Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - How Elite Teams Operate - Navy SEAL Leadership Skills for Life and Business | Rich Diviney & Brent Gleeson

Episode Date: September 20, 2023

Why do some people excel in the toughest of conditions while others fall short?This age-old question finds its answer in the lives and experiences of today’s guests: Rich Diviney and Brent Gleeson, both former Navy SEALs and known authors, speakers, and human performance consultants.Drawing on their background in Naval Special Warfare, Rich and Brent share their unique perspective on the blend of adaptability, resilience, and vulnerability required to achieve peak performance. But this wisdom doesn't just apply on the battlefield; it's also incredibly relevant in the boardroom, among teams, and when faced with seemingly impossible goals. In today’s episode, we explore:The critical traits of successful Navy SEALsHow to navigate deep emotional pain and turn it into fuel for growthFostering team buy-in during organizational change Defining, setting and achieving goals - even under extreme adversityWhether you're a leader trying to build a high-performing team or someone simply seeking a more fulfilled life, this is a thought-provoking (and sometimes controversial) conversation you won't want to miss._________________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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is directly proportional to the quality of questions we ask ourselves on a consistent basis. and faces. Okay. Welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Gervais. I trade in training a high-performance psychologist, and I am so pumped to welcome not one, but two incredible humans, Rich Deviney and Brent Gleason to the podcast for this week's conversation. It's likely that most of us will quickly conjure the same familiar image when we hear the words Navy SEAL.

Perhaps someone at peak physical toughness, possessing a stoic demeanor and an unbreakable spirit. Now, our guests today show us there's so much more than meets the eye when it comes to some of the world's most elite and entrusted high performers. In addition to being former Navy SEALs, Rich and Brent are authors, speakers, and consultants on human performance. They've both found great success using their highly specialized experience to revolutionize the way some of today's prominent leaders

and their teams approach optimal performance. Using actionable steps focused on purpose, goal setting, and navigating meaningful change within any organization. When it comes to high stress environments, Rich and Brent have seen it all. And I can't wait for you to hear how they're fusing physical, mental, and emotional disciplines to inspire other elite performers to reframe challenge, to use pain as a pathway, and to

cultivate true resilience. With that, let's jump right in today's conversation with Rich Deviney and Brent Gleason. Brent, Rich, so stoked that you guys are here. And just for folks that are listening on audio only, this is the first time we've done three people in the studio. So let's do a little voice check. And so let me start with you, Rich. Okay.

I'll ask you two questions, and then we'll calibrate your voice. Maybe we'll learn something about you as well. Sounds good. First question, what did you have for breakfast then we'll calibrate your voice. Maybe we'll learn something about you as well. Sounds good. First question, what did you have for breakfast? I had black coffee. Oh. Yeah, that's it. I'm not a big breakfast guy.

I actually enjoy intermittent fasting and I enjoy black coffee. And since I was traveling, it just is easier. Yeah, that's good. How many days are you doing intermittent fasting? When I can, I try to do at least 16 hours if I can every day. Every day. My biggest, sometimes I do a challenge where I'll do a three or four day fast and try that. But yeah. So the second question for you is how would you describe who you are? How would I describe who I am? I am a husband and a father, 100% primary. That is my

primary identity. It always has been. And so everything I do, whether it's a Navy SEAL or author or entrepreneur is all in concert with that single identity. And that's what I want in my gravestone. There you go. Yeah. And in that order, does that order matter to you? I mean, it doesn't really matter, I guess, but they're both as important. Although the kids grow up and leave, so husband has to. Yeah. My wife and I talk about that all the time. Yeah. And how old are the kids? 18 and 16. So. So you've got one leaving the house or just left? Kind of. He's yeah, he's he's on a path to leave, but he'll circle back. I think we have the same interests. So there you go. OK, cool. We'll come back to that. OK, so father and husband. And what was,

how do you classify or how do you characterize your service? Yeah, so I was a Navy SEAL officer for just under 21 years. I went in in 1996 and then retired at the tail end of 2016. So December 31st, 1159 was my last minute in the Navy. So yeah, a really interesting, fruitful, kinetic career, because of course when I joined, it was before 9-11. So I lived five years of the pre-war SEAL teams and of course the post-war SEAL teams, which was very busy and I think very unique in the history of the SEAL team. So I'm proud to have been a part of it. Okay, cool. All right. Awesome. Brent. Yes. Two questions. What'd you have for breakfast? I had coffee, uh, and one small almond muffin from the Ruby coffee shop next door. They're not quite satisfying, are they? It's okay though. Okay,

good. I read about 800 emails on the way up here, so I almost threw up on my laptop. So I needed something. You needed something in there. Okay, good. And then how do you answer the question, who are you? Well, not surprisingly, Rich stole my answer. But I was going to lead with a husband, a father of four kids, 17 all the way down to two. So we had what you might refer to as a COVID baby.

Not totally planned, but a blessing from God in the first place. But, you know, and other than that, just an entrepreneur who's always trying to find ways to first and foremost level up for my team, for my people. Be a good leader and be a good student and teacher of leadership. There you go. Cool. All right. And your commitment to service? Minuscule compared to this giant over here.

So I stood on the shoulders of gentlemen like Rich over here. We'll get into it maybe later, but kind of interesting. I went in like six months before 9-11. After undergrad, I was a financial analyst for a year and I loved it so much, I decided to do something a lot easier, which was try for a shoot for butts. So I followed one of my college fraternity brothers, uh, down his path. Uh, and then, um, you know, went to SEAL team five, uh, did a few, few deployments there and then transitioned out. There was some personal stuff going on in my life at the time, which, uh, obviously I regret getting out when I did, but, um, it required some greater levels of attention.

Okay. So you, you guys have done a deep dive into studying and understanding what makes a great teammate from SEALs, from your time in special operations. And then you're explaining and teaching and training folks to level up, to use your language, or to be great teammates and great teams in organizations. So before we go into those insights and best practices, What was it about the two of you that led you to go into SEALs? Yeah. I grew up wanting to be a Navy pilot, really a military pilot. My two favorite books growing up are The Right Stuff and Chuck Yeager's Autobiography. My dad was a private pilot, so my brothers and I would go flying with him every weekend. Was that his profession? No, he's a lawyer. He just flew recreationally.

And so he still is a lawyer, still practicing. And my twin brother and I just got the bug and we just wanted to fly. Oh, you're a twin? Yeah. I'm a twin. Are you really? Yeah. Oh, that's really weird.

Stop it. Are you serious? Awesome, yeah. So we have another bond here. But both of us. Wait, hold on, hold on. Okay, we stopped there. That is really weird. I didn serious? Awesome, yeah. So we have another bond here. But both of us. Wait, hold on, hold on. Okay, we stopped there. That is really weird.

I didn't mean to interrupt you. Are you identical? We're fraternal. Fraternal, okay. So we couldn't be more different. Got it. You guys are obviously identical. We're identical, yeah.

First or second born? I was the first. Yeah, two minutes. Do you think that matters? No. No? No. Yeah, okay. Not for your brother. No. Yeah minutes. Do you think that matters? No, no, no. Yeah.

Okay. Not, not for you. Not for your brother. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. How about for you? I was the second born five minutes after, and I was actually a surprise.

They didn't even know they were having twins. Not sure who this hack of a doctor was. It was the seventies. I don't know what the hell was going on. They were like, my dad was like, oh, son of a bitch. Were you guys the first? Like only. Yeah. Yeah. They stopped after that. Oh yeah. No, I don't know. I don't know what we did,, oh, son of a bitch. Were you guys the first? Only, yeah. Only, yeah. They stopped after that.

Oh, yeah. No, I don't know. I don't know what we did. Yeah, I have an older sister. And so then it was my brother and I, then a younger brother. So there's four of us. Oh, four of you guys. Parents are more courageous than mine.

They are. Maybe, you know. Yeah. Or something else. Right. Did you learn risk-taking from your parents? As a lawyer, I don't think of attorneys and lawyers being risk takers. That's a great question. And I don't know, I think maybe not explicitly, but I think my parents

never forced us or intended to force us down any paths. And so I think their openness to what we wanted to do allowed for some risk-taking experimentation. That's interesting, experimentation. But if parents, or when the parents that are listening, what would you suggest would be a great way to instill that exploration? Like I'm thinking about dining room tables or breakfast tables.

I'm thinking about like family type of conversations. What are those conversations like that you would say uh this would be important to get in yeah i i think i think diversity of experience um i think one of the things that i was able to do i think you probably was you were too because we're somewhat the same age i when i was growing up i tried every single sport um when i when i was a freshman in high school i walked on the high school lacrosse team and played for four years and ended up captain as a senior. You can't do that nowadays. It's tough.

If you want to be a high school lacrosse player, you have to start at like six years old. And it pains me to see sometimes people having their kids kind of forced into these funnels because it doesn't diversify. And I think my parents really just threw – they allowed us to throw as many things in front of our windshield as possible. And I think that really, really helps. You had the same. 100%. 100%. And you know, if I had to label my parents on the topic of risk, I would say risk averse. But they did give my brother and I every opportunity to explore, you know, all aspects, you know, of, you know, of life and sports and music and art and things like that. And I agree with you on the diversity of experience

really creates and develops a growth mindset and creativity and curiosity really more than anything else. I mean, I was a swimmer in high school, but I was also in a jazz combo, you know, and my parents allowed me to have a drum kit in my bedroom and I would practice like four hours a night. I'm shocked that they allowed that, but that would drive me crazy if I were the parent of a musician. What do you think you guys missed in your childhood? So these are, these are favorable attributes, right? These are things that would be like, okay, I got this and exploratory and support and dah, dah, dah. What, What did you miss? The stuff that goes sideways young for us, either we got too much of or not enough of, we end up trying to figure that out later

in life and other relationships. And so the secondary premise is that I'm trying to understand that first miss maybe, and then why you would go into such a dangerous, electric, team-bonded type of experience as a SEALs. Most people don't go. And then most people can't make it. Most of the folks that do say I want to go can't make it. So I'm trying to understand a bit of the assets and a bit of the trauma, what you missed as a young kid. Yeah. I would say my parents, especially my dad, he's a big rule guy and so and so a lot of the rules he set down probably um i'm gonna use this i'm gonna use the word stunted but it's not it's not as extreme there's probably a less extreme word but stunted our social ability to get out there and go to you know go to parties and things

like that my brother and i and and you know at least my brother and i but certainly my sisters my sister and my little brother as well probably just didn't do as much socially like that. And so what that resulted in is very, very tight family bonds, but not a lot of practice and social skills and kind of building those external groups outside of family. that that probably influenced why I thought the teams, the SEAL teams were an attractive option amongst other things because of that brotherhood, that bonding that I could kind of see. Yeah, I can see that. And I can also see the other narrative, which would be, I wasn't part of a family. I wasn't part of a pack. I didn't have, my parents never really saw me. It was super laissez-faire, latchkey. And if I was home, great. And if I wasn't have, my parents never really saw me. It was super laissez-faire, latchkey. And if I was home, great.

