From Fear to Focus: The Psychology Behind High-Performance Success with Brian Hite

What if the stress and pressure you've been taught are necessary for success are actually holding you back? Dr. Brian Hite, high-performance psychologist and professional stuntman with over 30 years of experience in Hollywood and elite military training, shares groundbreaking insights that challenge everything we think we know about performing under pressure.

Drawing from both Eastern and Western philosophies, Brian reveals that pressure isn't something inherent in situations—it exists only in our minds when we focus on potential consequences rather than present actions. He carefully distinguishes between stress (which stems from perceiving situations as threatening) and pressure (which comes from fixating on future outcomes), offering a revolutionary framework for eliminating both.

Through his Phase X methodology, Brian breaks down performance into four critical phases—before, right before, during, and after—providing actionable strategies for managing your physical, mental, emotional, and social states in each phase. This structured approach transforms overwhelming high-stakes moments into manageable processes where you can maintain focus on what truly matters.

Perhaps most compelling is Brian's insight about opportunity in challenging situations. He explains that seizing opportunities requires three elements: the awareness to recognize possibilities, the flexibility to pivot from established paths, and the courage to take that first step into the unknown. His concept of the "point of no return"—that liberating moment where commitment becomes complete and anxiety often vanishes—offers a powerful reframe for anyone facing difficult decisions.

Whether you're struggling with career challenges, relationship conversations, or personal growth obstacles, Brian's practical wisdom will help you transform how you experience life's most demanding moments. Stop enduring pressure and start eliminating it. Your path to peak performance begins with mastering the present moment.

Key moments in this episode:

03:11 Brian's Journey and Insights 

11:03 Defining High Stakes and Pressure

13:16 Eastern and Western Philosophies on Stress

17:15 Understanding Pressure vs. Stress

22:41 The Role of Arousal in Performance

25:13 Boosting Motivation and Managing Pressure

27:57 Understanding Phase X Program

28:48 Implementing Mental Skills in the Military

30:04 Four Phases of Performance

33:27 Applying Phase X in Everyday Life

37:43 Self-Awareness, Acceptance, and Self-Regulation

42:13 Recognizing and Seizing Opportunities

46:31 Final Thoughts and Contact Information

How to reach Brian:

Website: https://www.brianhiteglobal.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brian.hite1/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianchite/

Book:

Chapters

• 0:00 Reframing Pressure and Performance
• 7:56 Brian's Journey of Constant Reinvention
• 15:40 Understanding High-Stakes Situations
• 21:35 Stress vs. Pressure: Critical Differences
• 28:26 The Phase X Approach to Performance
• 39:20 The Power of Awareness and Acceptance
• 43:04 Finding Opportunity in the Unknown

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

I'd just like you to imagine standing at the edge of a high-stakes moment in your life your body's tenses, your mind's racing, and the weight of expectation is pressing down on you.

Speaker 1: 0:14

Now, whether that's in your career, relationship or personal growth, we're all going to experience moments where the pressure feels overwhelming. But what if the stress and the pressure weren't necessary for success? What if the key to peak performance wasn't about pushing hard, but learning how to channel energy, focus and resilience in a way that actually enhances our abilities? Today, we're going to uncover how mastering performance psychology, reframing pressure and adapting to a structured approach to high-stakes situations can truly unlock our true potential. So no matter what arena that we're playing in, so if you've struggled with stress and pressure or feeling stuck under the weight of expectations, I think this episode is going to be for you. So take a moment to hit like, subscribe and share this episode with someone who needs to hear it. It's your support that continues to bring powerful conversations that we're having that equip men with the tools to lead with clarity, confidence and peak performance, and with that, get on with today's episode.

Speaker 2: 1:16

The average man today is sleepwalking through life, many never reaching their true potential, let alone ever crossing the finish line to living a purposeful life. Yet the hunger still exists, albeit buried amidst his cluttered mind, misguided beliefs and values that no longer serve him. It's time to align yourself for greatness. It's time to become a revolutionary man. Stay strong, my brother.

Speaker 1: 1:45

Welcome everyone to the Revolutionary man podcast. I'm the founder of the Awakened man Movement and your host, Alan DeMonso. What if the stress and pressure you've conditioned yourself to believe are necessary for success are actually holding you back from reaching your full potential? And how would your life change if you could master the ability to stay calm, focused and in control in every high-stakes situation? Pressure isn't something that we have to suffer through. It's something we can learn to navigate and maybe even eliminate.

Speaker 1: 2:17

And today we're going to explore the science of high-performance psychology and how we can break free from stress and uncertainty to operate at our peak. To do that, allow me to introduce my guest today, Brian Heitz, a PhD, and he's a high performance psychologist, professional stuntman and expert in mastering high stakes situations, and he's got over 30 years of experience in Hollywood, elite military training and organizational psychology. He, Brian, helps leaders, athletes and professionals reframe stress and pressure to unlock their peak performance, and through his groundbreaking programs like Phase X and his podcast Flow Under Fire, Brian's been empowering individuals to navigate challenges with clarity, confidence and resilience. Brian, welcome to the show, brother.

