Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Kayt Sukel: Sex, Risk, and the Brain

Episode Date: April 20, 2016

As a cultural scientist, passionate traveler and science journalist, Kayt Sukel has no problem tackling interesting (and often risky) subjects spanning love, sex, risk taking, neuroscience, travel and politics. In this episode: -Her fascination with the brain -Applying to college at any early age -Conditioned learning vs. guided discovery -Little movements forward to take you the distance -Working through curiosity -Importance of having freedom to explore as a child -What is it about sex that drives us -Sex vs. love -Ideas on monogamy -Thoughts on risk taking -Common threads risk takers share -Reaching the edge of danger -Neurology of the brain and its relation to risk -Turning off the overthinking part of your brain -Why curiosity guides her life -How people can become better at risk taking -Which mental skills are most important -How the mind reacts to threat -How you can make your kids better risk takers_________________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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understand or works to understand how the brain works in risk. And this was her most recent book that grabbed my attention. It's called The Art of Risk. And she's got a rich point of view about risk-taking. And if you've been part of some of the previous conversations we've had on this podcast, you know, the fascination and interest in the risk event, whether that be small in a living room or be large in the amphitheater of the backcountry or somewhere in an entrepreneur, you know, gumption to go for it and to lay the appropriate bet in the right time, whatever it might be, that the risk-taking process is really an important component towards being able to invest in mastery and invest in progression. And then her first book was called Dirty Minds, and it was really how brains work around sex. And it was when the softback came out, I think that's how you call it. It was relabeled, this is your brain on sex. So she's got a good understanding about sex. She proclaims that she understands it more than other people. Interesting conversation. And how risk works. You're going to love her story about how she got into Carnegie Mellon, one of the premier university systems. You're going to

really enjoy that. And she described herself as a cultural scientist, which I love that phrase. It's new to me. And it's the intersection between science and the lab and how that is met in everyday living. And it feels like that's a really thoughtful approach towards taking great research and understanding at a rich level and figuring out what the application of that looks like so we can be better. And I love it. And so I hope you enjoy this conversation. I enjoyed it.

I think there's some really strong takeaways about it. And so find us on social, find us on wherever. I want to thank everyone for continuing to be interested and push the momentum as we work to understand how to build some sort of base around this podcast. So thank you, everybody. And let's get right into this with Kate. Kate, this is the third or maybe fourth attempt that we've had over digital to get our conversation started. So welcome for the fourth time. Thank you for having me. But you know what they say, fourth time's the charm. We're good now.

I'm not sure who said that, but I like it. All right. So with that being said, if we run into some technical or glitchy conversations, I hope the audience can just bear with us because what I think we're going to get into in this conversation, and the reason I wanted to have this conversation with you, is that you've come to understand the intersection between laboratory science and the application in the real world. And that's something that's right at the center of my interest as well. And I'm hopeful that we can pull back the curtain. You can talk and share and reveal what you've come to understand from a brain perspective, and then how to apply those insights into everyday living. Yes, and I mean, that's the whole point, right? Science is great, but if it only exists in the laboratory, it doesn't do most of us any good.

So where, when, and how science actually applies in the real world, I think is really important, because it tells us what to pay attention to, what to change and what to move forward towards. And it's, I don't, I don't know about you, but I found that it's been really quite challenging over the years to be able to have, you know, the precision of laboratory findings and the testing and the rigor that goes into the controllables to gate out the noise to get to the signal and then move those insights or those understandings, I should say, into a world that has lots of noise. Well, yeah, the two are at cross purposes. I mean, if you think about science, you're really trying to hone in on one thing.

So you're trying to control every aspect that you can. So you can say, yes, this is the thing that is actually making the difference, that is making the change. But as we all know, in the real world, there's not much you can control at all. It's the big question. But I think often, and actually more often than not, it matters more than you might think. It's just one signal that's, you know, sort of working with about 2,500 other signals to direct you one way or another. Okay. So let's go back and first index on you before we get to your science and try to decode and understand what led you to your understandings you have now and then really to give us some context to work to understand what is it that you're searching for and okay so when did you first start getting attracted or interested in science and in

particular brain science and when did you notice that you first began to get curious about this path to understand the nuances of brain application? So I was a freshman in college, and I was required to take a cognitive psychology class. I had taken sort of social psychology before, and not who interested me, but the idea that the brain, I mean, what really sort of amounts to, you know, three pounds of high-end silly putty encased in your skull, directs everything that we say, do, think, feel, that really amazed me. And I guess once I took that class, I was hooked, and that's what I ended up majoring in. I thought I had been going to school for art,

and I ended up leaving with a science degree. That's okay. So, and your undergraduate degree was at Carnegie Mellon, is that right? Correct. Okay, which, I don't know, for me, I don't think of that as a place for flourishing arts, but maybe it is. Oh, it is. It's actually gone to a remarkable drama school. You know, pretty much the entire cast of magic mike went there as well as uh holly hunter ted danson a lot of wonderful artists they have a great music program and they also have a wonderful visual arts program but they're really known for their science and

engineering so some people call the school fruits and nuts which you know i'm not sure how you put it that way it doesn't seem very nice and And yet it kind of fits better than you, than you want it to. That is so good. Fruits and nuts. So who are the fruits? Supposedly the arts people, but you know what? They're pretty nuts too. Yeah. I think that most people that are, that like really kicked ass in high school and younger years to position themselves, to get into a world-leading university, it's rare by definition. You push the bell-shaped curve. And some might even say that on your approach to mastery, that getting into one of the top universities in the world would be, you could stop there and say, well, there's something serious to decode just on that

beginning arc. And I'm sure parents would be interested to, if we could pull back just a little bit further and say, what led you to be able to position yourself to get into one of the great universities across the globe? I was a contrarian, even as a youngster. So in fact, I actually dropped out of high school to end up at Carnegie Mellon. And when I applied, I hadn't graduated from high school. I don't even think I had taken the SATs yet. I just knew that I was done with high school. I wanted a bigger challenge. And luckily, my parents, instead of saying, no, no, go back to high school. You need to do this the way that everybody else does it. They said, well, why don't you apply to college and see what happens? And that's what I did. So I honestly, I think, you know, I've said before in the past, I'd love to go back and talk

to that admissions counselor and say, okay, what was it about my application that made you let me in? But I was afraid to ask because they might say oh wait we made a mistake you got to go back wait we missed we missed that part that you didn't graduate yet and you're only were you 16 or 17 yeah about that yeah so yeah i think i just turned 17 when uh when i started and yeah so but i i do think that having that kind of contrary nature, as much as I'm sure, well, actually, I'm not even sure, it's driving my mother crazy now. I think that that helped. It meant that I was willing to approach things a little differently. And certainly, I think when you look at things like Ivy League schools or high-end engineering schools like Carnegie Mellon, a lot of people feel like

