High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 263: 3 Counterintuitive Strategies to Master Your Runaway Brain with Speaker & Bestselling Author, Roger Seip

Episode Date: July 12, 2019

Intelligent, Insightful….and hilarious! These are the words that Roger’s clients use when they experience his programs. He has a knack for taking principles of effectiveness that most of us struggle with, and crystallizing them into clear strategies and action plans that get Record-Breaking Results.   In his first sales career, Roger became one of the top 20 producers of over 200,000 in the 160 year history of the company. That’s the top 1% of the top 1%. Roger Co-Founded Freedom Personal Development, one of the world’s premier Personal Development rms. Roger is the author of two bestsellers including: Train Your Brain For Success and Master Your Mind.   He’s delivered more than 2000 presentations for organizations like Northwestern Mutual, Harley Davidson, and The National Association of Realtors. Roger also spent 8 years as a professional stand-up comic.   In this podcast, Roger and Cindra talk about: · 3 steps for a breakthrough · How to be clear on what you want · Why to upgrade your self-talk · Why it’s important to plan your morning affirmation · 3 counterintuitive strategies to master your mind

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. Welcome to the High Performance Mindset Podcast. This is your host, Dr. Sindra Kampoff, keynote speaker, author, and mental performance coach. And I am here to help you master your mindset. Now, I started this podcast to really provide mental strategies and tools for everybody who's listening. And with two episodes every week, I deliver a short, powerful message about five minutes every week on the podcast.

And then I interview an expert on the topic of mindset. And today you are going to enjoy Roger Seip in episode 263. We talk about counterintuitive strategies to master your runaway brain. And I first met Roger on the speaking circuit. We have been in several speaking showcases together and I just couldn't wait to have Roger on the podcast because I knew that you would enjoy what he has to say and it's really easy, tangible way to understand mental strategies. And so people describe Roger as intelligent, insightful, and hilarious. And he has this knack for taking principles of effectiveness that most of us kind of struggle with and crystallizing them into clear strategies

and action plans that get record-breaking results. In his first sales career, Roger became one of the top 20 producers of over 200,000 in a 160-year-old history of the company. So that is about the top 1% of the top 1%. So since then, he's co-founded what's called Freedom Personal Development, which is one of the world's premier personal development firms. He is the author of two best-selling books, including Train Your Brain for Success and Master Your Mind, which came out this year. He's delivered more than 2,000 presentations for organizations like Northwestern Mutual, Harley-Davidson, and the National Association of Realtors. Roger also spent eight years as a professional stand-up comic,

which I think that you'll hear in today's episode, his comedian and his comedian side. So in this podcast, Roger and I talk about three steps to create a breakthrough, which I used after I interviewed Roger with a client and she really liked these three steps. So I think you're gonna really enjoy that. We talk about how to get clear on what you want, why it's important to upgrade your self-talk and why it's particularly important to plan your morning affirmation. So I know that will get you thinking. And then at the end,

we talk about these counterintuitive strategies to master your runaway brain. So if you enjoyed today's episode, we'd love to hear from you. You can reach out to Roger and I. Maybe head over to Twitter and you can find me at mentally underscore strong. That's mentally underscore strong. And Roger is at deliver underscore freedom. That's deliver underscore freedom. I would love to hear from you and what you thought about this podcast, what stood out to you. So without further ado, let's get into it and let's welcome Roger. Welcome to the High Performance Mindset. Roger,

thank you so much for being here today and for us listening to your wisdom. So how's your morning going? Killing it so far, Sandra. How are you doing? I'm doing really awesome. So Roger, I just read your bio and so people know a little bit about you, but tell us a little bit about how you got to where you are now and a little bit about what you're doing. Oh, fantastic. So I think you probably had this up on the site that I run a company called Freedom Personal Development. I get to coach and speak to and train business people now on basically how to keep their head on straight in a way that helps them go get the best results that they can possibly get. Awesome. That all started, gosh, I hate to say, back when I was a child, but it literally started back when I was a child, when I was 13 years old.

My mom took me to see my uncle, who was a professional speaker at the time and was like really, really good at what he did. And he was, you know, I was in seventh grade and he was talking about, you know, attitude and energy and customer service to a bunch of store managers. I didn't really understand what he was talking about, but I remember just being there and going, that is awesome. I want to do that. It's a weird thing to decide when you're 13 years old. But like, that was kind of the seed of what I do now. When I was in college, I got into business. I got into sales specifically. My summer job when I was in college was I sold educational books door to door and learned a lot. Did reasonably well at it. Became kind of an all-time top producer with that organization.

