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today at unlockyourxfactor.com. That's

2:15

unlockyourxfactor.com. Welcome

2:20

to the Art of Charm podcast, where we break down

2:22

the science of powerful communication and

2:24

winning mindsets, so you have the cheat code to succeed

2:26

with people. Every episode is jam-packed

2:29

with actionable steps to unlock the

2:31

hidden superpowers inside of you. Level

2:33

up with us each week by listening to interviews

2:35

with the best in business, psychology, and

2:37

relationships. We distill thousands

2:39

of hours of research in the most effective tools

2:42

and the latest science, so you can start winning today.

2:45

Let's face it, in order to be seen and

2:47

heard, your communication needs to cut

2:49

through the noise,

2:49

and we're gonna show you how. I'm

2:52

AJ, successfully recovered introvert,

2:54

entrepreneur, and self-development junkie. And

2:56

I'm Johnny Zuback, former touring musician,

2:58

promoter, rock and roller, and co-founder here

3:00

at the Art of Charm. And for the last 15 years,

3:03

we've trained thousands of top performers

3:06

and teams from every background. We have dedicated

3:08

our lives to teaching men and women all they need

3:11

to know about communication, networking,

3:13

and relationships. You shouldn't have to settle

3:15

for anything less than extraordinary.

3:19

All right, let's kick off today's show. We're

3:22

talking with Dr. Michael Gervais. Dr.

3:24

Gervais is one of the world's top high-performance

3:26

psychologists and leading experts on the relationship

3:29

between the mind and human performance. We

3:31

had Dr. Gervais on the show in the summer

3:33

of 2020, and we talked about people that

3:36

are on the top of their game, athletes, corporate

3:38

leaders, and military personnel, to name a few,

3:40

and extracting the tools that allow them to strive

3:42

under pressure. Today, we're stoked to have him

3:44

back to talk about his latest book, The

3:46

First Rule of Mastery, Stop Worrying

3:49

What Other People Think of You. He shares what

3:51

FOPO is and why it is the first

3:53

step to mastery, the difference

3:55

between performance mindset and mastery mindset,

3:58

how the spotlight effect you back from

4:00

reaching your potential, why Ricky

4:02

Fowler uses identity to perform under

4:05

pressure and sink putts, and the secret

4:07

to breaking free of other people's opinions

4:09

of you. Well, welcome back to the show, Michael. So great

4:12

to have you. Oh, I'm stoked to be here with you

4:14

guys. Thank you for including me. Well,

4:16

I know our audience has definitely heard of FOMO.

4:18

They may not be familiar with FOPO. So

4:21

what is FOPO? Well,

4:22

for short, it stands for fear

4:25

of people's opinions. And I

4:28

think it is one of the greatest constrictors

4:30

of human potential. And so what

4:33

it essentially is, is this ancient

4:35

brain of ours trying to solve a modern dilemma.

4:38

And the ancient brain, millions of years

4:40

old, passed down for our ancestors, were

4:43

optimized or are optimized to scan

4:45

the world and find all the threats, the danger. And

4:48

without having to think, we have

4:50

this very particular mobilizing

4:53

system, which is the fight flight freeze

4:55

mechanism. And long

4:57

ago, our ancestor figured out

4:59

that wildebeest and saber through tigers were

5:01

definitely a threat, warring tribes, definitely

5:04

a threat. And then we figured out

5:06

that if we got kicked out of a tribe, that

5:09

that was nearly a death sentence.

5:12

So we focused in on knowing

5:14

how to be able to sense at

5:16

the slightest indication of

5:19

rejection and acceptance. So

5:21

we've got this general adaptation

5:23

to be able to find survival mechanisms for

5:25

survival, and a very specific

5:28

lens on the way that

5:30

they look at me, the way that they respond

5:33

to me, is either getting me closer to the middle

5:35

of the safety of the tribe, or I'm on

5:37

the fringe getting kicked out. And

5:39

so this fear

5:41

of people's opinions has been around a long time.

5:44

It just now we don't have wildebeest and saber through

5:46

tigers, we have the eyeballs of others. And

5:49

that's, that's kind of what's happening for us. Yeah,

5:51

and I think technology has definitely grown

5:53

the tribe. So from having to worry

5:56

about a handful of peers and their opinions,

5:58

we now have cameras. We have social media

6:00

some of our viewers on YouTube are catching us

6:03

and with that number of eyeballs

6:06

Multiplying it feels like we're always in

6:08

a spotlight under the microscope of

6:11

other people's opinions a thousand percent

6:13

like at some level

6:15

Okay, it's more heightened now, but at some level everybody's

6:18

a public figure Okay, and let me take it back

6:20

like a hundred years ago You

6:22

were public in your neighborhood you were public

6:24

in your family The circles were just

6:27

smaller and then now fast forward a hundred years

6:29

the advent of social media and and and we

6:31

are Exponentially larger when it comes

6:34

to every human being public.

6:36

There's just a larger circle, but we've always

6:38

had this public sense Hundreds

6:40

of thousands of years ago public was the tribe

6:43

and now that tribe to your point is excellent

6:46

and larger So we've had this mechanism for a long time It's

6:48

just more complicated right now because as

6:51

the tribe has increased I don't think our

6:53

skill set to manage it has and that's

6:55

really what this book is about. I think a lot

6:57

of the Greek philosophical

7:00

movements

7:01

Came out of trying to

7:03

figure this problem out

7:06

so when we think of like people like the odd

7:08

jenise you could say he was like the first punk

7:10

rock philosopher and his whole

7:12

thing was of cynicism

7:14

and skepticism and not caring what other

7:16

people think and behaving in a matter

7:19

that would showcase

7:20

That and of course that comes with its own

7:23

peril

7:24

as well but when we have cynicism

7:27

and skepticism These are all

7:29

sort of along the lines of discounting

7:31

what other people are thinking and then figuring

7:34

it out yourself and then there's also this

7:36

aspect of disconnecting

7:39

and going off

7:40

to a cabin in the woods or a cave

7:43

in the wilderness and with a candle

7:45

and a notebook being alone with your thoughts

7:48

and

7:49

Journaling to be detached

7:52

From all of this perception and

7:54

other people's opinions.

7:55

So it

7:56

goes with the saying of

7:59

an

7:59

In order to combat

8:01

consciousness, we need more consciousness.

8:05

And that self-examination,

8:08

I tend to think that a

8:11

lot of what we're going through today has been

8:13

to combat those things, but it's

8:15

almost as if the more we

8:17

dig,

8:18

the more and the whole we put ourselves. I

8:21

love that what you're suggesting is that

8:23

there is a remedy. And

8:26

yes, it's hard right now. It is really

8:28

hard for us to work with this

8:30

ancient brain because the doctrine there is

8:33

strong. And if you don't, let's oversimplify

8:36

this because it might set up

8:38

all the possibilities of how to get better

8:40

at being a little bit more

8:43

free from worrying about what other people

8:45

think about you. So let me set it up that we've

8:47

got this three pounds of tissue in our brain. And

8:51

I'm sorry, in our skull, and that's our brain, it's very

8:53

powerful. And then we've got our mind

8:55

and our mind is maybe

8:57

a little bit more akin to the software that's

9:00

running the hardware. And if

9:03

you don't optimize the software, you

9:05

know, just you're going to use the software that your parents gave

9:07

you or that your neighborhood friends

9:09

gave you or that Muscle and Fitness

9:12

magazine or whatever magazine that you're looking

9:14

for gave you. And there's

9:16

a calling right now. Mindfulness has

9:18

had its moment, is having its moment still.

9:21

There's a human energy crisis for

9:23

people who are exhausted, were irritated, were

9:25

tired, were anxious, were

9:28

expensive as an organism to

9:30

run because we've got this

9:32

leaky valve, call it anxiety,

9:35

call it an untrained mind. And

9:38

we're expensive. That's how we get to

9:40

two o'clock. And we're

9:42

educated well enough to know that probably

9:44

shouldn't have more caffeine after two o'clock because

9:47

it doesn't leave the system fast enough. And

9:49

some people are reaching for stronger stimulants

9:51

and some people are gossiping as a stimulant

9:54

and some people are just feeding off

9:56

of the anxiety.

