The Daily Stoic - NASCAR Champion Brad Keselowski on Reaching Your Maximum Potential

Episode Date: August 14, 2021

On today’s episode of the podcast, Ryan talks to NASCAR driver Brad Keselowski about the intricacies of stock car racing, how to build endurance and become great at whatever you do, how to lead and build a team that consistently produces results, and more.Bradley Aaron Keselowski is an American professional stock car racing driver. He competes full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 2 Ford Mustang GT for Team Penske. Keselowski, who began his NASCAR career in 2004, is the second of only six drivers that have won a championship in both the Cup Series and the Xfinity Series, and the twenty-fifth driver to win a race in each of NASCAR's three national series.Talkspace is an online and mobile therapy company. Talkspace lets you send and receive unlimited messages with your dedicated therapist in the Talkspace platform 24/7. To match with a licensed therapist today, go to Talkspace.com or download the app. Make sure to use the code STOIC to get $100 off of your first month and show your support for the show.DECKED truck bed tool boxes and cargo van storage systems revolutionize organization with a heavy-duty in-vehicle storage system featuring slide out toolboxes. DECKED makes organizing, accessing, protecting, and securing everything you need so much easier. Get your DECKED Drawer System at Decked.com/STOIC and get free shipping.LinkedIn Jobs is the best platform for finding the right candidate to join your business this fall. It’s the largest marketplace for job seekers in the world, and it has great search features so that you can find candidates with any hard or soft skills that you need. And now, you can post a job for free. Just visit linkedin.com/STOIC to post a job for free. software in Gmail that lets you manage all your work right in your inbox. Streak gives you tools for email tracking, mail merges, and snippets to save time and scale up your email efficiency. Sign up for Streak today at Streak.com/stoic and get 20% off your first year of their Pro Plan.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookFollow Brad Keselowski: Homepage, Twitter, Instagram, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics. Something to help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stoic philosophers, we explore at length how these stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend when you have a little bit more space when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal, and most importantly to prepare for what the week

ahead may bring. Hey, it's Ryan Holliday. Welcome to another episode of The Daily Stoic Podcast. So my ranch here in Texas is right outside Austin, between Austin and Bastrop. My bookstore is here in Bastrop. But between Austin and Bastrop is where I live. And there is something about 15 miles from my house. It's the Circuit of America's track was supposed to be the only F1 track in North America. Now I think it's the only F1 track in America, but all of which is to say, I am just a few miles away from racing, but I know almost nothing about it, but I always admire excellence in whatever form. Anyone who is world class at what they do, I want to learn from and I try to learn from. So a few years ago when Brad Kesselowski posted that he had read one of my books on Twitter, I was really excited and we reached out

and he and I have gone back and forth a few times. And I've become really fascinated in how he thinks about what he does. I don't really understand racing, but I've found whether I'm talking to special forces or I'm talking to people at Google or Microsoft, whether I'm talking to the NBA or the NFL or politicians, like people who are great at what they do have a very distinct and unique way of thinking about their craft, about their profession, about the world. And these people are more similar than they are different. And so I was so excited that Brad agreed to let me talk to him.

I think we had a great conversation. He's clearly not just a student of his sport, but a student of leadership as a whole. And really, it seems like leadership to him is the secret to success on the track. It's not necessarily about being the best racer or even having the best car. It's about having the best system, having the best organization that allows you to win.

You don't create a dynasty by accident, and Brad's partnership with Penske is clearly a dynasty. He's raised there for 12 years. He's one of only six drivers who have won both championships in the Cup Series and the Xfinity Series. He's won each of NASCAR's three national titles. He is unquestionably one of the best racers to ever race. He won the NASCAR sprint Cup Series in 2012.

The NASCAR Nationwide Series in 2010. The Advanced Auto Parts Clash Winner in 2018. The 2018 Bojangles Southern 500 winner in 2018, and won the brickyard 500. 2021, the Coca-Cola 600 needless to say, if you know anything about racing, you know that this guy is one of the best. And we had an awesome conversation about excellence, about perseverance, about endurance, about leadership.

I think you're really gonna like this interview. You can follow Brad on Twitter at Kesselowski, that's K-E-S-E-L-O-W-S-K-I, and you can follow him on Facebook at Brad Kesselowski. We also talked about his transition. He's now at the height of his career, decided to transition to a new racing team, where he is going to be an owner and have a leadership role there.

In addition to being a racer, which I can only imagine is going to challenge him in so many ways, and be another wonderful canvas for him to, as we talk about reach his maximum potential, which is really, I think, what this interview is all about. So here's my interview with Brad Keselowski. So I don't know very much about racing, so I'm gonna say this up front,

but sometimes I find that you learn more about the things you have no idea about than when you have the pretension of knowledge. As far as racing goes, all sports are a mix of physical and mental. Do you find that it taxes more physically or more mental? How do you see it as a sport? Obviously they're both, but... How do you sort of see it as a sport? Obviously they're both, but. So I get that question a lot.

And I love to tell this story. And I hope this person doesn't one day want to beat me up for telling the story, but I'm gonna share it. Yeah. Because I respect them. I'm gonna qualify this. I really respect them.

It's of this NFL wide receiver, Michael Irving. You know the Dallas Cowboys, you're a Texas guy, right? Yeah, maybe not Dallas, but still Texas guy. Yes. Well, Michael Irving was a super bowl wide receiver, amazing talent, and I grew up as a kid watching. And what I remember being so special about Michael, specifically, was he would run routes in the middle of the field, catch the ball in traffic,

get popped, I'm a slam and hit the ground, get back up, let's bump into step and go on to the next play. Really tough guy in my mind, not just tough physically, but tough mentally to be able to run a route like that with concentration, catch the ball, no, you're going to get hit. No, it's going to hurt and be okay. So I have a tremendous respect for him.