And then from there, gosh, 20 years ago now, started Freedom Personal Development and started my speaking career. Am I answering your question? I feel like I'm rambling a little bit here. So tell us what led you to start, you know, the speaking part specifically and your company now. Yeah. So I, like I said, I had always wanted to do that. And then by the time I was, you know, mid twenties and had a decade of, uh, really solid business experience and had a couple of different, you would call them record breaking careers. Uh, at that point I said, all right, uh, along with a business partner of mine, he, uh, we, we both

kind of went, all right, time to start a company. Nice. And it was pretty funny, actually. I kind of had it in my head that it was going to be a training company, but this was like classic entrepreneur thing. Like we literally started a company. And when we sat down with a financial advisor who he goes, Hey, so I hear you started a company. We went, yeah, we started a company. And he goes, great. What does your company do? And we were like, we have no idea. Possibilities are endless. That sounds like an entrepreneur for sure. And then figure out how you can make it happen. Right. It became kind of our company motto for a little while. Yeah. Our motto was no idea. So

the possibilities are endless. And you know, 20 years later and a couple of bestselling books and you know, thousands of speaking engagements and hundreds of coaching clients later, it's a, seems to have worked out pretty well. Yeah. That's awesome. And I get to be on your podcast. I know. There you go. There we go. So, uh, two, uh, books, uh, very strong books. One is a bestseller and the other one. No, two of them are bestsellers. Two bestsellers. Wow. Don't be shortchanging my books now.

Okay. Better get that right. So tell us why you decided to write Train Your Brain for Success. So you and I talked about this a little bit yesterday, and it's a pretty good story. So, I had, like, the trigger for writing our first book, Train Your Brain for Success, was actually really an exercise in something that we teach our clients in our events and in our coaching relationships, which is all about just upgrading your clarity. A lot of authors, you know, I mean, and in fact, you've had authors on this show, who have these great stories of man, I was super passionate about, you know, writing a book. So I wrote this manuscript, and I shopped it around 500 publishers, and they all told me to jump in the lake, except for this one, three years later, and it's this awesome story of persistence. That's actually not how Train Your Brain came to life.

I had spent 10 years thinking about writing a book, but I spent those 10 years thinking about it really sporadically and in very kind of vague ways, right? Like, oh, what a neat idea to write a book. Oh, a guy like me should have a book. Oh, I would love to write a book someday. And made literally zero progress in 10 years. And then I worked with a coach,

which it sounds a little self-serving for you and me to share stories about how awesome coaching is because we provide those services. But it's a big part of why I'm so sold on what you do and what I do. Yeah, we teach people a lot about upgrading your clarity. My coach basically had me write a vision statement like you have your clients do. Super basic, think three to five years down the road

and describe what your ideal business looks like. And just redoing that exercise brought me a ton of clarity. I specifically wrote a sentence in that vision statement that said, I have a book, I've written a book, and I'm a bestselling author. And it just made it so much clearer to me. Just writing that one little, you know what I'm talking about? Oh, for sure. It seems so simple and goofy, but just that one sentence, I've written a book. I'm a bestselling author. I talked to my coach. I said, what do you think about this? You know, 10 years later, she goes, well, she's very tactful. I don't want to say you're overdue, but you're definitely ready.

It's time. And I went, all right, I don't know how to do this, but I'm going to do it. No joke, Sindra. The next day, I spent 10 years farting around with the idea of writing a book and nothing happens, I get, I kind of have this upgrade in clarity and no joke, the next day I get an email totally out of the blue. And it's from, I almost deleted the email because I didn't know who it was from, but the email says, dear Roger, we've never met before, but I'm an editor with John Wiley and Sons who they're my publisher. I'm an editor with Wiley. We've been following your work for the last few months and we think we'd like to publish your book. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. I went, wow, this mind stuff works, man. Well, I think the power of that is you got really clear on what you wanted. And I think

people don't always get what they want because they haven't thought about what they want right and so they're kind of just like letting it go to chance instead of being really deliberate where with where they're going and then I think the opportunities come to us when we're really clear on what we want no joke it's um one of my one of my all-time best mentors and advisors is a woman named Janet Atwood. She wrote a book called The Passion Test. And she says this all the time, that when you're clear, what you want will show up, but only to the degree that you're clear. And I found that to be true in my own business, in the lives of our coaching clients. When you upgrade your clarity,

when you upgrade your clarity just about what you want and why you want it, without worrying too much about the how, do I get there? It's really impressive how things that you thought were impossible just sort of happen. Right. I love that. What you just said, when you are clear, what you want will show up and only to the degree that you're clear, right? That's not my words. That's Janet Atwood. I want to make sure to give credit where credit is due. Totally true. When you're clear, what you want will show up, but only to the degree that you're clear. And I think what you just said is really powerful that we're developing ourselves and I'm continually developing myself. I know you are too, Roger. And I've had a

coach for, I don't know, maybe eight, nine years, my own coach. And I couldn't do the work that I do without it. And so it does kind of speak to the power of coaching and having somebody just continue to push you along, help you be your best self. And I love the exercise of that vision statement. So what advice would you give to people who are intrigued? Cause I know they're listening and they're like, Ooh, I want to do what Roger did. Right. I want to get clear on what I want. Would you just tell them to spend how long, where would you tell them to write this vision statement? You know, what are your thoughts on just the logistics of like the power of making