Speaker 3: 3:01

How are things, my friend? That's great. Thank you very much for having me. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to this conversation.

Speaker 1: 3:07

It's been a while since we've had someone talk about this specific topic, and so, as you know, here at the Revolutionary man Podcast, we always talk about everyone being on their hero's quest, and my question for you is to tell us about that time, that moment in your life when you knew things had to change, that death and rebirth moment, how that experience shaped you into the man you are today and the work you're doing.

Speaker 3: 3:29

Yeah, there isn't one. That moment comes every single day. It comes sometimes multiple times a day. There's a reason why the very first business that I started when I left the sport performance psychology with the army was called begin again, and there's a reason why my book is called begin again as well. Begin again. Utilize the wisdom of Eastern and Western ideologies to achieve your full potential. I believe very strongly that we constantly, always, begin again, because the only thing we have is this present moment. So what has passed is done. We're consistently reinventing ourselves and the moment and just starting over. So I can't say that there's a definitive life-changing moment. There have just been so many of them.

Speaker 3: 4:15

So many times when I've, for whatever reason, wherever it came from, an epiphany struck, some sort of insight happened that pushed me in a different direction. Sometimes it's small, like during the pandemic picking up playing cards again and starting to do sleight of hand with magic. That's been. It's been so much fun and it's been. It's introduced me to a lot of people. It's changed a lot of things about my life. It wasn't a big, huge, dramatic insight that I had Some lightning bolt moment, it was just I haven't done magic in a while. Why don't we start that again. But it's completely changed everything. I've met so many cool people and gotten to do so many fun things, so I don't have that one dramatic. Let me tell you about this life altering moment in my life. I just they happen all the time.

Speaker 1: 5:05

You know, what I like about that is that that's true. We don't necessarily have to have these epiphany moments. If we're staying in the present, as you're talking about and I think that's part of our challenge too is we feel maybe we feel that our lives aren't as art is impactful because we haven't had that great aha moment. But if we're willing to pay attention, like you're talking about picking up cards again and doing some magic during the pandemic, it shows that we're present and we're able to really take in and appreciate what we have in front of us. You have a really incredible career. I talked a little bit about it in the intro. It's from Hollywood to stunt work and coaching in the elite military personnel. But what led you to specialize for a while anyways with high performance psychology?

Speaker 3: 5:48

Yeah, you talk about those moments again. There are a lot, and one of them was when I was in college and I was 20 years old and I was lost. I didn't know what I was going to do. I went to college because that's what you're supposed to do, or at least we're supposed to do, and and. But I didn't know what I wanted to be. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I didn't have any jobs in mind that I thought that I would enjoy.

Speaker 3: 6:12

And then I came across stunts. I had a friend who was the company manager of the Batman stunt show in New Jersey and he invited me out to see the show and I did. And that was one of those moments. It was just when the show started, the explosions happened and motorcycles came jumping out and I was completely transfixed. And that's when I was able to go backstage and talk to the performers and ask them how do you get this job? And they said we need to know how to do fights, high falls and motorcycles. And then you come to the audition. You see what happens. So I learned those things, went to the audition and got the job. But that moment, when I was watching that show, there was a clarity there, there was a purpose, and then I did the show because, again, I got ended up getting that job.

Speaker 3: 7:00

I did the show the following summer and that's where, again, it wasn't a moment. But throughout that summer, a transition happened that took a lot of weight off my shoulders because I'd finally recognized what I wanted to do, where I wanted to be, where I fit and how I wanted to proceed in life, and that was really important for me. Another transition moment is when I decided to drop out of college as a result of that exact feeling that I just told you. Because that's what I did, I dropped out the first time around. I left with one semester to go to move to LA and be a stuntman, and and then another moment was, I don't know, four or five years later, I just recognized that I missed learning. I missed, I missed that process, and so I went back to school again, but never with the intention of working in the field, it was just interesting material the psychology, the sports psychology, the organizational psychology through the PhD program. All of that was just fun for me, and but then life does what it does, and so I guess this is another point about the pivotal moment, the what that, that realization. Sometimes that stuff just happens to us and for me. I got divorced. My wife at the time didn't want to be with me anymore and so I left the army and I went back to stunts again. That was a big moment in my life and it changed a lot of stuff and it reorganized my priorities and how I approached things. But it wasn't by choice, that's just what happened. So that was again another one of those begin-again moments.

Speaker 3: 8:29

Yeah, to get into the performance psychology, it's been a journey because originally I did, I started out as a stuntman and then I pursued the academic stuff through psychology and then I started to put the psychology into practice by doing the sport performance psychology, consulting with the US Army, and at that time I was still doing stunts. And I still am doing stunts, I'm still a stuntman. But there was a clear delineation between the two worlds for me. I didn't know sometimes when I woke up which hat I was going to put on. Am I a stuntman today or am I a sport performance psychologist today, or am I an author today? I don't know.

