Good Life Project - Todd Herman: What Really Drives Elite Performance?

Episode Date: December 12, 2016

How did a kid who grew up on a farm in Alberta, Canada end up an elite performance coach to Olympic athletes and CEOs?This is the story of today's guest, performance savant and founder The 90 Day Year, Todd Herman.Did Todd get an advanced degree? Nope. Did he write a bestselling book? Again, no. Was he hyper-connected to high-level gatekeepers and influencers? Not unless you consider horses and other farm animals to be conduits to greatness.Then how did he end up the go-to person at the highest levels of sport and business? The answer lies in the same relentless drive that let him launch a packed consulting practice from a cold start by talking his way into speaking 68 times in 90 days.Todd is one of the most focused and productive people we've ever met. He honed his skills over nearly two decades working with many of the top performing athletes in the world, before making a pretty radical shift to online education with the creation of his accelerated productivity training, The 90 Day Year.In this week's conversation, we dive into his upbringing on a ranch in the middle of Canada, with thousands of acres to roam. We explore his jones to leave the ranch at a very early age and his more recent awakening to an unshakeable connection with the land. We talk about his lens on performance and deconstruct that whole 68 talks in 90 days strategy. We also talk about the interplay between elite performance, happiness, preparation and fulfillment.For anyone who has wondered about closing the gap between reality and potential, this is a don't miss an episode! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey there, it's Jonathan. So are you as much of an audiobook junkie as I am? Because I've started to listen to them an awful lot. It's this amazing way for me to go deep to learn a whole bunch of stuff and also just to have fun when I'm kind of between places. So I love podcasts and I start to listen to audiobooks a lot more. So I wanted to let you know, if you like that, that my new book, How to Live a Good Life, is actually available now as an audiobook. You can grab it wherever audiobooks are sold. Audible, Amazon, iTunes, all the normal places. And I also narrated that.

So if you're cool with my voice on the podcast, then hopefully you would enjoy that narrating a book as well. So if that sounds interesting to you, go check it out. I hope you will find it super valuable. And now turning it over to the rest of our show. I'm here for a specific reason, and that's to help you get better results period and it's not going to be comfortable because the whole point of getting new results in life

means you got to be pushing into new zones where you've never been before so I'm here to push you and I'll give you the tools along the way but it's not going to be easy hey there it's Jonathan back with a conversation on Good Life Project. So I've wanted to sit down with today's guest for some time now. He's a friend of mine, Todd Herman. And if you read Todd's about page on his website, this is one of the things that I love. It's funny, it actually lines up in interesting ways with me. He leads with, he's a husband, a father, and a son. And then a sports enthusiast, a farm boy from Alberta, Canada. He literally grew up on this massive sort of open farm, like ranch.

And then somewhere down the road, he gets to the fact that actually he has this long-time career as an elite performance coach for top Olympic athletes and executives, somebody who really focuses in on helping people perform at the absolute top of whatever game and business and life and athletics and art they're pursuing. That has been his mad passion for his entire adult life. And it's been where he's focused for the vast majority of his life. I have always been super fascinated by and curious by how this kid who grew up literally in the wilds of Canada ended up in this super high performance, high pressure, sometimes massively high stress and high stakes world and made a name for himself there. So I sat down with him and we traced this journey. He still works in private practice, but he's kind of broadened his lens out these days and he's been building programming. He runs something called the 90 day year, which is this really cool sort of hyper productivity training to teach people how to do

astonishing amounts in a ridiculously short period of time. We'll be sure to link to that in the show notes as well. Really excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch,

getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun.

On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight Risk.

So we're hanging out here, Good Life Project HQ, and you're doing some really fascinating stuff, which I want to get to in the world of performance, expertise, and just making

amazing stuff happen. You came out of a profoundly different environment than you're existing in now. You grew up in, basically on a ranch in Canada? Yeah, farm and ranch. All right, so take me there. Yeah, so farm and ranch in the southeastern corner of Alberta, which if people understand

Canada a little bit, maybe they know where Calgary is or the Rocky Mountains. So it's way on the western side. But where I grew up, there's no mountains around me and there's no trees. It's a pretty barren landscape. Lots of hills though. And yeah, it was a very, very large farm. Single family, like single family owned farm, which people who don't understand farms, I guess I just said something that doesn't even matter. But our family ran it. We didn't have employees or anything like that.

And I'm the third boy. So dad always said he kept on having kids because he needed some free labor and so uh but it was great i mean i looking back i loved it uh i loved it that i got that experience uh growing up on a big farm and we've got a close family but at the time i felt like a fish out of water when i was growing up i always just couldn't wait to leave and get to, well, New York City, where we are right now. What was it? What was inside that was doing that? Well, my nana, my mom's mom, chalked it up to when I was about eight years old, she said, you are your great-grandma.

And she's like 75% gypsy. Cause I always just couldn't wait to get to, I was never kind of happy with where I was standing. I always needed to get to the next thing. I was always like hyper active and needed to go, go, go. And so I think it was some,

it was, I think I'm going to find out who I am, what I'm made of when I get to a bigger city. Like I know there's so many things that were going on with that. I just, I just, I wasn't enamored with the farm life. Looking back, I loved it. But in the moment, I didn't as much. So.

I mean, so often, like, I mean, that's everybody as a kid. I think you, you know, there's so much that you're angsty and you feel like the circumstance is the thing that's causing all the angst and you can't wait to get away from it. Yeah. But on that note, I, cause I had the just juxtaposition was big for me because my, one of my older brothers, Ryan, he, when he was born, he was immediately put into the tractor and like, that's the only place he ever wanted to be, was be on the farm. Now he went away and got an agricultural economics degree, but he came back home to take over the farm and like that's the only place he ever wanted to be was be on the farm now he went away and got an agricultural economics degree but he came back home to take over the farm and ranch and so he always wanted to be there he knew that that was the place that he wanted to be and so

that i was like well but i don't want that he had so much clarity behind what he wanted and i didn't back then and that was really frustrating for me yeah it was the source of tension between you oh yeah we didn't get along very well at all we were so opposites um he's the quiet leader i'm the you know massive extrovert gregarious person and which frustrated the hell out of him but some of that was you know i looked up to him and i would because i wish i had had that thing. I wish I had that. I had that one singular focus that I, that's what I want for the rest of my life. And he had that and I didn't. And it was frustrating. So I was like, okay, well, I'll find it in New York city or some other place than right here where I'm

standing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and not an uncommon thing also, um, because it is, it's so interesting when you find people, especially when you're younger, younger who have like they know they're one thing from the time that they're really young age we so often think that that's the norm and if we're not that yeah there's something wrong with us and like we are we're never going to be okay we're never going to be satisfied until we find that one thing yeah like you know the famous line in uh city slickers curly one thing yeah oh i i i totally agree with you and now you know, the famous line in a series like there's curly one thing. Yeah. Oh, I, I, I totally agree with you.

