Curious how the world's top performers got to the top?

If you compare them across industries and disciplines, the vast majority of them share some common characteristics. One of those characteristics is a mindset which we're going to talk about today.

In today's episode of bite-sized bits we talk about the idea of pushing yourself to always live life in the little space between safety and danger. This space is where growth happens, however, it's a moving target that requires you to adjust and push.

Let's dive into this interesting topic and look at how we can apply it to your life to help you grow and unlock your true potential.

Rather listen to the bite-sized bit?

Additional resources on living in the space between:

• [book] - Mindset by Carol Dweck
• [video] - Pracrical Pessimism, a short talk by Tim Ferris 

Like this Content?

Please share this bite-sized bit with others who may also like it. Then subscribe (choose favorite channel below) to get more bite-sized bits of inspiration.

Would you rather read this bite-sized bit? 

-------------Below is the transcription --------------

Welcome to another episode of Keyy.io bite sized beats where we serve bed sized ideas to help unlock your true potential. Today’s topic we are talking about living in this space between safe and dangerous. And this is topic for anyone who is top performer of his field very familiar with and it’s been something I have been fortunate enough to have this opportunity to learn as I in certain areas of my life figure out how do I apply those in other areas to grow and all of you should be very able to do this things in your life.

My name is Luke Summerfield.

I am coming to you today from Harvard Yard, Cambridge Massachusetts, USA just down the road where I live here in the state. So, we are going to talk about some little context, this little area, this mindset of on one area we hold over here which is safety. This are the things that we use to the thing that are comfortable with, that we go through without too much mental load in terms of having process, having to figure out what we need to do. And then over here we have this are of unsafe. This is dangerous, you get take too extreme......you get to the death. I want to talk about this how do we build a life or area in our life where we want to grow by living in this idle ground.

On this side is safety, it’s very very hard to grow. When you are comfortable, when you are safe, you are not pushing yourself to take the leap into something new that where you start stagnating, you start settling that where you no longer grow. And of course we don’t want to get this far of running in danger. We want to stay in this middle ground.

Now let me start by telling you a little bit of story little back on this one, on how I learn what this feeling is and how It helps me grow. Once I learn this how I apply this on other parts of life. So, some of you know my background I compete and trained in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. And when first starting out just getting into the gym in the first place was a challenge. Right you have seen UFC, you have seen others people fighting, it’s kind of intimidating. So even taking the step from this world of safety where you are watching it on TV, you are watching UFC, you are watching Jiu Jitsu Videos to taking out of this step and staying in this safety zone and moving into this kind of world of excitement and bit of scared and those feelings, those excitement verses scares that’s kind of first step getting into the gym. Now for those who’s been able to make that leap, will talk about in future episode how to make that leap in the first place.

Once you get into that area the interesting thing about this space, the space of safety and danger, excitement and fear is that as you are living in this zone you start growing. You start learning; the gym in my Jiu Jitsu story the gym was not so scary anymore. I get to know people, they started helping me out, turns out they are not slugging each other instead they are practicing, learning new other technique so, now my world of safety which was here move over in that and I move over a little bit further in terms where I now feel safe, I feel safe now in that gym.

Now take the one step further, okay let’s go compete in the tournament. I want to grow, I want to get better, Jiu Jitsu that’s where I want to focus in my life. How do I get better let’s go compete at tournaments. So, now we start to move from this area of safety that was the gym into this new area dangerous, safety-dangerous, you know this kind of this space between where I am and I am fear for which is going and doing your first tournament. And so I start doing white belt tournament and at first I got beat up and that’s the part of the tournament. You first go to the tournament, you got beat up but I was starting to inoculate myself to that environment, to those emotions, to those things that I needed to rise and grow to in order to be comfortable in that little space. Eventually started winning tournament, started winning wipe all tournament and getting all really really comfortable and now guess what happen that area of safety expanded and now I felt safe, I felt better in that area.

