, better, um, when you're going against the next team. So those are some of like the more of the, um I would say the individual triggers, but more of the group triggers, I would say complete concentration is by far, I would say the highest in group just because you have to be locked in completely when that ball— when you're on that field, as soon as you hop on that field, you're looking for the play call from the sideline, from the coach, you're talking to your teammates, you're making sure all the checks and everyone's aligned, and then you're locked in on what's about to happen.

But let me ask you a question. This I always— I, I've always— what do you do after play 1, play 2? It's very clear, especially less clear if you're a safety, probably more if you're a cornerback, but the guy you're going to be lined up across from is just better and you know it 1 or 2 plays in. How do you even stay in and stay competitive there? And B, is flow even possible in that situation? That's a great question, Stephen.

So flow becomes extremely difficult when you're, you're skeptical or you're fearful, because essentially if you're not confident, it's fear, right? It's fear that this guy's better than me. It's fear that this guy is going to beat me or I'm not going to be able to hold up my role. And so you, you become— it becomes very difficult to succeed. But where in football that changes, the, the dynamics change as opposed to in real life, is that Throughout that entire week previously before the game, we would game plan against that. So for instance, if there was a discrepancy on the field, we would put that person in position. The coach's role is to be able to put a guy in position to succeed. And if we don't do that, if the coach doesn't do that, that's a fail. And so if there's a guy that we're playing against in the NFL, and let's just say it's Odell Beckham, I think everybody kind of knows who he is, that guy you don't want to leave alone on the one-on-one matchup because he'll take advantage of that every single time. And so we would game plan around that to give that guy support, which is sharing in some of that risk. Right now there's two guys on there. If he scores a touchdown, well, there's a problem now because we planned for it. So to answer your question, Stephen, it becomes physically impossible to succeed if you play fearful. And that's my personal journey. Every time, every time I played fearful, I, I either missed the tackle, I lost, I overthought the situation, and then, and that would in turn result in some type of negative performance, right? Every time I came in confident, even though, even though I wasn't sure if I was better than that other person, I would come in confident. And I think that is, that is kind of the main metric of, um, once— first is preparation, then it's confidence, right? Because you can't be confident if you're not prepared, right? If you didn't do the homework and you come into the game, you're, you're, you're going to be unconfident. You're not going to be confident just because you didn't do the work.

Fear— I mean, fast twitch muscle response slows down, right? It would become stiffer. You lose flexibility. And by the way, the same thing is mirrored on the cognitive side, right? When you're afraid, right, you— instead of fast twitch muscle response, you get tight feedback loops and an inability You know, but the same— essentially, the mind gets gripped one way or another, and it has a huge impact on our physicality, right? It's interesting, by the way, that there's a way to— that, that the system is designed to share blame in that situation. It's the coach's fault, that it's— which is, which is a helpful mitigation there.

And a lot of times the coaches don't want to, want to take the blame, but it's like, well, why would you leave this guy? We know he's not better than him. Why would we leave them one-on-one, right? Or it can be a situation where there's a play called and the coaches just happen to not make the best play call, or maybe the other team made a better play call, and then we get exposed, right? There's a mismatch clearly, and then we get exposed. And so it's kind of this weird feedback loop of— and I wanted to ask you this, or I guess I wanted to make this statement more or less, is that the feedback loop in the NFL is a touchdown, right? Or a missed play or missed opportunity. But as that game goes on and there's more and more mishaps, the fear— I guess that gap of fear increases, right? Because now you have to go back on the field and do it all over again. It's first, second, third, and fourth quarter, right? So if I, if I've been getting crushed the first quarter, getting crushed the second quarter, I gotta go back now and do it all over again, right? And so you got to find a break. You got to try to find a, a play where you make a play to start rebuilding that confidence. And that's why It's about those small first downs. It's about building that momentum.

It also, in a lot of athletic situations, you have to dial down the challenge level, right? You cannot do that in a football game exactly, but like what you, right? What if you're really, really gripped? Skiing is a really good example. If you're having a, right? If you're trying to find flow and you've been chasing it on, you know, pushing it and pushing it and pushing it. And you're not getting there, back the fuck up. Go to like intermediate stuff and dominate, right? Like, calm down. Go do something. And you can't— you can't do that in a game situation. And you often can't do that in real life situations. Action sports sort of affords that for you a little bit because you can choose your terrain. Obviously surfing, the terrain is dictated for you, but you can choose, you know, that as a skater. You can choose where to, where to go. You don't have that as much in team sports, though you can't game plan for it, right?

