Haven’t we all desired to speak in front of an audience only to find a shudder run up our spine and go blank within seconds of appearing on stage? Haven’t we always desired to conquer this mind-numbing fear that is keeping us from reaching our highest potential?  Haven’t we experienced scattered flashes of peak performance, without being able to sustain them? His performance primer offers the perfect blueprint to enhance the sustainability of this peak performance. While burnout has been cited to afflict peak performers, it happens more so on account of their inability to relax and recover.

Imagine you are hiking in the Himalayas and a snow leopard appears out of the white. What is likely to be your first knee jerk reaction? Most likely, you might experience a sudden tightness in your muscles and a queasiness in your gut, wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t all your attention now be directed towards the cat? Don’t we naturally pay attention to something that scares us? The Eureka moment in Steven’s book lies in treating fear as a compass for directing our scarcest resource that is, attention. If there is an element of fear in any activity, attention naturally comes with it, for free. One of his eye-opening statements is, “Going in the direction that scares you the most amplifies attention and this automatically translates into flow.”