Speaker 3: 9:08

There were a lot of different categories and it felt disjointed a lot really. But recently, over the past year, I've been able to figure out how to bring all of those things together in a synergistic way so that they're all components of the work that I do, which is helping people operate better in high-stakes performance situations. And you did a great job in the beginning of talking about the illusion of pressure and some of the myths that people believe about pressure, and we can get into that and that'll be a lot of fun. But at the end of the day, with 30 years in stunts and 10 years working with the Army and just the academic side of things as well all those things were able to come together in that high stakes performance arena.

Speaker 1: 9:51

So that's how that's part of my journey and how I landed in that space excuse me, what I really was really enamored, actually, about your story and in preparing for today's show is that you've lived your life and I what I would say is a pretty high stress, high performance areas being a stuntman.

Speaker 1: 10:11

And while it's really cool for us to sit in the movie theater and watch some guy fall from 30 feet in the air and jumping over stuff and blowing up things, if it's not done correctly, if the plan isn't perfect, everything goes off right. There's a life and death situation, and not all of us are going to be in that, but we have moments where it feels like that similar to myself as well. I went through a divorce when I was in my actually on my 30th birthday, basically and that at time can feel like a life and death situation, and so I know you've worked with people in all different areas in that, and so when we have this, this pressure and this stress on us, you utilize this Eastern psychology and ideas to help manage that. Let's talk a little bit about how you married these two seemingly opposite ideas to something that we can be. It can help us live much more fulfilling.

Speaker 3: 11:03

Yeah, let's start where you started. Which was this the idea? In terms of stunts? Yeah, I've been in situations where if I did it wrong, then I or somebody I was working with may not go home at least in the same condition that we showed up in. Yeah, that is obvious. That's a high stakes situation, and other people police officers, military people, firefighters, construction workers there are a lot of people who find themselves in similar situations and those are pretty easily identifiable as high stakes moments just because of the gravity of the physical safety involved.

Speaker 3: 11:39

But high stakes doesn't have to be, like you pointed out, life and death types of things. It doesn't have to be about physical risk. It can be about emotional risk. High stakes moment might be having a challenging conversation with a spouse or a loved one or a peer or friend. Those are situations where the consequences really matter, and that's how I define high stakes performance. It's just any performance where the consequences are really important to you, where the outcome matters. That's a high stakes moment, and in those moments is where stress and pressure sometimes live. They don't have to, and I think in order for us to perform to our potential, they shouldn't. But at the end of the day, when we're talking about high stakes moments, it really is truly just any situation. We, not too long ago, just had the holidays happen and one of those times for a lot of people is you have a lot of family over and you have gatherings or you're cooking meals for people and I promise there are people listening to this who recognize oh yeah, that was really stressful, that was. I felt a lot of pressure to get all of that in the right place. And stress and pressure, by the way, they're not the same thing. I'm using them interchangeably. We can get into the definitions later too, but my point is that just regular life situations that involve no kind of physical danger or risk are still high stakes. Might be social risk. It could be, if I don't get this right, that I'm going to lose a relationship with somebody I care about. So, yeah, I think it's important to understand high stakes environments more broadly than sometimes we do Now.

Speaker 3: 13:14

As far as the Eastern Western, bringing those components into how we work with those situations, that's been an interesting journey too. It really came through some of my own work when I was going through a rough time in my life of just doing a lot of reading in a lot of places. So I read research and journals and things like that from Western psychology and theories and things in that genre. But I was also reading more philosophy and I was reading Western philosophy. But I was also reading some Eastern philosophy and Eastern religion as well as Western religion. I was reading the Bible and the Koran. I didn't really get into but the Torah, the first parts of the Bible, the Old Testament, christians call it those are interesting. But on the Eastern side, the Tao Te Ching, the Bhagavad Gita these are also interesting documents, the Hindu Upanishads.

Speaker 3: 14:06

And what struck me as I was reading from all of these different sources and all these different places from writing that's happened over millennia, literally thousands of years, was the similarity, so much similarity in terms of how people are looking at things. And, by the way, when we get into pressure, I say that there's no such thing as a pressure situation, and the reason for that is because situations themselves don't cause anything, they just are. And that's one of those concepts that transcends Eastern and Western ideologies and the millennia, because, from cognitive psychology standpoint, when we're in situations, we can perceive them in any number of ways. We can think about them however we want to and if we perceive the situation in one way, we're going to experience certain emotions. If we perceive it in a different way, we're going to experience certain emotions. If we perceive it in a different way, we're going to experience different emotions. So it's not the situation that's driving our feelings and our actions, it's how we're interpreting that situation. And that's now. That's cognitive theory now.

Speaker 3: 15:17

But Shakespeare said the same thing 500, 600 years ago in Hamlet. He said nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it. So there's no good or bad other than just how we think about it. That's what makes it. And Epictetus said the same thing 2000 years ago it's not events that disturb us, it's how we think about those events. So the concepts that I'm bringing out are absolutely not new, but they transcend time and they continually show up in these different pieces of literature. And to me that's wisdom. When you're reading the same thing from 2000 years ago that you're reading today, and it was written in India and it was written in I don't know New Jersey, you got to pay attention to that. That's some wisdom. So that's how those seemingly different areas have coalesced and come together for me to really drive my thinking about and the types of interventions that I provide in the work that I do.

