Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Overcome Burnout, Enhance Focus, Build Culture & More | AMA Vol. 8 with Dr. Michael Gervais

Episode Date: June 26, 2023

Today, we’re really excited to share the 8th installment of our Ask Me Anything (AMA) series.The ever-insightful and entertaining O’Neil Cespedes is back to co-host this month’s AMA and – per usual – we have some fun diving into your questions. On this episode, we chat about:  What to do if you’re feeling burnt out and overworkedGrappling with the need to prove yourself to others How to build culture and hire appropriatelyThe difference between high performance and masteryFeeling like you’re “behind” in lifeAnd, one question to chew on… Are you a thermostat? Or a thermometer?_________________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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stay present and engaged with my thinking and writing. If you wanna slow down, if you wanna work smarter, I highly encourage you to check them out. Visit remarkable.com to learn more and grab your paper pro today. Part of my origin story is I didn't know I was enough. And so I worked my ass off, obsessively, uncommonly so, to be good enough.

For who? It wasn't for me, but it was like me trying to feel okay, being okay. I had to show I was smart. I had to show I was competent. I had to show that, you know, I could figure things out. All of those were helpful, but they cost me at one level, you know, intimacy with myself and intimacy with my wife. Welcome back, or welcome to another Ask Me Anything on Finding Mastery. The ever insightful and entertaining O'Neill Cespedes is back to co-host this month's AMA, and per usual, we have real fun diving into your questions, chatting about what to do if you're feeling burnout and overworked, grappling with the need to prove yourself to others, how to build culture and hire appropriately, the difference between high performance and mastery, feeling

like you're behind in life. And one question that you want, are you a thermostat or a thermometer? All that and more is coming your way right now on volume eight of Finding Masteries, Ask Me Anything. Okay, O'Neal, we're back. We're back. How you been? I'm doing well, actually. Really well. What have you been up to? Okay, I got a dilemma, actually. So I have been up to a lot of things, but my mom, she got a dog,

and she didn't know what kind of dog it was my mom's not really good shout out to you mom if you watching this it's nothing against you my mom's not really good at taking care of dogs and um so i said yo take the dog to the vet to find out what kind of dog it is it's a mutt so she takes the dog to the vet you know a couple weeks go by or whatever so i call her and i'm like so what kind of dog is it she's like oh you know they said something like a um a cane corso and um a mastiff mix whatever those two things are right so i'm like that's not a small dog mom yeah i'm like this is a cane corso mastiff mix she's like yeah i was do you know how, both of those dogs are huge.

Both of those dogs mixed are huger. I was like, you can't handle this type of dog. So she's like, okay, well, why don't you take the dog, take the dog off my hands and y'all, y'all. So I'm like, I can't tell my mom no, but I didn't tell her yes. Oh, so you haven't taken it yet.

I haven't taken it yet. I'm torn. Cause she sent me pictures the other day and the dog is as big as me. Yeah. I'm like, man, I don't know how I'm going to deal with this because that means human size. That's right.

Poops. Two hands. Yeah, two hands. And I'm like, I don't know. Help me out. I've got my own dog issues right now where my guy, Morris, he's been getting pissed off that we've been leaving. And so pre-pandemic dog was awesome.

Listened to what, you know, like it was great during the pandemic dog was awesome. Cause he was with us all the time. Yeah. Post pandemic, when the world opened up, I was traveling more. He started to act out a little bit right now. He's flat out pissed off when we leave the house. He, he, he shreds it so much so that he got into a bunch of toilet paper um and it was cumulative it wasn't just one time that we had to take him to the vet and so i didn't realize this but toilet paper has bleach in it and so he poisoned himself so like i got my own behavioral things right now like i don't know if i can help you out right now you said that's just solidifying why I shouldn't get a dog.

But toilet paper has bleach in it. Yeah, how about it? That's crazy. So we've been bleaching our butts with toilet paper all this time. We didn't know it. I knew you were going to go there. I had to.

You had to go there. So it's great to see you again. Great to see you as well. Yeah, I love doing this with you. Where do you want to take us? Hey, Josh has a question for you. Josh says, we are a mid-sized tech company. Although the economy is constricting and the talent pool is growing, we struggle to find the right talent that's the right cultural fit.

Do you have any insights that can be pulled across from your experience in the pro football that are you know applicable to this to matching talent with culture it seems that in those kind of high performance cultures chemistry is everything many thanks from josh okay so josh the first thing i hear the question which is i'm looking for cultural fit and he's saying how important cultural fit is. I'm nodding my head. My experience has been that even across some of the best professional teams, sport teams in the world, culture is not clearly identified. It might be words on walls. They might have done the exercise of having clarified their values or a sentence or two or a paragraph about what their culture is, even maybe many pages. But it's not really clear. It's an intellectual exercise that they've done to get some words. And then it hasn't come alive yet. So the first thing is, I would slightly tilt my head to say,

is the culture that you're looking for clearly identified? Because if the answer is yes, and not just Josh, but four or five other people in the organization close to Josh could say, oh yeah, it's this. And they're saying the exact same thing or something very close to it. Then I know they're onto something. Because finding the characteristics that support and align to the culture is not hard. So the first work is what is the culture? Is it something that's living and breathing? So that's the big rock to get in the container.

The second piece is through the screening slash interview process is to put people under high stress, high heat. Put them under a duress experience so you can see if those characteristics that they say that they're about are real. It's no different like in your world in jujitsu, where people are good when the talent is like matched. But as soon as they get into a high heat moment, when there's a couple of belts up, maybe people are watching, maybe there's something on the line, and you know it as well as anyone that people tighten up. And so when people tighten up, the question is, do they have access to those skills or do they have access to those characteristics that they're presenting in the job interview and back to the job interview? Do they have those characteristics embedded within them so that they're able to access them under duress. So let me just kind

of quickly recap. Is the culture clear? Can people in your company articulate the culture and are they living by it? That's kind of phase one. Phase two is to interview for those characteristics that would support that culture. Phase three is put them under duress to see if they're about it. Let me get this straight. During the vetting or the interview process, turn up the fire a little bit. That's right. Just to see if they fit the culture that you want.

And if they don't fit that culture, then obviously you have the choice to be like, okay, I'm not bringing you in. That's right. Into the fold. That's interesting. I want to make sure I word this right. What's an example?

How can you turn up the fire so to speak to try to summon this thing that you want out of them one of the things we would do at the nfl combine is we needed to turn up the heat to understand the the deeper attributes of the person so the nfl combine is some of the greatest college players coming into one arena so that we can understand who they are physically, technically, mentally, and from an intelligence standpoint as well. And so one of the things we're doing in a 15 minute interview, like a very short, brief amount of time is we need to understand how they operate under pressure.

