Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 267: How Do You Optimize Your Performance When Everything Sucks? | Pete Carroll & Michael Gervais

Episode Date: July 22, 2020

How do you optimize your performance when life is utterly disrupted by a pandemic? Are optimism and confidence trainable skills? Can we get over our fear of other people’s opinions? These are some of the questions we tackle in this episode. We have two guests. Pete Carroll is our first interviewee who has a Superbowl ring. He’s been the coach of the Seattle Seahawks for ten seasons. He’s also the co-author and co-founder of Compete to Create, which is many things: a firm that works with companies to create high-performing teams, an online course that anyone can take, and a new Audible Original audio book. Coach Pete’s partner in all of this is our other guest. Michael Gervais is a high performance psychologist who has worked with MVPs from every major sport and Fortune 100 CEOs. He’s also the host of a podcast called Finding Mastery. Where to find Pete Carroll online:  Website: https://petecarroll.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/PeteCarroll  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/coachpetecarroll/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/petecarroll/ Book Mentioned: Compete to Create Audible Origional: https://www.amazon.com/Compete-Create-Approach-Leading-Authentically/dp/B08911JMJX Where to find Michael Gervais online:  Website: https://findingmastery.net/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/MichaelGervais Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MichaelGervais/ Podcast Mentioned: Finding Mastery: http://smarturl.it/finding-mastery On July 27, we're launching the Summer Sanity Challenge: a free 21 day meditation challenge. The goal here is to help you build resilience so that you are less buffeted by circumstances you can’t control -- and are therefore calmer, happier, and better prepared to show up the way you want to for your family and your communities. To join the challenge, you can visit tenpercent.com/challenge. Other Resources Mentioned: Compete to Create: https://competetocreate.net/ Additional Resources: Ten Percent Happier Live: https://tenpercent.com/live Coronavirus Sanity Guide: https://www.tenpercent.com/coronavirussanityguide Free App access for Frontline Workers: https://tenpercent.com/care Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/pete-carrol-michael-gervais-267 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Before we jump into today's show, many of us want to live healthier lives, but keep bumping our heads up against the same obstacles over and over again. But what if there was a different way to relate to this gap between what you want to do and what you actually do? What if you could find intrinsic motivation for habit change that will make you happier instead of sending you into a shame spiral? Learn how to form healthy habits without kicking your own ass unnecessarily by taking our healthy habits course over on the 10% happier app. It's taught by the Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonical and the Great Meditation Teacher Alexis

Santos to access the course. Just download the 10% happier app wherever you get your apps or by visiting 10% calm. All one word spelled out. Okay on with the show. to Baby, this is Kiki Palmer on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. From ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey guys, before we dive in just a reminder about the Summer Sanity Challenge, which is the free 21-day meditation challenge that we're launching coming up on July 27th. The whole goal here is to help you boot up or reestablish or reinvigorate your meditation habit so you can be better equipped to deal with a tumultuous to say the least period of human history. Every day you get a short video, followed by a free guided meditation.

We spent a lot of time working on curating the right meditations and putting them in the right order. And as I said, the challenge starts on July 27th to join it. Visit 10% dot com slash challenge. That's 10% one word all spelled out dot com slash challenge. There will of course be a link in the show notes. All right, let's dive into today's episode. How do you optimize your performance when life is utterly disrupted by a pandemic? Are optimism and confidence, trainable skills? Can we get over our fear of other people's opinions? Those are just some of the questions we're gonna tackle in this episode.

We have two guests, Pete Carroll, is our first interviewer, I believe, who has a Super Bowl ring. He's been the coach of the Seattle Seahawks for 10 seasons, he's the co-author and co-founder of Compete to Create, which is many things. It's a firm that works with companies to create high performing teams.

It's an online course that anybody can take. And it's also a new, audible, original audio book. Coach Pete's partner in this whole thing is our other guest. His name is Michael Jurey. He's a high performance psychologist who has worked with MVP's from every major sport, as well as Fortune 100 CEOs. And he's the host of a podcast called Finding Mastery. We had a great chat. My son bombs it in the middle, so you'll hear that as well. The brief mention of Avocado Toast, which is embarrassing. So here we go, with Coach Pete Carroll and Michael Jure. Gentlemen, really cool to be connected with you.

Coach, we haven't met before, but it's great to meet you and Michael great to see you again. Good to be here. Thanks for having us. So since I've had the pleasure of grilling Mr. Drove before, let me pick on you a little bit, coach. You, and I say this as somebody I told you this before we started rolling here, I know nothing about sports, but I do know you because I've been reading about you and following you for years, given what an unusual approach you have. You use terms like human centered culture, you talk about compassion, meditation, training, the mind.

To an outsider at least, that all seems potentially at odds with the brutal world of the gridiron. So how did you come to this approach? And what do you do? Yeah, I'll leave it there. How did you come to this approach? Well, when you talk about meditation, you bring up other concepts that fall into Eastern philosophy or whatever, it doesn't compute very well.

And it's always just people in your position always kind of catch on to that and one of the way with the X going on. What we're doing is we're trying to be the best we can possibly be. We're working at helping people find their ultimate best and in doing so, there's a process involved with that. We have our interpretation of and we have work through where we have come to totally understand the value of mindfulness and the value of being centered and the value of having acquired in my room you perform, the value of being able to focus uncannily. In such manner that you can exhibit everything that you have to offer your sport. So, I found connection with Dr. Trivy years ago that we spoke a lot of the

same language, but yet the language he was speaking, I didn't understand at the time he had to bring the science to me, he had to bring me updated so that I could make sense of things that I was instinctively doing and kind of came naturally. And so I understand that people question that's been questioned for over the years, but it can also be very misleading too. All performance is called for, if you want to be at your best, call for this kind of ability to center your focus. And that's mindfulness.

