Winning With Flow: How Top Performers Use Flow To Win Against All Odds with Tim Grover

—You know, one of the things we do talk about in winning is like, hey, listen, you don't want to manage time, you want to manage focus. Because when you manage time, you run out of time. When you manage focus, you actually have more time within a particular day or within a particular time because when you focus and you're competing for something, you don't constantly look at the clock. You're able to produce more results. You know, when you talk about the flow state, people have no idea when they're locked into that zone. They don't know if they've been in there for a minute or they've been in it for 6 hours. That's ability to manage that focus and not worry about time so much. 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, Ryan Dorris, and together with bestselling author Steven Kotler, I present to you Flow Research Collective Radio. Tim Grover, welcome to Flow Research Collective Radio. It's absolutely great to have you here.

Oh, it's an honor to be here. Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you for taking time out of your schedule to have me on your show.

My pleasure, my pleasure. So one of my favorite quotes from your book Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable was, in order to have what you really want, you must first be who you really are. Would love to get a bit of a breakdown on what you meant with that quote.

Well, you know what, I always say this, the amount of energy individuals put into being something they're not. Imagine if you put that energy into being your true self, into who you really are, into accepting your flaws, accepting your strengths, understanding your weaknesses, making them better, instead of living a life through, you know, different filters or the way other people want you to act, the way they want you to do things. You're out there trying to portray something that you're not for somebody that you don't even really like, you don't care about, you don't want to spend time with them, but you don't want to be judged by an individual that you don't even know that really doesn't have any bearing on your success and how you should live your life. So, in order to have what you want, you have to know exactly who you are. And those individuals that know exactly who they are understand what makes them great, what makes them vulnerable. They understand how to use their flaws. They accept all parts of themselves. They accept the good, the bad, the insecurities, the fears, the doubts, everything that, everything that comes with it. And they work on those things to get better. When you try to be something that you're not, you try to hide all those things all the time so nobody can actually see them. But the person that you end up hiding them from the most is actually yourself.

I'm curious, Tim, how did Michael Jordan or Kobe or Dwyane Wade embody that, or did they, when you were working with them?

Oh, no, they all did. I mean, listen, you had these individuals— if anybody ever got a chance to see The Last Dance, you know, you got to see Michael's personality and the way he practiced, the way he played games, and that's how he was. You know, he was this competitive individual in everything he did, not apologetic for things that he didn't need to apologize for. You know, you have individuals that don't know who they are. They're constantly apologizing for things they didn't even do. They're apologizing for making themselves better, for other people not understanding what their goals are and how driven they are. And these individuals, they were like, listen, this is what I want. Out of this team. This is what I want out of myself. And I'm never going to ask you to do something that I won't do myself. And even Kobe, you know, he— these guys weren't quote unquote great teammates in the sense where they were uplifting individuals. They give individuals accolades for doing things that they were supposed to do. These individuals went out there, and their number one priority was to win, was to make themselves better, was to make the individuals around them better because in order to win that ultimate prize, which was a championship, they needed everyone to elevate their games. So in order for them to do that, they had to understand who their leader was all the time. Not some of the time, but all the time. And did it alienate some people? Exactly. It did. You know, even some of the players said, listen, were there times where These individuals crossed the line. They did. They did. But after years and years, they got a chance to understand that they were actually making these individuals better. I always say, you know, you look at— everyone needs that thorn in their side. And once you miss that thorn, you're kind of like, yeah, I wish I kind of had it back. In the other book, Winning, I talk about how a rose, you know, which everyone considers a very beautiful flower, actually lives longer with its thorns. When you cut the thorns off, you decrease the life of the flower. So when you take away these individuals that hold you accountable, that know exactly who they are, that want to get the best out of you, people think those are thorns in their side, and they actually are, but they actually bring you closer to the life that you, that you want because they're constantly pushing you, they're constantly pulling you, they're constantly elevating you, they're constantly holding you accountable. And isn't that what we all want?

It's interesting that not apologizing was a common thread you noticed. So what was it that allowed them to be forgiven by other teammates for crossing lines or not being very apologetic or being kind of brash? It's the end result.

