Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Ashley Merryman: Science of Competition

Episode Date: November 25, 2015

The origin of the word "compete" emphasizes the notion of striving together (as compared to striving against). Author Ashley Merryman takes a deep dive into the science of competition - and reveals practical strategies people can use to "become better." There's an art to bringing the mechanics of science to life, and Ashley uses storytelling to illuminate the application of good science. Show Notes: 12:11: The quest to always be better 16:27: How she became interested in what she does today 21:19: Extroverts vs. introverts 27:58: Different types of risk-taking "Women are really good at calculating their odds of success and men are really good at ignoring them." 32:36 "The benefit of competition isn't the win...the benefit of competition is improvement... it's improvement in the moment" 37:23 44:01: Why competition is important 50:58: Relevant neurotransmitters for competition "I always thought that motivation was sort of the gas in your car that got you to your goal" 53:12 1:03:43: Why trophies shouldn't be given away for participation 1:12:18: Challenge and threat "It's not whether or not I'm going to be successful with the task, it's can I learn from this? And if I can learn from this, it should always be a challenge" 1:20:18 1:24:31: Putting in work to become skilled in a certain thing and viewing it as a challenge rather than a threat 1:30:40: Most important mental skill for competitors 1:44:25: Defining mastery "Pursuing and acquiring technical skill but using everything in your arsenal, psychological, cognitive, physical, peer support to help you achieve those goals"_________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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strength, but for energy and focus, recovery for longevity. And I love that David is making that easier. So if you're trying to hit your daily protein goals with something seamless, I'd love for you to go check them out. Get a free variety pack, a $25 value and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. And so this episode is with Ashley Merriman and Ashley spent her professional career looking to understand and translate the applications of science as it relates to helping others become better or maybe even the best. She's been hungry her whole life to learn. And oddly enough, she's followed, maybe strike that, not oddly enough, she's followed a very unique path. And it's akin to most people that

we've had on these conversations, which is she started off wanting to understand film. So she got a degree from USC in the cinematic arts. And then she shifted gears and became an attorney. And she received her Juris Doctorate degree from Georgetown University. And she's done things as far out as being a speechwriter for folks on the Clinton campaign, as well as not only campaign, sorry, the administration, Clinton administration, as well as being able to help children in Los Angeles for a long time on how to apply the science that she's curated for them to have better lives. So she's on the spectrum of, you know, political leaders, as well as giving back and giving to folks that wouldn't have access to the information that she's

been able to curate. So she's now turned her thirst to understand into two New York Times bestsellers, Nurture Shock and the book that grabbed my attention first with her was called Top Dog. And in Top Dog, also written with Pope Bronson, it's the science of winning and losing. And what she's done is she's curated relevant research to the science of competition. And obviously that's an important word for all of us. And what she's done is she's understood the science about world-class performers and how those insights relate to even our children and parenting and leadership. So lately she's been zigzagging all across the country.

We both live in Los Angeles and we still weren't able to find a time to sit in person. So what I've learned from some of these Skype conversations is that there's sometimes a delay and a drag in the actual conversation. It sounds like somebody has been, I don't know. They're just a little tired, but so excuse the lag and the time delay here, but this is a great conversation. I really enjoyed it. It was fun.

It was easy. And she's been all over the country, you know, talking about the science of competition and the application of it. And everywhere from Charlie Rose to HBO real sports with Brian Gumbel, like she's doing this on a pretty, pretty cool clip here. And what I hope you'll get from this conversation is the value of curiosity and what she's come to understand by being curious and how she's followed that as far as she possibly can go to curate some very difficult stuff. The science of competition and the neurochemistry around it and the socialization and the gender biases this is not easy stuff and she hits it head-on and she's got a crisp

point of view also i hope that the courage required to do difficult things and that's a theme that has that comes through this conversation as well and what that really means is the risk of looking bad and how crippling that can be and how crippling it was for her at one point in her time. And then she made a decision and she made that decision to look bad. It's okay to look bad at the cost of potentially not getting the thing that she wanted, which is deep understanding. And it's great. It's wonderful. And the insights for parents and leaders on how they can help others go for it they're just riddled throughout here so she hits another really hot button which is

the word competition and what it means across different genders and she talks about you know the cooperation and competition are not odds with each other. They actually can work in harmony. And she highlights the research that across genders where competition and risk, how women are good at calculating the odds of risk and men ignore the odds. And just understanding

those difference can be an incredible asset in a team development. However, that being said, that competition is not a gender issue, if you will. Competition is a process of becoming. It's a process of improvement.

It's a process of getting better and progressing at something. But the tone in which we talk about that, the words that we use can spark different responses across different genders. So it's a great insight on that. We get into the neurochemistry around competition and the idea of socializing great talent, how it's a misnomer just to put a bunch of really switched on people in a room and think that they'll be able to create an elite team. She talks about how the importance of for people to be part of something bigger than themselves. And it's great.

Okay. So the last part that I think you'll enjoy is her point of view on the trophy industrial complex, as she calls it. And she's got a rich point of view about how kids should not be getting trophies. No, strike that. Her point of view is that not all kids

should be getting trophies. It's not how the world works. So she gets fired up about that conversation. So I'd love to hear your comments on it and where you stand on that conversation. So let's just jump right into her path. It's led her to now and where she wants to go and what's next for her. And the psychological framework that she operates on and the mental skills that she uses and has come to be valuable

in her understanding of how world-class competitors do what they do. Okay. If you're interested in talking to her directly, hit her on Ashley Merriman on Twitter. And let's just kind of keep that conversation rolling. She'll love it. She'll be a direct response right back to you. So let's learn from how some of the best in the world understand the science and the application of competition. Ashley, how are you? I'm great. How are you?

This has been a long time coming. And so in advance, I want to, I think maybe it's partly both of us have to apologize for our schedules just zigging and zagging. And I know you're all over the country. And so I'm fired up to have this, a deeper conversation with you about the science of competition and what you've been able to learn from your research. And also want to be able to understand what led you to this conversation and the depth of research you have around the science of competition. That's because I'm a geek. Oh. That's the answer for all of why I know stuff is just because I'm an insatiable geek and my idea of fun stuff is sitting, learning, and reading stuff.

Yeah, you are curious, that's for sure. But you also have like, what I've appreciated about knowing you is that you have a point of view, and it's a crisp point of view. And so I think that what we're going to be able to do today is hopefully, you know, we'll have a conversation about exactly what you understand, what you don't know. And then more importantly, maybe the path that led you here and the skills that you've honed to be able to really have a credible, crisp and deep voice around competition and the science of it. Okie doke. I usually feel like I'm the least interesting thing I know about. We can go on the science and I'll do as much as how I apply and what I learn from it. But mostly on a personal level, I just go, wow, I need to do so much better.

You know what? I really appreciate that because I will nod my head to the same thing, that there's so much more to know. And I think that this is one of the maybe afflictions or ailments of curious people is that there's a deep understanding that there's a lot more to know. Yeah. Just every time I think I start to get it, I go, oh, I really don't get it. But I actually kind of like that because I think I've mentioned it when we've talked before just hanging out, that I'm always so struck that the elite want to get better. I mean, they just always want to get better. I mean, they just always want to get better.

The good, and I mean the good. I mean, we're talking world-class good, right? But you ask them, hey, did you want to read this book? Do you want to have this meeting? Do you want to hear this idea? And their response is, oh, I'm good. I'm good. And they really are good, but that's where they stay.

And it's kind of fascinating to me. Whereas, you know, the elite just say, let me clear my calendar. There's some new idea. There's some new book. And halfway before hearing about that, they want to know what the next one after that is. So that just inspires me more to that. There is so much more I need to learn and that I can't get comfortable or settle and that every day I should be learning more. Is that one of the characteristics or traits that you found from people that are, you know, there's a difference between good, elite, good, excellent, and elite. You know, there's something very special about people that, well, the phrase that you and I

would use on this conversation would be masters of craft is that they're so hungry to learn and they're deeply invested in the 1% margins. Have you found the same? Oh, absolutely. They just, you know, and it was, it's interesting. I was at a conference and David Marsh, who's the swim Mac coach, who just became the women's Olympic coach was talking about how, you know, well, there's elite and then there's world class. And I was reading a study recently comparing, I think it was members of a national biathlete team. And researchers writing about the study talked about the elite and the near elite. But they were Olympians. They were already the national team. writing about the study talked about the elite and the near elite, but they were Olympians. They

were already the national team. And even within there, well, there's, you know, can you imagine, hey, mom, I'm a near elite Olympian. I've almost made it. I know. I'm the two best in the world. No, I'm the two best in the country, but I'm eighth in the world and I'm near elite. I'm near elite. I know where I need to go though. Yeah. The way that I think about that phrase is that there's something important about sustainability and being able to sustain superior or elite or world-class performance. That's what perks my antenna quite a bit. It's like, how do you repeat it and do it again and again? And maybe it was lucky, maybe

not, if there's this thing that we can point to that has some sort of rugged practice underneath of it that allows people to excel inside of a particular psychological framework or ecosystem that they're in. And that's what I'm hoping to learn from you. Well, you know, I don't think it's luck. I think people might modestly say, well, I'm lucky there were other people who were good out there. But I think that there is that sort of insatiable quest to be better. Did you always have this as a kid? Did you have that kind of curiosity? Were you the one reading the back of the, I'm sharing a little bit too much about me, but reading the back of the- We're going to be like that, huh? Okay.

