The first order of business, it's always going to come down to awareness, like, how are you imagining your future? And if it's fundamentally pessimistic, like things don't work out, then let's recognize that there's a moment to be able to get better at it, you know, to shift it. And the data is really strong about why optimism is an important function for health, performance, well-being. And so the first order of business, like I said, is always going to be awareness.

Where mindfulness and meditation, journaling and conversations with wise men and women are really important, because if you're not aware of the way you're thinking about the future, you can't change it. You determine your experience in life. You're an agent in this as opposed to. At the wits end of your external world and I haven't met a world class thinker or doer, it isn't fundamentally optimistic. That's Dr Michael Gervais and this is Episode 550 of the Retro Podcast.

The Rich Roll podcast.

OK, so a couple of questions I want to ask today to posit for your consideration. How do world class athletes, artists and top business leaders organize their inner lives to expand the edges of their potential? What are the frameworks and the key mental skills and models that are needed to excel in those intense those all or nothing, make it or break it moments? How do change makers find peace, find grounding or even joy in the most intensely stressful, critical moments of their lives and their careers?

Well, today we're going to explore these questions, these ideas in a conversation with one of my very favorite people, one of the few, if not the only person on the planet most qualified to speak about such matters. My friend Dr. Michael Jervey returning for his fourth appearance on the podcast. If you live in a wormhole and have never heard of this incredible man, I suggest you mine the R.P. Archive and give episodes one. Twenty two, fifty two and three six.

It's been that's about six hours that go deep into Michael's story and his groundbreaking work in the sports psychology arena. But the basic gist is that when it comes to optimal human performance, purpose and passion, Dr. Gervais is the dude. As a sports psychologist, he works in the trenches of consequential, high stakes environments where there's no luxury for mistakes, for hesitation or failure to respond. His clientele includes people like Felix Baumgartner, who is the guy who jump from space professional sports teams like the Seattle Seahawks, basically the most prolific Olympic and professional athletes and VPs in every major sport, high level military, internationally acclaimed artists and musicians, Fortune 100 CEOs.

You get the idea. I got a bunch more I want to say about this incredible human and the conversation to come.

But first, let me take a deep breath and relax, because today's episode is brought to you by Carl. Twenty twenty has been a lot and we can all benefit from less stress and more sleep in our lives, particularly now more than ever. And this is not the time. To be sluggish couch potato, this is the time to go full Jedi, a high anxiety moment in which all of us are being tested in an unprecedented way. It's a time in which it really is crucial that we take extra good care of ourselves and invest in our well-being.

That's why I feel so great about this partnership I have with Calm, the app designed to help you ease stress and get the best sleep of your life. When you relieve anxiety and improve your sleep, you feel better and every part of your life you perform better. That's just facts, people, facts. And to get you there, in addition to all it's guided meditations, Calm has a whole library of programs designed for healthy sleep like soundscapes and over 100 sleep stories narrated by some pretty amazing people.

The other week I was raving and going on and on about wonder. Read by that wise charra Matthew McConaughey. This week, I dozed off to the soothing dulcet tones of Chilian Murphy reading Crossing Ireland by Train. I highly recommend that over eighty five million people around the world use calm to take care of their minds and get better sleep. And right now, Calm is offering my listeners a special limited time promotion of 40 percent off AKAM premium subscription AKAM dotcom slash rich roll that's 40 percent off.

Unlimited access to CALM's entire library and new content is added every single week. Get started today. AKAM dotcom slash rich roll that's calm. Dot com forward slash rich roll. OK, back to Dr. Jervey. Unlike our previous conversations, today's conversation is not centered around Olympic athletes or other sports stars or what it takes mentally and emotionally to jump out of a plane without a parachute. It is perhaps a more relatable exchange about how all of us can better navigate this wild ever changing.

Some might call it dumpster fire. Yea, we call it twenty twenty. And unfortunately, the years of pandemic political and planetary turmoil that are likely to follow, who better, I ask? Who better to ground and guide us through these turbulent times than a psychologist who literally specializes in shepherding people through high stress environments. So today's conversation is about working through all of this, working through pain and how suffering is actually integral to the human experience. We talk about understanding trauma and the way it is impacting your life.

It's about the difference between purpose and vision and a re-examination of the role of sport in our society. Given the pandemic, it's also about optimism and how optimism can serve us, even in the darkest times. And I promise there's no empty platitudes. This is not about shoving a handful of bullshit positivity down your throat. Michael always keeps it real. And finally, we talk about his new audio book, which is an awesome listen in this moment. It's called Compete to Create.

It's an audible original. Seriously recommend checking it out. Personally, I tend to vacillate between doom and despair and whiffs of positivity. And this book, this lesson really has helped ground me and I think it'll help all of you guys as well. It's hard being a human in twenty twenty. Don't underestimate the circumstances, but know that there is a light out and we're going to find it together. So this is me and Dr. Michael Jervey.

Dr. Michael Jervey is back in the house round. I can't believe it. You've changed my life. Come on.

Yeah. Look what you've built.

It's incredible, man. I'm so proud of you. You're impacting so many lives. And I'm just I'm in awe of the quality of content that you put out and how practical and helpful it is to so many people. And it's been a delight and a pleasure to watch you do that.

Or that means a lot to me, really. I don't say that lightly, that you changed my life. It was super simple and it was benign and never would have thought that this medium, this intimate conversation between two people would be able to fundamentally shape, you know, how I think about not only humanity, but business and connection with other people. And so that that that afternoon that we sat in my office like that changed my life. So I appreciate your brother.

That's cool.

Well, it was immediately evident to me, and I've said this to you before, that you have a natural gift for this and that it seemed only only appropriate that you would launch your own show like you're so good at it.

Now, you have this, like, ability to just get right to the heart of things immediately. Like you cut through all the bullshit and you see what other people don't see. And when you listen to your show, you get a glimpse of that. And I'm always like, oh, man. Like because we have a lot of crossover in our guests. So, like, if I'm preparing for someone, I'm like, oh, he was on Mike's I got to listen to this.

Like, this happened with Apollo Ono recently because he came on my show and I listen to your conversation with him and I'm like, I'm not I to be able to do that.

Oh, come on, that's not even close. But, you know, there are some advantages of being a psychologist that and you have a training that I don't have.

Well, you know, that being said, there's so much about just being authentically curious about the person that's in front of you. And I'll tell you some of the frames I come from, if that's useful, I'm sure. Unconditional, positive regard. Podcast tutorial from the master. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I find some mastery here.

OK, so unconditional, positive regard for the other. You have that that's how you've treated me in our first conversation, unconditional, positive regard for the other. And I think that as a philosophical note for how we engage with humans, that that is borne out of the psychologist and the the theory Culvers in psychology, Carl Rogers, unconditional, positive regard. And you just stay there. I think it ends up paying dividends for both.

Yeah. I mean, I never thought a bit about it in that kind of. Context, but I do like I only have people on that I'm genuinely curious about, and I've been in situations where a bunch of people are like, oh, you got to have this person on. And I'm not feeling it, but I feel pressured and not pressured. But like, well, everyone else seems to think this will be great. And I've learned that if I'm not feeling it myself, it doesn't mean that they're not a great guest for somebody.

So I'm just not the right cypher or host to bring out the best in that person. That's a cool approach. Yeah. And, you know, I'm curious what you are searching for right now. What does it look at?

I can't help. But you did. You are not going to let you turn the TV already. I'm going to do your show later. Let's do that. But just as a high note, like what is it that you're you're going after right now to try to better understand?

Well. A couple of things, I mean, the first thing I would say is I'm starting to put more attention on. The guests that I'm seeking out, because I really haven't. Done that from a vision or systemic approach? It's somewhat reactive and very much impulsive, like I'll just come across somebody, I'm like, Oh, they're cool and I'll do that.

And I don't I don't, like, put on my calendar, OK, I have to book these people and I got to seek them out and track them down like it all just kind of happens organically. And that seemed to work. But I think the show could benefit from me approaching it from a little bit more of a mindful, intentional perspective. So I'm putting my focus on that. And also most of the conversations that I've had historically have been pretty evergreen.

They stand outside the context of time and culture. I could put them up at any moment and they would be fine, but. The world changed in some pretty fundamental ways this past year, and I felt called to participate in that conversation in a more contemporaneous way. So now every two weeks, I'm doing a conversation with my friend Adam Skolnick, who co-wrote Dave Gorgons book and is a New York Times contributor, journalist, adventurer, environmentalist. And we talk about kind of things that are happening in the now.

So that's new. And that's been kind of a little bit of a growth curve getting used to that and putting myself out out there in a new and different way, because this has always been about the guest. But with these particular conversations, that focus gets flipped a little bit more on me.

I've loved it of love following what you're doing. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, that's for. So, yeah, that's that's where my head's at. But you know, I have been spending a lot of time paying attention to what's going on in America and across the world right now. And it's very unique. It's concerning. I think there's opportunity in it as well. So why don't we start with just your thoughts on, you know, how you feel about what's what's happening right now and how you're thinking about.

It from a psychologist perspective in terms of how to navigate it in a healthy way. Cool. I think that. One is let's put a little fine. Point on psychologist for just a moment is that there's general psychology, you know, there's child psychology, and then I've cut my teeth in sports psychology and sports performance and then a subspecialty, if you will, in consequential environments. So if there was such a thing as high stakes psychology, that would kind of be where I'd sit.

So inside of that, what does that mean? My unique experience is that I've spent deep time with people that are in the most consequential, the highest stress environments known to humans.

I'm finding incredible portability right now from those insights and practices for the rest of us, because we're all in some form or another in a in a higher stakes environment right now, the stress levels well, if we just look at some basic data, suicide, suicide ideation and actual suicide are up anxiety, depression, addiction, all curving, you know, hockey stick type arc stuff. So we're seeing mental health and the echo of mental health is going to be here for a while, the mental health concerns and the echo from what's happening right now, both from an awakening, from the social injustice and the systemic racism and individual racism that's taking place, as well as a illness that we're struggling with, you know, and so mental health is important.

And I have I don't think I'm the most I'd like to think I am, but I'm not the most compassionate person. You know, I'm more of a systems thinker. And I really love getting into kind of what the heart and the truth of something is and understanding how we can grow and be authentic in that growth arc towards the reaches of what is possible. So that that's not like I'm not this compassionate, heartfelt, high drive, empathetic person.

