be brilliant every single day. So, big as... I spent the last 15 years working with some

of the best CEO's and executives around the world and one of my observations is some of

them were absolutely fantastic. But the problem is they can't be fantastic every single day.

Which reminds me of the story.

I was sat on the couch at home watching the TV about five years ago. Not that I'm a golfer,

but I was watching the British Open, and a very good golfer called Sergio Garcia was

playing and he had been brilliant all week, dominating the field, and it came to the last

round and he was sort of fantastic, and on a Sunday morning in the front nine he scored

39 shots. The previous day, on a Saturday, he'd scored 29 shots, on exactly the same

holes.

So, overnight he'd lost 10 shots on the same hole. So what happened was Horrack Harrington

came past him and won the British Open and the [inaudible 00:01:11]. And very interestingly,

exactly a year later Horrack Harrington beat Sergio Garcia. I think it was in the US Masters.

Sergio played brilliantly all week, he got to the Sunday, and something went wrong. He

was leading the field by six shots and on the Sunday, again, Horrack Harrington came

past him.

So that was sort of really interesting to me and Peter Alice, the famous golf commentator

is watching this and says, "It's a funny old game, golf." As though it's a complete mystery

why these things happen. As there was a complete loss of form. So I'm there shouting at the

television, it's no mystery to me. Actually I know why that happened, and I know why Sergio

Garcia basically between 2007 and 2008 really didn't learn that much. Because he made exactly

the same mistake in 2008 as he made in 2007.

So I'm going to share with you the secret about that. Some of the things we've been

teaching executives. Bringing in some neuroscience which is my background and going to reveal

some secrets as to how your system works. So we're going to go through that and then

I'm going to break with TED tradition at the end of the talk and we're going to have a

bit of live demonstration of something.

But I just want to give you the sort of model that we work to that starts to explain why

Sergio or anybody may lose performance or why you may lose performance and what you

need to do to maintain your brilliance every single day. So if we're all after the same

goal, we're after improving our performance in some way, or the results in some way.

It doesn't really matter what kind of results we're talking about, whether we're talking

about sporting results, whether we're talking about business results, academic performance,

relationship performance, sexual performance... I don't know why I'm looking at Simon when

I saying that. Whatever we're talking about, what is going to improve our performance...

Well first and foremost, in order to change the result you've got so focus on people's

behavior. So we've got to do things differently in order to get a different result. So most

performance appraisals in industry focus on what you've been doing. You go in and you

see your boss. And he said, "Oh, I've got some 360 data." You've been doing these kind

of things, that's really good. These are the things, not so good, so a bit less of that

please and more of that. So I want you to do that, and less of that.

And sometimes that actually works, and then you get a different result. But an awful lot

of times it doesn't make much difference or it will only make a difference if the leaders

stood over that employee cracking a whip and making sure they do this. So it's necessary

but insufficient, and the reason being is that even when people know what to do, sometimes

they just don't do it.

"I know I want to make another 1000 calls to 1000 customers, but, you know what. It's

Friday afternoon, I'm not going to do that." So it's not enough just to focus on what you

can see on the surface, on the behaviors. You've got to really get to grips with what's

on the inside of individuals. Why do people do what they do? If you really want to change

performance permanently, and be brilliant every single day, you've got to get to grips

with the inside.

So first and foremost what's actually driving behavior, it's how people think. So how you

think determines on what you do. So when I'm coaching a CEO, if he thinks I'm an idiot,

he's not going to do what I say, why would he? Or if he thinks what I'm saying is rubbish,

he won't do it. So I've got to get a grip of what he thinks about. In fact, that requires

me to ask him some questions, which is a lot more complicated than just observing the behavior.

But our view is if you don't get to grips and start to ask some more detailed questions,

you won't get a sustainable change in the results. It won't last, you'll get this variance

in performance... this form loss. So you've got to get to grips with how people think

about you, about what you're saying, about the world. But even if you did, it's not enough,

because it's something more fundamental driving how people think.

So how you think is really hugely influenced by how you feel. In fact these two things

effect each other. Thinking effects feeling and feeling effects thinking. It goes back

and forward in a loop. But the dominant factor really is feeling. So for a whole bunch of

neuroscientific reasons we haven't got time to explain. Actually if you want to change

what people do, you've got to change their thinking. If you want to change their thinking,

you actually have to change how they feel. This is a much more significant impact on

that than the other way around.

So if you feel anxious, for example, it's no good me saying to you, "Don't worry." You'll

have experienced that doesn't work. Or I'm doing this exam. "Don't worry." "Oh, you know

what, I hadn't thought not to worry. That's the answer then. Ah I'm not worried. Oh good,

how much was that? There's the check." It doesn't work like that.

You've all experienced that if you feel anxious, you feel anxious and no amount of "don't worry"

is going to help you. In fact, it often makes you worse. "All right, you say 'don't worry,'

I'm worried." So the real active ingredient is you've got to change this. Still not enough.

There's something more fundamental driving how you feel and that is your raw emotion.

So you've got to change the emotion in order to change the feeling in order to change the

thinking. Now you maybe sat there wondering, "Well hang on a minute. Feelings and emotions...

that's the same stuff, isn't it?" It is not.

So many people don't realize... and particularly, many of my own friends in science and medicine...

don't realize that feelings and emotions are not the same thing. In fact, many people don't

even realize that feelings and thinking are not the same thing, particularly men. So you

ask many men to tell you how they feel and they tell you how they think because they

don't understand the question. You see most of the women in room nodding, "That's true,

that's true. That's been my my experience." And most of the men sat there going, "What?

