Something You Should Know - Amazing Stories Behind Cool Whip, Mac & Cheese and other Iconic Food & What It Takes to Be in the Top 1%

Episode Date: January 21, 2019

There is a good chance that your partner is not a lot taller or shorter than you are. People seem to be attracted to people who are of a similar height but it is not for the reasons you might think. This episode begins with a fascinating explanation of how height is involved in mate selection. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3408829/Size-DOES-matter-Choosingpartners-similar-height-genes-researchers-say.html) Despite the emphasis on eating natural, healthy and organic foods, we still eat a lot of processed foods. In fact, some of the bestselling foods are things like Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, Cool Whip, frozen dinners and Twinkies. Food writer Carolyn Wyman, author of Better than Homemade: Amazing Foods that Changed the Way We Eat (https://amzn.to/2FNzyGv) joins me to explains some of the really interesting stories behind some of the most popular food products today. Ever had trouble getting a refund from a retailer even though you know you were entitled to it? There is something you can tell that retailer that may very well get them to reconsider? (https://www.wisebread.com/6-awesome-credit-card-tricks-that-will-save-you-money) What does it take to be the best in whatever you want to do? Perhaps it would help to look at elite athletes and see what it is they do to get to the top of their game. Alan Stein, author of the book Raise Your Game: High Performance Secrets from the Best of the Best (https://amzn.to/2AWJiL9) has worked with the very best basketball players and explains how anyone can transfer what those athletes do to improve their performance in any field.  This Week's Sponsors -Joybird. To receive an exclusive offer for 25% off your first order go to www.joybird.com/something and use promo code: something -Select Quote. Get your free quote for life insurance today at www.SelectQuote.com/something -ADT. Go to www.ADT.com/smart to learn how ADT can design and install a smart home system for you. -Geico. Go to www.Geico.com to see how Geico can save you money on your car insurance Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on Something You Should Know, why you're attracted to people who are pretty much as tall as you. Then the fascinating stories of some iconic foods like Twinkies, Velveeta, Cool Whip and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. That product was actually invented by a salesman for a macaroni company. He found out that he could unload a lot more of his macaroni if he attached little packets of dried Kraft cheese to them. Kraft got wind that he was doing this and hired him and said, do it for us. Plus, how to get a refund when a retailer doesn't want to cooperate.

And why being the best at anything requires self-awareness. One of the most important things you can do to improve self-awareness is to ask those that know you the best. And I know that sounds counterintuitive that to be self-aware, you're going to ask other people. But where we can sometimes get caught is we don't see our own blind spots. All this today on Something You Should Know. As a listener to Something You Should Know, I can only assume that you are someone who likes to learn about new and interesting things and bring more knowledge to work for you in your everyday life. I mean, that's kind of what Something You Should Know is all about.

And so I want to invite you to listen to another podcast called TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about TED Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about TED Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done TED Talks. Well, you see, TED Talks Daily is a podcast that brings you a new TED Talk every weekday in less than 15 minutes. Join host Elise Hu. She goes beyond the headlines so you can hear about the big ideas shaping our future. Learn about things like sustainable fashion,

embracing your entrepreneurial spirit, the future of robotics, and so much more. Like I said, if you like this podcast, Something You Should Know, I'm pretty sure you're going to like TED Talks Daily. And you get TED Talks daily wherever you get your podcasts. Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts.

And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Over the past month and during the holidays, I received a lot of emails from people from literally all over the world. And it is one of the best things about doing this podcast is realizing how many people it reaches and everywhere it reaches. Emails from people who say that they found a particular segment interesting or helpful or useful. And even people who complain about something they heard. I appreciate that they took the time to write. If you have a question or a comment or want to contact me for any reason,

my email address is mike at somethingyoushouldknow.net. First up today, when you choose a romantic partner, you probably think a lot of things go into making that choice, not the least of which might be fate. But apparently it's also your genes. What's strange is that one of the genes that's involved in choosing a romantic partner is the same one that determines your own height. Consequently, we tend to be attracted to people who are a similar height. To conduct a study, researchers analyzed 13,068 heterosexual couples. And while the research is fairly complicated, the report concluded that mate selection, driven by one's height,

is more than just a chance event. Your genes clearly play a role. And it gets even stranger. Even though we are inclined to pick someone of a similar height, when we don't, we tend to be happier. In fact, according to research in South Korea, the greater the height difference, the happier the woman was. And that is something you should know.

