Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Five Questions That Matter | Dr Mike Gervais AMA Vol.28

Episode Date: March 4, 2026

What questions are tugging at you right now, and how might exploring the answers help you live and perform with more clarity?We’re back with a special edition of the Finding Mastery podcast: another Ask Me Anything episode, built from the deep, thoughtful questions submitted by our community.In this AMA, Michael Gervais is joined by Jeff Byers, former NFL player, Co-Founder and CEO of Momentous, and longtime friend of Finding Mastery. Jeff has built something very special with Momentous, a supplement company grounded in transparency and integrity in an industry that can be full of noise and misinformation. He often says trust is earned, and he takes that responsibility personally.His relentless approach to mastery, both for himself and for the team he’s building at Momentous—makes him an ideal co-host to help Mike wrestle with questions across a wide range of topics… how to perform with more clarity, how to work skillfully with strong emotions, and how to build a life that feels aligned with what matters most.Key insights we explored:Shift from perfection to purpose… why “the constant pursuit of perfectionism” is a setup for burnout, and how purpose changes the whole frame.Downregulating the nervous system… practical ways to move from sympathetic “on” to parasympathetic “rest and digest,” including breath, gaze, laughter, touch, nature, and intentionally induced recovery.Anger and emotional skill… how to feel anger without outward harm or inward collapse, and why the goal is to build the capacity to be “unbothered.”Loneliness and connection… why loneliness can surge when you leave familiar people and routines, and how “time-boxing” the feeling can help you train it instead of letting it bleed through the entire day.Reflection when life is full… how to build a sustainable rhythm for inner work, from 90-second practices to scheduled retreats, and why scheduling and celebration matter. If you find yourself wrestling with perfectionism, emotional spillover, loneliness, or a life that won’t slow down, this AMA is a strong reminder that mastery is trained—one choice, one practice, one reset at a time.__________________________________Links & ResourcesSubscribe to our Youtube Channel for more conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and wellbeing: 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: findingmastery.com/morningmindset Follow on YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and XSee 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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What questions are tugging at you right now? And how might exploring the answers to those questions help unlock your potential? The questions that have come from our community, they're also real. Welcome back. We're welcome to a special episode of the Finding Mastery podcast. I am your host, Dr. Michael Jerva.

A high-performance psychologist named Michael Jerva. Who Pete Carroll brought into work with the Cesarbe. Seahawks. Famous for his work with Felix Baumgartner when he jumped out of space in the Stratos project. Olympic athletes depend on something more than just training and talent. They have to stay mentally tough. And this week, we're turning the microphone around again. And instead of diving into Master's Through the minds of our remarkable guests,

we are going straight to you for another Ask Me Anything episode. I'm looking for different ways to experience anger without an outward harmful expression of it. Can you explain the default mode network? In the constant pursuit of perfectionism, how do you... Stop there, that's it. You have once again submitted really deep and thoughtful and sometimes vulnerable questions about life and performance and relationships and how to navigate the complexities of our human experience.

Now, in this episode, we have the help of former NFL player, co-founder and CEO of Momentus, and of course the friend of Finding Mastery, Jeff Byers. All offer insights and perspectives designed to help us, all think a little differently to hopefully live a little better. Our brain's dictum is survival. Yeah. Loneliness is fine.

It's normal. Moments of feeling loneliness. But when it's enduring, so much so that it is on the rise as an epidemic. Death by despair is a real thing. I read loneliness and I was like, oh man, I do feel lonely sometimes. As you listen, I hope that you'll pay attention to the questions that resonate most strongly with you. We all know the answer that perfectionism doesn't exist. This brings up a lot for me.

I don't know if I've ever said this publicly, but in high school. So with that, let's jump into your questions, our reflections, and an exploration of what matters most right here on finding mastery. Jeff, this is awesome that we get to do this. And it's been a long time that we've known each other.

We've had a lot of similar friends for a long time. You played at a high level football. I got to be able to be part of it as a sport psychologist. So this is a treat. And it's also a treat because of the business that you built, momentous. And you know, you and your partner built something that is real.

You're real. The business is real. Our experiences have been real. And the questions that have come from our community, they're also real. So how are you doing? I'm doing awesome. And I'm really honored to be back here with you.

And I'm also like reading these questions out loud and doing all that is, is going to be really interesting. It brings back a memory of mine. I had an offensive line coach when I played for the Panthers named John Masco, and he would have everybody read openly in front of the O line, like, hey, here's how this play is supposed to be run and just like reading in front of public. And it's been a long time since I've actually like read words that were written word for word because I'm like you. I'm pretty dynamic in talk. You're an orator. Yeah. Yeah. So good. There'll be a little performance evaluation happening

internally for you. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. And I just looked at some of these questions, over last night and wow like our community is on it. I saw that you just looked at them for the first time now like your first pass of these questions. Yeah, they are real. I'm glad I'm not sitting in your seat on this one. Well, I don't have your background, but also just like we all face real issues, challenges and what lives between our ears is complicated and it's different but similar for everybody. And like in a lot of these questions, I see bits and pieces of things that I have and we all do. And that's what so I'm like, I don't know how I'd even start to answer that question. It's like so, but oh man, I do, I do feel lonely sometimes. Yeah. And that's one of the

questions has come down. Like, how do you deal with loneliness? And so let's jump into it because this is not going to be a Mike only conversation. You're on the hook now too. Oh man, this is really exciting to be able to like be on the other side of this. All right. The first question is from Billy. In the constant pursuit of perfectionism and the expectation to feel 100% 24-7, how do you protect the central nervous system from sending misfires after being legitimately ill. I just got over the neurovirus after 72 hours, but the anxiety that it's left behind has stayed with me for weeks. How do you promote physical resilience so that I can perform at work and at home and calm this amped up nervous system? Oh, man. That's a lot. Billy, smart question. A couple of key

things that I heard in there is he's looking for some solutions for resilience. It's got a switched on nervous system that feels like it's kind of on a high alert. But the most important thing I heard there. And it probably starts here is, it was the first sentence, his drive for perfection. The expectation to feel 100% 24-7. Yeah, you heard the same thing. I heard that's where I'm automatically went. So what that means to me, and I want to hear what it means to you, is that the framing of his situation is pushed through, kind of call it, the channel of needing to be perfect. So if the framing is to be perfect, you're already on shaky ground. You're already in a situation where you cannot win.