So I'm going to tell this story now that I've said that part. So Michael, if you watch this, no, I respect you tremendously. So I saw Michael in Texas, it's been about 10 years ago, and he wanted to do a ride along around the racetrack. And I kicked his micro-errant, and this is awesome. I'm going to take my go-errant for a lap and a two-seater race car, which isn't full speed,

but it's close to it, it would say it's like 90%. So I take Michael for a lap around the racetrack, and we did about two laps where he rode in the right side, which is probably like a minute, minute 10 of actual on track time. And we pulled in and when we pulled in, I could kind of on track and look over and I can get him like the thumbs up, you okay, and he gave me like the, I'm not okay with like, yeah, kind of the woozy, now he got out

and you know, needed a minute to recover. And once he had recovered, you know, it was pretty obvious to me what happened. And this is the reoccurring thing to being a race car driver that makes it difficult. When you get scared, you have the same reaction over and over again, your heart rate elevates, you get the spider flight. And more importantly, you hold your breath.

And I don't care who you are or how strong you are. That's when the mental side starts to carry over to the physical side. And if you hold your breath for minutes at a time, you lose your energy and you borderline pass out, which is what I could tell happened to Michael. So the two really connect, they play together. And as I've gotten older, this has come more naturally to me,

especially as a race car driver, but in other areas of my life, I've gotten to a spot right where I'm kind of able to, you know, quote unquote, turn the fear off like a light switch. I'm in the car, look, I know something can happen to me. But you know what, I'm okay with that. I'm not afraid of getting hurt. If it happens, it happens.

If it doesn't, it doesn't. I'm more afraid of just not performing. And so you literally turn the fear off. And when you do that, when you can mentally turn those other things off, the physical side gets so much easier. And I tell people all the time that if you have the right mentality, if it's a nice day,

the respect to not an overly hot day, if your car is handling really well, I am convinced that your average 12-year-old could do my job. The problem is those days are very seldom. If you're almost always fighting something with a car, you're almost always fighting, it's a really hot day. You're almost always fighting,

hey, I'm going 200-mile an hour in a pack of cars, and what was that guy doing? I don't know about him, I'm a 200 mile an hour in a pack of cars. And what was that guy doing? I don't know about him. I'm a little nervous about him. There's some kind of situation I'm not comfortable with. And so there's all these things that play into it. So when people ask me about the physical and the mental, it's really difficult to create like a percentage base, like 75% mental, 25% physical. Because honestly, if you can have the right mental mentality

and you have these variables under control externally, the physical side is a very low percentage of what I do. It's just the reality is in very few situations, can you control those variables? And you do the best you can to control what you can control when you can control it. Like you take a sport like golf. Obviously, there's a huge physical component to golf. But what's fascinating about golf is like, the harder you try at golf, the worse

you are at golf. So is there an element to what you do? I've got to imagine where it's kind of about getting into a flow state, not thinking about all the things. Because probably what Michael Irving was in was a sort of a hyper aware state of a lot of things that you're able to turn the volume down on because you're familiar with them. Yeah, you clear out the noise. Turn the volume down is a great way to put it. You turn out the noise and, you know, somebody has come over time, I'm not going to say I've never been scared in a race car. Yeah, it happens. You know, it had a racer or this year that I wasn't in, but the car and from me got up

in the air and started flipping. And, you know, in the moment, it didn't scare me. But, you know, a few seconds later, I was like, wow, that was really bad. I was right there. And if he had come down at this angle, it could have been lethal, right? So you do have those moments, but you just try to turn down the noise. That's a great way of putting it. Yeah, that's, and the physical element for what you do is like the physical element of

a fighter pilot. Like, it's not, they're not making it go fast, but they are being jarred and you're enduring the G forces and the stress and the, the glint of the sunlight. I imagine for you, the physical component is, it's the endurance, the ability like the paint tolerance. Yeah, you know, I'm basically the computer of the machine. You know, it's man with machine and I'm the computer. There's very few onboard computer systems in our cars, which is intentional, by the way. Over the years, we've had all kinds of opportunities to integrate technology of that sort.

We've consistently said no. Not because there's, and there's, I think, as a lot of this perception, at least, and the NASCAR world, at least externally, Ryan, that, oh, those guys just don't know technology so they don't know. It's exactly opposite. We have tons of technology. But the technology that goes in the cars as a driver, we fought for over and over again.

No, don't put it in there, because if you put too much technology in the race cars, then the actual accomplishment of driving the car means less and less and less because you have less systems to manage. So how do you, I'm curious how one cultivates that sort of endurance? There's that German word. I think I use it in obstacle, sites flesh, basically like ass in the chair, which is like literally what you're doing.

I mean, you have to put your ass in the chair and just stay there for hours on end, right? How do you cultivate that kind of mental toughness? Like what is the training regimen that goes into being able to, because I got to imagine early in your career, it was harder or you couldn't do it.

And now you can, you can go all day. And you can go all season. To expand on As on the chair, it's when you use those terms in the car and with the team and we're having our debriefs, they always joke that on the highest paid computer in the world. And I always tell

I'm not a computer. I'm an Asimomor. It's literally, you know, it's the feedback through my button and my hands, but that dictates the direction, not just of the car, but even beyond the car on the racetrack, the direction of the company. We have almost 500 employees that work on my car and my teammates' cars. And I set the direction for all the drivers to do. We set the direction for what they work on on any given day of, hey, we need to be developing in this area. We need to be maintaining in this area or we need to cut this program because it's no

longer important based on other developments. So my ass thermometer is not just what you see on the track. It's a lot of off-track as well. So where that comes from, some of it is undoubtedly natural talent. You have to have a certain level of natural talent. I think a lot of it is self-awareness, like anything else, that's the approach that you use to basically create a continuous, you know, innovation and improvement feedback loop. And then I think there's probably a third part of it that is just effectively work ethic and studying. And that comes back into play in the continuous, loop, where before I walked into this interview here

with Ureana, I was studying film, wasn't looking at anything I was doing, I was just studying what everybody else was doing, which is part of it as well. Yeah, I've got to imagine the mental discipline for what you do as a men's, it just the intense period of focus that goes,

how long you, like, it's not like, you don't get a half time, you don't get the breaks. You know, just to be like, like when I said, and I think people think, for instance, that writers write for long periods of time, we actually write like two hours of consecutive writing would be a lot, right? So I might write just two or three hours a day.

