 This is start the store front. What separates the world's top athletes is not training determination or endurance It's how they react to the stress and pressure in the game. And this isn't a simple mindset shift. It's bigger than that We're talking about how their nervous system responds to the unknown and the unfamiliar The longest nerve in the body is called the vaguest nerve and it's responsible for letting your fight flight reflex take over or Turning it into play our guest today Michael Allison has become an expert in how this nerve affects our performance in everything from public speaking to athletic competitions Through this he has developed the play zone where he works with coaches to help athletes manage their physiology When it matters most in this episode we discuss what Western swing dancers have in common with tennis doubles partners How to recognize when our bodies are in a suboptimal state and Regain control in order to perform at our best and the application of the polyvagal theory in helping entrepreneurs make better Gain time decisions. All right. Welcome to the podcast on today's show. We're talking Michael Allison developer of the play zone Thanks for coming on for people who don't know what you do Give them a quick intro of who you are what you do I am Michael Allison and I am officially the developer of what I call the play zone Which is my unique application of what is called polyvagal theory, okay? Specifically to optimizing our performance and just without getting too technical or too boring. What is the polyvagal theory? It's been around for a little while doctors. Yeah, what's your quick synopsis of it? Well, let's do it in real time. Okay, okay? So Here I am. I'm in a place. I've never been before right. We've never met None of us have met. I drove through a lot of traffic to get here. Okay So subconsciously my body is reacting to all of these features that are uncertain and Unpredictable and unfamiliar just like a player walking on to a tennis court, right and Reflexively subconsciously my body is mobilizing. What does that mean? It means my heart rate is a little more elevated My breathing is a little different. I'm releasing energy in a different way I'm releasing cortisol right, and so I'm having all of these bodily experiences Subconsciously I can become aware of them But they're shifting and changing Adaptively reflexively because this environment is uncertain. We haven't formed a relationship yet Right and so it's also reading if I had to go to the bathroom or if I had muscle tension or pain So all of the time we're subconsciously scanning Our external environment our relational environment and our internal environment looking for threats more so right? We're looking for both. Okay, so that's what you need to be positive or negative Okay, that's what's really cool about mammals. Okay social mammals is we unlike reptiles We can detect what's risky, but we can also detect what's safe. What's comforting? What's and in particular in relationships, and so that is really the theory the theory is explaining that that's happening Whether we recognize it or not and what I've done is I said well the key to performance is To recognize that's happening to meet the body where it is and then apply resources and tools To regain enough control of your physiology To support your intention to support your goals to support your potential and you work with with high-class athletes That deal with these types of I guess they could be traumatic events But more so they're just getting a lot of new data that they've never seen before in a different way It might even be the same venue, but it's a different crowd. It's a bigger crowd There's more television you got the locker rooms changed and so in these moments What are the resources that you you guide them you equip them with or even some of their coaches with? So sort of get them to the point of focusing on yeah, they're great at so first is recognizing it's happening Okay, so I like to tell stories. Okay, so here's a story This is a true story and this is a player who at the time this occurred He was about 85 in the world men's tennis. Okay, so I'm watching him play and I'm watching him step up to the line to serve and I could tell his body was not prepared to serve Very very tight breathing was different facial expressions were off body language Not in a comfortable safe place and it was a pivotal game. It was that like three four game, right? Okay, you know okay sure games three three serving at three four or four or five. Those are big games Right, so you could see it. We could feel it and he steps up to the line double faults, right now He's even more tight more revved up and a little bit uncertain Next point serves the ball in but very very gingerly right guy clocks it winner now He's down love 30 steps up to the line again double fault now. He's pissed Now he's really amped up. So what does he do tanks the ball like three feet long on the next point game over set was pretty much done Okay, so I get on the phone with him or actually I get on a I get on a video call the next day I like to wait till the next day. It's like, okay. So what what was going on for you, right? And what was going on for you? What do you mean? I'm like well What what was happening? What were you feeling? What was going on? Nothing felt normal. I'm like really so watch a little bit of video I'm like, okay. Does this look normal? Well, maybe I was a little tight. Okay, so he's acknowledging here We go. He's acknowledged. Maybe I was a little tight, right? Okay, and I'm like, okay. Awesome. You're a little tight So what'd you do? And he's like, what do you mean? What did I do? I'm like, well, did you do anything to try to kind of get loose? He's like, well, I just did my routine, right? That's what athletes. I was gonna say athletes go right back Okay, you're right They go mechanical they go one two three. Yeah, whatever. Right, right. Okay his routine So I didn't even so I had watched this player This is so probably ten hours by this point. Okay, and I did not see a routine That he I didn't see one routine. Totally. Okay. I did their head. So I'm like, okay. What's the routine? He goes. This is fascinating. He goes well. I bounced the ball one time. Yeah, okay I bounced the ball one time and then I go right into my serve. I go, okay So that's your routine one bounce. He's like, that's my routine. Don't mess with my routine, right? And I'm like, all right, I'm