Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / 353. How To Define Your Personal Philosophy: Understanding The Mind & Embracing the Path Of Self-Discovery With Performance Psychologist Dr. Michael Gervais

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353. How To Define Your Personal Philosophy: Understanding The Mind & Embracing the Path Of Self-Discovery With Performance Psychologist Dr. Michael Gervais · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

0:00
Speaker 1: So if you want to live a fulfilled life, part
0:02
Speaker 1: of that is wrestling with the hard questions in life,
0:05
Speaker 1: like what is your purpose? And if that feels too
0:08
Speaker 1: big right now, no problem, thin slice it like what's
0:10
Speaker 1: your purpose today? What's your purpose?
0:11
Speaker 2: This week?
0:27
Speaker 3: Another week, another Hurdle. Hey everyone, Emily a body here.
0:30
Speaker 3: You are listening to episode three hundred and fifty three
0:34
Speaker 3: of Hurdle, a wellness focused podcast where we talk to
0:37
Speaker 3: inspirational people about everything from their highest tides and toughest.
0:40
Speaker 4: Moments to essential tips on.
0:43
Speaker 3: How to live a healthier, happier, more motivated life. We
0:47
Speaker 3: all go through our fair share of hurdles. My goal
0:50
Speaker 3: through these discussions is to empower you to better navigate
0:53
Speaker 3: yours and move with intention so that you can stride
0:56
Speaker 3: towards your own big potential.
0:58
Speaker 4: And of course have some fun along the way.
1:03
Speaker 3: For today's episode, I am excited to bring back to
1:07
Speaker 3: the feed one of my favorite conversations from twenty twenty one,
1:11
Speaker 3: and that is with doctor Michael Gervai. He's a high
1:15
Speaker 3: performance psychologist. He's also the host of the Finding Mastery podcast.
1:21
Speaker 3: He's worked to some of the best of the best
1:23
Speaker 3: to help them master their mind and better their craft.
1:25
Speaker 3: In today's episode, we talked about how he got to
1:28
Speaker 3: where he is today. He tells me about his experience
1:31
Speaker 3: surfing growing up and how that actually led him to
1:34
Speaker 3: become more interested in the mind. Plus he dives into
1:39
Speaker 3: a very memorable hurdle moment that really instilled in him
1:43
Speaker 3: how to keep showing up during difficult moments. And I
1:47
Speaker 3: really appreciate so many of his takeaways that he offers
1:50
Speaker 3: about how to decipher our purpose, articulate your personal philosophy,
1:55
Speaker 3: and separate the two different types of thought. Again, this
1:59
Speaker 3: converse originally from twenty twenty one, but it's so chocked
2:04
Speaker 3: full of goodness that I know that we have so
2:05
Speaker 3: many new listeners around the hurdle sphere. I've never used
2:09
Speaker 3: that word before, but today it feels fitting that I
2:11
Speaker 3: wanted to bring it back to the top of the
2:14
Speaker 3: feed now. Of note, doctor Gervais works with some of
2:18
Speaker 3: the best to ever do it.
2:19
Speaker 4: Within sport, the mind is such an important piece of.
2:23
Speaker 3: The puzzle when it comes to performance and you know, going.
2:28
Speaker 4: About your day to day.
2:29
Speaker 3: So when we think about wellness, when we think about
2:33
Speaker 3: wellness within sport, there is no conversation.
2:37
Speaker 4: That does not include the mind.
2:40
Speaker 3: Make sure you are following along with Hurdle over on
2:42
Speaker 3: social It's at Hurdle podcast. I am over at Emily
2:45
Speaker 3: a Body And if you're not yet subscribed to the
2:48
Speaker 3: weekly Hurdle newsletter, get that, get on that. The link
2:51
Speaker 3: to subscribe, landing directly in your inbox every single Friday
2:55
Speaker 3: is in the show notes. Plus, we're also really active
2:59
Speaker 3: on Instagram. I have a daily subscriber channel that I
3:03
Speaker 3: am populating with good inspirational notes, well wishes, helpful thoughts.
3:12
Speaker 3: Trust me, you want in and you can get in
3:16
Speaker 3: by clicking a link in the show notes.
3:19
Speaker 4: With that, let's get to it, Let's get to hurd link.
3:28
Speaker 3: Today, I am sitting down with doctor Michael Jervai. He
3:31
Speaker 3: is a high performance psychologist and also the host of
3:36
Speaker 3: the Finding Mastery podcast. How are you doing today?
3:40
Speaker 1: Fantastic? Thank you for including me in your community in
3:44
Speaker 1: this conversation.
3:45
Speaker 3: I'm so excited to do it. I don't think that
3:47
Speaker 3: being a performance psychologist is probably one of those careers
3:51
Speaker 3: that as a young boy you're like, you know what
3:53
Speaker 3: I'm going to do when I grow up, I'm going
3:55
Speaker 3: to be a performance psychologist. So as I always like
3:59
Speaker 3: to do on the show me off with talking to
4:01
Speaker 3: me a little bit about your upbringing.
4:04
Speaker 1: When I was young, there was no such industry as
4:07
Speaker 1: sport and performance psychology. So I grew up for the
4:11
Speaker 1: first handful of years in a remote town in Virginia,
4:16
Speaker 1: no street lights, dirt roads, Gravel was a luxury on
4:20
Speaker 1: the roads. And so we're way back. My parents kind
4:23
Speaker 1: of dropped out, if you will, and wanted to build
4:26
Speaker 1: their family on a farm. And this was not a
4:29
Speaker 1: luxury farm. This is like running water was the luxury.
4:33
Speaker 1: And so at a young age, like the things that
4:36
Speaker 1: I was thinking about is I had to be home
4:38
Speaker 1: by dark because mother Nature was a whole different animal
4:42
Speaker 1: at night. And this is like at age eight and nine,
4:45
Speaker 1: and so was I learned so much from the roots
4:49
Speaker 1: of being connected with nature as a young kid. And
4:52
Speaker 1: then I think my dad said enough of this, and
4:55
Speaker 1: he came to California when I was it's called fourth grade,
5:00
Speaker 1: and came to California and said, Okay, let's do something
5:04
Speaker 1: a little bit more sophisticated. And so not that there's
5:07
Speaker 1: anything wrong with dropping out and you know, building a
5:10
Speaker 1: life on a farm. And so he got a corporate job,
5:11
Speaker 1: if you will, in Sales. I was thrust it into
5:15
Speaker 1: the city life and I didn't quite fit in with
5:20
Speaker 1: traditional stick and ball sports. And so again I was like, okay, well,
5:27
Speaker 1: what is the thing that I'm more interested in? Because
5:29
Speaker 1: I came from this natural world and mother nature and
5:31
Speaker 1: all that stuff, and so I was naturally attracted to
5:37
Speaker 1: action sports. And so action sports in California are like surfing, skateboarding, motocross, BMX,
5:42
Speaker 1: like that stuff where there's some connection to mother nature.
5:46
Speaker 1: But the real deeper connection was there wasn't a set
5:50
Speaker 1: of arbitrary rules and artificial coaching, and it just was
5:55
Speaker 1: pure because if you made a mistake, you'd leave a
5:56
Speaker 1: little skin on the asphalt. If you made a mistake,
5:59
Speaker 1: you get help under you know, a wave longer than
6:02
Speaker 1: you know you thought you could do. And so there's
6:05
Speaker 1: a real tolerance for risk taking slash material consequences when
6:10
Speaker 1: you make a mistake. And there wasn't these adults hovering over,
6:13
Speaker 1: you know, yelling and shouting, and I thought, as a kid,
6:16
Speaker 1: like this is weird. This is really bizarre. And so
6:20
Speaker 1: what ended up bringing me to sports psychology though, was
6:24
Speaker 1: in surfing. There's two types of surfing. There's free surfing
6:27
Speaker 1: and competitive surfing and free surfing is like what you
6:30
Speaker 1: do with you know. I say this in a in
6:34
Speaker 1: a gender biased way, because we didn't I didn't know
6:37
Speaker 1: any females that were surfing. But what you do with
6:38
Speaker 1: the boys and and free surfing, I could do it.
6:42
Speaker 1: I could get it done. It was awesome. No one's looking.
