Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Pat LaFontaine: Being Ignited and Igniting Others (Part 2)

Episode Date: May 27, 2016

There are no short cuts on the path of mastery and those that carve a path - that has yet be carved - have much to teach us about pushing the accepted norms of what most people think is possible. Pat LaFontaine has done both. In This Episode: -4 ways you can change people -Working from inside-out -Awareness of your thoughts -Having a deep passion for what you do -Understanding the right time to challenge kids -Finding harmony in life -How his concussions turned into a positive for others -The concept of each person having their own “time-machine” -Companions & Courage -Keeping perspective on what matters in life -A hat-trick of passion in a bottle_________________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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protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. And this is part two with Pat LaFontaine. And Pat is known as one of, if not the best American born hockey player in the NHL. And we jump right into the conversation about how he trains himself to be present and the way that he works from the inside out and the importance of having awareness of thoughts. So he's a hockey player and he's phenomenal at it. And why pay attention if you don't play hockey? Because all the threads about how to progress to be one's best or to impact others around you to be their best, they're in part one and part two of this conversation. So whatever any of us are doing, whatever our craft is or how we spend our time, the insights in these two conversations are wonderful and they're repeatable.

And we walk through the story a little bit about why and how he developed a nonprofit to be able to give back to the next generation of kids. And so we have lots of fun with that. So thank you for listening. Thank you for being part of this conversation. Hit us up on social media. You can find him on his nonprofit organization is cic16.org. You can also find us at Michael Gervais and at Finding Mastery. Okay. All the best. Let's jump right in with Pat. How do you train? How do you train? I'm still learning. I mean, listen, we're brought on this world to, you know, listen, I feel blessed and I have tremendous amount of gratitude with the upbringing I had. My wife, my beautiful wife and three kids, great kids and watching them evolve.

And I think you have a responsibility at the end of the day to have a tremendous amount of gratitude for whatever has been given to you and try to leave this world, hopefully a better place than you found it. And try to be an example or a positive example or be responsible to try to set a good example. And someone once told me, another great thing I live by is there's only four ways you can change people. You have to love them.

You have to support and care for them. You have to be a good example and you have to be patient. And where did you learn this? You know, whether it's through a book or whether it's through a conversation, things that hit me and they, they stick with me. And then I say, you know what? That's really important and i then i apply it to my own life and then i try to your words have to fit your music because my dad really say you have to walk the walk and then you realize i have a saying in life that when you think the

problem's out there that's the start of your problem so my kids would always say to me pat you're you're so rich with these and You're just dropping them all over the place. These are like pearls of wisdom. Well, no. I don't know if I don't look at myself at that in any way because it's an ongoing process. It's evolution. But there are things that stuck with me that were meaningful

and then I applied and then I realized. So I tell my kids. They laugh. They always joke around, I know, Dad, you've been saying this for years. It's not what's on the outside that counts. It's truly what's on the inside. Work from the inside out, not the outside in. If you think the outside is going to change the inside,

you'll never find it. But if you work from your inside and realize that's where the core, that's where the important is, the outside really doesn't become as meaningful. It doesn't matter, but we're so focused to when you think the problem is out there, become truly self-reflective and objective, you start to realize a lot of this is me. But when you think the problem is out there, you can't change that. You can only love that. You can only be a good example. You can only support and care and you can be patient. Those things are out of your control.

And then what do you do for self-reflection or for insight? You said at night and in the mornings, is this writing? Do you sit and listen to your thoughts? Do you, I'm not sure what your unique practices and maybe you don't have one, but just, you have to catch how you talk to yourself. So it's a chronic, a constant, a consistent awareness of your, of your dialogue. Yeah. It's catching yourself going down a road thinking, what am I just doing now? I'm, I've lost the moment. I'm got caught up in my psyche and it's pulling me in a lot of directions. Now, sometimes I'll go there because we all have the voice in the head and realize that sometimes you got to sit back and just watch it all happen and kind of laugh at it and think, okay, well, all right, now that it's over with. And it sounds strange to you, but I think. No, no, no.