And this is in many cases, the quote unquote biggest job interview that they've ever had. So the heat is already naturally embedded in this, in this room. And you've got, you got people that stand in the way of access to your NFL dream. Okay. So one of the things that we'll do in this interview process is I'll, I'll, I'll ask them like, what type of competitor are you? And everybody wants to kind of puff up like, I'm a dog competitor. Like I'm a gritty grindy, you know, I'll do whatever it takes. I leave it all in the field type of thing. Okay. A few minutes later, as we're starting to turn up the heat and I'm asking questions at a fast pace, just to see how they're handling that speed,

because I know what's about to come is I kind of pause directly, square up with them and say, you know, I want to see how your mind works under pressure. You good for that? And I just watch and I'm watching everything about them. I'm watching their pupils. I'm watching the flushness of their skin. I'm watching the micro expressions. I'm watching their body posture.

What did they do in that moment that I asked them if they want to test their mind under pressure? And it's that moment that reveals so much information. Then they have a response that is obvious to everybody. And that response is, yeah, or it is, what do you mean? So gathering more information is not a problem, but it's sending that they're saying that they're not completely ready to test themselves at the drop of a dime. Like they need more information. That's telling me something about how they process while they're under pressure or stress. So then once we're in agreement and they want to do it, I'll say, okay, here it is. It's a simple little test.

I say, do you know the alphabet? And you would say. Yes, of course. Can you count to 26? yes of course yeah okay good you want to give this a go sure okay good so you already know the answer to the first part of the test right okay so so i want to see how well you can thread those two things together so you would go a1 b22, C3. So let's go ahead and start at the beginning and see how far you can go. h8 i9 j10 k11 m12 okay you missed 11 l l l yeah so yeah you took the l you take the l right now yeah yeah so so then what i'm looking for is like how you do the thing. So you're having fun, you're doing it and you're working. Right. So I'm like, oh, okay. So he's, he's probably going to

put in work. Like he just, he stepped into it. It's not so much what, how you did, but it's how you, it's not so much how far you got, but how you did what you did. And then what I do in the actual combine experience is I pause after you make your mistake, right? I pause. And even if you get all the way to Z, pause. And I'm just waiting to see what they do next. And then in that pause, you'll say like, how'd I do? Oh, your reference point is others, right? And I'll say, how do you think you did? And say, I think I could do better. Can I go again? Oh, so you are a competitor. So there's all this rich information that takes place. And you probably felt your heart

rate came up a little bit. Did you feel even right now? Yes, you did. Yeah. Right. And so it happens to me too. Like, so heart rate comes up and then how do you handle that heat? Yeah. Right. And so you stayed in it and you laughed, you know, so that's, you're teaching me, but more importantly, if I would have done it right, I would have paused to see what you do next. And that's where there's radical information that's poured in. So that's how we know if somebody has the attributes, the characteristics, the qualities that we're looking for to be a cultural fit. The clarity of culture is the big rock. To know what the business and the culture stands for is really important. Then you can do

some of this high heat stuff. And if you're listening to this and I'm speaking to the audience, you're like, oh, that's really good. I'm going to try that. Yes and no. There's rules in the business world that's different than in pro sport. The point is that you really want to create an experience for people to reveal their true self, their attributes, because we can coach up for skill. We can, we can take the raw clay if it's a good cultural fit and we can teach skills. I'd much rather teach skills than something that is harder to develop a personality slash characteristic or attribute of a person.

Yeah. Okay, wow. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. So knowing your culture is first and foremost, knowing that and understanding what it is and then crafting those questions or those tests to make those people reveal. And here's a really good example.

There's an athlete on the Seattle Seahawks, Tyler Lockett, and he's a really good example. There's a, there's an athlete on the Seattle Seahawks, Tyler Lockett, and he's a wide receiver. So wide receivers are the ones that the quarterback throws to, they catch the ball and they score a lot of points. You know, they're, they're the, one of the big offensive threats. And typically you want somebody that's big, strong, fast, dynamic, you know, all of those attributes that you would attribute to what looks to be a great wide receiver. Tyler Lockett, when you look on paper, doesn't have the characteristics, like the physical characteristics that you say, oh, that person's going to change the game. Somebody like-

DK Metcalf. Exactly. So you know exactly the profile we're talking about. DK Metcalf is like six foot four, 200 and something, 6% body fat, jumps 42 inches, something like that. Amazing physical specimen. When we were selecting for the receiver when Tyler was coming into the league, we chose for cultural fit. And look, look what he's done. Like he's an amazing athlete and he makes everybody around him better because of the way that he shows up every day. So he's a great competitor and he makes us better six days a week on the seventh day game day. Um, we're lucky we have him because he's made all of us better. And he's got this radical skillset himself that

he's making us better on day seven as well. The opposite can be true. You take the talent that looks the part, but doesn't have the cultural fit. They hurt you six days a week. And then they show up on game day and maybe you're sure, maybe you're not sure what you're going to get, you know, because the first six days have been hard. Uncommonly. So at the Seattle Seahawks, we, we're looking for cultural fit and you have to have physical talent. So there's nobody on, there's nobody on the Seattle Seahawks that doesn't have both. And so when you get physical talent and you get all those core attributes lined up, like the culture comes alive, it's amazing. And so that's, what's

fun about pro sport. That's, what's fun about big business. That's what's fun about any business is that you get to create the team that you want to have represent the culture, you know, to represent the mission. And so if you're in a position to hire, it's really exciting. And if you, if you are being hired, then what I say to folks that when I'm going out to be part of a club or a business or whatever, I want to really understand what they're about. Because I'm about to give everything I have to that mission, to this culture. And if the culture is not strong, I'm not into it. So either way, whether you're hiring or being hired, it's incredibly important to know what the culture is about.

So for the hiree, obviously you want to be part of a culture that fits you. 100%. As bad as you want the job and as much as it pays, if it doesn't fit your culture, it's not a position. It's an uphill slog the whole time. Gotcha. So what Josh should do, and correct me if I'm wrong here, is formulate a test or some questions

or something pertaining to the culture of this business and then use it to suss out, you know, if this is the right person. I'm going to pause the conversation here for just a few minutes

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All right. So I hope I don't butcher this name. Saranjan. Saranjan. I feel like I'm saying your name right if I'm not I'm sorry hey Dr. Mike I'm a baseball athlete and there's something I've noticed over the months I've heard that our attention is the fuel my attention seems to be

at peak at the start of my training week and as I approach Friday my attention seems to decline I experience more mind wandering and I get sloppy with decision making and focusing on a particular task. Any suggestion for me? Yeah, sure. I mean, there's a lot of information here, but the first thing I hear when you read that question is attention is fuel, which I don't, I don't understand that. I don't see attention as fuel. I see attention more as a spotlight.