You're right. And you can't game plan for that in business either, right? There becomes this difficulty when hiring the right, the right talent, because the last thing you want to do— I think the average hire fee, you know, to hire someone in any organization is about $4,000, whether they succeed or they don't. And it's how do you find, you know, the right talent and how do you put them in, in the right situation? Because if you hire for for talent, or do you hire for people and then train the people as you get, you know, they get on board? And I think there's circumstances for both, but I think you need to understand what kind of business you're running to do that.

I think that's true. I think that's smart.

Brett, in terms of flow blockers, did you find at any point cognitive load being a challenge, whether it was remembering drills, actions, and having an excessive amount of information you're trying to hold?

Yes, simplicity is intelligence, right? And when you look at game plans, we would put in sometimes we would overload that week in game plans and you would see a lot of mental errors on the football field. I'm not going to say that I think everybody's smart in their own right, but certain people shouldn't be put in certain situations where they have to think past their current level of abilities to challenge skills balance. But there would be times where we would put too much into a game plan. And then after that first quarter or first half, coach just throws that out of the game planner and goes back to the basics. And sometimes we tend to overthink or I would say complicate situations when sometimes we should stick with the thing that's made us good in the first place. So that definitely happens. Not as much in drills because by the time you're in the NFL, you know, cognitively, cognitively, you've been doing that same thing over and over and over. You're talking about playing football from 9. I played football starting at 9 all the way till 23 when I was in the NFL. So I had about, you know, give or take, 12 to 13 years of experience. By that time, I can back— I can run backwards faster than most people can run forwards, right? So you start the— I would say the physical doesn't become the difficult part. It's the mental.

Brett, do you think— did you notice the ability? Because football, probably more than other sports, for all the reasons you just talked about, um, game planning requires you to onboard a lot of knowledge every week, a lot of information. It's bounded, it's in, it's inside the discipline, but it's a lot of new information. When you left the NFL and moved into business, did that rapid onboarding of information translate, or was it a football-specific thing?

No, it was definitely a football-specific thing. I had to pretty much learn how to be a nerd, um, because playing football, it became easy to me. It was like a game, which I think everything we can kind of turn into a game. But it was very X's and O's. It was very, you know, visual, visually based, to where, you know, business isn't necessarily visual as much as it is understanding concepts and understanding how to apply and how to communicate properly. There were a lot of nuances that correlated, but there were definitely a new underlying fundamental layer of knowledge that I had to understand. And so it did become difficult at certain times. You know, obviously there's no math in football. Obviously we can count, you know, 10 or 20 or 30 yards. There's yard markers on the field, but, you know, we're not doing, you know, you know, quick ratios and looking at operations management and things of that nature. So, um, it did become, um, a bit overwhelming, and I had to go and go back to the drawing board and say, okay, Brett, what new skill sets do you need to learn, right? I hired a memory coach. I hired, um, I went, I went back to school. I, I got into a ton of courses. And so I had to rebuild that acumen, which I was training something more physical, physically based, um, previously, to now something more that's pretty much all mental-based and definitely some, some, you know, physiology into it as well.

Brett, what did you learn from Tom Brady about being in flow?

Oh, kindness. Kindness. You know, it's funny because you look at, you look at somebody who performs like him and he's at a high level, and you look at like an Elon Musk or, or Steve Jobs, and you don't really see kindness when you, when you, you know, talk to them. They're nice people, right? But you've heard some stories and You know, when I was on the Patriots, you know, one thing I would say about Tom is he was the kindest person. Even though he was performing at an extremely high level, he led with kindness with everything that he did. He made sure he knew your name. Didn't matter what, you know, were you first or second or third string. When I first came in, I was only playing special teams. I wasn't even a starter. I was like third string. And he knew my name. He walked by me and said, hey, you know, hey Brett, how's it going? Right? And so, you know, kindness and humility, I think goes a long way. Especially when you're leading a community, you're leading— I know Stephen hates to see where— when you're leading a team or an organization. The next thing I would say is his hunger, right? When I look at the top people that have been in my industry, when I look at some of the people that I, you know, currently around, they're hungrier than anybody else around them. And a lot of times it's because they want to prove people wrong. And I think that can be, you know, that's something that is a much deeper conversation, but Finding what makes you tick and what makes you hungry to get up every single day and do the same thing over and over and over. Because it's easy to start it, it becomes very, very difficult to start to finish it, uh, when things get mundane and, you know, you know, adversity slaps you in the face, because it definitely will. And so when that happens, how can you push through that? And so Tom is, is a great example of that, just leading with humility. He's a hungry individual. He's built habits on a daily basis. I don't know if you've seen Tom vs. Time, but And it shows his daily routines where he wakes up same time, eats the same thing for breakfast, goes and watches film. And he's a master of his craft. And I know we've spoken about that. Andrew talked about that before he left, but becoming a master of what it is that you do, which is just through deliberate practice and having that feedback loop, which is just getting small first downs and figuring out how you can do it a little bit better the next time.

