What You're Good At Is Holding You Back In Life

do you ever feel trapped in the day-to-day grind craving the desire to zoom back spend time reading thinking and strategizing about the exponential moves that you know would accelerate You by 10 or 100 x forward well in this video you're going to learn a neuroscience-based protocol to elevate yourself up above the weeds so you can be the Strategic Visionary that unlocks exponential levels of progress now randar as co-founder and Co the flow research Collective we've trained everyone from Audi AS centure and the US Air Force to use neuroscience-based principles to access states of flow and

Peak Performance at will now when I was 23 I had the opportunity of a lifetime to work with a world-renowned New York Times best-selling author that I admired to build and dream business with him and I knew this Venture could be my ticket to the life that I had fantasized about had on my wall in Ireland as a 15 and 16year old now thankfully our business got off to an unbelievably strong start with zero outs Capital we reached a $5 million run rate in less than a year but soon I began bumping into a ceiling

it was one day in October two years into building our company we were on track to break a new Revenue record for the month but somehow this Saturday looked as follows I woke up early I spent the morning on sales calls closing deals to keep our Revenue growing by lunchtime I was exhausted but had to dive into writing marketing copy for our next product clage the sales and marketing activity consumed 30 hours of my week leaving me with little time to think about strategy direction or recruiting the people we needed to keep growing over the

long term making matters worse I did have a team a team of 15 people who are all eager to help and who are being compensated fairly heavily yet I struggled to delineate the boundary between my role as co-founder CEO and between my team's own individual separate responsibilities whenever they approached me about the fact that they felt unsure about how to get work done or what to do I would just take the tasks off their plate and do them myself thinking that I could do it faster this seemed helpful but it backfired massively because I was

stepping in so often the lines of accountability with my team members would also blur if something went wrong it was easy for my team to shift blame knowing that I'd been involved at every single level within everything so the fact that something didn't get done could be attributed to me rather than them everything big and small funel through me nothing important could happen without my heavy levels of involvement and if I slowed down the whole company would slow down to the exact same rate and the more the company grew the more I became a bottleneck

my initial somewhat manageable 30 hours a week in the weeds doubled as the business doubled to a crippling 60 hours of week feeling overwhelmed I decided to take a walk on the beach to clear my head as I watched the waves crash I felt a sense of Despair wash over me made man this is just not going to work I thought to myself I can't keep going like this the more I worked in the business the more I felt like I was drowning I knew something had to change I just didn't know quite what but

then following evening I went with a friend to a symphony performance in La as I got swept up in the musical performance I noticed how even the subtlest movements of the conductor could cause a massive shift in energy and intensity within the musicians in the orchestra lost in a Ry it hit me I had been acting like a musician not a conductor in my business I was so focused on playing my own instrument perfectly that I had forgotten what my role actually was which was to be the conductor leading the entire Orchestra of my team

of musicians as a CEO I'm the conductor not a musician musicians the team members they're the soloists the experts in their given instrument they're the ones who work in the business not on the business and yet with the best of intentions I was basically stealing their Trumpets from them taking their work off their plate and doing it for them this kept me trapped in a cycle of working in the business instead of on the business and in working with thousands of PE performance we see this pattern all the time and we call it the musician

trap it's a pervasive problem many entrepreneurs solopreneurs and entrepreneurs end up hitting they fail to make a critical transition and never grad graduate from musician to conductor with the lines always remaining blurry between those two fundamental roles you start a business you're good at what you do the business grows but instead of stepping back as you build your team to lead your team of musicians to lead the orchestra you stay stuck playing your instrument you're good at doing your individual work but it traps you you can't let it go you see in any team project

the musicians are the ones doing the actual work the individual contributors they're using their skills to create solve problems and drive things forward but the conductor is the person who orchestrates leads manages coaches directs unblocks and finds the people that are actually going to do the work for instance as a salesperson you might be focused on closing deals dayto day hitting your quota that's the musician's work but as a conductor you're a sales leader you're no longer selling you're strategizing you're coaching your team from above you're ensuring that systems are well installed and your success

