Letting Your Ugly Ducklings Incubate | Creative vs Competition

There's this great quote from Naval Ravikant that I remember reading when I was a junior in college that completely rocked my world. And he talks about competition and he talks about how competition is zero sum. He's discussing in his book all these zero sum games that people play the comparison game, the competition game, and how they're exactly that they are zero sum. Somebody has to win somebody has to lose and it's just a distraction. He says that you escape competition through authenticity. Nobody is you and that is your superpower. And I have loved these concepts forever. Obviously it's a little bit harder to communicate in terms of sport. And I have made an intentional effort over these past couple of years to incorporate this mindset into the mental game. I do believe that sports are an artistic act and I think if you've listened to anything I've ever put out, you will understand that I believe that I think that everybody in sport is creative in their own way and they are special in their own way. There's this great interview of Pete Crow Armstrong who was an all star this past year he plays for the Chicago Cubs. And he says everybody is so unique and nice in their own way and that the advice he wishes that he heard earlier on in his career was that he didn't have to be anybody else. He didn't have to try to emulate anybody else's swing or anybody else's throw or just try to look like be like behave like anybody else. And that the day that he was able to stop playing those zero sum games and stop playing those comparison games he was able to completely express himself authentically. And when he was finally able to do that he was able to be in the present moment and naturally the results follow. For the kids that want to be like you what would you tell him? I hope you be exactly how you are supposed to be. I've dealt with you know trying to emulate other people and focusing a little bit less on myself and what makes me great and unique and I think that is so important for for kids that play this game or don't just stand that you know there's so much to offer and everybody's so nice and unique in their own individual way. Now I have seen this principle shine true in my life and business and everything I do in the content creation world just being yourself 100% authentically is the greatest way to weed out anybody that is not for you but also bring people to the party that are for you. It's the greatest way to to productize yourself is to just be authentic because then it brings people to the party that are aligned with who you are and when you are so caught up in what other people are doing in business it's just a distraction. And if you could just focus ruthlessly on creating the best product possible that you can create. Naturally the results come naturally when you create and you serve at a high level. The money follows all those things follow especially in business now this is very hard to communicate to athletes because in sports they will tell you all the time to compete. Compete be a competitor competition focus and it's hard to get around that and in sports because it's been ingrained in us. And with that being said I do believe that the very best athletes in the world while they are competing technically their focus and their intention and the inside of their cup is cleaner than you would imagine it's more focused on themselves than you would imagine. Conor McGregor is a absolute competitor when he was at his very best but really what Conor McGregor was doing was going out there and expressing himself in his most authentic way. It wasn't about anybody else it was about him right. It was about him expressing himself. I listen to this watch this movie it's called Kobe Bryant Muse I recommend it for anybody that that loves performance that loves the mental game Kobe Bryant Muse I watched every day during my Tommy John rehab while I was living at home. And Kobe Bryant says you know this is a battle that is going on within me. This has nothing to do with you talking about the defenders says nothing to do with them. They just so happen to be someone that's in the way that will get demolished in the process. This is a battle that's going on within him. And so there's clearly an emphasis on keeping his eyes on his own paper doing his own thing and just executing his plan. Oftentimes in performance you'll hear coaches say that the opponent is a nameless faceless opponent. If you've listened to my podcast you've heard other coaches you've heard me say that you compete to a standard not a scoreboard. It doesn't matter who you're playing against it doesn't matter what the score is you're competing to your standard. So I think this compliments the ideas that I'm sharing here about escaping competition through authenticity and how competition is zero sum. And ultimately we should lean further into the creativity side of things. Now transparently this podcast here has been challenging for me. This is one of those moments where self-one comes up for me and I want to script out this entire podcast because there is so much to this that I typically communicate over many, many months and sessions with athletes to finally get to understand it. And today I'm trying to just give you a 10,000 foot view of what this looks like. This idea of creative versus survival. Some people call it creative versus competition. That's how she talks about it in the artist's way. Again, Joe dispenses says creative versus survival. Tony Robbins calls it empowering versus disempowering states. Bill Bezwick who works with Manchester United, he calls it what is it? Fighter versus victim. And so everybody has a different font of what this is, but it's very clear that there are two states of performance of living your life. And I think when you can become consciously competent of these two states and start to bring awareness to when you are in what state it makes it just a little bit more attainable to be in a creative state more frequently. And as you know, creativity is where we can change our life. It's where we can rewire our brain. It's where our nervous system is regulated. That is the state that we want to be in the most and ultimately survival is survival. And you can think all you want the way on where you want to go, the language for your mind is thoughts. You can think all you want about where you want to go. But if you're emotionally not aligned with your thoughts, your emotions are the language for your body. You're dysregulated. You are not in coherence, right? You're you're you're in survival. And so what I'm trying to communicate here is what it looks like to actually be in creative and what it looks like to be in survival. And I'm sure down the road, there will be a more tactical way for you to transition from survival to creative and to renew your mind daily. I'm sure I'll go deeper into that. But today really, what is my intention here? It is to bring awareness to these two different states and to make it abundantly clear for you all what it looks like when you are in these two states. I'm also trying to make it abundantly clear why creativity is so much greater than competition. And so with that, again, I started with the Naval Rava, you escape competition through authenticity. Nobody is you and that is your superpower competition is zero sum. I wrestled with this for a long time, but I've had a lot of success with that mindset. As soon as I was able to recognize that nobody is exactly me. Nobody sees the world through the exact lens that I see it through. And I just have to be the most bold me and everything that I do. That was the moment that everything changed for me. Instead of trying to be a watered down version of myself to fit into certain rooms, I just tried to be bold in myself and naturally that led me to everything I have. And I think that is a part of being creative, but we'll get into that later on. I also want to talk about how in competition, when you think about a competitive state or you think about a survival state, there's a lot of judgment. These are kind of just me, this is me just prefaming you with a lot of things we've talked about in the past, but it's important for you to know as we move forward. When we are working with athletes, a lot of the time you're trying to get them to understand the importance of nonjudgmental awareness and performance. Nonjudgmental awareness is this idea that we're not adding or subtracting from the facts. Things are not good. Things are not bad. Things just are. Right. Umpire is behind home plate. Picture throws a strike. Picture says great. Hitter says terrible. Umpire says strike. It's a neutral act. Right. I just started working with a UFC fighter. Somebody gets clipped. Somebody does the clipping. The person that that sniped somebody with a nasty punch. They're excited about it. The person who gets lit up by the punch is frustrated. The referee is just watching. Right. It's obviously an extreme example because you're actually fighting, but my whole point is there is a neutral party there and judgment is just a distraction and emotion is just bias. And so whenever I am working with an athlete, I'm really trying to get them to play the long term. I'm trying to train them to collect information from a nonjudgmental standpoint and take that information and apply it to their process and over time, if you can just stay out of your way long enough to stack momentum. Naturally, you get to where you want to go a lot of the time, but judgment will hold you back. And the hard part about looking at things through a competition lens is judgment is a major part of that. Right. It's it's almost having unhealthy eyes. In the Bible, it tells you that the eyes are, I want to say the lamp of your soul and when your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness? So it's telling you that when your eyes are healthy, everything else in your world will be healthy. And when I'm saying your eyes are healthy, I mean healthy in terms of of God, keeping your eyes on the Lord, but also just keeping your eyes healthy within your process. I think you can take these biblical principles even if you're not religious and apply them to your life. It's a great way of analyzing it. And so when you're judging and you're competing and everything is good or bad, your eyes are unhealthy. You're focused on what other people are doing. You're focused on all that has gone wrong and you are less creative. You're very judgmental. And so again, I encourage athletes to view their craft as art. There is a incubation period for all art pieces and it's going to take you a while to naturally get your most creativity out. Get your creativity expressed. And there is an ugly duckling phase. I'm going to share with you an excerpt from the artist's way here in a couple minutes. But there is an ugly duckling phase when you are developing your art. And there is an ugly duckling phase for all athletes as well. This is the period where maybe your art isn't as beautiful as you want it to be. This is the period where you're a baseball player and maybe your throw isn't where you want it to be or your shot isn't where you want it to be for basketball or any sport. I mean, this is applicable to. But when you are in a competitive mindset, it encourages you to jump ship and abandon process because you're forced to grade it as good or bad. And if you can just collect information and trust in self one and self two, trust