The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 403: Rich Diviney - The Hidden Drivers Of Optimal Performance (The Attributes)

Episode Date: January 25, 2021

Text LEARNERS to 44222 for more... Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com Twitter/IG: @RyanHawk12 Rich Diviney Rich Diviney draws upon 20+ years of experience as a Navy SEAL Officer – with 11 deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. He was the Commanding Officer of a Navy SEAL Command. Rich is is the author of The Attributes - 25 Hidden Drivers of Optimal Performance. Notes: The process to select Navy SEALs: Rich created a program to effectively articulate why someone made it through SEAL training. "It's not about training to be a Navy SEAL, it's about proving if you can be one." "Skills are not inherent to our nature. They are learned." Attributes are wired into our internal circuitry, always running in the background, dictating how we behave and react and perform. Attributes should not be confused with personality traits. A personality is built from patterns of behavior that emerge over an extended period of time. It's an outward expression of all the things that make you you - your skills, habits, emotions, perspectives, and attributes all blended together. What is optimal performance? "It's not a peak. It's doing the best you can, with what you have, in the moment." What are some of the surprising attributes that helped or didn't? Drive - Some of the most driven people weren't necessarily cut out to be a SEAL The difference between Self-Discipline and Discipline: Self-discipline is about controlling those things that the outside world has no say in. Discipline is the ability to move through the challenges of the world. Narcissism - Some of the benefits of it? From Rich: "Why did I want to be a Navy SEAL? I wanted to see if I could be a badass. I desired to standout and be admired. That's a little narcissism." "However, extreme narcissism is awful. Excessive narcissists are rarely loyal-- loyalty requires trust and a sense of safety-- so their tribes are inherently unstable: Healthy members tend not to stay long, and new ones are let in only when they show the requisite deference. Those who do leave usually suffer a disproportionate amount of wrath from the person to whom they once deferred-- because defectors are considered enemies. The energy and effort of the highly narcissistic person will be used to prop up their fragile egos rather than to achieve shared objectives or serve a common purpose." Did he ever think about quitting during Hell week? "The training trains you to compartmentalize. You can't ever entertain that thought. You have to chunk things down to the moment. You're running around and saying, 'this sucks!' But you have to focus on just getting to the next berm. And then the next one. Think, 'what can I control right now?' And focus on your three foot world." The highest performing people ask better questions: Think: "What's the better question to ask right now?" "What can I control right now?" Introspection is vital. Why aren't we better at being introspective? "Because we escape too much." We have devices to ensure we're never bored. Never lost in thought. On long car rides, children never have to look out the window anymore to pass the time. They have a device or a screen to watch. You need to allow your brain space... Need to spend more time in our heads. "Knowledge is not power. Applied knowledge is power." Be decisive. Take action. "Decisions are final, but not permanent." Be adaptable like a frog. Frogs have survived five extinction level events. "If you don't adapt you will become a dinosaur." Rich has narrowed it down to 5 segments of attributes. They are: Grit, Mental Acuity, Drive, Leadership, and Teamability. Grit - Beware of the fearless leader (Courage), Fall 7 times get up 8 (Perseverance), Be Like the frog (Adaptability), The Benefits of Little Tragedies (Resilience) Mental Acuity -- The art of Vigilance (Situational Awareness), Wired for Efficiency (Compartmentalization), The Multitasking Myth (Task Switching), Forged in Plastic (Learnability) Drive -- Mastering the Pivot (Self-Efficacy), The Self-Disciplined Loser (Discipline), A Fish Is the Last to Discover Water (Open-Mindedness), The Princess and the Dragon (Cunning), It's All about Me (Narcissism) Leadership -- No One Cares How You Feel (Empathy), If it Doesn't Hurt, You're Doing it Wrong (Selflessness), You Can't Hide You (Authenticity), Many A False Step Is Made by Standing Still (Decisiveness), Don't Be A Mediator (Accountability) Teamability -- The Subjectivity of Right and Wrong (Integrity), There's Always Something to Do (Conscientiousness), Play Black, Not Red (Humility), Honor The Class Clown (Humor)

It was hell week and it was middle of the night. I don't know what, but pitch black, we're on the beach. We're running with this boat on our head. We've been doing it for hours. And I remember saying to myself, man, this sucks. I was like, what the hell? Right. And I said to myself at that moment, I said, you know what?

Stop. Okay, just focus on the end of that berm. Right? We're running on the sand on the beach alongside of a berm there in Southern California. Focus on the end of the berm. Okay, just get there. And I just ran to there. Right?

And once I got there, I was like, okay, I've got the end of the berm. What's the next thing? You know? Okay. Maybe the next thing. or maybe that sign, right? And I remember chunking it in ways that really made it smaller bite-sized stuff and really forcing the scope of how long this could be out of my brain.

And what I realized later was the genius of that process, because when you're in combat, if you're thinking too far down the road, you're going to make mistakes. You're not going to make it through. And I'm not talking about, hey, there's certain objectives you want to reach, but especially when things get really gnarly, you have to chunk those situations into what can I control right now. This episode is brought to you by a company I have partnered with called Himalaya Learning. Himalaya Learning is an audio learning platform that provides an extensive library of courses

straight to your ears from the world's greatest minds like Malcolm Gladwell, Barbara Corker, and Tony Robbins, Tim Ferriss, Seth Godin, Linda Hill, and many more. Level up your knowledge with bite-sized, impactful lessons that help you conquer personal and professional milestones, even when you're on the go. And now, for the cool part, my course, Learning to Lead, is available now exclusively on Himalaya Learning. I've recorded 19 lessons, and they are available to you now on Himalaya Learning. Learning to help you become a more effective leader. To listen to my course and others like it, go to Himalaya.com slash lead and enter promo code lead, L-E-A-D at checkout to get your first 14 days free.

Go to himalaya.com slash lead. Welcome to the Learning Leader Show presented by Brixie and Meyer. I am your host, Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text learners to 4-4-222 in order to join tens of thousands of learning leaders from all over the world. Receive my mindful Monday updates every Monday morning 9 o'clock Eastern you will receive a carefully curated email from me with some of the most useful leadership books, articles, videos, podcast to help you become a better leader for your team. You'll also receive more details about how my book, Welcome to Management, will help you become a more effective leader.