is measured by your individual sales by the by the collective performance of your team or as a writer you can craft compelling Pros which is the musician's skill but as a conductor you become an editor you guide and refine the work of multiple writers providing feedback ensuring consistency shaping the overall output of the collective if you remain stuck as a musician instead of stepping into your role as conductor you'll end up facing a number of painful blockers the first is dependency where everyone relies on you for everything no significant progress can happen without your invol

involvement you're stuck in the weeds you're mired in endless emails messages and to-do lists because everything is rooted through you on all levels of the business and you always have a long list of people to unblock so you never gain any leverage even though being a star musician can take you pretty far staying in the musician role puts a hard limit on what you can achieve your individual output becomes the bottleneck it's like a worldclass chef insisting on personally chopping vegetables making sauces and plating every dish while their individual skill may be exceptional the kitchen's

output gets bottleneck if you don't graduate from musician to conductor bottlenecks will compound as the project or business grows that hour you spend writing those cachy sales emails today well picture it eating up your entire workday once the business is five times bigger with three times the number of products you've got to write emails for and you've lost all leverage chained to the daytoday work the conductor's job isn't to be the star of the show but rather to create a galaxy of stars that make up the show to be so excellent at their orchestration that

the audience is completely captivated by the music forgetting that the conductor even exists so as I was building my company I realized that my job was to find the right musicians put them in the right roles and create a space for them to make the best music they're capable of making in particular as a conductor I had to create the container for my team to get into Flow State that optimal State of Consciousness where humans feel and function at their very best and this realization was both liberating and ter terrifying it meant letting go of

the satisfaction that came with doing the work myself and trusting others to do their part had to graduate from musician to conductor and I'm sure you can relate to this you've likely been led to believe that the key to achieving your biggest goals and doing your best work is to maximize your personal productivity and chances are you're an incredibly talented musician you take pride in your work and get a lot of satisfaction from executing tasks Crossing things off the to-do list deriving dopamine from task completion deriving flow from engaging in individual work however in the

transition from musician to conductor flow isn't always good if you're in flow doing work all day but your team isn't in flow you'll get far fewer results than if you're not in flow but your team is and that's the key mindset shift that needs to be made you see the musician craves dopamine from task completion the thrill of Crossing that item off their Todo list sending that final email crafting the perfect sales pitch while a conductor deres a deeper satisfaction ction from the success and task completion of others seeing a team member nail a presentation

a product launch go off without a hitch the musician is limited to their individual output but the conductor's output equals the output of the entire team the musician trap is when you cling to your role as a skilled musician the expert the doer instead of graduating to become the conductor of your own Orchestra here's how to know if this is you ask is your team elevating you or are you elevating the team maybe you prioritize your own access to Flow State you'd rather check items off your to-do list than ensure your team is everything they

need to succeed you prioritize cutting down the tree instead of sharpening the axe that is you chase short-term dopamine hits over long-term leverage even if it prevents you from Building Systems so your team could handle those tasks with ease on the other hand graduating from musician to conductor means prioritizing the flow state of your team members and the sense of satisfaction they gain from task completion above your own graduating from musician to conductor means obsessing over leverage gained through your team being productive rather than control over the specifics of how the work is done graduating

from musician to conductor means thinking of your productivity as the sum of the collective rather as based on what your individual production is in any given day the conductor realizes that for their business to speed up they individually may need to slow down focusing more on being strategic on ensuring the long-term vision is in place and the right people are on the bus driving towards it graduating from musician to conductor can be tough letting go of the satisfaction and the identification that comes with doing the work yourself as hard trusting others to do their part

as well as you can feels risky but it's absolutely necessary the weirdly counterintuitive element here is that the thing you just got really good at to bring yourself or your organization to its current level actually becomes the impediment to being a conductor so you can go to the next level as I was growing my business my productivity gauge was still based on first order effects an immediate sense of what I achieved not based on some sort of healthy view of how the team is functioning my productivity gauge was local rather than Global and after having

