Modern Wisdom - #236 - Robert Glazer - Elevate Yourself & Reach Your Potential

Episode Date: October 24, 2020

Robert Glazer is a CEO and an author. Closing the gap between where we are and where we could be is one of the most important pursuits in life. Today expect to learn Robert's best advice for elevating your spiritual, physical, intellectual and emotional capacities, why looking for a cerebral answer to every problem can be a poor strategy, the most powerful changes you can make to impact your growth and much more... Sponsor: Check out everything I use from The Protein Works at https://www.theproteinworks.com/modernwisdom/ (35% off everything with the code MODERN35) Extra Stuff: Buy Friday Forward - https://amzn.to/2FOFam7  Follow Robert on Twitter - https://twitter.com/robert_glazer  Get my free Ultimate Life Hacks List to 10x your daily productivity → https://chriswillx.com/lifehacks/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Join the discussion with me and other like minded listeners in the episode comments on the MW YouTube Channel or message me... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ModernWisdomPodcast Email: https://www.chriswillx.com/contact  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello friends, welcome back. My guest today is Robert Glazer and we are talking about how to elevate yourself and reach your potential. Closing the gap between where we are and where we could be is one of the most important pursuits in life. And today we get to learn Robert's best advice for elevating your spiritual, physical, intellectual and emotional capacities. While looking for a cerebral answer to every problem can be a poor strategy, the most powerful changes you can make to impact your growth and much more. Lots to

take away from today, so if any of the strategies or tactics really resonate with you, then feel free to reach out to me at ChrisWillX on all social media, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc. Reach out to me. Let me know what you think of this episode or any other episode. You know, just one in a little bit of company from the outside world during a pandemic. But for now, it's time to elevate our potential with Robert Glazer. What does the word elevate mean to you? Yeah, I mean, to me, elevate just means taking it to another level. And I think the important part of that and the way I look at it differently than maybe some others, I think when you talk about success versus achievement, but to me it's like really like to your potential, not other people's definition,

not what other people think you should be doing, but how do you within you raise your game to another level from the potential that lies within. And you've looked at a framework to go around that. Obviously you're a business owner multi multinational, international business for multiple years now into the, into the twilight of running a business, I think, as many people would, yeah, was would have said by this time, not many people have survived. At least teenage adolescent years. So yeah, Yeah, it was what have said by this time, not many people survived. It's a lazy teenage adolescent years. Yeah, I sort of fell into this framework by accident. So I had actually started a note to my team about five years ago every Friday.

It came out of actually a personal leadership event that I went to for a week that was hugely impactful, very focused on improving your morning. Things you can do in the morning kind of think reflect, read something positive, right? The reading positive stuff that I wrote was just way to rainbow and unicorn-y for me. Like, it didn't do it for me. Like, so I had some stories and some quotes and some stuff that I saved and I just started writing this note to my team every Friday of 40. It was something about we were all remote and it was about getting better or improvement and it sort of fell into a formula and I wasn't sure if people were

reading it but I liked writing it. It was a good habit. And eventually I heard from back from people that they were they were reading it. They were sharing it inside the company. I told some other people around it. Eventually I opened it up so people outside the company could join it and there were a couple hundred thousand people within a few years signed up for it. So what happened was that when I went to write a book, our company had really grown. We had sort of tripled during that time period. I was meeting a lot of interesting high achievers

more on the world than I just, this pattern analysis sort of came up, which was I tried to write a compilation book called Friday Forward Ironically, which is the book I just released, but no one would buy it. Maybe they said, look, you're not, no one knows was, I tried to write a compilation book called Friday For It Ironically, which is the book I had just released, but no one would buy it. Maybe they said, look, no one knows you and you can't write a compilation

and these stories are online. But the agent challenged me to like, what's the story behind the story? And so when I actually started looking at how would I fundamentally change my life in the last three years? What how would we grow in as a company? We always said we invested in people holistically.

Why were these little notes having an impact on strangers I had never met? What was common about all these high achievers that I would run into? These four things, I had less and cry, and it just always came back to these four principles and this notion of people build capacity faster than others. It was spiritual, intellectual, physical, and emotional. I just saw that pattern. And actually, from our company standpoint, that's how we've been training our employees.

Not, not, I mean, yes, there's direct training to what they're related to, but we had tried, we were training them to become better overall. And we were getting the business benefit of that, and they were getting the benefit outside of work. It's odd to hear someone in the business sphere use the word spiritual. I don't. Yeah, and look, I struggle with that word. I am not very religious. I tried to find a hundred different words that might work for it because so spiritual capacity is not religious in my definition. It is, it is who you are and what you want most. For most people, I think it is being able to identify their personal core values, because

I think that ties to their success everywhere, ties to their success with their selves, with their family, with their business, and we work with leaders in our organization to identify their personal core values, so that they can understand themselves as a leader. I think most people that is just the missing like rudder in their life in terms of getting the boat going in the right, they might have a really nice boat, might be going really fast and look pretty,

but it is like going to Antarctica and they wanna be in Hawaii. And it's also like, get to Antarctica that they've realized that really doesn't make them happy. Shit, I didn't mean to be here. I've got two threads open in my mind. First one was Greg McEwan, author of Essentialism. On this show, he told us a story about an executive he worked with who got to the top

of a particular industry, very well known industry. 25 years he'd been working there and found that when he made it, he was VC of something in the national court, multi-limit. You can't know the story, yeah. And he didn't have a, he couldn't talk to his son. Him and his son had a very strange relationship. His son was 18 or 20 or something, and his son wouldn't speak to him.

