“A national obsession with a particular sport does not occur in a vacuum. Something lights the match. In the early twentieth century, Finland was a poor, nonindustrialized country where many people worked outdoors and got around on foot and (during… — Fitzgerald Matt Copy Share Image
“Physical fitness determines where the wall that represents your physical limit is placed. Mental fitness determines how close you are able to get to… — Fitzgerald Matt Copy Share Image
“More often, they insist that their advantage lies not in having more to give but rather in being able to give more of what… — Fitzgerald Matt Copy Share Image
“may have resulted from abnormal wiring in the serotonergic system of his brain. Other” — Fitzgerald Matt Copy Share Image
“Well-trained athletes have an easier time achieving flow because they are less physically self-conscious.” — Fitzgerald Matt Copy Share Image
“Self-belief cannot be manufactured through obsessive yearning toward one’s goals or through the elimination of all “distractions.” In fact, it requires the opposite: an… — Fitzgerald Matt Copy Share Image
“This coping skill is essentially a protective reaction against threats to the ego. Neuropsychologists have identified the ventral anterior cingulate cortex and the medial… — Fitzgerald Matt Copy Share Image
“Neuroscientists have observed that several changes in brain function tend to accompany the flow state. The brain’s electrical activity always unfolds in wave patterns.… — Fitzgerald Matt Copy Share Image
“There is no experience quite like that of driving yourself to the point of wanting to give up and then not giving up. In” — Fitzgerald Matt Copy Share Image
“A national obsession with a particular sport does not occur in a vacuum. Something lights the match. In the early twentieth century, Finland was… — Fitzgerald Matt Copy Share Image
“The most successful endurance athletes over the age of 40 are so similar in personality it’s almost uncanny. What we see in all of… — Fitzgerald Matt Copy Share Image
“Any athlete who experienced race-level effort completely out of context would instantly regain full respect for its awfulness. If a runner were to suddenly… — Fitzgerald Matt Copy Share Image
“The scientific name for this pacing mechanism is anticipatory regulation. Its output is a continuously refreshed, intuition-like feeling for how to adjust one’s effort… — Fitzgerald Matt Copy Share Image
