Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Mindset, Mindfulness, and More | Ask Me Anything (AMA) #1 with Dr. Michael Gervais

Episode Date: October 17, 2022

In this first Ask Me Anything (AMA) with Dr. Mike Gervais, we took your questions and went into the Mastery Lab Studio to answer them. This first one covers high performance routines, mindfulness, mindset, dealing with the fear of other people's opinions (FOPO), and much more.We're excited to be producing these AMAs more frequently. What questions would you like Dr. Mike to answer? Leave your questions for the next AMA on the YouTube version of this episode.Dr. Mike bio:Dr. Michael Gervais is one of the world’s top high-performance psychologists and leading experts on the relationship between the mind and human performance. He is the founder of Finding Mastery and has spent his career being called on by the best of the best across the worlds of business, sport, the arts, and science when they need to achieve the extraordinary._________________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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through them. And we'd love for you to leave questions that you would like explored here. If this works, we'll do more of this. And listen, I love the Finding Mastery podcast and I love this community. And so this is a real joy to do this. All right. First question is from Ryan. What are the three things the average is that it's not clean. Like these are the three. It doesn't work that way. But if we were to start somewhere, it'd be with awareness. So building awareness, awareness of how your thoughts and emotions work, awareness of how your inner life works. Like we need to have contact with our inner life. So awareness training is paramount, but it's not only awareness of your inner life. It's how the awareness of how the world around you is working. And so when you have awareness of your

internal life and your external world, how it's unfolding, you're in the game. But if you don't have great awareness, you're not even the game of high performance. And so some sort of awareness practice is foundational. The second is high performance is about doing difficult things, like getting right to the edge of the capacity, your capacity, staying in it, figuring it out, and executing and performing at a high level. Okay, so to do that, we need to build the capacity to handle ourselves in those moments. So some sort of capacity building process. What does that mean? That means like, you hear people talk about doing cold showers or cold tubs or whatever. That's a capacity building from a physiological and a

psychological perspective. So let's just say, for example, you get in a cold shower or cold tub, water's cold, great. You have that reaction of wanting to get out. It's normal. But you stand in it for a few more moments and breathe. You work with your mind in that high stress, high tense moment. So those types of practices are capacity building. Every day doing something on that level. The third is recovery strategies. If you're going to get after it and go for it and do hard things and you want to understand your capacity in life, you got to recover, but intelligently recover every day. And there's a whole set of practices that people, I don't think we need to get into those, but like, what do I do mechanically to recover? There's, there's lots of literature there,

sleep, hydration, nutrition, making sure that your movement strategies are right, that you're, you know, you're working on pliability and strength at the same time. And, you know, of course thinking, well, like those are all part of the recovery process. So those three, I think are paramount for big rocks. Ryan asked about whether these, what a high performer needs to add to the routine. Could you be a high performer without already having these in your routine? Yeah, you can, you can, our bodies are amazing and you can grind for a long time and arrive somewhere and strike and be really good at the thing. But at the same time, fall off a cliff. It's kind of what peak performance training is about.

Like you arrive at the thing you've grinded, but then there's a cliff. And so, yeah, you can do that. We see it all the time. But there's no sustainability in it. People don't last. And that's not the path of mastery. That's not how this works. So yeah, you can get by.

So let's talk about stress. There's acute stress, moderate stress, and chronic stress. Under moderate stress, well, let me frame them. Acute stress is something happens. A gorilla runs in the room. Bang, the whole thing kind of lights up. Your system is on. And then we need to know how to shed that. And if we don't shed that, then we move into

moderate stress. Moderate stress is good. We can do our best work under moderate stress when we're keyed up in a way that we're fully alive. And that moderate stress lasts like around two, three weeks. That's okay. But if we don't know how to work with that, we move into chronic stress, which is problematic for both health and performance and kind of overall sense of vitality. So to answer your question, you can do it, but it's not sustainable. It's not the path of mastery. It's not the path of finding out your true potential. Just to follow up on awareness, for someone who is not very experienced with mindfulness, how do they, in more concrete terms, how do they, like, what should they be aware of internally? Like, what does that mean? Like, awareness of your