It was, you know, they know they were pushing themselves and pushing the other individuals to that end result. I mean, you look at all those, and you don't notice it. You may not notice it that day of practice. You may not notice it a month from now. You may not notice it until 3 years after you retire. But when you look back and you see everything that was accomplished and how it was accomplished, you understand why they were unapologetic. I mean, listen, they were apologetic about certain things, but they weren't apologetic for calling somebody out when they weren't practicing hard, when they were doing— when they did stuff that they weren't supposed to do in practice, when they weren't prepared for the games, when they were afraid to take a shot. Just different things that people want to get noticed for doing the things that they're supposed to do. These individuals will notice you for going beyond the things that you were supposed to do, and that's how you elevate everybody's individual. You don't apologize. If a team plays great defense, all right, you're supposed to play great defense. That's part of winning basketball. If you do an exceptional play, they will let you know that you did that exceptional play. And then when you got an accolade from those individuals, you know you really, really earned it. And that, for all the times they weren't apologetic, that one accolade that you did and the one time where they came in and they noticed that exceptional work you did, it's a feeling you can't describe.

That's interesting. That makes sense because in general, praise causes a behavior to be repeated, but repeating praise itself excessively decreases the power of praise and the extent to which you can use it as a tool to have positive impactful behavior be replicated. So I like that notion of kind of using praise, but doing so strategically for real things that are above base.

Yeah. You know, it's funny. We get— there's so many clichés out there and these things drive me crazy that all these clichés out there that people want to get, they want to get rewarded for doing things that you're supposed to do. You know, how about this one that says, you know, showing up is half the battle? No, showing up is none of the battle. So you're looking for a praise for just for showing up. You're supposed to show up. You got to show up to whatever you're supposed to do. You got to go. If you don't show up, you can never grow. How many people hide from the things that they need to be showing up for? And if showing up is half the battle, you're not ready for the real battle.

What were the daily routines like of the likes of Jordan or Kobe? One of the big things we do at the Flow Research Collective in our work with executive teams, Tim, is help people build systems and routines for their lives that cause peak performance and increased access to flow state. And I know it would be of great interest to our listeners to get a sense for what an hour-to-hour breakdown in the life of a Jordan or a Kobe is during training season.

Well, you know what they did was they controlled as much of the controllable as they can. So, once they had those controlled, they were able to be more in a flow state as you would call it or be in the zone or clarity, whatever you want to call it, to be able to deal with the uncontrollable. So, the games were so uncontrollable. You didn't know, you don't know what's gonna go on in the game, you know, how the opponent is gonna be, what's going on in the arena. So, a lot of those things are not controlled. So, you try to control as many things as you can before that. So, the preparation actually starts, you know, they always had whatever thought they went to sleep with, I always just tell them, whatever thought you, the last thought you go to sleep with is the first thought you're gonna wake up with. So we always may say, hey, what thought are you going to go to bed with? I'm not going to tell you what thought. I'm not going to tell you to think positive. I don't do— I'm not that— I'm not that person that says, hey, you got to go to sleep with a thought. But whatever thought you're going to go to sleep with on that night, remember, that's the first thing that— that's going to— what's going to manifest through the night, and that's going to be the first thing that's probably going to pop in your mind. Just understand that. So I kind of gave these individuals freedom to kind of create their mental and physical routine. You know, we controlled what they ate on game day. We controlled what they ate on non-game day, the times that they worked out, how they handled tickets. All their practice stuff was already laid out. What they were going to dress for the game was already taken care of. So they didn't have to think about those things. The nap times and, you know, the times to themselves was extremely important. What time they got to the arena, what time they left home, how they watched film. So we tried to control as many, many things as we possibly could that allowed to create clarity for these individuals. You know, Michael and Kobe were both individuals that love to work out on game days. So part of their routine was they got up extremely early and they worked out on game days. They actually went through a whole training regimen on game day. And we did it early in the morning so they would have enough time for them to recover before the game. Dwyane wasn't an early morning person. He wanted to sleep in. So we would arrive— for him, his preparation from a training standpoint started when he got to the arena. He used to get to the arena an hour and a half before everyone else did, and we'd go through our rituals over there. You know, I know how people love to hear about different routines and they try to implement somebody else's routine into their lives and into their success. You can take what you need and throw out the rest. So, if you need to take a lot of things from different individuals that allow you to excel and allow you to create a routine that's beneficial to you, a routine that's gonna allow you to win, not a routine that's gonna allow you to be in a comfort zone all the time. And that's when you get boring, that's when you get stagnant. So, one of the things we always did was, Yeah, we had a special routine, but there was always a challenge in that routine in that day. There was always something to figure out to keep themselves going. You know, the workout might have changed a little bit, or the mental preparation games that we'd play might have changed a little bit. Something just to make sure things weren't, weren't getting stale and weren't getting boring. Makes total sense.