that happen? Yeah. One of the, there, there's actually something that we teach in our workshops that we just call the recipe for a breakthrough. If you're ever looking for, and this is, there's a whole chapter that's devoted to this in our, in the master your mind book. It's really three things that involve a lot of what you just said in one sentence. Number one is you got to get help. Like if you, if you're looking for a breakthrough, if you're looking to make a quantum leap, you're looking to get your head on straight in a way that's going to produce quantum leap breakthrough types of results. Like, and I'm talking about, this is not necessary. I don't know that this is necessary if you're looking to like grow your business or your income by 10 or 15%. Okay. That's not bad. Like that's like,

that's a process you want to have going on but if you're if you're in a situation where you're like nope you know what i'm looking to double my income this year i'm looking to get in the best shape of my life now if you're looking for a quantum leap a breakthrough type of results i always tell people number one is you're going to need to get help you're going to need to you're going to need to hire a coach or at least have the input of a trusted mentor or advisor. You're going to need to get help from another person. Einstein said you can't create, you can't solve problems with the thinking that created the problem in the first place. So you're going to need to get some different thinking from your own inserted into your process. Two, you're going to need to get away. What you said is how long should somebody invest in writing this vision statement? I mean, in many cases, getting like literally leaving your town, going away for a retreat or to your cabin in the woods or having some solitude.

Just getting away from your normal space and your normal routines for a day or two to think and write and reconnect with, all right, really, what do I want and why do I want that? A couple of days, once or twice a year is usually worth its weight in gold. And then the third element in our recipe for the breakthrough is that to do those two things, in getting help and in getting away once or twice, you're going to need to make a reasonably uncomfortable investment in doing those two things, right? Like I imagine if you have a coach, you invest, you invest time and money with your coach, right? For sure. And if I know you, you probably do that in a way that's big enough that it stretches you, right? Like taking the

hour out of your week or your month or whatever it is, is probably a little uncut. You're like, I don't really have the hour, but I'm going to make the hour because I know it pays, right? Like when you write the check to your coach, I'm guessing that it ain't chump change. It's, you notice it, right? And there's real value in making an investment in yourself that stretches you a little bit. So again, I'm rambling a little bit here. I don't know if I'm answering your question or not. It's good. I like what you're saying about, you know, that there's real investment when you stretch yourself financially, because you have a little like skin in the game, right? When I'm putting some money out there, I know that I'm dedicated and I'm ready to make the breakthrough. Interestingly enough, I find that just doing that, I've always

found this whenever I've stepped out and said, I'm going to do this coaching program or have this mentor in my life, I have always started seeing the results typically right away, like almost always even before the coaching or the mentorship itself actually begins. I start seeing upgrades as soon as I've made not the decision, oh yes, I'm going to do this, but once I've committed, you know, once I've written the first check or had the first payment go through on my card, it's like making that investment in tangible terms in and of itself carries some kind of weight that influences your brain and your thinking in ways that already start things, you know, coming your way and lining up. Yeah. Love it. Love it. Nice. So I like the three steps for the recipe of a breakthrough.

Very helpful. So before we kind of dive into your new book, Roger, I'd like for you to tell us the story about a time that didn't go so great for you and what you learned from it. Maybe something you might call a failure, depending on how you define failure. But I want to ask you that question because I think, okay, people can be listening and wow, Roger, he's crushing it. Thousands of people he influences and coaches every year. But tell us about a time that didn't go so great for you and what you learned from it and what we can learn from that experience that you've had. Okay. So my mind goes to two places. Number one, I told you about how my first experience in business was I sold educational books door to door. Yes. And that was that entire, I spent nine years working with that company. Didn't take me nine years to get out of college. It was four years, four years as a student. And then five years I worked with them

professionally, but that whole, that whole business was an exercise in failure. I mean, you're literally out cold calling, you're knocking on doors, right? So even the best of the best will, I mean, the very best producers in that business would hear the word no five times as often as you would hear the word yes. But I think what, so I got to get my brains beat in and fail in small ways, regular, like literally dozens of times per day. And I think the biggest thing that I learned from that is that it's the old saying about what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right? Like when you can just, when you can fail, like this is why I love working with salespeople because even the best ones fail 10 times more often than they succeed. And just going through that and going, okay, well, I'm not dead. I didn't die. Look at that. I,

I heard no 28 times today and I got three yeses and look at that. I didn't die. It just teaches you what life is all about. But I think maybe a more, a keen, a clearer, specific example of what you're talking about. I did, I did stand up comedy professionally for eight years. And I remember, I remember the, my biggest failure there. I had a number, I was fortunate in that I only had a couple of times where I like really bombed badly, but one of them, there was kind of a lot on the line. I remember was doing a show and there was somebody who was specifically coming. This was when I was really early in my career. And, you know, I'm doing, you know, I'm emceeing at a local club for 25 for a show right i mean which was fine i was 22 years old at the time and uh there was somebody who was coming to

the show who was there to see me and he was there well and he was there to see me because he was looking to book uh what was known as a corporate gig and was going to pay like a thousand dollars like way more money than i'd ever gotten for and so i was all amped up and i it got to it kind of got to me and i bombed like i bombed this like i bombed i was not at my best um were you just overthinking it do you think you're just in your head? I probably just put too, yeah, I probably, I mean, I, I, you have to say that I choked. I was, you know, I, I, I wasn't myself. I wasn't right. I let it, I let it get to me. And yeah, I overthought it. Right. Which, and in comedy, thinking too deeply when you're on stage is going to be a problem. Right.