Why do I say that? We all know the answer that perfectionism doesn't exist. The striving for something that doesn't exist is problematic if you just think about first principles and logic. So I start there and I say, okay, so if we're going to look for something

to calm the nervous system, let's work on reframing kind of how you're approaching life. Sounds so dramatic. And then you will become more resilient as the approach. But before I get into some thoughts and some tactics, maybe even some research to support it. What is your first pass at it? You've probably heard this line because we were around the same people

that you've got to learn to love to be uncomfortable, right? And that's something that I remind myself in all these situations in life because I find myself every day is a little different for me. And I've stopped trying to control the uncontrollables. And therefore, I never am like, I'm 100%. You know, like I'm perfect. I'm always learning. and that uncomfortness is what I found to love,

like the ambiguity and finding the joy in not feeling great and figuring out, how do I figure out what I love about this situation? It's finding the joy and purpose in it as a whole and just knowing, like, I think about purpose more than perfect, right? You just answered it. Like, you were given the clues to the answer, which is, and I just wrote them down, like,

instead of approaching perfection, you're looking for purpose. That was the kind of the last little. Well, hurrah. But right before that, you said, no, I'm approaching life to be a great learner. I'm approaching life to be uncomfortable because that's where learning and potential opens up. Yeah. So you're this whole thing about learning, growing, and the mechanism to be uncomfortable, driven by purpose. Yeah.

Okay. Those are separate but related. Purpose, according to research, has three main tenets to it. I'm going to hit those in a second. But the way that you're going after purpose is your self. saying, look, if I'm going to be honest about my commitment to purpose, then I need to stay at that uncomfortable edge because that's where real learning happens and that's where accelerated growth takes place. And so you have fundamentally committed to be lined up for accelerated growth

personally and probably in your business and in your relationships that is grounded in purpose. Does that sound like Jeff Byers? 100%. Yeah. So that is orthogonally different than I am driven to be perfect. And when you go back and read the first two sentences in the question. In the constant pursuit of perfectionism. Stop there. That's it. In the constant pursuit of perfectionism is where the fundamental flaw that is setting the

whole problem off, which is the expensive nervous system that's running and the lack of resilience. Okay. So if somebody were to model their life a little bit more like you, Jeff. Careful. But it is not surprising to me knowing you that you have cracked high performance in the sport that you first loved, football, both a high level of college, high level in the pros. And then you also did the same thing in business, purpose-based, with an accelerated commitment,

an honest commitment, sorry, to learning, being uncomfortable is where that happens to get to accelerated growth. I don't think actually we need to take any further. If you change the fundamental position, you're going to have the downstream resilience that you're looking for. Now, that being said, let me go back to purpose, the three tenets of purpose. And I want to start with a story. This brings up a lot for me is that I had a mentor. I needed a mentor in high school. I was a good kid. I was confused. I didn't really know who I was. I didn't know kind of I didn't have a big picture. My son loves, loves cracks a huge smile. And I don't know if I've ever said this publicly, but in high school, I'm going to couch it that I was an underperformer. Okay, that's not uncommon

for people to want to brag about this. But what, and I'm not trying to brag. I'm trying to be honest here. I failed psychology in high school. I have that report card in my diagnosical manual, which a diagnostic manual for psychology is this large book that has all of the symptomology and clusters for diagnoses. I looked at it last night with him. He goes, Dad, did you really, like, did you really fail psychology?

How old your boy? 17. 17. And he's doing great. Yeah. He's doing great in school and life. and I went on grabbed it and I showed it to him and he's like, I can't believe it. So I share that with you because I didn't have my purpose lined up.

I was really struggling. Purpose, according to science, rests on three things. It has to personally matter to you. This has personal meaning to you. Nobody can give you your purpose. That's to be bigger than you. It's not about you and just you being at the center of your world. And the third component is it has to be out in front of you, something to work towards.

Those are the three legs of purpose. And when you get that dialed in, kind of the rest seems pretty easy. Yeah. What is your purpose? Do you know? Yeah. I mean, it's not as crystal clear. I really am passionate about creating an impact in community, right?

And being able to do that generationally, right? And teaching my kids on how to do that. Yeah. I think I have a unique position where I'm at is where I can galvanize for change and galvanize for a lot of different people that necessarily won't galvanize for themselves. Where did that come from for you? I was very close with my grandparents on my dad's side and my, I see my grandparents as very purpose driven at 60s plus. They help build the community art center in two different cities. They help contribute to a library. They built arts festivals, funded music. And like, you see the impact

that it has. And I remember them talking to me about it and them always giving. I also, They used to, my grandparents are both now passed on, but they used to give us money, right, money to go spend towards the end of their life. But they said, before you can cash this check, you have to write to me where you're going to donate X amount of this check to, right, for your Christmas present or your birthday present. And so it's like, they were instilling this, right, with privilege creates obligation. So they give you 100 bucks, let's say.

You got to, you got to call me and tell me where you're going to, who you're donating $50 to. It was 50%? I don't know. Whatever. Yeah, whatever it was. It probably was, one of my grandparents as a whole. And it was just like that early on. Bigger than you.

Biger than you. And it mattered to you. You got to choose. Interesting that your grandparents probably didn't know the science, but they were living it. And they passed it down to you. Yeah. That those are the first two elements.

Yep. Yeah. Amazing. So I share that with you because our nervous systems are on fire right now because of the pace and the speed of the world. and because of the inability that we are walking around with not knowing how to deal with that stress. Yeah. And how to kind of calm the nervous system?

How do you deal with your nervous system when it's, because you're living a high stress life? Yeah. I wish I had like a set protocol and I'm not great at it, right? Like I get home and I get chippy with my boys. I get chippy with my wife and I get short and those things. And I definitely show up to work as a very consistent person. And then when I'm home, I let those things wear. I think big things for me is like constant outdoor time, right?

And things that bring me joy, right? Like taking the dog from the walk with my boys, throwing a ball, wrestling with them, you know, cooking dinner as a family, like doing things together versus like tasks. Like go do this, do that. Clean your room is really important to me. Are you tuned to your nervous system? And what I'm saying is like the fight, flight response?

Yes, I know. And I'm always like, after I do it, I'm like, oh man, I knew I was in that. And I don't have the right tools yet. to downgrade? To downgrade. Or I'm thinking about them too late, right? And I would say when I played, I had a really great set of tools, right? You go from my position that is so violent.

And I would come home, like, no kids, right? There's a very clear distinction when I was an NFL player to being at home. So I'd come home. I had a garden. Like I grew my own vegetables. When I played in Carolina, I mean, people made fun of me a lot. But like, I loved to garden and I always cook. like a meal from scratch for dinner.

And that was like, that was my downgrade of like go from something really violent, right, which is a game of football. And you're like trained to be violent to, right, creative giving, right, creating on that.

And now, right, what I find you just said it is like, my work life swirls everywhere. And it's like, I don't have those systems in place because I'm like, right, home in five minutes,

right? Yeah. On my drive home. Yeah. Maybe taking a work. thinking about something at work, right? And there's stresses at work. Yeah, this is, so you're describing, like, what the modern condition is.