6:45
Speaker 1: You just kind of go into the scariest part of
6:48
Speaker 1: the heaviest part of a wave, and you don't tell
6:50
Speaker 1: anyone about it. You experience it. But then come competition,
6:54
Speaker 1: when there's people on the beach and there's judges and
6:56
Speaker 1: family and friends, and there's people scoring and critiquing. I
7:00
Speaker 1: was a disaster. So I didn't have the psychology to
7:04
Speaker 1: take what I could do into a moment that became
7:08
Speaker 1: too big for me, which was a competition. And that's
7:11
Speaker 1: where a competitor said to me one day, Adervai, I
7:15
Speaker 1: serve with you every day. He was older than me.
7:18
Speaker 1: I serve with you every day. You should be mopping
7:20
Speaker 1: up everybody out here. But you got to stop thinking
7:23
Speaker 1: about what could go wrong. I thought, how does he know?
7:27
Speaker 1: How does he know what's in mind? You know, that's
7:30
Speaker 1: all I'm thinking about. All the things that could go wrong,
7:32
Speaker 1: and then he paddled off. You know, he beat me
7:35
Speaker 1: in that heat because now he's in my head. But
7:37
Speaker 1: what I figured out was that I could use my mind.
7:43
Speaker 1: I could there's a way that I could use my
7:45
Speaker 1: mind to help me do what I wanted to do.
7:47
Speaker 1: And I wasn't and so I didn't know what psychology was.
7:53
Speaker 1: As fifteen years old, I didn't know what it was.
7:56
Speaker 1: And long story, getting a little bit shorter here is
8:00
Speaker 1: that I fell in love when I got to college.
8:05
Speaker 1: Eventually got to college, that's a whole different story. But
8:08
Speaker 1: I fell in love with the world of the invisible,
8:12
Speaker 1: and I didn't know anybody in my family that went
8:14
Speaker 1: to college. I certainly didn't know anyone that had a PhD.
8:18
Speaker 1: And so what accidentally happened is three professors, and I
8:22
Speaker 1: love bringing up their names, if you allow me, please,
8:25
Speaker 1: doctor Zenka, doctor Perkins, and doctor Cuzio, a philosopher, a theologian,
8:30
Speaker 1: and a psychologist. And they were best friends, Zenka and
8:35
Speaker 1: Cuzio and Perkins. So they were best buds. And they
8:40
Speaker 1: saw me coming like this, you know, full of energy,
8:44
Speaker 1: but clueless kid that had no real direction and all
8:48
Speaker 1: he wanted to do was break rules and be counterculture
8:53
Speaker 1: and quote unquote get after it in life. I didn't
8:56
Speaker 1: know what that really meant, but they saw that coming in.
8:58
Speaker 1: They said, hey, listen, let me introduce you to this
9:01
Speaker 1: beautiful world of the invisible. And it lit me on
9:05
Speaker 1: fire and set me down this path that I just
9:07
Speaker 1: wanted to learn more and more and more and more.
9:08
Speaker 1: And that's kind of how it happened.
9:11
Speaker 3: Talk to me about the reference to eventually getting to college.
9:17
Speaker 1: High school was an adventure and so yeah, I mean
9:22
Speaker 1: I had a lot of fun. I didn't take school seriously.
9:26
Speaker 1: I was in the water a lot, surfing, and you know,
9:32
Speaker 1: I got it. Was my senior year in high school.
9:34
Speaker 1: My parents pulled me aside and it was a you know,
9:37
Speaker 1: southern California, a beautiful sunny day, and my mom says, hey,
9:41
Speaker 1: we tried because they didn't go to college, you know,
9:43
Speaker 1: but hey, we tried, and you got a zero on
9:47
Speaker 1: your p SAT. You got a zero on your SAT
9:51
Speaker 1: and it's because I ditched them. I went surfing. And
9:54
Speaker 1: they said, you've got a choice to make now. Either
9:56
Speaker 1: you got to get a job and get out, or
10:00
Speaker 1: you can go to community college and you can stay
10:03
Speaker 1: here and I was like community college. Wait, these are
10:06
Speaker 1: bad choices. I'm not ready to kind of go become
10:10
Speaker 1: self sufficient. I'm not ready for that. But I know
10:12
Speaker 1: how to actually go to school, play the game a
10:14
Speaker 1: little bit and keep surfing. So let me just do that.
10:17
Speaker 1: And that's accidentally how I got into college, and it
10:20
Speaker 1: was never part of the design. And so I mean,
10:23
Speaker 1: I'll spare some of the details, but college was meaningful.
10:27
Speaker 1: High school was fun.
10:29
Speaker 3: Got it? When your learning starts to get meaningful, talk
10:33
Speaker 3: to me about kind of the switch of gears that
10:37
Speaker 3: must happen in your head, because as someone again, high
10:41
Speaker 3: school was fun, I can't imagine that until you really
10:45
Speaker 3: started to think to yourself like, wow, I'm actually really
10:48
Speaker 3: interested in this material and understand that you could do
10:51
Speaker 3: something with that material. Did that experience become something that
10:56
Speaker 3: to you felt worthwhile?
10:58
Speaker 1: Well, right, look at pop psychology. You'll read things or
11:02
Speaker 1: hear about things like you got to have a vision
11:04
Speaker 1: in your life, And I will talk about the science
11:07
Speaker 1: and the art of vision, because there's some important stuff
11:10
Speaker 1: there and you got to have big goals and audacious whatever.
11:13
Speaker 1: I don't know, I know the science there, but that
11:16
Speaker 1: was not true for me. What was true for me
11:18
Speaker 1: is that I was in conversation and reading things that
11:23
Speaker 1: were illuminating, and I never thought that if I read
11:26
Speaker 1: this book later one day, maybe I wanted to read
11:29
Speaker 1: this book and understand it so I could run back
11:31
Speaker 1: and have a conversation with somebody who really understood it,
11:33
Speaker 1: the professor or the other kids in the class that
11:36
Speaker 1: were trying to wrestle with it, because it lit me up,
11:40
Speaker 1: and so it was never for later. It was for
11:43
Speaker 1: the purity of it. And that's actually what action sports
11:45
Speaker 1: will teach you, is that if you're not completely absorbed
11:48
Speaker 1: and present here now, the consequences are too great. So like,
11:52
Speaker 1: be about it and then let me pull back one
11:55
Speaker 1: more layer. I think this is materially important in where
11:58
Speaker 1: we might go in this conversation. Is that when I
12:02
Speaker 1: would walk from school to home and we lived next
12:07
Speaker 1: to the ocean, I would walk I've never talked to
12:10
Speaker 1: anyone about this, but I would walk down the street
12:12
Speaker 1: and I'd look at a hedge and as I'm walking,
12:15
Speaker 1: I'm looking at the hedge, like how I'm going to
12:17
Speaker 1: surf off that hedge as if it was a real wave.
12:19
Speaker 1: I was obsessed with trying to get better to ready
12:23
Speaker 1: myself for the next challenge, because the next challenge, if
12:26
Speaker 1: I really push myself, could be dangerous. And so the
12:31
Speaker 1: same was true in school. I was readying myself to
12:35
Speaker 1: understand it better, but not for later. Really, it was
12:39
Speaker 1: because I loved what the way it felt to get better.
12:42
Speaker 1: And so so anyways, that's kind of the obsession that
12:47
Speaker 1: sometimes I think is required that I don't wish really
12:51
Speaker 1: on people.
12:51
Speaker 3: Let's talk a little bit about that concept of visioning
12:56
Speaker 3: and of thinking about or picturing where it is that
13:01
Speaker 3: you think you could go or what you would do.
13:04
Speaker 3: For so many people, they can think those things, but then,
13:09
Speaker 3: as I'm sure you've experienced in your work and in
13:12
Speaker 3: your conversations, there can be a large disconnect between thinking
13:18
Speaker 3: about it and then actually like thinking about how you
13:21
Speaker 3: can make that thing that you're thinking about happen right on.
13:26
Speaker 1: And I I just want to I want to remind people.
13:30
Speaker 1: So I've studied, you know, to the edges of psychology
13:35
Speaker 1: and the psychology of excellence, like how the extraordinaries work
13:39
Speaker 1: from a rigor of research and academic you know, training,
13:45
Speaker 1: as well as being in the amphitheater in some of
13:48
Speaker 1: the most extraordinary you know organizations. I'd love to tell
13:52
Speaker 1: some of those stories, but I just want to remind
13:54
Speaker 1: or kind of level set that I don't know. I
13:58
Speaker 1: think people are struggling in life right now. I know
14:02
Speaker 1: that to be true. And just because you don't know
14:05
Speaker 1: exactly what you want your future to be right now,
14:07
Speaker 1: it's okay. I never did and I love my life
14:12
Speaker 1: like materially love my life, and I never thought that.