you need to take a path. There is a very distinct set route that you take to get into these schools. But I think the people that actually get the most out of them are the ones that didn't get there quite by accident, but meandered a little bit and, you know, sort of rejected the status quo and certainly the status symbols that are involved with some of these schools. Yeah. And sport, and it looks to me from, you know, what I can find from an academic arc is that there is this proverbial high-end treadmill that people get on at a young age, especially in sport. Like I definitely know that, that at a young age, you get connected with these coaches, these trainers, you do this type of movement training,

you move into this club and then, and you move up in those clubs. And then before you know it, like in high school, you're already being recruited for, you know, top tier blue chip universities. And then it's the same thing over again at the university setting that, you know, as a freshman and a sophomore in the university setting, you know, you're being recruited. This is the traditional arc into, you know, the professional ranks. And while that might be the case, there's a nauseating trueness to that that is just really scary, right? Because it's about conditioned learning as opposed to guided discovery and it sounds like what you've done is that you did you took the guided discovery approach you listened to yourself you had a contrarian point of view about things and said listen i'm ready to move from the state

i'm in now to a bigger pond and and it worked very well for me. And Carnegie Mellon, luckily, wasn't too big of a pond. So I think that had I ended up in a university of 60,000 students, I might have floundered a bit more. How many people are, what is the size of Carnegie Mellon? At the time, I think it was 5,000 students, undergraduate and graduate. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, so you still knew your professors and they gave you their home phone number, so to speak. And so you still had that experience, I would imagine. Yes, and they were totally willing to take you aside and say, you're messing up or you need to do this or you need to change that. And I think that was really important.

So if we dove into that intersection between, okay, I'm feeling like I'm ready to leave high school, right? Like you don't really know what's on the other side of it. Somehow your parents supported that. And then what I want to expand, if you will, is the moment where you stepped into university and all of your peers were still in high school. And if we could pull that, maybe even first memory that you have of walking on campus or being in a class or taking your first test, whichever one maybe you want to pull from. What was that like? How did you have the sense that you could go do that? I think it came down to buckling down and doing the work. The classes that I took at first, I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do. You know,

I didn't have a set path in mind. So I had required classes. And as I took them, you know, I think I was determined to prove that I belonged there. I didn't want any special treatment. I didn't want anybody to make fun of me for being a little kid that wasn't supposed to be there. And so I really kind of buckled down and did the work. I think that was important because I was pushing myself. And some of it was because I didn't want to be perceived as weak or undeserving of being there but also I think all of a sudden you know beyond high school you get introduced to these

people who are so passionate about what they study and so passionate about what they do and all of a sudden my curiosity was a benefit instead of just a real pain in the butt for other people. And I could follow different threads. So I think that first test I took, I was terrified that it was going to be so awful and I wasn't going to be able to do it. I actually remember it was even in this cognitive psychology course I took. There had been discussions about how you do better when you take a test in the same room that you learn the material. So I was going back to that room every night for two weeks and studying there so that I could ace the test. And of course, it wasn't necessary. I did very well on the test, of course. But I really, I felt like I had something to prove. So there you are, 17. I'm imagining that's about the age that you left high school early and went

into college. And even at that age, you were working to apply science. And yeah, there you go. All right. Which is that takeaway from, it's probably cognitive. I'm not even going to try to remember some of the researchers that would be exploring that. Maybe you remember who that researcher was? I don't want to put you on the spot. I don't remember who that was. You have people like Herbert Simon, who was a Nobel laureate in economics, who looked at behavior in an economic theory. You have folks like Daniel Kahneman, who looks at decision making behavior. There are so many great researchers that really look at the way that we learn and the way that we apply material, so that we don't just do well on a

task, but so that we, you know, can actually access that information when we need it in the real world. Okay. So that statement right there is for me has been almost a life mission is to work to understand how we can better reveal and access the craft that we've refined. And can we do it in rugged moments and quiet moments and hostile moments? And can we do it in times of test and times of luxury? Can we access the craft? And in your case, it was information that we had so refined to be eloquent in this moment and moments in the future. And so if our trajectories collide on that single idea, can you keep going back just a little bit further about your earlier part of your life? Did you have siblings? How did your parents support you and challenge you to think this way or to be interested in the brain and or taking risks and taking leaps where you're not

sure if you're going to be successful or not? You know, both my parents grew up in, in pretty, um, I don't want to say impoverished, but they were, you know, lower middle-class, they were always scrounging and saving their parents, you know, lived through the depression. Um, and so, you know, they did pretty well and they really instilled the value of hard work in me and my sister early on. But I think the art of discipline came from, I was trained as a ballet dancer. I love ballet. I know the very things that I think bore people's tears about it, the bar work, some of the monotony of the exercises. That really showed me how paying attention and really refining little movements can allow you to leap. And it's something that, you know, worked for me, of course, in movement and in dance, but it was also something that I saw in, you know, my academic work by taking these

smaller bites of things, not trying to, you know, swallow the elephant whole, but by working on little pieces, refining them, and then putting them together. That was the best way, and often the most efficient way, even though it didn't necessarily seem so in the moment, to move ahead. So, you know, while I think a work ethic is so important, and I do credit both my parents for, for offering me that, um, that discipline that came from ballet. I mean,

that's something that I still use now. That's something that I'm hitting my kids over the head with, um, you know, little movements forward are the things that are really going to take you to distance. Oh, it's so good because with the little movements,

they seem doable. And then when you string together the little moments movements before, you know it, like you've gone a great distance. Exactly. Yeah. And so what did your parents do? My father was a chemical engineer by training, but he went into sales and marketing in international mining and refining. My mother worked in insurance, so she did a lot of sort of litigation and insurance claims. And they modeled for you hard work, or did they model some other things as well?