not gonna touch you. Okay, so you've bounced the ball one time. Were you ready to serve? No, but that's what I do. I just that's what I do And I do knowledge. She wasn't ready. Okay. He acknowledged but he didn't that's just that's just how he lives So I'm not ready, but that's what I do. I've been doing it since I was eight So I go, okay, we're not gonna mess with your routine. You acknowledge you weren't really ready So can we do something before you start your routine? He's like, great What are we gonna do? And then so when then we explore all kinds of things? So in other words, as soon as the point ends or as soon as you're at the changeover You're already beginning an awareness of where am I? Is my body in the right state to perform what I know how to perform? Oh, it's not What do I do? Right, so now he has a routine that he immediately starts as soon as point is over That starts with the walk to the towel. What's he doing with his body? How's he controlling his breathing? What's he doing with his posture? How's he walking? Where's he putting his attention? That's all the routine. So by the time he steps up to the line He doesn't start that one bounce till he's ready. And if he's not ready now, he has another skill It's just so rudimentary. You can just bounce it With the racket while he waits, right? And so but that was so profound for him because he didn't even think There was any alternative then to serve even when you're tight Yeah, I could say added to the routine without him even noticing that you that's right I put a routine before his one bounce routine, but okay, let's unpack this so I Totally understand what you're talking like this is so it's hitting home We'll say but but in that is what you're dialing them into like a level of awareness. Is that okay? Okay, okay, it starts there and and so let's pretend there It's an exhibition match and no one cares and the routine is less important But at some point, you know, maybe it's that pointer to yours. It's it's the big stage and so on the big stage There is they're dealing with so much more nerves And so what you're trying to do is pull them out of the nerves and and coach them through having a sense of awareness Yes, and is it just adding time or is it is that so it's you're teaching them breathing exercises? Yes, you're bringing them back to level Through yes as close as we can As close as we can get back to how it is when there's no pressure when you're free Right when you're free you can hit that serve exactly where you want by this level. Yeah, right by this point Thank you, but they can put the ball By your level they can put the ball exactly where they want So the difference between when it's not going where they want and where they know they can is in their physiological state That's what I'm showing is that it's because your heart rate is different Your breathing is different your muscle tension is different which changes the actual Mechanics of your shot it changes the speed and power of your movement Which is why the ball misses changes finite motor control changes all of those things when you Think about people who say they have like the clutch gene Do you think that's a real thing or do you think they just have a heightened sense of awareness and can bring themselves back to level? Despite the stage. It's a great question. I think it's both. It's not that they have a gene It's that their nervous system. They're subconscious for whatever reason or reasons Isn't reacting to that massive trigger that you or I might react to in the same way So their heart rate might go up just a little bit their breathing might change or they like it Maybe they like it. Well, eventually they learn to like it. Okay, eventually. That's the point It's eventually eventually like a joke of itch right right what we see in joke of itch is we see normal play Not being enough of a challenge for him to mobilize enough resource to focus enough and to dial into what I call the He needs more challenge to elevate his concentration to elevate his Mobilization the elevated heart rate to get into his sweet spot when we break this down I think about an athlete like Alex Honnold who free solos the you know, El Capitan all these incredible feats of athleticism and He's been into a CAT scan where they've scanned his brain and put images up that are supposed to like cause like fight-or-flight responses and In the CAT scan they show like no no real reaction And I'm wondering it's it's like he's a he's able to completely block out any kind of fear Which is how he's able to go up on these mountains without any kind of harness rope. No, nothing Yeah, and I'm wondering how big of a role fear is in this whole thing as opposed to like all of the other minutiae that's going on like the uncertainties the Familiarities like kind of scoping it out is is fear an outsized player in this whole ordeal. That's a great question and I'm not I don't want to teach the people I work with whether they're athletes or business executives to Detach from their bodily responses. So you put me on a cliff I'm gonna still have a bodily response. Yeah, but what I want to do is not associate that bodily response to an attached thought or belief or story that is I'm gonna fall or I'm not good enough or This is way too much for me. That's the difference. It's like, okay I have this bodily response, which he is saying he doesn't even when they test him He's not even having that bodily response. Now that could be a history of detaching Which is not what I'm getting at because when we detach and we don't actually have bodily response The reason we want to keep those bodily responses occurring is those are feedback loops that Tell our nervous system how to regulate our organs how to regulate all of our internal systems So it isn't a recipe for long-term health and wellness. I'm not saying that's what he's done But I'm saying the way I approach this is you have the bodily response Now you do what you can to regain enough control of that to settle down And then at the same time you don't attach a story to it other than oh my god I'm reacting to this like when I work in here and we start my heart rate elevated. Oh interesting curious Wow cool instead of attaching a story to now. I'm gonna bomb or now I'm gonna choke or I better just barely hit this serve in the box because I don't know if I can So it's not attaching a second level story That's sort of second level the first level the primary thing is it's