I think it's one of the greatest gifts one of my mentors um who's a professor um in school said to me is just wink and smile so when you see these thoughts come by that are disturbing and you don't want to just wink and smile like that yeah that's a good one yeah because a lot of those thoughts are coming from a subconscious or a psyche that's been it's almost unresolved things that are still going on that are unresolved and and sometimes they might just pop in your head and um but but that also can be a positive thing too depending on you know where it's headed because it can run your life but then you realize we really don't have much control. So if you're conscious of your soul and your spirit about that,

you could sit back and watch it all play out and realize, you know, that's just psyche. That's just what I've lived and try to get in, not in control, but try to become conscious of what's going on around you. If there was a couple thoughts that you could go back and install, or maybe you could pay forward some thoughts that you would like to see the next generation have, or I don't, I can't, I don't want to say your kids, cause I know you're training them every day, but like if you could install a couple of thoughts to the next generation, and I know this

is a weird thought, but what I'm thinking about is that you have great awareness of your inner experience. And as a professional athlete at one time, what were the thoughts that really facilitated you being able to go for it, being able to, you know, really focus in the moment where you could access your craft and talent. Are there a couple of thoughts that maybe you could pull from your head and your experiences and say, now I know that you got to go find your own Mr. and Mrs. or son or, you know, child here and there, but here's the ones that really worked for me. Well, I, to me, I would, I go back to what I said earlier. You have to have a deep passion for your craft.

Okay. It's got to start there. It's got to be pure and authentic. You got to love it. And you're willing to just play at any hour and you just love what you're doing, whether it's skating or hockey-wise. You got to love it. You have to have so much passion for it. Then you have to be willing to, I always said so many athletes are visual.

So for me, I watched. So I would watch even to this day. I watch maybe differently than what makes that person unique and special or what attributes does that player bring that you know really stand out that you think is special and then you watch and then you try to then apply some of those things or learn or feel what feels good you so between watching having a deep passion when you're really when you're really in the zone you you you have to be all there like we're such a society now where we become robotic in training where all right you're going to go up there and you're going to

do this and you're going to do that and you're going to do this but rarely do we teach reaction so reaction is when you're a little kid and it's 10 seconds to go and you're Guy Lafleur or Bobby Orr and you see yourself skating down and making a play and you're out just playing for fun and you're playing shinny. The love of the sport. For me, I keep saying to parents and stuff, don't force it. Just make it available. Let it happen.

One of my daughters, I tell this story, one of my daughter's first grade teachers probably taught me more about coaching than almost any coach, although the coaches I watched and learned from, Al Arbor, he's like Vince Lombardi of hockey. I could tell you stories how he pushed the buttons and was an amazing mentor and teacher. Ted Nolan was an amazing coach for me. John Muckler was an amazing statistician, coach who knew how to put me together with a guy like McGillian during –

Andrew Chuck, Howard Chuck and those guys during the day. Terry Simpson was a great coach. I was very lucky, but I guess getting back to what the teacher said was, she said, you know, Mr. and Ms. LaFontaine, your daughter's going to learn how to read, and she's going to learn how to read this year. Real confident. And I'm thinking, well, how do you know that? So I said, how would you know? Tell me what you said. Well, Mr. and Mrs. LaFontaine, we're going to, I'm going to give

her all the tools. We're going to practice every day. I'm going to create an environment where these kids feel really good and supported. And I know it's going to happen. I just can't tell you when. It's a great metaphor for life. Yeah, it really is. So whether you have your own children and constantly learning, because they say in your life, your children will teach you more than anyone else

if you listen to them. And they do. They do because they see you. So that's been a wonderful thing. But the thing is, is that they are who they are. And you're not wrong to challenge them. But going back to something you had said earlier too, Mike, was that you have to be able to create the limits to push,

but you've got to be extremely careful that you don't break spirit. This is back to you when you were young. You have to know that my dad never pushed me. In fact, he never said anything other than work on your weaknesses, bring your best effort, work hard, have fun. So he never, never said, you need to do this. You didn't play well, but never. He let me come to him.

