Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum - Ep 20: Michael Gervais (Sports Psychologist, Seattle Seahawks)

Episode Date: August 21, 2018

Michael Gervais (Sports Psychologist, Seattle Seahawks, Finding Mastery) enlightens me on his philosophies, how he’s learned to condition people’s mind so they can be more present, and his studies of how the most exceptional people in the world work. Michael discusses working with Felix Baumgartner for the Red Bull space jump, walking into the locker room after the Seahawks lost the Super Bowl, and how he’s impacted 1 in 5 people at Microsoft to be more present. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ontario, the wait is over. The gold standard of online casinos has arrived. Golden Nugget Online Casino is live. Bringing Vegas-style excitement and a world-class gaming experience right to your fingertips. Whether you're a seasoned player or just starting, signing up is fast and simple. And in just a few clicks, you can have access to our exclusive library of the best slots and top-tier table games. Make the most of your downtime with unbeatable promotions and jackpots that can turn any mundane moment into a golden, opportunity at Golden Nugget Online Casino. Take a spin on the slots, challenge yourself at the

tables, or join a live dealer game to feel the thrill of real-time action, all from the comfort of your own devices. Why settle for less when you can go for the gold at Golden Nugget Online Casino. Gambling problem call Connects Ontario 1866531-260. 19 and over, physically present in Ontario. Eligibility restrictions apply. See Golden Nuggett Casino.com for details. Please play responsibly. It's Rona Week. Now until Wednesday, and the best part? We're ready to help you extend your summer. You know the saying the grass is always greener on the other side?

Well, this summer, make sure it's your side of the lawn. Head to Rona today for 5.2 kilograms of Scott's Turf Builder Fall Lawn Fertilizer at only 1499. Build it right, build it Rona. Conditions apply, details in store, and more offers at rona.ca. You're listening to Inside of You That's my job With Michael Rosenbaum That's right Rob

You're listening to inside of you With Michael Rosenbaum You know Are you having a good week Rob Having a great week I sounded like Dan Aykroyd You having a good week there Rob I guess I hear it a little bit

Do you? Are you just I'm just humoring you Yeah I've never really done a Dan Aykroy You never noticed Dan Aykroyd always does the same Like his Whether he's in a serious movie

Or a funny movie It's always yeah Here we are That's how I'm talking now I'm being serious or I'm being funny. Maybe that's just his voice. That's not my phone.

That's definitely your phone. Hey, we got a great guest today. This is probably one of my favorite podcasts ever. And you may not know this guy, but after this, you should. He's got a show called Finding Mastery. He's a sports psychologist slash many, many other things. He is a tremendously knowledgeable man. Yeah, he worked with the Seattle Seahawks when they won the Super Bowl.

Yeah, it's the guy who jumped out of space. Yep, the Red Bull Space Jump. The Red Bull Space Jump, if you look it up. He was the guy who helped talk that guy who had claustrophobia and other issues. You know, he's claustrophobic being up in this little capsule. And Michael Gervais helped him figure it out. So he then made the biggest jump ever. And then he talks about what it's like being the brother to Ricky Gervais.

Yeah, that's not true. He's not related to Ricky Gervase at all. But this guy is like, you know, this became real therapy. I think you're going to really, this is going to really help anybody out there with anxiety or depression or just like life, shit, and how to look at things in a different way. He's motivational, but he's realistic, and he uses, he has so much knowledge. Yeah, you tried really, really hard to get a free therapy session. I did.

He was like, I don't want to do that. I don't want to, but, you know, we talked about some of his issues from a younger age. And just, you mostly tricked him into a free therapy session. Yeah, I did. Would have probably cost hundreds of dollars normally. That's true. He was amazing. I really hope you listen to this and you'll get a lot from it.

I know you will. Inside of you is brought to you by policy genius. Do you have life insurance, Michael? I do have life insurance, Rob. Do you? I do not. I probably should. Well, let me tell you something.

Life insurance is important. It's a little confusing, though. Yes, it's very confusing. And there's four out of ten people that don't have it because they're so confused by it and what do they get and what, you know, it's, it is. It's a pain in the ass. And maybe you're one of those people that are confused by this like me or Rob. But if anything were to happen, it's important that you and your loved ones are taken care of. Besides, life insurance rates are the lowest they've been in 20 years.

The best time to buy is now. PolicyGenius.com. The easy way to compare life insurance online. In just five minutes, you can compare quotes from the top insurers to find the best policy for you. When you compare quotes, you save money. It's that simple, Michael. Policy Genius has helped over 4 million people shop for insurance and placed over $20 billion in coverage. They don't just make life insurance easy.

They compare disability insurance, renters insurance, health insurance. If you care about it, they can cover it. So if you've been putting off getting life insurance like I have, there's no reason to put it off any longer. You can go to policygeonies.com to get quotes and apply in just minutes. That easy, folks. You could do it right now while you're sitting here and you should because rates are their lowest, like I said, in 20 years. It's policy genius. The easy way to compare and buy life insurance.

Michael Gervay, here he is. It's my point of view You're listening to Inside of You With Michael Rosenbaum Inside of You Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum Was not recorded in front of a live studio audience Michael Jervais

He brought his friend here today Sully Interns, Sully Sure You can't hear him but he's from Massachusetts Massachusetts How do you say it? Massachusetts

Massachusetts. He just called me an asshole. He, an asshole, sorry, he's a big boy. I thought he was mafia when you pulled up in your fancy car and Michael and he was with you. And I was like, Jesus, he looks angry. Are they pissed? When we first met, he said, I don't need to say anything.

Just say, uh, that's sully. Pass the salt, please. Is that it? Yeah, that's it. Jesus. Look, it's good to have you on here. I'm going to be honest with you. Now we've had, we're starting here already.

I mean, we just, we start going. We just start talking. We're already starting with, I need to be honest. Is that how we do it? I mean, I'm always honest. In fact, Rob, my producer, who's 28 years old, can you believe that? He's already got a shit together, you think. You think he's got no problems.

He's got a fancy attisheet case. Is that what you call it? Fancy what? Adishay, adichet case. What are you talking about? Have you ever heard of that word? I have. So why doesn't he know that?

I don't know. I didn't know my producer was dumb. The fuck, no. But I'll be honest with you. We have musicians. We have actors. is we have athletes, but I've never had a sports psychologist. Is that what you call yourself?

Sometimes. What else do you call yourself? Yeah, no, that's it. I mean, for the most part, you know. You're much more than that. That's what the trade and training. You know, that's where it's from. The reason I had you on the show is because I'm a Jew and I wanted to save money on therapy.

It works that way, huh? It works that way sometimes. Sully had a laugh at that. I'm excited to have you here. Thanks, mate. Because I deal with a lot of shit and I know a lot of my listeners. and they might not be your listeners, but they will be because you're a smart guy and you're going to help with issues and problems.

And this is why people come to you. Yeah. Well, so for clarity, it's sport and performance, right? So I actually spend more time than you would imagine in the arts. In the arts. Yeah. Really? Yep.

Musicians for sure. I mean, you think about what they need to do. They have to get in front of people. Oh, just sing. Well, you asked me. I just answered it. No, I wasn't even being a dick. No, but the vulnerability required for that to really.

really searchers, to do music well, like to innovate and really do it well, you got to go to places. And so that's a big part of, you know, the path of becoming your very best. And sport performance psychology is the science and the art of how to use your mind to be able to be you in any environment. All right. So let's go back. See, I want to go back because I want to see how you got involved in this. And I want to see what your, your childhood was like. How do you become this this guy who coaches people and helps them and uses spirituality and uses meditation and uses all these things to help them be the best they can be how fucked up are you as a child that's the question that's being begged isn't it because i just you know i had i'm dysfunction

you look at me you could see i look in your face and you're like this guy's fucked already you don't even know me it's perfect you look at my house in 45 years old i have i live like a child I have toys and jerseys and I just, I can't, I'm 45 and I'm not married and I'm single and I have anxiety now. It came out of nowhere. I get some depression. I see therapy. I do all these things.

And you're like, why? But then people say, why would a Seattle Seacock superstar have these issues? Why wouldn't he be so confident? Why wouldn't a musician have this confidence? They have everything going for them. Okay. So anybody that's going to push into the edge, the edge of whatever, fill in the blanks by definition if you're on the edge you don't have it together and if you want to

become your very best if you want to understand the the richness of what lies dormant inside of you because it lies dormant for most of us then you got to get to the edge and so therein lies why training the mind and conditioning the mind is an important part of the process so i grew up on a farm and my parents yeah in virginia my parents dropped out so they were they grew up in the city and then they said, in essence, like, we got to get out of the rat race. So more of a hippie thing than anything. So they moved to the country. I was chopping wood and carrying water at the age of eight, trying to figure out how to heat

the house. And, you know, we didn't have running water. It was cold, you know, when it was out, when we're outside. That being said, I've realized that that can paint an image of something far worse than it was. It was loving. It was wonderful. It was the four of us of a younger sister.

And it was just this little nice, little incubated place. A lot of support, a lot of as a child, I mean, were you homeschooled? No, no, no. See, it paints that picture, right? Now, we were out. It was a dirt road. So I grew up with in dirt roads. Do you like country music?

No, you know, I mean, we're hillbillies. It was hillbillies. But you don't like country music. I love music. Anything get my heart to thump, get my head to move, you know, like whatever, like I love. Trice and ecstasy. That will really get your body going. Sully's been there.

No, I don't do that as much. Yeah. Seldom. Seldom. Frequently. If you're at Burning Man, you might pop. a few mollies but everything is controlled you know you just it's it's it's your it's not controlled actually no it's wild it's wild it's free and it's dangerous whatever you tell yourself though so your

parents were cool they were nice they loved you did your dad say michael i love you yeah i've knew that and i felt it and my dad was ripping and running though where i had a hole where i didn't have enough of my dad involved and so he was looking back workaholic alcoholic addiction to other things It's just as bad as being an alcoholic or workaholic? Same thing. It's the same thing. Oh, yeah, for sure, same thing. Yeah.

