The UniversalSign Of Choking
The Freakonomics podcast episode “Why We Choke Under Pressure and (How Not To)” inspired this episode. As Seneca up it “We suffer more in imagination than in reality.” Malcolm Gladwell says in his book Outliers that it takes 10k hours of deliberate practice to master a skill and “Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good, it’s what makes you good.” Unconscious competence is that feeling of being “In The Zone” which comes from putting yourself in difficult situations, deliberate practice and learning from failure. We talk about all these things and more about choking on this episode of The Social Chameleon Show.
Original Podcast http://freakonomics.com/podcast/choking/
Greatest Choke Of All Time https://youtu.be/QV8Qj91T3o0?t=7m3s
Books & Links From The Episode
1999 British Open – Jean Van de Velde and the 18th Hole
Considered the greatest choke of all time.
Freakonomics
It began when New York journalist and author Stephen J. Dubner went to Chicago to write about award-winning economist Steven D. Levitt for The New York Times Magazine. Dubner had been reluctant to take the assignment (he was in the middle of writing a book about the psychology of money). Levitt was reluctant to be shadowed by a journalist (but his mother loved the Times Magazine, so he gave in). The article came out, and led to an unexpected partnership. Levitt and Dubner wrote Freakonomics, a book about cheating teachers, bizarre baby names, self-dealing Realtors, and crack-selling mama’s boys. They figured it would sell about 80 copies. Instead, it took up long-term residency on the Times best-seller list, and went on to sell more than 5 million copies in 40 languages. Then they wrote SuperFreakonomics. It too became a worldwide best-seller. Together, the books have sold 7 million copies worldwide. A lot of other stuff happened, too. A blog. A documentary film. Jon Stewart and Beauty and the Geek! Lectures. A pair of pants. A radio show. Not bad for a partnership born of such profound reluctance. In 2014, Levitt and Dubner published their third book, Think Like a Freak — a blueprint for an entirely new way to solve problems. Dubner and Levitt’s latest book, When to Rob a Bank, is a curated collection of blog posts from Freakonomics.com, which has been called “the most readable economics blog in the universe” (which, frankly, isn’t saying much).
Outliers: The Story of Successby Malcolm Gladwell
In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of “outliers”–the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different?
His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.
Brilliant and entertaining, Outliers is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.
Progressing From Incompetence To Competence
Four Stages of Competence
In psychology, the four stages of competence, or the “conscious competence” learning model, relates to the psychological states involved in the process of progressing from incompetence to competence in a skill.
- Unconscious incompetence
- Conscious incompetence
- Conscious competence
- Unconscious competence
For more on the subject explore here
Tyson: 00:05 Welcome to the social chameleon show, which It’s our goal to help you learn, grow and transform, into the person you want to become. Today’s episode, We’re gonna We came across this awesome podcast on freakonomics. Why we choke under pressure and how not to, and we wanted to use that as a baseline for, for this episode, why we choke some of our thoughts and different things we picked up from the episode and kind of expand on them a little bit more. Um, I’d like to start off with this little thing from Seneca. We suffer more in our imagination than in reality and that’s kind of part of what the episode is really kind of about.
Ransom: 00:42 I mean, the episode kind of goes into depth about a lot of things though, like all kinds of doctors and professionals like interviewed on that thing is actually a really good podcast.
Tyson: 00:53 Yeah, they do a good job of researching, producing really good show. If you guys haven’t checked it out, freakonomics. Um, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll link it below for you guys. You guys can check that out. They got a lot of really good, well curated, a researched topics. They bring a lot of professionals in
Ransom: 01:09 and stuff, but I do actually think that they’ll, like, we do suffer more in imagination. Um, I had a friend recently, you just come on out of the blue and tell me about something and it’s just like, whoa, Whoa, whoa. Slow down. Like, all right, um, thank you for sharing. You know, try to crack a joke here and there on real is like as a, you know, ask them like, why are you stressing out? Like, what’s, what’s stressing you out? And they’re like, well, you know, I’m just kinda thinking about what’s gonna happen after this and after that. And then I was like, well what’s different? You have the same issue and same problem. Now what’s going to be different after you go to get that taken care of you, you know? And it’s like, yeah, you don’t, you don’t really know what’s going to happen. I was just one of those things that you kinda think, right? And then your mind gets in the way of what is right now and what is really happening. I think that’s kind of similar. I mean this, this wasn’t about choking, but I think that it is similar to when we actually do choke, like a lot of stuff going on in our head and then like what’s actually happening. We’re not focused on that. We’re just focused about what the future may possibly be. Something like that.
Tyson: 02:28 Yeah, exactly. And that’s why I kind of wanted to start. I kind of started the way I did because that seemed to me was one of the core things of choking was, you know, there were saying um, I’m not sure which scientists are professional. What I was talking about, it was like when, when people start to think about what they’re doing, like, oh, is it my right hand leading to fast and my family, what am I doing? And that’s when people start to start to overthink what they’re doing. And they said to choke. So to kind of mess up.
Ransom: 02:57 Yeah. But I think that also comes to down with, like with practice, I mean I’m, I’m a big fan of maybe not practice makes perfect, but especially if we’re talking about professional sports, which the podcast, they talked about a number of different professional sports, but like you kind of do things and get them ingrained. I guess I call it muscle memory. I don’t know if that’s the best, this the best use of the word, but
Tyson: 03:26 there’s that.
Ransom: 03:27 I mean whatever. But I’m just saying though, right? Like that’s the best. To me, that’s the best explanation. I mean, you get into the practice of your swing or your pitch or your kick, right? Your, your body just kind of repeats that over and over. Right? There’s avoidance coach or whatever. Right? Like he’s like, get on the free throw line and shooting. And he’s like, just keep shooting something common. You know, it doesn’t matter. Just your body’s going to get ingrained. All those movements and all those mechanical things, you know, to the point where hopefully you don’t have to sit there thinking about it. You just kind of ran the ball. You just Kinda preformed emotion like you practice, right?