And so let's talk about fuel for a minute, but the spotlight, or in a minute, I should say, the spotlight is like, where do I place my gaze? Where do I place my light? And my light can be on something outside of me or inside of me. So attention at any given point in time can be focused outside. So I'm focusing on you right now, and it can be focused on the broad world

or something very narrow. So right now I'm looking at your eyes. And so it's external focus, external attention, narrowly driven. So let's just take that for a minute because what I need to be able to do is hold that focus and then shift to maybe a big picture and then come inside and think about something and then come back outside and focus back on you. So there's this interplay that happens on attention. Spotlight is where do I put my attention? Where do I put my spotlight? Is it external or internal so when i hear when i hear that attention is fuel i don't quite understand it and because fuel for me feels like energy it feels like um the material for combustion and so when you hear that question what what comes up for you when you hear attention is

fuel i think fuel is in motivation yeah that's how i hear too you hear attention is fuel? I think fuel is in motivation. Yeah, that's how I hear too. And so attention is not motivation unless it's like, I mean, I guess you could kind of get there. What you're motivated for, you'll maybe attend to more easily. Like there's that piece. But what I hear in there is there's a cognitive fatigue by the end of the week. And so my spotlight feels dimmer. It doesn't feel crisp. It doesn't feel

like it can go inside and outside quickly. It just feels like that spotlight is not working as well as I would like it to work. Is that what you're hearing in the question as well? For me, if I'm rolling or playing a sport in particular, I can have, when I think fuel, I think go. I think energy. I think just drive. Like I don't get tired. I'm ready to go. But I've been in positions where I'm going and I'm going and I'm going, but my attention is completely off. And I'm making a shit ton of mistakes.

I'm just going while making mistakes. I'm just making mistakes harder and faster. So, yeah, I don't get the correlation between attention and fuel because I look at them as two completely separate things. Yeah. So should we answer the attention question or the fuel question? Probably the attention thing because fuel is – Suranjan, fuel is fuel. It's just energy. That's the way I'm looking at it. I think the attention thing.

Yeah, so if you don't have that fuel bit in place, attention is harder. So let's go motivation and then energy for just a minute. So if it's an energy conversation, that makes sense to me that Monday, maybe I recovered well on Saturday and Sunday. Got my sleep in, it was social. I had a great, enjoyable weekend. And then Monday, it kind of hit the gas, go hard, bang, here we go. But then by Friday, I haven't replenished my energy sources. So that's a very typical experience for many people. Yes, attention, the ability to focus deeply would be compromised by the end of the week

if your energy system isn't replenished properly. And there would also be that fuel thing that we're talking about where it doesn't feel like i have the the volitional kind of get up and go on friday that i would like so on the attention piece i would still probably look to the raw energy that i'm i'm replenishing how am i replenishing my energy there's there's only five really ways that we know how to do it. And you know them and I know them, grandma knew them. Sleeping right, eating right, and hydrating. Moving right, stretching and exercise and mobility and fitness and da, da, da.

And socially kind of being around vibrant, fueling conversations and people, and then thinking right, using your mind to be able to not drain your resources on the problems you're trying to solve in life, but to actually be thoughtful about how you apply your energy. And if you don't think well, if you're anxious, depressed, struggling in other ways, or just kind of not focused on a life purpose or passion, it's just we drain energy at a much higher clip. So those are the big five. And so I think that that's where I naturally go with that question. So I have a question for you. So obviously mental fatigue, and correct me if I'm wrong, mental fatigue and physical fatigue are two different things, right?

Or would you say they're linked? They're linked. So the whole system is linked. So they can't try to pull them apart. Mind and body are separate, but they're really not separate. And so one goes the way the other goes. And so when we strain strain it's a cost we are we're using energy when we strain and everything has strain to it sitting has strain talking has

strain thinking has strain applying yourself on a jujitsu mat has strain like there's strain in everything even recovery has strain ice bath or strain like there's strain in everything even recovery has strain ice bath or a massage there's strain involved in it level of strain obviously varies so there's always like um a cost to everything that we're doing and so we need available resources to be able to manage the zest for life that we want to have and those resources need to be replenished every day. Wow. That's interesting. It's funny because when you say it, it makes complete and total sense.

But, you know, I can say for myself, I never look at it like, man, if I'm sitting, that has strain as opposed to- It's a small task. Graveling, it's a small task. It's a small task. But it is draining nonetheless. Yeah.

You know, I'm always like, or someone will say, man, you're just sitting down. You ain't doing nothing. What you tired for? You're like, man, I shouldn't be sitting here, man. Crazy. And then you almost experience the same sort of mental fatigue that you experience from training with someone that's better than you, that smashes you continuously. It can be.

I have never linked the two yeah it can be like the point is that everything that we're doing has a cost yeah and and you could be sitting and burning right through resources if you're sitting pissed off if you're sitting with a compromised posture if you're sitting anxiously like you are ripping through resources and not physically moving very much yeah yeah. Yeah. Wow. You know, another element of this is that people have, there's this phrase where I'm working for the weekend and like, I understand it. And it, in one level, it like, like breaks my heart to think about people spending their life, you know, in service of something that they don't value.

They're working in a company or organization that is not meaningful to them, but they're doing it just to have relief on Saturday and Sunday, Friday night, whatever. I wish that people could figure out how to have a deep passion in everything that they do. Like that zest for life, whether they are in a nine to five that they don't love, but they're doing it for a reason that is far greater than themselves. Or that they can figure out the meaning and purpose in the nine to five for the thing. But it's not just the relief on the weekend. It's like in service of something big that you're passionate about. I mean, yeah, I agree. You know, you just made me think of something when you said the whole working for the weekend thing and the full-time recovery thing.