Describe that. It's just someone who, they don't even realize it's such an addiction that they don't know that they're working constantly and they can't stop. Yeah. So what addictions do or dependency or abuse of anything, really, could be ketchup. It doesn't matter what it is. It fills this hole to be real because we're filling the empty space as opposed to listening to the empty space.

And we all have pain, period, flat out. We all have suffering. You have pain? Oh, yeah. You deal with issues? You deal with pain? Do you have a psychologist? Yeah.

You do. I've got a full-on tribe of people that they would say, Mike, you're one of the most intense people I know. And Jesus, dude, lighten up and this and that and the other. And so, yeah, like, I've got a tribe of people that have my back. I just thought of something funny. Yeah. I just thought of something.

Can you imagine you going into your therapist and saying, he's like, what's your problem? I'm like, well, I just, I need the confidence to give other people the confidence to be confident. Yeah, we sort of that out a minute ago. Yeah, exactly. But I'll tell you, there's nothing comfortable and settling about being uncomfortable. And that's required. So I'll tell you, I've come from an anxious place. So if there was a spectrum between depression and anxiety and I was just fall on one side of the other, it'd be on anxiety.

I would agree with me. Yeah, with you because I don't know you, but me. Right, yeah. And some people fall on the depressed side. And so I fall on the anxious side. And so because of that, there's things that come with it. You know, working too much, worrying too much, thinking too much. And that's the spectrum that I fall on.

It's interesting. I have so many questions. I have so many issues. I think of all these things. I just saw my psychiatrist a few days ago. And for the first time, I was seeing this cognitive behavioral therapist. I've been starting to see him. And he's talking about seeing things positively when you, you know, instead of always

negative because your brain's programmed to think, negative, this is going to happen. This is going to happen. This is going to have. I'm going to pass out. I'm going to do stand-up comedy. I'm going to fucking pass out. I was like, have you ever passed out? I'm like, no, but I've come close, but have you?

No, so you haven't. So that's not really going to happen. It hasn't happened. It's not going to happen because it hasn't happened. And I'm like, fuck you. What does that mean? It could. But it could happen.

Right. And so it's working reality. It's kind of trying to take reality and see, this is the reality and you're convoluting that. Yeah. I mean, good job, right? Because the frontiers of the mind. It's the most amazing freaking thing in the world. We don't know where it exists, how much thoughts weigh, where they go, where they start.

We have no idea. But we know that they matter and they matter. real and they shape the texture of our lives. So when so I've spent a lot of time asking people this question. How many of you like in a small room or large room in my mind it's like two to 400 people and I'll tell you about why I'm in those situations later. But how many of you have formally trained your mind? And now these are rooms with highly successful people. They're doing it. They're doing everything that they hope they would do. They've got that job in their career. And less than 10% raise their hand to formally train their mind.

so most people you included likely have gotten to where they are in their life without formally training the most powerful operating system in the world so if you think about the mind and the brain let's try to separate them they're not easily separated but let's try to separate mind body and brain for just a moment so that we can integrate them that's the goal right to integrate the thing together so that we can be fluid and progressive in the way that we live our life and even your body so you don't feel numbness and anxiety and all these things it's like right there's one of the origins of yoga To do all the physical movement so that you can actually sit still long enough and pay attention to the inner experience. Do you do yoga? Yeah. Every day. No, no, no, no. I'm not like that. Do you recommend yoga?

Yeah, well. I have back issues. So this is what I would say about yoga, is that if you are naturally a limber type person, go lift some heavy weights. If you're naturally inclined to lift heavy weights and be strong and get strong quickly, you probably need some yoga. So the yin-yang is an important thing. If we only go to our strengths, we find out that there's a double-edged sword there as well. So we want to double down and triple down on our strengths, but also have a counterbalance to everything, mental, physical, whatever.

But go back to the mind, brain. Mind and brain separating, right. So the brain is like this, it's not like. It's three pounds of tissue in our brain, in our skull that we have no idea really how it works yet, but it's powerful. And if you think about, to oversimplify, if that's the hard drive and the mind is the software. And if that's an easy way to kind of get an image, I think that that's the simplest, dumbest-down version of how this unbelievably complicated textured, nuanced experience

that is happening right now for both of us is working. And if you don't program the software, the brain will win. The brain will run it. And the brain's designed to survive. It's designed to scan the world and find the dangers to your point earlier. But that's not your mind. Your brain is designed for that. Your mind's not designed for that. Your mind is programmed by your parents by muscle and fitness magazine and it's also genetic i mean there's a lot you know well your brain your brain not your mind not your mind right so they say something tell me of them wrong here i read something and i'm not a huge reader if you have a feeling you are 40% of our brain is genetic 40% of how we think we can't change so if i have manic depression my mom's

crazy as fuck my sister's insane my brother has it i mean it's just endless pill pop and just so far out there. Let me give you an example. My mother called me one day and she said, Michael, she's in tears. Gordon and I got into a fight. I'm in a hotel. I had three valium. Not that you give a fuck.

And hung up. That's my mother. The next day she calls me and she's like, hey, how are you, sweetie? So this is what I come from. So I know that I'm one of those people that probably have 40 to 50% I'm kind of fucked. The other 50 I rely on people like you, Michael. Yeah.

to help me get through it and think right and separate the mind and the brain yeah i mean seriously though it's it's it's not that staunchy rigid kind of you know psychology got a bad rap for a long time right because you sneak it well it was born out of the medical model so the medical model focuses on what's broken like you break your arm well let's understand it right so you only go to the dock when you're broken right and then so psychology was born out of there and so you'd sneak in the front office your front door and then scurry out the back door you know after 45 minutes session it's not that anymore that's that's long ago that's not what it is anymore because there's a new field the new science about 40 years old 60 years old now which is the study of how the most

exceptional people in the world work and that's where I was orientated toward and so it's no longer this idea that it's the study the broken it's how do you condition train your mind to go the distance and you really think you could change anyone's mind you can make anyone there's because I read I'm reading this book called the feel good book feel good I don't know well it was the best seller Michael. Sorry about that. Maybe I'm not reading as much as you think. Maybe not. They feel good. I mean, I'm on page 40, so I've got a long way to go. It's a 400 page book at least. But I skim it. And I see the important things when there's like, you know, charts and things. I'm like, oh, I should probably

look at these charts. Pictures. Yeah, but I'm looking at it. And it just has all these things of like how we think negatively and how we think. It said something like, I'm sure you're one of those people who's thinking, you can't help me. I can't be helped. I'm one of those people who's reading this going no matter what you say, you can help all these other people, but you can't help me. Yeah. Is that common? Like you can't be, I can't be helped. You can't, you're not going to say something or make me train my brain a different way. It sounds ridiculous. Well, there's, okay, there's a cynical view of life. And so if you're a cynic, anything kind of falls into that category. And then there's people that just kind of have given up of themselves, you know,

like kind of a hopeless. I don't know if it's within me to do that. And so I don't know. I mean, but it sounds so campy, like you can train somebody's mind. No, the, You have to do it. You have to do the work. I can't do it. I don't even want to do it for you. Like, forget about it. If you want to do the work, great.

Well, I want to do the work, but I need to be directed. No, no, no, no, that's wrong, too. It's wrong. Yeah, you've got to feel enough pain in your life to say I'm sick and tired of being fucking fat. But I am. No, then you go to cognitive baby of therapy. I go to my second therapist.

I'm taking a new antidepressant that focuses mostly on anxiety. I just started it. I thought it was having anxiety attack when we started this thing. Did you? Yeah, I thought I was like, I was like, I'm a little anxious. If anybody could help me, it's him. I'm perfect. I get, look, I have, I've had a lot of success in my life.

I've done a lot of things, but I think I never really thought about them. I got nervous, I got things, but it helped the anxiety and all these things were a healthy balance. And it helped me and it programmed me. But I don't know. I got to a stage where I think sometimes I'll let it get the best to me. Or sometimes even nobody knows it. I still feel it. And I'm like, why do I feel it?

It's making me less of a man. It's making me less of a talent. It's making me less. It's just impeding me from being the best I can be. And it fucks with it. me. And I know a lot of people feel like that. They're like, oh, you know, what's, what is this? And how do we get that out of your mind? You know what I mean? Yeah. And I'm not in my head because one, you're doing it. So you're already in it. You're figuring some stuff out. Like,

that's it. It's not more complicated in that. But at the same time, that gap between the man or the woman that we are wanting to be and the way we feel inside, the further the the distance between those two, the unhealthier that moment. And if those moments add up over time, the person becomes really unhealthy. If you want to be, fill in the blank, loving and kind, whatever, or aggressive and this, that, and the other, but inside, you're scared and you're angry and you're holding back and bitter, then whatever that gap is is a measure of health. So alignment is the big game. Can you line up your thoughts, words, and actions, period. And if you can line those things up, is good shit happens. Like, what, that's amazing. Go, go. Keep talking. That's it.

So you've got to figure out what thoughts are optimized for you in the man that you want to be. That's deep. No one can give you that work. You have to do that work, that lonely based work. And so there's great thinkers of the world that have said that have been wrestling this for a long time. Inside of you is brought to you by Rocket Money. I'm going to speak to you about something that's going to help you save money, period. It's Rocket Money.

