This one’s personal.
It came from a moment that woke me up to how fear really works in the body.
A moment where the difference between calm and collapse could have meant everything.
I didn’t learn this lesson from a book or a meditation cushion.
I learned it while staring down a gun barrel… and watching what tunnel vision does to the human mind.
If you’ve ever felt pressure close in, if your breath gets tight and your world starts shrinking, this episode is for you.
When Pressure Hits, Your World Shrinks
There was a moment in my life I’ll never forget.
I was with a friend when we suddenly found ourselves staring down the barrel of a gun.
He wasn’t trained. He didn’t know what to do.
And in that instant, I watched his awareness collapse.
His world narrowed to a single point, the weapon in front of him.
No awareness. No options. Just pure survival.
That’s what tunnel vision looks like in real life.
And it doesn’t only happen when your life is in danger.
It shows up in business, in relationships, in money decisions; anywhere pressure rises.
When the body feels unsafe, your field of vision shrinks.
You stop seeing possibilities. You lose access to your power.
Most people call that stress. But it’s not.
It’s fear your system hasn’t learned to hold.
Why Calm Is a Skill
Every emotional experience teaches your body how to respond next time.
Which means calm isn’t a mindset. It’s a skill.
If your nervous system is trained to react, you’ll always find yourself in reactivity.
If it’s trained to stay open, you’ll make better decisions under pressure.
That’s what this episode is really about, training the body to stay clear when the mind starts to panic.
Because you don’t rise to the occasion.
You fall to the level of your training.
The Bird on the Branch
Ted shares a story in this episode that captures it perfectly.
He calls it The Bird on the Branch.
A bird doesn’t trust the branch beneath it. It trusts its wings.
That’s real confidence.
Because the branch will shake. The plan, the market, the relationship. It always does.
Your job is to trust your ability to fly.
The strategy is the branch.
Your nervous system is the wings.
Training the Inner Game
Here’s what we unpack in this episode:
- 🧠 The 4–64 Rule for Mastery: why it takes four tries to test your intuition and 64 to embody it.
- 💬 The Argument Killer Hack: how to stop emotional blowups before they start.
- ⚙️ Internal vs External Training: how to stay grounded when chaos hits.
- 💸 The 20 Percent Rule: why high performers act with partial data and adjust in motion.
These aren’t mindset tricks.
They’re nervous system principles that help you stay calm, sharp, and in command when things get hard.
The Nervous System Hack
Tunnel vision is what happens when your awareness collapses.
The nervous system hack is how you bring it back.
It’s about expanding when life contracts.
Breathing deeper when fear takes over.
Learning to stay open when everything in you wants to shut down.
That’s the real inner game.
If you’ve ever found yourself gripping tighter the moment things speed up, this one’s for you.