Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - The Mindset Of A Man Who Is Redefining His Sport | Lacrosse Legend, Paul Rabil

Episode Date: January 11, 2023

Paul Rabil is back! (on the podcast)In this week's conversation, legendary professional lacrosse player Paul Rabil opens about his mindset, his inner critic, starting the PLL, and what it takes to be the best in the world at your craft.More on Paul:Paul Rabil is a former professional lacrosse player and co-founder of the Premier Lacrosse League (PLL). You might remember Paul from his first appearance on Finding Mastery back in 2019 – that’s episode #167 if you want to check it out.For those unfamiliar, Paul is widely regarded as one of the greatest lacrosse players of all time. Over his playing career, Paul won two NCAA National Championships at Johns Hopkins, three league MVP awards, appeared in 10 straight All-Star games, and is a two-time World Lacrosse Champion with Team USA. However, Paul’s legacy reaches far beyond his stature as a world-class player. In 2018, Paul co-founded the PLL, a new, improved, and more equitable professional lacrosse league – all while still competing as one of the best players in the game. In all, you would be hard-pressed to find an athlete who has had a bigger impact on his sport than Paul – he is an emblem for passion, grit, resilience, excellence, living with purpose, and so much more. In this conversation, we dive into what it took (and what it continues to take) for him to become one of the best in the world at his craft._________________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.

Finding Mastery is brought to you by Remarkable. In a world that's full of distractions, focused thinking is becoming a rare skill and a massive competitive advantage. That's why I've been using the Remarkable Paper Pro, a digital notebook designed to help you think clearly and work deliberately. It's not another device filled with notifications or apps.

It's intentionally built for deep work. So there's no social media, no email, no noise. The writing experience, it feels just like pen on paper. I love it. And it has the intelligence of digital tools like converting your handwriting to text, organizing your notes, tagging files, and using productivity templates

to help you be more effective. It is sleek, minimal. It's incredibly lightweight. It feels really good. I take it with me anywhere from meetings to travel without missing a beat. What I love most is that it doesn't try to do everything. It just helps me do one very important thing really well,

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. You know, I think sport is a combination of math and art. The math is your fundamentals. So you've got to get, in our case,

the overhand pass right. You've got to get it with your right and your left hand. You've got to be able to run straight. You've got to be able to zigzag. You've got to be able to zigzag. You've got to be able to do the fundamentals of athletic meets skill performance in whatever it is your craft is. And then if you get that,

if you learn long division really well and that becomes sort of an innate way of moving up and down the field and understanding schemes and X's and O's and game plans, then you can unlock your creative flow and sort of paint outside the lines. Okay, welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Gervais, by trade and training, a high-performance psychologist. And today, I'm really excited to welcome Paul Rabel as our guest for this week's conversation.

You might remember Paul from his first appearance on Finding Mastery back in 2019. But for those unfamiliar, Paul is a former professional lacrosse player who is widely regarded as one of the best to ever play the game. Over his playing career, he won two NCAA national championships at Johns Hopkins, three league MVP awards, appeared in 10 straight All-Star games, and is a two-time world lacrosse champion with Team USA. But Paul's legacy reaches far beyond his stature as a world class player. In 2018, Paul and his brother, Mike, co-founded the Premier Lacrosse League, known as

PLL. It's a new and improved and a more equitable professional lacrosse league. In all, you would be hard-pressed to find an athlete who has had a bigger impact on his sport than Paul. That's a big statement now. He is an emblem for passion, for grit, resilience, excellence, living with purpose, and so much more. So with that, let's get right into this week's conversation with Paul Rabel. Paul, welcome to the Mastery Lab. I'm so stoked to have you back. I'm excited to be back. Yeah, it's great. It's been fun watching what you've built over the last handful of years. Thanks.

Yeah. And one of the things that I want to make sure that we talk about is that this framing that you constantly get connected to as being the best in the league, the best that ever maybe potentially play lacrosse. And then you went and you founded the league that you, you know, you started, I just, that's going to be the hub of this conversation. I think in some respects, people look at you and they feel terrible about themselves. Well, I hope not. I feel terrible about myself pretty regularly. That's a good jumping off point. Yeah. And the re the reason is because you're handsome, you're athletic,

you're smart. You know, you're one of the best to ever do the thing that you're passionate about. And then you're an entrepreneur and a successful one at it. It's pretty cool, dude. Thank you. Um, I've, um, gosh, I don't know where to begin on that, but I appreciate you saying that. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. Well, let's, let's start with like that little thing that you said is that sometimes I'm hard on myself. Right. What does that mean? Like, oh, well, I think for most high achievers high performers there there's

often a fire that is you know started at some point in their life you know we have a conversation around innate behavior versus learned and I think largely were a product of environments that we didn't choose. So who our parents are going to be, where we grew up, what schools we were going to, if there's a faith that's designated, political views, those are all kind of given to us when we're younger. And then at some point in time, we get to make decisions for ourselves. If we reach that point, that was like critical intersection of self-exploration.

But going on all of those sort of forms of attachment and guardian style and all that stuff along the way, for me, sport became an outlet and this unquenchable thirst to dominate and to win. And part of that inspiration for me daily was the feeling that I was never enough, the fear of losing. I would listen all the time to some of the greatest players of all time, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, now their fear of losing drives them more than their satisfaction of winning,

which feels so ironic, given that we do all this stuff just to win and we ignore it when we do. So we talked about this quite a bit. I would love to go back and listen to our first show, actually. It would probably be frightening. I think it was in year one of the PLL. It was.

Yeah, we were just like, is this going to work? Yeah. And I was convinced. I had to convince myself and convince our investors and everyone that everything was just fine when it wasn't. But those skills were transferable. and into business, into entrepreneurship, as you said, into some cases into areas of my life that I've had to course-correct, relationships, how I view myself. And so you have to be really careful with perfectionism.

And where I've sort of come out of this at this stage, and ready to 37 in a week is, is accept all of it, the good and the quote unquote challenging or bad. Oh, you didn't even want to say bad. Is it? Well, cause I don't think anything's bad. I don't think there's ever a decision that we make that is necessarily one

that we should recoup. I think they all sort of get us into a position, sometimes lessons much harder than we would like get get us to where we are right now. So this is a grounded philosophy for you. This is you saying that in life there's a continuation. This decision, this action leads to another one. It's not good or bad. It is the unfolding of life that is more important to you than

the judgment of the actions. Yeah. The Buddha would remind us that how could we know that the other decision was right because it never played out. It could have led to something that was if the choice that we made on the other end we consider bad or wrong, we have no clue what could have happened in sequence of events. Yeah. Even getting on a car and driving over here to have this podcast, we just can't predict it. So there's, in essence, not a right or wrong. It just is. And when I look back at my career, and every chance then as a byproduct of that assumption is we have the ability to evolve. We have the ability to do something different or take on more risk or be more conservative or start a family or start a new job every next decision we make. So embrace everything that's gotten you up to this point.

Those game day decisions, those not so great decisions, that was just all a part of my journey. I can't take the good without accepting and embracing all the bad or challenges that happened in my life. And what I hear you doing is working from a principle of non-duality, right? It's not good or bad. It's not left or right. It is what it is, so to speak. Okay. It's a really complicated philosophy to work from. Yeah. It's, it's, it's pretzeling for the brain and I'm coming off of a board meeting today and I was like, gosh, I can't wait to sit down with Mike. And I know we're going to talk about complicated subject matter. And I'm going, my fear here is like playing out. My fear is like, I'm just not going to be a good guest. I'd love to do this at nine o'clock in the morning and a fresh mind and having gotten good rest.

But this is case in point of what we're discussing now. Well, let's work with that right now. So that's like something that's underneath the surface. Like I'm afraid I'm not gonna be a good guest here. And then how do you work with that? Like what do you actually do once you realize that you've got this other narrative? It's a great question. I was just asked this recently by my brother, who's my co-founder, and someone else in my life who I'm really close with on two different things. And what I tap into, it's a luxury of tapping into is is the athlete right here and the pro

athlete and the college athlete and the aspiring high school athlete had all the same feelings that everyone else here is listening to but then in the end we just jump because that's that's the nature of sport it's one of the few lessons that I've been like really grateful for is, okay, I'm feeling all of these things. I might not do well, but now I've got to show up and go perform. And I know how to do that. And I have to be myself and fight and not accept loss here. Or if I'm told no 20 times, the 21st time I might be told yes. I mean, our board alone, we have some of the most successful people in business in American history, at least through the 21st century,

a few of them. And you have to show up and talk about the ins and outs of the PLL and what we're doing well and what we're not doing well. And it's just really about showing up. So it sounds like when you are aware that you've got this other narrative, which is a fear or some self-talk that is distracting from being here and just being fully present that you say, you know what? I've got a whole body of work that I've gone for it, whether it was high school or college or pro. And that's actually something that I can rely on, which is I take action and I put myself

out there and I just do the thing. So there's like a body of work and then a reframe narrative on top of it, which is like, you know what? I've always gone for it. Yeah. Is that close to what it is? I've always gone for it, man. And what does go for it mean? Oh gosh. I think that I have very high risk appetite. And I'm as ambitious as I am speculative. I am highly interested and curious in different things. And if it's something that feels like it's either calling me or something that I'm really interested in, then something in my mind just goes, okay, go attack it. And it's never in a casual manner or without real work and effort. It's always like, okay, then process what's it going to take to get there, whether it's

starting a professional sports league or attempting to be the number one draft pick in professional lacrosse, which was at the time. Yeah, and it's just going, man. It's like this is my priority. I'm blocking out everything else with compassion, but this is what I fucking want to go get. And that's sort of how I approach it. Finding Mastery is brought to you by

LinkedIn Sales Solutions. In any high-performing environment that I've been part of, from elite teams to executive boardrooms, one thing holds true. Meaningful relationships are at the center of sustained success. And building those relationships, it takes more than effort. It takes a real caring about your people. It takes the right tools, the right information at the right time. And that's where LinkedIn Sales Navigator can come in. It's a tool designed specifically for thoughtful sales professionals, helping you find the right people that are ready to engage, track key account changes, and connect with key decision makers more effectively.