And if I wasn't for dinner, I'm not sure they missed me. So I wanted to go find a community where people are highly accountable, you know, we're valued for what we can contribute to the whole. And so I could go both ways, but it's interesting. You're like, no, I had a tight unit. So I wanted to extend that in my next phase. Is that right for you, Rich? It is. It is. Although I will say it's interesting. I mean, we grew up in the 70s. And in the 70s,

I wasn't a latchkey kid, but my parents still weren't really paying attention. I mean, we just, there were no helicopter parents back then. You know, we just did our thing. So, and that was okay. I didn't feel deprived because of it. I think that helped our bonds with our siblings and otherwise. I'll add an element that I didn't mention as well though, and that's the ability to stand out and perform and do something and be someone different and special. In the book, I talk about narcissism as an attribute, and we can get into that. But every human being has this desire to stand out and be recognized. And whether it be a pilot or be a SEAL, and the decision I made to go SEALs, but either

one was this desire to really looking at the people around us who we grew up with saying, you know, I want to do something that is different than everybody else. And I don't know where that came from, I guess, but that's certainly one of the drivers, was one of the drivers for me. Okay, quick pause here to share some of the sponsors of this conversation. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions. In any high-performing environment that I've been part of, from elite teams to executive boardrooms, one thing holds true. Meaningful relationships are at the center of sustained success. And building those relationships, it takes more than effort.

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protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. Let's jump right back into the conversation. We'll definitely come back to that because if left unchecked, the ambition matched with some intelligence can be very dangerous. So if left unchecked. Yeah, because you get a bit of success and you think you, it's like, what's the phrase? You're born on third base and you think you hit a triple. Like if you're not careful, like you think you created the success on your own, which that's rarely the case, if ever. We're on record saying nobody does the extraordinary alone. We need each other.

And so, okay, cool. Yeah, now having a better understanding of the question, it's very clear. One thing that I always look back on and say, wow, I wish I had more of that. We try to do it differently in our family is that, you know, we grew up in a sort of very formal southern Dallas family where there's not a lot of emotional connectivity. Like, I don't really feel like I even know my parents. Not a lot of I love you. Not a lot of like, you know, performance was expected and things like that. Very strict when it came to rules and curfews and things like that so very little flexibility anything socially and whatnot so uh you know it sounds cliche but of course you know an adolescent i was always trying to push the boundaries consciously or unconsciously always seeking trouble seeking danger putting myself in uncomfortable situations sometimes getting in trouble uh and you we tend to put that towards people who are growing up with an you know in

adversity or you know underprivileged childhood. That's not necessarily always the case. And having done a lot of research on resilience and building a growth mindset, resilience can come from all different walks of life. People with very diverse backgrounds, both good and not so good. I think that to your point earlier, definitely when it came down to making a more radical decision and taking maybe for the first time in my entire life, a little bit of calculated risk and taking a big leap of faith in myself and my buddy know really good money but to leave that behind and go do something bigger than you know yourself um that does also come with a lot of risk with the high extremely high attrition rate you know programs like becoming a pilot or becoming a seal or any special operations pipeline um i was also looking i think for a greater degree of emotional connectivity um you know, in that type of family or brotherhood, like you said before. I think we're all about the same age. I was born in 71. Yeah. 73. Yeah. Okay.

77. Oh, but you look like you're 30. Well-preserved. So I want to, I want to just see if we can open up one more level here, which is like, what is your heart aching for? So you're an adult male in this world trying to help people be good, be great, be their very best. And so the performative side is something that sits square down the lane for all three of us. And this other piece of having a sense of wholeness and integrity is important to me. So what is your heart aching for? What is the part of you that you're like, I just want more of this or less of that? It's discovery and evolution. And let me explain that. I have always been fascinated and

almost obsessed with how we as a species have gone from cave dwellers to space explorers. And those things that have driven us to be able to do that. And this idea of what's out there, what could be next, what we could discover, what's the new thing, what's the new equation, what's the new planet. And so I've been driven by an obsession with that. And what I've realized is that doing what I did for 21 years and now what I do now, I'm not sure if I can be one of those explorers or discoverers. But I know that I have things that I've learned that I can help others understand their potential to be those explorers and discoverers. And I kind of think

about having gone around the world and been in some very obviously, well, bad but also poverty stricken and areas with very few resources, I've constantly said to myself, what if there are Einsteins in this place? And can I somehow help get them something that brings out that Einstein? Because that person might be the person with the next equation.

And how can I help do that? That's what drives me. Is that as an operator, you would have that thought? I began to have that thought as an operator when I would just going to all these different places and then seeing these different people. Is that a way? So did you guys grow up in a spiritual framework? Yes. Or religious?

So I hear it for you. Yeah, I did. I did. Yeah, we were. Not rigorously so, but yeah. Christian? Catholic. Oh yeah, I guess so. Catholics will always say, no, Catholic. So I guess I'm guilty of that. Let me correct you there. Let me correct you there. But yes, Christians would say, I am not a Catholic. Right. So thou shalt not kill, right? Was one of the commandments. How do you square with that,

with the job that you worked your ass off to be able to have? And I'm wondering if that tension, so that cognitive dissonance, if the idea was, no, I'm helping preserve or maybe create safety for people that potentially could do a lot of good for humanity. So that's the job. I need to kill people potentially to be able to protect. So how do you square thou shalt not kill with the requirements of the job? It's an interesting question because actually before my first deployment, you know, with with Matt back in 2003, I was still team five. Matt who? Mark Owen.

Oh, and he brought the book No Easy Day. We did our first platoon together. Then we went on to a special mission unit within Naval Special Warfare after that. And I had that question because I'm a very confused Christian. I went to Episcopal schools, an all boys Catholic high school, a Catholic graduate school, a Methodist college. So I don't know. I'm a Christian. We'll just call it that. A believer, if you will. So I had that question before that deployment. And we didn't know how kinetic that deployment would be.

It ended up being- You guys have both used the word kinetic. Just sorry to interrupt. What does that mean to you guys? Well, in the military terms, it means full of action. Yeah, right. So gunfights, combat, basically. Yeah.

Coming from the kinetic body. There's a lot of action taking place. Yes, that's right. The kinetic wind, if you will, from an athletic standpoint. And so, uh, at the time I was going to a church in San Diego called the rock, uh, they had a big military following and, uh, the pastor was a cool guy, Miles McPherson, former NFL football player, and has a cool story. Anyways, I, I requested to sit down with him and just ask that question that you literally just asked. And his answer was interesting and unexpected. You know, he said that, you know, God has put you on this path and God has given you certain gifts or attributes, if you will,

to borrow from my buddy here, to do this job and this job that is part of that job, you know, from his basic level of understanding of what you do in special operations. And I wouldn't say it actually gave me a sense of calm and acceptance around that concept, but it did to a degree where I'm like, OK, I guess that makes sense. I did the story of how I shifted from corporate America down this path is a bit odd. God put somebody in my life that totally changed that trajectory. So there was some purpose behind it that I that I believed. I wasn't quite certain, certain what that purpose was yet. So you went to an elder and an elder framed it in a way that you said,

okay, I can understand how to take the next step. Okay. And then for you, Rich? Yeah. I think my answer is a little bit more controversial. I went to Catholic school and did the whole altar boy thing. And I am, um, and I am what I've realized about myself. I am a kind of a, a born, um, uh, cynic, I guess, not cynic, but I guess. I thought you were going to say sinner. No, no. Yeah. Maybe that too. Yeah. But, uh, but, um, but I tend to think, but I tend to, uh, think critically about, uh, a bunch of stuff. I ask why a lot. And so, and so what, what was happening to me as I grew up in that environment, um, I began to ask a bunch of stuff. I ask why a lot. And so what was happening to me as I grew up

in that environment, I began to ask a lot of questions that I wasn't getting, I felt, satisfactory answers. Now, that didn't turn me from religion. I'm not anti-religion. I'm not, you know, I'm just, for me, it became more of a path of exploration and kind of, hey, let me figure, let me look at all of these holistically. And in turn, what happened was there was never any dissonance for me because the Bible's wrote with killing. It's all over the pages, right? So I really felt like there was no dissonance. As long as I maintained a solid level of internal morality in terms of, hey, what we are doing is right and the way we're doing it is right and the and the and the and the people and the targets we're doing it to are the right ones um

and as an officer i was extraordinarily uh diligent about that you know obviously you know in combat mistakes are made and and unfortunately you know war sucks no matter what so so sometimes you know the the wrong people get killed but uh ultimately, I didn't find – I don't lose sleep over anything that I did. I'm grateful for that because everything we did by myself, the guys I was with, the guys I led, it was all on that level of morality. Have either of you had to or have worked through PTSD or PTS, post-traumatic stress? I have not to the extent that many others have. I was thinking as you answered that, and I'm wondering what led to that, right? And there's some research around what buffers some of this, and there is some neuropeptide

Y. We looked at that for a while, there is some neuropeptide Y. We looked at that for a while. People high in neuropeptide Y, maybe some of them, there was a, I don't know where the research is right now, so I'm not going to be definitive, but high neuropeptide Y, low PTSD, which was an interesting correlation. I'm not sure where that research is now.

Maybe someone can school us up on it. But do you think it had something to do with that framing? I don't know. I classify it in a couple different ways. I think PTSD can take shape in either one or both, either a loss of identity or an inability to manage compartmentalization. So in the case of going to war and seeing bad stuff, right, which when you go to war and you're in combat, you see bad stuff. What I knew, what I did very deliberately, if I was on an op, for example, that something that I didn't like happened,

you know, obviously you have to work through it. You have to just do your job. But as soon as I was in a position where I could be by myself, I would take time to deliberately mourn that. And I did that because I wanted to stay human. I wanted to stay, you know, I was a, you know, the worst is when you see things happen to kids out there, right? And as a father, I wanted to make sure I deliberately mourned that and got it out of my system. So you would mourn that in your tent? In the privacy, yeah, in my hooch or whatever, you know?

And I know guys who did the same thing and those guys had uh healthy results because of it when you say more does that mean you would cry yeah i mean whatever whatever yeah sometimes it'd be sometimes i'd cry so sometimes i'd you know just i'd i'd process it i'd think through it i'd i'd reconcile with it i'd make sure i understood why um whatever i needed in the moment you know um yeah but uh so that's But so that's one. So there's that. Wait, I want to stay here for a moment. Yeah, please. Yeah. Does that mean you would go into the sadness?

