Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Dr. Mike on Culture, Criticism, and Clear Communication | AMA Vol. 23

Episode Date: September 30, 2024

Ever wonder how top leaders shape organizational culture or how to turn criticism into fuel for success? You're in for a treat.Back once again is my friend and co-host, O’Neil Cespedes – these AMAs are some of our favorite episodes. Your questions are always insightful, and allow us to dig deeper into the core principles we discuss here every week.In today’s conversation, O’Neil and I explore:How to navigate the tension between staying grounded and pushing your limitsHow leaders define and grow an organization's cultureThe "forming, storming, norming, and performing" model in team buildingThe power of showing - not telling - when guiding young athletesTurning negative "noise" into positive actionHow to tell a loved one you need more spaceAnd so much more...Thank you once again for challenging us with great questions -- keep them coming in!_________________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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Love your process more. Lead and show what it feels like to love the unfolding. The simplest way to think about the format is input and output. Our job is to be connected to the inputs, to be masterful with the inputs. The outputs will take care of themselves. Welcome back, or welcome to another Ask Me Anything on Finding Mastery. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Gervais, by trade and training a high-performance psychologist. And the purpose behind these conversations, behind these AMAs,

is to hear from you, to explore the questions that you've been wrestling with on your path to becoming. Joining me once again is my friend and co-host, O'Neill Cespedes. And in today's conversation, we explore how to navigate the tension between staying grounded and pushing your limits, how leaders define and grow an organization's culture, the forming, storming, norming, and performing model in team building, the power of showing, not telling, when guiding young athletes, turning negative noise into positive action, how to tell a loved one you need more space, and so much more. And with that, let's jump right into volume 23 of Finding Mastery's

Ask Me Anything. Okay, O'Neill, this is a highlight for me to be able to do this with you. We're here, we're back, and I'm looking forward to rolling up my sleeves with you because I've said this before, and I'm not sure how exactly it played, but I'm kind of in one of those moods. So I just kind of want to get to it. Okay. Well, I mean, last time you were in those moods, we had a great show. So I welcome these moods. Please chin check me if it's a little too strong.

But, you know, there's just been a lot happening. Like what? If you don't want me asking. Okay. So we all have a lot of balls in the air, a lot of plates that are spinning. That's not the thing. It's when there's a lack of clarity that my default is to increase worry. It's all working. Everything's really good. I love the unknown, but when there's not clarity about how things are actually materially going, my default is really clear. Okay. I want to make sure,

because we might be on the same page here. What's your default? No, that's like an anxiousness. So I check and I check and I check. Like, okay, how's that going? How's that going? And wait, has that happened? So I get really busy internally when that happens.

It's a double-edged sword because that keeps me sharp. It keeps me on it. Like it helps me be on that edge. But at the same time, sometimes I'm just like, listen, there's no art. Let's get right to it. And so today I'm kind of in that mood. All right. Really fast, two things.

I relate to you somewhat on that. And I want to be, I want to speak gingerly when I say that, because as of late late last week i've been saying that to people when they tell me something that's going on with them and then i've been told oh you're making this about you you know i want to talk about my issue i don't need to tell you oh my where's kaisa uh to my left i i didn't say your name he did no because listen our partners are if we're fortunate enough to have a partner that's a truth teller yeah that in and they hold up a mirror and they can see you it's the greatest gift though yeah yeah i was sharing this yesterday we had a extraordinary guest she's been through it and she went after one of the largest industry companies industry that she's in she went after it she's a dragon slayer as well and her greatest weapon she's one person going against the titan

and she was on the on the podcast flat out her greatest weapon if you will to go fight the largest dragon in her industry one person against a complete industry titan as a as a corporation yeah and she won and so i have such regard and respect for when an individual works with honesty so those that can hold up the mirrors for themselves rad and those of us that really value other people holding up mirrors as well i don't know another way to get to honesty and so and cherish those folks yeah yeah i'm trying it's a painful thorn bush filled road it is yeah yeah that's exactly what it is and that that idea that like when if i say to you oh my good i just got it like i gotta talk i just got in a heavy car accident.

And then you go, oh, I feel you. I got in a car accident too. It was like three years ago. And boy, I should, have you seen my bumper? I still haven't. No, I just got in a car accident yesterday and I'm trying to connect with you. And you're telling me about, so that's when it's usually well-intended.

It's a tactic to relate, like, oh, I understand you, and here's my experience with it. But what I would want or that person would want in that moment is like, oh, what happened? How are you? Oh, I see that you're still kind of shaking from it. You know, like, is there anything I can do? That's what the person wants.

They want to be seen and understood and taken care of and know that they got a teammate that has their back. Yeah, I'm learning that. So are we all. So am I. Tough one. All right, let's get to the questions because I don't want to talk about my problems.