And I think what, and so when people say to me, oh, no, you've got to drive your kid. I always say, no, your kid needs to drive himself. All you need to be is the guidance, the love and the support. And you need to be the pat on the back. And if he asks you, talk about energy, talk about hard work, talk about, you know. Control levels. Yeah, because at the end of the day,

I can tell you this right now, that if somebody's going to make it, it's because truly it's in their soul, it's in their heart, it's in their heart, it's in their passion. As much as you want to think you have something to do with it, you really don't. Like I said, I have a great appreciation, tremendous gratitude that the people were around me to teach and support and give me the experiences and learn. Because you have to have the coaching, You have to have all that stuff too. Don't get me wrong. You have to have that. But at the end of the day, whether you truly make it or not,

is solely on yourself and inside of you. And that's why very few make it. And you have to have, like I said, huge love, passion for the game. Then you have to be able to have the right coaching and the right support system. So you've talked a lot about support. What about challenge? Did your dad or coaches challenge you? I got challenged as I got older, which was great, because I think what happens is we're challenging kids too young when they're not ready emotionally and physically. And that's my point earlier. My point was that you have to be cognizant of the fact that you've got to know –

you've got to have a feel for when is the right time to do it. Because if you do it to a kid at 12, you might break them and he's – I always say this to coaches too. I say don't break them down if you don't know how to build them up. Yeah, it's a silly thought, isn't it? We break them down to build them up. But to me, that has nothing to do with the kid. It has to do with the coach's personal life. Yeah. Right. Somewhere in his life, whether maybe there's a chip on his shoulder or he never felt like

he was able to. So unfortunately, they transfer it into others as though this is what you needed. This is what I needed. I'm going to do it to you because you need this and the reality of it is is nobody needs that at the right time they might need it and it might be the right select person who might be 20 years old or something and it has all the tools but at that moment needs to be pushed but you better know how to push that button and when to push that button because what happens is everybody thinks they should just do it all the time. And that's one of the biggest problems in our country is if we don't have a lot of teachers, we have a lot of yellers and screamers. But we need teachers. We need patients. We need to be able to create the right environment,

give them all the tools, practice every day, have fun, work hard, and then let things happen. Is there a word or phrase that guides your life? No, I wouldn't say one. I mean, somebody once, a good friend of mine told me this. He said he flew, a great buddy of mine flew fighter jets. And we're both, you know, so I ended up doing, by the way, six Ironman in five years. Oh, back to Ironman. Yeah.

We didn't finish the joke about that. The reason why I tell you that is because this is one of the guys who did it with me. Oh, he did, yeah. And he challenged himself. He was in the Navy. And we ended up doing this. And so we pushed ourselves and was like, what are we going to do next? What's the next adventure?

And so his wife said to him, he said, you know, what is it? What's your definition of success? What's your definition in life? Like what, you know, and somebody might say, well, I want to climb Mount Everest and I want to go do an Ironman or I want to win a Stanley Cup. And his wife said to her, I just want harmony. And we kind of thought about it for a while. Now looking back at that answer, I think it's probably right on. I mean, in life, if you can get harmony,

if you can have a balance of all good things and all bad things and just life. I mean, if you have an orchestra, you have things that are in harmony. Everything's kind of. So if you can find your life where things are kind of evolving, but there's a harmony about it where you don't get too high and you don't get too low, but you still experience all those great things. But you're continually evolving, continually loving, continually learning, giving. There's a harmony about it. And I think that's something that was really profound. I'm learning, still trying to evolve to get to those places, but I'm enjoying the journey. When you were in a flow state or the zone, or when you were at your best on the ice, were you in harmony then? Yeah.

