The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 434: Brad Stulberg - The New Science Of Peak Performance

Episode Date: August 29, 2021

Text LEARNERS to 44222 for more... Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com Twitter/IG: @RyanHawk12  https://twitter.com/RyanHawk12 Brad Stulberg is the author of Peak Performance, The Passion Paradox, and The Practice of Groundedness. He coaches executives, entrepreneurs, physicians, and athletes. He is also co-creator of The Growth Equation, an online platform dedicated to defining and attaining a more fulfilling and sustainable kind of success. Notes: Build deep community over efficiency and optimization. It takes more time. It has a physical connection and a sense of belonging. Don't move so fast that you don't see people. Keys to great leadership -- Look at the boundaries and create space for work to unfold. Don't be the helicopter parent or the micromanager. Don't neglect them, but ensure they have the space to grow and blossom. Move your body to ground your mind - It's so important to have a physical practice. Make it part of your work. It needs to be in order to support your mental health. The Milwaukee Bucks won the NBA championship. Their MVP leader, Giannis Antetokounmpo scored 50 points and helped his team win. But he may have earned even more fans when he was asked during a press conference how he keeps his mind right. His three-part answer, in his own words: "Focusing on the past is ego. Focusing on the future is pride. Focusing on the present is humility." The six principles of groundedness:  Accept where you are to get where you want to go Be present so you can own your attention and energy Be patient and you'll get there faster Embrace vulnerability to develop genuine strength and confidence Build deep community over efficiency and optimization Move your body to ground your mind Trying to be "balanced" does not work. When you care deeply about something it draws you in. That's the point. You don't need to force some kind of proportionate allocation of your life. Aim for the self-awareness to PRIORITIZE and CHOOSE how you spend your time and energy. Wherever you are, the goal post is always 10 yards down the field. If you develop a mindset, "If I just do this, or just accomplish that, THEN I'll arrive," you're in for trouble. There is no arriving. The human brain didn't evolve for it. Enjoy the process. Be where you are. Everyone wants to be SUCCESSFUL. But few people take the time and energy to define the success they want. As a result, they spend most, if not all, of their lives chasing what society superimposes on them as success. Define your values. Craft a life around them. THAT is success. Stress + Rest = Growth. Too much of the former not enough of the latter you get injury, illness, burnout. Too much of the latter, not enough of the former you get complacency, stagnation. This equation is universal. It holds true for individual and organizational growth. "Wouldn't this be rad?" The process of striving for ambitious goals is what brings fulfillment. The process is how you live your life. "Your addiction to growth might be making you miserable." The human condition is oriented towards more. Advice on building a business: Think less about building the business and more about building the life you want to live. Brad limits himself to 15 clients and they only meet on Monday and Friday. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday are days for creativity, reading, research. Brad optimizes for autonomy and freedom. For the over-worked, over-scheduled VP: Find 2 hours a week for deep work. That's a start. Challenge the culture, test assumptions. Think of your schedule as a moral document Sustain excellence: Wise patience... Step back sometimes When making a big decision, adopt the lens of a wise observer, what would your wiser self tell you to do?  Stimulus + your response = outcome When you feel restless to do something, use that as an alarm. Force yourself to take three deep breaths. What will you regret less? No raising voices... Your language shapes how you think and act... The Good Enough Mother: Not helicopter Not each and every need Doesn't neglect Gives a safe space to grow and blossom For the insecure leader... Approach them with curiosity Musicians have intense periods of focused practice. People have breakthroughs when they have been on a sabbatical... Embrace vulnerability to develop genuine strength and confidence with others... "The way to build trust is by being vulnerable." Don't be performative. It must be real. Build deep community over efficiency and optimization It takes more time to meet in person. Brad's tattoo sleeve: Mountains sit through it all. Trees = grounded, the roots support it. We need to tend to our own roots.

There's this false notion that if you're content with what you have or you're content with where you are, that means that you'll become lazy or you won't strive to move forward. But in fact, the opposite tends to be true. If you have some level of contentment with what you have, gratitude, humility, then not only do you feel better, but you actually perform better. If you think about starting from a place of good enough, generally, people feel really free. Their shoulders drop, they feel open. If you think about a place of, I need more, not good enough, kind of clasping for what's out ahead of you,

or being sad about something in the past, that tends to be really tight. Most people perform better from a place of openness, from a place of freedom, from a place of love, than from a place of compulsion or tightness or angst or I have to have this. I recently found an exciting new investment opportunity, Blue Chip Art. Now, it's traditionally only open to billionaires because of the high entry cost. But one startup is making it available for everyone. Masterworks.io lets you invest in multi-million dollar works by artists like Banksy and Monet. Contemporary art prices outperformed S&P 500 returns by 174% from 1995 to 2020.

The total art asset class is currently estimated. at $1.7 trillion and is growing by another trillion over the next five years. Now, demand is high, but I've worked with Masterworks to let you skip their wait list by going to masterworks.com. I.O. slash learning. That's masterworks.com.i.o slash learning. Also, please see important disclosures at masterworks.com. Welcome to the learning leaders show presented by Insight global. I am your host, Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text learners to 4422 to become part of Mindful Monday. You, along with tens of thousands of other learning leaders from all over the world, will receive a carefully curated email from me each Monday morning to

help you start your week off. Right. You'll also receive details about how my book, Welcome to Management will help you become a more effective leader. Text learners to 4-4-222. Now, on to tonight's featured leader, Brad Stolberg, best-selling author of three books, including Peak Performance, Passion Paradox, and most recently, the practice of groundedness. He's also the co-creator of The Growth Equation. Brad is backed by research and science, but tells some amazing stories to bring that science to life. A few of the topics we discuss, a new way to view growth and why your current view might be wrong.