It surfaces real-time signals, like when someone changes jobs or when an account becomes high priority, so that you can reach out at exactly the right moment with context and thoroughness that builds trust. It also helps tap into your own network more strategically, showing you who you already know that can help you open doors or make a warm introduction. In other words, it's not about more outreach. It's about smarter, more human outreach. And that's something here at Finding Mastery that our team lives and breathes by. If you're ready to start building stronger relationships that actually convert, try LinkedIn Sales Navigator for free for 60 days at linkedin.com slash deal. That's linkedin.com slash

deal for two full months for free terms and conditions apply finding mastery is brought to you by david protein i'm pretty intentional about what i eat and the majority of my nutrition comes from whole foods and when i'm traveling or in between meals on a demanding day certainly i need something quick that will support the way that i feel and think and perform and that's why i've been leaning on David Protein Bars. And so has the team here at Finding Mastery. In fact, our GM, Stuart, he loves them so much. I just want to kind of quickly put him on the spot.

Stuart, I know you're listening. I think you might be the reason that we're running out of these bars so quickly. They're incredible, Mike. I love them. One a day, one a day. What do you mean one a day? There's way more than that happening here. Don't tell. Okay. All right. Look, they're incredibly simple. They're effective. 28 grams of protein, just 150 calories and zero grams of sugar. It's rare to find something that fits so conveniently into a performance-based lifestyle and actually

tastes good. Dr. Peter Attia, someone who's been on the show, it's a great episode by the way, is also their chief science officer. So I know they've done their due diligence in that category. My favorite flavor right now is the chocolate chip cookie dough. And a few of our teammates here at Finding Mastery have been loving the fudge brownie and peanut butter. I know, Stuart, you're still listening here. So getting enough protein matters. And that can't be understated, not just for strength,

but for energy and focus, recovery, for longevity. And I love that David is making that easier. So if you're trying to hit your daily protein goals with something seamless, I'd love for you to go check them out. Get a free variety pack, a $25 value, and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. That's David D-A-V-I-D protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com

slash finding mastery. How do you get to the clarity? Because what you just described was like commitment and there's a like a full force thrust when you make the commitment like you go yeah so what do you do to get really clear about this is the thing that matters to me um being number one yeah i. I think, I think it's, there's some patience in there too. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, where you've got to allow yourself to, you know, sort of act and learn and find what it is that you are most excited about and care for the most. And then when the opportunity presents itself, you know. And so it's not to suggest that you have ideas or actions and you put them on the back burner. Everything's sort of front burner for me until I'm able to... I think this is what we get with age and different choices. And a lot of the wrong choices, our gut builds up millions and millions

of data points. And we're able to kind of understand when one is leaning in the direction of don't touch or go. So it's guttural, it's patience. And then when that opportunity presents itself, it's really a thoughtful commitment first, and then boom. And then when you realize that's what you got to do, you know, you just go all in. Okay. So you're using yourself as a bit of an instrument. Yeah. And, and let me say this, my brother who I'm learning a lot from is the CEO and my co-founder and president. He's, he's older, he's two years older. Um, and we used to talk when we were younger that he was more like sort of like a Microsoft, Google, Excel sheet. And I was more like the Apple iOS kind of mindset of I'm creative, he's executional and operational. And when we come to a major decision point, which is why we work together, by the way. And it causes some challenges and interpersonal conflict from time to time. But why we work together as well is we come to a

crossroads of making a big league decision. And I find myself always tapping into emotional and gut and psychology and creativity. And he's pulling loads and loads of data to make the decision. So he'll be like, cool, I know what you're saying makes sense, but you need to show me data. And then he'll be pulling a ton of data and I'll be like, it's not connecting for me. The story isn't there yet. So we put both of those powers together.

And that's really, going back to our board meeting, that's what our board always wants to see. They want to see creative instinct backed by as much data as we can pull to make a innovative decision. And, you know, that's a lot of what we've built. You know, we, before we started recording, we were talking about all the different leagues that are starting up now and the traditional leagues and we're built different. We're a tour-based model. And that was creativity as much as it was figuring out the data that we could tie to it. God, I love this because... I hope so. Yeah.

What if I didn't love it? Well, we'd have to have a conversation with who I call little Paul. Tell me about little Paul. Little Paul is just my younger self. That's the one who's yelling at me. It's like, oh, you know, this isn't... You're not going to be great.

You're not putting your words together well and whatever. And it's just, you know, it's our critical inner voice psychologically um and that goes back to what i was talking about our attachment styles and the way we were raised and intentionally well done by my parents and sometimes unintentionally you know sort of like left out on my own to just go fend for myself and uh that's that's that's sometimes where the best athletes are formed because you're just going to fight. Yeah.

Do you see yourself as a fighter? Oh, yeah. Do you fight with little Paul or do you? No, I've learned to really put your arms around little Paul. You used to fight with little Paul? Oh, yeah. Ignore him altogether. Ignore him.

Shut up. That can't work. Get out of here. Shut up. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Or like little Paul just overwhelms, right? And then you just fall into it and it can't work. Yeah. Get out of here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or like a little Paul just overwhelms. Right.

And, and then you just fall into it and it can be, it can bring paralysis. I've learned therapeutically. There's just, Oh yeah, there you are. Welcome.

Welcome to the seat. Welcome to the room. There's Michael. Yeah. Right. Say hello. And, and then he's like,

okay, cool. I'll shut the fuck up. And you guys can have a conversation. I love this. You know what I love about this is that honestly, um, you are okay so you're one of the best that maybe your profession is ever going to see certainly up into

now you're an alpha in every aspect right and you're like oh yeah i got little paul in here too yeah and you've done a lot of work in psychology yeah Yeah. So do you sit your ass in a chair? Do you have a wisdom council? Do you, how do you work from the inside? Well, a therapist and then a lot of reading and then a fantastic approach to, you know, family sort of integration, as well as how I try to integrate what I do in my love life. And it's, it's really should be all encompassing meditation. I've learned, especially the back two years of my career, a lot of my practice was its own form of therapy outside my training. It's meditative in a lot of ways and um so yeah i think it is it's always progressing

it always needs to be sharpened there are moments you have to revisit how do you finish this thought i am well that is uh it can be a form of transcendental meditation. It is one of the ancient meditations. Yeah. Who am I? Right. Is the prompt that has been around. And I am is the end.

Yeah. Right? So I would start as I am Paul Rabel, and then over that meditative construct, then to I am Paul, then to I am. And so I think that who I am as, I feel like I'm an aspirational soul in a bodysuit that is just trying to figure out this version of life

and really connect with people and impact, you know, in my case right now, a sport in an industry, but very luckily, a lot of ancient North American history. Lacrosse. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And that will be what I do in this version. Okay, before we go to that history. Yeah.

Do people in your inner circle know how emotionally aware and connected you are? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Do you think of yourself that way? I think of myself as attempting to figure it out. And sometimes I show up in all different ways. But I would say my closest friends, my closest confidants know that

because they're just as softly masculine as me. Yeah. What do you feel right now as we're talking? Pretty open. Yeah. Yeah. I felt like there's also, this is my interpretation that there's probably some butterflies in it. It's more of like a hot flash yeah is that how you feel it right now yeah i know the butterfly feeling right now it's like hot on the left side of my face so good so how will you work so great like how do you work with that well i just let it sit there and it goes away yeah so you say just like i see you little paul you say i see this i see your heat it's this yeah but it's also great. Oh, yeah, it is.

Just the ability to feel, you know? I've spent the last three years really just commanding rooms and being really aggressive. Yeah. So it's nice to not be that way and experience just the range of how to communicate, how to feel. I think that you're multidimensional for sure. And the fact that you're able to have the ability to be aware and notice and not freak out because there's a new input,

which is temperature on the left side of my face, or it's a, it's a new input which is temperature on the left side of my face or it's a it's a new input and you're just working with that input right that's awesome i was talking it out too i mean i a hard part about as you had mentioned playing in a league that i was building was sort of that inherent conflict of interest it really is insane i've never heard of anybody and then i was a producer on the film that was about me which was also kind of fucked up because because you have to recuse yourself from a lot of editorial decision but because i understand the film business well i knew that the moments that i'm not proud of personally needed to be in there. Don't hide that. And then when you watch it in front of other people, you go, oh gosh, it's terrible.

But it was right to do that. And we had an incredible producing team and Matt Tolmak and Spring Hill and Michael Donner was the director. And yeah, and I would even say like, just right now with my kind of breadth of experience across social media, across podcasts, PR comms, like I have to actively turn off the protective element of how I want to be perceived or communicate on a show that's going to go out on the internet. and just be really, I think what therapy really gets at its core is a level of calmness with who you are as a human and acceptance and safety with all of that. And with those three things, you learn that what the rest of the world or people might think of you is just them sorting

through their own stuff, less to do with you you and the best we can do is just show up as who we are and you know so if that's hot flashes and body suits a hot flash whatever you know you you have a radical commitment to the truth i suppose yeah yeah i think that's, I didn't pick this up the first time that we had this conversation. It was in 2019, by the way, is that, but now seeing how you got so good at sport, let's say at lacrosse is that you called it perfectionism, but I think you're really honest. Like I can hit that crossbar 10 out of 10 times and, or that little target 10 out of 10, but something happened. I only hit it eight out of 10.

So there's an honesty that you work from at a very mechanical level, but then the honesty that you're working from here is saying, I need to figure out how to be safe, how to accept myself, how to let go of what others might be thinking of me so I can authentically be myself. Yeah. Yeah. Honesty related to practice is an interesting concept. I hadn't thought about it that way.

What I tried to distill my work ethic and perfectionism down that I shared was to curiosity, intellectual curiosity. And it came out in the physical form while I was playing. And I've learned in business it was came out in the physical form while i was playing and i've learned in business it's come out in the intellectual form um but but you're right that you know you you have to be you have to have a level of integrity as a you know practitioner otherwise you know you're not going to go to the level that your coach or general manager or organization expects out of you. So I'm sure when you look at personality tests for athletes, it's a lot of like integrity based because then you know,

okay, in the end, the best judge of someone is themselves. So how are they holding themselves up to that standard? The other thing that I've learned is I'm not alone. There are other athletes that have been around that are like me and other entrepreneurs that are in that self-exploration phase and will continue to be. And I think there's just a reason why is the place that you get when you just go to the depths of exercise, like going all in, as we discussed, that at some point you have to just turn around and say, you know, what am I doing? What's next? If you've been slightly successful, you've seen parts of the world that others have not.