And so we're just trying to work really hard out and make sense of it, share it with our people and our players and bring a sense of trust to the challenges of our game. Would it be fair to say that mindfulness is a piece of this, the ability to be in the moment while you're executing and to be at your best to some people call that flow or being in the zone, that's a part of it. But also you have an approach to leadership and team building both on the field and off that from what I've read about you seems to emphasize the sort of softer side of the compassion,

I believe I, you or those around you have used the term love. And so talk a little bit about that. Well, let me put it this way for you. I've found over the years, and I've been coaching for a real long time now, that the best way for me to communicate with the people that I'm dealing with is to care for them and to learn who they are

and what they're all about. And to cherish that unique qualities that an individual brings, it really calls for me to be mindfully focused and centered on that individual. And in doing so, it allows me the avenues to communicate to the deepest depths that are available in a relationship. So we're a relationship-based organization. If that sounds soft to you,

then you don't understand what I'm talking about. If caring for people sounds soft, then you don't understand what we're talking about. Because what we're trying to do is generate just the absolute maximum that people have to offer the world and to show them that they house extraordinary power, an extraordinary command of what they do and how they can act. And in doing so, to get there, it's skill development.

And I'd like to talk about that for you so you can understand how we approach it. But it's hard work, it's difficult, it's challenging, it takes grit, it takes the guile, it takes the perseverance and the passion to reach into, to uncover, you know, what is there lying maybe quietly in your soul. And so it's about hardcore motivation and driving and, you know, it's all of that. It's competing, striving to find the very best we have to offer. So I don't think if you watched us practice and you watched us perform, you would think there's anything, but our guys given everything, they possibly can muster to the effort of winning

and being the best we can be. And so I'm real proud to talk about it. And I really cherish now the misinterpretation of that because I like talking about it. I like to share that with people. If you really care for people, if you really care for them, let's say if you really do love them,

you'll do anything you can possibly do to help them be the best they can be. I look at it like I'm parenting. I look at it like I'm coaching my own kids and my coaches are part of my family and the brotherhood that exists in our organization is so that we can reach those depths and those vulnerabilities so that we can find

the best that we have to offer. And so we're all about caring and loving and all that kind of stuff. That's right. I mean, look, I'm in this sense very much on your team. If that sounds soft to you, I didn't mean, I didn't mean make a feel that otherwise. You just said soft. No, I know. I was kind of channeling a critic. But look, I mean, yes, people think it's soft, but look at the science. Also look at your superbowl ring. So, there's plenty of evidence to suggest that this approach, which I believe you when you say it's harder to do.

It probably is easier to just treat people as if they're disposable and to rule or run an organization through fear, as opposed to through love. Yeah, I think you're on it. Doc has been so good to help me understand why I was doing what I was doing and what made sense and where the science backed it up and really just brought a commitment and conviction to me

and the things I was doing because he made sense of it for me. And so we've been a good team and all that. The aforementioned doc is here. Maybe it's worth talking about how this relationship got started and it sounds to me like you took some of Coach's instincts, which are quite remarkable, and added a lot of evidence on top of them and then tied it up and operationalized all of it. Well, I would start with saying that coach has been coaching for a long time.

And so his insights and practices were well-groved, evidenced by what he had done in previously in college and previously before that in the pros. And so there was already an ecosystem, there was already principles in place, there was already a system in place, and the combination of his approach, and then my approach, right, was like, how do you create the container and the combination of his approach and then my approach was like how do you create

the container and the culture and the right relationships for people to experience the extraordinary together. And the extraordinary can be concrete like winning the whole thing, but it's a bit more purposeful for us, which is the extraordinary is exploring the untapped, exploring potential together and having that shared cause and shared mission together. And so I would say, you know, to answer your question concretely is that we met through a mutual friend that was a bit surprised we didn't know each other. We had a great dinner, great conversation, and we saw things in similar ways.

And we both interested, coaches, and advanced degree in understanding of psychology. And we're both interested in like, okay, what is the frontier of human performance? What is it about? Like, how, what are the ideas, principles, and practices to help people flourish? And this game of football is a beautiful place to figure that out. And so that's how it started, and that was about a decade ago. Can you describe a little bit what you do with and for the team? So by trade and training, I'm a sports psychologist, and what I'm helping, or at least I hope I'm helping do, is to create systems,

to really support the relationships that people have with themselves, that they have with their future, that they have with each other, that they have with mother nature in some respects, but it really is an approach to support coach carols, to support the coaches, and to understand the systems and the practices, to train one's mind, to become your very best,

and then to hopefully support the self-discovery process that is right at the center of coach Carroll's approach. And so really is more of systems thinking than individual, what you might imagine as a trained professional. Like it's not an individual as much as a system's approach. So coach, you bring in this guy, it looks like Tom Cruise and you haven't talked to your players about mother nature and love and meditation. How does that go? I say this with love to you Mike. I'm just, I'm just, come on, man.

Bust of your chops, but I got to do it. Well, it's in a relationship that we're in and there's like no topic that we don't address. There's no concern that we don't take seriously. We're competing. That's the whole philosophy of a program. My personal philosophy is always compete. And that means I'm always looking to find a way to get coached up.

And so Mike's ability to make sense of things, to help me see things more clearly, to give me conviction to whatever, what I believe is proper and right and how we should do things. His ability to help share the information that we're in, this whole world of performance to our coaches so that they can teach better, so that they can help,

and they can operate better for themselves personally. I mean, it's just kind of just intertwined and winds it stuff into all things that we're doing. And it's just kind of how we operate it. It's been a tremendous relationship that we've, what we've found to is that Mike has been able to help us take our teachings and our principles to the outside world. And we have a company compete to create that is really designed to help people

understand how to apply the philosophies and the things that we believe in in their own world, their personal world, their family world, and their business world as well, their careers. And we found a really exciting following. And the more we were able to extend our stuff to the outside world, the more followers we're finding. And we're really excited about that. That's what the audible original is all about. It gives us a chance to give other people insights into how we live and how we operate and the way we think. And it hopes that it will help them live a better life and it will help them be stronger and more committed to the person that they are and the family that they are and the organization that they are. So it's been a really fruitful relationship and we're excited about what's coming? I do want to talk at length, a great length about compete to create not only the organization,

but also this audible original that you're out with right now. But I do just want to make sure I pursue this line of inquiry coach. I suspect you do occasionally get players who are like, this is not what I signed up for. I want to win and I want to make a ton of, I want the accolades, I want the money, you know, whatever it is, I'm motivated by what historically has motivated athletes. What do you do if and when you encounter skepticism? Well, Dan, you started off by saying that you weren't much of a fan, but you certainly are because you're interested in the stuff is so important. It's about reaching people, understanding how to communicate

at a really high level, and to find that trusted it takes to go deep with the concerns and the issues to help people develop their best talents and all of that. This is an ongoing process that I've had to find ways to communicate with all players. If I could only communicate with certain guys, that wouldn't be worth it, you know. And so what I may help you with here, all our guys, all of the guys that come to us want to be, they want to be really something special. They want to be really good at what they're doing. Some of them have a much better way of getting there than others.

