Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Tim Ryan: Congress, Mindfulness, and Real Food
Episode Date: March 30, 2016Congressman Tim Ryan knows how to laugh — and — how to serve. He’s designed his life efforts to help our country be better. I hope you’ll enjoy both in this podcast. In this episode: ...-Dealing with public skepticism of corruption in politics -How grit helped him win his first election -Defying the odds and taking chances -Inspiring others to work hard with him -Dealing with the heartbreak of a career ending football injury -The meaning of being a leader -Why he cares about politics -Transforming education with a new common core -The importance of new forms of energy -Meditation practices -Why sports lessons can become life lessons_________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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slash finding mastery. To mastery. And in this conversation, we get to learn from a member of
the United States Congress, and the timing is probably right. Our political landscape right now seems to be a mess. And we're in one of those classic choice cycles. And we all now have choices to make, whether we're going to participate or not, whether we're going to support candidates that inspire or candidates that I'm learning from and under trying to understand where they're coming from and their plan of, um, to, to move us from where we are now to something better than that they're struggling here.
And I can't imagine what it's like to have every word monitored and critiqued and, you know, which is what's happening for them right now.
However, our ability to choose words and thoughts are foundational to reflecting our psychological framework.
And if we're not careful, we will become experts in finding flaws versus finding mastery.
And if our political structure is led by those that struggle to find mastery in the path towards it, I get concerned.
I think that many people voice that concern. And there's so many things that are broken and wrong and that are not optimized
across, you know, this amazing, robust and matrixed and dynamic country of America that,
that it's easy to stir up the anxiousness around what is broken and what's not working
and the frustrations that come
with that rather than saying, okay, listen, I understand where we're coming from. Here's where,
you know, the idea of where we're going. And while that sounds simple and easy, you know,
of course it's not. However, in this conversation, we get to sit down with Tim Ryan and he is one of
the U.S. representatives from Ohio's 13th congressional district. And he's
been serving America and Ohio since 2003. And Tim sees the power of people and the common human
good. And he comes from a position to lead mindfully and to inspire rather than to get
caught up in degrading others and certainly the political process. And so it's a wonderful
conversation. It's refreshing to me. I think the way that we have this conversation is the same
way that he leads and it's apparent that he loves to have fun and he loves to really work hard to
move forward. And it's like we talked through his stories of how he grinded to win his first political campaign and, you know, the real competitor spirit of him, which is not to step on the necks of others, but to really strain and strive towards his best efforts forward and to lead others to do the same.
And how he used his insights and practices from sport, both in high school and college, to help him in business.
And, you know, his business right now is politics. insights and practices from sport, both in high school and college to help him in business. And
you know, his business right now is politics. And so it's just refreshing to have a conversation
about transparency and what's real. And I always enjoy the time I get to spend with him. He knows
how to laugh. He knows how to serve. He knows how to lead. And he's designed his life efforts to
help our country and his family and his loved ones to be better. And I hope you enjoy this
conversation. I hope you enjoy this podcast. Hit them up online on Twitter and social at
Tim Ryan. And here we go. Let's introduce Tim. Tim.
Michael.
Thank you for coming on and having this conversation.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah. I think that both of us are going to kind of smile at each other
that we're not sure where this is going to go.
It's probably going to be fun.
I'm in.
I got my seatbelt on.
Yeah, let's go.
Okay, so we met, was it four, three, four years ago?
Right.
And kind of the central conversation that we met around was
this concept of mindfulness. And you've written a book and actually been instrumental to be able to
move many of your interests and passions into Congress and schools and in maybe corporations.
And so can you elaborate more? Because I want to want to make, I want to make sure we're off on the, on the right vector here. Yeah. So I learned the practice of mindfulness
in 2008. I did a five day retreat, blew the top off my head, you know, more and more silence.
And at the end of the week I had higher levels of concentration and focus and I was more relaxed and my stress level was gone.
I was smiling, you know, and this was several years back and I had been in Congress for a while.
So how did you get into Congress? What was that path for you?
Well, that's an interesting, it's an interesting story. I was in the state senate and so just for a couple years, I was an athlete back home where I came from.
The area became very poor and corrupt in Youngstown, Ohio.
And for a decade or two, nothing was really happening.
No economic development. My generation left.
I got an internship in Washington DC I caught the political bug
I'd been an athlete a quarterback a basketball player and I was always in a
leadership position and then when I I was in law school and I thought I want
to go run for office I'm 26 I don't have a family. I don't have any
kids. I'm like, if you're going to take a shot in your life for something that you'd want to do,
now's the time. And I just thought that the area was so corrupt that even though I was
young and new with no experience, that people would bypass that because I wasn't corrupt.
So they'll vote for the new guy, even though he may not know exactly what he's doing,
but we know he's not corrupt. So the bar was very low.
Is that corrupt yet?
Most people thought that. Yeah. We know maybe one day because everyone is.
That's awful.
Yeah, it is.
Why is that? Why is that like a running joke that seems to be okay?
How does that come to be okay when,
when that, you know, how does that, how has that come to be for our government?
I think it's historical. I mean, it's just in the culture. You know, if you are in public office,
there's some corruption going on. And I think a lot of it's because it's unknown. I mean, don't understand the process. They don't know necessarily how laws are made.
And so when you don't know, you assume the worst.
And in some sense, the system is tilted towards the wealthiest people in the country.
Obviously, it gives you a lot of advantages and they donate a lot of money to Congress.
So in some sense, it is corrupt. It's not corrupt in the old ways where people are handing you sacks of money and you're doing what they want.
Corrupt in that it's hard to have a fair shake. for office. Fortunately, I don't mean to inoculate myself, but I'm in a pretty safe congressional
district. I don't have to raise a lot of money. I don't have to ask people for a lot of money.
So in some sense, I'm inoculated from it. But the amount of money that's in the political system now
comes from people who have a lot of money, like to where, you know, some people give you 25,
100 bucks, but for someone to give you 10,000 or $100,000 to a super PAC or a million to a super PAC, you got to have money that it doesn't matter if you give a million or two million.
Like you got it.
So and then the rules get written to their favor.
Yeah.
You know, and that's just kind of the way it is.
So I think people inherently understand that.
And there is some level of
corruption to the system, although it's legal, you know, it's not, it's not illegal,
but it does distort the system. And I think it, I think people make decisions that are different
than if, if they didn't have to raise money to get reelected. Would you be like, I'm not sure
how we even got here, but would you be a fan of not like,
how do you solve this?
I don't, I don't even have a thought on how you'd solve.
Public financing of campaigns.
I just, that's my, I'm, I'm one of only 50 guys who support a bill that says everything
should be paid by the public.
I think it's worth spending tax money.
So I'm a sitting Congressman.
Give me 150,000. Michael, you want
to run against me? You get $150,000 and maybe get the TVs to donate some airtime to you and to me
equal, radios equal, because all the airwaves are really technically owned by the public.
And then you have a free shot. Go knock on doors. Go rally grassroots people. Maybe there's small donations that can be matched or something like that. We can figure out a system. But I think just eliminating the super big influence of big money would make decisions be made in a much different way.
And you get a lot of resistance to that idea? Yeah. I mean internally, I think publicly.
The public support it.
But I think if people campaign on this is something we need to do.
One of the real regrets – I'm a Democrat.