Me either. A little bit of insight to me and Dr. Mike. First question is from Noah. Thank you for these amazing Ask Me Anything episodes. I take away something from every single one. A question I'd love to get your thoughts on is, if you were brought on as a CEO of a new company, what questions would you ask the team to learn about

and get a sense of the culture? My experience is when you ask, how is the culture? You don't get a sense of the culture? My experience is when you ask, how is the culture? You don't get a great answer. Even if people love it, people have a hard time putting their finger on it or identifying it. P.S. Lauren Regula says, is one of my best friends and I love that you used her story in your book. Oh, okay. So this question came from a friend of Lauren Regula. Yes. And so we opened the book up with Lauren Regula, one of her deep insights. She's an Olympian and how she struggled with FOPO, fear of people's opinions, that almost held her back from going for her Olympic goals.

And so cool that she's friends with Lauren. Lauren's pretty remarkable. Okay. So CEO, if I'm a CEO, how do I get a sense of the culture? That's not a hard question. So culture is behavioral. And so culture is the artifact of the relationships that we have. consultant or you get the executive team together and they spend six hours, six days, whatever, distilling down the three words that describe culture. And then they take those words and they print them up and they put them on the hallway and they put them on letterhead and they put them on, you know, an executive brief and they share those words with everyone. And the words in the hallways are like, this is our culture. And then leadership gets a little pissed off and frustrated why everybody doesn't know the words. Okay. That's, that's 1980s. That's the old way of thinking

about culture. So culture is the artifact of the relationships that we hold. What does that mean? When we have relationships with each other, you can feel something. You can see behaviors. Just like what we were talking about 45 seconds ago, the culture, if I were to say that I got in a car crash and then you're kind of making it about you, use the easy narrative here, or tell me about yours, then the culture is like, oh, there's a one-upsman. There's a misguided attempt to take care of each other. So I'm just going to watch. So if I'm a CEO, I'm each other. So I'm just going to watch. So if I'm a CEO, I'm going to come in and I'm going to observe. I'm going to use this glow of about six weeks.

And my objective would be to downregulate so that people can feel like they can be themselves. Okay, let me actually open this thought up. We can change another person's physiology relatively easily. Okay. So if I give you a certain look, and this is not just you and me, this is like humans. If I give you a certain look and I crunch my frontalis muscles, the muscles between my eyebrows, and I put my chin down and move forward to you and roll my chest forward, and I make eye contact in a piercing way. So I'm creating some sort of intensity in the moment, right? Using my physiology. I haven't said anything yet. That can change another person's physiology relatively consistently. And if I open my eyes up and I give you a big, big smile, that can change another person's

physiology as well. So shifting physiology is a cheap trick. And depending on what you say, the speed of what you say, the tonation of it and the body language, that whole package can shift another person's physiology. If you go fast and intense and you got that kind of look I was talking about, people walk around and they think with tension. There's a purpose. There can be a purpose for that. And there's also a purpose to downregulate, to open it up. So if I'm a CEO coming in, the last thing that I would try to do is come in with intensity. I want to come in as a learner and I want to observe the real behaviors,

the real activity that's happening underneath the surface. So to get that to come forward, I need to open up the aperture so that I have exposure to the light, to the dark that's actually in the picture. And so that would be, I'd be on a learning tour for the first six weeks and I would look for what happens in hallways and I would watch. And you need a little bit of time because all of us can play a game and we can be really clever and smart and show up in the right way for a couple meetings. But then I'm looking for follow through. I'm looking for when people, are they walking the talk and talking the walk? I'm looking for when there's a disagreement, how does that happen? What happens post-disagreement? Do they know how to repair?

Do they know how to hold each other with high regard during that disagreement? Are they afraid of disagreement? So the classic transformational arc of forming, storming, norming, and performing, and that, Yalom did that research a long time ago. It really holds true. So there's organizations that they're either forming. Hi, my name is. That sounds like Eminem to you. That's funny that you said that.

That's the first fucking thing that popped up in my head. I had to see myself focus. You see that shit? You see it on my head. I had seen myself focus. You see that shit? You see it on my face? I saw that. Oh my God. I was like, whatever the problem. Yeah.

Can I say it as well? You're on a roll right now. You're in a zone right now. Okay, forming, who am I? The basic kind of welcoming of an organization. Storming is like, okay, we're going to get to it now. And so the storming phase is really rich with information because some teams and organizations get right into storming

and they do it great. And it's awesome. They know how to hold regard, hold the tension, keep the mission and purpose on point and take care of each other along the way. And they storm in the right ways because if I'm a stamp licker and you're sending the mail out, you need me to lick stamps faster, right? You need to make sure that they're weighed properly in the right number of stamps on that and you're going to deliver them on time. So there

should be some tension in between that. Okay, weird analogy. It still holds true. And then the second part of storming is that some organizations are afraid of storming. So I'm seeing, I want to watch and observe. Are they going to go storm? Will they do it in front of the quote unquote CEO? And then how do they storm once they're in it? And so that's a really rich petri dish of