Harmony to the point where it was out of body. Like you just did something. You came back to the bench and said, what just happened? And those are the moments when you have them. They're only on one hand, maybe two, if you're lucky. It's like the good stuff. It's like you hear the movie. I love Good Will Hunting,

one of my favorite movies, when Robin Williams turns and says, you know, that's the good stuff. It's the intimate stuff. It's the sacred stuff. It's the things that happen when everything is in harmony. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentus. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday, what you put in your body matters. And that's why I trust Momentous. From the moment I sat down with Jeff Byers, their co-founder and CEO, I could tell this was not your average supplement company. And I was immediately drawn to their mission, helping people achieve performance for life.

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would they describe you as being deep and rich and soulful? Yeah, not always. No. No. Now they would.

Now your friends would capture that. It's cute. It's fun to watch my kids now talk on more of the cycle. So what happened when I went through post-concussion syndrome, I got really interested in psychology, understanding what happens in the mind and the brain.

And I kind of buried myself in that. And then I became obviously involved in trying to help support it because of what I went through. And it was early on. I was one of the few athletes early on. You actually started it, like doing some of the research. Um, you were the first, at least in the NHL that was so talented that they had to pay attention to what had happened to you.

Well, I can say, I don't know. It was nice. It's nice to hear that. But the end result was that they missed a diagnosis on me and I played and I shouldn't have been playing. And I finally went to the Mayo Clinic and they looked at me and said, you know, you have some swelling in your right frontal lobe. What are you doing playing hockey? You know how lucky you are? And subsequently that was my downhill spiral, not long after that.

Did you get worse after that diagnosis? Oh, yeah. But to the credit of the league and the Buffalo Sabres at the time, Larry Quinn said, I want every one of my players. It was 96. January 96, he said, I want every one of my players baseline tested for concussion. National Hockey League said, you know what? We need to do this with all players. So 1997, I think we ended up having across the board every player being tested, baseline

testing before the season started. It stems back from that situation. Yeah, and that's what I was referring to. But you have the nuts and bolts of it, obviously. And because of your talent though, they were forced to pay attention because without you in the game, you were changing the game. Yeah. And I wouldn't look at that because players have been hurt before and things, but I was fortunate that the Sabres grabbed it first. There you go.

And then put a spotlight on it and said, we can't have this happen again. It could have been tragic that five neurologists and neurosurgeons and neuropsychologists all said to me, you know how lucky if you would have been hit? If you would have hit a heart concussion while you had this, there's chances you would have had permanent problems, issues. You wouldn't be playing. And I felt, wow. And I think that was taken to heart. And then they said, we got to do something. So something like this doesn't happen again. And to the credit of everybody, we took a situation and grew from it, learned from it. And we're still evolving. We're so much better off from where we were and we still have a ways to go, but at least that's a situation that could have been tragic, but we turned into a positive to help others. And to me, that's a big metaphor for my life. We all get knocked down.

The book Companions in Courage I wrote was, we all get knocked down in life. It's okay to be down. It's okay to stay there. Don't stay there too long and then learn from it. Hopefully rise up, pull yourself back up and take with what you went through and maybe inspire others to do the same. If we can all live that kind of, whether it's everyday life or whether it's something big. I had five of my friends this year go through cancer. Five of my buddies ages 53 to 57. And I'm like, whoa, what's going on? Knock on wood, thank God they're all doing well. But my father-in-law, he used to tell me a story. He's like, yeah, I'm getting in my 70s and now all my friends are getting sick and this was happening in the 50s so life is uh precious and life is fast and in the big scheme of things we get all worried about all these things but in the