Because now you're seeing professional athletes, you know, especially basketball players, do this whole load management thing. And the world, the sports world is pissed at them for doing load management. But on their side, they're like, well, this is how I can prolong my career. This is how I can have more clarity, more longevity. I can just, you know, I feel better. I'm happier about playing the game. This game that I was happy playing when I was a kid, when it wasn't this,

you know, financial thing attached to it. But in this world that we live in, this machine, it teaches us, even as athletes doing something, because I'm assuming, you know, Saranjan is an athlete doing what he loves to do. He's one of the few people in the world that are doing what they love to do. But even he is experiencing this whole fatigue thing come Friday because it's like bust my ass, you know, as much as I can to be the best player I can be. But this machine that we live in teaches us to do that. To, you know, when I was little and you play football, it was one, two, three, hit somebody, just go, go all out. You know, I'm hurting, go, go back out there again. You know, we're taught to

work long hours. We're taught to throw our body into somebody and try to break them into two. We're taught to just go all out. And this has been going on for so long now. So all these questions that like Saranjhan is asking or what I've experienced, you've experienced, it's like now we're unlearning. How are we supposed to like,

cause it feels like doing the load management thing or being like, man, I'm not working for the weekend. I'm, I'm, I'm enjoying all of this. It feels like you're going against the system when you say, I'm going to look for a job or I'm going to do something that I really love to do,

or I'm going to load management coach. I actually, I don't want to go in right now. I don't want to play this game because I don't feel really well. My ankle hurts. Is that okay? Coach, your coach is going to look at you like,

man, what? Get off the team. So I, how, how, how does look at you like, man, what? Get off the team. So how does one work into that? Because it feels like you're fighting an uphill battle. Well, in the pro sport world, European sport, when it comes to sport sciences, is about 10 to 15 years ahead of U.S. big sport. And in many of the European clubs, they, the sport science and the coaching staff and the athlete are working together on load management. So everyone's on the same page.

And so if you crush a talent and you overwork and under recover any human speech, anyone, right, whether it's in, in sport or otherwise overwork under recover, they, they don't show up right. You're heading them right to a car crash. You're heading them right into a disaster physically and or emotionally and mentally for that person. And so managing talent is a really important thing to do. And so when everyone's on the same page, it's far better.

And that's where when we talk about culture, making sure that culture values the people's experience more so than the product but a fast follow that those two need to be hand in hand whatever the service or product that the company is building so how do you do it when you're not in a club or an organization a big business or otherwise that is that understands what we're talking about because margins are thin, the economy's constricting, now's the time we got to go. If we don't hit this window, we're in trouble, which are real conditions. If those people are already frayed, it's really hard. So we want to make sure that we're helping people manage their energy systems as best

as they possibly can. And if you're on your own, if you're trying to figure it out on your own, you just hear this and be like, okay, how do I, across every day, how do I manage my energy properly? How do I pour in and then recover well? And a two-day vacation at the end of the week is not working. A one-month vacation at the end of the year doesn't work. It's a thin slice throughout the 16 hours of waking moments that you're trying to replenish as often as you possibly can.

You got to get the big rocks in. Sleep is the big rock to get in place. Eating right, moving right, all that other stuff. But thin slicing is an interesting way to think about it. And for Saranjan to squarely answer the question, you can change the way that you see your days. It's one of the things we did at the Seattle Seahawks. Each day had a theme. So competition Wednesday, that was the day we were really bringing it.

And everybody knew Wednesday was a day we're really bringing it. Tell the truth Monday. That was a day we're going to be incredibly clear about what happened on game day on Sunday. So you could have Friday be play day. You could have Friday be explore day. You could have Friday be, you know, whatever you want it to be. And so just changing the, the focus for the, the, the day might just open something up in a different way as well. So it's, it's in, it's in Saranjan's hands. It's in your hands. It is. Yeah. Yeah. And now one final word from our sponsors. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentus. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family,

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Again, that's L-I-V-E, momentous, M-O-M-E-N-T-O-U-S, livemomentous.com, and use the code FindingMastery for 35% off your first subscription order. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Felix Gray. I spend a lot of time thinking about how we can create the conditions for high performance. How do we protect our ability to focus, to recover, to be present? And one of the biggest challenges we face today is our sheer amount of screen time. It messes with our sleep, our clarity, even our mood. And that's why I've been using Felix Gray glasses. What I appreciate most about Felix Gray is that they're just not another wellness product.

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Clean, clear, no funky color distortion. Just good design, great science. And if you're 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 FINDINGMASTERY20 at FelixGray.com for 20% off. And now back to the conversation. All right, next question, Anonymous. By most standards- Should we even read Anonymous?

Like why would you not want to put your name on there? Anonymous, why would you not want to put your name on there? What are we doing? You know what I'm saying? Now Dr. Mike don't want to read you. I know. You know, should we read him or her? Let's go. Let's see if it's. I know. You know, should we read him or her? Let's go.

Let's see. Let's see if it's a, the question stand. Anonymous. You're lucky. We'll read your stuff. Next time. Give us your name.

By most standards. I'm a highly successful athlete. I perform on the world stage. Oh, that's why you want to be anonymous. trying to be coy. We get it. We get it.

We get it. Anonymous. But I still feel the need to prove myself. I know that on paper, I'm one of the best, but I don't feel that way. I'm sick of it. Tired of carrying this weight around with me. I'm guessing that's something you encounter with your clients. How do you help them move through it? Thanks, Dr. Mike. Okay, Tiger. I'm glad you wrote into us. Yeah, I love that question because I think most people would be surprised just how real that is.

For people that have already put a medal around their neck, they've already won the championship or they're an all-star, whatever it might be, that feeling early on that I need to do something special with my life, that I want to get after it. And I'm talking about a eight to 12 year old kid, a 16 year old that says, I want to be a pro. I want to, I want to, I love sport. I want to see how far I can go. Or I love arts or I love that, like that early adoption. Like I'm going to go get something and do something is like, it's cool. You know,

for a lot of reasons that gets you good. However, it is also part of the playground where I'm not sure I matter without that good, excellent, extraordinary performance. So there's a commingling between identity and outcome. And when we fuse those two things together, we have to work to pull them apart in a healthy way. So what happens for many professional athletes is that the fuel that got them good isn't necessarily the thing that's going to allow them for joy and happiness. And it's likely not going to get them to the next level. So something we talk about at the Olympic level all the time is what got you here is likely not going to get you there. What does there look like for you? And so you think about it, it's a radical, and I mean that word intentionally, it's a radical

commitment to let go of what got you to the world stage. That's a very difficult thing to do because it's worked. And I can hear athletes right now, you know, saying, no, I eat the same food that mom made me. That's worked. I eat that food every day. What do you mean you want me to eat this stuff? you want to take my blood and see like how my food's doing. I'm good. So there is, there is some of that on the world stage. Everybody thinks that the best in the world are like really pushing. There's some that are holding back because they're afraid to let go as well, but their talent is just so good at this level, but it doesn't mean that they're going to ever reach their potential because they're still holding onto old practices that are not allowing the next unlock to take place. But this unlock that we're talking about from anonymous is that feeling that I am not okay.

