This is how competition in life affects your brain

This is how competition in life affects your brainThis is how competition in life affects your brainAshley Merrymanis the co-author of the twoNew York TimesbestsellersNurtureShock, one of the most influential books about children ever published, andTop Dog, which blends science and storytelling to examine elite performance across business, sports, and academia.Michael Gervaisrecently hosted herbei on theFinding Mastery podcastto discuss the surprising neuroscience and psychology behind competition, cooperation, and conquering challenges head-on.Michael Do you value risk-taking?Ashley Absolutely. Im in awe of people who are better at it than I am, which isnt too hard. People who really take risks all the time I think are awesome.Michael It is wonderful, isnt it? Theres a balance between neurochemistry and genetic coding, as well as a skill.Ashley And gender.Michael Its wild that theres a gender difference. When I first came across that, I welches like, Youve got to be kidding me.Ashle y Po Bronson and I were going to write this book about competition and he asked, Hey, do you think we should write about gender differences? I immediately said, No. I didnt want people to hold up Top Dog and say, The reason mora women arent in geschftszimmer is because they cant compete.When we were writing NutureShock, we came across gender differences pretty regularly in the data, but they were just such small differences that I thought theyd be a distraction. But then we found the research of Muriel Niederle at Stanford, who asked men and women in the lab, Do you want to compete or not? 70% of the guys said Game on. 30% of the women said yes.Thats a 40% difference. Thats not just some random deviation. People talked about her work before, but I think they got it wrong because they said, Well, women cant compete. Women dont want to compete. What we realized from her work is that women are really good at calculating their odds of success, and men are really good at ignoring them.Wo men just refuse to participate if they dont think theyre going to win. Guys just go, Yeah, I think I got this, and they jump in. For me personally, Ive been trying to be less concerned with the outcome, more willing to take risks and think, What am I going to learn from this experience? If Im going to learn something, the fact that Im not actually successful in the task can be irrelevant. Ive just got tofocus on what I can learn.Michael Theres an entire social construct around the hundertprozentig competition. The American idea is to compete against, to work against another unit. But if we look at the original definition of competition, its about cooperation. Lets thrive together. Lets figure something out together. Lets embrace and love the people on the other side. I wonder if you can bounce off that a little bit.Ashley Its a false choice between competition and cooperation. You and I can work together on a project, but want to beat the other guys who are working on their project. If you and I are competing against each other, but weve agreed on a forum and a conduct of behavior, weve still coopetarifd because were laying out those ground rules. I just think its false when people talk about, Its a dog eat dog world, or Were all singing Kumbaya. Neither of those is true.Michael If we go down into the game theory and the logic around that, most competitions are zero-sum games, meaning the winner takes all. War is the ultimate winner-take-all, because its land and life that are on the line. But for games like football, basketball, and baseball, where were agreeing on the construct, its not winner-take-all.Ashley Yeah, the benefit of competition isnt the win. The benefit of competition is improvement.We opened Top Dog with this description of Jason Lezak in the Beijing Olympics, and his famous come-from-behind victory so that the Americans could win the relay, and Michael Phelps beating fruchtfleisch Spitzs record. All of that is awesome and Jason is amazing, bu t five of the eight teams beat the world record that day.They didnt all go home with a new world record, but they all did something no one in the world had done before. The fact that other people were doing it at the same time doesnt take away from their achievement. If anything, the next time they get in the pool, their expectation of what is possible has changed.In the moment, competition improves your performance because if you see what someone else does, its not about tearing them down, its about saying, Is there more I can do that I didnt even realize?Then competition improves over time, because with practice you start realizing, Oh, I get tired at this point, or This kind of thing frustrates me, or Im better in this kind of circumstance, and how do I prepare for it? Its both in the moment, and competing over time. They both give you that improvement.My favorite example of that is Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte. When Phelps announced his retirement, people asked Ryan, What do y ou think? I guess they were expecting, Well, more medals for me But instead he welches like, I dont buy it. Hes going to come back. He makes me swim better. Phelps came back, and at the first competition, one of them won. They were both like, Whats this rivalry? He makes me swim better.If youre getting a team of stars together though, thats