Latest / MaxValue Podcast / Baseball to Boardroom: Achieving peak performance Ft. Lauren Johnson

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Baseball to Boardroom: Achieving peak performance Ft. Lauren Johnson · MaxValue Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody wants to do their best.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so really the study of performance psychology is how our mind exists and works through stress, high state, pressure, and ultimately to achieve results in even the worst circumstances.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of parallels when you're talking about high states, high pressure situations.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: We have to consider how are we setting up our children and how are we setting up that next generation of elite thinkers, of decision makers, of company builders and future changers.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: I like things that I can measure.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: How do you measure behavior change, how it shows up in earnings, risk, and evaluation multiples at the end of it?
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: And why aren't we teaching the ABC version of these to our children when I know for a fact the people I'm working with at the highest level need this type of coaching?
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Max Value, the show for business owners and their trusted advisors who are on a mission to maximize their value with business valuation, exit planning, strategy, and maybe even how your behavior as a leader actually moves enterprise value.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Ben Town.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Today I'm joined by Lauren Johnson, uh a psych performance psychology consultant, gotta get that right, and coach with a background in sport and elite performance.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: She's worked with the uh with professional athletes, uh, namely the Yankees baseball team.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, she's also founder of Mental Reps at the company, at the Mental Reps Company, which is the first to create toys designed to build mental skills through routines and resilience and growth mindset for children ages three to six.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: And uh she's known for turning pressure drills into mental reps and translating sports science for business leaders.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome, Lauren.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm excited to be here.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it this is uh this is this this is a new new and interesting uh new new and interesting area because uh everybody wants to be their best.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: And we're all we're all trying and striving.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be my best.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: How do you take the lessons that you've learned in performance psychology for an elite athlete?
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I guess maybe any athlete really to do their best, but you've coached pro athletes at the highest levels.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: And what's really pulled you from sports psychology to business coaching?
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's no line drawn between the two of those.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what's interesting is when you hear performance psychology, most people think of sport psychology, right?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like it's you think of sports psychology, and performance psychology really is a broader term for that.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: So it's both athletes and business professional professionals are working towards an outcome, right?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: They're working towards performing and achieving an outcome.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so, really, the study of performance psychology is how our mind exists and works through stress, high stakes, pressure, and ultimately to achieve results in even the worst circumstances.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: So just the theories alone apply to both settings and multiple others.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're talking uh high-risk occupations like the military, firefighters, police officers, uh uh uh people that are like nurses and doctors and surgeons, and all of this still applies to even them, as well as actors, actresses, singers, uh performers, and even the sports world and beyond.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh if you're if you're performing or working towards a result or outcome in a high pressure, high stakes situation, this actual practice actually applies.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I will say that's not why I got into it.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: I got into it for sports.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: So, to your point, I went in because I was like, I want to work in sports, I was an athlete my whole life.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like, this is something I'm really passionate about.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I actually had uh still a client of mine at Mass Mutual reach out to me while I was working with the Yankees and asked, like, hey, could you come speak to our business leaders?
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: And uh truthfully, I was like, Well, I've never done it before, but I can't see why not.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: And as I started doing it, I just realized that, you know, business professionals are they're you're just corporate athletes.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: It it's it's no, there's a lot of different uh situations and scenarios and how things are getting applied.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like for baseball, I'm I'm speaking like languages, uh the language of a pitcher, where in business I'm speaking the language of a C-suite executive.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: Those languages are different, but oftentimes the principles remain perennial across domains.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, first off, I'm now gonna refer to myself as a business athlete.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry to all those real athletes out there.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the uh uh I I think it absolutely makes sense though.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of parallels uh when you're talking about, you know, high stakes, high pressure situations.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a reason why in business we use a lot of metaphor, and a lot of that metaphor comes down to sports metaphor, the you know, get to the end zone, or you know, uh all of all of those things um that you know tell us uh visually in our minds, you know, what what it is that we're talking about.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: I have to ask you though, what what sport what sport did I play?
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: I played soccer and I played it all through college, absolutely loved it, and I still love it.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: I still love to watch it.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I I was never going to be like the next, like, you know, Mia Ham or Alex Morgan or like I wasn't gonna be that, but uh but I really did take it seriously and I really enjoyed it.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: So going from sports to business, I mean, you know, do you have a a favorite example of how you turn training for sports, training into a game or a a mental rep to recreate pressure and and kind of get yourself you know inured to the to the stress?
