Fight, Fuck and Be A Monk

How to reach Prime State and stay there, whatever the pressure.

Man to Man: When The Pressure’s On, Your State Decides

After weeks of trying, I’d finally got to meet him. He was, what they call in the world of trading, a whale.

I was selling an idea to a man with a huge job and a serious bank account. Everyone else was open plan, he was sitting behind a large desk with a panoramic view across the City of London. My idea was unproven, it required a seven figure investment from his own bank account and a large leap of faith.

When I walked in he was distracted. He barely looked up at me. I was told I had ten minutes. But I knew the timeline was in my favour, I’d been highly recommended and I had a piece of intellectual property no one else possessed.

So I said, matter of factly, that I needed at least twenty minutes but it was no problem if he couldn’t spare the time because I had plenty of others to see. He was used to controlling the agenda, but that had just shifted along with the balance of power. Over the coming weeks there’d be plenty more rounds of this game, but for now I had his attention.

Half an hour later I walked out with agreement to take all the capacity I had.

I’d landed a whale and a huge fee.

It’s not always like that.

In Soho, New York, early 2000’s, I stepped into a hotel elevator and inside stood Charlie’s Angels: Lucy Lu, Cameron Diaz and Drew Barrymore. Just me and the three of them, fresh from NYC’s film festival. I was going to start a conversation, but persuaded myself it would be awkward or they would think I was a creep or they’d just want to be left in peace. It was a deceit. Excuses. Anything to avoid the possibility of rejection. Too much beauty and star power in a small place for me to handle. Weakness crept in and my brain went blank. Not a single word came out of my mouth. I walked out of the lift, feeling pathetic and ashamed.

Too hard on myself? Maybe, maybe not.

If I’d said the right words with confidence what could have happened? A laugh, a drink, a date? A movie made together? You never know what’s possible when the moment opens up. But I’d missed my slot and shut the door in my own face.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man …or not.

All moments that matter come with pressure. The more they matter the greater the pressure. That’s how we’re evolved. The likelihood is you’re like me, sometimes strong, other times power is absent.

With Prime State comes creativity, intelligence, resourcefulness, clarity and flexibility.

A weak state leaves you feeling stuck. Unclear of the best thing to say, blind to the winning idea, foggy and procrastinating. Here you’re reactive and unresourceful.

When your state is off people notice. They start looking over your shoulder or at their phone. Chances are, nothing much will happen, except you’ll feel some version of bad.

The client you’re trying to close needs power to be convinced, to drive their attention. Their brain is wired that way. The people you want to lead, need the status a strong state creates, that’s what our neurochemistry responds to. It’s our evolutionary conditioning. Like the girl you fancy, she’s looking for power, it turns her on. It’s biology and millions of years of survival strategy.

That’s nature at work. Swim against it if you want, but it will cost you.

For years I witnessed what I brought to pressured moments. If I was strong I felt good, if I wasn’t it hurt. When it was losing I’d beat myself up about it and then tried to forget it, with a shrug of the shoulders. I should have said this or I wish I’d done that.

I didn’t know how to build state when it wasn’t there for me. No rites of passage. Few role models. Plenty of mixed messaging. And like just about everybody else I had no understanding of the structure of state.

Then I began to understand the rules of the game and I started to feel truly alive. That aliveness — the charge, the strength, the freedom to be fully yourself under pressure — that’s the destination. I call that man The Vital Man. Prime State is how you get there.

If you want to build something worthwhile at pace the structure of state is your game-changer. When selling, you will dramatically improve your hit rate. When negotiating, you will secure better terms. When advancing your career, it will get you higher faster. When dating, it will magnify your charisma.

It can be no other way because that’s how we’re wired as humans.

This then is our fight.

In folklore, Iron John finds castles in faraway lands, bangs on the door and asks if there are any dangerous battles that need fighting. He represents the best of you and I as men. He wants to test his state and to do this he must step into the unknown, face risk, stare down his fear, time and time again.