inner life? Okay. That's a good question. There's a whole set of practices that would allow you to become more familiar with how your thoughts and emotions work. Mindfulness being, as you mentioned, one of them. So mindfulness, call it meditation, is the practice of becoming aware of what's happening without judgment, without critique. And it's typically a sitting practice where you're sitting on a comfortable chair or whatever, or on a pillow, cushion, and you're becoming aware of how thought one leads to thought two and leads to thought

three and how those have impact on emotions. That's a massive, that's a radical act of committing to understanding how you work. It's a radical act. committing to understanding how you work. It's a radical act. It's hard. Easy to understand. But it's only one of the practices. Journaling and writing is another. It's a forcing function.

What is the word that captures how I feel? What is the word or the sentence or the stream of thoughts that are capturing something that I'm trying to better understand? So writing and journaling is a powerful process, but not everyone wants to write. Most people don't want to meditate. It's hard. But the benefits are, I can't imagine.

First, I can't imagine getting through the pandemic and the crisis that we've been in and the high stress environment without mindfulness. So let alone all the research that's coming out of laboratory about what actually the benefits are to high performance. But when you're talking about awareness in one's daily life, awareness of your thoughts and feelings, you're talking about making it a part of the practice of living, not just sitting on a pillow and having an awareness, right? Yeah, you're on it. So you practice in everything that's a skill. So mindfulness is a skill.

It's a state of being, and it's also eventually could be a trait. Okay. So anything that's a skill you can get better at, but the purpose is not to just be better at that skill, but it's to apply it and certainly to apply it when there's high stress or pressure, a high speed environment. So if you're practicing being more aware in a safe, comfortable, quiet, controlled, if there's such a thing environment, that's like level one. Level two is that you, you take those practices and you work them and weave them into your daily life. And so this is not just about being a high performer in challenging moments, but it's about having a deep awareness about how you work and how the world around you is working. And I would be butchering the beautiful tradition of mindfulness

to say that's the reason we do it. It's far deeper than that. Far deeper. But your point is well articulated. You practice it so you can apply it. Period. What are the biggest commonalities between high performers you've worked with? It's a good question. And this is how I started my professional career in sports psychology to understand how the best in the world work. Are there common threads? I wish there was. There's not one. But the people that I work with and that I've been fortunate to spend time with in the trenches, some of the most extraordinary performers in the world, whether that's sport or arts or operators, they fundamentally organize their life towards their purpose. They have clarity about what matters most to them,

and then they organize their life accordingly. And so they're not looking for tricks or tips or hacks. They are fundamentally committed to figuring out how good they and their community can take something, how far they can go with it. And that fundamental commitment, it's rare. And this is why I love working with the best in the world. We see them celebrated on the podium. Their flag is flying, you know, and we're like, God, they're so special.

It's not the achievement that they've made, which is extraordinary. What we miss is the way that they organize their life for years to go after something that matters deeply. That's available to all of us. 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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I need something quick that will support the way that I feel and think and perform. And that's why I've been leaning on David Protein Bars. And so has the team here at Finding Mastery. In fact, our GM, Stuart, he loves them so much. I just want to kind of quickly put him on the spot. Stuart, I know you're listening. I think you might be the reason that we're running out of these bars so quickly. They're incredible, Mike. I love them. One a day, one a day. What do you mean one a day? There's way more than that happening here. Don't tell. Okay. All right. Look, they're incredibly simple. They're effective. 28 grams of protein,

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something seamless i'd love for you to go check them out. Get a free variety pack, a $25 value and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. Ryan asks, what is the biggest misconception around achieving peak performance? The misconception is that the focus is on peak performance. That's not how it works. Peak performance is like this idea that you're going to rise to the top, you're going to see the mountaintop, and then you're going to climb back down or fall off that cliff. Like that's not how it works. And you know, I mean, I know why that phrase was introduced to the world of sports psychology and the world of performance, peak performance. We're going to work to understand our peak, our collective peak, our individual peak. But really what, what the deeper understanding is like, I've got this finite amount of time on earth.