It's like, I can see that. It's like your clients, right? Like you don't want Adam Thielen thinking a whole lot when he's running a route, right? Like that needs to be- Empty mind. Empty mind and just react. Well, comedy is kind of the same way, right? Like you just want to be in the moment and I wasn't. So anyways, what happened was there was another comedian there

that I had worked with a little bit was kind of friends with and he went up and killed it and the guy who was there to see me to book me for his corporate gig ends up booking this guy who he wasn't even there for and i was upset i found out like after the show we were hanging out at the bar afterwards and having a beer and uh and i was i was a little pouty right like i was like well he was supposed to come and he was supposed to be booking me he booked you instead and fortunately this guy uh who shall remain nameless was just bluntly honest with me. He's like, hey, dude, you weren't that great tonight. And I went, ow.

And then I went, you know what, though? Yeah. That's true. Like, I kind of blew it. And I'm going to learn from, from this. Yeah. What did you learn from it? Well, it taught me a lot about, again, okay, you know what? I didn't die from the experience. It wasn't really that big of a deal. Uh, and then it, it, it reminded me about something I think that you work on with your

clients about learning to relax under pressure. I knew that you work on with your clients about learning to relax under pressure. I knew that I, he, my, my, my friend was right. I didn't do a great show. And the reason I didn't do a great show is because I was tense, right? I attached too much. I got too attached to a specific result. I was, I had too much of an agenda and I lost the ability to just be in the moment and I paid for it. It has taught me a lot about now, so now when I'm are down, uh, I, I often go back to that experience and go, all right, you know what? Just remember to breathe, relax and have fun and be yourself.

And if that's what I'm thinking about in a higher stakes moment, I, I, I know that that's what it, it's a little counterintuitive, right? Like it's when the pressure's on, just remember to breathe. Doesn't sound like it makes sense. Right. But it's totally always the right way to go. And so I. When you were telling that story, Roger, I was thinking about my first speaker showcase where the whole time I'm just

like comparing myself to other speakers. I think I was there. Oh, I hope not. And I just felt like I didn't connect because I was so in my head instead of being myself. But the last one, you were right after me, I think. Yeah. No, that one I did great. That was not my first one.

I think I was there for both of them. Was that, was that, was the first one, was that in North Dakota? No, no. The first one was in Iowa. No, I was not there. Yeah. Good thing. Maybe I'm glad. It was fine. But my point is, is like, I've been there too, where, you know, we, we know all these strategies.

I think that's the real point of the message is that, but we have to practice them every day and they aren't easy. They are counterintuitive, like you mentioned. One question I wanted to ask you, Roger, as I go back to the, you know, a salesperson door to door and how they failed, you know, 29 times, but then they succeed for three. What do you think is the mental processes that they use to overcome that failure really quickly? And to be able to stay excited about what they're doing, even though that, you know, they maybe only had three successes out of

32 that day. The biggest one that helped me, you'll appreciate this. That was what, like that experience is where I learned about upgrading your self-talk. Yeah. Awesome. And the thing about it is if you're in, if you're in a business and a lot of my clients are in a business like this, where they have to, they have to just wade through a bunch of crap. And then they, but the thing is, if they do it, you don't have to succeed more than about 10% of the time to become successful and fabulously wealthy over the course of your career, right? So the biggest strategy for me was really focusing on affirmations and on self-talk. And the key for me and for our clients is getting out in front of it. Like you don't wait until you get kicked in the teeth to start talking yourself up and saying, I feel happy, healthy, and terrific. And everybody loves me and everybody's

buying. You start that sort of like as soon as you wake up in the morning because you know like you know the adversity is coming you know the overwhelm is coming you know that when you get to work that that's when like it's stuff is going to happen yeah and if you don't have some mental momentum built up already, like if you're not coming into your day, your work day, having worked on it already, you're going to have some problems, right? Yeah. Again, am I answering your question? Definitely answering my question. And what advice would you give to people who are like, oh, yeah, I want to upgrade my self-talk in the morning. I really need to start with these affirmations.