happening in the nervous system at the level of the brainstem and the brainstem is making these immediate reflexive interpretations as to whether the environment is really safe Whether it's just a little bit dangerous or whether it's like overwhelming and life-threatening and when it's overwhelming and life-threatening Then we see actually the opposite. We don't see mobilization. We see shutting down. We see collapse We see quitting we see making excuses and feeling hopeless and wanting to get off the court Wanting to get away, right or even fainting passing out. So let's take this to the next level. So you're coaching Somebody on this they're becoming aware of it, which means they're becoming aware of probably if the other player is having a moment Yeah, and then you have to you you can coach your client. Let's call it. Yeah, how to capital That's a great question. No, it's great. Yes. And so if you're really teaching them awareness Yes, self that means making now see you can see it and feel it in the other So so the way so when you look at it through this lens, right? typical scenario is Each player comes out and they get mobilized. They get anxious. It's almost like I coach a college team 10 of the 11 players are anxious. Okay, so it's pretty universal highly anxious and so what most people do is They take that anxious energy because it's just if you just look at it as mobilized energy a body preparing to fight or to Flee they turn it into attack they attack and they get aggressive Okay, so if you look at it this way, so you've got two players coming out And if we're gonna my do it in a hierarchy attacking is higher than just defending or anxious Okay, so we have two players coming out. They're both anxious. This player starts attacking this player Can with awareness recognize shit? I'm I'm just anxious I need to rise up and match this player and if I match this player long enough and this player doesn't have the level of Awareness and the resource I have he will or she will go to anxious interesting and if I stay here Yeah, they're gonna collapse eventually and it happens all the time So you look at it right when you're very aware and you understand this you start looking at how can I manage myself? How can I climb this what I call the performance hierarchy and get up into play? But even if I can't fight is higher than flight Attacking is more of an indicator. Yes, and then just defending interesting And so now you're kind of here and I can we can play this game and I can see this player Falling down the trajectory while I'm climbing and then if they balance back like so then what will happen? It's really cool. So this player will start to fall here They may even start to immobilize and they a lot of us intuit this as players you get this, right? So so now what they do is they make a last surge and they get angry and gnarly and if you know that you just weather that You just you just weather that because they're going to go there They call this the they're going to go there So Brad Gilbert will call this the wounded bear the wounded bear the wounded bear part of one last That's right of anything of any relationship of any interaction happens So let's say you're let's you're in a final. You're winning. You're up. You're it's not close to set point But it's approaching the wounded bear will arrive Yeah, you you're saying even in you or it either either one of you definitely the person losing and You you better withstand that because if you don't the momentum will shift and that's what I that's so that's the word momentum momentum to me is One player's physiology getting closer to the play zone getting closer to comfort and safety and control and the other players getting more Defensive reactive suboptimal. That's momentum. How do you apply this to business? And so when you talk to business coaches, let's let's do this even your business And so as you have gone through this professionally at some point you say, okay, this is working I have enough clients or success stories, you know, how do I think about taking this to the masses? How do I think about solving this for for high school players? Professional level, you know, what made you want to start your business? That's great question so originally I was coaching the actual players and I was coaching the actual individuals and That's great, but it's again. It's a one-to-one impact So in the last year I started a coaching program So now I coach coaches in this methodology all types of coaches international It's all over the world and I do it through zoom and we do an eight-week intensive deep dive It's a 30-hour course and then we meet live as a group every other week So four times and then they have mentors throughout too So I've taken about 80 coaches through and I have about 20 of those that are now Certificated and our mentors for the new group. So that's where I'm going I'm going into spreading this out to coaching other coaches whether it's a business coach Yeah, a sports coach a psychologist and any type of how much overlap or the real question is like here We are on an entrepreneurship podcast, right? And we speak to a lot of authors also And so we try to basically sharpen all of our tools mental being the biggest one But entrepreneurship is basically, you know you starting a company you going into an abyss and every day is a new day Every day is a new challenge. There's a lot of unknowns a lot of I would say The whole lot of risk and a lot of risk and personal judgment. Yes, and so that's valuation Competition, what's your advice to entrepreneurs? That's not so that are stuck But like is it a similar format where in tennis? There's a moment. It's a clear moment. Here's my match day I'm here. I've arrived. I know the moment's gonna happen within the hour or two in business It can happen. You can get a letter from a lawyer today That's right or your or your board wants to leave fire you tomorrow, you know Like what is what is the business advice you give people? Yeah, I think it's the same. It's just longer. It's more macro Not just micro, right? So just like I do with athletes What they're doing on the court just like what you're doing in your actual business is is Half at best of the full equation. It's what you're doing off the court It's how do you take care of your nervous system and your physiology? So that you can work in your business and be creative because I'm actually arguing that Every skill component that is built into performance, whether