And one of the real regrets I have when Democrats took over in 2006 and then 2008, there was a lot going on.
The economy was collapsing and all the rest. But I, I looking back, I wish the first
thing we did, because we had so much momentum for change was do the public financing of campaigns,
because we just came off the big banking financial collapse, largely due to, you know, those people
deregulating the markets and things collapsed. And I just thought, you know, if I had to go back again and do it, I just said, let's do the campaign financing because that's the root of the problem.
Oh, you'd start right there.
I would.
I mean, it wouldn't have been the most popular thing to do because so many other things were happening.
But I feel like here we are back again, people donating millions of dollars to a super PAC.
You don't even know
who they are. You know, I'm not, I'm not talking Democrat or Republican. I'm just saying this is
crazy. You know, this doesn't make any sense. Yeah. There's a, there's a easy concept to follow,
but like if, if you're looking through, um, uh, lenses, but you're, you're looking in the wrong
direction, it's, it's fundamentally going to be flawed, whatever you're looking at. Right. You
know, if you're trying to solve some sort of problem, but you're looking in the wrong direction, it's, it's fundamentally going to be flawed, whatever you're looking at. Right. You know, if you're trying to solve some sort of problem, but you're looking in the wrong direction
that you're the starting point is off. Yeah. And that's what I hear you saying is that like,
let's look in the right direction fundamentally so that, you know, we all have a fair shot.
What was that? We all have a fair, fair shot. We all have a fair shot at being able to compete. Yeah.
And how do you think you'd do in that system?
If it was you had 150 and I had 150 and let's go.
Let's go compete.
I mean, I would like it.
I mean, I feel like I would.
Did you just call me a chump?
You did.
You would like to compete against me.
I'd kick your ass.
Wouldn't that be fun though?
It would be fun.
You would have to go knock on doors.
You would have to go to bingo halls and bowling alleys.
This is how I first got elected.
I held signs on the side of the street corner because I didn't have any money.
So I would stand on a street corner and I had a bunch of my friends and we would – I would get the Ohio Department of Transportation map of where the most traveled intersections were in my congressional district. And then I would get
four or five or six to a team and I'd get two teams and we would pick the highest traveled
intersection. And we would all hold big Tim Ryan for Congress signs and wave at people.
And the people loved it. And I remember one day it was raining really hard. My guys were like, we can't go out today. It's raining. And I go, no, and I remember one day it's, it was raining really hard. And my,
my guys were like, we can't go out today. It's raining. And I go, no, we go out today because
it's raining. And everyone saw us out there when it was raining. And they were like, geez, oh man,
this guy's out here. You must really want to do it. So they didn't know what I stood for. They
didn't know all my positions, but they knew I obviously was a hard worker, was tough, gritty,
was able to stand out there and not care and waved at them and smiled.
And so that was how I overcame people who had money who were running against me.
Did you learn that concept about like, no, because it's let's go because it is raining.
Did sport have any influence or was it your parents or where did you learn that?
No, no, no.
You go towards
where other people might be avoiding because of some sort of uncomfortableness and the separator
is to go in and toward where'd you learn that i don't know i mean that i think obviously the
sports i feel like defined me you know as a person um but something just clicked. I was like, people like that. You know,
people will like that. They'll know that that's going to send a signal to them that I'm very
serious and I'm tough and whatever, you know, a little rain's not going to stop me. They've seen
me out on all the sunny days. Now it's raining and Tim Ryan's not going to be out. Wow. You know,
look at that. That's pretty cool insight. Yeah. It just kind of, it just kind of clicked, you know,
so it was a good instinct, but the, the, the toughness, cause you know, at that that's pretty cool inside yeah it just kind of it just kind of clicked you know so it was a good instinct but the the the toughness because you know we would
get up early and go to steel mills and shake hands and it would be you know zero degrees outside and
you know i'd wake my buddies up and let's go i mean you know and that to me came from sports
it was just like you know we did three days in high school. They sucked, but you learned that that's what
made you better. You had to put that time in. And so you're on there, you know, election day comes
and you win and it's great. No one was there at six in the morning at the steel mill, but you and
a few of your buddies who were shaking hands of the guys coming in and out. What was that like
for you when you won your first election?
It was euphoric.
I mean, it was just, it's a Super Bowl.
Is that what it felt like?
Oh, yeah.
It was just, it was so fun.
I mean, it was just because all the hard work paid off, you know,
and it was just an amazing experience.
I ran for state senate and won, and that was crazy,
and it was a big win and a big upset. But when I ran for Congress –
Oh, so you competed from behind?
Yeah.
Yeah, there you go.
Yeah. And then I ran for Congress and complete underdog. Everyone said, you know, you're ruining
your career. We can never help you again, the whole nine yards. And we ran in a big Democratic
primary because the district is Democratic,
so the real race is the primary.
And I ran against a sitting congressman who had been there 16 years,
and we beat him.
And it was just like no one could believe it.
I mean, like I kind of knew, but it was one of those things like.
That's a cool phrase is that you kind of knew,
meaning that you didn't fully know,
right? And so, which makes it actually exciting when you don't know. But what gave you the idea
that you were going to be able to be successful? Again, when the whole world, your local kind of
regional state area said, you're wasting your time. That's not going to happen. You should go
do something else. How do you know? That's's exactly what they said i've heard it about myself too
so what gave what gave you the what gave you that edge or that idea that i can go do this or i can
be successful at it i think part of it is the strategy of like, OK, does this really make sense? Is there a path?
Is there a path for you to do this?
Like, does it make sense?
Did he vote wrong on an issue?
Do you stand somewhere on a position that he doesn't that that you can exploit in in the campaign that would give you an opportunity to differentiate yourself?
Why?
Why should it be you? And then part of it is just like you,
self-confidence, a belief that I know if I talk to enough people that I can, I can convince them
that I'm better candidate than them. Did you understand at the time where confidence comes
from? Or did you have a sense that, um, you know you know things have worked out in the past so i'm
going to keep applying the same effort like how did you how did you generate that confidence as
a young athlete and as a as a congressman yeah i think part of it comes from success in the past
and you know one of the things i don't talk a lot about and it's not a big deal like who
cares but like in high school um i was a quarterback and we were like 22 and 5 when i was the quarterback
and i remember this because i was cleaning out my house and i saw trophies and and things that
that i have a house i just sold that had all my old high school stuff in there it was 22 and 5 and most of those were come from behind wins and i was just i was that kid growing
up like i never thought i was a big browns fan right and so bernie kosar was the quarterback and
he would always come back from behind and i would always root for him and then he
he stroked me he would come back they They would win the game, whatever it was.
Didn't fumble the drive.
It didn't always end well.
But I always believed and then I carry that belief to my own career when I was in high school that you're never out of it.
You're never, never, ever out of it so you saw something in someone else and you decoded or somehow
deconstructed how they that it could work for them and they kept fighting that's the decoding
they kept fighting they kept competing so if they can do it well i can do it yeah so so and it was
so fun i mean it was just so fun to watch somebody do that. Like against all that's fun. I want to
go have fun. Yeah, that's yeah. Let's go. I mean, this is great. No one thinks we can do this and
we're going to do it. I mean, like what's better than that? Even if we got to get up at six in the
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off. Do you think that that's what they underestimated? Whatever the naysayers might
have been, is your work ethic or was it the strategic plan that you were putting in place?