9:58

And by the time they get home, they're.

10:00

Agitate, irritated, like I said, and exhausted.

10:03

Part of my mission is to

10:06

pull back a curtain on this beautiful science of psychology

10:09

and share how best in

10:11

the world use their mind to

10:13

be able to find their very best, to

10:16

have a sense of freedom in life,

10:18

to

10:18

be buoyant in whatever mission that

10:21

they have. I just think that this is

10:23

one of the first places to start,

10:25

is what is your relationship with other people?

10:27

What is your relationship with evaluation? What

10:30

is your relationship with being true

10:32

to

10:33

your purpose or is

10:35

your purpose really to be accepted

10:38

by other people?

10:39

Like going away

10:40

into a cave or into another cave

10:42

necessarily. But- Cabin of the

10:45

woods? Yeah, Cabin of the woods. With man

10:47

by the river. With man by the river. With a

10:49

candle. Yeah, right. That's cool. It's

10:51

just

10:52

hard to do. Yeah. In the book, we talk about how Beethoven

10:54

did that because

10:55

I think he had a really strong

10:57

case of FOPO

10:59

and he was able to go and get away.

11:01

But

11:01

I don't know. I don't think I can do that. And I

11:04

think if I went away for

11:06

six weeks,

11:08

unless I did psychological based

11:10

work, I would come out the same person. Maybe

11:13

a little bit more rested. So that's

11:15

why this is pointing to doing psychological

11:17

based work. Whether that is ACT,

11:19

whether that is mindfulness based training, whether

11:22

that is cognitive behavioral training.

11:24

There's a whole

11:25

host of different theories and

11:27

applied practices that the world is like going,

11:30

can I get some of that? Oh, but I'm

11:32

not doing psychology. I'm not

11:34

going to a psychologist. That's for those

11:36

people.

11:37

Oh my God. I hope we're so much further

11:40

away from that narrative than we were two years

11:42

ago. But

11:43

we have a long way to go. Well, it seems clear

11:46

that avoidance is

11:48

not the answer here. Whether it's

11:50

a cabin, whatever the case may be for you. You

11:52

can't avoid opinion. And it

11:54

does also feel like we give weight

11:57

to different opinions. being

12:00

a bit of a public figure on a podcast and putting

12:03

our voice out there, of course we know

12:05

online the cost of opinion versus

12:08

in your tribe where you say it to someone's face and

12:10

there might be a physical confrontation is

12:12

the lowest it's ever been. You can leave a message online,

12:15

you can be in a negative state, you can then comment

12:17

on someone else and leave that opinion and that

12:19

opinion can rock the creator, it can rock the

12:21

public figure, it can rock the person who's on the receiving

12:24

end and you won't even give it a second thought because

12:26

you were in your state and you just had an opportunity to

12:29

put your two cents into the world and now

12:31

there's a digital record of that two cents.

12:34

So it's not just your reputation in the tribe, it's

12:36

there even if you go away for six weeks well you come

12:39

back and your phone's gonna notify you of all the comments

12:41

and the reviews you got while you were gone. So

12:44

avoidance is not the answer and

12:47

we're hardwired to care about people's opinions

12:49

for our survival. So what

12:52

is the process of FOPO that we need to be aware

12:54

of and then how do we start to find the antidote to

12:57

succeed under the pressure of all these opinions

13:00

around us?

13:01

Well I think it might be useful to just

13:03

kind of also talk about just how slippery

13:06

it is. Like FOPO is checking your

13:08

phone so that you appear busy or

13:10

in demand. It's working

13:12

late because your boss is still there, it's

13:15

laughing at a joke that you don't find funny, it's

13:17

pretending that you know a song or a movie that

13:20

everyone's talking about. It's

13:22

like holding a drink at a party even

13:24

though you don't really wanna drink but you

13:26

don't also wanna be the odd one out.

13:28

So like

13:30

FOPO is slippery.

13:32

It's not this necessarily dramatic

13:34

moment. It could be a panic

13:37

attack experience but it's usually not for people.

13:39

It's just this slippery

13:41

little adjustment that

13:43

you do that you're conforming

13:46

or contorting or you're

13:49

shape shifting in a way that

13:51

is pulling back your true self

13:54

to be in favor of others. And

13:57

when FOPO is working, you're

13:59

living your life. on their terms, not

14:01

yours. And that's the real cost

14:03

of it. And so how

14:06

do we set it up? Avoidance, correct. It's

14:08

a bummer of a strategy because it just keeps kicking the can

14:10

down the road. The good

14:13

news is when you do that, though,

14:15

you feel safe.

14:17

You don't feel whole.

14:18

But you've got, you know, you've played the game

14:21

well enough that other people kind of

14:23

lift their eyebrows and gently

14:26

smile at you, meaning you're

14:28

okay because you like my joke. You're okay

14:30

because, you know, you're okay in my

14:32

eyes, which is just, again, exhausting.

14:35

So, all right, let's talk about the

14:38

phases of it. I think that that could be really good

14:40

to talk about. There's this anticipation

14:43

where you're worrying before

14:46

you go to your holiday party, right?

14:49

You're worrying about what they might

14:51

think of you if you wear this or that or who's

14:53

going to be there and what they might want to talk about.

14:56

And again, that's

14:57

normal. It's normal to

14:59

use your imagination. It's normal

15:01

to think forward. It's when

15:03

you're excessively worrying or you're

15:05

worrying at a level that it's altering

15:08

the the clothes that you

15:10

might choose to wear because you want to

15:12

be liked by another person. You want to fit in

15:14

rather than be you. And

15:17

then once you're actually in, this is like the second

15:19

phase, once you're actually in a social

15:21

setting, it's this relentlessly

15:24

you know, checking in and

15:27

you're searching for external cues to see

15:29

if you're accepted or rejected. So, there's

15:31

an anticipation phase, there's a checking phase,

15:34

and then like I said, the way you respond,

15:37

it is tragic when you're doing it, but there's an abandonment

15:40

to your self, to your family

15:43

of origin, to your neighborhood, to your

15:45

your core ethos of who you are and

15:47

what you represent. And that's

15:50

kind of what happens at the extreme level

15:52

in FOPO. There are some on-ramps

15:55

to FOPO and there are some

15:58

off-ramps as well. And

16:00

I think the greatest off-ramp

16:02

before I get onto some of the on-ramps is just

16:05

recognizing that it is a thing. And

16:08

it's a thing for so many of us is worrying

16:10

about what they might think of me. And

16:13

just recognizing it is a little bit

16:15

like The Sixth Sense. You know,

16:17

remember the movie where there's ghosts everywhere

16:19

and you can't undo or unsee it

16:22

once you know that it's there? So it's a

16:24

little bit like that. And I hope that your

16:26

community will say, wait, hold on. Do I have full

16:28

flow? Do I have a fear of people's opinions?

16:32

And you need to recognize the value

16:34

of other people's opinions for sure. Because

16:37

some people's opinions can give you a job. Some

16:39

people's opinions can get you fired. But

16:41

it's

16:42

an excessive worry about

16:44

the opinions of others. Not

16:47

necessarily just the one person that actually does

16:49

have, you know, radical

16:52

influence about the trajectory of your life. Now,

16:54

I think for our audience, what's important to recognize

16:56

here is that working with elite

16:59

athletes in performance heightened

17:01

environments, they're feeling the

17:04

anticipation phase, just like you

17:06

are listening to this here. So there's no

17:08

avoidance that's happening at the elite level

17:11

where they just turn it off and it's not there.