Yeah. No, I- All right. I'm good at that. I found myself at the kitchen table, like, just wanting to read everything that was in front of me, whether it was the back of a cereal box or it was the, you know, whatever pamphlets were laying around. I just wanted to understand that thing. So when you said nerd, that's, that's how I do it. Well, I think I have, since we're going to, we're going to go there. My equivalent, I don't remember how old I was. I started reading when I was two and a half or three, I guess. And my mom read, at the time now, I didn't know what they were. I just knew they were big books.

And I think now they were really trashy bodice or historical mysteries or novels or something, but I didn't know. And I would stand behind her and read over her shoulder until I didn't see, until there was a word that I didn't know. And then this little tiny hand would shoot over her shoulder. What's that word, mommy? She'd be like, ah! Oh, that's too much. Really? Oh my gosh. And I have no idea what those words. Now I'm like, oh, there's probably a reason I didn't know those words. My mom always like, don't do that. And I'd be like, okay, mommy. And then a week or two later, I would do it again. You know, there's this idea that I play with. I don't think it's unique to me, but there's a couple of variables that snap into place for people that are able to explore potential in

the world stage or be world-class or even be great at the thing that they're pursuing is one, they've matched their environment with their genetic coding. So they understood their genetic coding somehow. And for you, maybe it's like you loved reading. And then so the matching of the ecosystem would be, okay, where are the environments that support me, like my reading, my appetite, my cessation for learning? No, that's not the right word. Not cessation, that would be my stopping of learning. What's the word I'm looking for? My hunger for learning? Okay. It's some version of satiation. Satiation. But there's still kind of an ending in that.

Yeah, I know. Yeah. Anyways. So like that hunger for it. So matching your genetic coding with the ecosystem. And then the thing that pulls it out of us is great coaches, people that care, and our ability to work hard because doing things at the world-class stage is hard. And I'm curious, before we jump into your kind of really crisp point of view on the science of competition. Do you have a quick thought on those three variables or four variables, I should say? Well, one of my other random skills is I'm a lawyer and you learn in law school, the answer is always, it depends. And I think that answer serves pretty well when you're talking about science reporting. I think we definitely underestimate environment and its effects. And at the moment, we're talking about environment written big,

right? It could be today is this alternately clear and beautiful and overcast and weird, scary day here in LA. But it also is about family environment and cultural and education background. So it's written broadly. And then the gene environment interaction is most of the research now finds it's not just one generation, it's multi-generational, right? What my great-grandmother ate for breakfast changes my genetic response to stress, which I find mind-blowing. Isn't epigenetics like, I don't know, I'm so interested in epigenetics. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. All right. So let's do this. Before we get into your, I don't know, the part of the conversation I'm really excited about. Bring us into speed on how you got here. Okay, so you were an early learner, but where did you first set, know that you were kind of interested or on this course of deep understanding and where I'm saying like in a way like kind of self-serving, like this process of mastery that you're interested in? I don't know. I guess I always have been. It's

kind of hard to say no. I mean, no one believes this. We're really oversharing, right? We're going to edit all this out, right? Of course not. It's just the two of us. Okay. Well, if no one's listening. No one believes me, but especially unless you knew me when I was a kid, but I was painfully shy. And I would sit there in class and the teacher would explain some math concept on the board or something and I didn't understand. Or there was something I wanted. I just wanted to know the answer. And I remember vividly, even through middle school, high school thinking, you have a choice. You can sit here and not talk and have no one notice you and not know the answer, or you can know the answer. And I thought it was more important to know the answer

than it was to get to not talk and be shy. Okay. So the decision was that either you could go learn and come up to understand the answer or you could just keep your mouth shut. Yeah. And be the shy wallflower who no one noticed. Yeah. Okay. And if I talked out loud, that was a risk, right?

Because maybe my question was stupid or I would get nervous and I would stammer because I was nervous. And if you ask a question, if you raise your hand, people pay attention to you. So, yeah, it was a question of are you willing to sort of sacrifice the anonymity of never talking and hiding? Or, you know, which is more important, being shy, being quiet, or knowing the answer. And I realized knowing the answer was way more important to me. Okay, so I thought those were different vectors.

But you're on the same vector, which is either, so what I'm hearing now is either don't say anything, but I don't get to learn. And the reason you wouldn't say anything is because you need to take a risk. Or put your hand up, say anything, but I don't get to learn. And the reason you wouldn't say anything is because you need to take a risk or put your hand up, say something, maybe get it wrong, maybe get it right, but ask a question. And the risk was that people would look at you. They would acknowledge my existence. Yes. Was that, so is that statement out of...

I was just super shy and I, yeah, it was just super shy. But what you just said, like like acknowledge my existence was that out of some some sort of pain that like it was painful to acknowledge that you existed or was that out of um no I was just an introvert um I'm an only child children of only child children so yeah I was just you know really shy and you know quite happy not talking although I always also you know I I guess I have a slightly bipolar existence because in my free time I love to sing and couldn't wait until I was old enough to start auditioning for plays when I

was a kid so so I would audition and I would be in plays but you know in class you wouldn't I would never know that you're an introvert. Yeah, there's not a chance I would think you're an introvert. And I don't think anyone listening here would say, yeah, sounds like an introvert. Ambivert, ambivert. I don't think it's still the case. I mean, if you think about my work environment now, I'm off giving a speech or I'm going to talk to someone or I'm calling someone interviewing a scientist, or I'm sitting on my couch reading 2000 pages of documents and I'm not saying a word to anyone. I'm just writing notes and thinking thoughts. And so I still think in some ways, you know, I can have that super quiet introverted aspect of, you know,

my existence, my brain is still there. But again, you know, even when I say, oh, I'd really rather just stay home and read stuff. But, you know, that means miss the opportunity to meet you, to meet someone else, hear what they're doing. No, it's still the same process, which is more important to me, being home and reading and just getting some stuff done or learning something. I love it. I think that you're onto something like the center of what you're talking about right now is that I've got two thoughts. The first is that I'm not sure that enough people have a clear understanding of the difference between introversion and extroversion and introversion according to Carl Jung the kind of the

originator of this concept was that they just that doesn't mean shy it just means they gather their energy from within and they prefer to listen and observe and make sense of things before they speak and extroverts the reason the way that you know an extrovert's an extrovert is because they're thinking while they're talking. And that's how that they're, right? So while they're using their mouth and their lips are moving, that's how they're thinking. And they'll change their mind four or five times, extrovertedly so.

And it drives the introvert crazy. Right? Yeah. So the way you gather information is by being by yourself, paying attention, deeply listening to other people, and then doing an exercise, an internal exercise to get clarity, where an extrovert's do the outside. But what you're talking, yeah, so the essence of what we're talking about, though, is this risk management that you had at a young age. Still do. though, is this risk management that you had at a young age. And yeah, so Carl Jung, go back to his idea was that we're born naturally introverted or extroverted. The world values extroversion.

So for an introvert to feel potent and powerful or efficacious within themselves would be for them to embrace that, organize their life where they can exercise the introverted process, but also flip the switch, right? Like it's a toggle between introversion and extroversion that we can flip the switch and access extroversion when it's required to. Well, I mean, they've done studies where they've actually instructed introverts to act extroverted. And over time, they actually go higher on the extroversion scale. So I think that there are definitely biological factors, early life experiences that are going to push you one direction or another. But in some ways, they're also learned skills.

Okay. So on that, the biological and... Okay. So who shaped your life? So you're now, you're, you're in my mind, you're one of the leading experts in understanding the science of competition. You know, you wrote a book, you did, you did the long, long book. I've been, I've been joking with people, you know, I wrote the book on that. I know, you did. Okay. So who shaped you or what was the, what, what was the early experiences or events that shaped you um how early are we talking about yeah whatever

one two three things that come come to mind stop reading over my shoulder you know i i think it's a lot of i think it's a lot of things. It's hard to pick one particular person or event. And the ones that I could say in some way don't necessarily make sense. I, like a lot of children of the 70s, was obsessed with Star Wars. And my uncle gave me a copy of American Film Magazine. This was in, I think, around like October of 1979 or something. And I was eight. And he said, hey, there's an article about George Lucas in the American Film Magazine. I'd never heard of the magazine, but I heard of George Lucas. And in the

middle of the article, it said that he'd gone to USC film school. So I finished the article and I said, mom, I'm going to USC film school. She said, what? And I said, for college, I'm going to USC film school. And she said, okay. And 10 years later, I went to USC film school. So. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentus. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday, what you put in your body matters. And that's why I trust Momentus. From the moment I sat down with Jeff Byers, their co-founder and CEO, I could tell this was not your average supplement company.

