In this edition, I’m breaking down the value of having a rich environment, the basics of the Novelty flow trigger, and real world examples of it being applied.
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A rich environment is the combination of three separate triggers: novelty, unpredictability, and complexity.
All three drive dopamine into our systems and, as a result, catch and hold our attention much like risk.
This is exactly what Steve Jobs did when he designed the offices at Pixar. Jobs built a large atrium at the building’s center. He then put mailboxes, cafeteria, meeting rooms, and, most famously, the only bathrooms in the place, right beside that atrium. This forced employees from all over the company to randomly bump into one another, massively increasing novelty, complexity, and unpredictability. This resulted in more flow, heightened creativity, and all the Oscars the company won.
We see this happen often in athletic departments where the cafeteria and lounge areas are open to all sports to help create a rich environment.
But we’ll cover complexity and unpredictability over the next two weeks.
Today, we’re going to start with Novelty.
Novelty
Novelty is one of our brain’s favorite experiences. Novelty could mean that there’s either danger or opportunity lurking in our environment. Since both are crucial for survival, the brain prioritizes the information.
How I Use Novelty 😎
In 2013, I rose up the ranks fast within the sales company I worked with and became a District Manager Candidate. I was close to an opportunity to change my lifestyle but there was the danger of public failure if my office didn’t do well. Talk about all of my attention being focused on the task at hand. To combat this danger, all branch and district manager candidates met monthly in Birmingham, Al to be trained by our Division Manager.
Spending so much time with the DMV and the rest of the division brought everyone closer. It even made me realize how much better of a salesman and manager I could’ve been if I came up under the wing of our DVM in Mobile instead of my district manager in Mobile. But the region we were part of also did a good job selling the candidates on the opportunity.
My favorite example of this was Horseshoe Bay, Texas. It’s the location of a private resort right outside of Austin, TX—where the regional headquarters was located. Attending a conference there was actually my first time ever flying on a plane. The region covered every expense for the trip: plane tickets, food, and drinks at the airport while we waited on our shuttle to the resort and our rooms. I was immediately sold. This was a heavy dose of novelty that surely caught and kept my attention.
How The Greats Use Novelty 🤌🏾
After 20 seasons of playing in Boston, are we really surprised by Tom Brady’s performance increasing with playing in the beautiful weather of Tampa Bay?
But more important than the weather, this was a new opportunity to win a franchise its first super bowl since 2002 and show he could be great with a new team—and that he proved!
In an interview with ESPN UK, Beckham talks about how innovation and technology affected and improved the game of soccer.
He also shared how he felt wearing new gear when he played stating, “When they [Adidas] brought the predators first into the game it was something we had never seen before. When I first put the first pair of predators on, I felt different. I felt I had more power and more swerve. Some of it was from me. But it helped with the boot.”
The combination of his skills and the new technology surely helped him bend it like, well, Beckham.
Cheryl Miller is a true pioneer for the game of women’s basketball. She was “Miller Time” before the phrase belonged to her little brother, Reggie Miller—and long before Damian Lillard’s version.
Check out these achievements! In high school, she set California state records for most points scored in a season and career. She led her high school to a 132-4 record. 4X All-American. 4X State Champion.
She continued this dominance while playing at USC— 4X All-American, 3X Naismith Player of the Year, & 2X NCAA Champion. She’s still the all-time leading scorer, rebounder, and steals leader at USC. Gold-medal winner at the 1984 Olympic games.
In 1985, sports Illustrated named her the best college basketball player— male or female.
Unfortunately, in 1986, she tore up her knee playing a pick-up game. It robbed her of what would’ve been a long illustrious career. But in 1995 she was rightfully inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. All of these new opportunities and feats without a doubt kept her life overflowing with flow.
This Week’s Book Recommendation📖
In “The Power of Moments”, the New York Times bestselling authors of Switch and Made to Stick explore why certain brief experiences can jolt us and elevate us and change us—and how we can learn to create such extraordinary moments in our life and work.
What if a teacher could design a lesson that he knew his students would remember twenty years later? What if a doctor or nurse knew how to orchestrate moments that would bring more comfort to patients? What if you had a better sense of how to create memories that matter for your children?
Last Words…
At the end of the day, this infinite game of peak performance is all about paying attention to the task at hand and taking control of the neurobiological hardwiring we’ve had for centuries. The kind of hardwiring that helped us survived.
Instead of a lion in the new part of the jungle we need to pay attention to, it’s uncharted territory like pandemics and technological warfare.
Instead of a untapped territory we need to sail to and inhabitant for it’s fresh resources, today, it’s new opportunities like NIL or AI (smh all these abbreviations).
The worst thing you could do now is nothing. The second worst thing you would do is flee and run from new opportunities.
Make sure you’re allowing your biology to work for you rather than against you and lean into these novel experiences in your life.
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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