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by. If you're ready to start building stronger relationships that actually convert, try LinkedIn Sales Navigator for free for 60 days at linkedin.com slash deal. That's linkedin.com slash deal for two full months for free. Term terms and conditions apply. Finding Mastery is brought to you by David Protein. I'm pretty intentional about what I eat, and the majority of my nutrition comes from whole foods. And when I'm traveling or in between meals, on a demanding day certainly, I need something quick that will support the way that I feel and think and perform. And that's why I've been leaning on David Protein bars. And so has the team here at Finding Mastery. In fact, our GM, Stuart, he loves them so much. I just want to kind of quickly put him on the spot. Stuart, I know you're listening. I think

you might be the reason that we're running out of these bars so quickly. They're incredible, Mike. I love them. One a day, one a day. What do you mean one a day? There's way more than that happening here. Don't tell. Okay. All right. Look, they're incredibly simple. They're effective. 28 grams of protein, just 150 calories and zero grams of sugar. It's rare to find something that fits so conveniently into a performance-based lifestyle and actually taste good. Dr. Peter Atiyah, someone who's been on the show, it's a great episode by the way, is also their chief science officer. So I know they've done their due diligence in that category. My favorite flavor

right now is the chocolate chip cookie dough. And a few of our teammates here at Finding Mastery have been loving the fudge brownie and peanut butter. I know Stuart, you're still listening here. So getting enough protein matters. And that can't be understated, not just for 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 then once you get through storming, and I'll open that aperture up one more layer. Once you get through storming, then you get to what we call norming.

This is how we do things. And that's the placeholder for culture. This is how we do things here. But it's not honest unless you get through a storming phase. I don't know if you have my back unless we go into a heavy situation. You can say you have it all you want. But it's not until we go through something together that I know, oh, I know how he shows up. Cool. I'm going to bet on that again. And then I try

it out again. And you show up in that way that is supportive and encouraging and challenging. And there's a bit of an edge to it. And I'm like, okay, I get it. Cool. All right. I'll do that again. And so eventually over time, that's how we do things here. There's a whole host of things that you can do to increase culture, but it comes alive during storming. And so you want to front load all of the activity prior to storming. Now I'm into the application of building culture rather than the observation of it. But there's a whole host of things that at Finding Mastery and the companies we work with to front load the storing process so that we can do it world class. And then that establishes the norms.

That's how we do things here. And then each time a new person comes in, we have to kind of bring them through that cultural gauntlet so that trust is established, clarity of how things are done, are observable and readied, and then you get into performing and potentially high performing. So I would shorthand, I am going to observe.

I'm going to open the aperture. I'm going to downregulate the intensity. I'm not going to ask anybody about what the culture is. Okay. So I want to make sure I followed you correctly here. Just be quiet and the cultural will reveal itself to you eventually. And especially through a rocky time or a difficult time. That's what you're saying.

Yeah. say yeah and if you're if people are really too if there's a timidness to storm and you've given it some time to hopefully you know for the storming to emerge yeah then you might tighten the aperture and increase some intensity to see how it goes ah okay right and so this is not manipulation this is like i need to run an experiment to understand how people work here. Like, I really need to do it. If I'm a first-person driver and we're driving really fast, it's sometimes hard to get the full landscape of what's happening and where the corners are and where I need to adjust my speed for the upcoming corner, I guess.

But if I can take some breaths and I can float up and I can have more of a meta view, more of a helicopter view, then the intensity down regulates and I can almost drop my shoulders and see what's happening. Now I have the ability to not be so sucked into the thing that I'm floating up. And this is all psychological, right? I'm floating up to get the picture of what's happening. If you and I are arguing and we're in the argument, my older self, like when I was a teenager, I'd be in it and I'm trying to defend myself or I'm trying to win. And that's so terrible, right?

Because now you're trying to defend yourself and we're doing this thing. It's like we're first person drivers. So as I've spent time in my life, what I'm trying to do is be able to be in it, not have a lack of intimacy, but also take my moments and breaths to come and observe what's happening. Like to look at myself, to look at you, to get the whole thing. And if I can float all the way up, like we are two idiots right now, you know,

like trying to do something that we're taking ourselves so seriously, like calm down, there's like 9 billion people. This plant is radical, miraculous plant. It's been around a long time. Like, what are are we doing why are we arguing about the color of something so so anyways that the idea that i'm trying to articulate here is that i want to be able to observe as opposed to be sucked into it and that that i'm not i'm saying that's not manipulative. That is using a different lens to be able to understand what the culture actually is rather than what the words on the wall say it should be.

So I just have one question. So culture will almost always reveal itself, right? There's almost little to never a time when you have to apply pressure, so to speak, to get it to reveal itself to you, right? Well, I was using the new CEO role that maybe the uniqueness of the culture is that their truth tellers, fire breathers, dragon slayers, and it's on. And you're going to feel it. Awesome. That is so good. Some cultures might be afraid to get into it because they've had it blow up in their face. They've been on a team where there was jerks and the storming was like

hostile. And so that would be the point where if I'm like not feeling where tension is, and it feels like two people or four people are having a conversation, but they're not really getting to the thing and they're more concerned about being nice rather than nice and mission-driven, nice and kind with purpose, then that's where I might purposely want to create some sort of heat in that moment to see, do they get to the essence of the conversation or are they staying on the niceties? So that's where there could be a leverage. Gotcha.