And now, you know, being on the other side of the fence and, you know, having 40 years underneath my belt, I guess now it's, yeah, I don't know where those things come from. Like, why, why do we, maybe it's school where we beat kids in, like, do you know what you're going to go to do in school? Or, but we pick up on these complete untruths about life very early and we internalize them and then we think that we're bad individuals because we don't have clarity i guess but yeah so what about brother number three so i'm the third oldest and i got a younger sister but my oldest brother ross he again

he's back in my hometown area, like working on the farm and helping out as well. Yeah. So you're the one that kind of like broke out. Yeah. I am that, I'm that classic black sheep, you know, everyone's anxious for me and my family obviously now to come back home. But the first question after about five hours of me being in the house is my mom will always

say, so when are you leaving again? And it's a bit of basically more of a joke now. Yeah, but I mean, we've had conversations recently where you're coming full circle to a certain extent. Because I guess you're kind of coming to the realization that there was something that was really profoundly joyful about that time. Yeah, to the point. Yeah, so we're looking at buying maybe a a small farm in the you know upstate new york area and a place where i can do you know some of the big workshop or the workshops that i do as well with people but my little girls full circle they are totally cut from dad's you know farm dna cloth

so maybe it's skipped a generation with me but they, all they want to do is be around horses and cows and anything farm animally. And, you know, they have, they're living in New York City and they don't know the difference of what they might be missing. But when we get out of the city, the first things we do and what they want to go do is go to some sort of hobby farm or some of the cute little places that are around the area to go and play. What do you think, looking back at it and also looking at how your kids respond to that now, what do you think it is about that environment that just so, it's like makes you feel tapped in?

Is it the physicality of it? Is it like losing yourself in work? Is it character building? Is it just nature? I mean, is it just yes? Well, having grown up on the farm and having taken people back to where I grew up, I mean, when I took my wife there who grew up here in New York for the first time, the words that she kept on saying over and over and over again, because it was just this, I mean, we have this mass expanse of space, I mean, thousands upon thousands of acres. All she kept on saying was, I just want to go and frolic. Like, I just want to go and frolic. Like, I just want to go and frolic in the, like,

and so there is this sort of opening of maybe the spirit or something that might happen. But I think that the one thing that it does is it also challenges your creativity because in New York City here, you're just hyper inundated with stuff and things to do and things to look at. Whereas,

you know, out in nature and especially in a vast expanse of space, it challenges you to think up your, use your own imagination, I think in many ways. I mean, that's what it does for me. Yeah.

It's like this vast blank palette. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I know it's interesting. I mean, for me, nature is just a huge reset. It's where I go. Yeah. Just my heart rate dropped, my blood pressure drops, Yeah, yeah. whether it's hiking or just climbing or when I was a kid.

I grew up in a suburb of New York City, but on random days you would find me in my backyard chopping wood. It tells you a little bit about right away. It's like, dude doesn't fit in. But there's something about just being physical in nature. To me, that is so powerful. That is still a big part of just our evolution, too. I mean, even though we're all sitting down in chairs most of the time, or many people, even right now, people are listening.

They're sitting down probably somewhere. Maybe they're walking, if they're lucky. But it's still hard-coded inside of us. We haven't unshackled ourselves from that part of our evolution that we are physical people. And it's such a great outlet when we're out there. Yeah. You also, you had horses on the farm? We had horses, Cracker Jack, Midnight, and Socks were our three horses. Midnight was a pain in the ass because she was black shetland pony and uh not easy to ride but cracker jack was this great thoroughbred that you could put a baby on her back and she would

you know take care of that baby there yeah so i grew up riding horses yeah yeah and you guys listening can't see this but the smile that just like appeared on your face yeah talking about the horses it's telling they were good and well especially cracker jack she was a special horse yeah it's interesting i've met a few people over the last few years that work with horses and have It's telling. They were good. Well, especially Cracker Jack. She was a special horse. Yeah. It's interesting. I've met a few people over the last few years that work with horses and have told me that they've used a nearly identical phrase saying that horses are natural healers, that they're deeply intuitive and that they'll reflect whatever energy you bring to them, they'll reflect back to you.

Was that your experience? Yeah, that. But my experience of horses was more just how I was taught about them from the ranchers and cowboys that I was around. And it was that because we were allowed. We had such a huge piece of land that we were allowed to just go ride around. And at a very early age, I always remember dad or some of my uncles or friends say, if you ever get lost, just tell crackerjack to go home and she'll take you home and so one thing that people don't realize about horses is if you ever

got lost in like the mountains just let the horse roam because they will find it's they will naturally find its way home if you tried to force it you're just gonna steer them away from their natural instinct. And so my kind of lens on horses is they're just natural caretakers of you. And so, and then being around horses for a long time and meeting really fascinating people and know how they're used in therapy for other people, whether it's, you know, people with mental disorders or behavioral disorders and just how amazing they are with all people. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because a conversation comes to mind of somebody who I know who has developed and has worked with horses

on a therapeutic basis for kids with autism, varying degrees of autism, all the way up to dysfunctional executive teams and companies. And they're like, there's this normalizing thing where it's sort of like you get what you need out of the experience on either end of the spectrum. Yeah. Well, on that note, you bring in executives who are trying to be type A. You try to be type A around a horse.

Good luck with that. They are. They're good at normalizing and sort of putting people in their place. I love that. You're also a pretty athletic kid, from what I remember. Yeah. Yeah, super athletic. I mean, there was nothing else to do other than, if I wasn't going to be playing sports,

it meant that I was probably going to have some chores and things like that to do. So, I wanted to be active in playing lots of sports and super competitive and having an older brothers who would beat you up you know so sports is totally in my outlet and volleyball was my big thing and then I became a nationally ranked badminton player and then when I got to high school I started playing football and then got a football scholarship as well all right so you-up, sort of like a rugged guy on a farm with horses, nationally ranked badminton player? I know.