Tyson: 04:07 And then, um, I, I’m sure we all can relate to that in the form of driving. You know, once you’ve been driving for quite a long time, then you can start to talk to your, your passengers or talk on the phone or really to the radio entry. Now hence we’re not talking about texting is shit, but you know what I’m saying? You get that. And then the next thing you know, you’re like, Whoa, how did I get here? Like, I blow these red lights innovator. But what it really, what it really is, is it’s called unconscious competence, where you’re, your sub, you’ve done the task a time to your subconscious takes over because you’re so competent at the task and then you easily go through it and your, your working memory can, you’re working brain can do other tasks because your subconscious has taken over in the can. Just do the task. And I read a good book, um, outliers by Malcolm gladwell and he talks about, uh, maybe many of you’ve heard about this the 10,000 hours to get, to get good at a task.
Ransom: 05:05 Yeah, I haven’t, I haven’t really read that book. Well, I mean, is it just 10,000 hours that, like a landmark number or
Tyson: 05:13 is that from, from what he, his research when he did it seems to be the magical number when you hit a 10,000 hours of deliberate practice at something, then you become proficient in that.
Ransom: 05:26 Let’s see. I’m just going to do the math.
Tyson: 05:28 Yeah. And he goes onto say, you know, practice isn’t the thing that, you know, you do once, you’re good. It’s what makes you good, you know. So the, the Michael Jordans, the Kobe bryants of bonds, you know, these guys didn’t get to the NBA and then start practicing. It was all the practice and the hours and the things that led up to them making the NBA or making the nfl or making mma or whatever it is you do, you know, getting to that 10,000 hour mark of repetitive.
Ransom: 05:56 No, I just did the math right now,
Tyson: 05:58 can you take 40 hours a week? Times 52 weeks in a year that only gives you 2000 hours. That’s like five years. And that’s if that was your full time profession. Now think about a hobby or something. I mean, I mean, when I was in high school, you know, we have practice was only maybe an hour or two a day, five days a week, you know, it’s only five hours a week, you know, so, but that’s how, you know, these guys, you know, think about the work that goes into being a professional, whatever it is, you know, two to three hours of school or practice everything or 11, you know, but I just wanted to put that in perspective.
Tyson: 06:43 Uh, you know, if you did it for your full time job for five years, that would have about 10,000 hours. Yeah. So I think if you practice your hobby or your craft for two hours a day everyday for the whole year, that’s only 100 hours and four hours, you know, so that’s. But that’s what takes, takes many, many years. Right. You don’t the things, that’s the things we don’t see, right? We see all these things and these things are, are glorifying the Collagen is overnight success or look at this thing and it’s like, oh look it so easily. He, you know, he got into the NFL or Mba or, or he just picked up programming so easily but we don’t see all the other things that went into to learning that skill, getting that crafting and honing, honing those skills and even to get to a level of mastery.
Tyson: 07:31 Maybe you’re good, maybe you’re better than the average, but until you start to get towards that 10,000 hour mark seems like that’s when you start to get to the mastery level. When somebody asks you, how do you, how do you have such a great backswing? And they’re like, I don’t know, I just swing back. I don’t, I don’t, I don’t understand this. What was that? He said an unconscious competence. Conscious competence, right? Or it just becomes ingrained in your subconscious and that just carries out the tasks for you. I kinda like that, like competence because I mean that kind of takes it away from the profession. I mean the athletic field, right? Because they’re counting, right? I’m singing. It can be anything. Yeah. Coding, web design. Who knows art painting. I mean being a firefighter, being a policeman, what, you know what I mean? It’s.
Tyson: 08:20 Yeah. And I guess I should’ve, I should’ve had the, the, there’s four stages of, of how it goes. I just know the last one, that unconscious competence. I think the other one is conscious competence where you can think of it, but it’s competent. I think that’s the stage before that. Um, I’ll uh, I’ll, I’ll put a note to find out for steak. Just kind of interesting that you talk about that. I mean it in that goal is because I remember in the podcast they were talking about, um, you know, I guess relating this topic too, when you choke, it’s like I’m. One of the specialists in the podcast said that, you know, just kinda depends on what the task is, right?
Ransom: 08:56 If it’s, if it’s a task that requires a lot of high Iq, a lot of competent computation computations going on, or there’s a lot of steps involved or thinking, um, you know, you tend to choke more on those tasks because versus something that requires less Iq. Right? With less computing. I mean it’s Kinda like, if you think of your brain is a computer, you have all this available memory. It’s like, you know, if you’re using all that memory just on completely the attached, it’s gonna, it’s gonna make you choke or it’s, it has a higher percentage for you to choke. I don’t know.
Tyson: 09:29 Yeah, I thought that was interesting when you’re talking about higher Iq people more, was it more, more, more susceptible to choking because they have more working memory?
Ransom: 09:38 Uh, well it’s just because they said it’s, there’s more computations involved, right? You only have so much available memory are they. I mean, I’m not trying to compare humans to robots. I mean skynet’s not cute. You know what I’m saying? Like if you were to think of your brain as, you know, a computer, right? If we’re in the matrix or whatever, like you only have so much memory, right? Your, this is Tyson stock model. It comes with, you know, two terabytes of Ram or what, you know, what I mean, or whatever. Right? And like your brain only has so much available memory to do things and um, if you’re taking that time computing about the tasks that you actually have to do, you know, that kind of takes away from their ability to focus on the task at hand. It’s kind of weird.
Tyson: 10:26 Yeah. And that’s where, that’s where that 10,000 hours of deliberate practice, all that, you know, like I said before, you know, you don’t raise your expectations. You default to your level of training. So you know, if your, if your level of training is high and you’ve gone through these scenarios and situations, um, when, when, when shit hits the fan and the pressures on, that’s when you’re gonna be able to perform because you’re, you already have that in your, in your memory bank and within your muscle memory and all whatever these different terms you want to use,
Ransom: 10:54 you can basically take a higher Iq task in lower Iq task. Right? And that would decrease your chance of something they didn’t really get into in the podcast. But I kinda Kinda like that it’s like if you can take a higher Iq tasks, get that muscle memory right or getting that unconscious competence to turn it into a low a low que tasks, you can definitely focus on that and talk a lot less by doing that.