What's he talking about?" These are not the same phenomena. Thinking and feeling are not

the same thing. And feelings and emotions are not the same thing.

So if you want to change the result by changing the behavior, there are multiple levels...

and even if you got to grips with the emotion, it's still enough. There's something even

more fundamental. Down here in the basement of the human system is your physiology. So

the reason you get variance like Sergio did in his performance is there are multiple levels

that Sergio Garcia hasn't got control over. He's just concentrating on his technical putting

performance or the way that he drives the ball. And he hasn't got a grip of any of this

other stuff, even if he's telling himself and rehearsing mentally, "I'm a good golfer.

I'm a good golfer. I'm a good golfer." It's not enough because there's still three levels

that he hasn't got a grip of.

So if you want to be brilliant every single day, you've got to get a grip of every single

level. And that's how you crank out your A-game every single day. So let's just work from

the back to the top. So if we start with physiology, what is that? That is just simply streams

of data. That's all physiology is. It's data streams. So as I'm talking to you right now,

most of you are getting streams of data coming into your brain about what's going on in your

body. So some of you had the cupcake at the break, and you'll be getting a signal from

your gut saying, "Oh sugar. We got sugar." And it's coming into your brain telling your

brain what's going on in your gut. Some of you then are getting contractions around that

cupcake, so you've got pressure waves being created telling your brain about what's going

on in your gut.

So these are all just bits of physiology. These are just data streams. As some of you

might write or type, you've got joint position sense going up the nerve channels into your

brain telling your brain about where your fingers are. They're just bits of physiology.

So this is just streams of data, if you will. So what's an emotion? Well an emotion... if

you take all the streams of data, whether it's coming from your gut, or your joints,

or your heart, or your lungs... if you take the data from all the streams, all the bodily

systems, and it comes into your brain as electrical signals, electromagnetic signals, chemical

waves, pressure waves. Take all of those signals from all of those systems... that's what an

emotion is. It's simply energy, E, in motion. That's all an emotion is.

So we all have that, even us fellows. We've all got emotions. Every second of every day

there is an energetic state going through us. Because we're constantly digesting, we're

constantly breathing in and out, our heart's constantly beating. It's happening all the

time. So we've got energy in motion every single second of every single day. But we

may not all have feelings. Feelings are the awareness in our mind of that energy. And

that's where the problem is. The energy may be there, but we just don't feel it. So for

example, if you take a very common experience of most people... if we look at what is the

energetic signature, if you will, of something like anxiety? So what goes on physiologically

when we're in a state of anxiety? If we look at the heart rate, it's fast. The heart's

going, "boom - boom - boom - boom -- boom."

What else is happening? What's happening in the mouth? The mouth is dry. So you're talking

as though you've got co-- co-- wooly can't get the... that's happening. What's happening

in the palms of your hand? They're sweaty. What's happening in the gut? It's churning.

These are the specific physiological constituents of that thing that you would know as anxiety.

And I'll ask you, how did you feel? And you say, "Alright." So all that data is there.

You're just not feeling it. And if you're not feeling it, it's altering what you're

thinking and how well you're thinking it, which is changing what you're doing. But you

don't realize that because you feel all right.

You're not noticing any of that. You're just thinking what you're thinking and doing what

you're doing. So what we're saying is that the brilliance every day requires on you to

tune in to what's happening down here at the physiological and the emotional level, and

not only become aware of that but get control over it. Because most of you do not have the

control at that level. In fact, very few people have got control of any of this stuff on the

inside. Even when people have been highly trained on regulating their behavior... even

they haven't got that much control over this. So that's the source of your brilliance.

If you can get control of the whole thing, you can crank out your A-game every single

day. So how do you get control? Well first we're going to start with which bit of the

physiology, given that so many different signals, where are we going to start? Well we're going

to start with one specific signal, which is the electrical signal of your heart.

So your heart beats. So when your heart beats, "ping, ping, ping, ping." If you watch the

medical programs before it goes, "beep," which it always does, doesn't it? So the ping is...

the heart basically contracts and causes a spike of electricity. And you can measure

the distance between each heartbeat. And I don't know whether you know, but the distance

between each heartbeat varies over time. So if we look at your heart rate over time, we'll

see that your heart rate will vary up and down like that. And if you go to your doctor's,

he takes your pulse rate and he says your average is 70. But in taking the average,

he's ignoring all the variance. And it's the variance that really matters.

Taking the average, you lose all the critical data. That's like listening to Mozart and

saying the average is, "daaa." Was that Mozart or was it Pearl Jam? Okay, we don't know.

So it's the variance, or something that's called heart rate variability, that's key.

Heart rate variability is key for three reasons. Number one, it predicts your death. So if

I measure your variability for 24 hours, I can tell when you're going to die. So now

I have your attention. Alright. So we tell this to organizations. Do you know what? They

don't care. So we can't sell them on that. So the other reason is it predicts... if we

measure HRV for 24 hours, it can tell you how much energy you have got. Which is sort

of interesting to leaders, because leaders need lots of energy.

But the real reason that they buy and they're interested in this is because HRV alters brain

function. So when I put you under pressure, what actually happens to your HRV is it becomes

super chaotic. So basically, your brain receives a signal from your heart up the nerve channels,

which when under pressure becomes super chaos. The consequence of the super chaos is it shuts