135. The Attention Crisis: How to Find Flow in a World Built to Distract You with David Nurse

Mona Sharma (0:04)

Welcome to Rooted in Wellness with me, wellness advocate and holistic nutritionist, Mona Sharma. Together, we will take a journey to discover natural healing practices from imbalance to balance, guided by ancient wisdom and modern scientific insights.

I was raised living summers on an ashram, so I learned early on that food is medicine, and your kitchen is your greatest source of health care and prevention. After facing two heart surgeries, anxiety, and weight challenges, I discovered that just because your symptoms are common, doesn't mean that they are normal. Together with some incredible guests, we will explore the power of our mind, body, and soul connection, returning to our roots to rediscover our greatest well-being.

Somewhere along the way, being busy became how many of us measure a good day. We answer texts as they come in, we move between a dozen different things, and rarely give one of them our full attention. Before we finish what's right in front of us, our mind is already moving towards what comes next. Sound familiar? That scattered feeling has become so normal that we assume focus will only return when life settles down. Yet the ability to become completely absorbed in the moment is something that elite athletes train for. They call it being in the zone. David Nurse calls it flow, and he believes that the rest of us can learn it too. David is a leading flow state expert, high performance strategist, Wall Street Journal bestselling author, and former Brooklyn Nets coach. He's trained more than 200 NBA players, including Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and has spent years studying how exceptional performers access the zone when it matters most. When I sat down with David, I wanted to understand what their training could teach the rest of us. Can a brain that's used to constant interruption learn to focus again? And could that help us become more present at work, at home, and during the moments when the pressure rises?

David shares what he's learning through his flow code study, why years of practice does not always lead to improvement, and what the most composed athletes do when something goes wrong. We also talk about why trying to control the result can often interfere with our performance. But the part that stayed with me was that David shared about people who finally reached the top and discovered that winning did not give them the feeling that they expected. If the next achievement will not make us feel the way that we hope, what should we be training ourselves for instead? Let us get into it.

David Nurse, welcome to Rooted in Wellness.

David Nurse (3:06)

I'm excited to be here.

Mona Sharma (3:07)

Thank you so much. As I was sharing before, the ultimate goal of this podcast really is to help as many people as possible. I love that I met you online and instantly knew that we have a lot of the same kind of mission and purpose alignment. And friends. And friends. Yeah. Yeah. Let's dive in with really understanding what I want listeners to own into. I believe that everyone has the power to feel more rooted, and when they feel rooted, they feel rooted in their health, their happiness, and what I think that we all have is this inner knowing that we all have to heal.

Are there any practices, maybe two to three practices that you have every day that help you feel rooted in who you are?

David Nurse (3:46)

Absolutely, yeah, great question. So, how I start my day, I think is, I know morning routines kind of get this and that, and there could be 19 different things, and everybody's got their thing, but for me, it really is that rootedness in my, actually, my coffee practice.

That might sound kind of cheesy, but I wake up looking forward to drinking my coffee. It's that, like, you know.

Mona Sharma (4:11)

I go to bed waking up, I go to bed dreaming about more morning coffee. I'm the nutritionist that doesn't take away coffee, so I'm with you on that one.

David Nurse (4:17)

Yeah, when anybody says, like, yo, we gotta take away coffee, you go, and then I ask them the question, I'm like, well, how are you feeling this week? They're like, my head hurts, I can't think straight. I'm like, why would you want to do that?

Mona Sharma (4:27)

Yeah, I'm with you.

David Nurse (4:28)

So, you think the coffee time, and I play some praise and worship music. I like to start my day off like that, and then I just spend 10 minutes alone, and this is my prayer time. I'm talking to God, I'm trying to listen to have him say something to me. Now, I've never heard anything audibly, but my faith is rooted in God and in Jesus, and that's my time of just centering myself and starting myself off on that positive note. So, that's one, and it's quick, but how you start your morning, I think is really important, and then it's just connections to my wife throughout the day. We're both going a million miles an hour.