WEBVTT - Steven Kotler: Peak Performance and Getting Older (for humans and for dogs!) 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:02.200 I start most of my days by stepping in or 0:00:02.240 --> 0:00:04.480 cleaning up dog, because that's what happens if you do 0:00:04.559 --> 0:00:06.920 hospice care. Right. What I love about it, that is 0:00:06.960 --> 0:00:09.760 the humility is it doesn't matter how big I get 0:00:09.800 --> 0:00:12.280 in my head or my life. Like when your days 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:15.840 starts like stepping in and clearing up dogs, it brings 0:00:15.840 --> 0:00:18.119 you back to the planet really fast, which I like 0:00:18.200 --> 0:00:18.520 a lot. 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:22.280 This is it's okay that you're not okay, and I'm 0:00:22.320 --> 0:00:25.480 your host, Megan Devine. This week on the show, New 0:00:25.560 --> 0:00:30.240 York Times bestselling author Steven Cotler on peak performance even 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:33.640 when you live in an aging body, and even inside grief. 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:38.880 Interesting applications for the science of flow states, and more 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:50.000 coming up right after this first break. Before we get started, 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:53.160 one quick note. While we cover a lot of emotional, 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:56.320 relational territory and our time here together, this show is 0:00:56.360 --> 0:00:58.920 not a substitute for skilled support with a licensed mental 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:07.800 health provider or for professional supervision related to your work. Hi, friends, Okay, look, 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:12.160 this episode covers a lot of stuff, and it covers 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:16.480 it very fast. Stephn Cotler kind of does everything that 0:01:16.520 --> 0:01:20.360 way in this rapid fire useful content mixed with some storytelling. 0:01:20.440 --> 0:01:23.800 A little swearing and some tangents thrown in. It might 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:25.560 take a little adjusting, So I want to give you 0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:28.280 a little structure to hang on to before we get rolling. 0:01:28.959 --> 0:01:31.600 Stephen Coutler is a New York Times bestselling author known 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:34.720 widely for his work on peak performance and flow states. 0:01:35.400 --> 0:01:39.080 Peak performance, at its simplest, is the performance of a 0:01:39.160 --> 0:01:42.679 task at the optimum level of an individual's physical and 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:47.520 mental capabilities, or both together. Flow states are where you're 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:50.560 so immersed in what you're doing it feels effortless, like 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:53.560 your inner critic is not yapping at you, trying to 0:01:53.840 --> 0:01:56.760 like throw things at you. There's a sense of timelessness 0:01:56.760 --> 0:01:58.960 in what you're doing, being outside of time. You're just 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:04.120 completely immersed in what you're doing. Peak performance and flow 0:02:04.160 --> 0:02:07.000 states could be these really nebulous, amorphous terms, but once 0:02:07.000 --> 0:02:11.040 they've been broken down into repeatable, measurable parts, you can 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:13.280 actually apply this stuff to your life and to any 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:16.720 number of things that you care about. While Stephen focuses 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:20.079 a lot on what some people call like extreme sports, 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:23.080 extreme sports and in quotation marks here, especially in his 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:26.440 latest book, In Our Country, the principles of peak performance 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:32.040 don't just belong to superhero bodies and superhero minds. Aging 0:02:32.080 --> 0:02:35.320 bodies maybe can't access flow states as rigorously or through 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:38.880 the same rigorous means as younger bodies. Injured and ill 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:42.200 bodies don't really quite match up to that extreme sport 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:47.040 example that is often connected to peak performance ideals. But 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:51.080 as you'll hear in this show, peak performance belongs to everybody. 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:54.400 So whether you're interested in exploring the limits of the 0:02:54.480 --> 0:02:57.360 human body, or you're trying on a creative practice, or 0:02:57.400 --> 0:02:59.480 you're curious about the places in your life where you 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:04.320 feel hell back internally or externally, this stuff is still 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:09.440 really helpful. The practice of peak performance is basically reaching 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:11.680 for that flow state, reaching for the place where things 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:13.639 feel like they have a lot more ease to them, 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:17.000 where you're not fighting so much against things like self 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:21.680 limiting beliefs or those sneaky little thought processes that keep 0:03:21.720 --> 0:03:26.040 you from Okay, sorry to say this, those sneaky little 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:28.519 thought processes that keep you from living your best life. 