That's it. Because the mind can't actually concentrate that long. And I was just recording the audio book to my next book. And it's funny, like you can record audio for like two hours before you become like a bubbling idiot. Like you, you, you just lose your ability to, to, to think into process and to let alone get words out. So I've got to imagine the marathon

for you of maintaining focus when there's such, the stakes are so high and such a low margin for error. Not just as far as winning, but you could cause a crash and get hurt. You know, it's interesting because I'm gonna play off what you just said there and say, yes, I agree. But Ryan, when I'm driving the race car, I've always felt like, and you hear this term

all the time in the zone, right? And somebody asked me to find what that meant to me at one time. And I told him, I can always tell when I'm really in the zone because after the race, I don't remember the race. Sure. Like, I don't remember the race. Sure. Like I don't remember it. I'm, it's like there's a function in your brain of cognitive ability that is taking, you know, RAM and rather than using that RAM for a recording function and memory function, you're like, no, I need all the RAM you got.

Yeah. And like the memory side is gone. And it's not recording. And when I get out of a race car, when I feel like I was really in the zone, I don't remember the majority of the race that I literally just participated in, couldn't tell you anything.

I mean, literally, like, and I'll get a question from a reporter, you know, at lap 135, he made this smooth, dot it on, I'm like, tell me more. Yeah, like I sure, yeah, go ahead. And sometimes I feel back, because I think the reporter or even a team ever might think I'm being ribbed, but I literally don't remember it. Like when you're in the zone, I feel like that piece of your brain just goes away and you are just, you know, clawing for every bit of RAM that your brain has to be able to stay focused.

Raising kids can be one of the greatest rewards of a parent's life. But come on, someday parenting is unbearable. I love my kid, but is a new parenting podcast from Wondry that shares a refreshingly honest and insightful take on parenting. Hosted by myself, Megan Galey, Chris Garcia, and Kurt Brown-Oller, we will be your resident not-so-expert experts. Each week we'll share a parenting story

that'll have you laughing, nodding, and thinking, oh yeah, I have absolutely been there. We'll talk about what went right and wrong. What would we do differently? And the next time you step on yet another stray Lego in the middle of the night, you'll feel less alone. So if you like to laugh with us as we talk about the hardest job in the world, listen to, I love my kid, but wherever you get your podcasts. you can listen ad free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app.

Yeah, I think doge bear said it's impossible to think and hit at the same time. I don't think I don't think it and I've obviously anyone that drives, you know, when you're learning to drive, you're like, I got to check it, you know, but as you do it more, this becomes second nature. And if you actually were conscious of all the things that you were supposed to be doing, you'd probably be a terrible driver. I mean, anyone. So you have to get to a place where you turn off the mind, but you ironically, you say turn it off, but you're really turning it on because you're like, you're letting it do what it was trained to do, and you're not getting in the way. Well, yes, just keep in mind that I work in a sport

where, you know, reaction timing is critical. Yeah. It's basically everything. And if you're thinking about something related or unrelated, it's like you're stealing from that part of your brain. Yes. And effectively, why you do things like film review is so that your reactions are immediate.

Like you recognize things happening really, you know, subconsciously before you recognize them in a conscious state. Now ultimately, you come back and you recognize them in a conscious state. And ultimately, you also want to find yourself in a spot to where you're making conscious recognition of things that you didn't, you know, perhaps come into the event prepared for. So you want to make space for that, but they're always in contrast, depression with each other. And it makes, it's one of the challenges of the job.

And that's why I said earlier that, you know, on a perfect day, the task is not that difficult, because on a perfect day, everything went to plan. Right. And so you don't have this tug-of-war between the reaction time, subconscious part of your brain, and the conscious part of your brain saying, oh, I need to pick up on this because later in the race, I might need that. How do you practice what you do? Like I get how a football team practices, I get how a musician practices scales.

Like how do you actually do, and I get even watching film, but do you run scrimmages? Like how do you practice what you do? Well, on the physical side, I think you're fairly fit guy and I think you know a lot of different practices You've probably heard of high intensity training. Of course That you know the concept is for your body you do real quick ramp-ups Slow down a little not a lot ramp back up, you know, it's just basically In the heart rate LV Yep, basically interval training without you know a little train. It's a little train. It's a little train. Basically, it's an interval training without a large drop.

And there's incredible science behind that, right? That shows time and time again that, hey, maybe running marathons is not the healthiest thing for you. You can accomplish the same thing with a high intensity train. I feel very much the same way with the brain. That marathons are probably not the healthiest thing for your brain. And when I say marathon, I don't mean literal marathon. I mean mental marathons. Sure. And I've had the most success mentally training effectively in HIT way. High intensity

training for the brain, which would be, all right, pick a cognitive function and there's all kinds of them. They're not hard to find. That is really intense, that is in short bursts with very small intervals of rest in between. And that to me has shown the best training. Like what's an example? So how does that work? So example, there's a lot of brain training, games, apps, etc. That are exactly that.

And I've had the most success with that require you to use multiple parts of your brain at the same time, whether it be recognition or whether it be subconscious movements at the same time. And you want those to be at the same time, at least in my experience, that's what I've had the most success. And what are those two pieces of your brain are fighting against each other, right? I need memory for recognition. No, no, no, no, I need, I need RAM for,

hey, I need to do this repetitive movement. That's very reaction time-based. And what about racing itself? Is it in a simulator? Is it on the track? Where is it just like the race is enough and you don't practice the race itself? Yeah, you know, there's a lot of different ways

you can practice the race. Ultimately, most of the simulators today are like 98% accurate at best and winning and losing really falls in at last two. Sure. And so I've really shied away from them quite heavily because I would build considerably bad habits. Right.

I found more success over film review of actual events and over practice, things of that, on the real racetrack. And I gotta imagine though, just the experience, there's probably nothing that trains like the races themselves. Because a lot of problems with the simulators is you have no fear. Because, and this has always been a huge issue

with simulations and the motorsports world is, fear is a huge inhibitor. And it takes again, a lot of cognitive function away from me. And when you remove that, you find yourself making risk your moves, which aren't realistic. And you find yourself with more bandwidth to operate, which again is realistic. Have you seen the movie Sully about landing the plane on the Hudson? Oh, yes, Sully. So yes. Yeah, yes, so yes.