Do you have any guidelines or what are your thoughts on how to write those for the morning? Just really start powerfully with what you're thinking about. I wouldn't even say if somebody is really looking to go, okay, I need to up. I need to I know I need to do something like this. What do I what what what do I got to, I need to, I know I need to do something like this. What do I, what, what, what do I got to do? Keep it super simple. I would recommend reading besides your book, Beyond Grit. I would also, well, no, your, your, your book has great stuff in it about how to deal with your self-talk. The book, the first book that I ever read on it, it was sort of the, the,

one of the first books that was ever really written about it from a scientific perspective is a book called what to say when you talk to yourself by Dr. Shad Helmstetter. It's sort of like the classic. I read that book. So I would recommend your book and what to say when you talk to yourself. But if somebody is going, okay, no, no, I don't have time to read a book. What do I do tomorrow morning? Keep it super simple. I've done this every day for the last 30 years. And I'm real. I legitimately believe I have not missed a day. When my eyes pop open in the morning,

I say the exact same thing to start every day. I say, this is going to be a great day. That's it. That's how, that's how I start the day. And you know this, that just because we don't probably have the time on this show to get into a super detailed lesson on the science of what's going on with your theta and alpha brainwaves right away when you wake up in the morning. If our listeners want that, I would definitely encourage them to read my book, Master Your Mind. But it's pretty well known and it's almost intuitive that the first thought that you have for the day is going to carry with you all day long, right? So, right, you've got this

subconscious brain that kind of acts like a big dumb elephant that basically takes whatever picture you give it and goes okay okay i'll go get that for you doesn't really judge the picture right like doesn't judge is this a good picture or a bad picture or a helpful or unhelpful picture it just takes whatever instructions you give it at the right time and goes oh okay i'll go get that for you. And nowhere do you get that reaction more strongly than right away when you wake up in the morning. So I wake up in the morning and I say, hey, this is going to be a great day. And my subconscious brain goes, great day.

Okay, I'll go get that for you. And then you're seeing all the things that are going great about your day instead of things that aren't great. And that's where the power of that is, is that what we're paying attention to throughout our day changes. Bingo. And there's a whole bunch of things that it does, right? So if anybody's like, really, is it really that simple? Yes. And if you want to experiment with it, I would say try going the opposite way, right?

Wake up tomorrow morning and wake up and go, Oh man, this is going to suck. And you just see what happens. And you know what's funny? Like I, like our, our listeners can't see us, but I see you laughing because, and I think most people get this. Like if I ever give people the suggestion to go, yeah, I'll tell you what, just why don't you wake up and just start with a whole bunch of crappy negative, just say a bunch of negative stuff right away when you wake up. Right.

People intuitively go, Oh, I would never do that because deep down they know it's going to screw up their day. And yet, waking up, somehow going the opposite way and waking up and saying, this is going to be a great day. People like me, man, I can be my worst enemy sometimes where it's like my, my best friend, my husband, my kid wouldn't tell me that, but like, why am I talking to myself that way? So yeah, I think we can all have those, those natural tendencies. So master your mind, love the title, love the book. Tell us a little bit more about that book and how that book is different than Train Your Mind for Success. Train Your Brain for Success. Yeah. There you go. So number one,

so Train Your Brain, which came out into, gosh, almost seven years ago now, I can't even believe it, was specifically written almost like as a workbook, right? Like there's great, there's activities and exercises that you can do in it, which are right? Like there's great, there's activities and exercises that you can do in it, uh, which are great for, there's great stuff in there that'll, you know, improve your memory and improve your ability to read faster with better comprehension and then go get, go break records in your life. Uh, the master your mind book is number one was specifically designed as something that people could, you know, sit on a beach and read if they wanted to just read straight through and get a ton of benefit from.

And the specifically what master your mind is all about, the subtitle kind of says it all. It's all about counterintuitive strategies to refocus and re-energize your runaway brain. So it's all about to, and it's funny, whenever I say runaway brain, most people go, well, I got one of those, man. Everybody kind of knows that your brain tends to run away with you. So, right. So Master Your Mind is all about, I call them counterintuitive strategies. There's a lot that we have been taught over the course of our lives that is just about how to perform at the highest level,

how to succeed at the highest level, and just how to be a happy person. A lot of what we have been taught is just flat out wrong. Right? Awesome. Okay, let's dive in. wrong. Right. Awesome. You know, like, I don't want to go down the whole, I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but there's a lot of what we've been taught about how to succeed that just is incorrect. Um, some examples that I give in the book, so kind of an innocent one. Okay. Um, is right. Like if you and I were probably taught,

we were probably lectured by our parents that you should not go swimming until, until you should not go swimming until 30 minutes after you've eaten. Yes. Remember that? Everybody was taught that. We would sit around and wait for our stomachs and we'd look at the time. We'd wait 30 minutes. So you know what? Patently has no bearing on your ability to enjoy. Right? Like you're not. Logically, that makes sense. Okay, right. If I have food in me, that makes me heavy. As a kid, you're like, well, that makes me heavier. Like it makes me weigh more, which makes it harder to stay afloat. Or maybe I'll get a stomach cramp or it sounds like it should be correct, but you know what? It has no, whether

it's 30 minutes or 20 minutes or zero minutes or an hour, it has no bearing on when you should go swimming. Now, again, I said, that's pretty innocent one. There's not really major consequences to that, except that you and I probably missed out on some half hours of swimming that we would have really enjoyed. But the thing is, there's a lot of bigger things about how we win at life that we believe we have been taught are true. And they sound like they should be true, but they're not. Right. Right. So let's talk about that. Roger, I know, you know, the part of the subtitle is this runaway brain. I like that, that idea. So how would I know if I have a runaway brain? Like tell us about that. Well, so number one, if you have a brain, it's probably a runaway.