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:32.400 I know, but it's kind of accurate though, right, Like, 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:37.320 we all have these internal narratives, sometimes conscious, sometimes not conscious, 0:03:37.400 --> 0:03:40.920 that cut us off when we are reaching for the 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:44.680 things that we most want. Yeah, okay, now there is 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:47.800 something else in this episode that might surprise you. All 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:51.920 of this work on peak performance, those million best selling books, 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:55.600 all that stuff, Stephen applies all of that knowledge to 0:03:55.680 --> 0:04:00.880 his work in dog rescue. His wife Joy run a 0:04:00.920 --> 0:04:04.320 rescue organization focusing on dogs in need of hospice care. 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:08.840 So not only do we talk about flow states in 0:04:08.880 --> 0:04:13.559 an aging body, we also get into grief, gratitude, resilience, 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:16.719 and the humbling nature of starting each day by picking 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:21.280 up mountains of dog poop. This episode is a fast 0:04:21.320 --> 0:04:26.680 and furious ride through neurobiologies, sports bodies, wildfires, performance, negative mindsets, 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:31.600 and caring for the world you're in. It's a lot. 0:04:32.560 --> 0:04:35.560 I'm curious to hear how the principles of peak performance 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:40.080 apply to your life. Once you've listened to this episode, 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:43.480 where do you feel that flow or if flow feels 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:47.479 like it's missing, where do you long for it? Leave 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:49.280 me a note on social or pop over to leave 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:52.320 a review of this particular episode and let me know 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:57.040 all right. On today's conversation with best selling author and 0:04:57.320 --> 0:05:03.760 dog caregiver Stephen Kotler, Steven, I am so glad to 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:06.440 have you here with me today. We've already been like 0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:10.480 chatting about cool stuff before we got rolling. But officially, Hi, 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:15.680 why I'm so glad you're here here absolutely Okay. There's 0:05:15.720 --> 0:05:17.680 a lot of territory that I want to get into today, 0:05:17.800 --> 0:05:20.560 but I want to start with just a couple of 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:22.960 foundational terms. I defined a whole bunch of stuff in 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:25.279 the introduction, But can you give me just the little 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:28.440 SoundBite mini definition on flow and flow states, because we're 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:30.520 going to talk about that a bunch perfect. 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:34.200 Place to start. Low has a scientific definition, not very useful, 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:35.920 but it has one which is where we're going to start, 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:39.640 which is an optmalistic consciousness, where we feel our best 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:43.640 and we perform our best. More specifically, it's any of 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:46.840 those moments of rapt attention and total absorption. We get 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:49.080 so focused on the task, hands so focus on what 0:05:49.120 --> 0:05:52.600 you're doing that everything else just starts to melt away 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:55.680 and disappear. Action awareness are going to merge your sense 0:05:55.720 --> 0:05:57.960 of self self consciousness, The voice in your head, the 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:02.599 inner critic gets really quiet, Time passes strangely, it slows down, 0:06:02.640 --> 0:06:04.320 you get a freeze firm effectment and it's been in 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:06.640 a car crash. Much more frequently, we just get so 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:08.520 sucked into what we're doing that five hours go by 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:12.960 and what feels like five minutes, and throughout all aspects 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:15.880 of performance, both mental and physical, go through the roof. 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:19.360 So that is a rough definition of flow. To take 0:06:19.400 --> 0:06:24.640 it one step further, when psychologists define flow, it's an 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:29.480 altered state of consciousness with six core phenomenal logical characteristics. 