Some of them don't know how to get out of their own way. They'll have different opinions, they'll have different outlook, they'll have different experiences that we have to find a way to make sense to them and so that they can come along with this and take advantage of the teachings and the culture that we, and the environment that we create.

And so I don't have people but heads with me on what we're doing. And I say that because I think we're eclectic enough in our approach, in our language, in our understanding of their issues, that we can make sense to everybody. And when we can't, then they move along. They don't excel, they don't do well enough, they don't get to stay with us. But for the most part, I'm pretty competitive about that. I don't want to leave anybody out.

So I'm trying to find a way to communicate with everybody that we have a chance to touch base with. Hey, Dan, to pull on that thread just a little bit is that one of the core elements is to know your personal philosophy. And that's asked of coaches and athletes. And that starts with, what are the guiding principles, the unwavering principles that you stand for,

and those principles to help line up your thoughts, words, and actions. Okay, so just think about that for a moment. And Coach Carroll is very clear about his guiding principles and its evidence through the culture. So when an athlete comes into the Seattle Seahawks, they kind of know because it's consistent, it's been evident what he stands for, the organization stands for, and you just have a sense, it's different here.

And so that being said, I wanna double click one more level, which is there's only three things that you can train as a human. You can train your craft, you can train your body, and you can train your mind. And so when you operationalize it, normalize it in that type of frame, it's like, well, okay. How do I do all three of those at max to my best ability?

And this isn't something that's left for later. This is something that Coach Carole and the coaches have integrated in the daily rhythm of practice. It's a value of the mind. It's a value of cultivating an optimized mind, a mind that's nimble, that is strong, that can adjust, that is flexible, that is also principle-based. And so it is the way that you present it. And if you present it the old way that was happening kind of in 1980, maybe 1970, or even the 90s, like, hey, there's this kind of weird

psychology thing happening in the back room with a poorly lit couch, like go over there and if you've got problems like sort it out, that doesn't work. That's not part of the ecosystem of rapid accelerated potential seeking environments. And so framing is really important, I would say. I would tell you, Dan, if that's what it took, though, we'd go there. That's our approach. We got to figure out a way. If that's what it took to make sense to somebody, I'd go wherever I got to go. And that's, we'll take it as far as we can as long as the

principles are intact and the approach and the philosophy and the buy-in from the players that they're going to give us everything they got because they know we're going to give them everything we got. There's always a way, a unique, extraordinary person who may not look like they could ever fit in has a way to fit into our system. That's one of the things I'm most thrilled by is to uncover the unique special idiosyncrasies of an individual that make them who they are, find a way to celebrate that

and incorporate that into our play. If it works, it works, if it doesn't, it doesn't. But that openness, I think, is what is so important and that willingness to accept the understanding and the patience that it takes to not judge somebody too quickly and miss out on this magnificent unique aspect that they bring. That's what drives us. So there's room for everybody in our place. And then we can bring them all.

Bring them you tired, bring them you hungry, bring me your weary masses, whatever it is. And we'll figure out a way to incorporate you. If you got a ship on your shoulder and you want to be great. And so there's a way to do it. This is extraordinary, actually. This is sit squarely in humanistic psychology as an approach, as one of the disciplines in psychology. It's actually Karl Rogers, it's called

regirian therapy, that is grounded in this thought, that humans have everything they need inside them. And if you can hold an unconditional positive regard for that person, at all times, as best as you possibly can, because that's a skill to do that, then you're gonna create a relationship where that person is able to figure out like,

oh, I matter. I matter more than what I just do. I matter because I matter to this other human in my life. And it's an incredible way to help know that they are far more than what they just do. And that being said is that there's a subtlety that I want to add that Coach Carroll just eloquently said is that it's a celebration. It's not a to add that Coach Carroll just eloquently said is that it's a celebration.

It's not a letting. And if you listen to the media sometimes, you'll hear, oh, Coach Carroll, you let people be themselves. It's so wrong. It's a celebration. It's a relentless and uncommon commitment to understand what's unique and special about another person. And this is why Seattle Seahawks

are a relationship-based organization. It's a relentless commitment to that and then celebrate it in the most wonderful way, celebrate that and then put people in the positions so they can be their very best and that's very different than many other approaches that hey you're a number fit in or forget it and so it is a fundamental approach towards celebrating the uniqueness of a person. The thing that we really believe in is if you took the approach in the corporate world that as I say, you've got a hundred thousand people that work in your company. The magnitude of the power that lies laid in those people because they have not been recognized for who they really are

and they're punched in the ticket and they're coming in at the clock and getting out of there sitting in a cubby hole or whatever they do, as opposed to taking the approach to that everybody in that organization has this extraordinary unique power and quality to who they are and what they're all about. And if you could unleash that within your organization and just capitalize on the human capital that is already part of your organization. The outcome, the outgrowth, the result of that processing would be so extraordinary that your company will be places that you never dreamed it would be.

That's just the way that we look at the world and it is by really caring and loving for the people that you're sharing this experience with to help them be the fullest they can possibly be. And that's not BS. That's the truth. And that's real. And when you when you act like that and you treat people like that, they give you everything they got. They don't hold anything back. Once they trust and they understand that you care that much for them, what more could you ask for in the world? The unconditional caring in this love for them that you're going to help him experience this love for them that you're gonna help them experience this world while the time you're together,

it's extraordinarily as you can. That's kind of behind all of this. And then yeah, does that sound different? Does that sound airy-fairy to somebody? I don't care, you know, and that's the way this is what we're doing. And I see it as a really competitive, aggressive way to attack the world that's around you,

you know, and we're having a lot of fun doing it. I see it as a really competitive aggressive way to attack the world that's around you. And we're having a lot of fun doing it. Yeah, I really appreciate the combination of the quote unquote, airy fairy with the very hard-nosed desire to win, which is kind of summed up in a refrain that you've come back to, which is if they'll give you, and you're talking about the players and the staff here, everything they've got, when they know you will give them everything you've got. And that's a very interesting and I think attractive approach to a lot of people.

