High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 25: How to Reach Your Next Summit & Get Out of Your Comfort Zone w/ Award-Winning Speaker, Manley Feinberg

Episode Date: January 6, 2016

In this episode, award-winning international speaker, business leader, best selling author and professional musician, Manley Feinberg talks about how to reach your next summit. Using a mountain climbing analogy, he discusses how we must expect to fall, how to refocus after the fall and how to get out of your comfort zone in the process. Points to listen for include tips he provides to consciously practice authenticity and how to make space between "the stimulus and response." Post a tweet about what stood out to you about the interview and tag @manleyf and @Mentally_Strong for a good discussion! You can find Manley at: http://verticallessons.com. 

Welcome to High Performance Mindset with Dr. Sindra Kampoff. Do you want to reach your full potential, live a life of passion, go after your dreams? Each week we bring you strategies and interviews to help you ignite your mindset. Let's bring on Sindra. Hi, it's Sindra here. Are you ready to master your mindset and make 2016 your year for success? Now, I just launched my brand new four-part Master Your Mindset video training series to help you master that voice inside your head. And I'm excited to provide these in-depth training videos for free for a limited time now in the first video which is available today I cover a ton of valuable content including how the most successful

entrepreneurs business leaders and athletes think the five internal enemies that we all struggle with the three types of thoughts that are the most powerful and how to rewrite your brain so you can reach your goals and your dreams in 2016. Now, there's no strings attached. All you need is an email address to gain instant access to the free video series. And I'll be offering and opening my advanced full out Master Your Mindset 2016 course soon. But for the next 12 days, you can get started with these videos for free. So how do I know this stuff works? Good question. Well, it's the same

concepts that I teach elite and NFL athletes, championship teams, business leaders, and entrepreneurs who I have witnessed experience measurable performance improvements over the last year. It is life-changing stuff. And by the way, my favorite part in the first video is the three types of powerful thoughts. This concept alone can change your life. You can find this free training video series at drcindracampoff.com. That's drcindracampoff.com. And now spell it one time for you. That's D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A-K-A-M-P-H-O-F-F.com. Make it an outstanding day, my friends, and be mentally strong. Welcome to the High Performance Mindset. This is your host, Cindra Campoff. And I am so delighted

that you're here with us today, ready to find your new next summit and move out of your comfort zone. Today, I talk with Manley Feinberg about both of these topics. Manley is recognized as an award-winning international speaker, a business leader, a best-selling author, and professional musician. He has served two terms as the president of the National Speakers Association, the St. Louis Chapter, and he spent 11 years with Build-A-Bear Workshop, helping the company move from 40 stores to over 400 worldwide and increasing the revenue growth from $55 million to over $474 million. Now, what I think you're going to find is that Manley's authentic, sincere, and his deep personal connection with people is really what makes him unique.

Now, there's several topics that he talked about in this interview that I really thought were incredible. I took two pages of notes front and back to give you an idea. There's three concepts I want you to listen for. I love his concept about the mountain and how our leadership is really like a mountain. And he talks quite a bit about the belay, having a belayer or supportive people around us. The second thing he talks quite a bit about is mastering the art of restart. I absolutely loved this concept. He talks about that you should expect to fail. So it's not if you fail, but when you fail. And he talks about

how to respond when you do fail. And the last thing that I encourage you to listen for is towards the end of the interview. He talks about his journey towards authenticity and specifically how he's learned to care more about the person over what they think about him. So incredible stuff. I can't wait to hear what stood out to you about this interview. And I will encourage you after the interview to send a tweet to Manly and I to keep this discussion going. We'd love to hear from you. We look forward to hearing from you. There's so many incredible value bombs that he provides. I can't wait to hear what stands out to you. So what you can do is when you get done with the interview,

send a tweet, tag Manly and his Twitter handle is Manly F and my Twitter handle is mentally underscore strong. So without further ado, let's bring on Manly Feinberg. Manly, I'm really excited that you're here with us and be able to provide value to our listeners. Could you tell us a little bit about your passion and what you do? Thank you for having me, by the way. I'm super excited to be here with you. So it's funny. I started out really born, I think, and been a huge business person as far as mindset. I've always been passionate about business. And so my whole mindset and my approach to everything I do comes from a business mindset. And I got really passionate. I didn't know it, but as great leaders, they find something in you and pull it out of you.

