Start With A Win - Are You Uncomfortable? Good! with Wylie McGraw

Episode Date: March 8, 2023

Former star pitcher, competitive bull rider, and combat veteran Wylie McGraw lives every day in peak performance mode. By intentionally putting himself in situations that pushed him to his limit, he discovered his superpower: exposing negative beliefs and behaviors that prevent people from tapping into their greatest potential. Now he works with powerful CEOs and business leaders to radically accelerate growth and promote optimal performance.Many people are plagued by their own personal demons created by stress, trauma, and setbacks seen as failures. Instead of facing them head-on and learning to pivot, most give up. Wylie’s approach may seem countercultural in that he challenges people to push themselves outside of their comfort zones. Rather than simply touting this theory as the next self-help hot topic, he expects clients to actually put it into practice by doing the things that scare them the most. This is where real growth occurs. Self mastery demands a willingness and tenacity to show up every day ready to push life to the limits. With discipline and accountability, leaders hone themselves into the best version they can be in order to powerfully impact their relationships and communities. Main TopicsHow Wylie discovered his superpower (02:14)Practicing awareness through stressful situations in combat, baseball, and bull riding (05:20)Excuses for quitting vs. learning to pivot (10:11)Maximizing potential by getting uncomfortable (13:44)Accountability is freedom (17:20)Episode Linkshttps://www.wyliemcgraw.com“Wise Words and Whiskey” podcasthttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wise-words-whisky-with-wylie-mcgraw/id1649548407 Connect with Wylie:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5eB02vV_S78ryDCra7BnZwhttps://twitter.com/WylieMcGrawhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/wyliemcgraw/Connect with Adam:https://www.startwithawin.com/https://www.facebook.com/AdamContosCEOhttps://twitter.com/AdamContosCEOhttps://www.instagram.com/adamcontosceo/Listen, rate, and subscribe!Apple PodcastsSpotifyGoogle Podcasts

Welcome to Start With A Win, where we give you the tools and lessons you need to create business and personal success. Are you ready? Let's do this. And coming to you from Brand Viva Media Studios, it's Adam Kantos with Start With A Win. Hello, Producer Mark. How are you doing, buddy? I'm doing so good. Awesome. Hey, it's great to see you today. Are you fired up? I'm fired up. You ready to maximize your potential? You know what? I'm always ready to maximize my potential.

Today we got Wiley McGraw. What a great name. I love that name. Starting with a win. He's a cool dude too. Exactly. Wiley is a former star pitcher, competitive bull rider, and a three-tour combat veteran. Thank you for your service, good sir.

It was through those intense experiences that he discovered his crazy superpower of being able to expose blind spots, erupt and eradicate stress, and fully unleash the untapped potential of high achievers. He's the founder of Radical Performance Acceleration, and for well over a decade now, he's been behind the scenes doing life-altering work with powerful CEOs, entrepreneurs, leaders, and public figures. Wiley, welcome to Start With a Win. Welcome, Wiley. Gentlemen, thank you very much for having me. I appreciate the introduction as well.

It's great to have you here, my friend. As Mark said, thank you for your service. And we had some great off-camera conversation about military operations pivoting. We had to make a couple tech pivots on this. It's fascinating because a lot of people are like, oh no, what's going on? And you and I and Mark were like, all right, plan B, let's go. Roll with the punches, yeah. That's it. So you instruct a lot of people, you coach a lot of CEOs, a lot of businesses, things like that, on how to create this peak performance instead of letting those little bumps in the road really take your day away from you or your progress away from you.

How did you get to where you are today doing this? Give us a little bit of readout on your background and when you started recognizing peak performance. Oh, we could spend an hour here. Obviously, we don't have that time. But long story short, being put, thrusted into this competitive athletic household, my father being that semi-pro ballplayer, everything right out of the gate, I would say out of the womb. It was almost like I was molded into learning about mindset and situational awareness and being present and learning how to hone in, focus. As a young man, being a very creative mind, being focused was initially a struggle, but eventually it got to the point of being this athlete, this star pitcher, being trained by the pros because of my father's connections really allowed me to start understanding the definition of my own performance. And as I got older and I started to recognize