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:31.479 Phenomenal loogical is a big fancy word that says, this 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:34.279 is how the experience makes you feel. And I just 0:06:34.320 --> 0:06:36.320 listed a bunch of them. So complete concentration on the 0:06:36.320 --> 0:06:38.560 task of hand, the merger of action, awareness, the vanishing 0:06:38.640 --> 0:06:42.360 to sell time, dilation, a sense of control which is 0:06:42.400 --> 0:06:45.320 what performance feels like on the inside, and euphoria. So 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:49.640 when we measure flow, we measure I'll do those characteristics 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:53.080 show up how much how little kiss? Flow is a spectrum. 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:55.640 It's micro flow to macro flow. So when those six 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:57.240 show up in the dial that one or two you 0:06:57.279 --> 0:07:00.240 go to work, you get sit down right and mail 0:07:00.240 --> 0:07:02.680 of your boss and it's so sucked in that an 0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:05.240 hour goes by and you've written an essay. That's microflow. 0:07:05.520 --> 0:07:08.080 Macroflow is when all those show up and they're turned 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:11.440 up to eleven. Often feels like a mystical spiritual experience 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:12.200 when that happens. 0:07:13.280 --> 0:07:15.640 I love that distinction because as you were talking about that, 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:21.480 I was like, how is flow different from like the 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:24.960 tunnel vision hyper focus of add which is like, I 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:27.880 just spent sixteen hours composing this email that no one 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:32.240 cares about. So I like that distinction or that maybe 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:33.080 that continuum. 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:36.160 Well, the other thing is flow is peak performance. It 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:39.400 tends to be useful. Right, you can get sucked in 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:41.680 tent hand, it's just as easily in a flow state 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:45.920 you can. And when I train writers, for example, out 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:48.520 to plot discipline is what we call it, it becomes 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:51.120 like have an outline, stick to your outline because, especially 0:07:51.120 --> 0:07:55.760 if you're in flow, tangents are delicious. Details are delicious, 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:58.600 and you can you can break something as much as 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:01.920 you can. You can make it flows you're not called careful. 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:05.800 I like that. I like that idea of the structure 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:09.840 within which you can float around in your flow, that 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:12.600 tangents have a structured. 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:15.880 Limits are liberating, and it's especially true inside a flow. 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:19.200 I love that limits are liberating. I love that you 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:21.520 said that because one of the things that I want 0:08:21.560 --> 0:08:23.680 to talk with you about today, like your your new 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:27.840 book is about performance aging and all of these sort 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:29.800 of I know you don't mean it like this, but 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:32.400 like these glorious ideals of what's possible in the human 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:35.560 body and the human mind and apply these principles and 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:38.520 everything is going to be awesome. And that is a 0:08:38.559 --> 0:08:40.839 lot of what you talk about on one hand, and 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:44.120 then when you sort of dig beneath the surface of 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:46.600 that and you look at also the other things that 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:48.400 you've done in your life, which we're definitely going to 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:52.920 get into. But like limitation is part of this, being 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:58.679 able to explore what's possible within limitation is sort of flow. 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:01.840 Is a hardware for people performance because we can all 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:03.800 get into flow. In fact, most mammals can get into flow. 0:09:03.840 --> 0:09:06.400 So pea performance is a part of it. It's our birthright. 