Text learners to 4422. Now on tonight's featured leader, it's American hero Rich Devini. He draws upon 20 plus years of experience as a Navy SEAL officer, where he completed more than 13. overseas deployments, 11 of which were to Iraq and Afghanistan. Through his career, he has achieved multiple leadership positions, including the commanding officer of a Navy SEAL command. Also, the author of a great book titled The Attributes, 25 hidden drivers of Optimal Performance.

A few of the topics we discuss. His process for effectively articulating why someone would be become a great Navy seal and how you can use what he has learned to make better hiring decisions. And then how he handled the brutal training to become a seal and if he ever considered quitting. And then Rich shares how to be more introspective as a leader and ask better questions. ladies and gentlemen, it's Rich DeVinney. But yeah, in terms of long-term goals, I mean, like rock climbers, I love, I don't, I don't, I'm not a climber. I don't like heights, which you probably read about in the book, so I don't climb rocks.

But rock climbers can teach us a lot because, you know, rock climbers don't look, they have the overall goal. I need to get the top of this cliff or mountain or face or whatever. But they don't look at that the whole time and shoot for it. And they don't take leaps up that rock to go to the top. They're basically looking not hole to not hole. So they're taking small chunks out of that climb to make sure they, you know, they achieve their objective. So I think it's any goal, long-term goal, and we could probably talk about kind of the

discipline attribute a little bit later, but any long-term goal needs that level of being able to kind of break it into pieces and take small steps and get that dopamine hit, get that accomplishment to keep that momentum. So in your latest book, it's called the Attributes 25 Hidden Drive? of optimal performance. This is what it looks like. I assume the official cover will look like this too. Yes, it will.

It will. Okay. For video viewers, just hold up the copy of the book. I'm curious first. I'm going to dig into a number of these. And I'm curious to even see where we go, because I really enjoy digging into them, especially the ones that surprised me,

which we're going to hit on. But first, what was your process to come up with the 25 hidden drivers of optimal performance? Yeah, it was a long story that starts back when I was in the Navy. And having, you know, as a as a Navy SEAL, I was fortunate enough to promote and progress and be a part of several different SEAL commands. And I was at a particularly specialized SEAL command. And I was put in charge of the assessment and selection process there. And at this particular command, we actually took some, we took experienced spec operators from other commands.

and then we put them through our own assessment and selection. And even in that assessment and selection, only about 50% were making it through. And one of our issues at the time was effectively articulating why guys would make it through or not make it through. Because these guys were rock stars, all of them. All of them coming were rock stars. They were experienced seals and they were all rock stars.

And what I realized in thinking about it was that we were looking, the reason why we couldn't articulate why guys were failing is because we were trying to explain it based on their skills, right? This guy couldn't shoot very well or he couldn't, you know, do this clearance problem or whatever. And it was a, it was a metric that wasn't making sense to us because these guys were already experienced. Obviously, they were great shooters. Obviously, they were great at the technicalities of the job. And so I had to kind of go back to, you know, to, well, first of the seal history and the history of Hell Week and Bud's training.

But certainly my own seal training. seal training for your audience. I'm sure most of your audience is familiar with buds, basic underwater demolition slash seal training. But it's obviously one of the toughest training courses in the world. And kind of the coup de grace is hell week where you go five days and you only sleep for two or three hours. And up to hell week and through hell week, you do, I mean,

you spend hundreds of hours running around with heavy boats on your head. You spend hundreds of hours exercising with 300 pound telephone poles and running around with those on your shoulders. And I did too. But what I kind of thought about is like, you know, I have done in my 20-year career, have been able to do hundreds of combat missions and several hundreds, if not thousands,

of training evolutions. Never on any of those did I carry a telephone pole on my shoulder or a boat on my head. And so carrying a telephone pole on your shoulder and carrying a boat on your head in seal training is not about training to be a Navy SEAL, right? It's about seeing if you can be, if you have what it takes to be a Navy SEAL, seeing if you can do the job. And it's because that type of hardship and challenge is showing the instructors and showing the Navy the attributes,

the innate qualities that allow us to perform in uncertainty, challenge, and stress. And so really what I had to do was kind of define what skills and attributes are. And I'll do that now because it's really a foundational thesis of the book. And that is that skills are not inherent to our nature. They are learned. We don't need to ride a bike or drive a car or shoot a gun. We learn how to do those things. We train.

We can be taught those things. They direct our behavior in known environments, right? Here's how to ride a bike. Here's how and when to ride a bike. Here's how and when to drive a car. Here's how and when to shoot a gun. And as such, they're very easy to see assess and measure. And test.

Okay, this is why most businesses, and teams assess and select based on skills, and usually skills alone, because you can see how, you can see a guy or gal sales numbers. You can see how well someone is a graphic designer. You can see all that stuff. It's measurable.

The problem is it doesn't tell us how people operate in challenge, stress, and uncertainty. It doesn't really tell us that. What tells us how people operate in challenge stress and uncertainty are our attributes, our innate qualities. Attributes are innate. We're born with them.

We're all born with levels of patience, adaptability and resilience. In fact, we can see these things in small children, okay? They certainly develop over time, but we're born with these innate qualities. They inform our behavior rather than direct it, right? So a child's level of resilience, perseverance, and adaptability, for example, will inform the way that child learns how to ride a bike when they fall off that bike a dozen times, right? Because they're hidden in the backgrounds, they're hard to assess measure and see and test.

Okay, they are the most visceral during challenge stress and uncertainty because in challenge stress and uncertain and unknown environments Known skills typically don't apply. Okay, if we're trying to figure out an environment It's very difficult to apply a known skill to an unknown environment which means in challenge stress and uncertainty We're leaning on our attributes. We're leaning on our patients our adaptability or our open-mindedness our self-efficacy A great example for all of us that we can all relate to is 2020 because 2020 has been a very tough year for all of us and we can think about COVID-19 and all of us getting quarantined pretty much overnight, you know, none of us or very few of us had skills that we could apply immediately to that situation. It wasn't like we woke up in the

morning at the first morning of quarantine. It's like, okay, here's what I do. Okay, this is exactly what I do. We all were leaning on our attributes. We were leaning on these things that allowed us to figure out the environment, to step through and perform. And so we did. And so we did. did this at the command in terms of attributes. We said, okay, we're going to start looking at attributes as well as skill, but certainly attributes. We had to figure out what attributes we were looking for. We brought together kind of committees and stuff.