unique qualities about myself when I was under stress in the way I performed, and then I broke away from this expectation of being a baseball player and chased after the world that I wanted to experience, which was bull riding, you know, intuitively just came to me. It was in those wild environments that I really recognized that we're caught up in the definitions and concepts of performance. We're caught up in this idea of chasing growth and what's next for ourselves rather than being put into the right challenging environments, facing our fears, learning what that even means to be outside of a comfort zone rather than getting excited or high on the idea of it. And in that world, the rodeo being threatened by potential harm, death, etc., it forced me to learn about myself as a human being and to redefine what performance was. So I took that into the military. I wanted to go into a more challenging world. I got excited about

the prospect of serving my country and learning about more what I was capable of in the most chaotic of environments. And I realized performance itself has everything to do with who you are in relationship to yourself at any given moment, no matter what stimuli is being thrown at you, what environment you find yourself in, who you are, what you do in your life. It has everything to do with you, not into these quantifiable metrics that we define as performance. So for me, when I hear that, I tend to see people thinking performance means they're able to create complete tasks and make money rather than realizing how they operate in life with relationships, their health, getting out of bed in the morning, how they approach their ability to be present with their emotions, what their emotions is, etc.

That definition needs to be remarried into the population. So that's what got me into the world of learning about myself when I got in the military, is getting to the place of what does self-mastery really look like? Who am I at the core with this gift that I have? The skills that I've learned being in the sports, bull riding, the military, and what can I do to create new environments that actually allow people to become optimized in their lives, to battle through the demons that like them, to deal with the stresses that hinder their performance so they can actually experience their own peak on a daily basis, no matter what definition they tied to that. Awesome. It's truly amazing. And you mentioned a couple of things here I want to unpack

briefly. I mean, so first of all, you talked about bull riding, competitive bull riding. For our listeners, if you have not experienced after the show, I want you to go on YouTube and watch some competitive bull riding and watch the rider and the animal and everything going on around them, because it can be one of the most chaotic and dangerous moments ever. And I mean, people do die doing this stuff. I'm actually going to the PBR championship tonight, the professional bull riding championship in Denver tonight. I have on the, on the dirt seats to watch this. And it's fascinating. I watched it a couple of nights ago also, but ultimately you want to see somebody who can, and you mentioned in the moment and this self-awareness.

Finding this self-awareness, I believe, as you put it, is this superpower that you realize in order to help other people find their self-awareness. What do you think most people are missing? Because they're not finding this self-awareness and unable to adapt in the moment. You know, bull riding, you have all these variables and there's an animal that you're sitting on by a draw. You don't even get to pick the bull you ride. And then you have to adjust your rope and how your legs are, and it's throwing you around in the whatever they call it, or the cages that they shoot you.

Yeah, the chute that they send you out into the arena with. You and I are both, we've experienced a great deal of, you know, crazy combat situations, and it's almost like the same thing. What's my awareness right now? And then you find this peace, I mean, it seems like, and do your job. Why can't people do that? I mean, and how do you help people accomplish recognizing awareness and getting into that?

Oh, so much to unpack there. Well, we'll start with, I'm really fortunate that baseball started getting me accustomed to the situational awareness aspect of when you're a pitcher, you've got to learn your opponent's skill sets. When you're throwing specific types of pitches, which is why I was trained by the California Angels

pitching staff to learn to perfect this arsenal that I had to learn how to throw curve balls, sliders, et cetera. It's because when you have a player at the bat, you got to know where his strengths are, where his weaknesses are. It's a game of chess. Right.

So you're learning how to perform under the pressures of the fact that this guy, if I throw inside and high, he'll take me yard. He'll knock it out of the park. But if I learn how to throw a curveball to the outside of his complete swinging range where he's weak, I can strike him out or I can get him on base.

There's a whole interesting dynamic game there. Bull riding is the same way. When you're in the back of that animal, you don't get the luck of the draw. You don't get to choose it. So when you get a certain bull, you're like, okay, the Brownie brothers has this black widow. This one is known to really wreck cowboys when he gets on the back of it, especially inside the chute.

He kind of intimidates you. He moves around. He throws you against the wall before you've even opened the gate. You learn quickly how to stay connected to that life-filled body that's underneath you, how to be present of mind and how to stay focused on your breath and be more meditative so that you can actually experience a more fluid ride when that gate opens up, despite how unbelievably wild that eight seconds can be. So what really I translate it into the world that we're living in right now is because people are too close to the problems they face.