Yeah. You know, like all on, intense during kind of the nine to five hours. Yeah. If anyone has the luxury of nine to five. And then do some stuff with the family. And then you go home and you need it towards the end of the night, answer emails, clean up some stuff. Like it's two shifts as we have come to understand.

This is why the on mechanism and the recovery mechanism, the gas is pedals down. the gas pedal comes off. And so I'll be technical for a minute. The sympathetic nervous system is the fight, flight, freeze, submit response. And the parasympathetic nervous system is the rest and digest model. This is not new information.

But if we don't have an active practice to trigger the rest and digest systems, we run sympathetic dominant. Always. Okay. So what are those counter-rotation practices that you can put in place to be able to downregulate. Billy, very clearly, kind of two of the big ones

are meditation and or breathing practices. A third one is being able to have a peripheral vision gaze. So locked down to the barrel of the gun or the tooth of the saber tooth or like that narrow kind of intense thing, just like when we're looking at our phone. Is a triggering mechanism and is corollary to the fight, flight, you know, thing. So when we watch, widen our gaze and we can do it and see the kind of the landscape of the world.

You can't do that in a room. You need to be outside to do that. It also triggers the rest and digest. Laughing, holding hands, hugging. The thing that happens after high stress purposely induced, like intensity from exercise, there's a rebound effect, which is the rest and digest. So there's a whole host of things to be able to do to purposely downregulate. This is why meditation and mindfulness practice has had this massive kind of

of moment over the last, call it 15 years, maybe more like 10 years is more popular. I was introduced to meditation in 1998. And so I've been meditating since 1998. I don't know what I would do without it. It allows me to have perspective. It allows me to be in tune with this always present awareness. So awareness is not something you build. Awareness is always there.

But you do need to build the psychological skills to be. aligned with awareness, to be with awareness. And awareness is kind of the whole thing. If you're not aware, you can't adjust. Awareness is the whole thing, being tuned with awareness. So mindfulness meditation is kind of one of those ways. So anyways, I think we nailed it. Shift from perfection to purpose, as you eloquently said.

Calm your nervous system down. We just listed a handful of things. Most of them are in your control. And then you will become by default more resilient if you are able to downregulate and you're not sympathetic dominant all the time. Big point, you have to practice the mental skills to be able to adjust your nervous system. Yeah. Yeah. So cool. Bodymaster is brought to you by LinkedIn jobs. If you've ever hired for a small business, you know the real cost isn't just the salary. It's the time that you lose when the fit is off,

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And I'd recommend heading to Davidprotein.com slash finding mastery to take advantage of a special offer they have for you right now as being part of the Finding Mastery community. By four packs, you get the fifth free. Free shipping plus 10% off every order when you head to Davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. Again, that's Davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. Really hope you'll check them out. All right. Next one from Anna. I'm looking for different ways to experience anger without an outward harmful expression of it and without an inward harmful expression or turning into anxiety by avoiding it. I'm looking for something beyond the usual contemporary literature and advice. It's healthy to experience anger, et cetera, et cetera. I have been through all of that.

And I'm looking for actual examples of high performers who allow themselves to experience their anger, notice the experience of it, and not have to crush it inward or communicate it towards others in a destructive way. Anger's tricky. What's the goal? I hear her asking for, how do I work with one emotion? And this emotion happens to be anger. Let's do two things. Let's separate the difference between emotions and feelings. Let's do that work for a minute.

But let's float up a couple levels first and talk about like the kind of the bigger aspiration is to be unbothered. That's the highest performing state is that whatever happens outside of you, you are unbothered by it because you are eloquently adjusting. to whatever it is. You can't control that. You can, this sounds so simple. But if you have a real set of internal capabilities and skills,

you are more like Bruce Lee's aspiration, mind like water. Yeah. You just kind of roll. You stay moving onward. Like towards what? Towards your purpose. That's really hard. It's so hard.

So hard. The ultimate attainment is to be unbothered. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Now, emotions are part of the ecosystem. And I'm on record saying the Olympics are for big emotions. The Super Bowl is for big emotions.

But really, I don't see those two that differently, and I don't see everyday life that differently than the Olympics and the Super Bowl. Life is for big emotions. If you do not know how to work with your emotions, it's a hard life. Let me just kind of ground emotions from feelings. Separate those two things for a minute. Emotions are the physiological experiences that are observable, that you can see in another person. Okay?

you can measure emotions. Feelings are private. They are subjective. It's the way that you are interpreting or making sense of that physiological experience. Okay. Physiological experience. What do I mean by that? When you are angry, there will be a tension, there will be a skin color difference.

There might be a sweat that comes on board. That also might be fear. That also might be excitement. So the way you're interpreting those physiological observable experiences are feelings. So Anna, anger's cool. I'm not like, oh, it can't be angry. I would love to get your take on how you dealt with anger. I understand there's also a different sandbox. Little boys and little girls, oftentimes, certainly in the U.S. and many of the Western cultures played in different sandboxes. And in that sandbox, we learn about emotions differently. Yeah. So I don't know the

sandbox that Anna you played in. I don't know that, of course. But I can kind of dangerously assume that this was not one that you were promoted to express anger. Yeah, I do think society really has taught us anger is really bad. And it's a natural feeling, emotion, et cetera. I believe that. When you are bothered. Yeah. Yeah. That's really, anger is like, I'm bothered by this. Yeah, 100%. And I'm frustrated and I'm intolerant and I'm pissed off or I'm raging. Or I'm raging. where I got wrath, where I'm just like annoyed. There's ranges of anger. And what I read in this is like it doesn't feel like it's okay to be angry.

Like how do I, like I don't want to outwardly express it or inwardly compartmentalize it. And that's the only things to do, right, in my mind. Those are the two things that any emotion works. Works. Yeah. External expression or internal musing, if you will. Yeah. And I think it's okay to feel like, you know, I think she writes here.

it's like it's healthy to feel anger it is right i know that doesn't help anything but i think it's also creating the practices right around it and for me right like i do i do experience anger right so do a scale of anger so just think like for a minute if you've got a one to ten scale rage is 10 yeah okay annoyed is a one yeah okay anger used as a five the word anger as a yeah where do you are you are you below the five almost always I get really irritated. Where's pissed off for you? What number?

Pissed off is probably a five or a six, like really close. Say anger is five. Oof. Where's ticked off and where's pissed off? I would put pissed off below anger. Interesting. For me, like, one of the things I think that drives my wife crazy is I get over things really fast.

Right. And I get pissed off or ticked off. Then I'm like, that was stupid. Why did I ever do that? Right. Like take a step back, bigger picture. It doesn't matter. I'm sorry.

