Moving Horizons: How to Master Overwhelm - With Ex Navy Seal Commander Rich Diviney

In this episode of the People Performance Podcast, Martin Johnson, is joined by former Navy SEAL commander and author Rich Diviney. The discussion centres on human performance, focusing primarily on Rich's second book, Masters of Uncertainty, and related concepts.

The main topics covered include:

Uncertainty, Anxiety, and Fear: Martin and Rich discuss how humans deal with uncertain situations and pressure. Fear is hypothesised to be the combination of external uncertainty and internal anxiety. Anxiety is described as "fiction" because it is always focused on the future. They explore the neurological and evolutionary reasons for the fear response (the "lizard" or "chimp" brain taking over) and the goal of mastering oneself to "degrade fear" and perform effectively.

Moving Horizons (Duration, Pathway, Outcome): This technique is presented as a way to "buy down uncertainty". It involves taking a large, overwhelming situation and chunking it down into an immediate goal, creating a new, controllable Duration, Pathway, and Outcome (DPO). This process helps prevent feeling overwhelmed by the entire situation and gives the brain a reward (dopamine hit) for reaching the shortened horizon.

Optimal Performance: Martin and Rich argue against the societal pressure (often driven by social media) to be at "peak" performance all the time. Optimal performance is instead defined as doing the best you can with the time and resources available, which includes moments of high flow, "gutting it out," and even recovery.

Trust and The Attributes: The conversation briefly touches on Rich Diviney's first book, The Attributes, which profiles 41 human attributes. They discuss trust as being built on four factors: Competence, Consistency, Character, and Compassion. They also emphasise a leader's responsibility to model the desired behaviours first and reward them.

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