Yeah, really important to have the optimal challenge level baked into your day consistently so that you're not pushing so hard that you're snapping, but you're not on the other end of the spectrum and, you know, staying stagnant or anything like that. Was it more push or pull for Jordan and Kobe and some of these folks in terms of their motivation source?

It was push, pull, stand next to, get in front, on top. They did it all. You know, one of the big things that Michael said in The Last Dance, he goes, you know, he goes, I didn't push me. He goes, I I pulled them. He goes, I pulled them closer to me so they could see what the work ethic was, what I did, how I prepared, because everybody looks to push individuals. And what happens when you push individuals, you actually create distance between yourself and that individual that you're trying to elevate. When you pull an individual closer to you, you close that gap between yourself and that individual. You close that space between those two individuals and you allow them into an area that's much more private. So both of them, yeah, they did push a lot, but for the special individuals, they knew when to pull individuals in and be able to make that distinction of, hey, when do I need to push this individual away to the point where, hey, I want to see you be this individual and let me see you perform on your own. But they would never do that till they pull that individual in and nurtured them and taught them and explained them to them things to the point where they could push them away. You know, it's kind of the adage of birds or eagles, or the mother comes in and what she does is she brings them food, she nurtures them, she brings them close to them. And then when it's time for them to grow up and it's time for them to expand, it's time for them to open up their own wings and fly, what does she do? She pushes them away. So that was the same kind of mentality that these individuals have, and that's the same kind of mentality that I've always used.

And when it comes to work ethic, Could you talk a little bit about what that was like for them? Was it a grind or were they just in love with the work and the process itself, or was it both?

Or what would that look like? That's a great question. So I always say, listen, crave the end result so the work becomes irrelevant. So what they did was they practiced so hard so the games became easy. The games became easy. No one liked to practice. No one liked to do the wind sprints and do all the different things. Things, but they knew they could not not do those things. So yes, it was a constant grind, but they didn't need motivation. They were self-motivated. These individuals were more into elevating themselves. You know, I always say motivation is entry level. If you're still motivated, if you're trying to get motivated, that doesn't mean— that means you don't know what you really want, what you're trying to get, what you're trying to get. These individuals were looking for elevation. I never had to raise my voice at these individuals. And the important thing about grinding was, and I talk about this in the new book, Winning, is people always say, man, I'm grinding, I'm grinding, I'm grinding. But what happens if you take an object and you constantly grind it? If you're just grinding it, grinding it, grinding it, it turns into dust. It evaporates. It's just gone. So they knew when they were grinding what form that grind was gonna take. So if they were taking something and they were grinding it, they were grinding themselves, They knew what form internal and externally they were trying to portray, they were trying to make themselves into. You know, it's like a block, it's like, you know, an ice sculpture. It's just a big old block and what do you do? You take away the unessentials, you grind away the unessentials until it forms this beautiful sculpture of what it is. So with these individuals, yeah, there was a constant grind, but they knew exactly what they were grinding for. And they know exactly the sculpture they were working on to make themselves these exceptional athletes and exceptional human beings. And then from a process standpoint, they knew they had to do the process. So the process wasn't something that was— I won't say it wasn't relevant to them, but they knew you have to do the process. All right? Even if you do the process, the end result may not be guaranteed. But you still have to do the process. You know, I know other people that says, you know, oh, you gotta love the process. You gotta love— if you love what you do, you've never worked a day in your life. I've never met one individual that loves 100% of what they do. They just don't. But they really, when they crave that end result so much, they know what to grind for. They know how to grind because they can see and visualize what that championship form is going to be.

What was the end result that was so motivating? Was it, was it straight up winning? Was it the sense of satisfaction around the milestones that happen daily through the process, like nailing an amazing training session? Was it camaraderie? What was that end result?