That was a dumb reaction. And so like anger to me is something that sits. Oh, there you go. Right? And like pissed off is like, Mike, you kick me in the shins. That was stupid and you're an asshole. And then I'm like, oh, you kicked me in the shin because I said something I shouldn't have said.

Right? Like I get it. You know, like, yeah. Let's take the lead here because I want to learn from you and maybe I can add a best practice that I've learned to how to deal with any emotion, call it anger in this place. Yeah. Okay. Is you get over it quickly.

Yeah. This is like, go back to Bruce Lee, like mine like water, trying to be unbothered, kind of going with the flow. But you got caught behind a rock for a little bit too long. Yeah. Yeah. But you're fast. You're rolling, you know, through the stream, if you will.

If you can name your emotion. Yeah, it's important. That's part one. Yeah. Yeah. So being aware that you're in a state that you don't really want to stay, spend a long time is always foundational. Awareness is foundational.

Then if you can name it, oh, man, I'm pissed. Yeah. This is pissed. Yeah. And then if you just watch it for a minute, see where it wants. wants to go, you're learning about how your body and your mind are connected to this emotion. That's an awesome practice. And the third is you've got to take some sort of, I don't know, pause, like a breath,

a reset. Like there's a practice to downregulate even in that moment. Do you do both those? Yeah. Yes. I mean, sometimes I wait too long to pause and breathe, but it happens. Right. And we brought in this practice called conscious leadership into our company.

and they have this silly saying called above the line below the line. And the first thing is like, I'm below the line. I'm feeling anger, right? I'm feeling fear. And like, that's like the first thing is you got to train yourself to feel those things. Because once you know, like, I'm there, then it's really easy to be like, okay. That's it. Well, that's awareness.

And it's okay to be below the line. It's fine. We're humans. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're taught. We're taught. Yeah. Right.

But you know what? Yeah. Okay. So there's a couple of things like I'm feeling for Anna right now. Yeah. One is like, the point is like you learned anger in your sandbox. And the cultural sandbox of the, certainly where we live, we both live in the United States is like, yeah, anger's not so great. But you know what?

If somebody comes into your home and they're a threat to your safety, there's a couple options. Okay. The ultimate option is like totally poised. You are eloquent with how you're handling that situation. Yeah. Cool. Like call that, just call that poised. You could be scared or you could be pissed off.

In that moment, what would you choose if you can't find the ultimate poise, the eloquence to be able to deal with that moment? I'm running to the fire. Yeah. You'd rather be pissed off. Yeah. In most competitive situations, take any sport you want. If you're going into an environment where the stakes are high and you're not feeling quite right about it, you're not in that poised state, would you choose to play your first rep, scared or a little pissed off? Pissed off.

Yeah. anger will facilitate performance better than fear will. Yes. Okay. This is a dangerous game I'm suggesting, though. Because if you can't find poise and you feel yourself sliding into the anxiety, fear kind of response, what that does is it tightens us up, makes a smaller, more hesitant. My suggestion here, and this is, again, a little bit of a dangerous fire is like, wait, hold on. Figure out how I get to another state other than the scared state and maybe angers.

now I'm playing with a dangerous emotion on purpose. I don't think any of us want to stay in a dangerous kind of anger state for very long. So I understand the kind of the subtlety to this. So there is a place for anger. If you stay stuck in that thing,

it's problematic. And or you publicly embarrass somebody, you got problems. Yeah. Right? If they're caught in the wrath of your anger and you belittle them, you cut them down,

you fill in the blank, you embarrass them, you have to publicly repair that as well. If you publicly embarrass, you need to publicly repair. And I'm not so sure people come back from it. Yes. And when you are angry, you say things that can hurt other people. And I don't think people come back from that easily. It's very hard.

Yeah. That is very hard. Like we've all said things where we regret every one of us. That's right. And they are. Like they take a long time to repair. I kind of in this conscious leadership practice that we've had in our business, I've found that fear and anger, I used to think a lot of my fear was anger, right?

And I've actually diagnosed a lot of my anger is actually me being scared. Okay, so you're on a good science. Yeah. If we just made emotions really simple and you had four basic emotions and you had a scale of one to ten on each one of these. By the way, this is good homework for you and your partner. This is good homework for, you and your wife. This is good homework for you and your teammates.

You and your kids as well. You just draw four kind of primary motions. And you put on the scale one to 10, you put a five and you put the word anger. Okay? That's the anger scale. And then fill in all the hash marks of what words, where does pissed off go? Yeah. You put it like a four.

I put it like a seven. Okay. So now we're going to calibrate. Yeah. But we're putting words to the dimension so it's not like I'm angry. So I'd like to say, Lisa, my wife, before we did this work, I'd say, well, what, like, how angry? Yeah. And she goes, I'm pissed.

Wait, is that a four or a seven? Okay, so this is a calibration that's really important. Then on the second scale, you put happy as a five. And you fill in all the words, okay? And then scared, right? And that's a five, then you fill in all the words. Like the most fear is like terrified. Yeah.

Okay. And then the last one is sad. Okay, sad is the last one. Now, what we know is that anger is a secondary color. Anger is the second emotion. When you do the deep work, you realize that anger, there's a, an emotion that comes before anger. It's something on the sad scale, like, boy, I'm really let down.

I'm really hurt. You know? And that's such an agitating, difficult state to be in. It's way more proactive, like I was talking about earlier, to go to express anger. Because that first one is so tender. Yep. And or you're somewhere on the scared scale. Yeah.

Like, to your point, which is like, I'm afraid this is going to keep happening. Yep. And instead of working from that tender, kind of isolated fear-based place, it is socially more acceptable to do something on the anger scale. Yeah. So the problem with it is that it's expensive to run. Anger's a very expensive emotion to run. You can publicly damage another person in the relationship. And if you're not careful, you kind of get stuck in the anger loop as opposed to dealing with the first emotions, which is where the real work happens. Yes. So I don't know. Yeah. Do you think that, yeah, do you think Anna is going, okay, you said a lot of words, but I'm not sure I'm feeling you better about this. Potentially. But I do think there's only two ways to process anger. It's outward harmful expression, which is how you burn bridges, right? And you create sometimes irreparable damage, right? Or an

inward harmful expression. You can inwardly process it and it doesn't have to be a harmful expression. Yeah. Right. Like that's the thing of like you can outward or inwardly take the, emotion in my mind, but it doesn't have to be a harmful expression inward, right? Yeah, if you're cutting yourself and being yourself and like, you know, okay, as opposed to like just saying, wow, I'm really pissed off at myself. Yeah. Huh. Now, she asked for tools.