Literally, the relationship had just devolved in an offingness. And he got to this peak that he thought he was going to, this destination, this Antarctica. And then in Greg's words, he realized that he'd won was going to this destination, this Antarctica, and then in Greg's words, he realized that he'd won the wrong game. And that avoidance of going incredibly fast in precisely the opposite direction, and that is the other part, which is a mental model called direction over speed, that if you're going in precisely the right direction, even

very, very slowly, every day you're making progress, conversely, you can go incredibly fast. You're on my face. You're just degrees and you're going, this is what we learned with the parallel lines. There's a slide I show in one of my presentations on capacity building and it has this beautiful house on a lake. This is a similar thing and I say to people, you got to be, if this house is your goal, you got to be very honest with yourself about the why. Is the house to show yourself in the world you made it? Because then that might have one level of satisfaction. But if you say that it's this house that you have to have on the lake for your families

and generations, and in getting the house, you lose your kids and get divorced, you are not likely to reach your goal. So I just don't think a lot of us, if it was really about family, a family was the why, then you should not sacrifice family in the pursuit of that house. You should actually vacation with a family

and pick the land together and work on the drawings together. You should not go isolate from yourself, from your family and make money. So I think that's, I came to understand at some point that long term, the connection between spiritual and intellectual capacity, so intellectual capacity is like your operating system. How do you learn plan, goal set, execute with discipline, in service of what you want? Your long term goals need to fulfill one or more core values in order

for it to work, right? You have to be working towards something that actually fulfills a core purpose or else I feel like you get to that hollow ending. Very much so. How do people find that why then? Is that where we start? Is that the beginning of the MOT that we're going through, the service that we're going through? Yeah, look, a lot of people now, this is a great time to think about it. The Y is a whole more complicated process. I consider the Y similar to the sort of core purpose. I think it's the topic sentence. I think that's deep and requires a lot of work.

If you figure out your core values, first, to me, those are the pillars. Like if you can identify, these are the core principles I am. I've always been, I've in fact, a way. Sometimes the Y starts to become clear because it is literally like the roof for the top ascendance that sits across these pillars of values. I always say for a company, the Y is easier because it's always usually why they started,

right? Like we started to eradicate blindness and then they figure out the values as they get team. For a person, I think you more want to be clear on the values. And then the why is hard work. And it ties to Friday forward. I wrote this week. I mean, I will say 90, not 90, 70% of the time, I think people's why is connected to a deep point of pain or something early from their childhood or experience they had from which in a positive way becomes the driving force for why they do what they do. I think it's very obvious for some people. I think for other people it's sitting right there,

but it's amazing how they haven't made the game. Like a couple of times, because I spend a lot of time paying attention to this, I've asked people a question or pointed it together and they look like suddenly very shocked and vulnerable versus some people are aware. I was at one of these dinners a while back and there was one of these sketch artists who, you know, does the whole thing in real time. And, you know, because I'm around this a lot, I was like, this is an amazing scale. Like, how did you learn this? And she said, my purpose is to help people see and be heard. That was her answer. And I was like, you know, I think you hear that out of 1% of 0.1% of all people. I said, can I ask you a question?

And you don't have to answer it. I was probably like, you know, one, two, does that come from a very personal place for you? I just love to know. And she looked at me and she's like, I had a significant stutter until I was 15 years old. So to me, that was just like, that's a case study. And I think for that type of person, it's clear.

For a lot of us, there's this mental firewall in between the experience and that. And, you know, I think some people don't want to be as a victim to me. It's just your story. It's your truth. You know, the example I think I used in the book is like, let's say you had a single parent who did their best for you and worked three jobs and got you in a college and made you successful. But you were alone a lot after school because of that.

You might go on to form this award-winning after school education program. Like it's not, it's just your truth. You're not upset about your parent. They did the best, but there was something in that that, you know, you wanted to fix for other people. And in fact, I actually think that severe drive comes is what's created from that experience. It's so interesting what our childhood experiences and the predispositions and the presumptions that we have about the world and ourselves and how we connect with others.

It carries through and then it keeps on rearing its head. You know, like when you see dolphins jumping out of the ocean, you're like, it's flat. And then every so often it just jumps out and you're like, oh, there's that thing again. Stephen Pressfield was on the show a couple of weeks ago and he talks about shadow careers. Have you heard him talk about this? No. Okay, so it sounds like it might tie into what you're talking about there that a shadow career, a lot of the time, is analogous to what someone feels their true calling is, but it's far enough a way that it protects them from failing into the thing they love.

Yeah, very interesting. So the examples that he gave were people who always wanted to be actors that go and become entertainment lawyers. So they are close to the actors. I don't even say they become like play coaches or something like that, but yeah. Maybe, I guess maybe the director as well, perhaps, that they get to do it, but they don't, yeah, and they get to look after, they do to the sort of deals. It's analogous. They're kind of there, but it's a shadow career. It's just a, it's the lesser version of what they genuinely want.

To be someone wanting to be a singer on stage and then became a teacher teaching music. And you're like, well, you're almost there, but without the pressure. And I think that's kind of related. It's interesting. And I think what we'll see coming out of COVID. I mean, how many people, you know, like people get comfortable. And, you know, in that comfort, they're not willing to leave okay for better, right? So I think, you know, if they get laid off and that shadow career becomes the primary career, it's oftentimes it takes that. I think COVID-19 will be a huge career transition for a lot of people say, look, you finally took away from me when I wasn't willing to kill the sort of criminal. And now I'm going to, you know, in the midst

of this without good options, I'm going to lean into that, right? And it's interesting how that happens. Do you think that we're going to see the reversal of the polarity of this stuff because I was talking to Daniel Sloss, Netflix special comedian this week. And he said he thinks we've lost a whole generation of creatives and artists in all forms, live musicians that have realized they can't perform live,

comedians that haven't been able to keep their comedy going. Artists that can't go and sell their work to anyone, because no one's going to art exhibitions, etc., etc. I wonder whether the people who had embraced their proper calling, their full calling, perhaps may have had it made to you. You've got the other way. And go into shadow career and the people for whom they were looking for this opportunity. I wonder whether you're going to have the entire store, bar still get turned upside down. Yeah, you know, there are always some seismic and permanent changes in these things, but then I think there's always an overestimation of things that will never be the same, which,

you know, is true. I just think you see a ton of innovation, right? I think you see, I remember watching this video of an exercise person doing in front of an apartment building and everyone is out on the roof. That was, I know, Italy, I think. Yeah, yeah. So I look, I think the art, I think everyone will innovate.

