I'm curious about, you know, after you've studied, you know, brains and particularly in the real world setting, what do you think is the biggest misconception people have about performing under pressure?

Yeah, yeah.

So let me give a backdrop to that question, just so people understand.

So in my view, our understanding of the human experience in general, and a piece of the human experience is peak performance.

We do not have to be at peak performance in everything that we do.

I mean, if you go to the bathroom, if you're driving somewhere, you don't have to be the best version of yourself.

If you're at the grocery store buying food, whatever, you don't have to be the best version of yourself.

We are

Dr. Izzy Justice, what happens to our golf swings under stress?

Josh, first of all, thanks for having me.

So I love that question, but if you'll allow me, before I answer that question, let me rephrase that question, right? And so when people use the term stress, I don't know that we really understand what that term means.

I know we know what it means colloquially.

It means I don't feel good.

You know, something doesn't feel right.

I feel icky.

And if you just kind of control for everything else, that's the only thing that changes, then clearly that is the thing that uh, is, is the cause for struggles, right? The, the age old, why can't I bring my game from the range to the course is, uh, boiled down to its simplest thing is the quantity and intensity of your thoughts, right? Is that fair to say?

What was the moment you knew you had to make that change?

Yeah.

So I think for me to give you a good answer, Justine, to that question, I, I, I need to give you some, some, some context.

So, um, I'm originally from, from Southern Africa.

I came to America almost forty years ago to, to go to college.

My childhood was, was not good, uh, to be completely honest.

It wasn't good culturally where I grew up.

[chuckles]

And so then instead of being completely overwhelmed by it, I'm like, "Okay, well, what do I need to do to just [laughs] kind of bring it back to a state where not so many things don't need to fire for my survival?"

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I've, I've worked with a ton of ADD and ADHD, and it could be argued, I, I don't know, I would argue, but it could be argued that all of us, uh, especially children, are, you know...

So I, I don't know that I necessarily like that label per se, 'cause I feel like we're solving the wrong problem.

But l- l- let's just go with that.

All right? So one of the ways that I help people who are struggling with not formally as ADD or ADHD, just giving, you know, uh, attention all the time, is giving attention to moments that matter.

[laughs]

Is that right?

Yeah.

So let me clarify for your audience, uh, what, what exactly I mean by, uh, brain scans.

So think of looking into the brain either clinically or functionally.

Clinically means something is broken, and therefore I need to go in there and look and see what's broken so I can fix it.

This would be for conditions like Alzheimer's or epilepsy or Parkinson's or dementia, you know.

Um, and typically you go to a hospital and sometimes to a psychiatric ward.

Like, what was your thought process?

So talk about what our phone is doing to our brain.

Yeah.

Uh, some, some very quick background.

You know, if you track almost all, uh, attributes of human behavior and human performance s- uh, specifically from the year 2010 onwards, there's a almost mirror line correlation between the number of devices that since 2020 have exploded, uh, s- uh, 2010 have exploded, to a lot of the mental health challenges that we're having, including just simple focus, ADD, ADHD, sleep issues, sleep apnea, all those kinds of things.

Um, I mean, even, you know, uh, things like divorce rates and, and conflict and, and, you know- But, you know, in the year 2010, I, I may get some of these numbers wrong, but in the year 2010 there were about three billion devices in the world for about six billion people.

Today, in the year 2025, there are eight billion people and over 30 billion devices.

So if you do the math, each human being roughly has about three devices.

Mm-hmm.

I'm curious, because you have studied this so deeply, is peak performance about talent? Is it about brainwave management? Is it a combination of the two?

Yeah, what a great question.

That's a really, really good question.

Okay.

So let's go to the highest levels.

When I go to the very highest levels of athletes in multiple sports, I find that at that level, so I'm a professional athlete or a professional head coach, at that level, the difference in talent between 99% of the athletes is very nominal.

And in every sport, you know, there might be one, two, at the most five, really, that are truly uniquely talented.

They're not silencing out that noise, closing in, kind of narrowing in at that 10-ish measurement to say, I have everything it takes to make that shot.

But what consistently happens in the brain in the seconds right before someone's performing at their very best?

Yeah, thank you for asking.

You know, the actual number is actually much, much greater than 18,000, but 18,000 is sort of what we can document, what we have actually studied.

So, you know...

The language of the human brain is electricity.

And I think that's a good starting point so that the answer that I give you to your question, what happens in the brain, makes more sense to you and the audience.

So if you think about it, and frankly, to be completely honest with you, I was in my late 20s, early 30s, I think.

So what separates someone from maintaining that versus someone who all of a sudden allows all the noise in?

Curious what you have learned and what's been the most shocking thing you discovered about how people perform and make decisions under pressure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So very easy, simple question.

Let me give you some context so that my response to your question can make better sense, 'cause it's, it's a good question.

It deserves a good answer.

First of all, thank you for, uh, for having me.

The way that you described how the brain is kind of feeding us information with that description of the snake, it almost seems like certain things are beyond our choice, will, or, or decision.