There's a Tom Brady quote I love. Which is, if you want to compete up, compete against me, you better be willing to give up your life because I'm giving up mine. And everybody hears it and thinks it's like, oh, I'm gonna— you know, what he's really talking about is, I've got my fucking habits. I am gonna— every minute of every day is gonna go towards me being better. And that, um, I relate to that comment so much, and I like that comment so much that but I think it's so true about top peak performers. Peak performance is always a checklist, but being able to hit that checklist every single day for weeks and years, you know, on end to actually kind of get where you want to go, that to me, right, that's why you sort of need that habit of ferocity. So funny, the ferocity isn't about aggression, right? It's about the ability to just attack every day and not let boredom and the, the audacity of it swallow you sometimes, which is, which is one of the difficult parts.

It's the most difficult part, is waking up and doing the same thing every single day. We know, you know, in training camp or just in the offseason, right, you're working out 4 times a week. Nobody's telling you— this is the crazy thing— nobody tells you you have to work out in offseason in the NFL, right? You don't have a coach next to you, you don't have a trainer that's, you know, position to you in your certain state or city when you go back home. You have to wake up every single day and go out and train, either hire a trainer or do it yourself. Most people, if you're smart, you'll hire a trainer, right? You don't want to do it yourself. But, um, there's a lot of guys that don't, and you see those guys fail during the season because they weren't working, they weren't doing the quote-unquote things that were a necessity to succeed in offseason.

Hmm, yeah, it makes total sense, that kind of monk-like discipline. Is, is key. Um, does sports team flow and skills acquired such as improv or creativity transfer to group flow for groups developing creative ideas, presumably within business? In other words, does the group flow from the football field translate to the group flow of the business world, do you think?

I do. I think that there's, there's definitely triggers in inside of of both, I think, that the shared risk component, you know, when you succeed, it goes up and I think the team becomes better. I think one big play can change an entire game and it takes that one person to go above and beyond what they normally could do to make that one play or just capitalize on the opportunity when it comes their way. And I think it's the same way when looking at business and at teams. You know, sometimes, you know, especially in groups you, you know, whether it's project management or some other group aspect, you have, you know, kind of the, the group dynamic, how, you know, one person leads the group and everybody maybe follows, and then you have the small little roles in inside that group. But, you know, it takes one person to step up and say something that somebody else may not have said that can completely change the way that group functions, or one person to maybe throw out an idea that no one was really thinking about, but then it builds upon another idea and that group now becomes more dynamic because of that communication. And that's obviously a main factor in group flow is open communication to where it's not frowned upon. And when you look at organizations, the top organizations that have open communication usually do much better than those that don't.

How do you deal with negative feedback?

I gotta, I guess, expand on that question. So is the negative feedback in terms of, you know, constructive criticism or Or is it, you know, negative feedback like, you suck, right? Those are two different things. Let's start with you suck. Yeah, um, you know, you suck is more of a, you know, you got to look at who, who's telling you that, right? Is it, is it your teammate saying you suck that wants your position? Um, a jealous, you know, employee that's telling you you suck to put you down so that you perform, um, at a level lower than them? Or is it a coach that's a tough coach, and, or, or, you know, we obviously shouldn't say you suck in the workplace, but a tough adversary that's telling you, hey, I know you can perform better, you need to step it up, right? And I look at that as constructive criticism. Anybody who's telling you, hey, I know you do better, you do better work than this, I know I expect better from you, I know you perform much higher than what you've been doing, um, what's the, what's the problem? I think a good leader is going to come to you and say, hey, I know this is COVID. I understand there's been some circumstances where you're not performing at the level which I know you've been performing. How can I help you? How can I be of service? How can I make you a little bit better? How can we make you a little bit more comfortable to where you can perform in this role? Because we like you, we want you around, we want you to succeed. I think those conversations are very different than, hey, you suck. Sometimes you have to look at the person and say, is this person someone that I really want in my life? If it's something that you have to tolerate, tolerate. Well, we have to work our way around that and figure out what the best solution is to approach the, uh, the situation.