this Epiphany knowing that I needed to graduate from musician to conductor I started investing in my team's development and focusing on strategy and vision I had to fight the urge to jump in and fix things myself and gradually things began to shift as I stepped back my team stepped up they took ownership of the roles brought new ideas to the table and delivered beyond my expectations the business gained momentum because the skilled musicians that make up the orchestra finally had a real conductor things really started to heat up when the whole team started to experience

what's known as team flow in team flow egos dissolve and individual identities merge into a greater collective intelligence according to research by Jeff JJ van theout and colleagues at einhoven University team flow is characterized by a sense of shared Unity joint attention and an ability to coordinate and communicate seamlessly think of Spartans fighting as one on the battlefield NASA Engineers mind melding to land on the moon for the first time in human history programmers coding in lockstep team flow is driven by a potent mix of neurochemicals that enhance performance norepinephrine for Sharp Focus serotonin and

anandamide for aha insights and oxytocin for deep trust as egos dissolve brain waves heart rates and breathing synchronize enabling seamless communication increased Alpha and theta waves promote relaxation and heightened creativity while the default mode Network downregulates allowing for a selfless and total immersion in the task at hand based on this neurochemistry you can think of graduating from musician to conductor like this the neurochemical the musician oriented to is dopamine found through that individual flow the neurochemical the conductor orients to is oxytocin found in team flow when conductors Foster an environment of trust support and genuine

respect they trigger the release of oxytocin in their team members Dr Paul Zach who's an adviser of my company with Steven CER at the flow research Collective has researched oxytocin suggesting that it is not just a field hormone it has significant implications for business success due to how it affects trust in teams and that's the power of Team flow the question is how do you do it how do you graduate from musician to conductor so you can transition from optimizing for individual flow to team flow well the first step is to stop stealing trumpets if

you're an Orchestra conductor and you walked down into the orchestra pit where the musicians are playing and took a trumpet from someone and started playing that trumpet because you didn't think they were doing a good enough job with it that would obviously be an absurd thing to do your job is to be a conductor to stay on the stage not to be a trumpet player in an entity like the US federal government this would be like the president deciding to swab the decks of a battleship because a seaman is on leave that idea sounds crazy

but it happens constantly for CEOs and now this isn't to say that you don't want to drop into the weeds at times you do want to get into the details but you do that from the stage in an intentional way when someone's struggling coach clarify be a rock for them but don't grab their instrument that disempowers them it stifles their growth and it tanks The Leverage that you get from being a conductor on the other hand we know from self-determination theory that when people feel a sense of autonomy they are more likely to be intrinsically

motivated and engaged the rule to remember is conduct don't confiscate don't steal their flow for your own now do you understand the importance of letting your team members own their roles you might be wondering well what should I be focusing on instead what should I do well that brings us to the next step in graduating from musician to conductor which is to stay in your autotelic sweet spot and let your team stay in theirs imagine a v diagram with three circles your innate strengths the needs of your organization and the activities that most reliably drive

you into a flow state where those three circles overlap that's your autotelic sweet spot autotelic means the activity is done for its own sake because you find it so intrinsically enjoyable and rewarding that means that when you're in your autotelic sweet spot work doesn't feel like work the best way you can serve the people you collaborate with is to commit to zero zero tasks that fall outside your autotelic sweet spot and help your musicians do the same so here's what they do first grab a notebook and write down every task you do in a typical

week then Rank and prioritize next to each task ask yourself does this get me closer to my autotelic sweet spot or keep me further away from it next create your zero list identify all the tasks that fall outside your autotelic sweet spot aim to entirely eliminate or Strate ially delegate these wherever possible to help you with this you can download a worksheet that will help you identify your autotelic sweet spot and delegate everything else just click the link in the description to do so now the next step to becoming a conductor is find musicians don't

learn new instruments imagine that the conductor needed a cello in the orchestra as part of their composition and instead of hiring a chist the conductor decided to spend 6 months taking up and learning how to play the cello with the rest of the musicians learning a new instrument at a high level is a massive undertaking but we don't think of it as one when we are taking on different business tasks even though it's similar so whenever you want to create optimize or problem solve don't ask how do I do this ask who do I need