the history of future and the universe we were all little specks. And you have real clarity about the fragility of life and the preciousness of now. And this whole conversation has been organized around the spark and the ignition to follow your passion and to do so in a way that you're driving for improvement. And you have a support system around you that's allowed you to do that. And this is your model that I think you're giving your family and loved ones as well. And then set goals that are appropriately and challenging for the person at that time, you know, for college for you at that time. And then keep looking to grow once you get to those arenas. And I'll allow your speech to the young men that are just arriving in the NHL, like, congratulations. I don't want to dismiss that. But can you now be consistent in both your mindset and your play set? And then can you do that every day? And, and then what you're I hear you saying is that you, you basically lost everything everything because you lost I don't want to sound rude but you lost your mind yeah you didn't lose like all your finances and your loved ones but

you lost your mind is um it sounds harsh to say but that is part of the post-concussion syndrome going through multiple head injuries if you have enough of them and yeah the accumulative effect over a period of time is post-concussion syndrome, which in many ways is, you know, you look at PTSD and, you know, all the post-traumatic stress and you go through a depressive time and an emotional time and yes. And then, so then you've come through that to say, okay, listen, life is really fragile and let's work on being as present and consistently present as we can. Maybe looking for more harmony in life as opposed to acclaim and riches and fame.

I know that you're not interested in those. Or caught up in the melodrama of every day. Whatever. Yeah. Okay. That's a very good picture and it's an evolved picture and it's an ever growing conscious loving you know life moments and i don't think i had that perspective and i would never have had that perspective without sport without challenge without um injury without experience uh without all of those things

i think at the end of the day, and I say this, you know, when your time machine goes off, you know, what's it all about? And if you look at it from that perspective, it's why acquire all these things? Why have all these things if you're not supposed to give back or serve in the end? So I say to people, when your time machine goes off, it's when you look in the mirror and you say, okay, enough. What am I supposed to do? What's my purpose? And I think if we get, when you do get there and everybody's different, somebody might be 70, somebody might be 26, somebody might be, you have a clarity of a sense of purpose in life all these experiences have brought me and everything i've tried to learn and everything i've gone through has brought me to this

moment this point and then i think it's it's it's to give back in one day to make it better to share those is that your purpose now is that what's driving you well the companions encouraged foundation yeah um tell us more about that. So it was actually meeting some wonderful kids during my playing days. And when I was injured, I had my knee reconstructed in 1993. And my wife, Mary Beth, said it was the first time I was ever missing a whole year of hockey. So I was kind of in a very uncharted territory. I've never missed a year of hockey since I was seven years old. And she jokingly said, well, you know,

I'm sure there's something you're supposed to learn from this. This is why it happened. And I started getting letters to go visit kids at the hospital. And I had always been involved in the charities. And the Islanders always set a great example. The players there, the Bobby Nystroms and the Clark Gillies and all of those guys, you know, always got involved in the community. And just to wear the jersey was one thing. To be an Islander, you had to be involved in the community. They set a great example for a young player like myself. So I was involved in charities before.

My grandmother died of leukemia. My other grandmother had arthritis. So I was helping them and it was more surface because it's the right thing to do. But until I had my injury, I was getting letters and I went to visit these very amazing, courageous kids, companions in courage, because I was finding out that these kids who were going through these difficult life illnesses and life-threatening illnesses ended up being the courage that kept their whole family. They were the ones that were going through it, but then their courage was the one that was keeping everybody strong. I thought there was something really special about that. It was very innocent because as you get older, you become more

vulnerable when you're a child. So there was this innocence and this courage about them and then this amazing inspiration to keeping everybody around them, but yet they're the ones that are going through it. So one of the kids I met was Robert Schweigler and he was in isolation. And I tell the story because it was a moment that ignited something in me and I'll never forget it. So we would play video games and he was in Buffalo. He was at Roswell Park on the ninth floor in isolation. And I was asked to go see him and he and I started to develop a relationship and we would play Sega video games. And I was always the Islanders or the Rangers and he was always the Sabres

and I tied him once. But I would go two or three days a week and we would laugh and we'd play games and he would smile and we would talk and became my friend. And maybe three or four months later, I was walking out and one taking off my cap and we'd have this, you know, I just got off my crutches and I got to know Robert. I'm thinking my, talk about trivial.