They modeled hard work. They modeled exploration. From a very early age, they really encouraged all of us to travel and to explore. You know, my dad was from this little town outside Pittsburgh, a coal mining town. And, you know, he always wanted to escape and see the world. And that's what, you know, sales and marketing offered for him. He got to go to Australia, all over Europe, all over Asia, and really see a whole different side of the world. My mom had grown up outside Boston, and she also liked this whole idea of exploration. Although she's also big in, you know, she would say that manners and kindness are up there too, which I think are important. But I think sort of taken together,

again, as much as it probably annoyed them quite a bit, they really sort of supported being curious and working through curiosity. Look things up. Work hard. Show some discipline. Think about other people. Think about how all these things fit into the bigger picture. Was there a particular moment in time that is etched or carved into your memory that captures the way that they taught you how to explore? Um, you know, this one's sort of funny. We were in Thailand. Um,

and I wanted to go with a friend by myself. I was probably maybe 13, not even 14, maybe. I'm not sure. But I wanted to go across the river with a friend to this market. And, you know, my mom was a little hesitant, but eventually allowed me to go. And I found out later that she took the ferry right after or the boat right after we took to watch me from a distance to make sure I didn't get into trouble. And I know that sounds a little, you know, but once she thought I was okay, she went back to the hotel. And I know that sounds a little bit like, you know, she was stalking me or what have you and out of context, it sounds a little weird. But I think she wanted to make sure, you know,

that I had a soft place to land. If things didn't work the way that they should, that I was going to be okay. If suddenly, while I'm in the middle of this bustling city where I don't really speak the language and I'm off on my own, you know, there would be a way for me to get back without too much trouble. But she was going to let me do it myself before she stepped in. What a great model. That's really refreshing. I can remember, you know, one of my friends had shared with me this thought and the thought was, Hey, when you're, my son was like three or four years old and just kind of really getting mobile. He says, you know, next time you're at a park or somewhere that is wide open space, just hang back and watch and let your son experience what it feels like to explore without having a parent around.

I was like, God, that's really good. And so it sounds like your mom stayed with that type of thinking even through the teenage years instead of hovering, that they really gave you a long leash. But it was appropriately so. They didn't say, oh, yeah, go ahead. We're in a foreign country and just go rip and run and be a 14-year-old girl and who knows? Yeah, okay. 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,

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ready to feel the difference for yourself, Felix Gray is offering all Finding Mastery listeners 20% off. Just head to FelixGray.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at checkout. Again, that's Felix Gray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code finding mastery 20 at Felix gray.com for 20% off. All right. So you were given the leash. That's not the right frame. You were given the encouragement and then the abilities to travel distance away from your parents in a safe way to be able to explore so that it may be, it made more sense at age age 17 why you could go and move into a bigger pond, so to speak, the academic pond. Okay, really cool. Now, can we jump into your first book that you wrote and the title change that took place and what led you to be interested to spend so

much time in writing? So the original title was Dirty Minds. And I'll tell you, I love that title, because I thought it fit so well. One of the scientists I talked to as you know, I was trying to really kind of, you know, hold him down to some answers. What does this mean? What does you know, how does this work? And he was even just talking about how pair bonding works in prairie voles. And he said, you know, ultimately, it's just really, really dirty. And, you know, so it made a cute little title, Dirty Minds. And the subtitle is How Our Brains Influence Love, Sex, and Relationships. But as part of that book, one of the things that I did is I participated in the research study where I had an orgasm in

a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner. And this image of my brain at the point of orgasm went viral a couple times, actually. You know, there were like internet jokes about it. There was actually even an episode of Dateline that Ben got made fun of at the soup. So sort of after all the attention was paid to the orgasm, when the book, it was decided the book would also come out in paperback. They decided to retitle it as This Is Your Brain on Sex, The Science Behind the Search for Love. I think they were really hoping that sex would sell. Although, again, I love the first title because I think it really fits with how even in the laboratory where you're trying so hard to control for every aspect,

love remains this messy, sticky business. And, you know, it's something that also has a pull. You know, we talk about dirty minds. People can't get their mind out of the gutter and they're so attracted to these things, but they are. I mean, there's something about sex and it doesn't matter whether you're eight or you're 80. It seems weird and taboo and fascinating.

And yeah, so that's the story behind the change okay good um was masters and johnson were there was their research uh influential in your um in your findings or was that you know was that research just like too long ago um well as long ago as it was, um, there's still a lot of really valuable information in Masters and Johnson's work. Um, I didn't focus too much on it in this book because I really wanted to look at the neuroscience, um, the brain stuff. So while they looked at behavior, um, and they looked at physiological responses, you know, things, uh, like physiological signs of arousal, whether nipples are hardening, flush to the chest and to the face, things like that.

Now, all of a sudden, we have these ways where we can look inside the body. What's happening? So people have taken actual MRIs of penetration. They also look to the brain. I also wanted to look beyond just sex because it's not just sex that makes us insane, right? You know, if you look at somebody, and of course, it's never you. It's your best friend. When they've fallen in love, they start acting nuts.

You know, they're late for work. They are blowing you off left and right. All they do is talk about the object of their affection. And oftentimes, that kind of stuff happens before they even have sex. My daughter is approaching, she's still in elementary school, but she has some middle school friends on her gymnastics team. And the way they talk about boys, you know, they're obsessed. What is it about love and sex that makes us so crazy? And I think if there's going to be an answer, what's happening, we're going to find it in the brain. Because even the most, you know,

really buttoned up of us, we go nuts when it comes to love. Hmm. So you just made an interesting, I was going to ask you the question, like, what is it about sex that is so alluring and so crazy making to use your language for people? And then you just did an interesting little pivot and you moved from sex to love. And can you start with that one, that pivot from that first question I have which was like what is it about sex that's so alluring and so taboo? possibility that you're not going to propagate the species and continue your line, but also you're much more likely to be attacked by a predator, not be able to find food. If you get sick, nobody's going to be there to take care of you. We really are as human beings wired for connection and wired for social connection. So love comes in and in that way, you know, we are a social species. We may not be sexually monogamous, but we tend to be socially

monogamous. And by that, I mean, even if we're not just having sex with one person, we do tend to form pretty strong pair bonds with one person. And, you know, it really is just something that helps the species survive, thrive and keep on going. Now, where does sex come into all that? Well, you know, certainly, you know, sex can be a way in to love. Certainly, there are plenty of people that started in a purely sexual relationship that found themselves becoming more attractive to someone. But that's also really important from an evolutionary standpoint, because again, it's propagating the species. And it sounds so boring, doesn't it? It's like propagating the species. But if biology didn't make it fun, if it didn't make it salacious,

we may not be as into doing it. Orgasms, they serve a great biological purpose because they keep bringing us back for more. They can make it so we can find better mates, you know, long-term mates, and hopefully have more fit offspring. And it looks like they also have some secondary help in keeping the brain healthier and the body healthier over time. As to why we make sex as bad as it is, you know, that's hundreds and hundreds of years of cultural stuff, because certainly other cultures, sex isn't a bad thing. Polyamory isn't a bad thing. People sort of understand the way that it works.

And people may say that that's not civilized, but it may be more what Mother Nature had in mind when it was designing the brain and designing sexual behavior. Wait, what was part of the design? You know, more sort of polyamory, you know, not so closed off, restricted sexual and social relationships. Okay, yeah. Is that you indicating that possibly monogamy is not genetically, we're not genetically coded for monogamy, but we're culturally and socially primed for it?

