Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, where we give you insights into the mind, brain, behavior,
Speaker 1: and creativity. Each episode will feature a new guest who
Speaker 1: will stimulate your mind and give you a greater understanding
Speaker 1: of yourself, others, and the world we live in. Hopefully
Speaker 1: we'll also provide a glimpse into human possibility. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening and enjoy the podcast. But right now I'm really
Speaker 1: excited to introduce my guests for today, the writer Brad
Speaker 1: Stolberg and the high performance coach Steve Magnus, who are
Speaker 1: authors of the new book Peak Performance Elevate your Game,
Speaker 1: avoid burnout, and thrive with the New Science of Success.
Speaker 1: Thanks for chatting with me today, guys, Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for having us. Yeah, thanks for your patience. We have
Speaker 1: been so backed up on the podcast, but I'm excited
Speaker 1: to finally get a chance to talk to you guys.
Speaker 1: Your book has been out now for how long you
Speaker 1: guys are thinking about that? Yeah? So three months? About ten?
Speaker 1: It launched in June? So yeah, three months? And how
Speaker 1: you guys feeling about it? Like, are you happy with
Speaker 1: the responses you've received? What are your thoughts on it.
Speaker 1: It's a big deal putting a book out in the world.
Speaker 1: I know, yeah, for sure. You know, we're trying to
Speaker 1: practice what we preach, which is to focus on the
Speaker 1: things that we could control and not spend too much
Speaker 1: time worrying about the things that we can't. And I
Speaker 1: keep on telling myself that as a mantra. But man,
Speaker 1: it's hard to practice what you preach. Like the first
Speaker 1: day of the book came out, Steve and I were
Speaker 1: on the East Coast doing book tour stuff, and we
Speaker 1: both said that we're going to go for a run
Speaker 1: the morning with the book launched, and not bring our
Speaker 1: phones and not check notifications. And then somehow we convinced
Speaker 1: ourselves that it would be okay to bring our phones.
Speaker 1: And the next thing, you know, we're sitting there like
Speaker 1: on a treadmill because it's raining, scrolling through our phone
Speaker 1: checking the Amazon rank. And you know, looking back it
Speaker 1: this being the first big book that both of us
Speaker 1: have launched together, I think it's hard to resist those things.
Speaker 1: But man, at the end of that first week, you
Speaker 1: kind of look back and like this was really stupid,
Speaker 1: Like I didn't need to stress about it. It's along
Speaker 1: with a way of saying we're feeling pretty good, good good.
Speaker 1: Did you want to add anything to that, Steve, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's kind of funny. You never know
Speaker 1: quite what to expect when you release a book, because
Speaker 1: it's like you have you think it's good, you have
Speaker 1: your or close colleagues and friends who think it's good.
Speaker 1: But like seeing what other people think and seeing like
Speaker 1: hearing critiques of your work from people you have no
Speaker 1: idea and never heard of, never seen before, is something else.
Speaker 1: So it's it's just nice to finally have it out
Speaker 1: in the real world and see what we did really
Speaker 1: well and then see what you know we could maybe
Speaker 1: improve on for next time. Have you guys been getting
Speaker 1: critiques really? What are some of the major critiques you've
Speaker 1: gotten so far? That's interesting. So I think a lot
Speaker 1: of positive reinforcement on how we were able to tie
Speaker 1: ideas together from traditionally siloed domains, and that's something that
Speaker 1: we set out to do to try to bridge different
Speaker 1: areas of knowledge and then bridge different areas of skill.
Speaker 1: You know, one area in particular, and listeners of your
Speaker 1: podcast might be the ones that are critiquing us, is
Speaker 1: the science of willpower. So as we were writing the book,
Speaker 1: some of those ego depletion studies were failing to replicate,
Speaker 1: and Steve and I tend to look at willpower and
Speaker 1: maybe we'll get into this more later. Is the basic takeaways.
Speaker 1: It's really hard to do a lot of hard stuff
Speaker 1: at once, and there's benefits to pacing yourself and developing habits.
Speaker 1: But that science was changing throughout the process of writing
Speaker 1: the book, and then even as the book was being published,
Speaker 1: and we did our best to hedge against that changing science.
Speaker 1: But the people who studied willpower from one standpoint loved it,
Speaker 1: and then from another standpoint kind of hopped on us.
Speaker 1: You know, we nerdy scientists can get lost in the weeds,
Speaker 1: and I'm afraid this might be an example of getting
Speaker 1: lost in the weeds, because you know, the phenomenon is
Speaker 1: really not in doubt. You know. The phenomenon is this.
Speaker 1: You know, when you exert extend your willpower, you're trying
Speaker 1: to like really hard to exert self control over something
Speaker 1: it actually for in the future, you know, like following that,
Speaker 1: it makes it harder to exert self control over something else,
Speaker 1: you know, So you know, I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I've got a fast, I'm not going to do the cookie,
Speaker 1: but I always then like sports and have fifty cookies
Speaker 1: because I've done that somehow. Yeah, so the basic behavioral
Speaker 1: pattern exists. What all these papers that are going back
Speaker 1: and forth is like they're trying to understand the mechanism.
Speaker 1: Now in a lot of ways. I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: you care about the mechanism so that you can have
Speaker 1: an intervention, the proper interment. You want to know what
Speaker 1: is the right intervention that'll really help with this. But
Speaker 1: in another sense, you also are helping people by just
Speaker 1: making them aware that they are more likely to have
Speaker 1: certain outcomes following prior outcomes that in itself without understanding
Speaker 1: the mechanism is useful information, right exactly. And you know
Speaker 1: I come at it from an athletic background, and I
Speaker 1: look at it similar to fatigue. Right If I go
Speaker 1: run a race, I know at some point I'm going
Speaker 1: going to get tired, like it happens. If you look
Speaker 1: at the exercise science research, it's debated on how that occurs.