This is nothing. It's a knee. Robert's fighting for his life. Talk about perspective. We talk about this. I was leaving and the nurse said to me, she said, Where do you feel this now? Well, it's an emotional thing for me.

Where in your body do you feel it? Well, it's a heartfelt thing because Robert was a special kid. And so she grabbed my arm and she said, thank you for coming. And I said, you know what? Robert's my friend, so at least I could do it. We were having fun playing games. And she squeezed tighter and she looked me in the eyes and said, you don't get it. And I said, what do you mean?

She starts to cry. And she says, it's the only time he smiles so truth that hit me because i thought i thought he smiled all the time i thought robert was like this all the time and then i went home i'm thinking 24 7 it's one of the only times this young boy smiles is when he's playing games and having fun. So what I decided, I thought was, you know, holy, you know, he's 12 years old. So I got Robert to some games. I got him to wear a mask. I'll never forget his dad carried him.

And he's a little frail. And we got him, did make-a-wish and so i only know robert's smiling i got pictures of robert smiling having joyful times and his mom and dad remember that robert passed about but six months after that and um so robert's inspiration helped along with angela and Eric, who we lost. Angela, she had spinal meningitis, and I met her when she lost both her legs and one of her arms. And now she's married, driving a car, and another girl who wasn't supposed to be here, Jessica, and Dr. Stans, and the reason why is Dr. on two or three occasions said to me, there's no medical explanation why this child is here today. We can't tell you.

Well, to me, that's motivation. That's why we do it. But then we also do it in memory of the inspiration of kids who had great courage so we created the companions and courage foundation in honor of the inspirational children who are showing courage every day and inspiring people around them so that we could create a room where they can escape to and just be kit and laugh and smile. And the walls change colors. Ceiling tiles change colors. So there's a place, there's a facility?

So we built rooms called the Lion's Den. And then we not only did that, Mike helped us build. Mike Allen. Mike Allen. We did 400 kiosks that were mobile units for kids like Robert that we could wheel into their rooms. And Microsoft created the first private online gaming network so that all the kids in the lion's dens and all the kids with the chaos could play games and talk to each other and like xbox xbox yeah and so they these became safe havens when you sat down you saw the colors the kiosk world in so we had 400 of those in 80

different children's hospitals so to this day when we're still building them the National Hockey League became a partner Cisco became a Carter partner Microsoft was a partner DuPont's been a partner so we have almost 20 rooms and we touch about 50,000 kids a year that are connected with Children's Hospital or lines in rooms companions encourage or these kiosks that are connected with children's hospital or lines in rooms companions and courage or these kiosks that we do and it's all because really of some really courageous kids that that inspired me when i played and taught me what what courage was really all about so so what i tell you about purpose and service is that there's people around you all the time that touch

you and inspire you and we're just conduits we're spokes in the wheels but we're just conduit so you said filter conduit you know the that inspiration passes through you and and and you you're touched by it and then what can i do to maybe and so i know i know i still speak to ro Robert's parents years later it's 96 and um I'm sorry this was 94 Eric my friend Eric passed away in 96 these amazing children um still live on in their memory and they're and so so you know what when when you go through I have knock on wood three healthy healthy, wonderful children. I'm so blessed.