it's reaction time for an athlete or whether it's problem-solving for an entrepreneur or creativity being able to think out of the box or Forming relationships with others is All based on your physiology in that moment. So I look at real simply Off the court and even sometimes on the court is my body in homeostasis Like is it safe enough? I'm actually in recovery or is it now diverting resources toward even playing that's still diverting resources or fighting or training or Putting out fires or writing this email, right? Like all of those are diversions from homeostasis. Okay, okay? So most of us homeostasis protect well most of us spend too much time and energy and resource Diverting resource low yield events. That's right. And we're tapping ourselves out And so we need to spend more time in homeostasis Which is promoting health growth? recovery Relationships balance all the good stuff and so that's just how I look at it and off the court is also a mixture of both Off the court though starts with homeostasis starts with more time and energy and an awareness of man I have been really diverting resource in my job or whatever it is or on the court And I'm gonna do what really brings my body in the safety comfort calm and ultimately connection Is there a part of the program where you you want to induce some sort of like Something that comes to mind immediately. It's like a cold plunge, right? Nobody in the right mind wants to get into cold water. Yes But there's a real mental That's the transitory challenge. Okay. That's one of these and that's that's an opportunity. I call that domain general domain domain general in other words, you can take a cold plunge Yeah, and you can lose your shit in that cold plunge or You can take a cold plunge and practice your breathing Softening your muscle tension being present in this comfort trying to get back to that homeostasis Right, even though you're not but you're you're building those resources, but it's still a temporary challenge But now you're actually building skill that translates Onto the court onto stressful environment on this other stressful environments because the physiology is the same Yes, right so an elevated heart rate high blood pressure breathing that's short and shallow that baseline Physiology out of that emerges all kinds of different things. It's not a one-to-one Do you see what I'm saying? So like that physiology I have in the cold water Might be almost identical to the physiology I have when I step on to the court or when I walked in here and started with you guys like those Physiologies might be the same so I share a story and and when I had to give my first presentation of this, right? Like so I'm presenting in front of a couple hundred people But bigger than that I was presenting in front of the scientists who I based all of this work on So what a Steven? Okay, okay, I'm presenting sitting in front row and I have Devoured his work and and I consider him a mentor and someone I deeply respect So he's sitting right front and center and so I knew going into that here I am I've taken his theory and I'm applying it to performance and now I need to perform in front of him That's right bold right like can I do this right? And so I knew in preparation that I was going to have a physiological response I knew my heart rate was gonna get writ going and my breathing was gonna change and my voice would change and all of that So I wanted to simulate it. So I did a virtual reality experience of walking the plank So you can use VR experiences and I challenge myself to walk this plank Knowing that would trigger a physiological response similar to what I anticipated it would in that and that's what a cold plunge would be Yeah, like I take cold showers for that. Yeah, right where I'll go from my hot tub to a cold shower, right deliberately for Oh, can I regulate what can I do because to me from the physiological standpoint? It's the same physiology. I'm gonna experience Stepping on stage, you know when you were talking about trying to coach people to spend more time in homeostasis as opposed to expending all these Unnecessary energies on tasks that are just going to drain you of your resources It reminded me a lot of the 80 20 training philosophy where it's like you have five heart rate zones So one and two are pretty easy zone four and five you can barely get a sentence in and You know the philosophy is that you should spend 80% of your time training in zones one and two Because you aren't are going to build up your aerobic system without taxing your body too much and Expanding all this energy as opposed to like what most people do is they'll go out and train And they'll spend most of it in zone three which is this nether region where nothing really beneficial happens So he might get a little bit better But you're not gonna get the gains that you'll see if you spend 80% in zone one and two and 20% in zone four and five and that's what I was thinking of when you were talking about Having people spend most of their time in homeostasis because you get comfortable in that zone And you can become familiar with it and almost like a grounding where in times where you are in Stress where you are in certain environment. Yeah, you you have a much bigger foundation to fall back on of that homeostasis And I just thought the parallels between the two Yeah are are staggering. Yeah, that's a good. That's a good parallel Yeah, and I would agree with you and I would so I would say the the lower the zones are really rest and recovery right from this standpoint and Instead what we tend to do is we train harder. So when we come up short, we just train harder Right and and that isn't the answer Right and spending time in those middle zones. I agree with you like a marathon runner For example My philosophy when I train marathon runners is don't run slower than your marathon pace Minimize that amount of time. Most of them slog long long miles Slower than their marathon pace. Well, marathon pace is not 50% that's not four and five For the for a high level runner marathon pace is still way below their their highest level So that to me is their one and two spend your time at or faster than marathon pace Right and forget that middle ground and that's what you're saying to you like forget all of the stuff that's depleting and Tapping my resource because we only have so much resource Right and also that familiarity of what is homeostasis? What is feeling calm? Feel like even