I think it depends on whether you're talking about social monogamy or sexual monogamy. And the problem is, these are the things that science has a real problem seizing apart because it's so hard. Nothing is simply biology and nothing is simply environment. These two things interact in such crazy ways and often in rather unexpected ways. But we can't discount the fact that, you know, for a variety of reasons, our churches, our societies, you know, our families have pushed a certain kind of male-female heteronormative monogamous relationship. And there are some benefits to it. Certainly when you think about a family heading out to, you know, a couple hundred years ago, you've come over from Europe, you've got 60 acres somewhere in the middle of Wisconsin,

your nearest neighbors are hundreds of miles away. You know, sexual and social monogamy kind of makes sense a little bit more than, you know, if you live in a small community where if you're, you know, having lots of people sleep with other people, you may have less fit genetic offsprings because there's so much overlap. Then again, you can see why it might make sense for people to spread out a little bit more and, you know, not sleep with every, you know, take every sexual opportunity they have. So there are all kinds of reasons that come together. But I think that we're probably pretty fixated on monogamy here in America, more so than many other cultures. And I would say for some people, it brain in the pursuit of sex and as it might be

akin to the brain in the pursuit of, oh gosh, how can I articulate this? No, not the pursuit, in the doing of flow state. And so when a person's in flow, the most optimal state in a sense of performance that we can imagine, and the pursuit of a mate, I wonder if those two states are similar, or if a flow state in performance is more akin to a lovemaking state. You know, I don't know that anybody's looked at that. Now, I can tell you where overlaps are. You're going to see dopamine, which, you know, we often talk about as a pleasure chemical, but we really know it's a learning chemical. It's something that is so important in all of these circuits to help motivate us, to help reward us, and to help us, you know,

sort of push the envelope. And that's whether we're, you know, getting to that flow state or whether we're, you know, pursuing meat. So I think that, you know, certainly one overlap we're going to see is in dopamine. When people describe flow states, you know, you hear them, they're intensely focused. Their attention is really fixated. They feel, you know, a sense of joy and wonder. That certainly fits in quite well with, you know, both love and sex. You know, it's hard to pay attention to other things when you're really in the moment with a sexual partner. But again, the trick is this. So the brain, it's the most expensive piece of machinery in our body to run.

It takes up about 20% of the body's overall energy resources. So it doesn't do redundancy. A lot of the same circuits that are involved with love are going to be involved with risk-taking, with pushing yourself with probably this flow state. And it's hard to know whether that's because they're similar states or whether the same real state is being multi-purposed. Well, certainly taking risk is one of the primers or triggers to extreme anxiety for some people.

And also it's a prime and trigger for flow state. If the neurochemistry and the genetic coding and the software, the psychology are working in tandem with each other to be able to facilitate an optimal state as opposed to a protective state. And I want to get to, I know your second book, which is really the first reason that I wanted to talk to you was about the art of risk, is the title of your book. But I want to add one more piece and just see if you can clarify this. the Olympics in this year and in the end of our summer, one of the not so well-known, I guess, medical findings or not medical findings, but medical, what's the word I'm looking for? I'm blanking to articulate this just right, but one of the well, not well known findings is that there's more condoms used in the Olympic village. Yeah. So it's like, like, do you have any thoughts about

that? You know, um, I have a few thoughts about that. Um, and they're both biological and I think that they're also environmental. So a friend of mine, her daughter... I'm sorry, this is a real deal. We're not just making this up. The IOC continually runs out, whoever is in charge of it, runs out of condoms at the Olympic Games for the athletes. I think part of it is that these athletes are so focused in their training. I have a friend whose daughter is training.

You know, she's not at the Olympic level yet because she's still very young, but she's going to get there. And already, just even at elementary school age, she's at the gym working out five days a week after school. She actually leaves school early to go. And then she, you know, is working out eight to 10 hours every Saturday. She's in elementary school now, but I assume that once she gets to middle school, she continues this track, she's going to be, have the same schedule or even more. That doesn't leave a lot of time for dating. That doesn't leave a lot of time. And, you know, these kids are constantly being told by their coaches and their parents, you

know, you can date after you get Olympic gold. There's a lack of opportunity. They're not supposed to fraternize with their teammates or their coaches. You know, they're supposed to be really wholly focused on the goal, which is, of course, Olympic gold, or at least making the Olympic team. So where's the room for it? Now, all of a sudden, they're at the Olympics, they got there. Nobody's looking. Let's get it on. So I think part of it's an environment. But also, you know, when they get there, they're meeting other athletes who have sacrificed as much and have worked as hard as they have.

I mean, that's the other thing I sometimes try to imagine if I were an athlete of that caliber. What would you talk about on a date with like a normal person? And when I say normal person, it's not that the athlete is not a normal person, but if you eat, sleep, and breathe gymnastics or rock climbing or what have you, let's just say that you just meet some guy that, I don't know, a librarian at your local, you know, library. What do you guys talk about all night? Because they're not going to understand that focus. They're not going to understand why you're so in that zone. And you're not going to understand how they can live a life, you know, in a library, not working out all the time and not having that kind of focus. So I think then all of a sudden you meet peers that have a very similar path

and that can give rise to intimacy quite quickly as well. I'm surprised because I thought that you would say that they're a group of people, young adults who are just in the best shape of their life. Their testosterone is at an all-time high and they've spent so much time thinking about being a physically dominant specimen that they look across the room and see another physical dominant specimen specimen with their testosterone equally as high and that there's something and the neurochemical frame that would lead to

greater attraction well I think that they I think that's the second part that I was going to talk about. That's where the biology comes in. Because I don't even know necessarily that it's a, you know, obviously there's some beautiful bodies there and there's going to be physical attraction. There are going to be a lot of those chemicals working. But, you know, I think also once you get a you know, what a stress reliever sex can be. So it might be partially that as well. You're trying to get yourself calmed down, get yourself back to where you need to be. And an orgasm can really sort of, you know, get you back into a

more calm state. It could be some of that. It may be, yes, there are just, you know, absolutely stunning physical specimens and you have this incredible physical attraction. But this is the trick with science in the real world. You need to understand that biology never works in a vacuum. So even you may see beautiful bodies, you know, all the time at your gym while you're training, but you know that they're off limits because of the rules of your coaches or the facility or what have you. But now you're in this new place. The rules are a bit more relaxed. You don't have those same chaperones or else they're busy doing other things. So it's also going to be a, I think lots of motives for opportunity and opportunities that you might not have back in everyday life and you're going to take advantage of them okay um okay so if we switch gears to the

art of risk-taking can you talk about yeah some of your findings that you came to understand from a neuro and a biological standpoint as well as i'm sure some of the software and the psychological and social facets that increase our ability or debilitate our ability to take risk. And this is relevant for all of us in modern times because risk-taking is so essential and the parenting of removing risk has been pervasive for the last maybe, I don't know, 20, 30, 40 years that we find a generation of people that are struggling with anxiousness and performance anxiety and monitoring of oneself, of how they're viewed by others, as opposed to being able to take a shot and to master the risk-taking process.

