Redefining Success And Measuring Backwards

Hi there, welcome along to another episode of H Performance. It's a Wednesday So it's myself and Damianen sitting and chatting, Hey buddy. Hi Mate. you're right. Very well, thanks. So we've got a bunch of guests who we're going to hear from previous High pererformance guests, We'll share some interesting clips from them and they're all around a similar theme. And the theme is Why the world's best athletes stop tryrying B And it's not just us talking and not just us hearing from former guests. We're actually going to be joined by someone and you're going to speak to a man who can give us so much richness and depth and information in this space That's whyays first of all, you should tell us why people should stick around to hear your conversation with Ben Crow Well, we're coming up for Wimbledon, Jake and this is a man that Andre Agassy recommends. this is somebody that Ash Barty with before she won Wimbledon Steph Gilmore, the eight time worldld sururfing Champion credits him with transansforming her career.'s an Australian performance coach His name's Ben Crowen He's never told any of his clients that they're the best Now there's a couple of parents who spend their lives telling our kids they're the best that they go going and do great things. That kind of seems counterintuitive or It's not the kind of thing we hear a lot when it comes to trying to get others to reach their own version of high performance. So why does he not tell his clients that they're the best. Well, he helps them separate who they are from what they do. Now I know that might sound simple, but Most athletes, most people, have never actually done that. You know, think about One of the first conversations you'll meet when you meet as strang is what do you do Who are you Do know what I mean? And the cost of not doing this is exactly What we're going to talk about with Ben today Okay, well, before we on with the episode, just to tease you excitedly, whether you're walking the dog out for a run or driving the car, here is what you can expect from Ben Crowe a bit later on.'s here's a little teaser Why do so many of us find In recent times, yeah, the worlds have gone so external extxtrinsic, money, fame status and recognition rather than internal and intrinsic to get to know who we are, the human being that is not the human doing. So we learn, unfortunately, that we believe if we do something and achieve something We will be someone, you know, we'll be someone Well, before we hear from Ben, we're going to hear from three tennis players who've been on the show Boris Becker, what a conversation. Joe Contter, one of my favourites, and Conor Nyland, who might not be a name that trips off the tongue, but the conversation we had with him was fascinating. All of them talking about the struggle of professional tennis what it actually feels like from the inside. And then of course We'll frame our conversation with Ben as the antidote to that struggle because that's really what he's there for So where shouldall we start and why Damian? Well whyy don't we start with boom, boom himself, Mr. Boris Becker? We're going out to Dustle door to meet with him, you know, do you remember when he walks into The room withid those and she's Chisma, his sort of force of personality and just his strident views on the world sort of filled the space in he was a He was a force of nature It was interesting to Listen to him reflect on His career when most people remember him winning Wimbledon at seventeen, Futa what happened when he reached the age of twenty five? Absolutely, because I think that we look at this as well What amazing young talent he went and dominated the world as he told us on the show By his mid twenties he was exhausted, not physically, although probably also physically, but mainly psychologically Boris explaining more There was a time in my mid twenties where I was burned out, I was tired of tennis And maybe in hindsight today, I would say twenty five, take a break Thank a year off what you want to do. if you still willing to pay the price to be the best tennis player you can be Um you know, smell the roses a little bit So I didn't do that. I kept on, and I had contracts, there was responsibilities and so forth. So I played thatad up until I was thirty two U mayaybe I would have played longer If I would have taken a break at twenty five You lose control over your life. and everything is everything is decided for you People have good interests, off course they do You no longer can go Okay I'm tired for tomorrow's practice You have to give a press conference because you're not having a practice tomorrow goes the tournament. So the prraxes. you know, people people are watching the practice or when you You don't want to play tournament,ight? You got a fine then you have to explain the world U my shoulder hurts to go showh me evidence. So you have to go to a doctor. And he has to give you medical. So everything you do is judged No. Considering all that, I did well a long time But I think at twenty five, or so twenty four, twenty five, I thought for the first time Maybe it's time for a break because I'm too much. I want to live. I want to have a social life, I want to I want to be normal Now that's so interesting because the very thing that gave him everything he ever wanted took away the one thing that he needed which was the energy to carry on. and I think so We have a podcast called High Performance. We talk to high performers, but we don't actually really go too deep on the cost of high performance. And that's really Boris telling us that It almost cost him more than it gave him. Yeah, definitely. and and also as well, I found it interesting about not having that courage or the confidence to go and say, I just need a break from this. I need to step away because he was almost on that hedonic treadmill of the more he played, the more money he made, the more people wanted to sponsor him and sometometimes that willingness to say, I just need to stop this and That allowed him that would have allowed him, he argued to go and find the pleasure and the passion that he had when he was a young boy and that would have then sustained him to have a far longer second half of his career. I mean, how often have we We chatted with people that say we should have enjoyed it, We should have found the moments of joy in what I was doing and If we get caught on this idea of what's the next achievements, what's next, it can often blind us to what's right in front of us. And I thought that was interesting from what Bobis spoke about and especially given the context of what subsequently happened in his life about prison sentence that two hour conversation we had with him was dominated by in many ways But he talks