17:14

They just recognize the anticipation

17:16

and then they use their training

17:18

and their ability to overcome all

17:20

of those internal biological patterns

17:22

that are happening to perform even

17:25

with this present. Because I know a lot

17:27

of our clients are like, I just want to turn it off. Like,

17:29

I just want to give the flying double

17:32

middle finger to other people's opinions

17:34

and just walk in everywhere, not caring whatsoever.

17:37

But that's not a solution either. That's

17:39

not going to keep us safe. That's not going to get us ahead in

17:41

our career. That's not actually going to lead to performance.

17:44

Yeah, those people are assholes.

17:46

Like,

17:46

those people are narcissists. They're

17:49

people that don't care

17:52

about another person's experience or their opinion.

17:54

There's a hubris. There's

17:57

something else there that is really unbecoming.

18:00

I'm suggesting. What I'm suggesting is it's,

18:03

again, a worry about it. So,

18:05

worrying about their opinion. You can hold two

18:07

things in common. You can be curious about their

18:09

opinion. You can want to understand

18:12

their opinion. You can engage

18:15

and explore their opinion. But their

18:17

opinion does not define who

18:19

you are. And it doesn't force

18:22

you to shift in some sort of way

18:24

to be accepted or this

18:27

fear of rejection when you

18:29

actually do speak your truth. Come to find

18:31

out, according to research, people

18:34

actually aren't thinking about you anyway. You

18:36

know, there's a classic, grandma

18:38

was right. You know, people are not thinking about

18:40

you as much as you think they are. So,

18:43

when we just, when we strip down, there's a, if you

18:45

want to look it up, there's a bit of research called

18:47

the spotlight effect. And the author, yes,

18:50

Thomas Gilovich, which is, he's great. He's

18:52

so smart and so awesome and unheralded

18:54

in so many ways. And in essence,

18:57

he took about 100 college kids, put them in a room,

18:59

and then had some

19:01

other kids wear the ugly t-shirt

19:04

of Barry Manilow and walk

19:06

into the room and, you know, do you think

19:08

kids are going to notice that you're wearing the ugliest shirt we

19:10

could imagine giving you?

19:12

And

19:13

those kids that were walking into the shirt with the ugly

19:15

shirt or walking into the room with the ugly shirt, they

19:19

predicted that at least 50% of people

19:22

would notice that they have the ugly shirt.

19:24

Come to find out, only about 25% of people

19:27

are actually paying any kind of attention

19:30

to you. Two and a half out of 10 people

19:33

are barely noticing.

19:34

And, you know, it's not like we

19:36

should live our life on their terms. You

19:39

know, most people aren't consumed with their own stuff.

19:41

So anyways,

19:42

I think that that's cool to note as well.

19:45

Yeah, and we often ascribe this

19:48

idea that we are mind readers of

19:50

other people along with that. So not

19:52

only do we believe there's a spotlight on us, but we

19:54

also think we can then see inside the other

19:56

person's mind and know that there are negative opinions

19:59

about us there. when that's not

20:01

the case at all. We don't have that ability as much

20:03

as we love to think. Mind reading, to your

20:07

deep understanding, it sounds like, is one of

20:09

the cognitive distortions that

20:12

leads to, or is evidence of,

20:14

anxiety, depression, or addiction. So

20:17

trying to mind read other people who

20:19

are really bad at it,

20:21

and there's a whole host of problems that

20:23

come with that. And it is, according

20:26

to research again, it is so much

20:28

more powerful to just ask a person,

20:31

hey, what do you think about that? Instead

20:34

of trying to interpret or guess, because

20:37

we are wrong more than we are right when it comes

20:40

to reading another person's mind.

20:41

Certainly our lives and our experiences

20:44

are going to color those

20:46

perspectives. And every

20:48

time I read the Barry Manilow study, I

20:51

always laugh, because there was a phase

20:53

in the 90s, and maybe it's still going on,

20:55

but it's the whole irony thing where that

20:57

Barry Manilow shirt became the most popular

21:00

shirt that you could be wearing.

21:02

Chef, right? For

21:04

us counterculture, I don't know where everyone's

21:07

in the room going, I'm wearing this Barry

21:09

Manilow shirt, and everyone is going to make fun of me,

21:11

too. I'm wearing this Manilow

21:14

shirt, and I'm going to be the man tonight,

21:16

because I scored this at

21:19

the thrift shop, and I'm going to blow everyone's mind.

21:21

But again, it's

21:24

a perspective that

21:26

is there. And for us to pretend that

21:29

we understand how that is

21:31

going to be viewed is ridiculous.

21:34

We don't. No, we don't. And

21:36

you know what's really interesting about the studies around beauty

21:39

is that there is a bit of a golden

21:41

ratio to beauty,

21:43

meaning a predictable symmetry

21:46

across people's faces or bodies that

21:49

holds up across cultures. However,

21:51

not all cultures, but many.

21:54

However, it's

21:55

the less than perfect.

21:58

It's the interesting.

22:00

You know mall or it's

22:03

the weird shape of a chin or there's

22:06

something else when a person

22:08

is confident in the on it and

22:11

they're comfortable and they're engaging

22:14

and they've got like this zest behind

22:16

their eyes. That's where

22:18

we find beauty it's not so much the

22:20

perfect anything if the owning

22:22

your own experience. And

22:25

it's there's when you get the chance to know

22:27

somebody and you go oh my god that person is

22:29

like there's some sort of thing

22:31

that's attractive to you as well

22:33

as there's this deep knowing and

22:36

a live nest that comes with the person we

22:38

talk about beauty often talk about kindness. Talk

22:41

about like you know other features

22:43

characteristics that are go beyond the beauty

22:45

of it or on the physicality of it so

22:47

to your point where you're wearing bare manalow yes

22:49

there's a timely aspect. Where

22:52

one day it's cool in the next decade it's not

22:54

however when you rock it

22:57

and you like it and you feel

22:59

really good about who you are you

23:01

can wear just about anything. And

23:03

so that goes a long way when

23:06

you work from the inside out. And that is

23:08

the that's the name of the first book

23:10

is called the first role mastery and that is it

23:12

work from the inside out

23:14

yeah invest in your psychology. Now

23:16

there are certain types of opinions that

23:20

I could care less about so if you were to

23:22

argue with me about my opinion of rock and roll music

23:25

I have no identity tied to my love

23:27

of rock and roll music. Whereas Johnny

23:30

you know he'll gladly

23:32

go toe to toe with you over your

23:34

taste in rock and roll and there's an identity

23:36

to Johnny and his love of rock and roll

23:39

that's tied to that opinion. And

23:41

you talk about this great experiment you ran with Ricky

23:43

Fowler in the book and I think

23:45

it's just really interesting to unpack how identity

23:48

plays a role in this because we've talked about

23:50

the number of opinions out there and the fact

23:52

that the tribe is ever growing. But we've

23:55

all been in that situation where there are certain

23:57

opinions that cut to our identity.

24:00

that we hold on to longer and often create

24:02

the bigger scars that lead to a decrease

24:05

in performance later.

24:07

Totally. So I think that

24:09

Ricky Fowler's story, the

24:11

research we did with him with Red Bull

24:14

was really interesting because it sets

24:16

up exactly what you're talking about.

24:19

Would you mind if I shared that research? Yeah,

24:21

please

24:21

do. So at Red Bull, there was an early

24:24

mission to set up a true high

24:27

performance program, and it was one of the

24:29

first of its kind. And the idea

24:31

was let's surround some of the already

24:33

best in the world talent with all

24:35

of the great science to support people

24:37

to be their very best. And so psychology and nutrition

24:40

and physiology and technology and motor learning

24:42

and strength and conditioning and

24:45

amazing. Very stimulating

24:48

time. One of the research projects

24:50

that we ran, we did both application and

24:52

research. It was myself and

24:55

Leslie Sherlin, Dr. Sherlin, and

24:57

he's a physiologist on the psychologist. And

25:00

we took three golfers. One,

25:02

everyone knows his name, Ricky Fowler, one

25:05

of the best in the world. Then we took

25:07

the local pro. So if you go play

25:09

golf at your local place, he's

25:12

the guy. He's the best

25:14

there is in LA or the best

25:16

that he is in whatever your town is. And

25:20

then we took a weekend duffer,

25:22

just like a local hack, a

25:24

guy who plays like three times

25:26

a year. And so we

25:29

walked them through three different levels

25:31

of pressure. So the first level

25:33

of pressure was me

25:35

with a clipboard. Oh, and by the way, we monitored

25:38

everything. So we had like they're

25:41

measuring their brain activity, how much they were sweating,

25:43

their heart rate. We're measuring everything that you could

25:45

imagine. And the first

25:47

level of pressure was me with a clipboard and one camera.