I think it will be over, you know, at some point, people are actually, you know, really desperate for music and creative and they'll be a ton of demand. But it's almost like there will be some rotation, right? Some of those people might give up and get into something else and then have a fear of going back. But I think then you have those other people we just talked about who might actually dive into that

because there's no risk now. So I continue to see any business requires innovation. I think you'll see new types of art or digital art or outdoor art or concerts and some of that stuff will stick and people may, you know, you may just be more outdoor. I'm surprised though. Someone hasn't figured out how to do a massive socially distance concert, you know, on a so we had one. We had one.

Yeah. I shit you not. 10 minutes behind me. Yeah. So we had one. We had one. I shit you not. 10 minutes behind me. Yeah. There was a thousand person music festival going on. And no, we're not talking like cream fields or Coachella kind of size, but it was individual pens.

People came in in zones. You had like a fenced bit around you, you and a group of six in a bubble. And there was service going past, but live band, live music, stage show. I'm sure they were so happy to have that, right? It was a big, I'm a contrarian. I'm a contrarian, I'm an alafer that.

For sure, yeah, exactly. Okay, so core values, in that case, if core values are going to inform purpose, where do we start finding our core values? Be some people listening, perhaps for whom they are really questioning their current life direction at the moment. They think, come on, Robert, give me the red pill on core values.

Yeah, it's not that easy to do. I've actually just finished up a course on it because the thing I get asked about the most, I put a couple resources and elevate on this and questions you could ask. But it's a process that you go through and it takes six to 12 months, but you started. And I think you start with some questions and there's some examples on there on, you know, thinking about the types of scenarios

with you've been really high. I'm gonna paraphrase a complicated process into simplicity sort of how it's done because I've done this with now a bunch of different leaders and it works. But you ask a bunch of different questions that, and you answer them for yourselves, that produce responses, like they're kind of best and worst. And you ask them a bunch of different ways, you create a bunch of different lists,

and then you start looking across the list for the themes, because where was I successful, where was I not, what are the characteristics of people I struggle, where do I not? You know, one of the, one of of the and you start thinking about those questions You will start to notice patterns that will eliminate your core values You know one of the questions that I would say that that's the one oh one the sort of three oh three I don't know if you guys use that numbering in college classes university classes I'm no idea what you're talking about. Sorry. So one of one is what we call entry-level university courses here.

So the advanced version is, if you want to sit down right now, right, what someone you would want someone to say at your funeral for your eulogy about you and the impact that you had on their life, I did that exercise long before I did the actual core value work and a lot of the terminology was in there because when you get that raw about what, how do you want to be remembered, what do you want people to think of? It gets to your values and the impact that you want to make.

But I always say, the analogy that I give with core values, I think we know our core value when it's crossed, right? And that's a lot of us. So picture you're driving a really nice car through a tunnel, the lights are off. You hit the right side wall, because you pull the car off the wall, and you get in the lane, and then you hit the other wall, right?

This is kind of how we make decisions. We don't know what it's like. Once we feel the, it's crossed, we move away from it. But if that's a nice car, you'd really want the lights to be on and the things to be painted and saying, I shouldn't get near that wall. And that wall is that job, that person a nice car, you'd really want the lights to be on and the things to be painted and saying, I shouldn't get near that wall.

And that wall is that job, that person, that relationship because these are opposite values to myself. I talk about the big three. I think when you think about where you choose to live, who you choose to partner, your vocation, or work, if you make those decisions not aligned with your core values, it's very unlikely to work. You can marry someone or partner with someone who's different, different hobbies, interests, whatever. But when you get to the hard stuff, if your values aren't aligned, I think that's the,

I don't think it's not a clone, it's clearly the opposite, it's a track. My wife and I are very different in respect. But when we get to the really hard difficult stuff, we are philosophically respect, but when we get to the really hard difficult stuff, we are philosophically aligned on it. So that's the, that that that that's the basic. I think you can have decisions in front of you. And you should say, I shouldn't do that. I should not do that. I've heard you say that physical fitness, physical wellbeing is one of your core values. What are the rest of them? Yeah. So, so it's, it's, I'll just run through them quickly. The, oh, one of my core values. Yeah, yours. What yours? My, my, so it's it's just run through them quickly that oh one of my core values Yeah, you'll see all right my my so my core values are health and vitality

So that includes physical fitness so Find a better way and share it which explains a lot of what I do self-reliance One that I came up with that really is fitting But it took me a while to get the right word which is respectful authenticity and then the last is long-term orientation me a while to get the right word, which is respectful authenticity. And then the last is long-term orientation. So if I pick some activity that is aligned to all of those, or if I pick a parental activity, like, I am so happy and I'm doing well, if I do something that crosses a lot of those, then not so well. So when you think about those first two, like, find a better way at health and fatality, right? Every year I pick a fitness challenge or something

new for me to do, because I haven't done it, it's better way, and then it forces me to train and you know be healthy and that's important. So what was this year's? This year's is a half marathon, which I'm, is I'm gonna have to do virtually. So should this list. Yes. But I'm working up towards that distance. I've biked from London to Paris two years ago with a group I've done Olympic triathlon. I've just bunch of different stuff. But it's interesting, like when we talk to our kids around,

you know, we have family core values too. And when we talk to them around like not having a third cookie, you know, it is under the value of, because we talk about being healthy and that's not healthy. It's not a rule. It's a, it aligns to a value. Are you familiar with Ben Bergeron from the CrossFit world? You would really, really enjoy his work. Oh, maybe, yeah, maybe. Yeah. Is it Ex-Coach of Mat Freiser, fitness man on the planet? He has a podcast called Chasing Excellence, which he's named after his book. And I would highly you and him sing very much from the same him sheet, especially with regards to the family values thing. Everything

that he does is driven from his values. I think that's great. I spent a lot of time this year working on my core values and it's really informed a lot of my direction. It's helped me to lean into discomfort in projects because I know that it is truly aligned with the things that I do, as opposed to previously, especially if you suffer with imposter syndrome, which we always do. Which all successful people do. People who've gotten there for the wrong reasons