Speaker 1: Is it like the muscle failing? Is it glycogen depletion?
Speaker 1: Is that the brain and the central governor shutting things down?
Speaker 1: And the reality is like no one knows at this point.
Speaker 1: But if I'm trying to run a race, like it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter, right, I'm trying to figure out methods in
Speaker 1: ways to resist that fatigue so that I can finish
Speaker 1: that race faster, and a lot of ways I see
Speaker 1: willpower in some of these other scientific issues where I
Speaker 1: think we lose. It's like you said, we lose a
Speaker 1: horse from the trees a little bit and get caught up. Yes,
Speaker 1: there's debate over like these details and mechanisms, but for
Speaker 1: those outside of our little corner of like scientific research, nerdism,
Speaker 1: like that doesn't have practical impact for those people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, regardless if it's my glucose depletion or you know,
Speaker 1: all the myriad other alternatives that could potentially explain it.
Speaker 1: I you know, like regardless, Like it still matters that
Speaker 1: I've been depleted, Like, it doesn't change the fact that
Speaker 1: I've been depleted, regardless of how it came about. But
Speaker 1: from a scientific perspective, I think it's good for us
Speaker 1: to discover what those mechanisms are so we can really
Speaker 1: target them. I do think there's value there. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it must be hard to try to keep up, you know,
Speaker 1: you're juggling so many things at the same time when
Speaker 1: you're writing this kind of book, right, because you're juggling
Speaker 1: all the competing theories, but you're also trying to say
Speaker 1: something that's practical. Did you have your received any other
Speaker 1: criticisms other than the ego depletion one that was the
Speaker 1: main one, Steve, this is Brad here, Steve, anything else
Speaker 1: kind of come your way? Yeah, I mean those were
Speaker 1: the main things. I think everyone has like little quibbles
Speaker 1: here and here and there with things, but I think
Speaker 1: it's like that's all personal tastes, Like you're never going
Speaker 1: to write a book that is a perfect fit for everyone.
Speaker 1: But by and large, like the reception has been great,
Speaker 1: and it's just those probably that ego depletion thing where
Speaker 1: it's more of a science nerds debating that stuff that
Speaker 1: people bring up more than anything. Yeah, which I'm we're
Speaker 1: totally fine with. Like we're both kind of research nerds ourselves,
Speaker 1: so we get it. We debate. We have the same
Speaker 1: debate between ourselves when including that stuff. Yeah, ego depution
Speaker 1: is your achilles heel. Well, well, fair enough. Can you
Speaker 1: tell me a little more about your audience? You know,
Speaker 1: when I hear the term peak performance, I think sports,
Speaker 1: you know, I think the people that are most excited
Speaker 1: by that term itself, Like not everyone's excited by that term, right,
Speaker 1: we all agree on that, right, like the visual artists
Speaker 1: who's or the creative writer who's doing poetry. There's no
Speaker 1: one size fits all for everything in this world. So
Speaker 1: who are your you know, you know, Brad just pointed
Speaker 1: at someone. What was that? No, No, no, I'm pointing
Speaker 1: at Steve because you know, when we record a podcast
Speaker 1: three ways, what happens is Steve and I always jump
Speaker 1: in at the same time. So I'm trying to tell
Speaker 1: you all that coordination is like you're going to take
Speaker 1: the first I have to say. I had to say
Speaker 1: something just a little meta, a meta card. Team. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have a meta comment about you two. I actually
Speaker 1: think you too adorable and I and I you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not saying that in any creepy like
Speaker 1: I hope you don't take that in a creepy sort
Speaker 1: of way, like you kind of want to like leave
Speaker 1: the interview now because you feel creeped out. But I
Speaker 1: really think you guys are like such a cute couple,
Speaker 1: like like team Team, you know, like a team. I'm
Speaker 1: wonder what my wife would people haven't said that about
Speaker 1: my wife and I and since we got married, And
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not trying to sexualize this in a
Speaker 1: non sexual way, you know, like for instance, my people
Speaker 1: say that about me and my best friend, you know,
Speaker 1: like he's a philosopher, I'm a psychologist. Like I almost
Speaker 1: like make an analogy to us to like what you
Speaker 1: guys are, Like one of you is the psychologists in
Speaker 1: your relationship to the the others is the philosopher, like you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know what if that perfectly
Speaker 1: maps on, maybe not, but anyway, it's just it's really
Speaker 1: nice to see that the energy between you guys. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's move on quickly from that. And you pointed at
Speaker 1: Steve to address my point. So do you remember my
Speaker 1: point was because I don't I think I got it somewhat.
Speaker 1: Who is this book for? Right? Yeah? Yeah? And do
Speaker 1: you know what I mean by that question? Like is
Speaker 1: that even a fair point that I'm saying that can
Speaker 1: we acknowledge there are certain people that get more excited
Speaker 1: by obtaining peak performance than other people in this world? Oh?