about It talks about finding the joy in small moments and I think his career stole out from him And so many of us are not allowing ourselves to feel the joy until we achieve great things. And it's only when you hear from Boris saying that it was the great achievement that stole Joy When when you speak to Johny Wilkson as we did, who said he was happy for thirty seconds after winning the Rugby Wor Cup It's a great reminder that we can't create the next generation of young people attaching achievement to self worth I mean, I often point to the research of A psychologist called Bar Frederickson Explore this very topic of joy because She argues that And emotion like joy is actually an evolutionary puzzle. L what does it give us as a species? We understand fear, it gets us away and allows us to survive. But what does joy do? Barbara Frederickson's work basically concludes that it broadens our perspective and it builds our confidence. Having moments of joy where we can just get off the treadmill and stop and just appreciate where we are gives us a sense of perspective of what we're doing where we where we exist in the universe, but also gives us the ability to reflect on what we're gaining, what we're what we're acquiring by pursuing some kind of task. And we've actually spoken to a lot of High achievers are so scared of the moment that the high achievement no longer gives them the high thrill. I think we should talk about this because we were joined by Jannna Kter She reached top five in the world, but she told us that age twenty four, she was crying on her bed telling her mum, She knew she wasn't meant to be famous and she couldn't understand what was happening Please remember this is someone who is a high achiever from a young age As a parent, everywhere I look, I see parents desperate for their kids 're achieving great things at ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen years old Iin and that's going to set them up for a great life I'm afraid to say everyone, the messages that we hear on this show tell us quite the opposite So what was going on with Johannah Kontter Have a listen and let's find My parents leftved their lives in Australia. they up a load of debt moving over during the financial crisis while they both lost their jobs. like it was it was a whole family dynamic of sacrifice and knowing that Having for me, I felt personally responsible for that And so I think it was trying to deal with my dream and what I han't yet achieved coupled with Well, we're also in this state because of me pain times resistance equals suffering So if I'm in pain Let's say at a ten, but and I'm, you know, resisting at a ten, my suffering is going to be one hundred If my resesistance is zero then my suffering' zero This idea, Damien, of pain times resistance equals suffering So if we can make our resistance to anything zero, then our suffering beces zero. That's not just a formula for tennis That's a formula for life ye Well, Albert Ellis, the famous sort of psychologist talks about So many of us suffer from an excess case of masturbation. And you heard that right it was masturbation rather than try to be vulgar, Masturbation is where we tell what, I must be successful. I need to do this. I have to win Rather than I'd like to, it wouldd be great too or it'd be nice if that was the case. When we sort of Change our language to be stright. I have to do this. I must do this. I need to do it. We start to make pressure moments feel even more acute than they actually are We keepap the pressure on ourselves and as Johannna explained to us and the work she did with her psychologist Juanotto She was creating the pressure that was so acute. She was sabotaging herself. She was actually reducing her capacity to just play and enjoy and be good at what she did. An of us can start to just catch ourselves in the moment using that kind of masturbation language and just try and change it. I don't haven't got to do this get to do it. Yeah. Just that one change of a letter freez us up and liberates us. And I love the fact that she ended up putting those words on her grip, play, love, power focus. because we haven't heard from him yet, but those were exactly the things that Ben talks about with you. I know, we'll hear from him in just a couple of moments, but she kind of found the same solution She'd found her herself beyond the results of that tennis match Let's hear from someone else now, Conan Nland. and I think this is a particularly interesting one Damiian because If you say Jannna Con to people to be like, yeah, I think I've heard of Yannah. She was a great player in her day. If you say Boris Beckca, they've definitely heard of Boris Beckca. Most people wouldn't have heard of Conan Nland, but it's a reminder to us that Sometimes the guest that you haven't heard of on high performance can carry so much value. Yeah, his book, The Racket was brilliant because I didn't quite appreciate the context of what ninety nine percent of the world's tennis players operate within, going on the challenger tours, having to fund the way round debck offtten arriving jet lag then having to get up the next morning and find a practice partner The demands of that world, when you read the book are relelentless, but also almost like I't find much joy in it. You've got to really genuinely love your craft. So want to subject yourself to that that it's almost like a write of passage for all the world's tennis players to go through. Let's listen to Cor, descri What he describes as alomostite, that sense of purgatory of what that world can sometimes feel like. I guess and that was one of the things that I felt a relief when I finished playing was The self analysis, the constant self analysis when you're a tennis player probably with every sport kind of went away. It's the twenty four seven nature of it. It's tied to who you feel like who you are. If you're winning, you're happy, as I said earlier, and when I'm losing, I'm not So yeah, that self worth, it was absolutely tied. And it always makes me laugh when I when you hear the top players When they say they've won won Wimbledon, they say it's the greatest moment of my career. They never say it's the greatest moment of my life. And I don't know whether they're trying to do some sort of a psychological trick with that wording as if their career and their life are very separate. like clearly winning Wimbledon when you're twenty three has to be the greatest moment of your life so far, but they're quite keen to show and maybe it's a little bit of a posturing that This is only the greatest moment of my tennis career. It's not the greatest moment in my life. So I find that I always find that wording quite interesting. So for me, it was so wrapped up and entwined in who I felt I was I like