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I I think we should start by defining like what a mental rep is.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: And a mental rep is really like a bicep curl for your brain.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so when you think about going into the gym, like you know you're not going to, you're not going to build muscle if you just keep lifting the same weight.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: At some point, your muscles in your body are going to adapt to that lift.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: And in order to achieve a different outcome, you have to lift a little bit heavier.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's that's an important piece here is because a mental rep is that that little bit of bicep curl for your brain.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's stepping just slightly out of your comfort zone.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's stretching your knowledge and your current skill set just a little bit.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's, I think they're a really important piece.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: And one of my favorite examples that I think uh we can we can use both in sport and then translate it to business is um people would ask all the time, like, how do you prepare, you know, let's just use pitchers, for example, you know, for like how do you prepare them, you know, in their minor league seasons to that, so that when they face hopefully game seven to the World Series one day, they're prepared and they can handle and manage the pressure and stress.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what we know is we can never recreate the feeling of the World Series, right?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: We can't be like, all right, pretend it's game seven.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: The it's it's a three-two count.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's like we're not going to do that and that and the pitcher's gonna go, oh, I feel like I'm in the World Series.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like, obviously not.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: So, how do we recreate that?
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what we know is that when you're under pressure and when you're under stress, there's a set of physiological symptoms that occur.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: So while we may not be able to create those mentally, we can create them physically.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: So we would have our pitchers do, you know, we could do sprints, we could do jumping jacks, something to get their heart rate elevated as if they're under pressure, and then get on the mound and you have to pitch a certain sequence, hit your spots in a certain time frame.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: That right there can recreate what pressure feels like in your body.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then we can use the tools that we teach to make sure that we're managing that and navigating that appropriately.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: And while it won't be exactly alike, we will create a familiarity in our mind when we feel it in the world series to go, your body is not suddenly signaling this is a threat.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's signaling this is a challenge and I can manage this.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: We may not be able to change the situation, but we can change ourselves within it.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the same goes for business is that before you go into a big meeting, you're going into a negotiation, you're going into a chat with a big client, those same symptoms can occur.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: How are we managing those?
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we have to first just discuss what our body is signaling, which is a challenge or a threat, and then we have to choose our response to that.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: Because there's a fascinating study I'll share, and it's of skydivers.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: And what they did is they took two different sets of skydivers.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: One group that literally thought their life was being threatened, jumping out of a perfectly good plane.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then another set was also nervous, but felt excited.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like they were like, oh, this is a challenge, like I'm excited for it.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: And what they found were two different uh physiological symptoms and biological changes occurred when they simply thought of the of jumping out of a plane differently.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: People that viewed it as a threat, their body went into protection mode.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so what their what their brain did is it released a bunch of cortisol, it kept uh their their blood vessels, they actually um they constricted.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: So it kept all of the blood towards their major organs of their body, which means they had less cognitive function because they had less oxygenated blood to their brain and all other limbs, and it was all associated with feelings of fear.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: Where people that viewed it as a challenge or like, hey, I'm excited like to kind of overcome this, like it's a challenge, I'm still nervous, but I can do this.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: Their body did the exact opposite.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: It actually shut down the release of cortisol, their blood vessels dilated, created, creating more oxygenated blood to their brain and their body, their heart rate variability improved, and it was associated with signs or um thoughts of confidence and feelings of confidence.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so I share that because even though you're going, it doesn't matter what the situation is, if you care about it, you're gonna feel some degree of pressure.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's directly correlated to that care piece.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: So we don't want to eliminate it, we just want to manage it.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like that old adage that you don't want to get rid of the butterflies, we just want to get them to fly in formation.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so metaphor.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: So as we as we train our executives and as we train our athletes to manage how they're feeling and not to signal our brain that this is a problem, but this is actually a challenge to embrace.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: Our body shows up differently.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: It creates the biology of courage, it creates the biology of uh putting us in the best position for success.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's super cool.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: Your go your body's going to react to a to a situation, period.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: And by training, you can get you can recognize what's going on with yourself and be self-aware.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it is interesting.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: I hadn't heard of that study where being self-aware in itself is part of the management process.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, because there are times when you you you get you have a near miss in a in your car or something like that, and and suddenly, you know, you're you're overwhelmed and your body wants to shut down.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, and unless you're you know a trained driver, that's not something that you're you know you're so used to.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: But on the other hand, you know, making it a making a stressful situation into a challenge, like frankly, this podcast for me is has become a a fun, positive challenge, and that's part of why I like doing this compared to you know, that first one was a little uh a little rough, a little challenging.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's right, but you have to start with your first if you're gonna get good at, you know, your you're in order to get to your thousandth episode that is streamlined and smooth, you first have to go through being not as good at it.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna for your first attempt will feel clunk clunky, your thousandth attempt will feel smooth.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's it's it's the it's the process of improvement.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: And you're right, it's it's it is a repetitive process that as you continue to make those decisions and better decisions under these circumstances, the better the outcomes become.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought Mookie Betts had a great uh perspective on this.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: Mookie Betts uh plays with the Dodgers, just won the World Series.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: And he said that that final play that where they actually got the out and won, he said, I've never been more nervous in my entire career.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we have this thought that because he's at the level he's at, that he doesn't get nervous.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: And the truth is, is that it doesn't matter what level you're at.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: Nerves are a part of the process if you care about it.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know who cared about that World Series.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so he felt it.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: But what's different is that their response is different.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so the gap between the nerves and their response is really short.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so they're net there, there's not these huge gaps between wins and losses, good choices and bad choices.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: They're really good at getting back on track.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: So he feels that.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: He said that he started talking to himself, and it was his self-talk that helped keep him focused.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: Gosh, I have to have you uh talk to my uh eight-year-old goalie.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh she she plays for the uh the the Sharks uh junior team.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: Love it.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: She needs that.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: Happy, happy to.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: So talking about leaders, uh I definitely subscribe to the idea that leaders are made and not born.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but we don't often get leadership skills, training, education, you know, very early in a person's life or in in our schooling, but we have the capacity to learn the best early, right?