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Clean, clear, no funky color distortion, just good design, great science. And if you're ready to feel the difference for yourself, Felix Gray is offering all Finding Mastery listeners 20% off. Just head to FelixGray.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at checkout. Again, that's Felix Gray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at FelixGray.com for 20% off. I mean, the idea of putting some words to ideas has been a skill that you've had. And maybe some folks listening can get their arms around this, is that when you can put some language or images to ideas that you have, something happens. I have no idea what it is, but this concept of having a vision or a mission, it keeps coming up with folks. And it sounds like you had it, but then, so then you went,

so you had that, and then you went to school at SC for that, and then shift gears for law, which seems to be a total different vector. Well, I can tell you the big picture, now it makes sense story. At the time, I couldn't have explained it to you either. I think that what drives me is that act of communication, of explaining an idea, finding the facts and the evidence to make sure that I'm right. If I'm not, change and figure out what I'm missing. But to come up with that idea and then distill those ideas into language

that reaches in the most effective way the audience that I'm writing for. So that might be a play, an essay for the New York Times. It may be a speech. It might be a book or magazine article, you know, fiction, nonfiction, you know, a legal brief for the court. It's still about the same idea of what are the facts, what are the arguments, and making it make sense. And it's just the context that changes. so if you think of it that way then then things I've done make sense if at the time though I I worked I in 1992 I my career and my burgeoning career in Hollywood took a literal turn as I threw everything I owned in my car and I drove to Little Rock, Arkansas to work on the Clinton campaign. And when I did that, it was still another year or so, but I first moved

back to LA and I'm like, no, I think I need to do this government thing. I don't think my work there is done yet. So in my free time, I went to law school when I was working at the Clinton administration. Okay. From an early age, I didn't hit on this thought for you, but that idea that you're going to take a risk and you didn't know what introversion was, but you called it shyness when you're a kid, but that you're going to take a risk. There was public social anxiety there too, but yeah. Okay. But you made this decision that it was more important for you to go for it than to not have that thing you wanted, which was to understand. So you took a risk. I didn't know this about you, but it sounds like you are a risk taker, right?

And then a hard worker on top of it that's really curious about one thing, which is understanding something deeply. Yeah. which is understanding something deeply. Yeah, you know, I still, I'm trying to actually get better about it, but I actually think in terms of risk-taking, on the day-to-day, I'm still a shy, pretty boring homebody who's, the big excitement today is deciding what yarn I'm going to use to start crocheting

for Christmas presents. And I'm very stressed out about, what if I picked up a yarn? No one will like it. Yeah, the fact that you're mentioning Christmas in November 1st is freaking me out. Well, usually I actually buy Christmas presents all year. Everywhere I go, I go Christmas shopping so that I'm done by November because I'm buying souvenirs for people and it's kind of more

fun than just going to a mall. But so anyway, so on a day-to-day, I kind of feel like I'm still risk averse. I take big risks. I don't seem to do very much in the middle. I take no risks or I take big risks. So big risk, pile everything in your car, call mom, hey mom, you probably won't reach me for a couple of days. And she said, why? I said, because I'm driving to Arkansas. She said, what? So I'm going to move to Arkansas to work on the Clinton campaign. Swear to God, that's what happened. So I take big risks and, you know, trying to write something, just sort of trusting that things would work, going in a new direction in terms of an idea. But I don't think I'm still on,

I don't think I'm that good day-to-day risk. I'm trying to be better. I think that I would benefit from that. Do you value risk-taking? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, you do value it. Okay. And I'm in awe of people who are better at it than I am, which isn't too hard.

But people who really take risks all the time, yeah, I think they're awesome. It is wonderful, isn't it? And there's a balance, right, between neurochemistry, genetic coding, as well as a skill. And gender. And gender. We can practice this, though. can practice this though a lot about learning about risk taking and i know isn't that wild that there's a gender difference as well oh and i love that so much i know it's when i first came across that i was like you got to be

kidding me yeah well so can we talk a little bit about that yeah let's do that. So, and my disclaimer that I always have to say when I talk about gender differences is that, you know, Poe and I said, well, we're going to write this book about competition. Pope Bronson. Pope Bronson. And he asked, well, hey, do you think we should write about gender differences? And I'm the girl. So I immediately said no. And I win because I'm the girl and it's about gender differences. And I didn't want people to hold up Top Dog and say, you know, the reason women aren't running the world or Wall Street or Silicon Valley or more women aren't in office is because they can't compete.

Did you read Top Dog? No, that's not going to happen. And also when we were writing Nurture Shock, we came across gender differences, you know, pretty regularly in the data, but it would be maybe like a two or 3% difference in the variance, which if you were talking, yes, it's statistically significant, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But in terms of meaningful significance, comparing one individual to the next, it became meaningless. So, I mean, the best example is to say it's true that men have stronger upper body strength than women. But if I say that and I'm standing next to Serena or Venus, I'm an idiot, right?

Because it's just not applying to them. So that was sort of how I felt about the gender differences going in because they were just such small differences that I thought they'd be a distraction. And it really wasn't until we found the research of Muriel N game on. And 30% of the women said yes. You know, 40%. It's pretty, that's not just some random deviation. And what she found, and people have, you know, worked on and talked about her work before, but I think they got it wrong because they said, well, women can't compete. Women don't want to compete. But if you think about the tasks, she didn't say anything about how well you compete. It was all a decision, do you want to. And what we realized from her work and works in political scientists and others is that

women are really good at calculating their odds of success and men are really good at ignoring them. And you're supposed to laugh. I'm actually writing it down because I've forgotten this part, calculating odds. But it's really, you know, and it's constantly that sort of that question, am I going to win? And that women just refuse to participate if they don't think they're going to win. And guys just sort of go, yeah, I think I got this. And they jump in. And for me personally, going back to sort of that risk idea,

the calculating, is this worth doing? Am I going to be successful? What would happen if I'm not? It's definitely something that has been a factor. And so it is one of the things that I've been trying to be myself, my N of one, more willing to take risks and be less concerned with the outcome and thinking what am I going to learn from this experience because if I'm going to learn something the fact that it doesn't actually play out and I'm not successful in the task can be irrelevant so I've just got to focus

on what I can learn from the experience yeah and there's a there's an entire social construct around the word competition and what it means at a young age for boys and girls at that age. And then if you layer on top of it what competition means for most people, whether gender not included in this part of the conversation, is that if we look at the original definition of competition, I think you and I have talked about this before, that it's about cooperation. It's about striving together with people to pursue something together. And if you looked it up right now, the American idea around this is to compete against, to work against another unit. And so when you think about what competition means for genders, now if we add the gender piece right back onto it, the idea is that, no, no, no, I'm not sure that it feels great to tear down other people. And I think that that's true for both genders. I think that both genders are not interested in tearing others down. There are certainly apex predators in our

world, you know, wolves, if you will. There are those. And I'm glad I know them and I'm glad I understand them. And because there's a place for them as well. But at the same time, I think most people are not wolves or apex predators. There are alpha competitors that are different than predators. And so there's a little tonality difference about what that word actually means. If we go back to the origin, let's strive together. Let's figure something out together. Let's embrace and love the people on the other side of the fence or the other side of the pitch, whatever it is that we're doing, that there's something that's more appealing to that. Yeah, I wonder if you can

bounce off that a little bit. Well, I definitely, it sort of drives me crazy when people say, you know, competition's so last century. And it's just, it's a false choice between competition and cooperation. You and I can work together on a project, want to win we want to beat the other guys who are working on their project and but even amongst competitors if you and I are competing against each other but we've agreed on a forum and a conduct of behavior and what is it that we both need to do to be who's going to be successful, we've still cooperated, right? Because we're laying out those ground rules. So I just think it's a false choice

when people are talking about it's a dog-eat-dog world or we're all singing Kumbaya. Neither of those are true. No, that's why I use the word predator because that's a zero-sum game. And okay, if we go down a deep dive on game theory right now, and the mathematics and economics of game theory, the logic and theory around that, most competitions are zero-sum games.

But, meaning winner takes all. But war is the ultimate winner takes all, right? Because it's land and opportunity and life that is on the line. But for games where we're agreeing on the construct, it's land and opportunity and life that is on the line but for for games where we're agreeing on the construct it's not winner-take-all like football like basketball like baseball it's not winner-take-all they do take the prize which is money and recognition but it's not like a zero sum um yeah i mean that was actually you know one of the first things that sort of was a in my own mind how i had to sort of re-understand what competition was

was realizing that the benefit of competition isn't the win there you go the the benefit of competition is improvement it's the striving it the progression. It's the sharpening. Yeah. It's improvement, but it's interesting. It's twofold. It's improvement in the moment. We opened Top Dog with this description of Jason Lezak in the Beijing Olympics and this amazing, famous come-from-behind victory so that he wins, so that the American can win the relay,

so Michael Phelps beats Mark Spitz's record, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And all of that's awesome. And Jason's amazing. But five of the eight teams beat the world record that day. I mean, the idea, and to me, I always think the fifth team didn't go home with a world record, but they did something no one in the world had done before.

And the fact that other people were doing it at the same time as them doesn't take away from their achievement. If anything, it just probably helped catalyze the fact they were there. But the next time they get in a pool, their expectation of what is possible has changed. So in the moment, competition helps you and improves your performance because you're also seeing what someone else does. And if you see what someone else does, it's not about tearing them down. It's about saying, oh, well, if they're doing that, am I doing better? Am I doing worse? Is there more I can do and I just didn't even realize. And, but then competition improves over time because with practice, you start realizing, oh, hey, I get tired or at this point, or this kind of thing frustrates me,

or I'm better in this kind of circumstance and how do I prepare for it? So it's both in the moment and competing over time. They both ultimately end up giving you that lesson in improvement. Yeah, I love it. I don't think we talk enough about scaffolding, right? Like being an architect and scaffolding. And so scaffolding is this concept of being able to build on the already

existing framework. And I know that that's a big part of this conversation. These podcasts are really like, what is the psychological framework you have as a person who has a deep point of view about competition from a research standpoint, as well as living it, like competing to be your best, competing to be an extrovert maybe from a young age is something you were doing. You know, so, and if you hear great competitors, they talk about, it doesn't just stop on the pitch. Like I want to compete to be the best version of me around other people that are trying to do the same. And then the highest level feels like, can we compete together? And when you get a bunch of alpha competitors in a room and asking them to work together, it's not easy.