Speaker 1: For sure? And I think if you look at how
Speaker 1: we frame the book and where we came at it
Speaker 1: from it like my background is more sport and athletics
Speaker 1: and Brad has more of a business background, but is
Speaker 1: heavily involved in sports and athletics. And the way this
Speaker 1: book came about is we were looking at all these ideas,
Speaker 1: these lessons, these reasons that we were seeing in a
Speaker 1: lot of areas, but mainly in the area of sport
Speaker 1: and athletics and figuring out, okay, like, hey, this is
Speaker 1: translating over to my writing, this is translating over to
Speaker 1: my business life, this is translating over to you know,
Speaker 1: every other aspect. And what we started to do was see,
Speaker 1: like where these commonalities were and to ask the question
Speaker 1: is performance performance? Right? So does it matter if you know,
Speaker 1: I'm starting a marriag or if I'm playing a concert
Speaker 1: in front of twenty thousand people, or you know, sitting
Speaker 1: down to write, you know, work on a mathematical equation
Speaker 1: to get a breakthrough. And I think what we discovered
Speaker 1: more than anything is like when you dial it back
Speaker 1: to like its basic needs, like performance is performance. We
Speaker 1: would sit there and I think we'd have aha moments
Speaker 1: where you know, one of the ones I remember distinctly
Speaker 1: is we were talking to Matt Billingsley, who's a world
Speaker 1: class drummer, and we're sitting there talking about, like how
Speaker 1: do you get ready for, you know, performing in front
Speaker 1: of forty thousand people? And he starts taking us through
Speaker 1: like his warm up and none of it involves drumming.
Speaker 1: It's all like how do I get physically and mentally
Speaker 1: in a spot where I know I'm going to perform?
Speaker 1: And like I'm sitting there being like, dude, that is
Speaker 1: exactly the same warm up like I get ready for
Speaker 1: if I'm going to go run like a five k race.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's those those similarities and that was
Speaker 1: coming out that we really notice and what we've tried
Speaker 1: to push in like promoting this book is like that's
Speaker 1: who it is for. Like it's yeah, it's like easy
Speaker 1: to say, oh, everyone buy it, but like if you're
Speaker 1: trying to get better at something something you care about,
Speaker 1: then that's our aim is Like there's so many lessons
Speaker 1: across domains that if we can all connect them, then
Speaker 1: you're going to learn something and improve on your specific domain. Okay,
Speaker 1: you know that that makes sense. I mean so this
Speaker 1: could apply to music it can apply to almost anything
Speaker 1: that you The thing that's interesting though, is, like, you know,
Speaker 1: I've written like articles distinguishing performance from creativity, right, So
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think like, sometimes the goal is not
Speaker 1: to get better, Sometimes the goal is to be creatively expressive. Well,
Speaker 1: I think it depends on how you define better, right,
Speaker 1: So maybe better is becoming more creatively expressive. So I
Speaker 1: think that there's a misnomer that performance always just means
Speaker 1: some kind of tangible and measurable results, or like becoming
Speaker 1: more productive. I think the way that we think about it,
Speaker 1: when we say get better, it's get better at your
Speaker 1: defined goals. So if your defined goal is to be
Speaker 1: more creative and experience the world more creatively for a
Speaker 1: short period of time, you likely won't be as quote
Speaker 1: unquote productive by conventional standards. But a lot of these
Speaker 1: same practices would I mean, I firmly believe would help
Speaker 1: you in that pursuit of becoming more creative and having
Speaker 1: more creative experiences. Cool. Did you want to add to that, Steve, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was going to say that, you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of times, like we think of performance measurable outcomes, and
Speaker 1: we think that they lack creativity because they're kind of
Speaker 1: a hard goal. But you know, if you just look
Speaker 1: at throughout the history of sport, especially again in my
Speaker 1: sport of running, like you see that most of there
Speaker 1: people who have these really great breakthroughs, these really big performances,
Speaker 1: like they don't describe like the nuts and bolts of
Speaker 1: the performance. They almost call it like it's a work
Speaker 1: of art. Like there's a great quote from a famous
Speaker 1: US runner, Steve Prefontaine, who essentially said, like erase is
Speaker 1: like a work of art, Like I'm expressing myself out there,
Speaker 1: and it's just a different form of expression, right, And
Speaker 1: you wouldn't think of like running until you you know,
Speaker 1: throw up as an expression of creativity. But for him
Speaker 1: it was because it was like experiencing different sensations and
Speaker 1: feelings in his body that he couldn't experience without pushing
Speaker 1: himself to that level. That's fascinating. But then, how do
Speaker 1: you you know a lot of art is not just
Speaker 1: experiencing it, but then revealing that experience to others in
Speaker 1: a way that resonates with them. How does that apply
Speaker 1: to running? So that's what I think. Another point that
Speaker 1: specific runner was making a point of is like if
Speaker 1: you're a fan of sport, right, and you sit there
Speaker 1: and you watch someone do something amazing, it's aspiring, right,
Speaker 1: And in a lot of ways, it's not the end
Speaker 1: result that does it. It's how they get it, how
Speaker 1: they get there. So the first time I watched Usain
Speaker 1: Bolt run one hundred meters, right, I'm more of a
Speaker 1: distance runner. I like watching longer stuff. But to see him,
Speaker 1: like the smoothness of his ability to run one hundred
Speaker 1: meters in nine point five seconds, which is just insane
Speaker 1: to me, was just mind blowing. Regardless of the time.
Speaker 1: It was like a thing of beauty to do it right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And like he'd trained to be able to run that
Speaker 1: smooth and that efficient well being incredibly powerful, and I
Speaker 1: think there's some artistic output there that I think sometimes
Speaker 1: we don't recognize. You know, one of the characters stress.
Speaker 1: I'm in the field of positive psychology, and one of
Speaker 1: the character strengths is excellence and beauty. And I've always
Speaker 1: found that fascinating that those two things are linked together
Speaker 1: in the character strengths framework. And you may have just
Speaker 1: convinced me that they do belong together. I could see that.
Speaker 1: I could see that. I mean, there is something beautiful
Speaker 1: about that. There's in the same way as something beautiful
Speaker 1: about his hearing a beautiful just a virtuoso chokes sonata.
