The Performance Code: Why Your Nervous System Matters More Than Mindset - Michael Allison

We often think performance is about mindset, confidence, discipline, or mental toughness.

But what if peak performance actually begins in the nervous system?

In this fascinating conversation, I sit down with Michael Allison, creator of The Play Zone and author of the upcoming book The Performance Code, to explore the powerful connection between performance, polyvagal theory, the vagus nerve, and nervous system regulation.

Whether you're an athlete, business owner, parent, public speaker, or simply someone trying to navigate the pressures of modern life, Michael explains why so many of us are operating from survival mode without even realising it.

We discuss why some people thrive under pressure while others freeze, overthink, or shut down, what is actually happening in the body during those moments, and how curiosity, play, connection, and safety can unlock a more sustainable and fulfilling path to performance.

This is a conversation about much more than sport. It's about understanding yourself, softening self criticism, building resilience, and learning how to work with your nervous system rather than against it.

What We Cover

• Why performance begins in the nervous system, not just the mind

• Polyvagal theory explained in simple terms

• The role of the vagus nerve in stress, confidence, and human performance

• Why we freeze, overthink, choke, or shut down under pressure

• The difference between protection and connection

• Competition anxiety and performance nerves

• How high achievers can become trapped in survival mode

• The long term effects of chronic stress and burnout

• Why belonging matters more than we realise

• The Play Zone and what it feels like to perform from a regulated state

• The role of curiosity, play, and flexibility in peak performance

• Practical tools for regulating the nervous system before high pressure situations

• Public speaking fears and nervous system responses

• Parenting, pressure, and supporting young athletes

• Why modern life is creating more dysregulated high performers

• The importance of real human connection in an increasingly digital world

• How to develop greater resilience, flexibility, and nervous system awareness

Where to Find Michael

🌐 The Play Zone
https://theplayzone.com

🌐 The Performance Code
https://theperformancecode.com

📱 Polyvagal Institute

Instagram: @polyvagalinstitute

Website: https://www.polyvagalinstitute.org

📖 Upcoming Book

The Performance Code

Michael's forthcoming book exploring the connection between nervous system regulation, performance, resilience, and human potential.

Closing Thought

Perhaps the most powerful takeaway from this conversation is that your nervous system is not working against you. It's trying to protect you.

Understanding that one simple truth can change the way you view stress, performance, relationships, parenting, and yourself.

And perhaps true performance isn't about pushing harder at all.

Perhaps it's about creating the conditions where your body feels safe enough to access the very best of who you already are.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:03

Welcome to Inside Out Connections, where we explore the link between your skin, your gut, emotional health, and your deeper sense of self. I'm your host, Tracy Ann, a wellness coach exploring what it really means to reconnect from the inside out. We often think performance is about mindset, confidence, discipline, or mental toughness. But what if performance actually begins in the nervous system? Today's guest is Michael Allison, whose work centres around polyvagal theory, the vagus nerve, and understanding how nervous systems shapes the way we perform under pressure. Whether it's sport, business, public speaking, relationships, parenting, or simply navigating everyday stress. So many people are functioning from survival mode without even realizing it. And when the body doesn't feel safe, performance changes. Why do some people thrive under pressure while others freeze, spiral, overthink, or shut down completely? What actually happens in the body before competition, conflict, or high stress moments? And how do we begin working with the nervous system instead of constantly fighting against it? Today we explore the connection between nervous system and human performance. But in true inside-out connection style, this is also a conversation about self-awareness. Michael, welcome. I'm so thrilled to have you here today.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

I'm happy to be here. I really appreciate the offer and to see how this plays out together.

SPEAKER_04 1:46

So, Michael, when people think about performance, they often think mindset first. How much of performance is actually physiological?

SPEAKER_00 1:57

I think a huge part of it is I don't I wouldn't come up with a percentage, but when mindset works from my perspective, it's because it shifts the physiology into a state from which we can access our potential. From in a way it gets closer to mimicking maybe how we practice when we're not feeling a lot of pressure, right? When we're just relaxed and in more accurately a state of play. So mindset is helpful, right? Like I want to set an intention to be a certain way for our talk today, or I want to set an intention for walking into a difficult conversation. But how it really plays out really comes out of the physiology. And if we move into some pattern of protection, even with a mindset of yes, I want to be here, I want to be present, I want to be relaxed, I work with a lot of high achievers, and I think all of them go in with that intention. They all go in with the intention, oh, I just want to relax and enjoy this and have fun and and do my thing. And yet that's not often how it plays out.

SPEAKER_04 3:12

It's that real mind-body connection, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 3:15

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

Yeah, it's a loop. I look at it as a loop, right? And the state, call it a mind-body state, is what ultimately determines how we act and interact and react. And the body, often, the nervous system more specifically, will respond and react long before we even become aware, right? Long before we've made a conscious or deliberate decision. And so in a way, we're playing catch up. And that mindset can help us come into it, you know, like my mindset would be I'm going to instead of saying I'm going to come into this in a certain state, my mindset shifted into I want to come into this and see what happens. I want to come into this and be accessible and to be able to be with whatever shows up in a way that might be helpful. That that's a different mindset that I try to teach to high performers, is it's no longer this is how I'm going to be. It's let's see, let's see what shows up. And how might I relate to that? How might I relate to that in a way that's helpful?

SPEAKER_04 4:29

So you're approaching it with curiosity more than going in because I think when you're heading into something with the mindset of right, this is how it's going to be, is like you said, it's that rigid thinking. And then that can send a message to the brain like this is panic, perhaps.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

Yeah. And curiosity instead of control. Or compassion with curiosity instead of control and making something happen or even making the body perform. Right. So the old paradigm is let's let's just dig in more. When things start going off the rails, just fight harder. Just try, try harder, bear down more. And the more that we understand how the brain and the body work together, the more we recognize that that actual approach will lead us on a trajectory of more disconnection and ultimately maybe implosion, right? We might self-implode because we keep pushing and trying to make our body do something that it's having a completely different reaction to the situation. And so until we come alongside that, until we meet the body where it is, good luck. Good luck.

