Emotional Intuition for Peak Performance: Secrets from the Sages for Being in the Zone

by Jason Gregory

Overview

Reveals a structured mind-body system for cultivating effortless action and intelligent spontaneity for peak performance

• Details 4 fundamental habits and routines that are essential for developing peak performance and explains how to incorporate them into daily life

• Explains the cognitive science behind the development of expert skills and how the teachings of ancient Eastern sages align with these scientific findings

• Offers practices for cultivating physical and mental intelligence, fasting the mind, and harnessing creativity to achieve your desires

Integrating the wisdom of the ancient sages with modern science, Jason Gregory explains how world-class artists and athletes reach peak performance—and how you, too, can harness this “lifestyle technology” to make your actions effortless, enjoy intelligent spontaneity, and reach optimal performance at a peak level. Drawing on modern cognitive science, Gregory explains dual process theory, which divides mental activity into two spheres: cold cognition, analogous with rational thought, and hot cognition, based on emotional intuition—a theory anticipated by ancient Eastern thought, especially the teachings of the Chinese sages. The author explains that peak performance is impossible to achieve by relying solely on cold cognition as it cuts you off from the energy reserves necessary to excel. He shows how the athletic concept of being “in the zone” is based on practices that have become energized by hot cognition and thus instinctive.

Outlining a structured training system that blends hot and cold cognition, the author identifies four fundamental habits and routines that lay the foundation for a healthy embodied mind and mindful body and thus are essential for developing peak performance and success. He explains how these training methods are practical applications of ancient wisdom from Zen and Taoist traditions, such as wu-wei, as well as how they are supported by recent medical research. Building on the four fundamentals, he offers practices for cultivating physical and mental intelligence, fasting the mind, and harnessing creativity to achieve your desires.

Gregory explains how, with regular practice, we can use the four fundamentals to create masterpiece days. And, as the masterpiece days compound, you build an unstoppable momentum where success is inevitable.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781620559239
Publisher:	Inner Traditions/Bear & Company
Publication date:	06/16/2020
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	1,088,850
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Jason Gregory is a teacher and international speaker specializing in the fields of Eastern and Western philosophy, comparative religion, metaphysics, and ancient cultures. For several years he studied with masters in Buddhism, Gnosticism, Hermeticism, Hinduism, and Taoism, traveling to some of the most remote places in the world. The filmmaker of the documentary The Sacred Sound of Creation, he divides his time between Asia and Australia.

Read an Excerpt

From Chapter 1. The Embodied Mind

The Two Systems of Human Cognition

Cognitive science has shown through extensive research on embodied cognition that we are not the paragons of reason we assume to be. Science is only just catching up to this perspective. Many sages, artists, philosophers, and even athletes have questioned the overuse of rationality because the actuality of their experience tells another story.

An artist would say being rational destroys beauty and truth. What is rational about a lot of art? Or even sport for that matter? Beauty is intrinsically in the performance. It is not something you have to think about but instead appreciate and be inspired by it. And yet, though the embodied state of mind may be the normal perspective for sages, artists, philosophers, and athletes, cognitive science has developed a sophisticated model for understanding the mind body integrated system. This relatively still unknown model, if understood properly, benefits our awareness of ourselves and also explains some of the reasons behind the cultivation of skill, peak performance, and inner peace.

This model is known as dual process theory and is based on two systems of cognitive function. The two systems are known as hot cognition and cold cognition. The hot system is the cognitive function that is automatic, spontaneous, fast, effortless, mostly unconscious, and what is the primary driver of emotions. Hot cognition operates automatically and is fast and spontaneous, with little or no effort. In the hot cognitive process there is no sense of voluntary control. Cold cognition, on the other hand, is the cognitive control centers within our brain. The cold system is self-conscious, slow, deliberate, effortful, and it is the part of our mind we refer to as ourselves, the “I.” Cold cognition, then, is associated with the subjective experience of agency, choice, and concentration.

In our growing world of rationality we have overcompensated for the cold system and do not realize that both systems have their benefits and flaws. We need to understand that even though we feel as though we are these subjective agents who have conscious control, hot cognition is driving us mainly.

Hot Cognition

Hot cognition is found in the more primal regions of the brain. Those unconscious regions of the brain are where the hot system functions. The hot system is the older function of the brain that is more instinctual and linked to the process of nature.

Hot cognition also drives learned skills such as how to drive a car, the rules of a mixed martial arts bout, and so on. The act of reading is a learned skill. But understanding what you are reading is also a hot process. A psychologist, for example, might read a book on cognitive psychology and know exactly what is written while to you and me it is pure gibberish. As a result, the psychologist can learn from the book and evolve, while you and I will simply put the book down and go on to something else. Expert skill, then, is the result of the hot system. The time and practice spent on a particular craft cultivates ingrained skill. Football quarterback Tom Brady’s ability to throw a touchdown pass, Tony Robbins’ ability to bust out a ten hour lecture, and the ability of Ida Haendal to play the violin is as hot a process as opening and closing our hand, for them anyway. This is expertise—the skill has become embodied and the cold function of thinking and analyzing has temporarily shut down.

Spontaneity takes over and as spectators we can appreciate the natural beauty of their skill. Not only does hot cognition bring the spontaneity of our natural movements to life, but it also brings the peak states of skill to the forefront of humanity, making our world much more beautiful than if we had to think and analyze everything we do as something that should be rational.

