Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Creating the Optimal Environment for People to Thrive | Performance Coach, Owen Eastwood

Episode Date: December 23, 2020

This week’s conversation is with Owen Eastwood, a Performance Coach engaged by high profile teams around the world hunting for a competitive advantage through their culture.He currently works with the British Olympic and English football teams and has previously worked with diverse teams such as the Command Group of NATO, the South African cricket team, corporate leadership teams and in elite ballet.Owen’s a New Zealander with a unique approach based on an evolutionary understanding of what makes teams of humans strong and weak.There are some incredible insights and some wonderful ancient wisdoms that we have stopped listening to and Owen’s mission is to re-introduce people to those ideas.He introduced me to a concept I love called “Whakapapa” – something the famous New Zealand men’s national rugby union team, commonly known as the All Blacks, has built their culture around.Essentially the shirt is more important than any individual.You wear the shirt with a sense of pride and a sense of duty.And then you pass it on, along with the stories, the values, the rituals and tradition, to those who come after you– and that’s something we dive into in this conversation._________________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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stay present and engaged with my thinking and writing. If you wanna slow down, if you wanna work smarter, I highly encourage you to check them out. Visit remarkable.com to learn more and grab your paper pro today. For 99% of human history, we've been hunter gatherers. So this is deeply wired into our psyche, isn't it? And into our biology. So our need to belong, I think this is something that's just critically important, is that for all of our history, need to belong, you know, I think this is something that's just critically important is that for all of our history, I would say, including now, if you are alone, you won't survive.

Your health will be seriously compromised for most of our history. That would have been fatal. And so that need to belong, that survival instinct that we all have, that was part of a band of people and the band had a leader. So the leader's fundamental job was to take care of people. That was their fundamental job. That's why our groups of humans existed. So when we think of it like that, why is that not obvious to us today? Why do we feel that we can go in pursuit of outcomes and sacrifice people and damage people along the way? Okay, welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast.

I'm Michael Gervais, and by trade and training, I am a sport and performance psychologist. And the whole idea behind this podcast, behind these conversations, is to learn from people who are committed to the path of mastery. What does that mean? It means that they're digging deep to understand the truth, the nuances, the essence of themselves, other people, or their craft. And what we're trying to do is understand how do they use their mind to excel? How do they use their mind to stay true to themselves? And how do they use their mind to be able to advance human potential?

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not have heard of him. You will probably soon because the book that he's writing is going to be a game shifter. And the reason you might not have heard of him is because he works behind the scenes. He's a performance coach that has been engaged by high profile teams around the planet who are looking for a competitive advantage through deepening their culture. So he currently works with the British Olympic and English football teams and has previously worked with diverse teams such as the command group of NATO, the South African cricket team. I mean, the list goes on and we get into it in the podcast as well.

Owen is a New Zealander, and he's got a unique approach that is based on his understanding of how indigenous people from his country work together, how they strive together, how they link together, how they form culture to support each other. And he's got a really crisp understanding of what makes teams, that's his modern day approach to some of this early understandings of people, what makes teams and humans strong and weak. And he's got some incredible insights and some wonderful ancient wisdoms that maybe many of us have stopped listening to, or maybe that we haven't heard. For the first time, he's going to introduce some stuff to you. I think that you're going to go, Ooh, I like it. And Owen's mission in life is to reintroduce people to these ideas.

And he introduced me to a concept that I love. It's called Waka Papa, and that's how it's spelt. And the way that it's pronounced is Faka Papa. And it's something that comes from his heritage. And it's also something that the famous New Zealand All Blacks rugby team, like a world-class culture and a world-class organization, something that they have built their culture around. So that'll be fun for him to share what that is. And in essence, like in rugby, this is not necessarily unique to the All Blacks, but in rugby, there's this beautiful idea that you wear the shirt, their jersey, if you will, with a sense of history and honor and a sense of duty, and you play for the shirt. And sometimes in other Western worlds, we think about you play

for your family name, or you play play for money or you play for fame. And so in this context, the shirt, the jersey, is bigger than the individual. It's a really beautiful idea. And so he drops right underneath the surface of why and where that comes from and how the All Blacks really tug on their indigenous heritage and how they make it modern in modern times. And they are one of the most winningest clubs, period, across the planet, across sport. So there's something to pay attention to here. And then when you pass the shirt on, you pass along all the stories, the values, the rituals, and traditions to those who come after you. And that is really what this conversation is about, is us being linked, us being connected. And with that, let's jump right into this

conversation with Owen Eastwood. Owen, how are you? I'm very good, my friend. Oh, it's so good to see you. It's been too long. And I've been looking forward to this conversation for a couple reasons. One is the spirit that you bring into conversations, your inner life and expressing from that point, it's noticeable. So that alone, I'm looking forward to. And then the second is that your frameworks and your points of reference are stimulating. And, you know, so I always love the stories that you get into. So, Owen, I am so happy to have you on the Finding Mastery podcast. Welcome, brother. Thank you. I'm really looking Mastery podcast. Welcome, brother. Thank you.

I'm really looking forward to this. Yeah. Okay. So let's start with how do you describe what you do? How do you describe your professional life? I call myself a performance coach. And my particular focus is around building team culture and leading that culture. So I don't like to tell people what

to do. I like to coach them. And then you've got a really unique, because there's lots of performance coaches across the planet, and you've got a really unique experience based on your lineage and your connection to ancestry. And so can we start a little bit about that? And then I want to wind back and get some of your narrative about how you got to this point in your life, influencing and helping some incredible organizations. But let's start with that first part. I think I'm an outsider. That's how I would describe myself, really. I call myself a performance coach, but I am truly an outsider.

I didn't qualify in any sensible subject to do this work. I didn't train as a consultant. I came to this from left field, really, just through opportunities and connections. And once I started to get some exposure to these high-performing environments, what I came to realize very quickly is that some of the spiritual ideas that I've been carrying with me most of my life and some of the ancient wisdom that had really resonated with me seemed to be perfectly applicable to what these people were trying to do. So I started to introduce them into the conversations and started telling stories and using them as reference points.