It's a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscription. subscriptions monitors you're spending and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. This is just a wonderful app. There's a lot of apps out there that really, you know, you have to do this and pay for and that. But with Rocket Money, it's they're saving you money. You're getting this app to save money. I don't know how many times that I've had these unwanted subscriptions that I thought I

canceled or I forgot to, you know, the free trial ran at Ryan. I know you did it. That's why you got Rocket Money. Yeah. And I also talked to a financial advisor recently and I said I had rocket money and they said, that's good. This will help you keep track of your budget. See? See? It's only, we're only here to help folks. We're only trying to give you, you know, things that will help you. So Rocket Money really does that. Rocket money shows you all your expenses in one place, including subscriptions you forgot about. If you see a subscription you no longer want, Rocket Money will help cancel it. Rocket money will even try to negotiate lower bills for you. The app automatically. scans your bills to find opportunities to save and then goes to work to get you better deals. They'll even talk to the customer service so you don't have to. Yeah, because I don't want to. Press 1 now if you want, oh, get alerts if your bills increase in price, if there's unusual activity in your accounts, if you're close to going over budget, and even when you're

doing a good job, Rocket Money's 5 million members have saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions. With members saving up to $740 a year when they use all of the app's premium features, cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Download the Rocket Money app and enter my show name inside of you with Michael Rosenbaum in the survey so they know I sent you. Don't wait. Download the Rocket Money app today and tell them you heard about them from my show inside of you with Michael Rosenbaum. Rocket Money. inside of you is brought to you by quince i love quince ryan i've told you this before i got this awesome sixty dollar cashmere sweater i wear it religiously you can get all sorts of amazing

amazing clothing for such reasonable prices look cooler temps are rolling in and as always quince is where i'm turning for fall staples that actually last from cashmere to denim to boots the quality holds up and the price still blows me away Quince has the kind of fall staples you'll wear nonstop, like super soft 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters starting at just 60 bucks. Yeah, I'm going to get you one of those, I think. I like to see you in a cashmere. Maybe a different color so we don't look like twins. Their denim is durable and it fits right and their real leather jackets bring that clean, classic edge without the elevated price tag.

And what makes Quince different, they partner directly with ethical factories and skip the middlemen. So you get top-tier fabrics and craftsmanship at half the price of similar brands. These guys are for real. They have so much great stuff there that you just have to go to Quince. Q-U-I-N-C-E. I'm telling you, you're going to love this place. Keep it classic and cool this fall with long-lasting staples from Quince. Go to quince.com slash inside of you for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns.

That's Q-U-I-N-C-E. dot com slash inside of you free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com slash inside of you did you read the book as a man think of yeah it's good it's it's very short too that's why i liked it 25 pages yeah but it just speaks volumes in these few pages and the way it speaks to me is just like you know i see it i want to be like you know it talks about the weak man and his you know he has these weak thoughts so he's the poor man and this all this and the the straw man has these you know these these good thoughts and i'm going to do this and i'm trying to figure that out i'm trying to balance my life with with health and work and there's no balance forget about it like i i think it's a

mythical ridge line that does not exist that drives people crazy but it talks about purpose is what i was good purpose is different see he talks about yeah purpose is very different yeah he says you have to have purpose and i thought to myself oh my god because i I look at Rob, and I've talked about this before, and you go, he's 28 years old. But Rob has a child, and this is purpose, and I have to make money, and I have to, I have to be strong, and I have to give him love and affection because that's my purpose, my child. I don't know about his wife. I don't know about that, but she seems all right. But I look at my life, and I thought, okay, purpose, what's your purpose?

And I go, holy fuck. I don't exactly know my purpose. Well, I like making people laugh and feel good about themselves. Is that purpose? Sure. it is? Yeah, for sure it can be. But there's got to be something deeper than that. I don't know. The purpose has to be bigger than you. What's your purpose, Mike? Yeah, well, it's pretty clear for me. Like every day is an opportunity to create a living masterpiece. That's what I live by. The purpose, the mission, if you will, is so that's, I would call that a philosophy first, right? So there's two bookends, philosophy and vision slash purpose. And then the mission that I have here is to help one or five people. First in a company, maybe a team, right? And then in a company, if I'm working in corporate world and and maybe regionally, maybe nationally, maybe internationally, one of five people to learn how to condition their mind so they can be in the present moment more often.

That's it. Because I know that if all of us have five friends, so if I can have one, there's going to be like a pond, a pebble in the pond ripple that takes place. And all the good stuff in the world happens in the present moment, period. That's where high performance happens. That's where love happens. That's where connections happens. That's where adjustments take place, where artistry takes place in the present moment.

So if I, I feel like I'm so grateful to learn from extraordinary doers and then I've spent, and thinkers, and I've spent too many years studying the science of it to be able to not pass that on and challenge the shit out of people in the right way and support them and love them in the right way so that they can learn how to be present. The last thing I'm going to do is give people advice. It does not work. But you're insinuating. You said something that struck me. You said being present. Do you think that's a huge component? Oh, yeah. I mean, go back to how the mind's working. I'm sorry, how our brain is working, is that the natural organized way that the brain works is to scan the world and find what's dangerous. Our ancestry gave us that gift. And then so if that's the case, then our mind, if it's over programmed or over influenced by the brain, we're going to start thinking about things that could go wrong as well. And so all of that busyness pulls us into the future, pulls us into away from now. We don't even know if it's necessary to the future. So the condition,

In addition your mind, the natural state of the mind is like a drunk monkey. Have you heard that? No. For some of us, it's double-fisted. It's all over the shop, right? Yeah, curious, sloppy, easily, you know, easily distracted. So, discipline mind is rare. Right. And that's the mind that can come back to now. Like Mr. Miyagi. Yeah, exactly. Miaghi was disciplined. Yeah, right. He wasn't distracted. That's right. He was focused on his trees. Yeah, right. Right. Right. Right. So that would be a form of mindfulness training. And so mindfulness, you use the word meditation. which I don't use often. Mindfulness, because meditation comes with baggage. Nothing wrong with it. It's a beautiful ancient practice. But in the alpha competitive worlds that I live in and work in, that word has, it's got

too much behind it. There's too much luggage on it. So we use the word mindfulness. You can hyphenate it, mindfulness training. Mindfulness training. And so training is an accepted thing. There's only three things as humans we can train. You can train your body.

You can train your craft and you can train your mind. That's it. And the folks that are on the tip of the arrow, they are very clearly most of them. There's no kind of one single theme for all of them. But there's most of them say, I'm not leaving one of the three legs to the stool up to chance. The mind is important. So I want to train it. Like, I want to be great.

It's weird because you say, I don't give advice. How do you go? I mean, I know we jumped from childhood. We were going into your childhood, which I liked. Because how do you get from being this child who's loved, but father's a work, Pain pain. Pain. Suffering. You. Me. Yeah. You suffered as you haven't. I suffer daily. Okay. Bowly and psychologically. Rob, you suffer? Yeah. You do. Come on Rob. How do you suffer with? Yeah. How do you suffer? This is the first time you opened up. He's opening up for the first time. What do you suffer from? I would call myself a workaholic. I work a lot and try to keep myself busy so that. that my mind is busy so you suffered i look i i hate to say this but i want to hear about your

suffering because somehow it helps people me included understand that you you're you don't just have it together you work to have it together oh yeah yeah to get it together a thousand percent i mean i'm happy to talk about whatever you want to talk about but the idea that we have to work we have to train and condition our body craft and mind and getting that alignment between our thoughts words and actions that's what it's about but alignment for whom for you not for me not for mom not for not for dad, not for, you know, it's not those. Can't do it for other people. No, no, no, no.

Yeah, but they, but they have programmed us. Before we could barely speak, they were programming, right? And so that early software programming was influenced first by our parents. And you might have had world-class parents. Do you think I did? The way you described it. Yeah, but there's an asterisk next to. My dad was an alcoholic, too.

Yeah. So they, they were probably trying to do their very best. Most people I know are trying to do their very best. and ill-equipped in some ways and over-equipped in other ways and I don't know anyone that says you know what I'm just a bad human and it's my fault that the world

that people suck in the world or you know or I thought of myself sometimes negatively like I'm just not a great person and then I go yeah you are you do all this stuff but sometimes it's just like negative thoughts

because something happens or this or you didn't do something right or you acted a certain way and you're like you feel bad it's ephemeral it doesn't last long rob that's what ephemeral means short-lived now you diverted

you you uh no no i don't want to you deflected though uh you went away i'm trying to be useful here my pain i'm not sure is useful like i think it is okay i'm happy to explore that with you really believe it or not i'm walking on air do you remember that song i do yeah that was a great show the greatest american hero squirrel squirrel that's exactly i am look my i have a d this is sort of i'm successful in a lot of ways because of that my mind goes works with all these things i'm thinking of things and songs and I'm going to write something crazy and I'm going to sell a TV show and thank God for that. So I don't want to lose that. I just want to sort of kind of be present and learn how to do that. So by doing that, I look at something like you and you're extremely

and by the way, very handsome. I'm not gay. Oh, thank you. But you're very handsome. I think you're my age. That's awkward too. Is it awkward? You got to be comfortable with your sexuality in this world. Sully? It's very thumbs up. So look, I just I like to hear this stuff because what it does for me, if I see successful, people that talk about their suffering and the anxiety or things that happen in it makes me relate to them and it makes me feel better about myself and I think it helps people right yeah I think you're on the money there's a good science that miserable uh misery loves company but it's actually miserable people like miserable company so like there's a trap to fall into which we just talk

about the pain and the shit and the ugliness and the suffering and okay now we're bonded over what you know like that we're suffering. So here it is for me is that there was an emptiness, a void in the pit of my stomach growing up. And this is all looking back, right? And which is easier to do. And I remember one day saying to my mom, like, she goes, Mike, are you happy? And I said, I don't know. I feel like there's an eighth grade, seventh grade. I feel like there's an emptiness inside me. What seventh grader is saying like there's an emptiness? So that would lead to some to think that there was some depression brewing, right? Something. But there was an anxiousness built with that. And it was because my dad was ripping and run and doing this thing. And I was kind of

the man of the house. And I got that message early, be the man on the house. At six, what do you mean? You know, at eight? What, what, what? I'm not right. I'm just talking at the man of the house at 45. So, okay, so that happened. Right. And there's no anger about this, but that was part of the conditions. And then the game to look good rather than be good was real for me. And there's a name for that now called cognitive dissonance. And it's similar to what I was talking about before, cognitive meaning, you know, the mental processes and dissonance meaning in a harsh sound or harsh tone. So cognitive dissonance is when we have cognitive dissonance, it's said to be one of the more painful experiences as humans because we're not lined up.