Earlier I mentioned learning how to play a musical instrument, and this is a good example of how both systems work together. Both systems are required to function optimally to develop skill. In music, you need to learn music theory over and over again to the point it is like reading your mother language. On top of this you need to learn how to manipulate the body to make the noise coming out of the instrument to sound like a melody rather than a dying cat.

Learning any musical instrument, like most things, takes time. But after a while the skill becomes embodied. The musical instrument ends up being an extension of your body, like a fifth limb, because it becomes as easy and unconscious as walking. It is the constant focus and repetition exercised by the cold cognition that ingrains any particular skill into our hot cognition. Once we download the cold cognitive nuances and theory of a particular skill into our hot cognition, the skill becomes spontaneous and can be accessed without having to consciously think about it. This process is constant in cultivating skill. Psychologist Daniel Kahneman explains this cognitive phenomenon:

“As you become skilled in a task, its demand for energy diminishes. Studies of the brain have shown that the pattern of activity associated with an action changes as skill increases, with fewer brain regions involved.”

Those dedicated to a craft will continue to develop skill. This process teaches us to disengage from our cold cognition as well, and this is really important to understand. Even though world-class performers use cold cognition to learn a certain skill, once it has become embodied cold cognition is like kryptonite to the effortlessness of the hot system. For example, a musician will perform without the sense of “them” doing it. But when they start to think about what they are doing they mess everything up. We, as the cold cognitive conscious self, are in our own way. When we are out of our own way, meaning our cold cognition has downregulated, we are in the zone.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction The Formula for Expert Skill and Peak Performance 1

Part 1 Skill

1 The Embodied Mind 14

2 Intelligent Spontaneity 44

3 Discipline and Structure 55

Part 2 Training

4 The Four Fundamentals 74

5 Cultivate Intelligence and Harness Creativity 121

6 Fasting the Mind 134

Part 3 Optimization

7 The Nature of Peak Performance 158

8 Become a Master, Live Your Legend 169

Notes 182

Bibliography 185

Index 190

Editorial Reviews

In Emotional Intuition for Peak Performance Gregory helps you maximize your ability to be all of yourself, addressing the idea of peak performance but including inner peace and joy as a huge part of that. As usual, he demonstrates a wide range of knowledge and wisdom—and a nicely integrated left- and right-brained approach. An optimal life experience integrates skillful perception and action at all levels of the self, and with this book you’ll find practices for every aspect of consciousness.

Penney Peirce

The secret to good writing is having something worthwhile to say, and Jason Gregory delivers again in Emotional Intuition for Peak Performance. His book is rich with ideas that are not only intellectually intriguing but compelling lessons to be applied in daily life.

professor of religion and philosophy at the Maine Dana Sawyer

It is often the case that we focus on ‘what’ to do in life and not ‘how’ we do it. If we wish to reach the higher levels of our chosen field, then an effective methodology is going to be needed. In this book Jason Gregory expertly breaks down the psychology, spiritual elements, and practicalities of optimizing your personal potential. In doing so, what Jason has gifted to those seeking mastery in life is an invaluable guide to the ‘how’ of approaching any given field.

author of A Comprehensive Guide to Daoist Nei Gong Damo Mitchell

Emotional Intuition for Peak Performance is a user’s manual for optimal performance and success in anything the reader chooses to do. Herein the reader will find not only the nuts-and-bolts techniques for honing your skills, training yourself to use them for maximum efficiency, and achieving optimum performance in your chosen field but also practical applications of ancient truisms from Zen and Tao traditions that lend surprising insight into what it takes to succeed in the world today. One of this book’s strongest points is that it dispels the illusion that you can eat whatever you please, ignore the need for proper exercise, and allow television and other mass media to use your mind as a dumping ground for trivial entertainment, silly advertising, fake news, and other mental garbage and still be a successful contender in your chosen field. If you wish to succeed at anything in life, you need to train and nourish both your body and your mind to deliver peak performance on demand, any time and any place, under any and all circumstances. Jason’s new manual for worldly success outlines a practical program for proceeding to your goal step by step, inch by inch, and thereby realizing your dreams in life. That’s a good deal for the price of a book!

Daniel Reid

Are you hot or cold? Do you react or respond? Or are you warm—a mix of both? In Emotional Intuition for Peak Performance be prepared to understand what it truly means to be ‘hot headed’ or ‘cool and collected.’ In order to be in the zone, we must be aware of what cognitive temperature we’re operating with. Jason describes the positives of both and how a blend is optimal.

author of Dirty Genes Dr. Ben Lynch

With Jason Gregory as your guide, the reader will experience a wholesome, integral path to self-achievement. With clear language and a nononsense approach, Gregory shows us that living at our full optimal potential is also a path to inner peace. Harnessing the latest in cognitive science, sagely wisdom, and eastern philosophy, alongside his own wealth of personal experience, Gregory leads you through the ways of nourishing the self in our everyday lives, with creativity and intelligence. This book asks us to transform and to trust in our inmost nature, with sincerity. Emotional Intuition for Peak Performance is a breath of sanity much needed in our present times.

Kingsley L. Dennis

Your full potential and peak performance are within reach. With a balanced blend of science, theory, and Eastern thought, Emotional Intuition for Peak Performance lays the groundwork to help you live a satisfying and meaningful life. This book will help you discover, understand, and implement the strategies and skills you need to achieve the best possible you.

Corinne Zupo