All right, Noah, there's your answer right there. Just chill, relax. I like how you said, we're moving on now. I appreciate that. You told me to told me keep it rolling and there's some juicy questions in here okay good i'm selfish there's some questions i want to hear you give the answer to because i'm really curious about a couple of them uh this next one is from alex how would you approach a teenage boy who you think has a performance-based

identity he gets jealous when others do better than him. He is so concerned with statistics and what is said on social media. I tried guiding him to focus on the enjoyment of the process and be present, but I don't think that is working. I'm having a hard time with the question because in the teenage years, we don't have our identity locked up. That's the time to explore. So identity formation happens up until our 20s, maybe even longer. But Eric Erickson's classic developmental stages theory is pointing to the 14, 15 up into the 21-year age, somewhere in that range. I don't know if I have the numbers exactly right in my head right now. Somebody please reference that. But in that identity formation versus role confusion, during that phase, what we are supposed to be doing, according to Erickson's

theory, is figuring out who we are. And that, I don't know, know for me it took a bit longer than that so i was delayed on this arc so i would like the person asking the question the first first part of that i'm struck with is like the identity this teenager doesn't have their identity baked yet so i could be totally wrong of course i don't know the person asking the question or the person that they know better than we do. But I'd say, listen, just smile a little bit more. Love your process more. Lead and show what it feels like to love the unfolding, to love the process of learning as opposed to performance to take place. So our young people are learning. From whom? From the ones that they trust, the ones that other people are trusting. Sometimes it's our parents.

Sometimes it's our, you know, who's ever on the cover of a magazine or who's ever in a video. So they're learning. And if you have the really important role, model, position with a young person, it's on you not to ask the questions, but it's more on you to live the life that is so aspirational and inspiring to another person

that they're asking you the questions. That judo, you know, judo throw type of thing. It's like, how did that happen? Like, oh my God, all that leverage and all that power. Of course you know that. But when you can do that, when they're, when they, so I think leadership is the inner light is so bright that people are naturally attracted. And there's a thousand definitions of leadership.

So that one's kind of cute for me but the inner light is so bright that people are naturally attracted to it so it's like a moth you know or like a something to a flame and when you get that thing dialed in that way and you get the young people to look at you and they're asking you questions about it um the whole thing is different so i would start there this question is really really intriguing to me because with having a teenage daughter to play soccer and is a recruit loving sports the way that i do and watching especially especially high school and collegiate sports i mean i was watching the um the women's elite eight yeah and watching caitlin yeah a basketball watching caitlin clark do what she did recently and one of the biggest things

that i saw on social media was how every single person was cooking i'm talking about going in and cooking hayley van lith who was the the girl that was guarding her know? And there's nothing she could do. Every shot Kaylin hit, I was just looking at the comments and just people were commenting. And I was thinking to myself like, man, to be a young person in this day and age with social media, you can't help but to, and listen, I'm older. And when I talk to my daughter and talk to young people,

I'm like, stay off social media. Don't pay attention to the, you know, log off. Get off my lawn. Yeah, get off my lawn, get off my lawn. I don't care about no damn phones. CDs. I walked uphill.

Both ways. Both ways, what you talking about? It's social media. Do you feel that old man on the porch thing? 100%, 100%. I'm trying to. How about when you hear your, sometimes I hear my dad in percent. A hundred percent. I'm trying to. How about when you hear your, sometimes I hear my dad in the way that I parent.

I'm like, wow. Like. Yeah. It's inevitable. I know. Yeah. It's wild.

So Mike, it's inevitable that you will wear dress socks and sneakers and some jogging pants. It's inevitable. That's a sign that you're old. Loafers and socks and and and like sweatpants tight pants tight pants that's a that's a weird phase like those you know that that i'm thinking about my grandfather who um world two generation epic generation hard shoes socks and like kind of dress slacks yeah while mowing the lawn while i'm just doing this gardening

you're like how the fuck they do this what is happening what is happening and they look older back then too yeah so the sweats is your jam sweats yeah and dress dress socks and you know sneakers that's i'm getting older yeah but i try to hold space i've just learned that word by the way you know that's trying to hold space I'm trying to hold space for young people because social media is, like, when I read this question and, you know, Alex is asking how do I get around this, if I'm putting myself in his kid's position or whoever, yeah, his kid's position or a teenage boy's position or whoever, like, my daughter's position, how do I not, after the game, go look at social media? How do I not go see what people, if I got cooked something happened yeah well you need your leaders to help create the space when I was growing up I I grew up in a place called burnout Beach and it earned that name because not a lot of people got out of burnout Beach drugs wereugs were real. It was a surf

culture thing. And I had rich addiction in my family. So I needed an excuse not to get high. And if I didn't have an excuse built in or a way that I, a mechanism, I was so terrified if I picked up a pipe or, you know, rolled something together rolled something together that I knew what the fast track to my family looked like. Alcohol and drugs were like my uncle. I don't even want to go there, tragically. Yeah, let me bring him forward. My uncle, my favorite uncle, committed suicide. And so my other uncle died really young. And so I don't know the deaths that you've had from your family members,

but I had radical deaths from drugs. And I saw it all the time. So I needed an excuse, because I knew that those things were like candy. And so what I'm pointing to here is when our coaches create an excuse or they create space for what the standard of excellence is, that it gives some kids an excuse. So all I needed was one adult to be like, you're going to feel the wrath if you pick up a pipe. You're going to feel the wrath.