14:15
Speaker 1: I didn't even know there was an industry that I'm
14:18
Speaker 1: in right now, and so I just want to kind
14:21
Speaker 1: of help build some space to say, you know, right
14:26
Speaker 1: now is hard, and we can thin slice your vision
14:30
Speaker 1: of the man, woman person you want to be, thin
14:34
Speaker 1: slice it to like today or this week, or this
14:38
Speaker 1: month or this quarter. You know, like we can thin
14:41
Speaker 1: slice it because I think it starts to really freak
14:44
Speaker 1: people out when we say, well, what is your life purpose?
14:47
Speaker 1: And now that's a big question. I asked that to
14:49
Speaker 1: just about everybody, but I want to do it in
14:51
Speaker 1: a way that is respectful to I'm trying to keep
14:54
Speaker 1: my head above water, dude, you know, like right, let's
14:58
Speaker 1: start there. Let's thin slice what's your purpose today?
15:01
Speaker 3: I love that terminology. Thin slice.
15:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, Oh, it's everything we can do right now, you know,
15:08
Speaker 1: because of the radical change that's taking place, unless unless
15:13
Speaker 1: you have conditioned and trained your mind to manage uncertainty,
15:17
Speaker 1: to manage unknown And I think what twenty twenty has
15:22
Speaker 1: shown us unpleasantly so is that, let's just talk about
15:26
Speaker 1: North America for a minute. We are not prepared to
15:29
Speaker 1: deal with both chronic stress and acute stress. Before twenty twenty.
15:34
Speaker 1: We're barely keeping it together because the chronic stress was real.
15:39
Speaker 1: And the thing, the idea about hustle hard, Are you
15:42
Speaker 1: kidding me? That is not how this works. Hustle hard.
15:45
Speaker 1: I'm sorry if you kind of ascribe to it, but
15:48
Speaker 1: it's so broken because in the world stage, we don't
15:52
Speaker 1: talk about working hard. We're talking about recovering intelligently. Everybody
15:58
Speaker 1: works hard, So if you've got to tell someone to
15:59
Speaker 1: work hard, there's a flaw somewhere. It's like something else
16:03
Speaker 1: that I can talk about from a psychological perspective, But
16:05
Speaker 1: it's recovering intelligently. It's training your mind so that when
16:09
Speaker 1: you are in the thick of stuff, you know how
16:11
Speaker 1: to use the right amount of attentional focus to get
16:15
Speaker 1: the thing done. And no more, no less, and to
16:19
Speaker 1: get to the edges every day of your capacity is
16:21
Speaker 1: how you make you And if you're fatigued and tired
16:26
Speaker 1: and scared, you don't run to the edges. But the
16:29
Speaker 1: best in the world, athletes and entertainers, executives like they
16:33
Speaker 1: run to the edge every day and intelligently recover, run
16:36
Speaker 1: to the edge again, fegure out what they need to
16:37
Speaker 1: learn and then recover. And so we talk more about
16:40
Speaker 1: recovery than we do about, you know, working hard. How
16:43
Speaker 1: does that all relate to purpose? Twenty twenty showed us
16:46
Speaker 1: that we are not properly trained, Our mind is not
16:49
Speaker 1: properly trained. And I'd love to talk a little bit
16:53
Speaker 1: more about that with you.
16:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I would love to hear more about that.
16:56
Speaker 3: I think for someone listening to this, their first follow
16:59
Speaker 3: up question, and in my first follow up question would
17:01
Speaker 3: be how do I start training? Aside from, of course,
17:05
Speaker 3: as we all have over the past year, like kind
17:07
Speaker 3: of being thrown into the waters.
17:09
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, So let's just pull back the curtain one
17:13
Speaker 1: more level here is that there's two ways to think
17:15
Speaker 1: about psychology, okay, so the psychology of excellence, certainly one
17:21
Speaker 1: is the path of self discovery. Okay, and then the
17:25
Speaker 1: second are the mental skills so that you can be
17:27
Speaker 1: about it more often. So the first things is like
17:31
Speaker 1: a series of practices and I can walk you through
17:35
Speaker 1: all of them. It's not complicated, but like who are you?
17:38
Speaker 1: What is your purpose? What are the goals that are
17:40
Speaker 1: going to help you live align to that purpose? Back
17:44
Speaker 1: to the vision word, like what does it look and
17:46
Speaker 1: feel like when it's all on point? And so there's
17:49
Speaker 1: a whole path of self discovery. And I'll pin that
17:53
Speaker 1: for just a moment, because Harvard did a seventy five
17:56
Speaker 1: year study, a longitudinal study across people's life, and they
18:01
Speaker 1: wanted to understand fulfillment. So they measured these people for
18:05
Speaker 1: seventy five years and at the end they said were
18:07
Speaker 1: you fulfilled? And whatever percentage said yes and the other
18:11
Speaker 1: percentage said no. Then the people that said yes, they
18:14
Speaker 1: asked them, so you report that you had to fulfilled life,
18:18
Speaker 1: how does that happen? And one of the key takeaways
18:21
Speaker 1: there was three big ones, but one of the key
18:23
Speaker 1: takeaways is that they wrestled with the deep questions of life.
18:29
Speaker 1: So if you want to live a fulfilled life, part
18:31
Speaker 1: of that is wrestling with the hard questions in life,
18:34
Speaker 1: like what is your purpose? And back to our early part.
18:37
Speaker 1: If that feels too big right now, no problem, thin
18:39
Speaker 1: slice it, like what's your purpose today? You know, was
18:42
Speaker 1: your purpose this week?
18:43
Speaker 3: For a lot of people that kind of question what
18:46
Speaker 3: is your purpose, it's like, whoa, I don't even know
18:50
Speaker 3: where to start or how to articulate that. So do
18:53
Speaker 3: you have you know, any words of wisdom of how
18:57
Speaker 3: to thin slice a question like that?
19:00
Speaker 1: Yeah. According to science, there's three parts to purpose. So
19:05
Speaker 1: research suggests that people that wrestle with purpose and can
19:08
Speaker 1: articulate it. There's three main themes. The first is nobody
19:12
Speaker 1: can give you yours. It has to matter to you,
19:16
Speaker 1: and so it's called personal meaning. So that's the responsibility
19:22
Speaker 1: I think to be an adult, what is my purpose
19:25
Speaker 1: in life? And if it doesn't matter to you, it's
19:27
Speaker 1: not real. Again, nobody can give it to you, Okay,
19:31
Speaker 1: So that's one. The second is it's bigger than you.
19:35
Speaker 1: So true purpose these people that are fulfilled and have
19:37
Speaker 1: purpose in their life, it's something grander than themselves. So
19:40
Speaker 1: it's not the purpose of like getting paid. It's maybe
19:43
Speaker 1: getting paid for because I can or we can, but
19:47
Speaker 1: there's something larger than one's own needs being taken care of.
19:51
Speaker 1: And then the third is it's future oriented. So there's
19:55
Speaker 1: a down the path type of thinking about purpose, right
20:00
Speaker 1: life purpose, So it's bigger than bigger than you, and
20:03
Speaker 1: it requires time to materially move toward. So those are
20:07
Speaker 1: three components, and how do you do it? You write
20:10
Speaker 1: it down. There's three ways. A couple threes here, back
20:12
Speaker 1: to back, but there's three ways. Right, write some stuff down,
20:16
Speaker 1: speak to people that have wisdom, you know that are
20:20
Speaker 1: in your community, whether it's a psychologist or you know,
20:23
Speaker 1: a preacher or a rabbi or whatever it might be.
20:26
Speaker 1: And then the third is to investigate in a practice
20:31
Speaker 1: of mindfulness where you're really listening and understanding that your
20:37
Speaker 1: inner nature, like the thoughts and how they relate to
20:39
Speaker 1: your emotions, and when you wrestle with ideas, what happens internally.
20:44
Speaker 1: So those are three meditation conversations with wisdom and then
20:49
Speaker 1: writing to be true?
20:52
Speaker 3: What is your purpose?
20:55
Speaker 2: Oh?