Yes. Okay. Yes. And so you wouldn't block the sadness. Right. I'd block it. You have to block it in the moment. That's right.

Yeah. Like, so then as soon as the sympathetic nervous system, you know, as soon as the action is not required. Right. And you're in a safe environment. Right. That you would go into the pain. I'd go into the pain.

Of those images and sounds and smells. And then you would sit there for a moment and I don't know how long, but you would feel that. And that wouldn't overwhelm you. No, because it overwhelmed me into what? So I think the fear for many people is that if you touch that, you'll fall into a thousand pieces or you'll get sucked into a vacuum of despair that you'll never it is actually when done correctly when done correctly and i would say when done incrementally if you if you if you put it off the word incremental is the right way yeah if you put it off and you build all this this backlog of this stuff in and then you try to go in and touch it you will likely have problems but if you do it

incrementally i think you're going to do it in a healthy way. Okay. No one does it alone. And I want to share a couple of sponsors that are making this show possible. 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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And now back to the conversation. I want to stay here one more moment. Is like, how did you act mechanically? How did you quietly or privately mourn? You know, I think I would just in the case of kids, you know, I just I picture what I saw. I'd picture what I'd picture the loss. I picture what had been lost because of what happened. And, and feel for those who still were there, you know, and empathize with those as

a parent, as a, as a loved one. And, and, and as a father, I could do that pretty easily. And so, and so just doing that helped me recognize, okay, this is not mechanical. You know, I'm still human. And it was tough. And I don't know if I felt like I solved the problem in doing that. I don't remember coming out of that and feeling, okay, cool, now I'm great. I'm good. But I just knew that I released a pressure valve and got some pressure out.

And then closed the valve again, compartmentalized back up, and then, you know, did the next, did the next thing. So it's really cool. But for you, especially as a leader of men in battle, you know, uh, it's a very healthy approach to take that so that you can learn how to, in a healthy way, compartmentalize those feelings, address those feelings, be in the moment. Uh, and like you said, not, you don't feel like a million bucks right no you don't come out of that moment that was intentional yeah uh but and strategic if you will but it also makes you a more effective leader it does and as a leader lean into some of those emotions because you know your guys are having those emotions well and you and you look for signs like i remember just very deliberately and i had great troop chiefs you know i was a troop commander we had troop chiefs and that's the senior officer and then senior enlisted and that that that relationship's supposed to be like a married couple right you have to really be tight

and i was fortunate to have great ones and and sometimes it's not no when it's not when it's not you can tell the platoons or the troops they do not operate properly they're like this guy's he's never had his nose out of a book what's he right what right why is he here yeah totally is that right well or or it's i mean if the troop chief and the troop commander don't get along, it might be, you know, it depends on where that platoon or troop go. They might not like the chief. It's more likely they don't like the officer, right? That's right. But it could be the opposite.

So, but again, you know, we, in all of my deployments, we were very deliberate in making sure we understood and we kept, again, I think identity is a huge piece of this. And we'll get into why I think that lose, loss of it can be PTSD. But how we identify ourselves, whatever we put after the words I am, is how we behave, right? It shapes our behavior, shapes our destiny, shapes every part of our behavior, especially in uncertainty. And so-

That's why I was surprised you went to role. I am a father and- And husband. Or husband and father. Yeah. I was surprised you went to role. Yeah. Which is super interesting

because of your work on attributes. Yeah. I would have thought maybe you would have gone to a value or a virtue. Yeah. Well, those values and virtues come from my identity. Yeah. And so-

As husband and father. That's right. Yeah. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. And so. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. So, so we would always be very careful about and be diligent about reminding the guys who we were and what our, what our job was and why we were there.

Yeah. So that we inculcated, it just seeded the, that, that mental space with that as we went out. And, you know, again, sometimes bad stuff happens. It just, you know, again, sometimes bad stuff happens. It just, you know, it's the nature of war. Brent, how do you do the identity bit for you? One more time for clarity. How do you finish I am? I would have to lead with the same way that I answered it the first time. Yeah. I think I break it down based on my priorities though, you know, as a husband, you know, as a father, uh, as an entrepreneur and business leader. So for example, if I'm in a role as well, I'm in a moment of prayer, you know,

I'm asking God for strength to be first and foremost, a great husband who prioritizes a spouse, a great father whose children who, uh, uh, do not doubt my level of love for them and a great leader and servant, you know, to my team and our clients in that order. So yeah, I mean, I would stick with the same answer because that's, you know, and then from there, you know, my core values and guiding principles and the behaviors I expected myself stem from that foundation. Okay. So let's slightly pivot. I know you wanted to hear something different.

No, no, no. I actually didn't remember if it was role as well, but so it was both role for you guys. So there's a performance-based identity, which I think is problematic, but it will fuel you to a certain level of quote unquote high performance, right? It's problematic for a lot of reasons because performance-based identity is a comparative identity, my performance relative to your performance. So that relational comparison variable is very tricky. And so it'll fuel you for a while, but it's exhausting as an approach. Then there's purpose based identity, which is like my purpose is, and that's who I am. I am here lined with my purpose.

And you guys are doing something slightly different. You're taking your identity and putting into a role. And then underneath of that, you're saying there's a set of values that guide my thoughts, words, and actions relative to the roles that I inhabit. And so let's double click on the values. Do you use the word values or virtues? I say values. I say values. That's right.

Okay. And when you talk about your values, how did you become clear on your values? And how do you help others do the same? That's for both of you guys. Sure. Maybe Brent. I think upon reflection, and actually once I started becoming more of a student, for example, of leadership and organizational excellence and things like that, I learned

a lot more about, you know, it was an unconscious bias towards certain values based on my upbringing and my faith and things like that. And then a lot of a lot of benefits that I took from, you know, my time in naval special warfare, you know, both the good and not so good. But then I realized that there is a great degree of importance when it comes to performance or or being a great husband or leader of others or leader of self, first and foremost, is to more clearly define those values down to the words you use, the metrics for measurement, you know, see if you can measure those. So one of the things we do with organizations and leaders we work with, we say, great, you have these core values. How authentic are they really? They sound good. Integrity. Okay, cool. Yeah. Excellent. Yes. What's that? Awesome. You know, customer first. Okay, great. Whatever. No, but it's, what does that mean to you? Whether you're talking to an individual leader or a team of people or a, you know, a platoon in Naval Special Warfare, what do those values mean to you? You're going to use the word

integrity. How do you define that? What is literally a definition you would put based on you or this organization, how you define integrity? So you can make it, okay, I can visualize that. I can see that. And then a third layer below that is how do I put performance metrics to that definition? So I know, and it can measure my performance and my team's performance or my family's performance or my kid's performance to that value of integrity. Because oftentimes people or teams, if they even have authentic values in the first place, they leave it right with that word or that phrase. And it sounds good. And they think that that's something that would sound good to others, but that's where it leads. So it becomes inauthentic and unmeasurable.

And if it's not measurable, it's not a thing or a goal. That's right. So, okay. How many do you think an organization can manage? How many values? Five top. Yeah, I would agree. I mean, I don't force it on organizations and teams, but I say if you have, I mean, if you have more than eight,

you're getting up there. But again, it's because you're probably going to have repetitive things in there. You know, you can probably condense it a little bit. But I don't force it because, again, the organization's teams, individuals have to own their own stuff. And so, but I mean, everything that Brent said, it's the value is just a word on the wall. You have to put behaviors to those values. What does it look like when this value is behaved? And then when you start doing that exercise, which we do with our clients, is that you start to get really clear on what it looks like and what performance looks like.

And then the other thing I'll add, because I'll go one level deeper, I'm really fascinated with the elemental us, the elemental human, the elemental team. Like who are we at our most raw? Because we always hear that whole adage, you know, the true us shows up at our most raw. And I've always been fascinated with, okay, who are we at our most raw? Probably because guys like Brent and I, we got a chance to see that and know that implicitly. Because day one of BUDS, you're at your most raw. And then you go through that entire training process, then you go to combat. We knew ourselves at our most raw, and we knew our teams at your most raw. And then you go through that entire training process, then you go to combat. We knew ourselves at our most raw,

and we knew our teams at our most raw. When we are at our most raw, there's two drivers of everything we do. One is our attributes, how we're showing up with our attributes. The other is our identities. And our identities are informing our values and our behaviors, right?

If we identify as a Navy SEAL, a husband and father, that's driving our value system. And one of the things I say about identity is we actually, as humans, we tend to stack identities on ourselves as we go through life. And every identity we stack on ourselves comes with rules and conditions and boundaries and things that we have to do to maintain that identity. And before we know it, if we don't do a diligence and figure out how many identities we have, whether it's a, I went to this high school, I'm a Navy SEAL, I'm a Harley guy, right?

I mean, whatever it is, right? All this stuff comes with rules and conditions. What we have to do is to understand why and how we perform the way we do is figure out which identities we are prioritized, right? It's never just one, right? There's always one that we try to prioritize the most, and that's the one we'll behave towards the most frequently. But for example, I always joke, like husband and father was always my primary identity. Navy SEAL was under that, right? But sometimes the Navy was like, nope, Navy SEAL is above that, right?

Now you got to go, right? So suddenly when you're overseas, Navy SEAL is now your primary. And so those values move and shake with those identities, how they kind of prioritize. Do you think this is one of the reasons why there's such a high washout to make a team? Is because the folks entering are not clear on their identity. They don't really know who they are. They haven't committed yet to exact, like, listen, you can say whatever you want. You can push me however far you want.

I know exactly who I am. I don't think so. I think the process helps vet that out. I think the guys who don't make it are the guys who don't come in with the ability. They have some very key attributes. They don't have enough of some very key attributes. The primary one is compartmentalization. You have to come in with the ability to compartmentalize. If you, if you show up on the beaches of Bud's day one, and you don't have that ability, you're going to, you're not going to make it right. And then you just, and those who have it, we, we just hyper develop that as we go through. Um, but I think, I think I see buds and I see my time in the teams and combat as a gift because it was, it was a process

of self-discovery the whole time. But yeah, I don't think, I don't know. I mean, some guys might know, you know, I don't know. I would say the same thing. I mean, it's a, it's a buds is a fascinating social experiment. I mean, it doesn't matter if you're an Olympic Olympian or, you know, a college athlete, or you come, you know, this level of fitness, either mental fitness or physical fitness. But I agree. Compartmentalization is one. It's interesting having mentored, you know, a lot of guys in nothing formal, but mentored a lot of guys into and through BUDS and SQT as a way to give back. And then also being on the executive board of the SEAL Family Foundation, I'm kind of in and around that world still quite a bit. And one of the things we do for donors or potential donors for the foundation is we bring them over to the command and give them a tour.