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: We have neuroplasticity, you know, when we're when we're children.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: So how how do we start early?
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: How soon can we start when we're, you know, with my kids?
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: I maybe I've missed the window, but uh with with uh with somebody else.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: So my my maybe my friend Eric who's having a baby daughter next month, what how how would how would he do it?
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: I first of all, love this question.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: Second of all, neuroplasticity can occur our whole life.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: So uh the difference is is when we're young, there's a window where neuroplasticity is the most automatic, meaning we don't have to really think or be intentional for neuroplasticity to occur, which is a good and bad thing, right?
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: Because if we're not intentional and mindful of what we're teaching at ages, we can be creating these neural pathways that now we have to overcome later.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: Now, you're gonna need to do that no matter what, because what we know is any process that is that continues over time needs to be uh needs to be upgraded over time with life's new challenges, new chapters, all of those things.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: So it doesn't mean that it's never gonna happen.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: But the cool thing is that at this age, neuroplasticity is so alive and well.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it is, it is, it doesn't take a lot of effort in order for it to occur, to occur.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: So having said that, when it comes to mental skills and mental skill development, we can start as early as three.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I have my son is three years old right now, he's my test subject, so I can confirm.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we actually started even a little earlier than that.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we hope so.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully, don't broily screw him up.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: No, um he he's he the interesting thing about kids is I like to think of it like the ABCs of mental performance.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: When you look at reading, writing, and um you you look at where do you start?
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: At some point, you want to be proficient in reading and writing, but you don't start reading and writing.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: You start with the ABCs and you start by memorizing what they are, then you go to sounding them out, and then you go towards putting them together, and then you go towards sounding out the words, and then you go towards saying the words.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so it goes in this process.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: And what I found to be so interesting is after I had my son, I started thinking, when can I start teaching these principles?
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: Because these principles are a lot of them are very simple.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: They're not simple is not always easy, but they're simple.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: And why aren't we teaching the ABC version of these to our children when I know for a fact the people I'm working with at the highest levels need this type of coaching?
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: All of us do.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: Even coaches need coaches.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so, and so when I thought about that, I was like, why aren't we teaching this?