20:55
Speaker 1: I haven't done. No, I'm joking.
20:58
Speaker 3: Can you even imagine?
21:00
Speaker 1: Yeah? Oh my god, I shouldn't answer that. Yeah, So
21:04
Speaker 1: I'll say that it changed about ten years ago, and
21:07
Speaker 1: so I can tell you my first one. But then
21:09
Speaker 1: it's changed. It's very clear for the last ten years.
21:12
Speaker 1: It's to help people live in the present moment more often.
21:15
Speaker 1: And the reason that is I light up when I
21:20
Speaker 1: even say it and think about it, thank you for asking,
21:22
Speaker 1: is because the present moment is where wisdom is revealed.
21:27
Speaker 1: It is where high performance is expressed. So there's like,
21:30
Speaker 1: that's the world I'm in. So the present moment is
21:33
Speaker 1: where wisdom is revealed, high performance is expressed, and all
21:37
Speaker 1: things that are true, beautiful, good, and amazing are experienced.
21:41
Speaker 1: And so the present moment is where we meet ourselves.
21:45
Speaker 1: And so if I can help people by training their
21:47
Speaker 1: mind live in the present moment more often, I think
21:50
Speaker 1: that we begin to reimagine humanity. We get to reimagine
21:54
Speaker 1: what it means to be fully alive, working towards the
21:58
Speaker 1: capacity of all our collective potential. And that's not going
22:02
Speaker 1: to happen unless we spend more time in the present.
22:05
Speaker 1: But we're so busy worrying about later and worrying about
22:08
Speaker 1: what had happened, that we're missing even glimpses of the
22:12
Speaker 1: present moment throughout the day because we're busy, busy, busy, hustle, hustle,
22:15
Speaker 1: hustle that we're not dropped in to meet the demands
22:19
Speaker 1: of this moment in a squared up, shouldered way, because
22:23
Speaker 1: it takes everything that you have to meet the demands
22:26
Speaker 1: of moments, because our mind wants to check out to
22:28
Speaker 1: try to solve danger as opposed to be fluid with
22:32
Speaker 1: the risk that is unfolding right now. And that risk
22:35
Speaker 1: for you and me is neither of us know what's
22:37
Speaker 1: about to happen. And so if we can trust enough
22:40
Speaker 1: by training our minds, if we can trust enough that
22:42
Speaker 1: we can meet the new demand, then we can kind
22:45
Speaker 1: of go, oh, let me enjoy this life, this unfolding
22:48
Speaker 1: moment to moment life.
22:49
Speaker 3: For those that have a problem managing the chaos, for
22:53
Speaker 3: those that are in a similar circumstance or find themselves
22:59
Speaker 3: in this circumstance where they can't focus on the now
23:02
Speaker 3: because they have so much anxiety or worry about what
23:05
Speaker 3: is next, how do you advise that they get to
23:09
Speaker 3: this place where they're better equipped to handle the now.
23:13
Speaker 1: That's where mental training comes in. And so what you're
23:15
Speaker 1: describing is like there's ranges, you know, clinical anxiety to
23:20
Speaker 1: excessive worry to something smaller than that which would be
23:26
Speaker 1: you know, like I kind of worry about things, or
23:28
Speaker 1: my mind is a little easily distracted. So depending on
23:31
Speaker 1: where somebody is on a spectrum that we would suggest,
23:35
Speaker 1: you know, heavy lifting or lightlifting, but the lifting is
23:38
Speaker 1: going to be mindfulness will be part of the lifting.
23:41
Speaker 1: Breathing training will be another part of the lift. Awareness
23:45
Speaker 1: of your inner dialogue so that you can adjust and
23:48
Speaker 1: come return back to now is the essence of one
23:51
Speaker 1: of the cornerstones of mindfulness. So you become aware of
23:54
Speaker 1: your inner life, your thoughts and emotions, and so that
23:57
Speaker 1: you can pivot and come back to now, come back again,
24:01
Speaker 1: and come back again. And we can double click on
24:03
Speaker 1: that for sure, and then the other some sort of
24:05
Speaker 1: breathing mechanism or breathing training so that when your body activates,
24:09
Speaker 1: Because your brain's job is to scan the world and
24:12
Speaker 1: find the dangers. That's its job. And if you don't
24:17
Speaker 1: use your mind to work with the brain. Again, the
24:21
Speaker 1: brain's job is to scan the world to find danger
24:24
Speaker 1: and to either fight or run away. But the mind's
24:27
Speaker 1: job is to be the software that is governing and
24:30
Speaker 1: guiding that brain's dictum for survival. Primarily, and I'm oversimplifying
24:37
Speaker 1: a very beautiful hand and glove interaction between software hardware
24:40
Speaker 1: that is so complicated we struggle with analogies of how
24:44
Speaker 1: it really works, But the mind can be It's a
24:48
Speaker 1: software that can be upgraded. And you know, I mean,
24:51
Speaker 1: who trained your mind? Out of curiosity?
24:54
Speaker 3: Who trains my mind?
24:56
Speaker 1: Who trained your mind? Because you're operating at a certain
25:00
Speaker 1: with a certain system, you've got a what version would
25:03
Speaker 1: you say you are of yourself?
25:05
Speaker 3: If I had to take a step back and really
25:08
Speaker 3: think about it. And it's interesting to me to hear
25:11
Speaker 3: you say that the spectrum, because I certainly used to
25:16
Speaker 3: be a person who didn't navigate frequent anxiety very well.
25:21
Speaker 3: And I have found, especially over the past year, that
25:26
Speaker 3: through defining my purpose, integrating more mindfulness into my regular routine,
25:32
Speaker 3: doing more meditation and breath work, I have been able
25:36
Speaker 3: to tap in to an ability that the old Emily.
25:41
Speaker 3: And I'm not exactly sure if I can give you
25:43
Speaker 3: what level we're on now, but an older version of
25:47
Speaker 3: myself certainly didn't even think was possible for her. Now
25:52
Speaker 3: does that mean that I feel as though I never
25:56
Speaker 3: feel like her? Sometimes? Of course not, but it does
25:59
Speaker 3: mean that now I've seen the other side of the coin,
26:02
Speaker 3: so to speak, and I feel more empowered to come
26:06
Speaker 3: back to calm in circumstances that before I didn't think
26:10
Speaker 3: was possible.
26:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's it now. So that's let's call that an upgrade.
26:14
Speaker 1: You know, it could be a minor upgrade or a
26:16
Speaker 1: major upgrade to be determined. But to get to the
26:20
Speaker 1: upgrades we do, it does require some programming. And I'm
26:24
Speaker 1: over using the analogy right now, but mental training is
26:27
Speaker 1: the way that you can upgrade the software. So confidence
26:30
Speaker 1: is a skill? How about that? You know? I would
26:34
Speaker 1: I bet quite a bit of money that unless you
26:36
Speaker 1: went out and looked for it, nobody has taught you
26:39
Speaker 1: how to train your mind. Like it didn't happen in
26:41
Speaker 1: grade school or high school or college. So we have
26:44
Speaker 1: to go to a shrink. Coaches really don't know, you know,
26:47
Speaker 1: I love coaches, It's the world I live in. But
26:49
Speaker 1: they say, hey, come on, you should be confident. Won't
26:52
Speaker 1: show me how?
26:53
Speaker 3: You know?
26:54
Speaker 1: Like, oh, I show me how? So it's a trainable skill.
26:58
Speaker 1: Did anybody show you the mechanics of confidence? Have you
27:01
Speaker 1: been training?
27:03
Speaker 3: Not specifically?
27:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll talk. We can talk about that some other time.
27:09
Speaker 1: What do you mean? Yeah, so how do you train it.
27:13
Speaker 1: So it comes from only one place, which is what
27:17
Speaker 1: you say to yourself. But what you say to yourself
27:20
Speaker 1: must be credible. And so to speak credibly to yourself
27:26
Speaker 1: about yourself relative to what you think the demands are
27:30
Speaker 1: that are coming. So confidence is a state specific experience.