It's not working right. And so for me, I was more concerned at a young age about what people were thinking of me than actually being me. And I bet you you can relate to that. No? Dude, you just nailed it on the fucking head. I mean, come on. I mean, this is what I got, this is what I just want.

want to get over. I just want to, like, you know, I've thought about, honestly, there's just points of my life where I have thought of like saying, fuck this business. I'm moving back to Indiana. I'm just going to buy a farm. I don't want to. Yeah, but you got a gift. So now, now that's playing it safe and small and like reverting down to a lower version of you. You got a gift. You got a creative way that you organize thoughts. You've got a frantic fun, frantic fun energy about you. Like, how do you harness and use that so that whatever your mission in life is amplified? that's that's the work and it's focus and it's like it's not being too all over the place yeah zoning in on like hey focus on this instead of all these things which the ADD is

like okay what do I do what I do so that that happened for me at a young age and then and then it all it all magnified through my first sport that I really love was surfing and there's two types of surfing there's two types of surfing there's free surfing and there's competitive surfing and there's the web see well I mean I'm just well I mean there's three I was like I was so serious I'm bearing my soul. No, no, no. Come on. I'm going to just add a little humor.

And so, yeah, so there's three types of surfing. One was not invented at the time of the story. That's true. It was not invented. Yeah. So, all right. So I am trying to sort out as a free surfer. It's good.

I'm out with the boys. It's great. I'm looking for opportunities to push limits. Like I grew up a bit off access. I like that off access view of the world. Right. And so, you know, as often as we can put ourselves in the pit of a wave or paddle into something that everyone was scared about, that's how you get like the knowing that you have what it takes. And you also get lots of praise.

Okay. So I was drunk by the praise, drunk by trying to get approval from other people. I didn't know better. I'm a 15-year-old kid trying to sort it out. And so then come time for competition, judges, the beach is semi-full. Like, not really. It's not what you imagine. It's like a 15-year-old kid contest, you know.

It's not like Spacoli in those times of Richmond, right? Yeah. And so at that, on those moments, I was a shell of myself. I couldn't access my mind. So you know the term choking, right? So there's choking, choking. Yeah, like you choke. Choke.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's choking, microchoking, performing, performing under pressure, and thriving under pressure. That's a very accepted model. And there is a way to dissolve pressure. I'll get to that later if we had time. But so I was, I would choke. And so what that means the way of the lowest level. Yeah.

Choke is fifth. Fifth. Like that's, it's the bottoms. And what that really means, though, is that my mind was choking off access to my body and craft. So it was, I was like, it was like a pinhole where my talent was trying to come through. Not possible. Not effective.

Not awful. And it's just based on. thought patterns, right? So every thought leaves to a thought pattern and thought patterns leave to thought habits. And somewhere in there, we've got to get good at recognizing the more optimal thoughts, you know? And it doesn't mean positive, like, hey, let's hold hands. Right. That's not what that means. Okay, so I didn't realize it. So I'm struggling out in the water. I can't feel my feet. I'm disconnected completely. Anxiety. I'm motherfucking myself out in the water. Yeah, it was full anxiety. What am I worried about? What they were thinking of me?

That's the biggest thing. Yeah, they had nothing to do with my life. But I made that, I gave them all the free rent that you could imagine. And so they're in my head. They're like, but it's subtle. It's so subtle because it's not like I was sitting out back in the water saying, okay, if I don't get this wave, they're not going to love me. If I don't get this wave, they're going to laugh at me. It's not, it's way more subtle.

It's almost subconscious. Fully, completely because of the regular thought patterns I was having throughout the day, they just show up. But it's like a pattern of tension as soon as people start watching. And I'm telling you right now, I don't. I hope you can relate, but it's a broken experience, it's painful, it sucks. It's the worst. You train your ass off to be able to be fluid, to be free, to be on the edge, and

maybe you have an opportunity and you become a shelly or something. Can I interject? Yeah, yeah. You're like, shocking. Please. No, I feel what that does, you're missing out on feeling how much you enjoy what you're doing, you know, how much you want to do it, how good you could be, your potential, you're, And all that is being erased because you're worrying on something that you can't control.

Yeah, if we think about that, just like harmony. Like if there's some sort of harmony about what you're talking about, where there's an alignment, where there's a fluidness, where there's a joy, where there's the ability to really express, it all becomes dampened by or dampened by the anxious mind, the worried mind. And so I had zero tools. There was a competitor. He was a grown man in our heat. There's only three guys out. It's like six-foot surf. It's beautiful, glassy out in the ocean, exactly the images that we would hope to be able to surf in those conditions.

And he paddles by me and he says, Jerva, you got to stop worrying about what could go wrong. And I thought, oh, my God. Like, how does he know? Like a good competitor, he didn't tell me what to do. He just dropped that little gem in there and paddled off. And he won the heat. So, you know, right. But looking back, there was a light bulb moment for me.

in that light bulb moment was my god like yeah i can actually choose thoughts to help me i had no idea that there was a field of sports psychology of psychology period i had no idea and so there's this thing called the dsm diagnostical statistical i know dsl i'm not going to repeat this is more intense than that yes actually the dsl is life changing dsm is just this big book of the diagnostic criteria for craziness you know for schizophrenia this that and the other depression anxiety and so So I keep in my DSM, okay, all the disorders, all the characteristics of disorders, my high school report card, because I took psychology as a either junior or senior, I should go back and look. You know what I got? A C.

F. Did you get an F in psychology? I didn't understand it. I think it was a junior year. I had no idea what these guys were talking about. And so I was in a different world. Then I had these painful experiences. And then I had some mentors.

and these mentors wrap their arms around me. And they're like, come here, kid. You know, let me show you the world of the invisible. And so it was a theologian, a psychologist and a philosopher. How old are you? Okay, so the longer part of the story is my mom got, I was at the senior year, and I got a zero on my SAT. I went surfing.

So I had no hope to go to school, right? I was like, wow. You need to get one, right? Strong, I know. What happened? Yeah, and I'll put your name down. You get like 200 points or something. So I skipped it.

And I didn't, I didn't, I didn't care. I didn't care. I was more interested in other things. So at the end of the year, my parents were like, we tried. They didn't go to school. They didn't know the path, loving parents, but they didn't know what to do. And they said, we tried. We tried.

And so you either have to get a job and get out or you go to community college. I said, I'm not going to community college. That's for losers. Like I had any options. And they said, okay, there was a school right up the road called Merrimount College. It's a junior college, private. junior college and I knew that there was a world-class surf break right next to it so I was like perfect I know how to go to school fake schoolers right perfect I'll do that for two years

and then I'll be damned I tested into remedial math and remedial English sounds familiar sounds awful doesn't it but you know I wanted to I wanted to give it a go and then these three professors best friends Dr. Cusio Zanka and Perkins and they showed me the world in the invisible no one ever had to ask me to read to book again. It's like, it caught on fire for me. I read as much as I could get my arms around the original thinkers of psychology, the deep theories that were being challenged at the time, what they were. No one in my family went to school. Then I finished bachelor's degree, started my master's degree. Where do I go? I keep going in psychology. But it was pepper dine.

But it was the study of the broken. It was traditional psychology and I dropped out. My parents were like, damn, we thought we had one. At this point, you know, from the guy, Spacoli, saying, hey, dude, stop thinking about things. Stop thinking about what other people think. You know, that's why you're losing and he swims off and he wins the heat. And then, you know, where, at what point did you stop thinking about what other people thought? It was a slow drip because I started to become more interested in the science of it. And then I'll tell you this story. I was waking up, it's like second or third semester in junior college and I'm trying to keep it all together I've got a girlfriend at the time

not my wife my I'm waking up in the morning with such anxiety that by the time I was brushing my teeth my hands were shaking that that was awful yeah I get lightheaded sometimes yeah you get like you get lightheaded you get just ungrounded it's just ungrounded you feel disconnected you feel tired you feel all these things just so many thoughts but there's only one place to be what the fuck yeah all I'm brushing your fucking teeth just brush my teeth just brush my teeth just brush my teeth Maybe floss. Yeah, that's good, too. So that's where it started.

I was sick and tired of feeling sick and tired, literally. And so I didn't have traditional crutches, you know, to go to. I wasn't going to do alcohol and drugs just because I grew up in it. And I wasn't going to do that. So it was work. It's workaholic for me, for sure. But I didn't know what to do. So it was just anxiety, period.

And I'll tell you where that's come full circle, I think that this insight is a game changer for me, is that the model that we, not just me, but we need to do more to be more, we need to do extraordinary things to be extraordinary, it's caused great fatigue in our, in our current culture, and it's broken. So we need to flip it on its head. We need to be more and let the doing flow from there. We need to be more grounded, be more present, be more authentic, be more expressive, be more thoughtful, and let the doing flow from there.