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:10.960 That said, at any moment of any day, we are 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:14.480 all facing limits and challenges and like it doesn't that 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:17.000 that stuff. They may change, some people may have it 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:20.440 worse today than others, but it's hard here. It's hard 0:09:20.520 --> 0:09:26.120 for everyone, and there's always challenges and opportunities, right, and 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:30.840 flow can happen despite that, right, Like, that's the really 0:09:31.040 --> 0:09:36.120 cool thing about flow is it shows up in everyone everywhere, 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:39.079 provided certain initial conditions are met and it doesn't change 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:40.800 over time. This is one of the things that we 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:43.040 know about flow. This is some of the last work 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:45.480 the godfather flow psychology is me how Chick sent me high. 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:48.880 He was a psychologist the University of Chicago for a 0:09:48.880 --> 0:09:51.440 long time and then moved to H. Drucker in the 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:55.679 in Clermont and his last study but the best way 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:58.680 during COVID, his very last study was on flow promise 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:00.679 in the second half of our life? You want to 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:04.120 know do we crave flow up until the end? And 0:10:04.360 --> 0:10:06.920 what he discovered is that we crave flow up until 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:09.840 our body is deteriorate to the point that we can't 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:13.520 access flow the way we want to. So a lot 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:16.480 of people performance agent work is one how do we 0:10:16.480 --> 0:10:18.640 continue to access flow lad in life? And two how 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:21.960 do we protect against phys the physical decline? To protect 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:22.800 that as well? 0:10:23.040 --> 0:10:25.040 Is that the teacher that you said, you called him 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:26.880 up and he said, as you age, have as many 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:28.240 gateways into flow as possible. 0:10:28.360 --> 0:10:30.880 Yeah, he was the last conversation I had with Mike. 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:34.400 You always asked me to call him Mike, and yeah, 0:10:34.640 --> 0:10:36.400 I called him to ask him a question about the 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:39.439 role action sports had played in his life and his career, 0:10:39.480 --> 0:10:43.640 because there's all this, a whole bunch of anecdotal data 0:10:43.720 --> 0:10:46.120 that he was a much more serious. Everybody knows he 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:48.080 was a rock climber because he did work on rock climbing, 0:10:48.080 --> 0:10:50.440 but there was a lot of anecdote the adda that 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:52.800 like he was a lot more serious about it than 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:55.560 he'd ever let on. And I'd called him to ask 0:10:55.640 --> 0:10:58.559 him about it and the role flow played in his life, 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:02.000 and the role action sports played, and specifically climbing the mountaineering, 0:11:02.559 --> 0:11:06.560 and he paused for a really long time. The two 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:08.240 minutes went by, and I was like, oh my god, 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:11.360 did I offend him? What did I do? And finally says, Stephen, 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:14.360 you got to be careful. And I had no idea. 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:15.560 What was tell you what? I thought he had lost 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:18.600 the plot. I was like, oh my god, it's like 0:11:18.800 --> 0:11:20.920 write what's going on? And I said, what do you mean, Mike? 0:11:21.000 --> 0:11:24.000 He said, well, you got to be careful. You do 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:26.400 something your entire life or flow and you get to 0:11:26.640 --> 0:11:29.319 my age and forget about climbing rocks. Some days I 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:32.080 can't get out of bed. Have a backup plan. You 0:11:32.160 --> 0:11:35.320 got to be careful. And I had been working in 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:38.840 and around peak performance aging on and for twenty years, 0:11:38.880 --> 0:11:41.760 because there's like nine different things that fold into people 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:43.720 informt aging, and I've been working in all of those 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:47.680 fields for literally twenty years, but it didn't come together 0:11:47.920 --> 0:11:50.319 into it like a once. Mike said that that was 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:52.920 sort of the quest that started in our country and 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:55.560 led to the quest that was that underled that book. 0:11:56.400 --> 0:12:02.120 Yeah, there's something in there about how do you globalize 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:04.960 so much of the so much of sort of the 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:10.239 top level SoundBite work of both flow and peak performance 0:12:10.280 --> 0:12:13.200 and all of these things. Like the poster child of 0:12:13.200 --> 0:12:15.520 that is like all of these action sports and all 0:12:15.520 --> 0:12:20.520 of this really physical stuff. And I love that in 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:24.839 our country. Obviously your vehicle is park skiing, which is 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:28.480 a very physical, physically demanding action sport. But the question 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:33.679 is how do I take stock of the reality of 0:12:33.679 --> 0:12:35.480 what is. I don't have the body of a twenty 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:38.160 year old anymore. There are other things that draw me. 