What's the biggest leadership lesson you learned in sport that you apply now, or try to apply now?

I would say day one leadership, which is leading with yourself every day, and then also being a leader in terms of knowing that you're not the best at everything and being comfortable with that. I think some of, some of the best people that I've been around that, that lead organizations and, and teams understand that they're not great at everything, but they, they are great at that one thing, and they compensate on the things that they're not great at. Um, you know, we just talked about Tom Brady, and I want to keep referencing him, but we know Tom Brady is, is, is very slow. That guy— I know linemen that are faster than Tom Brady, to put it in perspective, right? But he doesn't try to run the ball. You know, he will if he has to, if it's a last resort, but he relies on everything else. He relies on his offensive line that is one of the best offensive lines in the NFL to block, right? He relies on his arm, he relies on his receivers to get open. And so understanding that you're not great at everything is okay. But I would say the main thing is leading yourself to a victory. And it starts with every day waking up and doing the things that you're supposed to do, right? Securing your oxygen mask first before you secure, uh, anybody, anybody else's, because you can't lead anybody until you can lead yourself.

Love that. One more rapid-fire one, and then I just want to do some parting words. Can you give a little breakdown of your daily habits and routines now versus 10 years ago, or, or let's say when you're, you know, mid, right in the bang smack in the middle of, you know, things NFL-wise. Sure.

Well, it's, it's very— it's obviously very different. I, I would say maybe looking at some of the things that are the same, because back then you're an elite athlete, you know. Now I don't have to be, you know, I don't have to tackle 250-pound guys anymore. Um, you know, I may punch a guy here and there when he's not doing what he's supposed to, but— but no, I'm kidding. But, uh, you know, I would say that the big thing is still the training aspect. I think a lot of times that— well, when I first got out of the NFL, I was like, I don't need to work out, I don't need to train, you know, I can, I can just wake up and go do what I need to do and I don't have to go to the gym, right? That was for football, right? And I started to realize it was like I would get burned out, I'd get tired, um, I wouldn't have as much energy as I once did. And I started working out, you know, I started going back to the gym, I started lifting weights, and it actually helped me. It made me more hungry. Gave me more creativity, gave me more energy. And so, um, once you start doing one small thing, then you start doing the next. And I started eating a little bit differently, stopped drinking as much, um, stopped all the, you know, the happy hours. You know, you go out, instead of having 2 or 3 drinks, you have 1, right? And so I would say one of the bigger things is, is the time I wake up, right? The time I try to get my diligent work done, which is, you know, I learned this from you guys is, you know, waking up right, right, right when you wake up, you go into work, right? So, you know, I know Stephen, as soon as he gets up, you know, everything's dark, computer's on, and he's typing away. Um, I kind of took that from Stephen. And so right when I wake up, I'm, you know, I wake up, I get water, and I go right to my desk and I start working from about 5 to 7. And, you know, since I've been doing that, I've been getting more work done, um, this year, especially during COVID I think, than ever before. Um, let me ask you a question, Brett, about that.

There's no outside world, right? You're on that— when you, when you go from like bed to desk and right into work, right, one of the biggest things is you're not checking yourself. You're not getting anything that's gonna mess with your emotions. Your emotions are not getting involved. They're just neutral, and you're sort of like sleepwalking, and you sort of wake up and you're like, oh, I'm working. Oh, okay, this is what I'll do. And I think that sort of like It's such a small thing, but like, especially times like COVID, have it be media fasting. Just saying, hey, for this little period of time, I'm not going to have an emotional reaction. Because the minute you're doing that, you're burning so much more energy, and it's taking away the focus of the writing. And I think that, like, that little emotional component, I think is so important to that habit, routine, whatever. I want to buy out now.