You've seen all different types of personalities and traveled around to different places. And so you just become a seeker. And you start exploring not only things that I think are in front of us externally, but you then really turn inward. 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.

And to do that, they developed what they call the Momentous Standard. Every product is formulated with top experts and every batch is third-party tested. NSF certified for sport or informed sport. So you know exactly what you're getting. Personally, I'm anchored by what they call the Momentus 3, protein, creatine, and omega-3. And together, these foundational nutrients support muscle recovery, brain function, and long-term energy. They're part of my daily routine. And if you're ready to fuel your brain and body with the best, Momentus has a great new offer just for our community right here.

Use the code FINDINGMASTERY for 35%O-U-S, livemomentous.com and use the code Finding Mastery for 35% off your first subscription order. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Felix Gray. I spent 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 Grey glasses. What I appreciate most about Felix Grey is that they're just not another wellness product. They're rooted in real science. Developed alongside leading researchers and ophthalmologists,

they've demonstrated these types of glasses boost melatonin, help you fall asleep faster, and hit deeper stages of rest. When I'm on the road and bouncing around between time zones, slipping on my Felix Grey's in the evening, it's a simple way to cue my body just to wind down. And when I'm locked into deep work, they also help me stay focused for longer without digital fatigue creeping in. Plus, they look great. 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 finding mastery 20 at checkout again that's felixgray you spell it f-e-l-i-x-g-r-a-y.com and use the code finding mastery 20 at felixgray.com for 20 off i love where you just took that because i think independent of walk of life at some level what i found from people that are really committed to understanding what it means to be here on this blue dot is the conversation goes inward pretty quickly like how how am i who am i

and how do i want to be in this eight decades, nine decades, maybe, maybe only four decades, you know, like only four more days. Yeah. Right. Right. So how do I want to be? And that is the work from the inside out. And I think that most people end up finding themselves there. And it doesn't mean that would start there. It means that oftentimes it's like people, kids are looking at you and saying, one day I want to be able to be like Paul, you know, or one day I want to be better. One day I want to be better than Paul. I want to be the da da da, as opposed to, or I want to have a big car, big watch, big

house, whatever it is, as opposed to, I want how Paul feels. I want to understand how to to how to have the range that paul has yeah you know you'd be one i think that could process and maybe articulate what i'm going to try to say which is you know i used to think about different athletes i wanted to be michael jordan i'm gonna be like michael and i was less interested in being like Tim Duncan. And if you look at both of their careers, they both have fantastic careers. Both won a lot of championships.

Tim played longer than Michael. Both had legendary coaches and they both are different people. And I still to this day think about, I don't want to be more like Tim Duncan or I just want to be like Michael Jordan. And when I look back at the documentary, I'm like, well, that wasn't Michael Jordan, that guy, you know, it's like, um, but I, uh, I think that, you know, and so to give you that background. So when, when I've been talking about

leadership to different sports organizations, there's, there's then the elevated discussion around veterans and coaches that have been through it. And I think about this for myself. What's the appropriate message for the younger version of me out there who's 18 or 19 when I see that person fail? Do I go in there and say, it's going to be okay? Do I tell them the version that I know is true myself now? Or do I create space for them to have to figure it out on their own? Because if I know what I know now, when I was in my 20s, I wouldn't have been as successful as I ended up being on the field. And so it's a catch-22, man. It's like let these kids sort of figure it out. And when they lose, it felt like the world was ending every time I lost.

And like actually. And that feeling drove me to practice harder than anyone else in lacrosse in the world at that 10-year point that I had to run. And then it drove me to the ground. And then I got to the ground. That's when I got into therapy. And then I started fighting out of it. So anyway, that is the debate of talking about pro sports

because in college it's a four-year difference. In pros, you can be lucky to play with a Tim Duncan who's 40 years old on your team and you're 20 years old. And I think Tim was wise enough to know how to treat that 20 year old versus the 32 year old. Anyway, it opens up all sorts of things. I'm talking a lot, but what do you take? What's your take on it? No, I'm tracking. I'm following because what was coming up for me is, do you think that it is possible to have high work ethic, full commitment, grinding it out with deep nauseatingly focus over and over and over again, day in and day out,

recovering in a world-class way, and at the same time, learning who you are and being free from all of the external pressures that you have to be something more than you are right now? Do you think that that's possible to run that parallel path? I think it's possible. It's what I did in my last season. As a 30s, how old are you? I was 35 when I wrote, I'm going to turn 37, 36 now. To the days. Yeah.

So my last season, I was 35. I don't. So what I wanted for myself, I wanted to be the greatest lacrosse player ever. And I said that. Not your greatest. You want to be the greatest. The greatest. Good call out. And I wouldn't be stopped.

And I didn't get there. And some people may like hardcore fans or whatever may say, it's just not what I think. I think like Gary Gate and Jim Thorpe or Jim Brown and those, you know, all that being said, I was hell bent on getting there. And I think if you are in a class of people and not every, I learned not everyone's there. I launched businesses around basically what I've learned is not true, but thinking that everyone wants to be the 1% of 1% of the 1%. They just don't. It's just too much sacrifice and too much pressure and so much pain, injury and surgery and loss and loneliness. Uh, and I, but I was that I wanted that. I wanted

that because I was so outcome focused and whatever it was like when I was, when I started getting really good and I could taste success, I was like, I just want to. Was that little Paul driving that little Paul? And what did, what did little Paul need? And what did little paul crave um i think that's a good question i think that he wanted to win and be known as a winner and to be uh considered the greatest and when that happens what happens to little Paul? Oh, he's like satiated. Oh, yes. He's like, oh, finally I can rest.

Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah. It feels really good. He's kind of jumping around like, yeah, that's right, motherfucker. But that's so rare. And it doesn't happen but maybe like once every few years if you win a championship, you're the MVP of that game. So most of the time, he's just like hell-bent, bent over on his knees, pissed off.

But going back to your question, what I want to say that is, is that if there, and I don't think there are a lot of athletes, probably in the dozens that really want that or are committed to that. And under that context, I don't think what you suggested is possible. This is a conflict.

Yeah. Right? And so I'll use two examples to kind of maybe bring it home. One is personal. It's my son. And another one is a gold medalist at the Olympics. I'll start with the gold medalist. So we've got the uh, the French games,

the Olympics are next in France in 2024. And so she took some time off and she, and it was a debate whether she was going to come back or not. She won gold. She did the thing. And she, uh, she said, you know, it was just recently she said, you know, I just don't want to get the machine back together again. That's a lot of work. It's like she knows what it takes to go fight a dragon. And to do that and come out okay is really hard. And she's like, I just don't know if I have that in me.

But if we were to just throw a ball out and watch her do her thing, she'd probably be the best in the world today. But then to be able to make sure that you can be that very best version 22 months from now is different. And can you be it today and tomorrow? Right. Okay. So that type of deep commitment is exhausting. And so that's her recognizing it. Now, when you flip the coin around, the other side of the coin is my son. He's 14.

He's awesome. He's a great kid. There's no discount for being a happy 14-year-old right now. Like that's a big deal in today's world. And he doesn't understand what you know. And I don't think he understands what I know because where I came from, nothing was handed. And we can go into a longer narrative there.

But he has everything that I don't think I had. I never had a personal coach, like a private coach, I should say. He's got brand new shoes without having to wait for them for Christmas. He's got fill in the blanks. He's got the things that I having to wait for them for Christmas. He's got, fill in the blanks, he's got the things that I never had, but he doesn't have the one thing. And I learned this phrase from a, he won, he was a contributing member in the NBA where he won

two rings. He said, my son doesn't have the one thing I had, which was nothing. And so it's the other side. Like I have everything it's available. I don't want to go grind. And I have, and that's the Olympian. And then I have available, um, I have everything available and I don't want to grind. Right. So it's like the same coin, different experiences on it. I say that as a long way to saying, like, why did little Paul go to the lengths of grinding himself into the ground? Yeah. Well, you know, my dad sold paper. My mom was an art teacher. We were more fortunate than most people in this country, but we played only rec sports. We grew up in an area called Montgomery Village, Maryland.

My brother went to a public school. I went to a small Catholic school that my mom taught at. But everything that we had access to felt amazing. So I certainly was not from nothing. But when I look around at and began to look around at my competition on the lacrosse field, especially less basketball was there in soccer quite a bit. I didn't have, you played all three. Oh yeah. Yeah. I played everything I can get my hands on street hockey, tackle football, never played baseball, but would go out with a wiffle ball. And your mom was an arts dealer as well. Arts teacher. So she was more into the arts the arts than into yeah my mom and i get quite along with uh kind of sort

of creative and you see yourself as a creative yeah you feel yourself as a creative and would you are you creative on the field yep yeah and so how did that show itself well i think it's the way that you you architect your practice's the way that you you architect your practice routines the way that you know you think about the game the way you analyze the game um you know i think sport is a combination of math and art and the math is your fundamentals so you like got to get in our case the overhand pass right you've got to get it with your right and your left hand you'll be able to run straight you got to be able to zigzag you've got to get in our case the overhand pass right you've got to get it with your right and your left hand you'll be able to run straight you've got to be able to zigzag you've got to be able to do the fundamentals of athletic meets skill performance in whatever it is your craft is

and then if you get that if you if you learn long division really well and that becomes sort of an innate way of moving up and down the field and understanding schemes and X's and O's and game plans, then you can unlock your creative flow and sort of paint outside the lines. And so you have to have the math to be able to playfully and artistically create on the field. And when I see a lot of players, professionals down as as they try to create first they try to be an artist first before they understand that and steph's a great example curry of uh his fundamentals are so strong we've sat down and he's been like every practice i start underneath the hoop and i shoot and i step back and step back and you see him go all the way to the

to mid court but he's he's got to rely on his fundamental jump shot before he can shoot with a blindfold on from the rafters and and it's it takes more time to get there but it's math and art what have you come to understand of what's driving him because that's a good example of someone whose father was an accomplished and amazing player himself. And Steph famously has pictures and videos of him being a ball boy in the pros. And I think that he's really high integrity. I know that he is. He is spiritually connected. He is grounded at home. He's got a great family. He's got a really strong world compass. And then in the end, he's just competitive as hell.