And then how to live more in the present instead of your past or future. and then why we should build deep community instead of efficiency and optimization, ladies and gentlemen, you will enjoy this one. It's the great Brad Stolberg. All right, Brad, to start, the Milwaukee Bucks won the NBA championship last night. Typically, I would make these episodes evergreen, but I still think it is regardless of the fact that we're putting a timestamp on it. But their MVP leader, Janice, scored 50 points, helped his team win. in. But I found in the recent days he may have earned even more fans when he was asked during a press conference how he keeps his mind right. And I'm going to ask you to expand on this because

you wrote an article and you've tweeted about this. But his three-part answer, and I'll just speak at a high level and then I'll ask you to dive deeper, his three-part answer in his own words, which, by the way, I also shared this with my mindful Monday email receivers because I love this video. He said, Quote, focusing on the past is your ego. Focusing on the future is pride. Focusing on the present is humility. Can you share more about your thoughts on this, Brad? So I absolutely love Janus, loved him before this,

and definitely love him even more after it. So just to set the stage so folks that might not follow basketball can understand had the kind of player Janus is. So I'll say two things about him. One, he is really a gentleman in a craftsperson that respects the game. So perhaps nothing sums up Janus better than this. A few years back, he did a huge slam dunk over Tim Hardaway Jr. And the Milwaukee Bucks were going to make posters of the dunk and sell it. And Janus wouldn't let them do that because he said it was disrespectful to Tim Hardaway Jr. So that's the kind of person he is. The second, thing about Janus that I find really interesting is he is a wholly imperfect star.

So his free throw shooting by league standards is terrible. His three point shooting for a big man in today's game is terrible. So he's not like the complete package player that current NBA basketball normally holds up as their stars. So against the backdrop of those two things, I think that, you know, his mindset is, A, even more powerful for him. And B, I think it's born out of the fact like, A, he's a nice guy that just loves the game. And B, he's not the perfect athlete.

Or I shouldn't say the perfect athlete. He probably is. He's not the perfect basketball player. So back to that quote. So focusing on the past is ego. What I hear there is that if you go into anything and you're so either high on how well you've done in the past or low on how poorly things have been, well, that is an old self. That is an old you.

That has disappeared. If you are focused on the future, that's pride. That is, I'm going to be so great in the future. I need something to happen in the future. Or the opposite of pride is anxiety. I'm worried about something in the future. But again, none of that is real. None of that's in the moment.

And being present, or as Yana said, focusing on the present is humility. How I interpret that is, if you're not, if you're not, you're in the present moment, you are automatically humbled. Because if you are fully focusing on what's in front of you, whether it's a game of basketball, whether it's writing a book, whether it's making music, whether it's making love, whether it's having a conversation, nothing else matters because there's nothing else there. I mean, my guess is so many of your listeners are familiar with the concept of flow. When you're completely in the zone, absorbed in what you're doing, time and space is altered. Well, when you're in a flow state, there is no past or present. It's just you

and what you're doing. And I interpreted Janus as quote to say that, hey, the more that I can be in that space, A, the more humble I am, because my mind is not telling me stories about my past self or my future self. And B, clearly evident by the way he's performed, the better you perform. Because it's pretty easy to perform when your mind is where you are, not behind you or ahead of you. I feel like this also, let's see if I can put this together. I feel like this goes with gratitude as well. One of the things I love about my wife, Miranda, is the fact that we'll go on walks with our dog and we get back to our house. This happens at random times. She'll stand there for a second. We build our home right as we got married. She'll stand, look at the home and say, I love our home.

I love our house. And instead of, you know, we walk in neighborhoods that have gigantic mansions, you know, multi-million dollar houses that are kind of close to our neighborhood. And instead of of saying like, God, wouldn't it be great if we could live in that house? We get back to our home in the present, in the moment. She looks at it says, I love our home. I love what we've built. And it's not just the house. It's the, it's the inhabitants. It's the family. And to me, I love that. Like, I love that quality in a person, certainly in a partner. And I sense that there's some humility there. There's some some gratitude of what you currently have instead of being so worried about like, well, maybe we could one day get one of those three. million dollar houses. You know what I mean? I feel like that goes hand in hand. What do you think? Absolutely. So your wife sounds awesome. Yeah. Um, you know, what you're describing is really like a sense of groundedness. Yeah. Um, and it's a, it's something that I've observed in my research, my reporting, my coaching is that there's this false notion that if you're content with what you have or you're content with where you are, that means that you'll become lazy or you won't

strive to move forward. But in fact, the opposite tends to be true. If you have some level of contentment with what you have, gratitude, humility, you know, these are complementary words, then not only do you feel better, but you actually perform better. And here's why. If you think about starting from a place of good enough, as you said, our house is beautiful, our neighborhood is good enough, generally, people feel really free. Their shoulders drop, they feel open. If you think about a place of, I need more, not good enough, kind of clasping for what's out ahead of you, or being sad about something in the past, that tends to be really tight. Most people perform better from a place of openness, from a place of freedom, from a place of love, than from a place of

compulsion or tightness or angst or I have to have this. Right. If I honest felt that I have to be a better free throw shooter for my legacy or I have to win this championship. That is so much more pressure than I freaking love the game. You know, I'm going to be in the present moment. I'm right here. In nerding out a little bit, in its extremes, depression and anxiety are both really self-ego focused disorders. Depression is all about over-analyzing the self in the past.

anxiety is all about over-analyzing the self in the future. Now, even if you don't suffer from these things clinically, just in general, day-to-day kind of mood swings, sadness, inks, restlessness, tightness, and particularly in the culture right now, I think it gears a lot more towards angst, right? Meeting the next thing, reaching ahead. That is often very caught up with a sense of fragile identity, because if I don't have that big house, if I don't have that promotion,

If I don't have the bestseller, then I am not enough versus I'm already enough. And wouldn't it be rad to get the promotion? Wouldn't it be rad to write the bestseller? So you're still aiming for the same points. It's just the texture of the striving completely changes in a way that feels more fulfilling and looser and lighter. And I argue leads to better performance. Also, speaking of like the awards or bestsellers, I remember a recent article by Ryan Holiday.

He's been on the show four or five times. And he said, I think it took him a while before he became a New York Times bestselling author. He had to get Wall Street Journal, but didn't hit the time, New York Times for a while. And he's like, I expected the feeling to be one of this. Oh my God. Wow. And he's like, you know what it felt like? Basically nothing.