Speaker 1: 16:14

And I can see the clarity that brings as well. When we recognize and I think that's part of the challenge. I was focused on men's work here and I think about the men that I, that I work with, how for lack of a better term how, at a surface level, we are, we just didn't, we feel that we're. Everything outside of us is what is what affects us, and when we recognize that that's not really the case and it's our mindset and how we framed it and the stories that we've wrapped ourselves around can really create that environment. And so you're absolutely right, and I think that's where you talked a little bit about and the stories that we've wrapped ourselves around can really create that environment. And so you're absolutely right, and I think that's where you talked a little bit about.

Speaker 1: 16:48

Well, there's really two different and I would agree with you. There's two different aspects to pressure versus stress, and so let's unpack that a little bit as well, because I think, for many of us, we believe that when we are faced with these obstacles, that we need to be in these high pressure moments in order for us to be successful, and I don't think that's really the case. It may be on occasion, but it's not necessarily the case. So let's unpack how the your definitions on those two.

Speaker 3: 17:15

Yeah, so pressure and stress are different in this way. Pressure exists in the future. It's the result of focusing on consequences, things that may or may not happen as a result of success or failure, and that part's important. People don't really think about that as much as I think they ought to. We can experience pressure when we are focused on good consequences, meaning if I nail this presentation in front of all these people, my career is on the fast track, I'm going to take off, my ticket's punched, I'm good. There is a tremendous amount of pressure that we can feel if that's where our focus is. If I screw this presentation up in front of these people, I'm going to get fired, I'm not going to get any work, I'm not going to be able to pay my bills, and that also creates pressure. But pressure stems from attention placed on potential consequences, and we can get into that more in a little bit, a little bit later too, because I think that's valuable.

Speaker 3: 18:13

But stress is about the situation itself and specifically how we are interpreting and perceiving that situation. So the model of stress that, I think, makes a lot of sense. It comes from two theorists, lazarus and Folkman. It's called the transactional model of stress, but what essentially it says is that when situations happen, there's a primary appraisal and a secondary appraisal. The primary appraisal is this situation a threat to me or not? If I believe it's a threat, then I move on to the secondary appraisal, which is do I believe that I have the necessary resources to deal with this threat? So stress goes away. If in the primary appraisal we say no, this isn't a threat at all, no problem, there is no stress. There is no stress. But if we say yes, this is a threat, then do I have the resources? Starts getting asked. And if we answer the question no, you know what? I don't think I have the resources necessary to deal with this. Now we start to experience stress. If we answer the question differently yes, I do believe that I have the resources to deal with the situation Then stress for sure lowers, if not goes away.

Speaker 3: 19:28

For example, I've done probably a dozen over the course of my stunt career car hits, getting hit by a car. Stunt people aren't very creative naming things. It's just stair falls you fall down the stairs. Car hits you get hit by cars. High falls you fall from high. It's very straightforward. But in this particular case I've been hit by a car a lot of times and each time that I've been standing in front of the car as it's driving at me, I'm perceiving that situation as a threat because it is Something bad might happen to me in this situation. I can't say it's not a threat, it is. But then I moved to the secondary appraisal and I asked okay, do I have the resources necessary to handle this threat effectively? And the answer's been yes every time. When the answer's no, it's time to step out of the way of the car and do something different.

Speaker 3: 20:15

So it's not about avoiding necessarily situations that we perceive as threats. Those can be great moments because they can make us feel alive, they can move us forward, propel us in the direction we want to go. It really will come down to if we do perceive it as a threat, those resources, and by resources physical resources, mental resources, emotional resources, social resources, spiritual resources, financial resources. There are a lot of different resources, but that's where stress is. So stress is about the situation, our perception of the situation as a threat or not, and our belief about whether or not we have the resources to deal with that situation effectively, whereas pressure has nothing to do with the situation. It's about the imagined consequences associated with success or failure in those moments. So that's the difference between the two.

Speaker 1: 21:08

That makes complete sense to me as well, because when we think about pressure, it is about a potential outcome, and so that's what we're getting concerned about, and so that makes complete sense to me, and so would you say that in your work, then that's one of the common mental mistakes that people are making when they're in a high performance environment, regardless of what it is that they're misinterpreting the situation, or is there other things going on?

Speaker 3: 21:35

If we're talking about pressure, what happens is people will sometimes believe that focusing on the consequences here's the path. Okay, so we focus on the consequences. They're really important, they matter, they're high stakes. The stakes are high, the consequences matter, and this is something that I will sometimes challenge people with, because sometimes we can make mountains out of molehills. But at the same time, I don't challenge it that much, because if somebody believes something's important, then it probably is, and in some situations it's inarguably important. The consequences matter. So let's just assume that the consequences really truly do matter. The person's perception of the consequences and their importance are accurate In that situation.