Unless there's a mission or something larger than them that they can hook on to and that's this idea of scaffolding while something's happening that's amazing in the competitive environment can i put that eloquently into my scaffolding can i add it rather than ignore it because there could be something deep that you could learn from seeing somebody else take a risk or work a different backhand or, you know, do something different on, on, on a bottom turn on a wave, whatever the sport might be. Well, my favorite example of that is Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte. Because when Phelps announces his retirement, people ask, you know, Ryan,

well, what do you think? And, you know, they, I guess they were expecting the, well, more medals for me response, but instead they were like, he was like, yeah, well, what do you think? And, you know, I guess they were expecting the, well, more medals for me response. But instead they were like, he was like, yeah, I don't buy it. He's going to come back and he makes me swim better. And Phelps came back and I was actually at nationals, the first competition, both of them as a return. And one of them won and they said, hey, what's this rivalry? And they both were like, he makes me swim better.

So I think that, you know know having that challenge is absolutely true if you're talking more though in terms of getting a team of stars together I think that's a different challenge but that you're right the research is pretty clear that just putting a bunch of experts in a room and letting them do stuff and expect spectacular results, no, they're just going to start throwing knives at each other pretty quickly. But if you give them a purpose, if you give them a structure and a mission, then they end up being able to do, then they do the spectacular things that they were doing. But they need that guidance and they need that singular vision, especially if you've got really talented people because they already have a vision that they're bringing in for themselves well and for the idea you know for the purpose i mean uh the tv show your show shows i mean if you look at the cast each one of them is this unbelievable life-changing world-changing cultural phenomenon but then you

throw them in a room and they're supposed to all work together well it took a perspective to say no this is what the show is about and this is what we're doing you can do that other stuff other places but this is what we're doing and they would fight and they would argue but a certain point they had that that established vision so i think's, and especially if you're starting off with a ready elite talent, it's really important to give them that vision because then they also realize there's a reason to be there.

Okay, so why is comp... I don't know if that makes sense. It does. Okay, good. Well, I think you're nodding our heads to the same thing that when people can hook into something that's bigger, but there's no one to catch it. So yeah, but you can do more on a team, right? If you want to just throw things by yourself, there's this sport called javelin throwing and no one needs to catch it, right?

But if you want to do more, then the team environment is where you need to go. But you have to explain to people that that context and the communal effort is going to get them more than they would get on their own. Yeah, there you go. Okay. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down. And that's why I've built intentional routines into the way that I close my day.

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And they make my morning routine really easy. They've got some great new products I think you'll be interested in. A shampoo, conditioner, and a hair serum. With Caldera Lab, it's not about adding more. It's about choosing better. And when your day demands clarity and energy and presence, the way you prepare for it matters. If you're looking for high quality personal care products that elevate your routine without complicating it, I'd love for you to check them out. Head to calderalab.com slash finding mastery and use the code finding mastery at checkout for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. Why compete? Why is competition important? Like if we strip it down and then from that,

maybe you can teach us your findings from a neuroscience and a neurochemistry and just basically what good science is talking about the essence of competition. But first, why is it important? Well, I think it goes back to that idea of improvement and that it's sort of a catalyst for testing yourself. Otherwise, you sort of end up in a vacuum, right? I mean, if you really want to just do a sort of pullback, bird's eye view, competition is any kind of social comparison. And why is that important? We're social animals.

That's what we do. I mean, we think about how am I doing compared to my sister or my friend. And I mean, it's just a natural response, really. And to me, it's important to master that and understand, you know, I don't really care how I'm doing compared to my best friend. This does not need to be a competition. And if you're more cognizant about the process of competition, and the best competitors pick and choose. Pick and choose what?

When they're going to compete. I mean, the great competitor is, you know, I want an Olympian who says, I will fight as hard as I possibly can. Wait, wait, what did you just say? I said fight, but I mispronounced it, I think. Will you edit that? That was so good. No, that's perfect.

Are you kidding me? I really think I said fight, but it didn't come out right. Okay. Anyway, Trey lost. So the best competitor and the best Olympian goes in and says I'm going to work really hard to be successful

and I will crush my opponents whatever he needs to do to fire himself up but he doesn't have that same approach to getting a parking space at the mall even even if he's late for the movie. Yeah, okay. So what you're saying is they can talk, they have volitional, they have control.

They can toggle it up and down when they need to. Yeah, the great competitors understand when it's not important. And I think another part of the great competitor tying it into the idea of improvement is a great competitor understands it can take a really long time to get good at something. A very long time. This is why I think the talented, it's hard for the talented to stay the journey because it was easy for them. They're always the tallest, the strongest, the biggest at a young age. So it's really difficult for the young talented to stay the path of mastery or skill development. And sometimes they don't have that fire. And that fire, I think, is what you and I are going to call that competitive drive to get better.

And I will say I am totally one of those people. Which one? The just slightly too good for my own good. Oh, early on? Yeah. My mom made me take piano lessons, which I hated. And I said, no, I want to learn guitar. And my mom was like, no.

Finally, she said, OK, fine. And I got a guitar for Christmas. And it was very exciting. and I just refused to practice and I would get to practice I would get to my lesson maybe 10 minutes before and I would in 10 minutes learn all of what I was supposed to do and then I would have my lesson and my teachers would be like if you would just practice you could actually be good I'm like yeah but I'm good enough not practicing and that sort of not pushing myself I mean in some ways you know hopefully I picked and choose what was important and I did practice the other things that were important I still think I probably could you know do better in terms of that focus and working through boredom, then I, it's still probably an issue I have. But, but yeah, the idea that, you know, I'm good at something,

so I didn't have to work on it. Or, you know, one of the reasons that Poe and I first wrote about Carol Dweck, besides the fact that I loved her research, was I felt it applied to me. That, you know, the, we're taught you're talented, you're either good at something or you're not. You're specifically referring to having a growth mindset. Yes, and a fixed mindset. And I was definitely the fixed mindset. You know, I'm not good at math.

I'm good at singing. I'm good at English. The world was very neatly categorized into things Ashley was good at and Ashley was not good at math. I'm good at singing. I'm good at English. The world was very neatly categorized into things Ashley was good at and Ashley was not good at. And they're never the twain should meet. But you know, I hear you say that and I believe you. At the same time, I hear you. Don't believe me. But at a young age, you demonstrated a growth mindset. Like, I'm going to put my hand up because this thing that I want is really important. That's being open to growing. That's being open to risk. Yeah. Well, there's confirmation bias. We're always not really sure and good perspective on

what we do. But I did feel that there were things I was good at. And my standards for pushing myself are very high. So I didn't need to spend time on the things that I was marginal or suck at. I was just like, no, no, no, I should work really hard at the things that I'm already good at and then I can be better. And I just won't worry about that other stuff that I'm bad at. And I realize now that was a bad call on my part. I missed out. So I'm trying to take those small risks. Yeah. So risk-taking is a skill as well. There's a neurochemistry, people that have like low cortical arousal, right? They want stimulation. They tend to take risks more because they enjoy it. And that's maybe a model that's being slightly debunked from a research

perspective, but the idea of it still holds true. It is. I mean, the last studies I've seen, maybe you've seen them more recent, was that that was sort of one of the neuroscience of extroversion, that the extrovert was slightly below in dopamine and they get, when you were saying excited from other people, they're literally getting dopamine from that interaction. And because their baseline is perhaps lower, they need more. And the introvert probably has a higher baseline of dopamine,

but that means then other people just make them overwhelmed. Yes. Too much dopamine. Yes, and my thought was that it's not as clean as low cortical arousal means you're a risk taker and high cortical arousal, high dopamine, means that you're not going to take risks easily. It's not quite as clean. There's some other stuff going on, but for,

for lots of stuff, so much, can, can you explain for folks that might not be easily versed or recently versed? I'm sorry, with dopamine and serotonin and some of the other neurochemicals, neuro transmitters that are relevant and important for competition. And how, again, if we're drawing this bright line is that the reason to embrace competition is to sharpen and improve a skill or a way of living. And so there's value in competing to quote unquote, be your best or to get better. And there's also some brain chemistry.

Can you pull on one of those threads? Yes. Yes. Very excited. Thank you. Very excited. So Poe Bronson and I had written an article and I think we'd already were way deep into writing our first book together, Nurture Shock. And so I already knew a little bit about dopamine.

I understood it was a neurotransmitter and it is sort of the chemical expression of rewards. Your nucleus accumbens and your ventral striatum light up whether someone gives you a compliment or a trophy. Those are two very particular parts of the brain that do pretty much one thing really well. Yeah. They check out rewards. That is what they want to do. Ooh, was that a good thing? I'm happy. So I already knew that going in. And I was having a conversation with UC Berkeley neuroscientist Sylvia Bungay, and she just completely floored and confused me because she was talking about motivation. And she was saying that motivation is expressed in the brain with the transmission of dopamine. And I was like, no, no, no. I'm like, wait, I know what dopamine is. You know, I know that if you spritz dopamine, it activates the synapses,

which means that you get more engagement from the neurons and they are more plastic and they withhold and transfer information and then capture it better. So your brain learns more on dopamine. I knew all that already. But where I was confused was I always thought that motivation was sort of the gas in the car that got you to your goal. Right? I'm motivated to work hard. I'm motivated to become an Olympian.

I'm motivated to get a promotion. I don't care what it is, but motivation was the thing that you were doing to get you to your goal and that's why I was so confused because my understanding of dopamine in terms of its lighting up the ventral striatum and the nucleus accumbens was you get dopamine when you achieve your goal so dopamine is the reward but Sylvia was saying that dopamine is what you get in motivation and I was like but motivation is what gets you to the goal and then I realized and I thought about this for weeks and then I realized motivation is the goal that we as humans are not built to have a bucket list here are my goals here's my dopamine I check it off and then I'm done. That biochemically...

