Sep 27, 2018
In this week’s episode Pricey interviews Grego about The
Zone.
PRICEY: The number of times I'm chatting with you, and you'll
talk about a zone. You'll say, "When the guy was in his zone";
"When actually I was in the zone". And obviously that's a really
important thing. What do you mean by a zone?
I'll tell you a story to start this off. I remember I was
coaching rugby at GPS Premier Rugby in Brisbane many years ago. And
I was hanging out with a coach guy called Matt Pini who played for
the Queensland Reds and Italy.
And one of the wingers from GPS ran down the touchline, did an
amazing step or two, dived over in corner, scored this incredible
try. And he was a goal kicker. And he'd been having a bit of an off
few weeks, but he walked back, put the ball on the tee, and never
for a second looked like missing. He just put it straight over. And
the reason was, he was in the zone, and he was in the zone as a
result of his run, as a result of him playing to the absolute peak
of his ability.
So zone is when you are operating at the peak of your ability,
where the challenge matches your skill. It is where you have full
attention to the external world, so you're having to operate at
your peak. You're responding to the external world, both physically
and mentally; fully aware and fully engaged. Zero distraction.
Right, is it important?
PRICEY: Hold it. Just before you get into why, I think I've
actually experienced that. I know I've actually worked with a large
group, and every now and again, I will have a difficult group. I
will be the actual facilitator, and I find I go into this thing
where I'm totally focused, but not only am I totally focused, I'm
trusting my skills. I've almost got this gut-level skill, I've been
in that space, I know what has worked, I've got attention on them.
I'm not worried about the ego, and whether Damien's gonna stuff up,
I almost zone in. I narrow in on the audience, I'm trusting my
particular skills. It comes from deep within, and all of a sudden,
it's almost as if ... It's a weird feeling, like I'm focused, I'm
there, and I'm in the zone. And it's fantastic.
Greg Layton: That's a beautiful example, and I have those
sorts of experiences when I'm coaching as well. What you also find
is things like time will slow down.
There is a set of neurochemicals that get released. I won't
sit and go through them, but basically this is like a cocktail of
awesomeness that goes into the body. That's why you get this
wonderful sense, or a real sense of good feeling afterwards:
adrenaline, oxytocin and serotonin are streaming through your
bloodstream. They make you feel great; they're really good for your
immune system and your body. The thing is, there are many different
types of zone or flow, depending on what you're really good at ...
it may be playing a musical instrument, or playing in a band. You
might be public speaking or coaching. Let's say you're an engineer,
and you've got this incredible piece of work in front of you, and
you're just totally immersed in the design, and you're using every
part of your skill to absolutely nail this job.
Right, and you'll have this great sense after ... You might
come out two hours later and go, "Wow, that was fast. Gee, I
enjoyed that." You might have some good music going as well, so
there's a rhythm to it, there's a focus to it, there's a
biochemical part to it. It is incredibly good for you.
PRICEY: I actually had an experience. I was at a dinner a week
or two ago. And the man who the move Mao’s Last Dancer was made
about was giving a talk. And he got up, and he didn't have one
single note. He spoke for about 40 minutes, but you felt there was
an energy there. Now, I'm sure he's given that talk many, many
times. But I didn't feel as though he was just going over the same
old talk. I felt he was listening to us, he was trusting his own
self. We were the total focus of this particular man.
GREGO: In those moments, you are so in tune with your skills,
that they happen without you thinking. And that's one of the things
about the zone is ... you know, sometimes ... like perhaps when
you're facilitating, you'll say something, and you'll go, "Gee,
that was quite good, where did that come from?"
PRICEY: Where did that come from? Yeah. I've actually had
that.
GREGO: Or if you're a surfer, you'll be going along and
something tricky will happen on the way. You'll do a move you
didn't know you could do. And so what they discovered, there's some
amazing work done around the field of extreme sports, and the way
people operate under intense pressure. So very highly skilled,
extreme sport athletes. And what they discovered is when they're in
the zone, there's certain brain waves are flowing, right? And the
brain wave that is responsible for incredible insight in the world,
the gamma wave, only fires when you're in the zone.
PRICEY: You know, one of the things I'm thinking here is, I'd
imagine if you work hard, and you worked hard on the actual skills,
and you've practised the actual skills, and you've got into a
pattern of using those particular skills, and you're trusting your
own actual self, in the zone, another deeper level of skill or
awareness comes up, which you didn't know you actually had.
GREGO: Exactly. That is exactly what happens, and often if you
see ... The easiest one is on the sporting field; you see somebody
go ... They do something, they go, "That was magic." The utmost
skill, the best thing you ever seen. The athlete never planned it.