I'd like to be I need to I've been working on that my whole life, but I'm flooded with it now that I'm feeling what people are feeling. And I'm scared, you know, I'm nervous of people. And then my friends that are listening to this right now are saying, dude, you're so bullish and optimistic about the future. What are you talking about? So I've got both of those that are playing forward right now.

So I vacillate. I vacillate from despair and optimism. And I think on that that scale of systems thinking to kind of feeling my way and an empathetic fashion, I'm more on the empathy side. I could I could benefit from a little bit more systems thinking, as I just explained to you. And I feel it deeply.

You know, it's it and I feel I've said this before also, but I'm essentially introverted. I'm fine being alone. You know, I like to lock myself up in a cave and do my thing.

And I thought I've been training for this my whole life and I got this. Everyone is going to be out there suffering and I'm going to thrive. But it's really worn thin and not being able to see your friends and, you know, not being able to plan for the future or have specific things to look forward to is is very difficult. But from a personal perspective, the hardest part has been trying to parent two teenage daughters through this who are really having a hard time.

And it's been you know, when you say hard times, you mean like mental health? Mental health. Yeah, right. Yeah. I've got an extroverted 16 year old who wants to be with her friends and is in art school and loves the tactile, practical aspect of her craft, which has been stripped away from her.

And now she's on Zoome from eight to four and then has to do her homework on the computer, all in the home, you know, and another 13 year old daughter who is very much an introvert. But the deprivation of external stimuli is causing, you know, some real mental strain on her. And I feel powerless to be of service.

How to help them figure this out? I mean, I'm just it just breaks my heart. Yeah. I think the fact that you're aware of it is kind of step one, because the old model of let's call it. Well, hello. Let me back up. No one's getting through this world without facing down trauma, big trauma, big tea or small t. So suffering is part of the experience that we have. It's a shared experience that we have.

The word trauma ends up take suffering. It puts a little finer point on it. Right. But what we're talking about is suffering. Now, that being said, let's call it 1980 model. Suck it up, harden up, figure it out, go back to work. Come on. What's wrong with you? Like, those are the messages that we're giving kids when we were growing up. I don't know if you got those messages, but, you know, pretty much.

Yeah, I definitely like the narrative. The social narrative was that whether it was in the house or not. And right now a second place is very different. The fact that you're like, I'm really concerned about that, you know. Right. Step one, awareness always is going to start there. And whatever practices that we can put in place to be able to increase our awareness, we're on to something. Step two is be grounded next to the person that you love.

And so that's what showed up for me for years, working with some of the best in the world in their craft and some people that are aspiring to be is that when they rattle and I've worked my ass off to be grounded, that gift, whether it's an emotional rattle or something else, that's usually when we rattle it's emotion. But there's my mentors taught that to me at a young age, that when I would be melting or unraveling or frustrated or scared.

And this is Gary de Blasio is my mentor for a long time. But like since I was 16 and just look at me because he knew me and just look right into me and he's like, I see you. And he's like, I'm here for you as I'm melting down, frustrated, scared, whatever, trying to find the words to say that I'm scared, but I'm really just using frustration as the vehicle, the unfortunate vehicle of talking about fear and sadness in man.

Just have someone next to you that sees you and get you. That in and of itself probably explains why 70 percent of treatment affects in small rooms. Psychology take place from Raipur. The relationship in itself accounts for, we believe, about 70 percent of change, not the advice or the counseling, just being there, listening, seeing, understanding, and then if you've got some really cool tactics and strategies that you can layer on top of it, that only accounts for 20 to 30 percent of the change.

The impulse that I'm always fighting is is trying to fix it. Of course. Of course.

And it's like I can't fix it.

So then I get rattled and I'm not able to be that calm, soothing presence.

I find that hard to believe, if I actually should tell you. But, you know, the other piece is like, what you're talking about, too, is that you did you say the word powerless or or helpless, which words I think are used powerless. Yeah. Which is that's where it starts to get scary for the people that are supposed to be the powerful. Right. So what is powerful? I mean, not like I'm powerful. I'm going to tell you what to do, Mr.

Mrs.. You know, like not that type of power. I no, that's not what you mean. But Albert Bandura, are you familiar with his work? This is this is going to be fun. Rich So Albert mentor, Dr. Bundoora, living legend, is octogenarian at this point, Stanford. And he changed psychology. So like he was one of the frickin top tier tip of the, ah, people that I wanted to have on finding mastery and I got to sit down with them.

So it's like a living legend that I got to sit down with. So his original paradigm shifting theory was on self efficacy. And so efficacy means power efficacious. It's a beautiful word. Not well used, not often used. So self efficacy are. He found that there's five ways to build a sense of internal power for people to have agency. An agency is a fancy word for you, determine your experience in life, you're an agent in this as opposed to.

At the wits end of your external world, but so what does it mean to be age, have agency and how do we build efficacy? It's really cool. And without getting too far in the mumbo jumbo, you know, all of these skills, I'm a writer. I'll write them off quickly. Vicarious experiences. So looking at somebody that is doing something close to what you want to be doing one day, just looking at it and being able to see that, I think I could do that over.

That's how I'll look at the choices they made just watching mentorship in that way. But they don't have to be true mentors, but something that's close to what you want to do. Example, what's an example? Just as an example to point to. To look to. Yes.

Yeah, that's so that's actually a really important part of becoming efficacious is seeing what good to you looks like or maybe great. The next is self talk. Know how to talk to yourself. You don't know how to talk to yourself. Well, it's nearly impossible, you know, and this is where I think you recognize the kind of the bullshit of naive optimism meets the frontier of being in the ampitheater. Like it's got to be real the way you speak to yourself.

And I haven't met, though I haven't met a world class thinker or doer that isn't fundamentally optimistic. Yeah, that's a key theme and point that you make time and time again and compete to create, which I'm on like Chapter eight of now, which I love the audiobook.

Yeah. Yeah, I autofocus. Great. I love it. Yeah, I love it. Because it's comprehensive, but it's also very practical and understandable and you just relate these tools that we can all implement into our life that are all lifted from your work and your studying and working with all of these athletes.

But what was really striking about it is, is this refrain that all of these things are are trainable or teachable, from optimism to grit, confidence to calm, we tend to look at high performers and think, well, that, yeah, that guy's super optimistic. He always thinks it's going to work out. He's able to control his mechanism. I was born that way.

Yeah. Had great parents. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I just, you know, I'm Debbie Downer or I always think it's not going to work out. And that's just the way that I'm wired.

Yeah. That so there's likely a predisposition towards anxiety or depression or optimism or pessimism that we're not fully aware of. All right. There's some genetic coding that happens passed on from a genetic standpoint from our parents and grandparents. That being said, is optimism and pessimism are the two basic frameworks for how you view your future. It's kind of that there's there's not another one. Some people might say no realism. Well, you can have a realistic pessimism and a realistic optimism.

It is the frame that you see your future through. And so it's a trainable skill, completely trainable. So is the opposite of that like helplessness and learned helplessness, optimism and learned optimism that that doesn't actually stop well together. But the optimism, pessimism, sorry, both are learned. Mm hmm. And which means we can get better at them. Mm hmm.

So walk me through the difference between what you just said and our kind of pop psychology version of that, like the fake it till you make it. And, you know, I'm Stuart Smalley and I'm going to look in the mirror and recount these affirmations like what's the difference between truly training somebody to pivot from, you know, a pessimistic outlook on themselves in life and getting them into a more optimistic state? OK, so the first order of business, it's always going to come down to awareness, like, how are you imagining your future?

And if it's fundamentally pessimistic, like things don't work out, then let's recognize that there's a moment to be able to get better at it, you know, to shift it. And the data is really strong about why optimism is an important function for health, performance, well-being. And so the first order of business, like I said, is always going to be awareness. That's where mindfulness and meditation, journaling and conversations with wise men and women are really important.

Because if you're not aware of the way you're thinking about the future, you can't change it. There's there's you're kind of stuck.

But I think most people are on that kind of recursive loop where they're not even consciously aware that they're constantly affirming some story about who they are from a negative perspective. Well, and if you challenge them on it, they'll say, well, you don't understand my life or something like that. Like there has to be a willingness or like a crack in that an opening where they can say or they can see themselves from ten thousand feet and say, I need to address this.

You're right on the money. So this is this is the unfortunate insight that I wish it wasn't I wish this wasn't the case. But I my experience with working with people is that it's not until they have enough pain do they do the work to change. I'm a living example of that. You are you know, we've talked about that. Yeah, you really are. And my favorite people are people that have faced the darkest parts of being human and say, OK, forget about it.

Like I'm going I'm doing this differently because they've got to the truth of some stuff, you know, the dark side of humanity, the suffering side, and they understand it. And so that being said is like there needs to be enough pain for change to happen because change requires real work. And this is why I say to folks like there's no hack's, there's no tricks and tips, you know, for fundamental growth. Mm hmm. And it's a mistake to look at the strong men and women on the podiums or the CEOs of whatever and say, oh, look at how good they are from a physical standpoint to celebrate them just because of they've had outward successes.

The mistake, the opportunity that sits underneath is how do they organize their life? And it's a fundamental organization towards the man or woman or person they want to become. It's a fundamental commitment and there are there are no shortcuts here. There's no HACS to that. So how do we organize our inner life, get real with, like, the pain that you are carrying from an early part of your life that is still part of the conscious or nonconscious narrative that is shaping thoughts and shaping words that you choose and shaping the actions that you take.

And without some sort of examination or some sort of honesty about the way that you shape your thoughts and your words and your actions, I think it's really tough to flip a fundamental. View of how you think the future is going to go from pessimism to optimism. Can I add one more layer of complexity? Your brain is not trying to help you become optimistic, the three pounds of tissue is saying, hey, dude, stay alive, find the threat, find the danger.

You know, you don't want to be taken for the fall. That didn't jump when there's a line in the bush as their lines and bushes, you know, like you don't want to be the fool. That doesn't react properly, but you also don't want to look like the fool that reacts too quickly. So that's where we get these freeze mechanisms, you know, fight flight, freeze and submit. And so your brain is trying to figure out how to survive and your higher consciousness probably put a pin in that, because that's a big word, right?

Big phrase. But your your ability to use your imagination or be more pragmatic for a moment, your ability to use your imagination to imagine what could be for you.