the fit theirways chuckling at that word in the greatest moment of my career and not my life because there's something really quite painful underneath that sentence because the reason players say it that way is they've been told that they need to separate the two and Most of them can't Now for Connor, it was the win in and the lose in And who he was as a person For a while, they were all the same things and that's exactly kind of problem that Bencro has spent thirty years investigating And now his life helping people solve. I think it was a really cool conversation. Of course you can listen to any of those chats by going into the back catalog of highigh pererformance. The links are in the description to this episode And I think that the moment we stop Mistaking success for self worth We can become pretty dangerous, right? Deinitely suddenly, we're chasing growth rather than chasing uplas. Absolutely. Well listen to those clips there. threeree different tennis players, three different versions of exactly the same problem where their identity starts to become wrapped up around the results they get. Pressure then replaces the play sport becomes something that you need to survive rather than to thrive in. And that's what sayain here Ben Crow spent thirty years helping The world's best athletes solve exactly this conundrum So in Wimbledon weeek, it felt like the perfect moment to contact them in Australia and hear some of his wisdom So here he is then an Australian performance coach He's worked with Ash Barty Steph Gilmore, the eight time worldld surfing Champion Dylan Ol Cott two time wimbled and wheelchair tennis champion. He's work with NBA teams, Australian cricket teams Andrey Agassy and Esther Perrell, no less vouch for this person And I think The key moment here, Damon is this isn't someone telling people that they're the best This is someone telling peopleople the total opposite. Absolutely. ask them to understand Who are they beyond what they do to separate their identity from the results that they get And he asked three questions that I think are really powerful. Who am I Whatobon Do I once to get that? And what comes out with the process has been proven to win numerous grand slams. There's also a nice moment where he asks you a question Make sure you stick around to that as we hear. Damien Hughes talalking to Ben Crow We'll be right back after a quick word from our partners. When you and I were growing up Damn mean, expectations used to mean things you can't control a hundred percent, right? I can want the sun to come up tomorrow, but I can't control that I can't guarantee. There's no expectations that the sun will come up. But Today, either because of greed or focusing on what other people think, expectations to date loosely has been defined It's something we can't control, and yet we still want to control it. which is also the definition of pressure. Today's definition of expectation is also today's definition of pressure, which is why you'll always hear those two words used together when you're watching sport on the weekend, they'll always talk about there's so much pressure, there's so much expectations because we've kind of bundled the two words together like these two nasty cousins that follow each other around. And once you realize that, you can't uncouple it, you can't unsee it. So whenever I hear the word Ph out Almost always the person has an unhealthy or unrealistic relationship with what is expected of them or what isn't expected of them. So the quickest way to remove pressure from your life, like write this very second is to reframe what is expected of you and I and what isn't expected of us. And thinking we have to live up to someone else's expectations is not our life task. That's not our responsibility in life. Like we can't control what other people think about us. So believing we have to but or expectations of outcome that creates outcome pressure So once you can identify that and you reframe expectations as things I can control You actually remove pressure and And it's quite extraordinary when people have that kind of aha moment And so it's been been almost a journey for me to kind of identify where the distractions are coming from. So if we use the example then, because it's very clear before and after with this word and expectation the world of Ashbarti Wh do you describe your work with us? So And we'll start if you wouldn't mind, Ben telling us about that collapse at the French O Like what did you see happen Yeah, absolutely. So Ash's, this is her first Grand slam semifinal at the French openp in twenty nineteen. and She started on fire. She's got her kind of A game words, which was calm, confident, clear, focused and sharp. So whenever at any moment in a point or in a game, she can go back to those A game words to remind her of her the best version of herself Um she's five Ive up forty, fifteen up in the first set And suddenly she tightens up rather than lightens up. there's a rain delay and she gets distracted and suddenly she loses the point and loses the point. And then she loses the game Then she loses it to the next game And then she loses to the next gy And then suddenly, you know it all spiraled out of control. and then she suddenly she lost the unlusable set. and then she's three loved down in the second set And I distinctly remember when she sits down at three loveve Down in the second set She she goes back to her A game words, but talking to her after the match, she has this epiphany. She suddenly realizes she almost says to herself, and you ever see highlights of this game Damian, you' see what I mean She starts almost laughing at herself. She goes, Well, D Ash, clearly you're going lose this match today after being five lap up in the first set But you're letting the conditions of your environment determine your mindset. And she kind of says to herself, hang on a sec I decide my mindset I decide my attitude, I decide my self worth, I decide, which is kind of the definition of agency now what happens to us is how we respond And in that moment, that epiphany, that perspective shift She walked back on Snacord And she goes, o, I might lose his match today, but I decide, right rather than letting the conditions of our environment T oradit chur And she broke the girl's surf for the first time in nine games. She then held her own serve for the first time in nine games. She won the next six games in a row. She won the set six three She won the next set six three And the next day, She wins the French openpen, right? Then two weeks later she goes to Birmingham England And she becomes the number one tennis player in the world. and she stayed there for the rest of her career and her life at that moment will never, ever, ever be the same again. But if you