Basically nothing. It just felt like, okay, that's good. and you go about it. So you, you, you, you kind of put these thoughts in your mind and your body of how awesome it's going to be to hit some random list that doesn't really matter. I mean, I guess it's good for your career. But, and then you get it and he's like, uh, all right. And I, and I, in a way that like that him, me reading him say that kind of free to be up to be like, whatever. Like, what am I even thinking about that stuff for, you know? Yeah, I know Ryan well too. It's funny. I actually had interviewed him like the night after,

stillness is the key hit the number one spot like for a live event in in northern California in San Francisco and we talked about it and we kind of just joked and there too I think if it feels like it's so utterly necessary to have this thing happen then you're more apt to have a huge letdown clearly when it doesn't happen but also when it does whereas if you're just like hey man wouldn't this be rad you know you can have a drink or two with some friends, slap five, smile, be stoked for a night and then wake up the next day. And it's gone. And that's fine. And you're still stoked and happy because like you've built this life around you. And the process of striving for those goals is what actually gives you the

fulfillment. Something I talk about all the time with my coaching clients. And again, it is another through thread in the book here is that goals are really good and important. But I think in general, I'm going to use the collective we. We put too much emphasis on achieving the goals and less emphasis on the process to get there. And goals are just concepts. Achievement is a point in time. But the process is how you live your life. So when I think about selecting goals, it's much less about I really want this thing

because it will make me feel a certain way or will make me a different person. And it's much more about I want to go after this thing because the steps I need to take to give myself a chance of getting there will make me feel a certain way or make me a different person. So, oh, heck yeah, you know, I want my book to be on the New York Times best seller list. Who doesn't? But the reason for that is because I want to write books. I want to have conversations like this. I want to be wrestling with big ideas.

And that is the, that's the value of having a goal is then it gets you on the path. Not to sound too woo-woo, but another way to think of it is, you know, if you only want to climb a mountain for the peak, well, 99.999% of the way up is going to be very tedious. But if you select peaks because you're like, man, I heard the view on the side is great or there's cool animals or people or life on the side of the mountain, then it doesn't really matter how long you're on the peak if you get there or not. The ultimate reward is that you get to keep doing it. You know what I mean? So like the reason that yeah, it's nice to have those accolades or Forbes and those things say the kind of things about your book. It's because I think, well, that article, that proclamation by so-and-so is going to

increase the odds of me getting another great book deal. That's kind of the way I think about it. And that's because I'm like, oh, okay, because the reward is that you get to do it. The reward is I get to have these conversations with you. The reward is I get to learn in real time and share that with people and get feedback from them. And that's what I call the juice, right, when you get the feedback from some random person and a random place in the world that your work, the thing that you decided to publish has changed their life, that's the thing, right? The process to get to potentially have that happen, to me, that's what this is all about.

Yeah, 100%. And also, the people that you really respect. So you can't control, you know, if a bunch of people listening to this podcast that you don't really know are going to write you or not. And you might change someone's life, but that person might be busy with three kids and they might just forget to write you. But if you've got a circle of 10 to 15 people that you respect and, you know, they tell you like, hey, man, you're doing good stuff. Then focus there too. Because it can be tiring to try to get external validation from outside yourself. Now, it feels good. We're humans. We're not Zen monks. You can't

turn that off. But I think the more of it you can do. develop a foundational group of people that you respect and take their opinion very seriously and then hold the opinion of a lot of other people's lightly. You wrote an article titled, Your Addiction to Growth might be making you miserable. And great title, because I feel like I might have this addiction. I think like I equate growth with excellence and excellence is a big deal for me. So I thought, can you share more about why your addiction to growth might be making you miserable? Yeah.

So I'm going to start with the research. And then I'm going to go from what might seem like being very in the weeds to a view of the forest. So researchers had individuals solve puzzles. And the study participants had the opportunity to add pieces to try to solve the puzzle or subtract pieces. over 70% of participants just focused on adding, even when subtracting would have led to the better outcome. So there's something about the human condition right now that is very oriented towards adding, towards growth.

And you expand that out into the world, and this is about more is better, bigger is better. So somewhere I see this often with entrepreneurs is this. romanticization of VC funding. So for those that don't know, VC funding is very much about growth, right? A successful VC might invest in 20 companies and they really only need one or two to hit it big and then the fund works. So VC's pressure you to grow, they give you a ton of money knowing or having the expectation that you're going to use that money for growth. But not every entrepreneur wants to live that lifestyle or is focused on that. A story of two Whole Foods.

There's the Whole Foods that started in Austin, this great little grocery store, super profitable. At the time, probably the best grocery store in the country, if not the world. And the ownership was either, and I don't know these people, but they were either enticed by growth or genuinely into growth. So what did they do? They raised a bunch of money. They grew Whole Foods. They took Whole Foods public. Now, as we all know, Amazon acquired Whole Foods.

and there's nothing inherently wrong with growth either. So if your mission is to change the world and change how people think about food and grocery shopping, then yeah, one store is probably not enough. But I think for every person that has that kind of mission or temperament, there's another person that might say, hey, I am just going to focus on making this the best freaking grocery store in the world. It's going to give me a fine salary. People might come visit to see it.

It's going to serve my community really well. and I don't want to have to deal with, you know, listing on the NASDAQ or IPOing or having to be acquired or the HR challenges that come with having thousands of employees. And I'm going to be really explicit to be value as neutral. Neither are better or worse. My argument is that so many people just default to growth when probably most of the populations on a bell curve and 50% of people that are chasing growth might be happier if they actually focused on simplicity and, taking things out. So yeah, that's the argument that I make there. And, you know, it's back to the puzzle. I think if we look at people as a bell curve in terms of temperaments and personalities, and there's a lot of research that shows that's true, well, if 70% of people immediately go to addition, you know, of that 70%, 20% would actually probably be happier if they thought about

subtraction a little bit more often. What about for you, let's get personal for your business. So this is something that's asked of me from kind of more strategic people than probably I am where they say, so the way that you build your business is you create IP, you certify coaches, and then they go out, they share your stuff, you get a percentage, and that's how you don't always have to be trading time for dollars. And I get that because like from a consulting perspective or keynote speaking or whatever, you are still kind of trading time for dollars. And I'm always like, yeah, that sounds like it's that's probably the way to go. It sounds like it, but do I really want to do that? Do I want to, or can we build a business where, yeah, there's still a lot of trading time for dollars, but it's

all really cool. It's all really fun. It's great clients, great people, cool events. And so I'm always going back and forth. And you have a similar type set up. I think. I don't know the structures of your business, but like, what do you think in that regard? And maybe speak more, you can, you could comment on mine, but speak more about like how you think about building your business around the type of work that we do. So I'm super fortunate to be able to have some flexibility to make decisions that I'm going to say that like follow and some people aren't in this situation. They genuinely need the money that requires them to do certain things.