I don't know how long that'll be. So if I honor that I don't know how long I have here, and I've got some core principles and some virtues, and I've got some aspirational ways that I want to live my life, how do I sustain those? How do I work towards my upper capabilities? And this is, the folks that I work with have taught me this. This isn't clear in the research of sports psychology. This is like working in the trenches with the best in the world. They are far more interested in sustaining excellence, sustaining high performance. And more importantly,

it's about being at home with oneself anywhere we go. So this is not about like, let me just crack it, get the metal, and then I'm good. It doesn't work that way. So the misconception is that it's about peak performance, where the deeper understanding is about sustaining high performance, sustaining the path to be on towards mastery. That's the takeaway. So should we get rid of the term peak performance or stop using it? I never use the word peak performance.

I used to. I named my first company Pinnacle Performance. And because I thought that's what it's about. And then I got into the arenas with the best in the world. And I was like, this doesn't hold up. This is not what's, yeah, there's goals to be able to peak at a certain time. But like in the Olympics, you do want to peak at the Olympics, but it's not like you're doing nothing for three years and trying to just all of a sudden peak at that and then

go away. Like this is a, what we're actually organizing in like, say the Olympic quad four years process. Most people, it's more like eight years, but a four year training cycle is that we're trying to stay in the strike range between like 87 to 93% proficient at the thing that they're trying to get better at, whatever that might be, because we're in striking range of like that exponential breakthrough, but we're trying to stay in the sustainable high-performance mindset, the sustainable high-performance physiology, a sustainable high-performance culture, because nobody does it alone. We need each other. So this

is not about grinding through, running through our team and people so we can peak. This is about building a culture and building an internal set of capabilities that are sustainable. You can apply this in any part of life. From a family, what are you going to peak as a family? No, that's not what we're trying to do. We're trying to build something that is beautiful and deep and rich and connected and that can have durability, that can last in a meaningful way. So it's about, I don't use the word peak performance.

I don't find that to be a core value. What's the most impactful thing you've learned since starting Finding Mastery? Okay. The most impactful thing I've learned since starting Finding Mastery is the people that do the extraordinary things that we watch and we know their names and we know what they've done, they're just like us. They've committed in a unique way and they might be born with some genetic predispositions, but they're grinding. They're working on recovery. They're working on meaning and purpose in life. They're trying to sort it out. They're going through something. We're all going through

something. And so I'm reminded of the humanity of the best. And it's not just the badge or the, what's the armor that they carry that's so shiny that the rest of us look and go, oh my God, that shiny armor is amazing. Look what they've done with their life. They get real and they say, no, I'm trying to sort it out. I'm trying to learn and figure it out.

And I'm going through something too. I love that part of our community. The honesty, like we're all trying to just figure it out. We're all going through something. Alex asked, you talk about FOPO a lot, the fear of other people's opinions. Do people you work with suffer from this? Yeah. FOPO is a real thing now? It is, it's more pervasive than I thought. Yes. 100% people that are best in the world are also struggling with this pervasive, just below the surface obsession with like, how am I being perceived? What are they thinking of me? Am I, am I being okay? Give you a case example. This is, um, he won, I think it was three or four, four, three or four, um, NBA championships. So he was on a team that won three or four. And at one point we're doing some work.

So to be on a team and have three or four championships, like you're a contributing member of a very special team. And so he leans back one day and we're talking about like anxiety and kind of the things that would make sense. And why do I say it makes sense? Because like when you're on the world stage, the whole world is watching. It's not just like the 15 people in a boardroom or it's not the, you know, I don't know. The whole world is watching what you're doing. He pushes back his chair and he says, you know what, Gervais, I got to catch a case of the fuck it.

So what was he talking about? I got to stop. I got to stop worrying. So imagine the thing that you love to do and you're, you're trotting off into the center stage of a stadium full of 20,000 people and millions watching. And you're really good at the thing. And you've also got this other tape that's running underneath the surface, which is like, God bless it. I don't want to look stupid. I don't, I hope that I'm prepared because this could be embarrassing, like all this other noise and it's all directed toward what are they going to

think of me? Like, and so he pushes back when he pushes back at Sherry's like, you know what? Fuck it. I just got to go be me. And it sounds so simple. This is one of the best in the world for multiple years in a row.