And so it gave me a way out, which is like, listen, you guys do whatever you want to do. I'm not going home. I can't go. Like, I can't go home. So that type of intensity worked for my family. And so if we can get coaches to hold space and now I'm going to go way less dramatic. Be like, look, put your phones away.

There are no phones in the locker room. There are no phones on the bus. Now, once you get off the bus, once we are not part of the team environment, no problems. Do whatever you want to do. But when we're together, so my son's coach does this for them when they travel for tournaments. No phones in the gym, no phones on the bus. Guess what? They love it.

They kind of hem and haw a little bit because you know it's it is an addiction in many forms and it's a form of communication but it's communicating with people outside of the team and it's checking to see if i'm okay and it's checking in with other people to see how they're doing so she's like no we're we're a team we're taking it away it's rad they love it so we need our adults um for our children to create the right boundaries and hold the standard. If not, we are going to pick up the pipe. And one of the modern pipes right now is scrolling and checking and getting that dopamine hit as cheaply as it can come. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentous. 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.

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What would you, how would you, if you had a child that was getting highly recruited and after the games, after everything, they're in their, after everything has transpired, they're in their bedroom and they're checking social media to see how people are responding, what people are saying to their performance and whatnot. And I could be wrong here, but from what I've heard, you know, colleges check your social media now, which is crazy to me, but they check your social media. You know, nil deals are linked to that how do you how do you comfort them or convince them that hey even though you had a bad showing this that and other you you can't let these outside opinions these people on the other side of their phones these evil people in the phones that are trolling you, you can't let that mentally get to you or affect you

because you have 10 other performances that are on the schedule. How do you, yeah. Yeah, it's a tricky one, right? The simplest way to think about the format is input and output. So our job is to be connected to the inputs and help our young people and the people

that we are teammates to, to be connected to the inputs and help our young people and the people that we are teammates to, to be great with, or we're leading to be masterful with the inputs. The outputs will take care of themselves. And so the, what people are saying about what just happened in your life or what will happen later, that's all output. And so signal to noise ratio is another framing. So let's stay with the input output to help your daughter or somebody just understand the difference between the two and then you are

constantly hydrating the inputs the controllables and helping her master the inputs first and foremost like make it so academic that you just get a piece of paper out and you write down all the things that are 100% under her control and do that exercise. It is, it sounds so simple and you know, you might get an eye roll about it. And, and then, so you build just the basic categories of the things that are 100% in your control. Thoughts will come up. Okay. Thoughts will be one of those categories. And then underneath that, if you wanted to double click,

you'd say, what are the types of thoughts that work for you? What are the types of thinking patterns that support you to be your very best? What does that sound like in your head? And you get her to write those out. And then you can have a discussion about those. And then you can put,

another category is where I place my attention. So we want to help her master how she speaks to herself and where she places her attention. And then, now you're going to open up a second, you're going to open up this conversation we're talking about. Where does she find challenge in where she's putting her attention? Is it, you bring up somewhere about social media, like I see that you're putting a

lot of attention to that. How is that helping column one? A third column will be behaviors or actions. Behaviors and actions are 100% under a person's control. And so what are the right actions? What are the right behaviors? What are the right thoughts? And I do right in quotes, meaning that I'm not talking about critical or judgmental when I use that word. I'm not being critical or judgmental when I do the word right. There's the tone from the Zen traditions in Buddhism about right thoughts and right actions, meaning the thoughts and actions that line up for you to be your very best, to be in service of something else, something greater than you. So if you can do what I just said and make it super academic, have a conversation about it, that would be a bit of a foundational thing that you can fall back on later when she wants to pull out her phone and you say, hey, we're on the bus.