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:41.040 There are other things that pull me. Is what I've 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:44.000 believed in for so long? How does it apply to 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:46.800 who I am now and what I know about myself now. 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:51.480 It's like that looking for the third option between what 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:54.320 you call the basically like the mindset of like what 0:12:54.360 --> 0:12:57.800 did you call it? The mindset of aging is the 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:03.120 slow long rock, the long slow rot, or the opposite 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:04.920 end of that or the you know, the flip side 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:07.720 of that is like Nanna na. The body is an illusion. 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:10.000 Aging is an illusion. Limits are an illusion, just like 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:11.880 believe in yourself and you can do it. Like That's 0:13:11.920 --> 0:13:15.679 my problem very often with positive psychology is that it 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:20.720 bypasses the reality of limitation and gives people an unattainable ideal. 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:23.400 And what I like about, especially in our country and 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:25.240 some of the other things I've read of yours, is 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:31.280 there's a third option here where we can acknowledge limitation 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:36.640 in whatever form that takes and challenge ourselves to wonder 0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:39.880 about what else is possible. And then in our country 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:44.920 you have like sort of operationalized how do how do 0:13:44.960 --> 0:13:47.319 we wonder about what's possible and push ourselves. 0:13:47.559 --> 0:13:49.640 Let's go back to so that you were talking about, 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:51.079 which is the long slow rot theory. This is the 0:13:51.120 --> 0:13:54.840 traditional theory of aging, right, and it sort of gets 0:13:54.880 --> 0:13:56.839 set up before it makes an off headed common in 0:13:56.920 --> 0:14:00.120 nineteen ohse seventy puts it a common in psychologics is 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:05.120 in psychotherapy. His book psychotherapy, and that's sort of where 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:08.160 it really gets formalized. And by like nineteen ninety five, 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:10.319 all we've done is proof, right right, right, We've got 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:12.360 we've figured out that all of our mental skills decline 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:14.480 over time, all our physical skills decline over time, and 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:16.040 there's nothing we can do to the south the slide, 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:17.720 and this is the this is wad. 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:19.640 Of such a winker. Can we just pause and say 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:21.760 that Freud is such a jerk anyway? 0:14:22.840 --> 0:14:26.720 A lot right there? Also like he did. There's the 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:29.240 thing you have to appreciate about Freud and the thing 0:14:29.280 --> 0:14:31.400 that nobody gives them credit for it. And you have 0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:34.400 to understand that the unconscious wasn't a thing. We grew 0:14:34.520 --> 0:14:37.040 up in a world knowing there was an unconscious, right, 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:43.840 Imagine having to discover the unconscious. Imagine having to in 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:47.880 like we're coming out of the Enlightenment. Rational materialism is 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:51.560 the pinnacle of thinking, and suddenly you're going to prove 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:54.800 and there's a there's a there's an amazing book called 0:14:54.840 --> 0:14:57.080 The History of the Unconscious where it's literally a three 0:14:57.160 --> 0:15:01.240 hundred year road to get to Freud. That's amazing. All right, 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:03.360 I'll be set this point. So the LONGSLW route theory 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:06.120 is the traditional idea of aging. Starting in ninety ninety 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:09.640 five ninety six, data starts showing up that says, hey, 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:13.160 wait a minute, this is wrong, really wrong. Where we 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:17.360 are today, thirty years after the data started showing up 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:20.280 is we now know that every single thing we used 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:22.880 to think declined over time. They're all used to lose 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:25.800 its skills. So if you never stop using these skills, 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:27.520 you can hang on to them and even advance them 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:31.160 far later in life than any thought possible. Now, you 0:15:31.280 --> 0:15:33.520 made a statement like I'm not twenty years old anymore. 