And I remember we had this exact conversation, you know, John McTighe. Oh, yeah. Of course. Former colleague of yours. And that question, of course, was asked. We were sitting in the boardroom there just right off the quarterdeck at Bud's. And there's, you know, obviously there's a general social curiosity about, you know, the attributes of students who make it.

Why do they make it? And why don't, why do so many people not make it through? And as very, obviously you have to show a fit. That's a given, you know, so you can, you know, pass the evolutions and not get injured, things like that. But it comes down to really two things. And we've studied this a lot, obviously, because obviously a goal of any high performing organization is talent acquisition. And we have a talent acquisition challenge because we have the highest attrition rate of any military training and selection program.

So there's that piece of it. So obviously, we've done a lot of research looking into not just the physical elements, but the mental, emotional and cognitive attributes of students most likely to make it through that training funnel. And, you know, the things that rise to the top are these less measurable attributes of the ability to compartmentalize in a healthy way. So the way I describe it is these students who are successful, they can do two things simultaneously. They can maintain a long-term emotional connection to the mission and vision of what they're trying to accomplish. And they have an emotional connectivity to the purpose of our organization. That's part of their why. They need to be a part of this organization. It's not a want. It's like they feel they need to be a part of Naval Special Warfare, not just in the military, but Naval Special Warfare. So there's that. And they can maintain that long-term vision. And that passionate connectivity drives them through all of that adversity. But at the same time, simultaneously, they can compartmentalize in the moment, if not even lean in to a lot of the pain and suffering.

And the students who cannot do that, they lose sight. Some of these students have wanted to be SEALs since they were in seventh grade, literally been obsessing about it and training and thinking about it and reading all the books and watching the movies since they were in middle school. And in one of those moments, they can't compartmentalize and they throw in the towel. But then an hour later, you know, when they're warm and dry, all they feel is regret. It's which is sad because we even deal with, you know, post, you know, guys not making it mental health challenges and things like that. But those are just to expand on what you said, that those are two of the things that those students can do at the same time.

Just like when you're pursuing any lofty goal, you know, long term emotional connectivity to that end goal, regardless of how long it's going to take you there. Now we're going to talk about mastery today, which doesn't happen overnight, but also in the moment, knowing that there will be a lot of obstacles, a lot of anxiety, stress, pain, suffering, what have you, regardless of whatever the goal is, being able to compartmentalize in the moment, lean into those moments and know and accept, even with a degree of desire, that those are critical moments to your growth and development. And now one final word from our sponsors. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't And now, one final word from our sponsors. 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, which has made a meaningful difference in how I show up the next day for myself, my

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That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. And with that, let's jump right back into this conversation. I want to pick it apart just for more of an intellectual exercise. If you think of two martial arts, Aikido and Karate, very different approaches. One is like right angles, you know, Karate and Aikido's swooping circles, if you will, using the energy versus blocking and stopping. Both are right. Both can be wrong, but both can be right as well.

So what is the opposite of compartmentalization that you could take the other, as an intellectual exercise, you could take the other position. Let me see if you're really about it here. You could take the other position, say, exercise, you could take the other position. Let me see if you're really about it here. You could take the other position, say, and argue from that position. So compartmentalize, and I think you guys have been deeply entrenched that compartmentalization is really important. Okay. All right. Is there an equal opposite that somebody could make the case that could also work well in other words the opposite of compartmentalization yes uh yes because effective compartmentalization includes the opposite so i

love that's exactly yeah i love akito in fact i i've for the last 30 years i've walked around i carry i have it outside i carry around um morai shiba's um art of peace book because i just love that i love that so good work. This tattoo actually is, I am the universe or the universe that I am one from his dojo wall. I don't know anyone else that's read the book. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't. Except the person that gave it to me. Yeah. It's wonderful. But the reason why I say it's part of compartmentalization is because the key to effective compartmentalization is also letting go, right? So this understanding

of a long-term goal is absolutely necessary. I completely agree. But in the moment of compartmentalization, there's a there's a an absolute letting go of everything and focusing in on just one thing. Right. And so you're just you're you're in the moment saying, you know what, I I don't and can't worry about anything else. I'm going to focus on this. And it's all about moving these horizons in ways that allow you to step through that. Yeah. So that's. Which is an extremely freeing experience. Oh, yes. Just to let go. I have a nine-year-old daughter, so I listen to a lot of Carrie Underwood. So Jesus take the wheel, baby. You know what I mean? But I love what you said because I was going to say the same thing.

When we're defining compartmentalization, we're not saying ignore that pain, ignore that adversity. We're saying lean into it. Put it in its bucket. Put it in its appropriate spot. Know that it's critical for this path towards whatever that goal is you're trying to achieve or mastering whatever skill you're trying to achieve or what you're ever doing in your professional life. But it's doing – it's kind of a dichotomy, but doing those two things simultaneously. Okay. So that actually seems far less rigid.

Yes. Than, okay. So let me just give you a real quick example. Because I was just talking to a gentleman who didn't make it through BUDS. We're trying to get him back in, you know, and I was talking to him on the phone. So I can tell me about your experience. And he got to Hell Week. He made it to, I think, Monday or Tuesday of Hell Week.

And I said, talk to you. I said, tell me about your whole experience. He's like, yeah, well, you know, that's Saturday. You know, so Hell Week is. Yeah, let me define. So for the audience, Hell Week is fifth week of SEAL training, fifth week of BUDS. It's known as one of the toughest weeks of training in the world, right? You start on a Sunday afternoon and you go until the following Friday afternoon and you

sleep for about two and a half hours for that whole week. And you're constantly. It's a really good sleep, though. Yeah, it's very deep. It's very deep. Yeah, it's a good one. But yeah, it's not refreshing. No, no, it actually makes you feel worse.

I remember my legs were so sore I couldn't go to sleep. I was bouncing. Anyway, you're constantly wet. You're constantly sandy. It's just miserable. And that's when you get the most quitters, right? And I was talking to this kid and I said, tell me about your experience. He's like, well, you know, when I on the saturday before hell week you break out on sunday i didn't sleep

a wink that saturday night i just and i think that affected me um he was anxious he was anxious and i said to him and then he kind of explained his process i was okay one of the one of the very first things you have to work on before you go back is compartmentalization and part of compartmentalization is letting go i mean when i was I was the Saturday before Hell Week, you know, I didn't, I was not thinking about Hell Week at all. I mean, I let it go. To think about it was to become anxious, was to inculcate my system with the wrong stuff and burn this neural energy that I needed so desperately when we started the week. So this idea of letting go is, hey, I cannot control. I cannot worry about that which I cannot control. And therefore, I won't.

I will literally let go. This is the whole idea. Like I talk about going into combat and my friends, you know, flying in a helicopter on the way into combat, right? And most of the guys around me are asleep. They're napping, right? Because we're not we're not going to waste any ounces of energy on what we don't know what we can't control we don't know what's coming we don't know how long we're going to be out there so we're not going to waste energy right now worrying about shit right so so this is what we're talking about when it's this letting go it's a very it's it's almost a there's a looseness there's a rigidity and a looseness that's combined very akito ish very everything you said is really fundamentally one of the core principles about resilience

and being intentional and practicing, developing that level of mental fortitude. And when you do a lot of research and practice in that regard, it's about putting things into the right buckets. All right, this is what I can control, or at least as in my sphere of influence. This is what I, when I mentor guys, I'm like, here's things you can control your level of preparedness, your training, uh, both mentally and physically. And then there's a whole swath of things that are wildly out of your control. Don't even worry about those things.

Just know they're going to be a part of the journey, but you can't affect that. Don't even spend any time or emotion or energy on those things. I remember when I was, you know, we were a few hours into breakout in Hell Week. I was in class 235, arguably the last hard class, as we all know. There's data. Actually, I know what the hardest class is. It's like there's 307. It wasn't 235. My buddy wants to class. He says this is actually the officially hardest class. Let me have this. It's 300 something. Give me a moment. My identity is wrapped up. I know you're shattering my identity right now. The father and husband. I think it's all bullshit.

David Goggins told me we were the last 100 class. So I believed him. He said it differently than I did. You were in the class with David? Yes. Well, let me just quick aside there. He didn't make it through Hell Week, the first two classes. Landed in my class, in my boat crew, and then he succeeded.

So I'm just saying. I'm just saying. Help the guy i'm just saying what was presence that that time that wasn't present the other two times it's just mathematics but yeah i remember we were doing you know some surf torture we see the guys linked up they're in the surf we're doing some rocking chairs and uh and you know the pacific is as you know it's cold it's cold we were a winter hell week class and this is february and i in that moment, looking up at the, at the, the tall condominium towers that rise above the beach right there, just North of the, uh, the, the special warfare center, you know, looking at the sort of warm glow from those cozy condominiums.

I'm like, what the hell am I doing here? And I was like, I could be back on the 42nd floor in my cushy office in Dallas, Texas, crunching numbers, looking at P&Ls, just having a great old time. Yet here I am. But then again, in all seriousness, and this is what I tell the guys I mentor is reminding yourself, finding ways to remind yourself every minute of every day if you need to, why you're there. Not that you have to do those things. You get to do those things. You were blessed to be in that opportunity. Why were you there?

Well, you know, admittedly, I joined at first kind of to your points earlier was it's it's situational and transformative during that journey. I joined, you know, six months before 9-11. So I had a totally different vision of what service in NSW, God willing, that I made it through the program would look like. So it was a bit more of a for lack of a better way of putting it, a selfish journey, more of a personal challenge. And then when 9-11 happened, obviously for everybody in the military wide, it's a different mission. You know, it's a new, it gives you a new purpose.

It's much more specific to what your job is and a cause much greater than yourself. And I want to go try that thing. Would you advise people going into anything hard? Let's just keep it in the narrative that we're talking about to approach success or to avoid failure. Oh, Josh. No. Yeah. So let me, let me sharpen that really quickly is that I'm biased to like be flooded with approaching success, like know what it is and then line up all the right capabilities to go for that. And then when you're in the hard, know how to work with yourself through that hard. Yeah.

Can I put some out there, though? Can we define failure first? Yeah. Because I think that is really important. Yeah. Let's do that. Okay. Let me give you the example and then let's go up before we.