And my hunch is a lot of people listening to the show might think they need a certain amount of money to do certain things, but perhaps they really haven't evaluated. So I would step back and I would challenge you, or at least challenge myself, to think less about building the business or less about building the brand and more about building the life that I want to live. And for me, creativity, autonomy, movement in the outdoors are such enormous parts of it that that actually guides my decision making. So how this actually plays out, I limit my coaching practice to 15 clients because that is the amount that allows me to only see coaching clients on Mondays and Fridays.

And then Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursdays are all for creative work. I can just read. I can have conversations like this. I can record my own podcast. I can work on my big book projects, my writing. and am I leaving tons of money on the table? Absolutely. But does that matter? Hopefully not. I mean, I might look back 30 years from now and be in a bind and be like, oh my gosh, I should have pushed harder. But the flip side of that is like we live in a smaller town with a lower cost of living.

We've built a lifestyle. My wife feels very similarly around having autonomy and freedom. So we make financial decisions that then give us the opportunity to make quote unquote business or professional decisions to really prioritize our values. Something that I sometimes worry about is like any individual entrepreneur, author, artist, there is a part of me that's like, huh, if I pushed harder, could more people get access to my work? From a selfless standpoint, could I help more people? from a selfish standpoint, would I leave behind a bigger legacy?

And I recognize that. So I also put some bounds and constraints around that. So when I have a book coming out, because for me, I believe currently the best way for me to reach a lot of people is through my books, then I'll push really hard. But I'm really concrete about the boundaries. So does that mean two months before and two months after? Does that mean a six month window? And then, yeah, I'll release a little bit and I'll start to do more.

I'll say yes to more things. and then after that period, okay, back to Janus. Like, I did what I could. Whatever happened happened, now I'm going to go settle back into the normal groove that fulfills me day to day. Huh. That's really good advice. It may only be for me, but that's really good advice.

I think it's good advice for a lot of people. And I think that what happens is just so easy to get swept up professionally. Yeah. I want you to get to this point. But I'm thinking about the person, Brad, who is. is a VP at a Fortune 500 company. And this person has worked really hard to get multiple promotions. They're making good money. They like their job, right? Good job. They like what they're doing. But they're back to back to back to back to back to back 24-7, a lot of some weekend

stuff, you know, whatever. And they're saying like, Brad, good for you, bud. Like, hey, I'm happy for you that you don't have to do anything on Tuesday to Thursday, but that's not the real world. You don't get it. Most of us or almost all of us don't have the luxury to do that. I've worked like crazy for 20 years to get this VP job. I'm making good money. We belong to the country club. It's really cool. We have good friends. I play golf every once and whatever, you know, what about for that skeptic or that, not even a skeptic, but the person who says, that's just not the world I live in. You don't understand. What do you think about from that perspective? So the first thing I'd say is if that person is happy, then great. Who am I to tell them to do anything different, right? Sure. People have different

personalities, different temperaments. And we need people like that. I mean, otherwise big fortune 10, Fortune 100 companies wouldn't run. For that person that might not be so happy or they might hear me talking and be like, you know, oh, screw that guy. You know, he's off in La La Creeative Land talking about love, but deep down inside is like, man, like part of that sounds kind of rad. Those tend to be my clients, right? Like my coaching rates are expensive enough where I'm not getting starving artists. Like the majority of my coaching clients are either entrepreneurs that took venture funding or sea level people at large corporations.

And they're coming to me because they're exactly in the situation you described, but they're not that happy about it. Gotcha. And the first thing that I would say is, well, the good news is you're a VP. You have very few bosses and it's really hard to fire a VP level person. So why don't you start taking? Not sure about that. It depends.

I think it depends on where you are. Maybe not a VP. You're right. Maybe I'm thinking like, well I was a VP of sales. It's one of the easiest people to fire when things aren't going well. But yeah, then let me reframe as C level people.

Yeah, got you. Got you. But maybe some VPs too. Yeah. And what I would say is, all right, like, let's get back to core values. Like, what do you really value? What do you value most of, about work. And then how can we try to craft your current work situation to a lot more times for

that? So the back to back to back meeting work on the weekends where I start with coaching clients is super modest. Let's just find two hours a week. It can be one two hour block, could be two by one hours, could be four by 30 minutes, three by 45 minutes, where you block off time on your calendar to do some kind of deep meaningful work at your job that fulfills you. the rest of the week, whatever happens happens. And then what tends to happen is you get this feedback loop. A, people really like it. B, they realized that the ship didn't sink because they had that time blocked off.

And we say, all right, what would it look like to do three hours, four hours? I've coached VP level people, executives that have gone from the back to back to back to back situation you describe to now not taking any meetings after 1 p.m. And I know this because I get screwed. I try to schedule coaching sessions with them in the afternoon and their EAs are like, sorry, can't. So I think some of it is just challenging that culture and testing those assumptions, but starting very small and scheduling it. I talk about this all the time with my coaching clients.

Your schedule to the extent that you have control over it is a moral document. Like the things that you care about better be on the schedule, otherwise they're not going to get done. what have you found you coach some really productive achievers, people who have sustained excellence, you've helped them do that. What have you found to be some of the commonalities among leaders who sustain excellence? The first thing that I would say is wise patience. So patience is the ability. to let things happen instead of always make them happen in a professional setting.

Yeah. And it is the ability to step back sometimes when you really want to step in. Again, this is for leaders in particular. Sure. Because oftentimes what happens is really good individual contributors are great at making things happen and then they get into a leadership role and they keep trying to do that and they end up totally stressed out and overwhelmed. I say wise patience because at a certain point, if things aren't working, you need to switch

course. So really good leaders over time, they pay close attention to prior experiences. And they have an unbelievable level of discernment of when to leave in, excuse me, lean in and push and try to make things happen versus when they can step back and let things happen. And a very concrete practice that can help with this is something that I call self-distance. And what self-distancing does is it basically takes the premise that when you have to make a challenging decision that will affect you greatly, you are not going to be very wise about it. There's all kinds of emotions at play.