Tyson: 11:22 Right. I know I was thinking about, I think it was yesterday or whatever when in preparation for this, I was trying to think about these things that we do and I’m thinking about like how like how could I explain to somebody how to throw a football into a trash can at 23 yards. Like I wouldn’t even know how my brain even knows how to do that. You know what I mean? Like just grab it and you throw it, just throw it in and it goes in.
Ransom: 11:47 I don’t know, for any of you to learn how to throw a football. Like it’s pretty hard that you’ve got to grip it the right way, emotion the ball the right way and put the spin on it at the end. Virals correctly. Like there’s a lot, there’s a lot of skill involved with that. And in general. Yeah. I mean that just kinda comes with the territory. But yeah, you can’t explain that to anybody pass. You went through the motion on learning it and it’s such a low Iq thing. Like you don’t have to put that much, you know, competency into it to recreate that task.
Tyson: 12:26 Yeah. I think I was trying to teach titus. I’m four and a half feet tall and us trying to hold a heavy basketball, try to teach them how to throw it into the hoop and I’m like, just just throw it up and, and he’s like throwing it and he’s like, and I just go and go straight and I’m like throwing up like, and I had to stop and I’m like, how, how can I teach you this? Because I don’t even know how I do it. I just, you know, and he’s like, here, just do this. And I’m like. And he’s like, once it’s funny to try and think back, how can I teach you how I learned? I don’t even remember how I learned it and how do I do it? And I’m not a great basketball shooter at all by any means, but you know, I can probably get 30, 40 percent of the shots in it, you know, I’m on a good round, you know? But it’s like, but I get near the rim every single time, like how do I, how do I even do that? I don’t even know how I do that. Let him know how to. I don’t even teach. I’ve never thought enough about it to teach it, you know?
Ransom: 13:27 Yeah. And that just comes with, with all the things and I mean that’s just kind of why, you know, you have that 30 percent shot shot advantage, right? So you accomplished the muscle memory to get that task to a lower Iq skill versus titus when he’s doing it. Like he’s got all these things that he has to focus on, like throw it how to use wrist and just thinking about so many moving alex who’s chance of choking and missing that basket. Right?
Tyson: 13:57 Yeah. I mean the whips are just, it’s just so funny. But when I go to Acro Yoga and a lot of that is still, even though I’ve been doing that for two years now, a lot of that is still new to me. And, and, and, and it’s like, um, and that’s what I find myself when I’m, when I’m, when I’m registering barely fucking up and I’m just having a shit day. I’m like, um, I know so much about this. Not In the way I’m thinking too much. I’m too in my head. I need to take a step back and then take a breath, you know, and especially when people are watching and you know, the pressures on said you’re so good. And I’m like, okay, wait, hold on. This is new to me. I, you know, I got to take that step back and I’ve got to say, okay, clear my head. Like all that stuff. Soak in that all the know, the nuanced, this, that, and another. Put Your foot here in your hand there, whatever. Let that soak in. Take a step away, you know, kind of breathe for a second, let my brain stop thinking so much and then walk back in and most times sort of get them moved down, but we’re not thinking stops. And you kind of let body just take over a little bit. That’s when you seem to kind of get those things going.
Ransom: 14:56 It’s funny that you talk about like the pressure, because that’s talk about that also in the podcast too, is sick when the pressure is on, like now you have even, you know, more chance to show because you have this pressure on you that was never there before. Um, I know they talked about it in a podcast too, is like, you know, sometimes just you being there mean you were talking about you and titus just being there like you think you’re helping but you’re putting more pressure because he’s like, oh my dad’s watching and like he’s choking too, you know what I mean? To like try and get that skill.
Tyson: 15:30 Yeah. I was like, Look Dad, watch me. And it’s like I just did 100 of those perfectly and I show you. And it’s just a big fluff,
Ransom: 15:37 you know? Um, what does the other stuff, they’re talking about pressure, like what are they talking about? The home field advantage,
Tyson: 15:43 right? Yeah, yeah. About like, um, about you, your family is there and your friends are, they’re like, yeah, everybody talks about home field advantage. Like you’re at the home crowd where you’re like, listen, like my parents are in the stands watching, like, just the fact that they’re, they’re like, I never thought about that. You know, like, you gotta wonder how many people are like when you see the, you know, the camera pan and a football games and like, oh look, you know, uh, billy’s parents are here to wash, this is their first nfl game. And it’s like billy, a horrible game. Like what happened? It’s because his parents were here.
Ransom: 16:15 But another interesting thing I guess in that they mentioned about the home field advantage is that the judges, right? Or the referees for the Games have pressure to please the crowd. So like a lot of the calls go towards the home field because, you know, the refs don’t want to upset the crowd or whatever. They, you know, they got, they got to return back to their vehicles at the end of the game.
Tyson: 16:39 No, you gotta wonder what happens after the game and security and stuff. I remember I remember playing many, many games we played in high school and stuff where we had to have a quite a, quite a hefty security escort back to the bus. This was. People weren’t happy at the home field.
Ransom: 16:55 Yeah, but I mean, you know, just, you know, all joking aside though, it’s like, it’s interesting that, you know, when you have this applied pressure on you psychologically, that kind of messes you up. I don’t know if that causes you to think more because of the, I think last they didn’t really cover that too much in the podcast.
Tyson: 17:12 I think what it has to do when I was thinking about it was that, that kind of internal, whatever, a pride or ego or whatever it is or, or wanting to to to show your, your loved ones like, look, I’m here. I’m good. I’m performing. Watch me get a sack or watch me dunk the basketball or watch me just kill this speech, you know? And it’s like. And he just fluffed the whole thing, right? You’re like, Dang,
Ransom: 17:41 Mike Tyson saying, know everybody’s got a plan till they get punched in the mouth. Right.