Yeah, they're also, Del, dealt with as well as critical thinking and problem solving. They have problems, real problems with emotional regulation. They have problems working with other people. Um, they don't know their own limits. Um, it, it's really fascinating because we've really, as a society in America, have honed in on this idea of safety and security. Um, and even when we know that it's largely an illusion, we still just, you know, embrace it and try to hold it as tight as we can, especially with our kids to the point where, you know, my friends who are college professors, they say, you know, that stuff you read in the New York Times about the helicopter parents,

that's no joke. I'm getting those emails all the time. Their kid is 21 and I'm still getting emails from their mom about why they didn't get an A plus, only an A minus on this project. And it drives them insane. So I think, you know, there's there are a few reasons why the mindset has changed. You know, this idea of safety is a big one. We want to be safe. We came out of World War II and all these horrible things. And what can we do to make an idyllic life? How can we protect our families, our way of life, our children? But what we've failed, the other thing I think that's really become, you know, how do we talk about risk?

And we often talk about it as a negative. So risk is bad in business because we want to protect our bottom line. It's terrible in epidemiology because it's going to result in, you know, advanced disease or death. It's all about injury. It's all about, you know, just bad things are going to happen if you take risks. And yet, then we talk about it all the time in this other extreme. Risk is great.

All of our heroes, all of our stories, you know, the people that are in the movies that are on the magazine covers, they've somehow come across, they've taken some big risk, they've taken some big jump and it's worked out in their favor. And so how do we make sense of a world where risk is going to bring us either the very best or the very worst of things in life? And what's really fascinating, I think, from the scientific perspective is what scientists are learning is one, a lot of the things we talk about as risk-taking or not risk-taking, impulsive behavior may result in risk-taking, but it's a separate thing. You know, antisocial behavior, again, may result in risk-taking, but it's kind of a separate thing. But it's also that risk-taking really is necessary to learning. And when we're talking about something like finding mastery,

people love to throw around the 10,000-hour rule, right? This is how you become an expert. But, you know, my kids right now are taking piano lessons, and they're certainly nowhere near 10,000 hours, but they practice every day, but they're phoning it in. So they may be doing the time, but they're not doing the work. And that really is the difference because what I think in terms of finding mastery is the people who do, it's because they're taking risks while they're putting in that time.

They're working at the edge of their performance ability. They're pushing themselves and the limits of their bodies and their minds in order to get somewhere. And that is a form of very healthy and productive risk-taking that not only can help us achieve, you know, little goals in life, but also really, you know, become experts and masters in the things that we're most passionate about. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down. And that's why I've built intentional routines

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And I've got a few insights I'd to the scientists, but I also interviewed people like Steph Davis, who is a world-renowned base jumper and free solo climber, Andy Frankenberger, who is a equity derivatives trader turned World Series of Poker champion. I spoke with a neurosurgeon, a firefighter, an Army Special Forces operator. And the really fascinating thing at first when I was looking back on all these interviews is every single one of them said, I am not a risk taker. And I thought that was so funny because here you are, you've been discussing how, you know, Seth Davis has climbed, you know, a thousand foot cliff with no rope. Not risky. You're talking to a neurosurgeon

who only does the most, you know, difficult brain surgery surgeries to remove these very difficult to remove brain tumors, but not a risk. And the thing is, is they are just so well versed in their particular domain. They know the ins and the outs. They're able to focus their attention, their cognitive resources in such a way where they don't see the big risks that we see. They just see the little residual risks that they can fairly easily mitigate. And that fit in so well with the science research that shows that once you get into a situation, once you get this practice, but not just practice, not just the time, but again, the work with that time, it really changes the way that your brain processes information. It redeploys your attention

in a different way. It actually reduces the brain's metabolism needs while you're working out these problems. It gives you the right information metabolism needs while you're working out these problems. It gives you the right information to access when you're problem solving. It allows you to pattern match from your previous experiences to new ones. And I thought that was fascinating. They don't think that they're risk takers, even if they're rappelling down into enemy territory with gunfire overhead, because they know what they know so well. And because they've really mastered this art of working at the edge of their performance ability to not only keep current with their skills, but to continue to get better.

Yeah, so I've had the exact same experience. And I get asked the question all the time is, you know, what makes the people that you work with tick? And it's usually in reference to the adventure and action sport athletes and most notably, you know, Felix Baumgartner, who jumped from, you know, the stratosphere and the Red Bull Stratus Project. Like, why would somebody do that? And they keep coming back and having the same responses that they don't see themselves as risk takers. They see themselves as explorers. They see themselves as people that are compelled to keep going, no different than you and I are trying to keep going in our art of understanding.

And, you know, so it's the same. I see the same or hear the same exact thing. And what most of us missed, like when Felix jumped from 130,000 feet, we missed his jump from 10 feet when he was a nine-year-old. And we missed his jump from 20 feet when he was a 10-year-old. And then it just continues to grow and grow and grow. And so, yeah, so I like the second part. The first part of what you said is they're able to focus their resources and really attend to the present moment. And then you added a second part that they're able to, on a regular basis, push the capacity of their craft in the work that they do.

And I've found exactly the same thing. It's a combination of those two, the building of capacity so that you can focus deeply. And that's one way to be able to focus deeply other ways to focus deeply are obviously some of the the mindful traditions and traditional ways of focusing yes okay well and they get to those traditions as well though that mindfulness comes as part of their craft and often when they are working at the edge of their performance ability that that zone state it's not that different, especially when you look at, you know, there's Charles Lim who studies flow in musicians.

And it's the same in athletes. It's the same in meditating monks. They really get to the point where their brain is working in this really heightened and optimized fashion. And the wonderful thing about that is that it means we all can get to that state. Now, not all of us necessarily want to, you know, jump out of the stratosphere, or even climb 1000 foot rock faces. You know, maybe it's a matter of getting really good at music or art or learning or business or what have you. But what's wonderful about this is it means

that in essence, these people, they may have different passions than we do. They may have different capacities and needs for stimulation and for stress. But at the base of it, all of us are able, if we have the right motivation, we have the right training, and we're willing to put in the work, all of us have the ability to meet these goals and to really find success. And I think that's one of the best things that I learned about this book. And to your point, so many of these people said, you know, everybody always sees the outcome. They don't see all the work that went into it. And in some cases when they are breaking world records or they're, you know, doing these really complex surgeries, you don't see the, you know, 999 surgeries that came before it or the failures or the lessons learned or just all the work that went into honing their physiques or their minds to get to that point.