And I suppose to this day, people are interested in that. And I think the fact that I'm an outsider and not trained in a conventional way has been a big advantage probably. One of the things I think that you're able to do is because you go to different organizations and have different understandings that you're able to bring some of those fruits back. And it's like a cross-pollination or a cross-learning experience that takes place, and you help harvest those insights for others. So let's do this. What are some of the organizations that you've learned from,

that you've helped develop? What are some of those organizations? I have a lot of intention around wanting to work with more than one team at a time. And that's quite different. A lot of people who do what I do stick with one team and are really fully engaged with them. But that doesn't bring the best out of me. And I do find that those elite coaches love to know what's going on in other places where people are competing and facing all these similar challenges they're facing. They want to

know in real time what are they doing right now so the more experiences and reference points i bring to the table i do think that's part of what they enjoy so i'm never in one team full time i'm always coming and going just trying to find those spots where you can have maximum impact often before they go and compete and sort of let them go to it once the competition's underway. And you're working on culture and environment. My job is really quite simple. It's trying to help leaders create the optimal environment for their people to thrive in and achieve the mission that they share. And it's as simple as that. What is the best environment we can possibly create to get the best out of everyone here

and achieve our mission? And sometimes people are so busy and so swamped with data and strategy and tactics and everything that actually sometimes they don't make time to reflect and consider that. So that's where I would step in. And then, so what are some of the frameworks that you're using to help people develop that ideal culture that ideal environment for me it starts with belonging and we're needing to understand that we have this not only a psychological but biological need to belong once we have a sense of belonging our anxiety levels start to come down and our dopamine

levels, oxytocin levels, you know, you know, the stuff better than me, Michael, they become in balance and we get into this optimal state where we can go and compete from. So belonging is somewhere where we start from. For me, a critical factor of high performing teams is this idea of a vision. And they visualize it as deeply as an individual visualizes their own performance. So that idea of a shared vision is critical. It's got to be done and curated very carefully. And that is what aligns everybody.

That's what everyone signs up for. And that's what paves the way for success. And I still find it quite incredible that a lot of elite teams, or elite in inverted commas, still not 100% clear on what they're trying to do. They know they want to win, but the actual depth and richness of the vision isn't there. Okay, so some people read about vision and belonging, and they read Maslow's work, or they read, you know, some other theorists about, you know, creating, using your imagination to use, to create a vision for success. But that's not how you came about it. And so can you, can you pull on the thread a little bit about your upbringing, your connection

to ancestry and indigenous people? And can you pull on that thread? Because I think it's material that that informs the way that you understand humanness together. And it also informs how you understand how people can perform towards the upper limits. So can you just walk through that, your earlier experiences that shaped belonging and vision? Sure. Well, I grew up in the southern coast of the South Island of New Zealand. So the place I grew up in, there's one island between us and the Antarctic. It's pretty cold and it's pretty wild. There's a wild landscape there, wild coastline, wild seas,

beautiful farming, pastoral lands as as well but also big intimidating mountains around us and I had a hell of a lot of fun and freedom growing up I also had quite a lot of suffering and grief as well when I was five my father died suddenly he was 41 my mother was 39 she had a 12 year old 10 year old five year old and a two year old. And yeah, there's a lot of, as I said, grief and suffering that we experienced. And as I got a little bit older into my teens, what I realised is something else really, there's another legacy of him passing early and that was, felt like my heritage had been stolen from me he was part

Maori the indigenous people of New Zealand and part English and he was an only child his mother my grandmother lived a thousand miles away to the north who we would only see every few years so who he was where he came from where we came from was denied and it's something that really i just wouldn't accept that i couldn't accept that i knew i was part of something special and rich but i'd been denied it how did you you talk about suffering. I want to know what that means. And then I want to know where that itch came from or that internal fire to say, man, I've been robbed and there's something else that I'm missing brothers who were 12 and 10, it hit them a lot harder. They were forming their identity. And for me at five, I was probably a bit of it went over my head. When I talk about suffering, I think more of my mother.

I remember for years, really, we would, she was incredibly strong and great person and still is. But I would remember walking past a room in our house and just looking in and she would be in a chair, you know, crying. And then she'd see me and quickly correct herself and get up and pretend she hadn't been. And things like that, I felt a lot of pain seeing her suffering pain. For myself, I think I adapted

very quickly, had amazing, you know, my mother was one of eight children. We had a big, big family who were around every weekend and giving us food and love. So I think I was okay. But I did pick up on the pain of others. What's the thin line there for you between codependency and empathy? Codependency is that, hey, I got to be okay so other people are okay. And when other people are okay, I'm okay. My happiness depends on their happiness. And that other kind of, on the other side of that thin line is, wow, I see you suffering. I feel what you're feeling.

I understand the emotions and I can convey them back to you that's a sense of empathy can you talk about that dance for you it's so good to talk to you because you just cut to the chase so well um sorry if it you know i just uh i know that we're taking a side out of something really serious, but somebody just the other day said, after one of these conversations, they said, oh my God, I feel like I was totally seen. And at the same time, I was terrified and I was excited because I was going to places I haven't gone. I was like, dude, it's a podcast.

And so, but so sorry for that. Yeah. No, no, no. When we we first met i don't know if you remember but you said to me have you ever suffered from depression and no one has ever asked me that question and the answer is no from a clinical point of view i you know but you saw something that i don't think anyone else have picked up on, and that is I have a real sense. It's just this question you've just asked me. I have a really deep sensitivity to people's suffering. So I'm happy to go there because I can tie it into my work as well.

Please. So, yeah, I struggle when people around me are suffering. I suppose we're all like that. Not true. Some people are like reptiles, and they they don't feel and it's too overwhelming. And so they do everything they can to distance themselves from those feelings, minimize. There's lots of ways, blame, critique, judge, separate, isolate. But you don't do that.