Yeah, I think that's why I'm there. Yeah, I think that's why my my southerness is coming out. It's called I think it's called solely the Clint Eastwood movie. But where they're trying your point about fear is an interesting one

that I wouldn't thought of, but he's saying, you know, like you knew what the two outcomes would be, or you knew what the outcome was. So you were able to simulate it. But if you don't know that the tricky part is the not knowing. And you're making split second decisions based on limited information, that's the hard part. I think in the movie, they said that he had 30 seconds roughly to decide to go back

to the airport. And he would have made it. Yeah. And his argument against that was, I needed all 30 of those seconds just to recognize what was going on, right? So you're back to that same thing. Like his brain was pulling effectively, rammed. Yeah. And there wasn't enough to digest all of this within 30 seconds.

Like the processing time was longer than the 30 seconds I had to make that decision. Right, yeah, no, that's fascinating. The idea that the fear is not there so the stakes are not high enough is really interesting. Like, and it's probably like a comedian. Like ostensibly a comedian could practice in front of the mirror.

A comedian could talk on the phone, could do it over Zoom, but you actually need the razor's edge of the audience could turn on you at any moment to get the real performance out of yourself. Yeah, you turn those lights on, it's a different world, right? Yes. Yeah, man, that's fascinating. So, talk to me, obviously, as a physical and a mental sport. And so, and all sports are along this trajectory, but but racing seems a little different. But so, you have,

you have youth, you know, you're in peak physical condition and then you're declining, but your cognitive ability and your mastery of the profession, they're intersecting. So, how do you see yourself on that trajectory? I've got to imagine you're getting older, you've done this a long time, but you're accumulating hours of experience and mastery of the profession at the same time. So how do you feel in the car? Yeah, that's a really interesting and it's something that I work on and think about almost every day. So there's a lot of studies on race car drivers about when their peak is

and sports in general have different peaks, right? Right. Where there's an intersection, just like you said, you know, you look at someone like Tom Bray, that's part of what makes him so impressive. She's way past the precedent. The physical is declined, but the other has increased. His mental has continued to increase, right? But he's been able to keep enough physical prowess to where he's really just latching on to all of his cognitive ability experience, making the most of it, but having the physical skill set to still do it, right? Right. Which is super impressive. Like, wow, amazing impressive. and making the most of it, but having the physical skill set to still do it, right? Right. Which is super impressive.

Like, wow, amazing impressive. I think I saw something at the end of next season assuming he plays next year, he'll be the oldest NFL quarterback to ever start a game. Right. Which would be, again, incredible. But where I was going with this, is racing research is shown consistently that age 39 is like peak intersection. Right.

And there's some really great studies on that. Now there are a few people that broke the mold. So there's this drier Mark Martin who competed into his 50s and was still competitive, almost won a championship. And he kind of like, right, if there's a data set, he's an outlier. Yeah, right. On that side. And then there's people everywhere in between. But generally speaking, 39 is like the peak spot. Now there are race car drivers that have come in at 18, 19 years old and had success. You know, the youngest race winner in the history of sport, I think, is somewhere

around 20 years old. But no doubt they have a hard time being successful on a continuous and routine basis. And generally that doesn't seem to happen until your late 20s, early 30s. I think even though statistically there's knowledge that late 30s is your prime, I think most car owners look for race car drivers that have a fair amount of experience by their late 20s as being right when you want to latch on. Well, I think you go to Tom Brady. It's his mastery of the game and his, and this is a physical thing we don't talk about

enough, but he's also managed to preserve and protect his body. So like the discipline, I'm thinking about this for my book about how are you disciplined about your discipline, right? So, you know, Greg Popovich famously popularized the idea of load management in the NBA, like knowing that if we're going to be the same team that goes deep in the playoffs every year, we got to be able to manage the load on these guys, or there's going to wear out. I think what's part to me, part of the reason that Tom Brady is, he's tough enough that he's able to get rid of the football before he takes hits, right?

Which some quarterbacks might think that's a lack of toughness, but he's running more of a marathon as opposed to a five-year career sprint. So the ability to be like, I'm gonna reduce the wear and tear on my body, on my mind, on my team, to be able to go the distance. That requires a different layer of discipline. Absolutely. I look at Tom Brady,

and I'm spending a lot of time actually studying him, and what makes him successful, and what actually stands out to me is being so interesting about him is he's known as kind of a dink and dunk quarterback. Right. Where he'll throw quick short passes

and beat you with it with a three yard pass that ends up being seven or eight that is super accurate and hard to defend until the defense starts to kind of effectively lay up to guard against it. And then he'll buy time in the pocket because of the defense you've called. And then he'll throw over top of you. And it's a really interesting concept that, you know, I think he deserves a lot of respect for where you see other quarterbacks that are just, hey, I'm going to physically outman you. I'm going to, you know, throw the ball deep. And, you know, if that doesn't look hey, I'm going to physically outman you. I'm going to, you know, throw the ball deep.

And, you know, if that doesn't look right, I'm going to scramble and take a big hit and get up, but my career is going to be sure. Right. And they're never able to take advantage of the cognitive gains that they should be making with reps because they physically deteriorate too fast. Is this thing all? Check one, two, one, two. Hey, y'all. I'm Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress, a singer, Too fast. and started and there's so much I still want to do. So I decided I want to be a podcast host. I'm proud to introduce you to the baby Mrs. Kiki Palmer podcast. I'm putting my friends, family, and some of the dopest experts in the hot seat to ask them the questions that have been burning in my mind.

What will former child stars be if they weren't actors? What happened to sitcoms? It's only fans, only bad. I want to know, so I asked my mom about it. These are the questions that keep me up at night. But I'm taking these questions out of my head and I'm bringing them to you. Because on Baby This Is Kiki Palmer,

no topic is off limits. Follow Baby This Is Kiki Palmer, whatever you get your podcast. Hey, prime members, you can listen early and app free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. You look at how many injuries are caused

in all different sports by overtraining. I forget what the Olympic swimmer who was suffering from overtraining syndrome. I think that's a thing that, especially with the pandemic and remote work, I think other people are gonna have to start realizing is like, if you don't have balance and you don't have the discipline to say like,

I'm calling it a day, I'm stopping. You're going to burn out. Absolutely. So, you know, one of those sports that I really love to play, not that I'm good at it Ryan, but I love to play his tennis. Yeah, I love point tennis. There's not a lot of fear in tennis, but that said, there's a lot of hand-eye coordination. It's outside. Some people I'd be afraid to play tennis against. Yeah, it's okay fair enough. I don't play against those people, right? But you probably get the point.