So the avoid failure, I did an ultra and i was at seven eighths of the way through hallucinating off my fucking rocker yeah and um and it was an ocean stand-up paddle and i was caught in a riptide and i couldn't get out of it 45 minutes at the seven eighths of the way through i could see land but i couldn't break out of the riptide for 47 minutes, 100% effort, full hallucinations. Awful. Sounds awesome. Does it? No. And so, no. So I'm in that state. And so there's a bunch of calcium that knocked off and rust that knocked off me and clarity about some of the early trauma and experiences of my life that were actually as hard-headed as I am,

like I needed that type of physical exhaustion to get to that emotional clarity, to that spiritual, psychological clarity. But the thing that also was there and present for me, and I'm surprised by it, is that I didn't want to let down my son. He was there and he was waiting for me at the beach. And like, and there was people that I had promised,

you know, that I'm going to do this fucking thing. And there was money that I raised. And so I didn't want to have a narrative that I tapped out. So that was like this avoiding failure bit. So I just want to frame it there. And I don't love that, but it was honest for me. It worked. And so you want to do the definition of failure before we open up the approach. Yeah. My only thought there was because, you know,

I, I think of it in terms of, you know, kind of simultaneously, but you know, failure is when you really, when you're set up to achieve once a specific goal and you meet adversity or an obstacle and that's where you stop period, full stop the end. You don't, there's no navigating. There's no adaptability. You don't continue to pursue that goal. Now, certainly, there's some goals we should not pursue anymore, depending on what they are, but that's my definition of failure. There's that phrase of you're either winning or you're learning. So where does failure play a role in there? If think like that therefore on your path to success however we want to define that whatever goals uh you know achievement you know you're trying to accomplish or skills you're trying to learn uh if you look at it you know from that lens then pharaoh doesn't

play much of a role knowing there'll be what i call micro failures along the way of course or there needs to be course correction or you need to find new ways to level up or train differently or learn new things. But that's kind of how I look at that. So what is a failure? A failure is when you're on the path to pursue, again, we can put these in all different walks of life, failure in a relationship, you know, failure in business, failure in, you know, some pursuit of a lofty goal. But if it's a meaningful goal and something you do have a passionate connection to and it fits within your purpose and your values and you meet adversity and you stop, that's it. And you do not pursue that goal anymore.

I see that as failure. Okay. So I operationalize failure as the inability or unwillingness to go for it. And it's contextually, it means in that moment of challenge or adversity, you're unwilling or unable. It means you haven't prepared properly or your psychology takes over in a way and you're unwilling or unable psychologically to go for it. And again,

lined up with purpose and value. So there's a nobility that I'm more interested in as opposed to scoreboard wins and losses. Finding Mastery is brought to you by iRestore. When it comes to my health, I try to approach things with a proactive mindset. It's not about avoiding poor health. This is about creating the conditions for growth. Now, hair health is one of those areas that often gets overlooked until your hair starts to change. That's when people pay attention. Now, that's why I've been loving iRestore Elite. It's a hands-free red light therapy device that helps stimulate dormant hair follicles, helps to support regrowth.

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Plus an extra $50 off when you use the code FINDINGMASTERY at checkout. That's Lisa, L-E- L E E S a.com. The promo code is finding mastery for 25% off and then plus an extra $50 on us because quality sleep is just too important to leave to chance. So Rich, you talk a lot about quitting and there's no shame in quitting. Right. Right. And so how to okay to quit, just don't give up. Yeah. Okay, so let's thread the needle between failure and quitting and giving up.

One of the things you'll get to know about me is I love going as deep, as elemental as I possibly can. So let's go elemental on this. And we're talking about in stress and challenge, what are we actually focused on? And for me in that moment, success is movement. Failure is not movement. And so what do I mean by that? And this is some of the work that Andrew Huberman and I did when we first linked up and we're kind of working on this, right? In these moments of deep

stress, challenge, and anxiety, we have to understand that we are looking to make movement make sense, do something that progresses our pathway, right? So what happens is we are in absence oftentimes of some key elements of information, right? How long is this going to take? What's the pathway out? What's the pathway through? What's the outcome, right? And so the way we take control of that is we basically compartmentalize and we do what we call move the horizon.

We pick a horizon that's contextual to our current and relevant to our current situation. Um, and we move to that. Now that horizon can be anything. I'll give you an example. You know, it's a hell week example. I remember being on the beach. Uh, it was some God awful time in the morning, right? Running with boats on our heads. You run everywhere with boats on your heads, with big rubber boats on your head. How many neck surgeries have you had? Yeah, big one. A couple months ago, big one. Anyway, during Hell Week, running with boats on our heads.

I remember being on the beach. Those who've been in Southern California know there's big sand burbs there in San Diego. So we're running on this beach. I'm miserable. And I'm thinking to myself, just miserably, what the hell's going on? I'm just miserable.

And I say to myself, you know what? I'm just going to focus on the, getting to the end of this berm. Yep. I know. And, and it got to the end of the berm. And when that happened,

I was like, I'm not gonna focus on this next thing. Right? So what's happening there neurologically is we are in fact giving our brain some certainty in what's called duration pathway outcome, the duration, how long it's going to last pathway or pathway through and the outcome, what's happening at the end. As soon as we create that, we create that certainty for

ourselves, we create a reward system. And when we hit that reward, we get a dopamine hit, right? We all know dopamine. He talks about it's not a reward chemical, it's a motivation chemical. It says, this is good, keep doing this. This is good, keep doing this. And so success is I'm going to pick a horizon, and I'm going to move to it. I'm going to create a dopamine reward and I'm going to pick another horizon. Now, again, that horizon needs to be contextual to your current environment. And depending on the severity of the experience, it could be a very short horizon. I remember being in surf torture and being freezing and just saying, I'm going to count

to 10. That was my horizon. I remember also saying, you know, I'm going to wait till the next meal. That's the horizon. You know, I met one of my talks. I had a guy come up to me and he was an ultra runner which i think is insane by the way i just you know put that on the table you think navy seals is insane i think ultra running anyway but yeah anyway he was an ultra runner and he and i was talking to him and i said how'd you get into ultra running he's like well you're not gonna believe

this but i used to be obese i said what do you mean it's like i was about 450 pounds same with dogons right and i said and i, I said, what, tell me what, what your story, what happened? He's like, well, one day I decided I had enough. And I said, I'm just going to start running. You know, I said, well, what'd you do? It's like, well, I'd never run before. So I just started breaking to pieces. I said, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to go online and order running shoes. And so he did that. And then the running shoes came and he said, the running shoes came. And I said, okay, I'm going to tomorrow morning, I'm going to get up and I'm going to put on my running shoes. He did that. He said, the next morning I and he said the running shoes came and i said okay i'm gonna tomorrow morning i'm gonna get up and put on my running shoes he did that he said the next morning i'm gonna get up i'm gonna put on my running shoes i'm gonna walk to the front door

did that and now i'm gonna go walk to the mailbox now i'm gonna walk again and he basically dpo'd his way through that whole process until he's running ultras right so so though so so as someone who loves to run right but sometimes has stints of not running because i'm working or traveling stuff and i haven't run maybe i can't remember the last time I run. But anyway, if I were to say I'm going to go run three miles right now, I would say I want to start running again. Just putting on my shoes and walking to the mailbox is not a meaningful enough horizon for me. I'd have to do something more. And so failure and success in these moments of deep stress and challenge means are you making movements? Are you picking horizons that you can move to and create a reward and move to and create a reward?

So I would imagine if we deconstructed what you were doing in that 45 minutes of paddling with no progress, you were in fact creating DPOs. Now, you had the ability to, again, part of it's can you manage your autonomic arousal? If you can manage your autonomic arousal enough so you can keep in context or envision the long-term goal, that's great, right? Which you were able to do. But I imagine you were also just kind of DPOing your way through that. You were picking horizons. So yeah, duration, pathway, outcome. So our brain makes sense of the environment by making sense of those three things. How long long what's the pathway what's the outcome if we are in absence of one or more that's when uncertainty and anxiety begin to bubble up and so what we can do in absence of all three it's like deep uncertainty you know

paddling for 45 minutes not moving right so you create by creating a horizon you're you're creating your own duration pathway outcome yeah and then you're heading it and you nailed it exactly because it was three paddles. Yes. I can do three strokes. That was it. That was it. And then when I get three in together, I can do three more.

Yeah. And it's fascinating because it works. I mean, I love running as an analogy because you can see it and you can touch it. And I've used that as analogy in writings as well. But, you know, like in Bud's, you know, you have timed evolutions, you know, your runs, especially in your swims. And obviously you have a small group of extremely competitive people, especially as the class gets smaller and smaller.

So my run times were fine, but that wasn't okay with me. I wanted to be like the fastest in the class. And there was a few of us who also wanted to be the fastest in the class. So I would pick that horizon back. All right, if I'm going to increase my run time, I need to pass that person. And then I would get that boost. And that's for the competitive people. I talk about in the book, competitiveness and non-competitiveness, that's a polarity that is honored at both.

Both polarities are honored. I am not competitive. I never have been. Competitive with self? I mean, I don't even think competitive with self is different. I mean, I don't think I'm competitive. Competitive implies winning and losing. It implies one party winning, one party losing. And competitiveness, to effectively define winning and losing in any environment, there must be rules and boundaries that define winning and losing.

And so the competitive mind tends to go into environments and immediately deconstruct the environment and ask, okay, what are the rules and conditions that allow me to define winning or losing? That's really good for finite games, which there's a bunch of in our business, right? In any business there's, but then there's a non-competitive people like me, right? And I look at a space. I would challenge that. Well, no, because I don't, because for me, it's not about like, even in leadership, I thought we were talking outside about, you know, me, you know, I was started in the leadership space. And I looked at the space, I was like, you know what, this is a really cool space, but it's, it's, it's pretty packed. There's a lot of people doing good stuff. I have no interest in, in competing competing in here i actually have more interest in competing in the in the in the uh in the performance space uh and so the non-competitive mind enters an environment and says there are no rules right i'm just gonna

i'm just gonna make shit happen because i want to make shit happen right now these blue ocean yeah but so but this is but this is like the and i don't know if they still give these two awards they used to give honor man the two awards were honor man and fire in the gut i don't think they give fire in the gut anymore i heard but i don Man. The two awards were Honor Man and Fire in the Gut. I don't think they give Fire in the Gut anymore, I heard. I heard they don't. Fire in the Gut. Fire in the Gut was an award.

So Honor Man was the award that was given to the student, the Bud student at the end of the class who had the top scores and everything. The top competitor, right? Fire in the Gut award was given to the student who basically just powered through.

They had the most grit the whole time, right? Oftentimes, they had the worst scores of the class, but they just somehow they made it. I'm actually upset that they don't have that anymore because that expressed the idea that they honored both polarities. When you're in a, I mean, this is business too, but in combat, certainly some missions, there's a requirement to go straight up the line. There's a win-lose thing that you have to plan for. It's like, hey, these are the rules, these are the boundaries, let's do that. You need the competitive mind to help you with that. But some missions are like, no,

there are no rules here. Let's throw out the rule book and let's start looking at it differently. The competitive mind sometimes has a hard time doing that. The non-competitive mind doesn't. The non-competitive mind has a hard time saying, hey, this is a time where winning or losing matters. And that's why the best teams have both polarities. Right. And so. So let's do a quick definition of failure from you. Not making movement.