Tyson: 17:46 I don’t want to know what it’s like to get punched in the mouth. I might Tyson me
Ransom: 17:49 neither. I’m just saying though. It’s like, yeah, I’m like, do this. Good enough. Oh, Whoa, whoa. What just happened?
Tyson: 17:57 Yeah. Fourteen seconds into the fight. You get hit by Mike Tyson. You’re like, ah, what was the plan?
Ransom: 18:06 Why did I take this fight? But yeah, when that pressure is on, man, you see it for sure.
Tyson: 18:13 And that’s what the. I wish you a writer or whatever it was you’re saying so can honor my mom and my dad. They come to all my speeches and they’ll fly across all around the country and she said I had to tell my assistant to stop giving my calendar. My mom, mom is in the audience. I just get all worked up and I get so nervous and I was like, this is so funny. You know?
Ransom: 18:35 Yeah. But I mean that’s end. That’s just it though. I mean, I’m not saying anything about that writer or whatever, but that’s just people in general, like life. Most people, they don’t, they don’t want to practice that. They don’t like being under pressure. I guess maybe as a professional when your performance is rated, you know, especially in dollar amounts, you definitely don’t want to be choking, but at the same time you’ve got to put that work in like, I think that’s a reason why, you know, you know, I guess professionals in general doesn’t always have to be professional athletes, but doctors, surgeons or whoever it is like you can pro form under that pressure because you’re constantly under that pressure. All
Tyson: 19:25 that’s the thing. You’ve got to put yourself in that situation. You’ve got to put yourself under pressure. Even if it’s manufactured, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a, what is that like, um, those like role playing those walkthroughs. You know, I know when I’m, when I was in the army and we went through the, um, common medical training, we did like a battlefield symbolization they brought out, um, all kinds of like percussion things to stimulate a bomb shopping and gunfire. And all this stuff, they did all these things and we had to, you know, do all these things under this simulated thing. I mean, I don’t know if you’ve ever stopped at an accident or something like that and your, your heart just starts beating through your chest and you’re not prepared for those high stress situations. You’ve never put yourself in those practice scenarios. You’re just going to clam up your, your, your brain is going to shut down.
Tyson: 20:15 You know, your, your frontal, you know, you’re funding, your brain starts shutting down and your immune system shuts down. All these different things are happening when you know your adrenaline kicks in and all these cortisol and all this things, you know, you just, you’re, you’re gone. Like the autopilot mode. And if you’re not prepared and you haven’t practiced and trained for these worst case scenarios or these, these high pressure situations, you know, last week I took my kids fishing and I for, I forget how we got on the subject, but my, my daughter was asking me, she’s like, oh, you know, about this time I had saved somebody’s life during the time they were talking and everybody was just standing around everybody just just in awe. And I walked up and I’m like, what? No, texting the choking them at illumina everything. Okay. And I walked away and I’m like, many people do anything like that. There was 15 people standing around and they all did nothing. I mean, absolutely nothing more.
Ransom: 21:03 I’m not saying you should be mad at them, but. No, no, absolutely not. Being in that situation the same thing too. And when it comes down to, you know, I guess I recently went to school to learn how to be in the medical profession and go into school. They need to take the test and get your license. Like they put you in that situation on paper. You know what I described the situation, the patient has this and that and you know, these are the signs and these are the symptoms. And then they sit there and they asked you. It’s like, what do you do? You know, and it’s like, oh, you’re just like going gonna pick it. You’re like, pick the answer. And it’s like, physician does not agree. Your good ideas like you got like three devices did pick it again as a physician does not agree. You’re like Ooh, there’s that, that pressure test. I mean the simulate real life, but when you get there and real life, like when you actually do your clinical rotations, when you see that patient and it’s like Whoa, like, you know, you just kind of shut down. Like it’s just like the pressure’s too great and you just like, you just stop thinking. But man, it’s.
Tyson: 22:17 Yeah. And you know, that’s the thing, you know, like, like your story and like, and like my story, we’ve got to practice these situations. Even the simplest things of your, you’re on a, on a walker, you out on a drive and you see something happen. You, your first thing is going to be me. I’m not talking about necessarily going and learning for stadium, you know, I think that’s a great thing to do, but your first things got to be like, Oh shit, I just saw Tommy fall and break his leg. I don’t know how to help you, but I can call nine one one and even though my heart’s beating out of my chest and I’m scared and I’m, I don’t know what’s going on and I’m worried like you’ve got to be able to train yourself to, to, to, you know, pick up your phone, call mom or whatever it is.
Tyson: 22:54 Those things. You’ve got to practice these things in your life like, um, practice all shit going to hell and you’re losing your job. Are you getting sick and you suddenly don’t have food to eat or are you can just eat beans. All you can afford is beans and rice, like practice those things go up, you know, practice sleeping on the floor, practice, you know, sleeping outside of the practice that they have, homelessness, God and Shitty clothing. It’s like, I know you’re laughing, but people aren’t prepared for this shit. You know what I’m saying? Most of those people live on the verge of catastrophe. You know, most people don’t have enough money saved or you know, we, we all want to think about these things, but we’ve got to practice them for when the. When, when the scenarios come up, you’re going to be at a default to your training because you ain’t going to be able to have clear thought in that moment.