Speaker 3: 22:17

If my attention is on those consequences, then I will start to experience pressure. Now, this is the part where people will start to believe that, okay, yeah, as I start to feel that pressure that gives me that energy to get myself going. And the answer to that is yes. So what people do is they say pressure helps me perform better, but they're missing the why. And the why is when we experience pressure, the sympathetic nervous system activates, and the why is when we experience pressure, the sympathetic nervous system activates, and so our heart rate increases, our breathing increases, muscle tension increases All those things that our body does to prepare us for action happen, and there is that's called arousal. So our arousal level is our level of pumped-up-edness, and there's a certain level of arousal, a level of pumped-up-edness for any given performance that allows us to perform to our potential. And so what pressure can do is elevate arousal to a place that allows people to perform to their potential, and it's that. And so then they do well, and afterward they think back oh yeah, there was a lot of pressure there and I did. It must've been the pressure that caused me to do well, but it didn't. What happened was the pressure facilitated the arousal level, and the arousal level allowed you to be at your best. So the question is is pressure helpful? It can be from an arousal standpoint.

Speaker 3: 23:48

But here's the problem with pressure. If we're experiencing pressure, by definition our attention is on the future. It's on the outcomes, the consequences, meaning that our attention is not in the present moment on those task-relevant things that need to happen in order for us to achieve the outcome that we want. So our attention is misplaced. We are going to do our best when our attention is focused in the moment on those things that we can control, that drive success, that create conditions for success to occur. They don't guarantee success, but there are things we can do right now, in this moment, that set conditions for the outcomes that we want and our attention on the future, those potential outcomes. That is not helpful. Now caveat where it can be helpful and this is another miss. It's just a confusion about what pressure is. Some people will conflate pressure with motivation. So can consequences motivate us?

Speaker 3: 24:56

For sure the answer to the question why that's a big. Simon Sinek has a big. This is his whole thing. You know the why, find your why? Yeah, if you're going into a situation ask yourself the question, why do I care, why does this matter to me? And the answer to that may be those consequences, and that's okay because those can be motivators, like just understanding why it is I'm doing something, but that drive forward the importance, the value of the consequences. 100% can boost motivation if we're thinking about them, but not in the moment. We have to let that go. So pressures around feeling like those consequences, when our attention is on them, are so weighty that it makes us hard to perform. So, ahead of time, what we need to do is boost motivation. If you want to think about consequences, to do that, no problem.

Speaker 3: 25:49

Understanding your why is important, but when we're performing, or when we're even preparing to perform, focusing on those things that will allow us to be at our best the breathing, our muscle, physical, what's going on physically in our bodies, do we have the right arousal level? Do we have our bodies prepared? Did we sleep well? Did we eat the way that we needed to? Mentally, where's our mind? Where's our focus? Where's our attention? Are we paying attention to things that we can control, that we can leverage in those situations? Emotionally, where are we? Socially, where are we? Are we talking to people? No-transcript.

Speaker 3: 26:57

The pressure as a result, the nervous system goes up. As a result, arousal levels start to elevate and maybe it puts them where they need to be. The problem is sometimes that pressure puts our arousal levels way above where they need to be and people don't have the strategies to come back from that. And the other thing to recognize is just the pressure. Yes, it does elevate arousal levels. Can that be helpful? Sure, but there are a lot of other ways to elevate arousal levels that still allow us to keep our attention and focus where it needs to be Not on the imagined outcomes, not on the possible, maybe consequences, but on the real, tangible, no-kidding things in this present moment that we can do.

Speaker 1: 27:36

That makes complete sense to me and I think when we come back to, when we can pay attention to what's happening right now and in the moment and I loved how you started to ask those questions about every different aspect in my life and so when I'm asking myself that it gives me a barometer now and then I can make a better plan to move forward, and it sounds like we're probably diving in a little bit into your now. I call it phase X. I don't know if it's phase X or phase 10, but you have this program and I'd like to talk a little bit about how you're using this to help everybody get to work in their everyday life and how men can look at this stuff, at this work that you're doing.

Speaker 3: 28:15

Yeah yeah. There are four programs that I have. Phase X is one of them. The pressure X or flow under fire it's sometimes in some of the keynotes and stuff that I give is that really differentiates stress, and then starts talking about pressure from that standpoint of consequences and then brings in the facts, which are focus, arousal, confidence and tenacity. That's how we deal with pressure. Same thing with stress differentiates. It talks about the stress model which I've already discussed, and then we get into, okay, the facts. How do we use these to eliminate stress and get ourselves into a place where we can perform well?

Speaker 3: 28:49

Phase X is a four-phased approach to performance and it's one that came out of work that I was doing with the military. There were a couple of us that were just sitting around one day and we were thinking about how to integrate mental skills training into the Army. It had never been done, the program was brand new, the Army had just purchased it. I was on the cutting edge of that one at the very first and, for better and worse, we got to invent that program. But that was the conversation. How do we do this, how do we put this stuff in? And the conversation was for a little bit about what are the skills, what are the mental skills that soldiers might benefit from? So, for example, mental imagery or cue words or performance routines, things like that. But then the question shifted to okay, but when should they use those skills? And nobody had ever written about that, like connection of maybe before you perform, these particular skills might be helpful when used in this particular way. Right before the performance, maybe some different skills are used during, you've got another set of skills that might be helpful. And then, even after, there can be skills that we can use to recover and to learn from what it is that we've done. So that conversation around not just what skills, but when do we use them, yielded this four-phased approach, and the before, during, after approach is not new at all, but what we did use is a fourth phase, the right before. So phase two is right before, and this came out of my work with stunts, because I started to think about okay, so when I show up on set, so how do? When I show up on set, what do I do? I show up at work, I eat breakfast, I go to my trailer, I put on the wardrobe, I go to hair and makeup. I get all that. We go to the rehearsal, we learn what it is we're going to do, and then we sit around for a little bit, however long, until they get around to shooting it, and then we go on set and they shoot it and then we're done. And that's the basic process In the before part, which is I arrive and I'm eating breakfast and I'm getting hair and makeup wardrobe.