Not making movement. Okay. How does that square with the deep value of stillness? Because stillness. So movement is a decision. And maybe it's not even making movement. Maybe it's not making a decision because the decision could be to be still. Got it.

Right. So maybe that's failure. It's not making a decision. I like that because sometimes we talk about quitting. It's like sometimes there are things you should quit. Yes, that's right. There are things you – like the whole stop, start, continue methodology. There are certain things oftentimes in life or in work, individually or in teams, you need to stop doing.

That's right. Old ways of doing things that are getting your way. Well, no, no, no, those are fine. Depending on which one, right? The junk food. Okay. So, all right. Let's slightly shift over to teams.

And right now there's a, there's a different type of stress that's in the system. So this idea of unprecedented drives me crazy because the dark ages were really hard. Totally. A lot of hard days. These are unprecedented times. Are you kidding me? Have you studied any history at all? So there is new types of stress right now that are challenging.

And the way that I've been thinking about the last couple of years is that the tide, it's as if the tide had swung out and now we realize that most of us have been swimming naked. So we didn't have the right protective mechanisms psychologically. I'm not really talking about clothing here. Psychological mechanisms to deal with change. Stress and change are synonymous. So there is, there is stress in the system right now for leadership teams and teams across businesses.

How are you helping people to stay connected with potentially less resources than they had last year? And that could be human capabilities or human teammates, as well as financial resources. So there's less resources, high stress. And what we know under those two conditions is that people tend to unlock their arms and take care of themselves. Okay. Right. So it's the rare ones that in adverse high stress conditions stay locked in because that actually might be against an evolutionary dictum, right?

Is to save yourself first, not take care of your neighbor. We can talk about that. I don't want to take us down that path yet. But how are you helping people in these modern conditions stay or become great teammates with potentially less resources? It's actually a lot of research I did for my first book, which was about how organizations more successfully lead and navigate through change, whether it's full-scale organizational transformation or small programmatic changes, or just dealing with external pressures on their business economically or changes in the industry or competitive landscape, whatever it is. And then you need to look really going back to looking at

the people structure of your organization. Culturally, yes, but also every organization has three subsets of people and they're usually broken down into very similar percentages. These percentages don't shift all that much. You know, Deloitte, McKinsey, it all comes back the same thing. You have your engaged folks. So you might say all in all the time. You know, they are evangelized. They evangelize the culture. They believe in the folks. So you might say all in all the time. They evangelize the culture. They believe in the mission. They're great leaders regardless of where they fall in the rank and file. And they are more likely to be heavy participators in any type of change initiative, as long as they believe in its intent. There's some thinking around this also

stacks up with the 80-20. Like 20% of your people are doing 80% of the work right it's true sometimes but then so usually you see like 15 and it fluxes 15 to 20% you might have in a good organization highly engaged people the bulk of your organization sometimes around 60% is what you call disengaged it has a negative connotation but not necessarily a bad thing it's just people doing the work. They're not going above and beyond. They're, you know, they're wrote about it. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then you have the other similar percentage subset of you're actively disengaged.

These are your agitators, people who create a toxic environment. Sometimes those people are at the top. The problem with that group is that especially during times of change, those people have a voice and their toxicity spreads faster because of tenure, because of subject matter expertise. Yes, you even see this in naval special warfare, sadly. But no, it yeah, these are people who are going to they're going to have their camp and they're going to be pushing against change. So, yes, any organization today, we're talking about this before we started, you know, change is relevant to every organization. The complexity of change, the pressures of, you know, economic externalities are just internal pressures. And then, of course, not to go down the COVID path, but organizations have been restructured and whether they're in

the office or hybrid or whatever, there's new challenges. You know, again, I wouldn't say unprecedented, but different, you know, different leadership challenges and just different organizational complexities that, you know, and some of that's just due to the modern times we live in and digital transformation, technological advancements, what have you. These are all also opportunities when led correctly. But at the same time, you have people who will, you know, if you look at one of the biggest things we do in organizations are a lot of assessments, whether the 360 assessments, employee engagement surveys. And there's interesting things, regardless of the industry, regardless of the size of the organization, whether you're talking about an airline or a construction company,

there's several things that currently over the past year always rise to the top. One of those is leadership's ability to identify and combat burnout. Every single organization we work with, that's something that rises with a high degree of percent to the top employees basically saying, yeah, our leadership teams, regardless of where they fall in the organization, don't know that I or we are burned out or overworked, we're disengaged, or we're not being given meaningful work, what have you. And they're not paying attention. So those are some interesting things you see, but leaders aren't doing enough about it to have situational awareness about, you know, the mental state. That's awesome. What are some of the best practices that you have for those? There are many, but, you know, that fall into that sort of employee engagement strategy bucket.

But at the same time, one is, you know, building, you know, we talk a lot about trust. Yes, accountability and ownership in our organization. one of the two most important cultural pillars in our research and experience. Trust is the other one. And whether you go down. Accountability, ownership, and trust. Well, accountability, ownership in the same category. Trust being in the other category. So, you know, Stephen Covey's philosophy is speed of trust, speed of execution.

But, you know, we break trust down into three pillars. One is transparency. So transparency about the organization, good, bad, and ugly. Sometimes personal transparency and an acceptable degree of vulnerability as leaders. The second tier is empathy. I know that word gets thrown around a lot. It's practically a buzzword today, but it is important in appropriate settings to be empathetic to the needs of the people, especially in organizations facing even moderate to significant degrees of change and paying attention to their needs and their emotions to better understand what they need to stay motivated

and engaged so they will participate in those change initiatives, which usually take longer and have greater degrees of hard and soft costs than we anticipate. And the third is, so we have transparency, empathy, and then probably the biggest one, consistency. If I had to pick one leadership failure of mine over the years, and this is even from well-intentioned leaders, is a lack of consistency. Promise is not followed through on, or yeah, I'll get back to you. It can be. It's always the little things. I'll respond to this email or I'll call you back and you don't. That erodes trust, which is, again, one of the most important things for organizations to maintain their ability to successfully transform or navigate change. And it's true. It's sorry, Rich.

It's also trust of how you show up when it's stressful. Yes. Right. So it's small promises like, hey, I'll get that to you next week or I'll do that. But it's the bigger one, which is like you say you're one way. And then when I see you under duress or stress, you're totally different. That's in that consistency realm. That's consistency.

And so this is how we define high performing teams. And a team, just for everybody's kind of codification here, is any group of two or more people working together towards a common goal or objective. That's the team. So a team can be an athletic team, it can be a business team. A team is a great marriage, right? A group of friends, right? A high-performing team is any group of two or more people that are working together towards a common goal or objective that perform not only when things are going great, but also when things aren't going great. And so what we do is we help people understand exactly what high-performing teams look like. And the model is very simple, okay? This came to fruition

to me, or at least I was able to kind of get it jotted down. I was in front of a group of executives shortly after I retired. They asked me to draw for them a task organization for a high-performing team. What did that look like? And I was- A task? Yeah, what does a task organization look like for a high-performing? What does that mean? A task? Just like a model, like a framework, right? What is that? And so I had, I had some models in my head, but they weren't what I wanted to describe. Obviously I had the pyramid model. There's a hierarchical where the leader sits on top and the word filters down. That's not how it works. It's

too bureaucratic, too military in some cases. So that was out. I had the flat model, which was kind of a mild rebellion to the pyramid. It's like, Hey, all of us are in this together. We're here. Everybody's groovy. Everybody's cool. The problem with the flat model, which was kind of a mild rebellion to the pyramid. It's like, hey, all of us are in this together. We're here. Everybody's groovy. Everybody's cool. The problem with the flat model is oftentimes it's tough to figure out who's actually in charge. And what can happen on a flat model is something can happen on the right side of the line that's not seen or heard by the left side of the line, which means things can get siloed. That's not how a high-performing team operates.

Communication is everywhere. Finally, I had the Robert Greenleaf servant leadership model where he took that pyramid, that's where I'm going to turn it upside down and said, I'm the leader. I work for you. And I always say, if we were to default on anyone, we could default on that one. But it's still not how a high performing team operates because in a high performing team, burden is distributed. It's not all on one person. So really kind of in frustration, what I did is I drew because I had a whiteboard. I drew a blob, an amoeba on the board.

And I said, where do you think the leader sits in this blob? And I got answers like front, back, middle, top, bottom. I said, where do you think the leader sits in this blob? And I got answers like front, back, middle, top, bottom. I said, all of you are correct. The leader is wherever the leader needs to be in the moment. And there's a concept that we call dynamic subordination. Dynamic subordination implies that a team understands that problems and challenges can come from any angle at any moment. And when one does, the person who is closest to that problem, the most capable, immediately steps up and takes lead and everybody follows. And it's a dynamic swap between leader and follower, also called alpha swapping, that alpha position hops. And so when you do this,

when you create a team that does this, what you do is you build in resiliency. Because what happens is when someone steps up, there are people supporting them, but the people in the back, they can be recovering, right? This is how the highest performing teams go the long term. They play the infinite game because they're constantly shifting. They're constantly supporting each other. This is how we operate in the SEAL team. SEAL teams operate. I was an officer in the teams.

I was in charge of every single mission I was on. It didn't mean I was always being supported. In fact, most of the time it was the opposite. I was supporting other people. And you're not always the decision maker. Not always, yeah. Sometimes the environment would shift and suddenly I was the one, you know, that I needed the support, right? So, but when we look at dynamic subordination, the way we create dynamically subordination teams, dynamically

supporting teams, certainly the work we do is we have to get to those elemental qualities. We talk about trust. It's one of the, it's one of the building, it's one of the primary building blocks. One of the primary things of trust is vulnerability, but, but we define vulnerability. And I say, we, SEALs do this the same way, differently than everybody else. It's not about showing just your weaknesses. It's about wearing both your strengths and your weaknesses on your sleeves. So everybody on your team can know exactly what you're strong at and exactly what you're

weak at. And we can start to mesh together like a zipper. It's about knowing your attributes. What attributes are we all bringing to the table? Because attributes start to mesh, right? Some of us are patient. Some of us are impatient. Some of us are impatient, some of us are competitive, some of us are non-competitive. Sometimes a problem will require impatience and competitiveness.