There might be fear, angst, whatever it is. So the more that you can get outside of yourself or create some space, between yourself and the situation, the more wise your decision will be. So two ways to do this. One is you pretend that a friend is in the exact same situation as you, and then you give that friend advice. And then you actually have to follow the advice that you give the friend. And it's shocking how often people find that they tell their friend to do something,

but they themselves don't really want to do. So again, in the situation of patience, it's this urge to make a big change or to transition jobs or to resign or to go to your boss and have the controversial conversation. And then you pretend a friend in the same situation. In at least 50% of a time, my clients say, you know, I tell that friend like, this feels really hard right now, but give it another month. Let's see. And then if it doesn't change the end of that month, yeah, go do the hard thing.

And the second way to create some distance between a situation in yourself is this notion of adopting the lens of a wise observer. So one easy way to do this is to imagine yourself 30 years down the road. you know, maybe you're in your library, sipping on a bourbon, if you don't drink coffee, tea, whatever it is, and you're kind of looking back at younger you, what would wiser you tell younger you? And again, it's astonishing how much, how many degrees of difference there often are between present us and wiser us. And this basic premise doesn't just operate at work. It can happen in your personal life too. But the more challenging decisions we make,

particularly when we're feeling rushed or time crunched, the less. wise we become. So for those that are watching this on YouTube or wherever the videos are posted, I'll explain for the people that are listening, if you think of what you're experiencing here and yourself here during tough experiences, these two things merge. And all that we're trying to do is create a little bit of space between your deeper sense of self or your wise sense of self and what's happening so you can make the right decision. And again, this all comes back to patience because when you're caught up in a rush and things are moving fast and you're feeling pressure, that's when these two things converge. I remember speaking with Liz Weissman, Brad,

and she told me what I found in some of the most exceptional leaders is that they have an acute understanding of the stimulus and creating the buffer between their response. And the great ones, and she's a lot of times this may come with some experience, like some reps, right? You got to mess this up. I mean, it's like, no one hits a switch. Yeah, there's some life reps here. But having this, creating this gap between the stimulus and your response. And I think of this as a parent, I think this at work.

Whenever I, that buffer is very small and I respond quickly, typically, typically it's not good. Now, in the sporting world, I played quarterback in college a little bit afterwards. You don't have, you don't have the luxury of you have to make snap decisions, right? and all the times you throw interceptions, things happen. But you have to make quick decisions in the business world and parenting world as well. But I like to think of that. And I find myself when I'm actually thinking of her telling me that, stimulus, buffer, my response, how I choose to respond to whatever that is, good or bad, is going to determine the outcome. And that reminding myself of that has been helpful over time.

time to make a little bit wiser decisions. Yeah. And, you know, I would even push back on the quarterback thing. And my hunch is you'll agree with me, but you think about like really good athletes, particularly in leadership positions. So I'm thinking about quarterbacks, point guards, short stops. They often talk about slowing the game down. Well, the more reps that you get, bingo.

So the more reps that you get, the more you slow the game down. And aren't we saying the same? thing, but slower the game, the more space you have to make a decision. Yeah. Do you work with any quarterbacks or any guys like that or like, or people with point guards? No, I haven't. I'd love to. I work predominantly with endurance athletes and I've worked with a couple golfers, um, which

are both slower. I bet you'd be, you'd be really good, I bet with no, studying your work. I bet I wish I didn't have any. I mean, it was, it's on me, but I didn't have any of the stuff as I was playing. And I think it would have made me a lot, a lot. I mean, I was also young and stupid, but I think it would be a lot better, you know? Yeah. And some of it is just some of its wraps and then some of it are these strategies.

Now, if you're playing quarterback or you're a Navy seal, you know, you're not going to be, well, what would why, where would wise or older me throw the ball? Like, would you throw it to the checkdown or would you try to go above the middle linebacker? Like, that's going to happen through reps and through other, through other tactics and skills. But most people in business settings have a little bit of time. Another cue that can be really helpful because I'm also apparent is when I feel like the restlessness or the urge to just do something, instead of try to suppress that or resist that or judge myself for having it, I almost, not almost, I do.

I use it as like a little alarm that says, oh, like this is anger. This is impatience. Force yourself to take like three deep breaths. And in those three deep breaths, just try to think about like. you know, what are you going to regret least an hour from now? And, you know, it's hard. We have a three and a half year old, but a rule that my wife and I try to really abide by is zero raising of voices unless our son's actually in danger. So if he's about to like run out into the street, yeah, we're going to yell for him or yell at him, but we're going to save

our yells for those situations. And it's challenging. But what it has made us do is get really good it feeling that like, come on, man, it's not a huge deal. Or like, Theo, put that down. And just feeling that, not reacting on it, and then approaching it a little bit more calmly. I'll tell you in 30 years, if it works or not. But yeah, I think it's about like learning to read some of those snap responses, or excuse me, snap reactions and use them as cues to pause. How would you, how would you translate this?

What we're talking, we've talked a little about sports, a little bit about parenting. how about let's go back to the avatar of the person who's the VP of the Fortune 100 company. How would you relate it? Maybe you could think of an example or even a client or something that they could listen to this and say, that's going to make me better starting my week off here or my Monday morning meeting or whatever or my one-on-ones, whatever may be. What's a translation to the business world? Love it.

So the first thing I'll say is it's a really helpful mindset shift. And as a writer, I have to be, but I'm a big believer in language shaping how we think and act. So sometimes just having language or heuristics or tools can really influence behavior. So I'm going to tell a story about a psychotherapist in the 60s. And I promise the business people listening, it will translate very well. So there's a guy named DW Winnicott. And he developed the theory of what he called the Good Enough Mother. And to update that for more.

recent times, and I think more accurate, we can call it the good enough parent. And he said that the good enough parent is not the helicopter parent. It is not the person that responds to their child's each and every needs. It is not the parent that neglects their child. It is the parent that gives their child a safe space to grow and blossom on their own. The bigger your team is as a leader, the more important it is to take a good enough parent mindset. If you are a leader and you try to go in all the time, A, you're going to burn yourself out, B, you're going to micromanage your people. If you're a leader that's just kind of checked

out, like, hey, I hired the consultants to give me the three big bullet points, you're going to have a really cushy job and then get burned. So I think the job of a leader is to constantly be looking kind of at the boundaries around the work in creating space for the work to unfold and then picking their spots of when to intervene. The thing that Winnicott said is that it's a lot easier to intervene than not. Again, some of this comes with reps, but some of it just comes as a mindset shift of seeing your job as a leader is to create the space for the work to unfold. Create the space for your team to perform their best.