Well, we found a commonality to it that allows us to really be consistent and really be authentic and really be true and when you really care that, it's powerful. And it's meaningful. And it does really allow you to create a culture and an environment that can really be fun and really hopefully take as far as you can go. Hey, Dan, here's where skill comes in.

Mental skill, psychological skill is that, let's say over a cup of tea, glass of wine, we're sitting around, we're saying, yeah, you know, let's create this amazing environment that we're just talking about. And then as soon as something starts going wrong, where there's some real stress and pressure, maybe your job's on the line, maybe there's something else that is not quite working according to plan, there's some inspection and the heat is on. Right? You know what happens for most people? Is they don't have the psychological skill, so they rely on their brain. And what the brain does is says, Hey, survive.

And that survival mechanism is a tightening up. And part of that tightening up is, let's call it anxiousness or anxiety or frustration. And so if there's somebody in front of you and you've got a tense, tight, anxious, frustrated, intolerant, scratchy state, you can't really be there for them, because you're kind of a mess. And so this is where mindfulness plays dividends.

Is, so if mindfulness has two main pillars, right? Which is awareness and this ability to focus and be in the present moment and inside in wisdom, that when you're able to be in the present moment with somebody, because you have your life on, so to speak, and you're not in this internal scratchy place, you can get to the truth with the other person, because you're spending time in the present with them. And then that leads to insights about what is and what could be. And then that leads to a sense of wisdom where when you get to that place,

as you recognize with your research, it's different. And so that's where one place that mindfulness can pay dividends is that it allows us to spend more time in the present moment. So if we need our life vest on in order to be available and useful to other people and then to run an organization that's thriving and winning. Coach, I'm just curious, what are the psychological skills that you personally spend time working on?

Are you, do you have an active meditation practice? What are the things that you do to keep yourself up to this task you set for yourself? Yeah. I have practiced my ways of meditation over the years. I'm not actively, I've never been totally committed like the guys that really do a great job with it. I practice my, it's about mindfulness to me, it's about being in the moment, it's about seeing the extraordinary value of all of the things around you. And in that, that is my way of practicing the way I would be mindful. And in the sense, the closest thing I would get the meditation, I've tried to have an appreciation.

This is a silly phrase that I have about, you know, maximizing the spaces between the spaces. And being there, you know, when you have the opportunity to buy whatever triggers it. You know, I'm one sense kind of a little kid at times, you know, that I can get immersed in stuff, you know, from moment to moment. And I look like I'm all over the lot sometimes, but man, I'm digging in. And so I find that it's, I want to practice the discipline

that it takes to be there in the moment. And so that, to me, is a daily challenge. And it's emotional challenge too, with the people around you to be there for them at all times and That to me is is competing to bring my best every moment is what I'm asking so I have a different way of looking at it I think then maybe a classic meditator might But I do that to my sports. I do that to the games. I like playing. I do that to my relationships and and Just try to be as actively involved with the moments every chance I get.

Dan, I think if the pillow for many people is the place that they do their meditation, for coach, it is conversations. And so it's observing. And so, you know, that's where he practices and he's in conversations a lot. And the thing behind the conversation is to be a great listener. And so that is one of the places I see him practice, and then watching,

whether it's on the field or film or whatever, it's a full commitment to coming back to now, coming back to now, relentlessly coming back to now. And so much so that, I don't think I've ever shared this with you, Pete, but folks would say on a regular basis that just meet you, that they'll say to me something like, wow, like he really listens. And so it's evident based on the way that he holds his attention to gaze and intensity

and conversation. It's different. Whatever. Yeah, whatever. But what I would like to mic about that is practice. I think that's what I would think. I don't know. This is my interpretation from years ago, that that's what meditation is for.

Meditation is so you can be really good meditator. Yes. You know, to me, it's so that you can learn to be focused in the moments that you experience on a regular basis. So I totally love the whole thought of practicing mindfulness. And I think I understand the purpose of that, but the purpose personally is to find my way

to the moments as they present themselves on a regular basis. Some people understand, and I don't know your mind, but based on what you're saying, it seems directionally that what I'm about to say is probably accurate, that some people actually kind of have a molecular understanding of being awake and others, and I'm pointing to myself here,

need a ton of meditation practice in order not to be stuck. And there you go. So you may be one of these people who can just do it through being alive and paying attention to other people and others of us need a lot of time on the cushion to wake up out of the auto-pilot. Whatever, I don't know. I don't know, I just live in life.

I don't know if this is the way that, but I'm very grateful for understanding and having an appreciation for the practices. You know, I'm really, and I respect it, the heck out of it. And so we're facing your life, the way it helps, you know, we're all different, we need different things to keep us going.

And it's marvelous to be in the practice of being in the moment. And we can't do it enough, you know. Dan, here's a fun way to think in the practice of being in the moment and we can't do it enough. Dan, here's a fun way to think about the applied nature. Another way to think about the applied nature of mindfulness is that there's two variables that collide with each other or coincide if you want to say that way. It's optimism and mindfulness. Part of mindfulness is about working with judgment and critique. Right? And so maybe coach, you can walk us through like why we're so hard to beat in the fourth

quarter. And there's an incredible statistic that will support this. But one of the gems here is that he is helping and the organization is helping people not judge, to not give in to the evidence external to the plan that you set out. So, in some respects, ignore the score, get to the signal. And the signal is the present moment. Stay one more rep, one more rep, one more breath, one more thought, whatever it might be, game day. And you match that with optimism, this fundamental belief, and it's a skill, this is a skill,

that the future is going to work out. Optimism versus pessimism. We're not as far as we can tell, we're not born that way. And so, we're training optimism, and we're training mindfulness to reserve the critique and the judgment based on external information, and to stay true that, hey, this could work out now. It's right around the corner. And so, those two, think, are two of the variables

of why the team is very difficult to beat in the fourth quarter. Yeah, I would say that the most important pursuit we have is discipline. It's the discipline. It's the discipline in all different areas that we have command of, and we control. We really want to focus on the things that we can control. If we have the discipline to do that, then we'll be there more consistently than maybe the other guys.