We call that addiction, right? Like I'm going to do a thing to get a neurochemical exchange. And it's the thing, whether it's the purchase or the work or the thrill or the some sort of ingestion of a substance that we rely on for the neurochemical exchange. But I'm agreeing with you that it's the path. I agree with all of that, but that's not where I was going with it. What I was going with it is that, I mean, if you think about it, and I tell people all this time, we already mentioned I'm stressing over my Christmas crocheting because I'm going to pick

yarn people won't like and I'll be disappointed. But while I'm making my scarves, and it takes me hours because I'm not a very good crocheter, I'm imagining that they're going to like it and that they're going to wear it. And it takes me hours

to make a scarf. And by the time I give them the scarf, I actually burst into tears. I do, and it takes me hours to make a scarf and by the time I give them the scarf I actually burst into tears I do it's just so stupid I'm like I don't know why but I get weepy because I feel like I'm giving them part of a you know calendar of my days or something I don't know but normally when you know when I'm planning something even when it comes off the way I wanted to, there's like a letdown. What was missing? And what I realized from talking to Sylvia

was that the dopamine from getting the success, the dopamine from having my friend say, oh, wow, I love the scarf. Really, you do? Really? More dopamine, more reass more reassurance is because the dopamine from the actual success paled the comparison to the dopamine I had during the process during the motivation to do it and that's what I was about to say that whereas humans not

built to do something and then say we're done. The point of our physiology is to literally give us the physical and mental capability once we do the next one goal to do the next goal. So your hit of dopamine from being successful is not your victory lap. It's to help you find the next goal. And the same time, you know, testosterone, which is sort of the hormonal equivalent, this is bastardizing the science, I apologize to you and all those who know better. But you could kind of say that, you know, dopamine is the neurotransmitter version of motivation and that testosterone is the hormonal version of it. And once again, you get a boost of testosterone when you win, not because, woohoo, I'm awesome,

but because you're getting ready to do the next challenge. And you can get a bigger testosterone from a near win, right? Because it's the guy who just lost. no no rematch right so it's that preparation biochemically physically to get us to continue on so motivation really is the goal i love it and because that's the path right and so in a in an Eastern frame or the typical conversations about mastery is that the path in and of itself is the virtue, the path of growing, in other words, is the path worth going on because it's sustainable. And what you're adding to this conversation is, yes, that's nice and eloquent. But if you look at our biochemistry, if you look at our neurochemistry,

what's actually taking place is we're releasing testosterone and we're releasing dopamine as we're going to enhance and increase motivation, to enhance and increase the experience of reward and the strength to build on new physical and mental capabilities. And keep going. Yes. And people sometimes, they listen to me talk about, you know, growth mindset or motivation and it's improvement.

And at some point someone says, oh, it's the journey, not the destination. And I actually don't like that. And it's not that it's wrong. The idea is right, but it sounds kind of easy and soft. And what I want people to focus on is, it's actually really just about the process rather than the journey.

Because the journey kind of makes me feel like at a certain point I can just sit on a rock and take it in. And, wow, I've got a really, you know, like, oh, look, it's the journey. That's a nice pretty pine tree or whatever. So to me, trying to frame it as it's the process is just to keep you more engaged and more involved and understanding that there's movement. And yeah, there's movement in the journey, but the journey could be a flat path across the desert. And I'm hoping that a progress is more of a climbing of a mountain, I guess, to really mess with the metaphor, but. Cool. Okay. So then teach us a little bit from your findings. No, it's good. And then if you teach us, or at least it's good for

me, I should say, I appreciate that. I use the phrase a journey often, but in my mind, it doesn't feel like it's walking across the plains. If it was flat land, it would feel like the journey is about figuring out how do I plan for not having enough food and water. And some part of the plains are going to be icy cold and some part of the plains are going to be rigid. So you and I don't need to take this any further. I think we're on the same page with it. But okay, can you teach me, can you teach us about how to increase or coach or help myself and or how I could help a loved one do differently to enhance dopamine production? Because it gets complicated if we're going to talk about turning it off because that's actually another whole set of problems but yeah let's not do that like how to help others is to go to the ideas of challenge and

threat. So can we go there? Is that where we were supposed to go? Yeah, that's what I was hoping you would take us to. And also, you made something really popular in pop culture, which is how to teach our kids to love the process. At least I attribute it to you two. I don't know if that's accurate or not, but you can take us in one of those two directions. Yeah, that'd be awesome. Are you talking about my hatred of everybody gets a program programs? Cause I'm fairly infamous or famous on that one.

No, I don't. What are you talking about there? I'm not sure what you meant. When, when an AYSO, every kid gets a medal at the end of the season, no matter what. Yes. There isn't a pithy name for it other than everybody gets a trophy. I joked that it's a trophy industrial complex that's behind it. Oh, my God.

That is a cynic comment. I it i made that joke and then i found out it's a three billion with a b three billion dollar a year industry in the u.s and canada there are two separate trophy and award recognition industry lobbying associations and i was like oh my god there really is a trophy in Darcy O'Connor. Oh, that is freaking me out right now. Yeah. Okay, stay on this point of view for just a moment, this topic for just a moment about your point of view on, yeah, why you don't like that every kid gets a trophy. Oh, it's not don't like. It's way more violent hatred.

Okay, so I don't go to the violent hatred, but I do agree with you. Well, I didn't start out that way, but I've gotten to a pretty vitriolic perspective. And the reason is for a few things. One, I think that it was well-meaning. I think the idea is, I really think that the idea behind everyone getting a trophy has nothing to do with the kids who would have won otherwise. It's not even about the kids who might win occasionally. It's all about protecting the self-esteem of the kid who wouldn't have won anyway and would maybe never win. And that that's a painful experience and we want to protect our kids from it and i since we go back to oversharing with total klutz always the last picked on the team i

never would have won an award in any activity for physical like my whole life um and so i know from personal experience yes that really does hurt yes it really is embarrassing and awful but i think then you it arrives it asks a couple questions well first the kids who would have won you're presuming it doesn't affect them well actually there's at least some research now there's not a lot of it but there is some research that actually says no actually they really care they um and anecdotally i know i've had you know kids tell me that my favorite example and i've heard this from more than one occasion completely different coasts one time it happened in la one time it happened in New York, so the kids didn't know each other.

But the kids were so angry that they actually set their medals on fire during the award ceremony. And I've had kids tell me, why did I work so hard and I got the same trophy as everybody else? They felt tricked. So I don't think we can just presume

that everyone else isn't affected. But even if we say, yeah, but really got to protect that kid's self-esteem. It's the most important thing. Okay, well, that's still an empirical question. Does this work? And the research actually has found, there's research out of the University of Ohio, there's now longitudinal work, that overpraised kids who have low self-esteem do not achieve more. They stop. Okay, I got my overpraise. I got my medal.

I don't need to keep doing it. And we don't know if it's because they just feel like, well, they've accomplished everything they could. Maybe they recognize it's insincere praise and they're embarrassed by it too. But it doesn't help them. So that's one of the reasons that I started on this path that I don't like it. And then I got more upset and frustrated because if the idea behind everybody gets a trophy is, well, don't be afraid of taking risks. Don't be afraid of participating because you know you're going to win. So you shouldn't worry about it. You'll do fine. And that the idea was that they're leveling the playing field, but it's a safe space to win.

You're automatically going to win. And we've lowered the stakes so you shouldn't be afraid to try. And maybe that's true for one medal, but I know kids who come home from one day karate tournament and they come home with eight participation medals from the day. Every single time they did an activity that day, they got a medal. And I think over time, this isn't saying you can do it because you know you're going to be successful. It's saying you only do what you're successful at. This is a family of winners and nothing is worth doing

if you don't come home with the trophy. And it's actually heightened this expectation of winning and made something like mistakes or failure become unimaginable. We literally, there is no evidence that a child has ever failed because they always have medals. Now, maybe they did fail, but we have to pretend they were successful rather than say, yeah, today was not a good day. Oh, well, not a big deal. I'd rather no one get a trophy than everyone get a trophy. It's like the highlight reels that we're creating from Instagram and

Twitter. Like everybody looks good in pictures now because we edit the ones where our eyes are half cocked or our smiles like in a weird frame. So what I'm hearing you say is that, okay, I don't think you take away the importance of creating a lower intensity level to learn. However, what I hear you saying is that let's match the achievement with the reward. Well, I think that's definitely true. I think that, you know, again, we said it earlier, it takes a long time to get good at something. I'd rather no one have an award. I'd rather have a kid say, hey, I want to play soccer because I want to have fun running around the field and hang out with my friends. I don't care what the score is. I don't care what the result is. It's not why I'm there. Well, if that's the case, far be it for me to say wanting to spend time with your friends and get physical activity is not good enough. You have to have an award too. Yeah. And for the parents that are listening, the research out of Canada, and if you did a quick search for long-term athletic development, LTAD, it's phenomenal.

It's a developmentally-minded approach across lifespan for the appropriate level of competition and learning relevant to the brain structure and level of interest per gender and age. It's really great. I'm sure you've obviously dug into that, but it's a good model for parents. It's a quick little infographic that you can take a look at. Yeah. And I don't agree with people who say, well, it's fine for the three and four-year-olds because it's so cute. A three or four-year-old does not know what a medal is. They want a toy. So maybe it's a weapon or four year old does not know what a medal is. The only reason they want a toy. So, you know, maybe it's a weapon or something that can fling at somebody. Right. But they don't know what it is.