Counterbalanced to your brain's dictum to survive, to recognize the sources of threat and pain, real or imagined from early on or or that's possibly going to show up in this moment. And it is ready right now to say, hey, flood your emotions, flood some physiology so that you can be on point and not be taken advantage of in modern times. So your brain is not trying to help you in this.

I don't know whether I feel good or bad about that here and damn, you know, so I think that if we said the good or bad piece and we said, well, that's actually the truth of what's happening.

So what do we want to do about it? We'll be back in a few. But first, I wanted to talk about two of my obsessions. The first is running, probably not news to you.

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It's basically a recyclable running shoe subscription service that they're launching for twenty nine ninety nine a month. You get a pair of these Zyklon shoes, which are made from castor beans. Amazing. You run in them and when you're done, you send them back to be recycled and they send you a new pair. It's crazy. Super cool, super interesting, quite groundbreaking. And that is just one example of what makes on different to all the other running shoes on the market, other distinguishing things, their emphasis on a clean and minimalistic design.

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All right, back to the show. Fundamental to all of this and compete to create, is this commitment to self understanding like that underlies all of it. Like you can relate these tactics in these strategies, like here's your morning routine. Here's a breathing technique. Here's a way of journaling and here's a way of getting clear on what you have control over versus what you don't have control over, which are all super helpful.

But short of a fundamental commitment to personal growth and broadened self understanding, these things are not going to avail you much. Right. That's to talk a little bit about that first, because that's the most important step, like in 12 step. Step one is the only one you have to get perfect. I feel like in this context that commitment has to be firm for any of these other things to to have the efficacy that they potentially can have. OK, so I love.

So you're getting right to the truth of it. This is where it all begins is what do you really want? And if you're looking for. Better, you know, because you know that there is something deeper in you, there is more room to grow, there's further to go, there's a deeper authenticity, there is deeper purpose and meaning. And you want that in your life. OK, so those those are the mechanisms that have spent a lot of time trying to understand and has to start from that place like, OK, I'm sick and tired.

This is a phrase that you'll recognize of being sick and tired. So I'm sick and tired of walking into a room and feeling like I'm just I'm not grounded. I'm not me. I'm I'm beholden to what they might be thinking of me. I've abandoned my history for the approval of somebody in this room, the so-called faux pas. About faux pas. Yeah, you like that?

Oh, man. This is like my this is like my Achilles heel.

Fear people's opinion. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You're not alone, brother. Like I suffered. I suffer Fofo for a long time. It's probably what led me to, you know, this, this deep almost sometimes I don't wish that people have this, I don't say maniacal but this and it's not quite obsessive, but it's this deep kind of want to understand how do humans work. Because I spent I'm up all night thinking about it. It feels like most nights, you know, it's the thing that keeps me awake.

It's a beautiful science, it's complicated, but all that being said is that's where it starts, like, is there more in you? And if there is. Holland put a pin in that there is more in you, there is more in me. So what do we do to be able to free ourselves up to express the the reaches of our potential? What do we do? Well, if you and I wanted to go walk from here to New York City.

And we hadn't done that walk before, you know, you and I would do we would go get with somebody, we'd say, hey, who's walked it? Tell me what to do on the Rockies when I get to the Rockies. Tell me what to do when you know or help me understand how to navigate this type of challenges or what are the challenges. So you would go get around a community of people that understand deeper that have done it.

They've traveled the path and that would be the second step. Is there more?

Yeah, but that example presupposes that you have enough self understanding to know that you want to walk from California to New York. I feel like there's a lot of people who are living their lives reactively. They know they want their they thirst. They hunger for more meaning, more purpose, more passion in their life.

But they're completely bereft of the tools or the means by which to connect with what that might look like. So they're shooting darts in the dark. Thinking I want these things, but how do I even begin the process of trying to figure out what that might mean for me?

So I would say the way that we do it for. Let's just talk individually right now for one on one type stuff is let's say let's use extreme example. Somebody is really struggling, right? And they're highly anxious or highly depressed or they're really struggling in life. First, it's like, OK, well, let's let's just stabilize a little bit. And so stabilizing is like, how do we help somebody be present? And being present is where your body and your mind are in the same place, focusing on the same thing.

So that's what being present is. So how do we do that first? And if you're not with somebody that knows how to do that, how do you do that? Well, this is where meditation and mindfulness is like the modern science and the ancient wisdom of it is paying dividends. It's one of the ways to start. And if that feels like too big, like focusing on one breath at a time over and over and over again, that feels too big then.

OK, how do we get to that next place? Well, maybe there are some very easy ways to say, OK, well, I'm going to start being my best coach. And so now we're kind of moving into that self talk thing a little bit, and the small Band-Aid kind of tactic, if you will, is be great at coaching yourself today. Mindfulness is about listening, and then coaching is more about self talk, like, what are you going to say to yourself?

So those are two kind of maybe some ways to start. And then I'd say, get your sleep right. Yeah. You know, super practical. You got your coupon. Oh, yeah. I've been.

I see you've got you know, I haven't taken it off since I got it. So I love it. Yeah. Now, can I tell you a funny story. Yeah. So I first got it when I was doing This Is Your World that I played in for a moment, but it was an ultra that I was training for. I followed it dude. I met, I met somebody, I met myself in a different way. I, I can't wait to tell me about that.

Yeah. So you are you're going to paddleboard from Catalina to to L.A.. Stand up. Yeah.

So stand up paddle. I grew up as a kid surfing and I'd look as I look west there's an island, Catalina Island, it's about 30 miles away and I get frustrated with the island because it would block some of the big south swells that would come in. And then also incredibly inspired by the island from this one narrative, which was natives that long ago that were on the island would build their own canoes and they'd pair up either two people or three people or sometimes one person.

They would travel the 30 miles, come grab some supplies and then bring it back to their family. I'm like, damn, yeah, it's legit. It's cross Shark Alley. It's a cross, you know. Thirty miles of open ocean. There's some pretty shifty currents that are happening in the Pacific. And I always thought, like, you know, hundreds of years ago that was taking place like man equalise inspired. This is weird. But the men and women that put up phone wires or phone poles in the as pioneers to places like Deep in the mountains.

And I'm always like somebody was here drilling into, you know, Mother Earth. Yeah. Oh, I don't know why. But anyways, so I'm watching that. And then one of my friends, I shared that idea with him. Like, how inspiring. Because once you do it like that. No, I don't I don't do ultra. I don't do distance stuff. I'm not built for that. And so he just himself defeatism coming at me right out of the gate for a high performance psychologist.

I thought it was actually working from reality. Yeah, but I was like I didn't think I had that. And I had very little interest for watermen, though.

Yeah. I spent a lot of time in the water, but not. But but do you think about the way I organize my life? It's really more about in the sports world and working with the athletes. I work with more about intense adrenaline management. And then it wasn't until maybe about eight years ago that sport started spending time with people that were doing back to back stuff like what you're doing, you know, like really decent space stuff. Carl Metzner, Metzler, Metzler, do you know that name?

He ran the Pony Express now. So it's a project that we did with Red Bull Metzker Metzker. I think it's Metzker. Yeah it sounds familiar. It was amazing he ran the Pony Express. Sorry Carl, if you're listening. I'm sorry Carl. Yeah it was a it was amazing what he did. He ran the Pony Express like almost without stopping like back to back, you know, days like is incredible. So that's when I first really got exposed to the Red Bull project of what it takes for you guys to do what you do.

So a friend of mine held me accountable and I said, yeah, OK. At one point I was like, Yeah, yeah. I think I could imagine myself doing that. And for two or three years in a row when the season would arrive, he's like, So are you going to train for it? And maybe next time, you know? And finally he's like enough of your bullshit.

And so we're training and. I blew it on nutrition, I took everything so seriously and I want to get to the story, but I didn't I never did anything like this and I got my nutrition wrong. So mild, 23 of 31, I was hallucinating. And it also happened to be that I was doing three point one miles an hour. Into a three point one mile current stand in still for 47 minutes, hallucinating, mild Cincinnatians just under under fueled.

Yeah, I mean, overtaxed under fueled. I came out classic rookie mistake. I came out too fast and everyone told me, take your time, come out slow. And and I thought I was, but I didn't really have the awareness and sophistication. I didn't have someone coaching me, you know, from a distance to like slow down.

That just comes with experience, though. I mean, it being your first, you bit off something big for your first time out. Yeah.

And this is the fun part about the group. I'll go in reverse order, I met myself in a new way at mile twenty three. And I needed it, you know, I felt disconnected to nature, so I called this thing called I called the project Project Reconnect, and when I learned to Foldes was like what isolation and loneliness means because I was there, I felt a sense of abandonment, that I was like, I don't know why, but abandonment came up for me, which was a really cool way for me to get to some truths for me.

And then the second thing is that I realized that I am nature. We are nature. So nature is not the ocean that I would go get connected to. You and I are the same kind of stuff. And so it was a recalibration that I didn't need to reconnect to nature. I need to reconnect to my nature. And we are nature. It's not the mountains and the oceans and the grass. Our humanity is nature. And it's complicated.

It's beautiful. So that was kind of what happened was transformative, say, at least for me. And then but woop back to. So one of the Peter Park was a man who was helping me get right. Get fit. He's amazing. I don't know if you know Peter, but I know who he is. I've never met him. Yeah. And so amazing human. You guys would love the conversations that you guys would have. But anyways, so he's helped me get right.

And he goes, listen, make a promise when you wake up in the morning. I was like a 430 wake up call.

He says, don't check your woop. Whoo! Yeah, you're going right? I was like, Yeah, so I'm going so long story bit a little bit longer here is that I wake up in the morning and we had to move up our launch date. It was just a strike mission was just me going with a boat in case I got in trouble, a trail boat and. And so so we had to move up the date a week early, and so I had five days of travel in like seven different hotel rooms and I was like, OK, give me a two day breather and then now I've got to go now.

So so I woke up and you know what my score was?

I don't know, 13. Yup, was it it was 13. Oh, man, I had those data show, I'm going to show you I'm going to pull it up and show you that wake up.

And you're just like, today is not my day. So it becomes a predictor of behavior. So it's dangerous in that regard.

So I didn't look, though. Yeah, I made the commitment. And so that had something to do with bonking, like I was on fumes. And, you know, it also reminds me of and I think, you know, that's probably better than I do, is that we are made of so much. We are capable of so much. And so there's so much more inside of us. And so it was a reminder of that.