If or not, we're going to work our tail off to outlast them. That's basically how it works. To develop discipline, you have to consistently rep it out. I have to find all of the ways that I can to get our guys to focus on the very instant that's right at hand right at the very next step we're going to take and the better that we do that and we develop our skill to do that. The more accountable we will be in the moment when it comes time. And so, uh, Microsoft I'm out finishing finishing is a huge thing to us. It's a huge concept and we have ways that we talk about it and we practice it and I try to consistently, constantly show our guys, hey, you're in a moment of finishing right now.

What are you going to do? What are we going to do? We're going to do the very right thing right now and take the next step properly and then know that if I do it the next time and the next time, the next time, that other guy isn't going to be able to hang with us. And so that all is about discipline and it's all about capturing the opportunities and seizing the moments to practice it. And so it goes in every direction and everything that we're doing. But I do find that that's why I take so much responsibility personally to make sure I see the opportunities to present them, to awaken them to this moment. Hold them. Here's another chance we can get better at it. And so after a while, this is like Mike

talks about training confidence. We train confidence through our continued successes and the more that we are enlightened with that and understand that and own that, the better we perform when the time comes, you know, and so, but there's thousands of things that we got to do. And so that's why this, that we got to do well if we're going to be good. And that's kind of what our challenge is, that's what our calling is all about. Much more of my conversation with Pete and Mike

right after this. Life is short and it's full of a lot of interesting questions. What is happiness really mean? How do I get the most out of my time here on Earth? And what really is the best cereal? These are the questions I seek to resolve on my weekly podcast Life is Short with Justin Long. If you're looking for the answer to deep philosophical questions like what is the meaning of life, I can't really help you, but I do believe that we

really enrich our experience here by learning from others and that's why in each episode I like to talk with actors, musicians, artists, scientists, and many more types of people about how they get the most out of life. We explore how they felt during the highs, and sometimes more importantly, the lows of their careers. We discuss how they've been able to stay happy during some of the harder times, but if I'm being honest, it's mostly just fun chats between friends about the important stuff. Like, if you had a sandwich named after you, what would be on it? Follow life is short wherever you get your podcasts. You can also listen to ad free on the Amazon music or wonder.

Yeah. Mike, two part question. Are confidence and optimism the same thing kind of in your mind? Are they related? And the second part is, how do you train optimism without lapsing into the power of positive thinking and all that, Malarkey? I love that thought.

Yeah, first confidence and optimism are related, but separate. They're different psychological constructs. And I love the thought about the Malarkey, you know, like, hey, let's hold our hands. I can't understand. Let's go skipping, you know. No, it's more just like, you know, like, hey, let's hold our hands. Let's go skipping, you know. No, it's more just like, you know, there's this garbage book,

the secret that says you can solve all of your problems through the power of positive thinking demonstrably untrue. Okay, that's not gonna happen. So like, how do you train people in optimism without getting them into this place where they think they're gonna win just because they've got a vision board in their room that says they're going to win. Wait, wait, let me enter into this with you. Obviously you haven't benefited from manifesting your intentions.

I have not. Actually, you have. I think intentions are really powerful, but I don't believe that just because I think it enough, it is going to happen because I can manipulate suboptomic particles through my mind. That I think is not true. I know it's not true. But Dan, don't you think that there's a chance that in that science of the secret and

all of that, that there are levels of it where it really is about intention. It really is about intending to create what you can imagine. It isn't about the vision board. That's how it gets manufactured and marketed and all the rest and it loses all the meaning and all. I couldn't agree anymore, but there is extraordinary power in following your vision and following your intention and follow that without it, you know,

I don't know how any of the great creations ever occur. But so there was a guy years ago,, I'm gonna take you way back to, a guy named Maxwell Maltz wrote a book called The Power of Positive Thinking. My high school coach, Port of the Under's Armman, he thought it was everything. Well, that was way back when, you know, I was 15 years older, something like that.

But I still obviously remember it. And I think that that is a bunch of malarkey if that's all it is. But the power of intention, the power of manifesting through your commitment to what you want to have, what you want to create is there, I don't know if there's anything more powerful than that. And so we have to harness that. We have to learn what that's all about. We have to understand what it takes in the commitment and the discipline and the consistency and the dogged perseverance to stick with what you're trying to create

that really makes it happen. And I know that's what we've talked about this kind of stuff, but I just got you brought up. Yeah, I mean, I just want to be clear. I mean, I think there's, there seems to be quite a bit of evidence around intention, motivation, there's a lot of juice there. Where the insidiousness of stuff like the secret

is that it takes something that has legitimacy and then adds magic into it and says you can cure your breast cancer through just thinking about it. You don't need to go to the doctor or whatever. That's a problem. That's one level of interpreting it. But haven't you known people, and I can give side examples of people who contact cancer and doctors told

them that three months now you know you've got three months to live and they died to the day and there's other people that say, hey no way that's happening and they live their life for years on and it goes in remission and they never see you know we know that there's a power in that if you give into that you can become it's the same thing you create the same vision. Evisions will work for you negatively as well. I'll give you another sight if we talk about the power of vision right now I don't know It's the same thing. You create the same vision. Your visions will work for you negatively as well. I'll give you another slide.

If we talk about the power of vision right now, I don't know how we get on this mic, we're doing it. When I was in Los Angeles, I met a bunch of kids in the streets, I was introduced to a bunch of kids that were living in and around the streets, and they constantly would remind me that, I'm either gonna die, I'm gonna go to jail, so what the f, what difference does it make?

And I used to hear that in a festival, sorry for him, it felt so sad, and I thought, holy cow, that's the vision that they hold for themselves. And they're absolutely gonna manufacture manifest, that's gonna happen, they're either going to jail, they're gonna die, because they know that's what the truth is.

Well, vision can work in other aspects of life, it can work negatively and positively as well, it isn't just all airy fairy, everything's gonna work out for you. And that's why it's so important to have the mindfulness, to be in command of the things that you vision. But this would be a great segue to self-talk and the power of self-talk and how we lead ourselves with our thoughts.

It's so powerful. And I mean, look at Russell Wilson. Now, you don't know who Russell Wilson is maybe I do quarterback Okay, so there's nobody that's ever lived by a more powerful guidance of Personal belief in his ability to create and he he's a living example of it against many odds in some circumstances and then he's such a gifted Individual because of you know his power of his belief. And we've seen there's so many great illustrations of that. So anyway, so let me double click on this a little bit.