They are emotionally attached to them. They don't understand what their emotions are trying to tell them. There is no space in their mind to address a solution and find a solution to the problem, if you will. They are so caught up in the stress that plagues them. There's nothing that allows them to stretch that capacity to understand, like you and I talked about before the show, is we had technical issues. What do we do?

Well, we modify our approach to the objective. In the military, it's the same way. We have that awareness to go, okay, we may have an an op order we may have this mission set out but combat is different and things are wild and when you get presented with more enemy fighters than you were actually in your intelligence told you what do you do you panic you stress out you flip out because it didn't work the way you thought it was going to do or you pivot you detach and you learn to approach it from a place of presence because your training kicks in. In the world we live in right now, especially with our leaders, I call them demons. People are plagued by their own personal demons from stress, trauma, life's setbacks,

negative experiences. And what they do is they let that define who they are. And then they try to compartmentalize themselves to get things done. And then they wonder why nothing actually is where they really want it to be. And they'll realize they're dragging around all of these elements of their lives they've never actually faced. And for me, I put these leaders in these positions to challenge them, to really make them face those demons so we can battle them and eradicate them because the byproducts will be exponential growth, better performance, clearer mind, more focus, better health, and experience that most humans really want.

So that's the problem that I constantly see on the world today. It's fascinating listening to what you're saying here because I see so many people making excuses for stopping instead of giving themselves permissions to adapt. Right. When did we get into this excuse world where we're like, oh. Well, you know what? I'm going to candidly say this out loud. Go for it. I don't, but the personal development industry has created this.

It has given people the permission to take their time when it comes to growth, take their time when it comes to challenge. They give this atmosphere, this sugar high of everything feels motivated and excited when you go to programs, seminars, concert-like events. When you hire coaches, you do these online courses, gives human beings the luxury of comfort. But it creates a false narrative

in your mind that you're out actually getting outside your comfort zone because it might seem hard to do that coaching program or that system that you're being presented. And then we get caught up in this rat race, this idea that growth takes time, that it's supposed to be somewhat being under your control. And at the end of the day, what happened in our society as a $200 billion industry is people are allowed to control the resources they hire. So they don't house people they cannot control

that will challenge them and push them beyond their limits. It's kind of like going... I have friends of mine that are SEALs. I'm getting ready to go up and be on Clear Pot with Andy Stump. And it's like, I hear these guys talk about all the time, military, you and I were in the military. We don't have control over what our instructors are going to train us through.

We understand a generalized framework. But when we get into our training, it is like relentless challenge on a daily basis to push us beyond our limits mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually even, because half the guys I serve, we're praying to God for the pain to end when we were going through different schools. That's the nature of what's missing in our world is people are too comfortable in the concept of being uncomfortable, and they're not actually getting into these environments that really challenges them to face who they really are. And people are afraid of facing their truths. So we chalk it up to, oh, that's just your perspective, or that's just your opinion, or that's just your truth versus my truth. And then the world right now is separated and

everybody's trying to argue from this weird perspective and nobody's getting to the real answers or solutions to solve the problems that we face. That is the biggest thing. Yeah. Mic drop right there, buddy. It's interesting. People spend their lives chasing this peak performance and rationalizing, oh, you know, good enough is good enough or minimum necessary.. I'll get there when I'm ready. Right. Yeah. I call BS on that. And I know you and I are on the same sheet of music. My wife has this term in the gym and she's trained and things like that. Spectacular woman. She's like, you have to do death plus two.

Ah, all right. I love this because you go until you can't go anymore. And I apply this to business and life and things like that also, but it's go until you can't go anymore and you're still alive. So you still have a couple more left. So go to until you feel like you're dying, but you're still alive. And then give me two more, whatever it might be, two more minutes of focus on this business piece, two more options in order to close this deal, two more marketing phrases to send out the door, things like that, instead of going, oh, I did what I needed to. No, you haven't done enough. So why are people, they spend their life chasing this. Let me just flip the question here to how can they