They know it's a big deal because we made it a big deal. If you want to. And I think, no, just let them learn and let them and learning should be the reward. So I'm really upset that we spend three billion dollars a year on trophies and awards I asked a researcher how many trophies are given in the United States every year and he said there was no number the best estimate he could do was millions and millions because people just you know print out certificates there's no way to count how many. I mean, single athletic teams, organizations are handing out thousands of these a year, which I tutor underprivileged kids in

Los Angeles, and they don't have a ball. So the idea that all this money is going to medals no one cares about, when it could go to, say, a kid who would like a ball to play with. It really hurts me. And there's not even an upside for those kids who got the medal psychologically. So you can see why I got a little violent in my hatred over time.

But you did something really important is you gave people a way to think about this, which was, hey, instead of giving rewards or trophies to everybody in the car, obviously you would nod your head to this, that the reason kids leave sport is because of the car ride home. It's not because of the coaches. It's not because of whether they got a trophy or didn't. Certainly not that one. But it's the car ride home. And you gave parents and coaches a really important tool, which is instead of asking about outcome and about trophy

and about winning and losing, ask them about things they can get better at. Simple. My favorite praise advice, my favorite response is something that Carol Dweck told me, which is sometimes the best praise is just, how do you think you did? That was warm and neutral. And you could have been the worst day ever or it could have been the best day ever.

But it's inviting the kid to say what their assessment is, good or bad, and then have the conversation from there. And that's what we want from kids. That's what we want from grownups. We want them to be able to identify their weaknesses and their strengths and build on them rather than have to wait for someone else to tell you how you did. That's right. And with that response, there's a trap. So if the parent says, well, how do you think you did? And they're just waiting to see if the kid got all the reasons that they did it wrong for the parent. You have to be genuine. Yeah.

If it's not genuine, there's a torch. Yours was, um, yours sounded judgmental. Mine was very warm. And Hey, how do you think it did?

Tell me about your day. That's right. Yeah. No, I just want to make sure that we're on the same page because there's a trap there, right? Which is,

well, how do you think you did? Yeah. Well, no, that was, that's not what we're looking for. We're looking for kids to genuinely think about and reflect on what they did. And, yeah, I mean, Victoria Tallwar, we wrote about her in Nutrashock,

would say that a lot of parents inadvertently bait kids into lying. What happened to the vase? Well, there's a baseball where the hole was. That used to be everybody knows what happened to the vase? Well, there's a baseball where the hole was, you know, that used to be everybody knows what happened to the vase. So when you're asking a kid, what happened to the vase? You're just baiting them into lying. So we're not trying to put kids in the defensive. We're giving them the opportunity to reflect on what they do. Okay. So I have been fortunate enough to ask this question to many people that are... We're not going to get to challenge and threat, are you? It's like my driving thing in my life.

Oh, all right, all right. So sorry. Okay, no, no, do it. Because I think the challenge and threat piece is, that's so good. So let's dive into that. But I want to understand the dark side of competition and where it shows up in your life as well, just to honor that part of it. But yes, threat, please. Challenge and threat first? Please, yeah.

Okay. So the easiest way and the scientific understanding, and a lot of this comes from the work of University of California at San Francisco, Wendy Berry Mendez, Jeremy Jameson at the University of Rochester, Mark Blazkowicz, and a ton of other researchers. And they, but the idea is that a challenge is when you have the resources, skills, and ability to succeed. Or the perception that you have those.

Well, you don't, you, well, that's what we're talking about. Okay, good. Although I wanted to actually get into that as sort of the, that's the post-grad version. Okay. To start, you say, do I have them? Do I have the resources, skills, and ability to succeed? It doesn't mean that success is guaranteed, right? It could work, it might not, any given Sunday, but I have a meaningful

chance. And a threat then is when you don't have the resources, skills, and ability to succeed. And the main question is how badly is this going to go? And what's amazing in these two different perspectives is now we're getting back to the physiology that the psychology of challenge and threat trigger different physiological responses that are i i can't overestimate how significant they are uh jeremy jameson who i just mentioned um did an experiment with chronically anxious people given the trer social stress test they were asked chronically anxious people. Given the Trier social stress test, they were asked chronically anxious people to give a speech about their life,

dreams, and hopes. And people were insulting them. Said, that's a stupid life goal. And they were already chronically anxious. Just those poor people. They were debriefed at the end. Good research. Jeez.

Oh my gosh. They were debriefed. They were okay. Okay, good. They were debriefed at the end. Good research. Jeez. Oh, my gosh. They were debriefed. They were okay. Okay, good. They were debriefed. But the difference between going into that speech and feeling nervous and excited, a challenge or a threat, excited is the challenge, threat is the nervous, was an additional two liters of blood pumping out of their hearts above baseline per minute. Two liters.

I tell Olympians, I can increase your cardiac output by two liters per minute. Whoa, pee in a cup for the rest of my life. Don't want to hear it. The difference is psychological. That's right. So in a challenged state, your heart rate variability improves. Your blood vessels all dilate, you burn stored glucose, you get an increase in testosterone, you get a depression in cortisol, you get increases in

adrenaline versus noradrenaline or epinephrine versus norepinephrine, if you want to speak American and English. So you get these biological responses that we were talking about later, facilitate your actually competing. And in a threat state, your heart rate variability drops. Your heart rate goes up, but you have vasoconstriction. So now you've got all this blood rushing out of your heart, but it doesn't have anywhere to go. So it's in the threat state. You hear ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum in your ears, and your fingers start getting tingly and numb.

And you get a burst of energy because you burn circulating glucose, not stored in glucose. state, you hear ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum in your ears and your fingers start getting tingly and numb. And you get a burst of energy because you burn circulating glucose, not stored in glucose. And a sort of cascade of these neuro responses and physiological responses happen. And what's amazing, and I think particularly relevant for your listening audience, is researchers at the University of Washington did a great study recently sort of asking the question, well, what separates the elite? I mean, at a certain point, if you already have the skills, aren't you at ceiling? Shouldn't everybody perform at the same level if they already have the skills, right? The novice doesn't have the skills and they can't perform. That's fine. They don't know. But someone who's had, you know, they, in this particular study, they did a shooting simulation with professional

police officers and they've had at least 10 years on the force. Well, they've all done these exercises. They know how guns work. They know how shooting simulations work. So in theory, they should all be at ceiling. The psychophysiological difference, them walking in thinking, are you scoring me based on how many targets I hit or how many targets I miss? Are you scoring me based on what I did compared to someone else? Are you scoring? Those kinds of questions and the psychological triggering the physiological accounted for 73% of the variance between the two performances. Okay, so unpack that last piece. Because it's the eloquence of what you just said, it's tightly packed. And it's, it's, it's nice, which is the psychology and the physio, the psychology comes the psychology and the physiology. The psychology

comes first, then the physiology comes second. So if you would- Well, they're a cascade, but they're also a virtuous or virtuous depending cycle. You can use them for both. And it's the, yes, and though, and though, and it's the mentally disciplined who have awareness of what we're talking about now, that my thoughts impact my physiology and my physiology, if I'm unaware, impacts my psychology. It's that interaction between both that's really important. And the mentally aware and disciplined can stop it by as simple as saying, whoa, look what I'm doing to myself. Hold on now. And they do some sort of intervention, quick intervention.

Breathing happens to be one of the more potent ones to do. And if you're skilled at breathing, maybe it's just one breath or two breaths or five breaths that can work. But you have to be skilled at it. Well, my favorite example of that is a study of special forces and elite athletes that came out of UCSD's OptiBrain program. And the comparison group were people prone to panic attacks. So I call them panickers. I know that's not the term, but I call them panickers. And all of them are preternaturally sensitive to changes in their heart rate they can even tell you how much and they're they don't i mean they can tell you like how many beats per minute my heart rate is going up but the special forces and the elite

athletes said hmm my heart rate's going up. Something, is that appropriate given what I'm about to do? Is there something in my environment that I need to change? And the panickers went, oh, my heart rate's going up. I'm going to have a panic attack. Uh-oh, oh no.

And their psychology goes, their psychology is that train. It's a train of thought that is panic-based. Right. So to me there, the idea is that the elite athletes and the special forces guys are saying

the physiology is a diagnostic tool showing me there's something I need to address, whereas the panickers, it was the diagnosis. Once their heart rate goes up, they're on that train, and yeah, they can't stop it. That's right.

So yes, so I actually, from my experience now, try and look at them both ways. I understand that if I'm nervous about something, if I'm stressed and I'm feeling those physiological symptoms, well, metabolics wise, it's going to take about 45 minutes for my testosterone levels and cortisol and everything to get regulated anyway. So now I'm just going to have to realize this is how I'm going to feel and how am I going to best perform under these situations. I'm going to be nervous. I'm going to be shaking. How do I power through this?

That's the worst case scenario. Ideally, though, I think in advance, okay, this is going to be stressful. I'm going to think of this as a challenge. And what is a challenge? Well, we talked about it earlier. It's not whether or not I'm going to be successful at the task. It's can I learn from this? And if I can learn from this, it should always be a challenge. And I can look forward to it that way. But then I can also use the physiology as cues. I was preparing a speech a few months ago. And I thought, you know, it was a big speech and I was working really hard and I'd been reading a lot of stuff.

