In this episode Joey Karam covers the importance of Mental Training in shortening a persons reaction time.

You may not have the time every day to physically train, but you do have the time every day to mentally train.

It is essential to master the way we think and prepare for attacks. If we are not mentally prepared, it is going to be difficult to perform well when being
attacked no matter your level of physical skills.

HOW do we mentally train?

We call it shortening freeze time. The Stoics called it Negative Visualization.

It is a very good drill to perform because it allows you to anticipate mentally the steps you need to be successful in ANY given situation. You can use it
in physical training, in your work life, in your relationships….

Freeze Time-the time you are literally “frozen” in a situation without knowing what to do.

Basically, what you are doing is taking any given situation and imagining it from absolute worst- case scenario to absolute best-case scenario outcomes.
The more that you visualize and mentally prepare yourself, the better composed you will be when you encounter the actual situation.

Example Drill:

Imagine you are in a doctor’s office and are the farthest person from the exit. There are people between you and the exit. A knife-wielding crazy person
comes in off the street and is going to attack and kill everyone.

Through several steps, your worst-case scenario starts with the criminal killing everyone, including yourself.

In each successive reiteration, you imagine then that you fight him but he still kills you, then you fight him and he runs away but kills everyone else,
then you fight him and keep him from killing 2 people but you’re still injured, then you fight him and you save everyone but you’re still injured, then you
fight him as soon as he walks in, save everyone and you’re on the news as a hero. This last one is your best-case scenario.

You can break this down further into tinier and tinier steps and really drill down to mentally prepare yourself for every step you would need to take to
result in the best case outcome.

Recommended Frequency:

As often as you can. You can do this silently in your head at any time, such as in the grocery store line, while waiting on hold, while walking your
dogs, etc.

Recommended Reading:
A Guide to the Good Life-The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy (Wm. B. Irvine)

Recommended Reading in this show: A Guide to the Good Life-The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy (Wm. B. Irvine)

People Mentioned in the show: Eyal Yanilov