We kind of made a list of attributes. And once we made that list, we called away the skills because skills and attributes are easily conflated and came up with a list of 36 attributes. And we said, okay, this is what we're going to start looking for. We're not going to change the training at all. We're going to do the same stuff we were doing. But instead of just looking at their skill, we're actually see if they have the attributes we're looking for. And it changed the game for us because it really showed us a lot more.

First, it allowed us to effectively articulate why guys were failing, why guys were succeeding. Very importantly, it allowed us to start spotting the dark horses, the guys who weren't necessarily technically as technically proficient as other guys. So the guy who wasn't necessarily great shots, but had all the attributes we were looking for. And guess what? We can teach that guy how to be a great shot. We could always train skills. That's easy. But you can't train attributes, like he can train a skill. So we had to look for that stuff. So it changed the game. Fast forward to when I got out of the Navy, and I've been thinking about this for over a decade, and I'm starting to speak to businesses and teams about high performing teams and things like that. And I'd get a

consistent question about dream teams. And usually it would go something like, hey, we put together this dream team, best marketing person, best sales person, best graphic designer. And, you know, as soon as bad stuff happened, as soon as like the environment changed or things went south and sideways, the team kind of fell apart. It fell into toxicity. And what's going on? And it was almost an unconscious answer for me. I said, well, because you were looking at the wrong things. When you put together your team, you put it together based on skills. And what you needed to do was put together your team based on attributes. Because if you have the proper attributes, that will allow a team to be successful. So for the book, I basically called it down to 25 attributes.

attributes, what are the attributes that are more ubiquitous for humans and kind of drive us towards optimal performance? One more note on this, and then I'll shut up and let you ask another question, but one more note on this is what is optimal performance? This is different than peak. And that's another question I kept on getting asked is, hey, you seals are the kind of the top peak performers in the world. How can we perform at our peak? Everybody's kind of looking for this this peak performance, you know, goal. and I kept on saying we're not peak performers. You know, peak is an apex from which we can only come down. Peak has to be prepared for.

It has to be scheduled. It has to be trained for. It has to be planned. The professional football player, and you can relate to this, Ryan, I mean, the football player designs his entire week so that he may peak for three hours on Sunday. Okay. I could, if I'm giving a presentation or doing a podcast,

I'd prepare for three days so that can peak during a podcast. Okay. That's what peak performance is. So it's not necessarily, it's realistic, but it's not sustainable. What seals are, what special operators are, what most human beings are, or at least what we need to be, our optimal performance. Optimal performance is about doing the best you can with what you have in the moment, whatever the best might look like. Okay. Sometimes your best might look like peak.

It might look like flow states and everything's going great. Sometimes your best might be like, I am head down and I'm taking it every step inch by inch. and it's cold, it's dirty, it's dark, it's muddy. All I need to do is make it to the next minute, okay? This is the seal trainee in Hell Week, right? This is the cancer patient going through chemo. This is the student studying for exams. This is the business person who's just having a rough week or the parent who's having a rough week.

Or this is society in COVID, right? It's taking it step by step. And so this is the difference between optimal peak. And I think optimal performance is really what we should be striving for because sometimes it will look like peak, but no matter what we're moving for. forward. As you're distilling this down and creating and writing the attributes, that process, as we as we've talked about, is a learning process. You're probably discovering things. Maybe there's some surprising parts. I have one in mind, but I'm curious to get your thought,

Rich. What is one of the most surprising attributes you found to be common for optimal performance? Well, so, okay, so the, so the grit ones were, I guess the grit ones were not as much surprising as it was neat to make them so obvious. I was like, okay, this is what grit is. So I won't count grit as surprising. I would say probably the surprising ones come in the drive category when we start talking about cunning and discipline and narcissism. Because it really, the process of discovery in terms of what those, what drives human performance. caused me to recognize that some of the most driven people on the planet or in history weren't necessarily all good, right?

So sometimes the attributes aren't all. Sometimes you have to take away the judgment of good or bad with the attributes and the behavior is something else. You have to just look at, okay, what drives people? And so when I started thinking about things like cunning and narcissism, which are typically pejorative. I needed to say to myself, okay, just take away the negative behavior for a second

and just look at the act of being driven. Like sometimes evil people are driven, okay? Why? What is it that makes that happen? And so I think those, the drive attributes were probably the most fun to put together and look at because a couple of them are pejorative. And like, for example, discipline,

I had to separate into two different categories. self-discipline versus discipline, which is also a cool project. And describe why it's titled the self-disciplined loser. Well, because what I had to do when I thought about discipline, and then, of course, I think you'll also agree with this. Whenever you write a book, there's a lot of self, or there's all an introspection that goes on. You say, okay, what does this mean for me?

And when I looked at discipline, I said to myself, well, I am someone who overall in my life has been able to set and achieve goals. Okay. So I consider myself disciplined in that manner. In other words, discipline is the ability to kind of set a long-term goal and move towards that goal, come high or, you know, through the lows and through the highs and get to it. It's kind of the long-term thing. Ironically, I'm not very self-disciplined. I never have been. And I said, wait a second, how can I have been able to do this, but also not be self-dis. What do you mean? What do you mean? How are you not self-dispical? me to say, you know, it's, you know, working out every day takes a lot of effort for me. You know, eating the right thing takes a lot of effort for me. You know, by the way, I think those are two completely different things. I think the working out part is much easier than when I see a tasty pizza.