And that, I think, is one of the ways to unlock people. as potential. And you slowly learn this and came up with it, not came up with it, but for me it would be taking like, you know, tons of different theories on acting and going, I liked that with Stanis Slonsky said. And you take what Straussberg

said, and you know, I like what he said, but not all of it. And you kind of combine it to like what works for you. Is that what you sort of did? Well, I want to be thoughtful how I answer that because I get to stand on the giants of great science and scientists. And I'm not working to

hijack that science because I respect it. I need to make it work for me, though. And I'm in different ecosystems than they were. So many of them were in laboratories. And I'm in alpha competitive, rugged, and hostile environments with the most alpha competitors in the world. So I want to be thoughtful how I answer that. So, you know, and I'll tell you why. One of Dr. Zankha, Dr. Zankha, one of those early mentors, we're studying world religions. And he says, So I go, oh my God, Buddha says this, this and this, that's amazing. And Jesus said this, this, this, and Confucius said this, this, and this, and Muhammad is cracking about that.

And why don't we just take all these ideas together? Like, this is amazing. Like, drop some of the weird stuff. And like this is, and he says, and he just looks at him in front of the whole class. And he says, Jerva, you think that you know better than Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, and Confucii all put together? It's like, no, but. And he says, okay, well, why don't it you write?

own book. Start with one idea. That's amazing. Yeah. So, so I'm the world would be better. Wouldn't it if you just joined all those things, all those thoughts? Hey, Jesus was right. Muhammad was right. The whole world, there would be peace, world peace. They say, we're all right. We're all right, which makes us all right. You know what I'm saying? They, they're more similar than dissimilar. It's crazy how we've had more heads lopped off in the name of religion. Yeah, we can get into that. We could certainly get

into that we don't have to get into that but we could get into that um i mean it's just it's an have you read victor frankl's book no oh dude jewish right yeah you got to read vector frankl's book really man search for meaning read the first like hundred and fifty hundred and twenty write that down rob wait we're recording it i could just listen to it never mind uh so suddenly you're i don't know how in your twenties now you're you're thinking right by this point you've got your shit together would you say no no no but i'm starting to understand the psychology of the science up are you still surfing competitively at all i did that sounds like i was good no right i was surfing a lot but not competitively but you

i think it's impossible to not ever care what people think there is a freedom that comes on the other side of loving other people and then not giving really a shit what they think of you like you can decouple that you can love them deeply and not be beholden by what they think of And you really feel like that's who you are. Yeah, like we just met, I don't care what you think of me. My job is to be me. I care what you think of me. Yeah, I know.

You're going to be trapped by it. But I can still have love for you. Like, I love the exchange that we're having. Yeah. I love that your ideas are percolating and that we're trying to figure out how to meet in the middle. Yeah. And like, why would you care what I think of you? I'm going to leave.

Yeah. You know, part of me wants you to be like, hey, Sully, that dude was kind of fun. He's cool. I don't want you to be like, God, man, he's fucked. he has no chance and then i'd be like i wonder if he's thinking that and if he thinks that's what i really am fucked that's where it goes right i know that i know that game i know it really well i i know you're right you're right i should be like hey you know what i'm me i can't change me i'm trying to be nice and fun and and whatever and you'll think whatever it shouldn't even occur to me i shouldn't even care you can no you can change and it doesn't it does not

matter really but like if you spend as much time this is me speaking let me speak to myself first if i spend as much time paying attention to how I want to think and be and feel as opposed to what I want people to think and feel about me, it was a massive change for me. Massive change. So that's the lonely work, though, what we're talking about earlier. You've got, we have to do the lonely work. Pen and paper is one of the great ways to do it, inspire deep, rich conversations and then, you know, meditating or using mindfulness. Those are the three ways, I think, to get really to the center of stuff. Deep, rich conversations. Like what we're having?

I don't know if this is because I think about... Jesus, now you're judging me. Yeah, no. I'm judging the quality of our conversation. Yes, and. I mean, there's a layer that lacks intimacy in this conversation, which is, but there's fun. We can hold hands if you want. We could do that.

Sure. But like this conversation, you know, is different than if, let's say the microphones we're not on. And the questions are, and maybe you don't care about the filters of the microphone, it doesn't matter. but and we're really talking about you and where you need to go to be great yeah and the pains and suffering that you feel and how to you know move through that there's a different tone to it you're right i'd probably cry yeah me too rob you'd cry too what was the last time you cried i just i told my psychiatrist this i go there's got to be something wrong with me because i like i will cry like i was watching the price is right

and I don't know this woman who just didn't seem like she had her shit together or was broke and whatever and she won it was just like a she won a lot of money and she was so happy and I don't know I wouldn't tell most people this but I'm telling you this on my podcast but I teared up a little bit I thought there's something wrong with you because you're crying at the prices right now that's what I thought so I asked a question a lot to alpha competitors when's the last time you felt so much you let go and you'd be surprised they are not reptiles

They cry? Yeah, you'd be surprised. They let it go. They live right on the edge. I mean, they're full of passion. Do you think that's why they're, you know, you hear a lot of times like football players or athletes, they have to be so focused and so on edge and so like ready to go that they come off of sometimes, you know, nasty or assholes or whatever?

It's because it's not personal. It's like they can't do that. They can't get too soft because they got to focus on being great. Well, there's a lot of different ways. than personality types on, you know, for football players or any sport in that matter. So there is a required intensity to do well in that rugged environment. So there's no one way. Have you dealt with like, okay, I got to help this person and they're not pleasant to be around?

Yeah. Do you have to get a call? No. You're sure? Turning off my phone. Oh, you were? Oh, I thought you had it. Because look, you're like, you know, you're an important person.

Like, listen, if somebody, if you know, the most important person right now is. But listen to me, I would completely understand if you go, hey, I got to help this guy, this athlete's about to kick a field goal. And I need to fucking help him out. I need to get his call. That's not how it works for me. That's not how it works? I mean, he's just, he's got the Finkel in him. You know, it's like dumb.

Laces out. Laces out, Finkel. It's Ace Ventura. Do you deal with guys like that? I deal with lots of different types. There are people that I learn more from. And there's people that definitely do a lot of the learning as well. So you'd be surprised.

Like on the world stage, it is not what you imagine. I know you only deal with athletes, it seems like. No, no, no, no. Well, I mean, go back to the musicians, as you said, entertainers. Have you ever dealt with an actor before? Yeah, yeah. One-on-one? Oh, yeah.

Really? Would you do it again? I have some money. I will pay you. I'll tell you how my business is. I hope I get a discount because I think people are going to really love this podcast. But, like, I think, I personally think you can help me because you know I'm a little crazy.

You know I'm a little out there. And I know you don't give advice. But I'm willing to do the work here. I'm doing the little things. I am trying every day to be a better person, to be, to not give a shit to your first, the first part of your work then is to figure out, like, what is your personal philosophy? What are the guiding principles for your life? And if you could get it out in 25 words or less, that's a significant piece of work to do for yourself. And then if you could get it down to four, three, two, one word, you know, like, like, think about it, though.

What did, let's go back to the big spiritual leaders. What did Jesus stand for? what love love you had phrases around it do unto others as you I see what you're so like right so but he came in and said okay listen it's about love what did what did Gandhi stand for

what did Martin Luther King Jr. stand for what did mother Teresa stand for what did you know think about these big shapers peace yeah pretty much happiness equality quality yeah you know okay so that doesn't mean it has to be yours or mine but what are they how do we know theirs

they were so clear every room they came in every conversation they had was about that and so when you get that alignment those are easy models you can also look at the great political leaders and shapers of the world and even like Elon Musk you know like great entrepreneurs and CEOs is that they're really clear about what they stand for they're really clear about the vision they have for the future and the mission that they're on right now you get those three things right vision mission and philosophy I think it's a significant step could you help Donald Trump If Donald Trump wants to do some work, that'd be...

He'd call you, it said, Michael, I need some help. Jesus. And the next day, you're fired. Yeah, can you imagine? Yeah. That would be something. This is incredible because you talk about, you know, you go to school, you get your degree, you're starting to fall in love with this, you have these theories, and the next thing you know,

you're working with the Seattle Seahawks. You're working with Baumgardner. What's his name? Felix Baumgartner. The highest jump in history, 20,000... 130,000 feet. I was 100,000 off. But, uh, you know about this, Rob?

Yeah, you tell me about this. Yeah. Rob, where were you when he jumped? I don't. You didn't watch it on TV? It crashed YouTube. 50 million. Oh, it was when he jumped from the sky.

Yeah. Red Bull. Yeah, I don't know. I was in Chicago. Do you remember it? Yeah, I remember it. Yeah. It crashed.

It like literally took down. It was, it was unbelievable. I'm so fortunate to be part of that project. How did this happen? I mean, first of all, how do they pick a guy who has doubts? I mean, first of all, they're like, all right, this is the guy that's going to do it. He's going to jump the highest. He's like, but he has doubts.

I don't know if we're going to go through. That's great. This was a long process. You know, it was how many years? Multiple years. I think it was somewhere around six, maybe eight. You know, I don't know the exact math on it. But I came in about halfway through.