But I thought I was pretty prepared and I thought I had things under control. And I turned around and I found another, I don't know, a couple hundred pages of science that I hadn't read yet that I thought I'd read. And I immediately broke out into a cold sweat. And I said, wow, my body's telling me something. I am more stressed out about this speech than I thought I was. I need to figure out more about how I'm going to prepare for this. So you can use the physiology actually to help you identify the psychology but you can also use the psychology ideally to prevent the physiology from going badly yeah yeah and and maybe even you use the word prevention and and but it's accurate because our brain is going to scan the

world to find what's dangerous we're we are really good at that so it is a prevention in some respects but we can use this as an optimization strategy as well, which is, let's say that, let's go back to when you saw that a hundred pages of something that you didn't do, you felt that cold kind of sweat take place. Actually, what happened before that was below your awareness was, oh shit. So there was a thought, right? There was an interpretation of that. And then that, oh shit, was related to a thought, right? There was an interpretation of that. And then that, oh shit, was related to something else, which is likely they're going to find out I'm not good enough, or I'm going to look stupid, or there's something underneath of that. And that's for all of us, right? Getting kicked out of the tribe is a really dangerous, tenuous experience for our ancestry long ago, and we still carry it with us today.

All of these are evolutionary processes. There's no doubt. Yeah, I know, for sure. But if we can decouple who we are from the thing that we love doing, or the thing that we understand well, or the craft that we're expressing, whether it be sport or arts or poetry or writing, that as if poetry wasn't writing. But if we can decouple who we are from what we do, then that second thought and maybe the first thought, the oh shit thought, has less potency. So imagine this scenario. You flip the unearth a hundred pages that you

thought that you had already read and you say oh look at this 100 pages oh my goodness okay well that's a lot to get in in the next three hours um but you know what let me see what i can add maybe there's something here and i'll get to it next time but what i have everything i need is already in me right like that statement everything i have is already in me, right? Like that statement, everything I have is already in me. And that statement, for me, invites the divine and the secular to be able to embrace that thought. Now, I choose to think about this in a very spiritual frame, but it also backs up, for me, this idea that I've put in a lot of work in the shed by myself to understand this thing deeply. And everything I need right now is just right. And if I don't know it, I don't know it. And if I do know it, wonderful, but I don't think I know very much. So let's go ahead and see what we can learn

together. And that's a didactic relationship between both audience and stage and stage and audience and small tabletops and deep conversations like what we're having now. So yeah, there's a nice interplay here. So for those that, oh my gosh, we're at an hour and 17 minutes. I need to apologize again. God, I thought we were- See, you need to edit. Yeah, I know. Okay. Okay. So what's the takeaway here? The takeaway is ask and love up your kids for what they can get better at. And talk to them about the process, as well as ask them what did they learn.

So have regard for their experience. The third frame here that we're talking about on this last piece is, can you put in the work to become skilled and to understand something and then can you interpret the moments that you're going to express that thing as a challenge as opposed to a threat if you get caught that it's a threat and you're kind of on that train of thought can you interrupt it in some kind of way by having awareness and then the discipline to know how to get your mind back towards challenge and that's basically can you

anchor back into why you have the right to go do this thing whatever this thing is yeah i mean to me it's the same thing thing for the kids as for myself and for the challenge and threat. And I was plowing through it fast so I could get it in. Sorry. But if you really think of everything as an opportunity for growth and a learning experience, and if you really believe that and embrace that, then that is the challenge.

And as long as you learn from it, then you know going in you're going to be successful. And my best example of that was a young woman I mentor was really nervous. She'd just gotten her first job interview and she'd worked really hard on her resume and draft after draft. And she called me and said, well, help me figure out. I said, okay, bring two copies of your resume, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And by the way, I'm not going to tell you

you're going to get the job because I don't know. I don't know who else is interviewing. I don't know what they're looking for. Who knows? What I can promise is you're going to learn from this experience that by the end of this,

you will never have to have another first job interview of your life ever again. And you can learn from it. Can you do that? I'm like, I want you to tell your bosses you want this job and this is really important. But for when you go in, mentally prepare for how can you learn from this as much as you possibly can. And she said, yeah, I can do that. And she called me the week afterwards and she said, I wasn't nervous and I learned from it and I didn't get the job, but I'm totally fine. And a week after that, she had her second interview and she got a job offer.

That's great. And so to me, that's the thing is if we're really focused on and believe in the value of improvement and believe in the value of learning and opportunity for growth, I think you're good pretty much whether you're talking about a three-year-old on a rec soccer pitch or someone playing the World Cup. I 100% agree that if you have a strong psychological framework, you don't need to patch it with all these silly little hacks.

And if you in part of the psychological framework that allows for sturdiness is that you want to keep adding to the scaffolding you want to be the architecture you want to be the architect for growth and that's looking at at moments as challenges yeah instead of threats yeah And listen, our bodies and mind are deeply designed to manage threat. Well, and I mean, it goes back to where we started with risk-taking, right? That's right. So this is why practicing risk-taking is so important. Exactly. You can practice courage and you can practice risk-taking. You can practice those both. Okay. So have you pulled on the thread with all of your research of the

science of competition and being around, you know, apex competitors? Is there a single way of thinking about their, what is their ideal competitive mindset that you've come across? I have not found it, but I'm just curious if you have. I don't think so. I read a study over the summer looking at Olympic gold medalists and British industry tycoons from a bunch of different fields. And they sort of third-person, dispassionate, non-emotional way. It wasn't about how the loss made me feel. It's about what did I do that caused the loss? What will I do now to win the next time? Yeah. They have an internal vector of control.

Like what I did, I can get better at, or I can stay sharp with something. Yeah. And they also, into the opportunity for growth and challenge, are also looking for the ways to get better. So I think that there are some strands like that, but in terms of what is the best competitive, some people do best playing not to lose. And some people do best feeling anxious and feeling like everyone's putting under pressure and don't want to let the country down. And some people are going to be their worst in that perspective. So I don't think there's one right answer there. To me, the best competitors know what those things and situations are that make them do their best and do their worst and use that to their advantage rather than there being one particular formula I could give to everybody.

And I would say instead of it makes them do their best, it invites or supports or it calls on them to do their best. And I totally agree. Yeah. And I told, because I think it's part of our, we have choices, right? And I think that this is part of the deal that you just hit on is that some people do perform better when they've got the weight of the world on their shoulders. It's just not fun. I haven't met anyone that says, I love that. I didn't say it was fun. I just said they may recognize they do.

Some people do best playing angry. Some people do best playing happy. Some people do best calm. It's recognizing those things. And yeah, it doesn't mean that they're happy. But yeah. That's a different conversation. That's another hour right there And yeah, it doesn't mean that they're happy, but yeah. That's a different conversation. That's another hour right there.

I love it. Okay. Let's think about this for a minute. If we shift gears a little bit, of all the different mental skills that support great competitors, what would you say, like generating calm, generating confidence, being able to be calm and focused, having know, having clear goals. What would you say are some of the, that you've come across has been a common thread? Common thread? Yeah. You mean in terms of things I want to teach people? No, no, no. Which ones

do you think are most important? Just on the mental skills part. Yeah. Well, I think calm and happy are, I, we have to go there. They're both overrated. And, you know, yeah, some people do their best anxious. Some people do their best fired up. And to tell everyone you need to be calm is a big disservice. I think it's a distraction

because someone who does their best wired and fired up, then, you know, people was, you know, I ask people all the time, you know, if you're upset and you're nervous and someone tells you to calm down, does that ever work? Not once. No, it just makes you more upset

because now you can be upset that you're not calming down and upset about the fact you were upset. And upset the fact that somebody else knows that you're a wreck. Oh yeah, it's just, it just,. Oh, yeah. It's just, yeah. It's going to send you right over the judge. So I don't think calm down is the right answer. If people are stressed, I follow the study from Harvard University,

and the advice is you're not stressed. You're excited. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And to understand that you can only be stressed about things you care about. So you've got to change it to something, a positive understanding that this is important to me and that's a good thing. And we're going to use that to our benefit rather than this is so important I'm going to implode. Yeah, I like it. I do talk about the value of calm,

but I make sure I anchor it with fire, that there's some sort of fire. It's not relaxed and mellow. Ah, yeah. I think that's the thing. People think that it's some zen, nothing bothers me state. I think focus is important.

Deep focus. And the people who do best angry, if it's pure rage and they're just storming around the clubhouse, that's not going to do them or anyone around them any good. They need to have anger and then channel that into what they're doing. Turn it into intensity if they can. Yes. You know, the anger is just a fire that just burns.

You know, it burns so many people. Well, I mean, again, pure rage and chronic anger is a problem, but there's been research that people who get angry in appropriate circumstances have higher mental well-being than those who are just happy all the time. And to me, I think anger is the agent of change. Happy people are happy. They're complacent. They are happy. anger is the agent of change. Happy people are happy. They're complacent. They are happy. There is no reason to change.

An angry person says, no, I need to do something. The catalyst for anger is perceiving an obstacle in your way, but believing you have something you can do to change it. If you have an obstacle but no power to change it, that doesn't lead to anger. That leads to despair so i i think anger can be very productive and societally we're told you know don't be angry and i think that's wrong but it's still always about making sure that what you've got is a productive thing that's moving you forward and not just making you go it's the tone that it comes out in fire and passion

and intensity is yeah like we as americans let's just call you know this part of the world right now most parts of the world do love this but um not everybody right but but this idea of being um angry all the time it's like there's there's a the way it comes out yeah that's bad there's lots of research cardiovascular that's a, the way it comes out. That's bad. There's lots of research. Cardiovascular, that's a problem. Okay, this is about you now, right? Oh, we started with me and it was awful. Pressure comes from?