25:50

And we just had like 15

25:52

balls laid out and we said, OK, go ahead

25:54

and putt. We're going to watch your your bio

25:57

data. They're going to get an understanding of what's

25:59

happening inside you. The vocal

26:01

Duff guy, you know, he, I'll make

26:03

this number up, it was like eight for 15. He did okay.

26:06

It was fun. The Weekend Pro hit like 13 out

26:08

of 12 out of 15. It

26:11

was good. It was really good. He

26:13

said, wow, that was harder than I thought. But

26:15

he had enough skill in there to manage his

26:17

quote unquote early level of pressure. Then

26:20

Ricky Fowler, he hit 13 for 15

26:23

and at the end I said, how'd you do? And I asked that question

26:25

to everybody, how'd you do? And he

26:27

said, yeah, pretty good. I was 14 for 15.

26:30

I said, oh no, you're actually 13 for 15. He

26:34

says, no, 14 for 15. I

26:36

look at the clipboard and I go, no.

26:40

And there's two balls out there, right? And I go, no. And

26:42

he goes, and he squares up with me and he says, no, no,

26:45

no, you're not understanding. I

26:47

committed to 14 good shots

26:50

on 14 for 15. He goes, I don't care.

26:53

It didn't go in. I committed

26:55

to 14 good shots. I was like, ooh, look

26:57

at that. There's something there that's really

26:59

cool. And there's an urban legend about

27:01

great performers that are committed to the process

27:04

and committed to their way and

27:07

not overly burdened by the outcome.

27:09

And the rest of us mere mortals say, yeah,

27:12

but that can't really be true. It's all about

27:14

winning, isn't it?

27:16

Well, when you get inside the minds of the greats,

27:18

they are more interested in quote

27:21

unquote perfecting the process,

27:23

even though perfection doesn't work or

27:25

doesn't exist. They're much more interested

27:27

in committing. Okay, but that's not where the story

27:30

gets really good. That's interesting, but not

27:32

where it gets really good. So level

27:34

two, we brought out a bit more pressure,

27:37

more cameras, harder shots. Okay. So

27:40

there's a bit more of a

27:41

observation effect. Level

27:43

three, big galley of people,

27:46

you know, we brought in a stadium, we brought in big booming

27:48

cameras, like a big crane with a sweeping

27:50

thing. And we're measuring

27:53

all of their physiology again.

27:55

So it's like we're getting an inside look

27:57

on how their brain is interpreting.

27:59

stress. And then we've got their data

28:02

up on this huge screen TV in front of the

28:04

galleys. So like this huge, okay, so

28:06

you get the stage, right? So on this

28:08

third one, the local guy, the hack,

28:11

his activation level was high. Okay,

28:13

so he was, he was nervous,

28:15

and he had lots of energy and it was high. And,

28:18

but it wasn't overwhelming to him. It

28:21

wasn't overwhelming as far as an absolute

28:23

number. Let's, let's make up the number for simplicity.

28:26

It was like a seven and a half

28:28

out of 10. That's high. You want to be,

28:30

let's say for this, for this model at

28:32

about like a five and a half. Okay.

28:35

So he was up there. It was okay. And he did his

28:37

thing and he's kind of laughing like, Oh shit, that was hard.

28:40

You know, like, wow, okay, man. Like I've never

28:42

done anything like that before. And

28:44

he performed just a little bit worse in that third condition.

28:47

The look, uh, Ricky Fowler,

28:49

let's go to Ricky.

28:50

He went all the way up to five

28:52

and a half, spilt up to six, just

28:55

a little bit intensity. And

28:57

then as soon as he putted, um,

28:59

there was a lift to about a seven

29:01

and a half eight and then a quick recovery

29:04

down. So in other words, he was

29:06

using all of his mental skills to keep it

29:08

in the right ideal range.

29:10

And then as soon as the ball left his, his

29:13

club and he was done with it, he

29:15

like let the top off. There's

29:17

a flood of intensity. And

29:19

then he, he came back down

29:22

so that he recovered quickly.

29:23

But the key part here is he held

29:26

the tension,

29:28

the local pro,

29:29

the local expert, he was

29:32

flooding up at a nine and

29:34

he couldn't maintain that five and a half texture.

29:36

He was flooding up at a nine. He absolutely,

29:39

you know, shit the bed when it came to measuring,

29:42

um, level one stress versus level

29:44

three stress. And afterwards he looked

29:46

at us and he said, that's the hardest

29:48

thing I've ever done. And his eyes are welled

29:51

up. And he said, I'm seriously, I

29:53

need to talk to you about afterwards. Like I'm really

29:55

a mess right now. I've never felt

29:57

anything like this. I just want to escape.

30:00

So it was really triggering for him. And

30:02

good thing we signed all the right waivers ahead of time. All

30:05

the right, you know,

30:07

of course, we debrief properly. So the

30:10

point that we ended up extracting

30:12

here is that the key thread through

30:14

all three of these people, independent

30:17

of the conditions, is just like you

30:19

would imagine. The weekend

30:21

hack guy,

30:22

his identity was not attached to it.

30:25

He felt all the emotions. He felt all

30:27

the anxiousness,

30:28

but his identity wasn't involved in it. So

30:31

it's okay. Yeah. Is hiring challenging?

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33:14

I would say he probably already felt

33:16

like, I've already won. Like I'm here.

33:19

Yeah, I would think he followed. This is crazy. No, no,

33:21

you were crazy. Yeah, right. Ah! Are

33:23

you kidding me? Yeah, right. Like,

33:25

this is awesome. And that framing is really important.

33:28

Oh, yeah. Right?

33:29

Okay? So that's about his psychology. Framing

33:32

and skills is kind of what it gets down

33:34

to. Thinking

33:36

and psychological skills are

33:38

kind of the mechanics of smart psychology

33:40

or the performance, or the psychology

33:42

of excellence, if you will. Okay.

33:46

And then you would imagine Ricky Fowler, his

33:48

identity was not attached to how well

33:51

he did. His identity was attached

33:53

to the process of becoming his

33:55

very best, of being authentic

33:58

to his process. And

34:00

so, of course, he's

34:02

got some identity around being a pro golfer,

34:05

but he was... The inoculation to that

34:07

becoming problematic is

34:09

that he was committed to the process. All

34:12

right, very cool insight. And then he had all the skills

34:14

to manage it. Okay? That's

34:16

what pros do. Professionals train their craft,

34:19

they train their body,

34:20

and they train their mind.

34:21

The rest of us are going, oh, the mind, I

34:24

don't know. Isn't that for depressed

34:26

people? Right. For decades,

34:28

the best in the world, at least in my

34:30

experience, have said, Hey, Doc,

34:32

what do you got? You got something good here? Come

34:35

on, let's get after it. Like, I'm trying to do something here now.

34:37

What can we do? What can we work

34:40

on? What can we do?

34:41

Can you help me out? That's what the best in the world is. They pull

34:43

you. They hold the standard. They make you better too,

34:46

because they want to be their very

34:48

best.

34:49

All right. Sometimes, some of them want to be

34:51

the best. No problems in that either. All

34:53

right. The local guy, the

34:55

local pro,

34:57

his entire identity

34:59

is being the good guy locally.