when I'm outputting. Yeah, what does that actually feel like and you're essentially retuning your physiology? You're retuning your nervous system. So when someone's in say a major competition, what is it that you? Tell them to do if they are trying to get back to that homeostasis mentality Is it like take a time out use a break as as an opportunity to reset yourself? Or is it something where if I'm in the middle of a of a volley with Diego, can I recenter myself? That quickly or is it something that I just need like a moment or two like after the point is ended? I can recenter both it usually starts with the first way you describe where you do it when you have a break because it Takes awareness, but ultimately if you're doing this and it becomes your habit You'll be doing it during during the point you will absolutely be changing how you're breathing and it will start intentionally at first But it'll become habitual and you will change all that so deeper breaths or what it what is it not necessarily? So well deeper meaning if you're actually breathing with the diaphragm. Yes, okay We want to breathe with the diaphragm even if we're mobilized in fight, right? But that's not what's happening. So if we know that we're really highly mobilized We can actually start to feel our diaphragm as we're breathing that will absolutely that sends what's called vagal afferent sensory feedback to the Vegas which then can tell the Vegas to Inhibit and slow the heart. It's a loop. So that's why diaphragmatic breathing which we've all heard about It's because of the vagal afference the sensory coming back to the brainstem goes. Oh, I'm moving my diaphragm I mustn't be in fight mode. I mustn't have to flee, right? So that's really important, but it's also it's the ratio of inhale to exhale So real simply if we want to get more energy We lengthen our inhale so we can pull with our diaphragm, but we can pull big amount in and then we speed up our exhale So if we want to mobilize right and sometimes you do sometimes you're too complacent It's not always about calming but so so I teach in longer ends and then still a full out But it's quicker. So if you think of it like you're climbing a mountain every time you breathe in the heart rate goes up for all of us And every time we breathe out the heart rate goes down goes up and go down So if I want to elevate I'm gonna take a longer in breath a shorter out breath longer in breath shorter out breath longer I'm climbing the mountain. I'm elevating the opposite for calming. I want to take a long Exhale I want to take a long exhale and come back down Come back down and if I'm feeling pretty good. I might make it equal I might really still pull along in might be four or five and a nice long out But I'll stay equal because that actually optimizes you've heard of heart rate variability That actually optimizes the respiratory component of heart rate variability Which is called respiratory sinus arrhythmia and that is what we want You know how a tennis player when returning serve they don't stand flat-footed. There's a little bit of sway. That's how our heart rate is Optimally and the more that sways in relation to our breathing That is a sign of resiliency. There's a rhythm I was in three finals recently at the tennis club and what I hate about it is even even like in the morning I'll wake up and I'm fine. I go through my routine of like coffee So I'm like instantly in my routine and blah blah blah whatever and then I get on the court And as soon as I get on the court my heart rate goes up and I'm like here we go Here we go again Okay, you know what I Sit and I like yeah, I try to resetter myself and I I think I do a decent job, but it's I still I Can't get my body to forget and I don't know that I want to get my body to forget that it's a you know Somewhat like I try to convince myself. I'll go. Oh, it's just a meaningless club match. I'm like that doesn't work My body knows it's not that and then I just try to play all these funny games with myself Yeah, and then I just try to go okay. This is we're just gonna have fun No, no, it's not fun to lose Right, so that's the fallacy you're bringing you're bringing you're bringing to like give me my real my real But you're you're bringing to like so many things we think our thinking is gonna get us through it Totally not and that's what you just proved to yourself. It's the same with that VR experience I knew I wasn't on a plank. It didn't matter my body was believing a different story, right? So that's really helpful information. So they go. Oh, I'm really mobilized and the other thing that you said You said a couple of things that you kind of don't want to feel that way at first And then you kind of went back and said well, maybe I don't want to give that up So if you start just looking at that as mobilizing your resources away from homeostasis toward playing which it has to do Right, it's just you've made some association that that feeling that elevated heart rate means. Oh, I need to calm it down Right and and it could but it also could mean. Oh, I'm just I'm just getting ready here I'm gonna it's gonna calm down time right. It's game time and it's gonna calm down as I start using it Right, which is what the warm-up is for too. So like for me warm-ups are to actually, you know We talked about this up and down warm-ups are about getting elevated and calming down getting elevated calming down That's part of it. And then the other part of it is getting familiar Getting the feel getting everything feeling quote safe and in your control So the body will naturally Calm down too, but it's ready to elevate You know, it's like a dog. We were talking about dogs can lie there and jump up and sprint That's essentially what we want to be able to do and that's actually a physiology That means when we're lying there, we have this heart rate variability like this. Okay, and it's just it's Beautiful and it has a nice goes up. Maybe maybe if your resting heart rate is 60 Maybe actually if you slowed it all down, you'd see that as you're inhaling it goes up to like 80 and then as you're Exhaling it goes down to like 40 like that's beautiful. And so then what happens that first burst All it is is that's the it's called the vagal break. It's the vagus the ventral fibers coming off and allowing your natural your natural heart rate is 20 to 40 beats higher than your resting heart rate like then what you see it That's all vagally controlled. So initially all that