And I have a reason why I'm asking that question. Is it, yeah, let me just pause on that. A little bit of both, but I think the work ethic, I mean, we, we outworked everybody.
It was no doubt, both the state Senate race and the congressional race, like get up in the morning
and started and went until the last bowling alley closed literally, or the last bingo hall closed.
How did you get people around
you to work that hard? I think they just, it was exciting. You know, it was like the area was doing
so poorly and here I was saying, no, we can do better. And they were excited about that. And we
made it fun. You know, you've got to have fun along the way. Tell me, tell me, tell us more about that and we made it fun you know you've got to have fun along the way tell me tell us more
about that you know you laugh and you joke and you tease and we had dave matthews playing in the
car all the time and you know guys would trade me off i would go with the i would go with an
older friend of mine whose nickname was the shark who was a retired auto worker he'd pick me up in
the morning and we would do the morning routine.
And we would listen to Frank Sinatra in the car and joke and tease,
and we had a ball.
And then in the middle of the afternoon, you know, the college kids came,
my buddies that, you know, were just out of college,
who didn't have a job.
They would come, they'd pick me up, we'd put Dave Matthews in,
and we would go do the sign holding, bingos, bowling alleys.
I'd go to bars, go around the bar, buy people drinks, shake hands.
And it was fun.
It wasn't work.
I mean now they would trade me off and I'd work the whole day.
But they would – and we'd go out to dinner and then have a couple of beers at the end of the night.
And I'd pass out and get up in the morning and do it again.
Sounds like yesterday. Exactly. What, um, you're an extrovert.
Yeah. I mean, for the most part, yeah. You gather energy from engaging with others. Yeah. You know,
like I think it'd be tough. There are your peers that are introverts for sure, where they gather energy from thinking deeply and
paying attention, but you just knowing you, you really, the gregariousness of you is obvious,
but then you really, you can see that you gather energy and momentum when you're in the middle or
midst or creating, uh, electrical kind of conversations with people. Yeah. Yeah. And I
also, but I also like my quiet time.
And I really, I really, and I think it's the older I get, I really treasure like peace and quiet.
Like when I'm out, I love to be out and I'm like, I don't want to go home. I want more people to
come. I love it. And I'm having a ball, but when I'm home i like to meditate slow down quiet time not have
the tv on you know just kind of enjoy the peace and quiet and how about your wife is is she
introverted extroverted like as that partnership um she's probably somewhere in the middle yeah
she's she's super extroverted in public too.
How do you guys manage that public awareness of you on a very large scale?
And her, I don't know what she does.
I don't know if she has a public awareness or not.
She's a teacher.
Yeah.
So she's super influential in her sphere.
And then you've got a broader kind of microphone that you have access to or broader reaching microphone.
How do you guys manage that?
What does that look like for you guys?
We balance each other out in an amazing way.
I mean, she is so grounded.
You know, here I am.
Good.
Good.
You need that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, it just works.
And I love her.
And we're like so in love with each other.
And, you know, she says, I couldn't do what you do. And I I couldn't do it she does but it works you know and she keeps me grounded and
I love being home with her and the kids and the dogs and just like chill and not congressman Ryan
bs stuff you know and then for you what does love what what does love look like? You said that I love her and we love each other.
What does love look like for you?
You know, it's joy.
It's contentment.
It's like we don't need bells and whistles.
That's what I love about our relationship.
Her and I could be in a car without the radio on for five hours and
tease each other and just have fun for the whole trip or be home and just watch political shows or,
you know, just have a glass of wine and just kind of enjoy each other's company. And that to me,
it gets contentment, but also there's a teasing and a joyfulness just like I'm happy just being with you.
And I think that to me is – that's love.
Wow.
Very cool.
In a relationship.
And then when it's not loving, when – that's not the right way to say it.
When – it's not like love goes away, but when it's difficult or you're pissed or she's frustrated.
Maybe this is just –
Have you been talking to her?
Yeah. No, I haven't. But I understand this. pissed or she's frustrated maybe this is just you know have you been talking to her yeah yeah
so no i haven't but i understand this so like when there's when there is that tension um
because on the public stage this here's where i'm coming from on the when you have a large
microphone that you have and you have a public uh arena and you're well known and you have a public arena and you're well known and you have a public facing identity.
It's hard to be just be a jerk.
You know, like when you're frustrated, it's like, well, wait a minute.
What's the what is the best way for me to be me right now?
But it like it keeps it sharp.
Right.
Not unauthentic, but it keeps it really sharp.
And then sometimes I find at home that I don't have to be that sharp. I want to be,
you know, I'm not talking about me. I want to be the greatest husband and father I can be.
But so what I'm asking is like, how, when it's not working, like, how do you guys solve
and get through that? You know, I, i think we both allow each other to say something wrong you know
that we don't we she'll say something or i'll say something and you know you don't mean it it's out
of frustration or that's cool that's that that concept is really cool yeah yeah so you yeah
you don't ignore it because it's not some deep-rooted problem in the relationship.
It's just something you say because you've been dealing with three kids and two dogs all day.
And so you say something out of stress, frustration, you're tired, and I do the same thing.
And it's just like there's no need to engage that.
It's just like ultimately I think what we try to do and what i try to do obviously not
as good of a job as i want but that's when you that's when they need a hug oh yeah look at that
right right i mean that's like if you want to get down the cut through all the bs they need a hug
like they had a long day yeah like it has nothing to do with me that's really good awareness yeah i mean like i said i don't do that every time but the times that i get it right you just go hug
them and when when if we're missing if we're ungrounded ourselves right and then or if i'm
ungrounded and then i get a barb thrown my way or something happens. Then I find myself, I'll go into like a defensive posture.
And this is the lowest versions of me, right?
I go into a defensive posture and say, what?
And fire back.
I realized that that hasn't worked yet.
Not once.
Not once.
Over a thousand.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
So the path.
We're on the path.
So high school ball, football and college.
I'm sorry, football and basketball.
College?
College.
Got recruited to Youngstown State to play for Jim Trestle, who was the coach at Youngstown State before he went to Ohio State.
Blew my knee out.
So all the hopes and dreams of playing for Pete Carroll in the NFL went by the wayside.
Yeah, because you were on the right clip.
I was decent. I could have been, you know, if the stars aligned.
Yeah, right.
Well, you would have been able to compete and take a shot at it.
Who knows?
And then that – how did you use that – it's like in a first world, first world problem, right?
Like that tragedy, like tragedy is too strong of a word.
Like, how did you deal with that adversity?
I was heartbroken.
Oh, it's just absolutely heartbroken.
You know, I mean, I thought I was going all the way, man, this was going to be the, this
was going to be the thing.
And so it was really hard, heartbreaking.
And I had to reorient myself to, you know, I, I got a 3.0 in high school, but I was never an academic guy. I
was, I think smart guy, but I'm, I would never kind of really disciplined myself in academics.