in self two to take you there. Naturally, you're in two of mind will help you to iron out those kinks in your throw or your swing. That is what self two is. And so I guess that's the last thing that I'll make sure everybody is up to speed on. Is self one is the very judgmental mind, the analytical, the ego mind. We call it the sensor, the serpent, whatever you want to say. It's that voice in your head that wants to analyze and judge every single move. Self two is more of the intuitive mind. It's more of the natural learning process, creative, spontaneous, free flowing. We are trying to get all athletes into self two. When you are in self two, there is no judgment. And so that is what we are trying to get people to do is to go out there and express themselves authentically and to let it happen. Self one tries hard to make it happen. Self two lets it happen. And now I think the last thing I want to preface before we move forward is that when you are in flow state, like what is flow state, what is peak experiences, a lot of the time it's consciousness without thought. That's the book, The Power of Now, they call it no mind. And the way they explain no mind is consciousness without thought. And I've shared this story before in this podcast, but early on in my career with coaching athletes, you would identify green light, yellow light, and red lights. Green lights is when you are at your very best. And you would grade yourself on body language, focus, self talk, you would grade yourself on in game situations, physical feelings. And you would do that for when you're at your best, green lights, when you're in yellow lights, and you're kind of spiraling, and you would do it for when you're in red lights. And so these athletes can very clearly identify their body language, what it looks like, their focus, where it is, what they're saying to themselves, self talk. When they're in yellow lights and red lights, they can also explain the physical feelings, the physical sensations they feel when they're in green lights, or when they're in red lights and yellow lights. They can explain the in game situations. And then we move to green lights, when they're performing at their very best. And I would ask them to explain their body language, and maybe they could do it. I would ask them to explain their focus, and maybe it would become a little bit more challenging. And typically when I would talk to them about their self talk, I would be looking for them to say to me, yeah, when I'm in green lights, a self talk is, come on man, you got this. Let's go baby, you got this. Whatever it is, I was looking for them to identify something for green lights. And when I really slowed down and I started to learn more and understand more about the mental game, I'm honestly embarrassed to look back and say that I expected them to say something because the truth is, when you are in peak experiences in flow state, when you're in green lights, it's consciousness without thought. A lot of the time when you talk to an athlete, they'll say, I blacked out, I don't even, I don't even remember it. I can't even, I can't even remember what I was saying to myself. I can't remember what I was thinking about. I was just immersed in the act. That's self too. That's the intuitive mind taking you there. Right? And so as you can understand, as we tie this together with a judgment piece, why is judgment so dangerous? Obviously you understand it's going to make it harder to progress. But when you're playing pitch to pitch and baseball, shot to shot and basketball, play to play and football, whatever it is. And you start to analytically think, you start to analytically judge things as good or bad. You can see how this will pull you out of the present moment. You are immersed in the act. And when you judge, it pulls you out. Correct? And so in the inner game of tennis, when it talks about self one, it says that self one's role is to be still and observe. Sit in the corner, be still and observe. Now, self two's role is to not be surprised, hold a clear image in your head of what you are trying to do, and let it happen. Shout out to him and Paula. Let it happen. Right? So again, self one should be still and observe. Self two's role is to hold the image in your head, not be surprised when something goes wrong, or wrong is judgment, right? When it's not the desired behavior or outcome, and hold the image in your head and keep going. And so what he told you not to do in that moment is judge. When you throw a great pitch in baseball, or you hit a nasty three-point shot in basketball, and what he tells you not to do is try to repeat that exact shot again. It's trying hard. Trying is self one. Trying is assessing. Trying could be judgment. And so what we are asking you to do is just to be immersed in the act. And so I hope that this little breakdown here in the first 15 minutes of this podcast can remind you of why sports are a creative act. It can remind you of why judgment is so distracting, and it leads us to having unhealthy eyes. And ultimately, why judgment trying to do the same thing over and over again, even when you're executed. And trying to do it again is pulling you out of the moment. Judging something as good or bad is pulling you out of the moment. You're at your very best when you are just immersed. So let yourself be immersed. The point of the game is to experience. You escape competition through authenticity. You escape the game when you are just expressing yourself fully. It's hard to lose when the goal of the game is just to be in the present moment and express yourself, which naturally, if you can be in the present moment and just express yourself, isn't it fair to say that's where the true results come from? And so that is what this entire process or this entire podcast is about, is understanding the difference of these two states, understanding that we've kind of had this asked backwards their whole life thinking about it from a competition mindset. I encourage you to ask yourself, does the competition mindset actually help you? Maybe it does for some people and that's okay. There's different archetypes of athletes and different archetypes of entrepreneurs. Everything, the process is different for everybody. It's about figuring out what works for you, but I just want you to actually ask yourself that question is does competition actually serve you? Or when you go out there and perform, are you just playing to your standard? Hey, that's one pitch at a time, that's one breath at a time. That's playing naked, that's expressing yourself, understanding that you're the manager of your talent and you're not the owner. When you're faithful, you understand that God bless you with a gift and it's your job to steward that talent. You're not the owner of it. You're the manager of it. It's just your job to go out there and glorify him in the greatest way. It's not for your glory, it's for his glory. Cooper cup talks about how you are playing from victory, not for victory. And that is how he's able to surrender. And so these concepts are very interesting as you really start to break them down because that mindset of glorifying God and expressing your art fully and being authentic and being in the present moment, just expressing is the opposite of competing and trying hard and aggressive. And I think those mindsets serve you in certain moments and it's just up to you as the listener to decide what the right balance is for you. I'm not here to tell you what's right and wrong for your life. I'm just here to give you some thought exercises that you can wrestle with and figure out what your truth is. And here is the facts of this situation. Is I might have a 90% idea here on creativity over competition, but if you have a 80% idea and it's somewhere in the middle between what I believe between creative and competition, but you have conviction in it, your 80% idea becomes 95%. It becomes a 95% idea. And so no matter what I say, no matter how true I think it is, I encourage you to find your truth and to have conviction in your truth because conviction in whatever you believe to be true will take you farther than just blindly listening to somebody else. So I encourage you to listen to everybody's content like that, including mine, figure out what works for you and leave the things that don't. That is the creative process. That is the process to becoming your best to figuring out what your truth is. And so again, and I'm sure you can feel I am a little bit all over with this and that's fine. I'm just gonna let it happen and see where it takes me. But the question I'm framing to you is, Does competition, does that mindset actually help you or are you just competing to your standard? I shared with you that we talk about how athletes that you're, or when you're competing against other people, they're a nameless, faceless opponent. When you are performing, the person on the other side, I just use the word competing, the person on the other side is a nameless, faceless opponent. They're just a distraction. You're unaffected by the circumstances of the game. You're unaffected by who you're playing against. Competition in a way is a distraction in my opinion, focusing on expressing your art and playing one picture at a time on competing, on performing to your standard is the way, the path to optimal performance in my opinion. Now, before we go forward, as I mentioned earlier, it's challenging to argue or convince an athlete that competition is an important, but I do want to just give you a couple notes that I wrote down here of why I think sports make it really challenging to overcome this competition mindset. Environment is the invisible hand that shapes human behavior, and when you are an environment, and an environment of sports, it almost promotes this competition environment. The entire structure rewards comparison in sports. There are depth charts that literally rank you against your teammates. There are stats that are publicly compared. Playing time is zero sum. Your minutes does equal somebody else's lost minutes. And so, yeah, I mean, like when you are competing against somebody else, when you get to play, somebody else doesn't get to play. Again, it's promoting comparison, it's promoting competition. These are hard things to overcome. Right? Coaches often create competitive environments intentionally. Compete for your spot. I had my head coach at Santa Clara look at a kid that I was mentoring, who is one of my best friends now. He's not a kid anymore. Look at him in front of the entire team and say, "Hey, Drake, has this spot right now? You need to do everything you can to strip it from him, to take it from him." And he's promoting competition. Again, you're going to figure out what your balance is there, but I don't think that that's the most effective way. I don't. I just know that it draws a divide at times between the team, and it just puts more pressure on more people. I think there's a more effective way to do it. I also wrote down that it's challenging to overcome a competitive environment in sports because your livelihood often depends on it. Contracts are competitive, scholarships are competitive, roster spots are limited. One injury, one bad season, and you can be replaced. Right? It automatically will activate survival mode. It's designed to activate survival mode. I wrote down that everybody around you isn't survival mode. Team mates are comparing themselves. Coaches are under pressure to win now or they lose their job. I