SPEAKER_04 5:50

Yeah. Yeah, because it's only going to be sustainable for so long. That approach.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Yes. Yes. Exactly. And it might, and a lot of us find success by in that approach, right? That is, that can lead to success by the way we measure success in in our culture, by the accumulation of resources, by the accumulation of money or power or status or influence. Bearing down and pushing and fighting and attacking and being the loudest voice in the room and being the most confrontational, it can carry people quite far. Right? It really can. I I I don't want to negate that. It it can. And that's part of why it continues to go and continues to be the method and the approach. But it's not very fulfilling. It's not, it's not ultimately sustainable. And eventually the body will speak more loudly until maybe it takes you down in one way or the other, whether it's burnout, whether it's actually you just can't do what you did anymore, whether it's just completely lack of fulfillment, you feel all alone, yet you've achieved all of these amazing things, and you're still there going, Well, what's next? Well, why does this not last? Why, why don't I feel any differently?

SPEAKER_04 7:16

And not even just impacting yourself. I would imagine that type of mindset in everyday life could impact everyone else around you as well.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

Yeah. Imagine, imagine being in a relationship with that, right? Imagine being with someone, whether it's your partner or your friend or your son or daughter, right? Or your coach, whoever it is, when that is the physiology and that is the mindset of I just need to keep doing more and bearing down harder and go, go, go, go, it doesn't leave a lot of room for connection. It doesn't leave much room for being in relationships with oneself or with others. That can lead to healthy, happy, and even the richness and joys of life, right? So we see it all the time. And in a way, it's it's the cultural message and it's also what has worked for a lot of people. And in a way, the way I frame this in my own life to be helpful in those that I work with, and for all walks, even people who wouldn't consider themselves high performers or high achievers, we're all still having to navigate this culture. And this culture is really rooted in competition, right? And comparison. We're constantly comparing ourselves to others and being compared to others and evaluation. Am I good enough? Am I doing enough? Was my performance enough? Right. And so no matter really what stage of life we're in or what we call ourselves, I think we're all wrapped into that culture. And a natural adaptive response is to lock into some pattern of protection. And that could be fight, that could be constantly busy, that could be I'm anxious and I'm I'm scattered, I don't know what to do, I'm all over the place, or it could be withdrawal and shutdown. It could be any of those patterns, or it could be really bouncing back and forth in different contexts.

SPEAKER_04 9:31

Yeah. So for people unfamiliar with polyvagal theory, can you explain it in simple terms?

SPEAKER_00 9:41

Oh, the million-dollar question. So the theory itself was developed by Dr. Stephen Porgis over a period of 40 or 50 years of research. He was funded by the National Institutes of Health. He's been with several different universities. And I'll just do it as succinctly as possible, because it is a complex theory, but the part that's very applicable, and we've already touched on is that our physiological state, which in layman's terms is how our heart is beating, the rhythms of our breath, how our organs are being regulated or not, how much muscle tension we have, how much energy we have flowing through our body, all of those things that are controlled autonomically by the autonomic nervous system, not consciously. Now, we can control our breath, we can control our muscle tension, we can do those things, but our physiological state, these changes that are occurring reflexively, that are regulated by the autonomic nervous system, that really shapes our moment-to-moment experience of the world. It shapes our thoughts, shapes our emotions, shapes our moods and our attitudes. And really importantly, it shapes how we act, how we interact, how we react. And so it's not only shaping how we are experiencing the world, it's really influencing how you, how everyone around us is experiencing us, right? So as we move through the world, and no matter what our role is, every other being that we're interacting with is picking up on our physiological state, whether they're trying to or not. It's just that's what is happening. And polyvagal theory really explains the mechanisms, explains how the vagus nerve in particular changed and adapted, and the brainstem structures that it's part of, how that all evolved so that we as social mammals could communicate, could cooperate, could actually build trust and collaborate. And that is what we are here to do, right? That that that is what polyvagal theory is explaining. It's explaining the neuroanatomy, the neurophysiology for how that occurs and why that not only feels good when we're having a happy and healthy interaction, but it explains why that is actually facilitating and fostering health and well-being and our recovery and feeding back into our capacity to have more of those trusting, healthy relationships. And so you get into this cycle of homeostasis supported by social relationship. So that is in a nutshell, it's no matter what we're doing, our nervous system is constantly detecting and adjusting our state. Our state shapes how we experience the world, which which shapes how the world experiences us. And at the end of the day, we're really craving and seeking safety and connection and trust. And that is what we're after. That's what our biology is craving. And this culture is in a way impeding on that. It's in opposition to that, right? When you're in a competitive performance-based culture, that's in a way opposing this feeling of connection and trust, just as we are.

SPEAKER_04 13:21

That's really interesting. And I loved how you touched on how we're seeking safety ultimately as it as the ultimate goal. And I know just myself from doing this podcasting when I have different guests on. I really noticed it yesterday. I had a lovely guest on, and I just instantly just felt so calm. Her voice was so soothing. She spoke with intention. Because she was that way, I instantly relaxed. And it is that sort of exchange, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 13:54

Yeah. And it's happening. It's happening all of the time, right? And we, in a way, are taught to ignore that. We're taught to, oh, it's what someone says. It's the words they're using. Well, it's more than that, right? It's what you what you just described. It was her, it was her intonation in her voice. It was her body language, it was her facial expressions, it was how she was orienting to you. It was all of that wrapped up into this experience that what if we kind of look beneath your skin, we would see that your heart rate and breathing rhythms changed. You came into a different state of being that allowed you to feel that, wow, I feel really in connection with this person. I feel, I feel present, I feel engaged. And and that that is always happening either in that direction or the other direction. I want to kind of go away or I wanna, you know, and and so, but it can be not just with others, it can be with sounds. Like right now, you can't hear it, but my wife is deciding to grind something in a blender. And it's like extremely loud.

SPEAKER_04 15:12

And my neighbors are hammering too. I don't know if you can hear that as well.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

No, so Zoom does an amazing job. And yet that is a real challenge, even though I know what it is, right? Even though, even though I can again set the intention of be here, you know that's a blunder. You don't know why she's doing it because she knows you're doing this right now, right? In the other room. So that's, you know, you see, again, you get these stories, but what's triggering that, what's triggering that is that sound itself, because it's a very low frequency, grindy sound that our nervous system has evolved. Low frequency, kind of grindy sounds. It's like thunder. It's like the roar of a lion. It's it is meant to trigger a bodily reaction. It's meant to trigger a change in our heart rate. It's meant to bring us into alertness of like, what is that? So that's happening all of the time, right? And having that insight, at least for me, has been really, really helpful.