Speaker 3: 30:52

Even the rehearsal part, I can't be in the same performance state that I'm in when I actually need to do the stunt while shooting. I can't, I'll run out of energy. Energy is finite. We don't have it. You have to have it. You have to manage it. So for truly hours before I have to do something different with myself, I have to regulate my energy levels differently, but I still have to keep my mind on the task. But I can't keep it there completely because again I'll wear myself out mentally, not just physically. So it's that balance. So before there's what it is, but then there's right before, then there's okay, brian, we're ready for you on set. That's my cue.

Speaker 3: 31:31

Now we're transitioning from before, which is just maintenance, and just a maintenance of preparation keeping my body warm but not too warm, keeping my mind on the gag when rehearsing it in my mind so that I haven't forgotten what it is that we did, etc. We transition from that into okay, now it's time, now it's no kidding ready to go. So I have to shift myself physically, mentally, emotionally and even socially. Sometimes Maybe I was talking to people about I don't know my day yesterday. It's time to stop doing that. It's time to start getting into the task relevant only things, and that's part of phase two. So we shift our physical state to the one where we need to be in order to perform well. That's the arousal levels I was talking about. We shift our mental state, including our focus to task relevant things, where our attention is focused on what we absolutely have to do in this moment to perform well, our emotional state. We clue into that and make that where it needs to be. So that's the right before it's getting ourselves, it's shifting from that before just walking around level to performance level and then action. Now we're in it, now we're doing it.

Speaker 3: 32:37

So what are the skills that I can use during the stunt itself and then cut? Now it's after. What do I do? How can I recover? I've just expended a lot of energy. How do I recover that energy effectively and how do I learn from that experience? What are some tools that I can use in order to ensure that the next time I do this and that's the thing about performance too is there usually is a next time. It may not be a take two, that happens immediately, but, for example, a lot of people they'll lead meetings at work or they'll give presentations every now and then. Those don't happen all the time for most people, but they'll happen and they'll happen again. It may be once a year, might be every once, every three years, but whatever we're doing, typically we will do it again. So how can I learn from it and apply what I've learned the next time around? That's phase four. So phase X is really about helping people in their own performance arenas, whatever those might be, identify for themselves what some performances are that matter to them and helping them break those performances down into those four phases. Defining what those four phases are for them Right defining what those four phases are for them and then teaching some of the skills and then applying those skills within those phases so that people have a framework.

Speaker 3: 33:54

That's the thing about big, important, especially high stakes performances. We can get very overwhelmed with the whole situation. There's so much, it matters so much and there are so many things, and what do I do before and what happens if I screw it? Like there's just so much, it matters so much and there are so many things, and what do I do before and what happens if I screwed? Like there's just so much and it's very hard for us to latch on to and really hang on to the present moment and the things we need to be doing right now to help us out. That's what this Phase X program is designed to do At any given moment, whether you're in the before, the right before, the during or the after. And since you know that, you also know what physical, mental, emotional, social things you need to be doing in order to prepare you for success. And that's that program. What?

Speaker 1: 34:38

I really like about this program and the way you've broke it down, is that this can be applied. As I was saying in the intro, it doesn't matter we may not be in life-death situations, but when we have to have that crucial conversation with a spouse, a child, an employee maybe it's a peer, any type of situation if we have a framework to help us prepare to get into that, so that we can have the most success in that outcome as possible with the, I would suggest, probably with the least amount of stress not saying you're ever eliminated, but you can go in with more confidence then that's really beneficial. And what I really appreciate is that you added that after part, because a lot of times I talk to folks on the podcast and they have a tool and they have a strategy, but it doesn't really finish the COSA loop, because after you've expended all this energy you're, if you don't have a way to decompress and to re-regulate yourself, you're probably not doing yourself any good, and so I really like that you've incorporated and considered that aspect of it.

Speaker 3: 35:39

Yeah, that's a big part, In fact, even with some of the. I'll take swimmers, for example. When I've worked with swimmers, they'll finish a race and then after the race they talk to their coach about whatever happened, and after the race they're either happy or they're not. There's some sort of emotional reaction to what happened. So what I coach them to do is do your race, finish the race. You've got the results. Experience the results for a little bit. If you're happy about them, be happy. If you're disappointed, be disappointed. Just experience those moments for a little bit before you try to analyze what's going on.

Speaker 1: 36:14

Right.