I just love playing tennis. Sure. I'm not particularly great at it. I'm not trying to be great at it. I get a great workout. I love the hand-eye coordination. It's perfect for what I do. But I'll play it twice a month.

And every once in a while back to this one, I will have this like, oh, I really love playing tennis. Let's play, you know, every week, you know, for two days a week. And then of course, like I start to feel fatigued, right? I get in the car and my feet are a little bit sore or,

you know, you start to, you know, your wrist and knees or elbows, whatever it might be, like you get fatigued, right? All right. So even though this was a great work out physically and mentally, it's time out. So even though this was a great workout, physically and mentally, timeout, it's not feeding the ultimate purpose, which is to be the best race car driver I can be. So then you kind of have to walk away from it, which is a total bummer, right? But that takes discipline.

To quiz. It can take discipline. It takes discipline to recognize what was the end goal here? point to recognize what was the end goal here? Then goal was to be the best race car driver possible. And this, if, when it begins to do a disservice rather than a service to it, you have to wipe out any of the dopamine rusher, you know, what do you want to call it? The enjoyment you get out of that exercise and remember the main goal. Have you read the inner game of tennis? No, I haven't. Okay, so one you have to read it if you like tennis, but I believe it's Tom Brady's favorite book. So yes, and it's exactly what we're talking about. He says you basically can't think and play tennis at the same time. You have to get to a subconscious level. It's a fascinating book. I think you would really like it. Thank you for

the recommendation. I'll put it on my list now. Well, I was going to ask you about reading because that's how we got connected. You're clearly a big reader. Is that another thing you do as far as training the mind? Or is it more training your sort of like what do you what role does reading play in being the best race car driver in the world? The number one reason why I read is to be a better leader. Okay. Hands down. Now, there is some things that I read that help me in the car. Most of it is for out of the car. Now, that said, I might find some book tomorrow that

has all these tricks and tips. But a large part of what my role is, as a race car driver, is out of the car. And people don't see that, and I can respect that they don't understand it. But I have a team of people that, kind of riding a rollercoaster of emotions. Let me back up a little bit, Ron. In motorsports, you are a hall famer

if you win one out of every 10 races. Like it's one of the lowest averages in all sports. Everybody talks about baseball, 300, Hall of Famer. Motorsports, like 100, is Hallfamer. It's super difficult to win a race. It's a lot of competition. You're competing against 40 guys every week. It's only one winner. 10% is amazing phenomenon. Okay. That means you have way more bad weeks than weeks. Even if you're a Hallfamer, nine out of 10 weeks, you did not win. Yeah.

And so you have this team around you of people who are, they're going to feed off that energy. And that energy is always going to be the same of, we've got to improve. We've got to improve. What are we learning this week? How are we going to apply the lessons right? And it's this really tight feedback loop because it's weekly. We compete 35, 36 weeks a year. So you have 36 weeks a year of PDCA, plan due, check act.

Plan the next race, do the race, come back and check on it. How did it go? All right, now we gotta act on it. These are all the things that weren't wrong that we have to patch up to be better. Well, basically in that is an acknowledgement that we failed. And we didn't meet all of our goals. So mentally, this is really tough on a team, right? You're always failing. Even races you

win, you're like, all right, we might have done 99.9% of everything right, but we failed here. Sure. We got to fix it. We got to fix it. That might cost us next week, right? So, that can be really demoralizing on a team to always have area to improve. And I think you asked me where I read and I'm finally circling this back to it. One of the things that's been a lot of timeline is trying to find ways to effectively lead a team to constantly be addressing its weaknesses without falling apart mentally and without taking it the wrong way.

How do I convey that message? How do I build systems that naturally convey that message in a positive way? And so I think that's a lot of the studying and reading that really I dig into and look for. What have been some of the books that have hit you the most? There's one I really love right now, and I don't know if you've read it. It's called Debrief to Win. No. I'm writing this down. So Debrief to Win is a book wrote by a F-16

fighter pilot. And you know aviation, specifically military aviation, defense aviation, is its own animal altogether. Sure. But what I love about studying the military is they have the ultimate consequence. Right. Sly for that. Mess up and you die. Yeah. And out of that comes this accountability, because nobody wants to die, right? If you want to die, you probably don't make it into the role of an F-16 fighter pilot.

There's enough pre-screening in there. So with respect to that, nobody wants to die, and with they get close to dying, and they live through it, they come back and they fix it. High level of accountability, right? And that's not just an F-16 fighter pilot anywhere in the military where you're in combat, right? And so they've created all these different systems of, again, like debrief to win really documents of, how do we learn from our mistakes, apply them in a format that has, it's very transient, right?

Fighter pilots come and they go. You hope the reason they come and they go is because their time ends, but they're retiring. They're retiring, yes, but not always, right? And there's hard lessons. What do you do when someone passes away in an accident? And now you've lost entire morale of the team, confidence, et cetera, right? They've lived these experiences for almost 100 years

and have really iterated the process of how to work through that. And debrief to win is a great illustration of that. The consequences are admittedly slightly higher than motorsports, but that's good. I want to learn from someone who has a format that's better than me. I don't want to play down. I want to play up.

Okay. So it's probably one of my favorite books of all time. Have you read, I use it as a source in ego-as-anemy, but given your interest in military jets and then also leadership, have you read Boyd, the fighter pilot who changed the art of war? No, but I'd love to. Okay. So right at my eye. Have you read Boyd, the fighter pilot who changed the art of war? No, but I'd love to. Okay, so right at my eye.