So competitive. And that was the piece that I didn't, I don't know if I conveyed as directly as need be for someone like Steph, for certainly someone like MJ, for someone like LeBron, like Tom. You see it with Tom Brady big time. I fancied myself in that in my twenties

and I could just feel it. And you just, you know, I don't give a shit if someone's like, oh, you can't believe you're comparing yourself to them. You, you just trust me. I don't think you want to be in this place where it is cutthroat. Right. And it's not just players. Bill Belichick is that way. Dave Petromala, my college coach is that way. Nick Saban is that way. Dave Petromala, my college coach, is that way. Nick Saban is that way. Coach K is that way. And all of those guys, some of them I know, some of them I don't, but I'm sure they're battling with the same interpersonal dilemmas of when you turn it on, you really have to kill. I mean, it is fucking war in sports. And the winners over time, they're binary thinkers.'re like if you're

not with me you're against me and that is not like a really healthy path in life it's not what we've talked about thus far like being a soul in a bodysuit it doesn't congeal with the ruthlessness of high performing sports how do you square those two up that you're basically, you're talking about being a spiritual, spiritual being in a bag of bones. Yeah. In a body suit, a bag suit, I think is what the phrase is. But how do you square that up with being an assassin, a killer? Well, I didn't, I decided to leave the killer. Oh, you know, at home. Oh, you did for one year? No, for, for probably the back four to five years oh you did actually when i started getting the therapy i started you know i see working on those areas that did you play kept me up at night did you play better worse same i didn't play as

good you didn't play as good no no not interesting yeah i just you know i've still i was but you were all my last year and i was still playing well, but I knew it. But I also knew that that was okay. And here's the thing. What you described, is it possible? It's possible to do that and be a first-team All-Pro at the highest level. What I'm not sure is possible is to be the best ever and hold that. Because show me a best ever and what they do and

they're motherfuckers okay so like let's use steph for a moment the way you described him moral compass high integrity relentless commitment to um math the fundamentals and then relentless also as a competitor yeah okay so the the dilemma that we're trying to sort out before is can you work really hard to the edges of your capabilities day in and day out, intelligently recover and, and, and follow that trajectory without losing yourself along the way. And I think Steph would tell you that I'm speaking for him, but I think that he would tell you that when he doesn't play well, he stays up all night thinking about it okay and that's and that's it's really hard so being able to you would say streams right we go to the extremes everything is uh yeah well it's an nth degree well that's what running to the edge is about if you can't run to the edge

and then figure out how to dangle your feet off and hang from it and even dance on the edge um you don't you will never know what you're capable of and you did it every day or yeah at least handful times per week sometimes you know every this is what the greats do is they fundamentally commit their entire life structure to getting better which requires vulnerability yeah which requires deep strain which we call it risk taking we don't call it vulnerability but that's what it is yeah right we say take some risk what do you mean yeah it means like but i didn't really become like in its truest sense a vulnerable human being until i started working through a lot of strain because you scar tissue you would say i'm a risk taker i go i go for it but like the way i think about vulnerability

is a lot of times tapping into our feminine and our ability to uh cry our ability to say how we feel and talk about you know little paul or the shame yeah things like that right like there's another way to think about it too sorry to interrupt your flow there there's another way to think about it which is um are do you want the do you want to take the last shot and you probably would say absolutely every time right did you know it was going to go in i knew i knew it wasn't maybe i don't know i never thought about it right yeah so it's just like I need this shot because of you know one is kind of like jumping in you said and two I always in the logical side of my thought process always grew up thinking we were huge Carolina basketball

fans my dad went to Chapel Hill and we would get so frustrated when we watch games, if they lose not going down with their best player, it's just kind of, I would always rather, and I think something that I'm lucky to have, and this goes back to my parents and the humility that they brought into the household. But if I make mistakes or if I, you know, turn up poorly or whatever it is, I will raise my hand and be like, that was on me, guys. And sometimes I get emotional in the locker room and then work my ass off and it'll happen again. I never would deflect my responsibility in it. And when I did, and I would realize it, or someone would tell me at some point, they'd be like, fuck, go back and apologize. But I would much rather go

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

family, and our team here at Finding Mastery. It's become part of my nightly routine. Throw on their lounge pants or pajamas, crawl into bed under their sheets, and my nervous system starts to settle. They also offer a 100-night sleep trial and a 10-year warranty on all of their bedding, which tells me, tells you, that they believe in the long-term value of what they're creating. If you're ready to upgrade your rest and turn your bed into a better recovery zone, use the code FINDINGMASTERY for 40% off at CozyEarth.com.

That's a great discount for our community. Again, the code is FINDINGMASTERY for 40% off at CozyEarth.com. FINDINGMASTERY is brought to you by Caldera Lab. I believe that the way we do small things in life is how we do all things. And for me, that includes how I take care of my body. I've been using Caldera Lab for years now. And what keeps me coming back, it's really simple. Their products are simple and they reflect the kind of intentional living that I want to build into every part of my day. And they make my morning routine really easy.

They've got some great new products I think you'll be interested in. A shampoo, conditioner, and a hair serum. With Caldera Lab, it's not about adding more. It's about choosing better. And when your day demands clarity and energy and presence, the way you prepare for it matters. If you're looking for high-quality personal care products that elevate your routine without complicating it, I'd love for you to check them out.

Head to calderalab.com slash finding mastery and use the code finding mastery at checkout for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. The emotional pain that comes from taking a shot or holding back, right? When you're in the opportunity to go for it and it doesn't work out, what's on the other side of that is the emotional charged experience that you're talking about. And that's hard. So this is what we why we

love sport and i'm backing back into my point about vulnerability is that we don't know how it's going to go that's why we love it yeah it attunes us to be fully in it because we don't know how it's going to go we call that in the masculine sense taking a risk taking a shot whatever but it's that intimacy of knowing that if it doesn't go well, it could be really hard to deal with. Okay. That is a vulnerability because if you want to play it safe, if you want to don't take the shot, you don't want to take a risk. You don't want to suit up. That's okay. Playing it safe is fine. It's a life of not embracing vulnerability of not knowing and then not knowing how it's going to go can lead to an emotional elation and it can lead to

emotional turmoil why do you think that most people and it's like the vast majority 99 of people don't want to take that shot or so fearful of taking that shot? I love the question because it's multifaceted as an answer. One of the reasons certainly is because it's difficult to deal with difficult emotions. And so if you go for it and it, and it works out, okay, that's awesome. But most of the time it doesn't, right? You probably missed more than you've made. Yeah. And so on the other side of it, there's some sort of emotional turmoil, but you've organized it that I at least want to take the shot.

Yeah. So you're halfway through the process versus sorting out, do I want it or not? So one of it is dealing with the emotional, emotionally charged post experience. If it doesn't go well, I can talk about how to rectify that. Another reason is because what will they think of me? So that underlying fear that is embedded as part of most of our calculus throughout the day, if I say this or don't say that, or if I do this or don't do that, what will they think of me? And if we play this game in a terrible way, we start to contort ourselves. We start to conform

in ways that are not authentic. And that is a much safer experience to play it small, as opposed to get, you know, if you're a lobster, come out of your shell, take a little risk and be vulnerable on the ocean floor to find a bigger shell to grow into. Probably many species have an experience that we're just talking about, but that's, it's so much safer to do it that way. It's easier. And what you would say, I bet, is that, uh, I think that sounds awful. I think that I think that sounds awful. I think that I would be so miserable if I didn't take a shot, if I didn't live with vulnerability, if I didn't take risk in life.

That would be way worse. Right. Yeah, I think about, it's interesting because when we're asked the question so frequently, if there's anything you did that you could take back, would it be or do you regret anything? And that is often pointed at what we've done. When I think about regret, it's avoiding things that I should have done or didn't have the courage to do. And I have that mindset gifted likely by my parents and stuff that I just took on that stuff. And there were moments where I didn't and I would have to sit with that.

There were times where I didn't take the last shot. It's just like, oh, never, never again. Yeah. And so that, that was sort of my relationship to it. It's phenomenal that you are saying action and inaction both have consequences. Yeah. And the inaction is harder for you to deal with most of the time than the action. I always thought about inaction as an action itself. Yeah, me too. And I cultivated that every day with practice. And I was so aware that if I didn't practice that I was giving up miles. And so it would sit on my conscience.

And so I would wake up in the morning and know. And if I skipped my workout in the morning, know, and if I, if I skipped my workout in the morning, I would make sure I hit it late at night. And then what's not team workouts. That was my own stuff. Cause I knew that the team stuff was taught by my dad. Philosophically is meant for the team. And sometimes it's,

it seems fundamental to me because I was lucky to have a father in sports, but so many parents who's, they're hoping their kids get to the next level, and maybe their kid doesn't want to, it's another conversation, but they go, I go to practice every day. You think about if you're a coach,

how many, in our case, how many reps do you take? How many shots do you take in practice? There's team shooting drills, maybe nine or 10. You know how many shots you need to take a day to get better? Probably 100, 150. Ain't happening in your team practice team practice for the coach to build schemes, X's and O's and chemistry.

Then you got to go do your own shit. That's where the real practices and everyone's so caught up in the team stuff and tournaments and games that they're missing the real opportunity to grow. You know, I know what just happened in our community right now is that that little segment that you just said is going to be on loop for every high school coach, club coach, you know, parent that wants their kid to, to understand what it takes. But you were driving, did that come from within or were you just like, well, dad said that if I want to get better, then I need to do my own work. So yeah. Okay. Let me just get better. Or did you just love having a ball in your hand, a stick in your hand?

Both, a little bit of both. And there's a third one. And that was just my own experience at practice and knowing that this isn't congruent with, and it's okay. I need it, but I could figure it out pretty quickly that I wasn't getting reps, the number that I wanted to. I even learned that as it related to pregame warm-ups. So I would get to the game as a professional four hours early instead of two so I could actually shoot the ball 50 times because I would get frustrated during team warm-ups. We'd have team shooting drills.