So one of my early mentors and leaders, Michael Segura, I worked for for many years. He really discovered in me that I was most engaged and most passionate at work when I was helping grow our teams and build teams. This is when I was at a company called Build-A-Bear Workshop. So that was really enlightening for me to realize that, and he pushed me. I've been speaking professionally since 95, but he really pushed me in that direction internally in our organization to help affect our culture and impact our individual team members. So that combined with the mountains, I'm very passionate about two other things about life, and that's music and mountain climbing. And I consistently go on mountain trips since around 92. And I noticed when I would come back to the business world, I think as a consequence of the environment.

As an example, I would bring disparate teams or people who never met each other. We would come together and have this intense bond, accomplish this extraordinary objective, push ourselves way beyond what we thought was possible. And I could do this in a very short amount of time then I come back to the business world and we have interviewing and great assessments and all these tools and we still weren't really engaging the human connection between our team members nor bringing their full capacity so I started trying to figure out how why is that what can I

do and I have a degree in psychology so I've always been you know obsessed with understanding why do we do or not do what we should or how do we realize more of our potential? So that's kind of where it comes from. I think as far as me being passionate, I was, I think one of these wackos who was born just really engaged and fired up about life. I love it. Love it. So, you know, you present to a lot of people throughout the world. We were talking before the interview, Google, Marriott, some of your other clients, you can tell us about those. But what do you really see as the difference between those who are really successful versus those that just maybe aren't? What separates them mentally? What do you see in terms of that?

The thing that stands out the most, and this also happens to be what I'm most passionate about, and my core message is really that if we're going to really get anywhere near our full potential as a human in our personal lives, our business lives, is we have to consistently stretch outside of our comfort zone and put tools in place and give ourselves an advantage that we need because it's not easy. I think it's counterintuitive to what our brain wants us to do and that is to be to survive and be safe so but what the organizations like some of the ones you mentioned and others i work with the ones are really striving and have employees and leaders who are truly engaged this becomes a mindset so that is they're they're always looking for how am i going to step out of

my comfort zone today and what area of my life do i need to push it a little bit and if once they identify that, how do I do that and protect myself? This is what we do in the mountains. It looks insane, but most mountain climbers will tell you that they don't want to die. The number one goal is to come back alive. And so we put systems in place and people in place to help us do it safely, even though it looks insane. So that mindset is about how do I extend my comfort zone consistently and seek that out proactively. That's where I see a common link in the exceptional organizations I work with. And even within those organizations, there's people who have a small percentage, typically the peak performers, who do that inherently well. And then the others who need to learn tools that they can do that. And that's where I come in and try to help everyone in the organization not only adopt

that mindset, but then give them tools and their practical things they can do, not just get inspired, but have them equipped when I leave. What do you think gets in the way of people just getting out of their comfort zone? Because I completely agree with you, Manly. That's one of the differences mentally from those who are the highest performers. So what gets in the way? What do you see? I think there are several things.

First of all, the number one thing I see that I think when people even identify, they know they may need to do something or they feel a need. They might even get inspired. Sometimes it's a simple idea in a meeting. Like maybe they have a question they want to ask. It pops in their mind, and then they raise their hand, or they don't raise their hands because they're, well, I don't think this is stupid. I mean, fear is it, number one.

Fear above all else gets in the way. And it's funny because I think our ego tries to talk. People who have a strong ego and a strong confidence don't want to admit that. Example, I work with a lot of CEOs as an example. They're often the last ones to want to admit that they have any fears. People look at me and they go, what could you be scared of? You get in front of thousands of people and speak. You climb mountains.

You play music in front of 30,000 people. That's ridiculous. What could you be scared of? And the truth is I get in tears and freaking out about life as much as anybody else. It's just we all have that. The question is how do we deal with that and how do we recognize that and make sure it's not pushing us into a place where we're safe and small and not stepping up. Absolutely.

And what are some of the tools and strategies that you might give the people that you work with in terms of allowing them to get out of their comfort zone? I think the number one thing it starts with and ends with, from my perspective, is having the right people in your life and being proactive. I call this the belay, B-E-L-A-Y. And this is a core principle in climbing where it's essentially what describes the connection and how the person holds the rope for you. And it's the only way I can climb, the only way that I can do it in trust,

the person's going to hold me, is that I know the belayer, the person with the rope, is going to lock it off. So the way the principle applies in day-to-day in business is being very proactive about asking a few questions. I usually encourage people to do three things. One is to identify the person in their life they need, taking a moment in your day and stepping back and going, okay, who today do I need to reach out to that I need first? Getting

yourself on belay. I get a lot of pushback here because people say, well, I do that. What do you mean? I'm in contact with people all the time. My phone's ringing off the hook. I get emails I can't answer. I'm in contact and connecting all day, every day. I'm overwhelmed with that, as a matter of fact. The difference is that you're stepping back and strategically with intention saying, okay, for me to accomplish my best, here's who I need to just touch base with today. The second excuse people usually give is, well, I don't have time to do that. I'm too busy. I just told you my phone's ringing off the hook and I got all these emails.

