How to enter flow state on command: the bullfighter's 5-step framework
Raymond Ansotegui didn't learn to enter flow state in a seminar. He learned it standing in front of 1,800-lb bulls in a Montana rodeo arena, responsible for keeping riders alive. Over 10 years and thousands of bulls, he distilled the process into five words: Breathe. Commit. Get Close. Slow Down. Get Up. "My rules were just commit, get close, slow down," Raymond says. "And the last one, when you get knocked down, whatever it takes, get up." Each step is a direct answer to the question of how to enter flow state under real pressure, not manufactured pressure, but the kind where hesitation has physical consequences.
Presence under pressure: why distance is the enemy of influence
Most people manage conflict from a distance. Raymond's experience with bulls proved that distance is not safety, it's just delayed danger. "If I get a little braver and you kind of get close, it actually becomes, that's the danger zone. When I'm eight, 10 feet away from a bull, no matter what I do, he can outmaneuver me. But if I get close, real close, now the movement, I have a small movement, he has to swing his whole body around." The same principle applies in leadership, parenting, and business. Standing back feels like control. Getting into the pocket is what actually gives you influence. Ben Laws put it plainly during the conversation: "Standing back is avoidance. Coming only within eight feet, but still not willing to fully commit, that's being in control. But being in that pocket, getting in close, that's actually being in charge."
How to perform under pressure when your body wants to freeze
Raymond started bullfighting at 33, older than most, which meant he had to rely on his mind more than his athleticism. His solution was to fight bulls in his imagination first. "I have fought thousands more bulls in my mind than I ever faced in the arena. I would lay there at night and just imagine the scenario, what would it smell like? Is it raining? Is it muddy? How's this bull going to turn?" By the time his body moved in the arena, the commitment was already finished. "I'm three steps in when my brain finally says, 'Oh, are we really doing this again?' Because my body sees it, instead of 'Should we go now?' it just goes." That pre-commitment is the mechanism behind performing under pressure without freezing. The decision isn't made in the moment. It's made in the preparation.
High performance mindset: the bull as conflict, the rider as everything you care about
Raymond's central metaphor is simple and transferable. "That bull is the conflict. And that rider is anything in my life, whether it's my kids, my business, and if I really engage with it, that's how I'm successful." A high performance mindset, in his framework, isn't about eliminating fear or staying calm in a detached way. It's about grounding into the present moment so completely that the fear becomes information rather than a stop sign. He describes the moment of full presence as almost spiritual: "There's lightning that goes between these two beings." That lightning is available in any arena, not just a rodeo one, but only if you're willing to step close enough to feel it.
Flow state, shadow work, and the wound that won't close
Raymond connects the ability to enter flow state directly to shadow work, the willingness to look at the parts of yourself you'd rather avoid. He spent years doing land reclamation, helping disturbed soils recover, before he recognized he was avoiding his own reclamation. "I was a land reclamationist, but really at the end of the day, you did that to avoid the reclamation that really needed to happen, which was the one of yourself," Ben observed. Raymond's answer to unprocessed shame and fear is the same as his answer to a bull: get close, speak it out loud, let it be witnessed. "Speak it to a group of people. Now it's out. And it starts healing. It's like the tongue of a buffalo going into a wound, it's brutal, but it cleans it all the way. It doesn't just put a scab over it and let the infection stay inside." Flow state and shadow work aren't separate conversations. You can't fully enter one without doing the other.
You can't rent bliss: what flow state actually feels like
Raymond is clear that flow isn't a permanent address. "You don't get to rent flow. You don't get to rent that space." It arrives when preparation meets full presence, and it leaves the moment ego steps back in to admire itself. He describes a three-day rodeo where he made a beautiful save on the third bull, felt the sweetness of it, and was immediately launched into the air by the same bull. "I have a picture of me with my legs wrapped over his head and I'm looking down his belly. And that was number three. So I had 27 more bulls that day." The practice isn't to hold onto flow. It's to return to presence quickly enough to access it again. "Whatever just happened happened. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen. But right now, I'm just here and I'm ready."