27:36
Speaker 1: So it's moment to moment really, and if you have
27:39
Speaker 1: the inner mechanisms to speak to yourself a certain way
27:42
Speaker 1: about your skills relative to the perceived demand, you're going
27:46
Speaker 1: to figure it out. But to speak to yourself in
27:49
Speaker 1: a way that has credibility, you have to have done
27:53
Speaker 1: really hard things in your life. And so what happens
27:57
Speaker 1: for most people is when they feel a bit anxious,
27:59
Speaker 1: so their heart to it ticks up a little bit,
28:01
Speaker 1: they're breathing changes, they start to see the dangers in
28:04
Speaker 1: the world. Is instantly the mind the software goes to, oh,
28:10
Speaker 1: well this is big, feel me like I'm I'm over,
28:15
Speaker 1: my cup is spilling over, like I'm kind of a mess,
28:18
Speaker 1: as opposed to instantly going to like, oh wait, I'm
28:22
Speaker 1: built for hard things. I've done A and B and C,
28:25
Speaker 1: and look I can do A. I think I can
28:27
Speaker 1: do B, and I'm definitely gonna knock down c But
28:30
Speaker 1: that's training. Training, you know, to know in your history
28:35
Speaker 1: what gives you the right to say something like I
28:37
Speaker 1: can do hard things. So how do you do it?
28:39
Speaker 1: You got to write it down and you got to practice,
28:42
Speaker 1: you know, just like it sounds mechanical, emily, but it
28:46
Speaker 1: sets and reps, you know, And I think behind you,
28:48
Speaker 1: You've got like times.
28:51
Speaker 3: Behind me, I've got some some marathon time posters.
28:54
Speaker 1: Okay, who's are they?
28:56
Speaker 3: That their mind?
28:59
Speaker 1: So so you know what sets and reps are about,
29:02
Speaker 1: you know, and like there's no way to really get
29:04
Speaker 1: better without true sets and reps. And so training your
29:07
Speaker 1: mind to know the types of thinking that is credible
29:11
Speaker 1: that will help you is how you get to the
29:14
Speaker 1: ability to be consistent with confidence, not arrogant, not naive
29:19
Speaker 1: confidence like boastful confidence, but true, grounded like now I
29:24
Speaker 1: know how to relate to the challenge.
29:34
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Speaker 3: delicious sparkling Today. Talk to me about the evolution of
31:09
Speaker 3: your confidence going through college, getting to a point where
31:13
Speaker 3: you were getting more interested in your studies, and coming
31:16
Speaker 3: to a place where you started to recognize, Hey, I
31:22
Speaker 3: think I could be good at life doing something with
31:25
Speaker 3: this material that I'm learning about.
31:28
Speaker 1: Well, I didn't understand confidence when I was in high school.
31:30
Speaker 1: That's kind of what happened to me and surfing, is
31:33
Speaker 1: that I was a mess because I didn't know how
31:35
Speaker 1: to speak to myself properly that would build and I'll
31:38
Speaker 1: just oversimplify. There's there's really an oversimplification. There's two types
31:42
Speaker 1: of thoughts. Thoughts that create space and build, and thoughts
31:45
Speaker 1: that can strict and tighten up. You know, oversimplifying. But
31:49
Speaker 1: so I didn't even understand that basic framework, and so
31:53
Speaker 1: I left my inner experience to what other people might
31:58
Speaker 1: be thinking of me. How dangerous is that? So fear
32:04
Speaker 1: of other people's opinions. Call it fopo. You've heard of
32:08
Speaker 1: yolo and y fomo, right, So faupo, I think, is
32:12
Speaker 1: the great constrictor of human potential in modern times. Fearing
32:17
Speaker 1: other people's opinions. So that's what I was leaving my
32:21
Speaker 1: internal state to what others might think of me, and
32:25
Speaker 1: So when did that change? When I got sick and
32:29
Speaker 1: tired of being at the whips end of my environment,
32:34
Speaker 1: when I was fatigued as a man, saying why do
32:37
Speaker 1: I feel this way? I'm trying to present myself a
32:40
Speaker 1: certain way, but really inside it doesn't really match. And
32:43
Speaker 1: so this was like early thirties for me, and I said,
32:47
Speaker 1: I'm done with that, like what there's and I was
32:50
Speaker 1: studying it, you know, I was just finishing up my PhD.
32:55
Speaker 1: And there's a moment when I hadn't yet graduated. There
33:00
Speaker 1: was an international conference that I was speaking at and
33:03
Speaker 1: it was my first international conference, and I was kind
33:06
Speaker 1: of changing or challenging grounded theory in the field and
33:10
Speaker 1: you could see and feel I was backstage with a
33:12
Speaker 1: friend of mine and the dean of my school, and
33:16
Speaker 1: you could feel the energy kind of filling up the hall,
33:19
Speaker 1: and you could hear the you know, the multiple hundreds,
33:23
Speaker 1: maybe thousands, I don't know, it's a little foggy to
33:25
Speaker 1: me now, but it was a large room. And I
33:29
Speaker 1: was feeling good, Like I was feeling really good, and
33:33
Speaker 1: I've got my suit on. It's like the first time
33:35
Speaker 1: I had a suit other than a wedding or a
33:36
Speaker 1: funeral or something. You know, I'm zero professionalism. I printed
33:40
Speaker 1: business cards just for this thing. And so I'm ready.
33:44
Speaker 1: I'm feeling great about going up there. And it's about
33:48
Speaker 1: five minutes before and my buddy nudges me backstage and
33:52
Speaker 1: he goes, hey, look in the front row. So I
33:54
Speaker 1: kind of peeked me through the corner and I look,
33:56
Speaker 1: and there's a gentleman and I go, oh, my, is
33:59
Speaker 1: that him the person I was challenging the theory? And
34:03
Speaker 1: I looked at my buddy and my eyes got big
34:05
Speaker 1: English yup and I looked back and he grew like
34:09
Speaker 1: to nine feet tall, you know, five hundred and fifty pounds,
34:12
Speaker 1: like he just looked like he was this massive human
34:15
Speaker 1: that was pissed off. Okay, so it was not really,
34:18
Speaker 1: but you know what I mean. So I instantly went
34:20
Speaker 1: into a state of panic. And so here's the dialogue.
34:26
Speaker 1: Oh god, they're going to find out. Everyone here is
34:28
Speaker 1: going to find out that I don't. I'm bullshitting, I don't.
34:32
Speaker 1: Oh God, they're going to find out. And so, you know,
34:36
Speaker 1: imposter syndrome full effect, Like objectively, I did, I really
34:42
Speaker 1: do know. I knew my stuff. This is no different
34:44
Speaker 1: than when I was fifteen and now I'm thirty something,
34:46
Speaker 1: and it's like or just before thirty, and so I
34:49
Speaker 1: started to hit the panic button. My body temperature heated up.
34:53
Speaker 1: There's a beat of sweat down my back. My forehead
34:56
Speaker 1: started to kind of blister with some sweat. I've got
34:58
Speaker 1: a little tremor now, my breathing changing, my heart's ticking up.
35:01
Speaker 1: I look down at my business card and I'm trying
35:03
Speaker 1: to keep it cool. I looked down at my business
35:06
Speaker 1: card and I realized that I didn't put my email
35:08
Speaker 1: address on it. This is like, you know, twenty years ago.
35:11
Speaker 1: And I'm like, again, I use that to go, oh god,
35:17
Speaker 1: I'm such a rookie. And I'm now I'm trying to
35:18
Speaker 1: write my business my email in the back of my
35:21
Speaker 1: bit and my handshaking, and I'm looking at the card
35:24
Speaker 1: and my visual space shial is all wrong. So I'm
35:26
Speaker 1: like writing down the side of the card, trying to
35:28
Speaker 1: fit it all in. And these are all things that
35:31
Speaker 1: I'm using to tighten up further. And so I realized,
35:37
Speaker 1: and so here's the other narrative, Like, oh my god,
35:39
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to be talking about like being present and confidence,
35:43
Speaker 1: and I'm a mess, you know, So it's all that
35:45
Speaker 1: stuff that's wrapped up if I can't even talk about
35:48
Speaker 1: it or to live it, like what a phony. And
35:50
Speaker 1: so so I realized at that moment there's no way
35:53
Speaker 1: around it. You got to go through it. You got
35:54
Speaker 1: to do the fundamental work. And I thought I was
35:57
Speaker 1: doing it, but I was bullshitting myself. And so that
35:59
Speaker 1: moment changed me. And so thank you for telling that story.
36:03
Speaker 1: It's a long story, but it changed me.
36:06
Speaker 3: Well what happened, I mean, did you go on the stage.
36:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'm just scala. One to ten. Ten is
36:13
Speaker 1: like I just threw up in my mouth. And a
36:15
Speaker 1: five is the sweet spot, you know, or really like
36:17
Speaker 1: the porridge is just right, it's not too hot, too cold.
36:21
Speaker 1: And I was at like a nine and a half
36:23
Speaker 1: just right before it. And funny thing is is, as
36:27
Speaker 1: I was writing, I'm trying to play it cool because
36:30
Speaker 1: I don't I didn't want my buddy to think I
36:32
Speaker 1: was a mess, you know, even though that's what friends
36:35
Speaker 1: are four you know, like, but he was, you know,
36:37
Speaker 1: he was loving that. I was kind of like freaking
36:39
Speaker 1: out a little bit because he could kind of tell.
36:41
Speaker 1: And I started when I was writing my address. I
36:44
Speaker 1: just was focusing on getting my my name squared up.
36:49
Speaker 1: So it required a deep focus, and so I was
36:52
Speaker 1: just getting that right, trying to have a clear kind
36:54
Speaker 1: of penmanship on it, and that actually materially was gating
36:58
Speaker 1: out all of the danger. It was gating out all
37:01
Speaker 1: of the anxiety, all the worry, all the shitty self talk,
37:04
Speaker 1: and so it was just a deep focus that I
37:06
Speaker 1: was on and I'm trying to breathe the whole time.
37:09
Speaker 1: And then it started clicking. So probably like forty seconds
37:15
Speaker 1: to go. Thirty seconds ago, my buddy notices that I'm
37:18
Speaker 1: still writing on my cards and he nudges me again.
37:21
Speaker 1: He's like, dude, you get ready now. And I kind
37:23
Speaker 1: of came back and I was like, oh, I'm back.
37:27
Speaker 1: Like that, all that other stuff went away. I didn't
37:30
Speaker 1: have a great mind, but I was. I was in
37:33
Speaker 1: a frame that I could manage at that point, and
37:36
Speaker 1: so it was good. It was a good experience for me.
37:39
Speaker 1: More importantly, other than what I said, what I learned
37:42
Speaker 1: backstage was more important than what I did on stage,
37:45
Speaker 1: and it was fine. On stage, it was fine, So
37:48
Speaker 1: we thank you.
37:51
Speaker 3: So then share with me how you go from this
37:55
Speaker 3: pivotal moment for you and understanding the importance of going
38:00
Speaker 3: through something to getting to the place where as you
38:06
Speaker 3: referenced before you're in the amphitheater, talk to me about
38:10
Speaker 3: that transition in your life.
38:13
Speaker 1: Well, I think the segue in there is that. And
38:18
Speaker 1: I've been fortunate to work now in some of the
38:20
Speaker 1: most hostile environments known to humans. Certainly rugged environments like
38:24
Speaker 1: the last ten years with the Seattle Seahawks, but that's rugged.
38:28
Speaker 1: There's some pressure in those environments. But some of the
38:30
Speaker 1: other places, like the stuff Red Bull Stratos and a
38:34
Speaker 1: project called Heaven sent Rebel Stratus is when Felix baum
38:37
Speaker 1: Gotner jumped from about one hundred and thirty thousand feet
38:40
Speaker 1: and the brightest minds in aerospace weren't sure if he
38:43
Speaker 1: was going to make it. It was incredibly dangerous and
38:47
Speaker 1: wonderful project that I was on. So how do you
38:51
Speaker 1: go from those environments? I think the segue that makes
38:54
Speaker 1: sense is that I needed to do the work, and
38:57
Speaker 1: just like we physically prepare with sets and reps so
39:02
Speaker 1: that we can express ourselves creatively on the playing field,
39:06
Speaker 1: whether that's the boardroom, or it's the field, or it's
39:11
Speaker 1: the living room. You know, when there's a moment that's
39:13
Speaker 1: got some stress on it, like can we use our
39:17
Speaker 1: faculties to express ourselves at towards our upper capability that
39:21
Speaker 1: I needed to put in the reps not only physically
39:24
Speaker 1: but mentally. And so you know, the mental stuff is meditation,
39:30
Speaker 1: it's breathing work, it's clarity of purpose, it is training
39:35
Speaker 1: deep focus. It is a framework of optimism, which is
39:38
Speaker 1: a trainable skill. All of that builds the ability to
39:42
Speaker 1: be more resilient to deal with the real challenges that come.
39:47
Speaker 1: If you want to do something special with your own capabilities,
39:50
Speaker 1: there's going to be real challenges. Karch Karai is one
39:53
Speaker 1: of the best to ever play the game of volleyball
39:56
Speaker 1: and coach it. So multiple gold medals, Olympics, World Championship,
40:01
Speaker 1: indoor beach, you name it. He is a legend. And
40:05
Speaker 1: as I was working with the US women's national team
40:07
Speaker 1: going into Rio for the last Olympic Games, and he
40:11
Speaker 1: said he was the coach, and he says, Mike, I'm
40:14
Speaker 1: certain that no one gets to the podium at the
40:16
Speaker 1: Olympic Games without passing through a double barrel shotgun while
40:20
Speaker 1: at the Games. So let's prepare our team to know
40:23
Speaker 1: how to stand down a double barrel shotgun. That's right,
40:27
Speaker 1: So that's training the mind.
40:29
Speaker 3: You referenced the US women's national team. You referenced the Seahawks.
40:35
Speaker 3: Talk to me about the first time that you recall
40:40
Speaker 3: perhaps getting that phone caller making your way into a
40:44
Speaker 3: scenario where you were working with someone that you yourself
40:49
Speaker 3: had previously heard of, or someone of such what's the
40:55
Speaker 3: word I want to use here, esteem or a well
40:59
Speaker 3: known individual that kind of scared you a little bit.
41:04
Speaker 1: That's cool thought. I think that I'll tell you a
41:09
Speaker 1: funny story. I was nine years old.
41:12
Speaker 3: Well's I expected this one to start, and.
41:16
Speaker 1: I'll let you be the judge of funny. You know,
41:17
Speaker 1: I think it's funny. But it was nine years old
41:20
Speaker 1: and I'm kind of the hillbilly that I was in
41:22
Speaker 1: Virginia and there was this event where the kicker for
41:26
Speaker 1: the Redskins was going to do a talk at the
41:27
Speaker 1: local high school. And my Dad's like, hey, let's go,
41:30
Speaker 1: And I was like, for what? And so we went
41:32
Speaker 1: and we talked and Mark Moseley was the kicker's name,
41:35
Speaker 1: and there's a big lineup afterwards of all the kids signing,
41:38
Speaker 1: getting their cards signed, and it was I don't know, like,
41:45
Speaker 1: and my Dad's like, let's get in line, let's do that,
41:47
Speaker 1: And I was like, no, Like I'd rather go home.
41:52
Speaker 1: I had no interest. I don't. I still to this day,
41:55
Speaker 1: am more interested in the human than what they've done.
41:58
Speaker 1: So to answer your question, honestly, it almost will sound
42:02
Speaker 1: blasphemous because I so enjoy the people I work with,
42:05
Speaker 1: but I don't lead with like, look what they've done,
42:07
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, because I do know that they have
42:10
Speaker 1: the same worries, they breathe the same air, they have
42:14
Speaker 1: the same basic dreams for their kids, and I'm more
42:20
Speaker 1: interested in the human experience rather than the performative part
42:24
Speaker 1: of them. So maybe that's a blessing, you know, Like
42:27
Speaker 1: I don't go to that place, and I think that
42:31
Speaker 1: I think that that's probably felt by other people.
42:34
Speaker 3: Not to say that it's not felt, but to say
42:39
Speaker 3: and maybe like to allow me to brag on you
42:42
Speaker 3: for a moment, I've had Carrie Wallis Jennings on the show.
42:45
Speaker 3: Obviously again you mentioned working with the volleyball team, and
42:48
Speaker 3: I know just from seeing you speak everywhere from the
42:52
Speaker 3: under Armor Performance Summit to oh my goodness, I just
42:55
Speaker 3: feel like a handful of times now and hearing about
42:58
Speaker 3: the clientele that you worked with, that you have an
43:01
Speaker 3: impressive roster, and I think that something is to be said,
43:05
Speaker 3: not just of course, by the fact that you've been
43:08
Speaker 3: able to work with these individuals, but about the fact
43:10
Speaker 3: that you're so I would argue good at what you do,
43:15
Speaker 3: that you have become an important tool in the toolbox
43:20
Speaker 3: for so many high performing individuals that many people listening
43:24
Speaker 3: to this show would know who they are.