Not that I love badminton. I know. But it just… That's why I throw that one out there because it's a head-turner. People are like, really? Head badminton? Well, so it's environment and it's people. So my small little rural school that I went to, Shuler, Alberta, we had like a maximum enrollment from kindergarten to grade nine.

From any of the years that I was there, about 65 people. And probably 30 of them were my cousins. So one of my teachers, though, Mr. Henderson, he was an exceptional athlete as well. But badminton was one of his sports. So when we had our gym classes, badminton was always a big, you know, one of the big sports that we would play. And, you know, growing up in Canada, you got a lot of gym time. You're not going to be outside as much. So you played a lot of more indoor sport activities.

And, you know, the school division I was in, there was a lot of badminton that happened there. So it was just sort of a byproduct of environment. And while I loved team sports, I really liked individual challenging sports. And so, yeah, badminton just happened to be the game that I picked up. That's funny. I was a gymnast also, which was played as a team sport, but individual event-based. It was like the same thing. I was just, it was about that similar mindset.

So when you had the opportunity to leave, where'd you go? I actually got out early. I'm like 14. I started kind of living on my own-ish a little bit, living with my aunts and uncles because I was involved in swimming. And so I became a lifeguard. And I was trying to become hired as a lifeguard because the money was great. Plus, I mean, it's lifeguarding.

I mean, get to be around girls and all these things. And so I was volunteering to try to earn up a bunch of enough hours and just visibility in that world. And then I ended up becoming a lifeguard. So I kind of would live about half of the year with my aunt and uncle and then half the year at home. But when I finally left after high school, I went to Edmonton, Alberta, played football at the university, but washed out after a year because it just wasn't my jam. I just, I started a side business while I was in university. I was learning way more from that than it was in my, you know, economics classes. And so, you know, sort of tapped into my rebellious ways and wanting to, I was always really good

at finding the hardest way to do something instead of possibly finding an easier path. But yeah, so I went to Edmonton and was there for several years and then ended up traveling all over the place, living around the world with some of the businesses that I started. So what were some of those businesses? Well, first was, the first thing I tried to do was build agramal.com, which was a, uh, like an eBay before eBay. This is 94, 95. Internet was just starting. And I was like,

I grew up on a farm and every single farm kid will tell you that all of us have these machinery graveyards, these places where old machinery go to die. And I always thought it's really weird. Cause that's, that's useful to somebody growing up. I was always, it always frustrated me that we had this.

And so I was like, I'm going to start this place called agramall.com where farmers and ranchers can sell all of their scrap machinery. I mean, that's going to be a huge business because there's all these. Meanwhile, not thinking this through, they're not typically the first technology early adopters, right? And this is back when like there's 56k modems you know on forums and you know you hear like those tones oh yeah and this is before there's even video on the web and i was like oh we can do like live auctions on there and

then we can turn it into eventually we'll do cattle auctions and i mean i wasn't even thinking about the fact that there's total government regulations around the world about transferring cattle across borders and stuff but it was an amazing learning experience for me on the importance of validation and, you know, depending on how big your idea is, how much capital you need to get it going. And so, while I was starting that business, I was working in restaurants and being a waiter and then I did some management and I ended up winning restaurant manager of the year for the big company that I was working for. And I met a mentor around that time and he was challenging me on like, what are you going to do with this? What are your goals? He was asking me all these questions that no one had ever asked me before about what I wanted to do with my life. So he challenged me

to go do three things after I had met him. And I went and did those three things. And I started doing sort of hospitality consulting, like how to build amazing teams that grow a great business. So that was my first business was doing that hospitality consulting. So did you have in your head at that time, because you've been doing a relatively short period of time, but you won the award. Yeah.

Was there anything in you that said, I'm not worthy or I'm not ready? Big time. Like that was my biggest, my biggest hiccup was I looked like I was 13, 12 years old. I always had a super baby face and I was like, okay, well, I've had some success, but my big thing was I wasn't focused on the success I had and my ideas around why we had such great teams. It was focused on the self like i was pointing my finger back at myself the entire time saying you know like no one's going to listen to you so it was all total imposter syndrome type stuff you know who are you to talk about this

yet you haven't written a book yet for some reason i thought that in order for you to be successful you being a consultant through a speaker you had to have a book like that was the thing and to this day i still defy the odds of being successful without a book so um but yeah that was a huge a huge obstacle for me to overcome so was it the sort of like the invitation slash challenge from your mentor to like go do this that pushed you past that to just take action or was it 100 because i probably wouldn't have done it right i wouldn't have done it because one thing that he'd said was you know if i'm sitting in an audience i'm not sitting there thinking how old this person is i'm sitting there thinking am i getting any value and even then it's a very subconscious thought

like it's just but if you're delivering value then who cares basically where it's coming from you might have some people who might you know on credibility, but then just don't go there. Don't make that a big part of your process that you're saying, in all my experience. It's amazing to me how many people I've had conversations with where somebody touched down in their lives at a moment and became a mentor, a teacher, a guide, a coach, and everything changed. And that person may not even have been there for very long. Totally. But they were there long enough to create a paradigm change in the way that somebody saw the world and took action. I couldn't probably count the number of times that that's happened, you know, and, and I think I'm fortunate there, but I think it's also a byproduct of, I keep on putting myself into positions where those opportunities can happen.

So I think I've had great moments like that more so than other people, just in talking to other people, because we talked about this and, and you're right, like like many people have that experience i just think i've had an inordinate amount of them but also it's i had a when i was 15 mr henderson again he challenged me with um pulling me aside because i was a really good athlete i knew i was a good athlete but i was a terrible teammate like i was overly competitive and it's okay to be super competitive but don't be overly competitive where you're pointing the finger constantly other people and belittling or whatever and that was my thing like i was just i was just a shitty teammate really and he challenged me on that and he's like you know listen you're gonna do good things in sport you're gonna probably get your scholarship or whatever but no one's gonna like coaching you because you're not coachable

you don't listen everything's your way you think you know more than everyone else and so he challenged and he gave me a book but he didn't leave me in that spot right he then he gave me a tool right i think that's key i think that's key from being a good mentor is you can break people down it's okay i think it's okay that's a big part of what i is you can break people down. It's okay. I think it's okay. That's a big part of what I do. You can break, but you then also need to give them something to take away and use or, you know, try to help extend that paradigm shift. And that's what that one mentor did when he said, go do these three things. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here.