You feel. I feel it. And in some ways, I'm doing the craziest job in the world because I'm helping teams and people I care about and have a sense of belonging and connection to. I'm helping them compete and pursue their dreams. And the brutal reality is most of the time they won't achieve them. There's only going to be one winner of a World Cup or one winner of the NFL and one Olympic gold medalist. And so a lot of my work is not just preparing people to be successful, is that it's also helping them overcome the pain and suffering of not achieving their dreams and being disappointed.

And I suppose the more I do this work, maybe I regard that as actually more important. I've spoken with athletes who have spoken to me, and then I've got them to talk to the team about what it feels like when they are suffering and not achieving their goals and their dreams. And sometimes it can be brutal. I know some athletes I've worked with, they failed at the very last hurdle,

the very end of a big game, the final. And they've been accused of choking when they've been in airports by fans. And they've been ridiculed in front of their families. And they've had very nasty things said about them on social media. So if fans could actually see how these humans, what they have to deal with and how they cope with it, it's very, very humbling.

And I have this instinct to help them through that part of it, not just collecting the gold medal. 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. And I was immediately drawn to their mission, helping people achieve performance for life. And to do that, they developed what they call the Momentous Standard.

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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. And so how do you do the empathy piece? Like, what does it feel like for you when you see another person that is struggling?

And is your work informed by going to the struggle or is your work more informed by strategies um i don't want to say alleviate but strategies to help people move through the struggle faster like do you go into it or do you help create systems for organizations and people you know i'm a culture guy i'm a psychologist. I try and stay in my lane, I suppose. So my answer to that question is, the most important thing to me is that we go through the scenarios play out, then we become a bunch of individuals. And we either become heroes and look at ourselves as some form of celebrity because we're successful, or alternatively, we splinter apart

and go and suffer alone. Either of those situations. And you've told me some inspiring stories about how the Seahawks dealt with the Super Bowl victory and then the Super Bowl loss the following year. And to me, that was a beautiful leadership from Coach Carroll into whatever it was that the team was experiencing. And really, yeah, the two ends of the spectrum,

we were going to do it together. Yeah, that is the idea. And it's easier said than done because when some people are not moving through the experience at the speed of others, it becomes challenging, you know, because we are all connected in the effort that we are signed up for. And we're connected in more ways than just the time card that gets punched and the time on the field and whatever. Like there's a deeper connection into when you share visions with each other and share struggles. And yeah, it's so easy to kind of move on from somebody. And it's much harder to stay connected through the healing process and there's a healing process that needs to come from winning too because that can alter people's

framework it's an imposter as so the famous poetry goes you know it's an imposter just like defeat this comes back to your original question really about my you know what frame i bring to it. To me, navigating these worlds is easy because our ancestors passed down a very powerful gift to us. And my own ancestors, the Maori people, have this spiritual idea called whakapapa, which is that each of us... What did you say? Fa-ka-pa-pa.

I'm joking, but it's spelt with a W. W-H-A-K-A-P-A-P-A. Yeah. Some people call it whakapapa, but I think it's properly whakapapa. You just like saying that. All right. Yeah, get into it. This is game changing.

When you first introduced this concept to me, there was a shift that happened for me. And so let's get into this. Okay. So this beautiful idea is that each of us are part of an unbreakable chain of people back to our very first ancestor. And we're literally, our arms are interlinked. But it's not only back to our first ancestor, we're part of this chain of people into the future to the end of time.

And the metaphor we sort of use is that the sun first shone on our Genesis story, our ancestors, the first version of this team, this nation, the school, whatever it is, our family. And the sun has slowly moved down this chain of people from our first ancestor just slowly moves down this chain of people. And when the sun moves off a person, that means their time has gone. But what is critical in our tribe is that they pass on to us our sense of identity our sense of purpose a vision of what we're trying to do together

and our values and rituals and traditions and that is why we are an unbreakable tribe and the sun keeps moving and whatever you achieve when the sun is shining on you that is your legacy that is the memory that people will hold of you and what you did and the sun keeps moving so right now my friend the sun is shining on you and i and our families the sun moved off my father but me and him our arms have this link which is unbreakable and the sun will move from me in due course as well and that's fine because i'm immortal because i'm part of this link which is unbreakable and the sun will move from me in due course as well and that's fine because i'm immortal because i'm part of this tribe which will never end and so what is critical is that this gives us an incredible sense of belonging you couldn't really have a stronger description of belonging but also that it's not all about me. It's about the people I'm part of and connected to.

And, you know, the New Zealand rugby team, the All Blacks, you know, since 1893 up to the present time, they have an 80% success rate. I think that's 13 decades. And that's unheralded. It's unheard of in sport. It's unheard of in sport. I think in rugby, the next highest percentage is something like around 60.

So it's 13 decades of sustained success. Wait, hold on. Before we get into it, I know you're going to link these two, you know, Waka Papa and Ancestry and Heritage and Linkage with the All Blacks and their success. But I just want to share, like when I hear you talk about the concept, and I can't tell if it's the way you talk about it, the place you come from, or the idea itself, and it's probably all interlinked together,

but I feel, I feel safe. I feel sad. I feel a little anxiousness. But more than anything, I feel grounded. And so the anxiousness is like, it's my maladaptive approach to the sun's going to set now, son, you know, right? It's going to set. But the other parts of being grounded and feeling safe and connected, do you feel it when you describe it? I feel it. When I talk about it in front of people, I literally feel the people before me and after me are standing beside me. And I'm including my great-grandchildren. I feel that they're there with me. It's just completely natural and authentic. I got exposed to the idea of whakapapa when I was 12. As I mentioned, you know, I felt robbed