Not all of this is in the audible original, by the way. So we've done in the audible original and the online course. We, I think we hit the sweet spot between science and story, meets like tangible things that you can do. And you were talking about optimism and confidence. So like confidence is this appraisal. It's a fancy word, but it's this inventory-taking experience where you're measuring up what you think the demand is asked of you. That's outside of you, right? You're imagining or you're measuring it in some way. And then you're matching that up

against what you believe your internal skills and capabilities are. So if those work together, then you get to say something like, yeah, let's go. And I think I have, I think I can do this now, right? Where arrogance is something like, oh, okay, I can do whatever, but you haven't really done the appraisal. You're just trying to get favor from other people.

Like that's an external validation mechanism. So confidence is a sophisticated approach of knowing your inner inventory matched up against what the perceived demands. And that's a trainable skill and it only comes from one place, which is what you say to yourself, but that self-talk has to be credible.

How do you build credible self-talk, you say? Well, there's at least two ways, but the key hole for that is that you have to do difficult things. You have to test yourself. You have to get to the thin herd, to the places that you weren't quite sure that you knew how to operate and realize when you come back from those experiences, say, I did that. And maybe it wasn't pretty.

You know, maybe it was a mistake, you know, maybe I missed it, made mistakes in there, but like I can do hard things. And when you earn that right to say I can do difficult things, there's incredible freedom on the other side of it. And then optimism, though, from a scientific lens, is a fundamental belief that the future will work out. Pessimism is the opposite of that. And so that is a trainable skill as well.

Martin Seligman had some great insights and some science around that, practicing three good things, as I know you're familiar with. Same word about that, actually, just for the listener. How would we practice three good things? The research was really pretty amazing, that after seven days, people that set an intention to become a researcher of good, and I'm using some of my language in there on this, but the mechanisms are consistent. So in the morning, if you set your mind, intention as we're talking about, to become the researcher of amazing is the way I like to think about it, that you go out throughout the day and

you find, you experience three things that are amazing. You could put in beautiful, you could put in good, you could be interesting, you know, positive, you could put whatever words you want in there. And then at the end of the day, you write those three things down. That over seven days of training this, there is a noticeable mark in an inquiry. People that came into that study after X number days that were depressed, they stabilized their depression. People that were not depressed had an upward lift in their experience of life.

So that's a simple practice. And we believe that optimism might just be at the center of mental toughness. Because when you are in a difficult moment that is calling upon the discipline to stay in that moment, but it's hard, it's difficult. Your brain is saying, hey, get out. This isn't right. This isn't safe. That optimism, but you have to front load optimism. You have to front load. You have to get ahead of it because it won't be there for you. The signals of the brain are too strong to try

to override them if you haven't conditioned your mind to say, wait, stay in it. Stay in it. Something good is going to break. It's going to break open, stay in it now. That front loading of a mental skill is essentially what mental skills training is. The power of belief, you know, is that the believing that allows for the optimism is so beneficial to own that. And it's okay to use it. We know.

If you could be in a situation where you're uncertain, well, I'm not gonna be uncertain. I'm gonna go with what I know is powerful. I know I'm gonna get this done. There's a, I'm gonna figure this one out. I've figured a lot of that. And that belief that allows for the optimism to sustain is what keeps you in it longer.

And if you have the gut to persevere and to keep taking on the tough challenges, because you know, you have that knowing, then you can become a very resilient person and a person that will overcome obstacles that others would revel at. And so this is trainable to a certain extent. I don't know if I'm totally, but there's going to be some people that will never be able to get there. But we think it's definitely something that you can nurture. Yes, and just to be clear, I agree with all of that, that you can train optimism, that intention is envisioned, can be incredibly powerful. And I believe in the fundamental laws of science as I understand them, I'm about to turn 49, I'm 57 and a half, maybe 58 when I use my wife's

of volumizing shampoo. I'm not going to be your next quarterback. And I understand that. And no amount of vision is going to change that. And so that's what I'm talking about. And that's where I think the power of positive thinking gets a little dicey. So I think we're all saying the same thing. I think. I'm nodding my head. And I think what coach would say would, well, if you applied yourself and that was your main purpose, you never know.

He's rolling his eyes. I think he can tell. It's in the mirror. Five, seven. Spud web. Five, six. George Miro. But also I'm 49.

So I mean, that's the other. There's a problem here. Yeah, there's a real challenge. There's a real world out there. There's some physics involved in this. Yes, for sure. And so I, but I love the hardening aspect of what we're talking about. It's like, this is old school value stuff saying, do the right discipline stuff.

And this isn't like, hey, we're down by 50 points.. It's gonna be okay. Hey, we've lost eight in a row This is gonna be great guys. We're gonna learn. It's not bad. That's not what we're talking about This is like a hard-nosed Grindy like hey find the good Yeah, that's why it's truth. It's why the truth might be it's about the truth You know you have to be able to connect with the truth and the the truth isn't that a five-seven guy is going to be a center in the NBA. That's not truth. And so you have to be realistic and always start with the truth. And sometimes that we get distorted on that and we have to work at it. But not that everybody holds truth always in command.

But that's where you can benefit the most. And you know what's cool is that if there are limits to human potential, we don't know what they are yet. We're not there. And so let's leave a lot of space. Science doesn't have the answers. It's got a lot of answers. We've understood some stuff, but there's no scientific formula about what your potential

is and there's no roadmap on how to get there. So we've got to leave space open for science to inform us for innovation to happen in the frontier in the most informed way. And for thoughts, words, and actions to line up consistently against the principles and the purpose in your life. Now that's a mouthful. Okay, but that is, I would say, a foundational approach. Thoughts words and actions lining up based on principles that map up against your purpose. Let's talk about a few of the other skills that you guys talk about in the Audible,

originally in your online course. Another concept that just jumped out at me and looking at the materials was FOPO or FOPO, fear of other people's opinions. Is that your concept, Mike? Yeah, let me take a run at that. Yeah, I think that it's one of the most constricting fears for modern day humans. As long ago, hundreds of years ago, it was maybe the saber-to-tiger.