And we all to that point. And we all have that ability. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's a train of, we need people on the edge of, of danger to be able to teach us the practices and processes to allow us to reach our own edge of danger. And that edge might be, you know, putting your hand up in a board meeting or walking into an interview and being able to be present or saying the challenging or difficult things to loved ones that are difficult to say. And so this is one of the fascinations of people that are on the edge is how, you know, they can bring back the messages, the practices, and the ways in which that they think that allow them to continue to explore.

Now, if we take your research and go a little bit deeper, are there particular brain structures or electrical activity across particular regions that you found to be important in the risk-taking process? So basically, there's a circuit in the brain. It's called the mesocortical limbic circuitry. And it connects the basal ganglia, which you can think of sort of as the brain's motivation centers. So this is actually the love areas of the brain as well, but also pleasure, sort of the hedonistic things. But this is the part of the brain that really wants to go after rewards.

This is the stuff that says, oh, this is wonderful food, great sex. This is a wonderful activity. This feels good. I want more of it. But, of course, if we went after all the things that we wanted in life, at the very moment that we wanted them, the world would be a pretty inhospitable place. We wouldn't be able to be around people.

So that part of the brain is then connected with the frontal lobes. That's a seat of sort of judgment, morality, decision-making. And that's, you can think of it almost as the basal ganglia or the gas that's telling us to go after all these great rewards. The frontal lobes are kind of the brain that breaks, that are saying, wait, no, you know, sex is great, but not with your boss's wife, or that food would be wonderful, but maybe not right now because you just had a big lunch. So it's tempering some of those wants. And these two brain areas are kind of always circling each other, adding up different variable weights and really calculating out the risk involved with any decision. And they're sort of helped along by the brain's experience areas.

So our emotions, the things we've experienced in the past, our memories, they help us understand, you know, what weights we should put on things. And so when we're talking about things like training, working at the edge, what that's doing is it's making sure that only certain variables, or rather that the important variables are getting the weights that they should, that we're not getting distracted by, you know, the simple things. Somebody like Steph Davis, she's not thinking anymore when she's climbing up a crack about how she should put her fingers. That's automatic now. She knows how that goes. So she can focus more on

looking ahead, three, four steps ahead, how she can get outside of that crack. You know, the surgeons, they know what to reach for. It's automatic. So they're not thinking, oh, wait a minute, what's going on right now? Because that's when you lose, you know, that's when you fall out of the zone, when you're overthinking it, when all of a sudden your frontal lobe has to come on and say, wait, wait, wait, what about this? What about that? Wait, did we even consider that? That's when you lose sort of that flow that's so important to getting where you need to be. So the mesocortical limbic circuitry, it's a circuit that's involved with a lot of different things. But, you know, I think that the analogy, while it's an oversimplification about whether it's the gas and the brakes for a particular decision, it's really important. And certainly some of us, just because of our genetic background, because of our experience, we may need to work a little harder to put the brakes on.

We may find that those rewards in a particular area are just too wonderful to resist. They're just too tempting. And others of us for very same reasons may find that we need more gas. We need to work harder to get out of our shyness or fear to get something done and really need to work more at telling our frontal lobes to shut the hell up and let us get out there and do something already. Yeah, there was a research project that I was involved with with Dr. Leslie Sherlin. And one of the things that he found, or that I guess we found together, but was looking at the left prefrontal cortex and its electrical circuitry or what's taking place for people that are known to be high risk takers. And again, not to confuse that they don't see themselves as

risk takers, but those that are exceptional in rugged environments. And there's actually a decreased electrical activity with, I think it is beta brainwaves. I'll need to go back and recheck some of the findings, but there is a decreased activation in the left prefrontal cortex for those that are able to excel in hostile moments. So it's almost, it sounds like that's supporting your same finding. Yes. And in fact, they see that with neuroimaging work as well. So what you see is that for a lot of these folks, they're basically turning off that overthinking part of their brain. That little voice inside of their head isn't telling them, wait a minute, wait a minute. I like to think of it almost as if they have the

experience and they have the practice where that little angel and devil arguing on your shoulder, their mouths have been duct taped shut. You have the physique, you have the mindset, you have the experience where these automatic processes can take over. And when you're good at what you do, when again, you've done the work, you've put in the time, that automatic processes, that automaticity, you know, that is going to reduce your cognitive load. That is going to really focus your attention on the right places. It's going to make sure that you're reading variables correctly. It's going to work in your favor.

The problem is when those voices are silenced and you're not good at that particular thing. And that's why I think sometimes when you take some of these extreme athletes out of their domain, you know, they don't do as well because they can't quite get their brain to sync up the same way. They can't sync, pattern match basically their experience with the situation at hand. And then, okay, so I totally get that because you take somebody who's really good in one domain and they put them in another domain and it seems like they're a complete fish out of water. When they actually do have some of the skills and abilities to adjust to the unknown, but that unknown to them is now new and it's difficult for them to be fluid. And we see that over and over again until you actually shape and remind and reinforce that the skills are actually translatable into new domains. And then that being said, is there a phrase or a word that guides your life? Curiosity. I just, I'm a curious person. What made me a terrible, terrible grad student and if my mother was on the phone with you right now

she would just completely weep about the fact that I never got my doctorate even though I tried multiple times there are these little threads and I like to follow them these little things that I want to know more about and so I really appreciate curiosity and exploration. And I'm doing my best to instill those same values in my children. And even in this world of, you know, helicopter parenting and whatnot, I, you know, my son, he's 11, you know, he's been to almost 50 countries.

From the time he was little, he was exploring with me um and i want him to understand that people are more alike and different um but the culture can change so much about not only where you live but how you live and and what's important to you um you know i i just yeah i have to go with curiosity that's phenomenal is there a word that cuts that cuts right to the center of what you understand most based on all of your research and your travels and your curiosity and exploration? There is no one right answer. You know, I think so often we really want, and, you know, some people talk about my book as being a self-help book.

And the thing is, I think that self-help is actually quite a valuable thing. But so many books and so many articles, they want to say that there's this one right way to do it. It all comes down to this one right thing. And I think one of the most valuable things that science is teaching us, particularly brain science, is how much just a simple change in the environment, a simple twist of fate, can completely alter the way that we behave, the way that we react to a situation, and what we can bring to it. So, you know, just as there's no free lunch, there's no one easy answer. But I think that ultimately that's really a good thing, because that gives us a lot more room to explore, to try new things and to find out what works for us.