or I felt my heritage had been stolen. So when I was 12, I wrote to the Maori tribe that we are affiliated to. And I wrote a letter as a 12 year old. And I wrote to them and said, basically, do you know who I am? My father's past. He was a member of your tribe. So I believe I am, but I don't know anything about it. And they wrote back to this 12 year old boy and they provided all this incredible detail around my ancestors and they told me you belong here and they included in this

envelope which i can still see now this one page and at the top of it was waka papa and it was written at the top, handwritten. And then under the word Waka Papa was 20 different names that ended with my father. And no description, no narrative. All it was was names. And the name at the very top of the list was Paikea. But Paikea was a mythical character i had been taught at school paikea was the son of the god in hawaiiki enuku who had been

taken out fishing by his illegitimate half-brother who then tried to kill him and paikea had dived off the fishing boat to save himself, called a whale, and that whale had taken him all the way down the Pacific Ocean to New Zealand, and that was our first ancestor to arrive on our shores. That's what I'd been taught at school. But this piece of paper was telling me that he was a person, and he was given the same amount of space as my father

and my grandmother. He was amount of space as my father and my grandmother he was just one line in my ancestry and so I got this unbelievable sense of being connected to something bigger than myself and I've been hungry for that for a very long time so that whole frame of this unbreakable chain of people that you're connected to it's got a lot of emotional potency for me as a person and I it's nothing intentional about it's just how I feel but you know I've worked with teams as diverse as the England football team South African cricket team I've worked with the four-star generals who command NATO and And by the end of, you know, the day one, they're using waka papa.

It's a universal idea I've come to understand. And the work the Seahawks have done culturally with the long body idea and as part of the background to that, that is another expression of it, that we are all interconnected and part of a single organism being and um that sense of deliver of belonging that delivers to the people is

awesome yeah okay so do you think long body is similar to waka papa yeah i think so yeah there's a little bit of a difference there are are differences for sure, but it's a similar idea. And I think what I have learned, you know, living overseas for so long and working in lots of different countries, is that my Maori culture has some beautiful, powerful ideas. A lot of them are actually universal. And so therefore you can be in different places and start articulating these ideas.

And someone will come up and say, you know what? We've got an idea which is similar. And so I think there's a universal heritage we all have. And people are hungry to learn more about it. You know, it is the idea of wisdom, right? Is that it's a universal accepted truth you know like that idea is kind of the essence of an any type of introspective self-discovery wisdom generating process is that you're trying to get to the universal timeless universal, timeless, and it's available.

It's like it's already within you. You just got to tap into it and find that language that archives or that is archival in nature to that timeless truth. And so first time I heard it, but it's the way that you describe it. And I hope that translates in the way that we're capturing it right now so i just want to put a note on that and then move over to like how did how what is the link that you found at um all blacks so the all blacks they use the language of fakapapa and they more importantly it is a backbone to their culture.

That's what players and coaches tell me. So they have this incredible idea that the team started in 1893. In 1905, the team were called the Originals. They were a particularly special team that the team resonate with. And what has happened is that the shirt has been passed down. All of those players and generations, what those teams achieved when the sun was shining on them is forever carved into the walls.

Some of the teams won World Cup. Some of the teams went overseas for months and months and were unbeaten. Some of the teams failed. Some of the teams broke down. Some of the teams' some of the teams broke down some of the teams selfishness crept in and took away the collective mission it's with just a group of human beings like all of us they're flawed they're not perfect but they have been able to sustain incredible success for a long period of time and the backbone of that team culture the way it's been described to me and what i've seen is this idea of fuckabye because

the shirt is more important than any individual the shirt must be passed down and with the shirt the stories and the values and the rituals and tradition and you wear it with pride and a sense of duty and then you pass it on to those who come after you and it is not all about you it's not all about how much money you can make and how much celebrity you can make for yourself it is always about the tribe it's always about the team so these ideas are not just spiritual ideas they are actually applied you know and that's a big motivation for writing the book because actually a lot of these really beautiful powerful ideas are applied in real life and we spoke about this at the start of this chat you know one of the things i'm proud of you doing this year is connecting your insights and wisdom to a much wider audience because

the circumstances in the world with the pandemic has required that but it is something that's always irked me having come from a very modest background is that why should only people in elite teams and having elite experiences be exposed to some of these incredible insights from neuroscience for example and some of the spiritual wisdom that our ancestors tried so hard to teach us this doesn't seem fair no uh reserved for the elite is not cool you know that's part of the my mission in life is to socialize like how can this is my purpose how to not how but my purpose is to help people live in the present moment more often and the reason that's important to me oh and is because that's where let's stay at the surface for a moment that's where high performance is expressed that's where, let's stay at the surface for a moment, that's where high performance is expressed. That's cool, that gets people's attention. But it's where wisdom is revealed, the three things or four things I just mentioned.

And to do that, we need to condition and train our mind. That's how I enter the conversation. Like, okay, you want to have an amazing life. Check the box on what that means. Wisdom-based, joy, happiness, sense of awe on a regular basis, or performing well. There's such a thing as a living masterpiece, not just a high-performing way of living. If you want that, you got to spend more time in the present moment and your brain and your mind, two different concepts, are not necessarily helping. Right? And so I think where we intersect is, you know, there's really clear research that 70 plus percent of all real change that happens in small rooms, let's call it psychotherapy based stuff, 70 plus percent happen based on the rapport between the two people. And then when you extend that out, the number still holds true. 70 plus percent of change in competitive environments and performative environments is directly linked to culture and environment. And so I know you're familiar with that. So can you pull on that thread just a little bit and unpack your insight and understanding of why

culture and environment matter so much. And I think what you're going to say, but wave me off, I think what you're going to say is because, yeah, when you belong, you feel seen, you feel understood, you're part of something bigger, anxiety goes down. When anxiety goes down, you're more available to the present moment. That's where I think you're going to take us. But wave me off, sharpen the stick a little bit. Where do you take this? You and I are on the same page on this. I have heard an insight that 70% of behavior is determined by whatever environment you happen to be in at any point in time. And that rings so true to me. You can have an outstanding performer in any field with an amazing mindset, wonderful, sharp mental skills, and you put them in an environment which is low trust,