Yeah, that's great. I love that. I mean, I think that there's it's beautifully told and I'm glad you had that experience. I think there's something very unique about the endurance pursuit that stands distinct from the acute challenges of some of the athletes that you work with, where it's about these like microscopic moments. Yeah. And that kind of, you know, and dealing with like fear of guys jumping out of planes at twenty five thousand feet and the kind of stuff that that you're more familiar with.

But without a parachute. Right.

Without a parachute into a 16 story net that you built. Did you have luck on the show?

No, I would love to. I would love to. You guys would have a great conversation.

Yeah, I'd love to talk to that guy. Insane. For people that don't know. Michael worked with Luke Aikens, who jumped out of a plane at twenty five thousand feet without a parachute and landed in a net.

This is the most bananas thing ever, the size of a right to four car garage.

You know, like he's working with with David Blaine right now.

Are you involved in the Ascension Project? I'm not, no.

When I saw David do his little trailer, I immediately thought of you and wondered whether you were involved. That Lucas.

Yeah, that's a that's a pretty Luke's is more dangerous, I think, by far. But what David Blaine is doing is real.

So it was supposed to be like today, I think. But whether I pushed it off. So basically what he's doing for those that don't know and he will have done it by the time this airs, but he wants to just strap himself to a whole bunch of balloons and float up into the air like a little kid. Yeah. You know, at the end, he has a parachute up in the balloons, but he's not going to put it on until he's out of sight because he wants that visual.

And then his his idea is to go up to the elevation of Everest. He wants to get above twenty five thousand, hopefully up to twenty nine and then parachute down. It's crazy what's so amazing and unique about that guy is that he shares his magic skills with these true feats of athletic endurance, the breeding and the cold and all the stuff that he does, that makes him very special.

Yeah, for sure. But back to the endurance thing. I mean, I think what I've learned and what sounds like you got a taste of is, is that. Unique experience of self connection that occurs when you're beyond depleted and stripped of all of your natural defenses and all the layers that prevent you from being that connected to who you are and the environment. And there's like a percolation of self-awareness and self understanding that occurs. And then it translates into doing these things that you didn't think you were capable of.

And so you become more connected to your potential, like the ceiling on what you become, what you believe is possible gets raised. That's exactly it. And you were asking earlier, like, how do people actually get to step one? Maybe the step is to sign up for something with you because you're going to push them into like, you know, into that thin, hard space, you know, and I don't know if you're doing that much anymore with the current conditions or at all.

But if if somebody could pair up with you for a little bit, I mean, you'll take them there. I could take them there. Yeah. You know, take them there. And what a guide you'd be, really, you know. And so that's one way to do it for sure. And I also think that we don't have to do extreme anything to get to the extreme awareness. You can do it on a pillow. You can do it in a conversation with someone that is wise and you can do it by yourself in a journal.

It's harder. That way is harder. Yeah. You know, or you could take ayahuasca, I suppose, which some people do. Yeah, we all have our our ways of getting there I guess. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. But endurance, ultra endurance has been this amazing teacher in my life and I don't necessarily feel like I have that much more that I feel like I need to prove to myself in that regard. But the lessons that I've learned from that inform everything that I do.

I go and you know, I think that right now the lessons that we need to learn are incredible right now. Like whole like what are we doing with politics? You know, what are we doing with covid and what are we doing with, I mean, the perfect storm here between racial justice, Mother Nature? Let me speak on Mother Nature for just a minute, one more minute is that I bought this. I'm disappointed. It's too strong of a word, but man, I bought this cincher.

This hook is a better way to think about it. Early when covid was first announced and it was like, OK, isolation, lockdown, war, you know, front lines, home front and. And I said, wait a minute, those are all jailhouse terms. Those are all like war based frameworks that we're trying to do something against Mother Nature. So it's wrong, our tactic, our approach is fundamentally dislocated from how Mother Nature and we are Mother Nature are working together.

And so I think that if we could take a pause and this is not practical, but as an at an individual level. Right. To take a pause and say what is my relationship with nature and not to get to view about anything, but this is Mother Nature speaking to us. This is our planet saying, hey, I got something going to spin at you here. And what is your relationship going to be with it? And all that being said is like, I've bubbled up big time, you know, like I for part of my job responsibilities and to honor the people that I work with, like in a really significant way.

So but I just want to pause and say, let's get back to maybe some first principles about nature and how we're relating to our nature and the nature around us. There's a lot to be mined in that I mean, similar to you. I've been essentially locked down, but I've spent a lot of time thinking about that, you know, not just the efficacy of our national strategy or global strategy, but how to behave on a personal level, like there's there's our macro relationship with nature and then our interpersonal relationships, each one of our individual relationship with nature.

On a macro level, nature is telling us, look, you're your systems are broken. Your relationship with the animal kingdom is what created this. So I'm going to throw you a curveball because you need to take a look at this. We're not really taking a look at it on an individual level. There's very little talk about ensuring that our individual immune systems are intact and part of buttressing our immune system is being in contact with a diversity of environments and other people.

But now we're being told we have to remove ourselves from other people. And I understand that like and I'm doing that and I'm wearing masks and being a good citizen and all of that. But what is really going on here?

And now we're in this situation where we've bungled and mishandled this to such a vast degree that there's no end in sight for this current protocol short of a vaccine being developed. We're just going to continue to accumulate thousand cases a day or whatever it is. We're not going to reach herd immunity in this way. We're we're kind of either we completely locked down or we completely open up. But we're in this liminal space where we're not really achieving anything except prolonging the length at which we have to delay everything else in our lives.

Yeah, it's. You and I are going to be fine and we're going to figure it out because we have agency back to kind of point number one and we are using. As best we can, our community and our information from science and our history and being alive to what to do right, you know, for yourself and others and those that have some underlying conditions, some real anxiety, some victimization, some some depression, like. Holy shit.

Like, really, you can't go out of your house right now, you know, without being scared or there's a belligerence that you hide behind, like I'm not doing this, you know, but that's an overcautious overcorrection to for many people, at least for. A trigger point or a tripwire for what it feels like to be told what to do, and so, yeah, it's brutal.

Well, it's a witch's brew. It's not just the pandemic. It's our political environment. It is economic insecurity that's driving, you know, fear, division, vitriol, loneliness, separation. There's a giant swath of this country who feels unheard. They feel like they lack agency in their lives. And now they're we're in a situation that's so acute that it's a tripwire. So we're seeing these flare ups, you know, and then they end up in these videos that get shared on social media that is only exacerbating this vicious cycle of of acrimony, that is denigrating the kind of cohesiveness of the American experiment in general.

It's crazy.

I've never seen anything like this. Meanwhile, you know, we have these. You know, social protests over police brutality and racial injustices and all of those are, you know, to some degree appropriate responses to, you know, a system that is perpetrated harm and and lack of justice for so many people in this country.

And all of that taken together has created this moment that is very strange and is for for myself. It's like there's an uncertainty, like how do I engage with the world right now? And I find myself at times like, should I say this? Or if I say this, then that person's, you know, like other people are like afraid to speak, they're afraid to act.

We don't know what the ground rules are here. And it's unprecedented in certain ways. Yeah, I think I, I know I struggle with that same thing like this, this bit of a dance, if you will, because. But here's how I sort it out, and the dance is like, how can I say this or that, right? And speak my truth and also not alienate people that I might make a mistake in what I'm trying to sort out because I'm a learner.

I'm trying to figure this out with everyone else. And I've got to get back to first principles is what I do. So what are my first principles that matter most to me? And I've got my first principles might not be your first principles, but if we can get back to first principles, those kind of guiding principles that shape and the most aspirational way, your thoughts, your words and your actions. And if we can take a moment to reexamine those.

And when I do that, I am so clear for me and this to say something that's charging an electric. I'm not voting for somebody that doesn't care about humanity, and when I say that, I know that people are saying, well, what do you mean? He of course, Donald Trump, you know, is about humanity. I can't see it. So I'm not voting that way. There's no chance that I'm voting that way. You know, if I had a daughter, which I don't, I'd feel awful and I might be offending you in the way that because I don't know your vote and it's OK if you don't sending me.

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know where I'm with you on that.

And so I've got to get back to first principles for me and what happens for many people as they go. Let's say that there's somebody at our table that goes well. I got first principles to and my first principles line up with supporting Donald Trump for president. And so now where we find ourselves in a problem is because there's so foundational, fundamental that we feel like we've got to protect them, those first principles. And so now we're in a vicious protection, aggressive, you know, it feels like it's a survival mechanism and a war that's taking place on first principles.

And that's where we are right now. And so so for me, another first principle is to create space, to talk and to dialogue and to be curious and at the same time have an eye and a lens on humanity. If we don't have that, I'm really not interested in being in the conversation. And so I'm finding myself, removing myself from many layers of conversations with people because I know that their first principle is so orthogonal and there's not an interest in anything other than defending first principle as opposed to exploring.

I'm OK to be wrong, not my ego is no longer involved in what I do. And if my first principles and the way I'm acting on them are in error, which they will be at some point in my life called Call me out. I want to be I want to get better. But a first principle for me. Sorry to get on the soapbox with you, but. Humanity. It's the first principle, humanity, empathy, listening, conversation, nuance, appreciation.

Yeah, not narcissism, I know what that is as a trained psychologist, and I'm not diagnosing anybody, but you know what? When you can't see another person and really separate that another person is different than your identity. Think about that for a minute. That's what narcissism is, the inability to know the difference that you are your own individual person and not merely a reflection of me. That is a disordered way of engaging socially, and so what happens when people can't see that you have your own life in your own experience, that you're merely a reflection of me?

And if you're right now, you're wearing a striped shirt and I don't like striped shirts, I'm gonna be cunning and sophisticated and making you feel absolutely horrible about how dare you wear.

How stupid are you? Why would you wear a striped shirt like, please striped shirts? What is wrong with you? And now to the point where at some point you're like, oh, maybe I should make a change, but I've just been raided because I got the photo.

Yeah, but I just berated you as opposed to like going to saying as ridiculous striped shirts. What's up with that? So no crazy guy got me going. No, I like it. I appreciate that. Yeah. Fired up a little bit. Yeah. I mean I think that us, us folks that care about humanity and the planet need to vote in an aggressive way and come out, you know, make get the get the mailing thing right.