don't seem to have it, I bet. Yeah, we also, we realize. Because those who are lucky never have imposter syndrome, it's interesting. People who work hard. I'll take that as a compliment in that case. Yeah, so it's really, really helped. So everyone that's listening, if you haven't gone away and done that, get yourself a copy

of Elevate. Otherwise, Chris Sparks, he has an experiment without limits. There's some great worksheets in that. Taylor Pearson also has some great worksheets, some good ways to do it. So we've spoken about the spiritual. Should we go into the intellectual next to those two kind of follow on from each other? Yeah, they actually go in a particular order for me. So let me just let me set the framework and then we can dive in each one just to make a recast. The spiritual is your core values kind of,

you know, who you are and what you won't want. Intellectual capacity, as I always say, it's about how you improve your ability to think, learn, plan, execute with discipline. So this is kind of growth mindset, being proactive, long-term goal, short-term goals, routine habits, accountability. It's kind of, once you know what you want, how do you get it? Your operating system. How do you make your operating system better? Then physical capacity, kind of what it sounds, you know, health, well-being, physical performance, resilience, kind of embracing competition.

Really, now I know what I want. I know I want to get it and now motivated to keep myself in good shape to get there. And then emotional is the last one. It's interesting, the hardest one for a lot of people. This is the world around you. So how do you react to challenging situations, your emotional mindset and the quality of your relationships?

So my analogy is that if spiritual capacity was designing the race car, you know, intellectual capacity was building it physical was sort of testing it on test track. Emotional is like, how do you do in that car when it's out on the road with the rain and sun and lots of other cars, right? Some cars will do better than their spec and some will do a lot worse. So emotional capacity is really interaction with the world around us and the things that we don't control. Based on your time coaching and also working within your business, which of those four areas do you find people falling short or tripping over the most?

So it's interesting, like for me, I fall in and out of them, you know, physical, physical can be a real gateway. If you get tired and cranky, think about it. You lose sight of your goals. You don't interplay well with other people. You know, you kind of give up your learning and you're thinking a lot of that stuff. For most people, I think they haven't even touched

the spiritual capacity part. And so the most important thing that they can do is start the work there. That's the one for me that once you get it 90%, right? You're pretty good. It doesn't require daily maintenance as much because the other ones align you to it, right? You say, oh, I know my value.

So I need, this is what I need to go and learn and do. But I would say that I think that that's the one that people haven't touched. I think a lot of people struggle the most with emotional capacity, touched. I think a lot of people struggle the most with emotional capacity, particularly right now. In terms of when they know what they want, they're still haven't moved away from people

who aren't aligned to that, or they really mix things that they control and that they don't control, right? So perfect example, you and I get into a car accident this morning. You are enlightened and say, oh, I've got insurance. That could have been worse. You walk away. You go do three podcast interviews.

You have a great day. You meet a bunch of friends, all this stuff. I'm like swearing all of them, freaking Chris. And one more thing in the world that what can go wrong this year? And I get in a fight with my brother. I don't do the goal thing that I said I want to do. We both experienced the same thing, right? How we chose to respond and react to that.

We tell ourselves different truth. We tell ourselves truth that my day got ruined by a car accident. Well that's not really the whole truth. The truth is you had a car accident and that wasn't your fault. But you control what comes after that. It's interesting that you haven't mentioned there, or at least I said what some of the hurdles people overcome, you mentioned that a lot of the time we vacillate between many

of them, but intellectual wasn't one of the ones at least that came to the forefront of your mind. I think I've got a potential hypothesis about why that might be the case. I think that increasingly solutions to problems in a post-modern enlightenment, non-religious world, a very cerebral, we have this huge proliferation of personal development, self-development, and rightly so, I'm contributing to it now. We put three, four, five hours of personal development content out every single week. Yeah. I think a lot of the time that causes people to look for a very cerebral, very cognitive,

very transactional solution. Okay, I have a problem with my this thing. Like, which page in atomic habit is it that I need to turn to to like find the particular habit that I'm doing to do the one other thing or like What you know, you know, I mean it's that's how I think that a lot of people are looking to get the solution Whereas what you've identified there is it's all of the ancillary stuff that actually feeds in to our ability To get that engine to be bigger to get the fuel efficiency to be faster to get the Steering to be tighter right and and It's an interesting point you meet because I think that a lot of people in that realm, and again, they're looking for that hack or that quick fix.

That's not what it's meant to mean. It meant to mean the one. Once I know what my most important contribution is, I'm going to do everything I can to learn and focus and be disciplined about going in that direction. It is the glue that sort of holds you to that. It's not the quick fix, right? I'm not. I think there's a misunderstood line between the 80-20 rule and hacks.

I think that there's always an 80-20 rule. There was just some study I saw yesterday, someone sent me because they know I love the 80-20 rule that like 20% of super spreaders or 19.8% of super spreaders in Singapore had created 80% of the cases. It was just really interesting. Do you want me to give you another one to add to your collection? Yeah. So the bottom 80% of men on Tinder are competing for the bottom 20% of women and the top

80% of women on Tinder are competing for the top 20% of women, and the top 80% of women on Tinder are competing for the top 20% of men. That's about right. That's from Daytonomics. So there you go. Facts don't care about your feelings Karen, I'm very sorry about that. Intellectual, I'll be talking about

expanding our intellectual capacity. What are some of the key areas that you find coming up during your work to do with that? Yeah, so a lot of its goal setting and I think understanding, I was not, I didn't understand this. I would set a lot of one-year goals and I would meet them and I'd feel great, but they weren't connected.

So to me, it's now a reverse engineering process. What are the long-term goals? Do the long-term goals fulfill the values? And therefore, short-term goals are actually down payments on the long-term goals, or else we go for the short stuff, versus like, I need to make deposits. and therefore short-term goals are actually down payments on the long-term goals, or else we go for the short stuff, versus like, I need to make deposits.