Yeah. Okay. I did the name it. Yeah. But there's a second generation mental skills coach called Ken Revisa. You might have remembered Ken Revisi. He passed away a number years ago, but he had this system called the five hours. It's a little complicated, but it's simple.

Okay, so the five hours are how to deal with emotions or how to deal with an unsettled state. First, recognize. He's talking about, be aware. Yep. You know, are you at what he would do? It's really fun. Are you at a red light? Are you at a yellow light or are you at a green light emotionally?

Yeah. You know, like, yellow light is like, man, I'm a little shaky, you know, my confidence or whatever. Okay. Recognize. Then release. Take a breath. Release that intensity. Okay, maybe five breaths, maybe one breath, whatever it is.

Release it. Okay. maybe a yell. Maybe kind of bang your bat. Maybe if you're angry, bang your baseball bat on the grass in a socially appropriate way. Recognize, release, regroup. So get back, talk to yourself, back yourself, get yourself back together. Pull it together now through self-talk.

Recognize, release, regroup, refocus. Take your attention and put it outside of you on the task at hand. Recognize, release, regroup, refocus, respond. Just go let it rip. Go out there and do the thing. So those are the five R's that can revisit introduced, you know, as a mental skills practice that I think are pretty practical. And if you can remember the five hours and you can practice the five hours, I think there's

really utility in that. Yeah. Those are awesome. Yeah. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentus. If you followed our work here at Finding Mastery for a while, you know the phrase that I love from Momentus, performance for life. That's really what we're doing because we are not chasing quick wins.

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35% off. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Fatty 15. Over the years, we've had a lot of great conversations about optimizing the aging process. And one of my favorites was the conversation I had with Dr. Stephanie Van Watson, an applied scientist and the co-founder of Fatty 15. Stephanie's background is extraordinary. He's a veterinary epidemiologist, a former Navy scientist, and now a longevity researcher. In our conversation, we dug into the science of aging.

The connection between dolphins and human health and how a surprising discovery led to the identification of a new essential fatty acid, C-15. That discovery, it became the foundation for fatty 15, the daily supplement, and it's designed to support long-term cellular health. What I love about it is how it works at the foundational level by strengthening your cell membranes and supporting your body's natural resilience. It helps you feel more energized, focused, and resilient over the long haul. I love it, I use it, my wife uses it, it's become a central part of my routine because it aligns with a core principle that I believe in. When we take care of our internal systems, we can show up more fully in everything we do, our careers, our relationships, our hobbies, and anything else we choose to invest our time in. If you're curious about the science behind it, I highly recommend you checking out our conversation. It's episode 473.

And if you're ready to give it a try, head to fatty15.com slash finding mastery. and use the code finding mastery for 15% off your first 90-day starter kit. That's Fatty-15, FAT-E-15, Faddy15.com slash finding mastery, and use the code finding mastery for 15% off. All right, next one, Mont, and I don't even know what he's talking about here. So can you explain the default mode network, how it works, how it can work for or against us, and other resources or practical advice on how to change it to work in our favor. trying to be more optimistic and creative by default instead of worrying. First off, I don't know

what the default mode network is and what he's talking about. I love that. Okay, default mode network. It's a mechanism in our brain circuitry that is the default mechanism. Okay. And so basically, our brain's dictum is survival. Yeah. More than anything else, right? It's designed to scan the world for dangers, to figure out kind of how to survive this, this world. So the default mode network is when your brain is kind of at its basic level, it is making sure that you're okay. And so right now it could be, does Jeff think I'm okay?

Am I saying the right things that I want to say? Like there's this self-referencing network. Am I okay is what we think the default mode network is about? And I want to put a huge asterisk next to this. The science and research around this is, I don't know, a couple decades old only. So there's a lot of room here to keep space available for a deep

I wrote a bunch about it in the book, The First Rule of Mastery, because that self-referencing default mode network, am I okay, is a bit of the culprit to being fully present and being joyful and being connected to other people. Because I get this thing underneath me that's saying, does Jeff think I'm okay? Am I okay here? Is this room okay? Am I okay? Is it going to be okay?

That it corrupts our ability to be fully present and engage with another person. Okay. So how do you quiet the default mode network, which is, what I think Montt was talking about. Deep focus. So if you're on the side of a cliff and you are kind of hanging on and figuring out survival

and your attention is on the next kind of thing that you need to do to figure out that moment and you're all in in that deep focus because it's a survival kind of thing, you will not have time for the default mode network. What does Jeff think of me right now? Okay. Deep focus like meditation.

Deep focus on a task at hand. Solving a complex problem requires deep focus. So when somebody is deeply focused, see that their default mode network quiets down. So deep focus is the kind of the antidote of the wildly reference checking,

am I okay default mode network. Do you think deep focus why it's so important is because it ties to purpose, right? When you're in deep focus, right? Like for me, when I hear you say this, right, like when I am able to deep focus,

meditate, right? Step back. I almost always eventually get to purpose. Like, what do I care about? Why am I here? Right? Like that thought process and that deep focus draws me back to purpose, which allows me to not have those questions.

Like, am I here? Am I good enough? What am I doing? You got all of that. Yeah, that's really, that's eloquent. That's clean. And also, let's say that you had a purpose mindset. Let's say you and I kind of, as we sat down, the thing that was most important to you

was to be connected to your purpose. as you're choosing how you're responding to the questions or whatever. And that thing takes up, occupies the majority of your thinking. Okay. It becomes the main reference point. That quiets down the default mode network. And the default mode network's job is, am I okay? And instead of am I okay, the new question, if you have a purpose mindset, which is

trainable, is am I aligned? Yeah? Yeah. So that's what you're talking about. And I think what you were saying is like when you meditate, meditation is an all-in practice of refocusing a thousand times, you know, in 10 minutes. Yeah. Refocusing back to one thing.

Maybe a breath. Maybe a flickering candle, you know, maybe a mantra, maybe to following your thoughts, whatever. Okay. But the all-in refocusing back to the thing quiets the default mode network. And eventually it creates more available space for you to, be connected to the things that matter purposely more to you. So I would point to like meditation is a good one.

Optimism, I don't know how to square default mode network actually with optimism. So I'm going to just kind of squint at that and kind of glaze over. But do you think that that was of value to Monta? Yeah, I think so. I mean, first I learned about the default mode network. And it makes sense, right? Like we are millennias around survival. That's right.

And how do we survive? very rarely do we ever have to actually survive. Like, nothing in this room is going to kill us unless something terrible happens. You know, like, but it's hard. Like, we're wired a certain way. But the main threat for most people is not that the roof is going to fall. Yeah. The main threat is what is Jeff going to think of me?

Yes, exactly. What is Mont going to think of me? Yeah. And because if we got kicked out of the tribe, because of underperformance. Exactly. And we die. It's a near death sentence, right? Yeah.