SPEAKER_04 16:16

And like you said, the stories behind it. So I don't know, you can, I think it's like an angle grinder outside. I can hear it now. It's like hearing the sound, it's like, oh no, what and then I go into the story of, oh no, how am I gonna edit that out? Is it gonna edit it out? What if it doesn't edit out? Yeah, what if it does we're gonna have to do it again? And then it you're totally distracted from being fully present. So yeah, that's really interesting.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

So a great teaching moment. And it happens, it happens all of the time. And so to me, what polyvagal theory really provided was first it provided that insight, right? So, and that insight is really, really helpful. And then from there, I could become aware, like even in this experience, I could become aware that that was triggering for me. Okay. So where do I go with my attention? So what you said is also what was really prevalent in a lot of us is we our attention goes right into our stories and we're fabricating these stories. And then next thing you know, we're we're lost in our mind. We're lost in all of that. And what the practice for me and what I try to teach is when that's happening, whether you're a professional player on the tennis court, whether I'm going in to talk to my wife after this podcast to find out why she did that. The point is to not get wrapped up in the story. Just stay in the bodily experience and then redirect attention to what else or who else could be settling, could be reassuring. So for me, I just was looking at your face. I was looking at your smile, I was looking at your eyes. I was trying to redirect my attention away from the story of what is happening into what else is available. What other cues of reassurance, of reliability, of safety, of connection can also coexist. So to me, it's coexisting. That can be going on, right? Just like the noise you're experiencing. And at the same time, there are also, hopefully, features, cues, signals available that can also coexist that can help us stay relatively accessible. It's not ideal, right? But it's closer.

SPEAKER_04 18:32

So as an example, I and I think I brought you an email regarding this. I had a young girl who was a motocross athlete and she was having issues with getting in her head right before the gun went off or whatever it was before she started the motocross. So in that moment of not being in her state, she was in her head, right? So would it be correct in right in that high pressure moment from a performance perspective? Like you said, you're connecting with me, with my eyes, with my smile, whatever, to get you back into that state. So for somebody performing as an athlete, in that moment, is it you're looking at the dirt, at your boots, at your handlebars, something to get you back in? Is that helpful?

SPEAKER_00 19:22

Yeah. So it can be any of those, all of those, none of those, and whatever that nervous system, that body welcomes. So you find the cues from my approach. If I try to help whoever I'm working with or myself, find the cues that my body in that state actually welcomes as reassuring or as reliable or as trustworthy or as safe, whatever word we want to use to. Like so, so for some really high performers, even the word safe is too, oh safe. That means I'm relaxed. And it's not what I'm talking about. Safe just means you're not, you're not doing this out of fear. You're not worried about the outcome. You're not focused on all of what could happen. You're actually in a body that's somewhat regulated. It doesn't mean you're not excited. It doesn't mean you don't have energy going. It actually just means that energy technically has rhythm to it. It has connection. Okay. So for this particular, what you're describing, could be feeling, you know, feeling the her hands on the handlebars, right? Feeling the gas, it could be feeling her feet on the ground. It could be adjusting her posture, could be relaxing the jaw, right? It could be softening the eyes because the cranial nerves that that regulate the muscles around our eyes and that either soften or tighten the jaw, those some of those branches from those cranial nerves go into this ventral vagal complex, which immediately change heart rate through the vagus. So that can be really helpful. It can be, you're always hearing certain sounds, but it could be a lot of people, a lot of athletes listen to music before they start, right? And that's deliberate. They're listening to music either to amp them up or to calm them down, and it changes because music and sound is also very powerful because again, those nerves that regulate the muscles that adjust which frequencies are really amplified or attenuated come into that vagus as well. So you find whatever cues can coexist that your body will welcome. So it's a sensory breathing.

SPEAKER_02 21:35

Yeah, a sensory cue. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

Yeah, it can be all of the sensory stuff. It could be her looking at a her coach, right? So it also can be relational. Yeah. And it also can be internal. It can be breathing. It can be muscle tension. It can be a memory too. You can you can use your mind. You can Use the image, right? You can imagine yourself when you had a prior success. You can imagine somebody that loves you, that cares about you, win or lose. There's all different ways. So you can use the mind to help shift the body. You can use the body itself to help bring the body, the nervous system back in, or you can use relationships, or you can use sensory cues. Right. So all of the above. And in some cases, I would use all of the above. I'd use a mixture. I call that a container of safety. And you develop a very robust container of safety that is your go-to. And it might change on the context. It also might change depending on what state you're in. Right. And so for a high performer and a motocross, so again, all of these different like motocross, if you're looking at what they're doing, they're pretty high on their threshold. Their heart rate's pretty high. There's a lot of muscle tension. They're really maneuvering the bike. They're, they're passing each other. It's pretty intense. Okay. So they're likely at a higher heart rate sustained during that race. They have brakes and they come down, but they're at a higher heart rate than, say, a golfer. Right. Pretty big contrast. Okay. So she might want to allow herself to get going more, even as she's sitting there, but not in fear, not in panic, and not so much muscle tension and not letting the heart rate get so high as she's waiting that it disrupts her own sense of control and confidence. And what you're telling me is either her physiology has already crossed that threshold in anticipation of what's to come and now she's spiraling in her mind, or it was getting close and now she's spiraling in her mind, which is sending more cues back down, which are getting her past her threshold. So either way, interrupting that sequence that's occurring in her mind, that spiraling, and coming either into the body, into a relational cue, into a breath, even making sound, into seeing somebody else, into an image, having some routine, all of those things can interrupt that story, exacerbating her state.

SPEAKER_04 24:22

Yeah. Wow. What related for me was the jaw. I realized how much I clench my jaw. So as you were saying, soften the jaw, it's like, oh yeah, soften the jaw. And the eyes, because we can sort of lock in and strain and tense and clench. And you don't realize you're holding on until somebody says, let go of the jaw. It's like, oh that's right. Right. I am holding on the jaw.