All my energy went into throwing footballs through the tire in the backyard after practice,
you know, like I kept going, I just didn't turn it off shoveling the drive for basketball i mean the whole nine yards i was that kid
shoveling the what the driveway the snow so you had snow in ohio yeah i don't know what you're
talking about so if you want to practice basketball in the winter as a boy in ohio
no we sweep sand yeah yeah i know it's tough life out here. Um, and, and so that was my
path. So I really had to reorient my life. Like, okay, what's the next step for me? What's the
phase two? And so, um, I met my Congressman in, um, in high school. He was a quarterback at a
Catholic school in Youngstown. I was a quarterback in a Catholic school in Youngstown. I was a quarterback in a
Catholic school in the area. So I met him at one of my banquets. So I kind of got interested in
politics a little bit. I went to John F. Kennedy High School. So I was kind of interested in
politics, President Kennedy, the whole nine yards. So it was kind of hanging out there a little bit,
like maybe politics. I ended up transferring to Bowling Green in Northwest Ohio,
just south of Toledo.
And all my friends were out there and I joined a fraternity.
And I wasn't there six weeks and I ran for president of the fraternity.
Oh, goodness.
I mean, I'm like quarterback, leader.
Like, I'm going to be a pledge in the fraternity?
Like, come on.
Like, I got to. my dad says something funny.
He says, you're a Ryan, man.
He says, if we worked on a garbage truck, we'd have to be the guy that drove it.
So there's something in the family ethos or the family water even where that feels natural to you.
Yeah.
To your family.
And my mom drilled that, be a leader, not a follower.
Which is one of the real gifts I think she gave me was that I internalized that.
Be a leader.
Be a leader.
And part of it is be a leader.
Don't do drugs if your friends are doing drugs.
Don't drink if your friends.
Don't do something stupid if your friends are.
So I think that was her kind of ethos she was trying to push into us.
But it really translated and yeah
so it sounds like that sunk in it's stuck yeah and have you come to think about what a leader
means like how to define it or talk about it or there's so many different ways and i'm curious
how you think about it now i think taking chances i think, to me, what being a leader is all about. Not reckless, calculated, smart, little risky. You got to be on the edge, but taking that chance. And I think that, you know, we're going to go to the moon or we're going to rebuild the country or, you know, we're going to start this West Coast offense thing or, you know, whatever scenario
you're, we're going to do the triangle offense in basketball. You, you, I think real leaders get out
on that edge and say, I think I see something coming here that's going to work. And I think
I can be the person to do it. And I think that's, that's a leader in my estimation.
Are you a risk taker or do you have to work at that?
I'm okay. Calculated. yeah you know i got to kind of work
it out in my head and but you know my heart's got to be it's got to be something first and foremost
i think like is this going to be good for people you know is this going to like really help like i
really felt when i was running for congress it was a risk it was a big risk i was young i could
ruin my career if i wanted to run again i'm going to piss off all these old bulls that are back home that could control a lot of labor unions and all this stuff
that you would need to get elected. So I felt like it was a risk. But I also felt like our area needs
this. Like I just happened to be the guy. Like I'm the people knew me through sports. They knew
me as a quarterback. So they. They knew me as a quarterback.
So they kind of remembered me as a leader and I had my law degree. So I wasn't like bust out
guy just coming to run. And I felt like I was the man in that. And so I was my responsibility
almost to take the chance, take the risk. And, but it was kind of calculated. I felt like I had
a path. It wasn't like crazy because there was corruption, as I said. And I felt like, yeah, I think that would play
young guy right now would play. So I took the risk. If you had a 50% chance, I'm sorry. If you
had the opportunity to be the first person to go to Mars and you had a 50% chance of coming back
and a 50% chance of dying and going to Mars was, um, you know, exactly in your family
structure that you are now.
That's the context of this and going, being the first on Mars is going to be an important
kind of discovery and it's going to be important exploration.
Um, if or when would you go?
No.
How come?
My kids.
Yeah.
And then, so when I, when i first kind of played with this conversation with
a friend of mine my first response was oh yeah and then i waited and i said oh wait you know
wife and kids my wife won't let me yeah right what would i tell her no yeah no no she she would
look at me cock-eyed like you know what are what are you thinking? And then, so then, then let me, let me see if I,
this was my next wrestle with this conversation. And I want to, I want to see how you play with
this because you do take calculated risks when you're on the razor's edge or on the edge and
you see something that might work out. You use your analytical skills and your grit and high work ethic to be able to,
and to be able to get other people involved in having fun, seeing that risk-taking vision.
So far, that's what I'm learning from you. Right. Yeah. And then, so then you go out and you do it.
And, and then when, but when I talked about like a larger kind of life risk, yeah, you said, no,
no, no. Cause I have responsibility, you know, to,
to, to my loved ones, I think is what you're saying. And then, um, so then the next question
would be, okay, so if you go or you don't go, how would you explain to your kids, you know,
Hey daddy, uh, weren't you kind of supposed to go? Didn't they pull, pull your number to go?
And, and then, then, then now you have an opportunity to explain it. How would you explain it?
Wow. That's good.
Whether you go or not go, like you said, no, I wouldn't go.
I would just say, you know,
I didn't feel like I had you set up yet to go on your path.
But, but dad, you, the whole world needed you to go.
Yeah. Well, that's tough.
Keep going. Screw you, Gervais.
I love it. I'm not going there. I'm not going there. You know, and yeah, maybe if I knew, you know, it's like a sci-fi movie, but if I knew that my wife and my kids weren't going to survive if I didn't go to Mars and create a new civilization or whatever, that would be a different calculation.
But if I knew they were going to be here and they would be safe and he would have a great life and I would somehow not be there to shape it, at least early on, I would feel like that would be a risk I wouldn't be worth it wouldn't be worth taking yeah and and right there's no right but here i am i mean he's 20
months old i mean i come home and it's like hi daddy and i melt like i'm in the middle of that
stage that you have been at yeah many parents have been at and it's like hi daddy and i mean
what else is there i mean i'm not'm not going to risk not hearing that again.
Yeah.
Not in the short term anyway.
Right, right, right, right.
And so when he's a teenager, maybe I'm like, all right, I'm out of here.
Honey, you got him.
I'm gone.
So I think that that's really thought.
I love this discussion because it it really solidifies or hardens a person's response to family, responsibility, risk-taking.
And I'm not surprised by your response knowing how much you care about family.
And then at the other side of you, though, it really cares about the well-being of your state and the country.
And so on that side, I could see you arguing a bit like, well, if I was single, I'm going because like that's that's pretty rad.
And it's good for people like this.
If I was single.
Yeah.
I mean, sign me up.
Yeah.
I mean, I'm the first guy on.
I'll elbow you to get in the first seat.
You know, do you have a religious or some sort of faith that you are connected to?
I'm Catholic.
Yeah.
Grew up Catholic,
went to Catholic school.
I think I kind of thought that altar boy,
you know,
the whole nine yards.
And here's the reason I want,
I was just curious about that because I was wondering as we were talking,
like,
is that why, is that one of the reasons maybe why priests can't be married,
right?
Is because they would choose the benefit of their
most intimate loved ones, as opposed to the congregation or the community. I wonder,
because I feel that same tug for me is that, you know, I am so intimately connected to people I
spend a lot of time and care about that, that that compromise feels selfish, but, but it tugs on me to go.
The fun.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's pretty epic.
So anyways, I wonder if that was it, if you had a point of view on...
I don't know.
From a religious perspective?
No, I don't think so.
No.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay, cool.
All right.
So this is what I wanted to understand for you.
So we get the path just a little bit.
What is it about politics?
You're the first politician to,
I'm fortunate to have the conversation with.
I feel honored.
Yeah.
Cool.
You can make a big difference,
you know,
like that's the bug I caught when I was interning and just working for a
member of Congress.