It was, it was, it was all about the end result of winning. It was all about the championship. Let's They knew the workouts were going to be tough. They knew that. They knew they had to get through the workouts. Obviously, there were some milestones here and there, you know, when they were able to do things that they weren't able to do before. But that wasn't the end result for them. They knew they had to reach that milestone and reach that part in order to get closer to winning. Winning doesn't have any loyalty to them. They knew that whatever they did the year before, even if they won the year before, that it was going to be so much harder to get back to winning again. So yeah, you know what, there were times where they looked at each other and they acknowledged each other for doing things, but they were like, we're expected to do these things. We're expected to get better. We're expected to push ourselves. We're expected to elevate our teammates. We're expected to get up and do the things that everybody else wants to get rewarded for it. You know, you get individuals now that just like, you know, I beat the sun up. All right, that's great. You beat the sun up. Nice. Now, what are you doing while— during that time when the sun— before the sun comes up? So people want accolades for doing things that like, all right, you know what? Yeah, you did. But what's the end result? And they all did set individual goals, but they set individual goals that knew if they reach these individual goals, it would enhance their abilities, the team abilities, and get them closer to that win.

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What's interesting is that the winning orientation sounds like extrinsic motivation, yet there was obviously some kind of intrinsic motivation to keep going even after winning. So I'm curious what you think the intrinsic drivers were there because, you know, all of these folks kept playing after winning. So there's got to be, there's got to be something intrinsic that's continuing to fuel them.

Well, you know, the feeling that they got from those wins, they only knew they could get from those wins again. And it's a constant, you know, it was a constant battlefield that was going on in their mind on how can I get better, how can we improve here, how can I have this feeling again. Because with each win, they became more and more confident. In order to get more confidence, they needed to win again, and they knew that whatever they did before, it wasn't going to be good enough. It was funny, after every single win, after every single championship, we'd always get together and the words they would say, what's next? What can I do to get better? Because if I come back exactly the same, I'm not going to have this feeling again. "So it was that intrinsic stuff to like, I want to be here again. The view from the top, the view from this championship, I want to experience this numerous times over and over again." And they knew they had to gamble on themselves. And they understood that in order to be this champion, it was going to create some imbalances in their life. There had to be a point where they were going to be selfish. And they always did something that was extremely important. After each win, after each championship, they always went back to where they started. They went back to the fundamentals. They went back. They were like, okay, this is over with. I might have been the best player on my team this year, but now I'm just like everybody else. And so I have to outwork everyone. Not only do I have to work harder, I got to work smarter. What can I do to take better care of myself physically? What can I do to take care of myself mentally? So they will constantly have these conversations with themselves and understand that in order to keep winning, I need to continue to acknowledge these conversations. I need to continue to have answers. I need to surround myself with people that are just determined and obsessed as we are and that allow me to focus in on my craft and don't create those different distractions.

Funnily enough, just yesterday, a friend was telling me about some of the most advanced people he knows in business and saying that the reason they're advanced is simply because they never don't do the basics. Which I thought was such a good simple way to put it. I'll give you a great story.

Michael Jordan, as a professional athlete, not in high school, not in college, as a professional athlete, started every single practice with a chest pass, with a basic chest pass. Now you're talking about the best basketball player to ever play. And every single practice, he wasn't out, then didn't go out there and dunk and didn't go out and do, you know, just do all these the fantastic moves that he's known for, shoot jump shots or do all this stuff, something even more basic than a free throw, a chest pass, a chest pass. Dwyane, Kobe, Michael, all the other individuals that I've worked with, they were so obsessed with mastering the fundamentals. They had to master the fundamentals. And they understood that like, hey, listen, before I can become great, before I can become this unstoppable individual, Every single year, I have to make sure I've mastered average. And once I've mastered and caught average, then I need to catch and master good. Once I can do that, then I can start chasing greatness. Everybody always says, I just wanna start chasing greatness right away. Well, if you don't have the basics and you don't have the fundamentals every single year, you're never gonna close that gap between average and great. That's what those individuals do. And, you know, it's a great example. I'm talking about from a sports standpoint, but also from the business clients that I work with, it's the same thing. That's what routines are about. Routines create that foundation. They create that base, you know, in football, basketball, baseball, you know, that foundation base of how you place your feet is so important to your success. It's the same way in business.