Tyson: 23:36 If you, if you went to work today and your job just went away and you’re like, Oh shit, I needed my paycheck next week to pay rent. You’re going be in such a flustered state. You’re not going to know what it’s like to do these things, but if you practice them, especially when times are good, you can up your default level to a higher place and when the pressure is on, you can at least perform the most menial tasks. You know? That could be the difference in saving somebody’s life or being able to have a clear thought to get up another job or whatever it is that
Ransom: 24:07 you gotta. Keep that in context though, that you don’t want to go out of the way to like over pressure yourself so that you like shut down and just write some of the things you’re talking about. Like people losing their job and pay rent. Like there are people that ceased to function. I mean, I’ve not been. Believe me, I’ve been like, you know, I’ve had my hard times in life when I wasn’t able to pay my bills and I was like, it, you shut down that place and you just Kinda, you gotta you gotta find your way to get out of it, snap out of it and get back to basics. But take that with a grain of salt. Like, you know, we want you to practice these things. Whatever it is with this pressure on so that, you know, when these times come, you can still perform well under pressure, you know, but at the same time I don’t, I don’t think we should put people into dramatic situations where they just kind of shut down,
Tyson: 25:06 well I want you guys to, to practice and it, and it’s fake and it’s not real. And tomorrow life will go back to normal. Whatever it is, you know, because someday you could be in that for real. You don’t know what it’s like and you don’t know how to conduct yourself. And it’s hard. Even in practicing, it’s hard, you know, I’m not, I’m not saying I’m good at it, I’m perfect or whatever. You know, I’ve been broke and I’ve been homeless and I, it’s not easy to think it’s not easy to come up with solutions and come up with things and you start to get, um, you know, greedy or you start to like, you know, if I do this, it’s not necessarily the greatest idea, but I can get out of the situation. And you said to make, you know, maybe your judgments a little off or whatever it is, but you know, now I, I just got off a five day fast. I do, I do these things knowing life is good now. But at any moment something could happen. I, I, you know, anything could happen and who knows, but I know what it’s like to do these things. I know it’s like to be there. I’m not afraid to go back and I know how to conduct myself when I get there. And that’s what I want you guys to do. Simple things as you know, eat beans and rice for dinner tonight. It’s not going to die.
Ransom: 26:15 No.
Tyson: 26:17 What you’re going to notice. Like to be hungry. Like the first time I did a fast, that was the hardest part is like all I could think about was eating.
Ransom: 26:25 Yeah.
Tyson: 26:26 And I couldn’t even do anything for a week and all I could think about was eating and then. But after that, when I could go back to eating, I never thought about eating the same. I can skip lunch. No big deal because I know it’s like to be that hungry. I know what it’s like to be even I was homeless and stuff like that. I didn’t really have out of money. I never was at that level of hunger and I never knew what it was like. Now it does. It’s weird. It doesn’t bother me and I don’t. It doesn’t matter if I’m. If I forgot to eat lunch and then I got to go to my workout. I big deal. I know it’s like to be hungry. I know I can perform. I know I can still athletically to be in. I’m not worried about being hungry. It’s just. I know this is a long drawn on thing, but it’s just an example of when these things come about and you’re practicing them in the good times,
Ransom: 27:14 punches you in the face, like
Tyson: 27:18 may not be the original plan, but you still got a plan,
Ransom: 27:20 right? I mean you’ve never felt that before, but you know as close as you can get to it and it’s like when you’re there you can, you can focus. You’re not. You’re not focused on what you’re lacking or what you’re missing.
Tyson: 27:32 No, not my folks signing. Oh Shit. That hurt. God Damn. That hurt. Like, Ooh. You’re like, oh, I didn’t expect that. Okay. All right. I’m being shit.
Ransom: 27:42 Yeah. But I mean that’s just, that’s just part of it. But I guess moving along, we’ve kind of been on that subject for a little bit. Some of the other things they talked about on the podcast. We’re kind of like being in the zone. Talked about this earlier, like the muscle memory. Right? And it’s just kinda like, you know, even that, that sentence like being in the zone, like that’s Kinda, that’s kinda crazy. As far as like being in the zone, like what does that actually mean? It’s kind of weird. Yeah.
Tyson: 28:12 Yeah. Have you ever kind of felt that, you know, were, were times just blows by and it doesn’t feel like a long time and you’re just, you’re just flowing and things years coming so easily and you’re just going through it. Next thing you know, you look up and like, Oh shit, if I popped like what happened? Like she’s in the zone here. You’re the unconscious competence, you know, you’re, you’re swinging the golf club, you’re not even thinking about your next shot, grab the club, you know, interest.
Ransom: 28:34 I’m just going. Yeah, I kinda like that. I mean it’s just. But I mean it’s just hard to explain like for people who don’t do sports or you know, they haven’t, like there’s just times when you kind of get in the swing of things for lack of a better thing where you know, a peak performance is kind of automated for lack of a better word. Yup. And this is kind of comes as a combination. The first side of you talked about when you have practice something for extreme number, amount of hours and now I have you practiced in but you’ve practiced them like under pressure, just kind of you’re so used to being at that spot. Like when it comes you’re just like all right, and you just kinda just kinda rolled with every roll with the punches and kind of go from there.
Tyson: 29:18 That’s the thing that, that, that deliberate practice. I don’t know if it was in this podcast and other one with the, I think it was Olympic girl she was talking about. She’s like, you know, the reason I made it to Olympics and the rest of the people I train with didn’t was because when we were going to the next thing and people were just kind of lollygagging around. I was doing a exercise. I was doing a training thing every moment I had in that gym, I deliberately practicing something. She’s like, I was. We were all in the same building for the same amount of time, but I was so far ahead of everybody because I spent every moment they’re in some sort of practice. I thought that was very, very interesting.
Ransom: 29:54 Yeah, I mean you’re just. You’re just doubling up on your hours. Somebody is over there taking a break, like your for an hour while you’re at the gym for an hour. That’s an hour more than they get one hour, two hour. I don’t know how much time that goes, but again, being the zone, maybe she was just in the zone at the moment too and that kind of builds confidence on itself, you know, Kinda like that when you’re in the zone under pressure, doing all the right things like that kind of builds the confidence to write. We’ll talk about confidence as far as how it. I don’t even think they talked about confidence.
Tyson: 30:31 Yeah. I don’t think they did either.