Well, I agree. But I think that's also because you have, you've habitually, you've, you've created a habit and a routine of working out such that to not work out is, is terrible, feels terrible, right? Right. So if you create a routine, that's a, that's a hack into self-discipline. right because you become you become a habit it becomes a habit but the but the act of of controlling oneself you know it's funny i always i always joke most of us as humans don't like to be told what to do okay those those of us who are not self-disciplined we don't even like to be told by ourselves

right so um so so i had to separate and though and the way i separated it was this because i also looked at people there were people who i you can and we've we've observed these people there are people who are extraordinarily self-disciplined. And just take the physical aspect. I mean, super fit, look like Captain America, Adonis, and they've never accomplished anything in their lives. Okay. What is, and I said to myself, what is that? What's the secret sauce? The, the, idea is I had to separate the two because to not separate them would be disingenuous to what discipline is. You can have someone who's actually not very self-disciplined at all, who's a super success. So, you know, maybe a lot of our rock stars could fall in that category. Who knows?

But so separating was important. The way I separated them, and this is probably one of the attributes I've thought about a lot since writing the book. So I've been able to expand on the concept in my head. Self-discipline is about controlling those things that the external world has no say in. So you and I can make a decision and say, hey, I'm going to eat healthy for the next three months, okay? and decide I'm going to eat more vegetables, you know, only eat kind of, you know, the right types of meats, whatever that looks like. The external world has nothing to say in our ability to do that. It's all on us, right?

Even if we go travel, you can say, I'm going to the buffet. It's not the buffet that's telling us to eat. It's us saying, I'm not going to eat this thing in the buffet, right? So self-discipline involves those things that we can control and we can be disciplined about that the external world has no say. discipline on the other hands are those goals those those accomplishments those those objectives that we have where the external world does have a say okay this is becoming nevis seal this is starting a podcast that's successful this is writing a book okay the external world has a say in those things as to whether or not you accomplish that goal discipline overarching is the ability to move through all of the things that you

need to move through in in able to in order to achieve that goal it means being able to move through the challenges, not being crushed by the lows, but also not being seduced by the highs, right? When something great happens, you're like, okay, that's great, but I'm still moving forward. Sometimes being too self-disciplined is an impediment to overall discipline. And the reason is because sometimes those who are really, really hyper self-disciplined, they like structure. They like order. They like things to be regimented because that's what helps them be, that's what helps them be

disciplined or self-disciplined. Well, guess what achieving a long-term goal is never going to be. It's never going to be regimented. It's never going to be in order. It's never going to go the way you thought it would. Things are always going to happen that throw you out of your routine, throw you into uncertainty. Right. So the most powerful people, just to caveat this, are the people who are both self-disciplined and discipline.

Okay, that's the power combination there. But if you are more of one than the other, it helps to understand the difference. And it helps to work on whichever one you think you need to work on. let's stay in this drive category because there's some things the one that i wrote down that was one of the most surprising is when you hear the word narcissist or narcissism you just immediately assume well i i don't want to be i don't want that i don't want that guy on my seal team or i don't want to be around that person um and that's just your your natural reaction and that was mine i saw it and i remember i went straight to that chapter initially when i looked at the table of contents because i'm like i wonder

about all the bad stuff, Rich is going to say about being a narcissist because obviously we shouldn't be. And I was surprised a little bit. Can you share more about maybe some of the benefits of having a bit of narcissism within you? Yeah, absolutely. And this also stems from kind of personal experience. And I had to think of, obviously, narcissism is a word that we've heard a lot of in recent years. And narcissistic personality disorder is, in fact, a disorder. and it's a bad thing, okay? It is bad to be a quote narcissist in terms of that personality disorder. However, I thought about, okay, why is it that I became a Navy SEAL in first place? And in fact, I say this because all my friends would probably agree in this in some way,

some shape or form in the same thing. Obviously, I'm a patriot because, but it wasn't really because I was a patriot. It wasn't because I had some some grandiose self or sense of self-duty. It was because I wanted to see if I could be a badass. It was what I wanted to say, see if I could be part of something that very few people could do. I want to see if I could do it. And most guys, if they're being honest, will tell you the same thing. There's a hint of narcissism in there. There's a hint of wanting to stand out. What is narcissism? Narcism is the desire to stand out, the desire to be loved, accepted, and stand out. Every human being has that desire. And it starts as infants. When we are infants and we're being stared at and adored by our parents,

we are getting hits of the neurotransmitter serotonin, dopamine, and the hormone of oxytocin. But those are powerful, that's a powerful combination of chemicals that's flooding into our system when we're being paid attention to like that. All right. We all, it all feels good. We all desired, okay? And so when you think about the act of setting goals and you say, okay, why do I want to be this famous rock star or why do I want to be this football player or Navy SEAL or

or a successful business person. It comes from this idea, well, part of me is because I want to stand out. I want to be special. I want to be recognized. It doesn't have to be a bad thing. Why do I want to be a great parent? It's because I want to stand out with my kids to be a great parent. I want to be adored by my kids as a great parent in a certain way where as parents were

very rarely adored. But, you know, anyway, this, this, this, this kind of desire is a very human one. And so I thought it's important to to kind of demystify narcissism in a way that says, okay, we're all human, all right. To want to stand out and be special and do something that very few people ever have done before is not a bad thing. In fact, it can be an incredible driver, as it was for me to become a Navy SEAL, a lot of my buddies, as it was probably for you to write a book and start a podcast.

That desire is not a bad thing. So let's not demonize it. Let's recognize it. Let's talk about narcissism for what it is. Let's make sure that we're not tipping over into narcissistic personality disorder. And so the DSM-5, I pulled that. It has nine criteria that talk about if you have five or more of these things, you have the disorder, right? And you look at this list and you're like, wait a second, but sometimes I'm like that and sometimes like that.

So it's kind of like this human thing. Hey, sometimes I'm like that. So can I manage my narcissism in a way that makes it a driving factor, driving force? but also understand that narcissism, as it tips over the scale, it's incredibly difficult to see in ourselves. It's like I call it the vampire looking in the mirror, right? It's hard to see. Easy to see by others, okay, hard to see in ourselves. And the true narcissists, those who have the disorder, it's almost invisible.

