No.1 Performance Psychologist: The Secret to High Performance and Excellence
Performance psychologist Gio Valiante tells Shane Parrish on The Knowledge Project why most people underperform their ability, and how habits, environment, confidence and childhood experiences set the ceiling on what we achieve.
The gist
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Valiante says the brain is built to seek comfort and survive, so excellence starts with a deliberate choice to push past that built-in governor.
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His practical advice is to find one comfortable habit holding you back, change it, and hold yourself accountable to it every day.
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Every Friday he spends 10 or 15 minutes listing thoughts and feelings he did not choose, then detaches from them to stay present.
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To pull a portfolio manager out of a slump, he cuts their risk and aims to make just $100, because small wins rebuild confidence.
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Valiante says we spend adult lives undoing childhood debris, and he found happiness came from workouts, books, good conversations, hitting golf balls and raising kids.
Also mentioned
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Finding Flow
· "There's a book that I'm sure you've read. It's called Finding Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. You know the..."
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Atomic Habits
· "In the book Atomic Habits, the author has this really beautiful line that's getting a lot of traction in..."
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