Braden Bristo’s – The Journeyman’s Path

Right Brain/Left Brain

Analyze/Act

Research/Write

Train/Compete

Math/Music

These are all things that are different from each other in definition, but they share core assumptions.

A goal of all high performers is to be able to toggle back and forth between these two states with ease and comfort. There is a time to be in the classroom learning and a time to put the things you’ve learned into action. There is a time to analyze performance and a time to perform.

Are you doing math, or are you doing music?

When you are outside the lines, when there is no music playing, and when the lights are off, this is the time for math. You are analyzing performance and researching ways to get better. You are training to increase your abilities. When it is math time you need singular focus to make sure you are solving the right problems.

Math time is practice time.

When you enter the arena, when you step inside the lines, when the lights come on and the music begins, it is time to start dancing. This is where you take all of the math you’ve done and you convert it into music. You turn off the analyzing part of your brain and you turn on the flow part of your brain. You let go of your thoughts and anxieties, and you trust the work you put in outside the lines will bring about effortless performance inside the lines.

Music time is performance time.

Music proceeds from math. Without the foundation of practice, the performance will never be what it could have been.

Attempting to dance when you need to focus on specific problems and their solutions will make your performance sloppy, and you will lose your attention to detail. Your ability to improve will erode.

Trying to do math when the music comes on will only lead to what is called “paralysis by analysis”. Your brain will become a liability to your body, because you are trying to control the performance instead of becoming the performance.

The math and the music are both essential for success, as long as they stay in their respective lanes.

First study the science, and then practice the art which is born of that science.

Leonardo da Vinci