35:04

It was too much. So the takeaway

35:06

is when you have a performance-based

35:08

identity, you run right

35:11

into the on-ramp of FOPO. You

35:13

are overwhelmed by trying to manage

35:15

what people think of you.

35:17

And when your identity is wrapped

35:19

in to what you do and how

35:21

well you do it relative to others,

35:24

every time you go to do that thing of yours that

35:27

matters to you, your entire identity

35:29

feels like it's at stake. It's

35:32

as if your entire life was at stake. There

35:35

is no redundant part of the brain that says, this is

35:37

the part for your identity and this is the part for your

35:39

physical survival. They're the same. So

35:42

this is a very important takeaway.

35:45

And our world, Western world in

35:47

particular, is obsessed

35:49

with performance. Look at me, culture

35:51

is real. And

35:54

if you want to find freedom in your life,

35:57

I would highly suggest that you square

35:59

up

35:59

If is my identity connected

36:02

to what I do

36:03

and how well I do it?

36:06

Or is my identity more tuned to a

36:08

purpose-based identity, where I'm more connected

36:11

to something that is larger than me, that I'm

36:13

pouring into, that can't be solved

36:16

by me alone? It's bigger than any

36:18

one of us.

36:19

And I play a small part in this large

36:21

purpose in life.

36:23

So performance-based to purpose-based is

36:25

the crosswalk to get to for a

36:29

deep level of freedom.

36:30

Now, in working with athletes, especially

36:33

a lot of young athletes, most

36:35

of their accolades come around performance.

36:38

So talk about childhood and

36:41

how traumatic that'll be once their

36:43

athletic career is over. And there is no

36:45

standing ovation. There is no gold medal. There

36:47

is no people treating you differently based

36:50

on your performance. How do they

36:52

then transition if you've found now

36:54

you've discovered I am in a performance-based

36:57

identity state, I need to get

36:59

to purpose-based because I got

37:01

a long life ahead of me, and this doesn't feel really good

37:03

right now, and I certainly don't want this to be my future. Most

37:06

of us change because the pain is

37:08

too great.

37:10

And that's why one of the greatest

37:12

things and kindest and most loving things

37:14

we can do is help

37:16

people feel their pain

37:19

so that

37:20

they can get ahead of rock

37:22

bottom type of pain before they make these changes.

37:25

I think the first order of business is to get

37:28

with yourself, get a journal out, get

37:30

with a wise person, meditate,

37:32

one of those three best practices to

37:35

get down into how do you

37:37

feel about who you are in this world?

37:40

And are you overly connected

37:42

by how people are going to judge you or think

37:44

about you? Are you overly connected to

37:46

your performance aspect? Listen,

37:48

for so long, I propped up that

37:51

I

37:52

was who I was because I was a

37:54

grinder and because I was a hard worker

37:56

and because I was smart, according to

37:58

me at least.

37:59

and because I was good at something.

38:02

And it's

38:03

a mixed feeling for me because that

38:06

anxiety, it did get me good at

38:08

something because I was

38:10

outworking everybody else out of grounded

38:13

anxiety.

38:14

I'm thankful for that because

38:16

I'm able to be more artistic now. And

38:18

I'm really thankful that I

38:21

had people in my life that kept knocking

38:23

the calcium off saying, what the fuck

38:25

are you doing? Like, is this really

38:28

who you are? Like, you're gonna make that

38:30

choice over this choice. You're gonna

38:32

go and do that work

38:34

rather than be with your family. So

38:37

I'm not saying this naively and I'm not saying this without

38:39

scar tissue. And I understand

38:42

the need to get good or be good at something.

38:44

I understand that. There can be a cost

38:47

when it's, there

38:49

just can be a cost now. So to your

38:52

point, come full circle here, is

38:54

how do we do it? Is that first order

38:56

businesses feel the pain that comes with maybe

38:58

the anxiety that you feel when you perform,

39:01

maybe it's a general anxiety in life, even

39:03

when you're not performing, maybe it's this confrontation,

39:07

I'm sorry, this contorting or conforming

39:09

to social approvals that is kind

39:12

of keeping you stuck and you know it. It's

39:14

facing that up a bit and getting

39:16

there before you have a full

39:18

blown crisis. I'm thinking of a Super Bowl

39:20

champion that said to me, Mike, I

39:22

knew I was in trouble when

39:25

I turned to my wife

39:26

and I said to her, this is post Super

39:28

Bowl,

39:29

how are you gonna give me the love of 100,000 screaming people?

39:33

How are you possibly

39:35

going to feel that energy?

39:37

How could you ever think

39:39

that you're gonna replace that part of my

39:41

life?

39:42

And he said, he heard the words as it was coming out of his

39:45

mouth and he thought, I'm

39:46

twisted, I've

39:49

lost my way.

39:50

And so that's one way to think about

39:52

it. Another way is that 87% of athletes in the NFL

39:57

within two years are broker divorced.

40:00

or both. 93

40:01

in the NBA.

40:04

So,

40:05

having a performance-based identity

40:07

and having just the right amount of obsessiveness,

40:11

anxiety, and narcissism

40:14

can get you good at something, could even get you

40:16

on the world stage.

40:18

Doesn't mean you're going to have it for a long time. Doesn't mean

40:20

you're going to be happy. It doesn't mean it's sustainable.

40:22

It is not the path of mastery.

40:24

It's the path of high performance, which fall, which

40:27

is like worlds apart.

40:29

They look

40:30

from the outside similar,

40:33

but they are worlds apart. And

40:35

when you listen

40:37

to somebody on the path of mastery and somebody

40:39

who is on the path of high performance,

40:42

they don't sound the same either.

40:44

So, how do you do it?

40:46

Feel some pain? Get down in this suffering?

40:49

Have a community of people that you've

40:51

invested in so much that they're going to be honest

40:54

with you.

40:55

And when you start to do some of that stuff,

40:57

you go, yeah, yeah, yeah. What is my purpose

41:00

in life? What am I doing here?

41:02

And that's a big question, John. That's

41:04

a big question, AJ. How do you do it?

41:07

How do you know your purpose? Well, this just

41:09

goes to show why this is so

41:12

important. And we're talking about athletes who

41:14

have tied their identities to that performance.

41:16

Musicians do it well. And

41:19

if you have that type of success

41:21

early in life, it's not a

41:24

guarantee that it's always going to be there. And

41:26

obviously, an athlete's career is rather

41:28

short. Certainly, I mean, and

41:31

their performance are going to be peaking

41:33

at an early point in life with

41:36

a whole life to live

41:38

after that. AJ and

41:40

I have been thankful to have

41:43

interviewed people like

41:44

Kobe, one of the grades.

41:47

We were interviewing him for a children's book

41:50

that he had written. And his excitement

41:52

and passion

41:54

for what he was doing at

41:56

that time

41:58

was through the roof. I'm

42:00

sitting there thinking this could be a

42:02

game or writing a book,

42:04

he's bringing that same amount of passion

42:07

to whatever he is working on in

42:09

that moment. And again, that was a

42:12

skill

42:13

that was developed

42:15

over a very long time to get

42:17

to that point.

42:18

And I think he had something right

42:21

in that passion

42:24

didn't just come from doing

42:26

a thing. One was the

42:28

way I was going to live my life with all

42:30

the things that I do. And

42:32

that passion trap is unexamined

42:35

for most people. And there's this level of frustration

42:38

that I don't have that zest for life.

42:40

I don't have that type of happiness or passion,

42:43

quote unquote, in life, because I can't

42:45

play the guitar as much as I'd like to, because

42:47

I can't go surfing as much. I can't draw

42:49

as much as I'd like to, because I've got this nine to five gig.

42:52

Or I had this altered experience

42:55

where I could have gone the music route,

42:57

but I took the sure thing and

42:59

went into the family business,

43:00

filling a million different narratives here.

43:03

It's a nice way to stay a victim.