We don't have them anymore. There are real dangers in our world, but for most people, the number one constrictor of their potential is what other people think of them. And that's as simple, I can't imagine somebody not really understanding that unless they truly have a narcissistic personality disorder, unless they truly have a mental disorder that is not allowing them to understand what an other experience is. And so this maps actually well, that theory that we just talked about, FOPO, maps well to the default mode network. It maps well to the theory of mind, and I'm using very concrete terms here.

And so as you recognize, the default mode network is that part of the brain that's self-referencing. Am I okay? Am I okay? Does he think I'm okay? Am I okay? And it's what's happening most of the time. And so if left unchecked, you're gonna self-reference a lot.

Am I okay? And then you're gonna look outside and say, well, what is he or she think about my experience right now? And we think it might be one of the seeds of suffering, the self-referencing internal critical analysis, evaluation, am I okay enough right now? And if you're on stage or you're thinking about what could happen if it goes wrong, that's phopo. That's an expert approach to life as opposed to a beginner's approach to life.

And so the beauty is once you decouple who you are from what you do, there's incredible freedom on the other side. And so that's the essence of the work. Recognize FOPO if it's an issue for you. Cool. How do you deal with it? Separate. Decouple who you are from what you do. Facebook. Yes.

Everybody's on stage. Yes. Everybody's on stage. Highlight Reels too. You know what I mean? It's not just the guy that's performing Broadway. Every day you walk out of the front door at your on stage. If you see it that way, and the sooner that you can gain control of it,

you're okay, and you've got your world and order, the more consistently you can perform being you. That's a great challenge. It's a great challenge. Not the you that you think other people want you to be, but the you that you truly are. That's why the authenticity thing is so crucial. We cherish the pursuit because it's so important, and hopefully people can benefit from that understanding. Coach, another skill that I see jumping out from the materials that I was able to review is the power of having a purpose. How would you describe yours?

Well, my purpose is pretty clear. I'm trying to help people be the best they can be. I'm really committed to that. That is my purpose in it. Whether it's my family, my kids, my grandkids, with the relationship with my wife, the coaches that I coach with, the guys that I administer, I mean the players that we coach, the people that serve the players,

you know, in all different aspects. That's the focus. And if I can contribute to that, then I'm doing the right stuff for me. And that's just how it's turned out. I didn't intend my life to be that way, but I found my way to that. And I found my way most consistently, you know, directing my work in that manner. And when I realized that, it really made a difference to me. It made it more clear what my intention was on a regular moment-to-moment basis. And so, purpose means trying to help somebody find their best. And if I can do that, then those are good moments. Mike, can you fill in the science on this around the

power of having a purpose and maybe give us a sense also of how can we figure this out for ourselves? Yeah, for sure. So, there's three components, according to research, three components to developing or that are components to purpose. And the first is nobody can give you a purpose. It has to matter to you. So somebody could say, I think your purpose is, but if it doesn't really matter to you, if it doesn't have personal meaning, it's not going to pay dividends, it's not going to play out. So for element one, is is it it personally matters to you It has meaning the second is that it's got something to do that's bigger than you So what does that normally mean? It's not just about your benefit, but it's about the benefit of others

And that other could be mother nature or other people. So one meaning two it's it's bigger than you, and three, it's down the road. So it's not something that is solvable now, and it becomes a life arc as opposed to an end position in life. So purpose is really about a path, and the goal is to be on the path. And it needs, according to research, have those three components as best we can tell. How can we figure this out for ourselves? I think a lot of us, I mean, speaking personally, I didn't think about what my purpose was for many, many years. I don't think it occurs to many people to craft this.

What do you do once you've identified it? How do you keep it top of mind so you're always head and toward that? You've got it in your head guiding your actions and importantly. That's a good question. So I want to talk about three ways to explore purpose. And then I want to give maybe a framework to do it. So there's three ways to explore it that I know, right? And it's mindfulness, alam meditation, if you will.

And so that's the exploring within. The second is journaling, you know, writing some stuff down, externalizing it. And if you don't like those two, which I find both of those to be valuable, the third is conversations with wise men and women and exploring that way. And then if that oftentimes life purpose seems so big and overwhelming, that this is the mechanism that might help is you can dint slice it. You can say my purpose during COVID, that this is the mechanism that might help, is you can thin slice it. You can say, my purpose during COVID, during this coronavirus pandemic, is, will be, you

know. And so you could thin slice it. And so that thin slicing allows us to maybe digest it just a bit more easily. And I think that we do need to memorialize it in some way that it is concrete. We can get our arms around it. It's sayable in a sentence or two. And then we need some sort of mechanisms to stay aligned with it. And so whether that's, I'll go back to a vision board just as a joke, but there's something

outside of you or people around you that are helping you be accountable to the thing that you say matters most to you. And that's the discipline and practice of psychology at play. And so maybe that helps some of the defining practice of it. So much of our focus and our emphasis and the things that we believe in is so obviously reliant on self discovery and the willingness to go inside and uncover the uniqueness of you, the identity of you, you know, is so important because how can you find your purpose?

If you have a purpose that you have to keep reminding yourself about, that might not be your purpose. It might be a wish, you know? I'm afraid to say, you know, your purpose should be coming flowing out of you because that's who you are, that's what you're all about. But that doesn't mean that you're not seeking. And the seeking is really where the joy is. It's in the seeking, you know,

and the process of it all and the growth and all of that. But anyway, so. And the part in that too, because that's a super important note is that when you know your purpose, you know it's powerful, nobody can take it away from you. And when purpose, you're going to find some pain in life. And I want to tell you a fun story, Karai, one of the great volleyball players, athletes, slash coaches in the world.

Compatitor. Oh, true competitor. He has one gold medals in Beach, volleyball, the Olympics, and he's won him on an indoor. He's coached both in one gold medals in beach volleyball the Olympics and he's won him on an indoor He's coached both in one gold medals there He won multiple championships as a professional both in beach and volleyball and he won the NCAA's in college like this is one of the greats ever and So I had the fortune of working with him going into the last quad the Olympic quad into Rio and it was almost like Day two or three in this four-year journey that

we're on. And I said, okay, what do you see in coach? And he says, well, I know this for sure. Nobody gets on the podium at the Olympics without staring down a double barrel loaded shotgun. And I said, okay, what is that? You know, like, what do we talk about? And he goes, so let's create that type of cauldron every day and let our purpose be to help them deal with difficult environments, difficult situations so that they can play and get free. So, okay. So, it's so clear, it's so clear to him

that nobody had to remind him that, hey, this is your thing. And so, like, if it's not real, it's gonna fade away. And that's why you gotta get to the real truth about, like, what is your purpose? Is there evidence in the literature suggesting that identifying and operationalizing a purpose can be beneficial when it comes to performance? The literature is a little wanting there.