You shoot the ball nine times. You shoot the ball nine times before a game? What are we doing? What am I doing? I'm not ready to go. So, so do you know the name Tyler Lockett? I don't know. Maybe. Okay. So sounds familiar, but I think it's also familiar. Maybe a familiar last name and Tyler's. Yeah. So Tyler Lockett is one of the most reliable receivers that the Seattle Seahawks. Okay. He's incredible. And that, and I'm saying that in my mind, there's like other names, you know, Doug Baldwin, and there's these,

there's these folks that were so reliable as, um, quarterback's best friend. Yeah. Tyler Lockett is undersized. He's, he and I are about the same size and I am not a frame that's supposed to be in the NFL with these giants, like you walking around and some with bad intentions. Right. And so so he's not a huge body and he would get to practice 40 minutes before everyone else. He'd load up 200 balls, tennis balls into like a little machine that would shoot tennis balls out and to be working on his eye hand coordination. Yeah. into like a little machine that would shoot tennis balls out and he'd be working on his eye hand coordination. And then he would go out and make sure that he took all of the punt returns while no one else really wants to kind of deal with that, you know? And so he's looking at the

ball up in the sky and, and then afterwards he would load up the jug machine again and get more, more balls coming at him. And so I think those stories are told and people are like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you hear it and they're like, right. And then they don't do it, but they don't do it. So, so how, what's different? Why did you do it? Well, that's your, this goes back to your integrity piece and, and, and really how much does it mean to you?

And you get a sense for that. Were you working out of desperation or inspiration? More inspiration. More inspiration. More inspiration. So you were inspired to see if you could be the best. Yep. And then once that inspiration cemented, I was desperate to do anything such that I wouldn't fail. Yeah.

So then, oh, wow. Maybe that was to do everything. Everything so that you, yeah. So exhausting. Anything and everything. Yeah. Yeah. That's why you wore yourself into the ground.

Yeah. And now I have a cartilage disease that, you know, a lot of times veteran linemen, if they live to play late in their thirties have carried, you know, far more weight than me and a lot of pounding have where, um, you just put so much wear and tear on it that it'll tether the rest of my life. And I'm a candidate for a knee replacement. I've already had two surgeries on it and things like that but i love my knee and accept my knee for all that because you know broke a lot of ankles along the way and helped me put a lot of

balls in that yeah right okay so i couldn't i couldn't have had my career without having to repair my knee for the rest of my life. That's right. You're grateful for your knee, even though it's in the conditions. So if you had a, I don't know, let's go 14, 16 in that range, high school, boy or girl, it doesn't matter. Would you try to cultivate that deeply agitated state to go the distance? Or would you try to cultivate a sense of deep peace

and exploration to go the distance of potential? If I had a choice? No, if it's your kid. And what are you trying to create? Oh, gosh. Deep peace. Deep peace with my kid. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't know that, and I don't have a kid, but I don't know that sport would be't have a kid but i don't know that sport would be the path if i were to have a kid and i'd much rather them be a creative and that interesting yeah yeah sport sport the the way that i've i experienced sport and and and actually the the dichotomy of having absolutely loved it yeah that's it's that is a conundrum to me. It's like we had the designer of,

the creator of the iPhone and the iPad and the iPod. And he's like, oh yeah, I don't use any of those devices when I go on a run. Yeah. You know, it's like, yeah, that's a good reminder. Yeah, yeah. One of the best in the world saying, yeah, yeah, I don't know if I'd do it, I'd run it back.

Yeah, I mean, it's a slog. Yeah, it's really hard. It's a prince problems here because you've done you you live a good life so we'll put it in context right okay yeah yeah no no that's not an okay that's like like i'm just saying like i i know you're not complaining is what i'm trying to say i understand that okay are you complaining no no i'm not complaining no no i'm i'm um i am i could kind of going back, I'm very happy and pleased and blessed with what I've been able to accomplish in my life. And I have the reflective perspective on what was healthy, what was unhealthy. And yeah, going back to the description of what just is. And it was just my journey.

I don't know that I would ever parent someone to take my journey or another one's journey. It was just figuring out what's right for them. Yeah, very cool. But knowing if they do commit to the journey that I did, that it's going to be really hard to watch them. And it helps me empathize with my parents. It must have been really hard to be my parents

and watch me take on the weight that I did on a daily basis to be an athlete. How much mental imagery did you use? Oh, gosh, so much. I was a mnemonic learner too. So there was mental imagery and then there was also word association. But it was largely outside of the box thinking and action. I was thinking more about like performance imagery, seeing yourself. I see.

Later in the, you know, later doing well. I tried that quite a bit. One of the books that I read when I was younger is always referred to i'm sure people talk about on here is mind gym and i think quite a lot about pele and uh and how he would do um just a lot of visualization i tried it it wasn't for me it didn't work for you not Not as much. That's interesting. What I found that I needed was to be my best, was to be really well studied, really well prepared and fired up. I needed like intensity through the roof. Did you know what your ideal mindset was? I did as I got into my late 20s and my like wheelhouse was probably 28 to 32. Like exceptional athleticism, mindfulness, and just IQ, sport IQ. And I've heard that before,

but it really was my experience. 20 to 32, I was like on top of it. And I had bad injuries there, but I came back and was just fine when you stepped on the field what was the state of mind when you were at your best just ready to go dominate yeah so it was big and edgy or yeah so it was like there was a bite and an edge to it yeah and i was a skill player as an offensive player and i remember my head coach and the first year when we started the pl and he was uh a really really amazing human being his name is john paul and he coached at michigan he started the program at michigan and he's a mindful student as well meditates and all that stuff and this was at the time where it was like post sports

psychology post therapy i still in it but i'd already that exploration. And he'd see me four games. I think it was like our second or third game. He was like, hey, have you thought about like maybe ratcheting it down a little bit? It's like you're a skill player. Have you explored being calm? And I was kind of scratching my head. I was like, oh, maybe. Maybe I'll give that a shot.

And it didn't work. Yeah. It didn't work. I needed – my brother was a football player. I needed to – and I learned from that moment, and that was when I was 33. I learned from that moment that in the locker room, I go hang out with the defenders.

That's my crew. And I've also learned as a captain for years that, you know, I used to try to pull everyone to be like me. And if everyone wasn't like me, then, you know, kind of the old coach mindset, we're not ready to win, we're not prepared, and i would get really frustrated and then i've learned that everyone has their own unique journey and set of circumstances they can play optimally play i played with one of the greatest players in the world and lyle thompson he's super quiet and calm and meditates for a game and like lyle's not going to give me a headbutt and scream. And so Lyle and his crew

are in that corner. And then you have another crew in the other, and I'm hanging out with the defenders, like just banging, getting ready to go. Yeah. It is materially important to know what the state of mind that is ideal for you. It's a bullseye. And then you back into it. Yeah. And if it's gospel music or it's, you know, death metal. Yeah. Whatever it is that helps you. And music is only one of many ways to put you in a state. Yeah.

Certainly has a lot to do with movement and self-talk and breathing. A hundred percent. Yeah. And then, but that's the bulls. That's what warmups are for. The nine balls on net that you're talking about. It's not, it's not really for just your joints being loose or just being precise with your movement. It's all three, right? It's warmups to get your joints loose, your mind loose, or your joints right, your mind

right, however you want to say it. And it's not practice for technical stuff. Oh, man. One of my best years was probably 31, 32. And I was working with a sports psychologist and my, my day, my game, they started the night before I had it down. Oh, that's when, so that's when the game started that, that no, the game that there was the next game was that night, the following day. Yeah. So I would think about, and it was mental energy. It wasn't like people ask

me, what's your pregame meal and stuff. And it's like, well, if you're thinking about pregame meal, you're not even on my level. Every meal is my pregame meal. That's how it should be. That's what's up. You know what I mean? Like every day you're hydrating. In fact, what you learn from a nutritionist, if you're eating like shit all week and then before a game you eat well, that's going to shock your system. And it's not going to be the way.

You might as well just keep eating like shit. Really. That's what a nutritionist would say. Don't eat like shit. But if you are, you might as well just keep eating like shit really that that's what a nutritionist they don't don't eat like shit but if you are you might as well keep doing it one of our best players like it's like when all of a sudden someone gets hydrated before a game you know they can't stop pissing because the body's going whoa dude too much fluid too much stop one of our best players drank way too much and you know you drank you know before game days same thing really shot of hennessy yeah and it worked for him yeah yeah i wouldn't want to trade i could tell you're saying like drink too much water too much

gatorade whatever it was and i was like okay i got it yeah yeah well well so so i got it down so it's mental right so i knew the people that i like the environment that i wanted to be in that before game it's like veterans my friends you have like a light conversation, talk a little strategy, go to bed early. And then, you know, there's so much adrenaline and anxiety that happens or like natural anxiety and tension on game days, especially in the pros when we play at night, that some of that kind of cortisol will cause you to feel really tired midday. So it's a big thing in the NHL and the NBA and in the PLL where guys take pregame naps. I realized that was not for me. But sometimes I would have so much anxiousness about the game that I would sleep for three hours in the middle of the day.

And I didn't take a nap at any point during the week. So avoided that. So how do I kill time? Well, we started working on reading a book. I would sometimes go to a movie theater and do something that I enjoyed after the pregame shoot around in the lunch. And then I would get, and then what helped me is I just wanted to play so bad. I think a lot of athletes feel this and it's another conundrum or catch 22 of like on game days, you just can't wait for the game to be over because you so desperately want to win. And, and then when it ends, you go, fuck, where's the game? Like, I want to go back. Where'd the game go? Um, and it was like, Oh, so, so I knew I didn't, I wanted to experience the game in full. So, uh, I started treating the game day like a work day and I would get to the office early.