I saw how the how you can help
people, you can help communities make change, you know, and sometimes in significant ways,
sometimes in insignificant ways. You can help someone get a social security check that the
government wasn't processing and you make a few calls and, you know, all of a sudden their family
is taken care of because they had someone injured at work. Like it could be that small or a family member couldn't get a green card or whatever and you get them in the country.
Things that small.
But also the transformational things of people having health care and people being able to afford to go to college or those.
If you want to be in service of others, it's a great great profession to be able to do that now
it's stocked now you know in the last few years i think everybody would agree that the political
systems gears are locked up but you know i'm i'm a i'm a romantic you know let's go to the moon
you know let's build the interstate highway let's just not mars not mars or someone else can go you know i'm happy to help help them go but let's you know
we can do great things and i believe that and i believe we can mobilize the country
behind big things and do them and and really transform people's lives i mean my you know my
grandfather worked in the steel mill
and made a good living and the next generation went to college and my, you know, his, my
grandfather and grandmother's four grandkids, you know, there's, you know, two lawyers, a doctor
and a congressman, you know, I mean, that's the trajectory in an economy that people can make a
good living. And that's, you know, that's what it's all about.
And you look at, you look at technology, technological advancements, and you look at
the internet and 3d printing and like that stuff's great stuff, you know,
and to be having influence on that. It's great.
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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. What are the big things that are coming? You said we can mobilize around
big things. What are you seeing, you know, from, from the front that are
big things coming for our country? Well, if we get our act together, I think we can transform
the healthcare system. I think there's, there's no question that we can move from a disease
management system to a preventative healthcare system. And we'll, you know, in all that that
entails of like people being healthy, like not waiting until they get diabetes or heart disease,
like making sure they have access to good food,
stress reduction techniques,
exercise,
affordable prevention,
then they're functioning at a higher level.
I mean,
honestly,
when I say I look at the world like an athlete,
like I don't think it's fair to say in Ohio, for example, well, the hundred guys on the Ohio State football team should have study table, nutrition table, dieticians and nutritionists help them with their food.
People help them with their homework.
They train.
They lift weights.
People help them with that.
And so there can be an elite athlete.
But every other kid in Ohio is going to somehow be on their own.
I think we can transform the education system in a way that can help each kid have access to good food, mental discipline training, physical training.
Can you study table and all the whole nine
yards? I was, I was recently talking with one of your friends and he was talking, he was sharing
his efforts in the school systems, uh, trying to bring practices that allow for discovery of the
inner experience, meaning not psychology, but mental skills, training or mindset or mindfulness
and, and using it through physical
movement and not, and was saying that it was just, there's, there's a lot of roadblocks that he's
found. And so can you talk about your work that, and I'm curious about the struggles and not, but
what is it like trying to get mindfulness, which I know how passionate you are about it, into school systems?
What is happening there?
Part of it is just the inertia of the old system.
I mean if you're a football coach and you come and you take over a team, it's like, okay, old system out, new system in.
Old coach is out, new coach is in.
New system in.
We're going west coast.
Let's go.
And here you go and you get a five-year
contract and you got five years to implement it. It's a little harder in a school district.
So a lot of districts are operating out of an old model that needs to be changed. So you need
to change legislation and all the rest. So it's been hard. And I think part of it is when you
talk about mental discipline and mind fitness and
all these things that are really, really important, the culture is still tied up in testing.
We're going to test you. Standardized test. Now, this is Henry Ford, right? We're going to standardize everything. Now you're asking kids in 2016 to be average, to be to be normal in a it's technology, it's innovation, it's entrepreneurship,
it's you being you and celebrating what you are and then getting you kind of on a path to learn
things you're really interested in. Not standardizing you, you're sucking the life out of
kids and they hate school. I mean, I didn't really like school that much and it's
a lot less fun now than it was when I went 20 years ago. So how do you create a system that
appreciates and rewards and celebrates the individual, your individual talents and skills?
And yeah, there's going to be certain knowledge we want everybody to know,
appreciation for history, basic math skills, financial literacy, how to interact with people, how to be polite, how to be kind.
Those are important skills that we want everybody to learn.
But to lock a kid in to a system that just wants to standardize you, to me, is terrible.
It's a terrible idea for them.
It sucks the life out of them.
And it's bad for the economy.
I mean, there's a reason why right now we're, I don't remember the numbers now,
but we're 26th in science in the world and 28th in math or something like that.
In America, that doesn't make any sense.
But we're locked into these old institutions. And so when you talk about how can politics transform the country, the world, it's
through transforming these institutions. And is one way that you're trying to do that or impact
that is through bringing mindfulness into schools? Is that what you're working on?
Yeah. I mean, I think we've got a big argument now in the country on common core.
What's the common core?
And some people are for it.
Some people are against it, which is standards for schools.
Okay.
And I really think that it's – we've got to get back to fundamentals that the common core is can you mobilize your attention span?
Can you put your attention where you want to put it?
I'm going to put it on you.
I'm going to put it on the TV. I'm going to put it on a math problem and I'm going to be able to hold it there
for an extended period of time until I solve this problem. That to me is part of the common core.
Am I aware of what's going on around me? What's going on with you and your life and sensitive to
that? Am I aware of what's going on inside of me? What are the beliefs things coming up self-knowledge mm-hmm can I regulate my own emotional state like this is some basic stuff are
these called common cores I'm calling it the new common core no one calls it the
common core this is Tim Ryan's new America 2.0 here you go you know yeah
this is the common core and then food healthy food like if you want someone to at a high level, you don't fill them up with processed food and sugar and then watch them crash in third period algebra and wonder why they can't learn algebra.
You know, it's like, wait a minute.
Stop.
Be mindful.
Be aware of what we're doing.
We're sucking the life out of these kids like in their kids in my hometown my district they'll have uh
chocolate milk and a rice crispy bar for breakfast now so you're talking about i don't know 10
teaspoons of sugar before you even walk into a classroom now i'm not a prude like i i'm you know
i'm a dude from ohio like i'll eat a little ice cream before I go to bed, you know, watching SportsCenter or whatever.
And so not like approved, but you can't give that to a kid and let them walk into a classroom and think that they're going to learn.
They're going to be high in the first period.
They're going to be neutral in the second period.
They're going to crash in third period.
And then they're going to go to lunch and they're going to do it all over again.
And then you're going to sit there well i
can't believe this kid can't learn what's wrong with the kid what's wrong with his parents he's
so undisciplined he's so unruly well what are you doing you helping the kid be the best that he can
be yeah reaches full potential yeah it's a neurochemistry just nightmare yeah this is
this is chemistry yeah this is biology yeah you? So are those – there was like five things you mentioned for the Common Core.
Are there more or –
No, I think –
Is this a working idea?
It's a working idea but I think we have social and emotional learning programs.
We have mindfulness-based programs and there are food programs in schools that are trying to – but they're very – they're small.
They're very organic and they're happening in disparate places across the country. There's no
standardized way of funding these things just yet.
Is this a non-profit, for-profit? Is this
just an idea, as an initiative, as an actual organization? All of the above.
Some non-profits support school gardens, locally
sourced foods. Some nonprofits support school gardens, locally sourced foods.
Some local schools take the federal money they get for breakfast and lunches.
This isn't something that you're running, like either funding or driving.
This is like you're trying to create space for these common core initiatives.