So if you're listening to this podcast, if you're listening to this podcast, clearly you have a brain. And most of us, most of us in the world today, if there's 7 billion people on earth, at any given time, there's probably six and a half billion whose brains are running away with them in some manner. Here's just a little quiz. If you've ever had the experience of meeting somebody, shaking their hand, getting their name, and then literally five seconds later, you can't remember their name. Yes. Happens to me sometimes. Happens to people all the time. You just experienced a runaway brain.

Your brain had run away to something, both focused on something else. If you've ever been reading something, which I know your listeners are readers. If you've ever been reading something, got to the end of a page and then realized that your mind had been elsewhere and you had no idea what you'd been reading for the previous few minutes and you had to start all over again. That's a runaway brain, right? If you've ever had, this is the killer for a lot of people. And I get a lot of people who go, oh my gosh, this is like every day. If you've ever had a day where you felt like at the end of your work day, you felt like you had worked your brains out and you were exhausted. But then when you looked at it, went the heck did I actually

do of any, what did I really accomplish today of any real importance? Sure. Yeah. Your brain was running away with you all day long. Is it making sense? Absolutely. What would you say is the opposite of a runaway brain? The opposite of a runaway brain, I would say, is a focused and calm brain. Okay. It's, right, and a lot of people,

maybe a good way of understanding the whole idea of a runaway brain is if you've ever had the day where you were all day long at work, you were thinking about what was going on at home. And then as soon as you got home, all you could think about was the stuff that you didn't get done at work. Absolutely. That's a whole day of what's known as polluted time, right? A properly functioning brain, a properly used brain will give you, will just help those things line up. Like it's my belief that when you're working, you ought to be focused on work. And when you're at home, you ought to be at home, right? Right. You ought to be where you're at. One of my to be at home, right? Right. You ought to be where you're at.

One of my great mentors, Ed Foreman, used to say this. He goes, boy, be where you're at. And it's one of the hardest things to do is to, when you are where you are just being in that place one of the you know a lot of my clients are pro athletes and not all of them but a lot of them are and the really good ones have this ability to stay focused in the present and you know play after play after play race after race after race consistently right like that's the key. Everybody can manifest moments of brilliance, but real high performance is knowing how to take that. I mean, if you want, I don't know if you want to call it, you know, the ability to drop into a flow state or achieve an optimal performance

mindset or just relax under pressure and be present. Like it goes by a lot of different names. The real high performers, right, have trained themselves and they've got the systems and they've got the training and they've got typically some accountability, somebody guiding them so that they can operate from that state of mind on command and consistently for a long period of time. Play after play, day after day, presentation after presentation. Yeah. That's what your top performers, that's, that's what your top performing athlete clients do. Yes. My top performing salesperson, business leader clients

do is they're able to take that, that flow state, that calm focus and bring it to everything that they do all day, every day. And I'm thinking about calm and focused brain. You know, like you think about leaders, some clients who I work with who are leaders or CEOs and those people who have trained their mind to really be focused and calm. You can see it in their energy and their leadership. You know, the runaway brain makes me think of a leader who's super anxious going from topic to topic and idea to idea or, you know, project to project, you know, and they, maybe the way they even walk around their office is a little bit more intense, but calm, focused brain, I think helps people lead more authentically as well and maybe more

intentionally. No question. It shows up in your communications with other people. It shows up in your leadership. It shows up in your sales ability. It shows up in your productivity, just your ability to get stuff done. It certainly shows up on the track or on the field or on the court if you're an athlete. Yeah. Yeah, super good. So let's talk about these counterintuitive success strategies. Start with what do you mean by counterintuitive? Yeah. Counterintuitive, I kind of alluded to it before. Counterintuitive just means that it sounds backwards, but it really works to pull you forwards. It sounds weird. Yeah. It sounds like it's maybe not going to work or it sounds backwards. Yeah. It sounds backwards, but it actually pulls you forwards. That's what I mean by, and there's a

lot of things like that. So let's talk about some of the top counterintuitive strategies that you talk about in the book. Let's go for it. Yeah. We don't have that much time. Let's give people real value here. Yeah, no, that's all right. So the top, I would say that in this venue, there's a couple of where I would encourage people to focus if they're like, okay, what's a counterintuitive strategy that's going to work? Number one is what I would, is what I call slow down to speed up or slow down to get faster. People think that in order to move faster, they have to try harder. People think that if they're going to get faster, they have to try harder. People think that if they're going to get faster, they have to get faster. And this was actually the genesis of this book. I had the opposite experience in