SPEAKER_00 24:45

Now, in some cases, sometimes I will have someone deliberately tighten their jaw or tighten their eyes because they're moving more into withdrawal or they're moving into panic. And so, you know, instead of trying to relax and get into a state of play and calmness, that might be too far to go. And they might be more on the verge of collapse or withdrawal or numbness. And so in that case, I might actually have them grip, squeeze, tighten a, tighten a jaw, tighten the ice, right? Like get intense because they're they're moving into more of a collapse and withdrawal and numbing. That's not what she's doing, doesn't sound like but but there are there are plenty of high performers that have had that experience.

SPEAKER_04 25:33

I think it's of that point uh at giving up when they're about to give up and shut down.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

Yeah, and it's again, it's not conscious. It's not a deliberate decision, right? Like I was just meeting with a baseball player, started meeting with him a couple of weeks ago, and in when he was getting into the batter's box, he no longer was feeling any nerves. He wasn't feeling any any nerves. And he was confused. He's like, I but he's not been hitting at all, right? He hasn't, he's striking out all the time. Everything was going in the wrong direction, and he wasn't feeling any nerves. And he was thinking I should be more nervous. I but he was moving into withdrawal and collapse. And when we looked at everything that's been playing out, and we looked at how much evaluation he's constantly under, how much competition for his spot, right, for his position, what he's been going through. Once that was talked about, it made sense. Oh, I'm actually falling into collapse.

SPEAKER_03 26:31

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 26:31

Okay. So we can actually get yourself back alive instead of that retreating. And again, it wasn't a deliberate decision. He didn't decide. He had never waved the white flag and said, I'm done. That's not, it just he couldn't. He didn't even he was completely confused. Why, why am I not feeling any nerves?

SPEAKER_02 26:52

Yeah. Right. Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

And that's the path. That's the path. If if we don't even if we're successful, what we were talking about early on, even if we're pretty successful at navigating this race to acquire and this nonstop competitive, high performance everything, even if we're pretty successful, we might eventually fall into that, some version of that collapse. It might it might not be I don't feel anything. It might just be I'm not interested. I just don't have much interest in in much of anything, right? You might feel really alone. You might, you know, it it can play out in different types of emotions, but underneath those emotions, what we're really looking at is is this body moving into some withdrawal, some overwhelm.

SPEAKER_04 27:40

Yeah. So what does being in a dysregulated state actually feel like for an athlete?

SPEAKER_00 27:50

So it can feel different and different experiences. So if someone is dysregulated, but they're highly mobilized, like we were talking about, and they're spinning stories and they're just overly anxious and unsettled, or even on the verge of panic, it can feel like I'm really afraid. I'm really, really anxious. I'm really actually kind of scared. I don't know what's happening. I don't know why this is happening. This isn't how it was for me last year, right? Like often it creeps up over time. And sometimes it can occur. And let's expand this out beyond athletes too. Like in life, as you accumulate more, right? So if an athlete becomes better, they tend to hire a larger team or they tend to buy a bigger house, or they tend to, you know, they tend to have a family, just like we do in regular life. And so there are more people counting on them. There are more people relying on them to continue performing, or they might now perform on a bigger stage, right? And so little by little, their nervous system, their body is being exposed to more and more pressure. Right. And so now all of a sudden they're like, I'm feeling really anxious. I never felt this way before, or I'm not having any fun anymore. This is just no fun. Okay. So it can be those kinds of experiences, but they're still in a very mobilized body. Okay. So their heart rate's elevated, their muscle tensions going. You can see they're not connecting with people, but they're on the go. Okay. So that's one experience. And then you have the other experience, what we were talking about, where they're just disinterested. They're burned out, they're no longer having fun at all. They're not connecting with anyone or anything. And they're wondering why they play this game? What, why am I, why am I doing this? What's the point? But they're also trapped because their whole lifestyle and their identity has been built around this. And so they're very often confused. They don't understand. Right. And so each each of their individual experiences can be quite different. But when we look underneath, their physiology, their, their responses are not that different. They're either in some highly mobilized, but but really threat-oriented things aren't safe, or they're beginning to collapse and shut down. Or they're bouncing back and forth. They're really kind of moving in between. And so you start wherever you can.

SPEAKER_04 30:26

Yeah. And imagine there'd be long-term effects of either spectrum of those, the shutdown or the highly stressed. Either of those are not sustainable in any kind of performance from public speaking to a CEO of a company to an athlete.

SPEAKER_00 30:45

Mm-hmm. To being in just being just life performance, right? Just being a spouse or being a parent. Any of that. And again, I I think I think this game, I'm going to call it a game, even though it's not really a game, but this cultural game, we're all being asked to play in it that in similar ways to what these professional athletes are experiencing. They're not very different games. And in some cases, we, the normal everyday human, we're doing it without as much of a support team as they have. So at least some of these athletes have really great support teams. They have coaches, they have physios, they have trainers, they have bodyworkers, they have sports psychologists, they have, they often have a nice team. Not all of them, but often they have a nice team or they have teammates, right, that they're playing their sport with. And often I think we, as everyday humans, we don't have those teams. And if we look at what our biology, like we talked about earlier, we really want to be part of a team.

SPEAKER_03 31:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:56

We really want to feel like we belong, like we're valued, like we're contributing, and that we're included, right? That we are we're we're liked and we're loved and and we're good enough. You know, it's that's that's really it. That's really it. It is you know, that's underneath that's underneath most of the drive and the hunger and the and the striving, is that and like my goal in all of this is to speak that message and to help all of us recognize what that's really doing to our bodies, to that mind-body connection or disconnection. Is it is it feeding us more and more trust and or is it moving us toward distrust? Is it feeding us with connection or is it moving us more toward disconnection? Right. And I I think it's very natural to move toward distrust and disconnection in this game.

SPEAKER_04 32:59

Yeah. And it's interesting, Michael, because yesterday I had somebody on the podcast and we spoke about community and how important community is. But my takeaway from it was it is more about that sense of belonging. That is the fundamental baseline to everything. And I think the more we understand that, the better off we are.

SPEAKER_03 33:26

Totally.

SPEAKER_00 33:27

Right. Because like you just said, uh we could we could be part, and there's books written about you know, still feeling lonely even when you're not alone. It's that belonging. Am I seen? Am I heard? Right? Do do I really feel understood?

unknown 33:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:45

Am I valued? Do I belong here? And it doesn't have to be large groups, it doesn't have to be every day, but it's vital. It's a key piece. And to me, that was the other part of what polyvagal theory helped me really understand why, why that's true.

SPEAKER_04 34:02

Yeah. So tell us about the play zone. How did that concept first come about?

SPEAKER_00 34:12

So when I first started reading about polyvagal theory about 10 years ago, I came at all of this from I owned a health and wellness center and performance center in Santa Barbara for 25 years, starting in 1999. And so when I started reading about polyvagal theory, it made sense to me of trauma and healing and all of that, and my own healing and how I was intuitively searching for connection and belonging, just like we talked about. But it also provided me with a template that I thought was a really solid template for health and well-being and performance. And I was working with a lot of general population people, but also athletes at the time, but training them how to move, how to eat, how to sleep, how to jump higher, how to run faster, how to develop more power. That's what I was doing. And when I started reading polybagal theory, I'm like, oh, but again, it's it's it's what's underneath all of that, right? Like you can develop all of those skills, you can develop all of the components that we deem important for performance. But again, at the end of the day, access to those components comes from the physiological state in the moment, right? And we've known that people, some people crumble under pressure, some people rise under pressure. Well, that's again, how is our physiology responding to the pressure? So to me, it was like, oh, this is a template. Now I understand really what I want to prepare in an athlete or a performer. And I want to prepare this physiological flexibility. I call it autonomic agility. I want to, uh, that's what I want to develop is this capacity to move through fluidly with intention, but also just reflexively through a wide range of states, right? A wide range of physiological states and a wide range of emotional experiences and all of that. So that is to me what resilience is. And the play zone, I created what I call the performance hierarchy. And from a performance perspective, this state of play, the play zone, where we are engaged and mobilized and we have energy and different levels of energy, some intense, some relax, but still energy is combined and blended with safety, connection, presence, the ability to communicate. If you're on stage, you're relating with the audience, if you're on a team, you're in sync with your teammates, if you're playing in a band, you're riffing off of each other, right? If you're on stage at improv, you're able to adapt and quickly change and all of that. That's the play zone. Yeah. And instead of seeking fight and intensity and just ramping up, we want to be able to ramp up and calm down. We want to be able to engage and then sit back. We want to be able to talk and then listen. That's the play zone.

SPEAKER_04 37:14

Yeah. So it's it's fluid.

SPEAKER_00 37:16

Fluid.

SPEAKER_04 37:17

I was visualizing water going down a a stream or rapids, but the water still moves through and can embody all of that and move through. Yeah. That was my visual.

SPEAKER_00 37:29

Yeah, and it beautiful. I love that. Thank you for that. That's exactly right. And depending on the terrain, it goes faster or slower. It moves and bends and all of that. It's beautiful. Thank you. I love I love that. I'll I'll I'll share that.

SPEAKER_04 37:43

So why is play and curiosity so important for human performance?

SPEAKER_00 37:50

So it goes back to our evolution and the difference between a social mammal and a reptile. And so in our nervous system, in our brainstem, in these very primitive survival networks, play is actually different than fight. Play is different than anxiety and moving away. Play is play is it's it's a different type of state. And what it's doing physiologically when we're in that state is we're actually allowing our heart rate to go up and down, but there's still rhythm. We hear a lot about heart rate variability. Well, in a state of play or the play zone, there's still some heart rate variability. It's not just all gone with a super high heart rate. There's actually some variability. So what does that mean? Well, that means we have not only flexibility like you just described, the water, that rhythm allows access to higher thinking. So we have more access to problem solving. That rhythm allows us to have rhythm in our connection with others. We can use our voice and our eyes and our orientation and even what we're listening to. We can communicate with each other that, hey, I'm safe. I'm with you. We're in sync. We're doing this together. Right. This is this is a game for us. We're playing together. Versus if I was locked in fight, I'd be cueing you. We're in this, okay? We're going after the same thing, but I'm I'm in a state of fight. It's not broadcasting connection. It's like, here we go. I might have your back. I might have your back, but we're not as flexible, right? So play offers complex problem solving. It offers creativity and spontaneity, which we don't have when we're too much in a state of fight or too sympathetically driven, sympathetic nervous system. It allows access to higher thinking. It allows collaboration and communication in ways that fight and higher intensities don't. And it allows agility. In other words, we can pivot. We can change directions. We can all of a sudden reorient to a new strategy. We can see what's working and what's not working. So there's a lot of benefits, but they're really all rooted in that it is fundamentally a different state than the state of fight or the state of flight. It's a different state.

SPEAKER_04 40:15

It's like you're fully present in the moment and remembering why you're doing it in the first place. I did your course and I loved your course, and I loved how you had the visual aspects of the tennis players. And so you were showing visuals of the players in that shutdown state and you know, the highly stressed state, and then the play zone. And you could see the difference in how they were playing. It it just having those visual cues for me was really helpful.

SPEAKER_00 40:49

Yeah, it once you see that and you make that connection, you can see that in any arena, right? You can see that when you're walking through the market. You can get a glimpse of is someone really present or are they on a mission where like are they just getting in and out? Are they a little nervous? Are they withdrawn? Right. We can we can start seeing that in in in sport. We can watch TV and we can see it. We can see it in life, we can notice it in ourselves, right? And it's really important. But you said something too that I think is a really, is a really key thing. You said that we can connect with our why. You can we can really when we're when we're in a state of play, we can. We can actually connect with why, why we're doing this, why this is important, why this is important to me, why this matters, how how this might connect me to something bigger than me and and the people I'm doing it with or the people I'm doing it for. And we can I I love that, and that's a really important piece to that, right? Like it's really hard to connect with our why.

SPEAKER_04 41:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:57

When we're in a pattern of protection. It's really hard.

SPEAKER_04 42:00

Because then we we get caught up in the story and we're forgetting about why we're here.

SPEAKER_00 42:06

Yeah, and our physiology isn't giving us. It's not giving us. I look at the physiology, it's either giving us permission or an opportunity to be fully present and to connect to that why, or it's interrupting that.

SPEAKER_03 42:21

Yeah. Right?

SPEAKER_00 42:21

It's it's literally diverting resources to toward protecting us. And that protection might be attacking, that protection might be defending, or it might be hiding and fully going away. So, so we're trying from this perspective, and this is just one perspective. I don't want to claim that this has all of all of the answers, but for me, it's been really helpful to recognize that I can try to help my physiology, I can guide my physiology as best I can, right? To maybe bring myself into a state where I can show up how I really want to show up. I can tap into the why, why this is important to me, why, why our conversation today is really important to me. It might, it might help somebody. It might make an impact. Somebody might actually go, oh, that's what's happening. This isn't a reflection of me, of my character, of my values, or any of that. It's a reflection that I shifted into a pattern of protection. That can be really, really like that's goosebump material for me because that can change everything.

SPEAKER_04 43:26

Yeah, that made me just think of a few years ago, I've always had a fear of public speaking. So this is very relevant. And a friend of mine who was always pushing me outside my comfort zone. Her husband had called to say uh she wanted me to speak at her 40th. And I knew that she had about 250 guests. Some were flown in from around the world at the Sydney Opera House. I was required to do a speech. But my initial reaction was absolutely not. There's no way, not in a million years, ask. Somebody else. It's just not my thing. And then afterward, I mean, I would just I was probably having a panic attack, even at the thought of getting up there. And then I had to shift that and say, Oh my gosh, I can't be that person. I can't say no, pass the mic, no, I can't do it. And then I was flashing ahead to my children getting married or big moments in their lives. And then I was thinking, I can't let my friend down. This is terrible. So I had to push past my absolute pain and discomfort. And the way I went aro about it was just preparing myself. I wrote the speech. I practiced the speech over and over and over and over and over and over again. And didn't put the pressure on myself that I had to do it without the sheet in front of me. And I got up and I did it. And I can't tell you how much I grew from that experience.

SPEAKER_00 44:54

Oh, I believe it. I I I'm with you. I I was I always considered myself extremely shy. I graduated high school number one in my class and I wouldn't give the valedictorian speech. Right. I I I'm with you. And so was there I have a question in relation to what when when you were talking, when you were giving your speech. Do you recall anything in the moment that settled you? Do you recall anything? Did you notice somebody?

SPEAKER_04 45:25

Did you Yeah, I recalled everyone's smiling faces at me. And I knew that nobody was trying to tear me down. Everyone was rooting for me. And I think at the end of the day, they would all feel exactly the same way if they were up there as well. Probably happy it was me and not them. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 45:48

So you did so in that you did a couple of things. You did some top-down things, right? You you reoriented your thinking and your mindset and you reassured yourself. You said, Oh, they're all happy. They don't have to do this. And they're not judging me. They're they they want the best for me, right? So you're helping yourself with your mind, but you also did something really important is you notice their smiles. You notice their connection. And that that was really important, right? Because that their welcome in their eyes and their face and their posture is cueing your nervous system to settle just enough. Right. It's just, it's regulating your physiology just enough, maybe. Yeah. Okay. And and that combined with your reorienting yourself and reframing this experience was enough for you to be able to do it and then afterwards reflect and go, wow, I did something that was really scary and really challenging. And now that association isn't as powerful. It's awesome. Right. And it's interesting.

SPEAKER_04 46:51

I I wanted to get back up again when I got down. I was on such a high. It's like, oh, if I could just get up and do it again, it'll be so much better. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:59

Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 47:00

Yeah. Yeah. And and they're there, that's telling us that you were getting into a state of play because of the feedback they were having and all of that. They you were actually enjoying it. You reconvinced your nervous system that actually this isn't dangerous. This isn't dangerous. Right. And and yet it's the one of the biggest fears for most of us. And again, it makes sense. Because we'll go back to go back to what you're saying about belonging, putting ourselves up there, and and that's the thing with athletes. That's the thing with anyone. But you walk out on the center court, you walk out onto that stage, you're a singer performing in front of thousands, tens of thousands of people. You are actually factually putting your nervous system, putting yourself exposed, saying, Here I am, and your biology wants them to welcome you, wants them to value you. So let's honor that. Let's acknowledge that. It makes complete sense. Right? It makes complete sense. So what does that mean? It means we're gonna get mobilized.

SPEAKER_03 48:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:11

Or we're gonna get numb. Or we're gonna have an outer body. Right. Right. We're gonna have an out. So let's just acknowledge that. My biology wants to feel like it belongs. I get it. It makes sense. How can I help it?

SPEAKER_04 48:25

There's people that just naturally get up and just are not ruffled at all. Like a walk in the park. It's just a natural thing for them. And they've started that way since they were young and they carry it through their life. Do you think the people that have issues or are destabilized by getting up and doing public speaking or speaking in large groups comes from emotional trauma when we were younger? Comes from perhaps being ridiculed, being laughed at in class. I I don't know. You know, saying something that didn't land well, then you felt stupid, or is it something as simple as that?

SPEAKER_00 49:03

I think it could be part of it. I don't know if that would be every case, but I'd say that's part of it. There is a biological component like we just talked about. So it's perfectly natural to have some call it fear, call it anxiety, call it getting excited, nervous just by putting yourself out there. Because again, it's uncertain. Your biology doesn't know for sure you're going to be welcomed and included and a sense of belonging. So I think everyone from the very beginning of time will have some reaction. When that reaction is met with more diswelcome, more evaluation, or even our own, like I can think back and go, oh, I remember going up and I can think of a couple of reasons. But again, our brain makes up reasons. We try to make meaning for why I might feel that way. And I could say, Oh, well, when I when I was little, I used to sing in the chorus and I had a really high voice. I just had a naturally high voice. And then it started to change. And I can remember the time. I'm singing a solo and it went, like that. And I was like, oh, I'm done singing solo. And everybody was like, Whoa, and Miss Bielick was like, What happened? And so that was very embarrassing. I can remember that. And I've never sang in a choir since. That may have played a huge role. I can remember going up and asking Jenny Ball to dance in eighth grade and her saying, no, I don't think so. And in front of all of my friends, right? In front of all of my friends. So I can come up with many, many reasons for why I might have an exaggerated response to public speaking or to taking risks in public. So absolutely. I think that plays a role. And I think some of us are more sensitive than others. There's definitely nature involved, and there's nurture and experience.

SPEAKER_04 51:00

It becomes a vulnerability piece of you become protective of yourself.