Right.
These things are happening already.
Yeah.
Some people are doing the social and emotional learning.
Some people are doing the food. Some people are doing the mindfulness. Very rarely are they doing all of them. But to me, I'm trying to change the conversation to say the common core isn't about algebra and math and science. The common core should be the common core, which is the things I said, the regulation, the food. That's the foundation.
Where'd you come to this idea? the things I said, the regulation, the food. That's the foundation that you're going to build.
Where did you come to this idea?
Through experience, just watching kids.
My own personal retreat I went on that I thought,
wow, why didn't someone teach me this when I was younger kind of thing. And then that was in 2008.
And since then I watch kids and I'm thinking,
we're spending all this money and we're trying so hard to get them to learn. And we're not down to the fundamentals. It's like, you're trying to
run for touchdown and no one knows how to block. That's right. So let's teach them how to block,
get up on the line, don't go off sides, you know, getting the huddle. Like it's like fifth grade
flag football, you know, start from there. Yeah. And you know, I don't know enough about, um,
the institutions for junior high and high school know, I don't know enough about the institutions for junior high and high school.
I don't know enough about that system.
And I'm sure they're doing as inside as best as they possibly can figure out on how to educate the next generation.
And you know that those that have like in war, there's battleships and then there's u ships or p boats
and they can pivot and those that can pivot end up being a great asset and so what i hear you
saying is like listen let's go back to some basic cores and get the fundamentals in place first and
then we can teach um you know advanced strategies like math so the fundamental is can you focus for
20 seconds 30 seconds 60, 60 seconds, six
minutes. And that's a relatively simple training methodology for, you know, focusing as a decision.
And it's not easy for everyone to focus. We all were on a spectrum, but it's the skill of
refocusing that we can train. And if we can just introduce some basic refocusing tasks and skills,
great. We don't need any technology. We just need to set up something
from, you know, um, uh, early conversations with parents as well. But I, I'm, this is why I wanted
to really have this conversation with you is one, understand what the path for you has been to be in
a position of leadership for, you know, so many people in, in, in, in the country. And then also,
uh, I know knowing where your heart is what you're trying
to do for the next generation so that's one that's one kind of big idea that you're working on what
are the other things that you're seeing coming health care education and then is there something
else that's yeah i think tech you know um you've got to talk economics and how do we grow the economy? How do we get people to get back to
work in areas where they can make a decent living? I mean, the income inequality issue is a real
issue. And, you know, Democrat or Republican, it's a real issue. It shouldn't, you know, the
wealthiest and the poorest have the biggest divide since the Great Depression. So that's a real
problem. So how do we grow the economy in areas? How do
we make investments in areas that are going to grow? One of them is like renewable energy.
Mm-hmm. You know, we see gas prices that are really cheap now, and it's great,
right? But it's a manipulated scheme. So they go up, they go down. We're very dependent on
foreign oil in a lot of ways in the global price. How do
we get into, we have global warming issues. How do we get into renewable energy, wind, solar?
And to me, it's not just about the wind and the solar, but it's also about manufacturing those
component parts. Do you have a strategy in place that you're working on for those? Or is it just,
that's a concept that I have heat around? Yeah. Well, we had a big vote back in 2009 where we wanted to, um,
force energy companies to invest into these other areas. So instead of building a new
coal fired power plant, you'd build a wind farm, you'd build a solar panel farm. And we lost, you know, we didn't, we weren't able
to pass, we passed through the House, didn't pass through the Senate. And I think that, you know,
if you say to an energy company, 20% of your energy has to come from renewables, all of a sudden,
they make investments in the wind companies and solar companies. And the benefits for people in
Ohio would be, there's, you know, 8,000 component parts
to a windmill. There's gear shifts and hydraulics and bolts. There's 500 bolts. There's a mile of
concrete. There's a mile of rebar. It's like, you know, manufacturing heaven. So that's what we do
in Ohio. That's what we do in the Great Lakes states. We manufacture stuff. So if we move in
that direction, you're not only
going to do things that are good for the planet, you're going to address global warming, you're
going to create jobs and you're going to create manufacturing jobs where people like my grandfather
can have that ladder up out of high school to have a good paying job, have a house, go on vacation,
have a decent life without having
to worry about government assistance. So out of all three of these, which one has the most
energy for you? Not no kind of pun intended on it, but what, what, what is the energy that you have?
Well, they all have, they all have energy, but I think the education piece is the one I,
I see happening in my district. I see these kids getting turned on.
So you're right.
You have such access to the center of technology in San Francisco and other places that you mentioned.
Are there startups that are looking to solve that and accelerate the education system?
Or is this really left to government to figure out and education to figure out?
I don't think it can be just left to government. It's got to be, you know, I think it's got to be technology. It's got to be private sector, but the government's got to incentivize these new ideas to come in and help
solve the problem and not be so guarded. Oh, this is a government institution. I'm not saying
privatized schools because I don't believe in that. I think everybody should have, there should
be public schools and people should have access
to those public schools in every neighborhood.
Meaning no private?
Take away private?
I'm okay with private just so it's not for profit.
So I don't mind charter schools as long as they're not for profit.
I don't mind Catholic schools, which I went to my whole life because they're not making
a profit.
If you start making a profit, like we're not here to get anybody rich with public education. But there are a lot of
nonprofits now, the Khan Academy, people come in with individualized learning. Yeah, just some
great stuff that I think can transform education and help people get on their path, right? If
you're good at math, boom, boom, boom, keep moving on. You may have to take a sidetrack and get tutored.
Fine.
But you can excel in English.
Keep rolling.
When would you want to put the Common Core in place?
At what age level are you thinking?
Kindergarten.
Pre-kindergarten.
Starting there.
Yeah.
I mean, these kids should be eating good food.
Like I said, I'm not a prude, but what are we feeding our kids?
We're going to feed them this chunk in our school yeah like it's supposed to be an institution of
learning and advancement and like we're teaching you how to live like that's i mean not everyone's
going to be an engineer so i'm i'm worried about you being a good kid you're not being a criminal
there you go you know like being healthy balancing your checkbook
having a good job and a skill like sure some people are going to go on to be doctors lawyers
and everything else but everybody else should leave 18 years old you should have a skill
we have a program in ohio in high school you you can have 13 credit hours to be a welder. So there's a big need for welders in America, huge need.
You can graduate –
In America?
In America.
Why is that?
It just turned into an unsexy profession and people stopped going into it.
Everyone is going to go to college.
That's one of the big myths in America, right?
Everyone has got to have a PhD or be an engineer and it's just – it's terrible.
It was a big myth. So what
we've tried to do is create a program where, so you need 30 credit hours to become a welder
and you can leave high school with 13 of the 30. So you're already on the track. So you're not
walking out of high school with a diploma saying, what am I going to do with my life? You say,
I got 13 hours, you know, I got another 17 I got to get, and I'm going to be a
welder and I'm going to make 60 or 70 grand a year. And maybe I'll go to college in two years.
Got it. Yeah. Yeah. Especially when you think about the brain science and the research,
your brain is not fully developed. Our brains aren't fully developed until you're 24,
25 years old. So here we are asking 18 year olds to make these life decisions
and their brains aren't
even fully developed. You know, it's more of their parents, right? Yeah. It's the parents guiding and
shaping and sure there's a couple of decisions, but the influences from parents and peers is,
and media is, is it's a, it's a real deal, you know, and we see it in professional sports.