43:06

And I'm using that word provocatively here,

43:08

because it is possible

43:11

to live with passion at everything

43:13

that almost everything, let's say,

43:15

let's be realistic, it is possible to live

43:17

with passion across all things that you

43:19

do, as opposed to just

43:22

having passion on the one thing that is

43:24

easy for you to feel the passion. That's

43:27

like an adult decision, I think. That's

43:30

something that takes some real work to

43:32

get better at, just like if you want to be healthy. That's

43:35

an adult decision. We have to work to be healthy. It

43:37

is so easy to

43:39

grab a package, a manmade

43:42

package of something or a human made package

43:44

of something versus organic

43:47

from mother nature. It is so much easier

43:49

to choose the easy

43:51

as opposed to the hard right.

43:53

And

43:54

I think there's a handful of those adult decisions that we all

43:56

need to make. And whether you're living

43:59

a line to FOPO or not,

44:00

whether you're living more attuned to the fear

44:02

of other people's opinions or your

44:05

own unique way to write your own script,

44:08

that's an adult decision as well. So

44:10

Moby is obviously controversial

44:15

in how he approaches life and he's

44:17

out there now.

44:18

And he's got this,

44:20

he and I had, I don't know if you guys have had the chance

44:22

to get to know him,

44:24

but he shares this story that

44:27

the first time he saw himself on the cover of a magazine

44:30

and when he was a musician and he

44:32

was in it and he says, oh my God, I've done

44:34

it.

44:35

Like this is a moment of validation for me. They

44:38

love me. Here I am. People

44:40

know me now.

44:41

This means that I have

44:43

meaning. I've arrived. They care

44:46

about me. They're being nice

44:48

to me. I have friends,

44:50

you know, like fill in all the narratives.

44:52

And then he said he spent the next 15 years obsessing

44:55

over what people said about him. And,

44:58

you know, he had to go cold turkey,

45:01

just like what drugs for him, that he stopped

45:03

paying attention. He had to go cold

45:05

turkey and not hand

45:07

over his sense of

45:10

who he was to people that didn't even

45:12

know him.

45:13

And it sounds logical. Like

45:16

I hear that and I go, yeah, that's

45:18

what I would do too.

45:19

But it's such a slippery drug when

45:21

somebody looks across the room and nods

45:24

at you like, yeah, I like what you're saying. And

45:26

you're like, oh, I am okay.

45:28

That's Faupo actually.

45:30

That's

45:31

like loving the acceptance

45:33

that somebody's giving you.

45:36

But on the other shoe that's ready to

45:38

drop is the fear of rejection as

45:40

opposed to you being your own

45:43

tuning fork. Not

45:45

that you don't care about what people think. But

45:48

you're clear about the words that you're

45:50

choosing. You're clear about

45:52

why you're choosing those words because they ladder to

45:54

your purpose.

45:55

And you're clear that

45:57

you want to include everybody in what you're doing

45:59

that wants to be part of the community.

45:59

part of it and

46:01

the exclusion doesn't mean hatred or

46:04

belittlement or critique. It just means

46:06

that this mission, my mission and your mission are not lined

46:08

up. No problems. Love you, wish you the

46:11

best. If Dr. King Jr., if Malcolm X,

46:14

if Gandhi, if Mother Teresa, if

46:17

you fill in the blanks,

46:19

if they were in this conversation with us today,

46:21

if Gandhi was here,

46:23

I'm sure we'd be talking about freedom.

46:25

If Dr. King was here, I'm sure we'd be talking about

46:27

equality.

46:29

If Mother Teresa is here, I would bet that we're going to

46:31

be talking about helping people

46:33

that don't

46:34

have the same kind of

46:35

base of health that we have.

46:39

My question

46:40

to

46:41

my community and to my loved ones

46:44

and to you guys

46:45

and to your community is like,

46:47

what are you doing here? We don't know

46:49

how much longer we have, so what are you going to do with it? What

46:51

is your purpose? That is an adult

46:54

question worth wrestling.

46:55

I think it's easy in a lot of ways to

46:58

then fall into a trap of solitude and

47:00

practice your craft and chase mastery

47:03

in the dark on your own, whether

47:05

it's your physical body, whether it's your tools or

47:07

your skill sets, but there comes a point for

47:09

everyone, not just these professional athletes

47:12

that we've talked about with the cameras and the

47:14

spotlight, but every single one of us

47:16

are part of a community, whether we like it or not. That

47:19

craft is going to see other people's

47:21

opinions. That thing you've been working

47:24

on, that you've been performing at your best on, that

47:26

you're super passionate about is going

47:28

to be out in the world. If you've worked

47:31

in solitude as a lone wolf, which we find

47:33

in a lot of our clients, then all

47:35

of a sudden you haven't built the calluses

47:38

to handle the opinions that are

47:40

going to come your way when that spotlight,

47:42

when that craft sees the rest of the world.

47:46

Outside of avoiding it, recognizing your purpose,

47:49

tapping into it, and then being willing to share

47:51

that purpose and that passion with others, which we

47:53

discussed in a toolbox earlier this month,

47:56

we find a lot of our clients are shamed

47:59

about their... passion, don't want to share

48:01

their passion. And then we heard from Kobe, that's

48:03

exactly what I look for. And every single

48:06

person that joins my team to help me with

48:08

this book, to help me with these movies that I'm producing,

48:10

I'm looking for passion. If

48:12

you can share your passion with others,

48:15

you actually tap into a community

48:18

of high performers who are also pursuing

48:20

mastery instead of doing it alone in

48:22

the dark, hoping that you'll be successful

48:24

later if you just trudge on your

48:26

own.

48:27

Down with it. I think it takes incredible

48:29

courage

48:30

to do two things.

48:31

To say the thing that you're

48:33

passionate about, to walk the talk.

48:36

There is real work and some vulnerability

48:39

there. And then to be

48:41

public in any kind of way with

48:43

the things that you're passionate about.

48:45

Because we are not perfect. My wife

48:48

is in my head all the time. Hey, we're all just trying

48:50

to figure it out. And we

48:52

are imperfect in all ways. So

48:55

mistakes are part of the process. And

48:58

when you give yourself that space and permission to make

49:00

mistakes, it's so much easier.

49:02

That's hard to do on a performance-based identity.

49:04

Here's the thing.

49:06

Your identity can change.

49:08

Your purpose can also change.

49:10

You do not have to go get neck tattoos

49:13

or write it in stone.

49:16

You can change in any way

49:18

that you want. Take an example.

49:21

Do you know the name George Mario Bergoglio?

49:24

No, don't believe so. So

49:26

in his younger years, he was a bar

49:29

bouncer. He was a janitor. He was a part-time

49:31

technician. He was responsible

49:33

for raw materials and chemicals

49:36

in a lab in Buenos Aires. That's

49:38

his younger years. Today, fast

49:40

forward many decades,

49:43

he's based in Rome. He lives in Rome.

49:44

And he leads an organization which is one of the

49:47

largest organizations on the planet.

49:49

They have 1.34 billion followers.

49:53

Think about the size of that organization.

49:56

In 2013, he became a bar bouncer.

49:59

the head of the Catholic Church,

50:02

right? Pope Francis is his name

50:05

now, in honor of

50:07

St. Francis of Assisi, you know, of

50:10

animals. So, I mean, like, do you think he thought

50:12

at age whatever that as he was a technician

50:14

in Buenos Aires that he was one day going to kind

50:16

of run the show for the Catholic Church? Now listen,

50:18

they got some problems, okay? So, I'm

50:21

not putting this on a pedestal. I'm

50:23

saying that our purposes are

50:25

not evident from a young age. We

50:28

tend to think that, oh, those people, they

50:30

always knew.

50:32

There are the rare ones, like,

50:34

Kobe played basketball at a young age and says he loved

50:36

it, right? Like,

50:38

that can happen.

50:39

Listen, I didn't know what the hell I was doing as

50:41

a kid. I barely know

50:43

it now. But I do know that I'm clear

50:45

about purpose, to help people live in the present moment more

50:47

often, period.