I'm just encouraging you. I have the same excuse. It pops in my mind. I'd like to tell you I've mastered this. But the reality is we know it doesn't take long for a quick text message, a quick email, Facebook, LinkedIn, stop by their cube and just stop in and say, hey, how you doing? What can I do for you? How's life? It doesn't have to be touchy feely. That's not your style. But that outward connection, when you do it consistently, it's amazing how life changes and how people show up differently. Second piece of that is doing the same thing basically with someone who needs you on your team or a client or a customer. Vertical, horizontal boundaries aside, I really push people to not let those normal boundaries in an organization get in the way.

Well, he's my boss or he's the boss's boss, or that's a different department. I can't do that. It's nonsense. And when you start building relationships intentionally in that way, it has a massive cumulative effect in the organization. And it does what you asked to begin with, get internal confidence to stretch your comfort zone. Excellent.

So when you have the right people around you, when you're your own belayer, but then you help be the belayer of others that can really help propel people get out of their comfort zone. Exactly. And I think, again, the distinction I want to make is that it's, it's, you have to step back and do it intentionally. You know, it doesn't take long. It's just carving out that moment in the day, which sometimes is the hardest part because people inherently say, well, I'm, I I'm I've got all kinds of people on belay or whatever you say. I have team members. I've got my husband, my wife, whoever. This is this is a strategic approach to it that completely changes how you engage the person and who that is as well. So you're you having more direction in it. And that's where I see the critical shift.

Absolutely. Manly, can you talk about maybe a signature technique that you have that you use with all of your clients? If it's maybe something else besides the belay concept? The belay one is key. And tactically, again, that's just identifying those two people who you need and who needs you and then reaching out to them. So fairly simple. It's more of a mindset of how I'm approaching this. So that's one. Another one that this has been probably the biggest breakthrough for me in the last 18 months of my life.

I was working with one of my key mentors that we authored a book with, a man named Craig Valentine, an amazing speaker and a friend and mentor to me. We were going over this new keynote I was working on, and Craig said, wait a second, did you say you expect to fall? I said, yeah, yeah. When we go climbing, we know we're going to fall. He's like, really? And a lot of people, it was kind of a dumb moment because several audience members had said the same thing. They're like, well, you don't fall, right?

No, no, we fall a lot. And we can't, if we're not falling, we're probably not pushing ourselves or not at the edge of where we could be realizing our potential. And so the deal is that we know we're going to fall. So it's not if we're going to fall, it's when. When we fall, here's what we're going to do. And that was a key aha, mostly because Craig helped me say, wait a second, that's not how most people think. This is a mindset. And the way this has shown up in my life as a technique, I call it mastering the art of the restart. So mastering the art of the restart means expecting you're going to fall. So this is

a perfect timing right now. It's, you know, I don't know when this, you'll put this podcast up, but pretty soon here, it's going to be the first of the year, January 1st, classic time of the year. We all say, okay, I'm going to do all these and I'm going to do it too. I'm going to say, here's all these new things I'm going to do. And then January 10th or 20th or February 10th, whatever it is, you know, we fall off the wagon, off the horse, and it's done. And usually here's what I used to always do. I'd say, well, at best, I'd say, well, next month, you know, March 1st, I'll start again. And then, you know, the year goes on.

And then we just say, like right now, I'm just punting. Oh, January 1st. I'll just start January 1st. So what happens is we put it off, first of all. But this complete shift in my approach to this and the mindset I have now is I'm not going to restart in 30 days. I'm not going to restart at the beginning of the year and a month. I'm restarting in 24 hours or less tomorrow. And I have to give credit for this, too. I'm obsessive about attributing where the ideas come from.

Marc LeBlanc, who's someone you might know as well. Oh, absolutely. Another great mentor of mine, a brilliant man and a beautiful man that has helped me in many ways. Mark is really big on resetting the counters in your life every day, whether it's sales or exercise or whatever. Okay, today was good or it was bad. I blew it. Reset.