It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum.

Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing.

Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. Yeah. I mean, it's amazing.

In a very past life, I was a lawyer. And first year of law school is notorious for destroying you. Because their job is to basically, like, they have people come in from all walks of life, some very established in their career, some green out of undergrad. Yeah. And they kind of want to normalize the playing field and also let everyone know, like, you don't know anything. We're going to teach you how to think completely differently. But to do that, first they have to kind of – they have to crash a lot of people to that level where they're open to actually – And I had the classic movie contract professor who terrified, absolutely terrified.

People cried in that class on a regular basis. And what I learned is exactly what you're saying, though. The professors who were really good did that, but that was the starting point for them. They knew that they were doing it for, some of them did it because I think they just enjoyed doing it. The ones that I really came to believe were extraordinary, they did it in a way where there was some compassion, but at the same time, you were cracked open. You were like, wow, I do not know how to do this, and I don't know how to speak, I don't know how to think.

And then they took you by the hand and they said, now I'm going to teach you how to do this. I'm going to teach you a rational analytic process. I'm going to teach you how to argue. I'm going to teach you how to write in an intelligent, structured, articulate way. I'm curious what your experience has been because to me, I noticed the difference between the professors who did that and the ones who just kind of left you hanging. Yeah. And it's been my experience that I've seen a lot more of the latter in general in life with people who touch down. And I wonder why.

My sense is that it's much easier to create that disruptive experience and almost get people to rally about, this is what we don't want anymore. Like, crack things rally about this is what we don't want anymore. Yeah. Like crack things open and this is what we don't want anymore. I think it's much harder to create an intelligent, deliberate, like methodical path forward. Yeah. Then, and so a lot of people I think aren't willing to go there. Yeah. I don't know.

What, what's your thinking around that? Well, I mean, i'll never forget one of the things my papa said to me because this kind of was again a part of my personality he'd said to me you know there's two types of construction people in the world there's construction workers who tear buildings down there's construction workers who build buildings up that's all he said he didn't he didn't turn it into a you know moral of the story type thing he just let it fall flat which i think is brilliant because i would have probably extended the the thing and said so and i ruminated on it i think it's about 13 at the time and yeah it's harder to build

it's harder to build it's easy to down. So the people who are just like breaking someone down for the sake of breaking someone down, maybe it's, you know, ego enjoyment or whatever. That's so easy to do. It's so easy to point out. It's another thing to actually have to extend your thought process through that moment and say, okay, so now that I've actually brought this person to the ground, what's the first step that I can give them? Or what's the second one and the third one? That's hard because that means you have to have a competency or you have to have some sort of wisdom around that, that moment that you've just done with that person essentially.

And I think that's one thing that just having self-awareness, I think it's one thing that I know I do well. Cause I say to people, we were talking about this beforehand where when I'm working with people, I tell them, listen, I'm not here to coach you on happiness. It's so funny that we're sitting down, right? Because that's what we're laughing at. Because I don't care.

That's a you thing, not a me thing. What I am here to do is to help you perform. And if you internalize that after you've been performing at a higher level and getting better results, that you're happy with that. That's a you thing. That's you telling yourself a story that you're happy with. But I'm going to leave that up to you. I'm here's a you thing. That's you telling yourself a story in that is that you're happy with, but I'm going to leave that up to you. I'm here for a specific reason and that's to help you get better results, period. And it's not going to be comfortable because the whole point of getting

new results in life means you're going to be pushing into new zones where you've never been before. And so I'm here to push you and I'll give you the tools along the way, but it's not going to be easy. Yeah. I want to deconstruct that with you a little bit. Do you equate happiness with fulfillment? I actually, I can say I probably haven't thought enough about it to even give you a good answer. How do you think of them as different or exclusive?

So to me, happiness is fleeting. Happiness is a momentary state. That's more about pleasure, whereas fulfillment is more about meaning. And it's enduring. It's more of a, you know, happiness is a snapshot. You know, fulfillment is the movie, and hopefully it's the movie of your life, although you can ebb and flow in and out of it. Yeah. So the curiosity is, to me, I tend to agree that trying to directly pursue happiness in everything you do is, there's interesting research that actually shows that very often it makes you less happy. That actually doing other things, like deepening into relationships that are meaningful, all these other things, you do those and as a byproduct of those things, you dip into these moments of

happiness but what you create is a more pervasive lasting sense of this life is good yeah there's a sense of meaning there's a sense of connection there's a purposefulness the reason i'm asking you is because i'm curious how do you have that same answer to if somebody if i said um like my job is purely to help you with performance and i don't care at all about um fulfillment yeah no i wouldn't okay yeah because in my head now that you've explained it that way in my head that's how i always had happiness equated was it's just fleeting moments that's all it is it's here it's there because a big part of my work in sports we didn't really talk about it but owning the peak athlete for 19 years doing sports science work with you know athletes and teams and working with them on the mental game because again that came down to

i'm trying to help you perform when it counts on the field of play in those moments um so that all of your competencies and skills and what you've practiced so hard on comes out at that moment, not an hour afterwards when you say, if I would have just, or focused or relaxed more, I would have been able to perform. So that's all about being present. You got to be present in the moment. And so when you're describing fulfillment, I think that's being far more connected to being present where you're at.

So that is, I'm totally on board with that. If someone said, yeah, but do you care about my fulfillment? Totally. But again, like fulfillment for me is like you fulfilling every single ounce of, you know, what you've got inside of you comes out in how you show up on the field of play. That's where I'm pretty, I guess, strict, I guess, with how I work with people in that.

I want to know what you did, not what you're thinking about doing. I think that there's, those are two very, very, very different things. Thinking about calling my mom and telling her that I love her and calling my mom and telling her my,

I love her. Those are two different possibilities that get created. One is not a possibility at all. calling my mom and telling her that I love her and calling my mom and telling her I love her, those are two different possibilities that get created. One is not a possibility at all. The other one's just caught up in the self. The other one's putting it out there and seeing what happens. That's where magic happens. Yeah. I completely agree with you there. One of the perpetual conversations I have with people who are generally in the earliest stages or they're aspiring entrepreneurs is get out of your head. Put it into the real world. There's a little bit of value in conceiving the idea.