happens is the vagus releases the break and you can pull You can use that heart rate variability. It's called vagal efficiency and the more vagal efficiency We have the more bang for the buck we get for that heart rate variability and that's awesome What are some other examples of like the cold plunge that that you tell your your client through your clothing different breathing routines Okay, so that's where the for me the Wim Hof method is beautiful. It's gonna bring him up Yeah, no for me that the whole idea of hyperventilating for like 30 breaths and then doing a long breath hold If you look at it from the nervous system standpoint the hyperventilating is either being anxious or in fight mode Okay, and then the holding the breath is that shutting down? So you're teaching yourself in a context of your own safety and control that you can ramp up and you can go Even into immobilization without it being threatening without it being dangerous without it being something you can't regain control of So I love that too from that standpoint even just intervals So like in the gym, I'll do high interval training, but with nasal breathing only. So how hard can you push it? Still only breathing through your nose. Can you keep your face relaxed? Can you keep yourself relaxed while you're doing a full-out sprint? right and so that's one way or Deliberately go to where you can't and then immediately stop and how quick can you get back to recovery? How quick and recovery is not just lowering the heart rate recovery is softening the muscle tension Throughout the body, right? So those are ways that I do it. I do it mostly through movement Okay, but you could do it with anything the VR experience is beautiful because you can do all kinds of different things in business It's hard for me to disconnect Let's say tennis and business in a real mental way But for let's say the business people who are on planes and in meetings all the time and they're like I can't go to the gym and I don't have a cold plunge What are the VR things a perfect VR thing? It's great because you can take it anywhere right the breathing is perfect for that doing breath holds even when you're walking So like I'll do breath holds too because that's a similar thing So like as you're walking down the street after an exhale always after an exhale after an exhale do a breath hold and And pass that first urge and then when you get that real urge Can you regain breathing without losing control? Plus it's doing another thing. It's building up your tolerance to carbon dioxide Right, you you may already know that the reason we take an inhale isn't because we need oxygen It's because we need to lower our carbon dioxide, right? And so the more sensitive we are to higher levels of carbon dioxide the quicker We trigger that breathing the blowing out the carbon dioxide which from the body's perspective means threat Danger there you see where I'm going so like if we have if we're very sensitive to carbon dioxide building up in our blood We will start breathing more rapidly. We might even open our mouth to breathe which then Internally is a feedback loop to the brainstem that says threat danger You're under attack which creates more of that breathing which creates a feedback loop that sustains Higher mobilization whereas if we can train ourselves to get not very sensitive to raising carbon dioxide We don't have that internal Q of danger what I love about what you're working on is it's a one-size-fits-all in some way, right? And so like anything could be happening to me in my personal life I could be on the court the umpire could have made a bad call It really doesn't matter what the vector of something trying to throw me off my rocker. Oh, exactly There are all just challenges to your body's sense of safety When you start seeing that then you look at the tennis court or you look at your MMA You look at your business environment as just a microcosm for life I think about like real estate development, which is what I do and it's like riddled with I mean in LA You might know the politics are on fire at the moment and so, you know, that's a big part of what we do and The nervousness doesn't come from the property or the construction or the funding or, you know This right this the debt environment we're in today. It really just comes in the form of Can I get these politicians? Whoever they might be in that moment without a leak? You know without something ruining this moment and that's that's the ground that I play in I Don't mind it because a part of me. It's it's the strangest thing because it you have time You know what I mean? It's like a really strange thing. And so somehow in this I think people look at what I do or developers and generally it's a very there's risk It's riddled with risk everywhere. That's you're betting on the business You're betting on all of these factors to go right, but for me, it's always it's the politics that that can throw this thing You said something interesting. You said there's time. There's time exactly so you can't have time Unless you feel safe enough for whatever reason or reasons It still feels safe enough to you that you can slow up the time Right, whereas that's a really good indicator when we're under threat Everything's everything's coming at us quickly. It's the same thing in the doll and the doll just talk Did you hear Nadal's quotes? I did and he was talking about everything was fast I couldn't keep up. It was like right well that he was under threat the whole time Yeah, we haven't seen him like that in a long time and that's what happens and you're saying to me that you still no matter What for whatever reason you feel safe enough and in control enough that time is there you see the time and that's what like For me the biggest change in all of this is now if you if you fail or if you blow it You can relate to it differently. You can relate to your failures You can relate to your mistakes when you when you interact with somebody that doesn't align with how you actually care about them You can go oh well for whatever reasons. I was either in fight mode flight mode or shutting down I wasn't in my safe space Now that doesn't make all behavior acceptable It's not what I'm saying But it means how we relate to repairing that with the other and with ourselves Right whole different experience right if you're if you're not on the right on the same page with your spouse as an example Right, we're feeling a threat. It's what you're