The castles may have gone but Iron John is still relevant. You’re born to be powerful, and inner power is what holds Prime State in the face of pressure. But many different forces and factors will try to steal your power, like a thief in the night. If that happens, you’ll lose your battles.

State gets stolen in ways you don’t notice …until it’s gone. It gets taken by forces overt and subtle, like a deadline that weighs heavy, a room that drains, or an unmet need. Each one reaches in and takes something. Part of the fight is knowing your thieves.

You’ll already have areas where you’re strong, and they’ll take care of themselves. What needs your attention is when your state can’t hold under pressure. Perhaps it’s having difficult conversations, or asking someone who lights you up out on a date, or maybe it’s asking for money. Whichever, this is where your fight is.

But, if you’re anything like I used to be, you’ll sweep the weakness under the carpet. Painful, and seemingly hard to change, it’s easier to ignore it. I’ll show you how you can turn it into a male power that rises above the pressure. For now, hunt them down. Notice when your voice goes up a pitch, or you feel your throat tighten, or anxiety or hurt fills your chest, or you avoid, evade or your brain slows down. These are the tell-tale signs of low state and they are the enemy. Observe them and what the trigger is, because, like Iron John, this is where your fight is.

The battlefield has changed. It’s moved to the boardroom, the bar and the bedroom. Here you fight for what you want. Fight to test your limits. Fight to build your power, because power holds state strong under pressure. Here rejection doesn’t hurt you, fear no longer stops you and expectations don’t drive you. Instead you have the self-belief to accept yourself as you are, the thrust to act despite the fear and set your own course according to your heart’s desire.

When I landed the whale I was in Prime State. When I walked into the lift in Soho with three beautiful movie stars, the air went out of my tyres. I was a million miles off. Observe where your score is high and low and I’ll show you how to boost your inner game.

Prime state is a felt experience, mindset can be a good gatekeeper, but it’s not the body of it. It’s a forward moving, action loving, elevating energy that allows you to rise above the pressure of the moment.

It’s rocket fuel, it’s male power.

One last story.

When I was training to be an army officer many years ago I spent a long week in the depths of Devon, on the south coast of England, doing something called adventurous training. As it turned out this was a euphemism for testing my threshold for pressure.

Close to dawn one wet cold morning, I found myself at the bottom of a rope looking up at a slippery granite cliff. I was told to climb it. As someone with vertigo this was an interesting challenge but I understood the rules of the game - this was all about finding my limits so up I went.

There were forces working against me, like the weather, the rock was cold and wet and my fingers were getting increasingly numb. Grip was becoming challenging. It was a sheer climb, my technique was poor, and I was tiring.

A metre from the top those forces took their toll, I lost my grip and fell.

The good news was that between me and certain death was my rope, which was attached by metal chocks jammed into cracks in the rockface which held the rope and therefore me.

The bad news was the first chock was faulty and out it pinged. Instead of being left dangling high on the cliff I was descending with increasing velocity. The speed of my fall was enough to dislodge the next chock. Ping! Out it popped and down towards the rock and sea I fell.

Ping, Ping, Ping.

Out they all came. This was it.

…until the final one held!

I bounced on the rope as it saved me a metre from an untimely end, and I burst out laughing.

I looked up happy to share my delight with the sergeants above. But instead of the thumbs up or whoops of joy I was told to hurry up.

I started to climb again.

So here’s the key, I understood the frame. It was about power and I treated it like a game and thrived. I graduated with flying colours.

The fight is not a guarantee of victory. It’s a dance, a strike met with a counter strike. It’s your power standing against competing forces. If you fall, you pick yourself up off the ground and laugh at the absurdity of life.

Whatever your level it can always be raised.

You can’t fix what you don’t see. Start to observe the moments of pressure that arise every day. Where does it feel good, where does it get uncomfortable? Jot them down. This is the beginning of your road map for winning the fight.

The fight is the first pillar. Next we look at what steals and undermines Prime State