Every time you walk into the grocery store, you come face-to-face with thousands of products just sitting on the shelf. New ones as well as old familiar favorites. What you probably don't think about is that every one of those products has a story to tell. Often a fascinating story of how that product got to be sitting on that shelf and how it often ends up in your kitchen. Carolyn Wyman is a food writer who has written some really interesting books and articles on things like the history of spam and Jell-O and chocolate chip cookies. And one of her books is called Better Than Homemade,

Amazing Foods That Change The Way We Eat. Hi, Carolyn. So you wrote this book about these iconic foods that we see every day because, as I understand it, you really think it's important for people to know, I guess you would call it their food heritage, yes? And also I think it's sort of like to correct maybe an injustice that's in the world, which is that kids grow up knowing more, probably, and learning more in school about, like, Greek mythology than they do about, you know, the Rice Krispies that are on their table every day,

you know, the Snap, Crackle, and Pop, and the Green Giant. And these figures are really, and these products are really much more a part of their lives and are much more a part of our own American mythology. Well, some of the foods that you talk about, some of these iconic foods that have been in our kitchens for years, have kind of, I guess, become politically incorrect in the sense that they're not organic, they're not all necessarily healthy, and yet they are a big part of our lives. There's a sense today that, you know, we're all eating whole foods and, you know, creating, you know, organic meals from scratch and all that. But really the best selling products in America are still, you know, things like Hamburger Helper and Cheese Whiz and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.

I mean, these are not peripheral things. They're really still doing quite well. Well, so many of the foods you talk about, I just can't wait to hear the story. So let's dive in. What are some of your favorite foods that have good stories behind them? Hawaiian punch is an example. I mean, here's a product that, I mean, it really was developed like in the 20s, but then as a syrup, you know, as a punch-flavored syrup, and they called it Hawaiian Punch.

But it really came onto its own in the 50s because Hawaiian things were very popular, like there was Elvis' Blue Hawaii and Trader Vic's and South Pacific and all that. So it started to do well. The company hired an ad agency to create a new ad campaign using a Hawaiian guy, and we created the famous punchy, you know, the guy who kind of has an anger problem. That was in the early 60s. They paid the ad company, and then they kind of ran out of money to actually run the ad,

so they could only afford a slot on The Tonight Show with Jack Parr, you know, late night, dirt cheap for a national ad. But it was a totally inappropriate audience for what was basically kind of a kid's drink. But Jack Parr saw that ad with this guy, and it seemed so outrageous, this guy just, like, you know, whopping, walloping these tourists, that he actually, Jack Parr actually, like, said, I want to see that ad again.

I mean, that wouldn't happen today. But so he re-ran the ad for free, and it became, like, the talk of the town. And, you know and it just like feels like took off yeah you know those old commercials from the 50s and 60s are on youtube you can see them in the that guy you know he's just walking around a fruit juicy fruit juicy hawaiian punch and it talks to some tourist and says hey how would you would you like a nice Hawaiian punch? And it just smacks the guy right in the face. I mean, it's so offensive by today's standards. But as you say, you know, it got Jack Parr's attention,

which got the nation's attention and launched a brand. So tell the story about Sweet and Low. I mean, we've got so many stories to tell here, but the story of how Sweet and Low came to be is pretty interesting. In 1945, this guy, Ben Eisenstadt, he ran like a diner across the street from a shipbuilding facility. And when the war ended, his cafeteria, just like business, went to nothing. So he started a tea bagging business, and that wasn't doing so great either. So his wife, remembering

like the sugar bowls they used to have on the tables, the open sugar bowls and what a mess that was, said, well, why don't you take this idea of bagging and apply it to sugar? So he thought that was a great idea. So he went to a sugar company who promptly, like, ripped his idea off. So he had no product. I mean, it was – and the guy, this is about his fourth food business now. He starts bagging other things, like he had those instant sea monkeys. He did soy sauce packets. And his son went to Cornell. He was a chemist. And his son is the one that came up with the

idea of an artificial sweetener. It was like in the late 50s. Dieting was really big. And at that point, the only kind of like artificial sweeteners were like in pill form or liquid. They were really like medicine. So they put this in packets and really kind of transformed this product that used to be sort of like a medicine into a food product. And finally, he had a success. Have you ever wondered why the packets are pink? It's because mostly women diet, at least in those days, and so it was sort of pink for women.