go back to that moment when she was three loved down in the second set She had a choice to make. She could have let the conditions of her environment determine her mind suchu uhh I decide my mindset. Yeah, I decide my attitude. I decide my self worth Once she realized she had that power to take back control, it didn't guarantee she'd win the match, but it did guarantee she'd be authentic, and she'd be able to control the things she could control. And with that perspective shift, yeah, kind of her whole life changed ro. I'm intrigued by the A game words that you describe Yeah, so when I work with a athlete, the process first and foremost, G got it Well really to answer three questions. The first one is who am I where you kind of she connects with herself and the Wds and mantas that best represents the best version of herself and make sense of her story from her inner fan. notot in a critic, right? because as humans, we're really good at saying what we're not, notot good enough, loved enough, smart enough And we kind of suck at saying what we are. like I am strong, I am worthy. I am enough So part of the journey was to make sense of her story and to separate what she does from who she is I realize that you know, playing tennis is what Ashbadi does, but it's not who she is And once you can connect back with the human being, not the human doing And she can learn to be like, you know, totally committed but fully detached. and not attach her self worth to whether she wins or loses a game of tennis Once she does that, the second question she needs to answer is, okay, I've worked at who I am now What do I want Like what do I want from this crazy thing called life? What are my goals? What are my dreams? what's my purpose? What are my values? What are my needs? And then the third question is how do I get there What are the tools from a performance point of view? that can help me get there. And when we get back to performance mindset, process is learning to accept the things that We can't control. and focus only on the things we can control And she realized that there's so many things she can't control in a game of tennis The big ones is expectations of others, you know, the opinions of the media or social media or you Australian fans or a coach or a parents The second one is expectations of outcome, like she can't control the results, but she can control the process She can't control the weather. She can't control, you know. So you develop an acceptance list of all the things you can't control. Once you can identify and acknowledge and then accept and let go of all the things you can't control. That acceptance list is this beautiful boundary that creates freedom freedom to compete, have fun and play. So that's the first part of the process is really Be we're so bad at accepting things we can't control Especially athletes, right? That's stubborn as they think they can control. So then once they've developed an acceptance list, then they develop a focus list And the focus list is what are the things I can control And typically there's three things an athlete can control The first one is intention You know, what do you want? What's the goal? What's the strategy or what's my role on the team The second one is effort Like how hard am I prepared to work or train or study or practice? And the third one is mindset When it comes to mindset We help an athlete develop a set of words that represents the best version of them in that performance Right So if Ash is focusing on being calm It's like medically scientifically impossible for Ash to be anxious at the same time But The opposite is also true. if she's anxious because she's focusing on the outcome of D serve that it's impossible for her to be calm. So she identifies F words, five A game states, if you like that represents the best version of her. And then she practices those words you know, in training and before matches and in matches, right? And it's more instinctive than anything, but at least she can come back to these anchor words that represents the best version of her and typically calm and present and confident words that a lot of athletes use. LeBron James uses those words, for instance, you know, Andrey Agassy had these A game words and Ash Bardia was able to develop herers. so at any moment she could come back to that authenticity Brilliant Thank you for explaining it. But canan we go back to question number one? because you talk about this ide David in your billing book about separating what you do from who you are Why does so many of us find that such a difficult thing to a couple Yeah. Well, in recent times, yeah, the worlds have gone so external and extrinsic money, fame status and recognition rather than internal and intrinsic to get to know who we are, the human being that is not the human doing. So we learn, unfortunately, that we believe if we do something and achieve something, We will be someone, you know, we'll be someone And you can blame media, you can blame social media, you can blame materialism or consumerism. but It actually starts in grade three In most countries around the world, in the education system, in grade three, That's when Grading gets introduced. And that's when kids go from intrinsically playing with numbers and playing with shapes extxtrinsic, suddenly there's grades and suddenly my parents are interested in my grades. and suddenly I'm not in that class anymore I'm that class. I'm not in that team, that team And a nine year old boy or girl, that's too young becausecause they believe from that moment on, they have to do something or achieve something in order to be someone. And the same thing happens at secondary school and colleges. So If we can, and I noticed at Nike You know, we did a really bad job of educating athletes what was real versus what wasn't real. And I saw these athletes get so distracted by extrinsic motivations And they forgot the intrinsic reasons these little boys or girls fell in love with sport in the first place And so but I noticed at Nike that athletes that went internally, not externally. Andre Agassy is a great case study They are able to separate what they did from who they were. So their identity became less about being an athlete and more about their core values, or their intrinsic motivations around play and purpose and learning and growing and helping others being part of a team and seeing what was possible. We call these things intrinsic motivations. and We can control those, right? But if our whole identity is a human doing, not a human being then our self worth was dependent on whether we win or lose a game in tennis right and. that's a lot baggage to take on to the tennis court It's hard en to win a game in tenniss right without attaching ourl worth results as well whichich