Tomorrow, it's a new day, a new start. So that combined with the insight about how we climb, and we're going to fall. And so if we start giving the mindset, okay, I'm going to fall, and when I fall, here's who I reach out to. Here's where I go for inspiration or techniques, and then immediately I'm going to restart. Tomorrow I will restart. And restarting and mastering the art of the restart on that 24-hour window has been an unbelievable breakthrough for me. Biggest thing, biggest big old thing, breakthrough for me in the last year, year and a half for sure. Absolutely. I love that. You master the art of the restart.

I can think of so many ways this applies to life. There's a lot of athletes and sometimes coaches who listen to our podcast. And I'm thinking about some of the elite athletes that I work with or I've heard talk about on the media actually talk about how every single play they restart, you know, that they are letting go of the past play. So there's so many ways it applies. How do you see this apply to businesses and organizations and those who you work with? Thank you for the question. That's a great question. One of the most frustrating things I found in the 20 plus years of time that I've led businesses and helped businesses grow is we would, there was no shortage of good ideas. And at times that maybe they weren't the most innovative,

sometimes it's just a core fundamental that we all need to execute a deeper, you know, more consistently. I think that consistency is the human condition and challenge. I mean, that's what I see it all coming down to. There's no shortage of information out there and we'll get a good idea and we would implement amazing concepts or approaches or simple processes. Four weeks or three weeks or three months later, we just weren't doing it. And somebody says, well, why don't we do that anymore? That was really good. But it used a couple of reasons.

Number one, something else would come along. Shiny object, right? Oh, yeah. What about this? this. But going back and just saying, no, wait a second. If we agree this was something that was going to fundamentally prove or dramatically help how we do things, why are we not still doing it? And let's restart. So there's a couple, there's five steps in detail, but the three essential pieces of it are, first of all, stepping back and looking back to the last time we had a successful opportunity or summit, as I call it. So, because what happens usually we fall and we screw it up or we don't do it anymore. We it falls off. And usually what we do is we go, oh, here we go again. Right. This is I always do this. I start my diet or I start my

new routine at work and then we fall off. So I'll restart in a month or two. So we usually go to the last struggle we had and we kind of just pile it on ourselves. At that point, instead of going to the last struggle, if you can go back instead and recall the last summit or success you had, it's a completely different angle. So when's the last time we did this something different and we were successful? So a completely different emotional mindset shift, first step. Secondly, then we need to look just at the right where we're sitting or hanging, in this case in the mountains or in business, and what's just the one or two next steps I can do to get this restarted? Because what we do there typically is another place to get overwhelmed. I start going, well, well, to get this restarted, we got to have the meeting again and we're going

to have to get this communication back out and, oh, you know, I don't know. Maybe we'll just do something else. And we think we're delusioned to think that starting something new is going to be easier than restarting the previous effort, and that's nonsense. It takes a lot more energy and effort to get somebody to buy into something new. Plus, in the back of every employee's mind, they're sitting out there going, oh, this is the new thing of the month, right? So restarting is just this middle step. It's saying, okay, one or two steps. How do we reengage this in the next 24 hours to get people back on track?

And the third piece there is then refocusing on how you were doing it, what's that next summit going to look like, and restarting before you're ready. I'm a perfectionist, and I've had to battle that. And I find this a lot of top performers. They really want to do things before you're ready as key. So in climbing, we'll have two or three moves in front of us that we know we still don't know what we're going to do in 20 feet, but we find the next move and start moving. I love it. I love it. Thank you. Awesome. So the three steps that you talked about were take a step back, look at your summit, look

at the success that you've experienced. You're right. So many times people are focused on their struggle that they've had instead of a success point. Number two, look at the next one or two steps that you need to restart so you're not overwhelmed. And then number three is refocus on the next summit. I would guess that keeps you engaged and keeps you motivated and keeps you excited about so you're not overwhelmed. And then number three is refocus on the next summit. I would guess that keeps you engaged and keeps you motivated and keeps you excited about your work.

Yeah, and get on with it. So there's really five steps. I kind of snuck in another one. If you're just going to boil down to three, the third one I would say that's most critical is getting on with it before you're ready, restarting. So recall the previous summit, re-examine the next two to three moves at most, and then restart before you're ready. Restart before you're ready. Because if people wait till they're ready, they won't be ready.