saying. And so then you're reacting in fight mode You could you could or you could be flying and getting out of there Right any of that so it changes how just like we were looking at the momentum shifts It's the same way when you begin to interact especially with those you care about totally right you become aware of where you are and Hopefully where they are and you meet yourself and then you meet them. I love this. How are you gonna change the world? What are you gonna do? Yeah, I don't know. I mean I'm gonna start with I am gonna write a book I have I already I already wrote a tennis book. I just need to polish it up Okay, I followed this one particular player for a little over a year And I wrote sort of stories about all of his matches, but all from this language I'm making presentations now. So I'm going to be presenting in March in London outside of London at the Elms. There's a big educational summit and then I'm speaking actually at Oxford University Amazing, congrats. That's amazing in September dream come true dream come true. Are you gonna do the VR plank before you do that? Because the VR thing I can I can handle now. I actually don't have much of a physiological response, which is what happens That's fascinating. So then you need to find something else. I'm guessing yeah, or what that's what'll happen with public speaking Right, that's what happens, but it could go the other way Right, which is what I talk about in some of my talks is see for like Naomi Osaka It went the other way for Naomi Osaka her experience on the court when she won the US Open in 2018 And it was just this crazy scenario She took the cues that were coming really at the referee For penalizing her idol Serena Williams Her body again, it wasn't her brain. It wasn't her thinking of course. They weren't directing at her Right, but you could tell by her reaction. You had a hat down that her physiology took it as though she was to blame for her idol losing and Ever since she's been on this trajectory of moving very quickly She doesn't fight for very long if you watch her matches And she goes in the flight very quickly and then she shuts down and then that starts off the court too And so that's also a dream. I want to get with Naomi Osaka Once she understands what's really beneath it. It's not a thinking issue It's not gonna like her changing. You're saying it's the awareness of the fight or flight It's the awareness of how her body has changed and now it's gonna it's all about helping her body her nervous system Feel safe again feel calm again because it doesn't you can tell by the tone of her voice Right, so we didn't talk about it, but our tone of voice and modulations Portray and broadcast whether or not we feel safe or unsafe and so if you if you're interacting With someone then they have very flat affect Right, there's no movement in the upper part of the face Right that's a cue back that they for whatever reason don't feel safe Are there any other athletes and other sports that you're you're looking at as well Like you mentioned your wife was a triathlete. Are you looking to expand? Yeah? I mean I have I've worked a little bit with baseball and softball I've done some with basketball And volleyball so a lot of the sports and and team sports are really cool Because the team can become for better or for worse really really helpful or really really Harming each other's performance and if they if they have this level of awareness they can help match Each other where they need to be and lift Right and so even if two players are really really locked in that flight mode They could come together and fight it's a lot easier to fight Which is from my performance hierarchy is higher up than staying in flight and as a coach That's another thing that I like to do is as a coach Imagine looking at your basketball team, right and you could see what zone each guy is in and ideally You get everybody together in a zone, but it might not be happening But you would know you could start subbing not just based on what somebody's doing But where are they and you could start queuing that's players in different ways Depending on where you see they are if you have somebody in flight What you might do to help them get into fight or get into play is different than somebody who's shutting down So to break it down even further We talked about individual routines to get back to that homeostasis. Are there team routines that really could be That's a great great concept. Yes. Yeah, right because All of all of our routines all of those kind of resources that I'm teaching like breathing like posture Like movement like where you're putting your attention when you do it with another especially a trusted other Becomes more powerful because if you go all the way down to the core of what's beneath all of this It's a body that has a biological need to feel safe and connected and to belong To belong and so if you can get everyone you can get everyone. Yeah, it's a great Thanks for bringing this up. So those tennis players I was talking about these this tennis team division one team two guys are in the top 50 in the country, right? men and I got them in a circle One by one to share kind of really what they're feeling and they were all anxious and Then it progressed. Okay. We're really anxious even more anxious when we're better than the other guy When we know we should win. Okay, so that's right. So keeps going next. So then I go How do you hear though? We're in all our coaches telling us or so-and-so is telling you are right or exactly where they're looking and I'm like, okay Okay, so now quote you're better than the other player for whatever reason and you lose to them What does that mean and so they go around they're like well means I'm I'm not as good as I think I am or Maybe I'm getting worse or and then one kid finally goes it means I'm not good enough I was like, yeah, okay. Now we're getting somewhere not good enough for what not good enough to be on the team And so basically every one of those guys acknowledged to each other That in the end what's really down there at the core is not Belonging here So think about it. So that's what it comes down to so when you can actually acknowledge that That frees up a lot Because then you go, yes, of course my biology wants like I show up here today I want you to respect what I do because I want to belong I don't want to be left behind Of course, so my body is going to respond and so now I just play with it. I let it