to do this train your brain to think this way on Instinct and it'll be transformative now the next step to graduating from musician to conductor is if in doubt delegation I had a friend in La who created custom curated wedding invites these really extravagant beautiful artisanal paper invitations for fancy weddings he had this business for 30 or 40 years and he was in his 60s but for the last 30 years he did not let a single not one invite go out without personally examining it reading every word touching every part and giving it his final

personal approval now it might sound like a beautiful thing he took huge pride in his work he cared to that degree but for him it was showing up as a paralyzing control issue that was completely suppressing his business growth and eroding his quality of life because of this his business never increased its output or reached more customers and he ended up working 90h hour weeks for most of that time his team couldn't flourish because he couldn't give up his role as a musician and after three decades he got burnt out and had to give it

up he had to relinquish control for his own health we don't want to wait until we're physically jeopardized to give up control instead we should actively identify our need for control and then delegate and Empower as much as possible there's a self fulfilling prophecy at play here if you believe your team can't play music as well as you can you will lead them in a way that makes that true but if you believe that relinquishing control will lead to even better results you'll see that happen too as General George Patton once said never tell people

how to do things tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their Ingenuity the principle here is if in doubt delegate it out lean toward conducting activities which involve leading and managing not supervision conductors lead and manage clinging musicians supervise when you supervise your team it's like you're constantly breathing over their shoulder adjusting their instrument for them checking every single note that's draining for you and stifling for them instead let your team member breathe let them at it and manage from a distance you supervise only when someone is learning how to drive

a vehicle for the first time in knowledge work you don't need to supervise in the same way because it reduces autonomy your team needs to feel free to pursue their work in whatever way they see fit in order to get into flow autonomy or the sense of control over one's actions releases more dopamine in areas like the striatum and prefrontal cortex this dopamine boost not only increases motivation but also sharpens your focus which is a key ingredient for entering Flow State another key Point here there's a quick way to tell if you have the right

people or if they're in the right positions and it's fairly simple does your team make you want to be their conductor when you have skilled self-motivated musicians it's enjy to conduct when we see potential in others and see them fulfill that potential our brains release dopamine if fuels our desire to coach guide and Empower our team but when your team struggles that dopamine Rush dwindles the conductor in you Fades away instead of feeling inspired you're sucked into fixing problems and playing every instrument yourself the key is to recruit musicians that are a joy to conduct

it Sparks a positive feedback loop where your team's success energizes you and your leadership elevates them further and further the music flows effortlessly and you're free to provide the vision and direction that takes everything to the next level now by the way as you transition from musician a conductor your schedule will need to evolve the key difference in how a musician and a conductor optimizes their days is that musicians crave long uninterrupted blocks of time for deep focus and unending access to flow safe meetings and interruptions are the enemy they shatter spontaneous endless flow to

maximize a musicians output their schedule should be as open and free flowing as possible while conductors also need blocks of focused time for strategic thinking they must be available to support their team a conductor's schedule should be more adaptable balancing bits of focused work with openness for the team's needs here's how to rework your schedule as needed if you're doing some individual contributor work which you're trying to wind down and you're conducting then split the day for example mornings could be for your deep focused musician work and then in the afternoons maybe do your team

meetings step two is to protect your musicians if you're managing a team of musicians creatives or Engineers understand the importance of uninterrupted flow time minimize meetings and distractions for them ensuring they have ample space to do their best work now remember as skilled as you may be as a musician your true potential likely lies in conducting others eventually so that you can all access team flow trading individual flow for team flow is how you multiply your impact while the dopamine Rush of task completion feels good and alluring the deeper Joy comes from seeing others perform

their best knowing you helped make that happen by delegating effectively and focusing on your autotelic sweet spot you free up time to think strategically and make the big moves that truly drive your mission forward think of the most all inspiring achievements in human history they were almost always the result of inspired teams working like a synchronized Symphony in Flow State this requires making the leap from musician to conductor so you're ready to step out of the orchestra pit and onto the podium that's the first step to unleashing team flow but as a conductor there's some

other Peak Performance habits that are absolutely critical to master and if you click this video you're going to learn one specific Peak Performance protocol that is particularly useful for you as you eventually graduate from musician to conductor