And this is, I think there's an important lessons like to think about because these are the most advanced, some of the most advanced thinkers in aerospace. And this was a real project. This wasn't a stunt. This was trying to sort out what happens. If we're going to Mars, what happens at 130,000 feet if we press eject? Will our arms and limbs rip apart if we hit the speed of sound, Mach 1? Will our head and torso be traveling at that speed and would our arms and limbs rip off? And so it's a real investigation. Amongst other things, that was just one of the curious questions and halfway through they had built the great technology they had all of the equipment was right on they had strategies that were wonderful so the craft was right and the body and

equipment and all that stuff was really on point but they missed the what i would consider from my vantage point the most important skill which is to think clearly under duress and so he was he is the strong man and so people like him changing the world, not because of what he did alone. Because if you didn't know that he struggled and if you didn't know that he had real fear, you'd say he's crazy and he's not. You'd say that he's born that way and he's not. Yeah. He's just like us. He had to work. He had a vision. He had an idea. He didn't know if he could do it. Nobody knows if they could do it. Even the brightest minds in aerospace didn't know if they could do it. So when you push to the edge,

to our earlier thought, by definition, you don't know if you have the capabilities and capacities to do the thing you don't know if you can think or move fast enough or eloquent enough to survive and that's what pressure feels like right on stage i don't know if i can think fast enough or move fast enough to survive remember what i'm going to say or remember what i'm going to do or how i do it what's the next step it's like am i going to am i going to i'm programmed to do that i've rehearsed this i should know it i can't mess up uh you know it's thinking clearly thinking logically thinking straight it's it's right yeah and there's part of you also that loves the improv nature and the the spike of adrenaline comes from not knowing. Except you probably wouldn't improvise when you're 130,000 feet

up. Exactly right. You know what? I'm going to start with a joke. Hey, everybody, I'm Rodney Dangerfield here. All right, all right. I'm going to press this button. I'm going to jump 130,000 feet up, I tell you. All right. Here we go. Classic. No, no. So, so he's a strong, he is the strong man in the arena and he puts up his hand and says, I need help. You know, I can't, I can't keep doing it. That took balls just to say that because he's like, they're going to think I'm weak. They're going to think this and I'm going to use someone else or they're going to cancel the whole thing blah blah and by the way did you have to do you sign confidentiality agreements with everyone right because I have my assistant like you know it's like hey if I talk about you know I had a

I don't have hemorrhoids but if I did you know you can't tell people I have hemorrhoids so I think things are probably a little more uh what's matter Rob no this is my this is my analogy um it's the go too I don't have hemorrhoids just to make it clear I'm perfectly somebody was done there They're gone No they're not gone I never had them I might have had push too hard

And it was like a little bubble I don't think it was a hemroy though I think we all have that Are you enjoying this Where have we gone I listen to a podcast You know you You interviewed this guy

I listened to it It was with the guy Who had a On the news He was speaking And he kind of Oh yeah Dan Harris

Dan Harris He's great He's a commentator and all this And you know I listened to you guys For a while It is very You know

Intelligent very focused very you know and i find it fun it was fun it was a really good podcast your podcast is great it's called the master uh come on the mastery finding mastery finding mastery that's good it's good good attempts i appreciate yeah yeah finding mastery and i listened to it and i was like it's great i'm like huh man he's he's really a smart serious guy i don't know if he's gonna like i said maybe that's why i got anxiety because i'm like maybe he's gonna come i just figured it out i'm worried about like he's such a serious guy i'm not i'm serious but i use in a different way because it's kind of

layman's terms. I want my listeners to understand things. I want me to understand things. Rob, a few minutes ago before you came, he said, I think it's ignorance that makes people really like you. And I said, thank you. It just seems like you're naive in a way, but you just, you make, like you could ask anything and it doesn't feel like invasive. Do you feel that way, Michael? I do not feel that you're invasive. Okay. I think that's good. No, I think what you just had is like an aha moment, right? like oh my god i think i just figured something out yeah right right and was i worried about what he was thinking of me who cares who cares what i like really i'm not going to change my podcast and go how long i'm gonna wear a right exactly right we're gonna go to some studio and i'm like so um your

theory in college your thesis you wrote michael jerva all the way and when i gathered from that was that you were a real right so i can't do that did you were you just mocking me is that what that was no yes yes no but i wasn't mocking you I find you incredibly, I find you incredibly engaging, incredibly bright, incredibly comforting. I don't have a fear at all anymore. I think you've cured me. Look at that. So the confidentiality agreement.

So you can't tell me that this guy, Baumgardner, he said, okay, you're ready for this? And I'm sure as someone who works with, you never know what to expect. What is it going to be this time? You're sure that it's one thing is going to be there's anything you can. could handle. There's nothing that someone's going to say that you're not going to handle. I'm not as surprised as I once was. There's still some surprising things that come up. What's the weirdest thing someone said? And you could change something to share. Yeah. And so let me finish that thought on confidentiality first is that, yes. So he, he has made it public. So they, the athlete or

performer or executive or client, if you will, once they make it public, then it is public. But that doesn't mean that I can talk anything about what we did. So the fact that we did work together, that's public he made it public and um so that's the end of that story right like what that's it's it's not it's public so i can read about it yeah you can read like he's talked a lot about it and there's a documentary that's coming out on it and so has he wanted anyone ever said michael like the weirdest thing for instance my um uncle's a psychologist he had one person come in one this is a true story i'm not trying to be funny but he walked in and they had talked to each other a you're waiting for something and he's like what's your what's your issue he goes

i won't go outside usually you're an agoraphobic he's like no um well i i guess so but um i fear that i'm going to shit my pants in public that was honest to god he thought he had a fear that he was going to shit his pants that's a tough way to go in it could you handle something like that yeah i mean we'd have to make light of it first have you had any have you ever met somebody that's just like um i feel like when i'm about to kick this football my pants are going to fall down in front of 50,000 people and all the NFL and they're going to you know i have a book i have not had that one I always feel like I'm not handsome enough.

I look old on camera. What have you had? What are some things that you could talk to? Here's an interesting one that I thought was, it's relevant, it's timely, is that world-class doer comes in and says, I'm keeping the, of the conversation. He says, you know, I met a barista. Good. And he says, I'm going to introduce her to my wife and my two kids.

What do you mean? Yeah. I think that I'm going to change the rules of the relationship now, and I'm bringing her home. This is just recently. So now the barista is living in the guest bedroom with the two kids. And it's just kind of shifted to an open relationship. How does that even start? It sounds like he didn't need advice.

He knew what he was doing. Yeah. So, I mean, it's just part of the storyline. Just part of the storyline? Now, you know, I worked with, or I'm friends with John Lyon. That's how we got to, you know, John sent you an email. What's up, John? And John loves you.

He's the punter for the Seattle Seahawks. He's a legend. I mean, like his career's legend. He's a legend. And he's the nicest guy in the world. And he's like, this guy just comes in. What is it you do? You have a sort of a, when you first approach a team, you come in, they're like,

Pete Carroll's like, oh, guys, he always choose gum weird. You notice his mouth's always chomping? Non-sequitur. But, you know, he walks in and he says, guys, this is Michael Jerva. you're all fucked he's going to help you that was actually my first that's classic that was my first entree in the sport pro sport it was in hockey and hockey yeah well that was football but you get so hockey was my first it's okay so it's been i've all the traditional stick and ball sports i've been part of action and adventure sports as well been fortunate to work in the olympics and on

fighter pilot or uh on um the u s truman you know with fighter pilots and heads of departments it was awesome. But anyway, so I've been around into many different environments. Hockey was the first one. And I think you'll appreciate this. You like hockey. You know hockey. You saw my room full of hockey jerseys. Yeah, I'm a big, yeah, Sully's a friend of, uh, we're front, mutual friends of Sheldon Surrey. Great hockey player. He retired. But, uh, yeah, we'll go ahead about hockey in my first gig. And I meet the G. How old are you? Oh, gosh, what is this? This was probably 94, somewhere in that range. So you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, 20. Yeah. No, I was born in 71. So this must have been, it's like 25, 24, 25. Young.

You're young. And this is your first professional. I mean, you got to be nervous at this. No. So, oh, yeah, you don't get nervous. I did that already. Oh, yeah. I've been nervous enough. I've worn out that wick. So here's how it goes. So the medical director, the head doc for the team comes in. And we have some exchanges. I've got an extrusion in my back. So there's a herniation and an extrusion. So it was a surfing accident and one disc popped out, one disc popped in. And the one that popped in was floating around my spinal cord. I mean, can you imagine like what it was like to be a 20-some year old with like. Well, yeah, I've had five major back surgeries.

There you go. I get it. I know it. Okay. So we have, we have switch on to a really good conversation. He's like, you know what? This team could really benefit. Like, I think the coach could like this could be great.

He goes, have you ever worked in hockey? I said, no. Do you ever play hockey? No. Okay. But, you know, I still think that this could work. So he introduces me to the general manager. Great conversations.

The three of us, great conversation. And the GM says, this is it. This is going to be amazing. This is really going to help us. We're right on the edge of doing some great things in this team. So deal done. Deal done. Contract, you're going to make a lot of money to help this team.

No, it wasn't a lot of money at that time. $50,000. Carry some bags. Okay. You know, okay. So I was like, so I'm young. I'm wet behind the ears. I barely know.

I'm, I don't think I was. I just started my master's degree, or I just finished my master's and hadn't finished even started, I think, my Ph.D. I don't know anything. I really don't. But I had figured some stuff out about how I worked, right? But I didn't know the body of knowledge yet. So I come in and he says, meet us at practice Tuesday, whatever clock.

Right after practice, one introduces to the coach. I mean, think about what I did. I signed a contract without even meeting the coach. Oh, boy. What am I? You could get your ass kicked. Oh, my God. So looking for it.

back. It's unbelievable what I did. So I'm there as, I don't know, I probably weigh 180 pounds. And so I walk in and I'm on the side of the ice and I'm a surfer. I didn't have a jacket on. So can you imagine this picture? Catching a cold. She's not running down your nose. So he looks over and he gives me a nod. And then he brings all the boys in. They whistle, he blows a whistle. And then come to learn, he bags them. Extra 15 minutes on the ice skating blue line, red line, blue line, just bags them. So they're exhausted. We go into the locker room and I'm pretty excited now. Like this is like, oh my gosh, this is okay. We're starting. You're excited and you're not nervous at all really. Well, maybe a little because it's new. It's new. It's different. I was cold. Right. You're cold.