And then the moment you have enough of a thread to actually validate or invalidate by just putting it into the world and let people interact with it, continuing to actually have that conversation in your head is not only self defeating for you, for a lot of people, but it's also it's defeating for the idea because you can actually just know if it's legit or not, and then make decisions based on that. Let's fill in a gap here, though, because we kind of jumped into like, conversation around expertise. You ended up sort of from your early days transitioning into becoming somebody who is a consultant, not just in building expert teams in the restaurant industry, but actually in expert performance,

in super high level, elite level performance. So how did that happen? Like most things, like for me anyway, pretty accidental. This story actually ties it in. When I was talking about when my teacher, Mr. Hendersonerson pulled me aside and gave me that book on leadership in that book was a conversation about the mind about the human mind the book on leadership actually i don't recall him being very good but it sent me down this rabbit hole about understanding okay well what's this whole mental side of um life really more general. And I just started to hone this inner game thing.

And I really fell into learning about how to get into the zone and flow state consistently. So that was one of my superpowers in sport was I could get into the zone, almost at the drop of a hat. And when I got done playing at college level, I was volunteering at a high school and spending more time talking to the football kids about the six inches between their ears, you know, saying, listen, like, you don't need to do more cone drills, you know, more wind sprints. That's not going to help you really right now. You're already a good physical athlete where you're lacking is in your game preparation, your routine. And it doesn't show you're like all this potential quote-unquote that you have isn't showing up on the field and i just again at this time i was reading like deep research papers on the mind what not like non-fiction books i'm talking like the stuff where the source it came from and then a friend of mine who uh runs a lot of hockey academy or runs a big hockey academy

in canada trains tons of nhl hockey players like the pros he said you know so much about the mind would you mind coming into a workshop with these kids on this stuff? So I was like, yeah, sure. So I went in, not paid. I just loved talking about it and did a couple of workshops with them. These kids started getting great results, not necessarily on the ice right away. It was actually in school. One kid in particular went from 29% average in school to 64% within six weeks. And then, and he was in grade nine. And then by the time he left high school, three years later, he was on the honor roll throughout. And it was just like shifting his perception of, you know, what his possibilities were and who he was. So anyways, these kids

started to get these great results. And these parents started coming up to me and saying like, hey, you know, so much more, would you mentor my son or daughter? And I was like, yeah, sure. And they were like, well, how much? And I was like, um, $75 for three sessions. Like it was, I completely signed myself up to be in poverty basically with my business model. But, uh, from that, I was like, are these people just hiring me because they know, and they like Todd Herman, they met me and through their kids, or is this actually a real business? Cause I never really heard of someone who was a mental game person. So I was like, I'm going to validate this. And I resolved I was going to do it through speaking.

Cause I already had that skillset from being a four H kid growing up. I was not afraid to go on stages. So I tried to do as many speeches in 90 days as I could throughout the province of Alberta. And I ended up doing by the end of it, 68 speeches in 90 days. And you know, no one in that province, you were just one person away from knowing who I was. And there's another story about how I got all those speeches. And it was actually very simple. But yeah, so I started that.

And I never basically, that was 19 years ago. I never had to market that business since because I created so much good marketing lift in the beginning that there was so much word of mouth. And then I ended up working with pro athletes really quickly because of just this permeating effect from that work. Plus it also helped that I was in Alberta, you know, and Canada,

you know, huge hockey country and everyone had a relative that was probably playing pro. So, yeah, so that's how it started. And then it just kept on escalating from there. Okay. So you mentioned, we could probably talk

about how you actually got and ended up with 68 gigs in 90 days yeah we can go there for a few minutes yeah we can um that's a big lingering question i'm sure for a lot of listeners yeah so 68 speeches in 90 days so starting out i called the two people who i know who could get me a speech or a workshop and by the way i wasn't asking to get paid in the beginning. This was all about me validating the idea, not about making money. And that's an important distinction. So I called up Eric and I called up another gentleman,

both who ran hockey associations. And I said, Hey, you know, I've got this talk. I'd love to come in and give to the association or to the, to the kids on the triune athlete, the mentally,

emotionally, and physically tough athlete that develops strong leaders, not only on the ice, but off the ice. And you know, it's 60 minutes or 90 minutes, depending on what people's availability are. Do you think I could come in and do something? And both of them said,

yeah. So that was within the first two weeks. So I went in and when I did the talk, I would always end up the exact same way. I said, Oh, and then one thing I asked is I'll do the speech for free, but only if at least one parent from each of the kids is in the room. And I needed that because I had a bad business from the very beginning because the people who were receiving the service and people who were paying for it were two different people.

So I went in to the talk. And then at the end of it, I would say, listen, I know a lot of you parents, you've got other kids who are playing other teams or they're playing in other sports. So if any of you want me to come out and do a talk to them, I'd love to do it. And I'm doing these for free for the next 90 days, because I really think's on this swim team or my son is on this other soccer team. And, you know, could you come out? And that just snowballed from there. So, you know, those first couple of speeches, yeah, it took another week or two weeks before the next one would happen. But by the end, I was doing like three workshops a day. Yeah. But it wasn't like, this isn't magic.

Like, I wasn't sitting in front of like a big audience. Some of these talks were in sweaty locker rooms where only four of the kids stuck around because the parents didn't think that the message even was valid. It's so many things I want to unpack there, but we may have to have you back for round two. But what's so interesting to me is you and I both function, a chunk of our lives happens in the online sphere these days. And we both deal with a lot of people who are creating things. Yeah.

And what's so interesting to me is that so many people the the first resort when they want to validate an idea and then build just like the early early early parts of it is to eliminate human contact and take it a hundred percent yeah online let me just do it all in the digital space. And then nothing happens. And I've had so many conversations with young entrepreneurs, especially a lot of professionals also, who are really just looking to build a flourishing practice. Yeah.

And the conversation is, okay, you can actually probably do this in three to six months without touching the online world. And in fact, literally go out in your neighborhood, in three to six months without touching the online world. And in fact, literally go out in your neighborhood, have conversations with people, give all these small little talks and workshops. And it's so interesting to me that the internet giveth and it taketh. On the one hand, it flattens the world. It makes so much capable in terms of taking an idea and moving from idea to implementation to scale.

On the other hand, I've seen such a rush to do that, that we forget about like the fundamental human legwork on the ground in our neighborhood, face-to-face conversations that so often can both be more enjoyable, give you so much more soft data when you're trying to validate ideas or see how they need to be changed. And at the same time, it can build. I mean, that initial, it can move you to a tipping point astonishingly quickly if you're willing to actually just go out locally and be in a room with people and do it. Yeah. And so automatically, there's someone that's listening to this right now. They say, yeah, but I don't live in a big town.

