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The "Performance Whisperer" George Mumford Has Deep Strategies for Flow and Success

Apr 19, 2023 56m 9s 26 insights
<p><em>New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.</em></p> <p>----</p> <p>Perhaps nobody is better at helping people unlock themselves than the Buddhist meditation teacher George Mumford who taught meditation to Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. He's also worked with inmates, police officers, and corporate executives. There's a reason why they call him the "Performance Whisperer."</p> <p><br /></p> <p>George has an incredible story: he began teaching mindfulness and meditation after kicking a serious drug habit, leaving a career as a financial analyst, and then earning a master's in counseling psychology. He's got a new book, it's called <a href="https://georgemumford.com/unlocked/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Unlock: Embrace Your Greatness. Find the Flow. Discover Success</em></a>. </p> <p><br /></p> <p>His first book was called <a href="https://georgemumford.com/the-mindful-athlete-book/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>The Mindful Athlete: The Secret to Pure Performance</em></a>. If you want to hear him talk about that book, we've put links in the show notes to his prior appearances on this podcast. </p> <p><br /></p> <p><strong>In this episode we talk about:</strong></p> <ul> <li>What it means to be in flow and why many of us may be achieving that state more than we think</li> <li>How to challenge negative self-talk</li> <li>The importance of gratitude</li> <li>The importance of service</li> <li>The importance of making mistakes (as George says, "no struggle, no swag")</li> <li>How to recognize what he calls your hideouts </li> <li>Why he identifies as an empath and why he believes this may have played a role in his addiction</li> <li>And George's take on often misunderstood terms such as love, hope, and faith</li> </ul> <p><br /></p> <p><br /></p> <p><strong>Full Shownotes:</strong> <a href="https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/george-mumford-589" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/george-mumford-589 </a></p> <p><br /></p>
Actionable Insights

1. Express Your True Self

Be present in the moment without being pulled by desire or fear, allowing your mind, body, heart, and soul to align and operate at full potential. This enables spontaneity and full engagement in what you’re doing.

2. Embrace Continuous Unlocking

Recognize that ‘being unlocked’ is not a permanent state, but rather a continuous process of using tools to return to presence and full engagement when you get stuck in habitual patterns.

3. Use The Four A’s

When facing a challenge, cultivate awareness of what’s happening, accept it (even if painful), take compassionate action, and then assess what worked to learn and adapt.

4. Embrace Struggle for Growth

View struggle and error correction as essential for developing strength and wisdom, similar to a caterpillar’s effort to break out of its chrysalis to gain the ability to fly.

5. Shift to Growth Mode

When facing challenges, move from survival mode (fight, flight, freeze) to ’love mode’ (rest and digest), viewing difficulties as lessons and opportunities for growth.

6. Generate Hope, Optimism, Faith

Actively generate hope, optimism, and faith (HOF) to enhance your cognitive functioning, broaden your perspective beyond tunnel vision, and provide the perseverance needed to overcome adversity and achieve goals.

7. Challenge Negative Self-Talk

Actively challenge and dismiss the ’negative committee’ of self-doubt and criticism, especially when facing insecurity, anxiety, or uncertainty, to access your inner potential.

8. Reflect on Past Successes

Counteract negative self-talk by intentionally reflecting on and replaying past successes in your mind, as this positive mental imagery enhances cognitive functioning and builds faith.

9. Cultivate Faith

Nurture faith as a complete acceptance of your inherent greatness, trusting that things will turn out well even when you don’t know how, which grows through learning from mistakes and not quitting.

10. Learn from Mistakes

Embrace errors and failures as crucial learning opportunities, understanding that they are necessary for growth and ultimately lead to success.

11. Create Space for Choice

Develop the ability to create space between a stimulus and your response, allowing you to choose wisely based on your values and goals.

12. Identify and Overcome Hideouts

Recognize ‘hideouts’ as behaviors like denial, blame, or rationalization that prevent you from embracing present reality and learning, then actively work to move past them.

13. Ask ‘How’ Questions

After a successful moment, ask ‘how did that happen?’ to understand the essential aspects and replicate the experience.

14. Mindfully Notice Flow States

Pay attention and become aware when you are in a state of flow, as consciously noticing these moments helps you recognize and sustain them more often.

15. Daily Gratitude Practice

Every 24 hours, write down three new things you are grateful for to program yourself to automatically notice and appreciate positive aspects of your life.

16. Feed the Love Wolf

Actively choose to feed the ’love wolf’ within you by cultivating an open mind and heart, rather than the ‘fear wolf,’ to respond to challenges in ways that create less suffering.

17. Respond, Don’t React

Cultivate an open mind and heart to enable measured responses to situations, aligning with your values, rather than impulsive reactions driven by fear.

18. Cultivate Equanimity

Train yourself to remain centered and present with equanimity, like the eye of a hurricane, regardless of whether experiences are pleasant or unpleasant, without spacing out.

19. Integrate Dharma Principles

Train your mind using principles of wisdom (right view, right intention), integrity (non-harming, right speech, action, livelihood), and mental discipline (right effort, concentration, mindfulness) to enhance presence and performance.

20. Cultivate Heart Qualities

Actively cultivate positive heart qualities such as joy, compassion, love, kindness, and equanimity to foster an open heart and enhance your ability to be present without judgment.

21. Embrace Service to Others

Engage in service, not just for yourself, but for the greatest good of all beings, as it is a significant way to alleviate suffering and express your unlocked self.

22. Define Love as Activity

Understand love as an active process of openness, caring, respect, and self-knowledge, where you work to help yourself and others grow, rather than just a feeling.

23. Cultivate Self-Knowledge

Actively know yourself by understanding how to care for your needs, respecting who you are authentically, and recognizing when you are not responding to your own needs.

24. Align with Universal Laws

Seek to understand how things truly work in the universe and align your actions and mindset with these principles to foster a more positive and less suffering experience.

25. Be Present in Your Body

When faced with unexpected challenges or communication barriers, simplify your approach and focus on being fully present in your body, allowing wisdom to emerge from that state.

26. Trust Spontaneous Wisdom

Develop confidence and faith that by dropping plans and being spontaneously present in the moment, you will have access to the right responses or insights.