They don't know they are. Okay. So we have to understand it to the effect that A, we use it as a driver and understand it to the effect that we don't allow ourselves to tip over into this, into the disordered part of it. And we do that through understanding. We do that through our trusted, loving relationships. We do that through understanding what our circle looks like. If we've surrounded ourselves with sycophants, most likely we're in a bad place in terms of narcissism, have we surrounded ourselves with people who give us honest truths, who don't put

us at the center of tension all the time, who allow others to be center of tension and allow us to be humble, allow our humility to be. Have we surrounded ourselves? This is something I became habitual for me, especially with my time in the steel teams. It became a habit for me to surround myself with people who I thought were way better than me. And I just kept on looking around in my career and looking at these guys around me. I'm like, man, these people are so much better than me. It adds to humility, it helps with humility, and it tamps down the narcissism.

Yes, I was a Navy SEAL. So I was special and I had accomplished and it was accomplishing my goals, but I was still humble, right? And I was making sure it didn't tip over. So that's kind of the idea behind narcissism. Let's make it personal for a second. think back. I know it's been some years, but I have to imagine you remember it well. What's going through your mind during some of the worst training to become a seal? Like you have a bit of that narcissism that we all have. I certainly do too.

Like I want this to be part of the reason why I want this to be listened to by a lot of people is because I have a desire to help a lot of people. So the combination is, I think, a valuable one. You wanted to like I had my brother and I, we read all the Navy SEAL books growing up. up. I mean, if we weren't, if we weren't so focused on getting scholarships to play in college and trying to play after college, I would like to think that I could have at least attempted to do that. I don't know if I would have made it, probably not, but at least I think we would have given it a shot. I'm curious, though, about moments when you thought about quitting. And if you ever did, and if so, what was going through your mind when you thought, wait a second. Yeah, I kind of wanted this,

because I want to see if I could do it, but no, I can't do it. Like, this is terrible. Like, what's going through your mind during the worst moments of training to become a seal? And how did you overcome some of those challenging thoughts to then actually do it? Yeah, it's a great question. I think most guys you ask who have made it through will say that they never thought about quitting. And actually, I believe them. And I believe them because I would say it myself, because if I did think about quitting,

I can't remember thinking about quitting. But I also think that when you're in that type of heart, hardship. And this is kind of what the design of seal training is. It's it it trains you. It gets you very used to compartmentalizing to kind of the endth degree. Compartmentalizing to whatever degree is necessary to keep you moving forward. And oftentimes if you let slip in your mind this idea of quitting or this idea that there's a there's a way out, that is a dangerous pinprick that turns into a just a, a, um, you know, a, uh, just a, of, um, there's a way out. Um, that that's a, that is a dangerous rip that you can't get you can't go down.

I think a lot of guys that do quit would say that, yeah, they were fine until a certain point. And then they just started getting into, it started getting into their head and they couldn't get it out of their head. They couldn't shake it, right? They couldn't shake this idea that they could get out. I feel like our high school football coaches have a military background. They studied under that.

And they wanted to make our summer June, July, leading into August, kind of mimic that so that when it came Friday night and we're playing against more talented teams, we could draw from that experience. And I really identify with this because there were some moments there where, you know, you're puking and it's horrible and it's hot and it's the worst. I don't think you can even let it enter your mind that you may not do it. I truly think the people who do that quit.

Yeah. I don't think it can even be, I just don't think it could even be a thought that you're not going to complete it, even if it's slow or whatever it may be or you have to stop to throw up those types of, I don't think it's possible because it's just simply too hard to finish if there's even this much, like an inkling of like, I don't know. I'm not sure. So I really identify with this now that you're talking about it and getting into it. Yeah, and I think that's the way. And again, I can't, I mean, perhaps maybe once or twice I thought about it.

I can't remember. I do not remember thinking about quitting. All I remember. Like you would have remembered if you thought about it. Maybe so. Yeah. All I remember is in the toughest parts saying to myself. myself, okay, what's the next thing? You know, what, what do I focus on now? What's the next thing?

Okay, here's next. And it's like Hell Week. There's a saying at Hell Week that, you know, you start Hell Week on a Sunday afternoon with this thing called breakout. And I kind of describe it a little bit in the book, but you break out and then you're basically in Hell Week from Sunday afternoon all the way till Friday afternoon. And you sleep like, you know, I don't know, three hours or something. There's a saying, though, that if you think about Friday of Hell Week on Monday, you will quit. All right. because the elephant looks too big to, you know, to eat. You have to take, you have to chunk things down to the, to the moments and,

and then the next, just the next moment, right? This moment and the next moment. That's all you got. Because if you think too broadly, you'll hear guys talk about, I just was making it to the next meal, right? I just waited for the next meal, right? But even that I would maintain and I think anybody would agree, any guy who made it through would agree that sometimes the next meal was still too far away.

Sometimes I was just, I'm just going to focus on the next step. Here's an example. You know, you run around hours and hours with boats on your head, right? And I can remember this. Remember being, it was hell week and it was middle of the night. I don't know what, but you know, pitch black. We're on the beach. We're running with this boat on our head.

We've been doing it for hours. And I remember saying to myself, man, this sucks. I was like, what the hell? Right? And I said to myself at that moment, I said, you know what? Stop. Okay, just focus on the end of that berm, right? We're running on the sand on the beach alongside of a berm there in southern.

California is it focus on the end of the berm. Okay, just get there. And I just ran to there. Right. And once I got there, I was like, okay, I got the end of the berm. What's the next thing? You know, okay, maybe the next burn or maybe that's sign, right? And I remember chunking it in ways that really made it smaller bite-sized stuff and really forcing the scope of how long this could be out of my brain. And what I realized later was the genius of that process. Because when you're in combat, if you're thinking too far down the road in combat, you're going to make mistakes. You're not going to make it through. And I'm not talking about, hey, there's certain objectives you want to reach, but especially when things get really gnarly, you have to chunk those

situations into what can I control right now? Control this, and then once I've got that controlled, what's the next thing I control? And some guys will talk about your control your three-foot world, right? So what are those things I can control right now, move to that, and then pick the next thing and just chunk through. And that serves a couple of purposes. First of all, it chunks in a way that allows you to make the goal, but it also allows you to be flexible as the environment changes. If we're too locked into an end state, especially, you know, in an end state that involves time, whether it be hours or days, what we're doing is we're also locking into how we think it's going to go for that timeframe. Okay, the environment might change. Everything might change, you know, three minutes from now, especially when you're in combat, right? So, so you have to deal with the three minutes and be

ready to deal again with a new environment after it's changed three minutes later, right? So, so this process is quite genius in, in the way it helps you just begin to manage your thought process and you're thinking to be successful. Control your three foot world. How would you, I love that saying. How would you apply that to someone who is currently running a team within a business? And let's say they are a VP and there's 150 people who are in their organization and they're dealing with a lot of challenges like most leaders are, whether it's budget and hitting revenue and people problems. and they're doing their best to, you know, exceed the numbers they need to exceed in order to make sure the business is doing well. And they hear this and saying, okay, he has a Navy SEAL.