Oh, I'm just going to answer that? Oh, myself. Yeah. I don't even know how to say that anything otherwise than that yeah okay I I agree yeah I wish there was more to it but I think it's like I just my standards I you know I want to I want to be good I want to work hard I don't want to be good. I want to work hard. I don't want to disappoint people. I don't want to disappoint myself. And, you know, I mean, it was interesting. I was, one of the funny things lately, you know,

there's sort of that idea that when you take Psych 101 in college, you walk out every day with the new malady that you've just read about that you realized you must have. And lately I've actually been sort of doing an opposite thing where I read something and I thought I was the only one and went, oh, really? Apparently, that's a prototypical response. Everybody does that. And the research pretty much shows that we're all harder on ourselves than everybody else is. I make a stupid comment, I misspeak 20 minutes ago and i'm

thinking oh i can't believe it that's the only thing people remember no one else cares but me and actually it's actually endearing because most people will read your reading and and you know look at your research and say oh my gosh like she's so smart and she's done such a body of work. It's intimidating to talk to her, but it's really, yeah, it's really endearing to be human. So, okay. It all comes down to. $64,000 question adjusted for inflation. And I asked someone mathematically what that was, and it was not a satisfying number. I was like, no, it needs to be more.

I think that is the question. What does it come down to, and what's important to you? And that that may change depending on the situation and yeah. And, you know, asking yourself, is my answer right? How do you, as one of the deep researchers in competition, how do you, as one of the deep researchers in competition, how do you answer it? Well, in terms of competition, or I thought this was about me. It is.

Like what you've learned. As one of the deep researchers in competition, like what, and as a professional woman, like what does it come down to for you? I am getting more and more focused on the risk taking and learning and wanting to be better. And, and I think that's really hard because if you say I want to be better, there's an implicit, that means I'm not actually that all that now. And that's uncomfortable and that's hard. A friend of mine recommended the book Triggers, Marshall Goldsmith's book, somewhere around here. And he was like, oh, you read fast. Don't go like this.

And it took like five hours, jury duty, just five hours just reading it page after page. And it was just because the ideas of daily reflections on goal setting and how are you doing is hard and scary and and thought-provoking so that was a non-answer answer but that's all i can give you okay i love it uh it the cross i'm a lawyer it depends it depends you know um there's a joke about lawyers and happiness. There are many. Yeah. I know them all. Success is...

Elusive. Love. Connection. Relationships. Same thing. Flow. Rare. connection relationships same thing flow rare super duper rare i've just a friend of mine went to an olympic briefing and they said hey who who here knows about the zone and i was like yeah you mean the zone yeah like you know the zone only And everyone's like, yeah! You know what I mean? The zone, yeah! Like, you know, the zone only happens like 1% of your life. You think the zone is going to be where you are on the most important, stressful day

of your entire Olympic career, really? Like, no. So flow is great, but you can't wait for it. Yeah. So the question is like for optimizing, what are you doing that other 99% of the time? And how am I going to anticipate difficulty and overcome it rather than I'm going for the zone, I'm going for the flow, this is all going to be great. And then you get derailed by circumstance or whatever.

So it just sort of changed my mind in terms of what your mental preparation is going to be. I think you're right on the money. Like I grew up on a, early years were on a farm where I remember chopping wood and having to heat ice to keep our house warm at night and to have running water on our wood burning stove. I mean, that gives you a sense of what it was like to be a young hick. But at the same time, like this concept of doing difficult things is really, I think, one of the greatest assets my parents gave me was, hey, listen, to go the distance, to heat your home, right? It can be difficult. So love up doing difficult things and recover really well.

Because if you're going to do something that's difficult or do something that's hard, it's hard. So know how to recover too, but also have the capacity to work, to work deeply. Mark Seery, just as a theory, he's one of the challenge and threat researchers, wrote a really, just two or three paragraphs thrown off in the study, but I was like, oh, which is that all the research right now and conversation about resilience is sort of thinking about it in terms of almost a victimization process. Something really bad happened and I was there to see it and now I need help because I have PTS afterwards. And not to say that that vein isn't important, but you could also ask in resilience, how does something affect me in the moment? And then when you talk about, does any of this even apply to a first responder or an elite athlete? Or I was reading the study

the week the Special Olympics was in town. You know, the resilience to say, I am voluntarily going to put myself where millions of people are going to watch me succeed or embarrass myself. How am I going to be resilient in that moment so that I can actually keep going? We don't have any science to answer those questions, but I thought that was an incredibly important question to ask. Yeah, I do too. I think the index of that question is important. If you care deeply about what other people think, you'll likely stay small.

If you can love other people and not care what they think, then there's an opportunity to find freedom, which is to find the path where you're most authentic, on demand, in any environment that you're in. And it's a really wonderful opportunity. But OK, enough of that. That's really cool. Are you going to send me a bill for this?

No, this was for me, I promise. Yeah. No, thank you for the conversation. I got like just two more kind of, I think, important questions in my head. One is, what do you hope the next generation gets right? what they're getting wrong is this focus on results and focus on the winning and that everybody gets trophies and that they have to constantly get praised and rewarded for everything they do. And they're not prepared for difficulty. So whether it's changing their orientation or their kids' generation, the millennials and younger are still too young for me to write them off. But I want them to have that feeling that obstacles are good things and that setbacks are good things.

And it's not about making people feel like losers or failures. It's about realizing I can overcome them. My favorite researcher on goal setting is Gabrielle Ontogen at New York University and University of Hamburg. And she talks about how in goal setting, you think about what you want and what are the outcomes and then the obstacles. And then you come up with a plan to overcome the obstacles. But when you succeed, it's not that you had succeeded in spite of the obstacles, but overcoming the obstacles became the goal. And I just love that. It's very Zen.

Yeah. WhoopMyLife.org. That's her website. WhoopMyLife. Okay. How do you articulate mastery? pursuing technical and excellence but using the psychological and cognitive and emotional skills to help you achieve it i wouldn't i wouldn't ever write that in an article. I enjoyed it. Can you say it again? Or is that like, yeah, say it again. Or maybe you can say it a different way.

I'll try a different way. Yeah. I loved it. Okay, well, that's cool. Just replay that then. You've got a loop. You can just replay the tape i think mastery is about pursuing and acquiring technical skill but using everything in your arsenal psychological cognitive physical peer support to help you achieve those goals. Here we go. Okay.

Thank you so much. I know it's been a long conversation. I had a blast. I hope you and I'm most worried about you poor listeners out there. I know. No, Ashley, thank you for sharing your interest and your deep curiosity about competition. And I can't wait to hear, I'm going to ask you what you're up into next,

but where can people find what you're doing next and whether they wanted to, obviously, I don't know, I'm assuming you're writing something new, but. Well, I'm working on some ideas, but actually the science usually tells me what my idea is. You know, I read something oh my gosh I never even knew that was a thing you could study and now it's a thing so I'm waiting for the science to give me that uh but in the meantime I have a little monthly newsletter called the

Sherwood Report which is free anybody can sign up the sherwoodreport.com where I'm doing sort of a page on the cutting edge of science of high performance. And I have, you know, Twitter, Ashley Merriman.com have links to articles that I've written stuff about the book, top dog. And people can email me or tweet me here.

Perfect. And it's at Ashley, A S H L E Y Merriman, M E R R Y M A N. Yes. And, and then top dog, obviously go out and get the, you know, L-E-Y Merriman, M-E-R-R-Y-M-A-N. Yes. And then Top Dog. Obviously go out and grab the book

and go deeper into the science of competition. So thank you. It's awesome. And so, yeah, let's do it again. Usually what happens for me is that I get off this conversation and then I say, oh, I wish I would have asked this. And so if that comes up. I'm going to have a bunch of those.

Yes. Science of regret and missed opportunities. Okay. So let's come back. Let's do it again. If you'd be open to it. And for those of you who are still listening, you can subscribe to this by going to iTunes

and subscribing, obviously, there. You can also go to findingmastery.net. And if you go to iTunes and you have the interest to give a review, it helps with people being able to easily find this podcast just if they didn't know that they were looking for it. You can also go to Twitter and ask some questions to Ashley and myself

myself is at Michael Gervais for Twitter and then also on Facebook.com forward slash Finding Mastery okay so go ahead and check out Ashley's work by Top Dog I think that you want to give it to somebody as well so

buy the book and then buy a second copy to give to someone else. And again, Ashley, thank you so much. All right. So once again, thank you,

Ashley, for the time today. Thank you for all of us who are listening to this. And if you enjoyed this conversation and the learnings that come with it, there's a couple of things maybe that you, you could do is head over to iTunes, subscribe to finding mastery, tell somebody about it.

If you write a review, apparently it's an incredible mechanism to keep top of mind on iTunes, which helps build a community and tribe around the concept of mastery. And you can find all of the information on findingmastery.net. You can hit us up at Twitter, which is at Michael Gervervais and on facebook.com

forward slash finding mastery and you can also check out ashley's work and have conversations with her on twitter at ashley merriman and again that's a s h l e y m e r r y m a n all right so H-L-E-Y-M-E-R-R-Y-M-A-N. All right, so let's see if we can put this in practice and bring people along this journey in our own lives and even more globally. So check out Top Dog. I think you'll absolutely love it and hope you enjoyed this podcast. All right, I'm hopeful to hear from you

and really drop some comments on how you're pursuing mastery in your own life or where you're getting glimpses of it or where you're where you're struggling around it. Let's let's keep the conversation moving as much as we possibly can. And thank you deeply for for listening and being part of this. Have a great day. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you.

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