Speaker 3: 36:15

Because the analysis will not be as effective if it's colored by, and really driven by, the emotional state that we're in. So just take a little bit to manage the emotions, accept what is in that particular situation, whether you're happy about the performance or not and then, after a little bit, after you've taken that time to bring your physiology back down to baseline again and you've experienced the emotions, you've taken time to accept what is. Now you can go have the conversation with the coach, or get into, if there's not a coach, or just get into your own mind and really break down what happened throughout the performance, because it's an important thing to do. But again, it's not about the what, it's about the when. So should we break down performance? For sure we should. Should we do it immediately after getting out of the pool or whatever? The equivalent is Probably not. It's not going to be as effective. So the when is really important.

Speaker 1: 37:08

I like and I like that. And so, guys, I hope you're, when you're listening to this, you're paying attention to it, because we tend to gloss over. This part is that we don't like to experience, especially if it's a, I'll say, a negative emotion, whether it's anger or fear, or sadness. And when we have the opportunity to really experience that not sit in it for a long time, but to experience it then we get an opportunity that we can come at it with a more conscious mindset. And so I really appreciate that you explained that to us, because I think it's really important for us.

Speaker 3: 37:40

first, Go ahead, brian. Yeah, I appreciate you bringing that up too, because the way I think about it is in three parts really is one is self-awareness, so being aware of what we're doing, how we're feeling, how we're thinking, how we're seeing situations, et cetera. Then, once we're aware of those things, then we have to accept them. And when I say accept them, again some people get confused Sometimes. I don't mean acquiesce, I don't mean give up, I don't mean just throw in the towel when I say accept things as they are, just accept them as they are, as opposed to trying to gloss them over or trying to rationalize things or even just ignoring them altogether. It's just accept what is. You can like it, you can not like it, it can be pleasant or unpleasant, but it is, and let's just acknowledge the truth of that. The situation is how it is Because as soon as we do that now, we can move forward with self-regulation, with changes, with actions that are productive.

Speaker 3: 38:42

Because here's the thing we don't accept what is and we just we become aware of some stuff and then all of a sudden we start making changes, but we haven't really taken the time to thoroughly sit in and I don't know, think through what it is that's happening as the reality that we're experiencing. We can tend to just waste a whole bunch of time on actions and different self-regulation things that aren't helpful Because they're not really being applied to the actual issue. So first step is awareness. Second step is acceptance Just really being sure about where I am, what I'm feeling, what I'm doing, how things are. Because then, once I am sure now, it's probably more likely that the effort and energy that I expend to do something about it will be targeting the right thing and I'll see results.

Speaker 1: 39:33

Completely agree with that. Love the way you reframe that. I'm sure in your journey, brian, there must have been one or two people maybe it was even books or something you've read but a mentor, something that has really stuck with you. So my question for you is what's been a piece of advice that you've been given that is still serving you today?

Speaker 3: 39:53

Yeah, I've had. It's funny when you say that, and I've done this same thing in a few classes. I've asked what leader really inspired you or really made a difference in your life, and inevitably somebody pops into people's heads and I've had a few of them just pop into mine right there while you were talking. I don't know the specific piece of advice that I got from them, but I can tell you that my drama teacher in high school is the, the, the password questions that make you reminded like who's your favorite teacher in high school? That's him I've got. He's my password reminder sometimes. And and I just.

Speaker 3: 40:24

The reason for that is because he was in a school. It was a public high school and he just did things his own way. There was a curriculum I'm sure there was expectations through the school or whatever, but he ran his class in a way that was student-centered. There was no cookie cutter approach. It didn't. Grades were just a byproduct. He didn't even care.

Speaker 3: 40:46

What he wanted to do is expose kids to something new. He wanted to foster curiosity and exploration. And having kids this is a drama class too, and this is high school kids. So having kids feel some of that anxiety and fear sometimes that come along with putting yourself in front of somebody where you can be judged, those high stakes performance moments. He wanted to create a climate for people that allowed them to be in those high stakes moments and be in what Vygotsky called the zone of proximal development. So it wasn't too hard but it wasn't too easy. There was challenge, but it was right in the right spot and that was his focus. He didn't care at all what the rules of the school were or what the program. He just wanted the kids to walk out of that class better than they walked in, and for me that's been so. Again, it's not advice, it's just more emulation. That's what I try to do. I try to do that with the people I'm working with.

Speaker 1: 41:57

I try to do it with myself, I try to do it with my kids. I just want to see the big picture, the intent, the focus. How can we be in these moments and walk out better than we showed up? Hey, regardless of whether advice or not, it was something that you picked up and you're still using it today, and that was the key for that question. So thank you so much for sharing that Of everything that we spoke about today, brian, and maybe there was something we didn't get a chance to touch on.