Yeah, I can see how this could apply in so many ways. As an entrepreneur, I think about how I have to restart every day and how it's really easy to focus on maybe things that didn't go right. But, you know, just doing the next one or two things that I need to do can really make it a lot easier for me just to get going and restart my day. Yeah, definitely. Love it. Awesome. Manly, let's talk about yourself as a high performer, you know, in terms of the speaking engagements that you do provide, you were the president of the National Speakers Association in the St. Louis chapter. So you've

experienced a lot of success, you know, professionally and personally. So tell us about a failure you've had. And I want to start with that because, you know, there's so many ways that we can learn from other people's failures and we really need to see them as something that we can learn from we've all failed any kind of aha moment that could help us learn something when I was working at Build-A-Bear workshop and this is relatively early on we had about 40 stores when I started working there and I believe it was the second holiday season so I've been there almost two years and my boss Michael was off that week.

And we had, you know, I was in information technology. And I was a business guy. I was brought in to develop and implement business systems for us. And we had a massive disaster going on with this business system. And it was chaos. And at that time at Build-A-Bear, we were opening 40-plus stores a year. We were getting ready to go public. And it was chaos all the time. And, uh, one thing I just, this is kind of funny cause I look

back and go, it's funny how we discover things on our own that many people have written about. I remember walking everywhere I was in the building and I realized I was like, wow, I cannot control this chaos. The bear will go on. If I die tomorrow or I leave the company, we're going to keep growing. We're going to keep innovating and creating amazing experiences for people. But I realized I cannot control the chaos of this culture, which is, by the way, a very positive thing. It was one of our secrets to our growth. But it was very potentially stressful. And a lot of people couldn't handle it was definitely peak performance environment. And that was just an aha moment for me to realize, wait, every, there's no shortage of things that get sideways about emotionally. And I just had that aha moment

that's most people know this, or a lot of people written books about it even is that you have stimulus and then you have a little moment and then you respond on my own. I literally on my own discovered this, uh, this, I thought, wait, I got a moment here. So, you know, as an example, the example I use is I have kids. So if you ever had a kid in your life, it doesn't even have to be your kid. If you ever had a kid in your life take a swing at you or accidentally hit you and hurt you, right? If it's your own kid or hopefully any kid, you know, it hurts. And you have a physical reaction. You might want to yell or you might want to grab them and strangle them, whatever it is. But you stop yourself and you

don't, right? But when an adult does that or a loved one, you come home and a loved one yells at you and you just go off. And then the phone rings and you're like, hey, how's it going? I mean, we have the ability to really control how we respond. When I discovered that on my own, again, I found this on my own, that was a huge aha moment. And so what I started realizing is what I need to do is start wedging more space in between the stimulus and the response. So here's the stimulus. I'm in the meeting. Things are going bad, or maybe I screwed up, or someone's flying off the handle, or someone's,

you know, whatever. Even today in my work, you know, someone's coming at me strong, and this client or a coaching scenario, the person's, for whatever reason, it's challenging and I want to reply a different way. We have the opportunity as human beings to create more space before we actually respond. But there's always two paths there. And mastering that choice right there is, I think, one of the biggest ahas I've ever had. Absolutely. What are the ways that you learn to, you know, have distance between that stimulus and response?

Like what are the strategies that you did, you know, just to calm yourself and not react to the stimulus or the chaos that you're talking about? No question. The number one thing for me that's provided more space there is meditating. And it's funny that, you know, everybody talks about it these days. And I just brought this up the other day in a workshop. And there's always people in the room who are like, oh, come on. And I'm actually not a modern age person, although I'm very spiritual. I've studied Eastern philosophy for years. I had a sixth grade, my seventh grade teacher. This is in 1984.

I'm 43 in case you're trying to do the math. But he introduced us to meditating when I was way back in 84. So the truth is, I'd like to tell you I've been doing it my whole life. The truth is I didn't really make it part of my regular life until about five years ago when I started, when I decided to go full time as a speaker. I got to this point in my life I wanted to do something really crazy, and I frankly felt very desperate. So I did everything I could. This is kind of a potential technique for here for people. Uh, you know, I, I did everything I didn't, I reached out to people

in my life, as I said, and got them on belay, different coaches, different technical people. I got different books, resources. I knew meditating was something of power. So I went back and started meditating before I got more in touch with some spirituality pieces that hadn't been part of my life in a long time. I mean, it was anything that would help. I was like, okay, I gotta, I gotta need all the help I can get. So I started meditating. Here's a book I would recommend. It was the book that helped me make it something that became a daily habit. It's called the eight, eight minute meditation. Victor Savich, I think is the author's name. S A V I C H. Great book, very practical.