And actually in researching that one product, I got to take advantage of my very expensive English literature degree because the musical staff and the name Sweet and Low comes from actually a Tennyson poem, actually a song that was based on a Tennyson poem and actually a song that was based on a Tennyson poem called The Princess and there's that phrase Sweet and Low is in there. It's also obviously a pun for a sweet and low calorie product. Talk about frozen food and how that came to be. Well people tried to freeze vegetables for a long time but they didn't

have a really good technique and they never really tasted that good when they were cooked. But there was a guy named Clarence Birdseye who was kind of a Renaissance man, but at one point he was basically an Arctic explorer. He went to Labrador in 1912 and he noticed how, like, in those extreme low temperatures, like that fish and meat that was, it would freeze immediately, you know, in those temperatures, and would be really, would taste and have almost the exact same texture as fresh when it was defrosted. And so he had the idea that maybe it was the speed of the freezing that had been the problem

before. So he came back to New York, and he tried to replicate that really fast way of freezing foods. And it wasn't an easy road. It took years. And really what one of his big breaks was, he had a processing plant in Massachusetts, and he didn't just do vegetables. He was trying all sorts of, you know, goose and poultry and all sorts of things. And Margaret Post, who we will later know from Post Cereal, and E.F. Hutton, her husband, who we know

as being a big investment guy, they were married, and they were on a ship off of Massachusetts. The chef on the ship served them goose, and they knew it was delicious, and they knew it was out of season, and so they asked him how he could have, you know, had such a delicious goose, and he said it was frozen. It was from Mr. Birdseye. Well, they became interested in his company, and they bought it or partnered with him. And so that's how he got financed.

But it still was really hard because frozen food had such a bad reputation from these earlier versions. It really wasn't until World War II when the metal for cans was so scarce that people really want, you know, kind of turned to frozen foods, and they got to try the new fast frozen kind, and were able to see that it really tasted a lot better. And, you know, the thing is, a lot of people kind of, you know, put down processed foods and, you know, frozen vegetables versus fresh, but the fact is that Americans' consumption of vegetables doubled between 1920 and 1980. And it was largely because these processed forms of vegetables made them much more available year-round. And I imagine that from that evolved the TV dinner, the frozen meal, which I want to ask you about in just a moment. But first, if you have a mortgage and a family, as I do,

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are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI,

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for the Silver Lining, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. Look for The Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. So Carolyn, the TV dinner, that was the first frozen meal that came in that silver aluminum tray with the little compartments. And, you know, they weren't all that tasty. They took like an hour to heat up in the oven. So, you know, actually during that time you could make a real meal. But people ate TV dinners.

Where did they come from? TV dinners were started by the Swanson Company in the early 50s. And Swanson Company originally was a turkey processor, like the country's largest processor of turkeys. And 1951, it was a particularly warm November. And so fewer people around the country had turkey dinners for Thanksgiving. As a result, the company had a whole glut of turkeys they didn't know what to do with. They had a salesman who traveled the country a lot. He was on planes a lot, so he was familiar with the airplane foods which were in the little compartments.

And he also, like everyone else then, was aware of this new television that had just debuted and was really, you know, everybody was totally fascinated with. And he sort of took those two ideas and put them together, along with the problem of all this extra turkey. And so they decided to freeze some of this turkey and put it in these little trays and call them TV dinners to sort of link the idea of a miracle heat and eat meal with the miracle of television that just started. And the very first TV dinner boxes actually showed the edges were like a television set and on the screen was featured the meal. And so they actually never really intended for people

to eat the meals in front of the TV. That wasn't the intention, but that actually is what happened because a lot of the most popular programs when TV started, or the only programs really, were on around dinner time. And honestly, I mean, the TV dinner really was the beginning of the end for Americans all sitting down, eating the same meal together. Because, you know, it's the beginning of the idea that, well, I don't have to, you know, I can go to soccer practice and eat my own thing. And, you know, so some of the impacts maybe are not so positive, but sort of interesting. It's hard to imagine anyone who hasn't had Kraft macaroni and cheese from the blue box. And you say that actually economists use the sales of Kraft macaroni and cheese as an economic indicator.

It's because it's cheap. It's always been a budget food. And it's nothing too scientific. It's just if their sales go up, the idea is probably people aren't buying expensive meat and stuff like that. That product was actually invented by a salesman for a macaroni company in St. Louis, he found out that he could kind of unload a lot more of his macaroni if he attached little packets of dried Kraft cheese to them. And Kraft got wind that he was doing this and hired him and said, do it for us. And it was first put out in 1937.