And my wife, wonderful wife, they're happy and healthy. Both my daughters decided to go into early childhood special needs teaching. One of them's here in the city and one of them's out in Long Island. And I look at them and they have a passion to help these kids. And I was like, It's so honorable. We get caught up in the melodrama of life and just turn on the TV and look where in other countries we think we have struggles. It's all perspective. We're all caught up in the daily melodrama of

a lot of stuff that really doesn't matter. I say that because I'm always learning, I'm always learning. I'm always evolving. Um, I, I, my, your experiences, um, can either teach you, define you, how you choose to deal with them ultimately becomes, I think the character at the end of the day of the person you become or who you are. Um, but I think it's an evolve, it's constantly evolving. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery

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That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash findingmastery. I love watching and great examples of people who inspire and try to make a difference in this world because to me, that's the ultimate. It's not about, you know, one of the things I think about is just leadership. I mean, we need more leadership. And it's a concern of mine where it's great that we've evolved in culture so that so many things have evolved. I'm getting political. But somehow we have to figure out a way to come together because we're're ways apart.

And it's good to have our thoughts. It's good to have our beliefs. But somehow in that belief system, we have to figure out a way that we all come together to make it better. And it's the only way things get better. You have to learn to accept. That's another word I live by. Acceptance is probably one of the hardest words in anything in life. Truly, truly accept. We want to change. Someone told me a great line, you know, women spend most of the time in the marriage trying to change the man and men spend most of the time in marriage marriage trying to change the man and men spend most of the time in the marriage wishing their wives never changed and so i laughed that you know here we are we're such a

society that wants to control and control everything yeah and i think that the real the real secret is is letting go and letting go of the control and and but with all that letting go of control you need positive leaders to to pull people together and pull things together to lead them in a direction where it's good for everybody. There is solutions out there. We get caught up in the details and all the things when if we're all trying to make it better and we all agree, how do we make it better? Well, we make it better by coming together. We make it better by sharing these things, by respect. So I always tell, if you're going to be successful in life, you have to have all the same principles. So all the same principles in life create success in anything you do. Anything you do, whether you're

a teacher, whether you're a coach, whether you're a coach, whether you're a politician, whether you're, you run a company, if you don't have respect, trust, loyalty, commitment, sacrifice, all that stuff, you don't have that as your thread. I don't know how you be, I don't know how you can become successful and we've lost trust. Yeah. Well, what seems to me is that you can get it quickly but it's not sustainable sustained that you just nailed it yeah sustain everybody wants that quick blip yeah push and they're willing to spend anything for that big rush you can spend it or cheat your way there lie your way there manipulate we're there but it's not sustainable if you lie to yourself and cheat yourself it's not sustainable either yes I said if you can't keep a promise to yourself who can you keep one to?

That's it. And if you, if you have values and I love the one quote, the quote, Rob Roy in the movie, Rob Roy with Liam Neeson, when he said something like, you know, honors, no man can take away and no man can change. Honor is a gift the man gives to himself and and um to me i love the the word noble being honorable principles in life and i just think we that's our fact that has to go back to the fabric it's a fabric that intertwines anything that's ever been successful as we had basic trust and respect and i think i was was listening. I know we're getting off subject a little bit, but Paul Ryan said something really interesting in 60 Minutes.

He said, you know, we used to be a society that could sit at a table and we could disagree with somebody and be respected because respect was in the room. Today, if you disagree with somebody, well, you're a bad person. You're a bad guy or a bad woman. You disagree with me, so you, you know. And that's almost a form of disrespect now, if you disagree, which is. Which, where did that happen? Like, why can't we sit in a room and say,

you know what, I never thought about your perspective on that. Help me understand. No, you know what, I can see what you're saying now. Maybe I tend to disagree, but I understand why you would think that way. Well, you know what? Now you have a relationship because, but what happens is we keep tearing down relationships and breaking relationships. And we now, when we do get a leader, sometimes we don't let the leader lead and we're going to try to tear him down. I thought, I laugh about, I don't mean to get into politics, but what president said the bipartisan system would fail?