Yeah, I think people assume that the way to progress is by getting into greater levels of complexity or sophistication or nuance, but in reality, the, the things that produce the results are the fundamentals, you know. And in business, a simple example is really doubling down on quality of communication or management or leadership versus toying with very complex, seemingly sophisticated strategies based on whatever it may be, market dynamics or otherwise. It's a really good principle, I think, to know that the fundamentals will always be disproportionately impactful for whatever it is that you're trying to achieve and what the fundamentals are within that discipline or area. It also reminds me of the notion of deliberate practice and Anders Ericsson's work on deliberate practice and the power of identifying fundamentals and training them consistently, intentionally, repeatedly with a focus on improvement and conscious effort. And his core idea in Erickson's work and research is that repetition alone does not necessitate improvement. You have to actually bake in more sophisticated mechanisms to the repetition, like feedback, for example, in order to actually improve. And I imagine that is something else that you witnessed, was that there's, there's a very high level of intentionality and a very significant emphasis on being deliberate when practicing and attempting to master the fundamentals. Yes, exactly.

I mean, listen, everything these individuals do, everything I know with high successful individuals, the high achievers, and not just in, you know, I'm not just talking about financially, I'm talking about whatever they do, everything is done for a reason. Everything is done for a person. They're just not out there, they're not out there winging it. You know, it's funny, you get these individuals and you'll ask them a question and they'll say, they say, I guess, I don't need you to guess. I need you to know. I can guess on my own. So these individuals that we're talking about that have the purpose and have that identity, that know what their foundation is, that know what their fundamentals are, and know how to achieve those things and how to implement those things to constantly continue to get better and better and better, and know that when things don't work, you can always go back to the, the fundamentals. You can always go back to the basics, and if those are so strong, you'll be able to overcome anything.

Did you find that these individuals' ability to access the zone or flow state was greater than others? And if so, were there any common patterns there?

Yes. So, you know, what we tried to do is— obviously, to me, the flow state is all about Being able to create clarity. That's about being able to create clarity. It's about knowing that trigger that puts you in the zone and that allows you that flow state, allows you to stay in there for a long period of time and knowing how to deal with chaos while you're in that flow state. So we used to, a lot of times in practice, we used to create mental chaos. We used to create distractions. We used to kind of, while they were fatigued, we would give them stuff also to challenge their minds. So when they were in a game or when they were in a high-level competitive state, while everybody else was understanding or trying to look around to see everything that was going on, these individuals were able to block out all the distractions, stay ultra-focused, and stay in that flow state. And also, know their triggers, you know, either have a phrase or have a thought or something that allowed them to create that clarity over and over again. And one of the things that about these individuals, and I'd be interested to know about, you know, your high achievers from a business standpoint, I know mine are, that the more adversity they had that would come in their lives at certain times, the more they were able to put themselves in the flow state. They were able to separate those things. They actually fed off of different stuff that was going on, whether it be in their personal life, whether it be something that happened in practice or whatever it was, they were able to use that energy to take their performance level up to an even higher level. You know, example of you see an athlete whose health isn't— who may be under the flu or whatever it is or have a you know, a nagging injury, and they end up playing some of their best sports during that time. Well, that's their ability to block those distractions out, be able to eliminate that chaos because they've worked on those things to be able to deal with chaotic situations.

Yeah, we definitely see a similar pattern there. There's a lot of great research on post-traumatic growth. And the idea that trauma or adversity in certain individuals and in certain circumstances causes a spike in growth. The other concept that I personally really like from the philosopher Nassim Taleb is the idea of antifragility, which is the idea that you ideally are not just robust, meaning that you recover from adversity, but you're antifragile, meaning that you actually benefit and become stronger from adversity or disorder. And I think that, that is definitely the case for high performers as well. It's a, it's a chance to, to level up and adapt and move into an overreaching phase and get even better, faster, stronger, whatever, whatever the primary focus is. What are some of the things, Tim, in terms of routines, practices, habits over the years that come to mind most when thinking about what drives people into flow?