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: Why are I didn't learn this stuff until I got introduced to it in high school, and I didn't really grasp it until senior year of college.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when I decided to go get a master's degree in this.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so I got to thinking that and I started testing it with my kid, seeing what could he grasp.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well, he's already grasping concepts.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: He knows what perseverance is, he knows what growth mindset is, he knows uh we've been implementing certain phrases when things, when mistakes happen, or uh as he's pursuing something.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it's all around some of these principles that I teach my MLB players, my professional soccer players, my uh C-suite executives.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: And my son's already starting to grasp the ABC version of this.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I say that because you can start early.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: And what we're doing is like a process in business or like a process for an athlete, we're creating new ways to process thoughts, mistakes, behaviors, frustrations for our children.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so what we're really doing is we're creating these neuropathways to create elite decision makers.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: And as we can continue to help our children become elite decision makers in these areas that they can control versus what they can't control, and areas of growth versus a fixed mindset, we're gonna set them up for success.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: And we're gonna also set them up to better manage the difficulty that life will inevitably throw at them.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: So instead of removing the difficulty, we're improving their tolerance to be able to not only manage it, but overcome it.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm inspired.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think uh it just really is the case that we don't learn enough of the stuff early enough or many times at all.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: And and and by stuff sounds very, very uh vague, but uh some of the tools, like even you know, use of words and terminology, which is you know how we communicate and also encode things in our brains a lot of times, you know, just using uh the right pronoun, and I mean, you know, I versus we or you know, and I what I mean is we versus I, uh really helps build, you know, build team.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: And and doing some of those things intentionally uh is just not natural necessarily.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: And we have to learn how to do those things.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: And if you know, we just come at it when you're when you're an adult and learn little pieces at a time, like like that, for example, is is a great I hate to say tool, but a great technique, great way of thinking.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great way of thinking, but it's only one little piece and it's not integrated with the with the whole concept.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: So it it's awesome that you can build that bedrock of concept early on so that we can as you know mature humans add them together later and and integrate them later.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's cool.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, and I I think too, the last thing I'll say about that is that if it's kind of like uh in in if you've ever read the book Atomic Habits by James Clear, there's a there's a uh a story he tells about a plane, and he goes, you know, if a plane is to take off at LAX and its goal is to land in New York City, but right when it takes off, it adjusts the nose of the plane just three degrees south, it'll end up landing in Washington, D.C.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's how I think about development of children, is that it doesn't take a whole lot for us to just adjust the trajectory to put them in a better position for success.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so at the beginning, when you're when you take off, if you adjust the nose three degrees, that's only a couple feet.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: But when you multiply it across the United States, you land in a whole different spot.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so for children, at the beginning in this early development, if we just adjust the way that they're thinking, adjust their behavior patterns, adjust the way that they approach challenges and difficulty, we can change the entire trajectory of their life.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that's cool.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: And tying that back, I mean, you're you're not talking my language, you know, compounding differences over time, right?
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, 1% better every day or 1% better every month, whatever, um, really does have that just amazing outsized effect over a period of time, over a period of constant effort versus being static versus you know, what whatever else?
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: You've created a company called Mental Reps, and it's designed to start the the core facets of leadership like discipline, habit building, emotional control.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: So how does that set somebody up?
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we've been talking about a little bit, but how does that really set somebody up as a high performing business owner later?
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like let's draw the the straight line between between those two things.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what can you know my three-year-old self hypothetically have learned that will should now serve me as a business owner today?
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I think we should start with what the through line is.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it's this idea that simple systems, relentlessly executed, creates excellence.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so when if you look at any team, okay, I mean I'm biased, but the Yankees that have has incredible outcomes.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: And when they're consistently successful, the question is how?
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: But we know that when they're consistently successful, an individual, a team, know that there is a system in place.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so what we're doing is we're creating these simple systems early.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: And when they are relentlessly executed, andor we can use the word repeated, we create these strong neural connections, or we can call them mental muscles, in our brain that instead of defaulting to comfortable, instead of defaulting to ease, which it's easier to avoid something than to face it, it's easier to fall back on the negative thoughts than it is to speak powerfully to yourself.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: When we think of those kind of default settings that are all around us, even our children, we can begin to create these simple systems repeatedly that develop that mental muscle in your child's brain that overrides the default.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: Because at some point, when you when you create a really strong neural connection, what happens is this uh this sheath called myelin starts to grow around a neuron and it insulates the connection.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: Just like if you think about a copper wire and electrical tape, it insulates the connection.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so what that means is it takes less effort to execute.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: So what if we built a generation of children who defaulted to powerfully speaking to themselves powerfully instead of beating themselves up?
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: What if we built an entire generation that thought in a way that helps them grow instead of kept them exactly where they are?
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: Or an entire generation that embraced challenges instead of avoiding them.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so when I when I look at that, this is these are the same things that make elite executives, elite athletes, elite performers in any domain.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so starting at this young age will give them more experience and more reps that will help serve them later in life that they can continue to build upon.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that absolutely makes sense.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: The uh well, and that's what you know we're saying, we're saying we're building those neural pathways.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the pathway literally, biologically speaking, is you know, the enforcement of that myelin, right?
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: It is not natural for the the the way people are wired to embrace difficulty, right?