And it's actually even more popular in Canada than it is here. And one neat story that I heard about is in 1998, the company Craft Canada put out a search for Canada's biggest craft dinner fan, and they found a Saskatchewan bachelor who said he ate up to 800 boxes a year. And this guy was understandably disappointed when he found out that the ultimate processed food with no nutritional value is the Twinkie. And yet it's been very popular and I still see it at the store. People still must buy them. So what's the story of the Twinkie?

It actually was the result of a plant manager for a baking company. Basically, they were making sponge cake for strawberry season. They had these pans to make them, but they only used those pans, you know, a month, a year or less. And he was just trying to, like, be efficient and come up with some other way he could make use of those pans. The cream inside actually was originally banana flavored. But then during the war, there was a banana shortage and it turned into vanilla. One processed food, well, it's not really a food so much. It's something you cook with, is Pam, the cooking spray that you spray on the bottom of a pan.

How did that come to be? Yeah, well, actually, I heard a couple of stories about it. PAMS was invented by a guy named Arthur Meyerhoff. He was a Chicago ad executive. And this was sort of a side project that he wanted to, he'd heard about some guys that had figured out how to, like, suspend oil in water and therefore, you know, make it a lot less calorie-filled and also fat-filled.

And he actually got some guys to figure out how to make it come out of an aerosol can, spray it. I had heard a story that basically the name Pam came from Arthur Meyerhoff, product of Arthur Meyerhoff. And I thought, wow, that's a great story. I did talk to his daughter, though, and she wasn't sure that was true. She thought it might have been inspired by Spam, the name Spam, that it was a food name and kind of for a modern product.

But one of the problems he had selling this product early on was that the grocers were putting it in the aisle with the insecticide and the hairspray because it was an aerosol. So once he was able to get it into the cooking aisle, he did much better. And Cooking Light magazine named it the number two out of 10 greatest food products inventions of the 20th century, just after boneless chicken breast. And for good reason, because really, you know, you can save a ton of calories and fat if you use that instead of like Crisco or something to butter a pan. One processed product, well actually two processed products that people make fun of is Cheez Whiz and Velveeta. They've been around for a long time,

and people make fun of them because they're not really cheese, pure cheese. I think the label says, you know, cheese food or cheese product, but it's not just cheese, but yet it's still around and people still buy it. Velveeta and Cheez Whiz are sort of the, you know, towards the end of the whole craft cheese empire, which started, you know, many years earlier. And basically the idea is sort of the idea behind all great processed foods. You know, you get a natural product and it's in its natural state is, you know, smelly, spoils quickly, hard to deal with, you know, not palatable to a lot of people, and you sort of tame it.

I mean, these food processors have tamed our food just as surely as the cowboys, you know, tamed the West. And Velveeta and then after it Cheez Whiz are just basically kind of refinements of that original idea that Kraft had to pasteurize it extend the shelf life make it a little more bland make it uniform so that

every single piece, unlike naturally aged cheese, every single spoonful of Cheez Whiz basically tastes the same and Cheez Whiz basically tastes the same. And Cheez Whiz specifically is not as bad for you or doesn't have as many bad ingredients as people think. I mean, it actually, in the 80s, the company had an ad campaign kind of to emphasize all the real cheeses that are actually in Cheez Whiz and that group in D.C., Science.

Oh, yeah, the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Exactly. They, you know, came out against that campaign and said it wasn't. But the FTC defended Cheez Whiz and said, no, it has more than 50% real cheese in there, and so, you know, there's nothing wrong with that ad campaign. So what is Cool Whip? Because it's not whipped cream, but it's used as whipped cream,

but it's a dessert topping. So what is it and where did it come from? Cool Whip, I think it's one of the quintessential, you know, processed foods. It sort of defies all logic in terms of all laws of like food safety, because you can defrost it, eat it, put it back in the fridge, then put it back in the freezer and keep refreezing it almost indefinitely. I mean, that's like not not normal. It's very, you know, and it keeps for weeks. You don't have to whip it like, you know, making whipped cream by hand is pretty labor-intensive. But there's no cream in it.