Like it was just totally in the zone. Often they'll look back and
go, "I can't believe I did that." Like, "I don't even know where it
came from." Right? That's what happens in flow and in the
zone.
I think the thing to remember here is, there's many, many
different types. It's worthwhile doing for a number of reasons.
One, because you're mastering your craft, and you're doing
something to the best of your ability. Two, the biochemical
response that goes through the body is fantastic for your mental
health and your physical health. Absolutely. You should be doing it
for that reason alone.
Which I actually have a theory that's one reason why athletes
really struggle after sport, because they're in the zone, multiple
times every single day. Every single time of the day, they're ...
three or four times a day, they're releasing the biochemicals into
the body that are responsible for their mental and physical health.
All of a sudden, they get switched off, 'cause they're not going to
training any more. Right, so that's one reason I think they
struggle with life after sport. And they go into the corporate
world, and they're not getting any flow at all, 'cause they're not
experts at what they're doing just yet. So what this ... zones
occur when you're doing something you're generally an expert at. Or
you're good at, not an expert. You're good at.
PRICEY: And just very quickly, Greg, like that zone, and you
just threw in the word "flow".
GREGO: Same thing for me. I think the two can ... So the two
are generally interchangeable, in my definition or this one here,
where you go in flow, or you're in the zone, or you're in the
moment. That's what we're talking about here at the moment.
PRICEY: And really part of the key to it is to actually trust
you. You've worked hard, and in the trusting, an energy is
released. And in the trusting, you're almost a celebration of
you.
GREGO: Yeah. So I suppose the key thing is how do you do it,
right? Because when I'm working with people and I go, "Let's look
at their schedule over a week", I'm looking for how many times
they're getting in the zone or in flow. Most people in their
professional life ... to be honest, a lot of the time, particularly
when they get into senior roles, it can be zero times a week,
right? And that's not good. It's not good for your mental health,
not good for your physical health. We need to be able to find
something. Maybe you go for a morning ride, and during that morning
ride, like it's a good course, you're a 100% pushing yourself ... A
ride where you float along and do nothing doesn't do it. There's
gotta be moments where you're fully committed. And I think that's
what I'm talking about here; it's not something where you're half
in, right? You're all in.
PRICEY: Yeah, so you're really committed, you're all in,
you've worked hard, you're back to your own self.
GREGO: Yeah, you're using your skill to the best of your
ability, or you're using your energy to the full of your ability.
So do that any number of ways you can, right? So I don't care what
hobby it is. It could be anything from chess to painting to musical
instruments, to rock climbing, running, cycling, swimming, walking.
Probably not walking. I think walking is a level below that. More
meditative rather than full zone, because it's not complex enough,
right? So this is what we're talking about. Something that really gets you
moving.
PRICEY: I'm fascinated by what
stops us getting into a zone? What are the things in our day-to-day
that we just don't get into this beautiful, special
space?
GREGO: Well, I think a few things. First and foremost, the
number of distractions and chaos that are going on our lives, and
we prioritise work or another email, one more thing over going and
experiencing the world, and doing something. Or let's just say ...
as I said before, I gave the example of an engineer or an architect
building or creating something, and using all that creative spirit
and expertise they've got. They do that, but they leave their email
on, or they'll leave their phone on, so they're constantly being
distracted.
So it's almost that you've got to create a bubble. We've
spoken in previous episodes about meditation. It's a bit like this
as well. You've got to create a set-aside time for 100% attention.
And when you don't do that, that's when you don't get it
right.
The second thing I think, is ... I know a lot of people that
don't get in the zone very often because they have stopped
mastering something. They've stopped doing something as a hobby for
the purposes of doing it. Just for the fun of doing it. So maybe
they don't learn tennis anymore, maybe they played as a kid but
they don't anymore. They don't paint anymore, they don't do
something for the sake of doing it, and pure pleasure of doing
something to the best of your ability.
PRICEY: To me Greg, one thing that I'm finding too is, I think
that zone is linked to a thing that you are passionate about. It's
an area of your life that you've got genuine energy for, and you've
got some natural skills in. You've got passion for it, but you need
to hone those skills, you need to deepen that.
GREGO: That's right, you know and that's when you see ... you
know there's the old story where there's nothing worse than
listening to the best guitarist in the world play guitar, when they
don't want to play. It's horrible. But then also the person who
wants to play guitar, they just love guitar, but boy can they not
play a note. It's just terrible you know. So they're playing
terribly but with passion. When you can put the two together, the
passion and the skill, or the passion and the talent, that's when
you get something that's really, really high quality. But when its
missing, one of those two items are missing, passion or talent,
then you know you get varying response.