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: We all want it to be everything to be easy.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but yeah, you know, high high stress environment, you want to make the the right decision, which is oftentimes not the easy decision.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that that's in business and sports and everything.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it's no one's fault.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's how our brains are wired.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: Our brains are survival mechanisms, and so they are literally wired to keep us safe.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: The problem is that our brain is very powerful, but it's not always right, and so sometimes it will try to keep us safe in an area where it's actually better if we go after it, if we go towards it.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so, your brain, if it detects any threat, its job is to literally retreat and save you.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: But we recognize that there are situations that that does not apply to.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: In a lot of situations in modern society, it does not apply to, especially when you're going after something great.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: Because when you're going after something great, you are inherently going to fall into the environment of high stress, difficult, uh, unfamiliar.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: And all of those things your brain actively tries to protect you against.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so if we are not developing the pathways and upgrading our default system so that we act on purpose, not by default, that you're naturally going to fall into that.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: So we have to consider how are we setting up our children?
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: And how are we setting up that next generation of elite thinkers, of uh decision makers, of uh company builders and uh and future changers.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's really what we're looking at here.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: But you're right, it's it's everybody's natural default to think in that way.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so if we begin to help our children navigate that and increase their tolerance to being able to develop that, those uncomfortable challenges that, again, life will inevitably throw at them, we are gonna put them in the best position of success.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: Does it guarantee it?
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: No, of course not.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: We can't guarantee it.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: If that were the case, like my life would look very different.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: But the idea here is that we we can improve the odds and we can put them in the best position for success.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: So when we're talking about you know, take taking a leap, going out there and trying to do something great.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're you're doing that right now.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: You're you with Mental Reps Company.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, obviously, and you know, you're you're you're you're starting this, you know, maybe give uh give me just like a uh maybe 30 seconds about it.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, do a quick intro and and what we can do is we'll put a link in the show notes to uh talk about it a little bit more, you know, link back to uh to to your information.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I know you guys are fundraising right now, so it's really important to uh just be able to get out, get out there and connect with the right people.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I mean, please please give me give me a little bit more about uh about the company and the the product.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we're really excited.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um again, I thought of this after my son turned one and thought, when can I start teaching mental skills?
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh turns out a lot earlier than you think.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, we're creating the first toy line that teaches mental skills to toddlers.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: And we're talking about this is the foundation that ABCs that really helps you as a parent implement these mental reps, these bicep curls for your kids' brains to help to develop those neuroconnections for success, not only immediately, but also that can consistently help them later on in life.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of the things that I've seen, they address a short-term need, but not long-term development.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: We are looking at both the short-term need and long-term development so that next time your child faces that challenge, they're better apt to handle it.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: We're teaching a skill, but through play, the best way kids know how, which is uh, yeah, again, through our toys that we've created.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: And the uh, I'll say intentional consequence uh is that as a parent, this will actually impact you.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: My son told me the other day I didn't finish my routine because my bed wasn't made.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, good call.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: You're right.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and so he's even noticing it.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: And the uh the intentional consequence is that not only are you developing mental strength as in your kid, but you're actually developing uh mental strength in your family as a whole.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he sounds like an articulate little guy.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that's for better or for worse, right?
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually for better.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um again, we'll have more information in the in the show notes for you.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody, I want to take a second here to share something about who we are and why we make this show.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: You're probably here because either you or a client of yours is thinking about buying or selling a business, bringing in an investment, or planning an eventual exit.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that is why we call this show Max Value.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: We provide you with information and insights about how to maximize the value of your business.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Our team at Town Advisory guides business owners through the crucial, often once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to exit their business.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: We use our trademarked exit builder program to help business owners prepare early, protect the value they've built, and obtain maximum value through an exit.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: And the secret is our clients define what value means to them.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: Taking the right steps now can make all the difference in creating a successful outcome for yourself, your family, and your work team.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you think you're ready for the next step in understanding and increasing the value of your business, make a comment, send me a message on LinkedIn, or send me an email.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: All those links are in the show notes.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: But, all right, getting back to you know grown-up businesses.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I don't think, you know, vibes only coaching is that in it's not that interesting to me.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I don't know, maybe it helps certain people in in certain places, but uh I like things that I can measure, but that's a little bit more my background anyway, right?
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so how do you measure behavior change you know, and and how it shows up in things like earnings and risk mitigation and valuation multiples, you know, at the end of it?
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so uh a short answer is feedback loops.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um for I'll give you an one one precise example I've I use with an athlete is one of the things he really wants to feel before a game is confidence.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so we actually he actually grades himself every game and then we connect it to his results.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's an actual graph that shows the consistency of how is his pre-game routine actually setting him up to feel confident, knowing that you don't have to feel confident to to perform in a confident way.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: But what it does is it really helps to measure like again, this is how I'm feeling, and this is how it's actually connecting to my outcomes.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: Is there a correlation?
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: And if so, how can we continue to reinforce that system or what system do we need to adjust?
