The Rich Roll Podcast - Dr. Michael Gervais Is The Sensei of Human Performance

Episode Date: October 5, 2020

How do world-class athletes, artists and top business leaders organize their inner lives to expand the edges of their potential? What are the frameworks and key mental skills needed to excel in those intense, all or nothing make-it-or break it moments? How do change-makers find peace, grounding, and even joy in the most intensely stressful, critical moments of their lives and careers? There is no human more well-suited to fielding these questions than world-renown high performance psychologist Dr. Michael Gervais -- returning for his 4th appearance on the podcast. A globally recognized authority on optimal human performance, Dr. Gervais has spent the last twenty years working in the trenches of consequential, high-stakes environments, where there is no luxury for mistakes, hesitation, or failure to respond. His clientele includes the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks, countless Olympic medalists, MVPs from every major sport, world record holders, internationally acclaimed music artists, and corporate leaders. In addition, Dr. Gervais is the host of the popular Finding Mastery podcast. Alongside NFL coach Pete Carroll he founded Compete To Create, an online and live master class for the mind, and together they authored the recently released Audible Original also entitled Compete To Create -- a must-listen for anyone interested in raising the bar on their own potential. There's a reason he's been featured by NBC, ABC, FOX, CNN, ESPN, NFL Network, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Outside Magazine, WIRED, ESPN Magazine, the Harvard Business Review and more:  Dr. Gervais is the sensei of human performance optimization. Unlike our previous episodes, today’s exchange is not about elite athletic performance. Nor is it about the demands of jumping out of a plane without a parachute. In fact, it's not really about sport at all. Instead, this is a conversation about how best to navigate the cataclysmic shit show we call 2020 -- and the years of political, pandemic and planetary turmoil likely to follow. It's about understanding trauma. Accepting pain. Working through it. And how suffering is integral to the human experience. It’s about the difference between purpose and vision. The role of sport in a world that's closed for business. And the importance of optimism in dark times. If you're new to the show, you're in for a treat. I adore this man. So prepare to fall in love. The visually inclined can watch our exchange on YouTube. And as always, the podcast streams wild and free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. If you enjoy today's conversation, you might also dig Michael interviewing me in the most recent Finding Mastery episode (FM #244). And you can mine his three previous appearances on the RRP (episodes 120, 252, and 366). It’s hard being a human in 2020. Don’t underestimate the circumstances -- but know there is a light out there. Let's find it together. Peace + Plants, Rich

The first order of business, it's always going to come down to awareness. Like, how are you imagining your future? And if it's fundamentally pessimistic, like things don't work out, then let's recognize that there's a moment to be able to get better at it, you know, to shift it. And the data is really strong about why optimism is an important function for health, performance, well-being. And so the first order of business, like I said, is always going to be awareness.

It's where mindfulness and meditation, journaling and conversations with wise men and women are really important. Because if you're not aware of the way you're thinking about the future, you can't change it. You determine your experience in life. You're an agent in this, as opposed to at the whips end of your external world. And I haven't met a world class thinker or doer that isn't fundamentally optimistic. That's Dr. Michael Gervais, and this is episode 550 of The Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast.

Okay, so a couple questions I want wanna ask today to posit for your consideration. How do world-class athletes, artists, and top business leaders organize their inner lives to expand the edges of their potential? What are the frameworks and the key mental skills and models that are needed to excel in those intense, those all-or-nothing, make-it-or-break-it moments? How do changemakers find peace, find grounding, or even joy in the most intensely stressful, critical moments of their lives and their careers? Well, today,

we're going to explore these questions, these ideas, in a conversation with one of my very favorite people, one of the few, if not the only person on the planet most qualified to speak about such matters, my friend, Dr. Michael Gervais, returning for his fourth appearance on the podcast. If you live in a wormhole and have never heard of this incredible man, I suggest you mine the RRP archive and give episodes 120, 252, and 366 a spin. That's about six hours that go deep into Michael's story and his groundbreaking work in the sports psychology arena. But the basic gist is that when it comes to optimal human performance, purpose, and passion, Dr. Gervais is the dude. As a sports psychologist, he works in the trenches

of consequential high-stakes environments where there's no luxury for mistakes, for hesitation, or failure to respond. His clientele includes people like Felix Baumgartner, who is the guy who jumped from space, professional sports teams like the Seattle Seahawks, basically the most prolific Olympic and professional athletes, MVPs in every major sport, high-level military, internationally acclaimed artists and musicians,

Fortune 100 CEOs. You get the idea. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because, unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem.

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option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment, an experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because unfortunately,

not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health Thank you. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do.

And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful. And recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. Okay. Back to Dr. Gervais. Unlike our previous conversations, today's conversation is not centered around Olympic athletes or other sports stars or what it takes mentally and emotionally to jump out of a plane without a parachute. It is perhaps a more relatable exchange about how all of us can better navigate this wild, ever-changing, some might call it dumpster fire year we call 2020. And unfortunately, the years of pandemic, political, and planetary turmoil that are likely to follow. Who better, I ask, who better to ground and guide us through these turbulent times than a psychologist who literally specializes in shepherding people through high

stress environments. So today's conversation is about working through all of this, working through pain and how suffering is actually integral to the human experience. We talk about understanding trauma and the way it is impacting your life. It's about the difference between purpose and vision and a re-examination of the role of sport in our society given the pandemic. It's also about optimism and how optimism can serve us even in the darkest times. And I promise there's no empty platitudes. This is not about shoving a handful of bullshit positivity down your throat. Michael always keeps it real. And finally, we talk about his new audio book, which is an awesome listen in this

moment. It's called Compete to Create. It's an Audible original. Seriously recommend checking it out. Personally, I tend to vacillate between doom and despair and whiffs of positivity. And this book, this lesson really has helped ground me. And I think it'll help all of you guys as well. It's hard being a human in 2020. Don't underestimate the circumstances, but know that there is a light out and we're going to find it together. So this is me and Dr're gonna find it together. So this is me and Dr. Michael Gervais. Dr. Michael Gervais is back in the house, round four.

I can't believe it. You've changed my life. Come on. Yeah. Look what you've built. It's incredible, man. I'm so proud of you. You're impacting so many lives and I'm just, I'm in awe of the quality

of content that you put out and how practical and helpful it is to so many people. And it's been a delight and a pleasure to watch you do that from afar. That means a lot to me. I really, I don't say that lightly that you changed my life. It was super simple and it was benign. And I never would have thought that this medium, this intimate conversation between two people would be able to fundamentally shape how I think about not only humanity, but business and connection with other people. And so that afternoon that we sat in my office, that changed my life. So I appreciate you, brother. That's cool. Well, it was immediately evidence to me, and I've said this to you before,

that you have a natural gift for this and that it seemed only appropriate that you would launch your own show. Like you're so good at it and you have this like ability to just get right to the heart of things immediately. Like you cut through all the bullshit and you see what other people don't see. And when you listen to your show, you get a glimpse of that. And I'm always like, oh man, like, cause we have a lot of crossover in our guests. So like if I'm preparing for someone, I'm like, oh, he was on mics. I got to listen to this. Like this happened with Apollo Ono recently.

Cause he came on my show and I listened to your conversation with him. And I'm like, I'm not going to be able to do that. Oh, come on. That's not even close. But there are some advantages of being a psychologist that play up. You have a training that I don't have. Well, that being said, there's so much about just being authentically curious about the person that's in front of you. And I'll tell you some of the frames that come from if that's useful. Sure. Unconditional positive regard. Podcast tutorial from the master. No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm going to find some mastery here. Okay. So unconditional positive regard for the other.

You have that. That's how you've treated me in our first conversation. Unconditional positive regard for the other. And I think that as a philosophical note for how we engage with humans, that that is born out of the psychologist and the theory called Rogerian psychology, Carl Rogers. Unconditional positive regard. And if you just stay there, I think it ends up paying dividends for both. Yeah. I mean, I never thought a bit about it in that kind of context, but I do. Like I only have people on that I'm genuinely curious about. And I've been in situations where a bunch of people are like, oh, you got to have this person on. And I'm not feeling it, but I feel pressured and not pressured, but like, well, everyone else

seems to think this will be great. And I've learned that if I'm not feeling it myself, it doesn't mean that they're not a great guest for somebody's show. I'm just not the right cipher or host to bring out the best in that person. Oh, that's a cool approach. Yeah. And I'm curious what you're searching for right now. What is it that you... I can't help myself, right? You did? I'm not gonna let you turn the table already. I'm gonna do your show later, man. All right, let's do that. But just as a high note, what is it that you're going after right now to try to better understand?

Well, a couple of things. I mean, the first thing I would say is I'm starting to put more attention on the guests that I'm seeking out because I really haven't done that from a vision or systemic approach. It's somewhat reactive and very much impulsive. Like I'll just come across somebody and I'm like, oh, they're cool and I'll do that.

And I don't like put on my calendar, okay, I have to book these people and I gotta seek them out and track them down. Like it all just kind of happens organically and that seemed to work. But I think the show could benefit from me approaching it from a little bit more of a mindful, intentional perspective. So I'm putting my focus on that.

And also, most of the conversations that I've had historically have been pretty evergreen. They stand outside the context of time and culture. I could put them up at any moment and they would be fine. But the world changed in some pretty fundamental ways this past year. And I felt called to participate in that conversation in a more contemporaneous way. So now every two weeks, I'm doing a conversation with my friend Adam Skolnick, who co-wrote David Goggin's book and is a New York Times contributor, journalist, adventurer, environmentalist. And we talk about kind of things that are happening in the now. So that's new, and that's been kind of a little bit of a growth curve, getting used to that and putting myself out there in a new and different way because this has always been about the guest.

But with these particular conversations, that focus gets flipped a little bit more on me. I've loved it. I've loved following what you're doing. Yeah, thanks, man. Yeah, nice work. So yeah, that's where my head's at. But I have been spending a lot of time paying attention

to what's going on in America and across the world right now. And it's very unique. It's concerning. I think there's opportunity in it as well. So why don't we start with just your thoughts on how you feel about what's happening right now and how you're thinking about it from a psychologist perspective in terms of how to navigate it in a healthy way. Cool. I think that one is let's put a little fine point

on psychologists for just a moment, is that there's general psychology, there's child psychology, and then I've cut my teeth in sports psychology, sports slash performance. And then a subs cut my teeth in sports psychology, sports slash performance. And then a subspecialty, if you will, in consequential environments. So if there was such a thing as high-stakes psychology, that would kind of be where I'd sit. So inside of that, what does that mean?