get it. The fans in the media are always judging. Family members are anxious about your success. They're talking to you about your playing time and how the coach is screwing you and how you need to do X, Y, and Z. Your family members are involved as well. Right? Your nervous system is dys-regulated because of all of this. And so I think you can see very clearly the sports that we are all playing in are priming us to be in this survival state, this competitive state. And we're not going to get around that. And so this is this authenticity escapes competition idea requires a trust that a lot of athletes do not have. The Valls framework works a lot of the time in business. There's infinite opportunities and you can create your own lane. That's what I'm trying to say. It's been very easy for me to implement that mental model in business. It's a whole lot harder in sport. Because in sport there are finite spots. There is real scarcity and there is actual elimination. So I'm not going to downplay that. I'm just here with you guys to try to figure out how we can do our best to overcome that environment, to overcome our self within that environment. But I understand it's hard to trust the whole be authentic and opportunities will find you. It's hard to trust that mindset in sports when there are cuts that happen in season and there are roster limitations. I understand the timeline sometimes doesn't doesn't allow you to incubate your process as Julia Cameron says at times. Like there is a timeline. I understand that. The language of sports is competitive. I wrote down there's a killer instinct. Impose your will. Take what's yours. Outwork everybody. There's even there's even well-meaning coaches who reinforce survival mindset through their vocabulary. It's what I just mentioned with my coach, Santa Clara. In the last piece I'll say about why sports make it hard to be in a creative state is the social proof is often backwards. The people that come out and talk about their success, a lot of the times they talk about grinding. They talk about these survival stories that chip on the shoulder, the underdog, the athletes who make it often attribute success to this competitive fire and maybe a little bit less the creative flow. And again that creative fire might work, that competitive fire might work for some people, but I'm just offering you a different perspective. I understand the creative approach could look soft, it could look passive at times, and it can look not hungry enough. And so I just want to get that out of the way. I understand the other side of the coin. When you talk to a coach or you talk to a team about being creative over over competition, it's very real that that there is competition within sport. And I respect that. I understand that. And here together we are just going to do our very best to to wrestle with that and to understand what it looks like to actually be creative within your sport. And so with that I'm going to share with you guys a Julia Cameron the artist way excerpt from her book. It's phenomenal. I shared it with every single athlete this past week. And we'll go slow because her writing is so in depth and so intentional and so creative that at times it's hard to follow along. But we'll break this down together. It starts out by saying that the spirit of competition as opposed to the spirit of creation often urges us to quickly winnow out whatever doesn't seem like a winning idea. This can be very dangerous. It can interfere with our ability to carry a project to term. And so she's sharing with us that in the creative process, which I'm encouraging you as an athlete to see your art through a creative lens to see your sport as art, she's saying when you have the spirit of competition instead of the spirit of creation, it urges us to throw away anything that does not feel like a winning idea immediately. Oh, that mechanical adjustment didn't work immediately. Throw it out the window. Oh, this journaling process didn't instantly improve my process and prove my results. Right. It can be very dangerous. A competitive focus encourages snap judgment. In other words, it encourages, encourages judgment. It encourages the opposite of non-judgmental awareness. And so a competitive focus encourages snap judgments, thumbs up or thumbs down. Does this project even deserve to live? No, our ego will say, if it is looking for a fail safe, sure fire project that is a winner at a glance and for good. Many hits are sure things only in retrospect. Until we know better, we call a great many creative swans, ugly ducklings. So I want to break this down. Again, competitive focus encourages us to great things as good or bad. Many hits, many athletes that are sure things now, these beautiful athletes that are so amazing, peak, grow Armstrong. Like this guy is so amazing now and he's an all star. Everybody talks so highly about him. But he did have his ugly duckling phase. Let's be very honest. Everybody goes through that phase. I think it's a requirement if you're going to get to the highest level of sport, the highest level of anything, you are going to go through many ugly duckling phases. But people will say, oh, he's a sure thing now, but they look back back in the day when he was struggling. Maybe they weren't saying that. And so until we know better, we call a great many creative swans, ugly ducklings. We can call peak, grow Armstrong a creative swan now because he's authentic and he's expressing himself authentically and creatively and he's performing at the highest level. But there was a day where that was an ugly duckling. He wasn't ugly duckling. It wasn't as beautiful. And I'm sure you can see that in your own life where you maybe have judged your something that turned out to be a beautiful piece of work, you judged it too early. I'm thinking about one of the athletes that I work with who is ironing out his swing and there were so many opportunities to judge it to judge it to jump ship. And he just saw it through and eventually it became a creative swan and he broke the home run and RBI record for his team. And now he's signed to play professionally in an affiliate baseball for the Colorado Rockies. And that's because he was courageous enough to see his ugly duckling phase through and allow it to develop into a creative swan. So back to the artist way excerpt, she says, she says, this is an indignity. We offer our brain children as they rear their heads and our consciousness. We judge them like a beauty pageant contestant. Competition encourages encourages us to judge everything like a beauty pageant contestant. In a glance, we may cut them down. We forget that not all babies are born beautiful. Hear that again and understand that the baby is is your swing that you're trying to develop. It's your shot. It's your technique that you're trying to develop. And so we abort the lives of awkward or unseemly projects. We throw them out the window because they may not be our finest work. Out best creative ugly ducklings. And here's the best part. It says an act of art needs time to mature. When you judge it early, early, it may be judged incorrectly. Hear that again. An active art needs time to mature. When you judge it early, it may be judged incorrectly. Never ever judge a fledgling piece of work too quickly. Be willing to paint or write badly while your ego yelps resistance. Now, little side tangent here for you, I have on my vision board. It says you have to be a bad artist before you can be a good artist. That's a courage thing family. We talk about courage and vulnerability all the time. You have to be a bad artist before you can be a good artist. You have to be willing to paint or write badly while your ego, your sensor, your serpent will yelp resistance. Your bad writing may be the syntactical breakdown necessary for a shift in your style. Your lousy painting may be pointing you in a new direction. Art needs time to incubate, to sprawl a little, to be ungainly in mischapen and finally emerge as itself. Once you can see here, the judgment piece of this will not allow you to break through these barriers and to create lousy art. And it will not allow you to incubate. Your ego mind wants you to fix it now. That's self one. For those of you that have listened to the self one and self two podcasts, that is self one. The ego hates this fact. The ego wants instant gratification and the addictive hit of an acknowledged win. And just understand here family that the need to win now is a need to win approval from others. As an anecdote, we must learn to approve of ourselves. Showing up for the work is the win that matters. This is when Ryan Holiday, this is when Marcus Aurelia says the impediment to action, advances action. Therefore, the obstacle in the way becomes the way. There is no way around it. Your job is to take the first step and allow God to create the rest of the path for you. Your step is to do the work. God, I will take care of the quantity. You will take care of the quality. Now that's hard in sports. It's hard because you need it now. But my question for you, I'm bringing this straight to the scripture. It says this in Luke 627, "Can any one of you by worrying at a single hour to your life?" I'll say it again. "Can any one of you by worrying at a single hour to your life?" I think the artist's way here is calling for spiritual dependence. That's what she's calling for when she has you right morning pages. It's to depend on the Lord for the creativity. It's to depend on the Lord for the result and the outcome. And to depend on the Lord for the quality, your job is to do the work. Your job is to write the bad pages. Your job is to get the swings and iron them out, to take the swings, to take the shots and iron them out. Be willing to paint or write badly while your ego helps resistance. Your bad writing may be this intactical breakdown necessary for a shift in your style. You working through your swing when it doesn't feel good, may be this intactical breakdown necessary for a shift in your style with your swing. Your lousy painting, your lousy swing may be pointing you in a new direction. Again, art needs time to incubate, but you are not going to understand the timeline there. And so I understand that sports is pushing you to be competitive, but it really is a distraction. We are committed to the process of what we're doing without being emotionally attached to the outcome of what we're doing. Emotion is bias. Anything that is not related to what we are trying to do is a distraction. We're just trying to take the smallest step forward. We're eager to take the smallest step forward. That's what grit is. And I understand people are going to encourage you to be competitive, but we do need to allow ourselves and allow our art, allow our swing, allow our throw, allow our shot to incubate. And you worrying about it, you judging it, you tearing yourself down, I just have never seen that it actually really helps people. And that's all I'm calling on you to do is to ask yourself, does that mindset actually help you get closer to where you want to be? I just know for me, it doesn't really help me. And when I allow my art to be my art and I just allow myself to work through it and to make mistakes and not judge it, but just take the information and apply it, naturally the creative swan emerges eventually. That's what SIP was. I looked back at my old videos and I cringe about them a little bit, but I laugh at them a little bit. And I'm proud of myself because I took imperfect