And that way I could take care of my stuff and journal and watch extra film and not feel rushed and i felt like there was this weird thing that was happening even you get to games two hours early you inevitably feel rushed because before you know i mean you're dressed up before you know it you take a little shower and the team's out for the first one second one the game you didn't get your reps so it was really mapping out and understanding the time of like a full day and a half prior to the actual game. Finding Mastery is brought to you by iRestore. When it comes to my health, I try to approach things with a proactive mindset. It's not about avoiding poor health. This is about creating the conditions for growth. Now, hair health is one of those areas

that often gets overlooked until your hair starts to change. That's when people pay attention. Now, that's why I've been loving iRestore Elite. It's a hands-free red light therapy device that helps stimulate dormant hair follicles, helps to support regrowth. It's a clinical grade device. It's simple to use. It fits right into the rhythm of my day, whether I'm meditating, reading, prepping for one of our clients here at Finding Mastery. It's really simple.

Now, red light therapy has some pretty amazing research behind it when it comes to cellular energy, tissue repair, inflammation control, as well as healing. iRestore is using those same principles to help your hair thrive. I really like this product. I used it last night. I use it on a regular basis. They also offer a 12-month money-back guarantee. So if you don't see results, they'll refund you. No questions. I love that. They have real confidence in their product. And because you're a member of the Finding Mastery community, right now they're

offering our listeners huge savings on the iRestore Elite. When you use the code FINDINGMASTERY at iRestore.com slash FINDINGMASTERY. Again, that code is FINDINGMASTERY at iRestore.com slash FINDINGMASTERY for exclusive savings. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Lisa. Sleep is one of the foundational pillars of high performance. There's no arguing that. And when we have great sleep consistently and deeply, we give ourselves the best chance to operate at our best. Physically, cognitively, emotionally, sleep affects it all.

That's why I care about the environment that I sleep in so much. And of course, a great mattress, it matters. One of our teammates here at Finding Mastery has been sleeping on a Lisa mattress for over a year now, and it's made a noticeable difference. They specifically chose one from their Chill Collection because they sleep hot, something I know many of us can relate to, myself included. What are they reporting back? Fewer wake-ups, deeper rest, and feeling more recovered when they jump into their work here at Finding Mastery. Lisa has several models to choose from. So whether you're a side sleeper, a stomach sleeper, or somewhere in between, there's a fit designed specifically for you. And what I appreciate most is their purpose. They've donated over 41,000

mattresses to people in need. I love that. So right now you can get 25% off all mattresses at lisa.com plus an extra $50 off when you use the code finding mastery at checkout. That's lisa, L E E S a.com. The promo code is finding mastery for 25% off and then plus an extra $50 on us because quality sleep is just too important to leave to chance. So thinking about managing stress, you had a plan for it. Right now, people are incredibly stressed. It's on. And I'm on record with clarity saying it's not because the external world is that much different. Of course it's different than it was 10 years ago or 30 years ago.

We have different technologies, different pandemics. It's so different than it was two and a half years ago. It's different. Okay. So what I'm on record putting a flag in the pole or putting a flag in the ground saying is that it's because we don't have the internal resources to meet the

external demands. And so what you just talked about is a way to manage your inner life so that the external demands were actually favorable. You know, you're using your, from the inside out, you're using ways of thinking and behaving to support you to be your very best. What, what do you say to leaders that are helping, trying their very best for themselves and their people to help them navigate this high stress period that people are in? Well, the first thing is understanding, and this has been the case for generations, I just think our awareness levels are higher and our experiences have taken on greater range that everyone's narrative is unique to them and you can't control someone else. organization is really, if you want to be a great leader, it requires loads of time and discernment around who that person is specifically that you're managing.

And then it's just really hard, whether you're an author or a public speaker, to address everyone at once. I think those days we're starting to recognize are a bit numbered. So it's like management style and how you are attending to needs on an individual level. And so if you can build a plan for that, then- Wait, I want to interrupt before you get to the then. Does that mean the plan is to know your person? Of course, and to spend time with them. Is that what you're saying though? Is like to know your person? Of course. And to spend time with them. Is that what you're saying though? Is like to know your people. Yeah.

And not just know their names, but know, like really know what's in their heart, what's in their mind, what are they driven by? What's going on at home? What are their concerns? Right. It's just what I've learned with leadership is, which is like, call it V2. V1 was like like inspire, motivate. Everyone should be aligned and be like me because I'm the captain.

I've learned that captain's class differs from west and east. And in the west, we dub the captain most of the time based on the best player. It's not necessarily should be the captain. And that was me for a long time. I shouldn't have been the captain. I had enough going on and had to focus on performing. And I think in the East, they get it right. It's a lot of times why center backs are captains of football clubs.

They don't have the pressure to put the ball in the net. They have to stop. They have to do a lot. But they know that Pele, for example, is never a captain. And Cristiano Ronaldo is. And Lionel Messi is. and it's just super dynamic to carry that weight of your country right now in the world cup and also perform at a high level it's a lot um it was just that a um Marion Hossa had his jersey he's in the NHL he just had his

jersey put in the rafters at the Blackhawks, which is really cool for a lot of reasons. And during his career, he was never a captain. He said that sea weighed too much. And, you know, like, so to give credit, there's an author, Sam Walker, who wrote the captain class, and he looked at the best organizations in sports history based off of consecutive wins and titles in a row and competition within respective disciplines. And like USA women's soccer was one, the San Antonio Spurs were another, New England Patriots, Barcelona Football Club.

And he found that it was a singular captain. He thought during this investigation, it was originally gonna be about coach and star players and this chemistry that's formed. Found the only thing that was consistent around the best clubs in the world in over the last 150 years or whatever, individual, single captain, not multiple captains,

that person, not the star, quote unquote, by the press and coverage, water bottle carrier, liaison between coach and club. And there were other things that he unpacked, but it was an incredibly selfless person that also, and didn't carry the weight of your star forward or your shooter. And it wasn't Tom Brady during the Patriots run. It was like Teddy Bruschi. And it was Carlos Puyol at Barcelona. It wasn't Ronaldinho and Messi. It wasn't Xavi Hernandez or Iniesta.

And that is, going back to your point around leaders, is like someone who can comprehend the range of emotions and experiences that everyone has at the table and the selfless mindset to unpack those and the time to unpack those. I learned from Derek Jeter, the captain, one of the very few captains in New York Yankee history. I also didn't know at the time that most of the time in the club's history they haven't had a captain. It's really unique to dub a captain for the Yankees.

So he's like one of seven or something. It's fewer than a dozen in the club's history. Wow. Yeah. I did not know that either. Yeah. That's cool. So, you know, he was a high performer too. So what did Jeter do? He, and he was the lesson that I took to get to the locker room early. He got there early so he could take care of his shit because he knew inside of four hours or two hours he needed to spend time with his mates and uh and that takes a lot of time so it's a real time investment so um so again all these different ideas come to mind when you ask a really heavy question especially right now um and then the wherewithal to have patience to get someone there so you say know your people to help people deal with the stress that's

in the business world right now you're speaking to leaders say know your people take the time to do that and then i cut you off when you said then so once you know your people then yeah so then i would say have real conversations meaningful conversations and what that means is what we do is we deploy uh weekly one-on-ones so It's sort of mandated from direct report to manager. And usually half of the meeting at most is around roles and responsibilities and tasks and what you're struggling with, what the blockers are, and then you give them a week or day. But the other half is just how you're doing, checking in, and understanding what's important to them in their career.

How many direct reports do you have? I have three. Okay, so are they one-hour sessions? Which is a lot for me. That's a lot for you. A ton. Most leaders have like 12 or eight. I think Mike has seven or eight.

Yeah. But I do a lot of, he's really great at creating space for me as is our board because I do a lot of things that require a lot of energy to the point. It's like Mike's the captain right of this club gotcha right and and I need to you know have creative conversations and go try to capture new deals for the league and think about product and have conversations with our top players and all this stuff that's like

it sometimes feels immaterial but in the end it's it's really substantive if you're in a position where let's let's say you're halfway through the season you're expected to win okay this season odds vegas vegas odds are that your your club is winning you're the leader top scorer team's counting on you and a couple other players and you're halfway through. So it's like the end of Q2 in business terms. And if you're, you know, the stock market is watching you and, you know, Wall Street is watching what's happening to earnings and you're behind, how would you address the team there? And let's say it's a large team, tens of thousands of people in the organization. How would you address being behind? And there's some real stress in the system and people are fatigued and they're tired and they're

stressed and budgets are being pulled down and number of people on the team are being frozen and travel is being, you know, saying, no, no, no, we can't travel right now. We got to get our stuff together. How would you manage that moment? I think there's probably three ways that you see people manage it. One is probably paralysis. And what that is, is act like there's not a lot on the line and just continue to go forward. It's not me. That's not acknowledging the elephants in the room the second is more of the traditional way of what you see leadership in sports or leadership in business which is like very cutthroat and demanding and holding people's feet to the fire or else it's not me doesn't work I've tried it. The third, which I think is the best way to lead here, which is

radical honesty, acknowledging the stakes, recognizing your role in such, oftentimes leading by example of errors or misses that you are accountable for as a leader, and then recognizing what needs to happen, thinking creatively and critically with your leaders to deploy a new plan to get back on track, and then ultimately ending by telling everyone you've got their back. And like, we're going to do this together, and it's we. And that's the best bet.

And if it doesn't work out, and as a leader you have to make changes, then at least because of the radical honesty at the forefront of the conversation, you can go back at the end of the year review and be like, we didn't hit it. And as a lot of us had to do when we were furloughing in 2020, it's like this may be the end of the road at the moment, but allow me to try to help, you know, you on your next path, or maybe it's me and I'm stepping away, right? It's just that if it doesn't go well, right? I think that one of the things I've learned from a mentor of mine,

his name's Scott Galloway, and he's a professor at NYU Stern. He's a multiple time entrepreneur. And he always reminds me that, and he's a professor at NYU Stern, he's a multiple time entrepreneur, and he always reminds me that, and he reminds his classes that, I love his readings. You're most often remembered by how you leave a company, or by how you part ways with a colleague, than all the work you've done over your tenure there. And we often talk about first impressions,

first impressions of the world, and he's like actually last impressions. And that always resonates with me. On the flip of that, as a leader, I want to talk about your first 100 days starting your league, starting your business. So the first 100 is an interesting framework because you can't win in the first 100 days. But you can lose a lot. You can lose credibility. You could lose financial.