sort leads me into There's two billion stories in your book I'd like you to recount for us if you don't mind that sort of captures that essence of focusing on the intrinsic rather than the extrinsic It tells about Roger Federer, and then tells about Steph Gilmore Yeah, well, well, first and foremost, ye, Roger Federer, he focused his whole life on three words Um Hility Gratitude and humor So u humility. I'm so, you know, even if you beat a player six love, six love it's just a youah great, great player You love him in the locker room. I really humble Gratitude. I'm so grateful to be here. You guys are the best. He's always, so appreciative and grateful of his fans and the support and humor, it'd always have that kind of that beautiful Swiss giggle U And these these are these have nothing to do with playing tennis, but in my opinion, have everything to do with him becoming one of the greatest tennis players the modern era in terms of his perspective about what was important and what wasn't important Sos, but he also gotot into the playaystpe You know, as the older rec go we call it Noti Noty means the older you get, the younger you become love that word. My Niff. Notanyy. Yeahah, it's a beautiful word It's yeah, basically primes it's a gene that we have My father had this gene. He was just a Larican from Australia. At Phil Knight, the founder of Nike. In my opinion, has this che that the older he becomes, the younger he gets in terms of his attitude. and One of the reasons I dedicated that play chapter in the book to Nike and Pil Nine is because I learned a lot of these lessons I would through Phil and my relationship with him and Nike, but also through the athletes like Roger Federer Yeah. But Stepiff Gilmore Yeah, she was probably the first athlete that I I guess all the perspective shifts in the book I applied them to Steph back in twenty twelve, she got she just won her third world title in a row So would you just explain for people that are not familiar with Steph, just who she is and her incredible achievements been Yeah, so yeah, Stephanie Gilmore is the greatest surfer of all time. She's eight time world champion surfer. And back in twenty twelve after just winning her third World Surfing Championship She got viciously attacked by a drug addict out the front of her apartment randomly who was on ice and attacked her with a hammer and broke her skull and broke her arm And she sadly went off the tour And through her parents and through her sponsor Um family reached out to me. And we started working together in twenty thirteen And Steph went on this beautiful hero's journey to make sense of that adversity And it's one of the most beautiful truisms that I know you know very well from listening to your podcast over the last few years. But all my clients know and I know personally, but obviously Steph knows this choism and that is Your greatest growth always comes from your darkest times your greatest learnings in life always come from almost difficult And there's a reason for that, right? There's a reason your greatest failures can lead to your greater success In Steph's case, it unlocked two beautiful superpowers The first one is Hility Be it just grounds you in the beautiful facts of your reality, right? Life sucks. These are the cards I've been down, right It just grounds us,. She's just been attacked after winning three world titles. She lost her innocence through that through that process But then it also unlocks this incredible Curiosity Is curiosity to turn this adversity that you're facing with possibility. like, okay, where to from here? How do I get through this like know, who can help me? And that's what led Steph and I start working together. But the other reason your greatest growth comes from your darkest times is It also unlocks your core values you've got to dive down into some energy source to get you through, this crucible moment. And it could be love, it could be courage or perseverance or or resilience or you know positivity or optimism, right? But when you Dive down into this energy source to get you through this starting to connect with your authenticity. And once Steph did that She could be able to kind of find herself, the human being that was, not the human doing And through that adversity, she was able to then work out who she is and what she wanted out of life When she came back second time around back onto the tour, Her perspective has shifted so beautifully and she was able to kind of dedicate her surfing to Her family and the people in her corner, she'd found her purpose beyond achievement, she found this sense of fulfillment in terms of why she surfves. which was to inspire other young girls to have the courage to get out of their comfort zone and follow their dreams And then from that place, she went on this incredible journey and won another five world serving championships. But the great thing about Steh Story, in my opinion was to win an eighth worldld title. She She got into the playstate in the most beautiful way and tryed the whole thing as play as like this fun competition to remove the pressure and the expectations that for a lot of athletes when they become successful. I think they have to repeat that and they often get caught up in that pressure that we mentioned. But Ash sorry, Steph was able to get younger and younger and younger attitudinally and find that play state. And it was so beautiful two years ago when when she won the world title again Beautiful story. I mean wouldould you tell us about that playstate? Be there's a line in your book that I underlined when I read it where it said that most adults are underplayed rather than overworked which really resonated with me. Yeah I'm obsessed by this word at the moment, Damen, because everywhere I go in the world at the moment, it's probably the biggest distraction I see in organizations is fear And we don't call it fear. we typically call it pressure And the opposite of pressure is freedom And the opposite of Lly is fear Most people think the opposite of play is work, but it's not. it's fear And as humans, we're designed by nature to play, right? Like it's pre verbal. before we learn how to speak, we're in this kind of playful there are a few other species that are the same as homo sapiens But today we've become play deprived whichich is a bit like being sleep deprived. you know, you' sleep deprived, you're, you know, cranky and frustrated. Well, it's the same when your play deprived, that this incredible study in the US where they studied the most hardened criminals in the criminal system to see what they had in common And the number one ingredient that had in common was that when they were kids, they were play deprived And U I've been working in sport for over thirty years And I've