Well, being able to separate, being able to, you know what I said earlier, being able to separate things. They don't take something that's going on at home with them to practice, to the game. They don't take something that's going on that happened at the game or happened at practice at home with them. They have the ability to have this— I would say my greatest athletes, my greatest competitors, my most successful business people, they have the shortest memories. If something bad happens, they miss a shot, they made a bad business move, they just, they forget about it. They don't think about it. They don't forget about it, but they don't constantly think about it. Because to me, thinking, if you're in the moment and you're thinking, You're not in the moment. Thinking can be a distraction. You know, you don't think in a flow state. The flow state, you just flow. When you're in the zone, you just flow. You've done years and years of thinking not to be able to think. So that constant preparation of what we talked about earlier, of doing those things over and over and over again so you didn't have to think about them. You know, with the athletes, They knew if they could get to a certain spot on the basketball court, it didn't matter if they could see the basket or not. They had taken that shot so many times that whether they could see the basket, whether they could hear anything going on with all the fans that were yelling, they knew that, hey, I've taken this shot so many times, I've thought about this shot so many times, I literally don't have to think about it anymore. So it's a constant preparation, it's a constant repetition of doing, doing the fundamentals, doing the basics over and over again, and be able to be in the moment. Be in the moment. You know, a lot of times you have individuals that they're present but they're not in the moment. They are always in the moment. So when they're in practice, they're at practice. When they're at the games, they're at games. When they're with their family, they're with their family. When they're watching film, they're watching film. You know, when they're sleeping, they're recovering, they're sleeping. So their ability to separate those things and be in those moments and be able to jump from those moments very easily allowed them to create that flow state as part of their routine. And we all know how difficult it is to get into that flow state and stay in there. But we've all experienced it. We've all experienced it. No, it makes total sense.

Love that. Definitely aligns with a lot of the research and the work that we do. In your new book, Winning, what have you been most surprised about from what readers have told you about their experience of reading the book since it's come out? What has been different than you thought in terms of people's main takeaway or the lessons they've learned or the insights they've had as a result of reading it?

Well, one of the things was everyone is saying no one's ever described winning in the way we described it. We made winning, whether it be a person, an object, a spirit, a ghost, whatever it may be, and we talked about topics that nobody else was willing to talk about. You know, we get— we talked about the real language of winning. You know, I asked my individuals, I was like, hey, listen, describe winning in one way, in one word. And everybody, you know, everybody would say it's great, it's euphoric, you know, it's outstanding, all this other stuff. And then you ask the top competitors and the words they came up with was like, it's uncivilized, it's hard, it's nasty, it's unpolished, it's dirty, it's rough, you know, it's uninhibiting. And then Kobe Bryant said, hey, winning is everything. It's everything. The way it makes him feel, the way it makes his family feel, the way it makes others feel when he won, the way it made him feel when other people won. So way to describe what winning act— you spend more time in the hard, the nasty, the unpolished, the dirty, and the rough trying to get to winning than you actually do in the euphoric state of happiness, bliss, joy, whatever you want to call it. And then, you know, we also talk about, you know, when you win, you know, winning makes you different and how different scares people. How, you know, the more you win, the more likely you're gonna get isolated, the more likely you're gonna— individuals aren't gonna understand your drive. They're not gonna understand your work ethic. You know, they're gonna come up to you and tell you, hey, they're gonna try to get these bombs in your mind to constantly go off. You know, said, oh, you need to relax. You need to take your time. You're working too hard. You got no chance on doing this. So it was just different topics. You know, listen, you need to gamble on yourself. And then, you know, winning isn't heartless, but you'll end up using your heart less in certain situations where when you want to get to winning, most of the decisions, your mind has to be stronger than your feelings. You have to make decisions with your mind and not with your heart. And the one thing that really, that I described in a way nobody else described was, you know, there is no balance. Winning wants all of you. And, you know, everybody talks about you have to have balance in your life. You have to have balance in your life. When you're chasing those wins, you can't have a perfectly balanced life. It's, you know, once you get to those wins over and over again, those individuals always describe winning as, oh, you know, I've had, I had balance in my life now. Well, you didn't have balance back then. And a lot of individuals were like, you know, wow, I just, I knew this, but no one really told me this is how it was gonna be. The scales are definitely gonna be tipped. You just have to decide on how bad those scales are gonna be tipped and to what degree. Winning is unapologetic. It is, it's unapologetic. It's not easy. It's selfish. It's selfish. You know, you have to be selfish. You have to take care of yourself. You know, it's funny when the more you try to win, you know, people try to say, oh, you know, he or she is so selfish. Well, the more you take care of yourself, the more you can give to other individuals. The more you win, the more you'll be able to demand of others. The more you'll be able to show other people how to win, the more you'll be able to share those wins with you, with yourself, and with other individuals.

Two follow-up questions to that. One is, um, One is, what do you see the point of winning as? And two is, do you think that it is a path to happiness or is that not necessarily the goal?