He's controlling his three-foot world. Can you make an application to the business world outside of the military world for that? Yes. And it's really more about controlling. It could be said in the sense that controlling what you can control. Now, this all comes down to the act of how to do it. And the way you do it is you ask the right questions. Okay, we are, we are question answering machines.

Our brains are set up to answer questions about our environment constantly, usually unconsciously, right? Unconsciously, we're taking in information and data. It's bouncing off of our hippocampus. It's comparing things. How does this compare to something I've already seen? Okay, yeah, this is a coffee cup. That's a coffee cup, right? If it doesn't have a comparison, it starts to say, okay, what is that?

That's where uncertainty falls in. But our brains are constantly asking questions. What people don't realize is that we, We can actually take charge of this process because when we implant a question into our logic into our forebrain to our conscious mind, our brain immediately begins to come up with answers. Oftentimes we do this incorrectly. We ask the wrong questions. We say, why does this stuff happen to me?

Why are these people allowed to get me? Why am I so bad at this? As soon as we lodge that question to our brain, our brain immediately becomes, starts to come up with answers. So I do this exercise with one of the classes I teach where I'm I say, okay, answer this question. And I'm going to give you 30 seconds to write down as many things that pop into your head. Okay.

How can I double my income in the next six months? Okay. And I give them, I say, go. Whatever pops into your head, write down. All right. And so they usually write down a bunch of stuff. Okay. Then at the end of that, I said, okay, in 30 seconds, how many answers did you come up with?

I don't even care about the answers. Don't care how ridiculous. How many answers did you come up with? And usually we get responses like three, four, five, six, even seven and eight sometimes. It's because all you did was logic question. into your forebrain and your brain immediately began to answer well those successful people the high performing people the highest performing people change the quality of their questions okay they're always asking better questions instead of asking why am i so bad of this why is it so

happened to me it's how can i get better how can i how can i grow from this what are those things that i did well how can i learn from the things that i did wrong the brain begins to answer those those questions as well but if you back that process up to the very elemental question the elemental question any can ask themselves in any situation is what's the better question right now or what can I control right now okay so whether you're a Navy SEAL in combat you're a CEO running a business you're a surgeon an athlete a nurse a student a great question to lodge into your forebrain is what can I control right now and and your brain will begin to come up with answers and so the idea is to use your neurology in an advantageous way

so that you can begin understanding your environment and then controlling your environments in a positive kind of self-directed way. Where do you learn all this stuff? I mean, you are you are in combat for many years. You're leading special operators. I know you're reading a lot, but this is next level when it comes to, I think we watch the movies and we see the seals and we think these dudes are a little bit crazy.

they're willing to do things that most people are not. They're the most, they're the best trained humans on earth, probably. And yet we're here having this scientific dialogue about our brains. Yeah. Where does this come from? How did you pick up all this stuff? I love neuroscience. I love figuring out how and understanding how and why the brain works the way it does.

Were you studying this as your leading special operators? I mean, studying is a strong word. I was reading, I was just reading books as much as I could and I was picking it up. But this is the, again, this is the power of reading. I mean, you read books and you start getting ideas. In fact, you ask me where these ideas came from? I have no clue, right? I just know that it's a accumulation of things that I probably read and then experienced.

However, the key factor that all of us, I think, have to do is introspection. You know, I have, I spend quite a bit of time asking myself, okay, how did I do that thing? or what caused me to be able to do that thing, or even when I make a mistake, what were those things that I did wrong that I could do better? The introspective process allows us to deconstruct what we did, and then oftentimes map it onto maybe something we've read, maybe something we've heard.

But I can just tell you, I mean, somewhere I picked up this idea of better questions, and then I said to myself, well, okay, how does this work? I was like, well, because I did this and I did it constantly, unconsciously I was doing this. Okay, here's how it worked then. And then once you have that conscious thought, Now you start doing it consciously, which is powerful because they're just like, cool. And now, you know, in fact, my wife and I, I mean, this pandemic, I remember middle of the pandemic, we take a walk around our neighborhoods with the, with a German Shepherd because it's just our release and we can talk and stuff.

And I remember we were having a particularly hard time, you know, with everything that was going on. And we used the first lap around the neighborhood to vent to each other. But then the second lap, we said, you know, wait a second. Let's stop here for a second. What's the, what's the better question we should be asking ourselves here? And then we started talking about the better question. And sure enough, the better question popped up. And we began to ask that better question.

It allowed us to be to do something different, take a new action. And so once you can think about and be introspective about those processes and codify it, then you can start doing it. And I'm really interested in that kind of deconstructing human behavior. Why is it and how is it that we do what we do? Because I think as soon as we understand that, we can do it more often and do it consciously and just explore our potential in ways that we never even imagined. I think the act of being introspective creates a much higher level of self-awareness.

And from, you know, Chris Fustle introduced us, and Chris is one of those guys who never makes a bad introduction. I tell him, you don't have to check with me first. Like, most people, you should do the double opt-in. Chris is one of those guys that I tell him no double opt-in. If you think they're great, they're great because he has a high level of awareness. Since you have the same, both of you guys are very introspective people. What is it about introspection that people, I guess the better question is why aren't we better at this?