Whatever, whatever you're capable of doing in North America right now.

People, I appreciated your collaborator, Pete Carroll's words the other day about social justice. How about it? I mean, he he's been about this for a long time. Yeah.

You know, and so which part of his message, just the speech that he gave in general about like, look, man, you know, this is this is real and we got to deal with this like it it feels on some on some level it's like, of course.

But when you contextualize that within the culture of the NFL and how they've conducted themselves, you know, over the course of this, you know, crisis that we've endured, it feels bolder than it should.

Mm hmm. Yeah. You know. It's complicated and I'm so mindful that I've got I've had incredible privilege in my life and not from an economic standpoint, I didn't I wasn't born with a silver spoon. But the privilege and the advantage that I've had is a gift that I didn't even ask for, but I got it. And so the first time I heard white privilege, I was like, get out of here. You don't know where I came from.

Like, no one from my family. I had a college education. You know, I had we had a well on a farm that we came from. We didn't have our pipes were kind of busted up. You know, we had to figure stuff out as a kid. You know, I still had nice things, you know, I didn't go without. And I was like, yeah, we're like, no chance that I come from a privileged what you think is privilege.

And then this is like four or five years ago when that word was first introduced to me. And the gift that I've received from some of the players at the Seattle Seahawks and the rich conversations we'd have on the bus in between, you know, practice and honor on road trips in between practice and and games and whatever. And when they broke it down to you have an advantage. Strip that word of white privilege, you have an advantage, you call the cops if something's wrong with your home, right?

Yeah, not us. Hmm. You know, fill in the blanks, keep going right down the list. And so I go, oh, I had an advantage. Yeah, I see that. And I want to be careful because I've had lots of advantages. But it can also sound like I'm starting to get egotistical and some of the things, you know, but the basic advantage of just being born into a system that values white and being Caucasian.

That's that's something to pay attention to. Yeah. Well, I just love that that Coach Carol addressed it directly. Yeah, he did, yeah. Yeah. I think that he's a humanist. You know, he studied humanistic psychology. He did as a one of his degrees, his master's degree, studied one of the humanistic psychologists and how it impacts. I didn't know that. Yeah. So he's a humanist as well. How are the Seahawks doing?

Well, we don't know where you're going. You're going up to the bubble soon.

Well, you know, the bubble is pretty intense and we've got to figure out what the right rhythms are. And so one of the reasons I've been bubbled up is to make sure that I'm doing the right thing, if ever you know that. But this is a it's a dislocating experience for me this year. And so typically, I travel from L.A. to Seattle every week for two, three, four times days a week. But to do that this year is irresponsible.

Yeah. You know, and so, you know, so the season is about ready to fire up. Pre-season is happening here in a bit. And I'm not sure at the time of the recording where we'll be. But what a massive experiment. Yeah. You know, that's taking place right now.

What's your perspective on how the NBA has handled it?

Meaning a full on bubble up, right? Yeah, I think that at the time I would say I'd make that same decision, you know, and I'd probably still stay the course. You know, there's great consequences to this. Consequences to family consequences to earnings for the league. It feels responsible. So there's there's pro cons to both. But I'd feel safer in that environment than some of the other environments that I see taking place.

I was watching these tables, blogs on YouTube. Did you check those out? No, I didn't. But I heard yeah, I was great. You know, like, you just get this flavor of what, the day to day, you know, like mundanity is and all the protocols that are in place and how they really it really is a bubble, like they're just in their hotel rooms and, you know, getting tested and going to practice and living completely isolated, you know, in this weird experiment.

And this is in many respects is a. There's something really important for all of us to say, what is the purpose of sport in society? Is it a luxury, is it a requirement? How does it fit? Why are we so interested in making this? Is it a business like where does sport in modern day fit in our narrative? You know, because I can see parents making what I would consider risky decisions, putting their kids back into sport, unmasked with lots of other kids running around.

And I'm talking about like 13, 14 year olds, which is not the you know, the super spreaders in many respects. So I'm not doing that with, you know, in my family, but. So where does sports sit? And I think it's a great question. Yeah, I mean, how do you answer that for yourself? Well, I think it's entertainment. First, I think that fitness and health is different, you know, as a as a as a component.

But it's at this point, modern sport is entertainment. That's actually how they're classified. Their paychecks are classified. And so it's a way of living for people. It's their life, it's their passion. But from a social standpoint, it's entertainment. And that entertainment is a business. I mean, is it not business concerns that are driving this push to get it rolling? Oh, for sure. Yeah, for sure. And I think also when when you when you look at the kind of the the picture of any league right now, there's definitely business drivers.

And when you think about the importance of business across our country and these pockets, it's really important to many. You know, it's opening a lot of doors in communities. And then when you drill down to next level coaches, you know what happens to a coach if there's no. Yeah. What happens to the athlete's paycheck? You know, that's what happens to the you know, the equipment folks and the ticket folks. And so it's a it's a larger issue about health.

And if they can get it right from a protective standpoint, OK, you know, but that. I think sometimes we forget just how, just because they're on TV and they're highly skilled, they deal with the same exact stuff you and I do, maybe even amplified. Yeah, they're no different than the two of us.

How are your Olympic athletes that you work with, dealing with everything that's happening right now? I mean, I just can't fathom having that dream pulled out from underneath me when your whole life is oriented towards working. Towards that specific moment and then it becomes unavailable. Yeah, it's happening in college right now to college football, college like Stanford volleyball, you imagine being one of the best in the world going into Stanford. And now the program's, you know, shut down.

Like what? It's unbelieve.

I mean, Stanford volleyball is the fact that it's crazy tight, dominant domna, you know. And so it's happening at the Olympic level, the pro level. It's happening at the college level and even in high school for sure, you know, senior year, the hot recruit and now this kind of hodgepodge thing that's taken across the country. So that's but here's here's two examples. It's happening at the Olympics. Go back up to your question. One athlete said, this is awesome, Mike.

And this athlete is a absolute flat out world leader in the sport, their sport, I'll keep gender and sport out of it. For obvious reasons, this is awesome. I get to repair, I get time, I need time on my side, and this is this I hope it sure I sure hope it happens, but I think I was probably going to make the team because to make most of the teams in the United States means that you're one of the best in the world.

And trials, as you recognize, is oftentimes a higher hurdle than the actual games. Correct. And so I'm pretty sure I was going to make the team. But who I got some time now.

Well, it depends on the individual, because for the person who's coming up, who's maybe a little bit on the younger side, a little less experienced side, this definitely plays to their advantage. But for the person who's hanging on and this is their last dance one more year, I don't know if I can do it, especially when you're just trying to, like, put ramen in the bowl at night.

Like most of these people, you know, there's this myth that they're all supported and have these sponsors. And that's true for only a very few people.

Most this is old data, but I think it's it's about six years old that the majority of athletes or the average for the United States that go into the games that make it to the games are one hundred fifty thousand dollars in debt by the time they show up at the games. Crazy. Yeah. And you know what we do? We're celebrating, you know, we're watching on TV and we're like feeling so good about America and that aspirational all in beauty that they represent of us like they're coming back.

And if they don't have a medal there. Yeah. You know, did you see the way to Gold, that HBO documentary? I haven't seen it yet, but watch it. Yeah, it's all about that. Yeah.

Whether you're atop the podium or an also ran once that sun is set on that event and you're overnight back to civilian life, that transition is rough.

I mean, I'm sure you deal with that a lot with the athletes that you work with. Transitions are really hard. We're we're in a massive transition right now. You know, all of us are in a transitional phase right now, but transitions out of sport, which you well recognize, it's really tricky. And so that being said, there are some frameworks to help through transition and north stars realigning the North Star. Realigning purpose in life is kind of where it starts.

And so right now, for all of us, that's there is a moment right now for all of us to say, OK, what's my North Star? What is North Sarmin purpose, what is my purpose? And so that's a big conversation that I have with folks touch touching a touchstone on a regular basis. OK, let's go back to purpose. And I found that most people don't know their purpose. They can't articulate it because it feels so big.

It feels like, well, how do you know your purpose? Aren't those people that have purpose, the lucky ones? And it just kind of knew early on, I don't have purpose. My purpose is for my family. Well, that's purpose now. So if purpose, there's three components to purpose. It's got to matter to you alone, have meaning to you, the second is it is bigger than you, and the third, it's future oriented.

So as you're trying to articulate what is my purpose in life, it just needs those three factors. And then if that feels too big, you can say, well, what is my purpose for this month? You convince life's purpose. You can then slice it all the way down to what is my purpose today? And if you did a bunch of those in a row, you probably snap up to larger purpose and so you can then slice it.

It's not in that in that framework, it seems digestible.

Mm hmm. What's the difference between. Purpose and vision, like in compete to create, you talk a lot about vision, like you need to have this vision, this this idea of what you want your life to look like, and you have to put intentional attention on developing that. And that's challenging to me because I don't know that I've really thought that through very much for myself. We can talk about that later. But how do you distinguish purpose from vision?

Are those similar or they two different things?

Yeah, this is where like language is really important. And so vision is really about when you use your imagination. And you think about what it's like to be you or it's or what the environment that you want to create to be, but if we just talk about you for a minute, when you close your eyes and use your imagination, what is the vision that you can create about? Your best, you know, like what does it look and feel like, and so that's what that is about.

What's the vision of your potential, whatever word we want to use that when I say those words out loud, like your best and potential, it feels so the language doesn't do it quite right because it comes off on the right jingoistic.

Yeah, that's right.

But it really is the mechanism that's underneath when you close your eyes and create an imagination of what could be what you would like your future to be. That's what vision is about. Purpose is the why that sits underneath it, like what is your life purpose and the vision imagination is what does that look and feel like when that purpose is? Is aligned with the man or woman or person you want to be. Does that help? Mm hmm. And then underneath that is like like little missions, like little missions.

It still feels esoteric, like trying to figure out how to drill that down into, you know, a practical application on a day to day basis.

And then let's complicate it, because then you got like, what's your philosophy? Right. Right.

I got to have a purpose, a vision and a philosophy. Come on. And you need all of them.

You know, I wish I got shit to do. That's right.

You pay some bills. Do you know, like. Yes, but so purposes this thing like what am I doing with my time here? Vision is what does it look like when it's firing on all cylinders. And then philosophy is what are the guiding principles. You know, is love a guiding principle that is important to you is kill or be killed a guiding principle is capitalism at all costs, you know, win or go home? Or is it, you know, something on the other side, which is like cooperation, is it?