Actually, there are some milk solids. I don't think there were originally, but now there are. I mentioned at the beginning of our conversation here that, you know, every one of those products on the store shelf has a story and often a personal story. There's a person or people behind it that fought to get that product on the shelf. And you talk about Sanka, you know, the first real big popular decaffeinated coffee in the orange can. And that has a pretty interesting story behind it. That product was actually invented by this French food merchant named Ludwig Roselius, because his dad had been a coffee taster. And he blamed his job as a coffee taster for his dad's early

death. He thought it was because of the caffeine, so much caffeine that he had eaten. So he wanted to come up with a coffee that didn't have caffeine. And the way he finally figured it out was by accident, like many great inventions. He was having a shipment of coffee shipped to one of his stores in a ship, and the ship got in a storm, it flooded, and the beans got wet. And he found out that having the beans moist was the secret to extracting the caffeine. Another thing is the word Sanka actually comes from the French term sans caffeine or without caffeine. But still, you know, the vestige of that product, it remains in like all those, you go in a restaurant and you see the orange, you know, rim on the coffee pot,

and that's the decaf, and that's a vestige of Sank's original orange packets. Well, I appreciate you sharing some of these stories with me and the audience because so many of these foods have had an impact on our life, have been a part of our life for so long, and it's just interesting to hear the stories. Carolyn Wyman's been my guest. The book is Better Than Homemade, Amazing Foods That Change the Way We Eat, and there's a link to her book at Amazon in the show notes. Thank you,

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What does it take to be the best at anything? A lot of people have tackled that question in different ways. You know, what is a peak performer? What do the truly top 1% of people do differently? Frankly, I think talent, aptitude, and desire have a lot to do with it. But of course, in any field or any sport or any activity, a lot of people have talent, aptitude, and desire. Still, some of them produce better results than others. And just statistically, only a few people can be in the top 1%.

Alan Stein has looked at this through the lens of basketball. He's looked closely at what makes elite basketball players so great. What do they do? What do they do differently? How do they think? And he's translated this into advice we can all learn from. Alan is the author of the book, Raise Your Game, High Performance Secrets from the Best of the Best. Hey, Alan, welcome.

Hey, thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. So explain how you approach this topic, why you looked at basketball players, and why you think we can all learn something from the world of basketball. I was very fortunate to observe the best players in the world from two distinct vantage points. I'm from the Washington, D.C. area, and I was able to work at two high schools here that produced the combined 12 to 15 players that are currently in the NBA. And I got to meet those kids when they were 14, 15 years old. So I got to meet them and see their mindsets and rituals and habits and routines before

they made it big. So it was kind of the before picture. And then I also had an opportunity to do some work with Nike and with Jordan Brand and with USA Basketball. And I got to work events and observe closely the best players in the game, from LeBron to Kobe to Steph Curry. And I got to see what made them great after they had already become great. So I've seen the before and the after picture of what it takes to ascend to the highest level and be an upper one percenter. And that's what I've been able to draw on. So that firsthand experience, I think, has been invaluable.

Okay, so what does it take? I mean, when the dust all settles, what's the takeaway that these elite athletes do that maybe I can do to be better at what I do? First and foremost is you can't get bored with the basics. That whatever it is that you're trying to excel in in any area of your life, there are going to be some basic fundamental principles and strategies that are required to be successful. And those things are very, very basic. However, they're very rarely easy to do. And a lot of people fall into the trap of thinking that basic and easy

are synonymous and they're not. I mean, what it takes to be good in anything is usually very basic. Basic like what? Give me an example. Okay. So for a basketball player, since that's an easy visualization, it would be their footwork, the fundamentals of the game. When a player improves their footwork, they improve every skill in the game and shooting, passing, rebounding, defending. So being able to stick to the basics and make sure that every single time you practice or work out, you're working on those basic fundamentals of movement and footwork, it allows you to do everything else at a higher level. If we're going to talk about relationships, and this

could be a relationship with your significant other, could be with your children, could be with a friend or a co-worker, I believe the most basic fundamental we have is the ability to actively listen, is to really listen to connect and listen to learn, not do what most people do, which is listen and simply wait for their turn to talk. And as an expert podcast host, I mean, you clearly understand the value in actively listening. That's where the gold is. But that's something that needs to be practiced routinely. So if you want to get better at basketball, practice your footwork. If you want to improve your relationships, practice the skill of active listening. And we could dive into anything else, any other area, and we could figure out, you and I could figure out what are the basic components of that thing