And one of the breakthroughs, the way I was able to get that habit installed was, you know, a lot of people told me, and a lot of my mentors, an old COO I used to work for, great meditation practice. He's a man I respect greatly and a big influence. He's like, you know, 20 minutes a day in the morning and 20 minutes at night. And it's like exercising, right? You've got to exercise 30 minutes a day. The fact is that installing new habits at any amount of energy, over three or four minutes, is very difficult for people. So the guy, the eight-minute meditation guy, says, no, no, no, let's just do eight minutes.

Let's do three minutes, five minutes, once a day. And that was a key breakthrough. So a great book helped me realize I don't have to do it all day for 20 or 30 minutes. And it's critically important to get the habit installed in a small dose. So that was really key as far as – and it definitely creates – people – okay, can I add one more aha moment related to this piece of meditation? Absolutely. So as part of this, I studied the book, and I'm kind of one of these obsessed, crazy guys. Just reading the book wasn't enough for me.

So then I find this in the next course and I hired a meditation coach. Another tip I would give people is when you want to do something, find somebody who is exceptional at it and get as close to him as you can. So like Marc LeBlanc is an example. He's got a book. I read his book. Now I want more. So I go to his workshop and then I want more. I've hired him as a coach. I get as close to him as I can, and that requires you investing in yourself. So I do that. Same with meditation. I hire this meditation coach, and I'll save you all the lessons

and give you the one thing that gave me the biggest breakthrough. There was this one moment early in our conversation. She said, Manley, meditation is not about trying to have an empty mind. And I think for all those 20 plus years, one of the reasons I never did it regularly is because I'd sit down and this is what I hear from people like, oh man, I cannot get my mind to stop racing.

She said, no, it's the practice. It's the pursuit of not clearing your mind, but when a thought presents, of acknowledging it and then just refocusing on something, refocusing on your breath, refocusing on a sound or refocusing on something, refocusing on your breath, refocusing on a sound, or refocusing on a piece of paper in front of you. So really what you're doing is practicing attention, and you're sharpening this muscle of saying,

okay, I'm distracted. Here comes this thought train. I'm not going to get on that train right now. There it is. I acknowledge it. I'll think about that later. I'm going to refocus. And then the next 30 seconds, I mean, my mind's all over the place all the time. You can't tell from listening to this. And then the next thing pops in my mind and I go, no, I'm going to refocus on my breath. So you're really just, you're exercising your, your attention. So what this, and this enables you to back to the original question, here comes the stimulus, boom, something happens at work, whatever. I get distracted. Meditation strengthens that muscle to say, wait, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to respond to that right now. Or I'm going to take a deep breath and I'm going to respond, but I'm going to take a different path. It just helps you create that space and it helps you control your mind. It's like exercise all woo-woo. And the fact is that there's so many – go out and Google studies.

If you're a scientific type, you're like, ah, it sounds like a bunch – I don't need incense. No, it sounds like a bunch of crap. The reality is Harvard, MIT, Stanford, you name it, just about every leading university or hospital has done significant research. It's no longer if. It's a matter – it's a fact. Meditation is an extraordinary tool to help you realize more potential. Absolutely. I see more and more people talking about the power of meditation for peak performance. And in sport, Russell Wilson and the Seattle Seahawks have used meditation regularly.

So, you know, there's so many different ways that you can use it. And I like your resource, Eight Minute Meditation. I'm going to check it out. So thanks for providing value there. Manly, so tell us which of those traits of the top 10 traits of high performers do you see yourself exhibit the most? Top 10, I think the one I exhibit the most, especially outwardly to people, if you got to know me, you would probably say number seven. So they are comfortable being uncomfortable. That's the core message in my work and what I really strive to do. And the reason the reason I see the peak performers, that's a common denominator across all those organizations, all those different works of life and different situations. The people who are constantly pursuing their skill set and their ability to identify and

stretch their comfort zone in different areas are consistently ending up on top. They produce more. They're happier. They're consistently ending up on top. They produce more. They're happier. They're more engaged in their work. They bring more innovation to the table. They make the company more money. They grow the nonprofit in a way that's impactful. You name it.