I live off in some remote spot of Wyoming, or there's always a million excuses as to why someone won't go that route. Or they, like even me, I devote a portion of my week, I call 20 customers a week online. So now people who've never met me before, they don't know the platform that I have maybe, but I know I've got one of the bigger ones when it comes to the revenue that we bring into our, our business. And so there are so many people who just to your point, they want to completely eliminate human contact. They want to try and automate and systemize everything. And yet when you hear about how people at some of the top levels of any business, not just the online, like the quote unquote online education, they will do, they will spend more time than what the amateur is doing, talking to people like I want the real raw information. So for me, like one of the things

that when I came into the online space less than two years ago, teaching for entrepreneurs, essentially, I, on my first quote unquote launch, as soon as the order came in, I was calling. Hey, Jonathan, it's Todd from the 90-year calling. And whatever the response is, and I go, listen, before we get any further, why did you hire me? What is the problem that you saw that I could help solve? That stuff is absolute gold. You can surmise in your own head why you think what your promises of your program, but the stuff that you get back,

you can't beat it. And it's, and it's conversational. It's conversational. It's using the words. It's not typed into some sort of survey that is still pretty, you know, hermetically sealed in some ways with the way that people respond.

No, I get the raw data and it's extremely valuable. But so I devote a portion of my week still to making sure, and I'll never stop doing that people respond. No, I get the raw data and it's extremely valuable. But so I devote a portion of my week still to making sure, and I'll never stop doing that. Yeah. Yeah. It makes so much sense. And also you get, not just will people tell you things that they might not tell you, but

also you get those data points of tone and inflection and pace and energy that are very likely vastly more important in understanding what's going on and what's going wrong than the actual words that are said. And we lose that when we move, just when we strip it and make it purely digital. Life is in the nuance. Yeah. Life is in the nuance.

And so when someone says something, it gives you the chance to go, wait, what do you mean X, Y, Z? Or tell me more about that. You can't do a tell me more about that online with a survey or something like that. Yeah. What's funny though, is that that's, that's sort of the move in the online space is to try and automate and system ties that sort of branched conversations and things like that. Yeah. Anyway, I don't want to go too deep down that rabbit hole because this is,

it's not a show about online business, but I think it's fascinating. And the bigger concept is really just spend time with people. Don't strip the humanity out of, no matter what you're trying to create in the world, there is this tendency these days, I think, because it's easier and less personal and probably it saves you from potential exposure or having to deal with judgment

or hearing things you don't want if there's a screen between you. I actually don't think it is easier. I think it's actually a lot harder. I think it takes you, I think what people do when they do that is they extend the time that it's going to take for them to get their messaging right. Because you can go and implement any sort of hackney or like cool widgety thing that can happen on the internet with systemization. But at the end of the day, it comes down to the person who can say it the best. So it's words or it's the words that you say on your video.

The person who can say that you don't need some exotic launch to make that happen. But the way to get there is you got to have human contact. Yeah, no, I completely agree. And when easier, what I meant was emotionally. Yeah, yeah, for sure. You have like this sort of buffer. Yeah, no, I completely agree. And when easier, what I meant was emotionally. Yeah, yeah, for sure. You have like this sort of buffer. Yeah. Yeah.

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Let's get back to you. Okay. Before we go too far. Perfect. My favorite topic. That whole rabbit hole. So you end up from these humble beginnings, super aggressively going out there, literally in 90 days, launching yourself into this entire new world, validating your ideas, and then building this astonishing, what, 20-year career where you keep moving up, working with higher and higher level athletes and then executives. Yeah.

Why are they coming to you? What do they really want from you that you're giving them that they can't, that they're not finding elsewhere? Confidence and decisiveness, probably more than anything else. Tell me more about that. After getting around people and having these conversations with them, one thing I think I probably did well in the beginning was I would sit back down and I kind of reflect on maybe the workshop or some of the questions that I was getting asking. And

I would always try to say, cool, is there anything underneath that? Like, what's the, what's the kind of question underneath that question that they might be asking? And you'd get to kind of some main themes and more people on the decisiveness side of things. There's a lot of people who are just sitting there at the precipice of something, but they're scared or terrified or worried about making the wrong decision. Definitely on the business side of things, where decisiveness comes up in sports is in the moment of action, right? Like maybe the athlete who isn't the absolute best on his team, but he really wants to make that game ending shot when he's got the ball, but he doesn't because he has this hierarchy in his head as to who should be throwing the last ball at the hoop, but really kind of instilling that confidence to then decide in that moment to take that shot. So that's where

decisiveness shows up in kind of athletics is in the moments that matter. In business, it was those people who just have these multitude of options sitting in front of them and they get frozen from trying to be perfect. And so working with people on, so confidence and decisiveness are like two of like really big themes

that show up a lot with all the people that i'm and it and it's funny because there's someone sitting there going that's just starting on business going oh man i'd love to be more confident i'd love to be more decisive with what i'm doing but there's people i'm telling you there's people at the highest level that have that same issue it's just that they're dealing with maybe bigger things possibly um and the stakes get higher too so if you make the wrong decision there's further fall yeah but then it comes back to how much do you trust yourself to correct if you have an inherent distrust in your ability to correct the decision when you've made maybe a poor one then that severely affects someone's performance

or their ability to make decisions. And with athletes, I say this all the time. Like at the end of the day, if there's one word that I care about, I'm always at the, I'm always, this is always in the back of my mind. And I'm trying to get all roads pointing back to this one word. And that is when I can get an athlete to completely trust themselves, trust the preparation, trust their skills, trust their game plan, their prep, all those things that come together,

you will see a performance that is typically unlike what they would typically put out there. Same thing in business when you can completely trust. Yeah. I think the same thing with everything with, in artistry and teaching and anything that you do, it's like that. And I've seen that, too. And I felt it. I wish I could say social dynamic in a room and a deep reservoir of sequences and postures. And I got to a point where I had a level of mastery over that where I completely trusted that people would show up in a room. It would be a packed house at 7 o'clock on a Thursday night.

And they show up because they want to start in point A and they want to be left in point B. They want to be left-changed. They want to walk out having moved through something. It came to a point where I wouldn't show up with a game plan. There was no set sequence. There was never anything where I was like, okay, this is what I'm going to say. This is what I'm going to do.