We already talked about this, you know, because you've created some boundaries or some agreements with her about, well, where's the right time and the right place to check your phone. And then, so that's input and output. Okay. Noise signal to noise is a secondary piece here. So the signal is about the inputs and the noise are the outputs. So Super Bowl, when we're heading to our first Super Bowl at the Seattle Seahawks, we had not, we didn't have, did we have one player? I don't think we had one player on the team that experienced the Super Bowl. We definitely had one coach, Kenny Norton Jr., who had won it a few times, but we were

green. The team was green to the Super Bowl experience. And the team was young. I don't know if you remember the Legion of Boom. Yeah, like, right. So the team was young and it was, it was a pack of hyenas. It was awesome. Every part of it, like it was one, one of the athletes had a shirt that he would just walk into the, into the locker room all the time or to the team meeting room. And the broadcasters were like, ah, you know, experience pays dividends in these quote unquote big moments. They didn't do quote unquote, but that's what they were talking about. Experience and like, you know, sometimes you just got to have to know what it's like to fight through and when it gets hard and will these young guys have what it takes to, and we use that for our advantage. Masters, best in the world, they use everything to move themselves or their teammates forward

on the purpose that they're in. They use all of the resources they have internally, and they use their external environment, and they gather those two pieces of fabric together and they stitch it to be in pursuit of the performance or the purpose or the mission at hand. So substandard to that is, man, y'all hear what such and such has to say about whatever? Man, what do you think? And they're concerned or they're worried about it. So they've got sucked into the external noise that is not controllable, that is creating some doubt or some trepidation or something inside. Or they use it and they're like, they use anger. Like, man, bang, bang, bang, bang, that person.

And they use it as an anger and a fuel. So I'm not suggesting that that is a better alternative. That is responding to an external stimulus in a more favorable way, but it is less sustainable. Anger is less sustainable. Okay. But it's better than doubt and fear. So if you had a continuum between going into a moment, a match, a fight, a competitive competitive moment and you had three options scared anxious nervous angry pissed off intense aggressive you know like that that type of energy or in the middle

poised flow state yeah you want you want that grounded yeah now if you can't find it because it feels elusive and you just can't quite get your mind and body to settle in in a grounded way in this present moment which one would you rather have i'm gonna fucking bring it or i don't know which one would you rather uh well bring it yeah right all day but poise is the ideal right and so if you're if if the less than ideal is presenting as the only option, okay? Scared or angry. Most athletes I would encourage to move to anger. The problem with that tactic is that anger is really destructive. And anxiety is not destructive to self or others. It's just not performative. It's not facilitating. So this is playing with fire here, right? Yeah. Yeah. This is is playing with fire here right yeah yeah this is really playing

with fire and this this challenges every part of my spiritual framing to go into a situation angry because you're actually scared because you can't find a way to be honest and poised to just be you in the present moment i'm not sure how i got here no i i'm following everything you're saying so so correct me if i'm wrong following everything you're saying. So correct me if I'm wrong. So what you're saying is use it as data and use that data, right? That data is negative comments and whatnot as opposed to letting it activate extreme anger in you that can be destructive or extreme anxiety which is non-performative right use it don't take it personally and just use it as data to then grow or become more performative i mean yeah yeah i think i but the first framing is signal to noise

that's noise yes and so we would use it when the commentators were saying whatever about us, we would use it and spin it, right? But the way that we would spin it is we'd say, first, that's noise. Secondly, they don't know what's in the locker. They don't know. They're not in the building. They don't know. They don't know. How can they know? They're entertainers. They're trying to create stress and tension, and they're trying to bring eyeballs. And their job is to be a critic. And so we come right back to the strong, in this case, man in the arena. Let those cold, timid souls who know no victory or defeat.

That idea from the man in the arena, that speech is actually just a clip from a 1910 President Theodore Roosevelt's beautiful speech, man in the arena. But it is an artwork. That speech in of itself, it's multiple pages, is a piece of art that is worth referencing and checking. Notwithstanding here is that, so we would use the external environment

by constantly pointing that that is noise and the signal is what's happening in the building. And the most radical signal is what's happening inside of you. You know you. We've spent full year on self-discovering, knowing your philosophy, knowing your purpose, knowing the vision that you hold for yourself, knowing the vision we hold for the team, knowing the philosophy of the team, investing in your physical, technical, and psychological skills. We are ready. And you can watch and just kind of smile when you hear the external noise. They don't know. How could they know?

They've never met you. They haven't had dinner with you. They've never? They don't know. How could they know? They don't, they've never met you. They haven't had dinner with you. They've never been in your living room and they certainly haven't been in this clubhouse. How can they know? Well, yeah, maybe,

maybe they're commenting on past behaviors that haven't worked out, but that's their job. Love them up and ignore them. Yeah. You know, it's funny listening to you talk and I'm sure everyone gets a, a different feeling gets conjured up from person to person. But if I'm an athlete and there's some bad press about me on social media or whatever, listening to you say everything you just said right now for me personally makes me feel as though, well, damn, would I like to be in this position to get judged and at least i'm in

this position or would i not like to be in this position and be one of the people making comments and whatnot i'm taking that position being judged every day all day yeah so to be the artist yes yes it's still uh to have you'd rather have that as your canvas rather than being the sideline critic. Precisely. Yeah. Yeah. I think that it's really hard to convey everything we just said to a 15 year old or a 17 year old. Yeah.

Even a 24 year old. It's really hard to convey it. So we have to live it. And just like when they say, when any, like, if your daughter is observing how you're responding to other people's comments, and you're like, man, you hear that? Or the constant conversation with you and loved ones are about what other people are saying or doing, then she's going to be like, oh, yeah. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah. Me too. Like, yeah, this is not just for you, it's for me.