high anxiety, chaotic, lack of clarity, people motivated by status, shuffling, those type of things going on, they're not going to be a world-class performer generally. They can't deliver their talent to the maximum in that type of environment. We're all like that. You know, as a parent, you know perfectly well perfectly well you know i've seen your beautiful family if you come in the morning in the room in the morning and you've got that big beautiful smile of yours your energy is great and tell everyone you love them and we're going to have a great day today what do you want to do you know they just rise up they just flourish in that if you come into the room though and at the end of the day in a bad mood you're not talking your body language is horrendous you're straight to the

fridge grab a beer go and sit by yourself put your headphones on you know you you create anxiety you you create a massive hormonal shift in them so there's no different when we get teams together it's exactly the same principle is that whatever the way we curate our environment is creating a hormone soup. And the more clear we are on what hormone soup is going to taste the best for us, then better, you know, we're going to do. And I think that is possibly the next big phase that we might see around, you know, high performance culture is that a real awareness that ultimately there is a

balance in the hormones that we need to be experiencing to, to thrive. And that really should be incredibly informative to leaders, how they turn up, what they say and how they go about their job. And the old days of fear and thunder and those, just understand. If you want to coach like that or lead like that, just understand a little bit more about the impact that has on people. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth.

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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. You can get people to sit upright with a pointed stick, you know, or a whip, if you will. You can get people with a loud voice to change their physiology. And what you end up getting is adrenaline and cortisol. Yep. And those are taxing. They're purposeful and they're fleeting. When you get,

if you sustain both of those, you get fatigue. And if you get fatigue, chronic fatigue, let's call it, we're going to see nicks in the body, chinks in the armor, if you will. And that fatigue turns into small injuries, turns into bigger injuries, turns into people naturally unlocking their arms to save their ass, because they don't feel as though the linking,

to use the Waka papa phrase is true when people you you see this as as well as i do when people feel a sense of belonging they lock into the task they lock into their role they lock into the people around them they've got this sort of purity which allows them to live in the moment and to read and when people don't feel belonging and when they feel anxious and as you say when there's adrenaline pumping around the system they become very distracted they're very concerned with the micro signaling of the people around them particularly the leader but also other people they start leaking energy they shut down a bit because they want to stay in the shadows

so that they might not be exposed. They know they prevent vulnerability. They do not want to be someone who puts their hand up and says, I didn't understand exactly what you just described there, what you want me to do. They lose opportunities to learn and develop. And the reason they do that is in self-preservation mode is that they don't feel the trust, the belonging

in order to be vulnerable. So again, you can coach an individual around these states, but the environment is going to have a massive effect on them. So from a performance point of view, you would have to be crazy to feel that belonging isn't relevant, isn't an essential condition to get the best out of people. What are some of the environments that you've been in where you've seen rite of passages or you've seen concrete practices to help people feel as though that they belong i think a common practice which is not where we want to go is people come into a new environment and i've experienced this myself you know i was a lawyer for many years and you come into a new environment and there is no moment of

belonging you know you are you go in you're in the induction is like a technical IT, HR type of a process. You feel anxious. You don't feel you belong because you just arrived there. No one is doing anything to cue belonging. No one is saying to you, thank you so much for coming and being part of this team. This is the reason you are here. You belong here.

We want you here and you're going to thrive here. Let me tell you about our tribe. This is the tribe you have just joined. These are the people that are your teammates. Let's create a space for you to meet them and listen to them, what they say we are doing and how we do it in this place. And I've had athletes tell me how they've gone into an environment to represent their country and that cue never comes. They go get their kit,

they kit it out, they go to training, they sit in on meetings, they eat and travel and then they go in a stadium in front of you know 80,000 people and millions and millions watching on television and they feel like an imposter an outsider because the the environment is so busy no one has actually created a space to put their arm around them and say we're so happy to have you here you belong here you've earned your right to be here and it's it's not much but it has a massive impact on people you know one of the people is good a guy who's a good friend of mine, he's probably the best in the world at his sport, and he said to me, within the first few hours going into a new team,

I know whether I belong or not. And that fundamentally, he can draw a direct line between that and his performances. And he says, it's not even words. I just know on that first day whether this is a place where I belong. So what are some best practices that you've seen? I get the concept, which is, it could be a small micro conversation from somebody that has massive impact, like, hey, welcome, you belong here. Thank you for committing to this

mission. And I want to tell you all about it. You know, it could be those kinds of purposeful, intense conversations, or it could be, um, something more formal. And I'm wondering, maybe it's something at all blacks you picked up on. Um, and I don't know your, I don't actually have a clear sense of if you know coaches, if you dug in and worked with the team. I know that you're connected in a lot of ways, but I don't actually understand the material way that you work with the All Blacks. So I don't want to harp on that. People get confused and the media have misrepresented that. I haven't worked with the All Blacks.

I definitely don't want it to come across as that I've worked with them and this is what they do so i know them i've worked with the coaches i know the friends of mine players um i was their lawyer when i was a lawyer for 12 years and i used to go into their environment i've never but i've not been a performance coach there so i definitely don't want to create any confusion around that but um there's a real spectrum when it comes to belonging and it's important to understand this is not something that you do and it is done it's something that has to be revisited every single day every single day we have our radar out don't we as to you know do I really belong here and even people have been in a team for a very long period of time they still have that question

that's rattling around in their head so the micro things that happen in a team environment are huge sometimes the way feedback is given can have a massive effect on whether you feel a sense of belonging if you're making mistakes for example one of the many things i love about coach carol is that when someone makes a mistake, even if it's repeated over a course of a number of games, his reference point is not, there's another guy I've got ready to come in and replace him, or his contract's expiring, we'll have to review that position. It is always around, around we love him he's a big part of who we are and he will get better every day and these lessons will become you know the glue that strengthens them and so in the micro environment in teams it's that type of framing is crucial for people having a sense of man am i going to get

sacked am i going to do it do they really value me sense of, man, am I going to get sacked? Am I going to do it? Do they really value me here? Or is this something that's going to end very quickly? So that's part of it. On the other end of the scale, I'll give you an example with the British Olympic team who I'm working with. Oh, the entire, the larger team, not just one specific sport team?