George Washington. Yeah, that's right. And I'm not to say. Right from the get-go. And I think it comes down to unless there's somebody regulating or governing and have basic principles of fairness and how we have to, that would ignite each party to be trying to work towards being better. But if you don't have those regulations or governance or some kind of commission to oversee that, make sure that

those standards are in place to allow each other to push each other yeah because what we pull each other down yeah because what we're seeing right now in modern times for in politics is that we're not competing well they're competing to tear each other down as opposed to competing together to be able to you know a rising tide floats all boats you know which is the greatest spirit of competitiveness and jfk said that and i just did a now you're gonna laugh at this so we just did in my summit the paper that we had we used ships because there were rising tides floats all boats yeah you said right a rising tide lifts all ships okay why we did that was because these were stakeholders in the game so the the irony that you just said that i knew jf was the one who did it. So we changed boats to ships.

Nice. Yeah. There's another, uh, we are where we're supposed to be at the moment. Okay. So where can people find out more about you? Um,

I don't know. I'm, I'm, I'm pretty private. I do like my private life. Um, I, even though I had a public career,

um, companions encourage, uh, CIC 16.org. You can read about the foundation and the book um i'm in the process of writing another book um and all the proceeds go to the charity i actually make a california red wine also a pinot noir really good too they serve it here in the city long island uh what what is it it's called pinot line you can go to pinotline.com pinot line yeah so three monkeys uh was you've probably heard of three monkeys yes so i partnered

with frank bellizzi and three monkeys and the group there uh jamie and those guys uh jim johnson my buddy who runs the foundation companions of courage uh knew him and i've always had a passion i wanted to do uh i've always wanted to i've been putting wine away for my kids when they were born, the year they were born, 1990. I have a Chateau Montrose for my daughter, Sarah. I have a 92 and a 95. So I've been fascinated by the evolution of wine and in a bottle. And so I use the word evolve a lot, evolution. So I always told told frank i've always

wanted to do a pinot noir you guys don't have pinot let's can we so i planted the seed years ago and he came to me about four years ago because we're on a third vintage actually going to be on our fourth where uh russian river okay california yeah so um so originally we had three monkeys so see no evil hear no evil evil, speak no evil. So I put hockey helmets on the monkeys. And then I went and blended the wine and worked with the winemaker and tasted it. I said, this is really good. They're going to laugh at it.

My favorite wine is Pinot Noir. And so I'm going to go check it out for sure. Well, if you go on Pinot Line, you can buy it. PinotLine.com. So at the end of the day, I said they're going to laugh at this label. And I said, what if we put the label on the back and talk about the charity? So on the back, it talks about the charity. And then there's the three monkeys with the hockey helmets.

And number 16, the monkey in the middle. No pun intended. That was my my role so anything three in hockey is you know the production line the gag line so i call it pinot line and i put the red line in hockey with the face off circle my initials are pl so i wrote i i write pinot line got it russian river and it's a double entendre on the whole thing. Red line, red wine. But it has outside of my wife and children. It has three of my passions in life.

It has winemaking. It has charity, building the rooms for the kids. And it has the game of hockey associated. So it's a hat trick, a passion, and a bottle. I love it. So Pat, I hope that people listening will go support the line, support your charity, you know, and I'm walking away from this conversation feeling as though the world side, fight your way through it, surrender your way through it, let go to come through. And how you're giving back is soulfully beautiful. So I want to thank you for the conversation.

And it's a pleasure to meet you. Mike, I enjoyed it. I think it's wonderful that you're sharing the stories of so many people and that for the listeners out there, they can hopefully take what they really like and learn from it and evolve or apply it. What a great platform for you. Congratulations. And I meet a lot of people and I say this in sincerity, the depths of consciousness of listening, you're a master at that.

Well, thank you. And that's not said lightly, so I appreciate it. Okay. So, um, let's, let's, let's do this again at some point in the future. Uh, I'm looking forward to knowing you more and pass this forward to, to folks that are listening. So thank you. Pass it forward. It's good. Thank you. all right thank you so much for diving into another episode of finding mastery with us our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you we really appreciate you being part of this community and if you're enjoying the show the easiest no-cost way to support is to hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you're

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Until next episode, be well, think well, keep exploring.