We can say that people have clarity of purpose, that there's a 75 year Harvard study, that there's a thin line here. They wanted to understand fulfillment. So they took a look at a 75-year longitudinal study, those that were most fulfilled and those that were not. And one of the key differences between those that were fulfilled is that they groked with the difficult challenging questions of life. Okay, so guess what a difficult challenging question of life is. What is my purpose? What am I doing here?

So those that were more fulfilled had done that work. It doesn't mean that they absolutely knew it, but they wrestled with it. And so then if we extrapolate from that and they say, well, what are the benefits of being fulfilled? Well, there's some good science there. There's some other science that's coming online that's saying that those that have purpose, they actually make more money. That's an interesting piece of data as well.

So there's some science, but it's, let's say it's beginning to unfold itself just a bit better. Coach, I know you're waiting to find out when or if, hopefully when, not if, you're going to be able to launch into practice mode here with your team and then into actual games. When the team gets back together, you're operating and have operated in for a long time in multiracial environment. I'm not telling you something you don't know, there's an enormous amount of pain in the black community right now. How do you plan to address that with your folks when you get everybody back together? How do you work with this difficult emotional landscape?

Well, I think there's an enormous amount of pain in the community of man, not just in their black community, because there is an enormous price that has been paid by the African-American enormous price has been paid by the African-Americans culture. And it's obviously spilling over finally, at some point here, to an openness where there's a lot of people that are sharing the willingness to recognize it and do it. And so our recent events that have occurred have elevated conversation and awareness and commitment and soul searching and so much, we have what we did through this time, Dan, we met with our players and we shared the stories and the illustrations of what they were experiencing and have experienced in their lives as we generally do,

but it's just taken on every more impact and meaning than ever before, and that we must continue to do that. We must continue to share the human experience that everybody has that we're connected to, so that we can better relate, better understand, better identify, better care, better love them for that, for what they've gone through. And in that, do everything within our power to help them because we care so much. And so, I mean, that's a lot said to Ancius, but we have to work at it forever. It's been an ongoing issue.

This is it didn't just start. This is something that the big events that had happened in the history that give us markers where we could have made the positive turn to recognize and respect a culture and existence that needed the love at the time we missed out. We took false steps and we're mistaken and all that. We can't do that now. This can't happen anymore. We're too aware, too woke, too ready. We have to make this happen and we can't let anybody get in the

way of it either. And so, sorry, my son is invading the closet where I'm into doing a podcast. Yes, buddy. I got it. I'm doing it Okay, thank you for telling me that. Appreciate it. Can you close the door? Love you. Sorry Yeah, okay, we got more. Oh, why do I have this? I'm I'm it's for the make sure the sound is good You want to say hello to these guys before we go. Okay, this is Alexander Coach Carol and that's Mike this guy won a Super Bowl What do we have him for dinner We haven't for dinner. Oh, a potato toast and then for my last thing. I have a potato toast like a proper lentil.

Okay, peace. Thank you. Sorry about that. Oh, a toast. So anyway, the idea is that we got a big job. We got much time. We got to get after it. And we have to win this time for all of the people.

So everybody can be respected the way they deserve to be respected and Recognize for how they deserve to be recognized. So it's just an ongoing process for us There's no like one thing that you do. There's no exercise in it. It's respect. It's caring loving. It's listening Listening and it's responding to responding well and listening and it's responding to responding well and hopefully we can do a good job of that. For somebody who built a relationship-based culture, it sounds like this is on your mind and I know it's not new to you because you've been working in the areas of social justice for a long time, but it sounds like as you head into the season, this is on your mind. Yes, absolutely it is. I'm going to compete my way through

to not letting this ever be not anywhere from not on my mind. Right. Imagine we're talking about a relationship-based approach and a positive regard for the other. And imagine if you could, the type of conversations that this container allows for. And I've been part of many teams, and the work that happens inside the Seahawks

during this phase has been extraordinary. The listening has been beautiful, the sharing has been on point, the ability to express anger and get underneath of it, and work from that place is advanced. I couldn't be more pleased to be connected with the work that the Seahawks as an organization and Coach Carroll is doing for many at scale. And certainly it starts with the relationships that we spend near and dear time with.

Yeah, we're just getting warmed up. There's so much more to be done. Mm-hmm. Gentlemen, this has been a pleasure. Did I commit malpractice in any way by failing to bring us into any subject matter that you were hoping or expecting that I would? Not pillow talk. Yeah, not pillow talk. Dan, you're so special.

Thank you, I appreciate that. I think it's special. Well, I'm gonna put on my vision board that I'm going to be the next quarterback of the Seattle Seahawks, so that look out for me. Let me know if you want to get any counseling about that vision board, okay? Oh, good. I'll be your attention guide if you don't mind. I appreciate that. Well, it's a pleasure to meet you, Coach, and to see you again, Mike. I really, really appreciate your time.

Thanks, Dan. Appreciate it. Thank you. Big thanks to Pete and Mike, really appreciate their time. And be sure to check out their audio original, which is called Compete to Create. It's available right now from Audible. They also have an online course under the same name compete to create and Also don't forget that Mike's podcast is called finding mastery and he talks to people at the tip of the spear in their fields to understand their psychological Framework and philosophies toward life. It is available wherever you get your podcasts

Before we go want to thank the team The folks who work incredibly hard to make this podcast a reality several times a week, Samuel Johns is our senior producer, Marissa Schneiderman, is our producer, our sound designers are Matt Boynton and Ania Sheshik of ultraviolet audio, Maria Wartell is our production coordinator. We also want to thank the other folks from TPH who weigh in with a lot of wisdom and insight, Ben Rubin, Jen Poient, and Natobe Liz Levin, and of course, my guys from ABC News, Ryan Kessler and Josh Cohan, we'll see you all on Friday for a bonus. and add free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today,

or you can listen early and add free with 1-3-plus in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at 1-3-dot-com slash survey. you