Ransom: 30:33 Just kind of strange, but how I definitely think that confidence would cause you to talk a lot less false confidence. But then, you know,
Tyson: 30:43 yeah. You know, and there’s something to that, you know, fake it til you make it Kinda kinda thing. Or even I, I’m sure. I don’t know if you, I’m sure you’ve experienced it, I’m sure most of you out there at first when you walk into a situation, whatever it is, either it’s a work situation or it’s an athletic situation that doesn’t matter. When you walk in there you’re like, oh, I know how to handle this. You feel good about yourself. I know the solution. I know the process, like you walk in, you’re like, oh man, I got this and you and you feel good and you have that competence and the next time it’s just going to build on from there. You know, I’ve been in many situations where I walked in and I was like, I don’t know about this, and then I’ll walk in, oh, hey, I got this, like smash all the new people you can’t. You can’t compete with where I’m at, you know, but you get that feeling and then all those nerves kind of go away and then that stuff goes when you’re like, oh, I can just, I know how to do this, I can just ride this and I can just perform without thinking about it.
Ransom: 31:37 No, I definitely think confidence kind of builds on that. I know I’m looking over our notes as a gap. I think they talked about confidence and how it feels.
Tyson: 31:45 No. Yeah, that’s a good. That’s a good part of why we wanted to kind of talk about this a little bit. As you know, there’s some good things that they talked about. Some other things. I think being a high level overview concept will show, I think they didn’t have the ability
Ransom: 31:58 down in the day. They had so many experts and stuff on there just kinda getting on there. But yeah, I guess with that, moving onto the next thing. But um, you know, I also liked how they talked about like a professionals can make adjustments on the fly. Like they kinda again, I don’t know if that kind of comes from, you know, I’m pretty sure it just comes from the hours of practice and pressure. But like you said, you’re an Acura Yoga. You were making mistakes. It’s like, okay, I’m making mistakes and making mistakes. They’ll walk away, take a breather real quick. Right. Whatever habits or rituals you have to get you out of that funk, uh, if you’re going to perform at the peak level, right? Like the top, say 90 percent of the world. Like, you know what I mean? You have to be able to notice, okay, I’m not, I’m choking right now. I’m not on, on game. You have to recognize what you’re doing and Kinda just make adjustments. Yeah, Kinda like that.
Tyson: 32:57 Exactly, exactly, and he was talking about like the golf and it was funny, I was like, I played sports, I like to, I like to jab and poking and get people off their game because it’s so easy to rattle somebody. Um, but he was funny. He was talking when he was talking I said, you want to mess with his golf game asking, Hey, that was a great shot would you do at your elbow? And I was like, you guys would be like, I don’t know what I did with my job. And he start thinking about it. That’s just like funny. I was like, I don’t play basketball. I used to like tug on people’s shorts. I used to like give him a little pokes, you know, I played football at, did the same thing. I used to like the masses of people and stuff because it rattles them, it gets them off their game. That’s something my dad had taught me and I never understood it until later on in life. Like what? What was actually doing? The people not know if you guys remember Dennis Rodman, that was, that was the beauty of his game was getting in people’s heads and, and getting them flustered and, and that’s what he got paid a lot of money for it. Maybe it was in the greatest basketball player, but he was great at getting in your head.
Speaker 3: 33:51 Yeah.
Tyson: 33:55 But yeah. Um, well there’s some other good points that we liked from, from this year. Um,
Ransom: 34:02 um, I guess kind of along the same lines, maybe a, but is this gotta to read this correctly, say situations that caused you to attend in a way not normal to you is what breaks you down. That’s a wordy. So wordy. A quotation there. I should have some that up. I just think that against street because I didn’t really hear it. I said it, but I didn’t really hear it. Uh, situations that cause you to attend in a way not normal to you is what breaks you down. So like that’s Kinda has to do with why you chose, right? They, again, we’re talking about getting your practice in, getting your practice under the right situations, right under the right pressure, getting into the zone, but all of a sudden when we come to this situation that’s not normal to you. That’s kind of when things go a screen that’s kind of when they you get flustered. That’s kind of when you start breaking down and that’s kind of the more things happen to you and that you’re not used to, then that’s kind of what causes you to choke, you know? Yeah. Yeah,
Tyson: 35:08 and that’s why I like to talk about a lot in here. I’m sure you guys heard me say it a lot with getting comfortable being uncomfortable. So if you can get into these situations, like this is saying where this isn’t normal, I don’t know what it’s like. I’ve never been in this room, I’ve never been in, you know, in front of these people are these clients or whatever it is you’re doing. You’re like, that’s okay. I’ve been in enough of these types of situations. I’ve put myself out there enough that I’m not gonna be my best version, but I’m not going to choke right now because I know how to be comfortable in an uncomfortable situation.
Ransom: 35:44 Yeah, that’s true too. The, you know, hopefully through the hours of practice that you get being under pressure, you know, hopefully all of that will constantly be in a, in a state that, well maybe not constantly, but you’ll at least be introduced to a state of being uncomfortable learning how to figure out the situation. From there you can kind of make it comfortable again and you just make it comfortable enough to where you put a new type of pressure on, recommend to a new type of experience where you’re uncomfortable again and you know, just again being in that uncomfortable state itself and just being comfortable there and knowing that, you know, it’s not the end of the world knowing that, you know, I’ve gotten out of, you know all these situations before I’m going to make it out of this one. Even though I don’t even have the answer. I don’t know how to do it. Like all of those things are kind of what helps you get to the point where choking becomes less, you know, where you’re not at those low performance levels all the time. It’s like you can bring yourself out of it to your peak performance
Tyson: 36:53 and that’s the thing they’re talking about too. The more you choke, the less you will choke. And it’s like funny, right? Like, the more you fuck up, the lecture will fuck up. It’s like, it’s so cool how that works.