No, you're right, Steve. I mean, it's, it's critical to— it's been critical to my success this year is being able to work and not get into the ego. Because, you know, specifically, you know, me being an athlete, I've always had a challenge with, hey, are you, are you smart enough to do this? And, you know, that's, that's come with some of the, the confidence issues that I would have, the conversations that I have in my head. And you don't have those conversations at, you know, 4:30, 5 o'clock in the morning because your brain— you're not awake to even have those conversations yet. You're jumping into it and you're just like, okay, wow, okay. And then you're actually into that task.

And you know what's also, I think, that's interesting about this is important. We know this, there's just so much data. You wake up in the worst mood you're going to be in all day. Like, you will— like, those— that first hour, hour and a half, whatever your mood is actually still depressed, right, from sleep. And so you can't— like, it's gonna feel crappy no matter, you know what I mean? Like, if you actually bother to tune in, you're going to feel worse than you will the rest of the day. And if you couple that with outside things that are ping-ponging your emotions, it's very easy to start a slide that I don't think it's easy to back out of.

Sure. And that's why— is exactly why I don't talk. I don't talk to anybody before then. I don't check my phone. I don't check my emails. If I do any of that stuff, I'll do it— I'll do it from time to time if something's pressing, and then I'll go down that rabbit hole and I'll look at something I wasn't supposed to look at. And then now as I'm working, I'm thinking about handling that task, and I can't— I can't work. Um, it's huge.

Brett, I know you got to bounce, uh, and we're over the We're over the time, um, but just wanted to ask, uh, whether you've got any, any parting sentiments for the, for the Flow Research Collective, not community, team, collective, not, not community, right?

I, I just want to thank you guys for, for this platform. I think everything that you're doing is, is much needed, particularly during this time, and, uh, the, the world needs to understand how to leverage their, their their biology, right? And I know Stephen taught me this, you know, at Zero to Dangerous, but there's only 3 things that you can hack in your life. It's your mind, it's your body, and your craft. And anything else is irrelevant, right? And so just understanding the things that you need to focus on and the things that you can create in this life are really abundance, but it comes down to those 3 main elements, and amongst several other things. But I just want to thank you guys for what you've done, um, you know, advancing, you know, the study of flow, study of peak performance, bringing a collective of just top-notch individuals together to create impact. I mean, this thing is so special and I just wanna thank you guys for having me.

Where can folks find you and learn more? Sure. Before you jump.

Sure, yeah. So you can go to my website, it's just Brett Lockett, Brett with one T, Lockett with two,.com. And then you can find me on all the social channels, LinkedIn, Brett Lockett, and Twitter, or excuse me, Instagram @brett_lockett.

Yeah, thanks so much for coming on. We'll definitely, we'll definitely do this again. Absolutely.

Thank you. Thank you, guys. Thank you, Stephen. Always good to see you.

Great to see you. See you, brother. All right.

All the best.

Bye-bye.

Hey, it's Joshua with the production team. Question for you. When was the last time you were in the zone? When you were in so deep that afterward you were stunned by how much you got done, even though very little time had passed. Now you've got bold goals, yet you're slammed with work and you're short on time. Time. You know the heights of productivity you can achieve when you get into the zone because you've been there before, but it's a mild form of torture knowing how productive you're capable of being without access to that level of output all the time. So how do you get into the zone whenever you need it? There's still a lot that we don't know about flow states, but over the last 25 years of researching it, we've learned a lot, and we've shared our findings with thousands of high performers. You're in flow during those moments of total absorption when you're so focused on the task at hand that everything else disappears. Time passes strangely and performance just soars. I mean, motivation and productivity, creativity and innovation, learning and memory, cooperation and collaboration all skyrocket. In some studies, as high as 500% above baseline. Now imagine what you can accomplish if you could reliably increase your productivity by 5x. And the best part? Flow is accessible to everyone, anywhere, at any time. You don't need to pop a pill. You don't need to be surfing a monster wave. You don't need to meditate on a mountaintop for 10 years to get there. Flow is accessible to you right here, right now. If you'd like to amp up your productivity and get leverage on every second, go to getmoreflow.com. Just think of your 10 out of 10 days when you get more done in the morning than you typically do in a full day. Now imagine if you tapped into that level of performance with push-button consistency every day. All this is possible when you trigger flow frequently and reliably. Just go to getmoreflow.com to unblock your flow and unlock peak performance.

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