So let's get even more concrete. This might mean having a couple very strong, rigid rules or boundaries that you want your people to follow. And you enforce the crap out of those. And outside of those, you have to be willing to let people experiment, let people fail, let people do things differently than you might. This, I think, as a new manager, when maybe you're insecure, you haven't built up confidence, is tough because I know, I'll speak from my own experience. I felt like I needed to be the C-A-O. the chief answer officer. I needed to have all the answers and talk all the time.

And really that stemmed from insecurity. I got the job when I was young. I was inexperienced, people that were older than me, a variety of things. And in reality, it was just stupid. It was awful. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so I wonder like speaking to that person who maybe is less experienced,

not as secure, not as common. yet because this stuff's hard, you know? Like it's, it's, it's always moving. It's always changing. It's never, you know what I mean? What like how, how could then that person build up some of the security in oneself and the confidence to be able to give some space? Because at times, what's that manager doing? They don't like, they're doing anything. And as a manager, like, no, no, I'm always in the, I'm right in the mix with my guy, you know? So I'm just curious for that person. What, what do you say to them? So I have a ton of personal experience in this exact situation. and I'm going to give advice or counsel based on my personal experience. So it still happens. It happens less. But fast forward, excuse me, rewind a few years ago when I was relatively new to coaching.

And people are paying me all this money. And they're these super smart senior people. And I would feel like I always have to be talking or giving them advice or having answers. And what I'd realize is that there would be some. coaching sessions when it'd hardly say anything at all. And I felt so insecure. Like, what value am I providing? The feedback was that those were the best coaching sessions. So now I'll have clients and I'll say, like, I just want to make sure you're still getting value out of this. Like,

oh, this is so helpful. So my advice to that manager is to ask the actual people that you're managing. Hey, how am I doing? Do you feel like I'm leaning in too much or too little? And trust them. If they say things are great, then you can resist that urge to constantly be doing something. Managing up is a little bit harder if you're in a culture where like you have to kind of create the illusion of always doing something. Then maybe you manage up by trying to change that culture. And that's where you can schedule blocks of time for deep work or other kinds of like, creative, associative thinking that could ultimately help the business or help your teams.

But ultimately, I think it comes down to asking your people. And it takes guts to do it. Like the way I have this conversation with my coaching clients is I'm like, hey, like, I'm feeling a little bit insecure right now because I'm not saying much. I don't even know if you still need me.

And they're like, oh, like this is the most valuable hour of my month. And then I trust them. I have to. So it's just, it's knowing the thing, which I think is a starting point.

And then be recognizing that that urge to do, or insert yourself or like make it seem as if you're really doing something is a pretty universal human urge. Everyone experiences it. So it's checking that urge. And then if you're feeling really anxious, seeking reassurance from the people that in most effects, which are the people that you're managing. Interesting. I've had very similar feelings about people I've worked with who are more senior than I've ever been. And I'm like, am I even doing anything? And one of the, one of the pieces of feedback I've received is I don't have any other time where somebody approaches me with genuine curiosity to ask about what I'm doing, why I'm doing, how I'm doing,

and offers little tidbits here and there. But for the most parts, listens to me. And sometimes they need to unload. And sometimes they just got to drop a bunch of stuff on you. And you let them do it and you listen and you approach it with curiosity, not judgment. because I think curiosity is the opposite of judgment. And doing that. And that's why these high-level leaders will value that relationship so much because they don't get that anywhere else. Yeah.

And the other thing back to the manager example is, you know, if you think of an athlete, we don't expect a great athlete to score or to be a part of every single play. Yeah. Sometimes they're just on the court. And it's just their presence on the court that opens things up. We remember great athletes because they're clutch. So for a manager, if there are 12 times a year, just once a month, that there is a true

fire drill, stress through the roof, employees burnt out, you know, your top performer just separated from their partner and, you know, got scolded by someone parallel to them. If in those 12 moments, you can keep your cool and be a rock for those people and insert yourself, then you have done all of your value. I'm a firm believer that like that is that's the point like save it for when you need it and otherwise just you know good enough have those restraints create a safe productive space for the work to unfold and then save your big shots for when you need to take them. You have an equation in this equation that I think is made the rounds online and in your books

stress plus rest equals growth. Can you expand on that? So I think the natural starting point here is exercise science because it's the simplest. So if you want to make a muscle or any kind of system better, bigger, stronger, you have to stress it at the appropriate dose, let it rest and recover, and that's how it grows. So if I want to make my arm muscles bigger and I pick up a 20 pound weight and it's not too much, then maybe I try a 25 pound weight. If I were to pick up a 60 pound weight, I'd hurt my arm. Let's say the perfect weight is 30.

I could sit there and lift the 30 pound weight day in and day out. If I don't rest in between, I wouldn't grow. My muscle would literally burn out. It would run out of ATP, the fuel that makes it contract. So the way to make a muscle grow is to stress it at the right dose, a really challenging weight that pushes me to the edge of fatigue and then allow for rest in recovery where the muscle grows and then I come back and push it more. This isn't just for muscles.

Like I said, this is also for physiological systems. So you want to make your cardiovascular system stronger so you can be a better runner. Same thing. You got to find the right dose of running and the right dose of workouts. But if all you do is never take a day off, you're going to get injured. So you also have to rest. It also applies to creative pursuits. What researchers that have looked at the most talented world-class musicians and artists have

found is that they tend to work in pretty similar patterns. And that is intense periods of focus, practice or focus work followed by 30 to 90 minute breaks. And it's in those breaks that they're recharging so that they can come back and work. Now, you zoom out in a more macro level, research also shows that people tend to have breakthrough works after sabbaticals or time away. And in the business world, same thing as 100% true. Just think about listeners when you are stuck on a thorny problem. How often is it that you solve the problem when you're straining on it versus when you're in the shower or on a walk or on a hike or just waking up from a nap or driving home from the office?