a different challenge. Putting a bunch of experts in a room, theyre going to start throwing knives at each other pretty quickly. But if you give them a purpose, if you give them a structure and a mission, then they end up doing spectacular things.They need that guidance and that singular vision, especially if youve got really talented people, because they already have a vision that theyre bringing in.Michael When people can hook into something thats bigger, it gives them a reason to rely on and trust other people to do something together.Ashley Right. Because if youre an elite athlete, if youre terrific at throwing the football, you could throw i t down the field as far as you can, but theres no one to catch it. You can do more on a team. If you want to throw things by yourself, theres this sport called javelin throwing, and no one needs you to catch it. If you want to do more, thenthe team environment is where you need to go. You have to explain to people that that context and the communal effort is going to get them more than they would get on their own.Michael Yeah, there you go.Why compete? Why is competition important?Ashley Were social animals. Thats what we do. We think about, How am I doing compared to my sister, or my friend? The best competitors pick and choose when theyre going to compete. The best Olympian goes in and says, I am going to work really hard to be successful, and I will crush my opponents. But he doesnt have that same approach to getting a parking space at the mall.Michael They have control. They can toggle it up and down when they need to.Ashley Great competitors understand when its not important. A nother part is that a great competitor understands it can take a really long time to get good at something.Michael A very long time. This is why I think its hard for the talented to stay the journey, because it was easy for them. Theyre always the tallest, the strongest, the biggest at a young age. Its really difficult for them to stay the path of mastery. Sometimes they dont have that fire and that competitive drive to get better.Can you explain some of the neurotransmitters that are important for competition?Ashley Yes. I was having a conversation with UC Berkeley neuroscientist Silvia Bunge. She was saying that motivation is expressed in the brain with the transmission of dopamine. I was confused because my understanding was that you get dopamine when you achieve your goal, that dopamine was the reward, but Sylvia was saying that dopamine is what you get in motivation. Then I realized that motivation is the goal.When Im planning something, even when it comes off the way I wanted it to, theres normally a letdown. What was missing? What I realized from talking to Sylvia was that the dopamine from getting the success pales in comparison to the dopamine I had during the process, during the motivation to do it.Humans are not built to do something and then say, Were done. The point of our physiology is to literally give us the physical and mental capability, once we do one goal, to achieve the next goal. Your hit of dopamine from being successful is not your victory lap, its to help you find the next goal.You can say that dopamine is the neurotransmitter version of motivation, and that testosterone is the hormonal version of it. You get a boost of testosterone when you win not because, Im awesome, but because youre getting ready to do the next challenge. You get a bigger testosterone boost from a near win, because its the guy who just lost who said, No, no. Rematch. Its that biochemical preparation to get us to continue on.Motivation really is the goal.MichaelI l ove it. Because the path, in and of itself, is the virtue. The path of growing is the path worth going on.I think the challenge and threat piece is so good. Lets dive into that.AshleyA challenge is when you have the resources, skills, and ability to succeed. That doesnt mean that success is guaranteed. It could work, it might not, but you have a meaningful chance. A threat is when you dont have the resources, skills, and ability to succeed and the main question is, How badly is this going to go?Whats amazing is these two different perspectives, the psychology of challenge and threat, trigger different physiological responses. I cant overestimate how significant they are. Jeremy Jamieson did an experiment with chronically anxious people. They were asked to give a speech about their lives, dreams, and hopes, and people were insulting them.The difference between going into that speech feeling excited and feeling nervous, a challenge or a threat, was an additional two liters of blood pu mping out of their hearts above baseline per minute. Two liters.In a challenge state, your heart rate variability improves. Your blood vessels all dilate, you burn stored glucose, you get an increase in testosterone, you get a depression in cortisol, you get increases in adrenaline versus noradrenaline.In a threat state, your heart rate variability drops. Your heart rate goes up, but you have vasoconstriction, so youve got all this blood rushing out of your heart, but it doesnt have anywhere to go. Your fingers start getting tingly and numb. You get a burst of energy because you burn circulating glucose, not stored glucose.Researchers at the University of Washington did a great study asking the question, What stuff makes the elite? They do a shooting