My unique experience is that I've spent deep time with people that are in the most consequential, the highest stress environments known to humans. I'm finding incredible portability right now from those insights and practices for the rest of us. Because we're all in some form or another in a higher stakes environment. Right now, the stress levels. Well, if we just look at some basic data, suicide ideation and actual suicide are up. Anxiety, depression, addiction, all curving, hockey stick type arc stuff. So we're seeing mental health and the echo of mental health is going to be here for a while. The mental health concerns and the echo from what's happening right now, both from an awakening from the social injustice and the

systemic racism and individual racism that's taking place, as well as a illness that we're struggling with. And so mental health is important. And I don't think I'm the most... I'd like to think I am, but I'm not the most compassionate person. I'm more of a systems thinker, and I really love getting into kind of what the heart and the truth of something is and understanding how we can grow and be authentic in that growth arc towards the reaches of what is possible. So that's not like... I'm not this compassionate, heartfelt, high drive, empathetic person. I'd like to be. I've been working on that my whole life, but I'm flooded with it now. I'm feeling what people are feeling and I'm scared.

I'm nervous for people. And then my friends that are listening to this right now are saying, dude, you're so bullish and optimistic about the future. What are you talking about? So I've got both of those that are playing forward right now. So I vacillate. I vacillate from despair to optimism. And I think on that scale of systems thinking

to kind of feeling my way in an empathetic fashion, I'm more on the empathy side. I could benefit from a little bit more systems thinking as I just explained to you. And I feel it deeply. And I feel, I've said this before also, but I'm essentially introverted. I'm fine being alone.

You know, I like to lock myself up in a cave and do my thing. And I thought, I've been training for this my whole life, man. I got this. Everyone's going to be out there suffering and I'm going to thrive. But it's really worn thin. And not being able to see your friends and, you know, not being able to plan for the future or have specific things to look forward to is very difficult. But from a personal perspective, the hardest part has been trying to parent two teenage daughters through this who are really having a hard time. And it's been, you know-

When you say a hard time, you mean like mental health? Mental health. Yeah. Yeah. I've got a extroverted 16-year-old who wants to be with her friends and is in art school and loves the tactile, practical aspect of her craft, which has been stripped away from her. And now she's on Zoom from eight to four and then has to do her homework on the computer all in the home.

And another 13-year-old daughter who is very much an introvert, but the deprivation of external stimuli is causing some real mental strain on her. And I feel powerless to be of service to how to help them figure this out. I mean – And I'm just – it just breaks my heart. Yeah. I think the fact that you're aware of it is kind of step one. Because some people, the old model of, let's call it, well, hold on, let me back up.

No one's getting through this world without facing down trauma. Big trauma, big T or small T. So suffering is part of the experience that we have. It's a shared experience that we have. The word trauma ends up, takes suffering and puts a little finer point on it, right? But what we're talking about is suffering. Now, that being said, let's call it 1980 model. Suck it up, harden up, figure it out, go back to work. Come on, what's wrong with you? Like those are the messages that we were giving kids when we were growing up. I don't know if you got those messages, but, you know.

Pretty much. Yeah. Definitely like the narrative, the social narrative was that whether it was in the house or not. And right now it's taking place is very different. The fact that you're like, I'm really concerned about the da, da, da, you know, right. Step one, awareness. Always is going to start there. And whatever practices that we can put in place to be able to increase our awareness, we're onto something. Step two is be grounded next to the person that you love. And so that's what showed up for me for years, working with some of the best in the world

in their craft and some people that are aspiring to be, is that when they rattle and I've worked my ass off to be grounded, that gift, whether it's an emotional rattle or something else that's taken, usually when we rattle, it's emotional. But there's, my mentors taught that to me at a young age, that when I would be melting or unraveling or frustrated or scared, and this is Gary de Blasio, my mentor for a long time, but like since I was 16, and he'd just look at me because he knew me. And he'd just look right into me and he's like, I see you. And he's like, I'm here for you. As I'm melting down, frustrated, scared, whatever, trying to find the words to say that I'm scared, but I'm really just using frustration as the vehicle, the unfortunate

vehicle of talking about fear and sadness. And man, just have someone next to you that sees you and get you, that in and of itself probably explains why 70% of treatment effects in small room psychology take place from rapport. The relationship in and of itself accounts for, from rapport. The relationship in and of itself accounts for, we believe, about 70% of change. Not the advice or the counseling, just being there. Listening, seeing, understanding. And then if you've got some really cool tactics and strategies that you can layer on top of it, that only accounts for 20 to 30% of the change. The impulse that I'm always fighting is trying to fix it, of course. Of course. And it's like, I can't fix it. So then I get rattled and I'm not able to be

that calm, soothing presence. I find that hard to believe. It's true, man. I find it hard to believe. Ask Julie, she'll tell you. But the other piece is like, but what you're talking about too is that, did you say the word powerless or helpless? Which word did you choose? I think I used powerless. Yeah. Which is, that's where it starts to get scary for the people that are supposed to be the powerful, right? So what does powerful mean? Not like I'm powerful and going to tell you what to do, Mr. or Mrs.

Like not that type of power. No, that's not what you mean. But Albert Bandora, are you familiar with his work? This is going to be fun, Rich. So Albert Bandora, Dr. Bandora, living legend. He's octogenarian at this point, Stanford. And he changed psychology. So like he was one of the fricking top tier,

tip of the era people that I wanted to have on Finding Mastery. And I got to sit down with him. So it was like a living legend that I got to sit down with. So his original paradigm shifting theory was on self-efficacy. And so efficacy means power, efficacious. It's a beautiful word, not well used, not often used. So self-efficacy, he found that there's five ways to build a sense of internal power for people, to have agency. And agency is a fancy word for you determine your experience in life. You're an agent in this, as opposed to at the whips end of your external world. But so what does it mean to have agency and how do we build efficacy? It's really cool. And without getting too far in the mumbo jumbo, you know all of these skills. I'm going to rattle them off.

I'll rattle them off quickly. Vicarious experiences. So looking at somebody that is doing something close to what you want to be doing one day, just looking at it and being able to see that, I think I could do that over, that's how, oh, look at the choices they made. Just watching mentorship in that way, but they don't have to be true mentors, but something that's close to what you want to do. Game changer. An example. What's an example? Just as an example to point to, to look to. Yes. Yeah.

So that's actually a really important part of becoming efficacious is seeing what good to you looks like, or maybe great. The next is self-talk, knowing how to talk to yourself. If you don't know how to talk to yourself well, it's nearly impossible. to yourself. If you don't know how to talk to yourself well, it's nearly impossible. And this is where I think you recognize the kind of the bullshit of naive optimism meets the frontier of being in the amphitheater. Like it's got to be real the way you speak to yourself. And I haven't met though, I haven't met a world-class thinker or doer that isn't fundamentally optimistic. Yeah, that's a key theme and point that you make time and time again in Compete to Create,

which I'm on like chapter eight of now, which I love. The audio book. Yeah, yeah, the audio book. It's great. I love it. I love it because it's comprehensive, but it's also very practical and understandable. And you just relate these tools that we can all implement into our life that are all lifted from your work and your studying and working with all of these athletes.

But what was really striking about it is this refrain that all of these things are trainable or teachable from optimism to grit, to confidence, to calm. We tend to look at high performers and think, well, yeah, that guy's super optimistic. He always thinks it's gonna work out. He's able to control his mechanism at will.

He was born that way or had great parents. Yeah, exactly. And I just, you know, I'm Debbie Downer or I always think it's not going to work out and that's just the way that I'm wired. Yeah. So there's likely a predisposition towards anxiety or depression or optimism or pessimism that we're not fully aware of, right? There's some genetic coding that happens passed on from a genetic standpoint from our parents and great parents. That being said, is optimism and pessimism are the two basic frameworks for how you view your future. It's kind of that.

There's not another one. Some people might say, no, realism. Well, you can have a realistic pessimism and a realistic optimism. It is the frame that you see your future through. And so it's a trainable skill, completely trainable. So is the opposite of that, like helplessness and learned helplessness, optimism and learned optimism. Oh yeah, that doesn't actually snap well together. But the optimism and pessimism, sorry, both are learned, which means we can get better at them.

So walk me through the difference between what you just said and our kind of pop psychology version of that, like the fake it till you make it. And I'm Stuart Smalley and I'm gonna look in the mirror and recount these affirmations. Like what's the difference between truly training somebody to pivot from a pessimistic outlook on themselves and life and getting them into a more optimistic state?

Okay, so the first order of business, it's always gonna come down to awareness. Like how are you imagining your future? And if it's fundamentally pessimistic, like things don't work out, then let's recognize that there's a moment to be able to get better at it, to shift it. And the data is really strong about why optimism is an important function for health, performance, well-being. And so the first order of business, like I said, is always going to be

awareness. It's where mindfulness and meditation, journaling and conversations with wise men and women are really important. Because if you're not aware of the way you're thinking about the future, you can't change it. You're kind of stuck. But I think most people are on that kind of recursive loop where they're not even consciously aware that they're constantly affirming some story about who they are from a negative perspective. And if you challenge them on it, they'll say, well, you don't understand my life or something like that. Like there has to be a willingness or like a crack in that, an opening where they can say, or they can see themselves from 10,000 feet and say, I need to

address this. You're right on the money. So this is the unfortunate insight that I wish this wasn't the case. But my experience with working with people is that it's not until they have enough pain do they do the work to change. I'm a living example of that. You are. Yeah, we've talked about that. Yeah, you really are. And my favorite people are people that have faced the darkest parts of being human and say, okay, forget about it.

Like, I'm doing this differently. Because they've got to the truth of some stuff. You know, the dark side of humanity, the suffering side, and they understand it. And so that being said is like, there needs to be enough pain for change to happen because change requires real work. And this is why I'll say to folks, there's no hacks, there's no tricks and tips for fundamental growth. And it's a mistake to look at the strong men and women on the podiums or the CEOs of whatever and say, oh, look at how good they are from a physical standpoint. To celebrate them just because they've had outward success is the mistake.