50:49

How? Helping people train their mind. Because

50:50

that's how we do it.

50:53

Train your mind so you can live in the present moment more often. Many

50:55

people listening to this go, great. Michael,

50:58

you've cracked the code. You must be completely

51:00

impervious to other people's opinions. And you share

51:03

an anecdote in your own life of

51:05

training an MMA fighter, going

51:07

through the process to help him succeed,

51:10

and then a mentor in your life actually sharing

51:12

an opinion with you that is

51:14

much different than a YouTube comment left on this

51:16

video. And then having

51:18

to wrestle with that opinion and

51:21

work your way through it. Because this is from a mentor.

51:23

This is from someone that you care deeply about

51:25

and whose opinion you hold in high regard. If

51:27

you can unpack that for our audience, I think it's really powerful

51:30

because outside of the negative

51:32

comments you might get in your day to day life,

51:34

when we really put other people on

51:36

that pedestal, we look up to them and value their

51:38

opinion, whether it's parents, whether it's partners,

51:41

whether it's people in our lives who are close to us

51:43

or mentors, it can be really difficult

51:46

for us to overcome those opinions.

51:48

I want to work backwards

51:50

and start

51:52

in real time. I

51:54

am not immune.

51:55

I've been studying this a long time. The

51:58

path of mastery, this

51:59

great constrictor of people's

52:02

opinions to my potential

52:04

and other people's potential.

52:06

I'm not immune to it.

52:08

I am better at it than I've ever been because

52:10

I work at it. I train it. But

52:12

when I was young,

52:13

this was a real thing for me.

52:15

And when I was 15 years, 15

52:18

and a half, I just got my driver's license. I

52:22

saved up for a couple

52:23

summers to get a car.

52:25

I remember I was driving and

52:27

there was a car passing me. And

52:30

this is like week one or two of having my

52:32

driver's license. They're passing me going in the

52:34

same direction. And

52:37

I sat up, I grabbed the steering

52:39

wheel with a cool kid lean, and I

52:42

just wanted to look cool. And

52:44

I looked over just in that kind of way, you know,

52:46

as they're passing by. And they didn't fucking look at

52:49

me. They had no interest in what was happening

52:51

in my world in my car.

52:52

And in that moment as a 16-year-old kid, I

52:54

thought,

52:55

what am I doing? And I

52:57

was embarrassed by it.

52:59

There was no one else in my car.

53:01

But I was embarrassed by myself. Like,

53:03

I'm just trying to look cool.

53:06

I'm like a phony.

53:08

And

53:10

it stuck with me. And I didn't know how

53:12

to change it. I didn't know how to shift it. And

53:14

it just kind of was quiet. But I knew

53:16

it was underneath there. And I knew it got in

53:19

the way of me potentially going pro

53:21

and surfing. And I knew it got in the way of a lot of things.

53:23

And then sure enough, here I am working with the best

53:25

in the world. My mentor says to me, there

53:28

was a, we're walking,

53:30

it was an MMA fight. And

53:32

it was early. It

53:34

was like, I don't know, MMA 43 or something like

53:36

that.

53:37

And the fighter asked me, he says, hey, will you be at

53:39

the fight with me? I was like, yeah. He says, will you corner

53:41

the fight with me? I was like, oh my, yeah, okay.

53:44

That sounds cool. Let's have a game plan.

53:47

So we worked out a game plan. We did a lot

53:49

of work to prepare for that. We rehearsed

53:52

everything on how I was going to support

53:54

him while he was engaged.

53:56

Except we didn't rehearse

53:57

where I was supposed to walk.

53:59

when he went into the cage. So

54:02

I just followed the head coach.

54:05

And he didn't know where he was going to walk

54:07

either. And so we just kind of had to make

54:09

our way to

54:10

the spot.

54:12

And, and so there I am

54:14

kind of

54:14

in front of the camera, we're all kind of in front of the camera

54:17

walking on the outside of the cage as the fighters

54:19

walking into the cage. My mentor

54:21

calls me afterwards the fighters did a really nice job.

54:23

And my mentor called me on the way home.

54:25

And he's like, congrats, like

54:28

that looked pretty amazing. He says, why don't

54:30

you stay out of the camera though, dude? And

54:34

I was like, Oh my gosh, I thought you're gonna say like,

54:36

congratulations, it's cool. I know how much you love the MMA

54:38

game, blah, blah, blah.

54:40

And he shot me, you

54:42

know, like right in the heart. And he's like, stay out of the camera. That's,

54:45

that's not where you're supposed to be.

54:47

And I was like, Oh, man,

54:49

I did something. I did something

54:51

wrong here. Like, I was,

54:53

I was not a

54:55

good custodian of this beautiful science. And

54:58

I let him down. I let like other I

55:00

don't know. And it just stayed with me

55:02

for

55:03

better part of a decade.

55:05

And I never confronted him. I was again, embarrassed

55:08

by it. And I never I didn't know what to do with it.

55:10

Coming to find out he didn't really it was just

55:12

kind of a little comment. Right? It

55:14

was some it was a monster that I grew.

55:16

And it was because

55:19

I was

55:20

afraid of what he was gonna say

55:22

to me. And I was afraid of what would

55:24

happen because like, I

55:27

liked the moment where I walked on

55:29

and like it was caught that I was part of something

55:31

I liked it. But we weren't supposed to do that. We're supposed

55:33

to be behind the scenes. But I liked being

55:36

part of something electric and fun.

55:39

And I know that I was supposed to just be behind the scenes. And

55:41

I wasn't be clear. I wasn't trying to hog their

55:44

spotlight or anything. But so it was really

55:46

kind of confusing for me as an early professional in my

55:48

career. And come

55:50

to find out he really

55:53

it just wasn't a big deal to him as it was for me.

55:55

But I made it a big deal. So I

55:58

got scar tissue. I got stuff.

55:59

that I've worked through as well and I'll

56:02

tell you it is

56:03

much better on the other side of doing this work. I'm

56:06

thankful that I've got people in my life that

56:08

hold me to task, you know, and I

56:11

hope that everybody has that

56:12

in their life and if they don't, you can pay somebody.

56:15

In some respects, that's what psychologists

56:17

do. They don't say, oh, it's okay,

56:20

sweetie. It's okay,

56:21

honey. Okay, it's not that. It's like,

56:24

oh, is this the person you want to be? No?

56:26

All

56:27

right, well, let's go to work.

56:29

Yeah, for those in our audience who feel

56:32

in that solitude, like they're strengthening

56:35

their frame and their resolve and they're working towards

56:37

mastery, those opinions on

56:40

their own, especially without a supportive community

56:42

who can help you unpack it and see

56:44

the opinion for what it is and assess

56:46

it truly to recognize. And then you

56:48

had the opportunity, I'm assuming, based on that story

56:51

to share with your mentor and for him to say,

56:53

listen, it was just an off-the-cuff statement. I

56:55

wasn't holding you to that and certainly wanting

56:57

to feed that monster for you. But

56:59

oftentimes, if all we do is tuck

57:01

that in, we avoid community, we

57:03

avoid working as a professional, we avoid actually

57:06

understanding the opinion, the impact it's having

57:08

on ourselves, it can steer us away from

57:10

the performance that we want and it can take us off

57:12

track from even finding our passion or purpose.

57:15

A hundred percent. And if you're working inside

57:17

an organization and you're really in, you want

57:19

to do a nice job for the organization, FOPL

57:22

also decreases risk-taking

57:24

because you won't say the thing that needs to be said.

57:26

You don't speak truth to power, you feel

57:30

some kind of way about not

57:32

speaking the truth. It also decreases

57:35

creativity, innovation, there's a whole bunch of things

57:38

that take place in organizations. So

57:40

in many respects, if you're suffering

57:42

with this in some kind of way,

57:44

or you see your people that

57:46

are not speaking up or

57:49

agitator anxious or blaming or whatever, like

57:52

maybe you're creating an environment that

57:54

has FOPL in it

57:55

as a leader. I'm suggesting also

57:58

whether it's to work from the inside out.