action. I let it be an ugly duckling phase. And I was courageous enough to put it out there anyways. And it reached the people that cared. And naturally it developed into a better product. I think I can articulate my ideas a little bit better. I think I have an understanding of what I believe a little bit more. And yet I still am in an ugly duckling phase a little bit in my life right now. I'm still trying to bring more structure to this. I'm still trying to organize these podcasts in a more succinct way for you all. This podcast has been a little bit all over the place. Ideally, I would like it to be more organized, but I'm okay with it being that ugly duckling phase. And I have confidence that if I just keep showing up, the creative swan will emerge. And I'm also confident in my listener. I think that this podcast, I think that SIP attracts high agency intellectual people, people that are deeper thinkers. Monkey mind's very rarely listened to this podcast, I would say. And so for the people that listen, I have the courage and the belief that they will figure out what I'm saying and they will find the truth, their truth, and they will be able to apply it. And so it makes it even 1% harder to be in creative when you are creating for other people. And so then I guess that takes me to another point that I should be creating this for myself. When you create for other people, it's a business, when you create for yourself, it's creativity, right? It's for you. And so I'd make my best podcasts when I create content that is for Drake, things that I can apply, things that I'm learning for myself. And naturally it drives a better product, which is so interesting. I think you can take that to your sport as well. Creativity, when you go out there and perform, are you working hardily for man, for flesh, for other people, are you working hardily for yourself and for the Lord? Most importantly, the Lord. And when you go out there and you express yourself authentically for yourself and you do it for God, and it's just about shining your art and your work, naturally the result is better, isn't that funny? And when you go out there and you try to perform for somebody else, you try to look good. It's never as good as you think it would be, right? And it's funny, it's just all overlapping principles. A bunch of the people that I sent to hoodies to, they got childlike hoodies. Childlike comes from Matthew 183. He tells you that when you make yourself less, childlike, when you make yourself more like a child, you make yourself less, you make him more. That is the pathway to heaven, right? And so with that being said, children are dependent on the Lord, children are spontaneous, children are creative, children are non-needing, non-striving, non-wishing, they're just immersed in the act, their high agency. They don't have a need to come across like they have all the answers. And so it turns out, childlikeness might be the path to heaven, but it is the path to heaven, but it might also be the path to performing at your very best, to being dependent on your process, to being dependent on the Lord, to not having a need to come across like you have all the answers. But to be willing to go out there and take the smallest step forward and collect information, that is a courageous act, high agency like a child, right? You're gonna go get it. God, I'll take care of the quantity, you'll take care of the quality. I am gonna go do the work. I'll pray to catch the bus, and I will run to catch that bus. That's the same concept. That is agency. Agency in sport is believing that you're never out of the fight. You're just gonna keep collecting information and keep stacking days and taking the smallest step forward. And so I'm sure you can see how these all overlap, child likeness with the spirit of creativity versus the spirit of competition, which is just thumbs up or thumbs down, right? So I shared this artist's way excerpt with you, and I'll read just a little bit more of it one more time, so you can hear the biggest points, and I won't make any comments on it, just so you can hear it one more time. The spirit of competition, as opposed to the spirit of creation, often urges us to quickly, when no out, whatever doesn't seem like a winning idea. A competitive focus encourages snap judgments, thumbs up or thumbs down. Does this project deserve to live? Many hits are sure things only in retrospect, until we know better, we call great many creative swans, ugly ducklings. This is an indignity we offer our brain children as they rear their heads in our consciousness. We judge them like beauty pageant contestants, in a glance we may cut them down. We forget that not all babies are born beautiful, and so we abort the lives of awkward or unseemly projects that may be our finest work, out best creative ugly ducklings, an act of art needs time to mature. Judge early it may be judged incorrectly. Never, ever, judge a fledgling piece of work too quickly, be willing to paint or write badly while your ego yelps resistance. Your bad writing may be this in tactical breakdown necessary for you shift in your style. Art needs time to incubate, to sprawl a little, to be ungainly and mischapen, and finally emerge as itself. The ego wants instant gratification and the addictive hate of an acknowledged win. The need to win now is a need to win approval from others. Showing up for the work is the work that matters. So there's that artist way excerpt one more time. I wrote down a note underneath that that it does not allow judgment does not allow the process and the art to incubate It's very short-term focus. I would also just mention again that trying hard is a competitive mindset. It is self-one It does not really complement the idea of self-two and the principles of self-two I mentioned earlier, but judgment is pulling us out of flow Analytical thought pulls us out of the now and so we need to let it happen and and be courageous enough to Emers ourselves in the act and so here for the first 41 minutes I have communicated to you kind of what the importance of a creative mindset is compared to a competitive mindset I've also shared with you why it's hard to even grasp this idea because sports are a competition. It is and I I shared with you why You know the sport primes you to be in a competitive mindset, but then I also shared with you why I think creativity actually allows you to still perform at your very best Despite what your sensor or your ego mind will say to you right? So now now where I want to move to is I want to tangibly break down what is a creative state? What is the empowering state? What is the beautiful state? What does it mean to be a fighter? What does it actually look like and then I also want to break down what it means to be in a survival state? These are my own breakdowns have taken from other people, but I ultimately just put all my own thoughts into this and I am going to break down each of these points for call it 10 to 15 seconds each individual one and just share with you how it complements all the other things that we've been talking about and so I've broken these into a couple categories for creative and survival the categories are mindset slash call it heart posture orientation approach state perspective Practices energy right now break it down for both of those Creative survival and all those categories. Let's go through them when we're in creative what does creative actually look like? Creative is a beginner's mindset again. You have to be a bad artist before you can be a good artist It's hard to be a great artist when you have to be a great artist this beginner mindset will serve you so well in In sports this is a self-to mindset. This is why I have athletes take artists dates. This is why I'm having them paint doing pottery This is why I'm having them play the piano learn the guitar I want them to remember what a beginner mindset looks like It's a mindset where you are eager to take the smallest step forward and you are Trusting in the intuitive self when you learn to walk nobody taught you how to walk you intuitively learned how to do it But there was no inhibitions judgments or blocks that stopped you during that process And so a beginner mindset is one that is free of inhibitions and blocks eager to take the smallest step forward It's a creative mindset through and through I wrote down a respectful heart posture towards the creative mind Understanding that self one your sensor and your ego your survival mind wants to look Down on self-to it wants to judge it. It wants to think of it as incapable. It wants to it wants to overanalyze remember calculation is miscalculation that is self-one and so a creative State looks like having a respectful heart posture towards the creative mind and self-to and looking up to that intuitive self and letting it happen It also looks like curiosity over certainty Curiosity over judgment. I wonder what happens if right curiosity is a great creative mindset It requires a non-judgmental approach This is that incubation period that that Julia Cameron talks about It's not good. It's not bad. It just is and we're collecting information It requires a playful mindset all great relationships are rooted in play This is the joy over duty mindset This is when you're a kid playing wiffleball in the backyard or playing soccer with your sister or shooting hoops with your brother It's very playful and isn't it funny how when you're playful the best performance comes out Remember we're calling it playing baseball. You're playing soccer. You're playing football. It's playing It's not working Right, it's not working baseball. It's playing baseball. It's a children's game That's what they always say and so a requirement requirement of being in a creative state is to be playful What you'll see is the more playful you are with the process to better it actually is Again trusting in self-to to perform as a part of the creative mindset and posture letting the bodies in Nate and intelligence The bodies in Nate intelligence execute without interference without your own ego judgment and inhibitions from self-1 Right, what is the orientation phase of the creative mind? Well, it takes you being in the present moment It takes you being immersed. Remember with everything I share with you all these things I'm giving you They're just unique and creative ways and me trying to get you to be in the present in the present You are in his presence and the present is the unknown and in the unknown You're walking with the unseen and when you surrender to the unknown the unknown is kind to you So it takes you being present now when you are present It's a one step at a time mindset. It's a one stroke at a time mindset. It's a one-pitch one play one shot at a time mindset a One day at a time mindset Now that's a small focus But the next bullet point also says long-term thinking and so you can see how those are contradicting but I need you to really think Critically here and understand how both matter when you're in a creative state a small focus is one pitch at a time That is how you perform but when you're developing your art you do have to also flirt back and forth between small focus one day to time and then also having an expanded time horizon Focusing on decades not days and I understand that's more challenging in sports So maybe that one is a little bit less easy to buy into but understand the time will pass anyways The time will pass anyways, so you might as well keep the long-term approach and