Why do we struggle to do this? Yeah. Here's my opinion. The simple answer is we escape too much. Okay, we have so many ways that we can escape in our lives right now, whether it be the Netflix series that we're streaming, whether it be the YouTube videos we're watching on our phone, even in some cases, well, the game app that we play, you know, we're all guilty of this. We're standing at the airport, we're on an airplane or whatever, and we're just staring at our phones doing something because we're bored. We want to kind of pass time. But I remember when I was a kid, you know, we, and I grew up in the, you know, in the 80s. So we didn't have any of this stuff. And we used to go, I remember we went down to Disney World. I grew up in Connecticut and we were going to Disney World.

So we drove, right? Because, you know, four kids, my dad's not going to, we're not going to fly down. So we drove. So that's like a, you know, 20-hour drive. We drive everywhere. We drive to visit family. We spent a lot of time in that car. Well, we didn't have Walkmans or games or anything like that.

I spent the majority of that time staring out the window and just imagining and visualizing. And I became, it became something that I can do very easily. And so even when I'm an airplane today, I can sit on an airplane and I usually pick the window seat. I can stare out that window and just think and just ruminate and kind of mull things over and allow my brain that space. And so I think we need to all think about how often we are letting ourselves be with ourselves and be in our own heads. And I know for some people that's a scary notion, but. And this counts. I mean, you know, this, you know, podcast count as well.

I listen to podcasts, too, usually when I'm driving and usually on airplanes. But sometimes I even put the podcast down and just have nothing and just think and just say, okay, think about this. Why this? You can do this on a plane. I do it also while I'm running. Running is a huge thing for me in terms of thinking time because I run. I don't time myself. I just run up my own pace.

I do it in the woods here where I live. So there's no one around. And I just kind of that addition of physical activity. of movement allows my brain to really fire off both introspectively, but also ideas. In fact, I started carrying around a little mini recorder with me while I ran because I'd come up with all these ideas while I was running. And by the time I was finished with our run, I couldn't remember them. So I'd carry a recorder with me so I could just spit it into the reporter while I was running

and then write something down later. But we need to try to spend more time with ourselves in our own minds. And this doesn't mean meditation is fine and clearing your mind for recovery. and rest, but think about things. Just take this concept. Sometimes I'll be listening to podcasts, and your podcast is one of those things, but I'll be mid-podcast and you and a guest will say something. And I'm like, holy shit.

And I'll stop the podcast because I was like, I got to think about that for a second. Okay. And I just stop the podcast and think about that concept and think about how I think about that concept and just turn it over in my mind. And I think that's a really valuable activity. Yeah, I agree. Do you have time to cover one or two more attributes? Certainly.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. So I was recording recently with someone and we talked a lot about having a bias for action. And he mentioned to me, it was Don Miller. And he mentioned to me when he studies people and he does and he interviews a lot. He's like, you know, there's one thing that kept coming out amongst everything else is they have this bias for action. They take ideas and they go and execute.

And one of your chapter, chapter 20, is many of false. step is made by standing still. So I don't know if this fully relates, but I want to see if it does. And that is that they are, this is the attribute of having decisiveness. And I view being decisive is someone who's willing to take some action, even if you don't fully have all the necessary information to make that choice or to decide. Can you talk about the importance of being decisive, making decisions, and taking action? Yeah, absolutely. Well, at first, starts with the concept and I love this one I don't know where I got this one but it wasn't me that knowledge is not power okay applied knowledge is power okay you can have all knowledge you want

you can know all the right things to do and which way to go if you don't apply it you're not going anywhere decisiveness allows us to make a decision and to begin movement and it's it's been of course under the leadership attributes because it is an enormously important leadership quality but I think it's an enormous quality like you said in terms of being able to act on any anything. And it means the efficiency and speed with which you can, you know, make decisions. And that involves the gathering information to the extent that you have and the extent that you're satisfied. But it certainly doesn't mean, you know, a protracted information gathering process because sometimes you only have about 80% of the information is the 80-20 rule.

And we used to use this rule on operations sometimes. It's like, hey, we're never going to get 100% intelligence on this target that we have to go. Oftentimes we'll get maybe 80% sometimes less. And we just have to make a decision as to whether or not to go. And then you say, okay, I'm going to go and everything else will just figure out on a fly. But yeah, decisiveness involves the ability to make a decision in an efficient and expeditious manner and understand that decisions that you make are final, but they're not permanent. Okay. So once I make a decision, it's final, which means I'm going to move on this and I want to move forward with the decision, whether it's me or the team. However, in that process, I'm going to engage some other attributes

like accountability and adaptability and humility and say, hey, if as I'm moving down that pathway, it feels like that wasn't the right decision, then I'm willing to adjust and make a new one. That is decisiveness. It's separate from the ability to make decisions because the ability to make decisions is actually a skill. It can be taught, it can be learned, you can get better at it every day. And it can be a very protracted process, which sometimes it has to be, admittedly. But decisiveness, I think you're right. It's a key factor in a bias for action and getting movement. And those who are indecisive, I would agree with you that they're often kind of stalled. Okay, one more I want to hit from the grit section, and that is be like the frog.

The reason I bring this one up, Rich, is because early in my career, I had a West Point. grad tank commander who also had an MBA from Harvard really smart guy and and he and I had no idea what I was doing I was a football guy who didn't focus enough on school and he's like hey listen this world that you're you're in now in the professional world it changes every day you're going to sell a new product you're going to fall in love with this one thing and the next day they're going to come in and say hey you're not doing that anymore you're doing this and so if you can develop the ability to to adapt, that will set you on a good course for your career. I never forgot.

It was many years ago. And when you write about being like the frog and being able to adapt, can you share more about that story when it comes to developing the attribute of adaptability? Yeah, absolutely. I think it's fascinating because, and I thought about this because, you know, I thought about this when I was still in the SEAL teams because the SEALs are known as Frog Ben. I mean, the old UDT is frog man. And I said to myself, man, that's cool because we're kind of, we're always, we're always ready to adapt.

If we're not in the water, we're on land. If we're not in land, we're in the water. I mean, the ANORA, which are the original species of frog, have been around for hundreds of millions of years. They've survived five extinction level events, right? So they've survived through a bunch of times where most of the planet's species have been extinct to include the dinosaurs. The frogs have survived and maintained. And it's because of this idea that they have, they are adaptably. They're set up to their temperature changes based on the outside temperature to make sure that it's balanced.