literally in my running speed. Sure. This is how I start the book is I'm not as much of a runner as you are, but I'm a runner. I've, I've done a couple of marathons and I really awesome degree of running. So I enjoy, well, so I had this pattern, um, where I would run, I would train for an event and somewhere along the way I would get injured, right. Overuse injuries, right? And I tried everything, you know, different shoes and different gates and different everything, right? And so I kind of stumbled across this idea of, it was the teaching of Dr. Phil Maffetone was sort of the pioneer of this about really truly aerobically exercising. And the whole idea is that you train below your aerobic threshold, which is a heart rate thing. And in order to do it, it is painfully slow.

Like he's like, right, you're going to go so slow that you'll be embarrassed and think that you're not doing anything. And I write about it. I had a funny experience with it where I was like, all right, well, I'll try. It sounds crazy, like run slower to get faster. That doesn't make any sense at all, right? But I was like, okay, I got nothing to lose, so I'll try this out, right? So, I'm doing this slow running thing. I'm keeping my heart rate below 135 beats per minute as I'm running. I'm having to stop and walk a lot as a result. And I had this experience where I'm just out for a morning run,

and I'm just getting – I'm just eating people's dust. I'm getting passed, like, left and right, like just people who are out recreationally running. And the first guy is, like, clearly is an actual track star, so I have no problem with that. And then there's, like, this like this super fit like grad student young woman who kind of goes flying by me i'm like yeah it's cool but then cindra i got passed by like an 80 year old grandma and my ego just couldn't take it i'm literally like it's i realize it's ridiculous that i'm that i'm attached to this at all because

i mean it's just a just a training run but literally this 80 year old four foot super nice sweet grandma just kind of comes trucking by me and she's like have a nice morning sunny boy and then i just ate her dust you know and i went is went, is this even working? And I, I, I test, I hadn't been timing myself at all. And I was like, okay, let me, let me see. And sure enough about, this was about eight weeks into this training program. I'd shaved like 90 seconds off of my mile time by run, by going slow. Yeah. I went, they just, it blew my mind. Yeah. Then I realized, okay, there's a lot of places where in fact, what I teach people is, is counterintuitive. All right. So it's their slow down to slow down to get faster. Okay. And that apply, there's a lot of ways you can apply

that in business. Um, the second one is upgrade your clarity and don't worry about how we kind of talked about this one already yeah upgrade your clarity don't worry about how people are so worked up and managers go crazy when I start teaching this because they're like well their whole job is how and how is not bad I think that people get way, way, way too focused at the beginning of a journey. When they're trying to get from point A to point B in their life, people get really stressed out about, oh my gosh, how am I going to get there? And they have devoted very little time to getting clear about what do they want and why they want that. They're so worried about how am I going to get there? What top producers

tend to do is that they are much less concerned. It's not that they're not concerned at all, but they're much less concerned about the mechanical steps about the plan on how do I get from point A to point B. And they're super clear though on where is point B and why do I want to get there? They learn to let the how take care of itself a lot more. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. Yeah. I think it's important because I think when you're thinking about where you want to go and if at the same time you're thinking about how, I think that's where the automatic negative thoughts come in and you think, well, I'm not going to be able to do that. I can't do that. It's like self-limiting thoughts and then you don't move forward.

And so I like the idea of separating those because it gives you more room to breathe and really dream about what you want. Bingo. What you just said is whether, you know, because of the automatic negative thoughts or the self-doubt, what those two things will create is they'll create tension, right? And tension, as you know, slows you down. If you're a runner, if you're a football player, if you're a basketball player, if you're engaged in any physical thing, tenseness, tension in your muscles slows you down, right? You watch the Olympic sprinters, they're super loose, right? Like watching Olympic sprinters face when they're

running, it's the most hilarious thing ever. And they train themselves, do they relax their muscles, they relax everything that's not involved in the actual mechanics of sprinting. This is I this is really good for me, Sandra, I hadn't even thought about it this way. Right? When you get overly worked up about how am I supposed to get there? it makes you tense, which slows you down. Forget about the how a little bit and just get clear about what do you want and why do you want it. And then the third big counterintuitive thing, I know we're starting to run out of time, but I do want to cover this, is if you're looking for a big transformation, I always encourage people to get micro in their approach towards it. What does micro mean to you? Micro means that you start microscopically small and you make microscopically small

improvements. If you're looking to make progress hit a goal achieve transformation i love doing this is you start micro sky and i mean you literally start so microscopically small that it's embarrassing to you that you think it's a joke the example that i get so last year i did this is one of my favorite things that I've ever done for my own physical fitness. I did what's called the 100-Day Burpee Challenge. Nice. You know the 100-Day Burpee Challenge?