43:27
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well, first, thank you for the compliment, and
43:31
Speaker 1: then I also appreciate you calling me a tool.
43:35
Speaker 4: You are welcome the tool.
43:36
Speaker 1: I'm a tool in the tool. Yeah.
43:40
Speaker 3: Never have I ever called a guest a tool before.
43:44
Speaker 1: It's perfect. I absolutely love all of it. And and
43:48
Speaker 1: you know, like and I am because I am part
43:51
Speaker 1: of like the the support mechanism for the for the
43:56
Speaker 1: people in the amphitheater and so Okay, So that not
44:00
Speaker 1: being too far from the joke here, is that, Yeah,
44:03
Speaker 1: I've been fortunate, and I think part of where what
44:08
Speaker 1: I represent with people is that there's far more to
44:12
Speaker 1: go and I'm less interested in human the doing than
44:17
Speaker 1: the being. And what I've come to learn is that
44:20
Speaker 1: the most extraordinaries across multiple disciplines, and you know I
44:26
Speaker 1: was this. You know, I've got a small team my business.
44:29
Speaker 1: We have a small team and we get fined if
44:30
Speaker 1: we name drop. Okay, So like it's like, you know,
44:34
Speaker 1: it's a fun joke, like if someone's going to try
44:36
Speaker 1: to big time and say like, oh, well, you know,
44:38
Speaker 1: I had a conversation with fill in the blanks. Like
44:40
Speaker 1: everyone rallies like, okay, you're getting nonsense, you know. So
44:45
Speaker 1: so this was but this is cool because this person
44:47
Speaker 1: when they announced that they're going to go on tour,
44:50
Speaker 1: they'll sell out across the planet in fifteen minutes. And
44:54
Speaker 1: so he says, I am far more interested in being
45:00
Speaker 1: than doing, and so being more to do more is
45:03
Speaker 1: where this idea was born from. So I think you
45:06
Speaker 1: and I and many of us swallowed at a young
45:08
Speaker 1: age this idea that we need to do the extraordinary
45:11
Speaker 1: to be extraordinary, and I certainly did. I can't speak
45:14
Speaker 1: for you, and so I had to undo that first
45:18
Speaker 1: to say, no, I need to be me. I need
45:21
Speaker 1: to be grounded, be present, be creative, be authentic, and
45:24
Speaker 1: then let the doing flow from that place. And it's
45:27
Speaker 1: almost like the lid opens up in this magical way,
45:30
Speaker 1: and so I think that that's why, because I really
45:33
Speaker 1: don't give a shit what they've done. I'm more interested
45:35
Speaker 1: in who they are and who they want to become.
45:37
Speaker 1: And so there's a little bit of a breath of
45:40
Speaker 1: fresh air because you've been to a party when someone's
45:42
Speaker 1: kind of like, oh, what do you do? And I
45:44
Speaker 1: just want to go, the fuck are we doing here?
45:47
Speaker 1: You know? And then they look over and they're looking
45:49
Speaker 1: over my shoulder once they're like, oh, you know you're
45:51
Speaker 1: a sports psychologist. Oh great, well where's the you know?
45:54
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well looking on the shoulder, like, where's the star?
45:58
Speaker 1: You know.
45:58
Speaker 3: I'm like, obviously, now people know of you, perhaps they
46:04
Speaker 3: see a performance psychologist. When you look in the mirror,
46:08
Speaker 3: what is it that you see looking back at you?
46:12
Speaker 1: Oh, that's cool, cool question. I there's so many jokes
46:18
Speaker 1: that I'll keep them.
46:19
Speaker 3: All to myself.
46:19
Speaker 2: Right now.
46:21
Speaker 1: I will say that when I look I am, I'm
46:25
Speaker 1: surprised by the places this body has been. But I
46:31
Speaker 1: feel completely familiar with the spirit inside, so like it
46:40
Speaker 1: feels at home when I look at myself, like I
46:44
Speaker 1: am at peace with the inner workings of who I am.
46:49
Speaker 1: But I'm like, when I look at the shell, I'm like, man,
46:51
Speaker 1: you've been to some places. So I just don't I
46:54
Speaker 1: never thought about the places and the environments that I've
46:56
Speaker 1: been in that that would take place. And so there's
46:59
Speaker 1: a sense of peace about the that is the residue,
47:03
Speaker 1: if you will, of living with integrity. And I know
47:06
Speaker 1: that I'm talking about me living with integrity, which is
47:08
Speaker 1: a weird thing to say, but like I've been like
47:12
Speaker 1: it's a good example. I don't have a friend that
47:14
Speaker 1: cheats on their wife. And so I've been married since
47:18
Speaker 1: I was twenty five, so almost like twenty let's see,
47:21
Speaker 1: I'm forty nine now, so whatever the math is on
47:23
Speaker 1: that almost twenty twenty years. Yeah, And and so like
47:28
Speaker 1: I love that I've been completely faithful, and like I don't,
47:33
Speaker 1: you know, like doing the right thing is so important
47:37
Speaker 1: to me, So like those you know, my parents had
47:40
Speaker 1: a good job of creating a good, strong moral foundation.
47:43
Speaker 1: And then I love that I built the mental skills.
47:47
Speaker 1: And I'm not perfect, but I love that I'm building
47:50
Speaker 1: mental skills to be able to deal with high stress environments,
47:53
Speaker 1: you know. And so I don't know, that's a long wave.
47:55
Speaker 1: I've never really answered that, So it's a good question.
47:58
Speaker 1: Thank you for that, of course.
48:00
Speaker 3: I mean your explanation a little bit reminds me of
48:03
Speaker 3: something that Angela Manuel Davis said to me that she
48:07
Speaker 3: hopes to live in purpose on purpose. So when she
48:12
Speaker 3: looks in the mirror, that is what she sees. She
48:14
Speaker 3: sees a woman who is truly living her purpose very intentionally.
48:21
Speaker 1: That's what's up. That's really cool.
48:23
Speaker 3: That's what's up. That's what's up. What excites you right now,
48:26
Speaker 3: doctor Jeriva.
48:28
Speaker 1: Oh, we got formal. I think that the Decade of
48:32
Speaker 1: the Mind twenty twenty rattled us, and so this next
48:38
Speaker 1: decade is going to be about the mind because where
48:42
Speaker 1: we've just been, we realize that we didn't have the capabilities,
48:44
Speaker 1: the psychological capabilities to deal with such high stress change.
48:49
Speaker 1: And so this next decade will be about the mind.
48:52
Speaker 1: And I'm incredibly excited about where technology is going to
48:56
Speaker 1: meet ancient wisdom. That is, we were having the extraordinary
49:00
Speaker 1: raise their hands to say the mind matters. You know,
49:04
Speaker 1: everyone from the folks that you mentioned to so many
49:06
Speaker 1: others are raising their hands saying invest in your inner life.
49:10
Speaker 1: And so this next decade of the mind is going
49:13
Speaker 1: to be radical, and I'm super excited. I'm bullish on
49:17
Speaker 1: human flourishing. I think that through relationships with ourselves, then
49:22
Speaker 1: with others and with mother Nature, we are going to
49:27
Speaker 1: reimagine what it means to be human. And so this
49:30
Speaker 1: next decade of the mind is what excites me right now.
49:34
Speaker 3: If I was to give you an opportunity to double
49:37
Speaker 3: click on something that maybe you would have double clicked
49:41
Speaker 3: on a little bit sooner in our conversation, and you
49:44
Speaker 3: think about something that could be really beneficial to shed
49:47
Speaker 3: some light on, where does your mind go with that.
49:51
Speaker 1: Like for a skill or a tool for folks, like
49:55
Speaker 1: where we double ca Yeah, I would think the one
50:00
Speaker 1: of the great bits of work as a human, you know, philosophy.
50:04
Speaker 1: I'm sorry purpose we did let me hit on philosophy
50:07
Speaker 1: because we haven't talked about it. And so having a
50:09
Speaker 1: philosophy is really clarity of your guiding principles. So what
50:16
Speaker 1: are the principles that guide your thoughts, your words, and
50:19
Speaker 1: your actions, and that bit of work. It's substantial, and
50:25
Speaker 1: so I would like to kind of double click to
50:27
Speaker 1: use your language on writing down your core philosophy, your
50:34
Speaker 1: guiding principles. Maybe it takes ten pages at first, and
50:37
Speaker 1: then you whittle it down, whittle it down, whittle it
50:38
Speaker 1: down to get to something that's like twelve words or less.