When you have two things, and one of them is put the envelope in the mail, or the other is climb the mountain, like, we just put the envelope in the mail, we put the envelope in the mail, and the mountain stays pretty far, rather than take a step, take a step, take a step. So I think I'll answer this,

I'll give you examples at both end of the spectrum. So really setting what we want, why we want it, and then committing to the pieces to get there, again, back to that house. Like, I want this house in town. Well, I need to save the money for it. My family and I need to go to towns, find out where we want it to be. We need to pick a, develop, like, those are all things I could do over time, rather than just, you know, deciding get there. And then the other fully through the whole spectrum on the other side of routine, all that stuff, I think is just accountability, right?

A great people and leaders, they want accountability. Other people do not. You know, I was hearing someone reinforce that. World top Herman world class performance coach and he was saying like Michael Jordan, they love accountability. They love being yelled at, told they're not doing something, you know, average people do not want accountability.

They want to excuse their way out of it. So there's multiple levels of that, you know, their self accountability, which is can be journal writing. It's really annoying to write you're going to do something for five days in a row and read it, you know, and then do it. There's pure accountability. Or even me sending you what I said I was going gonna do that week every Friday at 10 a.m. Upset up and that's where a lot of mastermind groups

come in and then there's public accountability where people just put their thing out at the beginning of the year, dear world. This is how much I'm gonna weigh at the end of the year. This is what I'm gonna do. Anyone who does all three is probably in a unique, rare, fine feel. I like it.

Where else in intellectual do people have holes that can quite easily be filled? I think there is confusion between an intellectual capacity is not doing more. It is actually think about upgrading the processor. When you upgrade the processor, it should crunch more data with less energy. I think a lot of times, let let's say I, a lot of people

this crosses into emotional. I struggle with difficult conversations at work. Like I really struggle with them, performance conversation. So the night before I sweat, I don't sleep, I get all, or I just sit down for a day and I read three books. You know, I listen to Paddy McCord's podcast, who's, or Kim Scott, who were the world leaders on digital conversations, and I now have upgraded my operating system

with the tools and tactics. We're actually doing this now, is less work and less energy. That to me is a huge mistake. I am not advocating anyone run the hamster wheel faster. I am saying upgrade the processor so the task requires less work and less energy. I love that. I think action is the antidote to anxiety comes in quite well there.

Yeah. Much of the time when we have anxiety about anything which is approaching us in the future, it's because of a fear of a lack of capacity in order to be able to deal with it. Yeah. And then that's where procrastination comes. You think, ah, I'm really gonna struggle with that thing, with that project, to that conversation I'm gonna have, and then the deadline arrives, I'll put it off, I'll find an excuse, I'll do it tomorrow, I'll delegate it to someone else, whatever it might be. Whereas, as you've identified there,

if you're moving towards that goal, you're in control. People have solved these problems. I mean, I interviewed Paddy McCord from Netflix who's really kind of thought leader on the great culture, but direct with people. And when she talked about letting people go and something really struggled with, she would coach her mentees when they had to have

one of these conversations, they haven't done it. She's like, call your voicemail. Have a conversation with your voicemail five times before you do it and listen to it. Right? There was not a secret. It wasn't a hack. It was actually practicing it, doing it, like knowing the framework how to do it. And it was very pragmatic advice. I'm like, yeah, of course you're not going to be good at this. You never have this conversation. That's why you need to practice having this conversation. I wonder, again, whether this links back to the cerebral

overly cognitive argument that I made a little bit earlier, that we presume because we see wonderful leaders that we guess are just bestowed with this magnetism and they just flow in a room and everyone loves them, it almost makes us forget that it's a skill, the same as anything else. It's a great lie. We tell ourselves a lot of the stories in Friday

for Demis to be ever listened to how I built this podcast. You know, my favorite part is all these super successful company and people, they're worst dark moment where like they were almost out of business and they go on for a long time. You know, for a lot of people, we love to be like,

oh, that company was an overnight success, right? Because that ascribes it to timing or luck, or I don't think professional athletes get enough credit, you know, in cases where you say, oh, it's just so gifted. Like, practices 10 hours a day. Like, if you want to be a professional speaker and you practice speaking 10 hours a day, you probably could speak or I mean, most of these athletes, look, it's what they love to do. But they don't work that they put in to practice things before they do them. Farak seeds anyone in the business world. 100% I've been hugely on this flex recently that so few people, even if you're fully aligned,

your goals, your dreams, what you know you need to do, you've broken it down into the individual steps and you're committing yourself fully, being as present as you can. But think about how far from an athlete's level of preparation, everybody else's, except for the total freaks within their industry, the Elon Musk's of this world, probably a couple of guys at Google and Facebook, you know? You think an athlete's optimizing his food, his rest, he's thinking about-

The history is three coaches and he's the best in the world. And he's surrounded by a team of people who are all on the same journey as him. He's sleeping thinking about what he's gonna do tomorrow. He's waking up in the morning at the time that's prescribed all of that stuff. So thinking like an athlete, no matter what your industry is, I've taken a lot of inspiration from that this year,

trying to turn pro. Right. And who are the athletes that always disappoint that people are, you know, regret signing? They're the ones who don't do that work. Who looked like. Right, but they had a lot of talent, right? They looked from the outside coming in the best signing of the year. And then you get him into the training pitch and he's leaving halfway through the day. They, they, they, they, when I think about all that bus and national football league, which is the biggest draft.

It was the really talent. They were drooling at a talent, but not passion and wasn't willing to do the work, right? What's next? Physical? Physical. Yeah. Physical. How do we expand our physical capacity?

What's interesting, physical, taking physical as an analogy to the other capacities, we understand it more. We tend to think that we have these things or we don't have these things, right? Versus you wouldn't say, Oh, I can left the found found way five times where I can't. You'd say, if I did it for 90 days each day, then it would be, it would be easier. So, you know, it's the health well-being, physical performance. I think we've moved past the, Greg McEwen talked about this a lot, but I think we've actually fortunately moved past

celebrating leaders and executives who get no sleep and I think actually people are now. Yeah, they're now going the other way, saying, I sleep nine hours a night, we're not celebrating that anymore. I think there's managing stress, and this is, again, where we build resilience. I think sometimes, I actually, I believe,

I think resilience is this emotional and physical flywheel. So I think we do something, and I had a couple conversations with performance experts around this, because I was like, what's the chicken and what's the egg? And the consensus, not by an 80-20, but by a 60-40, was that I think you do something hard that you don't think that you can do. Upon doing that, you gain emotional confidence that lets you be willing to set a next benchmark, but it's actually that effort. I don't think you can will yourself to a resilience, like you actually have to get through that race, take that extra step, do it, and then you're like, oh, what other lies have I been telling myself?