maximize this potential now? And what are you telling clients in order to get more out of them? Well, again, the nature of my work, I work with these prominent and powerful people because they have the biggest impact on the masses. I'm built to do that work. I've tried to work with people at a different level and they just can't handle the intensity and the level of self-mastery that I require that I put them through because the work that I do is about integrating into the lives of these individuals. I travel with them. I live with them. So people are not accustomed to that type of integration. But for those that are not at that level that are like, hey, but how I want that for myself and what do I do? It's always about truly getting into the environments that scare you. If it does not shock you, it will not change

you. And the idea that we define change as real transformation is the other aspect of it. The reason why people are chasing it is because they are afraid of doing what really actually makes them the best version of themselves. Human beings are really accustomed to the comforts of life. We are still, unfortunately, not as evolved as a species when it comes to our psyches protecting us from things that feel awful or out of our control. That's why when you talk about elite, why do you think the elite are the elite? They don't make excuses. They don't worry about how they're going to change. They don't worry about how they don't make excuses. They don't worry about how they're going to change.

They don't worry about how they're going to transform. They don't worry about how you're going to make them do something. They just go, I want it. I'm focused. I'm disciplined. And I'm committed to this. I don't care what it looks like, how it feels, or what it's going to do to me. What I care about is what I see myself on the other side.

And that's why they step into those places like going to Bud's, going to ranger school, jumping on airplanes, jumping out of airplanes, being a Marine guy, artillery, force recon. These people in the military are exceptional because they're willing and relentless in their commitment to be excellent.

They don't chase it. They want to master it. So I tell people is you got to start, even if you're at the bottom of the barrel, find a coach, find a resource, don't bungee jumping, go skydiving, go dancing because you might be afraid to dance.

Do something that's really going to actually make you feel complete anxiety outside of your control and uncomfortable. But knowing that the environment you just committed to is part of your growth, that's when you know it's the right place to be. I hear constantly is, well, I don't like the way that feels. So? Well, I don't trust you because you make me feel something that I think you're doing to me.

No, I'm not. I'm making you feel something that's inside you. At the end of the day, I'm grounded. I'm focused. I'm relentless and committed to your excellence. The reason why you're pushing back is because you don't like the way you're feeling inside. So you go, well, I'm getting the full body no. Or I'm getting in my head that this is not the right time.

It's like, that's BS. This is the right time. It's like, that's BS. This is the right time. If you're experiencing hiring someone like you to teach them how to be a SWAT team member, it's like, well, clearly I'm in the right environment for a reason, but I don't like what he's saying to me.

That's okay if you don't like what he's saying to you. He's clearly saying that because he can see the nuanced blocks that you're having or blind spots that you're dealing with. And he's trying to stimulate something that erupts you inside that makes you change within.

And everybody wants to control how it sounds, what it's supposed to look like. Therapists tell people it's supposed to feel comfortable, take it easy, don't go there. Right. I don't. I don't. I don't care if you don't like what I'm saying to you.

What matters is that I'm saying it because I care about you. And I want you to experience the demon that's sitting inside you causing you not to make that money, not to have that life that you want. That's what it takes. So I tell people, go find something that scares you and do it anyway. You talked about therapy and things of that nature. I'm going to say something that probably upsets some people. You might tune out as soon as I say this. But I have a feeling internally, and I truly believe in this, that discomfort is the best therapy. 100%.

Therapists bring out your, you know, this doesn't feel good because. I mean, go live it. Go get in that discomfort. A personal trainer brings out your discomfort also. And guess what happens? You get better. A coach unlocks potential. I mean, that's the definition of coaching is somebody who unlocks your potential and gets you to move more, better, stronger,

faster, smarter, things like that because they're willing to put you in those uncomfortable situations. Tell me about the word accountability and how do you build that into this growth pattern? Accountability. How dynamic in nature is that word? I mean, just the concept of it. It's kind of like you said earlier today, I think even before we started talking, it's like, I'm sure you don't just get out of bed whenever you want. The accountability that I talk about, that I see in the world is when my alarm goes off, no human being on the planet says, I love getting up at four o'clock in the morning when I have to. I mean, even Jocko Willink says,

I don't like it, but I do it anyway. It's this accountability to the fact, number one, I'm passionate about the work that I do. This is my life's purpose. It's a mission. It's not a business that I run. Everything I do on a daily basis 24-7 is this work. I'm accountable to whatever brought me into this world to do this work. I'm accountable to that person foremost. Second of all, I'm accountable to myself. I need to get out of bed and I need to start exercising. I need to get my energy up because I have a lot of real stuff to do in this world that matters, that's going to impact humanity.