simulation with professional police officers who have had at least 10 years on the force. They know how guns work, they know how shooting simulations work. In theory, they should be at max performance levels.But some were thinking, Are you scoring me based on how many targets I hit or how many targets I missed? Are you scoring me based on what I did compared to someone else? Those kinds of questions, and the psychological and physiological triggering, accounted for 73% of the variance between the two performances.MichaelMy thoughts impact my physiology, and my physiology impacts my psychology. Its that interaction between both thats really important, and the mentally disciplined can do some sort of intervention if necessary. Breathing happens to be one of the more potent ones to do.AshleyMy favorite example of that is a study ofspecial forcesand elite athletes. The comparison group were people prone to panic attacks. I call them panickers. All of them are naturally sensitive to changes in their heart rate. The special forces and the elite athletes said, My heart rate is going up. Is that appropriate given what Im about to do? Is there something in my environment that I need to change? The panickers went, My heart is going up. Im going to have a panic attack. Then they do.The elite athletes and special forces guys are saying the physiology is a diagnostic tool, showing me theres something I need to address. Whereas for the panickers, it was the diagnosis. Once their heart rate goes up, theyre on that train, and they cant stop it.I now try and look at them both ways. I understand that if Im nervous about something, Im stressed and Im feeling those physiological symptoms. Metabolically, its going to take about 45 minutes for my testosterone and cortisol levels to get regulated anyway, so I just have to realize this is how Im going to feel. Im going to be nervous, Im going to be shaking. How am I going to best perform under these situations? How do I power through this?Thats the worst case scenario. Ideally though, I think in advance, This is going to be stressful. Im going to think of this as a challenge. And what is a challenge? Its not whether or not Im going to be successful at the task. Its Can I learn from this? That way I can look forward to it, but I can also use the physiology as cues. You can use the physiology to help you identify the psychology, but you can also use the psychology to prevent the physiology from going badly.If you think of everything as an opportunity for growth and a learning experience, then that is a challenge, and as long as you learn from it, then you know going in that youre going to be successful.My best example of that- a young woman I mentor was really nervous. She had just gotten herfirst job interview, and she had worked really hard on her rsum. She called me and said, Help me figure out. I said, Im not going to tell you youre going to get the job, because who knows? What I can promise is that by the end of this, you will never have to have another first job interview of your life ever again. When you go in, mentally prepare for how you can learn from this as much as you possibly can. She said, Yeah, I can do that.She called me the we ek afterward and she said, I wasnt nervous, and I learned from it. I didnt get the job, but Im totally fine. A week after that, she had her second interview, and she got the offer.If were really focused on the value of improvement and believe in the value of learning and growth, I think youre good, whether youre talking about a three-year-old on a soccer pitch or some player in the World Cup.MichaelIs there a single ideal competitive mindset that youve come across?AshleyI dont think theres one ideal mindset. The best competitors know what those things and situations are that make them do their best, and use that to their advantage.Some people do best playing not to lose, and some people do best feeling anxious, and feeling like they dont want to let the country down. Some people do best calm. Some people do best playing happy. Some people do best playing angry. Some people do their best fired up, and to tell everyone You need to be calm is a big disservice.If people are stressed, th e advice is Youre not stressed, youre excited. Youve just got to change it to a positive understanding. This is important to me, and thats a good thing. Were going to use that to our benefit. Rather than, This is so important, Im going to implode.MichaelI like it. I do talk about the value of calm, but I make sure that theres some sort of fire. Its not relaxed and mellow.AshleyPure rage and chronic anger is a problem, but theres been research that people who get angry in appropriate circumstances have higher mental well-being than those who are just happy all the time. I think anger is the agent of change. Happy people are happy, so there is no reason to change. An angry person says, No, I need to do something. The catalyst for anger is perceiving an obstacle in your way, but believing theres something you can do to change it. If you have an obstacle but no power to change it, that doesnt lead to anger, that leads to despair.I think anger can be very productive, and were told, Dont be angry. I think thats wrong. Its about always making sure that youre moving forward.This conversation has been edited and condensed.This article was originally published on Heleo.