I'm blanking on like different principles that matter, but so principles. That's your philosophy. Vision is what is it when you use your imagination, go big. Figure it out like not the what, but the how.

And then what about values, because that's come up on the podcast a lot like aligning your actions with your what is your value system and are you aligning your actions with that value system.

It's cool. That's those are principle values or principles. Values in action are really first principles, you know, and so I would not separate those two. Seems like a lot of work, does it. Yeah. OK, hold on. When you use your imagination and you think about here you go, you turn it on, they want to wait for it now to go away for the day.

Well I'll indulge you a little bit. Yeah. So when you use your imagination and you think about what it's like to be you when you're like. Just at your best, was that what's that about, one of the words you use? What are the images that. Come on. Effortless, strong, capable. Articulate and then what are you doing to express those? Characteristics like now we're using imagination about what's possible in your life, so it's about you being that way, but then what do you think?

That is it. Let's do sport for a minute. Is it like I don't know, you know, the Super Bowl, is it breaking records? Is it you know, there's some concreteness now to get into. Is it building a media empire for you? Is it. You know, being like absolutely a community minded person, like when you when you go there, what is how does it start to create some texture, some shape?

Yeah, I think that maybe we could talk about this more on your show, but I look at like, let's just take this podcast, for example. So I approach this much like I would approach a race. I trained as a swimmer, as a kid, I learned visualization techniques, I learned how to train my body and my mind to prepare for an event, and I carry those tools into everything that I do. So today I show up, I prepare so that I'm ready.

I get in the right frame of mind and mindset. I try to make sure I get enough sleep and then I've nourished and all of those things so that I can show up.

And. Be the best version of myself in this conversation, the goal being to have the the most present, authentic, best version of what this conversation could possibly be. In the same way that when I would get up on the blocks for a swimming race. I visualized it so much that now it's just a matter of executing, right? It's different in that in a swimming race, there's much more that you have control over. There's fewer variables. I don't know what you're thinking, what you're going to say.

This is grand and I have to just be present and available for whatever is going to happen. And not try to control it, so there's a there's a relinquishing in it, but I don't think about like, oh, I'm going to build this huge media company or I want to influence this many people. Like, I just try to I'm much more in the moment of I trust and believe that if I repeatedly show up with the best version of who I can possibly be, that those other things kind of take care of themselves.

OK, so awesome. You've got the the framework's and the process to show up and be your very best. You know, that flat out. You know how to do that? Yeah, I've been doing that my whole life. That's right. So that's. Baked, and that's where you just went in this conversation. So then if we were if you and I were kind of drilling down, which we can we can do later, this will be fun.

But if we're drilling down, I'd say, OK, so you know what? Here's a vision that somebody said, let's get the best racers in the world together. Swimmers and let let's see who actually excels, let's see who can actually peak in prime and bring it amongst the best, that's a vision. And then then if that person if that person was you, you were creating that vision for swimming, OK? And then I would double click about the vision for you.

Say, what? What is it like for you when you're building towards that vision and you're like, oh, I want to be free? What were the words used? There's an effortlessness to the way that I would work. And so that's starting to shape a vision. OK, then I would say, well, what's the purpose of this? Why do this? Why create this vision for your life, what you what it is that you're creating?

But who the man that you want to become through this exercise, what's the purpose? And then you have to answer that. Right. And then I'd say you can use values, but I say, what are your what are your guiding principles? Because you're going to make lots of choices. And then when you're making those choices, you know, to be a savage in business or to be a collaborator, whatever you orthogonal, you've got to make these micro decisions.

The better you know your principles, the easier you can line up your thoughts, words and actions. Right. And then you'll be your best. So I'll do this with you just super. Practical, my purpose is to help people live in the present moment more often. That's it, that's my purpose in life, is to help people live in this moment more often. And what I know is that to do that, we have to condition and train our minds.

It's very specific.

I love that. I would have thought you would have said something like, I want to I want to help people achieve their potential or I want people to I want to help people, you know, unlock their most authentic self for their best self.

I think that's cool. You know, those are broader. Yeah, that's specific. Yeah. For me, because those things occur as a result of being more present in your life.

Yeah. Yeah. So what my purpose and I remember when we go back to the science is that there needs to be three components. It needs a matter to you. I guess I want people to like be their very best, whatever. But you know what? I want to help people understand, because this is the keyhole living in the present moment and knowing how to condition and train your mind so that you can be present more often across potentially any condition that you are going to find yourself in.

Shit. That's a keyhole for me. That's what gets my hair to stand up because I know what's possible for people when they invest in the inner life. And and so. So then the next is what's the vision? The vision is a community of people that are flat out flourishing. Right, and so I want to be part of that community, I want to create that community, that's actually what we have in the founding mastery community right now.

And so because they're investing in their mind and training their mind and organizing their inner life, so we're creating a community of flourishing and that becomes exponential. What happens if you've got a bunch of people that are, like, really thriving in the right way? I don't know yet. My imagination hasn't gone there yet. I wish that I could get there. I don't have that yet. And then I've got first principles that are guiding my choices, got in my words and my thoughts and my actions so I can be about it in any moment of test.

There's a lot of clarity there. How long did it take you to arrive at this? I've been chipping away, chipping away, chipping away at my mentor. What's it really about, Mike? What are you really doing? Chipping away. Chipping away. Every time I read a bounce it up against and I full it. Is this right? You know, like so it's a work in progress. It's it's part of the ecosystem of my inner life that I'm bouncing up against those and I'm reserving the right to change it to.

Yeah.

You know, like but it's been. But this is what you take to these corporations when you and Coach Carroll consult. Right. You talk about this in the book. I'm working with Microsoft in these companies where you get people to really drill down on on these things for themselves.

Yeah. So. We this is a cool story, this is I'm able to talk about this is that it's in page four or five, six of something. Adela's book hit Refresh. And so Sathya is the CEO of Microsoft. So we're doing a bunch I was doing a bunch of work with Satya and his executive leadership team, and it's an eight hour training. And subsequently we've trained about 30 to 40000 people across the organization at eight hours, a person on how to train their mind.

Think about that investment and oh, my goodness, that's a real investment. So we that's why we built this online course. And the book is meant to be a tandem to it. But that's why we built this online course. And that's the real mechanism, I think, to help align. My purpose is it's an eight hour training to show you how to condition your mind in the practices and a community of people that are doing it together. So we got to the place where we talked about philosophy and Satya had a moment and he's, I don't know, maybe six months into the job and seven, fifteen or so direct reports.

One hundred and eighty thousand employees roll up to these 15, 16 people. Multibillion dollar corporation, and he pauses, he checks the room and he says. Our mission is real and it's big and we're trying to do something amazing. And so what I want to do is I want to know you. I want you to know each other. I want you to know me. And so let's spend whatever amount of time we need right here to get our philosophies, our true philosophies in line and then share them with each other.

Amazing moment. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Yeah, running a massive organization like Coach Carol, running the Seahawks. Right. Like creating a culture of openness and transparency where if you can get everybody on the same page and align, then you become unstoppable.

And what we found is like a 30, 30, so 30 percent. And so culture, what is culture? It's it's a pin. It's a word for it's an emblem for the relationships. So relationships are the artifact of whatever the culture is. And so if you can create a container, a space for people to have great relationships and you've got a really clear North Star, you got something. And so it's a 30, 30, 30 percent of the folks in your organization or your family are going to be all about the first principles and the mission.

You know, in the purpose, they're like, yeah, this is I love this place. 30 percent are going to be like, what are we doing?

Right? Like, this is just my job, man. Let me go back to work.

And, you know, once you are full of B.S., like, what are you talking about?

Like relationships, you know, and then there's a middle 30. That middle third is the swing voters. That's it, man. So work with them, you know, to swing 15, 20 percent of that. You got something special.

I wrote down this line from from the book that that hit me, which is through relationships we become.

And that's another kind of theme that underscores all of this. So explain what that means as it relates to what you just said.

Yeah, I think that it's right on it. Is that first, the relationship with yourself, your relationship with others, with Mother Nature, through those relationships, you become the person that hopefully you are working toward. And if you're not purposeful about it, you'll become something, you'll become someone. And if you become a bit purposeful about it and you have that, you use your imagination or you collaborate with your trusted community of mentors or wise men and women and people that you say, what am I?

Who do I want to become? Shit, that's a real question. So through relationships, we reveal. We become the person that we are becoming. And so that's the idea. And then that's a little fun. Science Note is that Harvard did a really cool study. Do you remember the study, a 75 year study maybe? I don't know. And they did it on fulfillment in life. So they tracked people for seventy five years. And then basically they wanted to understand what goes into living a fulfilled life.

NaCl So they basically they said, OK, at the end of the study, did you live a fulfilled life. Seventy five years or not. And then they drilled down underneath. What are those practices and one of those practices? There's two really important findings that I want to share. One is that those that were fulfilled wrestled with the deep questions of life. They didn't solve them, but they wrestled. What is my purpose? What does it mean to be alive in modern times?

How do I work with money? What are we doing here? What happens after life, you know, what happens after death, I should say. And so those are like really big challenging rocky type questions, those that wrestled with them. Reported to Livermore, that's counterintuitive because when I think of the individual that's wrestling with those questions, I picture the tortured soul.

Yes, that's the word no, that is the work required. You know, like tell me you're not better because you suffer a little bit in your training and you suffer a little bit in trying to find the right word to hit on your next book or your current book. You know, like there's there is a little bit of work and struggle that goes into it. Yeah. So, yeah. And the second one, the second pillar of that finding was relationships, meaningful relationships for those who are fulfilled.

And it doesn't mean that somebody loves you. It means that you have someone and people to love.

Do you think that that individual who's wrestling with these fundamental questions about what it you know, what life is and what it means, is that teachable or trainable?

Or are people just some people hardwired to be, you know, prone to that kind of thought process?

Well, I think if let's be practical, if you're if your thought processes throughout the day are how am I going to eat tonight? How am I gonna feed my kids? Yeah, the larger questions are indulgence. That's right, indulgences.

