How to Reach Peak Performance in Anything You Do

0:07Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another podcast episode. And if you're out there and you live in the US or Canada and you want to get some inspirational, motivational mindset tips and tricks delivered directly to your cell phone, text me right now, 512-580-9305. Once again, 512-580-9305. Today, we're gonna be talking about how you can reach peak performance in anything that you want to do in your life. Because there's something in your life that you were meant to master. Maybe you haven't found it yet, but there's something that you were meant to pour your heart and soul into.

0:47If the world hadn't come and made you afraid of going all in, you probably would have already mastered that thing. But here's the truth. Until you find that thing that you're meant for and obsess over it, your life is always gonna feel just slightly off. You can ignore the feeling if you want to, or you can listen to what I'm gonna talk about today, and you can listen to what I'm going to teach you and you can find what it is that you want and go all in and see what you're truly capable of in this life. And I love being a human because one of the coolest parts about being a human is that we can find something to master.

1:24And the very famous scientist Richard Feynman has a quote that I love and he says, fall in love with some activity and do it. Nobody ever figures out what this life is all about and it doesn't matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go deeply enough into it. Work as hard and as much as you want on the things that you like to do best. Don't think about what you want to be, but think about what you want to do. I think that's the perfect example of what we should be focusing on in this life. Because the amazing part about being a human is that we are the only species alive on this earth that can choose our craft, choose what we're going to dedicate our life to, and to choose to become obsessed with it, and to practice it for years, and to eventually become one of the best world-class at that thing.

2:20And I don't mean like just good at something, and I don't mean just getting paid for it. I mean like you becoming exceptional at something, at anything that you really care about. And I don't care what it is. You could be the best violinist that you could possibly be. You could be a YouTuber. You could dedicate your life to be an amazing chess player. You can become obsessed with becoming a jujitsu master and then coach people at it. You could be an amazing sneaker designer. You could decide that you want to be one of the best tattoo artists in the world. You could be a welder if you want to. You could be a software builder.

2:56You could be the best damn coffee shop owner that is in your city. But the idea is that you're trying to reach a level of mastery that is only exceptional to you where you're going, I'm going to be world class at this thing, not because I'm trying to impress people or because I'm trying to make money doing it, but because of the fact that this is something that I love. And to get to the point where people stop and stare and they're like, whoa, it is really cool to watch this person do this thing because that's not normal. You know, it's not easy to get there, but it is available to every single person that's alive.

3:34And most people, 99.9 % of people die without ever tasting greatness in their life. Why? Because mastering something, anything, takes a lot. It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of obsession. It takes a whole hell of a lot of repetition. It takes a lot of getting out of your comfort zone because you're constantly challenging yourself to be better at this thing. and most people are not willing to put in the effort and dedicate their life to something, but you can. And I always think about the 10 ,000 hour rule, which you've probably heard of the 10 ,000 hour rule, but basically this is what it means.

4:08It takes roughly 10 ,000 hours of deliberate practice to become world-class at something. Now, deliberate practice doesn't mean that you decide you wanna play the guitar and then you practice the same three chords for 10 ,000 hours. Deliberate practice means that you're on your edge and you're messing up and you're failing and you're getting better. You're messing up and failing and getting better. And that is 10 ,000 hours of deliberate practice. And people always ask like, well, is it 7 ,000 hours? Is it 20 ,000 hours? Is it 10 ,000? The number doesn't actually matter. What matters is the principle.

4:40And that's the thing that I love about it. Like I actually have a tattoo on my wrist that is a Roman numeral for 10 ,000. It's an X with a line above it because I want to remind myself that I am trying to master this thing that I'm doing. And one of the things that I'm trying to master more than anything else is me. I'm trying to get into self-mastery. And so when you look at mastery, mastery is basically time plus focus plus feedback. You need to put a lot of time into something. You need to put a lot of focus into it. You need some sort of feedback to tell you where you need to get better and where you can improve.

5:12And then there's one extra multiplier that I would in there is love. Like if you love something, if you truly love that thing and you love doing it, you will practice longer and harder and more than anyone else. Not because you have to, but because you actually love to do it because you can't not do it. And that's what separates the exceptional from the decent. It's not talent. It's not luck. It's none of that. It's just time spent enjoying the reps. And, you know, a lot of people, the paradox of all of this is that what most people chase in this world is money instead of mastery. But often the people who make the most money are the ones who chose mastery first.