And I learned that I could create a good experience by doing that, but it would never be transformative experience. It would never be a really deep and powerful experience because it would always mean that I was wedded to something that I knew was formulaic and good rather than trusting that I was at a place where I could draw upon my skills, my competencies, and give them what they needed

in the moment, at the moment, for a window of 90 minutes. And when I got to that place where I started to let go, in the beginning, it was terrifying. But once I started to realize that I was okay, and then once I also started to create, you know, there were times where I would just go blank, you know, 50 minutes into a 90-minute session, and you've got 100 people or whatever it is in a room sweating and waiting for you to say something and move them. And then I realized, okay, there are three or four things that I can always lean on, and it will come back to me. It got to a point where then you start to drop into that flow state that you were talking about earlier. But the class would. I would.

And by me doing that, it's almost like I set the foundation for everybody else there to meet me there. And that's when the magic started to happen. But it's interesting. I didn't really key in on the fact until you just really brought it full circle now that the unlock key was trust. I trusted that I was at a point where I had a deep enough reservoir and command that I could just let what happened needed to happen. And that I could rely on my training, as you said, using your words to do something extraordinary. Yeah. Huh? Yeah. It's, it doesn't sound like trust doesn't, when I do talks to athletes or teams or something, trust isn't the word that typically someone would think that someone's going to come out and say is the unlock key for performance but it truly is when you think about

that athlete who's standing at the top of the mountain and they're going to point their skis down a hill on a typically steep and icy slope to try and race around a bunch of uh flags there's a high level of trust that needs to be there because you're operating at a very high rate of speed and you know if you if there's any doubt that creeps in i mean now you're not as responsive and reflexive as you typically would be physically your mind starts skipping out of the moment and paying attention to things that it shouldn't be paying attention to right there and then that's where you know catastrophe can happen whether it's a fall or something like that or you just end up toggling back because you're just not trusting yeah how do you develop that and that's probably a much bigger question but yeah well i mean it's it can be a stair-step process it can be a stair step process you know are there any safety nets that we can put in place for someone that they

can develop that trust i'll give you one good example from youth athletics. There are so many poor coaches in youth athletics. You and I would both have seen them and met them at some point in time where they're more concerned about how they look because their team won or didn't win or as opposed to just what's good for this kid. How you know if you're a good coach is how many of those kids that you coached last year showed up this year. That's the number one KPI in youth athletics. If you're going to take a look at that, if I had 20 kids and 18 of them showed back up to play again next year, that's a freaking amazing number. But if only 10 did, well, there's breakage somewhere. So many kids are terrified of making a mistake because coaches start talking about perfection and being great, you know, way too soon.

So with all the teams that I ever worked with that were, whether it's an association, we would give each, let's use hockey as an example. We would give each kid, they looked like little pogs really more than anything else. They were like little circular discs and they were mistake coupons and they could cash them in if they made a mistake on the field and they were not going to get into trouble or anything like that. So they, we wanted to teach them that it's okay to go out there and try really hard at doing something new and different that we've been doing on the practice field.

And it's okay to try it out there. And if you make a mistake, just come back in and hand it in to coach and it's okay to try it out there. And if you make a mistake, just come back in and hand it in to coach and coach is going to, and there's any one of a number of things that we can get coach to say, great, like, you know, good for you. Good for trying so hard. Good for putting in the extra effort. Now get back out there and let's see what we can do next time. And so it encourages kids to push themselves

i'm trying to say okay well how can we create the safety net and that's one of the things that came out of it so practical example of trying to create a safety net for kids so that they could learn to trust themselves more on the field of play yeah i mean it occurs to me also that what you're doing you're cultivating you know carol dweck talks about growth versus fixed mindset what you're doing is you're creating a mechanism to train the growth mindset so that you you welcome mistakes and failure as data that will help you grow yeah rather than having it just destroy you and then so for a practical example for us is if you don't have a feed feedback mechanism or feedback loop mechanism in your own life or business where you're sort of

tracking every could be week or couple of weeks you know okay so these are the things i've worked on the last couple weeks how's it going for me if you're if you're progressing towards a goal take a look at your activity because the activity is the is the stuff that creates the lift towards whatever goals or projects we're trying to complete it's the stuff that we're doing in our day create that feedback loop like okay let's, I'm going to step aside for a second here and I'm going to take a look at, okay, well, of the last two weeks, how far have I come? I know Carol, she talks about growth and fixed mindset. And in my world, we talk about ow and wow brain. So the ow mindset, which is all typically pain related and struggle and effort

and focusing on things that are goblins going to scare you in the night and wow mindset is all about you know wow look how far i've come and like looking at the possibility yeah so the great thing is is especially most entrepreneurs if this is who we're talking to or people who are trying to work towards bigger and better things we're always so focused on the thing that we want to have happen that we're typically not very good at focusing on what we've been doing and reflecting back on how far we've come. And the more that you can reflect back on how far you've come as a part of, you're not doing it every single day, but if you, if you have it a part of your habit or routine in

your life, you will start to develop a hell of a lot more trust in your capacity to make things happen. Yeah, so great. That negativity bias keeps us maniacally focused on what's not right, what's still not done, like what still lies ahead. And it may, yeah, it is, it's amazing how much it pulls us from acknowledging how much we've accomplished, you know, how far we've done. So you built this powerful practice, speaking around the world, consulting at the highest levels of sport and industry. And then a couple of years back, you made an interesting move into this online education space.

What was going on there? It was a persistent client who already had a fairly solid and large following online that I had been working with them behind the scenes to help them scale and grow their company. And we were 10 months in and things were going amazing for them. And her and her husband were pestering me saying, why don't you get this online? Your form of performance we just haven't seen before, just the models and frameworks you use and i mean i was very reluctant i was like no i'm not really interested i really like the my my company's the way they're structured right now and so with some more cajoling on her part and they were like listen like we'll take care of all the technology

and we'll take care of and we've already got a customer list so why don't we just launch something to our customer list so three and a half weeks later after i said yeah okay let's do it three and a half weeks later we did the entire like launch like something that many people would be kind of familiar with like four videos all that kind of stuff one way that we did it which was really good was she was more the student in it and i was kind of the teacher like we was her and I on camera together and we had such a good time filming that like I mean she said this is the most fun I mean off camera we were like she's like this is the most fun I've had

in business in such a long time and it came through I think because we it was very successful and but when anytime I'm getting into an industry I'm taking a look at K SWOT analysis strengths weaknesses opportunities I am even though I'm getting into an industry, I'm taking a look at, okay, SWOT analysis, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities. Because you're so metrics-based.