Speaker 1: The kind of amount of work that goes into the
Speaker 1: craft and the mastery of something like that is is
Speaker 1: beautiful and kind of is inspirational as well revealing to
Speaker 1: us what could be possible. I'm going to go down
Speaker 1: the philosophical rabbit hole the philosopher so one of, not
Speaker 1: one of, by far, my favorite book ever written is
Speaker 1: a book called Zen in the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Speaker 1: by Robert Persig, and the book he unveils the metaphysics
Speaker 1: of what he calls quality, and he capitalizes quality with
Speaker 1: a queue to make it a singular event. And for person,
Speaker 1: quality is the space between an actor and his or
Speaker 1: her act and person's whole, at least how I interpret
Speaker 1: person's whole. Metaphysics equality is that quality is what happens
Speaker 1: when you give something your all and you truly care
Speaker 1: about something, and if you have that quality and the
Speaker 1: outcome takes care of itself, and that will also exude quality.
Speaker 1: And when I think about art, when I think about athletics,
Speaker 1: even when I think about writing, relationship parenting like I
Speaker 1: try to hold myself to for things I care about,
Speaker 1: am I pursuing them with this quality mindset. You're the
Speaker 1: first person to bring in Zen and the art of
Speaker 1: motorcycle meanance into the Psychology podcast, the first guest to
Speaker 1: mention that classics good, good, good good. I like that
Speaker 1: a lot. And there are lots of ways to develop
Speaker 1: quality and in so many different kinds of domains. Okay,
Speaker 1: so let's maybe go into some of the of the
Speaker 1: specific things you talk about to help with higher performance.
Speaker 1: And while you're doing this, I'll be thinking in my
Speaker 1: own head how this can apply as broadly as possible
Speaker 1: to different fields and stuff. So can we start with
Speaker 1: the paradox of rest? Tell me a little bit about
Speaker 1: that paradox. So, the paradox of rest is that conventionally,
Speaker 1: a lot of folks tend to think of rest is
Speaker 1: a passive act and is something that might be separate
Speaker 1: from their work, and oftentimes that they're sacrificing work because
Speaker 1: they're resting, when in fact, when you rest, both your
Speaker 1: brain and body are actually extremely active, and it's often
Speaker 1: during rest that physical, psychological, and emotional growth accurse. So
Speaker 1: it's kind of an aha moment for me in a
Speaker 1: reframing of rest, that we shouldn't consider rest is something
Speaker 1: that is distinct or separate from the work that we're doing,
Speaker 1: but we should think of rest is integral too, and
Speaker 1: a part of doing good work. The easiest analogy is
Speaker 1: a physiological one, and it's how you would make your
Speaker 1: muscle grow. So if you think about your bicep muscle,
Speaker 1: the muscle on the front of your arm, you need
Speaker 1: to first stress the muscle right, apply some stimulus to it,
Speaker 1: and that's lifting a heavyweight. But if all you ever
Speaker 1: did was lift a heavyweight and you never stepped away
Speaker 1: and recovered, or if you lifted way too heavy of
Speaker 1: a weight and you didn't put enough rest in between
Speaker 1: those intervals, what what happen is your muscle would quite
Speaker 1: literally burn out, like it would succumb to fatigue, and
Speaker 1: it worse, you'd get injured. Now, the flip side is
Speaker 1: if you pick a good way, a good stress, a
Speaker 1: good stimulus, and you follow it up with appropriate rest,
Speaker 1: that's how your muscle grows. So people like to think
Speaker 1: that the muscle grows when they're in the weight room
Speaker 1: pumping iron, but that's not the case. The actual growth
Speaker 1: occurs when you're not pumping the iron and mostly when
Speaker 1: you're sleeping. So it's not in the weight room that
Speaker 1: all of these growth promoting hormones are released. It's when
Speaker 1: you're on the couch or when you're in bed sleeping.
Speaker 1: And then we got into cognitive science in neuroscience, and
Speaker 1: we started we started looking about sleep and its impact
Speaker 1: on the brain and in particular cognition and creativity. And
Speaker 1: we learn something similar, which is oftentimes our breakthrough thoughts
Speaker 1: and our breakthrough thinking they don't happen when we're sitting
Speaker 1: at the whiteboarb trying to solve a problem. That happened
Speaker 1: when we're in the shower. I know this is in
Speaker 1: your book too, Scott. That happened when you're on a run.
Speaker 1: That happened when you just wake up from sleeping. So
Speaker 1: it's in these moments of rest, when you're not actively
Speaker 1: stressing your cognitive muscle, that some semblance of growth can occur.
Speaker 1: So good, good, good good. So the products of rest
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense. That's in the line with
Speaker 1: you know, andres Ericson's study is about how people don't practice.
