#105: The Transition Playbook with Phil Costa

Welcome to The Conscious Pivot Podcast with international speaker, business mentor, bestselling author of Pivot, and your host, Adam Markel. The Conscious Pivot shares the stories and wisdom of people who have successfully reinvented some area of their business and personal life. You'll gain powerful insights into how you can fully embrace new opportunities, increase your performance, and master the art and science of innovation and resilience. So please join Adam as he guides you on your conscious pivot.

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Conscious Pivot Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Markel, and I'm having a moment right here where I just feel tremendous peace in this moment and excitement at the same time, enthusiasm at the same time. Sometimes when I feel peaceful, I'm like, you know, just sort of a blink or two away from nodding off and going to sleep. And I love that form of peace. That feels great. In fact, we created a foundation some years ago called Peace Feels Like, and I'll be sharing more about that foundation over the coming months because we're doing some really amazing things with kids, with teenagers, young adults, helping them to actually complete that phrase, what peace feels like to them, and to deliver a TEDx-like talk at their high school, which is something we're going to facilitate as well. on that topic of what peace feels like. And what has inspired us to get into that arena is really the staggering and awful, awful statistics around suicide. And that includes very young people, kids or young adults that are in their early teens, and, and on up to people in their 50s and 60s. And that demographic, the largest growing demographic of people that have taken that made that awful choice includes women in their 50s. And that was shocking to Randy, to my wife and I, and we decided we wanted to pivot, oddly enough, our foundation into that space and provide some more awareness and be able to help in an area that we love, which is the area of speaking and training, and thought we could get into the schools and share some of that. And kids who have been just incredibly enthusiastic about. I was in my daughter's school just the other day, her high school, and in her senior seminar class talked about that and asked them about it and asked them to complete that statement, what does peace feel like to you, and asked them whether they'd be interested in learning how to deliver a TED Talk, a TEDx Talk, which is something we train people, adults, to do. And these kids were all like hands up, ready to go, want to do it, even though there's, you know, The natural fear around public speaking that many, many people have. So I'm feeling peaceful now and excited at the same time, which I think more or less what that feels like to me is that my heart is calm. I feel very grounded. I'm just wearing a Kool-Aid smile on my face. I don't have my video on, although, you know what, I could even turn my video on for a second, but I, I'm going to keep the video off for this particular podcast because my guest today is not in the country and the internet's just a little bit spotty and we don't want to lose a word because this gentleman is truly worth listening to, learning from. He's got an incredible life story, incredible history, somebody that I think all of you are going to enjoy tremendously. I've got a small bone to pick with him, but I'll wait till after we get started for that. His name is Phil Costa. He's the former starting center for the Dallas Cowboys. He actually played in the NFL from 2010 And after football, he worked for a medical device company assisting heart surgeons during more than 500 operations. I want to learn more about that as well. He also earned his MBA from Columbia Business School, just a tiny little thing like that, in 2018, and has been traveling the world ever since, more than 25 countries including South Africa, Vietnam, and Japan. And today he lives and works from Madrid, Madrid, Spain, a beautiful, beautiful city. Yeah. where he's enrolled in Spanish language school. So this man has— he embodies the principles of the pivot, and I want to welcome you to the show, Phil. Great having you.

Adam, great to be here. Thanks for

having me. A pleasure. So I read and shared a bit about you and in your bio. What's not written in that introduction that you would love for people to know about you?

Good question. Probably the one thing is, you know, when you do all these things and when you're done and you can put them on paper, it looks so much easier than it actually was to get to the NFL, to get into business school. The amount of nos I heard along the way and just the grind to get there, that doesn't show up on paper.

No, it doesn't, right? These are sort of the personal, private moments. I was actually— it's funny you brought that up. I was thinking that this morning that I'm sometimes described by people as tenacious, no quit, never give up, that kind of thing. But man, in all transparency, I've had 1,000 moments in my life where I just said, am I going to take this? Am I going to continue to do this? This is excruciating. This sucks. And I was having those conversations. So, I'm going to ask you, Phil, with all those incredible accolades to your credit, have you had those moments where you were You know, sort of moments or inches away from just hanging it up. Resilience. It's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And in times of massive change and disruption, the kind of rapid change that we're all experiencing as leaders, as business owners, as entrepreneurs, we have to learn how to not only increase our own resilience, but that of our teams. So right now, we have a powerful opportunity for you to find out just how resilient you are. Some years ago, my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilience leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are.

Well, to give you the most recent example, you know, right now I've been studying Spanish for about a year, maybe even a year and a half, and pretty close to fluent, very conversational. But even in the beginning of that, you know, moved to Madrid, was there, you know, first week, and you feel like a baby again, you know, because I moved there, did not speak any of the language besides, you know, hola. And you just feel so out of place, very uncomfortable, but that's kind of part of it. You know, you call it pivot, we say the transition, but that change is, you know, if it's comfortable, you're probably not pushing yourself enough.

Yeah. And so in the midst of those moments, I mean, is there a certain go-to internal conversation that you have? Is it prayer? Is it God? Is it something just inside of yourself? Is it something that that a parent of yours or a coach of yours said in the past that you can revisit when you've got moments where you say, I'm prepared to just say, you know what, I'm done with this thing, or it's done with me?

It's not a specific phrase. I think it's more of experiences. I think, you know, once you've been there once, you know how to push through and just being, you know, comfortable in the uncomfortable. That was, you know, going into business school, going from college to the NFL, Even from high school to college, that change is like, okay, I've been here before, and just draw from those experiences.

