Ten minutes until showtime. Anticipation is growing. His body may be ready, but his mind is still racing. Billingslea shifts his focus to getting into the right headspace. He’s taking deep breaths and visualizing his each and every move, how he’ll control his body when it’s moving at what feels like 100 miles per hour. He is trying to cultivate a specific psychological state, something he calls “the zone.” For Billingslea, the zone represents a mindset in which he doesn’t dwell on mistakes or get distracted by the crowd. Ideally, he told us, he stops thinking altogether and his performance
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