It's not until 2024, 25, where the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that've had your most of your professional career.
What would you what advice would you give your younger self?
What would you hope that if there was another another shot at it that you would get sooner?
Honestly, meditate.
Really?
No question. I mean, I if I had to do it all over again, I wish someone would have taught me
how to focus and practice focusing
when I was a kid.
I just feel like my athletic career
would have been 10 times better.
My academic career would have been 10 times better.
My relationships would have been 10 times better.
How much heartbreak,
how many bad relationships you got to go through. You look back and like, what was I thinking?
You know, what is, what does your training look like or your practice of meditation?
I do. Lately I've been doing 20 minutes twice a day. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I start before I leave
the house. I try to, I mean, I'm a 20-month-old, so he didn't get the memo yet on my meditation practice.
But I try to do 20 in the morning and then try to squeeze one in before I go out into the evening.
And are you doing more of a single point or more contemplative work?
I've been doing mantra-based last few weeks.
But I try to do that for a little while
and then really spend a few minutes seeing what's coming up what am i thinking about what's on my
mind just so i know you know how to react or not react to that the mantra that you're using uh is
it are you externalizing it or is it quiet inside your quiet you're quiet yeah and then is it for
you is it something that you just kind of say this
is going to be my excuse me this is going to be my mantra for the next uh couple days or is it like
what do i want my mantra to be today or do you just let me ask a third way do you just pick one
and say i'm going to do this for the it's been the same one that i've used on and off for a while
okay yeah and how did you come to pick or choose or find or uncover that mantra for
yourself? Someone gave it to me 20 years ago. And I just, you know, I, I floored on and off with
mantra, my mantra practice and my awareness, Vipassana practice. Yeah. I really like them
both, you know, and I also do centering prayer, which I learned, which is a Christian based Catholic monk centering prayer that I really, really like.
And I do breathing.
I do like a Kriya yoga breathing practice like before I do any meditation.
So I try to do that for some days.
I just do that.
Some days I'll do 20 minutes of breathing.
What is the centering that you do?
I'm not familiar with the Christian, the monk centering.
So it's not a repetitive word I say over and over or sound I say over and over and over.
You say it and you just kind of let it go.
So it's basically a Christian-based word.
So it could be Jesus or God and you let it go or love you know you let it go and
then when your mind not that your mind has another thought but if your mind starts connecting thoughts
you start to have a string of thoughts then you go back to it okay so you don't you don't run it out
you just go back when so if like there was if instead of a word or if there was beads in my hand, I wouldn't go from one to two to three to four. I would just hold one
until I noticed that I'm off of one. And then I, and then I'd go to two and say it again.
Right. Right. And then is that like a X number of minutes or do you do it until
a saturation point? 20 minutes. Oh, you'll do that for 20 minutes too.
20 minutes, sometimes 30, depending on the day.
Is the 20 because of the research that you found or is it a suggestion someone made?
Someone said 20, do 20 twice a day.
If you do it twice a day, do 20.
Yeah.
I used to do 45 minutes once a day in the morning.
And I just, I found that I need a little recharge, you know, my days are kind of busy and I very often go into like dinner meetings in the evening.
So I like that little charge up before I go out to dinner to, cause you're fried sometimes by six o'clock.
It's amazing.
Isn't amazing what even six minutes or 10 minutes will do of just getting quiet and the recovery system turns on
and you give yourself a chance. Yeah. It's like you took a nap. It feels better. Like, you know,
the neurochemistry exchange you get from a nap is different than when your mind is focused on
just one thing. And then when it's focused on something about gratitude or whatever, it just,
it feels different. It's not easy though. No, no. But you think, you know, I think about being like
your question a couple of minutes ago about, you know, what would you do differently?
Man, I mean, someone would like before football practice after a long day at school, a couple of tests, you would either had 10, 15 minutes.
The team would have done it or something like that.
Geez.
Oh, man.
How much better practices would have been?
Sounds like a good idea.
Yeah.
Maybe somebody should apply that to an nfl team in sports
okay cool so that you would start that um have you been able to influence your children
um in some sort of awareness mindfulness work slightly yeah i try not to i try not to
be it do too much you know because i i try to talk to them more about and you know not to do too much because I try to talk to them more about –
and not to blow smoke at you, but I've learned a lot from you on how you talk to players,
what I've learned from your podcast and your –
Yeah, thank you.
The videos I've seen of how to talk to players,
what's the conversation you're having with yourself.
So my sonason is a basketball
player and he's really good on defense and he's scared to death on offense so i've started having
this conversation since i watched your clip a few weeks ago about i asked him i said what what's
going on in your head when you're on offense and he he's 13. He's honest as it could be. He says, I'm scared.
And I said, well, all right, that's fine.
That's, I, I, I like celebrated that.
I was like, do you know how good that is that you know what the problem is?
Now you can go to work.
Let's go.
You know, he says, you know, don't be afraid, you know.
Afraid of looking bad?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Vulnerable.
That's it.
You know, I mean, that's, that's, Michael, that's so powerful.
Like you've got to be, as a leader, vulnerable. You've got to be afraid to make mistakes. You're never going to grow.
And that, that resonated with me. And so I've used that with him. And, um, you know, I,
my wife sent me a clip this afternoon. He made a little basket, you know,
here's a couple of ways you can maybe, can I, can I add some thoughts? Yeah, here we go. So there's,
um, why would he be afraid of looking bad?
It's likely something that he's picked up growing up.
And it's likely something that you or the other leaders, let's just say, you and the other leaders in his family would have said somehow, not purposely, but somehow given them the idea of what other people think of you
is really important. And you have a public image. So what people think of you is actually how you
earn a living. So there would be a natural, and this isn't unique to your family. This is unique
to most people, especially at the impressionable ages ages of a teenager that if you can help undo
some of that by replacing how he wants to feel rather than how he wants to look and
then get them really fired up about it.
Yeah.
So what does it feel like when you're at your best and just let him be the expert,
complete expert, because all he needs to do is imagine and remember times when he's been
on it.
What does it, what did that feel like?
So go feeling first and then see if you can get some words that describe it. Is it slanky? Is it
smooth? Is it, is it chill? Is it intense? Is it fire? Is it, you know, what is it like? Okay. So
get some words around it and then, and then back out of it, which is okay. Then from that place,
what does it sound like?
So you want to get feeling first and then sound like, what's it sound like in your head
when you're there?
Say, okay, listen, and there's two, three, four other steps, you know, that you could
help him with, but just those two main boulders is just, it might be a game changer.
And then you relentlessly, uncommonly so connect him to, you know, okay, I am supporting.
I don't care about the outcome.
I don't care what you look like.
I don't care anything.
But if you want to feel like a crouching dragon, get out there and kind of make that thing happen.
You know, whatever it looks like.
Who cares?
Like, let's go play and get into that feeling.
And there's so much freedom.
There's so much freedom that you can give him from the way he wants to feel because he's in control of that as opposed to how he wants to look.
I don't know if you know this, but I helped build a program with a nonprofit.
It was 1995, and it was taking insights from sport and performance psychology.
And it was every Saturday night.
And every Saturday night, I found some funding to open up a gym, three full basketball courts.
The first week I opened up, there was 130 guys in the gym.
And it was all high school and college age kids from all over Los Angeles that never had access to a gym.