Nothing can fill that hole that I feel because performance isn't going to solve it anymore. Attention from other people is overrated. I don't feel seen. I don't know. I really matter. I feel like I'm more of a commodity than a partner to somebody in life. And so this is why relationships are so important and honest relationships with people that see the person and not the performer. And this comes up often and it can come up at like different levels as well. I'm thinking about, thinking about an Olympian that I'm spending time with right now, heading into the Tokyo games and already a former Olympian, incredible at what she does. And there's still this nagging little thing, this little voice, like if I make a mistake, is it all going to fall apart? If I make too many mistakes, are they going to find

out that I've just gotten really lucky? I'm not that good. I just, I'm a hard worker and it could all fall apart. House of cards is a feeling that, that, that happens for many. And so, you know, I think we should maybe just take a breath of fresh air here that that's a real thing for not just elite athletes, but for many of us. And so I think most people can see themselves in that question at some level. I have a couple questions. You just conjured up a whole bunch of questions in my head. Okay, so when Anonymous says that, you know, I still feel the need to prove myself, right,

and that they know that on paper they're one of the best, but they're sick of carrying this weight around. And I was listening to you just give this whole explanation about all of that. The House of Cards things. I feel like the House of Cards things has been intensified because of the new world we live in with social media and how the ones were that were great people get forgotten really fast and get passed over really fast. The Kobe Bryant thing comes to mind where he just gets knocked to the side. Now people are like, okay,

he's like, he's not on the Mount Rushmore, you know, or the LeBron thing where is that, is that real? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It's LeBron and Jordan. Kobe's not even in the discussion. They're just like, it's lebron and jordan kobe's not even in the discussion with my people they're just like just moving moving to the side it's lebron and jordan whereas it was it was jordan and kobe yeah and i'm not saying one is better than the next but i just know that kobe's getting moved to the side really fast too fast and i almost feel like the social media world kind of does that like people people get erased very, very quickly. Like Dwight Howard or Klay Thompson not making the top 75. Like these people that have done phenomenal things because this world is moving so fast.

Information is moving so fast. Opinions are coming so quickly. We're just like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. But Jordan, no, no, no, no. But the LeBron thing comes to mind because I almost feel like he is a victim of his own success. Like when I hear complaints about him now, they might as well say things like LeBron can't breathe underwater. LeBron can't breathe in space.

Can LeBron fly yet? Yeah, this is a guy who was crowned the king at 12 years old, lived up to the expectations, surpassed the expectations, did everything that he was supposed to do and then more. But I always marvel at when I listen to sports announcers or people make comments about him. So I'm like, well, damn, what else? The first thing that comes to my mind is,

what else LeBron gotta do? Does he have to fly into space and build another planet? Will that impress you? So when I hear anonymous say, I still feel the need to prove myself, but I know that I'm this and I'm that, and on paper I'm this and I'm that, it kind of makes me ask this question,

is it society that's affecting anonymous and making anonymous feel like, okay, I still gotta prove myself, even though everything says I'm this great, amazing athlete, do I still have to prove myself, even though everything says I'm this great, amazing athlete. Do I still have to prove myself because I'm being judged continuously? Well, that's interesting. No, I think it's our responsibility

in the way that we, as adults, certainly, it's our responsibility on how we engage in life. And even if the world is saying, you're not enough, you're not enough, you're not enough, at some level, that's the noise. And as an adult, we need to get to the signal. And the signal is like, what is true for me? And so I think that this thing happens, identity foreclosure happens when there's a young talent.

And it can happen to many of us though. But when people are talented at a young age, they foreclose on all of their potential identities foreclosed on being a global citizen. You foreclosed on being a creative. You foreclosed on, there's so many other things that you've already gated out. And so now your entire identity is matched up on this thing that you do. And the reason a young person would do that is because they're getting so much attention. The uncle says, hey, you got that rival game this weekend. You ready for it? And the uncle says, Hey, you got that, that rival game this weekend, you know, like you're ready for it. And the teacher says, uh, Hey everybody, you know, O'Neill just, O'Neill just got back from this competition. You know, like the community is focusing on one part of you. So it's easy to,

to get out the other. So it's a, it eventually becomes a dangerous thing. And I think that I can, I can relate my, like part of my origin story is I I think that I can relate. Part of my origin story is I didn't know I was enough. And so I worked my ass off, obsessively, uncommonly so, to be good enough. For who? It wasn't for me,

but it was me trying to feel okay being okay. I had to show I was smart. I had to show I was competent. I had to show that, you know, I could figure things out. All of those were helpful, but they cost me at one level, you know, intimacy with myself and intimacy with my wife. And so it wasn't until there was like a at one point my wife said enough is enough like you're fucking gonna crash this plane of ours and so it was the greatest gift that she's given me and probably the greatest gift she's given all the people i come into contact with because it forced me to touch humanity as opposed to be obsessed with performance. And so I relate at some level with anonymous and I think that many of us do as well. However, let me just add one more thing here, is that I do think that we unfairly think

that when somebody is extraordinary at something, they're a professional athlete or they're the president of an organization or the CEO or founder that they're different. They're not different. They are not different. They are, they have the same stuff that you and I have. They have just been invested more deeply. Maybe they had some, a different kind of starting place in their world, but they, they have the same basic needs and hopes and dreams. And so to think that they're different in those ways, it's a, it's a safety mechanism so that you don't have to touch your humanity or to be, to go deep enough to, to, to get

down underneath the surface about who you really are and who you're working on becoming. And so if you can marginalize, not marginalize, but if you can put them on a pedestal and think that they're just born differently and that they're not like you and me, then that's a safety mechanism that you don't have to really go for in your life because those people are the ones that,

but I'm not like those people. Yeah, wow. Wow, that makes a lot of, it makes a lot of sense. It makes a lot of sense. That's why I like talking about people in these ways because it makes us feel better if we can bring them down. Yeah.

Right? Yes, 1,000%. Right, but the same is true if we put them on a pedestal. It still creates that false mechanism that I don't have to go deep. Yeah. If I can bring them down to my level, sorry to interrupt, if I can bring them down to my level, I don't have to go deep. if i can bring them down to my level sorry to

interrupt if i can bring them down to my level i don't have to go deep yeah and if i can keep them at a distance i don't have to go deep i've never thought about it from that keeping the distance yeah i think wow yeah we should maybe talk about this later time that when you have the core when you have the raw clay you can apply it in different parts of your life yeah like you understand the raw clay for jujitsu like what it takes to be great at jiu jitsu you've been doing a long time and then you can apply that same raw clay to the violin if you wanted to or entrepreneurship or relationship or whatever so like the raw clay the raw material knowing that stuff is really valuable because it translates into any activity that you

want to do you teach this to athletes, like professional athletes, do you tell them that they shouldn't foreclose on other aspects of their life? Like this doesn't define them, like they need to explore other things? I bring it up as a consideration for them. Like, have you ever thought about it this way? And most of them are like, oh, there's a thing?