Don't look down there. Your back hurt. Yeah. No, no. It didn't at that point. Okay. I was good. So, so there's a lot of, there's a buzz in me for sure. And he says, uh, Jerva, um, let's go to my office and talk. And as he's walk, as we're walking through the locker room. So there's like a hallway that you go through, right? And then there's that rubber carpet that everyone's all, and they all look like they're 15 tall. Yeah, they're an extra four inches on skates, yeah. And as we're walking through the locker room, he says to the guys, he says, hey guys, stay in your gear, we'll be right back out. And so we go in a locker or we go into his office. He closed the door. It's about a five minute conversation, maybe seven

minutes somewhere there. And he's just nodding his head. So he's asking questions and he's nodding, I'm answering. He's nodding his head. I'm like, oh, this is easy. This is a nice little conversation. So he goes, okay, ready to meet the boys? I said, sure. And so we go out and he walks to, we walk to the center of the room. And he says, um, all right, boys. So this is Jerva. If you're fucked up in the head, go see him. And he walks off. And so at that moment, I was like, oh, okay. Did you have to correct him? No. Well, so this is going to sound like I'm a tough guy. And I'm not, but by any means. But I, I didn't come from money. I don't need your money. I don't need your money. I don't need hockey. I don't need pro anything. I didn't care about working on pros. I just want

work with people that want to figure out how the shit works. So he's about four steps away to his office. And I said, hey, coach, my door's open for you. And I was like, you know, I got a degree in street psychology, I think, before sports psychology. And so the room erupts. The boys are throwing the Gatorade cans around. Like, the room erupts. They're howling and hooting. And from that moment, it was like, all right, what's this kid got to say? You know, so So it, wow. Yeah, so that was my entry in there. And so I got punked.

And so I met the punk. You're right? Like I met it in a good way. I feel like I'm bragging in that story, but that was the actual story. And I feel really good about it too. Like there's been plenty of times when I'm like, I wish I would have said something. And I didn't. But this one I did.

Do you ever feel like even today like a failure at something? Imposter syndrome. Professors at Stanford when they're asked to come into Stanford to be a new professor. they are asked to take a course called imposter syndrome because when they've done something to get asked to be a professor at Sanford and they walk down the halls and they see back they see you know Nobel Peace Prize winner you know the oh my god that's the legend I've been reading about for 20 years and so there's the littered with real intelligence so they asked people to take the the course on imposter syndrome recognizing that it's a real deal the fear that one day you'll be found out that you don't know what they think you know like that's a real deal. And so when you ask that question, that's where I go, you know, like, and I've wrestled with it big time. And even as we're talking, you know, like I know some stuff and I know that I don't know very much. I'm still a beginner. I honestly remember I was doing a show and they cast me and I remember right after I got cast, I go, well, now I'm going to film the pilot and they're going to fire me because they're going to realize I'm not that good or I'm not good looking enough or I'm not.

And I had that fear and I had that fear. And then I remember asking the director When he's like, hey, you want to look at, you know, some of the stuff? You know, and we did ADR, which is your voice when you go in dub stuff. I'm sure you've done that. Maybe not. But I went in there and I looked at it. And I go, you think I'm, is there a chance they're going to fire me or anything?

He's like, I want you to watch something. And I watched it. And I go, ooh, I'm really good. Yeah, they're not going to fire me. I remember saying it out loud. Everybody loud. So, but, you know, I think we, I think, look, that's a human nature. You can't, there's nobody out there that doesn't think, you know,

hey, you know, when the Seahawks against the New England Patriots a couple of years ago when they threw that ball and it was intercepted on the one yard when they had the game. Which, what game you're talking about? You asshole. He got me. He got me. Yeah, that's a good look. But they probably thought like there were failures for a second.

They forgot about the Super Bowl they won the year before and they thought like they were failures. There's probably that moment. That's just a human moment, right? You know what's amazing about our brain? Go back to that for a minute is there's no redundancies. So it's beautifully complicated. But the same centers or regions of the brain that are responsible for grief, like loss of a loved one, are amplified during loss of a game. It's amazing.

So literally, walking into a locker room after that game, I've never felt the intensity of emotion, less one other time that I'll compare it to, that was on full tilt. And it was all emotions that were painful. And so six foot eight is crying. six foot seven is ripping his locker apart six foot four over there is undoing his wraps screaming at the top of his lungs why there was the gentleman next to me um just like he was an older gentleman so I won't tell you who he was but he was just like sobbing it was all of the tense emotions that you can imagine anger hurt scared you know searching yearning and it was amazing and it was on point do you think i would have got my ass kicked if i walked in and said

you want it last year who cares something would have i would have got my ass kick now did you know i'm not saying a fucking word right now i don't need to say anything i'm there if they need me i'm not saying anything that's not my place yeah so you just kind of you you don't you feel you seem like one of those guys was like hey i'll help you if you need help if you want to come to me i'm there but i'm not going to come to you yeah i mean this is coach carroll it begins and ends with Coach Carroll. And so he shapes a culture. He shapes, you know, he's got a concept that he calls Long Body, beautiful concept born out in Native American thinking, which is we are all connected. One mind, one body, it's a long body. And so we're all in it together. And so not until

every one of us heals, does this organization, does this one body heal, this long body? So, yeah, he is, I don't know if I had the chance to meet him, but he, his vision about how things can work and could work is extraordinary and his ability to amplify the culture to help people become great is like nothing I've been around before I was done with pro sport and then we met I didn't want I didn't want to do it anymore I mean the narcissistic blowing up of microphones just for the self-absorbed conversations about how great a person is like just felt sloppy and it was just overwhelming to me so I was done with pro sports at that point then we had dinner we a mutual friend put together and I was like this a beautiful human like yeah wow and so

he um i was up at his organization i was up at the seahawks and for sure it was different um you found of the pinnacle performance center yeah so he and i actually so that was longer so pinnacle performance is the boutique concierge bespoke sport psychology performance psychology services down in los angeles and so that's been around for a while and that's you know just one or two clients a month is what i see there doing that and then he and i founded a company together coach carroll and i called compete to create. So his philosophy, go back to philosophies, his is always compete to be the best dad, to be the best coached friend, father. And then my philosophy is every day is an opportunity to create a living masterpiece. And so we put those two words together and we basically

on the back of a napkin and started. We took his ideas and my ideas that we've been doing together at the Seahawks. We wrote them down. We shared them with the CEO of Microsoft. And we formalized it. We incubated it. We worked with. And so it's how to train the mind is really what this is about. He's got an advanced degree in training the mind as well in psychology. And so we wrote down everything that we've been doing together on how to train the mind and amplify the culture. And so we started with 12 people at Microsoft. It turned into 24 to 2400. We've now done 30,000 people, eight hours a person on how to train their mind at Microsoft. That's 240,000 human hours of conditioning their mind. we have reached one and five so that was the idea right can we impact one and five people

at microsoft to be more present and god is talk about smart people oh jesus like unbelievable oh my god do you could you could i could i do this could i say hey michael are you so busy or so whatever like there's no like if i call jen and i said hey you know i'd love to do this i'd love to do a program i love to you you have the time to work with something unlike me no You don't. No, but we could go to coffee. We'd go get a tea. So you don't have time.

Really? I'm doing like one, one maybe, maybe two a month. And so that being said, you know, one slips out, one slips in. But so kind of, I should say. But the stuff that I'm, so the way that I've organized my professional life is I've got three working laboratories. One is Pinnacle, two clients a month. And then one is compete to create, which is taking the insights and the science and the art from world class athletes and franchises. into business right we've got a scalable tech base business there that we're rolling out and then

the third is finding mastery and so inside of finding mastery i've got two components one is the podcast right right and then i'm every couple years i'm part of uh i'm either selected or i find a project that is right on the edge of like human potential so right now i'm working with a gal named lea didn't and this is public so it's okay to talk about and she's going to row solo row from Japan to San Francisco. A what? Solo row. Her and the boat and her oars and no...

How the hell does that happen? No guide boat, just her in the ocean. It's somewhere between four and six months, depending on what currents she gets caught in. Somewhere between insane and fucked. Yeah. It's where it is. So think about... That's crazy.

So the laboratory here for me is extreme aloneness. Like what happens to extreme... And the effort is extraordinary. 14 hours of rowing a day for four months. to six months. Oh, my God. So anyone that wants to be part of that project, like, she's right in the phase of securing funding and projects. Like, there's maybe part of your listener base was like, yes. I want to be part of that. Like, so where could they go? Or we don't know they don't know yet through it? Well, Leah didn't. You can, D-I-T-O-N. Okay. You can find her

online. So you're not going to help me. Is that what we're doing? Well, I think this has helped me and this is helping a lot of people. What are you shaking your head for, Rob? I'm just saying, like, hey, if we got it. He said you have tea or coffee with you. Right. So it sounds to me like he only does guys like a really big like the Elon Musk's and like you're really busy somebody who I've enjoyed this conversation have you yeah a lot you know when I came in I think you'll appreciate this um people that are funny or can be really scary really well I was scary to you and see how that works and so I came in going God I wonder like how this is going to go because like sometimes humor can go quick it can bite and it's like oh what just yeah well I wasn't disrespectful I was just open and

beautiful yeah right yeah you know I let me read this um but overall you had a good time I have enjoyed that I give a shit see not that I give a shit see we've already done some work now haven't we you said something on Twitter that I really liked let me read it um can you give me any dramatic music freedom happens from pushing the boundaries so far that playfulness is the experience even in rugged environments sounds so dramatic okay let me read it funnier yeah freedom happens from pushing the boundaries so far that playfulness is the experience. I like this quote. Yeah, cool.

You came up at that? Sure. Did it take you time? Did you like delete, go back, go back? It wasn't like one train of thought. You took you probably a good hour to come up with that one. I've come to appreciate like little gems that Twitter forces you to do. Like I've come to appreciate that.