So for me, that's the one I think that I'm probably the most successful at. Like I said earlier, there's still moments when I'm in absolute fear and in tears and all those things, scared crapless to use a little more family friendly word. But that's for me, that's the one I feel strongest about. I appreciate your honesty and your vulnerability there, Manly. So which of these do you see yourself still working on? That was a tough, that's a tough question. I, all of them for me are ones I'm trying to work on consistently because I think that's something I've noticed too about people who are peak performers. There's a couple things getting in the way of them growing. Sometimes they think that, well, I'm pretty good at all this stuff.

I don't need you or anything. I don't need your podcast. I don't need a new book. I'm doing all this stuff really well. That's your ego talking, right? So the truth is I'm working on all of them. But I think the one that I'm consciously working on most is number eight. Uh, they consciously practice authenticity daily. Now this is one, if I said this in front of people who know me and audiences who've heard me,

they would say, what? Cause consistently in feedback I get from people, they say, you're, you're quite possibly the most authentic, caring speaker or workshop leader or coach or whatever we've ever brought in. The fact that you care, we get that you're vulnerable. So what do you mean by that? So it's not what you normally would think. What I mean by this is that for me, I'm a people pleaser. And there's no question. One of my goals is to get you and everybody I ever encounter with to really care and love me.

I want you to think, wow, this guy's awesome. The dark side of that is that sometimes we don't show up completely and say what we need to say to people, especially in my coaching as an example is where I could have served people, and even when I was a leader in organizations, I can think back to a time when there was a person in my life, I probably cost them their job because my old boss, my old CIO, Dave Finnegan, one time he looked at me and said, Manley, you have to care more about the person than you care about what they think about you. And this is a double-edged sword. So I've caught myself there before. So I am striving to be more authentic in the sense that to say things courageously that I know people are probably not going to like. To stand in front of an audience and tell them something that they probably are not going to like.

It may make them uncomfortable. That's hard for me because I want them to like me. So that's where I'm really trying to strive and say, be authentic and stand up and say, and be bold and say, hey, you don't want to hear this, but the truth is most of you are going to walk out of here and not do anything with this information. Who's going to step up? That's where I'm really pushing myself. Excellent, Manly. I love what you said about, you know, care more about the person than what they think about you. And you're right that so many times we can get in

our own way where we're overthinking what the other person thinks or, you know, we're kind of judging ourselves instead of just being really honest and courageous. So amazing insight there. So Manly, let's go to the speed round. What I'd like you to do is just tell us the first thing that comes to mind. So is there a book or a resource that you'd recommend besides the eight minute meditation? The big, I read about a book a week on average, and I've been keeping it up for a little over 10 years. So I read a lot. I say that to qualify this statement, the number one book that's made the biggest impact. It's not a real sexy book. It's not real inspirational, but it was so practical and it shifted. It really

helped me install a new mindset. It's called The 80-20 Principle by Richard Koch, K-O-C-H. I have trouble getting people to read the book because a lot of people know what this principle is about on the surface level. But that's like saying, yeah, I know what this religion is about or that study is about or what meditation is about. I know what that is. I sat down with a good friend of mine named Josh Hawkins, and we studied this book together for nine months. Every week we would have tea, and it became a mindset that says different than just reading it. And it helped me see the world differently. So the 80-20 principle by Richard Koch. I want to mention another one related to that. as far as people to follow.

I recently had an opportunity to experience Tony Robbins live in an event, and that was – I could go on for hours about that. No question, the single biggest impact event of my life by far. Tony, I know he's intense. Some people don't really like the way he goes about things, but the guy is one of a kind. If you're ready to blow your life up in some key area, business, spirituality, health, whatever it is, relationships, Tony Robbins is unbelievable. I would learn more about him and listen to his work. Manly, I completely agree with you.

One of the things we were talking about before we recorded the interview was actually both of our experiences going to a Tony event. So I've gone to three and I talked about how one called Date with Destiny drastically changed my life. There's no way I'd be doing this podcast and half of the work that I do right now if it wasn't for attending that event.

And you shared how your family went and how that was just a really life-changing experience. So yeah, thank you so much for mentioning both of those resources for people. Uh, what's one word that people would describe you as manly? Passionate probably is the word I think that, uh, that people say a lot about how you're really passionate about what you do and, and the things you pursue. So that would probably be the first word I think that pops up. And that's the it factor. That is what makes you unique. I can see it in your

face as we're doing this interview. And what's the best advice you've ever received? Oh, that's tough. I've had so many amazing mentors in my life. My mother, right before, one of my greatest mentors and very early on, a couple of moments, probably the most courageous early moment in my life, first crazy idea I had in my life. I sometimes open my keynote with this story. But my mother looked at me, and it goes back to the authenticity piece where I try to please a lot, and so I need to practice this. But my mother looked at me, and she said, son, sometimes you have to ignore a few to win the hearts of many. And for me, sometimes you have to ignore a few to win the hearts of many. I'm not that good at that, but I know that in my life that there's some people who are always going to be doubters.