No, no. Okay. So I work with the chef de mission, the deputy chef de mission, who will manage the whole team of 400 in Tokyo. So I'm helping them create the best environment for those athletes to go and thrive in. So as an example, the Team GB, which the British Olympic team is called,

it's probably the most diverse team in Britain, I'd imagine. I think if you think of any category of identity and diversity, probably tick the box there with Team GB. But if you look at the history of the team, if you go back in time to 1896 to the start of it, it's Waka Papa, if you like. It was a very white team for many decades really, reflecting the makeup of the country actually at the time. And in some ways there's still perceptions around that.

So what that means is if you're someone who comes from a ethnic minority or religious minority or someone who isn't the dominant clique in the team then you may not feel that strong sense of belonging that others do and you might feel like an outsider and so one of the things we've done with team gb before we even get on the plane to tokyo is we went into the history of the team and we created this animated film which highlights various ancestors of the team, which cover the diversity of this team right from the start. So the first female Olympian was in 1900, and we present her to the guys today.

The first black athlete, 1920, Harry Edward. The first black female athlete 1968 Anita Nell the first Muslim athletes the first Sikh, Hindu the first gay athletes or certainly ones that spoke about it openly the first

single sex married couple who won gold medals in Rio so what we've done is when everyone joins the team, immediately they will see that this is our identity story. This is a tribe you've formed, you've joined. And this is the diversity that we absolutely love and celebrate. And, you know, what someone once said to me, that part of the work that I do is like setting up a Christmas tree for teams and allowing each individual to go and decorate it in their own way. And I actually think that's quite a cool way of thinking about it, is that we have an identity.

All of us are part of it. And we want to create space for people to attach personal meaning to it. So the more inclusive we are about who we are and where we came from, the more opportunity people will feel that strong sense and not feel like they don't belong. And so that's on a bigger scale, the type of things we can do. But ultimately, whatever we do on that scale has to be mirrored in the interactions

in the environment every single day. Who's responsible to be the beacon of belonging? Is it the leader? Is it the best player? Is it management? Is it ownership? Is it the rookie? Who's responsible? Who holds that torch? Because what happens in most environments is the best athlete decides. And if thoughtful cultures, the coaches can help establish that it's not about talent. It's not about the biggest extrovert or the largest human in the room. It's actually about the one that stands for us in any environment. And here's who we are, right? Let's, let's agree on these, these principles as we shape our identity. And sometimes I'd like to hear your thoughts on this, sometimes identity and values can change over time. I'd like to hear yourkeeper to all of this. Actually, a lot of my work now,

I don't know whether it's similar with you, Mike, is I do a lot of work with senior players and captains now because actually they are the ones who have an incredible influence on the performers, the athletes. And in fact, it can't stop there either because our peers have such a fundamental impact on our mindset and our outlook and our sense of belonging and our level of trust.

So whatever the leader is saying in terms of the organization and the coach and the captain, if it's not replicated down amongst peers, then it'll be significantly undermined. So someone can say you belong here this is a special tribe that you're part of but actually if you're hearing day-to-day things from the guys at your own level particularly if you're a rookie or whatever coming in that say actually this is not the type of place it is it's all bs then you are going to have back

into high anxiety mode aren't you so to, we all have to own this together. And it's not a matter of hierarchy. And it's certainly not a matter of formality. As I said before, I think it's really critical, the day-to-day interactions of this. If something goes wrong, how do we culturally respond to that? Is our instinct to get rid of people? Is that our instinct you know it's

all very well to welcome someone into an environment and say this is a place where you belong we are very proud we have a really cool tribe that you've joined and you've just noticed that in the last six seasons i've sacked the coach five times and the best free agents have all left you know that you can't get around that That'll be a massive influence on how people feel about their own place in the team. So we've really got to be all in on this. And then how do you work with the high standards that come with elite performing organizations

that there is a cut, you know, there is a standard that you have to meet to be able to wear the shirt or be part of the team i've definitely come to learn that it has to be right through the organization so i actually do a lot of work with boards and owners i never used to when i started it was really working with a coach and principally but now I can see that if there is any ambiguity or contradiction or hypocrisy through an organization then it will affect ultimately the team and the players so the standards and the vision and trust all have to

start at the top and you know I'm a big fan of nfl and it does you know it's very interesting when you see teams under pressure this real diverse response to it isn't there sacking coaches mid-season um owners common public comments chief executive public comments quite incredible and then you've got other organizations where they just keep nice and calm, stay committed to each other, stay committed to the course, and then they will review what happened in due course. Everyone's anxiety levels are okay. And we keep moving forward and we keep thinking this could turn out okay. So if we kind of pull in this thread of leadership a little bit, can you link from an evolutionary standpoint how leadership works? Why it's important for us? Why is this a construct that we find ourselves in in most organizations?