So in that case, same equation, right? Stress is you're throwing yourself into the work, you're straining, rest as you step away. and then growth is you have the insight during that period where you've stepped away. Even more macro, you talk about career development. This is 100% how that works. So stress, you take on a challenge. Maybe now you're managing a team of eight. What people often miss is the rest or the time for reflection, what went well, what didn't

go well. And then you gradually can grow your capacity to manage to lead. So you've written a book called peak performance. And then your most recent book is titled The Practice of Groundedness, a transformative path to success that feeds, not crushes your soul. And there's six principles here. And I want to maybe pinpoint a couple before we have to go. And I'm going to start with moving your body.

What is it about moving your body to ground your mind? So there is all this research that shows that when we move our bodies in space, be it walking, running, gardening, swimming, lifting weights, it supports our mental health, so how we feel, our affect. It supports our ability to create that space to respond instead of react. Researchers call this impulse control. It supports our ability to problem solve and think creatively. and it supports our ability to find calm and peace. So we often think of movement or sport for athletes. In the book, I argue that whatever your job is,

and I talk about this all the time with my coaching clients, if you're the head of product at a 1,000-person tech company, physical practice better be a part of your job because it's going to make you better at what you do. I also am keen. I call this physical practice because I think exercise, people think of like muscle heads at gold's gym or sweating on an elliptical trainer, it can be that.

But again, this is also just about taking a regular 30-minute brisk walk. So the research is unequivocal in people's experience are the same that if you can work regular movement into your day, you'll feel better and perform better. The reason you have to make it a part of your job is because otherwise, what you say is I'm too busy. Like, I don't have the time to do this. This is cutting into my work instead of thinking of it as your work.

Yeah. How about embracing vulnerability to develop genuine strength and confidence? It's probably my favorite principle in the book. I'm glad that you asked. So this works on two levels. So the first level is strength and confidence in yourself. So self-vulnerability is about going to the spots that you might not be so comfortable going, exploring your craft. your weaknesses, your fears, your doubts. And we tend not to do this because it's not fun to do. And even if your conscious mind is really good at pretending that stuff's not there or resisting it or kind of washing over it, your subconscious knows it's there.

So these like little cracks, they start to grow. And then when any rough weather comes, they can boil up and completely throw you off course. So if you know that you're hiding something or you're washing over something that you need to address in your life, you can't be truly confident. Because I don't think you can be truly confident unless you know all of yourself, including the parts of yourself that you'd rather not know. But once you can be aware of that stuff, then you can say, hey, this is who I am. Like, yeah, I am terrified of dying. Or one of my biggest fears is that no one's going to remember me. You don't have to change that, but just knowing that it's there and accepting that as a part of

who you are and not trying to hide it or, you know, bullshit yourself about it, that allows you to be really confident because then you're saying, yep, this is who I am, this is what I got. I'm going to go do it. You know, back to where we opened in Yannis, I don't think Yonis gives a shit that his free throw shooting is not great right now. He's like, yeah, I miss a lot of free throws, but it still score 50 points. That's like embracing your vulnerability, true confidence. And then the second point is building strength and confidence in your relationships with others. This is equally important. So many people think but you have to trust someone and then you can be vulnerable with them. But it turns out that the opposite is true.

The way to build trust with someone is by being vulnerable. So there's an experiment in the book, researchers from the University of Manningham in Germany. They had people that didn't know each other so well engaged in deep conversations. And they had the speaker share really vulnerable stuff. So experiences with death, depression, divorce, illness, and the speaker rated themselves as being weak when they were sharing that stuff.

But the person on the receiving end rated the speaker as being strong, and they gained more respect, admiration, and trust for that person. So it's this paradox. When we're being really vulnerable, it can make us feel weak, but others perceive us as strong and they respect us more. And the reason for that is everyone has their shit. Nobody likes walking around pretending that they don't have their shit. So the more that we can share it and hold it together, the more real you can be with people,

the stronger those bonds will be. Now, I think in the past three years, vulnerability has become kind of a thing, which I think is good. The downside is there's a lot of performative vulnerability. So like the posting on social media, like, oh, I'm having such a hard time getting out of bed or like, you know, give me the card for pandemic fatigue. And there's a fine line between truly sharing like what is grading at you and what's hurting. and then doing it in a performative way. I kind of think it's like, you know, what's that line about adult entertainment?

You can't really describe it, but you know it when you see it. I think the same is true for performative vulnerability. So maybe another way to think is if you are being vulnerable because you think it's going to get you something good, that's performative. It should be really rather challenging or uncomfortable to share your true vulnerabilities. Yeah. And I think you can, as you get more mature, you can sense, I think it from like a coaching perspective, like football coaches, we always want the real authentic coach because sometimes

someone tries to be, they see another coach who has won a lot and they see them yelling at practice or something. And so they have to do that or it's performative. I think any profession with anything you do, if you're not being you, you, people see that, I think, pretty quick. And you're like, I call that fake toughness. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, it's really easy to like yell and like be a boss and kind of lead by authority. Yeah. It's a lot harder to love your players. And like, you know, stay calm and then make good decisions. Again, so much of toughness is, is stimulus response. Like the more space there is. And those are really good coaches.