And you know, the thing that people are pointing out is that there's a mentor of mine, he's a great speaker, he always offers in a speech $10,000 to anyone who goes back and brings a can of stress into the meeting. He goes, go find me a can of stress. And I will pay you, and his point is that stress is not an external thing. It is actually an internal response that we do to ourselves. And you can be stressed about the dealier

about to close for signing your company for a billion dollars. You can be stressed about not having enough food this day or your job. It actually has the same physical response on your body. We are using a very outdated, fighter flight mechanism all the time, which was meant to save our life. And it does biological stuff to our body that's pretty unhealthy. So if we sit in that state, we are releasing tons of cortisol. Like if we don't, but it is with, we are the only ones that can get us out of that state,

right? I mean, it is the world does things that cause stress to us. But as we said before, that is a different threshold point for everyone. It's a different subject matter for everyone, but it shows up physiologically the same. So, you've got something to do, you've had a phone call, something really stressful is about to happen. The partnership that you thought was about to go through tomorrow, the merger is on the rocks.

What would you prescribe to someone who has had that call to get themselves out of that stress response and to allow them to have that clarity of thought again. I mean the basic thing is probably to get outside, you know, you're actually have built up that cortisol, which was some actually talking to someone about this who understands the science of it more. So you've actually built up the fight or flight thing and so you need to fight or flight, right? So if you like a let off, let off. Yeah. If you got into a big fight, you would probably let it off. OK. OK.

So go put someone in the street. Probably go for a run or a interval training or something to actually like, I am very cognizant. I don't like running, but I love how I feel after I run. So I listen to podcasts or do whatever I can, because I know that it just puts me physically in a state that I need to be in. But yeah, you actually need to go blow off that steam, I think, literally or figuratively.

Yes. Breathing as well. I'm going to guess, focusing on deeper breathing, activating the parasympathetic nervous system. Yeah, look, there's a whole range of things. I think if you do a meditation, if you do these things and you're comfortable in the United, these are all things that you could do. It just, I guess it goes to the level of where the person is.

It's a good time to turn on your calm or headspace app. I actually think some people, though, in that immediate thing, aren't able to transition right into that. In fact, I'd say, let's say this was at 10 a.m You probably want to blow off some steam literally, but you know I what I found on those days is actually the meditation or something else would be really important in the afternoon To make sure that my night's sleep was good later on right that I'm now it's not replaying But it is it is hard to move

It takes probably you know a Dalai Lama, a type person to move from severe stress, straight to meditation, unless they have deep practice in that. Anyone who's tried to do that, all that you do is sit in the same lovely meditation pose. Yeah, and then you just ruminate about the thing that you're worried about,

and you're like, this is just- Then you get mad at yourself that you can't make the cloud- Wait, sing a time. Yeah, so again, just ruminate about the thing that you're worried about and you're like this is You get mad at yourself that you can't wait to play time. Yeah, so I again, I'm not a scientist about anything But I do think you need some sort of you know walking breathing relief valve from that But look if you have it out with the person you might you might have actually already had that I think it's more if you go away It's doing that yeah, I get it. Where else in physical? We've said sleep and stress two key areas. What else? Yeah, I think,

I think, you know, exercise, eating, I am, I am not a a dietitian. I am not, you know, so I, but I've read what I try to do is read from everyone that's smarter and take all the intersecting things. And what do I think is the is the principle? So one thing is I think there's a lot of science now that there's a lot of brain and body connection, right, between what we eat and that it crosses the gut level and that affects

how we feel or otherwise. I think the also dangerous thing out there is that there's a lot of people saying that whatever their diet is, whether it's gluten or paleo or this, is the thing that everyone should do. And the really smart people who know this will tell you that it's completely the opposite. One man's poison is another man's mountain, mountain blowing the others. Yeah, we'll go with the British is tonic. So I think there are definitely different things that affect each of our health and make us feel,

and I think you need to figure out what works for you. But in general, less sugar, less processed food, less alcohol, less caffeine, like I think those are probably all general principles. Many of us are on a upper in the morning, down or on the evening plan. And what I understand from again, the people who understand this,

I'm very honest that this is second hand, is that you're not allowing your body to go through those processes organically if you're always creating them artificially, right? So, to the example before, if you're only can calm down by having a drink You've now trained and you can only get yourself awake by having a coffee. You are now training your body to do that It's weakening very much so the buttress the scaffolding that your body's laid upon you know like one of those is it the

Dali painting where all of the clocks are melting and they're all really sort of Flassoid all the clocks are melting on the side of a cupboard. And it's like propped up by loads of different individual prongs that you know when you put your hands in pizza dough and it's all falling all over it. It's like these are the little prongs, however if you take them away and you allow yourself to cultivate those capacities naturally, innately.

If you choose to have a drink, a coffee, then you get to expand your domain of competence on top of something which is already sufficient as opposed to feeding. I do have the drink after the run and the coffee after the workout, right? Where were you combined in the organic response? Yeah, I get it. So emotional, final one. Yeah, there's tricky one.

So there's two big things of emotional. There's a bunch of different things, this tricky one. So I, you know, a big, there's two big things of emotional. There's a bunch of different things, but the buckets. How you react to the things that you don't control. So that's the first one. And then relationships, both the quality of your relationships and who you choose to spend time with. In the first one, I think it's interesting. Like I, I, I have some family members that spend a lot of time on weather apps and it always frustrates me. I'm like to me the weather the weather is the perfect emotional capacity like the weather is going to be the weather Right, you are not gonna change it, but if you're constantly, oh, it's gonna rain tomorrow

I do you look and it's gonna rain tomorrow and like oh, I'm gonna go to the movies and get an umbrella or do you actually like Get stressed about what the weather is it get frustrated that it's not lining up to what you want it, right? That is a kind of a microcosm of emotional capacity. You don't control it, how do you react to it? And the second is relationships. I think, you know, we spend a lot of time with people who would use a term called energy vampires, like where you actually feel worse after spending time with them,

probably not as much time. Like, you and I might not see each other once a year, like where you actually feel worse after spending time with them. Probably not as much time. You and I might not see each other once a year, but we have this awesome uplifting conversation. It's forward moving, whatever. But then I'm spending a lot of time with a friend that I just don't have the courage to, that I literally feel worse every time. I spend with them. I actually think we need to reallocate.