understand that in the long term There is no misalignment between a quality process and a quality product Can you just keep working your process and be committed to the process of what you're doing without being emotionally attached to the outcome of what you're doing? So it's this delicate dance between a one day one step one play at a time mindset and still being able to think long-term I'm confident that you are More than capable enough to understand what I'm trying to communicate there I wrote down that you are immersed in your act It's a total commitment to what you are doing now to this one pitch I wrote down that it's the attachment from outcome. It's it is I'm sorry to say it I'm gonna play you guys a Cooper Cup video here in a little bit But it is the attachment from outcome The outcome is a distraction shout out Nick Saban. He says that as well It's a distraction at the end of the day You have to care deeply about the process and hold loosely the results because at the end of the day the process is all that's actually in your control the outcomes are never in your control in baseball You can hit a ball 110 miles per hour right at somebody and in the statute it says out It says you got out. Does it say that you hit the ball 110? No Does it say that you executed your process? No, it just tells you the result And that's a dangerous part about resulting is you can grade your process solely based on the outcome And it's just not an accurate representation of what you're doing And so there is a certain level of detachment from the outcome and a deep focus on the process What's the approach of a creative mind? It's letting it happen Let it happen trust your innate intelligence within you your natural learning process trust it It looks like taking in perfect action. Don't let the start stop you Don't let great be the enemy of good be willing to iterate make it as easy as possible to start and iterate as you go I think the approach also looks like not leaning on your own understanding Maybe you call it the universe. I call it Jesus. I call it God But he tells us in the scripture not to lean on our own understanding I understand that my part of this equation is to take care of the quantity and it's to take the first step And I don't need to have the other 99 steps laid out I just need to take step number one and God will present to me the other 99 steps I do not need to understand how it is going to happen hear me clearly You don't need to either I have a soccer player that I worked with that I'm currently working with and I just an Unbelievable story about how good God is she has leaned completely on God not on her own understanding She has been completely dependent. She has been obedient to him. She has been obedient to her faith She has stayed courageous and has not been discouraged as he tells us in Joshua 919 She has worked hardily for the Lord and not for man even when when people around her are Encouraging her to fall into the comparison game and the status games She has stayed true to what she knows and now here she is exactly where she wanted to be We had no idea how she was going to get there and if you look at the facts of the situation It would be very hard as man to outline the exact journey to get her to where she is today But just as things are impossible for man nothing is impossible for God It says that in the scripture and here she is now Blooming in professional soccer after having limited opportunities in collegiate soccer Amazing right so not leaning on your own understanding the next bullet point says leaving space for God to work I'm I'm begging you to leave space for the mystery. I'm begging you to leave space for the mystical You don't have to understand that's close fists close fists block blessings have open hands. It's got that tattoo to my leg Surrendering to the unknown is another approach understand that the unknown is in the present moment and your ego wants to go to the past in the future The past is a familiar and known past the future is a predicted future trying to have a known future, but at the end of the day, it's a mind-made projection. And we will never cope with a mind-made projection. So where does that leave us? It leaves us with the present moment. And if you're trying to go to the past and the future to have a known past, to analyze a known past, it tells you that the present moment is unknown. And again, when you surrender to the unknown, the unknown is kind to you. You can walk into any unknown when you walk with the unseen. In the present moment, you are in his presence, and therefore you are in the unknown, and that's okay. You just have to take the first step, not lean on your own understanding, have open hands, and leave space for God to work. It's a true surrender. It's a true dependence. And that is what obedience looks like in my opinion. I asked an athlete yesterday, "What is somebody who is faithful?" Because I think faith is the greatest mental game. "What do you admire about them when they are faithful? How do you show God love?" Well, first off, you show God love through faith. But what does faith actually look like in somebody you admire? Well, a lot of the time when you hear these people talk, they'll say, "The most faithful, the most grounded by God people you know have no fear." No fear. They're completely surrendered to the unknown. They have open hands because they know that it is written. We are playing from victory, not for victory. Right? Whatever God's will is is what we want. Remember the prayer that Jesus tells you to pray. He tells you not to ramble on. He says, "Do not be like them for your father knows what you need before you ask them." This then is how you should pray. Our father in heaven hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. What does it say? Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Your will be done." That's surrendering to the unknown. It's wanting his will more than your will. That's what it looks like. And when you truly, truly, truly want his will, it's always better. It always is better. And everybody says that and you'll only know that when you can finally let go. And nobody's going to do that for you. And honestly, God knows exactly when you're going to be able to do that. It's not for me to tell you when or to shame you for not being there yet. God knows when you'll be there. But I just promise you the day that you can have open hands and you can completely surrender and want his will for your life is the day that everything happens for you. And so when you're in the present moment, you're letting it happen. You're taking imperfect action. You're not leaning on your own understanding. You're leaving space for God to work. You have opened hands, surrendered to the now, surrendered to the unknown. That is where the magic happens. Everything good happens in the present moment when you are surrendered, baby. And so, again, self-to learns through feel and experience, not instruction and analysis. That's the last part of the approach. What do you call this like segment? I put under creative. It's not instruction or analysis, but more so feel and experience letting it happen. Right? That's the approach when it comes to creative. What does it look like from a state perspective? It looks like a regulated nervous system. I want you to remember that you cannot outperform a dysregulated nervous system. Your nervous system will only let you create to the state that it feels, to the level that it feels it's safe. This is where self-sabotage can come into this. Right? And when you're way out of whack, if you can't regulate yourself, you can't shine your art. And so, you do need to learn in the creative process of how to regulate yourself. Right? It looks like coherence. It looks like your thoughts are going in one direction and your emotions are going in the same direction and your behaviors are going in the same direction. You're thinking like a big leger. You're feeling like a big leger and you're behaving like a big leger. That's coherence. I'm sure you can understand survival is the opposite. I wrote down spaciousness. There's mental and emotional room to breathe and respond. You're moving a little bit slower. Ruthless elimination of hurry. I shared in the TikTok, but one of the homework assignments was I had my athletes drive the speed limit come to a complete stop on the high or a come to a complete stop at a stop sign and not be in the fast way in a highway. I want them to be regulated. I want to remind them of what it feels like to move slow. I've also given every single one of my athletes, all 50 athletes a brick. I want them to learn to brick their phone and not be stimulated 24/7 and not be distracted, but just to be here in the present moment. Right? I want them to have mental and emotional room to breathe to move slowly. We're not always in a hurry. We're not always frenzied. If you are frenzied, it's you. Your results are perfect for the process you have in place and something is off kilter. Right? I wrote rhythmic versus rush. There is a natural rhythm to mastery. There are seasons. There are cycles. There are waves of life and it's an understanding that those come. Right? We're not in a hurry. We're not in a rush. Remember the need to win now as they need to win approval from others. It's a rhythm. We do not need to rush when you are rushing. You are dysregulated and you are in survival. What is the perspective when you are in creative? It's being greater than your environment. Understand that environment is the invisible hand that shapes human behavior. These individuals go to the Vietnam War and they become heroin addicts pretty dang quickly. They come home at almost overnight, cold turkey. They no longer have the desire for heroin. A drug at the time that they believed was something you couldn't come back from. The question is why? The why is because of environment. When you're on a losing team, it's a whole lot easier to be a loser. When you're around people who think small, it's a whole lot easier to think small. When you're around great people who think big and who think creatively, it's a whole lot easier to think creatively. Your environment really matters. When you are in a creative state, a lot of the time you can't control your environment. A lot of the time, your environment is a known environment. It's what is currently real for you. If you want to create a reality that is different than what you currently have, you have to think greater than where you currently are. That is being greater than your environment. It's waking up every single day and renewing your mind. Being greater than yourself and your own flesh and your own survival tendencies. The perspective is that there is unlimited possibilities in the unknown. Understanding that you should not put a limit on God. The greatest form of idolatry, in my opinion, is to think low of God. Is to put a limit on Him. Is to think lowly of Him. Honestly, any way that I try to explain God is idolatry because He is so much greater. I can't use the human language to articulate words to explain how great God is. I'm actually worshiping a God that isn't even as great as what He actually is. When you understand that the greatest way you can show God love is through faith. You have faith that there is unlimited possibilities because it says in the scripture that nothing is impossible for God. The perspective that you have when you're in a creative state is there are infinite possibilities. It's an abundance