The opportunity that sits underneath is how do they organize their life? mistake, the opportunity that sits underneath is how do they organize their life? And it's a fundamental organization towards the man or woman or person they want to become. It's a fundamental commitment. And there are no shortcuts here. There's no hacks to that. So how do we organize our inner life? Get real with the pain that you are carrying from an early part of your life that is still part of the conscious or non-conscious narrative that is shaping thoughts and shaping words that you choose and shaping the actions that you take. And without some sort of examination or some sort of honesty about the way that you shape your thoughts and your words and your actions, I think it's really tough to flip a fundamental view of how you think the

future is going to go from pessimism to optimism. Can I add one more layer of complexity? Your brain is not trying to help you become optimistic. The three pounds of tissue is saying, hey, dude, stay alive. Find the threat, find the danger. You don't want to be taken for the fool that didn't jump when there's a lion in the bush. Is there lions in bushes? You don't want to be the fool that doesn't react properly, but you also don't want to look like the fool that reacts too quickly. So that's where we get these freeze mechanisms, fight, flight, freeze, and submit. And so your brain is trying to figure out how to survive, and your higher consciousness, need to probably put a pin in that because that's a big word, big phrase.

But your ability to use your imagination, I'll be more pragmatic for a moment, your ability to use your imagination to imagine what could be for you, counterbalanced to your brain's dictum to survive, to recognize the sources of threat and pain, real or imagined, from early on or that's possibly going to show up in this moment. And it is ready right now to say, hey, flood your emotions, flood some physiology so that you can be on point and not be taken advantage of in modern times. So your brain is not trying to help you in this. I don't know whether I feel good or bad about that here and there. God damn. So I think that if we said the good or bad piece and we said, well, that's actually the truth of what's happening. So what do we want to do about it?

Fundamental to all of this in Compete to Create is this commitment to self-understanding. Like that underlies all of it. Like you can relate these tactics and these strategies, like here's your morning routine, here's a breathing technique, here's a way of journaling, and here's a way of getting clear on what you have control over versus what you don't have control over, which are all super helpful, but short of a fundamental commitment to personal growth and broadened self-understanding, these things are not going to avail you much, right? So talk a little bit about that first, because that's the most important step. Like in 12-step, step one is the only one you have to get perfect. I feel like in this context, that commitment has to be firm for any of these other things to have the efficacy that they potentially can have.

Okay. So I love – so you're getting right to the truth of it. This is where it all begins is what do you really want? And if you're looking for better, because you know that there is something deeper in you. There's more room to grow. There's further to go. There's a deeper authenticity. There is deeper purpose and meaning, and you want that in your life. Okay. So those are the mechanisms that I've spent a lot of time trying to understand. And it has to start from that place. Like, okay, I'm sick and tired.

This is a phrase that you'll recognize of being sick and tired. So I'm sick and tired of walking into a room and feeling like I'm just, I'm not grounded. I'm not me. I'm beholden to what they might be thinking of me. I've abandoned my history for the approval of somebody in this room. The FOPO. FOPO. How about FOPO?

Yeah. You like that? Oh, man. This is like my Achilles heel. Fear of people's opinions. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You're not alone, brother. I suffered FOPO for a long time.

It's probably what led me to this deep, almost... Sometimes I don't wish that people have this, I don't want to say maniacal, and it's not quite obsessive, but it's this deep kind of want to understand how do humans work? Because I'm up all night thinking about it. It feels like most nights. It's the thing that keeps me awake. It's a beautiful science. It's complicated. But all that being said, is that's where it starts. Is there more in you? And if there is, hold on, put a pin in that. There is more in you. There is more in me. So what do we do to be able to free ourselves up to express the reaches of our potential? What do we do? Well, if you and I wanted to go walk from here to New York City and we hadn't done it, that walk before, you know what you and I would do? We would go get with somebody. We'd say, hey, who's walked

it? Tell me what to do on the Rockies when I get to the Rockies. Tell me what to do when, you know, or help me understand how to navigate this type of challenges or what are the challenges. So you would go get around a community of people that understand deeper, that have done it, they've traveled the path. And that would be the second step. Is there more? Yeah. But that example presupposes that you have enough

self-understanding to know that you want to walk from California to New York. I feel like there's a lot of people who are living their lives reactively. They know they want, they thirst, they hunger for more meaning, more purpose, more passion in their life, but they're completely bereft of the tools or the means by which to connect with what that might look like. So they're shooting darts in the dark thinking, I want these things, but how do I even begin the process of trying to figure out what that might mean for me? So I would say the way that we do it for, let's just talk individually right now, for one-on-one type stuff is, let's use an extreme example. Somebody's really struggling, right?

And they're highly anxious or highly depressed or they're really struggling in life. First, it's like, okay, well, let's just stabilize a little bit. And so, stabilizing is like, how do we help somebody be present? And being present is where your body and your mind are in the same place, focusing on the same thing. So that's what being present is. So how do we do that first? And if you're not with somebody that knows how to do that, how do you do that? Well, this is where meditation and mindfulness is like the modern science and the ancient wisdom of it is paying dividends. It's one of the ways to start.

And if that feels like too big, like focusing on one breath at a time over and over and over again, if that feels too big, then okay, how do we get to that next place? Well, maybe there are some very easy ways to say, okay, well, I'm going to start being my best coach. And so now we're kind of moving into that self-talk thing a little bit. And the small band-aid kind of tactic, if you will, is be great at coaching yourself today. Mindfulness is about listening. And then coaching is more about self-talk. Like, what are you going to say to yourself?

So those are two kind of maybe some ways to start. And then I'd say, shit, get your sleep right. Yeah. You know, that's super practical. You got your whoop on. Oh, yeah. I see you've got yours on. I haven't taken it off since I got it. Seriously? I love it. Yeah. Yeah. Can I tell you a funny story? Yeah. So I first got it when I was doing This Is Your World that I played in for a moment. But it was an ultra that I was training for. I followed it. Oh, dude. I met somebody.

I met myself in a different way. I can't wait to- Tell me about that. Yeah, so- So you were in a paddleboard from Catalina to LA. Stand-up. Yeah, so stand-up paddle. So you were in a paddleboard from Catalina to LA. Stand up. Yeah. So stand up paddle.

I grew up as a kid surfing. And as I look west, there's an island, Catalina Island. It's about 30 miles away. And I get frustrated with the island because it would block some of the big south swells that would come in. come in. And then also I'm incredibly inspired by the island from this one narrative, which was natives that long ago that were on the island would build their own canoes and they'd pair up either two people or three people, or sometimes one person. They would travel the 30 miles, come grab some supplies and then bring it back to their family. I'm like, damn, that's, it's legit. It's across Shark Alley. It's across, you know, 30 miles of open ocean.

There's some pretty shifty currents that are happening in the Pacific. And I always thought like, you know, hundreds of years ago that was taking place. Like, man, equally as inspired, this is weird, but the men and women that put up phone wires or phone poles as pioneers to places like deep in mountains. And I'm always like, somebody was here drilling into mother earth here. I don't know why, but anyways.

So I'm watching that. And then one of my friends, I shared that idea with him, like how inspiring. He goes, why don't you do it? No, I don't do ultra types. I don't do distance stuff. I'm not built for that. And so he just kept- The self-defeatism coming out right out of the gate from the high performance psychologist. I thought I was actually working from reality. Yeah, but I was like, I didn't think I had that.

And I had very little interest. You're a waterman though. Yeah, I spent a lot of time in the water. But if you think about the way I've organized my life, it's really more about in the sport world and working with the athletes I work with more about intense adrenaline management. And then it wasn't until maybe about eight years ago that I started spending time with people that were doing back-to-back stuff, like what you're doing, you know, like really distance-based stuff. Carl Metzler, do you know that name? He ran the Pony Express. No. So it was a project that we did with Red Bull. Metzger? Metzger. I think it's

Metzger. Yeah. It sounds familiar. It was amazing. He ran the Pony Express. Sorry, Carl, if you're listening. I'm sorry, Carl. Yeah. It was amazing what he did. He ran the Pony Express almost without stopping, back to back days. It was incredible. So that's when I first really got exposed to the Red Bull project of what it takes for you guys to do what you do. So a friend of mine held me accountable. And I said, yeah, okay. At

one point I was like, yeah, yeah. I think I could imagine myself doing that. And for two, three years in a row when the season would arrive, he's like, so are you going to train for it? Maybe next time. And finally, it's like, enough of your bullshit. And so we were training and I blew it on nutrition, dude. I took everything so seriously. And I want to get to the whoop story, but I never did anything like this. And I got my nutrition wrong. So on mile 23 of 31, I was hallucinating. And it also happened to be that I was doing 3.1 miles an hour into a 3.1 mile current. So standing still for 47 minutes, hallucinating, mild hallucinations. Just under fueled?

Yeah. I mean, overtaxed, under fueled. I came out, classic rookie mistake. I came out too fast and everyone told me, Mike, take your time, come out slow. And I thought I was, but I didn't really have the awareness and sophistication. I didn't have someone coaching me from a distance to slow down. That just comes with experience though. I mean, it being your first, you bit off something big for your first time out. Yeah. And this is the fun part about the whoop. I'll go in reverse order. I met myself in a new way at mile 23.

And I needed it. I felt disconnected to nature. So I called this thing called, I called the project Project Reconnect. And what I learned twofold was like what isolation and loneliness means because I was there. I felt a sense of abandonment that I was like, I don't know why, but abandonment came up for me, which was a really cool way for me to get to some truths for me. And then the second thing is that I realized that I am nature. We are nature. So nature is not the ocean that I realized that I am nature. We are nature. So nature is not the ocean that I would go get connected to.

You and I are the same kind of stuff. And so it was a recalibration that I didn't need to reconnect to nature. I need to reconnect to my nature. And we are nature. It's not the mountains and the oceans and the grass. Our humanity is nature and it's complicated and it's beautiful. So that was kind of what happened.

It was transformative, to say the least for me. And then, but whoop, back to whoop. So one of the, Peter Park was a man who was helping me get right, get fit. And he's amazing. I don't know if you know Peter, but- I know who he is. I've never met him. Yeah. And so amazing human. You guys would love the conversations that you guys would have. But anyways, so he's helped me get right. And he goes, listen, make a promise. When you wake up in the

morning, it was like a 4.30 wake up call. He says, don't check your whoop. Who gives a shit? Yeah. You're going, right? I was like, yeah. So I'm going. So long story, made a little bit longer here is that I wake up in the morning and we had to move up our launch date. It was just a strike mission. It was just me going with a boat in case I got in trouble, a trail boat. And so we had to move up the date a week early. And so I had five days of travel in like seven different hotel rooms. And I was like, okay, give me a two-day breather and I'll-

No, gotta go now. So I woke up and you know what my whoop score was? I don't know, 13. Yep. Was it? It was don't know, 13. Yep. Was it? It was 13. Oh man, I've had those days. I'm gonna show you.

I'm gonna pull it up and show you that. You wake up and you're just like, today's not my day. So- But it becomes a predictor of behavior. So it's dangerous in that regard. So I didn't look though. Yeah, good. I made the commitment.