Speaker 1: It's not that they just practice more hours. In fact,
Speaker 1: they had more hours during the day of not practicing,
Speaker 1: and I feel like that point doesn't get When people
Speaker 1: talk about ten thousand hours door to practice, they don't
Speaker 1: also mention ten thousand hours of no practice. You know,
Speaker 1: that's also a thing, right right, And in ericson studies
Speaker 1: with particularly with the violinists, the reason that they can
Speaker 1: go so hard in it, they can practice with such
Speaker 1: intensity is because they rest. It's like doing running intervals, right,
Speaker 1: Eventually you're going to burn out without their res So
Speaker 1: I think again back to this paradox of rest. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: what happens so often, and this is true in athletics,
Speaker 1: this is definitely true in the workplace. I can't speak
Speaker 1: for artists, but I've gathered that this happens there too,
Speaker 1: is that people neglect rest so they're hard days when
Speaker 1: they think that they're working really hard, they're actually not
Speaker 1: working that hard because they never let themselves go easy,
Speaker 1: and then they get just stuck in this kind of
Speaker 1: gray zone. Yeah. I think this applies to the world
Speaker 1: of ideas as well, because I inhabit you know, a
Speaker 1: different world. But it's like as a being a writer,
Speaker 1: not a performer, but you know, like being a writer
Speaker 1: and you guys experiences as well. When you're writing this book,
Speaker 1: do you find that you're better if you can somehow,
Speaker 1: like you know, go all in and synthesize or not synthesized,
Speaker 1: but read a lot of information and then just let
Speaker 1: it go and then come back to the same material
Speaker 1: after a lot of rest. I mean, I find it's
Speaker 1: absolutely necessary for me or else I go bokers one
Speaker 1: hundred percent. We actually, you know, we took our book
Speaker 1: and what we were learning to heart, and we actually
Speaker 1: scheduled our writing so that we could try and like
Speaker 1: take advantage of that phenomenon. Like there would be periods
Speaker 1: where we'd be like, all right, like this is for
Speaker 1: these next three hours or two hours, like we're all in.
Speaker 1: We're going to be focused and get this done, and
Speaker 1: then we're going to step away and let go. And
Speaker 1: actually that was one of the best things about writing
Speaker 1: this together is that we design our weeks so that,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe I was going super hard Monday Tuesday
Speaker 1: on the writing and Brad would be going super hard
Speaker 1: on the research side, and then we'd flip so that
Speaker 1: we had a couple of days away from like reading
Speaker 1: the manuscript, so that as I'm sure you're aware as
Speaker 1: you found out, like it doesn't become the jumbled mess
Speaker 1: where you can't think through it and can't have new ideas.
Speaker 1: So by staggering things like that, we were allowed ourselves
Speaker 1: to like have these moments where like all of the
Speaker 1: information we were sensesizing could like you know, be absorbed
Speaker 1: and then our brain, hopefully a couple of days later,
Speaker 1: would like spit out what we needed to you know,
Speaker 1: have for the next section. What do you think of
Speaker 1: the harmonious for subsessive passion distinction? So this Brad here
Speaker 1: I'll go first. I think it's a really helpful framework
Speaker 1: in a quite good way distinction. I think it's definitely
Speaker 1: useful in athletics, where the perils of obsessive passion are
Speaker 1: that you become so focused on results in externals that
Speaker 1: you start to lose a love for what you're doing
Speaker 1: and instead you're doing what you're doing for some kind
Speaker 1: of validation or perhaps out of fear, and those are
Speaker 1: the athletes that often end up with anxiety, depression, injured
Speaker 1: from overtraining, or just completely burnt out. I think that
Speaker 1: that probably holds true in the corporate world too. It's
Speaker 1: kind of where I have my background experience, I can
Speaker 1: tell you that there are certain partners at consulting firms
Speaker 1: who it is very clear of that they are in
Speaker 1: it for the ego gratification of being a partner to
Speaker 1: consulting firm, in the paycheck that comes with that, and
Speaker 1: the ability to say that I'm a managing director at
Speaker 1: XYZ firm, and those individuals seem to be not as
Speaker 1: happy and also tend to not have as long of careers.
Speaker 1: Is those people that are in consult because they just
Speaker 1: genuinely love problem solving. I think the only other thing
Speaker 1: that I would add about the dichotomy of you know again,
Speaker 1: a harmonious passion being you love something, it's a love
Speaker 1: for the work, but you don't let your ego your
Speaker 1: identity get too tied up to it, Versus obsessive passion
Speaker 1: where every result is not about the work, it's about
Speaker 1: you and your ego and you're completely tied up with it.
Speaker 1: I think that we're all humans, so I try to
Speaker 1: embody harmonious passion as best as I can, and writing
Speaker 1: this book is a great example. So you write a book.
Speaker 1: I love writing. I love the act of collaborating with Steve.
Speaker 1: I was in flow when we wrote this book. It
Speaker 1: was total harmonious passion. But then when the book's out
Speaker 1: in the world, like I told you in the opening,
Speaker 1: I was seeing the sales rank. I cared about the reception,
Speaker 1: and I don't have like the zen power to just
Speaker 1: completely put that aside. But what I've tried to do
Speaker 1: is keep all of that a minority driver, so that
Speaker 1: my drive to right to want to write comes predominantly
Speaker 1: from within because I love writing, not from all that
Speaker 1: external stuff. But of course I pay attention to it.
Speaker 1: It's hard not to. No, it is hard not to.
Speaker 1: It's a matter of managing those regulating self regulation. So key, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was just gonna adds. Growing up as an athlete,
Speaker 1: like I was a one hundred percent obsessive passionate, Like
Speaker 1: that was I was you read down Valoriande, you know, definition,
Speaker 1: and like that was me through high school and college,
Speaker 1: like identity was wrapped up in running and that was
Speaker 1: all that mattered and like nothing else did. And eventually
Speaker 1: that leads to this like fear of failure and your
Speaker 1: motivation shift says you become more obsessively passionate about things.
Speaker 1: So I think it's it's one of those things that
Speaker 1: is very easy in domains that are results driven, right
Speaker 1: where you actually have some way to be like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is how good I am and you're ranked, It's
Speaker 1: very easy to fall into that pattern and let your
Speaker 1: identity become wrapped up in whatever activity you see. And
Speaker 1: what I've seen both with myself and then also when
Speaker 1: helping other individuals is like those motivation qualities slightly shift
Speaker 1: over time until pretty soon you're just stuck in a
Speaker 1: state where individuals are just afraid to lose or afraid
Speaker 1: to fail. And when you get in those spots, like
Speaker 1: the anxiety that comes with it can just be, you know,
Speaker 1: mind blowing. I've watched world class performers sit there and
Speaker 1: get to this point and they're about to do the
Speaker 1: thing that there are world class at, and they're paralyzed
Speaker 1: with fear. Not because like you know, they might lose
Speaker 1: a paycheck or something that, but because it is their
Speaker 1: identity and it is how they define So they see,
Speaker 1: if I fail at this or if I mess up,
Speaker 1: it is assault on like the soul core of myself.