that we're trying to improve. And let's not get bored with those. Let's work on those and work on our craft every day. And what else besides the basics? Is there like a top five list of things you need to nail every day? Well, I tell you what, for a top five list, probably number one, two, three, and four would be emotional intelligence, your EQ. We tend to live in an outcome-based world that's always, ever since we're little, has talked about the importance of IQ, academic and book smarts and book knowledge. And I don't say anything to degrade or diminish that. But as far as being successful in any other area of your life, EQ tends to have more of an influence. And these are things from humility, compassion, self-awareness. I mean, all of these

different internal traits are things that we should all be working on on a very regular basis because you get more bang for your buck. When you improve your emotional intelligence, it's incredibly versatile because now you can use that in any area of your life. They help your relationships. They help you personally. They help you professionally. So an investment in your ability to have an emotional intelligence, and it's very similar with leadership. I mean when you work on the skills that it takes to become a better,, more influential and impactful leader, that helps you in every area of your life. I can speak from firsthand knowledge. It helps me as a business owner, helps me as a speaker and an author, and it absolutely helps me as a father of three children.

So how do I improve my emotional intelligence? It all starts with self-awareness. And what's kind of funny, and I say tongue in cheek here, is one of the most important things you can do to improve self-awareness is to ask those that know you the best. And I know that sounds kind of counterintuitive that to be self-aware, you're going to ask other people. But where we can sometimes get caught is we don't see our own blind spots. And clearly, we don't know what we don't know. So we need to be able to ask those that know us best. So I'm not going and asking the opinion of someone walking on the street. I'm asking friends and colleagues and family members that really know me well.

And I want to get this type of feedback because I want to see if how I evaluate myself matches how they evaluate me just so I can see if those things are in alignment, to see how accurate I am. I'll use listening as an example since I've already brought it up. I might think that I'm a great listener, but if you and three or four other people who are in my inner circle disagree and don't think I'm a good listener, then I'm probably not. It doesn't matter what I think. If the people that know me best have a different vantage point, then there's some type of disconnect. So I believe self-awareness is the foundation to which the entire house is built. And having that awareness of knowing what you're good at versus what you're not,

what you like versus what you don't. It's a combination of your dreams and your hopes and your aspirations, but it's also your fears and your insecurities. And it's understanding your own moods and your own work styles and personality styles, but it's also knowing those of those around you. And that perfect storm, how it all comes together is your self-awareness, which is the foundation of your emotional intelligence. Well, there is an assumption that you make, and other people have written about, you know, what can we learn from elite athletes to apply to our own lives? And there is an assumption that you're making that these things are transferable.

And I have a problem with that to some degree, because it isn't just the skills that you have to learn. I could do exactly what LeBron James does every day, every night, eat the same thing, do the same thing, practice the same thing. I'm never going to be him. I'm never going to play for the Lakers. And my point is that there is something unique in these individuals that nobody else has that you can't translate that. You can't transfer that. And to try to do that is going to be very frustrating. And you're 100% correct. Now, keep in mind, though,

that in the domain of his excellence and expertise, it relies heavily on the physical, much more so than other areas of life. That clearly, I mean, LeBron passes the eyeball test. The moment you see him in a split second, you realize that he was born with physical tools that 99.999% of the human population has never and will never be born with. So in that instance, you're 100% correct. You could have followed the exact same training program, exact same diet, exact same everything as LeBron since birth, since you were both the same age and you would still end up with very different results. So you're a hundred percent right on that. However, we're looking at this more, uh, from a macro level of, if you look at his mindsets and his rituals and his routines,

if you look at the fact that he embraces the process, that he masters the basics and the fundamentals before trying to level up, that he's embracing change, that he doesn't run from change, he embraces change. If you look at those traits, you absolutely could apply any of those traits to whatever it is that you were trying to be great at and you'd see a great result. Now, of course, no outcome is promised. I could never tell you that, hey, if you do this, this and this, you're guaranteed with this result because there is no guarantee outside of death that I know of. But you'll greatly increase your chance of being, quote unquote, successful if you follow those same principles. So there's there's definitely a

difference there. And same thing. I'm not implying that if you did everything Jeff Bezos has done, that you'd be the richest man in the world and own Amazon. But if you'd follow the general template of these principles and rituals and habits, you'd be incredibly successful. But there also has to be, in the case of sports figures, basketball players, a love of the game, an amazing ability to play it, a desire to play it. And in the case of Jeff Bezos, I mean, a lot of his success, I'm sure, is his intelligence. But it's also timing and luck and knowing the right people and being at the right place at the right time. All of those things are a big piece of this puzzle, don't you think?