And so that had something to do with bonking. Like I was on fumes. And you know, it also reminds me of, and I think you know this probably better than I do, is that we are made of so much. We are capable of so much. And so there's so much more inside of us. And so it was a reminder of that. Yeah. That's great. I love that. I mean, I think that there's, it's beautifully told and I'm glad you had that experience. I think there's something very unique about the endurance pursuit that stands distinct

from the acute challenges of some of the athletes that you work with, where it's about these like microscopic moments and that kind of, and dealing with like fear, you have, you know, guys jumping out of planes at 25,000 feet and the kind of stuff that you're more familiar with. Wait, without a parachute? Right, without a parachute. Into a 16 story net that he built.

Did you have Luke on the show? No, I would love to. I would love to. You guys would have a great conversation. Yeah, I'd love to talk to that guy. Insane, for people that don't know, Michael worked with Luke Akins who jumped out of a plane at 25,000 feet

without a parachute and landed in a net. This is the most bananas thing ever. Size of a four-car garage. He's working with David Blaine right now. Are you involved in the Ascension project? I'm not, no. When I saw David do his little trailer, I immediately thought of you

and wondered whether you were involved because I know Luke is. Yeah, Luke, that's a pretty, Luke's is more dangerous, I think, by far, but what David Blaine's doing is real. So it was supposed to be like today, I think, but weather pushed it off. So basically what he's doing, for those that don't know,

and he will have done it by the time this airs, but he wants to just strap himself to a whole bunch of balloons and float up into the air like a little kid. And he has a parachute up in the balloons, but he's not gonna put it on until he's out of sight because he wants that visual. And then his idea is to go up to the elevation of Everest. He wants to get above 25,000,

hopefully up to 29, and then parachute down. It's crazy. It's awesome. What's so amazing and unique about that guy is that he pairs his magic skills with these true feats of athletic endurance, the breathing and the cold and all the stuff that he does that makes him very special. Yeah, for sure. But back to the endurance thing. I mean, I think what I've learned and what sounds like you got a taste of is that unique experience of self-connection that occurs when you're beyond depleted and stripped of all of your natural defenses and all the layers that prevent you from being that connected

to who you are and the environment. And there's like a percolation of self-awareness and self-understanding that occurs. And then it translates into doing these things that you didn't think you were capable of. And so you become more connected to your potential, like the ceiling on what you become, what you believe is possible gets raised. That's exactly it. And you were asking earlier, like, how do people actually get to step one? Maybe the step is to sign up for something with you

because you're going to push them into that thin herd space. And I don't know if you're doing that much anymore with the current conditions or at all. But if somebody could pair up with you for a little bit, I mean, you'll take them there. I can take them there. Yeah, you'll take them there. And what a guide you'd be, really.

And so that's one way to do it for sure. And I also think that we don't have to do extreme anything to get to the extreme awareness. You can do it on a pillow. You can do it in a conversation with someone that is wise. And you can do it by yourself in a journal. It's harder that way. It's harder. Yeah.

Or you could take ayahuasca, I suppose, which some people do. Yeah. We all have our ways of getting there, I guess. Yeah, yeah. That's cool. But yeah, but endurance, ultra endurance has been this amazing teacher in my life.

And I don't necessarily feel like I have that much more that I feel like I need to prove to myself in that regard, but the lessons that I've learned from that inform everything that I do. There you go. And I think that right now, the lessons that we need to learn are incredible right now. What are we doing with politics? What are we doing with COVID? And what are we doing with, I mean, the perfect storm here between racial justice, mother nature, let me speak on mother nature for just a minute, one more minute, is that I bought this, I'm disappointed, it's too strong of a word, but man, I bought this sinker, this hook is a better way to think about it early when COVID was first announced. And it was like,

okay, isolation, lockdown, war, front lines, home front. And then I said, wait a minute, home front. And then I said, wait a minute, those are all jailhouse terms. Those are all like war-based frameworks that we're trying to do something against Mother Nature. So it's wrong. Our tactic, our approach is fundamentally dislocated from how Mother Nature and we are Mother Nature are working together. And so I think that if we could take a pause, and this is not practical, but at an individual level, right, to take a pause and say, what is my relationship with nature? And not to get too woo-woo about anything, but this is Mother nature speaking to us. This is our planet saying, hey, I got something that I'm going to spin at you here. And what is your relationship going to be with it? And all that being said is like, I've bubbled up big time, you know, like I've,

for part of my job responsibilities and to honor the people that I work with, like, in a really significant way. So. But I just want to pause and say, let's get back to maybe some first principles about nature and how we're relating to our nature and the nature around us. There's a lot to be mined in that. I mean, similar to you, I've been essentially locked down, but I've spent a lot of time thinking about that, not just the efficacy of our national strategy or global strategy, but how to behave on a personal level. Like there's our macro relationship with nature and then our interpersonal relationship, each one of our individual relationship with nature. On a macro level, nature is telling us, look, your systems are broken.

Your relationship with the animal kingdom is what created this. So I'm going to throw you a curveball because you need to take a look at this. We're not really taking a look at it. On an individual level, there's very little talk about ensuring that our individual immune systems are intact. And part of buttressing our immune system is being in contact with a diversity of environments and other people. But now we're being told we have to remove ourselves from other people.

And I understand that, like, and I'm doing that and I'm wearing masks and being a good citizen and all of that, but what is really going on here? And now we're in this situation where we've bungled and mishandled this to such a vast degree that there's no end in sight for this current protocol. Short of a vaccine being developed, we're just going to continue to accumulate a thousand cases a day or whatever it is, we're not gonna reach herd immunity in this way. Either we completely lock down or we completely open up, but we're in this liminal space

where we're not really achieving anything except prolonging the length at which we have to delay everything else in our lives. Yeah, you and I are gonna be fine and we're gonna figure it out because we have agency, back to kind of point number one. And we are using as best we can our community and our information from science and our history and being alive to want to do right for self and others. alive to want to do right for self and others. And those that have some underlying conditions, some real anxiety, some victimization, some depression, like, holy shit. Like, really, you can't go out of your house right now without being scared. Or there's a belligerence that you hide behind, like, I'm not doing this. But that's an overcorrection to, for many people at least, for a trigger point or a tripwire for what it feels like to be told what to do.

And so, yeah, it's brutal. Well, it's a witch's brew. It's not just the pandemic. It's our political environment. Well, it's a witch's brew. It's not just the pandemic. It's our political environment. It is economic insecurity that's driving fear, division, vitriol, loneliness, separation. There's a giant swath of this country who feels unheard. They feel like they lack agency in their lives. And now we're in a situation that's so acute that it's a trip wire. So we're seeing these flare-ups, and then they end up in these videos that get shared on social media that is only exacerbating this vicious cycle of acrimony that is denigrating the kind of cohesiveness of the American experiment in general. It's crazy. I've never seen anything like this. Meanwhile, you know, we have these, you know, social protests over police brutality

and racial injustices. And all of those are, you know, to some degree appropriate responses to, you know, a system that has perpetrated harm and lack of justice for so many people in this country. And all of that taken together has created this moment that is very strange. And for myself, it's like there's an uncertainty, like how do I engage with the world right now? And I find myself at times like, should I say this? Or if I say this, then that person's, you know, like the people are like afraid to speak. They're afraid to act. We don't know what the ground rules are here.

And it's unprecedented in certain ways. Yeah, I think I struggle with that same thing. like this bit of a dance, if you will, because but here's how I sort it out. And the dance is like, how can I say this or that, right? And speak my truth and also not alienate people that I might make a mistake in what I'm trying to sort out because I'm a learner. I'm trying to figure this out with everyone else. And I've got to get back to first principles is what I do. So what are my first principles that matter most to me? And my first principles might not be your first principles, but if we

can get back to first principles, those kind of guiding principles that shape in the most aspirational way, your thoughts, your words, and your actions. And if we can take a moment to re-examine those. And when I do that, I am so clear for me. And I'm going to say something that's charging and electric. I'm not voting for somebody that doesn't care about humanity. And when I say that, I know that people are saying, well, what do you mean? He, of course, Donald Trump, you know, is about humanity. I can't see it. So I'm not voting that way. There's no chance that I'm voting that way.

You know, if I had a daughter, which I don't, I'd feel awful. And I might be offending you in the way that, because I don't know your vote. And it's okay if you don't want to share it. You're not offending me. Yeah, I don't know where your position is. I'm with you on that. And so I've got to get back to first principles for me. And what happens for many people is they go, let's say that there's somebody at our table that goes, well, I got first principles too. And my first principles line up with supporting Donald Trump for president. And so now where we find

ourselves in a problem is because they're so foundational and fundamental that we feel like we've got to protect them, those first principles. And so now we're in a vicious protection, aggressive, it feels like it's a survival mechanism and a war that's taking place on first principles. And that's where we are right now. And so for me, another first principle is to create space, to talk and to dialogue and to be curious, and at the same time, have an eye and a lens on humanity. If we don't have that, I'm really not interested in being in the conversation. If we don't have that, I'm really not interested in being in the conversation. And so I'm finding myself removing myself from many layers of conversations with people because I know that their first principle is so orthogonal and there's not an interest

in anything other than defending first principle as opposed to exploring. I'm okay to be wrong. I'll tell you, my ego is no longer involved in what I do. And if my first principles and the way I'm acting on them are in error, which they will be at some points in my life, cool, call me out. I want to get better. But a first principle for me, sorry to get on the soapbox with you, but humanity is a first principle. Humanity, empathy, listening, conversation, nuance, appreciation. Yeah, not narcissism.

I know what that is as a trained psychologist, and I'm not diagnosing anybody. But you know what? When you can't see another person and really separate that another person is different than your identity, think about that for a minute. That's what narcissism is. The inability to know the difference that you are your own individual person and not merely a reflection of me. That is a disordered way of engaging socially. And so what happens when people can't see that you have your own life and your own experience, that you're merely a reflection of me?

And if right now you're wearing a striped shirt and I don't like striped shirts, I'm going to be cunning and sophisticated and making you feel absolutely horrible about how dare you wear, how stupid are you? Why would you wear a striped shirt? Like, please, striped shirts, what is wrong with you? And now to the point where at some point you're like, oh, maybe I should, maybe I should change. But I've just berated you. Because I got the FOPO.

Yeah. But I've just berated you as opposed to like going to saying, hey, that's really true. Striped shirts, what's up with that? So, I don't know. Crazy times, man. Got me going. No, I like it. I appreciate that. Yeah. Got you fired up a little bit. Yeah.