mindset. There is enough success and opportunity for everyone. When I compare, when I compete, when I'm focused, and when other people are doing, black and white family, I am telling you, it is harder for me to record these podcasts. It is harder for me to make content. Absolutely. Black and white. It's harder for me to want to share when I am in a survival mindset, when I am in a lack of mindset. And so creativity looks like abundance. You are not competing. You are just authentically being yourself. And you are understanding that God is a great and abundant God. And there is enough success and opportunity for everyone. And when I have my success, I will not question it. I will accept it as a form of worship. I said that the perspective is also integration. Understand that life and sport feed each other. It is not compartmentalized. You have your real self and you have your performer self. Please understand that when you are creative and surrendered and present and regulated in your life, naturally, it bleeds into your sport. A lot of the time, a lot of the time, not all the time, your performance is just a lagging measure of who you are as a human being. So you've seen these athletes that are scummy people that don't treat people very, like they're just scummy people, right? But they are present. You know, I have athletes that pop in my head. They play video games and when they're playing video games, they're playing video games. They hang out with girls and they're free time. But when they're hanging out with their girls, they're hanging out with their girls. And you can have your own opinions about their own practices. They're drinking alcohol. They're doing drugs. But when they're doing those things, they're present in the moment. And I completely agree, those things are not the right things for your performance, but just understand their performance is a lagging measure of who they are as a human. And when they're present in those moments, naturally, those guys are more present on the field. And that's annoying at times, but it's true. Now, I do think the most sustainable path is to be the best version of yourself you can be. This is a tangent. Invest in your real self. The most sustainable path, the way to be the most consistent is to be a high quality human, to have high quality habits, to think well, thinking is easy, thinking well as hard, think well of God, think well of yourself, think well of your process. In the long term, those are the people that are successful. And these guys that take shortcuts, yes, they're present in it shows in the field. In the long term, that does catch up to them. Maybe they get injured, maybe they drive drunk, whatever it is. You've seen it a million times. I am not promoting that lifestyle at all. I'm just saying, you know, it is a life in sport, do go hand in hand. And who you are on the field is a lagging measure of who you are in your life. And even when these guys are idiots, if they're present and they're convicted and they are, yeah, really present, even though they're doing the wrong things because they are present people, sometimes it's easier for them to still be present performers. Right. So understand the perspective side life in sport, feet off of each other. Practices, what are the practices of being in creativity? And I'll make more another podcast on this down the road, but solitude. Remember, Jesus goes to the top of the mountain and sits in the presence of the Father. It's the perfect representation of ministry and replenishment. Twice in Luke, I'm pulling it up right here. I have it in Luke. It's talking about, but Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. That is Luke 516. It also says, Jesus went out at day break, Jesus went out to a solitary place. That's Luke 442. I mean, how many times is it going to talk about Jesus going into solitary, into solitude and praying, sitting in the presence of the Father, ministry and replenishment, nourishing yourself? How many times is it going to talk about that before we realize that we do need to nourish our creativity? We do need to sit in solitude with God and ring our heart out of sin and failure and sit in the presence of the Father. That is how you regulate your nervous system. That is how you slow down and eliminate hurry. I always talk about four ways to practice discernment, the Bible, prayer, wise counsel, slow down. You don't even need to do anything. For some of you, for you guys that are not believers, that's meditation. Sit with yourself. 99% of man's problems stem from the inability to sit with themselves for 60 minutes. But eliminating hurry, sitting in solitude, sitting in the presence of the Father is proven. It's proven to regulate your nervous system. Prayer is proven to regulate your nervous system. That's crazy. So we need to slow down. We need to sit in solitude. We need to sit with our self and organize our thoughts, close the tabs in our computer that is our mind. I wrote down that the practices also look like nourishing your artist. Morning pages is a way for you to pour out your creativity. Artistic dates, which is 60 to 120 minutes a week of something creative. Buy yourself. Let me say it again. Buy yourself. That is nourishing your creativity. You pour out with the morning pages. You replenish with artist dates. It also looks like quality, sleep, quality diet, quality nutrition, quality hydration, consuming from the right sources. Like these things all count. She has you sign a contract at the beginning of the artist's way that you are going to honor these things because it's a part of the creative process. So if you're going to be regulated and you're going to be creative, those things count. The last bullet point I put there was high quality consumption with an emphasis on creating more than consuming. Create more than you consume. If you are an athlete, stop scrolling so much family. Stop scrolling so much. Stop consuming about all the bullshit that is just a distraction. Why don't you fill that time with drawing? Why don't you order a coloring book on the internet and color a little bit? Get back into your creativity. What if you played the guitar? What if you played the piano? What if you listen to music? What if you went to an art show instead of drowning in your own misery, watching your own mechanics and looking up your stats and the stats of all your friends? How exhausting part of being in a creative state is protecting your attention. You are what you give your attention to. In a world that is full of information, focuses the art of knowing what to ignore. Know what to ignore. Understand there's a reason I'm giving all of my athletes bricks. Protect your attention. The world is trying to steal your attention. And if you're going to give the world your attention at least consume from sources that empower you and that inspire you. Who is this? Who wrote? Count Newport wrote the book Deep Work. He says an athlete's relationship with their smartphone is everybody's important as an athlete's relationship with diet and strength training. Oh my god, is that insane? Can you believe that? Can you imagine 20 years ago looking at those athletes and saying, hey, what you do with a phone one day is everybody's important as what you do in the weight room. They would have laughed in your face. And so remember, a practice for being regulated for being in a creative state is controlling what you consume is protecting your attention. Create more than you consume family. The last bullet point is energy. What's the energy of a creative mindset? It's love. God is love. God is not judgment. God is love. Now I say that and you will be judged. So I take that back. God is love. God is faith. The greatest way you show love to God is through your faith. An unwavering bold convicted obedient dependent faith on him. Joy. Joy over duty. Whoever said that you had to treat this like a job. Go play brother. Have some fun. It's playing soccer. Go have some fun. Joy. Gratitude. Gratitude signals to your body that you have received. It's the greatest state of receivership. Matthew McConaughey says that it's a scientific fact that gratitude reciprocates. Oh my god. If there's one emotion, I can get you to feel it's awe. awe is the one that receives. awe is is is the most empowering emotion that you can feel. If you can wake up every single day and be in love with your life and be in awe, I promise you your world will change. And back in the day, I did this Joe to spend the exercise where I wrote out exactly my intention. What is it going to look like to get me to where I want to go? What am I going to be doing every single day? Well, on my own boss, Michaela doesn't have to work for somebody else. Guess what? It happened. Michaela is now full time with SIP. Let's go. I wrote out all these things. I can travel the world whenever I want to. I can do whatever I want. But then I wrote out the emotions. And one of the number one emotions I continuously wrote every single time I did this exercise was awe. And with everything I have, when I wake up every single day for SIP, and I get to make a podcast for you guys today, and I get to talk to 50 athletes every single week. And I get to have Michaela and out of her job. And I have a little puppy that gets to hang out with Michaela and all day because she's not working some rat race job. Like, what does that make me feel? awe. I am in awe every day that I wake up. I'm in love with my life. I have more faith for God. I have more faith in God. I have more faith in myself. I have more faith in the unknown. I have joy and gratitude every single day. And the craziest thing about those emotions is awe begets awe. What does that mean? It means that when you feel awe, you create more reasons to feel awe. Remember the reticular activating system? That is where, where whatever you focus on is what you see more of. It's a filter for your brain. And so you're thinking about Audi R8s all day. And then you go on the highway and you see an Audi R8. Right? It's when somebody tells you to look around the room, look at everything that's black. Okay, close your eyes and list off everything that's black. And you keep your eyes closed, you list them off. And then I say, what's red? And you can't tell me anything. That's because your focus is on everything that is black. And if I told you to focus on red, you could have named the red things. But you probably wouldn't have seen the black things. And so what is the energy of being in a creative state? It's love, faith, joy, gratitude, and awe. And when you experience these emotions, you create more of these emotions. You find more reasons to feel these emotions. Again, the last thing I'll say is the energy is an understanding that we are we are made in the image of God. We are also made in the dust. We are made to create, but we are also made to rest. That's the energy. Go be audacious. Go be bold. Go create because you are made in the image of God. But it's also the idea of let go of control, surrender to the unknown, open hands. We are made in the image, but we are also made in the dust. And we must rest. We must rest. So when you have that understanding, it makes it more attainable to be in a creative state. Now, let's go into what survival is. I'll just kind of read through these because you've kind of understood what creative looks like. Now survival is just the opposite. So if I have anything to add, I'll try to keep it quick, but survival, what is the mindset and posture? It's very