And yeah, it's in, I think it's, I think FOPO is alive for everybody other than the narcissist. I think it's a thing that we all got to wrestle with. In general, how do performers on the world stage deal with FOPO? They're being watched, they're being judged, they're being evaluated in the press, they're being scrutinized more than any of us. Do they block it out? Do they work with it?

Yeah, they same way. I think they work it in the same way, but the ones that are successful and you think about the world stage, it's talent is more closely tied, meaning that competitor A and competitor B are really closely tied in skill. There's real money on the line. There's an intensity in those environments because people get fired quickly in pro sports. In the NFL, it stands for not for long. And so you work 18 years to get skilled at something, and the average tenure in the NFL is just over three years. Okay. So how do they work with it? They, the ones that work with it well address that this is something that pulls their attention

and they work with their mind to come back to the necessary skill or the, the essence of a moment and like focusing on the most elementary fundamental thing for this moment. So for us, it's like focusing on this conversation and not when my mind does wander or yours does, like gently bringing it right back to now and to do it quickly and with speed. That's how they work. And it's actually, it's quite,

it's easier in sport to do that because there's action involved and it's much harder to do that in non-sport related or non-performative related professions. So they have it. They work with it by being aware of their mind and driving it back to the present moment. And that is the only way through is to focus deeply on the present moment. Because you can only really focus on one novel thing, one new thing at a time.

And so if you're focusing on being fully here now, there's no space for focusing on what other people think about. So does reminding yourself of your purpose help pull you out of the FOPO loop? Well, you got to know your purpose first. Like, yeah. So you're picking up on something important, which is like, when you know your purpose, it becomes a North Star. And so when you're, when you're unsorted and unsettled or internally scratchy, and you're kind of a mess, let's say that you go, wait, hold on, what am I doing this for? And if you don't have clarity of your purpose, it becomes very difficult to, to organize your inner life towards something.

And so purpose is good. And then let's say you know your purpose, you've done that alone, internal, private work to say, this is my purpose in life. And then before you're about to go on stage or do your thing, whatever it is, is to say, wait, hold on, that's right. And just kind of remind yourself

of why this thing matters so much. And I will say, if the purpose is for self-glory, And just kind of remind yourself of why this thing matters so much. And I will say, if the purpose is for self-glory, self-reward, self-riches, it's not big enough. It can't hold up. For a little bit, it can. But it just doesn't have the durability to last for the path of mastery. And so when something is bigger than you, like I'm doing this thing to be able to fill in the blank for some larger community, whether it's your home community, whether it's your loved ones there, or it's like the neighborhood that you came from or starving children across the planet or starving dogs, whatever your thing is,

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if you're a high schooler and you're trying to figure out where your fingertips end, you're trying, your body is kind of all over the shop. You're just kind of settling into, like, you're just getting past the awkward phase physiologically. So there's so much happening in these adolescent years. From a psychological perspective, you're trying to figure out your identity and by trying on different roles. And so one of the things, when you try on a different role to figure out, am I country? Am I rock and roll? Am I punk? Am I hip hop? Like, and I'm using that as an analogy for like different roles in life, that when you try on a different one, you're not settled in it. You're trying to figure it out.