Yeah, there's a thing. Yeah, there's a thing, you know? So that's one of them. And then there's really good research that when you bring up the transition conversation early in a professional athlete's career, that they play more freely during the time that they're in the league and they have a better transition. However, there is a whole subset of people when you bring up transition like what are you going to do after ball as a rookie right like you're asking a rookie that question there's a whole subset are like i don't know what we're talking about like i'm here and i'm gonna love this life right now and i'm pouring into it and i'm gonna be an all-star and that's all i'm focused on okay so because they're afraid to like explore later because they're finally

arrived at later, the dream that they had when they were a kid. But we know when you, when you have a bit of a plan, it doesn't need to even be crystal clear, but ball's not forever. NFL is about three years. That's it. So what are you going to do after three years? And when you can get people to start thinking about their future in that way, they play more freely and they transition better. That's a really cool insight. So, and that's true, I think for, for us that are not in pro sports as well, it's like, what is my three year, five year, 10 year horizon look like, you know, and start thinking about it. And you can squint at it. It doesn't need to be as crystal clear as people like to say on Instagram. You do need to have a sense of direction you want to go, but you can squint at it.

Like, I feel like it's kind of moving towards this direction. That's, it serves well. That's a really interesting thing. That's a really, because being reared the way we've been reared, we've been taught to listen. Just this one thing that you said you said you're going to do, focus on it. Like my mom used to clown me and say, jack of all trades, master of none. And that was the thing she was until I discovered this more. I guess there's supposed to be more to that than, you know, just that phrase.

But focusing on one thing was always the thing that I was taught. Like hone in. You have to have tunnel vision. You can't put your blinders on. Don't look to the left. Don't look to the right. But listening to you say this now and this new world that we live in, like people are diversifying themselves.

Like they're involved in this. They're involved in that. They're like, yeah, I just don't do one thing. I do a couple of things. You can't define me by one thing. In my, in my, in my generation, when we grew up, it was one thing. It was, Hey, you can be engineer. You can be engineer. What are you doing over there? Open up a laundromat. When did you start a, when did you start a convenience store, open up a convenience store?

Why are you doing all of this? You know, so this was a legend in the fight world, shared it this way. Do you know the name Rico Ciparelli? No. Yeah, so he was really early in MMA. So he framed it this way. He's like, Mike, you can do a lot,

is what he said to me. It was a nice compliment. He said, what is your hub? I go, what do you mean? He goes, all the things that you want to do, if you have a center hub, then you can feed it like a spoke and a wheel type of thing. But what's the hub? And I was like, that's a really good way to think about my professional personal life. Like what is the center thing that I'm about and I'm trying to do. And then I can fold a bunch of things in to that

center thing. But if it's a laundromat and a jujitsu world championship, and it's a magazine that I'm starting up and a.com, like if there's a hub and they're all about, I don't know, human potential, that's happens to be mine. And, but they all feed into it. Then there's a concentration of forces, but if they're all disparate, it feels like it's too hard to manage. Mastery of craft. That takes a deep dedication, true mastery of craft. And that deep dedication of mastery of craft for me is more about understanding mastery of self. And so I'm not sure with a disparate focus that you will really have the opportunity to to go into mastery of self and so mastery of craft is almost like this

it's the opportunity for the deeper mastery of self and so there's a singular focus that is required for mastery of craft so I don't want to i don't want to just kind of brush over that that thought that was in the back of my head with that being said you you mean through mastering a certain thing you have you make some discovery about yourself and that's what you should be focusing on as opposed to i'm mastering uh playing tennis or i'm mastering coding i'm mastering this you should look at it as an opportunity to find out more about who you are. That's it. Okay. Well, so that's the difference

between a high performer and somebody committed to mastery. Somebody committed to mastery is equally, if not more interested in mastery of self. Yeah. Right? And so high performance is like a standard that of output that is rewarding.

That's what a high performer is really about. Mastery is a whole different game. And it's the game I'm far more interested in. Yeah, because that's so wild because I know for myself, when I'm focusing on learning something, I'm focused on that something. And I would wager most people think like that

as opposed to what you said, which is the better way. Like, okay, this is going to teach me a lot about myself. Well, I think at some level, high performance gets boring. Like just getting the outcome or the output or winning, it's not fulfilling enough. And so there's nothing wrong with winning, but when you're playing to win and playing not to lose, it's substandard to playing to unlock, to be free, to explore potential of self in others, to be in service of something far greater.

And so that's really what mastery is about. And people that are committed to mastery change not only their own lives, their family legacy, they change a neighborhood, they change a community, maybe change an industry, potentially the world as well. I just got to say this. This has been the most informative AMA for me. I feel like we're all over the shop, actually. So it's fun when my private experience is different than your private experience. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep.

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checkout for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. So this question is from Robert. I saw you on the Elite 11 documentary and I heard you talking about the thermostat versus thermometer analogy as applied to leadership. Love the distinction. Can you expand on that? Oh, that's fun. Elite 11 is an organization that is like incredible.

The 20 some best high school quarterbacks come together to find the top 11 and it's an annual thing and it it's an incredible it's incredible for a lot of reasons most importantly for me is the coaches that are there so super bowl champion trent dilfer who's on the podcast yogi roth, who was on the podcast, Yogi Roth, who was also on the podcast, handfuls of others of really great coaches come together to help pour in to the next generation of quarterbacks. And I think out of the 32 teams in the league, I think there's like, what's the number? Like 22 starters came from Elite 11. I don't have the math exactly right, but like it's a

significant fraternity. Trenton Yogi talk about thermostat versus that's where I learned it from thermostat and thermometer. And so a thermostat, what a thermostat does is it reads the room and then also adjust the temperature accordingly. A thermometer just reads. And so that's like, when you think about a leadership approach, the thermostat is far greater. Read a room, understand what's happening, and then also can influence it and move it in a direction that is more optimal. We throw the phrase around, be a thermostat.

I don't know, have you heard of this? I've never heard of it before. I've never heard of it. It's cool. Which do you identify with? I'm never heard of it before. I've never heard of it. It's cool. Like, which do you identify with? I'm definitely, I almost said a thermostat. I'm definitely a thermometer is what reads and adjusts, correct? A thermostat.