Speaker 1: And that is it's when you see it at really
Speaker 1: bad levels, it's just, I mean, it's heartbreaking in a
Speaker 1: lot of cases, so I think the extremes of it,
Speaker 1: of obsessive passion are bad. I think, like Brad mentioned that,
Speaker 1: you know, we're all human, like, we're all going to
Speaker 1: have some sort of outcome driven at some point, and
Speaker 1: I think that's okay. But it's just like managing that
Speaker 1: balance between obsessive and harmonious and knowing like when you're
Speaker 1: going too far in one direction and being able to
Speaker 1: be aware that you are is a skill that we
Speaker 1: all need to develop. So something that I have personally
Speaker 1: found works wonderfully for me and also up individuals that
Speaker 1: have coached and worked with, is to be able to
Speaker 1: self regulate the emotional response to some kind of outcome
Speaker 1: but not be overcome by it. Is what I've come
Speaker 1: to call the twenty four the forty eight hour role,
Speaker 1: which is you ought to give yourself twenty four or
Speaker 1: forty eight hours to be really happy after a big
Speaker 1: success or to be pretty bummed out and sad after
Speaker 1: a quote unquote failure, but then after that twenty four
Speaker 1: to forty eight hour window, get back to doing the work.
Speaker 1: Because it's really easy then to figure out am I
Speaker 1: in this because it's my identity and validation or am
Speaker 1: I in it because of the work. And I'll share
Speaker 1: an intimate example for Steve and I. We thought that
Speaker 1: this book had a good chance of landing on the
Speaker 1: monthly New York Times bestseller list, and we were told
Speaker 1: by people that we trust that there was a pretty
Speaker 1: good shot. It didn't make it not make that list,
Speaker 1: and we were bombed, no doubt about it. But we said, like,
Speaker 1: let's practice what we preach. So we gave ourselves a
Speaker 1: day to be bombed, and then we were back at
Speaker 1: writing articles to promote the book, back at fleshing out
Speaker 1: the next book. And I swear Scott like I was
Speaker 1: not sad two days later because I was just so
Speaker 1: excited to be doing the work. And I think that
Speaker 1: where you get into a trap is if you don't
Speaker 1: have those hard rules and you let those emotions kind
Speaker 1: of linger and precipitate and same things with good results, right,
Speaker 1: because then you just sit there and bask in the
Speaker 1: glory and you've become complacent, and then you get into
Speaker 1: this trap where you're talking about how great writing is
Speaker 1: versus actually writing. Oh I like that rule, Well, no,
Speaker 1: I appreciate that, and I think that that's good. So
Speaker 1: how can you optimize your routine? How can you take
Speaker 1: this one man? Yeah, for sure, you know. I think
Speaker 1: the funny thing about routine is it's become almost like
Speaker 1: a cliche to say like, oh, this is a secret
Speaker 1: routine to reach peak performance or to be at your best.
Speaker 1: And what we found is that there's no secret to it.
Speaker 1: It's every individual takes their own like routine and creates
Speaker 1: it what works for them. Right. Some people work really
Speaker 1: well in the morning. Some people need to go for
Speaker 1: you know, a walk in the morning and then get
Speaker 1: into it right. So it's just about like figuring out
Speaker 1: where are you paying attention and figuring out where you
Speaker 1: tend to work well, right in terms of time, in
Speaker 1: terms of setting, in terms of environment. Do I write
Speaker 1: best at my desk? Do I write best at a
Speaker 1: coffee shop down the road? Like how where is it?
Speaker 1: And then figuring out, you know, how to set your
Speaker 1: day up for that, and like some of the things
Speaker 1: that we used or what we realized is that for writing,
Speaker 1: there were certain periods of time where I like, if
Speaker 1: I got up in the morning, I could nail stuff.