Jim Rooms and you are the average of the people he he spend the five people he spend the most time with. I think we need to even make a list of who do we need and want to spend more time with. And how without breaking up or blowing up with those people, do we remove energy from those relationships? And an example someone gave me is like, don't say stuff you don't mean. Like we should have lunch again next week. Like after you just got like you don't, you just got through lunch and you're terrible and this person complained about the thing all the way. Like we should do that again soon. You don't have to say that. You don't, you don't have to call someone and have the same

conversation, you know, with that relative every four days, you could call them every six days. So this thing about energy vampires really like if you people you feel worse with after spending time with you need to figure out a way to spend less time with those people. They are not moving you towards your spiritual and intellectual capacity in any way. The British equivalent of an energy vampire is a mood hoover. You guys are so passive aggressive. Oh it's so fun. You'll have a hard time. You'll be like, no, let's definitely get lunch next week. And then afterwards, like, oh my God, that person is the worst. Like, yeah, I think there's certain things that

both Americans and British could take from each other. Yeah, you are correct. The, um, the passive aggressiveness, the quiet behind the back, sulking, very sulky, very sulky naïve. I was at a conference with someone in our industry with a bunch of competitors, and they walked up and hugged all of them, and walked away. I was like, that is so nice.

We wouldn't do that in the US. You guys all get along, but we all hate each other. I thought it was so, it was so stereotypical. Okay, so we've looked at the relationship side of emotional, what's left? Yeah, I think it's the things that we control. So, so circumstances, and then people, and I think there's also a piece that begins to resilience, there is that emotional side of resilience. Like, how do I, you know, how do I plan for the next thing I'm going to do that I

didn't think that I could physically do? Because what I think keeps people moving forward and that is being vulnerable, is getting out of their comfort zone, I think that greatly increases their emotional capacity. People want to share, people want to be vulnerable. They're just scared to. And when they do, the depth of their relationship, two people have been having this superficial conversation for five years, aren't talking about the real thing that they wanna talk about, that would actually create the bond that they're seeking. Massively, a huge problem amongst young guys,

I think, especially ones that are professionals type A's, trying to be overachievers. They, and I did for a very long time, I presumed that strength and confidence and bravado and courage and all of these things went along with not showing vulnerability, whereas quite the opposite is true, that the people with whom I have the deepest relationships are the ones that I've been the most vulnerable with, and it becomes self-fulfilling. When you tell someone something

which in the wrong hands could be quite catastrophic to you, that's really where you make a connection. And I think it was a book that's up on the big shelf up there, The Lonely Century by Norina Hertz, talking about this loneliness epidemic that we've got at the moment. And I wonder how many people are combating loneliness by trying to be overly confident, by thinking I am going to be the sort of friend that other

people would want to be friends with. And the truth is that being more vulnerable and showing that side of you that is precisely the opposite of what you think of the people want might be the quickest way to make a connection. I think there's a lot of culture in this, there's a lot of gender history in this, particularly with boys, you know, I'm feeling like make a connection. I think there's, look, there's a lot of culture in this. There's a lot of gender history in this, particularly with boys, you know, feelings. I mean, I've heard the story, you know, closer to home for you. I can't tell you how many times I've heard a story from a coach or a speaker, an Irish boy, you know,

and his father who just wanted to have a real discussion and give him a hug. And I mean, my friend, Phil McCurnen, you know, just talks about, you know, he wasn't, it wasn't until he was 45 that he and his dad said, they love to each other.urden, you know, just talks about, you know, he wasn't, it wasn't until he was 45 that he and his dad said they love to each other. They were, you know, it's just, it was this thing you didn't do. And they danced around it. And it was like, as a, as a son, it's all he wanted, you know, and I've just, I feel

like I've heard. So there is a lot of, there are cultural implications in, in a lot of this stuff, but I do think generationally, it's, it's changing a bit, which is nice. I really like the analogy that you drew between using the weather app. So we've had a lot of Stoics on recently, including Ryan Holiday and the weather's a good example. Using the weather as, look, controllables versus uncontrollables, the dichotomy of control, all these sort of stuff. But thinking about the fact that I was laughing at how your friends who like to look at the weather app, I'm like, how ridiculous, why would you do that? But really, everything on your phone is the weather app, apart from individual messages. Looking at news,

is the weather app? Yeah, precisely. You're watching the, watching the presidential debate. Do you think that what you say is going to change what Donald Trump or Joe Biden says the next time? It affects you and hopefully my mom won't listen to this, but my mom was in a tizzy the other night. I was talking to her and you know upset more normal about what's going on. I was like, and she just had surgery. So she's, I know she has sit down like how long have you watched the news today? It was the first thing I said. I was like, well, I just I'm like, turn it have you watched the news today? It was the first thing I said. I was like, well, I've just, I'm like, turn it off.

Just turn it off. You've overdosed on news today, Mom. I can tell the two things I've been able to tell in COVID when people are in bad places are, and usually it's probably both. One, they've been consuming too much news, you know, and two, they have not gotten enough sleep. Those seem to be very clear markers of sort of just low ability to deal.

That's a one way ticket to feeling pretty miserable in 2020, I think. News, too much news, not enough sleep. And that's why I believe in these buffers. Like I leave my phone downstairs. I don't really, let them guy texting me this morning asking me something about podcasts this afternoon.

Did you get, I'm like, I'm sorry, I don't look at my phone for the first hour in the day and I leave it downstairs because nothing good happened overnight. You know, other than some guy emailing me that there's some guy, you know, 11 million pounds state and I'm the, you know, beneficiary, you know, what I could, I just sent him a check. Like, nothing great happens overnight. And I'm not a doctor. so it's not an emergency, but as soon as I look at that, I'm gonna be pulled into that world.