Oh, absolutely. Without question. But that's pretty critical to the outcome of what ends up taking place. If you're familiar, and I don't know if your listeners are familiar with Malcolm Gladwell's book, Outliers, it all has to come together to create the perfect storm. And when you create the perfect storm, the result is the Beatles or is Steve jobs. So yes, if we're going to compare outcomes and say, okay, for Mike to have the same outcome is Jeff Bezos or LeBron James, then yes, all of those other things have to be in place. But I try not to compare outcomes. I try to live in the process. So if the goal is for you to be the best that

you are capable of being in whatever it is that you're trying to be the best at, then you need to follow those same rituals and routines and so forth. And you will, you'll get as close to being able to maximize that as possible. Now, whether or not you turn into LeBron James or Jeff Bezos also has to do with those other factors. And yeah, I'm not discarding talent. Talent has a lot to do with it. So yeah, all of these different factors, they matter. But the big difference is we don't control all of those.

And what I talk to people about is controlling the controllables, which if you really break it down is effort and attitude. Those are the only two things we have a hundred percent control over a hundred percent of the time. And if you hold yourself accountable to your own effort and attitude and you develop the habits and the routines and live in the process, then you will become as good as you're capable of becoming in whatever it is that you're trying to do. You know, I always wonder, though, how often do people choose the wrong thing to be good at? That, you know, if LeBron James had chosen teaching or even hockey, he probably wouldn't be as great a teacher or a hockey player as he is a basketball player. And I wonder how often do people perhaps choose the wrong thing to try to get really good at? Oh, yeah. You're so insightful. And that's 100% on. And what people need to do, and this is what,

because I've done a lot of work with young kids and young players, and I say this to my own children, what we all this to my own children. What we all need to do is you find what it is you love, what it is you're most passionate about. Find what it is you're good at, and a lot of that good will come from some of the natural talent and innate abilities as well as skill acquisition. But then you find where those two things intersect. What you love with what you're good at, find where they intersect. And that's the spot. That's your strength zone. That's where you need to be putting most of your eggs in that basket. And if you're lucky, that's vocationally what you'll do when you're older. Now, as we get older,

that can change. We might find something else that we love, or we might develop new skills that we're good at or uncover a hidden talent that we didn't know we had. But it's important to know that where those two things intersect, that's what we'll be best at. One of the things I've always wondered is when you're the best, when you're LeBron or you're Venus or Serena, or you're really better than anybody else at something, at what point do you say, I'm going to stop trying to be better and now I'm just maintaining? Or am I always trying to beat the record? From the elite high performers that I've been around, and LeBron is one of them, Kobe Bryant was another, there's something in their internal wiring that they never,

like the word maintain and cruise control is just not part of their vernacular that, that even when it gets to the point where they're clearly better than all of their peers and all of the record books and everyone else, they're still trying to get better. They have almost this insatiable desire and relentlessness to continue to get better. You know, it's why a guy like that can win a championship. And before the champagne's even dry, they're already thinking about how to win the next one. And I do, I think part of that's in their wiring. And sometimes I believe that's a gift and a curse. I think that internal drive is the reason they are the best of the best. But I know for me sitting in the cheap seats, that would almost be as much of a prison that you never even get a chance to smell the roses, if you will, and be thankful for what you've accomplished because you're always thinking about what's next

and how can I be better? I won five. How do I win six? But I think that's part of their makeup. But those guys, yeah, they don't put on the cruise control. And it's interesting because no matter who you are, and we'll just keep using sports because it's one that, that a lot of people can, you know, reference. I mean, Le sports because it's one that a lot of people can reference. I mean, LeBron James is the best player in the game right now. And of course, there's always the discussion though, but wait a second, you're not the best of all time. Michael Jordan was better than you. So no matter what this guy does, and he is absolutely phenomenal. He's a once in a generation athlete and he's crushing it. And yet he still can't escape that shadow where someone else thinks he was better. And so those guys, I don't think they ever acknowledge

fully in their heart. I know LeBron said that he believes he's the best, but I don't think they acknowledge fully that unequivocally they are the best at what they do. Those guys have those insecurities that they always have to prove themselves. We've talked about things like emotional intelligence and, you know, practicing the basics consistently and all of that. But what about, what does a champion do differently on a more tactical level as they approach the day? I mean, what is it that goes on in their head differently as to how they tackle their task at hand that we might learn from? Well, as I mentioned, they know that they only control their attitude and they control their effort. But when you mix attitude and effort together, you have severe influence over other things. Like you influence your enthusiasm for something.