I mean, I think that us folks that care about humanity and the planet need to vote in an aggressive way and come out. Get the mailing thing right. Whatever you're capable of doing in North America right now, man, be bold. I appreciated your co-collaborator, Pete Carroll's words the other day on social justice. How about it? I mean, he's been about this for a long time.

Yeah. And so which part of his message? Just the speech that he gave in general about like, look, man, this is real and we gotta deal with this. Like it feels on some level, it's like, of course, but when you contextualize that within the culture of the NFL and how they've conducted themselves over the course of this crisis that we've endured,

it feels bolder than it should. Yeah, it feels bolder than it should. Yeah. It's complicated. And I'm so mindful that I've had incredible privilege in my life. And not from an economic standpoint. I wasn't born with a silver spoon. But the privilege and the advantage that I've had is a gift that I didn't even ask for, but I got it. And so the first time I heard white privilege, I was like, get out of here. You don't know where

I came from. Like no one from my family came, I had a college education. You know, I had, we had a well on a farm that we came from. We didn't have, our pipes were kind of busted up, but we, you know, we had to figure stuff out as a kid. I still had nice things. I didn't go without. And I was like, get out of here. Like, no chance that I come from a privileged, what you think is privileged. And then this was like four or five years ago when that word was first introduced to me. And the gift that I've received from some of the players at the Seattle Seahawks and the rich conversations we'd have on the bus in between practice and on road trips,

in between practice and games or whatever. And when they broke it down to, you have an advantage. Strip that word away, privilege. You have an advantage. You call the cops if something's wrong with your home, right? Yeah, not us. Fill in the blanks. Keep going right down the list. And so I go, oh, I had an advantage. Yeah, I see that. And I want to be careful because I've had lots of advantages, but it can also sound like I'm starting to get egotistical in some of the things. But the basic advantage of just being born into a system that values white and being Caucasian, that's something to pay attention to. Yeah. Well, I just love that Coach Carroll addressed it directly. Yeah, he did. Yeah.

Yeah. I think that he's a humanist, period. He studied humanistic psychology. He did one of his degrees, his master's degree, studied one of the humanistic psychologists and how it impacts. I didn't know that. Yeah. So he's a humanist as well.

How are the Seahawks doing? Well, we don't know yet. You're going up to the bubble soon. Well, the bubble's pretty intense and we got to figure out what the right rhythms are. And so one of the reasons I've been bubbled up is to make sure that I'm doing the right thing, if ever. But it's a dislocating experience for me this year. And so typically I travel from LA to Seattle every week for two, three, four times or days a week. But to come to do that this year is irresponsible, you know? And so, yeah. So the season's about ready to fire up. Pre-season's happening here in a bit. And I'm not sure at the time of the recording where we'll be, but

what a massive experiment, you know experiment that's taking place right now. What's your perspective on how the NBA has handled it? Meaning full-on bubble up? Right. I think that at the time, I would say I'd make that same decision. And I'd probably still stay the course. There's great consequences to this, consequences to family,

consequences to earnings for the league. It feels responsible. So there's pro cons to both, but I'd feel safer in that environment than some of the other environments that I see taking place. I was watching Matisse Tybal's vlogs on YouTube. Did you check those out?

No, I didn't, but I heard. Yeah, it was great. You know, you're like, you just get this flavor of what the day-to-day like mundanity is and all the protocols that are in place and how they really, it really is a bubble. Like they're just in their hotel rooms and getting tested and going to practice and living completely isolated, you know, in this weird experiment.

And this is in many respects is there's something really important for all of us to say, what is the purpose of sport in society? Is it a luxury? Is it a requirement? How does it fit? Why are we so interested in making this? Is it a luxury? Is it a requirement? How does it fit? Why are we so interested in making this? Is it a business? Like where does sport in modern day fit in our narrative? Because I can see parents making what I would consider risky decisions, putting their kids back into sport, unmasked with lots of other kids running around. And I'm talking about like 13, 14 year olds, which is not the, you know, they're super spreaders in many respects.

So I'm not doing that with, you know, in my family, but so where does sport sit? And I think it's- It's a great question. Yeah. I mean, how do you answer that for yourself? Well, I think it's entertainment first. I think that fitness and health is different as a component, but at this point, modern sport is entertainment. That's actually how they're classified, their paychecks are classified.

And so it's a way of living for people. It's their life, it's their passion, but from a social standpoint, it's entertainment. And that entertainment is a business. I mean, is it not business concerns that are driving this push to get it rolling? Oh, for sure. Yeah, for sure. And I think also when you look at kind of the picture of any league right now, there's definitely business drivers. And when you think about the importance of business across our country and these pockets, it's really

important to many, you know, it's opening a lot of doors in communities. And then when you drill down to next level coaches, you know, what happens to a coach if there's no, what happens to the athlete's paycheck? You know, that's what happens? That's what happens to the equipment folks and the ticket folks. And so it's a larger issue about health. And if they can get it right from a protective standpoint, okay. I think sometimes we forget just how, just because they're on TV and they're highly skilled, they deal with the same exact stuff you and I do, maybe even amplified. They're no different than the two of us. How are your Olympic athletes that you work with

dealing with everything that's happening right now? I mean, I just can't fathom having that dream pulled out from underneath me when your whole life is oriented towards working towards that specific moment. And then it becomes unavailable. Yeah. It's happening in college right now too.

Yeah. College football. College, like Stanford volleyball. Imagine being one of the best in the world going into Stanford and now the program's shut down. It's unbelievable. I mean, Stanford volleyball is like, the fact that it's crazy. It tightened. Dominant. Dominant. And so it's happening at the Olympic level, the pro level, it's happening

at the college level, and even in high school, for sure. Senior year, the hot recruit, and now this kind of hodgepodge thing that's taken across the country. But here's two examples that's happening at the Olympics. I'll go back up to your question. One athlete said, this is awesome, Mike. And this athlete is a absolute flat out world leader in the sport, their sport. I'll keep gender and sport out of it for obvious reasons. This is awesome. I get to repair. I get time. I need time on my side. And this is, I sure hope it happens, but I think I was probably going to make the team. Because to make most of the teams in the United States means that you're one of the best in the

world. And trials, as you recognize, is oftentimes a higher hurdle than the actual games. Correct. And so I'm pretty sure I was going to make the team, but I got some time now. Well, it depends on the individual, because for the person who's coming up, who's maybe a little bit on the younger side, the little less experienced side, this definitely plays to their advantage. less experienced side, this definitely plays to their advantage. But for the person who's hanging on and this is their last dance, one more year. I don't know if I can do it. Especially when you're just trying to like put ramen in the bowl at night, like most of these people, you know, there's this myth that they're all supported and have these sponsors. And that's true for only a very few people.

Most, this is old data, but I think it's about six years old that the majority of athletes or the average for the United States that go into the games, that make it to the games are $150,000 in debt by the time they show up at the games. Crazy. Yeah. And you know what we do? We're celebrating. We're watching on TV and we're like feeling so good about America. And that aspirational all in beauty that they represent of us, like they're coming back. And if they don't have a medal, they're, you know. Did you see The Way to Gold, that HBO documentary? I haven't seen it yet. But yeah.

It's all about that. Yep. HBO documentary? I haven't seen it yet. It's all about that. Whether you're atop the podium or an also-ran, once that sun is set on that event and you're overnight back to civilian life, that transition is rough. I mean, I'm sure you deal with that a lot with the athletes that you work with. Transitions are really hard. We're in a massive transition right now. All of us are in transitional phase right now, but transitions out of sport, which you well recognize, it's really tricky. And so that being said, there are some frameworks to help through transition. North Stars, realigning the North Star, realigning purpose in life is kind of where it starts.

And so right now for all of us, there is a moment right now for all of us to say, okay, what's my North Star? What does North Star mean? Purpose. What is my purpose? And so that's a big conversation that I have with folks touching a touchstone on a regular basis. folks touching a touchstone on a regular basis. Okay, let's go back to purpose. And I found that most people don't know their purpose. They can't articulate it because it feels so big. It feels like, well, how do you know your purpose? Aren't those people that have purpose the lucky ones? And they just kind of knew early on, I don't have purpose. My purpose is for my family. Well, that's purpose now. So if purpose, there's don't have purpose. My purpose is for my family. Well, that's purpose now. So if purpose, there's three components to purpose. It's got to matter to you alone,

have meaning to you. The second is it is bigger than you. And the third, it's future oriented. So as you're trying to articulate, what is my purpose in life? It just needs those three factors. And then if that feels too big, you can say, well, what is my purpose for this month? You can thin slice purpose. You can thin slice it all the way down to what's my purpose today. And if you did a bunch of those in a row, you probably snap up to larger purpose. And so you can thin slice it. It's not in that framework, it seems digestible.

What's the difference between purpose and vision? Like in compete to create, you talk a lot about vision. Like you need to have this vision, this, this idea of what you want your life to look like. And you have to put intentional attention on developing that. And that's challenging to me. Cause I don't know that I've really thought that through very much for myself. We can talk about that later. But how do you distinguish purpose from vision? Are those similar? Are they two different things? Yeah, this is where language is really important. And so vision is really about when you use your imagination and you think about what it's like to be you or what the environment that you want to co-create to be. But if we just talk about you for a minute, when you close your eyes and use your imagination, what is the vision that you can create about your best? What does it look and feel like? And so that's what that is about.

What's the vision of your potential? Whatever word we want to use that... When I say those words out loud, like your best and potential, it feels so... The language doesn't do it quite right because it seems so trite. It comes off a little jingoistic. Yeah, that's right. But it really is the mechanism that's underneath. When you close your eyes and create an imagination of what could be, what you would like your future to be, that's what vision is about. Purpose is the why that sits underneath it. What is your life purpose? And the vision, imagination, is what does that look and feel like when that purpose is aligned with the man or woman or person you want to be? Does that help? And then underneath of that is like little missions.

It still feels esoteric, like trying to figure out how to drill that down into a practical application on a day-to-day basis. And then let's complicate it because then you got like, what's your philosophy? Right. I gotta have a purpose, a vision and a philosophy? Come on, man. Come on, man, you need all of them. I got shit to do.

That's right, you gotta pay some bills too. You know, like, yes. But so purpose is this thing like, what am I doing with my time here? Vision is, what does it look like when it's firing on all cylinders? And then philosophy is, what are the guiding principles? You know, is love a guiding principle that is important to you? Is kill or be killed a guiding principle? Is capitalism at all costs? You or go home? Or is it something on the other side, which is like cooperation? Is it – I'm blanking on different principles that matter. So, principles, that's your philosophy. Vision is – when you use your imagination, go big, figure it out.