Yeah, but it's hard, right? Like, I write about this in the book professionally and personally. Anytime you care deeply about something, it makes you vulnerable. Yeah, yeah. Because things always change. Things very rarely ever go exactly as planned. So, like, the things you care about, they inevitably break your heart. Like, there is not a parent that doesn't end up heartbroken at some point because they

care deeply about their kids. So it's kind of like, this is the cost of, like, caring really deep. Yeah. Can we, you have time for one more? Oh, I could go on forever with you. I'm really enjoying this. Okay, build, thank you. Build deep community over efficiency and optimization. I've heard the word optimization a lot over the last few years in efficiency too. Build deep community over efficiency and optimization. All right. So here we go. Yes, that's like my first answer. Me too. I've heard those words a lot. And I think what has happened is that there has been such a push in the culture towards more, more, more, which gets represented by efficiency and optimization, that an unintended

consequence that we don't see is that it's crowded out time for deep community. So it takes a lot more time, even pre-COVID, certainly during COVID, to meet friends in person than to do a Zoom hangout. It takes more time in planning and coordination. It takes more time planning and coordination to do a Zoom hangout than write an email. It takes more time planning to write an email than to send a text. So in order to be really efficient and optimized in our professional lives, well, it's at odds with building deep community because it takes time to build deep community. And when everything is clicking and going really well, that is fine. But when shit hits the fan and you need support in that deep community and belongings is not there,

then it's a pretty tough spot to be in. So what this principle is all about is ensuring that you continuously make community and belonging and building it and being a part of it, integral to your life, even when you're pushing really hard professionally. The poet David White, right, so beautifully about this, he says one of the biggest signs of a life headed toward disarray is when you're moving so fast that you lose the ability to see others.

And that's it, right? I'm optimizing. I'm optimizing. Like, I don't have time for friends. I don't have time for this. I don't have time for that. Or I can just send a quick text or like a little like, you know, video. And it's fine, right?

Like, this isn't about quitting your job and like holding hands and singing kumbaya, but it's about realizing that like we get such a sense of meaning and fulfillment from community and strength, particularly when we hit rough weather. rough patches in our life, that of course, like, we ought not to neglect it. And to me, deep community, I'll say this real quick. It has two components. One is actual physical connection with other people. And another is a sense of belonging.

So you don't have to be physical with someone to feel belonging. You can belong to a spiritual tradition. You can belong to a craft. You can belong to a lineage of thinkers. And I think that people tend to be best and perform best when they have both of those things. All right. One more. Sorry. You have a tattoo sleeve on your left arm, and I noticed mountains and trees. What are the significance of those? Oh, my gosh. All right. So here we go. There's all kinds of stuff here. So I'm going to start with the mountain.

Okay. So that is, there's this meditation that is all about. It is all about. envisioning yourself as a mountain and the weather around you, if it's constantly changing, a mountain just sits through it all. It can snow and the mountain can be like really obscured. It can be sunny and shining on the mountain. It can be raining. The mountain can slowly be eroding, but the mountain just sits. It's just there throughout all of this. And I first heard this at a time in my life when I was really struggling with bad anxiety and depression. And I was working with the therapist. I was taking medication. So I was doing all this other stuff too. But during this meditation, like probably for the first time in four months,

I just felt free. Like I felt like the mountain and all of the intrusive thoughts and feelings and things swirling around me, they were just weather. And that was like a real turning point in my recovery from depression and anxiety. So that felt weird. worthy to get on my arm and it looks cool. Like I haven't completely, you know, gotten over vanity. And then the trees, I just freaking love trees because they represent so much of what it means to be grounded. And if you think about trees, we often look at their overstory.

So the leaves, the branches, the color. But what supports a tree is actually its root system, the stuff. that we don't even see. And I think that's such a beautiful metaphor for kind of like my philosophy of life, certainly for this most recent book, is that if we don't tend to our roots, to our ground, to the stuff that really holds us down, gives us provide some gravity, then when rough weather comes, the whole thing's going to fall over. So it storms all the time throughout the year, and we have challenges in our life all the time. And if that root system or that foundation is not there, then we can't withstand it. If it is, we can withstand it, which is great.

Thank you for sharing. I had no idea what you're going to say. And I'm glad I asked, though. Brad, I recommend people read all your books, but the most recent one is titled The Practice of Groundedness, a Transformative Path of Success that Feeds Not Crushes Your Soul. Where else would you send viewers, listeners to find you online? Yeah, thanks for asking. I am on Twitter at B. Stahlberg. And my website is just my name, www.w.com. And I'd be so honored if you listen to the book on Audible, read the book, whatever it is, however you consume books. And it's interesting. I'll say one more thing. I wrote the books in reverse. And I had to live my life that way in order to do it. But I'd recommend that you read them in the

order of it, they should be read. So I'd start with the new book. So peak performance, everything is clicking. You're at the top of the mountain. These are the practices that are going to help you maintain it and sustain it. My second book, The Passion Paradox, it's all about how do you develop motivation and harness it so you control it and it doesn't control you. That's like how you get up the mountain. Groundedness is all about laying down the foundation. And in my own life, I was like a high flying peak performer, I was very focused on like the climb in the top. And then as I mentioned, I got pretty sick and I realized like, holy shit. Like I haven't spent nearly enough time thinking about the foundation, understanding the foundation. And that's ultimately what led to this book.

And if I were, I wish I would have had these foundational principles to build on, because I think it would have, it would have been better. Wow. Well said. And thanks again for being here. And I would absolutely love to continue our dialogue, um, as we both. both progress man yeah awesome thanks dude that was cool so much fun I'm guessing you could hear that by the tone of my voice really enjoyed talking with Brad we actually want an extra 30 minutes afterwards when we were not recording but the really value becoming friends with him so we we certainly promised to keep to keep that going I hope you enjoyed as much as we did reviewing my notes a few of my takeaways to take away

you before you head out. One, build deep community over efficiency and optimization. This takes more time, but seems to be more rewarding and more fulfilling over the long haul. And the couple things that this has is physical connection and a sense of belonging. And remember the quote he shared, don't move so fast that you don't see people. people. Interesting. And then keys to great leadership and parenting, I think. Look at the boundaries and create space for work to unfold. Don't be the helicopter parent or the micromanager boss,

but on the other hand, don't neglect them. Just ensure that they have the space to grow and blossom and understand that fine line. And then move your body to ground your mind. It's so important to have a physical practice, as Brad calls it. You must make this part of your work. Don't use the lame excuse. Oh, I don't have time for that. I have too many meetings. No, this needs to be part of your work. It needs to be part of your life. This will support both your physical and mental health. Once again, I want to say thank you so much. for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two, hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leader Show with Brad Stolberg. It will help you become a more effective leader.

And because you continue to do that, and because you continue to write reviews and rate the show, hopefully five stars on Apple Podcast, you are giving me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talk it soon. Can't wait. I recently found an exciting new investment opportunity, Blue Chip Art.

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