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, another thing, and I think much more like long-term strategic when we're looking at uh teams, is I like to point to this uh to this equation by Kurt Lewin, a psychologist from like 1930s.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: And the equation is behavior is a function of the individual times the environment in which they exist.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so if we're looking at a behavior change we're looking to make within a company, we go, okay, what individual skills do we need to be teaching?
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then what how do we need to support it from an environment perspective?
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: Because any behavior that is not supported by its environment will not survive.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: Just exactly like if you think of a plant.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: A plant in the wrong environment will not survive very long.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so when we're looking at creating change from an organizational perspective, that's immediately what we're looking at.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: And we're going, what behaviors are we solving for?
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: Are we solving for, you know, things like uh things like uh attendance and making sure people are showing up on time?
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: Are we solving for things like collaboration and communication?
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: Are we solving for things like motivation and consistency and resilience?
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so as we look at that, we define those behaviors and then we go through what are the skills we need to teach, we create programming around that.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then from a leadership direction and culture direction, how do we support it environmentally?
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: And that that really helps create then uh our programming for each organization, which is slightly different based on their needs.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: Gotcha.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that and that makes sense.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: Some of that sounds like it's hey, focus on the leader or you know, certain individuals within the C-suite, potentially.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: And some of that is, hey, how do we work with the behaviors of the of the team as a whole and make a make a situation, make a context, make an environment that will support what we actually want them to do.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um so it's all uh integrated and not dissonant.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because it what they what we know is that organizations with high level of engagement, they outperform competitors financially about 21%, greater profitability.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: And you're when you think about that, you're like, whoa, like that's that's all due to their ability to uh to engage with each other, collaborate, communicate.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, if we can improve those variables, we know that it directly improves the bottom line by, like I said, by on average 21% to your competitors.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I I would also say that there's some really great research done by uh Scott Tannenbaum and Eduardo Salez.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um highly recommend.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: They have a great book.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: I actually have it right now.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's called Teams That Work.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's a really, really good book.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but what they've done is they've worked with NASA, they've worked with high-performing teams, and they have done a systematic review of thousands of teams, and they've uh identified really seven core drivers for team effectiveness.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's things like capability, cooperation, coordination, communication, cognition, which is like shared knowledge base, um, coaching and conditions.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_01: Those are like the structures that really enable performance.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so when you look at these kinds of things, there is a high level of productivity that uh occurs as a result of that.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: And really, when I'm going into an organization, we're looking to program to support these things that we know will really drive revenue.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: And we we do measure those against each other.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: Even though, you know, I think on you know, on the on the episode here, you know, we're not talking so much about numbers specifically.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: On the flip side, uh, you know, I mean, you you have that scientific background.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: I you know, you can point to the study that says 21%, you know, more profitability tied back to these certain attributes, etc.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: So that's I think I think that's really important.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I totally agree because if I didn't, if if there wasn't a result tie back, I I wouldn't have a job.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like plain and simple.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like it'd be like what we're saying, but if it's not actually yielding a result of some sort um for a company, then it really doesn't matter.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: So what's your what's your playbook for turning a mindset into operational habits inside a company?
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: You kind of touched on that just you know just a little bit on the you know the last discussion point.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: The process is somewhat different for every company, but I there's really like three C's that I kind of I dive into with each company.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it's kind of like every every player had a different approach, but it was unique to them.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so there is a unique footprint, but there's a framework that I kind of start with that helps guide it.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: And um, the first one is clarity.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: If we don't know who we are currently, where we are currently, where we want to be, what we want to do, and what things need to be changed as a result of that, if we're not clear on all of those things, then we are directionless.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so we really need clarity because clarity creates then uh the second C, which is choices.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: And in between those two is what I call decision filters.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: When you're clear on what you want and when you want it and how you want it, there's really not many choices that you have to make.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a a friend of mine, uh, he said, you know, if you want to play in the NFL, there's no choice between chips and an apple.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: The choice is actually quite clear.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's what happens is we create these decision filters that help us to establish what are those choices we need to be making, changes that need to be, we need to be making that will uh that will align with the direction we're looking to go.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then from choices, the last seat is consistency.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so between choices and consistency are systems.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so we have to, you can make a choice once, but that doesn't mean it's gonna change anything.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: You have to just decide and make that choice again and again in a systematic way that's repeatable in order to establish consistency.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: And consistency is fantastic, right?