I think our evolutionary story can tell us so much. And if we want to make a bit of time to listen to it so let's think about it the super strength of homo sapiens as far as i can tell is their ability to form these tightly bonded groups that fundamentally take care of each other and then compete you know compete with the environment, compete with predators, compete with other tribes. So that was our super strength from the start. When we moved, I think, three million years ago, whatever it was, from the forest into the grasslands,

you know, physiologically, we had no advantage at all. But we quickly learned that if we form these tight, strong bands of people around kin, but also wider than that, then we had a pretty good chance of surviving and of competing. And so for 99% of human history, we've been hunter-gatherers. So this is deeply wired into our psyche, isn't it? And into our biology. So our need to belong,

I think this is something that's just critically important is that for all of our history i would say including now if you are alone you won't survive your health will be seriously compromised for most of our history that would have been fatal and so that need to belong that survival instinct that we all have that was part of a band of people and the band had a leader so the leader's fundamental job was to take care of people that was their fundamental job that's why our groups of humans existed so when we think of it like that why is that not obvious to us today why do we feel that we can go in pursuit of outcomes and sacrifice people and damage people along the way it makes no

sense to me and i think i talk about this in my book i think that you know the industrial revolution did have a big impact on this because what happened was we went from very dynamic way of working as a team sort of more pastoral into these factories where we created these production lines of people where people really only had a task to perform and they did it in a linear way one after the other and then ultimately you had you know your tin of beans or whatever that you produced. And we started managing people. And so you manage the people and you manage the process. So if we don't get a tin of beans, we can look back and find out, you know what, that bit there wasn't done properly. So let's point a finger and maybe replace that person with someone who will do it properly.

And, you know, in baseball and in football, people still refer to the coach the leader as the manager and that is an overwhelming you know approach to being in charge of a group of people still is that we manage people we don't necessarily lead them but true leadership to me starts with the idea that we have come together and my first role is to make sure that we take care of everybody and we are in pursuit of a mission together no doubt about that for the well-being of our tribe but along the way we will take care of everyone and we don't damage people or sacrifice people on the way okay i love all of it and then if I push up against it where the road hits the rubber, the rubber hits the road is yes. And if you, there's an invisible handshake that we make in a high performance business and sport and whatnot that is different than family, that is different than tribe, you know? And so you don't fire your family members.

There are some behaviors that can get you, you know, like removed from the family, you know, like, but it's different. It's just different. So when you're in a team environment, that's a high performing, high standard, high pressure, high stress, outcome based required environment. And you're saying, right, to do that best, we should double down on relationships, we should double down on belonging, we should have a sense of identity and clarity of purpose, clear ways that we work with each other, how we communicate, what we say and what we don't say. And when somebody drops the ball too many times, it hurts the collective, right? So they're not, for whatever reasons,

they don't have the skill. They are not taking their skill development seriously enough. They've got some trauma that they're managing in their family, whatever the reason, but they can't get it done. The invisible handshake is this love you as long as you perform. And if you don't perform, you gotta go. So I know I hinted at this earlier, like we're dancing around a little bit. That is the reality of high performing environment. So how do you help navigate that for folks that want to have a culture that is based on Waka Papa, that is based on belonging and with a shared vision? I don't see any tension between those ideas.

We talked about Waka Papa and we talked about the sun shining on us. And when we come into a specific team that is set up to pursue a specific purpose, we understand that it is conditional on performing and therefore the sun might not be on us for very long, or it might be on us for 12 years. We don't know time will tell what's important is that when the sun is on us is that we are full in we are part of this team we feel belonging and we can trust those people around us and that is the environment that is being created but we fully understand that we have been put together for a

purpose and if our performance isn't good enough, then our time will move on. So there's no contradiction there. I suppose what I'm really saying is that we do not have to damage people in that process. There are ways of moving people on. There are ways of replacing and upgrading talent, all of these things without damaging people. I think there's statistics around professional ballet

and gymnastics which are pretty terrifying. I've heard something like four times, people have been through those programs, four times more likely to have mental health issues. Now that's not right, is it? They may not have been good enough to stay on teams that's okay okay so that they therefore they weren't of that standard and they had to be moved on potentially from an olympic program and and come in and left ultimately doesn't have to be done in a way which damages their whole sense of self-esteem their whole sense of self-worth and it becomes crippling for the rest of their lives so that's what i'm talking about when i'm talking about leaders taking care of people i'm not saying okay you're

not performing very well but i don't want to hurt your feelings so you're staying and i won't drop you or or we'll give you a new contract i'm not talking about that talking about some basic humanity about how we treat people and that if they aren't good enough then that's okay and we'll do it in a way which actually makes this experience one which enhances their life and becomes a springboard to something rather than the end of it. It's abusive, period. And you have people in those positions that are hubristic, that come from hubris approaches that are about power and control, you're going to get a washout. The downstream damage is unbelievable.

I've seen it over and over again. It's scary. If I had a young daughter or son that was interested in one of those two sports, oh boy, it'd be a conflict. I don't have sports um oh boy it'd be a conflict i don't have that issue but it'd be a real conflict because i know the damage the carnage that comes from those environments doesn't mean all of them but like 90 of them yeah well i remember here's an example uh i remember going into an Olympic program of a particular sport, and we were invited in to give our opinions on how they were doing stuff.

And it all looked pretty impressive. Amazing facilities, very highly qualified people, incredible success that they'd enjoyed for quite a long time. At the end of the couple of days in this environment, I spoke to one of the the administrators who was involved in the sport. And I just said to them, have you got children? And this person said yeah and i said just a simple question really because something had been gnawing away at me about it does it would you be comfortable for your children to be part of this program

and they said no i said why and they said because people that come that go through this program leave with their self-esteem damaged no matter what success they achieve so that's what i'm talking about that's not necessary and that is abusive you're right so we can create environments where people aren't guaranteed places because we don't want to hurt feelings but we can manage it in a way where people's lives are enhanced by the experience that's good that's real good and then let's let's kind of think about the future for a minute

if people were able to live connected to the principles that you live by, what would the world be like? I'll use this, you know, like, what are you hoping for? What are you wishing for? What are you seeing? Because this is your life effort to working towards not your way, but a way that is aligned with core principles. And I'll give you a small example is that when I was, I think it was, it's been about 24, 25, I had, you know, I had three jobs trying to make ends meet right out of school and someone broke into my car and I don't know what I was thinking, but I had a really nice stereo in there. I invested my money into a stereo in my car.