He's one of the great fighter pilots of all time. He fights in Korea. He was called 42nd Boyd, because you could basically take anyone down in 42nds. But he then becomes a fighter instructor at Nellis. But then he goes into the Pentagon where he becomes sort of a bureaucratic fighter. So as John, how do you get stuff out of a broken, flawed, you know, complicated slow ass system? And he basically, he's the, he is the inventor of the F-15 and the F-16. He rams them through the F-16, he rams them through, you're practically. So he was this sort of reformer and sort of whistleblower is

fascinating person, but I think one of the great leadership books of all time that you would really, really enjoy. I'm glad we're recording. I can watch this. I'll follow up. I'll follow up. Yes.

Do you watch Phil? Well, now I have to ask you because I can't do it. Can you, do you watch film of your own appearances? Like, now I have to ask you because I can't do it. Can you do you watch film of your own appearances? Like all the time. Okay, so you even you even evaluate yourself that way. Oh, yes all the time. Wow. It's I think it's critical You know one of the things that makes racing interesting somebody brought up to me actually just this morning And most sports you have a coach sure There's no coach as a driver. I don't know why,

but the sport iterated away from it. Maybe it's egos, I don't know. There are a few people who have like trainers, yeah, I should say most drivers have trainers, most professional drivers have trainers, but very few coaches. And I think one of the issues or reasons behind that is like if unless you live it as a driver kind of like you don't have a lot of credibility. Yeah. And coaching is not really a super glamorous job for those that have raised in the past. So there's usually not a lot of successful motorsports coaches. So you're really motorcycle, motor sports coaches. So you're really reliant most times on your own ability to teach yourself. Interesting. And the best way that I've found to do that is watching film over and over again. I meant, I meant do you watch like interviews

you do to see where you do, do you watch all kinds of things if you do to Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So media stuff. Yes, that's it. Wow. Yes. Okay. Oh yeah, it's too uncomfortable. It is Okay. Oh, yeah. It's too uncomfortable. It is. It's super uncomfortable. It's super uncomfortable. So I'll watch it with my wife. And I'll be like, I'll consume the majority of my media on my phone. Yeah. And I'll like in the middle of it kind of put my phone to the side and just go into listen only mode to be less uncomfortable. But there's something in the human brain that hates hearing itself. Yes. Well, you said, someone told me this about an audio book that because of how your head works, you hear your voice differently when it's coming out of your own mouth and when it's recorded.

Has something to do with the base of your voice that your brain recognizes versus what's recorded? To go to this idea of a coach and a team sport, I think people loosely understand that what you do is a team sport. But a basketball is a team sport with four other people who do what you do. It'd be like, I don't know if a golfer was also responsible for overseeing the manufacturing of their clubs and the design of the golf. You're basically like the athlete and then the CEO of this organization of people who do integral parts. Their job is integral to you doing your job, but it's not at all the same as your job. You know mechanics and you know all that that must be a

weird kind of leadership where nobody is really on the same page as far as what their task in the larger task is. Yeah, I think there's, I got to that position, Ryan, because that's how I was successful. I've never considered myself to be the most talented race car driver. I've had moments where I like, man, that was awesome. I'm really proud of myself. But I've never sat back and said, oh, I'm the most talented race car driver ever. So through the course of my career where I started to find success came through being a good race car driver who had great leadership abilities. race car driver who had great leadership abilities. And that meant being able to iterate, being able to recognize patterns

and then effectively play ahead. Now, in a perfect system, I wouldn't have to do that. In a perfect system, there would be all these people around me that did that and everything clicked and was miraculous, et cetera, et cetera. That's a lot easier said than done because recognizing, again, the tools that are limited for the team to work with with respect to recognition patterns, onboard telemetry, effectively, They don't have a lot of tools to analyze and they make a lot of great decisions and you can make a lot of great decisions with good info. But when you don't have the complete information, you're bound to make some bad ones too.

So your point about racing, when everything is going well, a kid can do it. The problem is things are rarely going well, not just weather, but people have personal issues. And ego is coming, like when you're dealing with a large amount of people doing a complicated task, there's an infinite amount of complication. And leadership is about trying to get the most out of the imperfect set of variables that you can at any one moment.

You go into being a leader, those who've never led before, at least this is my experience and the people around me that I've appointed in leadership positions over the years. You go into being a leader, thinking it's about making decisions, don't get me wrong, but you think it's decisions like, oh, this is what we're gonna work on today. Once you really become a leader, you learn that it's not.

Yeah, it's a lot of times just that, but it's mostly not that. It's mostly you your managing fires. You know, what am I gonna do in this situation? Well, this was completely unforeseen and I now have to build an action plan around it and I gave somebody an example just last night of, you know, if someone I was interviewing

for a leadership position and, you know, they asked me about it, you know, what their roles in response was, said, you know, be ready to make, you know, day-to-day decisions that are what you know they asked me about it you know what their roles in response was said you know be ready to make you know day-to-day decisions that are what you think they are but be ready to make day-to-day decisions that aren't much you think they should be sure be ready to make a day-to-day decision of so and so employee direct report it's gonna be out for the next few weeks and the reason just doesn't sound right and I'm gonna have to question them on it.

It's gonna be uncomfortable. And I might get an answer that makes sense, but I probably won't. And then I'm gonna be left in that area where I have to make a decision on this guy's future. And when I'm making that decision on this, then I should say guy, man or woman's future, I'm gonna go back to a memory that I might have

where I spent time with their family. That's going to cloud my judgment. I'm going to go back to, if I make this decision, which is say I don't make a decision here, I just let this play out. What message am I sending to the rest of the team? There's consequence to action, but there's consequence to inaction too. I only have to weigh all these things and make a really tough decision that no matter what I do, someone will have a valid criticism up. Did I just fire this guy who is out with

maybe a reason that's borderline legit, but doesn't quite feel right? But if I don't make the move, legit but doesn't quite feel right. But if I don't make the move, you know, four of his other, you know, you know, contemporaries are going to look at me and say, Hey, I'm pulling the rope and pulling my weight and he's not. These are the decisions that leaders have to make that are just incredibly uncomfortable. And I think most people win their not in a leadership position and strive to be in one, don't think about. They don't recognize as part of the role. And I think those are the challenges that are faced that don't get much easier over time. They hopefully become a little more automated with precedents and practices that are successful, but are clearly maybe underrated.