never seen a dynamic right now, the amount of athletes whose job description is to play. But they're not in the play state They're in the fear state. caught up with emotional pressure or outcome pressure And plays and also the number one ingredient why anyone in the world goes to work. This study has been going for over a hundred years and I think it was the nineteen eighties, the University of Rochester and then Harvard, Stanford, and they were able to codify the top six reasons why anyone in the world goes to work And what I find so fascinating about this study, is the number one motivation is play Now play is not table tennis. play is finding the time and space for creativity and experimentation to flourish Purpose is number two as in the play that you do, the work that you do has a reason and that reason really matters. There's real purpose and meaning to it Yeah the third one is potential Potention means learning and growing and getting outside of your comfort zone Yeah the most amazing thing about those three intrinsic motivations, Damen is we can control those three intrinsic motivations. likeike what does play look like for been grow today, What does purpose look like? You know, what does potential learning and growing look like The next three extrinsic motivations You can't control them and they actually decrease productivity And they are in order emotional pressure is expectations of others Come P up which is expectations of outcome And the sixth one is inertia Inertia means, I haven't got anything better to do, I might as well go to work. I get my paycheck, I'm not going to rock the boat. I'm not to be political. I'm just going to do my job know and just go about my things. So if you can help people get back into the play state and organizations getting back into the play state most incredible freedom to you know, compete, have fun and play And in the book, I talk about the three types of play. that organizations And the simplest one is curiosity play Just simply making questions celebrated rather than berated, like it's political suicide for me to ask a question if I'm not allowed to. Yeah if you make curiosity and asking questions is the most And I tell the story when Nike was signing Michael Jordan, you know, every basketball shoe in the world was white. And and Michael and Iike wanted to create a black and red one, but they weren't allowed to because the NBA would ban them and you know, finding five thousand dollars until one of the young designers in there And the R and said, Well What if we did anyway Like what if we put more black and red in the shoe? and what if we paid the fines? and what if we made a television commercial over And then within six months, it became one of the biggest shoes in history, right? Not the number one basketball shoes, but the number one shoe in the world. So that's an example of curiosity play. Spontaneity play is my favorite where just notice small things and Everything's on offer, a bit like improv acting and You noticice yourself saying, hm, isn't that interesting? Isn't that interesting, kind of patent recognition wise And the book could tell the story when you know, when Boris Becker started playing on the tour He was, you know pretty much unbeatable with his serve was, you know, boom, boom, Beckca, right? And the first couple of times that Andre A as he played O course he just got ragged from one side of the court to the other, Yeah the second time Andre played Boris, he noticed something, know thinking about spontaneity play You know every time Boris serves, he sticks his tongue out And if's tangs to the lit This If he's tongue to the right, he serves to the right, R. If he' tongue to the middle, he serves down the line. Now Boris didn't know he was doing that But Andre figured it out, right Now, Andre played Boris another nine, ten times in his Andre never lost another match And the hardesting was not doing on at every point,? And when Borris retired Andre told him the truth. And Boris goes, Oh my God hes to go and tell my wife, It's like he can read my mind But he was just reading his tongue So that's like spontaneity play. And the third one is called nonsense play. So I think of Paul McCartney and the Beatles coming out with crazy, you know, Sergeant Peppers fictional characters and started mucking around with synthesizers and Indian music and sounds and so forth They're literally mucking around because you know, he thought a roadie said pass me the salt, you know, the Sergeant pepper instead of salt and pepper on a flight. and When you tap into nonsense fly likeike you know, I could have written a whole book on the billions of dollars of commerce onncece people understand how powerful these playstates can be But at the moment, as I mentioned, there's so much pressure and fear in the world today that So I ask my clients, you know, to ask themselves you know as many times as they can throughout day, am I in the playstate? Where am I in the Fastite? First We'll be right back after a quick word from our partners. And if they're in the fear state, regardless actually of how they answer that question The second question can always be play look like for me here Sometimes play looks like being really still and present and problem solving sometimes it looks like really hard work Sometimes it's having fun, sometimes it's curiosity or experimentation or imagination. As long as we're in the play state. We're not in the fear state And you can kind of catch at yourself. And then you know what we do when I'm working with someone who we teach them what their play state looks like So, you know, Dim mean, if I asked you off the top of your head, you know, can you think of an early play memory You know, when you're a young boy growing up, it might have been playing in the street with kids. It might have been on a family holiday. have been climbing a tree, right? But we all have pl memories, right? These beautiful memories when timood still So what I do is I help people identify and it's a beautiful exercise to do,. findinding your early play Pl state. offff the top of your head, Damian, can you think of a an early play memory when you when you were younger. The one that comes to mind, Ben is like s with a blank piece of paper and a load of colouring pens And I still love it now like like when I it's like when I get a black piece of paper and just the idea of playing and creating something completely from my imagination is is is b As you're saying it, it brings me real calm. I remember doing it when I was a kid I used to love sitting at the kitchen table and just sort of doodling away. And even the Boris Becker, the tongue had come out while it'd be sort of focusing and concentrated Occasionally now I still get the chance and my wife will catch