Individual Flow Trigger: Deep Embodiment
How physical activity can lead to the brain initiating flow
In this edition, I’m breaking down the basics of the Deep Embodiment flow trigger, real world examples of it being applied, and how valuable getting your hands dirty is to the learning process.
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I’ve covered the topic of multi-tasking in a previous edition, but it’s important enough to double down on in the one.
And when it comes to the flow trigger of Deep Embodiment, multi-tasking is it polar opposite.
One of my favorite personal development quotes that I learned in my 20s is: if you have more than 3 priorities, you don’t have any.
From a neuroscience standpoint, this means our brains have a limited amount of resources when it comes to what to pay attention to. Therefore there comes a point where our attention is stretched so thin that we’re not truly focusing on anything, yet going through the motion.
Now I already know what you may being saying…
“Well I multi-task all the time and I get so much done!”
By no means am I saying that it’s impossible to be productive with multi-tasking.
But if you aim to do the impossible, it’ll take operating at an optimal level the way our biology is designed to.
And to do that, it’ll take applying one of my favorite flow triggers: Deep Embodiment.
Deep Embodiment
Deep embodiment is a type of expanded physical awareness. It means we pay the most attention to the task at hand when multiple senses are engaged in the task.
If you’re just watching a scene unfold, that’s one level of involvement. But if you’re actually participating in the unfolding, that’s a way more engaging ride.
This is one of the main reasons athletes have so much success getting into flow.
Sports demands embodiment—it’s built into the environment.
How I Use Deep Embodiment 😎
Ever wondered what it’s like for a corporate company to court you to take a promotion and become a business owner with them? Let me tell you…
At the age of 22, I had a world class experience at a conference specifically for Branch/District Manager Candidates. The majority of the weekend was learning, training, and seeing the vision of the company. But other parts were dedicated on “selling” us advancing in the sales company.
The conference too place at a retreat in Horseshoe Bay, Texas—on the outskirts of Austin. One of the activities we participated in was a double decker steamboat ride on this lake—which had a “Millionaire’s Row” of lake houses.
It was an experience that involved every sense: feeling the waves from the water, listening to the music and laughs, tasting the food and drinks, and smelling the fresh air on the water. The most powerful one was just seeing so many driven ambitious people in one setting and knowing I belonged.
Oh, and I also got to see my Division Manager lean over the railing of the boat taking calls from reps back in Alabama on presentations. After helping a rep close a sale, he hung up, turned and looked at me, then said, “Just another day at the office.”
A couple of months later, the region had its yearly trip to the company’s factory where the product is made—the offices were the marketing arm for the product since it wasn’t sold in stores. It was cool to see the appreciation the factory workers had for us. We on the sales side always said how grateful we were to them or we couldn’t do what we do—sale the product. Well, they had the same sentiment toward us.
To be in the factory and watch how the product was made was special. We got to feel the heat of certain machines, smell them fresh off the conveyor belt, and feel how heavy they were before the production process—something I’ll never forget.
The factory wasn’t far from Niagara Falls, so the region set aside a day for us to experience the tourist attraction and have dinner at a 5-start restaurant to cap the trip.
How The Greats Use Deep Embodiment 🤌🏾
If you ask Allen Iverson if he was a point guard or a shooting guard when he played the game he’d reply, “I was a killa.”
He played with his all—to the point where his past life as a top-recruited high school football player often manifested itself on the court. It wasn’t rare to see him diving on the floor, jumping in the stands, and even wearing football thigh pads under his basketball game shorts.
If Shaq is the greatest big man ever, then Iverson is the best little man.
Mental skills coaches may be common today—in many ways part of me being a peak performance coach includes being a mental skills coach—but it was a foreign concept for the 1996 Olympics.
That’s when team USA hired Dr. Collen Hacker onto their staff. It was the first time the national team hired a mental skills coach. Mia shared in an interview, “The addition of Dr. Hacker as our Mental Skills Coach made a huge difference in our preparation, both as individual athletes and collectively as a team.”
Dr. Hacker created a new method for athletes focusing on imagery video montages. Athletes were allowed to practice away from the field without the demands on their bodies using these DVDs.
What an innovative way to get the entire being engaged in the process.
In 2021, Candace Parker became an unrestricted free agent. She chose to leave the Sparks after 13 seasons, signing a 2-year deal with the Chicago Sky. The move to the Sky gave her the opportunity to play a little closer to home and compete for another championship.
Parker stated “Chicago is where my family raised me; where I first learned the game of basketball; and where I first fell in love with this orange ball…I am excited to continue the next chapter of my career where it all began. To my new teammates, my new organization, and my new fans: I’m home.”
This level of mental and emotional involvement did wonders for her and led to her playing a pivotal role in winning the 2021 WNBA Finals.
This Week’s Book Recommendation📖
This is, quite simply, one of the landmark books in the history of education. Written by influential Italian educator Maria Montessori (1870–1952), it describes a new system for educating young children based on materials and methods she originally developed to teach retarded students. The techniques proved highly effective with normal children as well. Her system, based on a radical conception of liberty for the pupil and a highly formal training of separate sensory, motor, and mental capacities, led to rapid and substantial mastery of reading, writing, and arithmetic.
In The Montessori Method, Dr. Montessori outlines her techniques in discussions of such topics as scientific pedagogy; discipline; diet; gymnastics; manual labor; education of the senses; methods for teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic; and many other topics. The Dover edition is the least expensive edition available, making this seminal classic widely accessible to teachers, principals, parents — anyone interested in the education of young children.
Last Words…
But the point here is simple: Get physical. Learn by doing. That’s what it takes to pull this trigger.
Multiple senses demand all out focus and that’s more than enough to drive us into the zone.
Don’t attempt to do many things at once. Usually these “things” are tasks low on the importance scale with our to-do list. But we feel good knocking out of few of them at once.
Choose the hardest task that can generate most of the results you desire, go all in on it, and watch what happens.
Hope this added the fuel to ferociously launch your week! ♾️🔥🚀
See you next Monday! 😎
And when it comes to the infinite game of life…
Choose Flow.
Be Brilliant.
Ball Out.
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