Ransom: 37:05 Yeah, I definitely think so, but it’s just again, you know, and that’s just kind of comes from any type of practice like you, you got to know the bad things that you’re doing, things that you’re doing and what that whole experience kind of adds to the knowledge base
Tyson: 37:24 and that’s when you also need to have that honest reflection and say that that didn’t feel good and like. And it’s not, oh, it’s the refs fault. Oh, it’s my boss’s fault. Oh, it’s his fault. Like maybe all of those are true. That’s great. There’s nothing you can do about that. But go and say, okay, why did I fuck up? Why did I choke? What happened here? How can I not choke again? Oh, first of all, I’ve been in. I, I know how it’s going to feel next time I could be comfortable in, in the, in the opposing team stadium, you know, all these different things you can come up with and give this that honest after action review and say, okay, that was shetty ain’t going to happen again because I’m going to take this to heart and say, no, never again. I’m going to practice. I’m going to put myself here and I know it’s like to be there now. So that’s one under the belt, you know
Ransom: 38:11 that’s so hard to keep your concentration when you’re in that mind frame, that same goal, like you got to focus on what you want, not what you don’t want. So many times when people are choking under the pressure, all they’re thinking about is, oh, I messed up so bad. No, all of this. And it’s like, oh, that didn’t go the way I planned it. Like, oh, I did all of these things wrong. Like you gotta. Be careful about where your mind is treating when that sets in because you know, if your mind is focusing on all the wrong things that you’re doing, you’re going to continue to do those wrong things. I know. It’s kind of ironic.
Tyson: 38:46 Yeah, it’s just funny. You know, you, you don’t. I don’t, I don’t want to have this bill. I don’t want his credit card. I don’t want to do this. And he’s like, I don’t want. I don’t want them to want. Guess what? You’re going to get exactly that. That’s all you’re going to see. That’s all you’re going to focus on. You know,
Ransom: 39:00 you’ve got to understand it works the opposite way. I know it sounds like a mind trick or whatever and it kind of is, but you know, instead of focusing on what you don’t like, if he don’t, he don’t want to get into debt again or you know, you want to get out. You know what I mean? Like you should focus on. I want to get out of that and then you know, but try not to use the word debt because sometimes even when you have like I want to get out of debt still brings your, your mind back to the fact that you’re in debt. You know how to use different words. You got to have different things that I wanna I wanna make more money or I want to save more money. I want to invest more money when they get a better return on my investment. I, you got to change the way you think about things and how your mind perceives it.
Tyson: 39:45 Words are powerful. The words you tell yourself or did you say out loud? They’re very, very powerful and they can have different, different meanings. It can evoke different feelings and stuff. I’m just just as ransom was saying, so be careful with the words you choose.
Ransom: 39:57 Yeah, sure. I guess we’re getting towards the end of our notes here, but I, I kinda liked that story about that Golfer. What was his name? Sorry, I can’t pronounce it for the life.
Tyson: 40:10 I don’t know. It’s a French guy that has the basis of the, of the podcast. Was that French friends call for? I’m sorry, a murdered. His name is John. I’ll let, I’ll link it Tega for you guys. But John. Yeah, it, it was like the most, um, is said to be the most famous choke ever of all time. Uh, he was, it was a, I think it was [inaudible] 99. Uh, he, he had a three shot lead in golf and he was on the final hole. A three shot lead is a, you can just jack this up as long as you get, you know. Um,
Ransom: 40:44 right.
Tyson: 40:44 Yeah, it’s like a double. As long as you get double bogey, you win. And the odds of him not winning was, was so low. They had already engraved the trophy with his name on it up to the 18th hole. They had already engraved his name on the trophy. There’s no way you can make this up. You can hit six shitty shots and you still win. So he gets up to the. And then that was kind of the ironic part of the whole thing. And he hits his tee shot, boom is off on the 17th tee and then like, oh, everybody’s like a lucky break and that’s kind of the thing he thought who was lucky break, you know? And he kept hitting these shots and it’s like it didn’t hit the next shot and hits the grandstands and it bounces back and go, whoa man, lucky shot.
Tyson: 41:25 There was all these lucky shots at never that got him into the point of I know I can make this like I can do this thing. And instead they, you know, the guy who was the expert was saying at that tee shot on that second shot would have went somewhere crazy. He would have been able to bring himself back and say, okay, whatever I’m doing is going to stop. But he kept getting these lucky breaks. Every lucky break led to an, an another unlucky break. But it just kept compounding on itself. And then he wind up, he wound up getting at a three shots over. He went to tying a three way tie at the end of that hole and going into a playoff. And then losing like the most famous second place finish of all time. Like I think it was funny because they were talking about like when he actually made the putt tie.
Tyson: 42:16 Yeah. He thought he won. I don’t know if he, I don’t know if he thought that it was in the interview. He said that he knew, but you know what I mean, like it just to keep your composure like that. But he, he was like, yeah. And like he made it seem like he had one when I watched the video, I guess knowing the whole story when I asked what I saw on of him was fuck I got out of that. Like Jesus Christ. I was like, the whole of my life that I got there, I didn’t lose. He’s with this score. I will tie it and when, but I will tie with everybody else. And I think he went on right and he didn’t. When he did not win. I believe he wants to. But everybody remembered him, right? Yes. For the part that he didn’t win, which is kind of weird ass.
Tyson: 43:08 Like I always say nobody remembers. Remember second place is one of those instances where nobody remembers first place. Nobody wants, nobody remembers one. They all just remember how he changed how he was ahead so far. He held it up and then he lost it when he got into the time he. Yeah. And then he wanted becoming sort of famous for, for, for that in and all that. But it was interesting how they were saying if he wouldn’t have got all these little lucky breaks, he would have been able to take a step back and reevaluate what he was doing because he kept taking these risky things. It’s like, oh, I got lucky. I’m going to chance it again and I got lucky. I’m going to chance it again. And that’s what led to his demise. Yeah, I think he even said in the interview or something like that. He’s like, disaster happens when two, three, or four things that are unpredicted in a row, like compound. It’s just kinda like, you know, like you said, like the first two or three shots. It was like, okay, that was a bad decision, but it ended kind of in a good way. It worked out for me. Okay, good. I’m going to do that again.