So once you get that kind of basic stuff. As well secured as you can see, it doesn't mean that this is only for the independently wealthy that don't need to think about mortgage. That's not me. So, you know, once you get kind of some basic frames of stability and security for safety and shelter and food and that stuff, you provided the luxury to say, OK, what are we doing here? Because I'm working my ass off, you know, and I'm trying to figure it out.

What am I trying to figure out? And I it's a really important question to explore. And so that's that's the nature.

And so with this purpose of trying to get people more rooted in the present moment on the front lines of this battle, are these devices which are. Scientifically devised to maximize distraction, to addict us, to take us out of the moment, like I feel like that's where we need to put our intentional attention right now if we're going to win the war of being present.

Yes.

So talk about that a little bit. I mean, you open the book talking about that a little bit and the work that Tristan Harris is doing, which I think is super important. And I think this is a really big deal. I don't think anyone would disagree with that.

Yeah, I think so. And I don't want to knock technology at the same level. It's easy for us to kind of take potshots at technology. I'm not suggesting that's where you're going, but I just want to kind of say that because I'm about to get because Microsoft.

You work with Microsoft, OK? Yeah, I know. But I think that it's doing it's changing our world and it's really helping us reimagine potential. And I just want to add a quick note is that when I grew up surfing, we had to wait a month or two months before the magazine would come out with the new skills that the great we're doing. And so iteration would happen around that month. You know, like the younger moms would see it and be like, oh, look at that.

You know, like that's what the pioneers are doing. That's what the high performers are doing. And so human potential would progress at the rate of creativity, which is that it's not creativity. Innovation is rare. It it really is. But when you can see somebody else be creative or innovate and then it speeds up that thing.

Right. The acceleration of information dissemination is related directly to the rate at which creative expression and innovation can occur.

Aymen, you know, look at your linear, logical lawyer, brain making sense of everything. Good.

Yes, I remember that. I mean, for me, it was Swimming World magazine, you know, and it's right on my bed stand. And you would just count the days until it was going to be in the mailbox. That's right. And that was the only way of like knowing what was going on.

And now that technology has advanced in such a rapid rate that, you know, we're seeing it daily. We're seeing innovations and creativity and, you know, thin her potential pushing stuff happening every day. And so those clips are happening in a way that almost is overwhelming. And so let's just talk about how our ancient brain works in modern times, our ancient brain. It really hasn't evolved as fast as technology. Let's be clear about that. And modern technology.

They understand the brain and the mind. So the brain is the hardware to oversimplify this beautiful set of three pounds of tissue that sits in our skull. It's the hardware. And we've got some software. Let's call it the mind right now. To oversimplify this, they're better at it than most of us. And so they know how to manipulate the brain, to be attracted to their technology. They know how to manipulate the mind, to be attracted to their technology.

That's their business. And they've got scores of PhDs that know how to create dopamine hits, which you take a lot of dopamine. It's called cocaine. So they know how to get the brain primed for that good stuff. I said good stuff to somebody. You know, they've struggled. I don't know if cocaine was a drug of choice for you or not, but now I was.

I was too. I knew I would like it too much. Yeah.

OK, so. So anyways, they're better at it than we are and they're certainly better at it than a 14 year old is. And when I say better is that as soon as we have some dopamine and some feel good stuff on our brain, our brain is saying, give me more, give me more. And what's required to that is some braking mechanisms, some self-control, some awareness to pull away from the slow drip of dopamine. And that takes some discernment.

It takes some skill. It takes some real grit to do that. And it's really hard to do if purpose back to that isn't clear because it is so immediately fix, what's the word, just attractive. It's so immediately feeding and compelling. It's a good word that it's a nice, easy trade for that versus anxiety versus purpose and certainly of purpose is not clear. This invitation to explore a slow drip of dopamine is way better than anxiety, depression or this muddled up purpose.

Or if my purpose feels like it's just to work in this system to make somebody else money, the entrepreneur or the owner of the factory line worker or whatever. So, so. So what do we do? I don't have an answer. Well, it becomes incumbent upon us to create healthy boundaries around these things, which takes a lot of work, you know, because it is so alluring.

You know, I think from a neurological perspective, what is the long term impact of constantly enduring these dopamine hits? Like when I was a kid, like dopamine, I wasn't getting dopamine hits throughout the day. So what happens when you extrapolate that out over a number of of decades? What does that do to the human psyche? In the human machine? We find ourselves with the inability to be bored. And that space boredom is like a negative connotation to space and boredom is the place of creative, creative spark and inspiration, awareness, insight.

Yes, and so it's where imagination, you know, really can flourish. So I've been bored, you know, and it means that I don't really know what to do with myself in this present moment. And I'm struggling to be creative and whatever. So we're finding I think that if you're thinking about your kids for a moment is that there's some cool practices that we can talk about. Like like my son, you know, my son's school taught him this is that you don't charge phones and technology.

He doesn't have a phone and tough, but you don't charge anything in your bedroom. So you charge a bedroom. He takes technology breaks all the time because he kind of you can recognize the difference between the freedom to create in that white boredom space, if you will, and how kind of relaxing and rewarding that is as opposed to like the stimulating on button he loves the on button to now. So I you know, so there's practices to be concerned about.

And at the same time, technology is here. It's not going anywhere. So we need we need to have a relationship with technology to. Yeah, I just watched my daughters, and this is this is the vernacular with which they relate to their peers, like they have to be fluid in this language in order to fit in and to survive. So it's about where does that tip into unhealthy, unhealthy relationship or a dependent relationship?

Well, you know, when you and I were growing up, if we didn't get invited to the party on a Friday or Saturday night or get invited to go to wherever or go that surf trip for me, you find out about it kind of later. Yeah, not now.

Now it's happening in real time on Snapchat.

It's like, well, yeah, you know. So it's brutal. Yeah, it's really brutal.

There's this moment where I realized my philosophy was coming through in parenting when my son was in this small like how old is he now is 12. And he was not interested in sport at this age, but he wanted to kind of play with his friends. And it was a basketball team. And some of the other parents were were were like really frustrated that these eight year olds were losing. And I turned to the dad and I was like, this is my philosophy coming out.

And I was like, I know this gives him a great chance to figure out losing to. And he looked at me like, you're a loser, Jervey, like, what do you mean you want to teach your kids how to lose?

I was like, Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. I want I want to figure out how to do that.

Understand this thing about not keeping score. Mean. I do. I think it's you know why we're doing well. Yeah. I understand why we're doing it. But it goes back to what you said earlier about the most interesting people. Some of your favorite people are the people who have like under they've they've they've had pain in their life. They've grappled with it. They've wrestled with it, and they've undergone change. Like I know some of the most.

My favorite people are all people that kind of had hard childhoods and had to struggle.

And it's made them, you know, really amazing individuals. But how do you square that with your impulse as a parent to protect your child and, you know, immunize them from any kind of hardship?

There's an athlete that I spent a lot of time with. He was. MVP a couple of years, I don't think he's not in the Hall of Fame, but MVP a couple of years and I said, hey, how are you doing a couple of years after? And so how are you doing? It's a great, you know, like, transition was awesome. So good. So how's your son? And he says he's good. Son was like 16 is good.

What do you mean? He says, you know, like, I gave him everything. I gave him the best shoes, the best coaches. I had him invited to the best camps. He was on the frickin floor, the NBA kind of ball boy. And just around it, he loves basketball. But I can't give them the one thing that I had the drive and the way he said that was. I had nothing. I can't give him nothing, so he goes, I don't know if I made a mistake, but I didn't have cool shoes, I didn't have right coaches.

I was left out of the rich kid club and, you know, taught me I had to fucking fight at a scrap, drop my hips, figure it out. But when I got on the court, it was on and I had purpose and I had fill in the blanks of all the stuff we're talking about. And he knew exactly where he wanted to go. He had a vision of what his future could be. And he had this incredibly, Chris, every day was a mission to get closer to the to the purpose and the vision.

And he goes, I can't give him that. And so, I mean, that was an attunement moment for me, like, yeah, I want my son to have a great education and this, that and the other. Yeah, I mean, that's the the peril of every, you know, self-made man success story, right? Yeah, it's that scrappiness that got him to that place. And then their kids have a totally different experience. Did you ever read the.

I think it was called G generational wealth g one, two, three. So G one of the scrappers, you know, bold risk getting after, you know, big vision type stuff. I'm talking about generational wealth g to kind of hold the line a little bit but don't really grow it because they're afraid. There was so close to the the heat of the Jiwon and talking about like the Vanderbilt's world. Right. Yeah. Generation one generation to, you know, the sons and daughters in generation three, they kind of squander it.

They're like, yeah, I'm not close to the fire happens every time. And I got I got 30 million in the bank and I'm 14 million. You're 14 years old. Like, what do you what are we talking about?

You know, so yeah, it's an interesting social study that.

Yeah, I don't know how you fix that one.

Maybe, maybe.

What was his name, one of the wealthiest people alive. Warren Buffett. Warren Buffett. Yeah. He's not giving his kids right. Hasn't given his kids much bowled.

Well that's a weird one too. When you make that much money and then you're like, well I'm just going to give it all away. Like, what is your driving purpose like? Well, I don't know. I don't understand that drive at that level when you're talking about those kind of numbers.

And so there's definitely odd systems in there. It's not it's nothing that interests me. You have to I don't know, it's still true. But if the stock market is up, he gets McDonald's every day. Have you heard this or have. Yeah, yeah. I think that's apocryphal. Or he still lives in the same house and I think yeah.

I don't know, I don't know him and I don't know these but it's a pretty funny story. I know. I know. Yeah.

Well like so it's not about money for him but then he's you know, it's, it's a mystery box to me.

One more thing I wanted to explore with you. You posit the question in can be to create like, is there a single determinant of success. Right. So talk to me a little bit about that. What's driving success? And we we just talked about scrappiness. Yeah. That opens up the door to Grit and Angela Duckworth work and. Yeah. Eriksson's work and all these things that you explore. It's not that simple for me. Right. That's the question.

Is there a single determinant? And if we had to hang our hat on something, we'd probably say you're you're you're likely not going to ever kind of reach your. Full expression of who you are as a person without real work, and so that's where it hangs here. So grit has three components. This is Angela Duckworth work. Passion, perseverance for long term goals, so you could replace I'd like to replace long term goals because they feel so mechanical to like the vision that you hold for yourself.