I am, even though I'm very creative. I learned all that in a lot of my other, like doing a lot of corporate consulting. When you get to those levels, those big corporations are looking for systems and processes and stuff. So I needed to develop that skill set. So just looking at the industry, I was like, you know, there's not very much in the form of third party validation of, of a educate or of a program or something like that. So in corporate space, it's very frequent where you get an ROI study done on the program. So after I did that first launch, which was the beta one, I was like, you know what, I'm going to, I'm going to try and take

this game to another level in this space. And so I did a study on the program, a third party study. They had all access to the customers and list and, you know, interviewed people on its success rate for people. And that was really, really, really successful. And it's done by the biggest organization in the world that does that. And then I just want to expose the program itself to more scrutiny from third parties so we put it out for awards nominations and you know we just got a a great award um a week ago but probably the biggest thing we were talking about this before about the online space and

one of the big things that i've done that's worked out well is is just talking to people a ton because even the program that I put out there, which was the original nine a day a program, which is in corporate. When I brought it into the entrepreneur space, I made some tweaks definitely for entrepreneurs, but I needed to make a lot more tweaks to it, to really satisfy the kind of differences between entrepreneurs and the corporate world. And I wouldn't have made those tweaks as fast as I did. If I didn't talk to people consistently one-on-one, not in group. You get good data from group discussions and support sessions, I guess,

but nothing can beat a one-on-one discussion with someone. Yeah, totally agree. How are you experiencing that world versus the world that you were in literally not too long ago? Doing an online program itself, it's a great way to bring in customers and clients into a world it's just i've never been used to that world i'm very face to face i'm like i said before i'm outgoing curious i want to be around people that's my jam uh so it's been an adjustment for me on how to make that work from a leverage perspective. But yeah. And I mean, I would say that there's, I've never been probably ripped off more since

I put stuff online. Thankfully though, I've got an army of great customers who always reach out because they know how militant I am about IP protection and. So ripped off in terms of people service, taking your ideas, repurposing them. Totally. And running with them. Yeah, totally them. And I mean, they can put them behind membership sites and all that kind of stuff. But, you know, because I talk about it so much and I, you know, I've got a lot of people

who are, you know, leaders or, you know, experts, so to speak. And I talk about how, listen, like, if it's your stuff, like defend it. I mean, there's not one, not one of my like really, really high level entrepreneurial business clients that would just let it go, you know, like just, Oh, it's just the universe. Just, you know, put out good vibes and now they wouldn't do that. Like it's business and it's, there's an seedy underbelly sometimes to it. So protect it. And I'm pretty militant about protecting our stuff. what's underneath that um i think it's a really strict set of values that i got from probably my parents around just honor and integrity more than it's not it has nothing to do with say like lack of abundance

or something like that that's not it at all Because I think I've got a very strong mindset that way, but it's that I think that we've let too much of these things slide by for a very, very long time where you become a part of the problem. The moment you don't stay, say something like it's like, I'm a, I do a lot of stuff in the bullying world. And I think you become a part of the problem when you refuse to stand up to the first moment that someone is bullying someone else. And I'll call people out. I don't know if there's anything more behind it than just, I think it's just the state that we should all be operating inside of anyway. You seem to have this really fierce value of honor well i just saw it with my dad and my mom they are just so well respected in our area and my dad's a farmer and rancher

man a few words but just the way that they whether they operated and how they treated other i mean i grew up in a time in the 1980s when there was hey there was like drought that was happening in you know our corner of the world like farms were taking a really big hit and there were bigger operations that were coming in and buying up our neighbors for pennies on the dollar and dad wouldn't if dad wanted to buy land he would pay you not what the going rate was but what he felt was the fair market rate so he would pay above things because it was the right thing to do just little things like that so yeah and we have a we have kind of a policy in our family of it's not two strikes and you're out it's one strike you're out like from a trust and

like you you don't get a second chance to screw us over kind of thing. So that might not work for some people, but it works for me. So along the way you got married, you have two beautiful daughters, third kid on the way. Yeah. Moving into this season of your life, what's important to you? Patience. Definitely that. definitely that um learning to be a really great dad um to them as well so those are big parts of my focus and um yeah i don't know i've been rolling around with

patience is a big one because even like the personality i have in my business world is very different than how I am around my kids. Cause they don't need that. They don't need someone who's confident and decisive and like hard charging or anything like that. They need someone who's playful and fun and patient and all those kinds of good things. So that's a big part of my focus right now is, is,

is that side because I can work all the time because I love my work. And so I don't really consider it work. I just love thinking about it and noodling on other people's issues and problems because I think I can come up with a solution for them. But I need to detox from that sometimes

and pull myself away. So, and I think I'm doing an okay job. It's probably room for improvement, but yeah. So that's sort of your practice right now. Yeah. It's developing the other side, the softer side.

Yeah. I don't think I never had it. We were talking about this before. I've got a fairly strong, hard-charging persona that's out there. But you get into my world, I think I'm a really good caretaker for people because ultimately I just want people to, to, to get, to reach that, that level that they were kind of shooting for, whatever that might be. So, so coming full circle here, um, name of this is good life project. Yeah. Uh, if I offer that phrase out to you to live a good life, what resonates? What comes up right now?

Family, big time. Being around people and friends a lot. And not living in a state of should have and would have and could have, and more in a state of, shit oh my god or like it's just i like messing things up because i've taken you know imperfect actions at times so good life is has a lot of family and friends involved in it and what i like about it is the fact that when I think of project, I think of something that can, that's always being worked on myself.

Like it's not a goal. It's just, and that's when I think of, you know, having a good life is it's a never ending kind of unfolding. You'll always find another way of making it a better life, a good life. Thank you.

You're welcome. Hey, thanks so much for listening. We love sharing real, unscripted conversations and ideas that matter. And if you enjoy that too, and if you enjoy what we're up to, I'd be so grateful if you would take just a few seconds and rate and review the podcast. It really helps us get the word out. You can actually do that now right from the podcast app on your phone. If you have an iPhone, you just click on the reviews tab and take a few seconds and jam over there.

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The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot if we need him! Y'all need a pilot?

Flight Risk.