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's really important.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's where we see those long-term uh outcomes start to occur.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: But the thing people miss often about consistency is you can be consistent in the wrong direction.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so sometimes when you when you fall into a rhythm or a groove of like, all right, we got this, these are our systems, our processes are good, is we start to miss those small details or those small one-degree shifts that are going slightly in the opposite direction and we're gonna end up landing in the wrong destination.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: So between consistency and clarity is evaluation.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so we need to consistently be evaluating our processes as well, time and time again.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: So we can go, are we still going in the direction we want to go?
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: If not, we establish more clarity and the cycle continues.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: If so, we establish clarity that yes, we're on the right track and the cycle continues.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: But really, that framework helps me to come in and establish some really clear programming needs based on those three C's.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: So some of the best uh some of the mess best models and frameworks I I've seen are are cyclical like that.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it definitely makes sense because you the environment, as you were saying earlier, changes.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, even we change, uh you know, as as leaders and in our in our baseline.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: The uh the other, you know, one other thing I I really you know pulled out from what you were talking about is uh the number of choices.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: If you've already pre-decided something, like, hey, I'm gonna be playing in the NFL, well, that narrows down your choices for what you want to eat, period.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't actually have to make that choice every single time.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is the choice I've made.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's consistent with all the other choices I made.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that apple's already in my mouth before I'm even thinking about it.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that that sort of thing.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and I think that's that's a really important concept for business leaders as well.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, when one of the things of obviously, one of our values is is is integrity in our business, which is easy to say and sometimes easy to do, other times not so easy.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: But when the whole point behind having values, for example, is to pre-make those choices.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: We've already cho chosen that we are going to be at you know a what we define as a high level of integrity.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, if we see clients that are not in alignment with us and our values, it's there's no to your point, there's no decision to be made.
• 39:28
  unknown: Right.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: Don't work with them, we're done.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't no amount of money matters, it just doesn't matter.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so I really like that whole concept of no, you've already thought about it ahead of time to set yourself up for success or the your best shot at getting to the goal you want.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then that's it.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: No, no more, you don't have any decision fatigue at that point.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it and it ex-I love this, yes.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a perfect, like a real-life example of this was Ben Hunt Davis, who was the captain of the British rowing team.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: And they were like, they were sick of losing.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: They hadn't won since I think like 1910 or 12, something like that.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: It'd been almost uh like almost a hundred years since they had won an Olympic gold.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: And they all got together and they just realized that they had three choices.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: They could do the same thing, get the same results, do something different, attempt to get a different result, or quit altogether.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: And they decided the middle choice.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so they made a decision filter through a question.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: And the the question was, will it make the boat go faster?
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: And will it make the boat go faster?
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, then they would do it.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: No, then they wouldn't.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: And that decision, using that filter time and time again, aligned them with their goals, and they ended up winning the first gold medal since 1912 in 2000.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so when you just think about that, exactly what you're saying, when you make those choices, you get clear, you create a decision filter that it's as simple as will it make the boat go faster?
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: No, I'm not doing it.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I am doing it, and that does hold you accountable to that outcome that you said you were you you wanted to achieve.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: Ooh, that's that's really good too.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you you have you have a just a depth of uh of of story, and I think it's great.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: The dialing all that down or boiling it down to a one question like that, does it make the boat go faster in in that case?
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: I have to have to figure that out for ourselves, and I think you know most of our clients would you know benefit from that level of thinking.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: Most of the time for business owners I've found in in our you know, valuation and exit planning, they they don't have time.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: They don't have time to reflect on the business, work on their business, not in the business.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: They don't have time to you know think about okay, well, can we increase this process in some way, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: But definitely they don't have time to go to that next layer up and say, well, why the hell are we doing this?
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: What are we trying to do?
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: What is our you know core principle?
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe, you know, what is our our one question?
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: I've heard it stated as, you know, everybody's got a number.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: What is that number?
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: But what is that that one question that we need to answer and and is our guiding star for everything?
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that does get a little bit mushed up and mixed up with you know, people talking about, okay, well, what's your mission and what's your vision, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, all those other things, which are and can be important, but sometimes that adds a little bit of of vagary around the the central idea of well, is it does this like maybe for for my business?
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe the question would be does this improve the lives of our team?
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_01: So good.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's creating that filter question.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: Play around with it, it's fun.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: I had a athlete say, Will this make me go D1?
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that was his question.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's like, it's it's what is that outcome you're looking to achieve?
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_01: And how can you form it, put it in the place of a question where you're bringing your future goals to your current decision making?