I'm a thermostat. I like, I find it challenging adjusting on the fly. I like improvising because I feel that that shows a certain skill set and shows that you can deal with pressure. Yeah, for sure. And so you know the thermometers in a room is that they're constantly taking the temperature and there's nothing wrong with it. But if you're not applying that information and you're not applying those insights to move people into a state or direction that is favorable to the purpose of the mission, then you're not really a leader. You're not leading. And I need to lead and follow. And I need to know when to do both. And so what I'm interested in is

maybe if somebody is listening, it's like they say, okay, I feel, dang, I feel like I'm a thermometer. Okay. No problem. Be great at figuring out the information that is important, not for you to just be okay, but so that you can one day add it to the collective, right? And so, and if you do that a bunch, the thermostat, if you're doing that a bunch, that's a way to think about leadership. And so I'm taking the temperature, not so just so I'm feel safe and okay, which is important thing to do, but so that I can help us move in a direction. I can set the temperature in the right way.

And sometimes that's like, hey, like we got to go. And sometimes it's like, hey, are we okay? You know, so like the art of it is different for each situation. To sum it up, a thermometer walks into a room and reads the temperature. A thermostat, on the other hand, walks into a room, reads the temperature. A thermostat, on the other hand, walks into a room, reads the temperature,

and then can adjust the temperature as they see fitting. And so that's the person that demonstrates a different type of leadership style. I see. And I guess that applies to relationships heavily, right? You want to be a thermostat in your relationships with people because you want people to adjust as opposed to being like, this is what it is. Yeah. Because you want to be able to adjust as opposed to being like, this is what it is.

Yeah, take the information, be able to read it, and then be able to set or move the temperature in the way that is fitting. And to your point, it's not about just what serves you. It's what's in service of the relationship, what's in service of the purpose or the mission. Going back to the relationship and the collective. Got to fix it.

It's not about me. Well, since you bring it up often, what's the love life like right now? Man, you put me on the spot here. It's good. It's good. I mean, yeah, I'm seeing someone. Thanks. Oh, you didn't even want to say that.

Come on. That's not it. That's not it. That's not it. Yeah. It isn't that I didn't want to say it. Yeah. Okay. Full disclosure here.

You know, when you're on a platform like such as this. Man, I love watching you spit like this. This is a highlight right now. Where's my, I need to wipe my forehead. Yeah. Self-grooming is always a tell, isn't it? You want to make sure you don't say the wrong things or say too much.

And you're just like, I'm good. Things are well. Yes. Yeah, love life is good. Yeah, so you're not in a place where it's like, it's chaotic, there's lots of tension. No, no, you know what? I'm really trying to, and I, and, and I realized that any chaos or any tension that's created is coming from me, whether I'm accepting it or I'm creating it.

So I'm really trying to, uh, watch myself and be, you know, a thermostat. Yeah. Okay. In the relationship. In the relationship. Take the temperature. Take the temperature. Be able to set it in a way that's Okay. In the relationship. In the relationship. Take the temperature. Take the temperature. Be able to set it in a way that's in service of the relationship.

Be like, let's go. Or, or are we okay? Are we okay? We're okay. Yeah. Yeah. How are we doing? How are we doing?

Yeah. Right. I learned a lot from you, Dr. Mike. A lot. That's good. Yeah. One of the basic needs that all humans have is to know that they matter, to be seen, to belong. And we are wired to be social creatures. We're masquerading as if we are individual contributors, but we are networked and

wired to be part of a system, to be in relationship with each other. And so when we give that gift to another person and we're just like how are you and so and it's not like a throwaway comment but it's like no no seriously how are you how was the day what'd you do what was it like for you and you're really interested about their experience man that goes a long way that's so funny because i had this conversation just the other day about being in you know in service and being connected to someone you can't be by yourself right you need you need people the interesting thing wait yourself, right? You need people. The interesting thing-

Wait, you're saying that you need people? Somebody- As in like, you're not an island unto yourself. Oh, right, yeah, we need people. We need people. I created another persona to protect my true persona, right? So my true persona is that I love engaging with people. I love to give love i love to to to

to be as engaging and as caring and as giving as i possibly can you're romantic i wouldn't say i'm a thug i'm a thug that's what you want to say right. What is it like when you're in that kind of sweeping, giving, connected state? It feels amazing. It is. It feels amazing. But the issue that I have found is that the world sometimes isn't so receiving of that, right? So maybe from my childhood or some young adult experiences, you get burned in some way, whether you act a certain way and it's not reciprocated, right?

And then you say, okay, well, you know what? I'm going to create this. For me, I created a persona to protect my inner child, so to speak. You know, a former girlfriend said this to me. Like, you just create this persona to protect your inner child. And whenever you feel like your inner child

is being threatened, this persona activates and it comes out with its sword and shield and it gets the chopping away and whatnot, not considering what's going on. That's like, and I would assume other people have that issue too. Like they want to be loving, caring, hugging people,

but they're like, man, it's a cold world out there. So I gotta, I gotta put my armor on. I just gotta go out there and you, you have to drop your armor first. Then I'll show you how I really am what you're talking about right there is like thermometer versus thermostat as well which is being able to understand um what what the how

the room impacts you and how you're impacting the room how the relationship is impacting you and how you're impacting relationship and I'm the relationship is impacting you and how you're impacting the relationship. And I'm nodding my head to everything that you're saying, because I think that that's a universal truth. And then it begs the question, Einstein said that we all have a fundamental question we need to answer, is the world hostile or safe? And so how do you land on that question? Uh, gosh, uh, the world is hostile. Yeah, I do too. Yeah.

I think it's a dangerous world. I think the universe is trying to rip itself apart, literally the cosmos. And, uh, there's so much pain that there's, and there's bad actors in this world. And so one bad actor can, with lots of power, can do great damage. One bad actor in a family, somebody that's in incredible pain that is really suffering and selfishly is just trying to fill their pain, they can do a lot of damage. And so I think the world's fundamental. I wouldn't have said it 15 years ago. I thought, no, the world is safe. Like, I just don't see it that way. So I feel safe though in a hostile world.

How about that? Are you asking me, do I feel safe in a hostile world? No, I just said that I feel safe in a hostile world. Oh, okay. When you said, how about that? I was like, I thought you meant. No. Yeah.

What about you? Now you're asking me. I do, but only because I've created this alter ego or this thing to protect me. I think what you just described, like we're all doing at some level. And the fact that you've created a way to be safe, to be okay, to be able to settle into a moment, knowing that you've got backup from the night, the, the, the, the night in rusty armor, potentially the book that we talked about earlier, like, but you've got this other part of you that can take care of another part of you. That's awesome. Like, I, I don't know if I would like separate them out, you know, in the next version of you as you're

growing, like it's all, all it's all of you you you created this you have figured out a way for you to be safe and i wish that for everybody i don't i i don't wish that if your ex was talking about like sometimes you destructively thrash when you're scared like that's not great but um it's cool it's really cool i definitely don't destructively crash you don't thrash right thrash when I'm scared. Yeah. I don't know where she got that from. Oh, yeah.

