Your state of mind is arguably the most critical part of any endeavor. But getting your mind right is not always something you can easily alter with the flip of a switch.
Enter priming.
Psychological priming uses one stimulus (think listening to a motivational song) to help prime a response for something else (like a state of mind).
Priming is the human equivalent of Pavlovian dog training.
Josh Waitzkin is an 8x US National Chess Champion, a 2x Tai Chi Push Hands World Champion, and a Black Belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. His methodologies are precise and intentional. There is no doubt that there is a significant amount of physical training involved to compete at elite levels in sports. But the less obvious is the psychological training.
One mental tool Josh and many successful humans like him employ is priming by using music.
For every training session and before every bout of Tai Chi Push Hand, Josh would listen to Eminem’s, Lose Yourself. On a recent podcast on the Tim Ferriss show, Josh stated, “Listening to Lose Yourself by Eminem all these years later instantly puts me in a fight-ready mindset.”
Song = State of Mind. That is priming at work.
By listening to the song while training hard, Josh’s mind made a direct connection. The song is now a trigger for the state of mind required to fight to win.
To that end, we have made our favorite line from that same song into a shirt and hoodie.
This shirt is just the kick in the shorts you need to keep your mind right and your actions on track for anyone needing an unescapable affirmation.