Tyson: 44:10 And you don’t see the results of those. Those two, three things that stacked on each other. You don’t see that result until until you fall over the cliff? Yeah, for sure. Some of the other things, because I think they talked about in the interview is kind of like it’s easy to win with grace and it’s hard to lose with grace. I think especially for him being
Ransom: 44:32 so far ahead, being so far ahead and then actually tying like he kind of handled that pretty well. He made like you want, but even after that, when he lost it, he’s like, ah, well, you know, he didn’t. He wasn’t a sore loser. You didn’t blame other people for what happened and all that.
Tyson: 44:48 And that’s what they were saying too. That’s what Kinda sorta made him famous was the graciousness he had when he lost after fluffing the.
Ransom: 44:57 Yeah. Yeah.
Tyson: 45:00 It’s hard. We all know, we all know it’s like to, to, to lose and it sucked. It’s hard to walk over there and shake the guy’s hand and say, good game. I’m better than you, but today was in my day like, that’s hard. That’s really hard.
Ransom: 45:12 Wow. That is that. It’s super hard,
Tyson: 45:14 but it goes in to practicing that stuff. Walking over and shaking people’s hands and just saying, today was my day was your day and this will never happen again. At least from this angle. And I’m going to work on that.
Ransom: 45:27 Yeah. All in all. I think it was. I think it was a really good podcasts and I think that that part too, at the end. I mean they definitely talk about it a lot more than we did, but it’s kind of cool and they summed it all up and how they actually had the interview with the guy. I mean it was kind of hard to hear, but they have the transcript on their website too.
Tyson: 45:47 And I said, I’ll link to the podcast. I recommend you listen to it. Um, maybe even subscribing to their podcast I think is really good podcast to do a really good job of producing and researching a lot of greats, you know, high level things you can, you can learn from.
Ransom: 46:02 Oh,
Tyson: 46:04 anything else? You know, as a good podcast. Anything else you want to touch on about that? Choking?
Ransom: 46:08 Nah, man. I think I’m good with that.
Tyson: 46:10 That’s great. Um, if you want to learn a little bit more about maybe I’m not. The choke is a leader. I keep your ego in check how to overcome obstacles because obstacle is the way I would get into this month’s giveaway. She’s a leadership pack is what I call it. It’s a Jocko willink new book, the dichotomy of leadership and also his previous book, extreme ownership as well as Ryan holiday’s ego is the enemy and the obstacle is the way all four of those books I’m going to give out to one lucky winner. And uh, this is the last giveaway for the year, um, for November, December. We’re gonna do give back and I like you all to participate in that as well. I’ll have more information about the different charities and events. I’m part of that. I will be. I’m wanting you guys to help him, but to get into this giveaway at, over to the social chameleon.show/pick me. Get yourself this leadership PAC. And this year on a high note gets set for 2019 is around the corner, it’s going to come. You’re fascinating. I think had internet year choking less as a leader or, or being able to step up and become a leader wherever, whatever you’re up to, whenever you’re doing. These are four great fundamental books that will teach you how to stop blaming other people, understand what ego is, like, understand what these are and how to overcome them and all this great, great stuff.
Ransom: 47:33 Cool.
Tyson: 47:34 And then like I said, I’ll link the videos and the podcasts and all the resources and I’ll, I’ll go ahead and get those, um, the different levels of competence for you guys. So you guys can understand all four levels of those different competence things. I’ll have all those in the show notes at social media in that show. And we got challenged. I got to challenge this week’s challenge. You guys, deliberate practice, deliberate practice. That means when you’re doing something, you’re deliberately going through each motion, not halfass event, especially if you have a higher level of competence. Those lower level tasks that maybe you’ve, you’ve, you’ve got really good at it, you become unconscious. Make sure you’re going through each step. Deliberate practice to get familiar with things, get an unfamiliar situations, get comfortable being uncomfortable, practice handling pressure, get a friend or or get get into some type of role play thing, get loud music.
Tyson: 48:38 Whatever it is that you need to practice, work, get in that mindset of getting the stakes up, getting the pressure on, sometimes just getting your heart rate up and then trying to do a task will it will simulate that type of pressure situation to a bunch of pushups or some jumping jacks. Do some squats. If your heart rate going, get your breath up, hit that feeling of your adrenaline going and in practice being under pressure, whatever it is you’re doing, whether it’s your hobby, whether it’s your career, whether it studying, it doesn’t matter. Whatever it is, get out there deliberate practice, get uncomfortable, get unfamiliar situations and practice under pressure.
Ransom: 49:15 Awesome.
Tyson: 49:16 As we close this out with some of this up.
Ransom: 49:20 All right, so some ended up in our final thoughts. You just have to remember is that practice makes progress, right? This program or this particular episode is about not choking under pressure. So practice makes progress. Guess what you got to do. You have to choke under pressure, right over and over and over again and learn to be comfortable in that, right. Learn to be in the eye of the storm, so to speak, and know that everything is not following around. You know, how to get your mind right when that time comes. And then from there you can pull yourself out and that’s kind of how you can not choke under pressure.
Tyson: 50:11 You know, somebody that maybe doesn’t choking a little too often or maybe they’re getting, you know, becoming, you know, new to the world of a daunting, um, and, and you want to help them not choke and at least understand what it’s like to have the, and the knowledge to start to practice these things. Showed us with them that let them know what we’re up to and you enjoyed it. Share it with you. Nobody’s tries to start with at least two other people that you think this could help ’em all week long. You guys can connect with us on all the social media platforms and the social media that show as well as subscribing on youtube and your favorite podcast APP, and if you’re listening to the podcast version or even on youtube now, you guys can leave a review. It really does help our show reach more amazing people like you and for links to everything we’ve talked about here and past episodes. You guys can visit social chameleon.show. Until next time, keep learning growing and transforming into the person you want to become.