They have big doe eyes and they are watching more than we think. And they are watching what is acceptable, what's not acceptable, what is consistent and what's inconsistent. They're learning. And so you still have a radical influence on your daughter's life.

And so lead the way from the inside out. Awesome. All right, Alex, I hope you got something out of that. I sure did, Alex. Thanks for asking that question, man. 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. And Cozy Earth has become a new part of that. Their bedding, it's incredibly soft, like next level soft. And what surprised me the most is how much it actually helps regulate temperature. I tend to run warm at night and these sheets have helped me sleep cooler and more consistently,

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I love my life and my wife and our two dogs. I am nearing the end of my career and looking to start my next path as a dive master. There are times I need quiet and time away from everyone. How do I broach it with my partner? Thank you. Andrew Higgins from Brighton, Canada. What do you think that means? How do I enjoy what?

Time alone. How do I... The way I read this is he's trying to figure out how do I break it to my loved ones, my wife that I need a little bit of space to do my thing. Grab the attention of your partner and then hold them by their forearms or their, you know, their triceps in an endearing way.

Make eye contact. So now you've set the stage. And say, woman, I'm going to do what I want to do. I'm just kidding. And I was going to say, hey, listen, I just need time alone. Yeah. You know, right. That's pretty brave.

None of those, neither of those are gonna work i mean you know like yeah i just need time alone i need time by myself i need time by myself i'm gonna go to the depths of the sea because that's what i need that's what i thought when i read this i was like damn you're going you're going pretty far to get some time alone playboy yeah you might have some other things going on i don't know yeah i i don't know how would you how would for real how would you respond all right without without the humor yeah um andrew this was just funny andrew that's all no no love you shout out to you i i mean i just i i think involve both of us i would say hey you know we're a unit and i love you and obviously we do everything together but

in order to be the best person that I can be for you. And in order for you to be the best person you can be for me, we do need to have the things that we love to do. We can't be around each other 24 seven, right? You know, I'm going to go dive at the bottom of the ocean. Maybe you take up knitting.

I don't know. Or attract run club. I don't know. Run clubs are popular. The most important thing is, my love, is that we have our things that define us

that we can go to and then we come back and then we can have a great conversation about it. You tell me about the run club you joined, I tell you about the Mariana Trench. That's a good reference. That's a good reference.

This is tricky because there's likely at whatever stage the relationship it is, there's some grooving that's already taken place. And so let's go small and big for a minute. So the small part of this is, let's say that in your relationship, you take out the trash. And let's say your partner organizes the refrigerator, cleans the refrigerator,

whatever. There's some chores or some activities that you've been doing for five years and she's been doing for five years. So there's this groove. And just because the groove has worked at one place or one time doesn't mean that it always has to be that way. And you might get tired. I might get tired of taking out the trash or she might be tired of doing the chore that she's doing. So, but making that change is hard, especially when it's bigger and it's going to take time. And so time away from the family. So there, there is a, an important navigation of it. And it's like changing career, wanting to change a religion, changing your hobby. Those are not all of equal intensity.

But there is something underneath the surface that is jarring for the other person. All that being said, is if you do it in the partnership way that you just said, I think you give yourself the best chance to keep growing. And you've made an agreement to be a good partner. And I'll tell you a funny story. My wife, you know, she's concerned about how I push edges. Like, rightfully so. Meaning?

Physically, emotionally. Like, you know, she's like, rightfully so. One of the things i really want to do is i want to get my pilot license not a big deal but to her it is i really want to do it and so grayson was just born our son was just born and um it was bad timing for me you know like she's totally in a nurturing stage and i'm quote unquote still in a hunting phase if you will and um so i come home and i think grayson was probably like two or three years old and i said hey listen this is the year it was the beginning of it was like a january and i said pilot license

this year she goes huh really it's like oh man did i miss the moment here she's just really and then she kind of just takes a few steps away and goes and sits down at the couch. And I was like, where is this going to go? And she says, okay, no problems. I just have one question for you. What do you want to be of the name of the man that raises your son? Wow. I was like, what the?

And she turns and she just grins and she's laughing. She goes, goes come on give me a little bit of time you know and you know how like that is not her dna or philosophy at all yeah so it was a fun moment that she kind of took the energy out of it meaning that she is not interested in in that that's not the motive but the idea that like if you die and you leave your son and I here, like, that's not cool. That was a fun way for her to get to it. And I, instead of being like, yeah, you know, you're taking away my autonomy and some point in my life what do you think right some point it's gonna happen and she goes yeah she goes why don't you wait until he's an adult for whatever reason she thinks that that is a very dangerous act to get a pilot to fly um driving is more dangerous as data would suggest did you hit her with that i did it doesn't work

it's a thing it's a it's another thing yeah so you know i bought my we we made an agreement on some time and and i'm cool with it she's cool with it and so probably when he goes to college you know is when i'll start doing my flying you know what's so funny about this this question is the first thing i thought about when i read it was like okay he's going through this new transition in his life and he's trying to reinvent himself in some way, shape or form. And I applied it to myself