5:57The ones who decided to go for something that they love and something that they're passionate about. There's a quote that I love that Oprah said, which is, passion comes first, money should always come second. Now, mastery is not like the shortcut to wealth because you might be interested in something that nobody's going to pay you for, but it's not about how much money you make. There's some people who master something and nobody pays for that thing. There's some people who make millions of dollars with half of the skill of someone who's mastered something. But the truth of it is, mastery really more than anything else creates a lot of leverage.

6:33When you're a master at something, people will seek you out for that thing. When you're a master at something, that the name that you have builds your brand. When you're a master at something, you can get paid for your opinion and your consultation to somebody, not just for your labor. You know, if you look at like somebody who's mastered something, one of the quotes that I love are, you know, I don't know if it's a true story or not, but it's about Picasso. And a woman came up to Picasso when he was at a French cafe and she asked him a sketch on a napkin at the cafe. And he took his pen and he quickly just drew one and she was like, oh my gosh, this is amazing.

7:11It took you three minutes to do this. And then he gave her some crazy price. It was like 10 ,000 francs or whatever it was. And she's like, oh my God, 10 ,000 francs. This only took you two minutes to draw. And he replied, no, it took me my whole life. And it illustrates the fact that he has dedicated his entire life to be able to make something that looks so amazing in three minutes. And that's what comes from a lifetime of dedication and skill to take your craft and master something and do it really quickly so that somebody will pay you a lot for it. And so, you know, will you find something that the world will reward with money?

7:50Maybe, maybe not. That shouldn't be what you're actually trying to figure out. Can I get paid for this thing? You still want to get better at something because what you get out of becoming better is the satisfaction of becoming better. Knowing that you are really fucking good at something. That is a great feeling. And that you're improving all of the time. And that your hours weren't wasted scrolling on your phone or just, you know, watching TV. But you put hours into mastering something that you've earned every single ounce of your skill. It's like Tony Robbins always says. He always says, progress equals happiness.

8:27Like I know from all of the research I've done on humans and psychology and neurology that humans need something to work towards. Like it is built into the circuitry of our brain. And very rarely do you find a depressed person who's working hard at something that they enjoy or working hard at mastery. Usually someone that's depressed comes from people who feel stagnant in life and they're not moving towards something. And so what you have to start thinking about is I need to pick one thing. Like you don't have to master everything. And in fact, you cannot master everything. You will not be able to.

9:01But you have to pick one thing, just something. Something to lose yourself in. Something to become obsessed over. Something to train yourself in. And we will be right back. And now, back to the show. How do you know what that is? Well, there's a few different signals that I've found. There's three real signals of finding like, this might be the thing that I want. The first one is what I call time warp, which is where you kind of just lose track of time when you're doing this thing. whether it's reading a book on a specific subject or whether it's playing the drums or whatever it is. Like you just kind of like lose track of time and it doesn't matter.

9:41And that's a great part about it. So time warp. The second thing is like you have this insatiable curiosity around it. Like you just want to get better. You want to learn as much as you possibly can about this thing. Even when it starts to get hard, you're just like this struggle actually feels fun. This struggle feels great because I know I'm getting better at it. So you have this insatiable curiosity. And then you just have this creative hunger where you start thinking about this thing. It's kind of like this magnificent obsession that lives in the back of your head. And you're thinking about it even when you're not doing it.

10:14If you could find something that checks off those three boxes, I'm not a betting man, but if I was, that's probably your thing. And if you find that thing, don't just dabble. Don't just dip your toes in the water. Don't just be like pretty good at it. Like if it's something that pulls you in, go as deep as you possibly can. Like deeper than surface level, deeper than like the little life hacks to get better at it. Like jump in the deep end, like cannonball as much as you possibly can into that thing all the way as much as you possibly can to get to mastery. And I love watching athletes because I think athletes are like an amazing example of this.

10:51When you look at like somebody who always pops into my head when I think of mastery, I think of Tom Brady. And I wasn't a huge Tom Brady fan until when he came back from like 25 points back in the Super Bowl. And I was like, whoa, this guy is freaking impressive. You know, he's the most dedicated quarterback of the NFL in all time. You know, he's got seven Super Bowls. He's the perfect case of obsession. Like nobody thought he'd be elite. He wasn't the fastest. He wasn't the strongest. He was picked 199. 99. I think there were six quarterbacks that were picked before him. And if you see the picture of him at the NFL combine, like he looked more like the water boy than the greatest, greatest NFL athlete ever.