That makes sense. Okay, good. I'm glad I was a mistake too. Okay, good. All right. So Latu has a question here. I've been driving hard for the past 20 years of my career. I like to think I've taken the same approach to digging in and understanding myself.

Sometimes, though, I step back and this all seems like a race to nowhere, a performance treadmill, a self-development game. I'm fascinated by the idea of not striving and simplifying life, appreciating what it is right now rather than what it or I could be. We are here so briefly. Is this how we should spend our precious moments any thoughts dr mike when i hear the question i hear the tension between being and becoming i hear the tension between straining and striving to be oneself and being okay with exactly what is

now i think this is confusing I think this is hard to understand at a deep, rich level because, and it might be one of the more confusing things in this industry of self-help, which you know I have a rash when even saying that self-help word out loud, but this is complicated because there is a tension that work needs to be done to develop the capabilities and skills to be fully present. As we develop in the world as a youngster, let's call it, like in the early ages when we're born, we're just brilliantly perfect. But we need to rely on somebody else to take care of us.

We don't have but we need to rely on somebody else to take care of us. We don't have everything we need. And as we start to develop some independence, there's a transferring of, there's a baton passing of philosophy and wisdoms and skills and resources to be able to manage ourselves without the nest, outside of the nest. Most of us, I include me included in that need to continue to develop the skills so that I can be fully present more consistently call that enlightenment, if you will, the path of enlightenment. Okay. There's very few that have experienced that and they've changed the world. I don't see the answer of just kicking on my feet on a beach somewhere and, you know, drinking beer and fishing and just like, I don't know,

not understanding what I'm capable of. So there's this tension between investing relentlessly, uncommonly so to be better. But if you can slightly create a twist here that the commitment is to develop the skills so that you can be fully present. Why be fully present? So you get to the truth of whatever is happening. And if you don't have the skills to be fully present, you're not really working from a place of truth. So if you're not working from a place of truth, meaning that the unfolding present moment is what allows us to get to the true nature of whatever is

you you said something that made me just look at what she just said about simplifying life yeah so this is about simplifying life is to to invest deeply in in your internal skills to be fully present so that you can get to the truth of something when you string together enough of those truths or those insights or those ahas, then you get to wisdom. And now life is really simple because you're working from a much richer place. So there is the straining to be able to get to that place. The false idol is the straining, the high-performance treadmill, as the question says, to relentlessly being on that exhaustingly high-performing treadmill

for an external outcome. It's not going to fill the void. It's not going to fill the gap. And so, yeah, it's the carrot that is dangling out there that you'll be better later with a medal or money or something else. I want all those too. But that's not the false God. The thing that I'm more interested in is develop those capabilities so I can be fully present in a conversation with you, in a conversation with anybody, at whatever task I am at hand, to do that more fully.

Gaining that simplification, right? In the pursuit, like Latu was saying, while in the pursuit, while being on this treadmill and being overwhelmed and that carrot dangling and you chasing it. To hear that, you know, okay, this is not how you gain simplification and this is not how you attain it, is one thing. But to actually slow down, I'm assuming, I could be wrong here, but I'm assuming, working that hard and being on the treadmill

and turning it up and running after that carrot means you may feel somewhat behind or that something, you're gonna miss something or an opportunity. Oh, that's a good insight. Yeah, I didn't go there. That's a good insight. Keep going.

So you feel like you may miss an opportunity or you're behind. How do you convince yourself? How do you sway yourself to say, okay, let me turn this treadmill down a little bit. Let me trust that I'll get into this zone in simplification or enlightenment or what have you, will come. I'll gain this through the trust and belief

that it'll happen as opposed to being like, oh, I gotta go. I'll turn it up to nine miles an hour. I go, it's a rat race. Everybody's racing. He's ahead of me. You know, because that's for myself. And I'm speaking from experience for myself. That's what happens to me.

When I get overwhelmed, I'm like, okay, I got to go. The alarm went off. Bunch of my teeth. I take a shower. I get in the car. Turn the music off. You're going and you're hoping at some point it'll start to even out. And you'll be like, ah.

One day. When I hear you describe that, I can see myself in that as well. Much more when I was younger than now. And that doesn't mean I'm not legitimately grinding and have moments where I feel overwhelmed now. That's still the case for me. Just now I'm more clear why I'm doing the work. So I'm doing the work again. I don't know another way to say it. I'm doing my internal work so that I can be more present the business side of it, or the other things that I'm doing that hopefully are making money and doing good

in the world is that is a mechanism. It's like mastery of business, let's call it, or mastery of craft, if we're an athlete, in service of mastery of self. And so there's this alignment I have in my life that hopefully everything that I'm doing is lining up for me to understand and to share and to learn from other people how to develop the skills to be more fully present. And so it's not like that thing happens later, the present thing. I think right now you and I are fully present. If your confidence was really low or your attention was struggling because you hadn't trained it or you hadn't trained your confidence or you hadn't taken care of you hadn't trained your confidence or you hadn't taken

care of like some basic things like you drank too much uh and you're and you know you're emotionally drank too much last night or drank anything last night you're emotionally foggy or um you hadn't eaten and your body is like screaming at you to that you need to go feed itself whatever those distractors might be for you being fully present, we got to take care of that stuff so we can get to this moment and be in this moment and this one and this one

and this one and this one. That's the gift. That's where the unlock happens. So it's not like later when I have the big house, big car, big watch. It's not that. It's this moment.

And seeing how many, in our 16 hours that we're awake, how many moments can we string together? And that's when by definition, everything slows down. It's a bit like the runner's high is that we train at a, at a intense strained clip so we can build the capacity so that when we, when we drop it down just one notch, we can find a runner's high. Okay. If we don't train at a high clip, a strained clip, we can't run long enough at a fast enough

pace to find the runner's high. I think the storyline, or not the storyline, but the parallel holds up is that we have to work to trust and slow down just a little bit to find the present moment stringing together and so there's a there's a parallel there that that might hold up as well this has been amazing this has been really informative for me like super informative i don't yeah maybe i think i needed this that's cool O'Neill, the way that you show up grounded, curious, intense, honest. I appreciate, you know, each time we get to hang with each other and the way that I feel around you. So I appreciate that. And I really appreciate the questions that come in from folks.

And so our community is switched on and they're on it. These questions are hard. These are not easy questions. And so I know they're drilling down to the truth of it as well. The questions are obviously things that myself, I've experienced in life or I am experiencing now. So I feel like through them asking you and I'm growing from this as well. So I appreciate you having me on. It's an amazing experience. Let's do more. Yeah, let's definitely do more. All right. Good. Sure. Good man. 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

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