me. She knows that I'm in a place because my tongue is coming out while I'm Well I'm focusing and drawing or trying to scribble ideas down Well the good news is Michael Jordan sticks his tongue out when he performs, and so does Kelly Slater and a lot of the greatest arth. They've a great company that you Damian, how old are you roughly in this memory? I'd probably say about seven Okay, so go back to that little boy littleittle seven year old boy who loved drawing and coloring and And call out the words that best describes how that little boy was feeling in that memory, right? John C with about five words for me, please, if you can just off the top Yeah Yeah. Playful would obviously be a worth Yeah, playful, absorbed Um C U I pleasure, you know, like pleasure would definitely be there. And Creativity Beautiful Creativity and imagination Yeah, I love it. So I then if we were doing you know a session and I got you to find another by memory and started to call out those words, right? And then another one You'll start to see this consistency of language And I've done that exercise you know literally thousands of times. and Typically there's five states that often that come up. One is playful Yeah One is free or carefree You know, a derivative of those One is Excited or adventurous or a derivative of those One is safe or warm or connected or you know belonging Yeah, and The fifth one is is loved And I was at a conference a few years ago Um actually in the UK, I think it was. and There's a psyiatrist in the audience and she said, Ben Why do these same five states keep appearing when people do this exercise and find their early play memory states. And I said I don't know, it's above my pay grade, right? But maybe just maybe at its core That's who we are in our authentic state. Before we get pimples as teenagers and we think we've got to fit into a tribe Before that happens, when you find the memories before the memories Because in that moment, you didn't have to do anything or prove yourself to anyone, right? You were playful and absorbed and safe and excited and adventurous. And we often forget, right as we get older, we think that life is serious and we think we have to conform to know a certain set of ideals and so forth and we lose that authentic playfulness. What's also incredible is Whatever we love doing, our play states younger has often formed or informed what we've done later on in life Right. So if you were playing with a Lego as a kid, there's a good chance you got into you know engineering or architectural design. If you did play dress ups as doctors or nurses, there's a very good chance you ended up in the service industry in some way, shape or form. So it's incredible that not only our play states, but our play history of and inform what we do later on in life. and once we join the dots, it's quite exciting go back to when we feel like there's something missing in our life In my opinion, as I mentioned, bringing play back into our life in whatever shape or form that actually looks like The reason I'm obsessed with it though at the moment And the reason, you know, there was a reason I wanted Andre Agassy on the front cover of my book because he was the first athlete that truly understood vulnerability in my opinion and was Make sense of his adversity and make setbacks. Adam Grant is on the back cover of my book. The reason I wanted Adam Grant is is because he helped me understand how to simplify complex issues and so forth. and give me the confidence to get going, not being a trained psychologist in the way, but Esther Perrell is also on the front cover of my book and she was the first person to help me understand the correlation between play And love There's a school of thought in psychology that there's only two emotions, right? loveve or fear And every other emotion is one of those two states. like you know, confidence, excitement, passion is love anxiety stress worri, fear. And again, it's above my pay grade to argue whether that's right or not. but What I do know is it's exactly the same with play Be the opposite of plays not work, the opposite of playays fear. So I thought, okay, if the opposite of love is fear and the opposite of play is fear And the correlation, as Estair helped me understand, between play and love his extraordinary clothes and suddenly dawned me when I was writing the book that Wow, maybe Maybe love is the noun and play is the verb Maybe love is the intention Play is the action Maybe play mobilizes love And maybe just maybe the Beatles We're only half right. As human beings, yes, all we need is love Be human doings All we need is play and play mobilizes love. And I firmly believe that. And because the world become so extrinsically obsessed with money and fame and status and recognition, We do not understand, in my opinion, just how powerful it is getting back into the play state. Yeah on purpose and find potential in learning and growing. my in my opinion, that's the closest you are to. gettinget into flow, right? In terms of the ingredients for flow in terms of a sense of autonomy beinging very playful in the present moment. doing something that really matters and that sense of purpose but also that sense of mastery you kind of realizing your potential. To me, those three ps play purpose and potential correlate beautifully to what it means to get into the flow state as well. So which is why I'm kind of obsessed by these It does at the moment So I mean, this has been an amazing, fascinating chance. thank you for giving us your time, Ben. I suppose my last question for this is What would he say is one practical to that you would want a listener to walk away from listening to this, to know, to do, to understand on how they can introduce more play into their lives Yeah, how to bring more play into their lives? Well, first and foremost, if I have to give someone advice very, very quickly It's sometimes I ask them to create a to be list rather than a to do list If they want to connect with the human being before the human doing And like you can do it like tomorrow morning you know before you get out of bed, rather than write a to do list as I get them to write it to be list. And Your tabilist might be I' want to be playful or grateful or kind or courageous. The great thing about that to be list is we're in total control of that list thoseose words, right? There's so many things in life we can't control The human we want to be is not one of them And that can be one of the most cathartic ways just to create freedom and define success differently On suuccess a lot of people are obsessed by success thinking, you know, when I When I get that promotion, then I'll be validated. O once I'm in that relationship, then I'll be loved. and We're in this gap mentality