11:32But the thing about him is he was just obsessed. He was obsessed with his diet. He was obsessed with film study. He was obsessed with getting 1 % better every single day for 20 years. Like that's what mastery looks like. Do you think he regrets it? Doesn't seem like it. You know, it's not luck. It's deliberate practice and time and obsession. And you don't have to be Tom Brady, but you can pick whatever your arena is. You know, do the thing that you care about when no one else is watching. Like another person pops in is Michael Jordan. Like Michael Jordan was cut from his basketball team, his JV basketball team when he was a kid, which shows you he wasn't born good at this thing, but he became obsessed with it and became arguably, I would argue, the greatest basketball player ever.

12:18And so if you're out there, you're like, this sounds great, but what the hell am I supposed to do? I don't know what it is that I love in my life and I don't know what my purpose and my passion is. Well, then I would jot down, take a pen and paper and jot down a couple of questions for me, okay? There's a Japanese technique that's called ikigai. And ikigai in Japanese means reason for being, basically your reason for being alive. And ikigai is the overlap of four questions. And these are the four questions, okay? Number one is what do you love? So like, what do you love to do? Write everything that you possibly can.

12:51It could be ice cream. It could be puppies. It could be public speaking. It could be whatever. Photography. As many things as you possibly can. What do you love? That's the first thing. Second thing, what are you good at? Like, what are you actually pretty good at? Not like a master, but like, what do you have at least a little bit of skill in? Okay. Number three is what does the world need? And then number four is what can you be paid for? So it's what do you love? What are you good at? What does the world need? And what can you be paid for? And then number five, this is not part of Ikigai, but this is like Ikigai Plus.

13:24This is what I always added when I'm talking with people is what are you really interested in getting better at? Like, what are you interested? What looks like work to everybody else, but feels like play to you? And you try to figure out if there's some overlap in what it is that you have there. If I would have found Ikigai when I was younger, I would have found out that I should be doing what I'm doing now probably five years earlier than I started. And the reason why is because like if I were to write down all the things that I love and what I'm good at and what the world needs, I would have eventually found this because like, what do I love?

13:57I love neurology and psychology and reading textbooks about things that people would never want to read. Like I love geeking out on that. What am I good at? You know, when I was younger, I became obsessed after I was thrown into public speaking and becoming the best public speaker I possibly could. And by the time I was 25, I had like over 10 ,000 hours of public speaking experience. So I thought I was pretty good, right? What does the world need? I think the world needs mindset and psychology and help and healing and all of that. And then what can I be paid for? Well, now you can be paid for podcasting.

14:26When I first started, you couldn't, but public speaking, coaching, any of this, I would have eventually found, hopefully, where I am now if I would have known what Ikigai was back before I first started. And so you can go over those five questions and start to see if there's any overlap. And if you do, there's probably something that you're gonna find that is something that you could become better at. And if you don't find anything, then you need to wake up every single morning. You need to look out at the sky and you need to say, I want to find out what I'm passionate about and make that like your focus for the day every single day until you find it.

15:01It's okay not to know what your passion or your purpose is in this life, but it is not okay to not wake up every single day and try to figure out what it is. Because I don't want you to get to end your life and just have nothing that you are passionate about. I'd have nothing that you were exceptional at, right? That's what I want you to get towards. And that's where most people don't get to, but you don't have to be one of those people. You know, you don't have to try to be the richest person that does X, Y, Z. You just have to find something that you can be exceptional at. If you do that, it will change your entire life.

15:33It will rewire how you see yourself. It'll build confidence that nobody in this world can fake. It attracts opportunities and people that you could have never imagined or planned for. And so what I want you to do is try to figure out what your pursuit is. Get obsessed with it. Put hours into it. Celebrate your plateaus and your setback. And then just keep going, even when it gets boring, because that's about the time where it starts to shift. Most people quit when they're bored at something and they never find something they can master. Master something, keep going, and that's where the real magic actually happens.

16:09So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on Instagram stories. Tag me at RobDialJr, R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. If you're interested in learning more about coaching with me outside of this podcast, I have programs that go from 12 weeks all up to 12 months to help you learn and grow and improve and master yourself. So if you'd like to learn more about it, go to coachwithrob.com. Once again, coachwithrob.com. And with that, I'm gonna leave you the same way, leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you.

16:39and I hope that you have an amazing day. You want me to do an end card?