and I probably would have reacted like you said, the wrong way. Like, I'm trying to do something with myself, I'm trying to become something, I'm trying to evolve and you stopped me from evolving. I'm trying to, you know. Because there's that fear that if I don't do this now i'll never do it and then if i never do it i may depending on my mood hold you responsible you know oh yeah i may be eating dinner and

looking at you i've been flying diving mariana trench now i'm eating peas and yeah right baby you know yeah so i'm running yeah Yeah. I didn't want to run. This is what you wanted. This is what you wanted. So I mean, so how do you reconcile? I mean, do you sit down with your partner

and say, hey, before we just connect, when I turn 57, I might want to dive at the bottom of the ocean. I don't want you, you know what I mean?

I want to have room and space to evolve. I don't want you to look at me like, oh, that's the same O'Neal. Just be you. I'm just so used to you doing what you do well that's is that fair yeah i mean i love how you bring this up because it really honors shared growth and the resentment bit is toxic as we both

recognize intellectually but so having a partner is if it's convenient for one person and inconvenient for the other all the time, it's not really a partnership. And so, yeah, I think it just honors, the conversation needs to honor the future arc and growth and dreaming together as opposed to, hey, I got this thing and it's not something that I want to do with you and I'm going to do it solo, whether you like it or not. That's not going to fly. And then I would also dig into why are we having to have a confrontational type of, and I'm going back to the question, why are we having to have this confrontation about it? What about the 15 steps ahead before that, that nurture the relationship for both people to grow? That's where this question has missed, let's call it 95% of the work. So the question is like, how do I get it over the line? Well, then the 95% of the work is having a relationship and a partnership where you're constantly bringing ideas forward and thinking about your, think about your retirement together.

Think about like what the golden years are thinking about all the future in a way that is so compelling and rich and understanding for the other person. Now, if the other person is like, so let's say that you and I are in a partnership and I know, I know what you really want to do. And, and I want to support you in those and you know what I want to do. And you, and I feel that you're going to support me in those that we run the risk of moving away from each other. But if we feel supported and connected, it will hold us together. I mean, if you're going to spend four hours, you know, three hours a day diving, making that up, 12 hours a week diving, and I'm going to spend 12 hours a week of running. Okay. That was our 12 hours to spend time together. So how is this going to work? It's a felt sense

that I can't wait for you to go explore. That's going to be awesome. My father-in-law shared this really nice insight when I got, it was the day of my wedding, our wedding. And he said, you know, relationships are like light logs and kindling to burn a hot, bright fire. And if the logs are too heavy, the fire smolders. It will never be what it could be. So have enough air in between each of the logs so that your fire together can burn brightly. That's awesome.

That is it. So how do you create that space to support the other person to do their thing to their best abilities? Another analogy that was shared by him as well is like, you know, life is kind of in life and relationships is kind of like this. You go out and you gather a bunch of sweets and candies for the day. You bring them back and put them in the jar. She goes out, gathers a bunch of fruits and vegetables and sweets or whatever, and puts

them in the jar. And at the end of the day, you're like, oh, look at that. Oh, that's an interesting one. Where'd you find that one? So we go out into the world. We collect whatever. He was using the analogy of a candy dish. And you bring the candy back and then you celebrate what the find is.

But that simplicity is just awesome. I think about that framing a lot as well, wanting to celebrate what my partner has experienced. I guess those conversations just need to be current and happening all the time rather than me just popping up out of nowhere and saying, Hey, I'm going to get a ticket to the moon. Yeah. And then why not also, I mean, maybe, maybe your partner doesn't like water and so it's an obvious thing, but like, Hey, you ever think about like, I've been thinking a lot about diving, you know, I'm so inspired by it.

Like you ever think diving for you too, like maybe it's something we could do together. And if the answer's obvious, then obviously you don't go there, but. Yeah. Just slide in there a little. Think about going to the moon. Man, listen, we could go on all day.

Cause these questions, I always find something going on in my life with these questions that something will be answered for me. So I'm selfish when I read these questions. Cause I'm like, okay, I can, you you know apply this to something that's happening with me and i appreciate it too because wrestling them down forces me it's a forcing function for some clarity you know it's it's a fun way to pull some research into it like yalom you know we mentioned the four phases of team development but and it forces me to wrestle with concepts as well.

And I hope it doesn't come off like, I got to button up, because that is not the case. No, no, when you're in these moods, I love when you're in these moods. I don't want to rap right now. I love when you're in these moods because you go. As a matter of fact, let's just grab some food after this and talk more.

Yeah, let's go. Sounds good. I appreciate you. I appreciate you more. Thank you let's go. Sounds good. I appreciate you. I appreciate you more. Thank you. Thank you. Did it have to be a competition? Did you just have to one-up me?

I did it again. God. Thank you for appreciating me. Being appreciated feels good. I love you more. 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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