Yeah. So that's why we're so designed, like the ecosystem. to be relational. Yeah. To be cooperative. Fascinating. Yeah. And so this is a mechanism

to make sure that we're not blowing it. Yeah. I think the clear takeaway for anyone, including months on this, is invest in a practice that supports deep focus. Yeah. And when you recognize, when you're not in the deep focus places,

no problem. And when you recognize that you are paying attention to how you're doing, that's fine because it helps your course adjust. But if it feels like it's overwhelming, just kind of wink out. be like, oh, not now. Come back to the task at hand.

Yeah. All right. Claude, I find when I leave Canada for extended travel periods, I suffer from terrible loneliness. Where does that sudden and impelling loneliness come from? This was one of the first, like, when I just skimmed it, like, I read loneliness. And I was like, oh, man. And as it sat on me, I was like, man, I do feel lonely, too sometimes, right?

And I think we all have different feelings. of loneliness, like when I look back on it. I think this is a really interesting question, right? Like, I suffer from terrible loneliness when I leave my home, my place of living. And where does that sudden and impelling loneliness come from? Yeah. I can hear it in your voice, too. Like, loneliness is hard.

It's hard when you feel like you can't manage it. Yeah. Loneliness is fine. You know, like it's normal. Yeah. moments of feeling loneliness. But when it's enduring, when it's sitting kind of in the bed of everything that you're doing, it's like, so much so that it is on the rise as an epidemic.

Death by despair is a real thing. Suicide is in the U.S., there's about 49,000 suicides per year. Death by despair is this new category that has emerged, which is people that are so lonely, so desperate in their lives, that they are accidentally killing themselves. They're overdosing by accident. To just cope. So let's address loneliness because it's a real thing,

especially when we were promised to be more connected through social media and all that stuff. Loneliness, by definition, is like you're in a public place and you still feel lonely. Alone is different. Sometimes when you're alone, you don't feel lonely. Yep.

Yeah, okay. So the point is like when you're away, I think that this question is when I get out of my environment and I go away, this loneliness thing emerges. The way I hear the question is really framed in when I'm in the grind and I'm kind of doing my thing and I'm hustling, I'm doing whatever the thing is, it's like got enough noise that I don't pay attention to the thing that's underneath the surface, which is this sense of loneliness. Then I travel away and I don't have my familiar kind of practices and my familiar people, my familiar conversations,

there's enough space that that loneliness bubbles up. Yeah. And I think the question is really important for this reason is because you're aware of something and you're recognizing a pattern, which is grind to kind of in the hotel room. And when you're in the hotel room, it's telling you something about what you need to work on. Yeah. So how do you work on loneliness? One, do exactly what we've been talking about in this conversation.

Feel it? create the space, okay, for the next 10 minutes, I'm going to be connected to what's happening inside of me. And if loneliness emerges for that 10 minutes, feel it. You might cry, you might curl up in a ball, you might like have surprising emotions or thoughts that emerge, but you're going to timebox it for 10 minutes. So you're going to train the uncomfortableness of loneliness for 10 minutes. And after that 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 12 minutes, 20 minutes, just time box it. That you say, right, good work. That's good training. I just, exercised in this way. And then you kind of just go on to the next thing. But when a loneliness

feeling emerges later, you're like, wait, I'm going to actually go get in touch with that tomorrow in my training. So it's not ubiquitous across the entire day. You box it in a way that you can train it, get to know it, be connected to it, you can wrestle with it, and it's not bleeding throughout your day. No different than when you wake up in the morning and you're like, okay, I'm going to exercise later in the afternoon. And it kind of just is sitting. It's sitting all day long like, yeah, I got to exercise later. And then you get home at 4 o'clock, you're like, I got to exercise, but I just need a break.

And it's kind of sitting all day long. This is one of the benefits I think of exercising in the morning. It's time box. And then it doesn't bleed into my day. Okay. And then you don't do it. And then you feel. If you put it, if your training is in the afternoon versus in the morning.

Yeah. So that's what I'm suggesting is when you time box it and you wrestle with it. You do the thing. It doesn't bleed throughout your day. Same with loneliness. Yes. Yeah. Exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's really powerful, actually. Yeah. If you just, like, continue to kick, then you never address it. You never do it. And then you go to bed and you're like, for me, it's like, man, I should have worked out for doing. Yeah.

I had every intention to do it. Yeah. I wanted to. I feel lonely. Yeah, right. That's exactly right. And Jeff, one more thing on this is that loneliness is one of the symptom clusters for depression. Yeah.

So depression is a, it's a real condition. There's nothing to be afraid of. More people know what depression is. is than you might think. Yeah. Okay. And so I don't want to just miss that it's part of a cluster of something else as well. It's not just loneliness itself.

It could be on a path of depression, okay? Major to minor depression, to dysplia to something that's really kind of like, you know, it's just kind of garden variety down in there. The last thing I want to just hit on this thing is that people that are connected, according to research, people that are connected, they increase their survival odds by like 50%. that's a huge number. So I don't want to scare the lonely person like, yeah, I'm going to die early.

But there is evidence that loneliness, there's an increase in mortality rate by like 20, high 20%. Yeah. It's interesting because it sounds like at home, they are great. It's cool. And I mean, who knows what Claude does for work or requires them to be gone for months at a time. And that, to me, makes it feel like they have a real sense of purpose where they're from, right? They have connection to people. Oh, that's how you hear this. Yeah. Right. And then when they leave, that whole system that they have is left behind. The people, the things they love, their comforts,

the known. And who know, like, I again, don't know who they are, but like, and then it's like, when they leave, it's like the world, right, is not how I expected to be. And I don't know how to navigate it. And therefore, this is the, you know, what's rattling behind my head. Like, nobody here. He knows me. Okay. I think you're right. And so I like where you're taking this. And so there's a couple best practices, and you'll know these as an elite athlete is when

you're in a hotel room, let's just use an example, and you're at another place, it might be really easy to not go outside for a while because you go from your hotel room. You don't have kind of some outside stuff. You go to the office or the setting and it's inside the building, whatever. So you could be totally whacked on circadian rhythm. You'd be totally disconnected from nature, totally connected from sunlight. That is a central nervous system depressant. Yeah. So depression, central nervous system is depressed from biological, from psychological, from a lot of things. Oh, you know what's important?