So do you have enough passion day in and day out? And do you have the internal skills? So all of these are internal skills. Do you have the internal skills to roll with the punches, to persevere during the down hard times? And then is the vision clear enough? Because if the vision and the purpose and those those two words are not crisp and clear enough, the pain will win when purpose, a small pain will win. One purpose is big, you'll deal with some pain, and that's the perseverance piece of this model.

And so we could what we do in the online course is we double down in the book, we double and triple down and kind of some of the stuff. But to make it simple, there is not one golden thread for determinants of success. But if I was to hang my hat on something, I'd say. Grit is really important because it got three main components, yeah, and so I wish I could find on a little bit of a pursuit to figure out, is there a golden thread that binds those that explore the reaches of human potential?

I haven't found one yet. And. Yeah, and grit is teachable, great as well. All three, you should have told your your buddy in the NBA about his son.

I know, I know. You know, right. Yeah, it is. And so I feel like it'd be hard to teach, though. Grit. It just feels like certain people have a motor home. You have you have a son like you know, I've got a bunch of kids like they're all different man.

And they all have their their motors are calibrated differently. And I had nothing to do with anything. Juliar I did. And I think that when you think about all three of those, it's all mechanical and say, like what we did, what's your vision? That's pretty mechanical and requires some honesty and some imagination and a little accountability to sharpen it up. So that one's interesting, but certainly goals are relatively easy. It's an old conversation about setting goals.

Right. And when I ask people, what do you think's harder? When I go into a room and there's a thousand people and we're teaching about or even a small room of 12 people, you know, it doesn't matter like and we're teaching about grit. And I say, what do you think's harder, passionate, living with passion or perseverance, you know, deal with the hard stuff. What do you think the room does in. Perseverence feels harder.

Yeah, my experience has been passion is way harder, way harder. You know, perseverance, dude, you know it intimately inside and out, most people that are successful, they know how to roll with some stuff. They are resilient. Can they get better at it? Probably. You know, that's a skill to resiliency is a psychological skill. Any skill we can apply some effort towards, we can get better at it. But you can't manufacture passion, I understand training for perseverance, but how do you train to be passionate?

See, I love where you instantly take it because you're an examined, serious person. Is that passion?

I'm going to take that. I'm an examined, serious person. You are. You're your a website. Yeah. You're serious, though, right? I don't know. Yeah. You're serious. I'm serious. You know, I don't want to be always serious, but, you know, anyways, so passion is there's two things that get in the way of passion. So consider passion, inner fire. Fatigue. I don't put a heavy blanket on passion and fear.

So anxiety, the chronic looping worry that things are going to go wrong and then the mismanagement of your energy system not sleeping right, not eating right, you know, not moving right. You know, that fatigue, that chronic stress, the ability to manage chronic stress through breathing patterns, eating patterns, thinking patterns, that that is the heavy blanket. That's one of the heavy blankets that sits on the flame of passion. And the other is. You know, just worrying like excessive worry about stuff, passion feels like an unruly, unpredictable energy source that's hard to control and hard to direct.

Look at you. You it's big in you, isn't it? It's not a little flame for you, huh? Well, you hear a lot about passion.

You call it a passionate love, how to find your passion. It's all about passion. Right. And now there's this counternarrative like that you're seeing where you're being told, forget about passion. That's a fool's errand. It's not about passion. That's like, you know, not something you need to be thinking about. And I sort of sit in this space where I don't feel like I don't understand where passion falls and all of this. I understand drive.

I understand vision. I understand purpose, meaning and all of those things. Passion just feels like something that's floating out in the clouds. Oh, I can't really wrap my hands around.

So if we thought about it this way, we made it uber concrete, which is it's just that little fire in your belly to go do the thing, to climb the hill, to wake up and be about it. You know, it's that little fire in the belly. That's the way I think about it and. This idea of where the fool's errand is for passion is that if you just that passion only comes from the special thing that you need to do, it clouds out irrationality.

It can it can compel some bad choices. Yes.

Yeah. I wasn't going to go there. Yes, I fully agree with that. And but the idea is, can you live with passion anywhere you go? Can you have a little fire in your belly in any room that you're in, in any environment that you're in? And that seems pretty daunting. But that's cool. Like for me, I like that. And I'm not saying go chase your passion. I'm saying be passionate. And so where does that that hooks around to me, an ancient concept, this is not something that I'm going to stand on for science.

That's the animation of the spirit. That call firing your belly, but the Trinity is a really cool, beautiful idea of. That many, many spiritual frames kind of miss the subtlety about the animation of the spirit of the aliveness that comes with being human, the animation of that magical world that we don't understand yet, and but we think that there's probably something there called spirituality. So a consciousness, call it fill in the blank. So and that's what that's all it is for me.

I want to be about it. Yeah. So.

Well, we all know we all know that guy or that woman who when they walk into a room that is light it up because they just exude that in every facet of their life.

When I see those people, I like marvel at that because it feels inaccessible.

But also I'm jealous, like I want more of that in my life. But then I'm not sure how to cultivate that. I look at it as a God given disposition that they have rather than something that they developed with some intentionality. Oh, that's cool. I think there's probably a predisposition to get into that, too, but it's definitely something you can cultivate. But the way to cultivate this is to get the heavy blankets off of it. So it's like an addition by subtraction.

So it's it's taking those heavy blankets. I, I really think that there's a couple of great constrictors of the human experience right now. And one of those is fatigue. And so examining your recovery mechanisms in a significant way, I'm not speaking to you, Rich, but like the one I need this actually I understand what you're saying. Yeah.

That this is one of the great constrictors because chronic stress opens the floodgate for draining fuel quotes around fuel, but it just drains organisms. And so if we're not psychologically skilled to deal with the kind chronic stress, no different than a dog, you know, when an alarm happens for a dog, there's a threat and they walk away, they go to the door, the doorman or the mellman's that the door and the dogs barking, whatever. And as soon as that threat goes away, you know what the dog does?

They roll their head a little bit. They roll their body and shake their tail. And it's like they have just physically let go. They don't hold resentments. We don't do that. So, yeah, I mean, we could it's the recovery mechanisms that pay dividends.

All right, we got to wrap this up, but let's close it down with maybe a couple simple tactics or tools that people could use that are feeling overwhelmed. They're feeling the anxiety. They're feeling the fear. They're experiencing the vitriol. They can't put the phone down. Leave us with some pearls. Oh, if I had pearls, you know, yeah, pearls, I got pearls. Well, I'd say planning a pearl necklace underneath that hoodie. The hoodie.

Yeah, I'd say this.

I'd say. Order one is. Investigating your recovery mechanisms, let's work in reverse order. Take a look at Slate. Take a look at the quality choices you're making around nutrition and make sure your hydration is right. So these are all restorative type of ideas. You know, like get your heart rate up in an acute way. If you don't have an underlying condition, like get your heart rate up or you're stimulating your brain to say, oh, that's right, we do hard things.

And so I'd say those are some easy frames to talk about, harder to stay current with, current consistent with. And then I'd also say that mindfulness is a place to begin. And if mindfulness seems to be unavailable, it's as simple as setting a timer. Following an inhale and then an exhale with all of your might and starting over every time that you notice that you're distracted and the moment that you notice that you're distracted, just returning back to the inhale or the exhale wherever you are, eight minutes is good science.

20 minutes is a little bit more interesting. Science you get to the ancients would say, what are you doing timing this? You know, so I'd say those are two kind of cool place to start. And that go way upstream to say start with something, writing down your philosophy, the guiding principles in your life. Maybe start with your purpose. If those feel daunting. Start building relationships when you're talking about stuff that really matters to them and, you know, for a long time, people would say to me, like, what are the what are the best tools to invest in?

And and this is kind of what this conversation. But I'd be remiss if I said it's a fundamental organization of your life to be and become the man, woman or person you want to be. And then the second thing that I missed for most of my professional life is the importance of your intimate relationships outside of the craft, outside of your business that you're doing. I wouldn't be the human I am today without those intimate relations and my wife at, you know, ground zero.

So, you know, working on being giving love and giving away as often as you possibly can. And so it ends up coming back around for the most part, 100 percent.

Yeah. Give more love. Mm. I like it. Powerful Mike. Hey, man, I appreciate you. You're welcome. Here any time. Come back and talk to me some more. I always find it nourishing. It's a pleasure to spend time with you. So thank you. Thank you. If you want to learn more about Michael, check out his podcast, Finding Mastery. It's it is masterful. Can't recommend it more highly compete to create.

Why is it just an audio book? How come you didn't do a print book. It was just a deal with Audible or. Yeah, it was an audible original.

So we went a little bit reverse order. And I like the idea of not burning down trees, but now I'm craving something tangible yet. So we're going to get to that. But that's not for about a year away.

Yeah, it's cool. It's really well done. Pete Carroll pops in from time to time, thanks mainly to drop some of his pearls. And then I liked how you layered in some stuff from your podcast into it, which is what an audio book should be. It's a it's a dynamic. Digital document, so cool. Anything else coming up, you've got this like online football training thing to write 11 on football or some nice thing you did with Nike football?

Oh, yeah. That's just, you know, people are interested in the mental part of the game at scale right now. And brands across the world are really interested in, you know, how do we organize our inner life and train our minds. So it's just a conversation that's happening, right? There's a swell happening in the business world right now. There's an absolute swell, not from an anxiety fixing standpoint type of thing, you know, but like, hey, are people or most important part of the company, how do we invest in them?

Rather than teaching them how to sell better or market better, how do we help them live better? And so that's that's the part I'm super excited about.

All right. Cool, man. All right, let's do it again. Thanks, brother.

Peace tight international treasure that Michael Jervey. Two years is too long in between our conversations. I love that man. I hope you guys got as much out of that experience as I did. I'll be sure to get him back here again soon. Check out his new Audible Original compete to create It's a killer. Listen, hit him up on Instagram and Twitter at Michael Gervais. Let them know what you thought of today's exchange. And as always, check the show notes on the episode page rich role dotcom to dive deeper into all things Dr Michael Survey.

We also have another role on AMA coming up soon. Please leave your voicemail at four to four two three five four six two six with your question. I'm excited to dive into those and figure out which ones we're going to talk about and answer on the next edition with Adam Skolnick. If you'd like to support the work we do here on the show, subscribe, write and comment on it. On Apple podcast, YouTube and Spotify, share the show or your favorite episodes with friends or on social media.

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Love you. See you back here soon with another amazing episode. Until then, be well. Peace, Lance.