judgmental, good and bad. It's an urgency language. I have to I need to. It's the need for certainty. You need to understand every step of the process. You can't tolerate mystery. Right. It's a need for certainty. You can't tolerate the mystery of the situation. I had an athlete that I was working with who called with me and she got very emotional about how they were taping her ankle. And really what this is is a reflection of the uncertainty that she is feeling. And so she is clinging on to something for control. Oh, the ankle tape doesn't feel good. So I can at least control that because she's uncertain about her her role on the team. And so as you become consciously competent and aware as an athlete, you can start to understand when these things happen and understand the why behind them. Oh, this is an unconscious pattern that I have to cling on to control because I'm feeling uncertain in my situation. And so understand that survival is a need for certainty. It's zero. Some thinking someone wins someone loses. There's a finite pie. It's self-one dominant analytical ego controlling mind, not trusting your body. What is the orientation? It's fearful of the unknown. It's fearful of the present. Just say that guys when you are scared of the unknown, really what you're scared of is being in the in the present moment with open hands. It's you living in the past and living in the future. It's short term thinking. If I don't do this, this game, this season right now, it's short term. It's short term. It's an attachment to the outcome. Your identity is wrapped up in results. It's not wrapped up in your faith in God. Right? And remember, you are only as stable as what you worship. You are only as stable as what you worship. And if your identity is in the game, you cannot serve two masters. Because guess what? I have it pulled up right here in the scripture and it tells you, but seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all things will be given to you. It also says, says no one can serve two masters. Either you will hate one and love the other or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. To go to a reminder, we can't serve money and serve God. You can't serve your sport and serve God, right? And so it's a identity that is wrapped up in your craft in your sport and you are only a stable is what you worship. It's a performance addiction. It can't just be. You must always be doing and proving and doing more and doing more and doing more. And what's so funny is so many of these athletes think it's a strength that I'm a grinder. I'm David Goggins. I'm working hard. I love Goggins. I love Goggins. That shit doesn't play in sport. It doesn't. I tried it. I was that guy. I took pride that I was the guy that was always gonna be proving myself. I'm always gonna be doing more. That's fragile as all get out and that's survival. You can't just be. You can't just follow your process and execute today on what you identified and then let it be and show up tomorrow and go again. You're the person that is bringing it home and watching video and drowning in your own misery. That's survival. What's the approach? The need for control? Trying hard? Going harder. Self one. It's a need to understand. Recognize that survival is who, what, when, where, why? Who's gonna get promoted? Who's getting signed to professional soccer? Who, who ran the fastest? Who's starting? Who's gonna be in the weekend rotation? What happens if I go out there and I strike out seven? What happens if I don't get to pitch opening weekend? What happens if I fail in the first preseason game? When am I gonna get my opportunity? When are things gonna happen for me? When are they gonna see my progress? Where am I going to be in a year? Where am I going to be if this happens? Why is this happening? These are survival mindsets. So just let that be a trigger for you, a signal for you that when you go to who, what, when, where, why, and how, you are going into survival, you do not need to understand every single step. I wrote down the approach is close fists. You have a very set way on how it should work out. One butterfly is your way. That's the one way to get there. It's a narrow focus. Creative is an open focus. It's a thousand butterflies. That's God's way. There's a thousand ways to get there. It's overly preparing and scripting. It's borderline neurotic. This is my greatest representation of survival for myself. I sat down. I wrote seven different pages of how I wanted to go about this podcast. And finally, I said, screw it. I'm just going to rip. Just going to rip baby as long as I'm in the present moment. It might be long winded, but zero factor. I don't care because at the end of the day, this is for me. And you know, I love you guys. You know, I'm grateful to have you here, but this is for me. And so I'm not going to overly prepare. I'm not going to script this out too much. I'm not going to be neurotic. I'm going to let it happen. And here I am an hour and 13 minutes in. And I'm happy with how this has gone. No matter what, I'm proud of how these thoughts have flown from my heart, right? The approach is self-one interfering with self-tooth through constant commands, corrections, and criticisms. Load your scap. Make sure you feel this and your jump. Make sure you stand tall. Like these are just distractions. It's distractions. Stay external to distractions. Self-one interferes with self-tooth. That's the approach and survival. What's the state you're dysregulated? You're not in coherence. You're thinking that you want to be a big leader, but yet the emotions that you live in every single day are those emotions of lack of comparison, the emotions of not having enough and what was me and sad and angry. You always have your choice family. You have your choice on what emotions you choose to live out. But whatever emotions you choose to live will determine the quality of your life. Emotions are energy and motion. What you live out, the emotions you feel signals to your body, to your cells, to look for more of that. It's the language for your unconscious mind for your body. So you damn well, better get your emotions in check. We have to be in coherence. Your thoughts go in one direction, but when you're in survival, your emotions are going the opposite direction. I wrote down that when you are in survival, everything is hurried. Everything is frenzied. You're moving fast. Moving fast is typically a signal of survival. Slow down. Slow down. It's cluttered and it's cramped. You have no mental space. You're always reactive. Now, when you're an artist, sometimes there is a time to be a little bit messy. You're a creative. I get it. But sometimes when you are in survival, like you are just in a cluttered space, a cluttered mind, you're not doing your morning pages. You have all these thoughts. You just need to do your morning pages family. You need to follow your process and allow yourself to declutter. But that's the state. Cluttered, frenzied, overly fatigue. Remember, fatigue will make a coward of us all. Fatigue will make you question. Fatigue will make you compare. Fatigue will make you feel less than. Fatigue will make you insecure. So let's make sure we're doing the things to take care of ourself and to not be so fatigued. What's the perspective? It's that the environment controls me. Wherever I am in my environment is who I'm going to be. It's limited possibilities. Oh, that's a great thought, but it's not possible. Here's the truth. Whatever you believe to be true is true. You believe it. It won't work. You're right. You believe it will work? You're right. It will work. And that doesn't discriminate. The law of assumption says that whatever you assume to be true is true. Neuroplasticity says that we can rewire our brain through thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. And so as far as I'm concerned, it's factual that we can actually change who we are as a human being. The scripture, Mark 1124, tells you to praise if you've received it and you will. The scripture tells you that things are impossible for man, but nothing is impossible for God. And so clearly when you are in survival, you are practicing idolatry. You are thinking lowly of God. You are putting a limit on what God is capable of. And that is the greatest form of idolatry is to think low of him. So perspective is limited possibilities. It's comparison. Oh, my God. Keep your eyes on your own paper. It's viewing that sport is separate and causing internal fragmentation. When I say sport is separate, I just mean because obviously I encourage athletes to separate who they are from what they do. I'm more so just mean that, oh, I'm just going to do all the work on the field, on the mats, in the gym, and naturally everything else will take care of itself. The mental game is everything. Every single thing counts and you are always practicing something. You are always firing some neurons in your brain. And neurons are fired together, wired together. So naturally you are rewiring who you are becoming with everything you do. Everything counts. And so the perspective is just that, oh, sport is completely separate from who I am. I also wrote the perspective is more so transactional. Maybe that's in relationships. Everyone is either used for threatening, right? And that's a very toxic place to be. When you focus on service, naturally everything else follows. It tells you in the scripture to make yourself less and make him more. It tells you to be a servant. This is Matthew 20. I'll read you Matthew 20, 21 through 28. It says, Jesus called them together and said, you know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant and whoever wants to first, whoever wants to be first must first be your slave. Just as the son of man did not come around to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. So it is telling you if you want to be first, you must first be last, right? And whoever wants to be first must be your slave. Instead whoever wants to be great among you must first be your servant. So again, transactional survival is selfish. When you are in creation, when you are creative, it literally is biblical. It is telling us that it is a selfless state. Make yourself less. Make him more. Focus on serving others. Focus on being the best teammate you can be. Focus on shining God's light brightly. A lamp is not lit to be dimmed. You are called to shine God's light brightly on the world and use this gift that you've been given to steward this gift and shine God's grace and God's love on the world. Right? And so when you are in survival, you are transactional. Either everyone is either useless or threatening and you're trying to be at the top. The last perspective that I would say for survival is self one. It's very mechanical and it's very analytical as you know. The practice is what does it look like to be in survival, consuming a lot. You're pouring out into a lot of people. It's not always negative. You're serving a lot of people and you never replenish yourself. Again, if Jesus replenished, why would we not need to replenish? It's being in a constant state of stress. It's constantly being fast. It looks like eating your meal really fast. It looks like speeding on the highway. It looks like blowing through the stop sign. It looks like being frenzy to every aspect of your life. Your locker is a mess, your car is a mess, your room is a mess, your mind is a mess. What is the energy? The energy is fear. It's anger and it's sadness. It's envy. It's