I've heard of it, but I have not done it, but I should. Well, here's the funny thing, is it's crazy simple, and it's my favorite example of micro. It's 100 days, and the way that you start is you do burpees you do some burpees every day and the progression is that on day one you do one burpee nice i can do that and you're not here's the thing you're not allowed the only rules are you do the burpees you cannot work ahead. If you miss a day, you can make up a day, but you cannot work ahead. So on day one, you're allowed to do a maximum of one burpee.

Anybody can do one burpee. It feels like you're like, you do your one burpee and you're like, okay, I'm done with my burpees for the day. And you're not even breathing hard, right? Like it just feels like a joke. And then on day two, it's two burpees. And then on day three, it's three burpees. And in the beginning, it's a microscopic start. And then it's microscopically small improvements. You with me on this? Absolutely. And it's crazy how like on day one, if somebody asked you to do burpees are hard, like everybody hates burpees and everybody loves burpees at the same time

because they're super hard on day one. If somebody said, Hey, I want you to do 50 burpees. You, you maybe couldn't do it without puking. But by the time you get there, you've done enough, you've experienced enough of a training effect that you'll do your 50 burpees and it'll be easy. And there's this thing that flips in your head where you go, wow, I just did something that a month ago I would have considered impossible and I made it look easy. Yeah. And's what micro. Yeah. And you can do that with, I, this, this is a great way for curing call reluctance. If somebody is a sales professional who has a hard time picking up the phone, micro, a micro approach, start super small and just improve a teeny little bit every day works, works dramatically.

Yeah, it's really good. So now I'm starting to ramble because I get fired up about this stuff. Those are my three big counterintuitive strategies. Slow down to speed up, get clear without worrying about the how and get micro. Awesome. And so one last question before we wrap up. So I know in the book, the new book, you talk quite a bit about like harnessing your subconscious. What is your take on how we can do that? I actually, yeah, this is my favorite thing to teach people because it's all about your subconscious is where all of your results come from. And the biggest thing that I would say is to implement that the, one of the strategies that I just talked about, the biggest thing that you can do to get your elephant moving in the direction that you want it to get is just to get clear,

is just get a picture in your head of what you want and then focus on that picture, whether that's through a vision board or through affirmations or through any of the awesome stuff that you teach your clients. Get a picture, focus on it regularly, and let the how take care of itself. Love it, love it. You do have to work.

You do have to work. You do have to work. Let's to work you do have to work let's not forget that yeah and uh work hard every day right towards your goals and your dreams so i think you and i could have talked for hours and hours um so i'm sure we're gonna have you back on to the show roger here are the most important things that i got from today to kind of summarize and uh help people who are. My first takeaway that you said is when you're clear, what you want will show up, but only to the degree that you're clear. So that was very good. I wish I had made that up myself. I loved the three steps for a recipe for

a breakthrough, get help, get away, and then move forward with like an investment, right? Like invest in yourself. A reasonably uncomfortable investment. Reasonably uncomfortable investment. Very helpful. I liked how you talked about getting ahead of your self-talk. And then we talked about what are you saying in the morning when you wake up and how that's so powerful, like the first statement that you say. And I'd encourage people to go back and maybe write that out for sure. Write that out, you know, so that they can think tomorrow morning, what's the first thought that you want to put in your mind and your example of the vision statement and the power of that writing your first book. That was really cool. And then the three

counterintuitive strategies, slow down to speed up, upgrade your clarity, don't worry about the how, and then get micro. So yeah, baby. It's a good day for you, Cyndra. I just summarized right there. Give myself a pump. Very good interview. So thank you for all of the value, Roger. So I know we can buy both of your books on Amazon, but what's the best way? Would you encourage Amazon? Would you encourage your book or tell us a little bit more about the best way to get your books? Probably the easiest way to get a book quickly would be just to go on Amazon and check out Train Your Brain for Success or Master Your Mind. If you want to get an autograph copy and the audio version of the book to go along with your hardcover. Listeners can just send, I would just have them send me an

email at roger at deliverfreedom.com. Roger is R-O-G-E-R at deliverfreedom.com and I'll take care of them personally. Awesome. And where are you on social media where we can follow along with you, maybe connect with you about this podcast, reach out to you that way? What's the best way for us to do that? Facebook and LinkedIn are my two major platforms. I'm not a huge Twitter fan. Instagram is coming online. But if you just, yeah, if you go on either Facebook or LinkedIn and just look for Roger Seip, S-E-I-P is the last name, you'll find me.

Okay, Roger, grateful that you spent the morning with us giving real value to the listeners here at the high performance mindset so and it was great to connect with you again i'm sure our paths will cross really soon and thank you so much for your time and your energy today it's my pleasure thanks for having me on thank you for listening to high performance mindset if you like today's podcast make a comment share it with a friend and join the conversation on twitter at mentally underscore. For more inspiration and to receive Sindra's free weekly videos, check out DrSindra.com.