Well, you know what? It's a path to happiness for that moment. Everyone's trying to find happiness. You don't find happiness, you create it. You know, there's been individuals here, let's— who've, after they've sold their businesses or after their careers are over with, where they don't have something to compete for anymore at that highest level or they don't have that next win, you know, destructive behavior can happen. But you look at the most competitive individuals out here, you know, Michael's shoes are still the number one selling shoes and he hasn't been on a basketball court in, you know, I don't know how many years. Even after, you know, Kobe retired, you know, God rest his soul, he went on and won Oscars and was, you know, doing unbelievable things in business and the part of his His joy was, you know, coaching his daughter's AAU team. So, you have to decide on what level of happiness and what it means to you. For these competitive individuals, there is a level of internal winning that does bring you that satisfaction and joy that nothing else, nothing else can give.

Yeah. That's interesting. One of the things we've been looking at a little bit at the Flow Research Collective is whether or not competition itself is a trigger for flow. And what, what I think of when you describe that is that there's an element of attempting to win, which is competition, and which drives flow, which we know is inherently meaningful and, you know, joy-creating. So that potentially is, is part of it, that, you know, when you try and win, you get into flow, and flow is inherently satisfying and meaningful. Competition, competing gives you a purpose.

It gives you a purpose. You may not get that end result, but it allows you to stay, it puts you, it brings you closer to that flow state. As you said, it allows you to focus in on things and it allows you to dedicate your time to the things that matter, to the things that you want to compete for. You know, one of the things we do talk about in winning is like, hey, listen, You don't want to manage time, you want to manage focus. Because when you manage time, you run out of time. When you manage focus, you actually have more time within a particular day or within a particular time because when you focus and you're competing for something, you don't constantly look at the clock. You're able to produce more results. You know, when you talk about the flow state, people have no idea when they're locked into that zone. They don't know if they've been in there for a minute or they've been in it for 6 hours. That's ability to manage that focus and not worry about time so much.

Yeah, that's one of the paradoxical things about it as well, is that the being outcome-oriented and goal-oriented by focusing on winning actually drives you into a state where you get to forget the outcome and be more present, which is one of the really interesting things about, about flow and just how it works.

All my athletes always, always said— what did Michael say? He goes, I got, I got a competition problem. I'm extremely competitive. These individuals were extremely, extremely competitive. You look at your top business individuals, I know mine are, they're extremely competitive no matter what, you know, no matter what they do. I mean, you got these ultra-billionaires now and they're all competing to see who could do the biggest thing in space the fastest.

Right, right, right, right, exactly. Largely, I think in many cases at least, because yeah, for the love of it, for the love of attempting to win. Exactly. Tim, any final thoughts you'd like to share or advice you'd like to give to our audience before we wrap up here?

Listen, the only thing I would like to tell them is like, listen, as Kobe said, winning is everything. I want— I tell individuals, do everything, experience everything, feel it. Winning is everywhere. It's everywhere. It's every day. Go recognize it. Go feel what a win looks like. Go, go chase it. It's everywhere. It's there every single minute. And don't look for the easy way to do it because everybody looks for— one of the things when I wrote the book Winning, everybody was telling you have to have steps in it. You have to have steps in it. And because everybody, you know, they want 5 easy steps or 10 steps to this. Those steps are infinite. Those steps are infinite. They're constantly shifting. You don't know if you have to walk up those steps. You don't know if you have to run up those steps. You don't know even if the step is going to be there. But if you trust yourself, if you trust what the work that you've put in, if you trust the preparation, if you believe in yourself, going back to the first thing that we talked about, knowing exactly who you are, you'll be able to experience those wins over and over and over again because they are there. They are there. And they are as insignificant as they may seem to other individuals, they're so significant to get you to whatever your ultimate win may be. And your ultimate win is your ultimate win. It doesn't have to be anybody else's ultimate win. That's your win. That's for you to decide. And all of this is talked about in our book Winning.

Nice. Well, great, Tim. Thank you so much for your time. Appreciate it. And yeah, great to hear about all the wisdom you've gathered from working with some of the greatest performers in history, I would argue. Thank you.

Continued success. Yeah, I love the research and everything you guys do. I kind of— it helps me with my preparation.

Nice. Good. Well, that's good to hear. We love hearing that. So appreciate it, Tim. Thanks, Mel, and all the best.

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. And 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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