They can live in the water for a while if they need to and the land is not good enough. They can live on land if the water's not good enough, right? Evolution requires adaptability. That's what it is. And adaptability is really this idea of being able to react effectively to the external environment that you cannot control. Okay, different than perseverance. I know I get it to perseverance on the chapter prior. Perseverance involves this ability to change your approach. Okay. That's that's a, that's more of a proactive, I'm doing this to change to kind of to make it through. Adaptability is this is this recognition that

you don't control the environment external to you. You just don't, right? So in in knowing that, you need to be willing to adapt to it to survive, to succeed, to evolve. And if you're unwilling to adapt to it, you will become a dinosaur not a frog, okay? The dinosaurs, you know, you will go extinct. And we see this. I mean, we see this a lot. I've committed myself as I grow older to be an old person who can adapt to the new, to the new environment.

I don't want to become a dinosaur. I need to look at the ideas and the concepts that the young generation is coming up with and say, hey, these are the people. These are the people who are leading and running the country and running the globe, right? I need to not be a dinosaur and adapt to them because my way of thinking, you know, whether it be back in the 80s, nine years or whatever, during whatever phase is different. It's changed, right? So, and the most wonderful older people that I've ever been around are those who do this

consistently. They're not the ones complaining about, oh, it used to be this way or, you know, these kids, they don't know. No, no, they've adapted. They recognize this stuff. And I think adapt. They're on TikTok when they're 85. Yeah.

That's exactly right. Yeah, they're on TikTok, right? So it's not only necessary in evolution, right? But it's also necessary, I think, in state of being in happiness. I mean, if you're going to focus on an environment that's changed around you that can't be unchanged. And listen, I don't know. I might be wrong. And maybe you and I aren't the best guys to say this. But as far as I know, there is nothing in the known universe that doesn't change over time. As far as I know, we'd have to get our scientists.

But as far as I know, there's nothing in the known universe that does not change over time, which means to not be adaptable is a recipe for disaster. So that's why it's so important. Man, there's so much good stuff here. I highly encourage people to get this book to attributes 25 hidden drivers of awful performance. We only covered a small amount of it. And it's really well written too. The ideas are great, but the way that you weave the stories and you're using Greek mythology talking about narcissists or whatever, however you pronounce the guy's name.

Yeah. Like it's not just Navy SEAL stories. And if you want SEAL stories, those are awesome too, but it's far deeper from a scientific perspective. And Rich, my favorite books are story science, practical application. That's what this is. That's right. Thank you. So I highly encourage people to get this attributes. And I have a feeling. And this is this thing Chris said to me in his first message. He's like, you're going to want to talk to this guy, Rich, before this thing blows up. So just telling you do it now. And I go, hey, you don't have to convince me. I'm in. So I appreciate you and your team sending it over early, man. I encourage people to read the book. And thank you so much for investing your time with me here today, man. Well, I appreciate you and I appreciate you reading it. And I would say I sort of set out to write a book that did not make the Navy SEALs or or even the scientists, the heroes. I want the reader to be the hero of the book.

And I think hopefully that readers will be able to get this and learn something about themselves and apply it. But I appreciate you have it beyond. You can learn more at the Attributes.com where by the way, we have an assessment tool that you can take. So you can basically take a grit assessment and a mental community. We're still working on the drive. Hopefully that'll be up soon. But you'll get a score for these attributes and say, okay, out of a out of one to 10, here's where you fall. It's a snapshot. It's based on about a thousand people's worth of data that we got globally. So it's just a snapshot on where you can start,

but it gives you an idea of where you fall on things like grit or things like perseverance, adaptability or situation awareness and things like that. So I encourage people to do that. Love it. Well, Rich, thanks again for being here, and I would certainly love to continue our dialogue as we both progress, man. Absolutely. Thank you, brother. Appreciate it. Thanks, ma'am. What a fascinating leader, Rich is. For those who have been longtime listeners of this show, you know I have a deep curiosity and gratitude for those who have intentionally put themselves in harm's way to defend. their country. I'm so grateful that people like rich exist to make the world a little bit safer for the rest of us. A few of the keys that I've written down. Knowledge isn't power. Applied knowledge is power. How are you take what you've learned and put it into action? And then let's be as adaptable as the frog. I did not know that the frog has survived five extinction level events. Something new

I picked up from risk today. And then the highest performing people ask better questions. They think, what's the better question to ask right now? And to be interesting, be more interested in others. Be curious. Be curious. ask questions, follow that curiosity with great rigor, and that could lead you to increasing your odds of sustaining excellence. I want to once again say thank you very much for continuing to spread the word, for telling a friend or two, you should listen to the Learning Leader Show. It will help you become a more effective leader. You should write a review and Apple Podcast.

hopefully rate the show five stars in order to help spread the message. And because you continue to tell your friends and because you continue to write reviews and rate the show five stars, you continue to give me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so much. Talk to you soon. Can I wait. Okay.

Thank you, man. So good. I could have won forever. I have I covered like 10% of the doc so it's admittedly dense I realize it's a I love it I love it well and because once we get started on something I could have probably stayed on each one the entire time because I think I'm fascinated by it there's tons of follow-up questions but I am I am happy with some of the different areas that we cover man I give you huge credit too for being able to go anywhere at any time and then immediately go into story

you're going to adapt. That's the good stuff, man. Well, I appreciate that. I like that more. I mean, you and I both do keynotes and I know keynotes are fine, but I like the kind of the fireside chat type. I'm way better, you know. The Q&A part at the end is really show if you know your stuff. Yeah, and you just when you connect. You have no idea what's coming. Exactly. You connect. You can actually create friendships and community and dialogue. I love that part of it too. So cool, man. Well, thank you. We'll try to time this up with a book, book pub week. I know that's a big week for you. Yeah. So thanks again for being here. awesome dude and uh i'll be i will be followed via email and stuff i'd love to to to continue it as

we go man i'd love to keep talking you have my email so hit with anything as we will but i appreciate and we'll i'll look forward to the next conversation awesome man thanks rich thank you man okay bye