No, making hard decisions is a skill that it's difficult to prepare for. I was actually something I was going to ask you, because I was talking to Danica Patrick before I interviewed you, I asked her what I should ask you. And she said, and she said, you're not allowed to bullshit me on this one with the answer that all athletes give. But you recently are, you made her in the process of making the decision, you're going to race for another team, right? Where you're going to be an owner.

And that's going to be not an easy journey, right? What made you at this point in your career decide to make that switch? What is, what's the thing that's motivating you or gets you excited about doing that? Well, I recognize right off the bat it wasn't a singular factor. It was a multitude of factors that quite honestly felt like a calling. You know, when you have one thing that stands out at you, for me, it's really easy to kind of push aside it, maybe it's a distraction. But when you have like five or six things come at you

all pulling in one direction. It's a sign. It feels like divine intervention to me. And I'm a Christian and I believe in God, and I believe that God calls people to do things. It's part of my faith. And, you know, I don't pray at night and say, God, you know, show me the person and the yellow t-shirt

at 2.15 p.m. and I'll know you're talking to me, right? Like, I'm not that person, right? It's tempting to be that person, but I'm not that person. But I do think that God talks to people in different ways. And, you know, with this particular change in my life and quick summary, I've competed for Roger Penske, Team Penske for about 11 years now. He's, you know, this historic motorsports figure

who's done so much in motorsports and outside of motorsports You know that a lot of people know him not just domestically here in the United States but globally for a brand of success and excellence I could have stayed working for him and ran out my career Without a doubt and it would have been very good. I Looked at and said, all right, I had this other opportunity with John Henry, very famous for his businesses

and owns a Liverpool franchise out in the UK and owns a Boston Red Sox, you know, very successful man, combined with Jack Roush, who's successful Motorsports pioneer. Both of them came to me with this unique opportunity. And on its face, it's like, you know, not that interesting. And then some other things started to come along. All right.

NASCAR decided they're going to change some of the rules, change the cars. Oh, okay. That means the opportunity is here to leave a mark with two professionals, but also to do it with a new card and a new challenge. That's gonna change dynamics, all right. I got so two things that are very good, all right.

Then the third piece came up where they said, well, hey, not only will we let you want you to compete for us as a driver, we'd be interested in you having a role as a leader. Oh, so now I have an opportunity to grow as a leader. All right. And here's a leadership position that's formalized within the company. Okay, that's exciting. Oh, and by the way, we'll give you an equity stake. Oh, wow. So now we're up to like four things. Right. Right. And then there were some other pieces that happened,

and I know Dancus said, I can't bullshit it, but the timing's not right for me to fully disclose it. There were some other pieces that happened behind the scenes with some contract negotiations that I was having with Penske at the time. And I was like, you know, I just feel like all these pieces are, are God telling me that I need to take this opportunity. And if I don't, I really feel like I'm missing out. And when I look, people ask me no time, what drives you? And it's a really simple answer that I think is very complex. What drives me Ryan is to live up to the potential

that I feel like I've been given. So there's a lot of talk in this world that we live in today about equality, about equity. The reality is, and you find this out very quickly when you have kids that we're all different. Yeah. Right. We really are. And with that comes different potentials.

I don't have, I was like, when I was a kid, Michael Jordan was in his heyday. I wanted to dunk a basketball so bad. I'm going to tell you, I never got close. I'm not even like within a foot of the rim. And I practiced in the backyard, I practiced on. I'm never gonna get there. That was not the potential given to me from God. Sure. But God didn't give me a lot of potential

to be a leader, God gave me potential to be a race car driver. And I felt like my situation at hand where I was at Team Penske didn't give me an opportunity to fully recognize that potential. I had the opportunity to recognize a lot of it, but not like all the way. Sure. What's difficult is I'm making assumptions on what my potential is. Sure.

And I'm saying, hey, look, I feel like I was at 80% of my potential. I feel like I owe it to God for this blessing I have to live my life and this day and age to try to find 100% of my potential. And if I take this opportunity and I fail because it was above my potential, then I know. I know where my line was. And now that line moves, right? As we get older, some of that potential changes,

we just talked about it. Your physical potential goes down as you get older. Your mental potential goes up. I feel like my mental potential has increased at a rate further than what my physical potential has decreased. Sure. And so that has set this, you know, more in the middle of the Olympics, but this is set this bar, right?

This high jump bar. Yeah. That has elevated and put me in a spot where a new opportunity was seemingly reasonable that I should pursue. And that was a lot of word-suit. But rationale-wise, basically what I said to you is, I want to feel like I'm at 100% of the potential that God gave me, and that I'm striving for that.

And, you know, my spiritual beliefs strive a lot of that, because I believe that as part of our calling is to continuously grow as people in all aspects, physically, mentally, spiritually, professionally, personally, you name it. You should always be trying to grow. And I think, you know, the easiest reconization of that is when you have kids and you see them grow. And with this comes this, and it's very common, I think, in Western society, this belief that, all right, I'm gonna go to college

and when I get out of college, that's it. Education's done. Give me a job. And this is a trap that I think so many people fall into. This idea that your education ends the second you leave, whatever it is, high school, college, you know, a master's degree, a bachelor's degree, whatever it is. Like you set this bar where you're like, my growth, this is my growth bar. I don't believe that. I believe the growth bar should always be,

should be moving and that that's your sets of potential line. They should be trying to fulfill with the things you do. So, in short, you went towards the challenge. You went towards the challenge. Yes, absolutely. Head on, head on. And with the belief that if I didn't, quite frankly, I wouldn't be living up to God's word and his provisions to me.

Yeah, and I think sometimes it's easy for people to associate success with external results. It's like, hey, you won this, you got this, you're paid this, which is all nice. But I think you find that the great athletes, the great writers, the great leaders, they're motivated by what you said, which is, am I fulfilling my potential or am I stopping short? And sometimes that, sometimes the decisions you have to make to get to that next level, they're painful and difficult and they require leaving some things behind. And they can be poorly understood and they can end in the bismophailure also, but you got to, you can't not do it. I'm worth, you know what? I'm willing to accept the risk. The risk I can't accept is not trying.