SPEAKER_03 51:09

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:11

And that so that's a great word. So when what you learned in my language from that talk, from you speaking at your friends' reception, is you reassured yourself that actually that's still a little vulnerable, of course. But it's not so vulnerable that I'm fully exposed and that it's really, really dangerous. It's still vulnerable, but now I can still be accessible enough and little by little that may grow, right? Into what you were describing earlier, where you still feel nervous, but it's like, oh, I like I like this feeling actually. This means I'm this is this is exciting. It's more like I'm going to see how this plays out on the roller coaster versus uh-oh, what does this mean? Right. And so there's still some vulnerability, but the vulnerability becomes play, curiosity, right back where we started. It becomes curiosity and what's what's going to happen.

SPEAKER_04 52:13

Yeah. Be being able to reframe in that moment because you think about how many people hold back throughout their whole life in fear of speaking up or standing up on stage or or doing a speech at their son's 21st or whatever it may be. It's so destabilizing for them that they avoid it at all costs their whole lives. And then they never get that feeling of like I felt afterwards of, gosh, it wasn't that bad. I've just got to get past myself.

SPEAKER_00 52:47

Yes. Well, let me build on that. This might be helpful to your listeners. Is so we don't have to necessarily just throw ourselves into that. Okay. So what you did, what it sounds like you did, is you really prepared yourself. You said you prepared your speech, so you had that really, really dialed. You changed your framing of what that's meant. You did look for cues. So you prepared yourself. So you can prepare yourself in a completely other domain than that. So it wouldn't even have to be related to giving a speech. It could be I'm going to start challenging my physiology to be disrupted and then recover. And it could be, I'm going to go get into a cold shower.

SPEAKER_03 53:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:38

Because again, that's a physiological challenge. And can I now can I slowly turn the water down the cold and take it and then come back and go back and forth? That is a challenge that is very similar to what you're experiencing on stage. So you can do breathing practices, you can do different things, you can do exercise intervals. So you can start developing this capacity in your nervous system, in your physiology for flexibility, for recovery and challenge outside of the context that you're really afraid of, trusting that that is actually building the capacity. You still have associations, you still have maybe prior experiences that make that context even more of a disruption, but you're beginning to build the foundation that you're capable of handling that disruption. Right. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. So you can start building it in in other domains that aren't so scary.

SPEAKER_04 54:40

And even going back to public speaking, if you could expand by going to the bus stop instead of sitting on your phone, starting a conversation with a complete stranger.

SPEAKER_01 54:52

Beautiful.

SPEAKER_04 54:59

Out just outside of your comfort zone a little. Love it.

SPEAKER_00 55:03

Talking to people in the grocery line, right? Yes. Talking to the checkout person. Yeah. Things like that. Love that.

SPEAKER_04 55:11

Because then that gives you information that everything's okay. It's not but that wasn't so hard.

SPEAKER_00 55:20

Yeah. And and if what you're doing is you're really you're training your nervous system to have this flexibility, to be comfortable with discomfort, right? And and that is it. And little by little you can expand that out to your standing up on stage and singing a karaoke song.

SPEAKER_04 55:39

Well, I'll do that when you go back to the choir.

SPEAKER_00 55:43

All right, deal. It's a challenge. Oh, I know. It's funny. I don't think I've ever sung karaoke, but thank you for calling me out on that one. That's good.

SPEAKER_04 55:53

I'll be watching your socials very closely.

SPEAKER_00 55:57

I'm gonna sing country now because my daughters listen to country music. So I'm gonna when I do go back, I'm going to sing country.

SPEAKER_04 56:04

Yeah, I love country music. Just love it. Well, again, it is that it's that soothing type of music, right? It's sort of a little bit earthy and gritty and um the vagal nerve. Calming.

SPEAKER_00 56:21

Yeah, it's fun.

SPEAKER_04 56:23

So is modern life producing more dysregulated high performers? I know we spoke about this at the beginning, but do you think what's happening with devices and social media and just how much information we get on a daily basis, it's dysregulating our nervous system?

SPEAKER_00 56:42

It's adding to it, right? And it's it's taking us out of real genuine, intimate human connection. And we're we're getting connections through the screen, not even video. Most people are doing just, you know, or videos that they're posting and all of that. And so they're getting this dopamine hit, but that's not social engagement. It's a different whole different mechanism. And what we're really after, again, back to that biology, is to have real face-to-face human interaction with others who are safe, trusting, and playful. So again, it's not just anybody, because as more and more of the culture moves into collective patterns of protection, the harder it is to find safe connection, right? So to me, that's what's happening with the media, social media, technology is it's pulling us away from true connection with one another. It's exaggerating and exacerbating the danger and the distrust and the stories of threat and how different we all are. And instead of feeding into what was real, what how similar we actually all are, and we're being fed information that keeps us locked into our little belief patterns, right? And fueling more and more fear and danger and distrust. And so, yes, I think it's really hard. And professional performers are now being bet on all the time. So gambling is off the charts, right? And so and then when they lose or don't hit the score that people were betting on that was unbeknownst to them, that they're not playing any role and they get attacked like you wouldn't believe. And so they're constantly being evaluated, being harassed, then they have to go do press. Compared to how it was 15 years ago, there's just not time away. There's not time with true friends. Like there's an athlete who I really follow, and I have a book coming out in it'll come out in January, February. And it it's all about what we're talking about. But there's one athlete in particular who I follow throughout the book, and his name's Yannick Sinner. He's an Italian tennis player and he's number one in the world. And actually, he just lost in the French Open today. He was the favorite by far. But he he's human. He lost. He's, you know, so what will he do? What will he do when he loses? He will go right home. He will go home to northern Italy. He will be with his mom and dad and his friends, and he'll talk about how everyone there treats him like he was when he was a kid. He goes back home. He goes back to people, he plays games, he gets out of tennis, he does all of that. And that's really hard to do. But that's what, again, the biology is craving. He goes back to where he knows he belongs. He's not being judged on winning or losing. It's safe, it's familiar, it's predictable, it's reliable, it's all of those things. And it's a small town in northern Italy. It's everything that the biology was actually designed for. It's like here, here he is. He will recover. And that is so hard and so not what everyone is able to do.