And so it is unsettling. And when you know that you're internally unsettled and you've got this narrative, like, what are they thinking of me? It's kind of a disaster. And so I'd say for the high schooler is to embrace trying on as many roles and hats and ways of thinking about yourself in the world that you can figure out with almost a radicalness, the different ways that you can express yourself and think about who am I. It's a lifelong adventure to figure out who you are, but this is the part of life where you're just starting to sort that out. And when you recognize that you are paying more attention to what people are thinking about you as opposed to who you really want to become, then you're off. Your attention is off. That's a futile effort because if I'm trying to sort out how I want to be based on how other people might perceive me,

it's kind of like a fake Louis Vuitton bag. You know, it's like, it looks pretty close, but it doesn't hold up to anything. It's not real. Like, do you really want that? You know? So I'd rather you create something that's completely brand new and authentic to you and is different and weird. Like, I know it sounds simple to say, just be about it. But for the high schooler, that's your job, trying to figure out who are you. It's the beginnings of that adventure. And what happens is if people start to foreclose their identity, they just say, oh, I'm good at athletics. I'm an athlete. Those are some of the most dangerous words somebody can make. I am a,

at a young age, fill in the blank. That's a very dangerous proposition because then when you go do that thing, your entire identity is at risk. And that's why the fight, flight, freeze, the survival mechanisms kick on right before you step up to the plate, right before you are about to go on and do your thing. It's a really dangerous thing. But if you can say, you know, I'm trying to sort out if I like athletics and I'm pretty good at it, but what else do I enjoy? So trying on as many roles as possible, I think is a really important thing. And again, I'll just say it for clarity is when you're trying on something new and exploring something, you're not good at it. So embrace that, like that learner approach and be a little messy

with it. And the kids that pretend like they got it all together, their crisis is coming. Don't you worry about it. Like be messy with it. Be an explorer. Have your life be a little bit like an art gallery of your own where you're working to create something. Have paint on you. It's on your forehead. It's on your arms. It's a bit of a mess. And enjoy that process because it's a really important time of life is to say like, I'm just trying to figure it out. I don't know yet. But if you foreclose your identity and say, I am this, you are on a high performance path to getting good at something, but the crisis is coming because that thing that you're good at now, it's going to get challenged. And when it gets

challenged, it's going to feel more than just the challenge of the sport. It's a challenge of your entire purpose in life, your entire identity. And when you can't do that thing at a high level anymore, I mean, that's what happens mean, that's what happens in every professional league is that they extinguish or exhaust that identity at an early age. And that's why I say crisis is coming. Talk why identity foreclosure presents such a threat to the person who identifies with being one thing when you're young. Okay. Identity foreclosure is when you say, I am a, and you foreclose your identity on all other options. And you say, I am an athlete. You say, I'm a musician and that's your thing. Okay. So there's a danger in that because when you go to do that thing,

your entire identity is at stake. And so when you step up into the batting box, it's not just trying to manage a fastball. You're managing your entire identity. And that's why the fight, flight, freeze mechanism kicks on. And it feels like it's a life-threatening moment because what's at stake is the life and the potential of your complete essence when really it's just like, can I turn my hips? Can I focus on the ball coming out of the pitcher's hand? And can I make contact? That's the task. That's not life-threatening. So then why would all of this other internal kind of deep agitation of threat take place because you have said, this is who I am.

And that is too much. It's too much for anybody. So that's the risk of it. Now, the thing that I think is really important to pay attention to is that in the high school years, try it on. Try on a lot of different things. Reserve the right to explore. Reserve the right to make lots of mistakes.

Reserve the right to be messy with trying to learn and figure it out. There's nobody in the professional world that doesn't make mistakes. When we watch them on TV, it looks clean. Or we kind of freak out when a mistake happens. How it really happens is when we're about to go out on the field is that the great coaches and the great athletes say something to each other. They say, I got you. They say, listen, I'm here for you. Let's go. All of that kind of internal team connective stuff is basically saying you're going to make some mistakes i'm going to make some mistakes i got my arm out for you it's going to

happen but let's do this stuff to our best and i got your back the seattle seahawks when when i would watch kind of this little moment that would take place they would grab grab the legion of boom. The defensive players would grab their arms and interlace their legs together. This is before the game would take place. They start rocking back and forth. There's a lot of energy in this field because they really believed what I'm about to say that they said to each other.