I can't believe I even think of this. Is there somebody were to come in, an athlete or somebody comes in and like, hey, Mike, I'm really struggling with depression. Early in my career, I'd be like, okay, let's go to kind of a cognitive behavioral training, you know, let's do best practices for that. Okay, good. I'll be it that the relationship between us is really the fabric of the whole thing, but I don't know, like 10 years in my practice, which was way too late, I was like, wait, hold on, they might have a pituitary gland tissue. There might be a medical thing. They're just calling it depression or loneliness, but maybe their pituitary is not firing. Maybe there's some other stuff that's happening that their central nervous system feels

depressed, but it is biologic. Yeah. It's more organic, if you will, that way, rather than psychological. And so let's not rule that out. And I look at you because there could be some supplementation. There could be some nutrition, dietary things where people are like not feeding their crept cycle the right way. They're not feeding.

You know, like if somebody were to say to you, I'm depressed. Okay. I'm not asking for medical. Yes. Okay. But they're saying I'm depressed. And when you say, would you say, hey, how's your vitamin D? Would you say that?

No, I'm, I would not. I would not. But I think, like, part of it is like what I read and think about this is, when you're at home, you have routine and a practice, right? I read that Claude has this. When you're on the road, right, you go out to eat, you order, you don't cook, right? You don't get outside very much. You might just go to the hotel gym by yourself where you have like a workout crew at home.

And it's like, how do you, right, like, think about the things that is your community that drives connectivity where you live. And you have to, like, it's work, but you have to replicate those things. Cool. Right? It's like, hey, I'm on the road. I try to still take all the same nutrition supplements. I try to sleep. I'm like, oh, man, you know, I'll stay up and watch a movie tonight because I'm laying in my hotel room.

Like, I don't have anything to do. Like, no kids. Nope. I try to keep a rhythm. And I find myself when I'm on the road, right? There's this terrible habit of like, wake up, go to a hotel gym, eat hotel breakfast, right? Go to my meetings, come back to the hotel, right? after dinner and like there's no space right like nobody's like oh man I'm just like

relax in my hotel room like I feel like let's go sit in the lobby let's go to the coffee shop let's go like because at home like you have an outdoor space to sit you have a couch a living room a dining room table and everything just is like there in a hotel room you live in this 20 by 20 box and it's depressing it is like I dislike it a lot and I'm on the road a ton you know I think you I think you relate to this is that when I'm with a football team and it's camp and camps are a grind, as you know, right? Three weeks of like, it's a grind. Now, when you're done with a long day, all the coaches, most of the coaches, at least,

and most of the athletes go back to home, wherever the home is. Maybe it's a roommate or maybe it's family. Yeah. And you know where I would go? Back to my hotel room by myself. Yeah. You talk about like being tired and alone. I'm a social creature.

I don't like going back and just sitting in the hotel room, but I'm like, damn, I don't have anybody. Of course, I have this huge amount of space for the love I have for my wife and my son, but they're not there. I can call, but it's just a little bit different. Yep. I relate to this. Yeah.

And I think it's, you guys just got to find what, to me. You go to community. Yeah. You go to like environmental conditions and community conditions. I go to psychological as well. You know, I want to point to that. And I'm also just creating space for biologically, you know, to make sure that, I don't know, It's just there's not something else.

Yeah, I think that's very wise. Yeah. Finding Mastery is brought to you by AG1. One of the through lines and high performance is consistency. Finding routines that support your mind and body day in and day out. And for me, AG1 has been one of those routines for over a decade now. Since day one of Finding Mastery, they've supported our show, our full team, and have fueled us in reaching dozens of milestones along the way.

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Again, that's drinkag1.com slash finding master. to get started. I want to take a second here to tell you about a morning routine that I've been using for years. For me, it's a great way to switch on my mind, to ready myself to take on the day. So before I check my phone, my emails, market updates, or text threads, I choose how to start my morning. That's always in my control. That's always in your control, too. This is the same morning mindset routine that some of the world's top performers across sport, business, and the arts are using. The best part, it only takes about 90 seconds to do. So just head over to finding mastery.com slash morning to download the audio guide for free. Again, head to finding mastery.com

slash morning to get your morning mindset routine. All right. Next one's from Matthew. I was introduced to finding mastery through a development program at work and the course was genuinely transformative for me. Wow. Thank you. He says. It helped me see how much of my day was being driven by reaction rather than intention. Even with that awareness, I still struggle to protect time for reflection and self-investment when work and life are full. How do you recommend people build a sustainable rhythm that honors both responsibility and personal growth, especially in leadership roles where others depend upon you? I could ask this question. You could have asked that question? 100%. So the question, I'll read again,

how do you recommend people build a sustainable rhythm that honors both responsibility and personal growth, especially in leadership roles and other to depend on you? Like, he's struggling to protect time for reflection and self-investment. Yeah, I love this question. It's awful. I love this. Matthew, I feel you every single day. Lots of times I go to bed and like, man.

You know what's cool, Jeff, is like, you're kicking ass in life. Yeah. You got a healthy family. You got a healthy business. you've had like this high performing career before that in sport like you're doing great and and for you to say uh i struggled to have enough kind of reflective time i love hearing that because i understand it too myself and i think most people would say oh of course you know jeff and mike have it all together and like because they're not in the corporate grind or they're not that whatever this is a

real thing so what i do as a best practice for me and first and foremost like this is an unfair advantage because I've been studying high performance psychology for, you know, 30 some years or whatever. You know, so it's an unfair advantage of the, the mountaintop I've been able to climb to to understand all of what goes into living a high performance life. I know that this simple solution that I'm going to share with you will fall far below the complexity of your unique life. Okay. But the solutions in psychology are relatively simple. What's complex is it uniquely fitting for this individual that I have not met yet. Okay? So here's my, and I want to hear how you deal with it, like to your best. One is I carve out time in the

a.m. to do the work. That is not a new idea. If I miss it, you guys, I know, I got to be in the office earlier or I got an early flight or whatever, then I'm looking for times throughout the day to do it. And if I can't, if I can't do that internal reflective work, I'm not mad at myself. I used to be like, oh, man, I'm going to, but now I'm like, oh, tomorrow. So what does that internal work? The morning mindset routine, and I'm sure that we can put a little show note link in here to send it to folks. It's a very simple four-step process that is part of every one of my mornings.

It's four things I do before I get out of bed, and it's fast, and it's the bare minimum. It's one breath. Maybe if I got some time, it's 20 breaths. It's one breath. I'm in control of this thing, okay? It's one thought of gratitude. It's one clear intention. I'm using mental imagery for the intention.

And then I just pull my sheets off and I take a moment to be where my body is. So then I'm practicing being present. It's those four steps every morning. It's a baseline. And if I can open each one of those up for a handful of moments, I'm winning. But if it's just one, one, one, one.

And I'm literally in and out in 90 seconds, okay. Yeah. All right. So I just need to just say that I really appreciate it because I think we have this idea that we're supposed to be doing everything at full tilt. Sometimes it's just a 90-second training for me.