0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:35.800 I'm sixty years old, and the twoth of the matter 0:15:35.840 --> 0:15:39.560 is are fifty years old. That's not really true, Like 0:15:39.600 --> 0:15:42.920 it's just it's like there are there are certain things 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:47.120 that have changed over time, for sure, But for most 0:15:47.320 --> 0:15:49.400 of the skills that you were to proquire for most 0:15:49.440 --> 0:15:52.680 anything you want to do, with the possible exception of 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:56.120 being like top one percent athletically in a handful of sports, 0:15:57.000 --> 0:15:59.720 you can pretty much do it. So there is there's 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:02.720 there's no upper cap to that. But again your point 0:16:02.760 --> 0:16:05.120 was also true. So this is in peak performances a 0:16:05.440 --> 0:16:11.560 very well known, well established difference between affirmations and gratitude. 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:16.400 Gratitude works. Affirmations fail, and the question you have to 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:19.400 ask is why, And the reason is because we can 0:16:19.440 --> 0:16:23.320 come with great both built in bullshit detectors and an affirmation. 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:25.320 If you sit there and stare in the mirror and go, 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:27.320 I am a millionaire. I am a millionaire. I'm a millionaire, 0:16:27.360 --> 0:16:28.960 and your brain is looking back at you and going, dude, 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:34.280 you work at Walmart. What the fuck right? That's demotivating. 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:37.520 That's actually you're going in the other direction. Gratitude. I 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:39.840 am so happy and grateful. I'm healthy today, I'm so 0:16:39.880 --> 0:16:42.080 happy and grateful. My legs, I'm so happy and grateful 0:16:42.080 --> 0:16:44.720 it sunny outs. Those are all real things. And what 0:16:44.760 --> 0:16:48.080 happens is your brain goes, oh, look, things are better 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:51.440 than I thought, and it has a real impact in 0:16:51.480 --> 0:16:53.720 the brain. To actually put it specifically, we've all heard 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:57.200 about the negativity bias. What the negativity bias works out 0:16:57.200 --> 0:17:01.560 to impracticality is we take in on average, nine negative 0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:04.200 bits of information for every positive bit that comes through, 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:08.160 and conscious awareness mind you, is about one hundred and 0:17:08.160 --> 0:17:11.400 sixty bits of information. So if the ratio is nine 0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:13.719 to one, and we're only going to get about one 0:17:13.760 --> 0:17:15.920 hundred and sixty bits that we can focus on at once. 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:19.879 That's a problem. And when you start doing gratitude and 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:22.760 your brain starts going, oh wow, there's good stuff in 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:24.440 my life. Maybe I don't have to be so panic. 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:27.760 The ratio shifts about five to one, six to one, 0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:31.240 so it's better, right, That's what happens in the brain 0:17:31.480 --> 0:17:35.320 during gratitude. So there's something to be said for You 0:17:35.400 --> 0:17:42.440 can't pretend that the challenges aren't challenges, that they're not there, right, 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:44.720 You can't do that. That's going to work against you. 0:17:45.160 --> 0:17:48.119 But nor can you use any of them. There's no 0:17:48.359 --> 0:17:51.920 there are no excuses, parid, there's no viable excuses. You're 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:54.080 the only person standing in your way, and there are 0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:57.040 very few dreams that you can't chase down. 0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:02.000 I love that you just made gratitude, dude, not the endpoint, 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:06.359 but a tool in my brain filter. Here is like 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:09.840 you just made gratitude a tool for curiosity. This is 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:13.080 like the way that I imagine andidepressant's work. It's like it 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:17.040 brings your brain to a point where you are able 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:21.040 to make decisions right. It doesn't make everything sunny. It 0:18:21.119 --> 0:18:23.479 makes your brain come to a place where you have 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:27.000 more agency and you have more more choices. And that's 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:29.720 how I just charge you describe