You have heavy influence over your preparation. So they, they try to mix those things together and take control of as much stuff as they can. Uh, so they're, they're, you know, uh, religious about their morning and their evening routine about priming themselves for high performance at the beginning of every day. Uh, and this is not just athletes. This is anyone that performs at a high level. Uh, so they, they know that the vast majority of stuff that's going to go on during the day is outside of their control. And depending on what they do, it could be utter chaos from sunup to sundown. But they try to take care of as much important keys for high performers, that they have to fill their bucket first before they can pour into anything else. Whether they're pouring into others as a leader or they're pouring into their business or they're pouring into their family, they know that taking care of themselves first is not an act of selfishness. So they make sure that

they eat well and that they get exercise and they make sure that they're constantly growing mentally and emotionally. So they read and they listen to podcasts like this. They make sure they get adequate sleep. They do all of the things that allow them to perform at the highest level because they know that if their bucket is empty, they have nothing to pour into anyone or anything else. And where it's interesting is in our society, I think lots of people get that confused because they think if you're taking time for yourself, that that's being selfish. And it's really not. Not if you look on the big level, big picture, that it's being done in an act of service of others. We've brought up LeBron. If LeBron shows up to the Lakers practice tomorrow and he didn't get any sleep, he was out all night partying and he didn't eat any breakfast and he didn't do any of his warmups, that's actually a very selfish act because he's going

to lessen the Lakers' chance of winning and of being successful because he made the choice not to take care of himself. That is incredibly selfish as a teammate. Whereas if he does all of those things and he puts himself in position to be the best he can be, then the Lakers have a better chance of being the best they can be. So high performers, they make sure that they take care of what they can control and they take care of themselves. So listening to this, what's the toe in the water first step here? What do people need to either start thinking about or start doing that gets them on the bus? There's something I call a performance gap, and it's the gap between what we know and what we do. And all of us have performance gaps. So the key is finding the area of your life that you would

like to improve performance in and figure out where is your performance gap? What is something that you know but you're not doing? If you ask most people that are listening to this podcast to write down the healthiest foods they know of, they could do that. If you ask them how much sleep they get every night, they could tell you that in a split second. And if you ask them just to kind of etch out a weekly workout program, you're not training for the Olympics or submitting it to men's or women's health, but you know, just to be a fit human being, what should you do each week? They could write that down. But then if you ask them three binary questions, are those the foods you eat? Yes or no. Is that the amount of sleep you get regularly? Yes or no. And are those the workouts you do consistently? Yes or no. You'll find out if

they have a performance gap because if their answer is no, it's not from lack of knowing. They know what to eat, how much to sleep and what to do for workouts. They're just not doing it. And that's the gap that we want to try to narrow. So the very first step is figuring out where your most pressing and applicable performance gaps are. And those are what we need to focus on closing for you to improve your performance in that specific area. Well, I appreciate the insight. Your experience with those athletes gives you a unique perspective, and I appreciate you sharing that with us. Alan Stein has been my guest. His book is called Raise Your Game, High Performance Secrets from the Best of the Best, and you can

find a link to that book at Amazon in the show notes. Thanks, Alan. You got it, man. Thank you so much. Have you ever made a purchase from an unscrupulous merchant and had trouble getting your money back? Well, and actually, it doesn't even have to be an unscrupulous merchant. This just happened to us. My wife bought two water bottles, you know, the kind you take hiking or go to the gym with, and both of them had holes in them. And a water bottle with a hole in the bottom isn't much of a water bottle at all. So we asked for our money back, and they said we have a no-refund policy.

So we told them we were going to request a chargeback. Do you know what that is? If you use a credit card, you can request from the credit card issuer a chargeback, and retailers hate that. They live in fear of the increased merchant fees that result from a chargeback. Plus, they're going to have to spend time filling out paperwork to justify to the credit card company why they think you don't deserve the refund. Consequently, they may reconsider their position the moment they hear the word chargeback. But if they stick to their guns and say no refund, go ahead, follow through, call the credit card company and request a chargeback. This should result in a temporary credit that will become permanent once you provide documentation

supporting your claim. And that is something you should know. And that's the podcast today. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group.

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erstwhile monk turned traveling medical investigator. Join me as I study the secrets of the divine plagues and uncover the blasphemous truth that ours is not a loving God and we are not its favored children. The Heresies of Randolph Bantwine, wherever podcasts are available.