and the gap mentality means I'm here, but I want to be there. And there's a gap between where I am now and where I need to be in the future And it never works because the goal posts just keep moving and creates this cortisol of this pressure There's such a better way to live your life. and that's to measure backwards rather than forwards in the gap You measure backwards into the guines If I gave you a sheet of paper, Right now. and I said, righto Let's go back to when you first started in your career I mean and And you can measure backwards three years, five years, twenty five years, right? It doesn't matter If you measure backwards to when you first started to where you are right now in this studio And if I asked you to write down all the little wins, all the little successes and all the little gains you've had from when you first started to where you are right now And then I said, okay, how do you feel You'll typically say one of five words. You'll say, Ben, I feel grateful I've had this beautiful life. I feel successful had all these successes, right I feel confident I feel happy And my favorite word at the moment I feel content Now, I'm not done yet. There's all these goals and dreams I want to chase down it means everything I go after from this moment on is a want Not an aid. So the way to redefine success, we teach this to young kids is rather than saying, I know I'll be successful when you know, when I get that promotion, when I get that degree, when I get that job, whatever. but get them to say I know I'm being successful when. Because if you answer that your successist from that point of view, I know I'm being successful when You're bringing success into the present moment So you don't have to wait to be happy, and you don't have to wait to be successful You might say, I know I'm being successful when I get eight hours sleep I have a belly laugh with a good friend or watch my kids get out of their comfort zone or have a crucial conversation with someone at work or I learn something new, right Or I get every green light on the way to work, or I watch a beautiful sunrise. It doesn't matter What matters is you're starting to determine what success looks like for you Only you And when that happens, we start to become self determined And today, we're socially determined for our success Be I'm comparing my journey with someone else's journey, which is creating all that anxiety and that pressure in today So I get kids to yeah, redefine success into the present moment. by developing quite a different type of success list And then they can start to redefine what a win is as well, right? So what are three wins I had today and the three wins I'd like to have tomorrow. And again, I define what a win is for me and only me So yeah, we teach them these little things that are quite profound in terms of perspective shifting Ben like Will, our brilliant producer and myself, we both said that this morning. It's a bank holiday here in the UK. so We both said this morning when we woke up that we get to spend some time chatting with you and it's been an absolute treat. And again, I'd encourage anyone that's listening to this that's enjoyed this fascinating chat that you get to read Ben's brillant book that's out in the UK in July. Thank you for sharing your wisdom your experience and some really valuable tools on how we can all be a bit more playful My pleasure, Damen and yeah, look forward to actually meeting you in the flesh one day as well So good He's got a book out, right? Yeah, the book's called Where the Light gets in. It's been published in the UK from the start of July, you should be able to get it anyytime now. It's a brilliant made, really good. As you heard in the interview there, we talk about not just sport, we talk about Teddy Roosevelt, we talk about the lawyer that stood up against Donald Trump fairly recently and a whole range of other topics about where Ben's wisdom has helped them find the joy in what they do and ultimately deliver their definition of high performance. Fantastic. Have you managed to get to that point in your life where you don't wrap up your success either as a podcaster or as author or as an academic? Yeah. Yes, I've tried to, deffinitely It's hard sometimes, isn't it? I think I recognize it's often in moments of insecurity where you sort of fall back on. where you fall back on what you might call achievements or successes that you've had. and just learning to recognise that my kids don't give us yet. My kids want be there for being the dad. My wife wants me around for being a husband and that's enough of view? Not even close now Like everything I do here is about numbers canan't separate the two. U So I have a bad week if not many people have watched or enjoyed an episode of highigh pererformance I this burning anger inside me to change things and disrupt stuff and what's the problem? I have to calm myself down. like I will look Three or four times a day at the download numbers and the listener numbers and the follower numbers and as long as I've just g this madle loop of just flipping between all the different platforms you can find high performance Well then Do you then start to think that that diminishes who you are, though Um no, I don't think so Because you can focus on that's just the professional side of me. Like I've a whole other world as a dad, as a friend, I love other things. I think what it is when I'm in professional mode, I'm like abbsolutely desperate for this to be the best it can possibly be and get really well up when it isn't and Um But then It doesn't dominate. I don't wake up in the morning Well maybe I do. mayaybe do wake up in the mor. Yeah, I don't know, man. Yeah I think I was probably a bit wrapped up. I think you're further along the path than what you initially said because the fact is you can want to win without wanting to win at the expense Yeah of I think so But I'm also forty eight, not eighteen.ike if I was eighteen, I think it'd be real problem. It probably was a real problem when I was eighteen. Yeah. you know, I was like twenty four seven, obsessive then about my work in a better place, but it's still I think it' I think it's okay for it to matter. that's the other thing. Like it's okay to really want to be brilliant at something.bsolly be annoyed if you're not. to not let that eat you up. that you can walk away at the end of the day you've done the best that you could. Yeah. ye I think so. Thank you,ate. Thank you Mate I hope you enjoyed that conversation. I hope really hope that it held value for you if it did Please like, please subscribe, please let someone else know about the kind of great stuff that you can Find for free, thanks to us here at High Performance Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time