Now let’s not to say you don’t always have cheater, you don’t always have performance things you have get through mental barrier of course but at least my window of safety was comfortable there. And so the last little example I give you is once I got safe in that little zone of wipe all tournaments. Now what I did, I started competing at Blue Belt level as a wipe all. So I still was a wipe all but I jump up to the next division. Of course I jump up to the next division again I am moving from the safety window to that window of scare, fearful and excited. Excited to go and compete with this better competitors and of course the first couple of tournaments I get beat up, just get mopped across the mat. Then I continue to push myself, I continue to grow, started getting more comfortable until I started winning some tournament as a wipe all I got 3rd place. As a Wipe all and Blue belt. I actually get promoted to that Blue belt as you are competing in Blue belt competition.

I tell this story as an example of how for me I was able to learn this concept of being very mindful of what is your safety zone and how can I pick one step outside of my safety zone to the area that I want to grow. And so that I am asking you to think about the areas you want to pursue, you want to grow, and you want to get better. And start to determine you know write down journal about where is that safety zone and then think what do I need to do 2-3 months to push myself from that safety zone to move myself to the little area of fear but excitement. And how do I start inoculating fear but excitement.

How do I start inoculating myself and getting myself into that regular basis so that my safety zone can expanded and it’s no longer of scared but now it’s a zone of comfort. Then of course you have to repeat the exercise okay what’s the next thing. And it’s interesting because once you learn that concept you can start applying it in all different kind of aspect. Now learning that Jiu Jitsu I can think about my career, when I speaking, some of the speaking engagement I did, started out of you know scared as hack trying to do this little 25% local speaking this and just started doing more and more of those and once I got comfortable with those okay now I can move into now I want to get 100% speaking gig, 200% speaking gig now 1,000 speaking gig and other parts of the world and other parts of the country. So it’s very interesting on how that exact same concept, exact same for remark on how to map yourself in where you know that zone of uncomforting in JeJiu Jitsu now has been applied into other aspect in my life.

So little bite sized for you I am going to give a homework activity for those who are listening and say well I want to do that. I am little scare to make that jump into whatever area of life you want to improve on. Here’s a really easy exercise for you to be able to do this and start seeing the power of this. So, I learned this, I do this Wim Hof Method for those who unfamiliar to search Wim Hof Method and it is kind of breathing, between breathing exercises, actual physical, physiological exercise and then called a margin to help trying push your body into new limits and one of the exercise is do there is the cold shower exercise. This is a really great way for you to slowly start pushing yourself past those boundaries and see how much you can grow. It’s a very safe environment just taking a shower.

The way you do this is every morning when you shower, the last minute of the shower turn it into cold water as cold as the shower go. And the first couple of time you do this, when I did this, first couple of time I did this I would touch the water uuuuaaa and completely pull myself out of it, totally frozen to death. And I slowly inch my way in you know one inch at a time you know until maybe my leg was covered and that all i could do for that point. You know for that point I flip back to hurt and continue through rest of my day.

Slowly but surely as I continue doing it more and more of it and I started learning how to relax, started getting comfortable with the feelings now it’s like okay now I can turn it on so it just on my arm, now I can turn it on to get my body wet and a week later all of a sudden I can flip it on and not having any type of emotional reaction kind of very even kill in term of things going through my brain and all that as there’s cold water is being spread on you. So this is a great exercise for you to do to start to see the power of little bit of bite sized every week, exposing yourself to those scaring, fear, painful those emotions and how overtime very quickly you can adopt, your body is adoptable, your minds very adoptable quickly you can overcome those things and you can grow.

And obviously you can go to ice pass in terms of all that but that’s a very good exercise to get a test for this which then will help you make the jump in whatever the aspect of your life you want to improve in actually putting in practice in that area.

So, thanks for listening. Hopefully you got some good golden nuggets. If you appreciate this, if think your friend like this please share this content with your friends. Make sure you subscribe either YouTube or Podcast both of them depending on the platform you prefer. For more bite sized bits inspiration and check out Keyy.io for more great tools, resources and trainings to help you unlock your true potential.

Thanks so much. Talk to you soon.