Speaker 1: I would be on a roll, right, And if I
Speaker 1: tried to write late in the evening it was garbage, right,
Speaker 1: So what do you do? You say, Well, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to just take you know, everything after ten am off, right,
Speaker 1: I'm going to have some recovery, but I'm going to
Speaker 1: do tasks that might not stress that focus or that
Speaker 1: creativity maybe that I need during that. So it might
Speaker 1: be you know, responding to emails later in the day
Speaker 1: or doing like very strict editing on things. That is
Speaker 1: just rule base right, and it's about figuring out what
Speaker 1: works for you on those parameters like that. Brad, do
Speaker 1: you want to add to that? No, I think Steve
Speaker 1: sended it up really well. I think that routine on
Speaker 1: an end of one is extremely powerful. But there's no
Speaker 1: single routine that works across the population. So anyone that says,
Speaker 1: you know, if you just drink up, wake up at
Speaker 1: this hour, drink this kind of specialty, do this particular
Speaker 1: cold water exercise, immersion, and then you're going to be great,
Speaker 1: maybe that individual person's going to be great, But there's
Speaker 1: very little to no science showing that there's a single
Speaker 1: routine that works for everyone. So it really is about
Speaker 1: a lot of self experimentation and then doing what you
Speaker 1: can to design your day around what you learn when
Speaker 1: you experiment with yourself. And you know, what I hear
Speaker 1: in some of like the corporate coaching that I do,
Speaker 1: is people say that, well, I don't have control over
Speaker 1: my schedule, And after prodding and asking questions, what I
Speaker 1: find is that people almost always have more control than
Speaker 1: they think. And yeah, you might have to be at
Speaker 1: the office and work an eight to six, but can
Speaker 1: you you know, let's say that you find that you're
Speaker 1: a morning person and you do your your good deep
Speaker 1: focus work in the morning, and perhaps then you're a
Speaker 1: little bit more creative in the afternoon because you're mind wandering,
Speaker 1: you're not as latched on. Well, do what you can
Speaker 1: to schedule meetings in the afternoon where creativity might be
Speaker 1: a more important skill and where you can feel off
Speaker 1: the energy of others and protect your mornings for more
Speaker 1: of the deep focused work. So it's just like these
Speaker 1: kinds of small aha moments on an individual level and
Speaker 1: then trying to figure out how to bake them and
Speaker 1: build your days around them. Cool, and you guys, try
Speaker 1: to apply some of those principles of optimization in your
Speaker 1: own life. I mean, do you I guess all this you'
Speaker 1: is mesearch as well, right, is that right? Yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 1: You know, we figured we had to be extremely true
Speaker 1: to our books, so we didn't recommend anything that we
Speaker 1: didn't try. You know, it's funny even going into this.
Speaker 1: We had a nice chapter on meditation after visiting Search
Speaker 1: Inside Yourself, Google's former offshoot of meditation, and neither of
Speaker 1: us had ever been big meditators before, but we were like,
Speaker 1: all right. I turned to Brad and was like, all right, Like,
Speaker 1: let's set aside some time. We've got to try these
Speaker 1: things in order to see if they work, because, like
Speaker 1: the sciences, they but it's also about applying this to
Speaker 1: our own life, so regardless of what it was like
Speaker 1: in the book, we tried to apply it. And in
Speaker 1: terms of routine, you know, we both are writers obviously
Speaker 1: and have this book coming out, but we also both
Speaker 1: have other jobs, right, Brad in healthcare and me and
Speaker 1: athletics coaching. So for us, like the routine stuff really
Speaker 1: came in handy because we knew our writing deadlines and
Speaker 1: we knew when we had to get certain chapters in
Speaker 1: certain sections of the book done. So it was about
Speaker 1: figuring out, all right, when can we both be efficient
Speaker 1: at this and how do we design our day so
Speaker 1: that we get optimum productivity at this book that we
Speaker 1: really care about well at the same time, like not
Speaker 1: letting the other apps our lives or other jobs. A
Speaker 1: lot of thought process and a lot of even trial
Speaker 1: and error to figure out like what worked for each
Speaker 1: of us individually. That's great. I actually wasn't aware that
Speaker 1: Bread works healthcare. What does that mean? What do you
Speaker 1: do in healthcare? Bread? Yeah? So I do a fair
Speaker 1: amount of like executive leadership development for a big healthcare
Speaker 1: system in northern California. Cool, very cool? Like you don't
Speaker 1: You can't go to school for that, right? Like is
Speaker 1: there like specific training? Yeah? I kind of did so.
Speaker 1: I My background is very circuitous. So I was in
Speaker 1: McKinsey and Company doing just like pure strategic consulting for
Speaker 1: two years. I knew that. Yeah. Then I decided that
Speaker 1: I if my skill was kind of creative thinking and
Speaker 1: problem solving, I wanted to apply it to something that
Speaker 1: I thought was more meaningful than like consumer products and goods.
Speaker 1: So I went to public health school and then since
Speaker 1: then I've been taking the traditional consulting skill set and
Speaker 1: using it in healthcare and then starting to do more
Speaker 1: and more one on one coaching, just because I enjoy it,
Speaker 1: and I think for the principles that we write about
Speaker 1: in the book, there's no better way to get them
Speaker 1: across than to really have a coaching relationship with someone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you really like that that one on one like
Speaker 1: that would give gives you more task action, or you'd
Speaker 1: be not as complete if you were just doing like
Speaker 1: online courses, Is that right? Yeah? I like the human interaction.
Speaker 1: I mean, it doesn't have to even be in person,
Speaker 1: even if it's be a skype, but I like I
Speaker 1: guess for me the two ends of the spectrum that
Speaker 1: give me the most fulfillment is writing is my favorite.
Speaker 1: I think that's just because as a reader, I love
Speaker 1: nothing more than like getting so immersed in the page
Speaker 1: that you almost forget that you're reading this physical book.
Speaker 1: And if I can try to give that to probably
Speaker 1: fail miserably. But if I can at least try and
Speaker 1: tell myself I'm trying to give that to other people,
Speaker 1: that makes me take a ton. And then the other
Speaker 1: end of that is like the very intimate one on
Speaker 1: one coaching. So it's a nice balance. Sounds good. Okay,
Speaker 1: So let's turn to the last part of this chat today,
Speaker 1: and that's purpose and transcending yourself. Now, it is very
Speaker 1: rare to read a book on peak performance and see
Speaker 1: the word transcendence in there. I mean, that's a topic
Speaker 1: I love, but purpose you will see a lot, but
Speaker 1: transcendence not so much. So, So, first of all, congratulations
Speaker 1: and to you for bringing in that literature. Can you
Speaker 1: talk a little about how transcending yourself can actually improve
Speaker 1: peak performance? Sure? So we started in exercise science, and
Speaker 1: in exercise science, like Steve said at the outset, there
Speaker 1: are competing theories on fatigue. But over the past two
Speaker 1: or three decades, there's been a lot of research that
Speaker 1: shows that fatigue likely happens in the brain before the body.