SPEAKER_04 59:59

Yeah. Do you work with him, Michael?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:02

I don't work with him. I just admire him and I follow him and I I study him. I write a lot about him. He's he, for whatever reason, he embodies all of this naturally. Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:16

And he just I hope he comes across your work because I think it's it's really important.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:21

Yeah, well, thank you. I hope he does too, but he's already doing it. He is so much the model of this. Yeah. And you can see it because win or lose, he's the most thoughtful, respectful winner or loser. Like it's just, he's just truly amazing. And that again, you can only access that when you're in a state of enoughness, a state of okayness, a state of safety, a state of I belong, win or lose. I'm already okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:51

And so he has all that, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:00:53

It's and he has that, obviously, with family as well. And I think when you have those strong family values and a tight unit, that is just natural. Not all people have that, I would imagine. Not all athletes would have that support, but having that is just fundamental to everything.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:13

Huge. And and one thing that's really interesting with him and his family is there are a lot of athletes who have who have family and who come to all of their tournaments. They come to all, especially as they get better and better. So I compare Yannick Center to the number two player, Carlos Alcaraz, okay, who also is awesome and is doing a lot of this in the way that I would say aligns with my methodology. His whole family comes to like every tournament. His brother is on his coaching team. So he's funding. So you'd say they're they're great. They're at every tournament, they're supporting him, and but there's another component. There's that extra layer of pressure I have to keep provide, right? Yannick Sinners, mom and dad never come. Like once, once or twice a year, they both still work. They both are in their small town. He talks to them all the time, but they don't come. And you go, oh, well, they're not supporting him. No, they're letting him be.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:13

Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:14

And he knows he can go home. It's a different, it's a different relationship, and it's very, very healthy.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:21

Not as much pressure like you do really well. Right. Like you, we're all rooting for you. You've got to like smash it, get this one in the bag, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:31

We love you, winter leaves.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:33

The other ones are like, have a good time, darling.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:38

That's right. We're still like our mom and dad for a while. But you know what? Exactly. Right. So you can see the benefit to that, right? You can see the how that doesn't layer anyone else's expectation on top of your own.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:52

And if we relate that to parenting as well, when we're too invested in our kids' lives or putting too much pressure on them, you're coming again. You know, it it becomes just it it fractures relationships almost. Absolutely. Even though it's coming from a good place. But it's so important to have that separateness.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:13

You got it. Yeah. You're making me think back on I would always coach my daughter's teams, whatever they were doing, and it was this whole philosophy. And there was uh AYSO, it was our kind of our whole football. Here it's called soccer, but football, right? And so there was one Saturday season where no parents could make a sound. We gave all the parents lollipops so they had to suck on a lollipop instead of yelling. And the kids loved it. Yeah. The kids loved it.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:52

And it's exactly what we're talking about. They're there, they're present. I see them. I know they love me, they're here, but they're not throwing their stuff on top of me.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:01

Yeah. I noticed that with my daughter. She's a dressage rider. She competes at a high level in equestrian riding. You can see the parents where there's pressure. You know, and we're all guilty of it to a certain extent, but I'm very aware because horses are so susceptible to human energy. So it's not just impacting my daughter, it's impacting the horse as well. So it's yeah, sometimes you've just got to And then it's impacting everybody and every horse.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:29

It's a very it's a right, it's a very complex thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:32

It's herd instinct. So it's interesting. Sometimes you do just have to check in with yourself and just yeah, let let them go. So, Michael, last question. What is one thing you wish everyone understood about nervous system?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:53

Just reiterating really where where we started. To me, it's that it really whatever's uh playing out beneath our awareness initially, what we call the nervous system, it's really shaping our whole experience of the world, our place in the world, our view of ourselves, our relationships, how we see other people. And that insight it just helps take the edge off. It can just take the edge off of our own self-criticism, our own shame and guilt and blame, but also our own evaluation of others, right? Like I was really judgmental. I I was absolutely grew up in a very conservative black and white home. And so for me, it's softened the edges a lot. Not all the way, but a lot. And I think that has been a huge gift for me that I think Can be helpful to a lot of us is just letting go of some of that criticism and blame and shame on ourselves and others, and recognizing just how much, either drastically or very subtly, our nervous system and those adjustments that are happening beneath our conscious awareness, beneath our deliberate decision making, are having an impact and an influence. And starting, just starting in small ways, like everything we've talked about today, to start just coming alongside that, that part of us in a way that might be helpful, or at least in a way that relates to it with more curiosity and compassion. That that's it, you know, and then all of the other stuff kind of sits for me anyway, sits on top of that or sits alongside of that.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:53

I love that. Well said. So before we wrap up, I'd love to offer a moment of reconnection. A few questions I ask every guest. So what helps you feel most regulated and grounded?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:08

Uh mostly just nature. Just like right now, I'm looking out at an oak tree. We live in a beautiful area and just being outside, just sitting under a tree or swinging in a hammock.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:21

Yeah. Where do you feel safest and most connected to yourself?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:30

In in a really playful relationship. So if if I'm having a real playful interaction with somebody I trust, I feel very much myself and very free.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:45

And what does your body talk to about yourself?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:50

That the safer and more accessible I become, the less rigid my patterns are.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:04

Yeah. What a great way to end.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:06

Michael, this has been such a fascinating and important conversation. I think many people may now understand that their nervous system is not working against them. It's trying to protect them. Thank you for bringing such warmth and accessibility to this work and for helping people better understand the connection between the body, the brain, and feeling safe in the world. Where can people find you?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:31

Thank you for this. It was wonderful. You could find me at my website. I have two different websites, theplayzone.com or performancecode. The book will be called The Performance Code. And so that's it.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:46

How exciting. I can't wait for it to come out. The performance code, did you say? Or code?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:51

C O D E. Yeah. The Performance Code.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:53

C O D E exciting. First book. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:57

Uh well, I've co-authored a couple of different books and written chapters, but this is my first uh book to myself and probably my last. One and done. We'll see.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:08

Oh, it's so great. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:11

Well, you're welcome. Thank you. That was lovely.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:18

Thank you for joining me on Inside Out Connections. I hope today's conversation reminds you to tune in and find small ways to self reconnect. If this episode resonated, please share it with a friend or leave a quick review. Come join me on Instagram at insideout skin gutcoach.