57:59

Yes.

58:00

And if you are fortunate to be in

58:02

a leadership position, know that this is happening

58:05

for most people.

58:06

Their brain is saying, don't

58:08

screw it up.

58:09

Their brain is saying, don't

58:11

get kicked out of the tribe.

58:13

We need to invest in their psychology

58:16

and create an environment to support

58:18

them for speaking their mind, for

58:20

going for it,

58:21

for being honest, even if it comes

58:23

out a little clumsy.

58:25

And so, look, engagement and productivity

58:27

are all time low in corporations.

58:29

And so,

58:31

FOPO is part of that.

58:32

I don't know how to speak up. I don't know what

58:34

to say. I don't know. I don't know. I don't

58:36

know how I fit in here. So, leaders can

58:38

help in very specific ways by helping

58:40

increase seeing the

58:43

purpose that somebody has to the shared

58:45

mission of the organization,

58:46

seeing

58:48

what the person's impact has

58:50

in

58:50

that purpose and calling it out privately

58:53

and publicly. And those start

58:55

to shape shift the way that people are

58:58

afraid of saying or speaking

59:00

truth to power, because they see that they're valued. And

59:03

so, there's so much that we can do

59:05

as leaders. And I know I'm shifting the paradigm here a little bit,

59:07

but this is where most of us spend most of our time is

59:09

at work. Some of us are leaders.

59:11

Some of us are managers. Some

59:13

of us are individual contributors. Come

59:16

on, leaders.

59:17

Most people are struggling

59:20

with FOPO, if not you.

59:22

There's a lot of work we can do. The

59:24

future of work is

59:26

going to be met by the future of leaders.

59:29

Just like sport for kids is met

59:32

at the handshake with the coach, the

59:35

relationship with the coach. Business

59:37

and experiences for people is met

59:39

at the way that their leaders create space

59:42

or create constriction.

59:43

And that recognition of your own FOPO

59:46

or potentially team members FOPO is

59:49

increasing your emotional intelligence at

59:51

a very core level, raising your self-awareness

59:54

and recognizing that others are struggling with it and

59:56

how can you support them increases your

59:58

EQ, makes you a better leader. and ultimately

1:00:00

improves not only your performance but everyone around

1:00:03

you, right? It's like a breath of fresh air when

1:00:05

we can take that load off of someone

1:00:08

else's shoulders. So here's something that

1:00:10

we do at Finding Mastery, we've got a small team

1:00:13

of about 40 people

1:00:14

and it's like we just open it up like, hey,

1:00:16

how's FOPO showing up? You know, this

1:00:19

week, this month? How's FOPO showing

1:00:21

up for you? You know, the last couple

1:00:23

days

1:00:24

and people are like, oh, I'm good. And then you just wait a minute

1:00:26

and you're like, no, really?

1:00:28

Has it shown up for you?

1:00:29

Well, you know, actually, there was this thing I wanted

1:00:31

to say and I don't know, like,

1:00:34

it's there now.

1:00:35

It is there for people. It's a simple question.

1:00:38

And you have to wait though, to get underneath it,

1:00:40

but you have to give it a little bit of hydration because

1:00:44

we're not quite sure if we can be authentic,

1:00:47

because we don't want to get kicked out of the tribe,

1:00:50

you know? And so that's, that's

1:00:52

kind of what I think one of the real gems

1:00:55

of psychological safety at the workplace is about.

1:00:57

It's like creating the right

1:01:00

temperature and atmosphere for people

1:01:02

to say what's up.

1:01:04

If you can do that, they're

1:01:05

gonna have a more productive, a more engaged,

1:01:07

a higher performing organization. We know

1:01:09

that from research.

1:01:11

Well said. Thank you for joining us again.

1:01:13

Our last question for you. I know you've asked in the past, I'd

1:01:15

love to hear your thoughts on it now. What do you believe

1:01:18

is your X factor? What makes you unique and extraordinary?

1:01:21

I love that question. And before

1:01:23

we go, I want to say, like, thank you for

1:01:25

including me. I'm stoked of what you guys

1:01:27

are doing, how you're doing it. And thank you

1:01:30

for including me. The X factor,

1:01:32

we can support sometimes we call it like the IT factor,

1:01:35

it is being fully present.

1:01:38

And

1:01:39

that's the thing that it's

1:01:41

not charisma, it's not kindness, it's not

1:01:43

a value or virtue. It's, it's

1:01:45

the skill of being fully present

1:01:48

with other people and doing

1:01:51

that consistently across conditions, whether

1:01:54

that's when it's high stress, or when

1:01:56

it's a low stress moment is being

1:01:58

fully present with other people. So

1:02:00

the X factor is not for somebody to determine if

1:02:02

they have it, others determine it. And

1:02:04

when others are in an environment with you and

1:02:07

they say, I don't know,

1:02:08

she's just like, poof, or

1:02:11

he is like, wow,

1:02:12

it's because you're fully present and

1:02:15

you're not abandoning who

1:02:17

you say you are in those hard

1:02:19

moments.

1:02:20

You're fully engaged with other

1:02:22

people and the task at hand.

1:02:24

That to me

1:02:25

feels like the prerequisite for the X

1:02:27

factor.

1:02:29

Thank you again for joining us and sharing

1:02:31

this wisdom in the book. Where can our audience find

1:02:33

out more about the work you do?

1:02:35

The website is really the easiest

1:02:37

way. It's findingmastery.com. The

1:02:39

podcast, of course, is a

1:02:42

favorite place for us to build relationships. That's

1:02:44

Finding Mastery. And then hopefully

1:02:47

you punch over to findingmastery.com

1:02:49

forward slash book

1:02:50

to be able to check out the pre-offer for

1:02:53

the first rule of mastery that's coming

1:02:55

out. And you can buy the book anywhere that books are sold.

1:02:58

Awesome, thank you again. Yeah, thank you. Thank

1:03:00

you, Michael. Thank you. Thank you.

1:03:11

Johnny, there's no bigger roadblock to

1:03:13

success than other people's opinions

1:03:15

of you, and certainly when they keep you from taking

1:03:17

action in your life. Absolutely, and with

1:03:19

social media, it seems like we can never

1:03:22

escape it. But it's interesting

1:03:25

because as I get older in

1:03:27

years, my thoughts about what

1:03:29

other people are thinking of me certainly dissipate.

1:03:33

With age comes, you just quit

1:03:35

giving a fuck. Exactly.

1:03:39

This week's shout out goes to Nate. He was telling

1:03:41

us on an X-Factor implementation call that he

1:03:43

had a real estate networking event that went incredibly

1:03:45

well. He mentioned that before the Art of Charm,

1:03:48

he would have been nervous and probably would have avoided

1:03:50

going out. And if he did, he

1:03:52

would have had a terrible time. But now he looks

1:03:54

forward towards these events and he has a fun

1:03:56

strategy that makes the most of his time connecting

1:03:59

with like-minded people.

1:04:00

He's relaxed and looks forward to them. AJ,

1:04:03

he said it has never been so easy

1:04:05

and fun. Way to go, Nate.

1:04:07

Avoidance is never the answer to reaching

1:04:09

your goals and building your dream life.

1:04:12

Want to learn high-value networking skills

1:04:14

and supercharge your career? Well,

1:04:17

head on over to EliteHumanDynamics.com

1:04:20

slash apply. Unlock

1:04:22

the skills that take your career and

1:04:25

relationships to the next level. Alright,

1:04:27

before we head out, can you do us a quick favor

1:04:30

and rate and review this show on your favorite

1:04:32

podcast player? Your support helps

1:04:34

us get incredible guests just like Michael.

1:04:37

A huge thank you to our producers, Michael Harold

1:04:39

and Eric Montgomery. We hope you have an epic

1:04:41

week. you