And they stole all of my music. They popped the trunk. They took everything. And I remember not being pissed, but I remember this deep insight. I felt violated, you know, because it was this insight that led to this like, wait, you know what? The reason I feel violated is because if people lived aligned to the principle that I live by, which is, you know, don't steal. That's not your stuff. So I never thought that's a major thing for me, but I certainly have such high regard and respect for other people's stuff, I would never take it.

And it's not about the stuff, it's about they found value in it and it's not mine. So my insight as a 24-year-old kid was this, was, well, if we lived in a world that had some similarities in the way that I think, no one would ever have to lock their doors. They trust each other. Jeez. And so it hit me like, oh, look at that. Like not everyone has the same principles. No kidding, Mike. And there are people that are not trustworthy.

And there are people that come from great pain that will do incredibly damaging things to others, the most heinous of things, sex trafficking, human trafficking, like the worst of the worst of the worst. And I have great compassion for people that have gone through that. I don't say that lightly. So if we fast forward and think about your vision, what do you imagine? What do you hope for? What are some of the ideas that you'd want to share that could be? I think you and I have a similar mission. There are some incredible insights and some wonderful ancient wisdom that is wrapped up in some beautiful stories and spiritual ideas that we have stopped listening to. And that's actually what I want to do is to reintroduce people to those ancient ideas and to bring in as much insight from a scientific point of view as possible. I'll give you one crazy example. You look in politics around the world today, and there is this rise of a leadership style

which is about focusing on our differences with each other, sowing seeds of distrust amongst us, favouring cliques over others in very obvious ways. If you go to any high-performing leader in the world who has to actually go out and compete, they would say that is nothing but a recipe for complete failure. You imagine a coach of a diverse team trying to favour one clique, trying to emphasise to the team continuously about how different we are and how there is a hierarchy amongst us

and how you can't trust anyone other than people very similar to yourself. I mean, it'd be complete dysfunction. A team cannot compete, let alone progress in that way. Yet somehow it's at a national level that seemed to be where we're playing. So, you know, I don't think you have to look too hard, Mike. I think some of the wonderful things that happen in these high performing environments, if we can help replicate them and other teams and from,

from nations down to families, then that would be a pretty cool legacy. And, you know, that's something that's motivates me more and more as I get older and older. Oh, and how do you think about mastery? I think mastery, for me, has a light side and a dark side. On the light side, it's about growth. It's about getting a deep understanding and really sharpening your tools in an area. For me, it's really, really important that that benefits a tribe to me it's not an individualistic

thing so much as is how this will help others that's the culture i come from i think the other side though is that sometimes mastery people associate it with imposing themselves it's becomes synonymous with power and influence over people so i master others i master a situation and for me that's not the optimal environment when we feel we are trying to dominate. I think the great environments that I've certainly seen are ones where the growth, the mastery is enabled because people are given a freedom to express themselves, a freedom to be vulnerable, freedom to take risks and this rhythm they get into of continuous learning and not being judged.

Whilst if an environment is dominated by somebody that can have all the volume turned down and all those things, you know, it's a matter of tell. It's a matter of shaming if you don't do what you were told. It's a matter of not really belonging as we've spoken about it's a place where people aren't that comfortable being vulnerable and don't get an opportunity really to push themselves to the to their limits for fear of the consequence of what might happen actually in maori culture there's two very powerful ideas in this space one's tapu t- T-A-P-U, which sort of translates as sacred, prescribed, non-negotiable. And the other concept is noa, N-O-A, which is freedom to express. And for me, those environments certainly that I try and help create, are ones where there's a balance between tapu and noa.

There's a balance between what is sacred, which really become our boundaries. But within those boundaries, there is plenty of noa. There's plenty of opportunity for you to express yourself, go off and learn, be vulnerable, as I say, say take risks make mistakes and so for me mastery is massively influenced by your environment and again going back to our ancestors wisdom i think those ideas of tapu and noah which are millennia old what do you think i think they still work today don't they? I love both those words. Those concepts are, they're ancient. And, you know, to authentically express yourself and to be connected to the sacred, you know, the truth, the purity of that is, it's not a yin and yang. It's like a complete mixture of, and a blending, if you will, of principles that guide me on a regular basis. And so, yeah, I love them both. Yeah, fantastic.

I love this time I get to spend with you, Owen. You come from a place that's true and pure, evidenced by your pauses, evidenced by the precision of your language and the way that your heart, um, is infused with your thoughts and your mind. So, um, that's not lost on me. I greatly appreciate it. And where can people go get your book? You know, what's the right place to follow along with your work? And, and um what is your business model looking like if people want to um are able to engage with you you know for the reasons we've spoken about i felt compelled really to write belonging it comes out in may 2021 and it's available on amazon and no other sites you'd expect it to be.

It's also coming out as an audio book as well as digital and hardcover. So I'm excited about that. It's a big change for me because I've actually enjoyed operating in the shadows for my career as a performance coach. And I've done that because it probably suits my personality a bit. But also, you know, coaches tend to trust you more, I think, if they see that you're not driven by your ego. So a big part of this whole process was all the coaches I work with

and the people I've worked with in the past, I approached them and said to them, how do you feel about this? And do you want to be part of it? So it's important for me that I think there's about 20 stories that are told in Belonging from every corner of the the world and there are people that i've worked with and who wanted to stay connected and get the story out there so for that reason it feels like a continuous it doesn't feel like a big change to who i am and what i'm doing i want to you know continue to do

what you are doing and help people create the most amazing environments for people to thrive in. And there's no boundaries or borders around that, is there? So, yeah, next year, I'm really looking forward to a bit of a resumption of normality and certainly getting over on a plane to spend a bit of time with you. It's for sure. Ah, yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Good. Okay. So website, social media, what's the best way for people to connect with you

i'm really not a big social media user but i'm on linkedin and i'm on instagram and the publishers quirkus will have their website and everything set up yeah owen eastwood on linkedin right yeah all right awesome so i appreciate you and uh looking forward to the next time we get to connect um i wish you all the best dylan thanks mike all the best to you and love to your family and all the best of the seahawks all. 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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