frustration. It's judgment. When you are in a low state, when you are in survival, you're fearful of the unknown. You're angry about a lack of progress. You're in a sad state. And what do you get when you're sad? You see more reasons why you should be sad. Be in comparison, frustration. Don't be frustrated. Be fascinated. And it's judging. And so that is what creative and survival looks like. I just did a deep, deep dive for you. What does it look like to be creative? What does it look like in a competition setting? And now ultimately you get to decide who you're going to be. You always have your choice. You have your freedom of choice. You do not have the freedom of consequence. And so it is up to us to be greater than our environment and to overcome our daily into renew our mind. I do think my next podcast should probably be real ways that I renew my mind and what that looks like from a scripture standpoint. But for today, I just want you to understand that your environment will do everything it can to control you and it is your job to wake up every single day and overcome yourself and choose to live in creativity. Understand that this competition and survival mindset actually pulls you out of the present moment and it's counterintuitive and the best thing you can do is see it through. Have a short-term focus, a small focus, one pitch at a time, but a long-term approach to your process. You're going to see it through. I wrote down that the game will block you of your creative childlike flow. Stay dependent, stay creative, stay high-agency, stay in the moment. I also wrote down Matthew 625 through 34. I'll read you that real quick. And so it says, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink or about your body, what you will wear is not life more than food and the body more than clothes. Look at the birds of the air. They do not sew or reap or store away in barns and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Here you go. Can any one of you by worrying at a single hour to your life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers on the field grow? They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon and all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God closed the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, you of little faith? So do not worry saying, what shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear for the pagans run after all these things and your heavenly father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things that are in all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow. We'll worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. He's telling you do not worry about your life. Don't worry about what you'll eat or drink or about your body or about what you'll wear. He's talking. He's telling you to look at the birds. He's telling you to look at that the grass and seeing that they have everything they need and do they worry about clothes? So it says, and why do you worry about clothes? You have the flowers of the field grow. He's calling on you to be dependent. He's asking you, does worrying even add a single hour to your life? He's calling you little faith, you of little faith. That's it. Remember we show God love by having faith and he's telling you to seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. It's biblical to be in the present moment. It's biblical. So I have that. I shared that with you. I wrote down, remember the importance of being childlike, creativity, agency, dependence, humility, spontaneity, no blocks or judgments. I wrote down faith obviously plays a role in this entire equation. One of my most out there thoughts that will not resonate with everybody and that's fine. But I do view self too as a Holy Spirit. It's your job to step aside and create and to allow the Holy Spirit to create through you. Okay. I'm going to open up the creative affirmations right now from the artist's way that I wanted to share with you all just a couple of them that are so good. It says creativity is a natural order of life. Life is energy pure creative energy. I encourage all of you guys to take these affirmations and see how these kind of complement the creative mindset and see how you can incorporate this into your sport. There is an underlying indwelling creative force infusing all of life, including ourselves. When we open ourselves to our creativity, we open ourselves to our creativity, our creators creativity within us and within our lives. We are ourselves creations and we in turn are meant to continue creativity by being creative ourselves. Creativity is God's gift to us using our creativity as our gift back to God. The refusal to be creative is self will and is counter to our true nature. When we open ourselves to exploring our creativity, we open ourselves to God. Good, orderly direction. As we open our creative channel to the creator, many gentle but powerful changes are to be expected. It is safe to open ourselves up to greater and greater creativity, our creative dreams and yearnings come from a divine source. As we move towards our dreams, we move towards our divinity. And so I shared those affirmations with you. I just put a note at the bottom to read those off because I think they compliment a lot of the creative mindset. You're working heartily for the Lord, which comes from Colossians 323. Work heartily as for the Lord and not for man. Right? And I think those those affirmations encourage you to bring God into your performance and to create for him to take the status and the zero sum games out of it and to ultimately be about it, create for him. The last couple notes I put is to brainwash yourself into being creative by practicing creativity, by practicing your faith and by keeping your cup clean, by telling yourself a story that serves you. I'll share it last two things I want to say. Greg Maddox is a great pitcher, but he's a below average pitcher when it comes to talent, when you compare it to today's game. And even back in the day, I mean, he threw probably average velocity, but his thing was he executed pitches at a really high level in sports, optimal performance comes from a ruthless commitment to the present and to the things that are in your control. Whenever Greg Maddox was asked about anything, anything status, where they're going to be in the playoffs. Are they going to, is he going to win the Saiyong any of this noise? All he would ever say was, all I do is execute one pitch at a time. And so what is it? An optimal commitment to the present, one pitch at a time. That's in the present moment. And all it is an optimal commitment to the things that are in your control, the execution of a pitch. And so Greg Maddox sure as hell thinks about these other things that take him off the path, but he tells himself a story and he catches himself and he would redirect his attention to the things that are in his control into a creative mindset, which is, all I do is execute one pitch at a time. Is he saying anything about the hitter? Is he saying anything about competing? Is he saying anything about competing against anybody else? Because yes, he is competing is just with himself to be the very best he can be to execute at the highest level possible. And when Greg Maddox executes at a high level, naturally the result follows. And so again, I will go more into detail down the road on what it looks like to actually renew your mind every day and stay in a creative state. But with this, with that, I'm going to end this podcast with a Cooper Cup video. And it will end after the video. It's phenomenal. I think it ties into everything we talk about with survival versus creative and ultimately surrendering. You will take care of the work. You will take care of the process. He will take care of the rest. The Cooper Cup video compliments that perfectly. All that I ask of you is if you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with somebody that you think needs to hear it. And again, this was kind of fun. This is just kind of like a creative dump. And I didn't really put that much structure in myself. And so forgive me that this was a little bit all over the place. But I encourage you to listen back to it because there's a lot here. There is a lot here that I think will serve you. Take the things that you like, leave the things that you don't. I love you guys like crazy. And I appreciate you. And I'll talk to you soon. Cheers. Where that self-doubt becomes real, that voice becomes a lot stronger. But I was really thankful for my wife and just being able to have the history that I have of how much work I put into it that you can fall back on. And my wife being able to speak the truth over me of like you do belong here. And you've worked for these moments. And the results aren't going to, the results aren't always going to tell you the truth. Right? What's your process like? How are you going about things? What do you, what do you, what do you, what's your mindset like? And help me kind of pull through those things because it can be really hard when you go through these highs and these lows. And you think, am I rookie here? I thought the NFL was the world, like whatever happened on Sunday. Like it was world changing. So like you drop a pass the entire world changes. And it's like this is, this is a game and I get to just enjoy being a plat. It sounds cool to say I shouldn't, I should try to make a play and not think about messing up. But to really be the guy that goes out there and says, I'm about to catch the touchdown and not say, I don't want to mess up this job. And to get out of that, it's, it's probably like, what I'm going to say, people are going to hate. Like they're going to hate to hear that this is my mindset, but you have to not care what happens. You have to not care what the result is. I get completely past this place of like the wins and the losses get completely past. The, you know, what the stats are going to be at the end of the day. I work from Monday to Saturday to make sure I prepare and do everything I possibly can to be the best Cooper Cup that I can be on Sunday. The things I eat, when I jump to work, the film I'm watching, every piece of it is intentional. Like I'm possibly possibly be once I step on the field on Sunday, it doesn't matter. Like I've already done everything I possibly can to be in that moment. All I can do is attack it and the results do not matter because I've done everything. Right. So like there's so much as a, as a receiver, especially so much how out of my control, I'm just going to be the best of me that I can be. And the rest is, they're at, let the rest be where it is. You know, God's written out what this, what this day is going to be already. And it's out of my control. I'm going to attack it. I know that I get to play from victory, not for victory and that anything that happens after, after this game, it's already written. So the worst thing I can do is look back and be like, Oh, why didn't I, like, why didn't I go after? Why didn't I try it? When at the end of the day, it wouldn't matter whether I tried it or not. Like I'm going to just be secure and being like, I'm going to send it. Right. Like I got an out route versus one hole. I got terrible leverage. This helps in here. I'm trying to run out route. But I'm like, I don't have a plan. It's like, no, I'm just going to freaking, I'm going to go for it. Whatever it is, no doubt, no self-doubt. Just I'm just going to send it. It doesn't. working doesn't work.