Okay. So with that being said, with all of your research about how the brain works and risk environments and, um, and your understanding and your exploration and being curious, how do you get in your own way? You've written two books, you're raising a family, and how is it that you get in your own way? Oh, gosh. I am a work case scenario planner. So I think the way that I get in my own way is I will think about all the potential outcomes, and then I will kind of decide that the one that involves the most carnage and tears and, you know,, I think preparing for, for, you know, less than ideal outcomes is, can be a boon. I think when it takes you too far, you get stuck in the anxiety and the fear instead of trying to figure out an actual best path forward. And I would say that I, I, my husband's very good at saying, I don't think we're going to die today, Kate. Um, and just, you know, we probably don't need to hide the water bottles in the pantry right now.

You know, and sort of taking a step back. And because that's the other thing, you know, fear and anxiety, these things were designed, you know, evolution works pretty slowly in a lot of respects. These things were designed to get us out of, you know, true life endangering situations. And, you know, whether or not you can handle three conference calls, finishing an article and still get your kids to their respective activities on time is not what anxiety was built for. So modern life has hijacked these feelings in a lot of ways that are really unhealthy for us. And do you have any insights on the process that people can become better or even excellent at risk-taking? I think it's important to understand how the brain actually deals with risk and a lot of the shortcuts that it falls back on.

So again, all that automatic behavior is great when you're well-trained, but what happens when it's an area that maybe you don't know as well? When you understand how the brain reacts to heightened stress, heightened emotion, how the brain changes the way it deals with risk as you age, or as you get more familiar with the subject. I think, you know, not to totally rip off G.I. Joe, but, you know, knowing is half the battle. And when you realize that sometimes these automatic processes, they work for your, you know, in your favor, but then also they can work against you. When you understand, you know, why the brain works the way

it does and the shortcuts that it takes, you can make sure you're not, you know, just automatically stepping into a trap. You know, here's a, I think a fun way to take that. And I'll share how I've seen an elite athlete use this. And so he says to me, Mike, let me take you through a workout. Let me show you what I do. I said, Oh boy. And so he's well conditioned and I'm deconditioned. And we jump on to a training exercise that he runs through. And my heart rate is pounding. And it's to the place, I don't know if you've ever gotten close to or thrown up from working. It's not an enjoyable state.

But I'm like, oh boy, here we go. I can start to feel, so the heart rate is happening I can feel the cotton mouth taking place um inside of me I can feel the my auditory system is starting to shut down and I can feel a lightheadedness and there's a whiteness in the environment that's not supposed to be there and that'll that'll last for 20, 30 seconds. And then if you can get your heart rate down, then what seems to linger for me, at least, and sometimes others report the same, is that the auditory system still is compromised. And so that's when you push yourself so hard that you're not recovering properly. And he was at the same place. I just got there a little

bit earlier. And he kept going. And I paused for a minute. And he said, the same place. I just got there a little bit earlier and he kept going. And I paused for a minute and he said, Mike, you know how to do this. This is easy. Just breathe. I was like, yeah, okay, there it is. And so it was that simple little phrase. This is easy. It's just about breathing because breathing is going to be the accelerant to, to relaxing the nervous system. And so it was that nice little, just simple nugget. This is easy. And I was like, oh yeah. And so then it started working and I'm doing that. Okay. That's great. That's working. And I look over to him a few minutes later and he's now doing the same thing. And he's saying out loud, this is simple and he's just breathing. This is simple and he's just breathing. And so it's taking like, why is it simple? Because understanding how the mechanisms of the brain work to push us into survival mode and protection mode as opposed to, you know, capacity building.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, cool. Okay. So, I know we've talked a lot about the cognitive side in the brain. And of the mental side or the software side, what have you found are some of the most important mental skills? Is it generating a sense of calmness? Is it knowing how to generate confidence? Is the deep focus? Is it, you know, imagination and imagery? Is it being well-planned for the future? What have you found? In the people that I talk to, I think, you know, one of the biggest ones is motivation. You know, these folks love what they do. They get to the point where they're at because they really just enjoy it. They love it. It's something that calls for them on a very deep level. I think that's where a lot of us go wrong.

We think, oh, well, I could never be like Alex Honnold, or I could never, you know, but I don't think that we have those same drives and those same passions. And if we focus the same kind of processing and the same kind of path to the things we are passionate about, then we could get to where we wanted to go.

So motivation can't be discounted. But I also think it's a reaction to failure. One of the best things that was said to me during the course of this book, and again, it's something really simple, almost like, you know, just breathe. But it was, I haven't failed, I'm just not finished yet. And I probably say that to myself now every day. Because just think what most of us could accomplish if we just told ourselves that this thing that we just didn't do right, that we failed on. It's not because we're lacking. It's not because, oh, this is stupid and I don't want to do it anyway. And it's not because we don't have the ability or the skills.

It's just that we're not done building them yet. We still have more time and more work to put into this. And time and time again, what I saw with so many of these really successful risk takers is that they have a way to take their failure and mistakes in stride and not only, you know, sort of learn from them, but actually, you know, they sort of spur them forward. They almost motivate them in a way. How can I do this better? How can I get past this? What can I do a little bit differently this time to reach this goal? And so, honestly, I think I'm going to stitch it on a throw pillow because, you know, I haven't't failed I'm just not finished

yet yeah really cool and so that is like the software guiding the hardware that that phrase that thought is that listen there's more time than you think even though right now it feels binary yeah there's actually more time and more time meaning the rest of my life whenever that so ends and yeah yeah so can you like you just, you just triggered a thought here, which is the autonomic nervous system and the response to threat. Most people will talk about the sympathetic response, like the fight or flight response. Can you talk about the freeze and or submissive response? So when we are faced with a threat, you know, the brain has two key stress pathways,

one of which, of course, is going to trigger fight or flight. That's really immediate. It happens right away. And then there's a secondary pathway that actually releases corticosteroids that basically helps you adjust. Now, the thing is, is that second pathway is slower working. It usually sort of comes on about 20 minutes after the threat. And so if it is a situation where, you know, putting your dukes up or making a run for it

isn't going to work in your favor for all manner of good reasons. A lot of times, you know, it's instinctual, but the safest thing to do is freeze and wait until, you know, these sort of chemicals come about and help you, you know, really sort of figure your way out, you know. So there are a lot of sort of theories about why the freezing happens. It seems to be a pretty deep-seated instinct, especially in certain situations, because, hey, if you're still, maybe the predator won't notice you. But a lot of it also seems to happen sort of in between that initial fight or flight where that course of adrenaline comes rushing through your body and gets you ready to deal immediately with the threat at hand. And then that secondary stress pathway that's sort of there saying, okay, wait a minute. So we couldn't deal with this immediately.