You could lose in a lot of ways. So if you look back at your first 100 days, what insights do you have about that three-plus-month period? We were very process oriented. We did things in our first three weeks, certainly a hundred days that we still do today, five years later. Example of that is we would host what we call our all hands, our Tuesday morning meetings when we had four people at the company and we would give out a bulldog award and an operator award so our bulldog award is what we call it is basically voted on by the company for one person that's demonstrated a level of effort above and beyond their role and responsibility and sometimes that's cross-functioning

to different business units which just usually stands out and we also read off all of the nominees ahead of that so it's voted on And then our operator is someone who is has really exemplified what it is to be an operator. And one of our our values is actually operate like an owner. And we recognize that. So anyway, in the in the first couple of weeks of building the company, we had four people we were doing that. I remember looking at Mike like, Dude, this is a little strange.

The two the two of you were voting for four people? Essentially. Not for yourselves. For two other people. Yeah, Mike and I couldn't take it. So it's four, including ourselves. And he was like, we need to do this now, because at some point it's going to feel random when we started it.

At some point, we have to start it, so we might as well start it now and have real perpetual value and it be part of the stakes of what we're building. So first 100 days, you to be like very measured you have to live in the process and you have to just go like you have to push all the chips in and uh and know that at least for us where it was high stakes because we put our flag in the ground on June 1st. We weren't a software company that could delay the product launch. We had a television deal on the line. We had player contracts on the line who had, by the way, left a league that was still in existence to come play with us. So all of that business building, we had a clear finish line. So it was

good because sometimes stakes create urgency and stakes even create creativity. 100%. And that's how it felt for us. So in your documentary, you were calling every player every day for how long? Is it like 170? Yeah, it with and that was that the moment when you're trying to get them to convert yeah get your sign and then once they sign you have to keep them updated on progress and things like that but yeah it was and and each player was probably half a dozen calls just to get them to sign something because you know you ain't getting anything done on the first call that's sort of meet greet and information session right and then at some point i was talking to some players at agents not a lot but i was talking to players dads you know who's why why were you laying on the ground so much because i

had so much sciatica pain oh uh i had i had protruding discs in my back and i was playing through that at the time and it was one of those stories that just has to get cut off because there's only so many really arcs that you can tell in 90 minutes. But yeah, people would see me on my stomach. It was a prone position. I would do the McKenzie method, which is kind of a famous back physio that helps identify postures that can alleviate pain. Got it.

Yeah. Also kind of gives the hip flexors a little bit of a break to pull on the, yeah. So, okay. I thought it was maybe you were just getting ahead of it. Like I don't want type hip flexors and I'm dealing with the back. No, but you're actually in pain calling the 180 plus like over a period of time. And it of course occurred to me that the pain wasn't just physical it was mental right i mean a lot of us with back pain out there like it's yeah we can

be like oh man i lifted too much but it might actually have to do with the stress that's going on so we had an expert on rachel's oftenest that, there's, uh, all pain is physical and emotional. Yeah. Right. Right. It's, we don't separate the two. Right. It was really cool insight. Okay. So what were your big mistakes in that first 100? Hmm. You know, I think that like in the, like in a film I learned in making films that maybe there are mistakes, but end up being happy mistakes because you learn from them. I would say that Mike and I, when asked this question, we would say that we outsourced ticket sales in year one. I mean, it was so hard to stand the business up for those that have watched Fate of a Sport because we're not only signing players and negotiating TV deals and bringing on sponsors, but we had to hire refs, construct venue relationships, sign venue deals, build a playbook or rule book,

I should say, hire coaches, help them build their structure of organization from technology that we would license for them to use for recruiting software and so on and so forth design uniforms design team names it was so much and we were like gosh standing up a sales team is also a really big endeavor and they wouldn't have the same passion or incentive we outsourced it we wouldn't have done that that was the mistake that was that was one of the mistakes they underperformed or they didn't yeah and it's just so hard to sell for sports games like people don't understand fully you know it's interesting so the modern and this will get in a little bit into the business some of those that are that are interested and if not maybe a coffee break so the evolution of sports we look at early 1900s in baseball it was not only the way that humans moved

or i should say didn't move they grew up and lived in the geography that they were born into um and even like work life culture was different than it is today but media was print and then it became print and radio and ballparks were built in these markets such that fans that grew up and lived could build passion and relationship and they could walk to the stadium everything yeah this is this is pre-radio pre-television everything and then radios obviously radios in but everything was based on ticket sales fast forward to where we are today ticket sales in a lot of cases of the fourth sometimes the fifth revenue stream for leagues tv rights tv rights is one sponsorship is another which is which is bigger in the big leagues honestly it's like back and forth year to year depending on a

juggernaut deal but both the nba and the nfl do billions of dollars a year in sponsorship and then do billion dollar media rights deals in our, our sponsorship business should and will continue to be bigger than our rights business. Merchandise is number three now. Even in the Premier League and La Liga, if you think about selling jerseys and direct to garment business opportunities and just the way that social media, we call it content to commerce, has evolved. People buy product,

they want to rep their team, rep their favorite player, and there's only so many games you can go to a year. Got it. So then tickets then become fourth and sometimes fifth with the academy businesses. So youth sports become so big. Do you have a youth program? Yeah. Okay. So under that arithmetic, we were like, okay, well, here's our business model. We can execute against this business plan and we'll be fine. But we realize is when it comes to sports, the psychology of the fan still judges success of any league or team based on butts in seats. Isn't that weird? It's insane. Yeah. That speaks to like, I want to go somewhere and not be like, oh, the party isn't here. I'm the only one. Totally.

Right. Even though you might get to see some of the best lacrosse on the planet. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a, it's a, it's a fear of missing out too. That's phone. It's a hospitality business. Yeah.

Right. Some of the best, uh, hospitality entrepreneurs, they understand supply demand. They understand how to fill up the restaurant every night and how that creates a sense of attention and eagerness to try the plate for the first time. And the players want to have that neurochemistry vibe that takes place where the crowd erupts. 100%. Now, at the same time, when we look at this environment of social media and television and broadcast enhancements and stuff, there's just less of an urgency to go out to games.

And there's also loads of optionality. People are hiking now. They're going to concerts. They're going to festivals. And the event experience has just quadrupled over the last decade from where it even was in the 90s. That's one part of it. The other part of it is just going through the exercise of,

man, have you ever thrown a holiday party at your home? Have you ever just hosted a gathering with friends and you provide food and alcohol? It's great. It's at your home. They're all your friends. They're your friends. And in the end, night of, you're still like,

shit, is anyone going to come? And you're offering free food, free drinks, and they're your close friends, and you're still like, shit, is anyone going to come? And you're offering free food, free drinks, and they're your close friends. And you're still worried about their attendance. We, on the other hand, charge for tickets, charge for parking, charge for food, charge for drinks. You're usually going to go with a family or a friend. And it's plopped on a Thursday night or a Sunday afternoon, and this is the time that we've orchestrated, I hope it works for you. It's really hard to sell tickets. I mean, the NBA, the NHL, a lot of the owners of these venues, they have 70 to 80% of their fan base are season ticket holders. That's a successful club. And they have 40-person sales teams just to sell the remainder 2,000

seats. It is just a slog. So that's one of the areas of the business that we spend a lot of time on. There are lacrosse fans everywhere and you just have to create an environment that is either exceptionally great to be at and have to figure out how to be hyper marketers and salespeople in those respective areas. How in the world were you doing this? With 20 hours a week plus a physical training. Yeah. A great business partner and a great team of executives.

And something that I fall back on is the entirety of my career, I just loved the business of sports. That's cool. I was an early subscriber to SBJ. So I would get Sports Business Journal and I would read it every week. And what we hope for in life is we are able to build a career around things that we're passionate about. And for me, someone who really had to use mnemonic learning and I was thinking about what you were asking originally about visualization around kind of like knowledge acquisition or subject matter it was always so much more

difficult when I when I didn't really have a passion around what it was I was having to learn to test well so I could play sports and then when it's something that I loved something I enjoyed man I had like photographic memory you know it's like I recall these articles about like, you know, the All Blacks in rugby, you know, around like whatever happened in their 1999 championship game or the way that Man United and Old Trafford did a naming rights deal at their venue in the early 2000s and whatever it is, because I just, I have a, just a supreme interest in the business of sport and the marketing of sport and the sales of sport and the distribution of sport. So it was, it was a meeting of, of that. That's cool. What a great intersection for you. Yeah. Yeah. And so the mistake was to outsource the fifth or fourth of revenue generators? That doesn't seem like a terrible mistake. So why was it a mistake?

Well, because we learned, and this was a call it a happy mistake. We learned that, okay, it might be your fourth revenue stream, but it actually impacts one, two, and three. I see the feel of it. Much more than you thought. The feel of it. Well, we had our first sellout was in year one at Homewood Field in Baltimore, Maryland. And I had a couple of friends of mine who run this company called ever five's a big like ed tech business in dc and they came to the game and both sides were packed and they were like we want to we want to sponsor the dc game in two weeks and it was really like i mean

i could sit with them and pitch them compelling materials and take them to dinner and all this stuff. They'd be like, I don't know. But then they saw a sold-out crowd and they're like, we're in. We're in. It's just so emotional, right? It's storytelling. What's the favorite team name that you designed? I mean, I love Archers.

I love Atlas. And I love the Redwoods. They're each unique, but have a sense of sport and sort of solidarity and strength tied to them. And then interestingly enough, when, when we ended up buying the MLL, the team that I played on, I was drafted to back in 2008 were the Boston Cannons. So we brought the Cannons back and I ended up getting traded and playing for them. So it was, you know, I believe, I really believe at this stage of my life

in the universe and things that just, you know, I used to call coincidence or some weird strand of fate. And I believe that it's just, you know, talk about having a soul in a body suit or whatever it just all kind of happens for a reason and to be more aware of it um and the way that i finished my career having a you know by my standards a really poor 2020 and the position i was in people were saying that you know not only i should retire with my age, but I might be fixing the league because I'm still on a roster.

And that kind of stuff was really shitty to feel. I was like, fuck you. You know what I've done in this sport? And by the way, I took a ton of shots. I just missed the net. I'm getting my hands free. What are we talking about? But that's just that sport, though.

