What is The Zone? - Separating Fact from Fiction.

Welcome to my blog, where I’ll take a deep dive into all aspects of mental performance training. My hope is that I’ll be able to provide more value here than you can find in any paid course or from an expensive performance coach, for free. Why would I do this? Because I know that if you enjoy the content here, you’ll eventually want to hire me to speak at an event, work with your team, or coach you one-on-one.

What is The Zone?

Let’s talk about The Zone! In this article, I want to dispel some of the myths surrounding The Zone and just give you a really no frills, no fluff understanding of what The Zone is. So, what does the world think about The Zone and how does it differ from what the science tells us?

Every athlete can recall a few times where they felt the ease, and that everything was coming to them without any conscious effort. They weren’t thinking and things slowed down. This is what I thought The Zone was. I had no idea what happened in my mind and body during The World Series that allowed my full ability to rise to the surface.

Those who have experienced The Zone know that it is a very desirable state, but that it seems to come and go randomly. As a result, they are resigned to enjoying the state when it happens and hoping that it returns.

There are others who try to create Zone Experiences by using breathing techniques and meditation. This of course has its place in athletics. I regularly teach my clients breathing and meditation to help them quiet their minds before they take the field or begin a sports-specific motion

Still, these efforts seem to operate based on incomplete knowledge of how the brain works when an athlete is performing or developing their skills. That’s why we need a better definition of The Zone based on the science of how the brain operates. With that in mind, here’s how we define The Zone:

The Zone is your ability to access and develop what we call your Library of Preparation when you need it.

The Library of Preparation

The Library Preparation is a part of the brain (also known as the Basal Ganglia) where all the skills you have learned from the time you were born, are stored.

When you were a baby, you learned how to crawl, then walk. You learn new skills in school, you may have learned how to cook or swim. All of it gets stored in The Library of Preparation.

This also applies to sports. In baseball we learn to throw and catch the ball, and those skills are also stored in The Library of Preparation, which is in the middle of the brain.

If you want to be the best at what you do, whether it’s sports or business, you need to be able to access and develop your Library of Preparation better than anyone else.

However, quite often what happens to an athlete is they get in the game, and they play below their potential. Why aren't we playing up to our capability in each moment?

I like to reference Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, and Prince Fielder, three amazing former Major League Baseball players who had tremendous careers. What do they have in common besides hitting a ton of home runs and being incredible players? In the postseason, they didn't perform as well as they did during the regular season. Fielder never broke through in the postseason. Bonds and A-Rod eventually did, but as great as they were, they really didn't understand what made them great.

A lot of great athletes may not clearly understand what and why they're doing something right, and they don't always have to have success. But when the pressure gets turned up or they get to a certain age or certain level of their career, they can falter. Without knowing what makes them great, their performance can diminish in high pressure situations, as it did for Fielder, Bonds and A-Rod. Therefore, I tell people that what I teach isn’t just for struggling athletes. This stuff is for everyone who wants to understand at the deepest level, what's taking place when playing their best.

I knew from my Zone Experience in the World Series that if I had that experience once, logic tells me I should be able to experience it on a regular basis. I didn't get lucky; I was just able to access my Library of Preparation when I needed it most. Having 100% access to your skills in critical moments, means your full ability will rise to the surface. Always.

Challenging The Status Quo

Years ago, after my playing career, I was doing some broadcasting for the Royals on the weekends. We were in Chicago, and I walked into the White Sox clubhouse. The team at the time was not performing well and mired in a slump. On the chalkboard, someone had written "slumps are part of the game." This was before I knew a lot of what I teach now, but I did know a bit about the brain-body connection, and seeing what was written on the chalkboard didn't sit right for me. I said to myself, “Wait a second, a slump is just a breakdown in the brain-body connection. That connection operates by a set of rules, just like gravity. A slump happens for a reason. It’s not random, and it certainly doesn’t have to be a normal part of the game”

Then a couple of years ago, I was with one of my PGA Tour golfers. We were on the range, and he hit a bad shot. I asked him “What happened there?” He looked at me and said, “What do you mean? I hit a bad shot, Buddy. You can't hit every shot well.” He was not happy with my question. “I understand that you're not going to hit every shot well, but what happened that caused it to go that direction?” “That's golf. You know, you can't be perfect.” “I understand that. But something happened. The ball just didn't go there by itself. Something happened in your physiology that caused the ball to go that direction."

I tell that story because I believe there’s no better game in life than golf to master yourself, because it's a game with very little margin for error. The ball gives you immediate feedback on your mental state. And there are processes in our minds and bodies that take place that can make the game very difficult to learn and even harder to master.

Even my early clients were able to avoid prolonged slumps. When they missed the mark, they maintained confidence. Sustainable confidence is a byproduct of understanding what’s taking place in the brain at the most fundamental level.

When you’re able to consistently access your Library Preparation, a slump can’t occur. When you start to embrace this way of looking at performance, you realize that other things that we consider “normal parts of life” (depression, anxiety, chronic sickness) may not be as random as they appear.

Internal Emotion = External Performance

In the first research project I did with some golfers, we saw an increase in the Theta Brainwave State, and at the time I didn't think much of it. But as I was working with professional athletes over time, the wives of some of the professional pitchers with whom I was working, reported their husbands were happier and in a better mood. I said, “Well, that can be expected. He's performing better.” But strangely, they'd go on to tell me that it was independent of how they were pitching. I went back and thought about the results from the study with golfers and those increases in the theta state. I started to study the theta brainwaves, and one of the things I learned was that theta increases serotonin and oxytocin, which are two feel good chemicals

That was the reason they were feeling better along with performing better. The same process in the brain that allows you to access and develop your Library of Preparation also makes us feel good. It’s as if our physiology is rewarding us for activating our full potential in The Zone.

That’s not to say any of it is easy to put into practice. You must train for it on a regular basis, just like anything else. Proper repetition is key to accessing the Zone.