Not the what but the how and then what about values because that's come up on the podcast a lot like aligning your actions with your what is your value system and are you aligning your actions with that value system it's cool that's those are principles values are principles values and action are really first principles yeah and so i would not separate those two. Seems like a lot of work. Does it? Yeah.

Okay, hold on. When you use your imagination and you think about- Here you go, you're turning it on me. You want to wait for- I know, it's okay, go ahead. You want to wait for the other podcast? No, it's okay, I'll indulge you a little bit. Yeah. So when you use your imagination and you think about what it's like to be you when you're just at your best, what's that about? What are the words you use? What are the images that come up? Effortless, strong, capable, articulate.

Mm. And then what are you doing to express those characteristics? Like now we're using imagination about what's possible in your life. So it's about you being that way. But then what do you think that is? Let's do sport for a minute. Is it like, I don't know, being in the Super Bowl? Is it breaking records? There's some concreteness now to get into. Is it building a media empire for you? Is it, you know, being like absolutely a community minded person? Like

when you, when you go there, what is, how does it start to create some texture or some shape? Yeah. I think that, and maybe we could talk about this more on your show, but I look at, like, let's just take this podcast for example. So I approach this much like I would approach a race. I trained as a swimmer as a kid. I learned visualization techniques. I learned how to train my body and my mind to prepare for an event. And I carry those tools into everything that I do. So today I show up, I prepare so that I'm ready. I get in the right frame of mind and mindset. I try to make sure I get enough sleep and that I'm nourished and

all of those things so that I can show up and be the best version of myself in this conversation. The goal being to have the most present, authentic, best version of what this conversation could possibly be. on the blocks for a swimming race, I visualized it so much that now it's just a matter of executing, right? It's different in that in a swimming race, there's much more that you have control over. There's fewer variables. I don't know what you're thinking, what you're gonna say.

Okay, this is great. And I have to just be present and available for whatever is gonna happen and not try to control it. So there's a relinquishing in it. But I don't think about like, oh, I'm going to build this huge media company, or I want to influence this many people. I'm much more in the moment. I trust and believe that if I repeatedly show up with the best version of who I can possibly be, that those other things kind of take care of themselves. Okay.

So, awesome. You've got the frameworks and the process to show up and be your very best. You know that flat out. You know how to do that. Yeah, I've been doing that my whole life. That's right. So, that's baked. And that how to do that. Yeah, I've been doing that my whole life. That's right. So that's baked. And that's where you just went in this conversation.

So then if you and I were kind of drilling down, which we can do later. This will be fun. But if we're drilling down, I'd say, okay, so you know what? Here's a vision that somebody said, let's get the best racers in the world together, swimmers. And let's see who actually excels. Let's see who can actually peak and prime and bring it amongst the best. That's a vision. And then if that person was you, you were creating that vision for swimming, okay? And then I would

double click about the vision for you and say, what is it like for you when you're building towards that vision? And you're like, oh, I want to be free. What were the words you used? There's an effortlessness to the way that I would work. And so that's starting to shape a vision. Then I would say, well, what's the purpose of this? Why do this? Why create this vision for your life? What it is that you're creating, but who, the man that you want to become through this exercise, what's the purpose? And then you have to answer that. Right.

And then I'd say, you could use values, but I'd say, what are your guiding principles? Because you're gonna have to make lots of choices. And then when you're making those choices, to be a savage in business or to be a collaborator, whatever, I'm being orthogonal, you got to make these micro decisions. The better you know your principles, the easier you can line up your thoughts, words, and actions, and then you'll be your best. So I'll do this with you, just super practical. My purpose is to help people live in the present moment more often. That's it. That's my purpose in life purpose is to help people live in the present moment more often. That's it. That's my purpose in life, is to help people live in this moment more often. And what I know

is that to do that, we have to condition and train our minds. It's very specific. I love that. I would have thought you would have said something like, I want to help people achieve their potential, or I want to help people unlock their most authentic self or their best self. I think that's cool. But those are broader, less specific. Yeah, for me- Because those things occur as a result of being more present in your life. Yeah. Yeah. So what my purpose, and remember, when we go back to the science is that there needs to be three components. It needs to matter to you. Yes, I want people to like be their very

best, whatever, but you know what? I want to help people understand, because this is the keyhole, living in the present moment and knowing how to condition and train your mind so that you can be present more often across potentially any condition that you are going to find yourself in. Shit, that's the keyhole for me. That's what gets my hair to stand up because I know what's possible. more often across potentially any condition that you are going to find yourself in, shit, that's the keyhole for me. That's what gets my hair to stand up because I know what's possible for people when they invest in the inner life. And so then the next is what's the vision? The vision is a community of people that are flat out flourishing, right? And so I want to be part of that community. I want to curate that community. That's actually what we have in the Finding Mastery community right now. And so because

they're investing in their mind and training their mind and organizing their inner life, so we're creating a community of flourishing. And that becomes this exponential, what happens if you've got a bunch of people that are really thriving in the right way? I don't know yet. My imagination hasn't gone there yet. I wish that I could get there. I don't know yet. My imagination hasn't gone there yet. I wish that I could get there. I don't have that yet. And then I've got first principles that are guiding my choices, guiding my words and my thoughts and my actions. So I can be about it in any moment of test. There's a lot of clarity there. How long did it take you to arrive at this? Oh, I've been chipping away, chipping away,

chipping away. My mentor, what's it really about, Mike? What are you really doing? Chipping away, chipping away. Every time I read, I bounce it up against, am I full of shit? Is this right? Like, so it's a work in progress. It's part of the ecosystem of my inner life that I'm bouncing up against those. And I'm reserving the right to change it too. But it's been... But this is what you take to these corporations when you and Coach Carol consult, right? You talk about this in the book, right? Working with Microsoft and these companies where you get people to really drill down on these things for themselves. Yeah. So this is a cool story. I'm able to talk about this, is that it's in page four, five, six of Satya Nadella's book, Hit Refresh. And so Satya is the CEO of Microsoft.

So I was doing a bunch of work with Satya and his executive leadership team. And it's an eight-hour training. And subsequently, we've trained about 30,000 to 40,000 people across their organization at eight hours a person on how to train their mind. Think about that investment. Oh, my goodness. That's a real investment. So that's why we built this online course. And the book is meant to be a tandem to it. But that's why we built this online course. And the book is meant to be a tandem to it, but that's why we built this online course. And that's the real mechanism, I think,

to help align my purpose. It's an eight-hour training to show you how to condition your mind and the practices and a community of people that are doing it together. So we got to the place where we talked about philosophy. And Satya had a moment. And he's, I don't know, maybe six months into the job. And 15 or so direct reports, 180,000 employees roll up to these 15, 16 people, multi-billion dollar corporation. And he pauses, he checks the room and he says, and he pauses, he checks the room and he says, our mission is real and it's big and we're trying to do something amazing. And so what I want to do is I want to know you.

I want you to know each other. I want you to know me. And so let's spend whatever amount of time we need right here to get our philosophies, our true philosophies in line and then share them with each other. Amazing moment. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Yeah.

Running a massive organization like Coach Carroll running the Seahawks, right? Like creating a culture of openness and transparency where if you can get everybody on the same page and align, then you become unstoppable. And what we found is like a 30-30-30. So 30% in a... So culture, what is culture? It's a pin, it's a word for... It's an emblem for the relationships. So relationships are the artifact of whatever the culture is. and so if you can create a container a space for people to have great relationships and you got a really clear north star you got something and so it's a 30 30 30 30 percent of the folks in in your organization or your family are going to be all about the first principles and the mission and the purpose. They're like, yeah, I love this place.

30% are going to be like, what are we doing? This is just my job, man. Let me go back to work. And you know what? You are full of BS. What are you talking about? Relationships. And then there's a middle 30. That middle third is- The swing voters. That's it, man. So work with them to swing 15, 20% of that up. You got something special. I wrote down this line from the book that hit me,

which is through relationships we become. And that's another kind of theme that underscores all of this. So explain what that means because it relates to what you just said. Yeah, I think that we're right on it is that first the relationship with yourself, your relationship with others, with mother nature,

through those relationships, you become the person that hopefully you are working toward. And if you're not purposeful about it, you'll become something. You'll become someone. And if you become a bit purposeful about it and you have that, you use your imagination or you calibrate with your trusted community of mentors or wise men and women and people that you say, who do I want to become?

Shit, that's a real question. So through relationships, we reveal, we become the person that we are becoming. And so that's the idea. And then last little fun science note is that Harvard did a really cool study. Do you remember the study? A 75-year study? Maybe. I don't know. And they did it on fulfillment in life.

So they tracked people for 75 years. And then basically they wanted to understand what goes into living a fulfilled life. Isn't that cool? So basically they said, okay, at the end of the study, did you live a fulfilled life, 75 years or not? And then they drilled down underneath, what are those practices? And one of those practices, there's two really important findings that I want to share. One is that those that were fulfilled wrestled with the deep questions of life. They didn't solve them, but they wrestled.

What is my purpose? What does it mean to be alive in modern times? How do I work with money? What are we doing here? What happens after life? What happens after death, I should say? And so those are like really big, challenging, groggy type questions. Those that wrestled with them reported to live a more fulfilled life. That's counterintuitive because when I think of the individual that's wrestling with those questions, I picture the tortured soul. Yes, that's the work though. That is the work required. Tell me you're not better because you suffer a little bit in your training and you suffer a little bit in trying to find the right word to hit on your next book or your current book. There is a little bit of work and struggle that goes into it. Yeah. And the second one, the second pillar of that finding was relationships, meaningful relationships for those who are fulfilled. And it doesn't mean that somebody

loves you. It means that you have someone and people to love. Do you think that that individual who's wrestling with these fundamental questions about what life is and what it means, is that teachable or trainable? Or are people just, some people hardwired to be prone to that kind of thought process? prone to that kind of thought process? Well, I think if, let's be uber practical, if your thought processes throughout the day are, how am I going to eat tonight? How am I going to feed my kids? Yeah, the larger questions are indulgence. That's right. Indulgencies. So once you get that kind of basic stuff as well secured as you can, it doesn't mean that this is only for the independently wealthy that don't need to think about mortgage. That's not me. So once you get kind of some basic frames of stability and security for safety and shelter and food and that stuff, you provided the luxury to say, okay, what are we doing here? Because I'm working my ass off and I'm trying to figure it out.