They were either partying or whatever on Saturday nights or they're playing out in the streets, you know, under some light somewhere.
And so open up a gym, got some money, got some got got some resources together, brought a DJ in every Saturday night.
And then the price of admission was just to listen to me for for just a few minutes.
And I barely knew what I was talking about.
I still still barely do.
And so I just talked for a few minutes and was able, what I worked out over the course
of 17 years is that the talent in this gym was unbelievable.
Some of the best hoopers in Los Angeles were there and it was full and it was intense.
And in 17 years, we only had four fights.
Now, you know, basketball, there's, there's right.
Like that's a testosterone filled, right.
And this is Los
Angeles, uh, four fights in 17 years. And I love that because there's four fights in the neighborhood,
you know, court with grown men, you know, per month or whatever. Like, you know, it's ridiculous
sometimes. And why is it? Because what we were teaching at the first few minutes, and I'm talking
five, seven minutes is, was about how do you become the best?
What's it look like to be your best?
What's it feel like to be your best first?
And just saturating them with those concepts.
And then we'd wrap around them every week.
We'd wrap around new concepts and mental skills that they can support that feeling.
And this is what I found.
I didn't realize this, that over that 17 years, the talent in the gym was unbelievable. And what they couldn't do is they couldn't get connected to what it felt like because they were so consumed about the way they looked.
And they'd rather look cool and miss than be ugly and make it.
And that's why they were not on an NCAA Division I program.
So anyways, sorry for all of that. No, that's great. Yeah, I think, division one program. So anyways, yeah. Sorry. Sorry.
Sorry for all of that. Yeah. I think that, um, that's great stuff.
Just a nice little pivot there. Yeah. Okay. Listen, we've been rolling. I,
I, where, where can people support anything that you're up to? Where can,
where can they find them? Where can they support you? Uh,
timryan.gov. Uh, just Google me, you know,
I have a campaign website. I have a campaign website.
I have an official website.
And I wrote a book, A Mindful Nation, which is about mindfulness practices in the military, schools, healthcare.
And then wrote a book, Real Food Revolution, on retooling the food system.
You know what?
So, yeah.
I had forgotten about that.
Is that, is that newer or a couple of years?
Yeah. So I need to pick that up.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's how to retool the food system and get healthy food into our schools and look
at you and I can't even figure out how to get one book together.
You cracked two of them out.
You're changing the country.
They just kind of ran out, ran out together.
So good job.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's fun.
And then last question, how do you, and then social media, what is it? It's a, at Tim,
at Tim Ryan. I should know this, right? Yeah. Yeah. At Tim Ryan is my campaign. And then at
rep Ryan, I think is my official. Okay. And then, um, how do you articulate or define or think about mastery?
Like today, as, as you and I are talking and you conjure up all of the, the, the ways that you
think about the path or not even the path, just the concept mastery. How do you talk about it?
And the first thing that comes to my mind is the hard work. Like there's no other way around it.
And I tell my son it there's no easy way
like you know he's scared on offense right you just got shoot he's got to
keep practice and there's no other way around it being good in school being
good in sports being a good husband it's hard work well you and you can only earn
the right to be good or and or great at being you when you can declutter, get to the signal, and you got to go through some stuff to know that you can trust yourself.
So that hard work puts you in harm's way.
If you're going to work really hard and take some risks, you're going to deal with some stuff.
But you build confidence.
You can see the athletes or the politicians or leaders who are just confident because they, because they know the material, they, they are masters of the material.
They understand the subject matter. And so when they call the play,
even if it's wrong, they feel like they know more than anybody else.
And even if they're wrong, no one else could have made a better call than that.
Cause I know it better. I know better than anybody.
And I'm willing to live with it.
That's where preparation, you know, the effort and dedication for preparation and then the
commitment to take a risk. And what you just described is the skills, the internal skills
to be able to manage when it doesn't go the way that you hoped. Yeah. Yeah. All of that.
And sports, sports provides such a great opportunity for that.
How come sports isn't one of your kind of platforms?
I don't know. It probably should kind of platforms? I don't know.
It probably should be.
No, I don't know.
Because I have enough already, maybe.
Why don't we fire back that program up somehow?
Which one?
The one I was just describing.
I just ran out of bandwidth to keep it alive, but that's actually what I did my dissertation on.
Is that right?
Yeah.
So there's a curriculum written and there's some real research around beginnings, scratching of beginnings research.
But when I was talking about it, I've realized that I probably, I don't know, I just came animated with it because I loved what I was able to see and feel in those times.
But yeah, it's surprising that sports not something that you're hubbing right around.
Yeah. not something that you're hobbing right around. Yeah, I mean, maybe it should be. You know, because it is such a great
tool to
educate because you've got the competition.
And even football,
you know, you get knocked down. You get
knocked down physically.
You know, you don't just get emotionally hurt
and mentally hurt. You get
knocked down and you've got to get
back up. And there's
some grit that you need for that you know
that that when you just get yourself emotionally hurt i had a really tough basketball coach when
i was in high school and he hurt my feelings i mean he just he was tough he was old school guy
you know i grew up in northeast ohio i was old school football coaches old school basketball
coaches like from back in the day because they they played in the heyday of sports in Ohio.
So they learned the hard way.
So they brought a lot of that.
And he hurt my feelings, man.
He just would.
I could remember I walked into a gym we played in in high school the other day
for my son's seventh grade game.
And all these memories came conjuring back when he threw my ass out of the huddle and made me go stand at the end of the hallway as a sophomore and made a couple turnovers in a row.
He hurt my feelings.
He did.
And still hurt them because you just walked into the gym and they were still there.
Yeah, it was like came back, you know.
And I think, you know, when I'm – he prepared me, you know, for crazy town hall meetings when people are screaming and yelling like, I think I can handle this.
Like Coach Jazz like ripped me a new one when I was 14 years old and I made it through that.
So this is like nothing, you know.
Inoculation.
Yeah, you learn.
You know, you build a resiliency.
You build the grittiness.
You're prepared.
You're ready to go.
And there's part of in politics, mastery is how do you handle
public scenarios where people are coming after you? That's a part of mastery. And that came from
all those experiences. Love it. Yeah. Tim, thanks, man. It's great. Yeah. It's great to see you.
Great to see you. Yeah. Appreciate it. So whatever we can do to help support, you know,
your journey into success, trying to figure out the education system, nutrition.
What was the third variable?
Education, nutrition and health care.
Sorry.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Hit them up on social.
Empty your pockets out.
Put them somewhere where it's appropriate for you to on the dot gov site.
Is that on the other side?
On the other side.
Which one is that? Tim Ryan other site on the other which one is that uh
tim ryan for congress okay perfect and then um thank you for paying attention to this podcast
and i love having your feedback so great man yeah i love it i mean i'm buying books off your
recommendations and so you could really help me if we could talk like you know once a day
and you can like coach me up we'll be good i. I'll be president. We're on point. Let's go. Okay. So, uh, finding mastery.net for more
information. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being part of this. Um, at some point we're
going to be able to figure out, uh, um, how to, how to fund this. So it moves forward. And then
on iTunes, please make sure that, um, you you write a review. It helps figure us.
It helps to support us to be top of mind for people.
So everyone, thank you very much.
Thank you, Tim, for paying attention and being a great man.
Yes, sir.
All right.
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