Sometimes problems will require patience and non-competitiveness, right? So we start understanding these elemental factors about each other and our teammates. We start to build a team that dynamically subordinates and becomes the highest performing team on the planet. When it comes to being a high performing teammate. Okay. So when I think of teams, I think of great teammates and we spend most of our time helping people be great teammates. And then the team comes together for the common goal. Right. So if you've got eight people and four of them are terrible teammates, it's probably never going to become a high performing. We call it the team ability category. Just like leadership, I always say being a leader is not

a position, it's a behavior. You don't get to self-designate. You don't get to call yourself a leader. That's like calling yourself good-looking or funny. Other people decide whether or not you're someone they want to follow. Rich, do you want to be good-looking? I can't decide. My wife thinks I am, so that's all I need.

That's all I need. Married 22 years. My mom thinks I'm a winner. Yeah, mom and wife, yeah. That's perfect. But just like leadership, being a great teammate, you don't get to decide whether or not you're a great teammate. That's right.

Your teammates decide and they do so based on the way you behave. And these behaviors stem from these very core attributes. Some of the attributes include integrity, okay? So integrity, it's an interesting word. Integrity means do the right thing, basically. And what we have to understand about integrity

is it's entirely subjective to the group, right? Do the right thing is defined differently for a Cub Scout troop than it is for an ISIS troop, right? So a team and a leadership...

Just slide that. No, seriously. Different groups, by the way. But leadership has to be very clear. Different value systems. Yeah. But leadership has to be

very clear on what do the right thing looks like. Or else are the teams going to sort it out? We found this in the SEAL teams. If you're not clear on that, the team's going to sort it out. You might not like the answer. If you're not clear on what? On what do the right thing looks like. What does that mean?

What does integrity mean for this specific group? That's right. Because again, here's another one I'll throw. Controversial throw on the table. Because I give this example to groups. I say, if you take the Cub Scout who steals $5 from his fellow Scout compared to the ISIS guy who runs into a building and clacks himself off, who's operating within integrity in those two people, right? Obviously, it's the ISIS guy, right? Based on that definition, right? So integrity is one.

Humility is another. And humility is not just, again, it's not just being vulnerable. It's not just showing your weaknesses. It's showing your strengths and your weaknesses. It's showing up with the desire and the intention to always have something to learn. The other one is conscientiousness, the ability to show up, be diligent, work hard, be reliable. And then one of the most important ones that I have as team ability attributes is humor. I have never experienced a high-performing team that does not have humor as a part of it.

And it's a really interesting, it's a very simple example, or it's a very simple reason. When we laugh, which is an unconscious response, we are juiced with dopamine. This is good, keep doing this. We're juiced with endorphins, which mask our pain, right? Interesting enough, in the late 60s, early 70s, scientists were studying the human brain. They found the human brain had opiate receptors. Like, why the heck does the human brain have opiate receptors? Because we make our own opiates. They're called endorphins. You know that as an ultra runner. So you get dopamine, you get endorphins, we get oxytocin. Oxytocin, known as the love hormone, really ultimately a neuromodulator, not just a hormone, but it's the bonding, binding chemical. So when we laugh with each other, we immediately get, this is good.

Keep doing this. This doesn't feel that bad. We're in this together. That's right. It's also some of the funniest people I've ever known. Team guys. It's what I miss. It's what I miss the most about the team.

It's what I miss the most about the teams. And I always say I've never been more miserable and I've never laughed more in my entire life. Especially in those early days, like how we can do that. Well, and in Buds, you learn it, right right because you're not going to get through it unless you it's a necessity I mean I remember laughing until I was crying during 100 I mean that's how funny things were and there's an irreverence you know in certain subcultures that's right you'd actually lost your mind at that point but still but still it's a relevant example but anyway humor is a huge one now humor as an attribute doesn't mean you have to be the class clown right you have to

just honor the class clowns every team needs them and you have to be the class clown, right? You have to just honor the class clowns. Every team needs them. And you have to be someone who can laugh when things are tough, right? And the humor can be very dark. I mean, we know you've worked with athletic teams. I mean, the locker room humor, the team room humor, I mean, if anybody got that out, we'd all be canceled, right? But it's completely contextual. It's dark. In fact, one of my buddies was saying, just last example, I was telling one of my buddies who I was talking about his attributes and humor. He said, you know, Rich, it's funny.

We were on the way out of a mission in Iraq. We were in a helicopter flying away. The mission was complete. And the helicopter started crashing, like going down. And we're all looking at each other in this helicopter. And finally, one guy says, well, I guess we're not going to have to clean our weapons tonight. And we all burst out laughing, right? And no, the helicopter didn't go down.

They made it out right. But this is what I'm talking about. So it can be very dark. But it is such an important attribute. And so those are at least four. There are more, but those are four primary ones for great teams. Can I touch on that? Because, again, fascinated by the concept of high-performing teams.

What does that look like? And it's slightly different, but the frameworks models are relatively similar in all organizations, in all teams, regardless of size. Like I said, a team of two, team of 5,000. The framework that we have first divides high-performing teams into two dimensions. One is relationships because all high-performing teams are made up of people, which is why they're all inherently flawed. And results because all high-performing teams are extremely results-focused and they measure everything that's important. And we break relationships down into transparency, trust, and tone, and results down into accountability,

agility, and alignment. Alignment strategically, alignment behaviorally, culturally, things like that. But one good example, going back to the early days of BUDS and boat crews. So a boat crew is a seven-person team. So six enlisted students and one boat crew leader, a naval officer.

And much of what you do in those early days of BUDS, like running around boats on your heads, is sometimes, especially in Hell Week, is in competition with the other crews. Largely, this might be for the entertainment factor of the instructors. But there are key lessons to be learned. Why do some crews win consistently

over and over and over again? And why do other crews lose consistently over and over? It goes exactly into the attributes you talked about. But what you see, even in these small teams, the crews that lose, they're working in silos. It's an individual exercise. Those students have not moved from the individuality because it's very much an individual exercise just to get into SEAL training. But the mindset shift to we will go further faster as a team. You cannot successfully complete SEAL training as an individual.

It's impossible. And oh, by the way, like those races, you don't get dropped from boats for losing, right? So again, yet again, they're not punishing you for losing. They're punishing you for not working together, right? And the lesson they're inculcating there, just again, probably implicitly, not explicitly, sometimes explicitly, but is,

hey, this is not about winning or losing. This is about working together because sometimes you'll be on a mission and you'll finish the mission and it won't feel like you won anything, right? I mean, there are missions when you lose guys, it doesn't matter. That's not a winning mission.

You just lost something, right? So it's not, the competition is designed to inculcate this team element, not to focus on the winning or losing. And in fact, a lot of times the winning teams at some point will get crushed just for the sake of being crushed because they don't want the winning teams to just not have anything happen. They say, hey, just because you think you're winning, that doesn't always happen, right?

So something will be thrown into the mix to get that winning team back on its back's belly up. But some of those behavioral elements you do see, like you do in any high-performing organization, you see an element of leadership at every level. So every member of that team, regardless of their rank, is behaving as a leader. Another thing they're doing is each individual is looking out more.

They spend more time and energy and emotion looking out more so for you and you than they do themselves, which creates an overlapping web of performance. And there's a lot of just, it's fluid, it's adaptable, it's creative. And like you said before, it's situational. And any given time when somebody is making a decision or they're making a call or they're shifting their positions in the boat cruise, anything they can do to be more successful and support each other. And those are the crews more likely to, not all the time, but consistently beat out the other crews.

You guys have dedicated your lives to helping others. And it's professionally, personally, obviously matters. It's part of your purpose. What do you hope if you could get it down into a sentence or two, what do you hope that people would take from your message today or from the main idea that you're expressing today? I love the idea of inspiring potential in human beings so that they can discover and help, help us evolve. Right. So if I can, whatever I can do to help someone discover and explore their own potential to help everybody else, that's, that's good with me. Okay, cool. Amen to that.

I got a message, I think it was on LinkedIn or Instagram the other day. Somebody who had read Embrace the Suck. The book's about resilience, overcoming adversity. And his message was that he's an Army veteran for many years, soft guy, I believe, and that the book saved his life, literally. He had gone down a dark path and we're losing more and more special operations veterans to their mental health battles these days. It's taken a little bit, seems like it's taken a little bit longer for that to catch up in our communities. And he explained it in a brief paragraph that he was going down a path and it saved his life, his marriage, his family. And I lost it. I lost it.

Balling. Privately, of course, in my office. Like Rich does. I find a nice, quiet port-a-potty or room or tent. And, of course, right then my wife walked in and saw me. But she seen me cry many times. So it wasn't a show. It wasn't a show.

About all kinds of things, whether it's a Downey commercial or a message from a veteran. A lot more as we get older. Yeah, I know. Shockingly, you know, team guys are quite sensitive or become quite sensitive. But so I'm just giving that as an example. I'm, that's not, you know, I'm not patting myself on the back by any means. I created a great degree of humility that if in any way, shape or form, Rich or I could find ways to transform people's lives personally or professionally and leave something behind better than the way we found it. I think that that's a meaningful life. As just a more reductionist question, if there was one practice that you're not sure how you would do without it, what would that one practice be? The one practice that I think has been one of the

most important secrets to my success and his success is this idea of asking better questions. We are question answering machines. That's what our brains do. Every single time we look at something, we're interrogating it. Our brains are asking questions. When we put a question into our frontal lobe, whatever that question is, our brain has no choice but to come up with answers, right? And I do this exercise with groups. I say, I basically say, how would you double your income in the next six months? Just write down anything that pops in your head, right? And I give them 30 seconds and they typically have between five and six responses. I say, well, the key is not the answers. The key is how many things you have on your list, right?

A lot of times most of us do this the wrong way. We say things like, why am I so bad at this? Why does this always happen to me? Why are these people out to get me? When I was in high school, I recognized that the, I learned that the highest performing teams, the highest performing individuals, they take conscious charge of the quality of questions they ask themselves on a consistent basis. And they say they ask better questions.

They say things like, what can I do better? Who's out there can help me? As soon as you place that question, right, if you place a question like, why am I so pissed off? You're going to get some amazing answers as to why you're pissed off, right? If you place a question like, why am I grateful? You're going to get some amazing answers as to why you're grateful. And this is this shifts your focus, right?