PRICEY: Greg, what do you think is going on when you've seen a
great tennis player or someone such as that, and for the first set
they seem to be in the zone, the timing's there, they're focused,
they're playing some fantastic shots, and then all of a sudden,
half way through the second set, something stops?
GREGO: Yeah, well normally what happens there, is their mind
shifts out of the present. So, they're thinking about results,
they're thinking about either something which just happened, which
was a point they lost, or a game they lost or something that went
wrong. Or they're in the future thinking "Oh my God. I'm going to
lose this game on Centre Court, in front 10000 people in the
stadium, and the 15 million that are watching."
So as soon as attention leaves the present, that opens the
door for all sorts of things. Fear, ego, all that kind of stuff. So
one of the ideas, and if you look at a Federer and Nadal in tennis,
one thing that you will notice, is that they are always very, very
present. Nadal has all his funny little mannerisms that he does all
the time, to keep him in the present. He's very deliberate with
that. Federer has other ways. But if you're going to go out and
play a game of tennis, one of the things that you should try and
do, is say to yourself, "I'm going to play this as in-the-moment,
'in the flow' all the way to the end. I'm just going to be patient.
I'm just going to play the next shot, the next shot. Every single
point. Every time my brain starts thinking about something previous
or in the future, I'm just going to can it. Come back to just the
next shot."
PRICEY: So, we've got a huge link between the flow and
awareness, and the choice for the present moment, and to stay in
that zone.
GREGO: Exactly. Yeah, the zone is you're 100% 'in the moment'.
There's no future, there's no past, you're just responding to
what's in front of you.
PRICEY: So within that zone, there'll be times when it's pure
and you're just taken away, but then you'll be distracted or
something will happen ... back to my example before, when I was
working with that particular group, sure, that twenty minutes, half
an hour, forty minutes one, really in the actual zone, then I might
lose a bit of confidence or someone says something left field, I
almost have to then reset it, and then focus again, and then get it
going again.
GREGO: Yeah, that's right. And so another method I suppose to
maintain that is, from a coaching perspective, is put your
attention back on the audience. So, an external attention as
opposed to an internal attention, helps. If you're thinking all
about you, and you think about, like you said, like Nick Kyrgios
who is pretty famous for having a bit of a tiff at the moment. He
makes it all about him, not about the tennis. Not about the game,
not about the shot, and when the attention is internal, that's when
you start thinking future, past, one of the two, so what we're
talking about is external attention in-the-moment, and then you'll
stay in the zone.
It's exactly the same about the engineer who's sitting down,
or the architect creating something, where's their attention? On
the design.
PRICEY: You know Greg, I've actually had that particular thing
happen to me. When I'm in the middle of working with a group, and
someone will ask me a left-field kind of question, and sometimes
with a bit of anger or a bit of hurt, and if I then in that zone,
then choose to focus on them totally, and on their energy and their
hurt or anger or whatever the particular thing is, I get that zone
back.
GREGO: Exactly, as soon as you make that moment about you,
then you've lost that little conversation anyway. So the zone is
... lost what I was going to say. What else, do we think?
So Pricey, just one more thing I open the door on is, hacks.
How do you get in the zone more easily, more often on a
week-to-week basis, when you're super, super busy? Now one of the
things I try and do, is in-corporate the zone into my existing life
as much as possible.
So if I'm going to get fit, I try, and get fit in the zone. So
if I go to the gym and do a workout, I do a highly intense workout,
so it requires full attention, lifting weights and all kinds of
crazy stuff so that I'm in the zone, in-the-moment, right.
I try and play a bit of tennis or golf, so it requires all my
attention. I'm in the zone and I'm loving it. I try not to do stuff
like that, where it's just hit and giggle. Most of the time I make
it pretty serious if I can. Not as far as massively competitive,
but allowing me to enjoy the zone.
I might go for a rock climb at lunch, right, and do it with a
mate and we swap back and forth a couple of times. At least to get
in the zone where've you can.
PRICEY: So this part of the zone which is kind of a
stretching, the zone will stretch you beyond the skills which you
think you've got this particular moment?
GREGO: Exactly.
PRICEY: And I think over this next week or two, I'm not going
to go out there looking for the zone, like I'm looking for some
Yoda figure, but I think it's just about giving it my very best,
best shot, but trusting me and giving it my total attention to that
which I am passionate about, and know that the flow will
come.
GREGO: It will come, absolutely. Remove all distractions. Give
yourself that bubble to do whatever it is you do, to the best of
your ability, and then try, and dial up your hobbies, re-engage
those things, pick up the guitar again, whatever it is for you, and
knock it out of the park.