What am I trying to figure out? And I think it's a really important question to explore. And so that's the nature of it. So with this purpose of trying to get people more rooted in the present moment. On the front lines of this battle are these devices, which are scientifically devised to maximize distraction, to addict us, to take us out of the moment. I feel like that's where we need to put our intentional attention right now if we're going to win the war of being present. Yes. So talk about that a little bit.

I mean, you open the book talking about that a little bit and the work that Tristan Harris is doing, which I think is super important. And I think this is a really big deal. I don't think anyone would disagree with that. Yeah, I think so. And I don't want to knock technology at the same level. It's easy for us to kind of take potshots at technology. I'm not suggesting that's where you're going, but I just want to kind of say that because I'm about to get- Is that because you work with Microsoft? Asterisk. Yeah, asterisk. No, but I think that it's changing our world and it's helping us reimagine potential.

And I just want to hit a quick note is that when I grew up surfing, we had to wait a month or two months before the magazine would come out with the new skills that the greats were doing. And so iteration would happen around that month. The young Groms would see it and be like, that, look at that. That's what the pioneers are doing. That's what the high performers are doing. And so human potential would progress at the rate of creativity, which is that it's not... Creativity and innovation is rare. It really is. But when you can see somebody else be creative or innovate, and then it speeds up that thing. Right. The acceleration of information dissemination is related directly to the rate at which creative expression and innovation can occur.

Amen. Yeah. Look at your linear, logical lawyer brain making sense of everything. Yes. No, I remember that. I mean, for me, it was Swimming World magazine, you know, and I had the stack on my bed stand and you would just count the days until it was going to be in the mailbox. That's right. And that was the only way of like knowing what was going on. And now that technology has advanced in such a rapid rate that, you know, we're seeing it daily.

We're seeing innovations and creativity and, in creativity and thin herd potential pushing stuff happening every day. And so those clips are happening in a way that almost is overwhelming. And so let's just talk about how our ancient brain works in modern times. So our ancient brain, it really hasn't evolved as fast as technology. Let's be clear about that. And modern technology, they understand the brain and the mind. So the brain is the hardware to oversimplify this beautiful set of three pounds of tissue that sits on our skull. It's the hardware and we've got some software. Let's call it the mind right

now to oversimplify this. They're better at it than most of us. And so they know how to manipulate the brain to be attracted to their technology. They know how to manipulate the brain to be attracted to their technology. They know how to manipulate the mind to be attracted to their technology. That's their business. And they've got scores of PhDs that know how to create dopamine hits, which if you take a lot of dopamine, it's called cocaine. So they know how to get the brain primed for that good stuff. I say good stuff to somebody, you know, they've struggled. I don't know if cocaine was a drug of choice for you or not, but- No, I knew I would like it too much.

Too much, yeah, right. Yeah, okay. So anyways, they're better at it than we are. And they're certainly better at it than a 14-year-old is. And when I say better is that as soon as we have some dopamine and some feel-good stuff on our brain, our brain is saying, give me more, give me more. And what's required to that is some breaking mechanisms, some self-control, some awareness to pull away from the slow drip of dopamine. And that takes some discernment, it takes some skill, it takes some real grit to do that. And it's really hard to do if purpose, back to that, isn't clear. Because it is so immediately... What's the word? Just attractive. It's so immediately feeding and compelling,

it's a good word, that it's a nice, easy trade for that versus anxiety versus purpose. And certainly if purpose is not clear, this invitation to explore a slow drip of dopamine is way better than anxiety, depression, or this muddled up purpose. Or if my purpose feels like it's just to work in this system

to make somebody else money, the entrepreneur, the owner, the factory line worker, whatever. So what do we do? I don't have an answer. Well, it becomes incumbent upon us to create healthy boundaries around these things, which takes a lot of work, you know, because it is so alluring.

You know, I think from a neurological perspective, what is the long-term impact of constantly enduring these dopamine hits? Like when I was a kid, like a dopamine, I wasn't getting dopamine hits throughout the day. So what happens when you extrapolate that out over a number of decades? What does that do to the human psyche and the human machine?

We find ourselves with the inability to be bored. And that space, boredom is like a negative connotation to space. But space is the place of creative spark and inspiration. Awareness, insight, yes. And so it's where imagination really can flourish. So I've been bored, and it means that I don't really know what to do with myself in this present moment. And I'm struggling to be creative and whatever. So we're finding, I think that if you're thinking about your kids for a moment, is that there's some cool practices that we can talk about.

Like my son's school taught him this, is that you don't charge phones and technology. He doesn't have a phone, he's 12. But you don't charge anything in your bedroom. So you charge it out of your bedroom. He takes technology breaks all the time because he can recognize the difference between the freedom to create

in that white boredom space, if you will, and how kind of relaxing and rewarding that is as opposed to like the stimulating on button. He loves that on button too now. So do I. So there's practices to be concerned about. And at the same time, technology's here. It's not going anywhere. So we need to have a relationship with technology too. Yeah. I just watched my daughters and this is the vernacular with which they relate to their peers. They have to be fluid in this language in order to fit in and to survive.

So it's about where does that tip into unhealthy relationship or a dependent relationship? Well, you know, when you and I were growing up, if we didn't get invited to the party on a Friday or Saturday night or get invited to go to wherever or go on that surf trip for me. You find out about it kind of later.

Yeah. Not now. Now it's happening in real time on Snapchat. It's like, whoa. Yeah. It's brutal. Yeah. It's really brutal.

There's this moment where I realized my philosophy was coming through in parenting when my son was in this small... How old is he now? He's 12. And he was not interested in sport at this age, but he wanted to kind of play with his friends. And it was a basketball team. And some of the other parents were really frustrated that these eight-year-olds were losing. And I turned to the dad and I was like, this is my philosophy coming out. And I was like, no, no, no, this gives him

a great chance to figure out losing too. And he looked at me like, you're a loser, Gervais. Like, what do you mean? You want to teach your kids how to lose? I was like, yeah. Yeah, of course. Yeah. I want them to figure out how to do that. I don't understand this thing about not keeping score. I do. I think it's- You know why we're doing it.

Well, yeah, I understand why we're doing it. But it goes back to what you said earlier about the most interesting people. Some of your favorite people are the people who have like under, they've had pain in their life. They've grappled with it. They've wrestled with it and they've undergone change. Like I know some of the most,

my favorite people are all people that kind of had hard childhoods and really had to struggle. And it's made them, you know, really amazing individuals. But how do you square that with your impulse as a parent to protect your child and, you know, immunize them from any kind of hardship. There's an athlete that I spent a lot of time with. He was MVP a couple of years. I don't think he's not in the Hall of Fame, but MVP a couple of years. And I said, hey, how you doing? I saw him

a couple of years after. And I said, how you doing? And he said, great. You know, like transition was awesome. So good. I said, how's your son? And he says, he's good. The son was like 16. He's good. What do you mean? He says, you know, Mike, I gave him everything. I gave him the best shoes, the best coaches. I had him invited to the best camps.

He was on the fricking floor of the NBA, kind of ball boy and just around it. He loves basketball. But I can't give him the one thing that I had. The drive. And the way he said that was, I had nothing. I can't give him nothing. So he goes, I don't know if I made a mistake, but I didn't have cool shoes. I didn't have cool shoes. I didn't have right coaches. I was left out of the rich kid club.

And you know what it taught me? I had to fucking fight. I had to scrap, drop my hips, figure it out. But when I got on the court, it was on. And I had purpose and I had fill in the blanks of all the stuff we're talking about. And he knew exactly where he wanted to go. He had a vision of what his future could be.

And he had this incredibly crisp, every day was a mission to get closer to the purpose and the vision. And he goes, I can't give him that. And so, man, that was an attunement moment for me. Like, yeah, I want my son to have a great education and this, that, and the other. Yeah.

I mean, that's the peril of every self-made man's success story, right? Yeah. It's that scrappiness that got them to that place and then their kids have a totally different experience. Did you ever read the, I think it was called G, generational wealth? Uh-uh. G1, G2, G3. So G1 are the scrappers, bold risk, getting after it, big vision type stuff. I'm talking about generational wealth. G2 kind of hold the line a little bit, but don't really grow it because they're afraid. They were so close to the heat of the G1.

You're talking about like the Vanderbilts of the world, right? Yeah. Generation one, generation two, the sons and daughter. And generation three, they kind of squander it. They're like, I'm not close to the fire. Happens every time. And I got 30 million in the bank and I'm 14 million, you're 14 years old. What are we talking about? So yeah, it's an interesting social study there. Yeah. I don't know how you fix that one. Maybe, maybe, maybe what, uh, what, what's his name? Um, one of the wealthiest people alive.

Uh, Warren Buffett. Warren Buffett. Yeah. He's not giving his kids. Right. Hasn't given his kids much. Bold. Well, that's a weird one too. When you make that much money and then you're like, well, I'm just going to give it all away. Like, what is your driving purpose? Like, I don't understand that drive at that level when you're talking about those kinds of numbers.

There's definitely odd behaviors in there. It's nothing that interests me. I don't know if it's still true, but if the stock market is up, he gets McDonald's every day. Have you heard this urban? I have, yeah. I think that's apocryphal. Or he still lives in the same house and that whole kind of thing. Yeah.

I don't know. I don't know him and I don't know these, but it's a pretty funny story. I know. Yeah. Well, like, so it's not about money for him, but then he's, you know, it's, it's a mystery box to me. One more thing I wanted to explore with you. You posit the question in Compete to Create, like, is there a single determinant of success, right? So talk to me a little bit about that. What's driving success? And we just talked about scrappiness. Yeah. That opens up the door to grit and Angela Duckworth's work and Anders Ericsson's work and all these things that

you explore. It's not that simple for me, right? That's the question. Is there a single determinant? And if we had to hang our hat on something, we'd probably say, you're likely not going to ever kind of reach your full expression of who you are as a person without real work. And so that's where grit hangs here. So grit has three components. This is Angela Duckworth's work. Passion, perseverance for long-term goals. So you could replace, I like to replace long-term goals because they feel so mechanical to the vision that you hold for yourself. So do you have enough passion day in and day out?

And do you have the internal skills? So all of these are internal skills. Do you have the internal skills to roll with the punches, to persevere during the down, hard times? And then is the vision clear enough? Because if the vision and the purpose and those two words are not crisp and clear enough, the pain will win. When purpose is small, pain will win. When purpose is big, you'll deal with some pain. And that's the perseverance piece of this model. And so what we do in the online courses, we double down. And in the book, we double and triple down in kind of some of the stuff. But to make it simple, there is not one golden thread for determinants of success.