Speaker 1: So what researchers have done is they've had people exercise
Speaker 1: their muscles until they're completely tapped out. They're saying, I'm
Speaker 1: begging for mercy, I can't do one more repetition, and
Speaker 1: then they'll run an electrical current through their muscle and
Speaker 1: their muscle contracts with full force. So what that's led
Speaker 1: researchers to speculate is that there's some sort of central governor.
Speaker 1: It's actually the brain shutting down the body when the
Speaker 1: body has more to give. And the theory is that
Speaker 1: this is a protective mechanism. Your brain, excuse me, is
Speaker 1: literally protecting your quote unquote self. It's saying, if you
Speaker 1: exercise any harder, you might injure yourself. So therefore we're
Speaker 1: going to put the brakes on, and your central nervous
Speaker 1: system kind of shuts the body down. So this guy
Speaker 1: is thinking, when you think about incredible athletic performances, and
Speaker 1: I've gotten to be I mean, Steve's gotten to be
Speaker 1: on the sidelines coaching some of these I've gotten for
Speaker 1: my writing it outside to interview some people that have
Speaker 1: just done insane stuff, And whenever you ask them, what's
Speaker 1: going through your mind in the backstretch of that marathon
Speaker 1: or when you're looking down from El Capitan free solo
Speaker 1: climbing three thousand feet, like, what are you thinking? How
Speaker 1: do you overcome those moments? And no one has ever
Speaker 1: said that they're thinking about money or how great it
Speaker 1: would feel to be champion, or all the publicity or
Speaker 1: breaking records. They always report some kind of transcendent moment.
Speaker 1: So whether it's a spiritual experience, whether it's thinking about
Speaker 1: their family members who have sacrificed so much for them
Speaker 1: to be there, whether they've committed this to a cause
Speaker 1: to inspire other people, perhaps to raise money for charity,
Speaker 1: but it's always this transcendent moment. So that got Steven
Speaker 1: I thinking, well, what if there's something there that when
Speaker 1: people break through and when they get more out of
Speaker 1: their body than traditional sciences, they should be able to
Speaker 1: Maybe that's because they're actually transcending their self. And if
Speaker 1: you're transcending yourself, then you're not worried about protecting yourself.
Speaker 1: So that led us to this small field of study,
Speaker 1: which is called acts of superhuman or hysterical strength. Any
Speaker 1: story of my life? Really? What an active hysterical superhuman strength? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, that's what I did for That's what
Speaker 1: I ate for breakfast morn all right. So besides Scott's
Speaker 1: special cereal superhuman hysterical strength. This is when there are
Speaker 1: situations when like a child or an animal gets stuck
Speaker 1: under a car and a regular person is able to
Speaker 1: lift the car off of that child or animal. And
Speaker 1: if you were to tell that regular person the next day,
Speaker 1: I'll pay you a million dollars. I'll pay you a
Speaker 1: billion dollars to lift that car. They'd never be able to,
Speaker 1: but in that moment when there's something beyond themselves stuck
Speaker 1: under that car, they're able to muster the strength to
Speaker 1: lift that car. And there's like an ICU physician that
Speaker 1: studies this, and it's very similar to what the exercise
Speaker 1: science scientists theorize, which is that the part of your
Speaker 1: brain that is so concerned with protecting yourself just kind
Speaker 1: of goes offline in that moment and you have access
Speaker 1: to the superhuman or hysterical strength. And then the last
Speaker 1: place that our research led was in healthcare, where there
Speaker 1: are increasingly interventions to help people quit smoking or go
Speaker 1: on extreme diets. In what public health researchers and clinicians
Speaker 1: are finding is that one of the best ways to
Speaker 1: do it is to have people reflect on their purpose,
Speaker 1: and in particular on a transcendent purpose. And what they
Speaker 1: found is that if you tell someone to quit smoking,
Speaker 1: that is a very threatening message to a smoker. It's
Speaker 1: a part of their life. They're scared to get these
Speaker 1: smoke to get through a day, they're nervous about they're
Speaker 1: going to feel without it. But if that same smoker
Speaker 1: is reflecting on what it will mean to their child,
Speaker 1: or to their partner, or to their parents. If they're
Speaker 1: able to quit and spend more time with them have
Speaker 1: a lower chance of disease. The likelihood that they quit
Speaker 1: goes way up. And actually, some researchers at University of Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you're familiar with this research job,
Speaker 1: Actually they stuck people in an fMRI machine so they
Speaker 1: could look at their brains while delivering these threatening messages.
Speaker 1: And what they found is the individuals they were reflecting
Speaker 1: on their core values and purpose, the area of their
Speaker 1: brain associated with threat didn't light up nearly as much.
Speaker 1: That is so interesting. And from a personality perspective, that's
Speaker 1: currently going to be linked to neuroticism. And I mean
Speaker 1: to me, that's like the core demeain of personality for
Speaker 1: like that gets in the way of everything. Like we
Speaker 1: talked about defense, you know, defending the self versus that
Speaker 1: keeps coming from the neuroticism. To mean, good stuff, man, men, men,
Speaker 1: good stuff men. I'm talking to two people right now,
Speaker 1: not just one. Congratulations on this book and for putting
Speaker 1: this really valuable resource into the world. Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for having us. Yeah, I think the time. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for listening to the Psychology Podcast with doctor
Speaker 1: Scott Barry Kaufman. I hope you found this episode just
Speaker 1: as thought provoking as I did. If something you heard
Speaker 1: today stimulated you in some way, I encourage you to
Speaker 1: join in the discussion at the Psychology podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: That's the Psychology Podcast dot com.