And we can easily go there. It fuels that fear in our head. And sometimes we just need to ignore those people because there's way more out there of people who will love us and need what we have to offer. Whether that's just you showing up at work in a different way or you being an entrepreneur or performing at a higher level in your sport, whatever you do in your life. Yeah, absolutely. And you're always going to have haters. Actually, I think the more successful you become, you're going to hear more of the noise of those people who aren't necessarily supporting your work. And give us a success quote that you live by and tell us why it applies to us.

Something I usually end a lot of my programs with is it goes back to when you said that one of those aha moments. That aha moment was really about awareness. First of all, the first level was awareness of, OK, here's the stress and here's how I can respond. But wedging that moment there is about awareness too. So I have this, my quote is, awareness is the first step to your next summit. So on a lot of different levels, awareness, okay, where do I need to work on? And okay, if this is what I need to work on, what's an advantage? What's a resource that I can reach out to a person or a book or a seminar or someone I need to be around to help me improve that. So awareness is key.

Awareness is the first step to your next summit is one I think is paramount in moving forward in any area. And final question, Manly, what's some advice that you have for those high performers who are listening? This kind of goes back to what I mentioned briefly about the ego, and that especially with peak performers that i've worked with at some level our ego is going to get in there and i just want i would encourage you and say that if you're listening to this that you you do have more you get to grow you have more to give and definitely more to live and and to watch awareness watch out for the ego get in the way and even if you even if you hear something in this podcast or another amazing podcast from you, when you hear it, you go, oh, yeah, yeah, I know that.

I know that. I would encourage you to step back and ask yourself, OK, I know that. How consistently am I doing that day in and day out? Absolutely. So good. I took so many things out of your interview, Manly. You should see my notes here. I have several things written down.

There's a few that I want to share back with you. And just to reiterate, so the listeners, we can just wrap it up in a really powerful way. One of the things I really love that you talked about early on was the importance of getting out of your comfort zone. And you talked about different benefits of doing that, including that people are happier. They're more successful. they make more money, they're more successful in their jobs, and how fear and the ego can get in the way. And especially when we become really confident or maybe arrogant, we think there's no need

to stretch outside our comfort zone, but there's so much power in doing that. I loved what you talked about related to the belay and surrounding, you know, yourself with people who are really there to support you. And the master of the restart, oh, solid, so good. And those steps that you provided. And then finally, you said, you know, ignore a few and win the hearts of many. So true in terms of, you know, just all this stuff can really help people live more fully and and also be really intentional with their mindset so they can really reach their full potential and their and their ultimate destiny. So, Manly, thank you so much for providing so much value today for those who are listening. Can you tell us about how we can touch base with you and connect with you so that, you know, we'd like to continue the discussion, how we might do that?

To get in touch with me, my website is verticallessons.com. So two L's in the middle, verticallessons.com. And at the top of every single web page, you'll find all the standard Facebook, LinkedIn, and my cell phone number is actually at the top of every single page. Put it there for a reason because I love hearing from people and I encourage you to reach out to me. You can call me, text me, email me, Facebook, or whatever method works because I live to help people get to the next level.

I live to have someone on your show email me a year email me a year, a month or two and say, you know, my life is different than when I first heard you speak or that that's what I live for. So I really would love to hear from people and appreciate you asking. Absolutely. So if you are looking for a keynote speaker, Manly is your go to guy. Other ways you can connect with him on Twitter at Manly F and then on Facebook Manly F. And what we'd encourage those who are listening to do is tweet one thing that stood out to you today. What did you really get out of this interview?

And tag Manly in there, Manly F as his Twitter handle, and myself, Mentally underscore Strong. That way we can continue this conversation. And also we learn more about what stood out to you so we can continue this conversation and also we learn more about what stood out to you so we can continue doing this good work. So Manly, thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate it and I hope you have an outstanding weekend. Thank you. I appreciate you. Happy holidays. Happy holidays. Thank you for listening to High Performance Mindset. Are you signed up for Sindra's weekly email with free mental tools and strategies for high performance? Why the heck not?

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