But if I was to hang my hat on something, I'd say grit is really important because it's got three main components. Yeah. And so I wish I could find – I'm on a little bit of a pursuit to figure out, is there a golden thread that binds those that explore the reaches of human potential? I haven't found one yet. Yeah, and grit is teachable. Grit is teachable. Well, each, all three of those. That's what you should have told your buddy in the NBA about his son.

I know. I know. You know. Right? Yeah, it is. And so- I feel like it'd be hard to teach though. Grit? It just feels like certain people have a motor. You have a son. I've got a bunch of kids. They're all different, man. And their motors are calibrated differently and that had nothing to do with

anything Julie or I did. And I think that when you think about all three of those, it's so mechanical to say, like what we did, what's your vision? That's pretty mechanical. It requires some honesty and some imagination and a little accountability to sharpen it up. So that one's interesting, but certainly goals are relatively easy. It's an old conversation about setting goals, right? And when I ask people, what do you think is harder? When I go into a room and there's a thousand people and we're teaching about, or even a small room with 12 people, it doesn't matter. And we're teaching about grit. And I say, what do you think is harder? Living with passion or perseverance? Dealing with the hard stuff. What do you think's harder? Passion, living with passion or perseverance, you know, dealing with the hard stuff? What do you think the room does? Perseverance feels harder. Yeah. My experience has been passion is way harder, way harder. You know perseverance, dude. You know it intimately inside and out. Most people that are successful, they know how to roll with some stuff. They are resilient. Can they get better at it? Probably.

That's a skill too. Resiliency is a psychological skill. Any skill we can apply some effort towards, we can get better at it. But you can't manufacture passion. I understand training for perseverance, but how do you train to be passionate? See, I love where you instantly take it because you're an examined, serious person, is that passion... I'm going to take that. I'm an examined, serious person. You are. I think I'm serious. I'm going to put that on my website. Yeah. You are serious though, right? I don't know. Yeah, you're serious. I'm serious. I don't want to be always serious, but anyways. So passion is, there's two things that get in the way of passion.

So consider passion that inner fire. Fatigue, that'll put a heavy blanket on passion, and fear. So anxiety, the chronic looping worry that things are going to go wrong, and then the mismanagement of your energy system. Not sleeping right, not eating right, not moving right. That fatigue, that chronic stress, the ability to manage chronic stress through breathing patterns, eating patterns, thinking patterns, that is the heavy blanket. That's one of the heavy blankets that sits on the flame of passion. And the other is just worrying, like excessive worry about stuff. Passion feels like an unruly, unpredictable energy source that's hard to control and hard to direct.

Oh, look at you. It's big in you, isn't it? It's not a little flame for you, huh? Well, you hear a lot about passion. You got to live a passionate life. How to find your passion. It's all about passion, right? And now there's this counter narrative that you're seeing where you're being told, forget about passion. That's a fool's errand. It's not about passion. That's not fool's errand. It's not about passion. That's like, you know, not something you need to be thinking about. And I sort of sit in this space where I don't feel like, I don't understand where passion falls in all of this. I understand drive. I understand vision.

I understand purpose, meaning, and all of those things. Passion just feels like something that's floating out in the clouds. I can't really wrap my hands around. So if we thought about it this way, if we made it uber concrete, which is, it's just that little fire in your belly to go do the thing, to climb the hill, to wake up and be about it. It's that little fire in the belly. That's the way I think about it. be about it. It's that little fire in the belly. That's the way I think about it. And this idea of where the fool's errand is for passion is that passion only comes from the special thing that you need to do. It clouds out irrationality. It can compel some

bad choices. Yes. Yeah, I wasn't going to go there. Yes, I fully agree with that. But the idea is, can you live with passion anywhere you go? Can you have a little fire in your belly in any room that you're in, in any environment that you're in? And that seems pretty daunting, but that's cool. Like for me, I like that. And I'm not saying go chase your passion. I'm saying be passionate. And so where does that – that hooks around to me an ancient concept.

This is not something that I'm going to stand on for science. That's the animation of the spirit. Call it a fire in your belly. Call it a fire in your belly, but the Trinity is a really cool, beautiful idea that many spiritual frames kind of miss the subtlety about the animation of the spirit, of the aliveness that comes with being human. The animation of that magical world that we don't understand yet. But we think that there's probably something there, call it spirituality. So call it consciousness, call it fill in the blank. So, man, that's all it is for me.

I want to be about it. Yeah. Well, we all know that guy or that woman who when they walk into a room, they just light it up because they just exude that in every facet of their life. When I see those people, I marvel at that because it feels inaccessible, but also I'm jealous. I want more of that in my life. But then I'm not sure how to cultivate that. I look at it as a God-given disposition that they have rather than something that they developed with some intentionality. Oh, that's cool. I think there's probably a predispositioning into that too,

but it's definitely something you can cultivate. But the way to cultivate this is to get the heavy blankets off of it. So it's like addition by subtraction. So it's taking those heavy blankets. I really think that there's a couple of great constrictors of the human experience right now, and one of those is fatigue. And so examining your recovery mechanisms in a significant way, I'm not speaking to you, Rich, but like the pejorative. No, I need this, actually. I understand what you're saying. Yeah. This is one of the great constrictors because chronic stress opens the floodgate for draining fuel, quotes around fuel. But it just drains organisms.

And so if we're not psychologically skilled to deal with the chronic stress, no different than a dog. You know, When an alarm happens for a dog, there's a threat and they walk away. They go to the door, the mailman's at the door and the dog's barking, whatever. And as soon as that threat goes away, you know what the dog does. They roll their head a little bit. They roll their body and shake their tail. And it's like they have just physically let go. They don't hold resentments. We don't do that.

Yeah, I know. So, yeah. I mean, so it's- I wish we could. It's the recovery mechanisms that pay dividends. All right, we got to wrap this up, but let's close it down with maybe a couple simple tactics or tools that people could use that are feeling overwhelmed. They're feeling the anxiety. They're feeling the fear. They're experiencing the vitriol. They can't put the phone down. Leave us with some pearls. If I had pearls, you know, yeah. You got pearls.

I got pearls. Well, I'd say- You got plenty of pearl necklace underneath that hoodie. The hoodie. Yeah. I'd say this. I'd say order one is investigating your recovery mechanisms. Let's work in reverse order. Take a look at sleep. Take a look at the quality choices you're making around nutrition and make sure your hydration is right. So these are all restorative type of ideas. Get your heart rate up in an acute way if you don't have an underlying condition. Get your heart rate up where you're stimulating your brain to say, ooh, that's right, we do hard things. And so I'd say those are some easy frames to talk about, harder to stay current with,

consistent with. And then I'd also say that mindfulness is a place to begin. And if mindfulness seems too unavailable, it's as simple as setting a timer, following an inhale and then an exhale with all of your might, and starting over every time that you notice that you're distracted. And the moment that you notice that you're distracted. And the moment that you notice that you're distracted, just returning back to the inhale or the exhale, wherever you are. Eight minutes is good science. 20 minutes is a little bit more interesting science you get to. The ancients would say, what are you doing timing this? So I'd say those are two kind of cool places to start. And then I go way upstream to say, start with something writing down your philosophy, the guiding principles in your life.

Maybe start with your purpose. If those feel daunting, start building relationships where you're talking about stuff that really matters to you. And for a long time, people would say to me, Mike, what are the best tools to invest in? And this is kind of with this conversation, but I'd be remiss if I said it's a fundamental organization of your life to be and become the man, woman, or person you want to be. And then the second thing that I missed for most of my professional life is the importance of your intimate relationships outside of the craft, outside of your business that you're doing. I wouldn't be the human I am today without

those intimate relations and my wife at ground zero. So working on giving love and giving away as often as you possibly can. And so it ends up coming back around for the most part. 100%. Yeah. Give more love. I like it. Powerful Mike Gervais. Hey, man.

I appreciate you. You're welcome here anytime. Come back and talk to me some more. I always find it nourishing. It's a pleasure to spend time with you. So thank you. Thank you. If you want to learn more about Michael,

check out his podcast, Finding Mastery. It is masterful. Can't recommend it more highly. Compete to Create. Why is it just an audio book? How come you didn't do a print book? Was it just a deal with Audible or? Yeah, it was an Audible original. So we went a little bit reverse order. Yeah, it was an Audible original. So we went a little bit reverse order. And I like the idea of not burning down trees. But now I'm craving something tangible to hold. So we're going to get to that, but that's not from about a year away.

Yeah, it's cool. It's really well done. Pete Carroll pops in from time to time. Yeah, thanks, man. To drop some of his pearls. And then I liked how you layered in some stuff from your podcast into it, which is what an audio book should be. It's a dynamic digital document. So cool. Anything else coming up?

You've got this like online football training thing too, right? 11 on football or something you did with Nike football? Oh, yeah. Just people are interested in the mental part of the game at scale right now. And brands across the world are really interested in how do we organize our inner life and train our minds. So it's just a conversation that's happening. Right. well. Not from an anxiety fixing standpoint type of thing, but like, hey, our people are our most important part of the company. How do we invest in them? Rather than teaching them how to sell better or market better, how do we help them live better? And so that's the part I'm super excited about. Right. Cool, man. All right. Let's do it again. Thanks brother. Peace. Bye.

International treasure that Michael Gervais, two years is too long in between our conversations. I love that man. I hope you guys got as much out of that experience as I did. I'll be sure to get him back here again soon. Check out his new Audible original, Compete to Create. It's a killer listen. Hit him up on Instagram and Twitter,

at Michael Gervais. Let him know what you thought of today's exchange. And as always, check the show notes on the episode page at richroll.com to dive deeper into all things Dr. Michael Gervais. We also have another Roll On AMA coming up soon. Please leave your voicemail at 424-235-4626 with your question. I'm excited to dive into those and figure out which ones we're going to talk about and answer on the next edition with Adam

Skolnick. If you'd like to support the work we do here on the show, subscribe, rate, and comment on it on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify. Share the show or your favorite episodes with friends or on social media. And you can support us on Patreon at richroll.com slash donate. Thank you to everybody who worked very diligently to produce today's show. Jason Camiello for audio engineering, production, show notes, and interstitial music. Blake Curtis for manning the camera, creating the video version for YouTube and all the little clips you see on social media. Jessica Miranda for graphics, Allie Rogers for portraits,

DK for advertiser relationships, and theme music by my boys, Tyler Trapper and Harry. Appreciate you guys. Love you. See you back here soon with another amazing episode. Until then, be well. Peace, plants. Namaste. Thank you.