We all we got. And somebody else, the whole room or the whole group would say, we all we need. And another, the same person would say, we all we got. And then the rest of them kind of swaying back and forth with all the intensity you could imagine, we all we need. That type of thing, like, be part of that. I'm not perfect. I'm not trying to be perfect. They're not perfect. They're not trying to be perfect. They're not perfect. They're not

trying to be perfect. They're saying we all we got. So let's take care of each other. Those are the tribes that last. Those are tribes that are like, that's how high performance happens. Embracing the mistakes. So if you're a high schooler, like be okay, trying and learning and growing and figuring out from that place, how to get better. Be okay with making mistakes because you're going to hear it later. Failure is important. Mistakes happen. It's okay. They say that, but most adults don't know how to really create an environment where they want you to learn through mistake-making. What they say is like, they want to give you freedom,

but they're not really creating the environment to celebrate the going for it and the mistake. So you're left to say, I hear those words, but how do I really live it? What I'm saying is if you don't practice being a learner, if you don't practice trying out new things, you'll stay very narrow in your approach. You might go a little bit further faster, but there's a dead end happening because the path of mastery, the path of high performance,

the path of being a learner for life, the long life, involves making plenty of mistakes. Matty asks, what is the message you would give middle school students? Okay, the middle school and high school years are hard. Socially, they're really hard. I wish I knew this. Control what's in your control. Be great at having thoughts that you have your back. Speak to yourself in a way that you are literally your best friend.

Figure that out. That's a really important thing for life. Sometimes we say things to ourselves, we'd never want somebody else. We'd never say those things to somebody else, the way we speak to ourselves. So be great with the way you speak to yourself. Have your back. The second is be a learner. Be open. Don't try to be the cool kid that's got it all together. Like some of the kids, you know, they look like they have everything together. And I remember when I was younger

and I'd look at them like, oh my God, they got it together. And I'm kind of a mess inside. That's not, that's a bit of a recipe for disaster to present like you got it all together and because eventually over time if those kids don't practice being awkward and uncomfortable they're not going to be on the trajectory to get things deeply understood they're never going to really have the path of mastery they're going to be on the path of cool. Now, what I've come to learn is the path of mastery is really cool because you have a deep command of the human experience. And so be a learner. There's the temptation to take that edge of awkwardness off with alcohol, drugs, and like I said, looking cool. I get that temptation that you feel like you want to fit

in. You feel a nervous mess. And so you're going to turn to something outside of you to settle in. Your job is to figure out how to be awkward and to work through it. If you can do that for a lifetime, I'm telling you, the ceiling is unbelievable. That's an unlock for your potential. So embrace being awkward. Don't grab the alcohol and drugs. Beyond the reasons from the brain of why it's such a problem, I don't want to get into that, go within. Be awkward. Embrace that. Be a learner. Back yourself. And don't try to have it all together because there's a dead end in that approach to life. The ones that look like they have it all together. We look at people that are on podiums or that are winning a world championship or are famous for something, and we think they have it all together. Now, to get good at anything means that you've got to go through the deep learning. And if you're just trying to

present a certain way, that shell cracks early. People figure out if you're just trying to present a certain way, that shell cracks early. People figure out that you're just trying to, you're kind of faking it. You don't have it together. Right now in the high school years, know that it's not about presenting a certain way. It's about working with yourself to be awkward, to figure it out. They've all gone through this. They've all gone through this awkward phase of trying to figure it out. And I feel like I'm still in it. I'm still trying to figure out how to be me. And so they are too. When I say they, the best in the world are still trying to figure it out, but they've made a commitment to it. Those that are just trying to front and look cool, it's a short end thing. They get exposed quickly, even in the pros,

like they don't last. And so it's a great time to make these fundamental commitments to yourself, control what's in your control. Be a learner is what that means. That's the attitude towards like getting better or understanding something back yourself with the way you speak to yourself. Like be your best friend, be your best coach. Like that, that kind of self-talk thing is a great, this is a great time for it. And then, you know, know that people that are trying to figure it out, those are the ones that end up being the coolest kids on the planet because they're really good at stuff.

Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down. And that's why I've built intentional routines into the way that I close my day. And Cozy Earth has become a new part of that. Their bedding, it's incredibly soft, like next level soft. And what surprised me the most is how much it actually helps regulate temperature. I tend to run warm at night and these sheets have helped me sleep cooler and more consistently, which has made a meaningful difference in how I show up the next day for myself, my family, and our team here at Finding Mastery. It's become part of my nightly routine. Throw on their lounge pants or pajamas, crawl into

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and they reflect the kind of intentional living that I want to build into every part of my day. And they make my morning routine really easy. They've got some great new products I think you'll be interested in. A shampoo, conditioner, and a hair serum. With Caldera Lab, it's not about adding more. It's about choosing better. And when your day demands clarity and energy and presence, the way you prepare for it matters. If you're looking for high quality personal care products that elevate your routine without complicating it, I'd love for you to check them out. Head to calderalab.com slash finding mastery and use the code finding mastery at checkout for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. Somebody emailed the question. They said, my self-talk is currently pretty critical

and negative. How do we practice changing our self-talk? How do we change our negative and critical self-talk? Okay. I'm going to give you something that's going to sound simple as an approach. And this is evidence-based, it's research-based, and it's something that has held up with the folks that I work with the best in the world. This is how it works. You must first begin with awareness. First awareness of how you speak to yourself in critical ways. And I would suggest, sounds going to sound almost mechanical or academic, write those down. Just kind of get it out from the imaginary world and get it down on paper. These are the statements I say to myself

that really hurt, that create constriction inside of me. So these are, we call them debilitating type of statements. So write those critical types of statements down. And there's probably more than you want, but just get as many as you can down on a piece of paper. And the second is also on a piece of paper, write down the statements that you'd like to say to yourself. But on this kind of part of the exercise, only write down the statements that you've earned.

So here's an example. I spent some time with a UFC athlete and he's a champion. And I asked him what it's like. How does he speak to himself? And he says, you mean when it's good? Yeah. He says, when it's really good, I don't have any thoughts. So he's talking about flow state, right?

So that's kind of the thing that we're thinking about is more aspirational. What we're talking about right now is self-talk. It's either facilitating you being at your best or it's debilitating in some way. It's critical or it's more facilitative. I'm not going to say positive and negative. It's not that simple. So when I asked him about it and he goes, oh, okay. When I'm speaking to myself, it's pretty clear. I'm a tough motherfucker. Okay. So what gives you the right to say that? I daringly ask him. And he says, I whooped my dad's ass when I was 14. I'm a tough motherfucker. So what else? He says, I was in an end game position. I was

being choked out. I broke that thing in a recent fight, put the dude on my shoulder, dragged him across the cage and finished the fight. Dude, I'm telling you, I'm a tough motherfucker. Okay. So you get where this is going. He's earned the right to say to himself, I'm a tough motherfucker. So what I want this person to consider doing is writing down the statements that you've earned the right to say to yourself, and then practice those, be about those, work those into your daily system. And if you can do it this way, you write it down, like whatever that version is that you're a tough motherfucker. Maybe it's, you know, I'm a lover of life or, um, um, you know, I get things done or I'm a great mom, whatever it might be.

Then for three, then, then right next to it, three reasons that give you the right to say that. So if you want to change your self-talk, first begin with awareness. Second thing is to know the language that you're saying to yourself that is constricting. Make a commitment to stop that, okay? Then you've got to know where to go with those thoughts. So write down those thoughts that you've earned and that those thoughts, you have your back, your own back.

The next thing, this is a bit of a graduate course that I'll share with you here, is that when a thought enters your mind, you don't necessarily have to have a go-to thought. But when a thought enters your mind that is constricting in some way to you, critical, judgmental, it's got a bite to it, it's mean, that you say to yourself, oh, I see you. I'm not going to entertain this. I'm not going to water that seed. I'm going to let that pass like a floating cloud. That's a train that I'm just going to let go by. Whatever that kind of fun little way of working with that thought is, it's a hello and goodbye. And then drive your attention back to the present moment, whatever the task is right now.