No, but I think that's a pretty standard thought. I don't think that's just worded well. Yeah. You know, like, but that isn't that what we're. looking for? Like, can we play in the spaces that once we're, you know, like, really? Perfect example. And we're almost done here. But when I, the most fun I have, and this is where I have to connect my, the mind and the body and the brain. And I have to do, I have to work this out. But when I go play ice hockey on Monday or Sunday nights with, with, you know,

it's competitive. It's a blast. For an hour and a half, I sweat and I skate and I, and I fucking love it and I feel great and I don't think about anything and there's no stress and there's no nervous or anxiousness or oh my god oh my god and then then that's gone that so why can't I recreate what happens there in my real life that's that I love that thought because you've used sport as a forcing function right to be all in and so that you've used like one of the more ancient ways to be able to force yourself to be fully present, you know, which is fast-paced, moving, rugged environments. Like, think about the action sport athletes, like Felix.

Like Alex Honnold, do you know Alex Honnold? Do you know who that is? No. So he just climbed. I think he's one of the more significant minds in sport right now. He just frees solo to El Capiton, 3,000 sheer granite, straight up, no ropes, no harnesses. Oh, my God. Check him out.

I think he's one of the more significant minds in sport based on what he's doing. And so that's a forcing function to be. fully present. Zen Buddhists have been practicing being fully present in different ways. So if you're not practicing it, your brain's going to win. And your brain has ample theta brainwaves, right? Alpha, beta, theta, delta, and sometimes gamma. So as we've been talking, do you want me to run through those? You've had gamma and theta. You know, it's been pretty cool. And you started off with beta. So beta is that high focused energy like the gas pedals down and like high focus, but maybe anxious. And then alpha is this crucial. And then alpha is this

cruise control just kind of mellow you know like good focus yeah and then theta is that space right before sleep kind of the uh but that's where really creative ADD-ish stuff happens that's where you're probably brilliant in that space and then Delta's deep sleep and then gamma the last one the fifth of the nerd stuff here is the is when you have aha moments and so you've had some variance there I have yeah it's good right it feels good it's like you know yeah so you can learn how to control those. If you're if you're beholden to only theta, you're not getting into flow state, which is what you described at skating, right, where there's a complete absorption of time and action, a distortion of time and action and awareness kind of merge together and you're

completely engaged in the present moment. You lose track of even awareness of where you are. It's amazing. It's a beautiful thing. It's the most amazing state. And so if theta is the one you spend most of the time in, it's hard to get to flow by just theta. You need to get to a little bit of beta and more activity more hockey more no no I would say more conditioning and training of your mind so like do you have a mindfulness practice uh I do I do this guided meditation the morning it's 15 minutes where they talk and like just concentrate on your breath and being present I was thinking about doing an app because I have a really nice voice I think you do so check this out Michael so she's like right now she's like okay right now we're gonna just breathe feel your

breath focus on your breath when thoughts come in just you don't don't Don't throw them away. You can welcome them, but just maybe remind yourself with words like thinking, thinking. She says that. And then she says, rather, instead of rather, she says, rather than go there to a negative place. And she has it. And I just 15 minutes go by fast. We should, we should write one together and then use your voice.

And then, I think, I think people would buy it. I would love to do that with you. Let's do that. Let's do it. Let's do that. Why don't you write one? I'll write 20 of them. You'll write 20 of them.

I'll be the voiceover and we'll do an app and it'll be like a five bucks for the app and you get to hear all these great you know because it's coming from a mine like yours with a voice like mine match made in heaven dude this would be great I think we should actually do a podcast together too I think that'd be great you need the yin yang you need the you need the Mr. Ed what's his name of Johnny Carson and Mr. Redd that's a horse we had Kristen Bell on the show a bunch of people but it's become therapy for me and now I've told you that the show has sort of we didn't know what it was at first and And now it's become like, hey, look at successful people. They've had faced adversity. They've done things that, you know, they're not perfect. And it makes you, again, you feel better about yourselves. I love what you're doing with that. Well, thanks. I'm figuring that out.

But we do a therapy session. Now, I could say something based on this whole hour. We've had, we're in 20 minutes or whatever. And then I want you to go as my therapist, just what you think your observation, what you would recommend when you've sort of told me this, but it's sort of a therapeutic thing. Like, I'm your therapist right now, okay? So I'm your therapy. I would say, I think you, you've, you've nailed it.

I think, you know, your purpose is helping people and you're helping people. I think you, uh, you probably have enough money. So, uh, you should give some free therapy to, uh, some people who really need it. More than tea. No, no, that's not true. I look, I don't have, you do this. I don't have therapy for you. That's the reality.

Okay. So that, that being said, like, for real, like, I'm serious about it. Like, if you want to go grab a tea or whatever and have a conversation. But the way that I work is. it's eight hours in one day and we roll up our sleeves and we do two two meals often because we're not going to starve each other and it is on and it is intense and that's that's the is is there crying there's there's everything like if you had like it doesn't have to be anything in eight hours it doesn't have to be anything it doesn't have to be anything you you would just talk

like in other words you would sit there and talk to me and go hey so you know uh tell me something about your family about your life no you don't you don't do that no you don't want to know about that yes and no like is it no like is it's a no like is The context of history is important because it shapes where you're coming from. But we are so complicated and multifaceted, textured, nuanced humans that it is not easy. And I love it. It's like this tapestry that you're building. Right now, you're building a tapestry.

And there's triangles and there's things that are layered on top of it. And some things are darker than others. And it doesn't make sense. And it kind of does. And it's just so eight hours is like the minimum starting place. I have this weird feeling like a. I just have this vision of you and me in this big, giant, I think like a basketball arena. And we're just seeing like a high school basketball court.

And there's nobody there, maybe some weird coach in the background just going, what are they doing in there? And you and I are facing each other and we're sitting on chairs looking at each other. And you're really close in our arm. We're wearing white shirts and they're rolled up. And we're just looking at each other and you're leaning in. You're like, Michael, all right. And that's how it is. Now, what's the first thing you'd say to me?

Not to give away your all your stuff because it's eight hours and it's many times. But what's like the first thing you think you'd say to me? But yeah, what I normally say to people is, okay. Let's have a hug? No, no. That's not what we're starting. I don't want to hug. I would.

I hold hands, take off our shoes. No, it is what do I need to understand about who you are? And I'll start that. Like, what do I need to understand? And so then you'll just go somewhere. You'll say, okay, well, let me go back to where I grew up or where I want to go or whatever. And so there's a toggling back and forth between the man. and that you're working on becoming and where you came from and the man you are today.

And so we're toggling back and forth there. We're going up and down in emotions, meaning that sometimes people can go straight in into the feeling. And sometimes other people, we need to dance a little bit. You know, there's an art to all of us. And then, you know, in the background is just solid theory about how people work and recommended ways to train. So it's not complicated in that way, like it's pretty straightforward.

But it's hard work. Both of us would be exhausted by the end of the day. Exhausted. No, exhausted. Did that be a change man in eight hours? No, what happens is we get to some, I think the goal at least, is to get to some rich insight, like real insight about who you are. I think I would probably be embarrassed and eventually I think I'd come out. I just say it and say, fuck, I don't care.

I'm going to just tell you. Just tell you how I feel and you'll feel like I'm comfortable with you by that point. And I say some stuff and you're like, you start to program, like, figure out, okay. Yeah, that's the linking. Yeah, but then without honesty, I haven't met anyone on the world stage that is consistently extraordinary without real deep honesty. And that's what we miss. I think most of us miss about elite athletes and performers is that they have incredible feedback loops that hold them accountable, right? The world is watching and there's tape and there's coaches and there's peers and there's people saying, that was great, that's not good enough.

That was great. That's not good. You and I, we don't get that. We don't get those incredibly accurate feedback loops. We're stuck with our own head. you know so having external feedback loops i don't think no one does this world alone so why not why not do the work with somebody who really sole interest because you're paying them is 100% dedicated to figuring out how you can be the best version of you and they do it lovingly and intelligently and

they love you up and kick your ass like god bless it that i want that yeah i always wanted that and so i you know can we have tea and then look it's on me but can we do tea honestly and it'll be just be fun. It's going to be an hour tea. I'm not going to like you. But then you can maybe refer me to someone who could does a 50 minute tea. Yeah, who does what you do in your office. But you can refer me to somebody.

Yeah, I don't. Yes, I'll be happy to. But let's start with a tea. Listen, I'm going to say this and this is it. I'm just going to say this. This is honest. My opinion, Rob, I'm smiling at me,

Sully, growling. This conversation is not only helping me, but it's helping anybody. There might be one person out there. Maybe five, and maybe one of those five, is being helped, which is a ripple effect. Mission-minded. And I just, and it's been a joy. I was a little nervous.

You were a little nervous, but now there's just understanding. And what's your Twitter handle? At Michael Gervey, G-E-R-V-A-I-S. And Instagram? Finding mastery. And that's your podcast? Finding mastery. Dot net.

And then LinkedIn. I think you guys, if you've listened to it at this point, if you've already listened to it at this point, you listen but um you got you got to you know look at what this guy's doing because it's pretty sensational and i'm going to go give john ryan a big kiss and a hug and and my other buddy in seattle mike mike allen oh yeah you're friends with mike yeah i think mike actually made our introduction i think you're right and you were like who the fuck is michael rosamoh i'm working with fucking the seattle seahawks what's up mike but thank you for allowing me to be inside of you oh yeah that sounded weird but um i appreciate the show's inside of yeah thank you appreciate it

awesome Hi, I'm Joe Saul-Chi, host of the Stacking Benjamin's podcast. Today, we're going to talk about what if you came across $50,000. What would you do? Put it into a tax-advantaged retirement account. The mortgage. That's what we do. Make a down payment on a home. Something nice. buying a vehicle a separate bucket for this edition that we're adding $50,000 I'll buy a new podcast you'll buy new friends and we're done thanks for playing everybody we're out of here stacking benjamins follow and listen on your favorite platform