And so this is something I learned in the physical world too, because as a team guy, you know, we get to go to driving schools. I love driving. And so I got to go to racing schools as a team guy. And in the racing schools- To be clear, that means a bunch of team guys destroying automobiles. Yeah, and racing around- Plain and simple, yeah. But one of the things they first teach you is how you get out of a spin. And what they say is when your car goes out and you spin, first thing you have to remember is never look at the wall. Because if you look at the wall, you're going to hit the wall. You have to look where you want to go, right? So even if where you want to go is over your shoulder,

you're looking and your body is going to take you there. Well, you could do the same thing with the quality of questions. And so I'm a deep believer, both kind of experientially and philosophically, that the quality of our lives is directly proportional to the quality of questions we ask ourselves on a consistent basis. We ask better ones, ask better questions, you can have better focus, you have better results. And that's what I've done since I was in high school. Very cool. Yeah. Unexpected, but very cool question. Yeah. Or response. Yeah. How about for you? Well, maybe not surprising. My answer is somewhat similar, but maybe a little bit more external. But you look at those philosophies of, you know,

people with a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset. By definition, a fixed mindset are people who generally think that the skills they have are the skills they have. The skills they don't are not developed. You can't develop those. Whereas a growth mindset has a certain degree of curiosity and an unwillingness to accept mediocrity or the fact that they can't learn and develop new things, regardless of how high the degrees of adversity that comes with learning that new thing might be. And so for me, it's just continuing to always find ways, you know, I think the highest performers out there, I'm not putting myself in that category, but our lifelong learners. So having that really good, healthy, even extreme degree of curiosity. So I think you're rich is

talking, which is very important, more of an internal curiosity, asking yourself the right questions and reflecting it. And but also being accepting of external feedback, but also an external degree of curiosity, wanting to learn new things. I listen to a podcast and the concept is kind of corny, but I was talking about the difference between, you know, billionaires and millionaires. And one joke was, you know, every million I was a true asshole. The billionaires are great. It's like One joke was that every millionaire and I was two assholes, and the billionaires are great. I was like, obviously, I'd be a really nice guy if I was a billionaire. I wouldn't be a dick at all. But he said something really, really interesting

under that premise of being a lifelong learner. He said, I try to do one thing. And this goes into daily routines and morning rituals, whatever. Everybody has something different. I don't recommend getting up at 4. 30. That's the middle of the night, literally. Um, but you know, five or after is fine. And he said, I try to learn one new thing every single day, whether it's listening to a podcast, uh, reading a snippet from a book, uh, you know, looking at an article, a blog, whatever it is, uh, or having a conversation

with someone, one new thing to a degree where sometimes I'm asking myself, why am I even learning this thing? But maintaining a degree of curiosity about things out there in the world, you were touching on some of those before. Over time, those pieces of the puzzle start to fit together. And you might have an epiphany one day of like some new innovative business model, you know, to pursue or a new and better way to be a spouse or, you know, something very creative or a way to, you know, leave the world a better place or to give back in your community. The puzzle pieces come together over time. So being a lifelong learner and always finding new ways to gain knowledge, even categories that I probably have no business learning anything. And that's something I want to.

And you have to consciously, that takes some level of discipline because, you know, we're busy and you need to make time to do that. Yeah. All right. Let's have some fun with just a few quick hits. So these are answers that are like literally just one answer or one word answers. Okay. Or maybe two or three. But it all comes down to, Rich, I'm looking at you.

What we focus on. Purpose. Living the good life is marked by? Love and relationship. Giving back. Successes. Love and relationship. Giving back.

When I think of a person that's successful, I think of? Oh, the pause is really interesting what's the pause about uh because i'm trying to define success oh i was gonna say the same thing i i would not name i couldn't yeah i mean there's there's financial success there's there's uh there's so physical success okay good if we change the question to um when i think of a person living the good life i would say johnny kim he's pretty successful. Yeah. In terms of goals. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Do you know who Johnny Kim is? No. So Navy SEAL then became a doctor. Harvard Medical. Harvard Medical and now is an astronaut. Literally an astronaut. Pretty good. Yeah. Pretty good. Smart kid. It's like, Johnny,

stop it. You're making the rest of us look bad. Johnny, stop it. That's a bumper sticker. That's great. Okay. Yeah. All right. So when I think of somebody who's living the good life, I think of? Me.

Yeah. I'm so grateful for everything I have. Awesome. I was going to say people who can find ways to experience and practice true gratitude, regardless of what they have or what they've achieved. I think that really is because that's authentic happiness. Cool. Pressure comes from?

Internally. Internally. Internally. And that, double click, that narrative, what creates that pressure? So it's an internal mechanism created by? What you focus on. Meaning? Meaning if you focus on the wrong thing, you will create

pressure. But if you focus on the right thing, and by the way, pressure is not always bad, right? So, so focus on the right things and you turn pressure into something good. It gets us moving. So. Yeah, cool. I totally agree. And it's kind of the fundamentals of stoicism. You know, it's the perspective we choose to take in any given situation. Uh, but to your point, you know, some pressure is intentional and required to pursue whatever it is we're trying to accomplish. Do you rise to the occasion or fall to the level of training? Fall to the level of training and preparedness. Uh, if I had to choose, I think it's, I think they're synonymous. It's interesting.

I asked this, that question to the second largest hedge fund on the planet. And unanimously they raised their hand to rise to the occasion. Mine, mind you, they're exhausted and don't like working with each other. And so like, it was like 40 of them. And I was like, that's because I don't think that way. And I was overwhelmed by just, so I was like, wow, I wonder if I'm really far off here, but I think about falling to the level of my training. So if my training level is really high, then it's not a lot.

But Rich, you said synonymous because you can't rise to the occasion without extreme preparedness and training and resources. And understanding your own qualities and your own attributes. Again, rising to the occasion is performing optimally in any situation. That could be flow states. It could be I'm just head down gutting it out. Did you say optimal or optimum? Optimal performance. So you're more interested in optimal, not optimum.

No, and the way I define optimal performance is I'm going to do the very best I can in the moment, whatever the best looks like in this moment. That's what optimal is. That's what optimal is, right. It's a conscious choice that you use that word instead of optimum or high performance or whatever. So you're interested in whatever the conditions are, internal and external. Do the best you can.

Do the best. Sometimes that looks great. Sometimes it's flow states. Sometimes it's I'm head down, I'm gutting it out. Yeah, that's right. And it's dirty and it's ugly and it's gritty and it's hard. How do you guys recover? What do you do to,

like you're living a highly charged, intense life. How do you recover? I believe and like to evangelize to others, and we do this with teams we work with, is really focusing on your mental and physical wellness. It, you know, I know a lot of people talk about that. It's like double click on it. Like, what do you do for them? For me?

Yeah. You know, like, like both of you guys do. I still, you know, make time to engage in varying degrees of fitness activities, working out, running, cardio. But also I have a very specific morning routine, you know, working out, running, cardio. But also, I have a very specific morning routine. So I get up and I, yeah, I'm going to say I cold plunge and now I'm just shaking my head. So cut that out later on. But there was a meme saying like, you can cold plunge and not tell everybody about it. But it bears meaning to the conversation. And then after that, I do some- How long is your cold punch depends on

if I'm at about in the mid 40s I stay in for like 7 or 8 minutes that's a long time I'm just using the shower I know that works

just so you know I do 36 degrees at 10 minutes yeah that's no that's what I meant I've been doing 34 minutes but this guy said he's not competitive

34 minutes what just happened there what just happened I? What just happened? I know. You see that? We slip. Yeah. You can repent.

We can slide from attributes to attributes. No, that's just giving shit. That's very team guy. But after that, I do some reading. You know, right now

I'm reading Ryan Holiday's Daily Stoic. And then I'll read a little bit from the Bible trying to find something that correlates. Do some reflection on that. For me, it's a routine on how I show up, you know, for my family and for my team to set that tone for what the mind's going to, you know, because we don't know exactly what's going to happen every day.

It could be a great day. It could be a shitty day. It could be somewhere in between. Usually it's somewhere in between. And then I'm finding, you know, every single day, you know, people who have these really good routines. And again, I'm inconsistent just like anyone else that their routines are seven days a week. They're not five days a week or four days a week. There might be some adjustment on the weekend or if you have business travel, but there are seven day a week routines to continually find ways to decompress, to reflect, and to maintain energy through mental health and physical health.

There you go. Yeah. Yeah. I think recovery can be found in anything that's joy-inducing. So anybody can find recovery in anything that's joy-inducing. For me, it's hanging with my family is number one. Physically, I love going for runs in the woods there in Virginia. I don't time myself. I don't have myself. I don't listen to music. I'm just out in the woods. It's my own pace. I don't time myself. I don't have myself. I don't listen to music. I'm just out in the woods. It's a, it's a very, I don't, you know, my own pace. I don't do it with anybody. It's my own thinking time.

That's very cathartic for me. But anything that we can, anything that brings us joy. And that's for me, that's mostly, mostly family, just being with family. But then it's, you know,

sometimes the physical stuff, you know, depends on how hard the physical stuff is. But, but those, those, those, so the solitary runs are,

are pretty good for me. Yeah. What a treat. Thank you both for spending the time and intelligence and all the work that you've done to have the clarity of ideas here today. What a gift to me and to our community. So Brent, Rich, thank you both for the contribution that you're making. It's awesome. Thanks for having us. Yeah, thank you. It the contribution that you're making. Thanks for having us. It's a pleasure to finally meet you. Yeah, ditto. Yeah, ditto.

And where can we drive, folks? Where's the best place for you? Yeah, for me, it's theattributes.com. We have everything there. You'll see everything we do for teams and organizations. The book's there. All of our attributes assessments are there. So theattributes.com, and you can contact us and see if you want to work with us.

Brilliant. Same, our company website, takingpointleadership.com. you can, you can contact us and see if you want to work. Brilliant. Brilliant. And same, uh, our company website, taking point leadership.com. There you go. Awesome. So you guys both have tattoos and probably, probably more than you can see. Yeah. I only have one. I only have one.

So, um, I was going to ask like the tattoo that you, you, you enjoy the most right now and the one that you regret the most. Like, so you only have one. I only have one, which I don't regret. Yeah. Again, this is my, my Ushiba's.'s uh he used to write it on his dojo wall i am the universe or the universe in r1 which i think is is both philosophically sound i love it philosophically but it's actually scientifically accurate because the the primary elements of the universe are carbon hydrogen oxygen and nitrogen

and the primary elements that make us up as human beings are carbon hydrogen oxygen and nitrogen so we are literally star stuff um and so this is both psychologically and physically true. Awesome. Yeah. Cool. The one on my arm, I get asked about a lot because it's Latin. It actually means never out of the fight. So it's one of the philosophies of, you know, in Naval Special Warfare, one of the lines

from the SEAL ethos. But it's just a good message around resilience, you know, and everything we've been talking about today. On the inside of my arm, I have an old platoon logo. There's a skull on a Spartan shield. My two-year-old the other day pointed at it and called, Daddy, chicken. I was like, it's not a chicken.

It's a skull. It's scary. It's beastly. I'm like, okay, maybe I need to get that rig done right. Get it tightened up. That's so good. Chicken. Okay, you guys are great.

Thank you again and wishing you guys absolutely all the best success in whatever environments that's so good. Chicken. Okay, you guys are great. Thank you again. And wishing you guys absolutely all the best success in whatever environments that you're in. So thank you. Thank you so much. 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.

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