You have to take that type of commentary. And then I was traded to the team that i was drafted to that was our expansion team after an acquisition and i had my best season in the last like five years on my way out i was like god man yeah amazing thing you know both adult and little paul celebrated in that at the same time they're fucking right how are you doing on the transition? Because you're fresh. Fresh into the transition of retirement. I'm doing well. Are you?

I'm doing better. Last year was really hard. Last year was one of my hardest years. You didn't play last year. No, I didn't play, yeah. It was real like having that identity crisis and really struggling through it and have been able to feel a sense of peace and inspiration again. I was, I was feeling like a sense of burnout too, even as the founder,

co-founder of the league and anything, anything that you would share as an insight for folks that are in the midst of a transition, the transition of a marriage, the transition of a job, the transition of sport, you know, there's plenty of athletes. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's strange for me in my life. It's come in sevens in years. And then the number seven just kind of studied it too and learned a little bit more about it. But I've been through a transition.

What does that mean? Well, we can discuss that in a second. But what I. Hold on. Before you go, I got to tell you a mistake i made okay okay yeah go ahead so if you if we have you over for uh one of those parties that you were talking about you'll look over at one of our shelves um in our living room and there's a metal back scratcher and it's been there for like almost 20 some years. So seven years into my marriage, I gave my wife a back scratcher. Seven year itch. Oh my gosh.

That did not go well. Didn't go well. No, it did not go well. I know, I know. So it was the seven year and we were at each other's throat. And I thought it was going to be kind of funny and clever. And she looked at me like, have you fucking lost your mind? And we, we ended up both erupting that it's made it as part of, you know, a fixture on a mantle, if you will. But the seven, so I share

that with you because there is something about sevens in my life that I can laugh about. There's something about forties, right? If you think about even, even scripture, like 40 days and 40 nights and are uh you know just like what i've learned a little bit i'm no bioscience major expert but like chromosome turn and circadian rhythm having to do with like a real cleanse is typically like a 40 day thing um so anyway going back to like trying to trying to touch a sense of meaning. And one thing that popped up when we were having a conversation is you're mentioning a lobster. And I have a lobster tattoo.

And those things don't feel coincidental to me anymore. Which part doesn't feel coincidental? That you were bringing together a really compelling point. And you decided to use the example of a lobster. Yeah. That is interesting. Why do you have a relates to me on your side? Yeah. Uh, well, I got a lobster for a different reason, but that story is, is powerful. So I got a lot lobster tattooed on my core cause this was the first major surgery that I had. So I had abdominal tears. I'm just shooting too much, you know,ing about that, working yourself into the ground.

For your abdomens being too big. They were just, I was too much torque and too much. We were laughing. I woke up one day after a game and I couldn't sit up out of bed. So I get this, I do some like, I'm having conversations actually with a teammate, this guy, Matt Gibson.

And we were talking about like, just, and this was before therapy, right? This was like the thick of it, like wanting to play forever, be the greatest ever. And I was going to play until I was 60. And here you are having a surgery. Yeah. So I needed some sense of that I was going to be okay.

And so I started like studying like immortal beings and immortal strategies. And ultimately, like there's two that are biologically immortal. They can die by disease or be hunted. It's a jellyfish and a lobster. But they have the ability to live thousands and thousands of years because they rejuvenate and they like crack shells and find new shells and stuff. So I was like, oh, my God, I'm going to be a lobster. So I had a big lobster tattooed on my surgery site. And, you know, that was one of the things.

Speaking of like regrets, people are like, oh, you could just get it removed. lobster tattooed on my surgery site um and you know that was one of the things we could have like regrets people like oh you could just get it removed i was like no would i get this lobster now absolutely fucking not no way but but it was a part of my life that i appreciate yeah that was a blessing that i was that version of myself at one point yeah that's cool and work through it and so when i you know when i look at myself is every day, and see this fucking lobster on my stomach, I'm reminded of growth. You're reminded of growth. Yeah.

Yeah. The embracement of vulnerability. It's just, yeah. It's like, yeah, guys. And you kind of have a laugh. It's cool. Yeah. Listen, I love hanging with you.

And you've got incredible stories and insights. And hats off to how you've designed your life from the inside out and also from the external things that you've been able to experience. People must love being around you and being your friend because there's a sensitivity. There's an intelligence. There's an empathy. There's a relentless pursuit to grow, to get better, to figure out the edges. And I appreciate what you bring to this conversation yeah well well thanks for having me um i'd like to spend more time with you i feel like this is the second time we've gone really long and we realize we're

recording the thing um but you know let's figure something out what you said to start uh was was really humbling and i felt inaccurate and and you know we started talking about inner child stuff but um something that i'm working on and i really struggle with is being present um because there's i'm just in my life there's so much going on and i'm trying to tackle a lot at once. And these moments are, I'm really appreciative because it was just present with you for however long, two hours. And I hope that I can continue to experience these moments every day with people that I work with and some of my close friends and my family and my partner and things like that. And, and, uh, and that, that is a combination of

striding for while also embracing when you're not and accepting like full acceptance of, ah, I wasn't, wasn't there today for that person or I wasn't there the way for me. Yeah. I love that sentiment because I think I early in the podcast, I asked extraordinary humans how they do it. Like how do they manage like life and work? And, and people would say, talk about being present. And I, I, I understand that at the most intimate level. And then I needed this practice of, of, um, noticing thresholds. So when I walk into my home, there's a threshold. So that's my sanctuary. And when I walk into the home, I'm not going to be on my phone. I'm not going to have work. I'm almost taking off my work cape to put on my, you know,

not that I'm a different person, but so that I can be fully absorbed and present. So I started playing with thresholds as a way to trigger being present in a particular way. And so maybe that's something that, that be fun to see if you practice that a little bit, you know, like there's some sort of threshold that you cross into. It's like, I'm locking in on you. Yeah. Well, I used to ask my therapist how it's possible that she could have seven or eight really intense sessions in a day. How does she answer? Wow. She does an exercise where she has a visual bookshelf and each of her clients are that book that she is telling a story with and creating the next chapter with. And she takes about 10

minutes in between sessions and she visually and mentally sort of takes that book and puts it back on the bookshelf and then pulls the next one out. And so I want to explore your advice around thresholds more. I try to think about her mental tactic. And I try to deploy some of my own. Yeah. One of the things when I was early in my profession, like my practice, it was like 20 some years ago. And it was week one one and it was the same thing, seven or eight clients in a day. And it was

the end of the week I was thrashed. And my supervisor, she looked at me and she kind of, she like, she's been around. So she knew, she says, um, after, after each 45 minutes or an hour, like session, whatever it is, Mike mike why don't you just go wash your hands what do you mean she goes this has nothing to do with germs this was again like 20 years ago she said just when you wash your hands just take a moment and remind yourself that you were fully present you were there with them and that is their stuff so you're washing off some sort of ritual like that's their stuff because i was just taking it on like oh my god oh my god and that too you know and like all of that weight would sit and she's

just you need to like shed it kind of like your dog lets go of you know stress they just shake their tail and they're kind of done with it same type of thing so that i don't know if the letting go thing that was a small practice i don't do anymore but yeah that was a small practice yeah i like dialectical behavioral therapy it's called dbt yeah um i think the tactics that they use are really helpful for anyone whether they struggle with mood or personality disorders um and those are things like taking a walk uh sometimes like understanding our our actual body temperature when we say like we're running hot we're seeing red, we actually are running hot. We are.

So like, you know, go grab a piece of ice and put your hand in the freezer. And, you know, different tactics there. And then I think about sport. Like what is analogously there in sport? And when I would spend a lot of time trying to work through my inability to be present, a lot of times it was ruminating in mistakes.

Every athlete's good when they start the game well. It's like, how do you get in a flow state? Put the first shot in. It's easy when it's easy. Yeah. And so when it wasn't going well, I would sit back and think and think and think. And then I tapped in my basketball experience of a free throw. And why on a free throw do we do the same thing?

We're taught to do the same thing over and over. It's meditation. And why on a free throw do we do the same thing? We're taught to do the same thing over and over. Well, it's meditation. And it's a reset, whether it's washing hands or spinning the ball and bouncing twice before you shoot, no matter the stakes, fourth quarter, one second left, overtime, or first quarter, first play of the game. And so not everything gets that breakage like basketball. So whatever sport it is for you, do you have some version of Michael's washing hands of your, your, your routine at a free throw line could just be the way that you breathe coming in and out of a shift. It could be something fun, like tapping your stick against your elbow pad. Just a quick reminder that like, okay, I'm present. I'm playing this play right

now. Yeah. Let's go. Yeah. Fate of a sport on Hulu. Yeah. Is that where we're going to drive people to check out like how you think your framework, what you're up to, right. How you lay on the floor. Right. Right. How I yell at teammates, all this stuff. You can be like, that's not, that's not checking out. If you want to see your abs, go over there. We're on Hulu now. We're also on ESPN plus. Yeah. And I hope you enjoy it. Good man. Thank you. Thanks. All right. Thank you. Thanks. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of finding mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you.

We really appreciate you being part of this community. And if you're enjoying the show, the easiest no cost way to support is to hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening. Also, if you haven't already, please consider dropping us a review on Apple or Spotify. We are incredibly grateful for the support and feedback. If you're looking for even more insights, we have a newsletter we send out every Wednesday. Punch over to findingmastery.com slash newsletter to sign up. The show wouldn't be possible without our sponsors and we take our recommendations seriously. And the team is very thoughtful about making sure we love and endorse every product you hear on the show. If you want to check out any of our sponsor offers you heard

about in this episode, you can find those deals at findingmastery.com slash sponsors. And remember, no one does it alone. The door here at Finding Mastery is always open to those looking to explore the edges and the reaches of their potential so that they can help others do the same. So join our community, share your favorite episode with a friend, and let us know how we can continue to show up for you. Lastly, as a quick reminder, information in this podcast and from any material on the Finding Mastery website and social channels is for information purposes only. If you're looking for meaningful support, which we all need, one of the best things you can do is to talk to a licensed professional.

So seek assistance from your healthcare providers. Again, a sincere thank you for listening. Until next episode, be well, think well, keep exploring.