gratitude. Is it like 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:34.280 it's a way to sort of come back to negativity tool? 0:18:34.320 --> 0:18:35.359 And yeah, it's a tool. Can. 0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:37.119 We do a lot of work with Glenn Fox as 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:39.480 a nuroscientists at USC invice. When I say we, I 0:18:39.520 --> 0:18:42.359 mean the Flow Research Collective, right, there's about one hundred 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:44.919 people who I get to work with. I lead a 0:18:44.960 --> 0:18:47.960 huge research team and one of the people we work 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:50.000 with is Glenn Fox, who's a nuroscientists at USC in 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:52.240 the world's leading expert on gratitude. We did a bunch 0:18:52.240 --> 0:18:55.199 of work either we discovered that people who have regular 0:18:55.240 --> 0:18:58.080 gratitude practices for reasons that have to do with how 0:18:58.240 --> 0:19:01.760 anxiety blocks flow more flow prone. So if you want 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:04.000 more flow in your life, there's all full toolkit. One 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:06.360 of the tools you can reach for is gratitude. We're 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:09.840 actually doing a study. We're going to do it last 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:12.920 ski season and probably going to do it early next 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:14.960 ski snes and we're trying to figure out if you 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:19.520 can use gratitude as an active intervention in a crisis 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:23.560 situation as a way of calming down the nervous system 0:19:23.720 --> 0:19:26.919 versus we know over time it works, but in acute 0:19:26.920 --> 0:19:29.720 situations there are tools, there are other tools that work better. 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:32.720 We believe that we don't know, and nobody's done direct comparisons. 0:19:32.800 --> 0:19:35.480 We're trying to do, you know, if they're looking at 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:38.479 where the gratitude comes from, whether it is a person 0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:41.640 in crisis choosing to put their mind there, or it's 0:19:41.760 --> 0:19:43.760 an intervention from someone else. 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:46.399 We're going to do it self directed. Thank you, We're 0:19:46.400 --> 0:19:47.200 going to do self directed. 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:50.800 I don't who, because like, gratitude is one of those 0:19:50.840 --> 0:19:53.480 things that gets sort of weaponized to people like you 0:19:53.560 --> 0:19:55.679 just have to be grateful, like stop doing this, like, 0:19:55.800 --> 0:19:59.400 don't think like that, be grateful. So in my field, right, 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:03.040 I work in grief, and grief related to death was 0:20:03.040 --> 0:20:04.919 where I started. And for a lot of people, like 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:08.640 their kid dies or their partner was killed in an accident, 0:20:08.680 --> 0:20:10.960 and somebody's like, be grateful that you still have blah 0:20:10.960 --> 0:20:16.439 blah blah. So this sort of external applied gratitude is 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:19.040 so not helpful. But I love I mean, I'm a 0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:21.919 big fan of agency and sovereignty, right, so it's really 0:20:21.960 --> 0:20:26.320 interesting to look at gratitude as a tool for when 0:20:26.320 --> 0:20:29.520 your nervous system is starting to spin out from the 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:32.080 reality of the event, right, and what does that do 0:20:32.160 --> 0:20:32.439 for you? 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:36.160 Pause? Psychology has a number of high performance basics. This 0:20:36.200 --> 0:20:38.359 is not flow. This is what you have to do 0:20:38.400 --> 0:20:41.239 to get the body ready to even produce flow. And 0:20:41.880 --> 0:20:44.679 you've got to have a regular anti anxiety practice and 0:20:44.720 --> 0:20:49.520 the three most effective ones are gratitude, mindfulness, and exercise 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:54.200 and mindfulness or stress reduction. Right, breathwork, it's eleven minutes. 0:20:54.480 --> 0:20:56.960 You need eleven minutes of focus meditation of breath work 0:20:57.000 --> 0:20:59.680 or do a loven kindness script or take your pick, 0:20:59.680 --> 0:21:02.240 but it's not very long. Graduate practice takes about five 0:21:02.280 --> 0:21:04.600 minutes right down through things are grateful for it turn 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:06.960 one into a paragraph, blah blah. You really just want 0:21:06.960 --> 0:21:08.640 to feel the gratitude of your system. That's what you're 0:21:08.640 --> 0:21:12.000 going for. Or eleven minutes or twenty to forty minutes 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:14.880 worth of exercise. And what we tell people is under 0:21:14.880 --> 0:21:17.600 normal circumstances, if you're having an you know, if you're 0:21:17.680 --> 0:21:20.960 just just a normal day, do one every day at 0:21:20.960 --> 0:21:23.560 a tune your nervous system because anxiety will block flow. 0:21:23.800 --> 0:21:27.240 But if you're stressed, do two. And if you're super stressed. 0:21:27.640 --> 0:21:32.720 Do three and you know when I'm grieving, and we 0:21:32.840 --> 0:21:35.240