Yeah. That is what I can't accept. And I look at that all the time and say, and you know, there's action in it too. Don't get me wrong. I mean, I get it dopamine rush like anybody else. Yeah, I'm not going to hide from that. I love it. I love what I do. And I love competing. I love the opportunity. I love the challenge. You know, we're not in my house. I'm in my shop right now. You can see I've got a few nicknacks behind me. Oftentimes when people do come to my house, the first thing they see is I don't have any trophies in my house. I keep no trophies in my house.

When I first met my wife, she was shocked by that. She's like, well, we're trophies. Whereas you're awarded, like, no, I don't keep this stuff at my house. And it's super intentional. Where do you keep them? I keep all of them in my work area. A lot of them, I built a small museum and it's not open to the public. And it is literally just for people to stop bugging me about. Because for a long time, I had him all locked in a basement in my work. Because I'm very anti-trophy. Not in a sense I don't appreciate trophies.

No, I think trophies are cool as hell. Yeah. But what they meant to me and what they mean to me is like this manifestation of there's a bar I hit it, stop. Sure. And I hate that feeling. Like, I've grown to almost despise my own trophies in the sense that looking at them creates this feeling

of content. And I hate that feeling of content. I love that. That's fascinating. So here's a question. Speaking of trophies and success and fulfilling your potential, at any time I have someone who's like, truly great at what they do.

And not just great, like I'm a fan, but like objectively world class at what they do. Like I had Manu Janoblion, I had Dominic Dozzon, I had Malcolm Gladwell on. I like to ask, is it possible to be the best in the world at what you do and be a well-adjusted person, right? Like, is it possible to,

because in a sense, this is, I've said this before, this is what so impresses me about Manu. So here's a guy with four rings Because in a sense, this is, I've said this before, this is what so impresses me about menu. Here's a guy with four rings and he doesn't seem like it came at the expense of being a balanced, well-adjusted person, right? And I think that's, can you hear me? Or do we break up? Yeah.

I got it. All right. So you get the question. So how do you think about that being driven and dominant and having kids in a spouse in a spiritual life? Well, I think what I hear you saying, first of all, Ryan is work to life balance. Yeah. That's what I hear you saying.

You're like, how do you maintain work to life balance? Well, still trying to be an absolute top of your game. Yes. And the answer is you don't, in my mind, you fail and you come back and you try again. And now, we talk about failure a lot, especially in the sports world, with what you see in that arena.

In the competition. But very rarely does it get talked about in personal life, you know, about a month ago, my daughter had her first dance recital. And I can't remember what time it was, it was like noon on a Tuesday, right? And I had a conference call, it was a really important conference call.

I started like 11 a.m. And I'm like, all right, I'm gonna a conference call. It was a really important conference call. I started at like 11 a.m. And I'm like, all right, I'm gonna do this call. I'm gonna just put it on my car speaker. And, you know, I'm gonna drive to her recital. And, you know, the call should end like 10 minutes before. Like I got this, I got this, I got this. Sure enough, I got in the car and it was time for the recital

and we were like, the we need to cover this, this, this, this, we're right and I'm in like an important topic and I just, my ability to process time was lost. Yeah. Sure enough, it got done. I looked down, I at sitting in the parking lot

at my daughter's dancer's side. And I get out of my car just as she walks out of her side. I like holy cow. And my wife was after a cycle. She walks out and like I get that look. Yeah, yeah. You know, you know, that look like. Oh, yeah, I messed up big right, but we don't talk about those right sure Like you know, we don't talk about this this tension between the two You know if I failed on the racetrack. I would be in the news and being the reports that But you fail personally like it's a lot of ways worse, right? Sure and then my daughter the rest of night like that that why are we just sitting in the parking lot? Why didn't you come on the recital and you're like,

you know what I mean? Sure, I know exactly. Could this get any more difficult? So what I'm trying to say is I fail. Yeah. I fail all the time. I fail personally, I fail professionally. And I hate it.

I don't accept it in the sense of not trying to be better. I accept it in the sense of, I think it comes with trying to be the best at anything that you're going, in order to be the best at something, you're going to make sacrifices somewhere else. And they're going to hurt. Yeah, when it's precisely the skills we were talking about earlier, the ability to lock in, the ability to endure, the ability to be singly focused.

Those are precisely the things that work against you in the other part of your life. So you have to develop the ability, we talked about turning things down, just as you developed the ability to turn the noise down, you have to be able to turn down your own obsessions, so you can actually be on the couch when you're sitting on the couch, you know, not working. Yes. But you know, the most powerful word in the entire English dictionary is one of the shortest and simplest, no. Yes. You know, there's a couple of pieces posted on Steve Jobs, where he was really adamant about people saying no, especially managers.

The power of no. No, the features, no, whatever. Yeah. Yep. Don't be afraid to say no. And am I perfect of that? Absolutely not. But it's one of the first things I'll tell people that I work

around, like, how capable are you at saying no? Not just to me, like, everybody. Like, there are times when you need to say no. Like, if you are wanting to be good at this job, you need to be able to say, you know what, this is not a good fit for me today. And I don't know if this really adds the most value. I'm gonna focus on my core competencies.

And that I think extends beyond the professional world but makes this way into the personal world as well. That's a lovely place to end because I asked for an hour and it's been exactly an hour and I won't take any more of your time. Thank you, Ryan. I could probably do this for three. Well, let's do that. I appreciate it.

Let's do it in person. Sometimes next time you're at the F1 track, it's not far from my ranch here in Texas. We'll all see you there. Good to know. I'll be there, I think next spring. All right. By the looks of it, we'll be sooner rather than later.

Yeah. With all the Delta variants and so forth, but I would love to meet you in person and spend some time with you. Let's put it together. Done. And I'll send you all follow up with these book recommendations. Please do.

All right, man. Talk soon. I'm appreciated. All right, this these book recommendations. Please do. Thank you, man. Talk soon. I'm very much appreciated. All right, this was an honor. Appreciate it. Likewise, thank you. Thanks so much for listening. If you could leave a review for the podcast, we'd really appreciate it.

The reviews make a difference, and of course, every nice review from a nice person helps balance out. The crazy people who get triggered and angry anytime we say something they disagree with. So if you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it and I'll see you next episode. Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic early and ad-free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts.