The Freedom Project 035: Getting To Know Yourself, w/ Phil Mansfield
“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom” - Aristotle
“Knowing others is intelligence.
Knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength.
Mastering yourself is true power”
Lao Tzu
Or simply
“Know thyself”
Socrates
It doesn’t matter if you were born millenia ago like Aristotle, Lao Tzu, or Socrates, or born today like you. Knowing yourself is the first step you must take in order to fulfil your potential as an athlete and as a human.
In this podcast, Phil Mansfield, Coach at Red Pill Training, frequently asks the question “do you push the piano, or play the piano?”
What he’s getting at is something like “are you someone who thrives in grunt work, routine, and discipline, or are you someone who thrives in chaos and the unknown?”
By knowing this, you know how to structure your training and recovery, and even how to think about your self-talk.
But self-knowledge doesn’t stop there of course.
What really drives you to be your best?
What are your fears?
What are your worst habits and best attributes?
What do you spend undue time worrying over?
What is the story at the heart of your performance challenges?
Who do you believe you are?
How has time and experience trained your nervous system’s default setting?
What are you really imagining before a lift?
If you don’t know these things, you will be a leaf in the wind; blown about by external circumstance; lacking any say in your outcome.
At the end of the day, you can only control the controllable. The only controllable is you.
So begin a kind of study. Part psychological, part philosophical, part sports performance, part anthropological.
Make notes and question why you’re doing what you’re doing. Get to know who you really are from a different perspective.
Become the observer, as someone once said to me.
Phil is a true gem of a human and we cover some really fertile ground for athletes. It’s always fascinating to find someone who says similar things, but from a different perspective to yourself. This is what I found in this conversation.