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By the late sixties, we were really well positioned for serious growth. We had a retail concept we believed in, the core of a professional management team, and the foundations of systems which would support growth. In 1968, we had fourteen variety stores and thirteen Wal-Marts. In 1969, we had fourteen variety stores and eighteen Wal-Marts. And we were raring to go. I couldn’t resist taking that next step to see how far we could go.
Sam Walton
Sam Walton and John Huey
Thus, in skiing we must confront a basic fear: loss of the familiar. This feeling of uncertainty is similar to the first time we put our feet on the pedals of a bicycle, pushed off the wall of an ice-skating rink or tried to stay afloat in water. Just as in these other activities, learning to ski requires first being willing to let go of one known sense of control in order to gain another. In trying to do so, few of us escape a sense of panic.
Inner Skiing
W. Timothy Gallwey
In a series of studies starting in 2012, the researchers put hardened marines, elite adventure racers, and ordinary people through the fMRI tests. Some members of the control groups panicked and had to be removed from the scanner, but the elite performers handled the scenario with ease. In fact, while the control groups got worse at the cognitive task when their breathing was restricted, the elite groups actually got better—precisely the sort of performance under stress that enables you to dig a little deeper when the stakes are highest, whether in the heat of combat or at the end of a multi-day adventure race. Before the breathing restriction starts, the athletes already have higher levels of activity in their insular cortex—consistent with the idea that they’ve become adept at monitoring their own signals. “Typically, athletes are pretty in tune with their body awareness,” Lori Haase, another of Paulus’s colleagues, told me. They’re in a state of watchful anticipation, ready to handle any discomfort that arises. Then, when the flow of air is restricted and the discomfort begins, the situation flips: insular cortex activity stays low in the athletes, but goes haywire in the controls and in people with anxiety and related problems. Paulus draws a direct link between these findings and the research of Noakes and others on the importance of perceived effort in endurance. First, heightened internal awareness allows elite endurance athletes to anticipate and prepare for unpleasantness, avoiding the all-important mismatch between expected and actual effort described by Tucker. Then, subduing the natural reaction (or overreaction) to discomfort—what Marcora calls response inhibition—allows them to push on. So how do you train your insular cortex?
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