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you're like present valuing your vision.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: Ooh, that's interesting.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, because a lot of times we make decisions and we're not thinking about the future outcome, we're thinking about the current pain.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so when you bring that question in, you're bringing that right.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: You're you're literally facing it, and you're having to like you can't avoid it, and you're like, oh no, it doesn't.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: I can't do this, I shouldn't do this, I should do this instead.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_00: But one of the things I think we we can still do as as Renaissance people is make unique connections between disciplines and points of knowledge.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that that's really where you know we can we we can start stand out.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was just again thinking about you know uh you bringing all the all the uh concepts from uh sports psychology into business, into child psychology, uh and even in our in our conversation, being able to bring some things together from uh increasing business value you know based on the behaviors of of leadership and how uh how aligned uh people can be and you know decision making and and it's I think this this has a been a wonderful wonderful conversation in in that way and it comes from tying together you know your knowledge my knowledge you know and and different concepts yeah that the concept of you know present present valuing your vision is kind of kind of an interesting one and maybe I'll play with that later.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_01: Love it I love it.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_00: So okay that that was the hard stuff.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: But I do have a couple questions I wanted to ask you just to just to get you know get to know you a little bit obviously you uh we were talked about soccer a little bit earlier.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh what what what school did you play for?
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_01: I played for uh one year I played at the University of San Francisco and then I actually transferred down to Point Loma Nazarene in uh in San Diego.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: Cool San Diego's great I love that so that's something we do already know now but what what's something we don't know about you uh from your LinkedIn your website profile or or whatever I mean what what can you share about Lauren?
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh oh my gosh well I'd say that the the loves of my life are my my husband and my two kids I have a five month old uh and a three year old and uh we have a dog uh black lab and um one of my one of my favorite things to do is to just be with them I mean it's like the simplest things in life right you kind of go back and you go wow like seeing the world through your kids' eyes really shifts things and perspectives and so um I think it's changed me in a lot of ways in a lot of great ways it's uh it's caused me to think about this new business idea mental reps co um so that's something that that I don't always uh I don't always share at least uh like on my social media or anything like that but um when I'm not when I'm not working and pursuing in these two areas that I absolutely love which is mental performance or performance psychology consulting and uh mental reps co I am likely with my children um building train tracks um and and playing outside and playing sports and teaching sports and all of that fun stuff.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_00: Oh I bet you're looking forward to uh to to the ages when they get into you know sports of some kind uh look maybe it's chess club but they're gonna get into something hard right and that and that that'll that'll be interesting.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_00: My kids they're they're into hockey and so we're at the hockey rink every uh last night I mean every every night every weekend every night all the time but it's but it's really wonderful to see them into something you know really passionately going after it.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_01: All right so we we've actually talked about a a lot of books already uh is there anything particular you're reading now that would be really interesting uh yes um it's it's not actually in here it's on my nightstand uh but it's actually all around it's raising resilience and it's all around raising resilient children and it's it's very research heavy but I'm I'm loving it because of obviously the work that I'm doing.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_01: But I like I said for for companies I highly recommend uh teams that work and there's one other that's really good um called the brain that changes itself um so highly recommend those are some a couple good books that I have right now on my on my list um that I'm reading and uh I like to differ I like to go into different directions not just all psychology stuff but obviously when it applies to my clients it makes it slightly more interesting um but I like to look at different domains and how they cross over because there's if you look at I think of like the best keynote speakers um they're comedians if you see how comedians engage an audience capture an audience transition between stories that's who I study if you look at people that are like the best storytellers look at producers of movies they're the best at storytelling and so I try to look at people that are the best in their niche and try and study them and especially if they're out of my current industry um that's what really catches my attention that's cool cross domain knowledge that's that's that's the that's the frontier.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's cool thank you actually there's there's some of the uh recommendations there that I'm gonna I'm gonna pick up for myself thank you.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_00: So obviously we'll put it in the show notes but if you want to be found where can people find you?
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you can find me on LinkedIn which uh just type in Lauren Johnson and um also follow mental reps co on LinkedIn as well.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then I'm also on Instagram and and uh X and I'm like what are all the names of all the places and uh for they're all different.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_01: So the best way to actually find all of these is to go to my website which is Laurenjohnson Co.com.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_01: Lauren Johnson's a common name.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_01: So when I got married uh there unfortunately surprisingly they weren't all available so uh they're slightly different in each domain but if you go to my website you can find all of them.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well very good I really enjoyed the conversation and thank you so much for taking the time to come on to Max Value Podcast.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_00: This is this has been awesome.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully you've enjoyed it too.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_00: I've loved it thank you so much for having me since here that's a wrap you've been listening to Max Value Podcast and if this episode provided any interesting information hit that subscribe button smash like and drop a comment below I'm Ben Town with Count Advisory and I'll catch you next time