When Do You Perform & Live at Your Best? — Beneath The Surface
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May 23, 2025
Explore the paradox that true performance is rooted in freedom, not rigid identities. Discover how embracing spontaneity can unleash creativity and authentic expression. Learn the importance of living in the moment to achieve peak performance, illustrated by an athlete's journey after loss. Delve into the significance of letting go of past regrets and future worries for enhanced potential. This enlightening discussion encourages you to reclaim presence and flow, balancing ambition with the joy of being fully alive.
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insights INSIGHT
Freedom Fuels Peak Performance
You perform and live at your best when you are free from gripping identity or outcome fear.
Being overly attached to a role or label creates tension and restricts natural expression and flow.
insights INSIGHT
Identity Can Become a Prison
Identities created to support us can become prisons we must protect.
Protecting identity causes tension, curtails natural expression, and halts growth.
insights INSIGHT
Tension, Not Skill, Limits You
Your skills no longer limit you; tension and the need to prove yourself do.
The real block to flow is too much tension, not lack of knowledge.
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This book, first published in 1974, focuses on the 'Inner Game' played within the mind of the player, against obstacles such as self-doubt, nervousness, and lapses in concentration. Gallwey introduces the concept of two selves: Self 1, the thinking brain that analyzes and judges, and Self 2, the 'feeling and doing' brain that can master skills naturally if not interfered with by Self 1. The book provides strategies for achieving 'relaxed concentration' and overcoming internal mental and emotional obstacles, making it relevant not only to tennis but also to other areas of life such as music, writing, work, and personal relationships.
The Creative Act
A Way of Being
Rick Rubin
In *The Creative Act: A Way of Being*, Rick Rubin distills the wisdom he has gained from a lifetime of working with artists across various genres. The book is not just about music production but about the broader creative process and how it applies to everyone's life. Rubin emphasizes the importance of reconnecting with a state of innocence, being aware of the world, and tapping into what he calls 'Source'—an infinite and constant flow of ideas and inspiration. The book is structured around 78 areas of thought, providing practical wisdom, philosophical insights, and encouragement for anyone seeking to enhance their creative expression.
We’ve all been taught that in order to succeed, we need to push harder, grind longer, and sacrifice joy now in hopes of earning it later. But what if that model, the one most high performers live inside, is the very thing keeping us from our best?
In this episode, Sean DeLaney unpacks one of the most powerful, paradoxical truths about performance:
You don’t perform at your best by gripping harder. You perform at your best when you’re free.
This isn’t about throwing out discipline or abandoning your goals. It’s about releasing the identities, fears, and outcome attachments that block your presence — and returning to the state where your highest self actually lives.
We’ll explore:
The hidden trap of identity and the performance persona
What happens when you stop performing for approval
How to work toward meaningful goals without being held hostage by outcomes
Why the present moment is the only place your genius lives
If you’re tired of achieving but not feeling fully alive… If you want to reclaim presence without losing ambition… This one’s for you.
🎧 Listen now and start living from the version of you that flows — not the one that’s forcing it.
What Got You There with Sean DeLaney 