50:44
Speaker 1: What are the principles that are going to guide your thoughts,
50:47
Speaker 1: words and actions so that when you run to the
50:49
Speaker 1: thin herd, the edge of the frontier, and when you're
50:53
Speaker 1: running in that high stress space, that you're able to
50:56
Speaker 1: have clarity ahead of time. This is how I'm going
50:59
Speaker 1: to guide my thoughts, words and actions, And that kind
51:03
Speaker 1: of pre work I think pays dividends. So along with purpose,
51:07
Speaker 1: philosophy is equally is important. But then maybe that feels
51:11
Speaker 1: heavy and big and emily I'd say that a practice
51:15
Speaker 1: of long exhales would be Yeah, it would be something
51:20
Speaker 1: more thin, sliced, more manageable. But you can't really do
51:23
Speaker 1: like a little band aid thing with long exhales if
51:26
Speaker 1: your mind's constantly worrying about the future and you don't
51:29
Speaker 1: know your purpose fill in the blank. So, but a
51:31
Speaker 1: practice of long exhales, to over simplify the science of breathing,
51:35
Speaker 1: does send signals to our brain that right now we're okay.
51:39
Speaker 1: And if you think about like there's four parts to
51:41
Speaker 1: every breath, that maybe what we would do is We
51:44
Speaker 1: would say, start with a cadence something like six in
51:48
Speaker 1: six hold, twelve out six hold and something like that
51:54
Speaker 1: will materially make a difference across people's ability to downregular
52:01
Speaker 1: and stress is an up regulator, but I need practices
52:04
Speaker 1: to help downregulate. And doing ten of those in a
52:08
Speaker 1: row as a training wheels, you know, six, six, twelve,
52:11
Speaker 1: six ten times would be a nice little fin slized practice.
52:15
Speaker 3: You say, philosophy, and for a listener that hears that,
52:18
Speaker 3: and they hear you explain it, and they start to
52:20
Speaker 3: get their wheels turning, and they're not exactly sure still
52:24
Speaker 3: how to go about creating that philosophy? What else would
52:27
Speaker 3: you tell that? Maybe perhaps if you could provide an example.
52:31
Speaker 1: Sure, well, okay, that's great, we'll do both.
52:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, what is let's do?
52:38
Speaker 1: Doctor King, Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. You know what
52:42
Speaker 1: would you say? His philosophy is equality period, right, So
52:47
Speaker 1: everywhere he went, his thoughts, his words, and his actions
52:52
Speaker 1: were about moving the narrative of equality. So that's a philosophy.
52:57
Speaker 1: And then his life purpose was he called it a dream,
53:00
Speaker 1: but his life purpose was to see that in a
53:03
Speaker 1: certain form. But his philosophy was really about listening. My
53:08
Speaker 1: thoughts and words and actions need to be lined up
53:10
Speaker 1: about helping people, you know, live with equality. And so
53:15
Speaker 1: we can go down the list of some of the
53:16
Speaker 1: greats that you know, Muhammad, Jesus, Buddha, Confucian, like, we
53:22
Speaker 1: know their philosophies and because that's how they showed up
53:25
Speaker 1: everywhere they went. And so the same is available for
53:29
Speaker 1: you and me to do that work. And so how
53:33
Speaker 1: do you do it? This is going to sound like
53:35
Speaker 1: a cheesy plug, but I know we're up on time.
53:38
Speaker 1: I built an eight week online course to help people
53:40
Speaker 1: do all of this work to pull back the curtain,
53:42
Speaker 1: to show people exactly how I work with the lead
53:46
Speaker 1: athletes and executives and artists on how they can train
53:48
Speaker 1: how they train their mind. So you can do the same.
53:51
Speaker 1: And so but there's no shortcuts, and I'm not going
53:54
Speaker 1: to hold anything back, but to do the work sometimes
53:57
Speaker 1: takes cadence and timing. And in that course, you know
54:00
Speaker 1: this is fundamently we have we have two Olympians that
54:05
Speaker 1: coach you, medalists that coach you along the way, and
54:09
Speaker 1: two sports hikes that coach you along the way. To
54:11
Speaker 1: get in there and put a dull stick on your
54:13
Speaker 1: back and say, hey, you said you paid the money,
54:15
Speaker 1: you signed up, Let's go do the work. How can
54:17
Speaker 1: I help you?
54:18
Speaker 3: You know?
54:18
Speaker 1: Like so it's that part's really cool.
54:20
Speaker 3: All right, So last little bit here. You have an
54:23
Speaker 3: opportunity right now to offer Let's go back to high school.
54:28
Speaker 3: Let's go back to the guy that used to be
54:31
Speaker 3: in a place where he would see that big wave
54:35
Speaker 3: in competition and not know what the hell to do
54:38
Speaker 3: how to perform. You have an opportunity right now looking
54:41
Speaker 3: back on that guy to give him one piece of
54:44
Speaker 3: advice going through those hurtle moments. What do you tell him?
54:50
Speaker 1: That's cool? If I go big picture for a minute,
54:53
Speaker 1: and then I'll drop into the wave thing. Big picture is
54:56
Speaker 1: like nice job, dude, Keep going, you know, like keep going,
55:03
Speaker 1: you know. And so I've made mistakes. I've had unfortunate
55:09
Speaker 1: things that have happened to me, things that I've created,
55:12
Speaker 1: co created, you know, all of it, and all of
55:15
Speaker 1: the scar tissue and the pain that I've experienced. It
55:20
Speaker 1: has come around for gratitude. So I'm okay with all
55:23
Speaker 1: the mistakes that you know, and so as to keep going.
55:26
Speaker 1: And so that's the life thing. And then the wave
55:30
Speaker 1: thing is like, who gives a shit what they think?
55:36
Speaker 1: Be true to yourself, dude, you know, paddle in, push hard,
55:41
Speaker 1: pop and go like be absorbed in what you're doing
55:44
Speaker 1: and stop caring so much about what they think, and
55:48
Speaker 1: so that that would be the best kind of gem
55:50
Speaker 1: I do. It would have been nice to learn that earlier,
55:53
Speaker 1: but I probably needed to have that internal scratchiness for
55:57
Speaker 1: so long to get to the truth of it.
56:00
Speaker 3: So grateful for your time today. I am sitting here
56:02
Speaker 3: like I'll probably be sitting here for another thirty minutes
56:04
Speaker 3: digesting all of this, and I'm sure the hurdlers will
56:07
Speaker 3: probably feel the same way. At Doctor gerva How do
56:11
Speaker 3: the hurdlers keep up with you? How can they follow
56:13
Speaker 3: along with you? Give me all the details?
56:17
Speaker 1: Can I be a hurdler too? I love it?
56:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, please please be a hurdler. Invite the squad.
56:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is so good. Social is fun and so
56:26
Speaker 1: I'm enjoying it. At Michael Gervais and that's g E.
56:30
Speaker 1: R v ai s. It's on Insta, LinkedIn, Twitter and
56:34
Speaker 1: then finding masters the podcast and so that has been
56:39
Speaker 1: a great way to you know, we're building out some
56:42
Speaker 1: membership model. So there's deeper engagement there, so finding Masters
56:45
Speaker 1: the podcast, and then you can actually wrote a book.
56:48
Speaker 1: And so if people want to check out the book,
56:50
Speaker 1: but I would say the course is kind of if
56:52
Speaker 1: you really want to invest in what you're doing, the
56:55
Speaker 1: course is the best way to go. But the website
56:57
Speaker 1: is Findingmastery dot Net. Of the book Compete to Create,
57:03
Speaker 1: and the idea is like, you got to work your
57:05
Speaker 1: ass off to create a living masterpiece, and so we
57:08
Speaker 1: will show you how to work your ass off. But
57:10
Speaker 1: it's really about recovery and internal wellness.
57:13
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for your time today. Again, I
57:15
Speaker 3: appreciate it so so so much, awesome.
57:18
Speaker 1: Thank you.
57:19
Speaker 3: I'm over at Emilia Body and at Hurdle Podcast. Another
57:22
Speaker 3: hurdle conquered. Catch you guys next time.