So to me, it's that discipline of going, I'm accountable to my puppy, making sure she gets fed. I'm accountable to my wife. I'm accountable to my colleagues, to having these conversations with guys like you. It's just this desire because you care. You actually care about what it is you say you want to do in the world or what you're all about. And that accountability becomes a byproduct that just is a standard you operate by. We don't have enough SOPs. Human beings don't live through a standard. It's very easy to sway people nowadays because of the distractions and the addictions and the dysfunction that plagues humanity, especially in the United States.

And I ask the question, therapy, coaching, crisis management all have their place. But if they weren't to the degree that everybody markets them as, then why do we have so many messed up people? Why is mental health on the rise and not on the decline? I've spent $20 billion on research for it. I had a conversation with a guy who's a mental health comedian. He talks about how maybe we need to start looking at mental health as not a disability, but an ability. Maybe there's actually potential in there to utilize it. We're not approaching humans from the place of grounding them in truth, letting them see who they really are.

We're letting them get away with their dysfunctions because of this idea of, it's my right. It's freedom. I have every right to do whatever I want to. There's no containment. We don't have proper containment. Accountability is containment. Freedom comes from containment. That's what a constitution is. Your discipline comes from your ability to care. Discipline then equals, like Jocko says it all the time, discipline. We laugh at that. Sometimes I hear people, but discipline does equal freedom. It's containment he's talking about. If you're properly contained, as I tell the clients I work with, the celebrities, CEOs that are used to everybody giving them their way, when I bring them back to reality and I ground them into that space of who they are, they feel all of the things that they've never really worked through come out. That is the reason why they're suffering. Containment creates freedom. And that is where you can allow yourself to experience a

next evolution of your life. And that's what I need people to pay attention to and be willing to do for themselves. Awesome. Hey, before we get any further, tell us, where can everybody find you online? I mean, you've got some incredible information here, some things that create self-starters in this world or reminders for us. Where can we locate you online? Well, it's when a labor of love created an online presence. I spent 12 years in the shadows on purpose,

but you know, the pandemic and everything. WileyMcGraw.com, W-Y-L-I-E-M-C-G-R-A-W.com. I have everything from my philosophies and insights over the last 14 years distilled down from the work I've done with these leaders into white papers that they can read to start stimulating new awarenesses,

new ideas about how they approach their own life and performance and happiness, all the way to the podcast episodes that I've been interviewed on. I actually also started my own podcast called Wise Words and Whiskey with Wiley McGraw. It's all about low-key conversations on high-performance living over a really good glass of different types of whiskeys to really create a low-key fireside chat environment. But I'm on LinkedIn as well. Twitter, I started that.

Just kind of get into some conversations with people. Those are the places typically people can find me right now. Awesome. Everybody, make sure you check out Wiley McGraw at wileymcgraw.com. Wiley, I have a question I ask

all of our super achievers on this show, and I'm sure you have an amazing answer to this. How do you start your day with a win? How do you start your day with a win? How do I start my day with a win? Besides getting out of bed on time, I practice Kung Fu. I meditate. I take care of my body. It's all about exercise. For me, I got to get moving. One of the things I found is if I'm not moving, I notice my energy is different. So for me, getting up in the morning, getting out in the cold, seeing the sunlight and exercising for 45 minutes, that's the way my day kicks off with a

bang. If I miss that, I kind of notice a little bit of a difference. Awesome. Wiley McGraw, you bring a lot of opportunity and effort towards that peak performance in the leaders around the world. I hope our listeners got something out of this because I certainly did. I have a page full of notes here that I've been kind of scribbling down in our conversation. If it does not shock you, it will not change you. I absolutely love that. And it resonates with me as does the rest of this. Everybody, make sure you check out Wiley. Wiley, first of all, thank you for your service to our country. Likewise, brother. Thank you. And thank you for starting with a win.

Absolutely. And thank you for listening to Start With A Win. Hey, if you've been struggling with time management and you're ready to get on track, head over to adamcontos.com slash foolproof time system. There you can get Adam's secrets on how he performs at a high level and how he manages his time. So thank you so much.

And remember, until next time, start with a win.