go. Okay. It's it's doing its thing And let's just keep trying to find what's safe. What's reassuring? Right, which is your expressions and you're and you being into it. That's a giant cue. Yeah To me of yeah, it's curious. Let's go like cool That's happening on every stage. Okay. So then they admit this and then Where do you take them there? Right? So now that we've admitted that our fear is getting off the team and probably losing community and Who knows? I mean, there's 20,000 things a college kid is going through. Absolutely. So what that means to them in a social construct and everything else But where does that get them then and so it's almost like they've acknowledged They've acknowledged the kernel the kernel and then and then you go, okay Now we go back to what we're talking about. So now let's just recognize those bodily responses Let's meet the body where it is and let's start doing off the court the homeostasis Let's just start building that and and then when you completely implode It's all coming from that fear of not belonging. That's okay. It brings you back. You can recover It's like it's like the person on the diet And they eat the one donut and then they eat 10 and then the next day they just keep going. No, this goes Oh, I ate the donut. I even ate 10 I was just completely unsafe. I was out of it come back same kind of thing So it's not going to fix everything but having that and also Now when they feel like they're failing They know that the number one player on the team still feels the same way that that change they're not alone in how they're experiencing Failure or how they're experiencing how challenging this is that puts them level That's the other part that I wanted them to get to is I wanted the the players that were further down To realize actually i'm level the number one player on the team still feels the same way I do He's still afraid actually So i'm actually not that far So it just levels it out. You're bringing me back to the final I played in It was like when I when I dug down it why I wanted to win. Yeah, it was had nothing to do with me It was just because everyone here needs to know. Yeah, you know, it was one of these things Yeah, yeah, because what happens is when you win they put your picture on the wall. Yeah I mean here's a funny story. So my nephews are walking by and my wife's the open champion So they're like, oh deal telly is on the wall. They're like, where are you? And I'm not on the wall I gotta get on the wall for the nephews, you know, yeah, totally that was it It's the weirdest oddest motivator, but it but it but it's honest, right? But it's honest and again and that's meeting your biology totally Have you thought about starting like uh, even just a video series a quick quick interviews on Yeah, you know, because obviously you work with a lot of amazing people And so it's almost like all right this match or this day this fight this whatever it might be But it's you know, it doesn't have to be a long conversation But it could just be a moment of a almost like the detail the detail The show that Kobe did where he talks about what's happening in real time But this is the angle is a little bit different, right? It's it's more of a mental That's a great idea because I started just recently doing videos of people in different disciplines Yeah, like I'm doing one with a western swing dancer Because when you look at western western swing dancing, okay, okay I didn't know anything about this but the way the way the competitions are Is basically you have like five ladies and five men. They don't know each other They're all quote at the same level And then they spend a couple minutes with each partner So imagine you don't know this person and it's all made up It's not like you're doing the waltz or the foxtrot. It's all on the fly So the the lady has to follow the man And think of if a man is completely afraid and now you so think of all of this from this lens So when she was telling me about this, I'm like, oh, I'm gonna I gotta interview you and frame it In what's going on in the nervous system in the body because it's fascinating So I started doing that I started doing those sorts of things because that's fascinating to me like All all of these different disciplines when you look at it through this lens Oh, that's why that makes sense or why this is so challenging Like to me that western swing competition Neurologically is as challenging as they come You're being evaluated by judges. You're meeting a new partner every couple minutes You're making up a dance. You've never done before and you have to do it with this partner Think about it. At least on the tennis court. You're you're in control of you Right, you're you got the opponent throwing more uncertainty at you But imagine that a partner you've never had you've played doubles before with someone you've never had And how tricky that is and now every couple minutes you have to switch to a new partner And you have to play this. This is now so yeah, so I've been doing stuff like that But what you're talking about is cool too Where you actually talk about experiences right like one was really going on for you good or bad, right? I mean, that's the thing and probably more bad So people understand that it had less to do with performance and more to do with the thing that no one can actually see But it's being felt and which is yeah, I think that's that's really cool Right, you can feel it. Yeah, and that's what we all feel when we're watching. Yeah, right And that's part of what you need to acknowledge too is you're as the player You're feeling what the audience is feeling and vice versa They're feeling what you're feeling like we're working people find you where can they uh, they can find me on my website The playzone.com and I'm in santa barbara, california Yeah, happy to jump on a zoom call happy to give a talk This is great. This is really informative. Yeah, thanks for coming on Yeah, you guys are awesome. I really appreciate it if you made it this far. I bet you loved the episode So you should join our youtube channel membership for only $2.99 a month This gets you access to one the whole unabridged conversation two you get the episodes on monday one day earlier Three you get two additional entries to our giveaways check out our instagram to see we've given away and four You get access to seasons one through three. That's over 100 episodes of wisdom and life changing advice What are you waiting for join?