Speaker 3: 42:16

What would be a takeaway you'd want our listeners to have. One is just opportunity, because when we start talking about high stakes situations, there's a lot of opportunity in those moments. But I think that in order for opportunity to be realized, three things have to happen. Number one is we have to recognize that the opportunity is there at all. So we have to open our awareness up to things that maybe we're not paying attention to. We have to stop being narrow in our focus and attention and really broaden out to other possibilities, just see that they exist, and then, once we've done that, then you know maybe the opportunity comes up. We see that Then what's required is then, once we've done that, then you know maybe the opportunity comes up. We see that Then what's required is flexibility, because we've got our attention and focus and energies going in one direction, but the potential opportunity might require us and probably will to shift that direction. So we have to be comfortable with yeah, I was going, but I see this and now I'm going to go left because that's a better way to go, and this gets into, especially in the Western cultures, I don't know preoccupation with grit and perseverance and tenacity. It's just we have to stick with it. You can't quit. I'm saying no quit If the opportunity, if you're going right and an opportunity to better yourself. If it happens, if you go to the left, well, quit going to the right and go to the left. But then once we recognize that and we say okay, yeah, that's the right way to go, that is the right path, then the next step I think is the hardest, and this is where most people get hung up it's having the courage to take that first step, because it's into the unknown. There's uncertainty there and human beings we don't like uncertainty, we don't operate well in that, but that's what's out there. We don't know what this new direction is going to bring. We're going to leave the known, because we've been pursuing it for however long we have, and we're going to enter the unknown. That's a scary thing to do and it requires courage, but if we're going to take advantage of opportunity always exists in that unknown, unexplored space. So, number one, we have to open our awareness so that opportunities are even recognized at all. Number two, we have to have the flexibility to shift from what we think we want right now, what the goals are that we have in this moment, to these other goals. And then number three just, we have to develop that courage to try to take that leap, to take that.

Speaker 3: 44:40

It's one of the things that, in the performance moments, I've never had an easy way to describe it, but it's been so powerful. For me it's this moment of the point of no return. For example, if I'm going to do a high fall, I'm standing on top of the ledge of the building or whatever it is and I'm looking down at the mat. I'm just standing there. I can stand there for time eternal and I can lean forward a little bit too and still be able to stand there. But at some point there's a point of no return and I'm going to fall. When I reach that point of no return, there is no going back. I can't step back, I can't undo what is. I have to go forward, and that moment is a very freeing moment For me.

Speaker 3: 45:18

It's been a moment where if I was experiencing nervousness at all in the moment, it immediately disappeared as soon as that point of no return happened.

Speaker 3: 45:28

This has happened with comedy too. I did stand up comedy for a little bit, and so I was standing off to the side of the stage, petrified, more scared than I'd ever been to be hit by any car, and and and then the guy called my name and I started up the stairs and the light hit me. And as soon as that light hit me I knew that was it, that's the point of no return. I can't go back, I can't just walk down the stairs Now, before that I could have run, I could have headed out the door, but when the light hit me, that was it, point of no return, and the nervousness disappeared. So it's a really cool moment that I've experienced a lot and just I put that out there to people to just say, look, the nervousness, the anxiety, the fear, all of those things are there. But, man, with that first step, that movement from safety into the unknown, into that next phase, is a cool moment if you allow yourself to experience it as that.

Speaker 1: 46:27

Absolutely, absolutely. What a great way to wrap up our conversation today. I would say thank you so much, brian, for spending time with us today, and I know your expertise on sports psychology, resilience and really how we can now learn to master our high-stakes moments in life, and I want to say thank you so much for sharing those insights and the framework for us. And so if men are interested and wanting to get a hold of you participating in your work, what's the best way for them to do that?

Speaker 3: 46:53

Yeah, please visit the website. You can see the program's there. It's going through some updates now. It doesn't quite reflect exactly what it is that I'm doing exactly the way it needs to. But if you've got questions, please email me. Brian at brianheightglobalcom, b-r-i-a-n-h-i-t-e Global, g-l-o-b-a-lcom. You can email me at BrianHeight or Brian at BrianHeightGlobalcom, or you can just schedule a discovery call right from the website. There's an easy way to do that. Please do, because, seriously, just the way that you led off at this podcast if you are experiencing challenges with stress and pressure or overwhelmed in any type of situation that matters to you, if that's something you struggle with and you don't have somebody to hold your hand through it, please reach out to me. I've been there. I've been in those situations in my personal life. I've been there in my professional lives and it's a really it's a hard place to be. So please reach out. I'd love to talk to you and see if there's something I can do.

Speaker 1: 47:47

Absolutely. I'm want to challenge you with one thought If you are reacting to pressure, or are you really mastering it? And so there's going to be a difference between those who thrive and those who struggle. And this isn't about talents, it's about how they handle the moments, and the moments matter the most, and so I want to introduce you to a program that we're running. It's called Living With Integrity. It's designed to help men break free from stress, take control of their mindset and step fully into their leadership potential. If you're ready to perform at your peak and without the weight of unnecessary pressure, take the first step today. Visit us at membersthewakeandmannet. Take our free integrity challenge opportunity for you to live with clarity, lead with confidence. Get your start right now. Thank you very much, everyone, for enjoying this episode.

Speaker 2: 48:50

Thank you for listening to the Revolutionary man podcast. Are you ready to own your destiny, to become more the man you are destined to be? Join the brotherhood that is the Awakened man at theawakendmannet and start forging a new destiny today.