It could be listening. It could be writing. It could be whatever it is that you're focusing on and drive your attention there. And then when your mind wanders again to some critical, negative, judgmental statement, go, oh, I see you again, but I'm not going to water that. I'm not going to water you. Come right back to the task at hand. A mentor of mine made it really clear to me. He says, Mike, when the phone

rings, you don't have to answer the call. You don't have to pick it up. When a thought enters your mind, you don't have to entertain it. It's that simple. And so I carry that with me almost every day. When a thought comes up, I don't have to entertain it. That's always in your control, but you need awareness first. And so that's why the practice of awareness is so important. Hudson asks, what can one do to gain a mindset like David Goggins? How do you develop a mindset like David Goggins? That's a full on commitment. So David Goggins, when he was on the Finding Mastery podcast said, when he, when I asked him like what his purpose in life was, he said to be the hardest motherfucker alive.

Okay. Here's the takeaway. Know your purpose, fully commit to it. Now, if you want to have like this hard approach and that you're going to be like quote unquote mentally tough, you have to give everything, everything to it. Mental toughness is hard and I'm not sure that we can train it. It has to come from the person. I can help people strip away some anxieties to reveal mental toughness. I can help people strip away negative self-talk so that it can be more hard and tough. But toughness has to come from a commitment to give everything to the thing that matters

to you. So you want to be like Goggins? Get better at suffering. You want to be like Goggins? Get better at suffering. You want to be like Goggins? Get better at fully committing all of your life towards one thing. You want to be more like Goggins? Be about it. Don't talk about it. There's not words that he's good at. Yeah, he's good at those too, but he is great at backing it up. That's how you'd be more like Oggins. You've got to give everything to it. What mindset is best optimized for a happy life?

That's a great question. What is the best mindset for an optimized life? First of all, what is an optimized life? That's a cool thought to entertain. And so let's say that the optimized life is joy and happiness, fulfillment, flourishing. Let's say that that's an optimized life, that you have slid into home base, the end of your life, and you've really gone for it. You got some scars, some bruises, like you're a bit worn because you've really gone for it in life and you understand peace and happiness understand peace and happiness and joy and flourishing and fulfillment. You've got that mix between the two. Okay. What's the mindset? Be here now. Be in the present moment. That is the entryway

into that type of life. It is so hard to do because our mind wants to take us to other places about what are they thinking about us? Well, what if this happens? What if that happens? And we're kind of scarred by shit that's gone wrong in the past. And we carry that into this present moment. And we're playing this fake game of being okay. If you really want this life, you got to be fully in the present moment and practice that

because that is difficult to do. That will be the beginnings of having the courage to feel, to put words to your feelings, to be able to live in alignment with your thoughts, your words, and your actions. And if you can live in alignment with those, it takes great vulnerability. It takes great courage to do that, to put thoughts and feelings and line them up towards a purpose that you have in life. It's a great question. It's a sophisticated question. The mindset is to commit to being fully here now. That's the mindset. Jennifer asks, how much impact can mindset really have on life? If we think about mindset as the lenses that you see the present

moment through. So mindset is the way that you work with your mind to be here in this moment. And a learner's mindset, you can put any adjective before the word mindset. So a learner's mindset, that's foundational. That is like ground floor, basic stuff to be a learner for life because we don't know it all. We don't have it all together. So to learn, to learn about self, to learn about others, to learn about the craft, I think that's foundational. But mindset in general needs an adjective.

So competitive mindset. Joyful mindset. Like it needs an adjective in front of it. And so the first order of business is to select that adjective that you want to better understand and then develop the capabilities and the skills to have that mindset. There's going to be a basic commitment to optimism, to believing that the future is going to work out. That's part of it. There's going to be a way that you speak to yourself where you have your own back, where you're no longer trying to save yourself, but you can have

the available resources to be there for other people. That type of mindset of being a good community member, great teammate in life. Having the ability to focus deeply, that type of mindset of being a good community member, great teammate in life. Having the ability to focus deeply, that type of mindset that I'm going to be all in into this moment and not worry about the other things that could go wrong. That's important. So there's all these skills that sit underneath the mindset that you want, but your job is to know what the adjective prior to that is. For me, it's about being a learner. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of finding mastery with us.

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