Yeah. How about for you? I feel like I'm not quite in the phase of, it's okay, you didn't do that today. Like you are. A lot of days, I'm like, some of a, like, why didn't I spend 30 seconds on myself? One of the things I really realized, and this was about two years ago, is like, I needed, like, not like a 30 seconds today. I need like a three day get out of my chaos.

That is Jeff, a father and husband. Jeff, right, the CEO co-founder, right? Not that. Like go somewhere and do something that is very out of my normal. And that deep grind that I've found, right, it's always outdoors.

It's always physical in the backcountry, in remote places, where there isn't distraction, right? I literally have to create an environment where I can't be distracted, and it honestly takes me a little while to get out of my own, right, work mind, family mind,

what can I do for the inward reflection? I found that if I do that once a quarter, it's really healthy for me. And that's like, it's kind of like a masagi, like a long, hard adventure where it's like, my body's tired, my mind's tired, and I'm not thinking about work. I am a little bit, right?

Because my mind is wandering, but I got to give it space on it. Yeah. Yeah, Matthew asked, like, how do you recommend people develop this? Yeah. And you and I are both answering in slightly different ways, but the same commonality is to schedule it. Yes. So get ahead of the calendar.

Schedule it quarterly. Yeah. Like the three day or annually. I don't know what it is. Yeah. Like, really, schedule it. And now, you know, beginning of the year type of stuff, like, cool. Like, get it.

Think about it. I'd another handful of months through, you know, schedule it. My alarm goes off or my wife's alarm goes off. And then we purposely hit the snooze button. That's six minutes. Now, I'm not falling back asleep. Trying not to. 95% of the time.

That's my six minutes to go do some internal work. So I'm scheduling it. And it's small. Yeah. It's tiny. It's deliverable. It's habit building. Start small, celebrate.

So here's another thing for Matthew is that when you schedule the thing, your three day, just scheduled it. You've put it in the calendar. Celebrate like a wild person. Yeah. Okay. So you're pairing this wonderful feeling with the first act. And then when you buy the ticket, like celebrate like a wild person. Talk about it. Like back yourself. Like have fun with it. Now on my path, I just do like one breath. Celebrate. Like that's right. I'm a little bit better today. Yeah. So I am trying to pair positive states with the actions that I want more of. Yeah. Yeah. So one of the things that I does help me on this is, right?

I'm like the sticky note personally at, right? Oh, you do. The athlete, you know, of like, I'll write something. Like, I used to write things on my wrist tape of like what I wanted to, like, what is my intention. You did. Right? Like, and I wrote attitude and effort almost consistently of like, because of those things

you can control. And one of the things that, right, I've done around this of like, I don't know if it's helping me with more time for reflection or self-investing. but it's more of this reminder is like be, I think Courtney Thompson said this, who you introduce like, be where your feet are. Right.

It's like this reminder, it's okay to be where you are. Right. Like, stop chasing. It's a requirement. It's a requirement, right? But it's like, oh man, I wish I had time. It's like, no.

No, right now. I'm in this meeting. Right now. Or like, oh, I have 30 seconds to do it. Right now. Awesome. Do it right now. And then when you do it right now,

I'm going to pair it with that other kind of best practice for creating sustainability. animal habits is celebrate like a wild person. Like, oh, I just did it. I'm doing it. Great. Yeah. Over time, the celebration is not necessary. Yeah. Because you're just in it.

And that is the inherent reward itself. So yes, yes, yes. But I also think what is so important, Matthew with this is just like, you just knowing that you struggle to protect time to do it is like incredibly important. Like the self-awareness to have that, hey, I want to do more time for reflection and self-investment is like, 95% of the battle. It's like have that space to know you need to do it. And now it's just the action of it. And I'll just kind of wrap it up is that schedule it. Is it 90 seconds in the morning?

Is it a three day once a month, once a year, whatever it might be? And that's kind of like using the planning part of you to invest in the things. It doesn't need to be massive. Yeah. But it might grow. Yeah. It just might grow. And I'll leave with one story is that the CEO of 18, I hosted him at a Seattle Seahawks game. And so we're on the sidelines. And the stadium is 68,000 people at the Seahawks, as you know. And so we're standing there and starting to fill up. And I looked up and I said, hey, how many people do you indirectly manage?

And he looked up and he said, how many people are here? I said, 68,000. And he says, four times up. Oh. Okay. And I said, I looked at him. I said, John, really? And he goes, yeah.

And I go, oh. and it clicked because earlier in the day he was talking about his practice. So his morning practice, he started with a 10-minute meditation. And he's like, man, that was good. After that 10-minute, I just kind of felt better. And then he said, so I doubled it to see what the experiment would yield. Man, my emails were better, my conversations. I was more switched on.

So I'm at 20 minutes a day, Mike, and it's pretty good. He says, I got up to four hours a day of meditation. Not a meditation of like internal work in the morning. So reading some stuff. His was meditation and prayer, writing some stuff. I go, four hours. That's half a work day for most people. He goes, yeah, I work, you know, I work 10 hour days, no problem. He goes, but I was so much better in my remaining six hours of the day. I was crushing it. And he says, I became bedrock for people as opposed to surface crust. D daunting. I'm not at four hours a day of the internal investment. But I point to like, nobody's busier than he is.

Nope, exactly. Right. Like, I mean, when you say, I manage four times 68,000 people. 320,000 people.

I'm just like, oh, man. Yeah. Man, I think I got, I think it's hard here. To be fair, he's got probably 12 direct reports.

Yeah, but doesn't matter. That's cascated. I don't know, like, I have the same probably direct reports as he does. That's exactly right. Yeah.

I'm not responsible for 300 thousand plus souls. Isn't that amazing? And their livelihood. Maybe even more importantly that he was doing the internal work. 100%. And I'll just start that story one more time, is that he started with 10 minutes. And he liked how efficient and how good he felt. So he kept doubling. Yeah. So anyways, Jeff, this is awesome. Congratulations on how you're designing your life. Thank you for being

a great co-host to the AMA here. And congratulations on what you're building at Momentus. We love the partnership. And I feel really safe with what you put into your products. But thank you. Thank you. Awesome to be here. Next time on Finding Mastery, we're joined by Michelle Carrey, creator and host of Challenge Accepted, the hit YouTube series where Michelle trains with elite performers to take on some of the world's toughest physical and psychological challenges. In this conversation, Mike and Michelle explore what separates preparation from bravado,

why courage is a system, not a personality trait, and how Michelle has built a serious, sustainable business in the creator economy without burning out. Join us Wednesday, March 11th, 9 a.m. Pacific, only on Finding Mastery. 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. We really appreciate you being part of this community. And if you're enjoying the show, the easiest no-cost way to support is to hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening. Also, if you haven't already, please consider dropping us.

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