We're still going to have to deal with it a little bit more. This is a chronic, more of a chronic type situation. How do we adjust to get you out of this successfully? And is that second pathway, is there a structure that it's related to? Or is it more of a neurochemical response? It's actually a series of structures. So you're looking at, it's called the HPA axis, hydromodulary. Oh, I always get this wrong.

But basically, you're looking at a pituitary gland. You're looking at a pituitary gland you're looking at you know the hypothalamus and and basically you know it's a variety of different brain structures that are releasing different neurochemicals stress hormones the pituitary gland and getting you ready for what's going on okay is is the is the vagus nerve connected to that process? Did you find that as well? You know, I am not exactly sure. It wouldn't surprise me though, because the vagus nerve seems to be connected to so many different things. Maybe that's something that we can connect offline with. And because I've had this idea,

and I can't trace where I've found it, is that the vagus nerve is more active during freeze and submissiveness. And the fight and flight is more of a sympathetic process. So, and I'm sure it's not that simple but and maybe somebody who's listening can help sharpen this thought for for at least me maybe something you've already learned and forgotten but I'm trying to figure this out a little bit deeper yeah a lot of the work that I've done on the vagus nerve has been more involved with the sex stuff in terms of stimulating vagus nerves for orgasms and what have you. But again, when you're talking about so many of these things in the brain, it doesn't do

redundancy because it requires so much energy to run. So you have all of these areas that are really multipurpose. So again, it wouldn't surprise me. But the other side of that is, you know, the brain, its job really is, it's in a prediction business. If you were to sum up its job into one simple thing, it is there to try to predict what's happening next in the environment so that you can respond to it in such a way that you'll not only survive, but hopefully thrive. And that means that when we are, you know, given a threat, whether it's, you know, the tiger in the jungle, or whether it's, you know, that really obnoxious guy at work who always seems to be screaming at you, the brain is trying to figure out how to adapt and respond in such a way where there's basically the least cost, the least risk, both to your physical person as well as, you know,

you in the long term. Okay, last really concrete question is that what would be some really concrete and practical ways that I could help raise my son and or pass to athletes ways to help them be risk takers, better risk takers? What have you found? So this is stuff that I am working on with my own kids as well. One, you need to let them explore and be curious and you need to let them experiment, even when you know what the outcome of that experiment is going to be. So yeah, you know, we can't put them in a bubble. They need to learn that glass can be broken. They need to learn that you can fall out of trees or fall out of a skateboard. And sometimes it may seem like it's the exact opposite of what the,

the, you know, our parenting job is supposed to be keep them safe, but we need to let them fall down and then figure out how to get back up on their own. Um, I think it's really important that kids understand that successful risk taking and really successful.

Anything requires a lot of preparation and hard work. Um, you don't just get things. Most things in life do not come to you automatically. They require focus and dedication and deliberate practice. And these things are really important because they sync up the brain and the fastest, and help you get really valuable experience that'll help you do better next time. I think it's really important to help kids learn how to self-regulate their own emotions. When they fall down and start to cry, we can't just always give them a cookie or a new toy.

They need to learn how to self-soothe and they need to learn how to figure it out. And, you know, again, I'm not saying just leave your child screaming in the corner, but, you know, you can give them a hug, you can give them a pep talk. It doesn't mean that, you know, you're going to hold on to them and give them whatever they want for the rest of the day because they had one minor setback. Ultimately, you're going to handicap them if you do that. But yeah, I guess those are some of the basics. You need to let them, you need to let them explore. You need to let them experiment. You need to let them mess up. And that I think sometimes is the hardest, especially when we know better and we can see from a distance exactly how bad they might crash and burn. And we need to, you know, let them gain the experience they need so they can start to really start reasoning these things out themselves.

We need to give them the tools. I love it, and it's certainly one of the tools and skills that are necessary for people that want to move into the path of mastery is that it's like if you can understand things great at a deep level but not be able to apply them in new circumstances it becomes just a really large trap and that trap being I can only do what I'm meant to understand in certain environments and that is you know that confining nature just doesn't really work well when we're trying to figure out the potential or the boundaries within ourselves. And so that being said, in your words, how do you articulate mastery?

How do you define it or talk about it? What is the way that you understand the path of mastery or mastery in general? Well, I've been thinking about that question a lot and I think it really does come down to taking smart seasoned risks. It's working at the edge of your performance ability. It's doing the hard work and it's very hard work. All of this stuff, you know, requires enough self-awareness and self-regulation that you're constantly putting yourself at the edge, knowing that you're going to fail, and still willing to do that in order to master something. And this is something that we see, whether you're talking about a concert pianist just working on

that really complicated Rachmaninoff passage over and over and over and over again until they get it, or whether we're talking about somebody, you know, in the physical arena who's trying to learn a really complicated gymnastics routine, who is trying to climb, you know, that one massive arch at Yosemite, or what have you. So it's this wonderful, I think, it's work, it's risk-taking, it's working at the edge, and it's willing to take in as much information as you can during those experiences to move yourself forward.

Kate, I've really appreciated how thoughtful and articulate you are and how well you've captured the nuances of how our brain works in risk-taking. And it's just been great. I've really appreciated how sensitive you are to the many different variables that are at play. And so I want to thank you for spending the time to walk me through this conversation and to reveal and share what you've come to understand. So where can we learn more about what you're up to? Where can people find your book?

Can you walk us through that a little bit? Sure. So you can find me at kaitsukel.com, K-A-Y-T-S-U-K-E-L.com. The Art of Risk, you can find it wherever books are sold. Amazon named it last month as one of the best new books of business and leadership. But don't let that scare you because I actually think it's a book about life success, not just about basically finding mastery in all aspects of life. And of course, I overshare all the time on Twitter as Kate Tuchel. So I would love to hear from you. Please

say hi. So good. Okay. And so thank you again, Kate. And to subscribe to the podcast, if you enjoyed this conversation, head over to iTunes and search for Finding Mastery. You can also go to findingmastery.net and find me also on Twitter at Michael Gervais and Facebook is forward slash Finding Mastery. Okay. Everybody appreciate it. This has been a blast. Kate, look forward to the next time we get to swap information and learn that I get to learn from you. So thank you so much and look forward to another conversation in the future. Thank you for having me. It's been a lot of fun.

Okay, all the best. Take care. All right, thanks. Bye. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you. We really appreciate you being part of this community. And if you're enjoying the show, the easiest no-cost way to support is to hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening.

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