100%. I mentioned before we started, I'm a club promoter and I have a little quip that I always have. So really nothing good happens overnight. Dude, after 1am, nothing interesting has ever happened. Ever, ever, ever, ever. Holy get bad email, yeah.

Precisely. Self-limiting beliefs was something that I wanted to talk about with you. A lot of people we mentioned in Postus Syndrome earlier on. How can people overcome those self-limiting beliefs? I think you need to look at the source of them. I think a lot of times, I think you can think back

to childhood, there are a lot of things placed on people and think about where that came from Also their stories that we tell ourselves because we don't want to do something and we don't want to fail at it Like I always think it's interesting when someone says you know There's a framework that that a coach I worked with once used more business coach But so it says I can't do that. I could never write a book Okay, well why give me the five wise what you can't write a book So his thing is he takes the five reasons why you can't do it. I could never write a book. Okay, well why? Give me the five why's what you can't write a book. So his thing is he takes the five reasons why you can't do it and then asks you how you could solve each of those five things.

Well, I don't have the time. How could you solve that? Well, I could, you know, I spend 30 minutes every morning writing it. Well, I don't have the experience. Well, how could you solve that? Well, I could hire one of these companies that does, you know, Ghost Riding. Well, I don't have a topic. Well, how could you solve that? Well, I could spend a few of those days in 30 minutes, like

picking topics and ask my friends. And so it basically, like, rhetorically puts it back on themselves because I, sometimes again, we were told we couldn't do something. And the most damaging ones come from third parties, but a lot of time, I think it is a protection mechanism. Look, there's some reality. I could not be a professional football player. Like, I don't have the talent.

I could work as hard as I want, I don't have the talent, but I always squirm when someone tells me they can't do something that I intuitively know that they can do, because I think they're just trying to protect themselves, because the alternative saying, I don't to do that doesn't sound as good. I agree about internalizing the bad third party rhetoric. Every bad inner voice that we have was once a bad out of voice, I think. Yeah.

Someone told you you were stupid your whole life. That's a very hard thing to overcome and believe you're smart, right? Or someone said that to you. Those things are pretty damaging. It can also go back to what we said at the very beginning talking about the spiritual, a lot of the time people I think can internalize that and use that as the main thrust of their career. So there's another Greg McEwan example about a guy that was a CFO, I think, or a COO or something, but still believed that he was terrible at maths. Because his, like, some grade school, primary school teacher had said, you suck at maths at eight years old,

and he'd carried that with him, and then made it his career, and still COO or CFO of this huge company still believed that he couldn't do maths. C-O-O or C-F-O of this huge company still believe that he couldn't do math. Look, I'm very, I'm very, I remember my respectful authenticity value. I believe in telling people the truth, but I think as a manager or leader, you can do decades of damage, right? So if you worked here and as a Chris, you're just not, take some right out of the office. You're just not management material, right? That could sit with you for a long time.

You could be really like, have some, you know, confidence issues from that. But if I sat down and said, Chris, you know, I've looked at you, I've what you've been managing, you seem to love being an individual contributor. You know, you want to sell your own thing, you want to be responsible, like, that's very different than leading a team.

I think you could actually do really well in this, but this requires leading a team and I think you could actually do really well in this, but this requires leading a team. And I don't really think that's actually what you want to do, or whatever, those are very different ways, where one might actually help you realize that, oh, people, I just thought I had to lead a team to get ahead, that's actually not what I like, and I've been doing it, versus me crushing your soul by attacking you personally.

And I've heard from a lot of people that how he comment from a boss has had five or 10 years of damage on their confidence in their career. It's dangerous, man. As you rise up through the ranks of any business and you start to get subordinate below you, or if you're a business owner and you have the entire company below you, the words that you say have a disproportionate impact on people long after you've left them or they've left you, I do think there's a big lot of responsibility in that. I don't often hear talked about actually either in the business. No, and the truth is the truth, right? So to say, Chris, you are not doing well as a manager.

That is the truth, right? But then the other truth is, and I think it's because you actually don't want to be one, if you thought about it, and you want to be, you don't want to manage salespeople, you want your two million dollar book of business, you want the credit, that's great, but you actually just need a role that reinforces that, right? There are two different ways to have that have that conversation. I love it. Final thing, you talk a lot about how we can use and relate to our competition. Think in 21st century, always on social media, comparisons, how much do you earn, the new house, the new car, how can we use and relate to our competition? Yeah, to me, like healthy competition is, I actually think we need to learn to win well and lose well and look, all monopolies happen because there's no competition.

So I actually believe that competition is just about raising our own standards and understanding that whatever I'm doing today, if I'm doing the same thing in 10 years, it's probably not a winning strategy, right? I like to say, if you are the best horse and buggy repair person in the entire world, you probably don't have a lot of work right now. So for me, it's raising the bar on yourself, embracing it. I'm not, I'm pro competition in that way. I'm not all saying it's all about winning.

I actually, I don't believe in that at all, but I think when you elevate the playing field, you do it for everyone. I don't want to be the 10,000th best place to work. Like I want to be the top 10 blessed places to work. I don't think you'd have a lot of people who'd say, the person I want to fill this role is the person that no one wanted. There's usually someone that everyone's trying to do. So my favorite example is the most enlightened yoga teacher in the world will compete for a single job at the biggest, you know, most prestigious yoga studio. Like, it just is reality. And

there's times when we need to win well and there's times that we need to lose well, but at least we're trying to up our game. I like it. Robert, man, I really enjoyed today. Where can people go if they want to sign up to? You know, is that where else you want to send them? I really enjoyed today. Where can people go if they want to sign up to you? Newsletter, where else do you want to send them? Yeah, so everything's really integrated now at robbertglaser.com, glaz.org.com. The books there, the books are there, and Elevator podcast is there, and they can sign up for the Friday for newsletters, well. Awesome, man. Thank you so much for today.

All right. Have a good one.