Yes. You know, interestingly enough, experience is the greatest teacher. I think most people will abide by that. They'll say that. And usually our best decisions come from experience. But it's so interesting because I really believe that our best decisions come from having had the experience of making poor decisions. You agree with that?

Yeah, that's the truth because I was fortunate, I'm the youngest of 3. And I think when you're the youngest, you're able to see my older sister, older brother, a lot of great things they did, some things that they shouldn't have, and you learn from that. So you learn from others. But yeah, that's a good point there.

It's painful. It's literally a painful point. Why don't we track back to some earlier time in your life and your career where You were in that challenge state and what you did to pivot out of it. You said earlier that you refer to the pivot as a transition. And I love that because there's so many words that can describe what it looks like when you make a change, whether it's a small change or a not so small change. And you've got a book that's coming out on that topic called The Transition Playbook. And so a little later on, we'll talk about that as well. But take us back to an early time when you were first learning about the transition or the pivot. Through your own experience.

Yeah, I think what my biggest transition was after the NFL, from the NFL to the next thing, and that's kind of what sparked the idea for that book originally, was how tough it was. And I was somebody who, you know, I did well in school, did well in college, and got good grades, but that doesn't always prepare you for what the next thing is gonna be. And I thought, you know, I was I'm pretty successful in the NFL, so the next step, you know, I'll be successful in that too. And it was that arrogance, I think, of saying, I got this. I know other guys struggled with it, but not me. Well, it turned out it was me too. And that what really changed is hearing 3 powerful words. One day I was at NFL Films in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, talking to a former All-Pro, 10-year NFL vet who's now a successful commentator. And during the transition, you know, as we're having this conversation, I'm probably about 8 months out of the NFL at this point, and he's making it look so easy. So I said to him— his name's Sean O'Hara— and I said, Sean, what's the trick, dude? You're making it look so easy. And the 3 words he said to me were, I struggled too. And when he said that, it just felt like a million pounds were lifted off my back. And then you fast forward from that into 12 months ahead where I was working a full-time job in medical device sales, just got accepted to Columbia Business School. So I was doing things to have a successful transition. And I get a call from a former teammate who I played with, great guy. And when I picked up the phone, I could hear in his voice that he was in the same place that I was a year ago. And I just said it to him. I said, dude, I struggled too. And I just hear when I said that to him and he like let out a breath of air, like he felt normal again too. So I think that's a big part of it to me is the vulnerability. And being vulnerable is such a huge part of any transition.

Meaning the openness to not have all the answers and to be a kind of a little bit of a mess. You know, the mess could be 5 minutes, it could be 5 months, it could be any length of time. To allow yourself not only to be what it is in the moment, but not to try to hide that from the stakeholders in your life. That's something we talk about in Pivot is this, the idea that there are, there are really important people in your life that we call stakeholders. They might be your spouse, your family, your kids, your close friends. And then there are other people who are not quite in that category but are really important in, in your pivot, like your colleagues, your peers, your friends in this professionally, associates, etc. And to hide that stuff from them, to keep it from those people is really— I think it's a mistake, but it's also dangerous not to let people in on where you're truly at, right? I mean, it's Brené Brown's work on vulnerability. Her work is so powerful. And I think what's also interesting too is that she says, who's earned the right to hear your story? So it's not about wearing your heart on your sleeve. I think people, when they hear this, they hear, that word get thrown around more and more, vulnerability, and people say, does that mean I've got to tell everybody everything that's happening, be so transparent about every crappy thing that's going on in my world or my mind or whatever? And I would say, no, the answer is that's not the case. I really do believe there are people who have earned the right to hear your story, and it's those people who you shouldn't be lying to. And I use that word lying—

Right.

In this instance pretty specifically because I think When you're not telling the whole story, when you're keeping people away or at a safe distance because you don't want people to think something like, oh, he doesn't have it together. How could he not have it together? Dude was a professional athlete for crying out loud, right? He's got to have the answers. And now, oh, my brand, my precious self-image is impacted because I tell people, you know, I don't have it figured out in this moment. I am struggling. I'm looking for answers and I'm open to be guided. There's vulnerability in that statement and a lot of people I think won't take that step. So do you find that in working with athletes, because I know you work with current and former athletes and some of them are professionals, some of them are college students, some of them are Olympic athletes, is there more of a challenge on that side of letting your guard down and being more transparent? Is that a trend or something you see regularly?

I would definitely say yes. Just using the example of if you look at just for men football guys in a locker room, Vulnerability there is tough to show. You know, everybody in the locker room is like a bunch of lions. We're all in the same pack of lions, but it's a bunch of lions. Lions, you don't show weakness. So I think that translates and transfers over to when you're done sports. You don't show pain as an athlete because that's weakness. And that translates over to when you're done now. Well, I don't show pain anywhere. You know, I don't want to show it in any part. And, you know, to say I'm struggling a lot of people perceive as weakness, but it's not. And like you said, it's not wearing your heart on your sleeve. It's not like, you know, telling everybody, here's my sob story. Like you said, that's not what it's about. It's with the people that you trust and the people that are in your inner circle, just being real with them, just telling them, this is where I'm at now. And you maybe somebody go to somebody who's done it, somebody who's transitioned or pivoted well. And this is where I'm at, you know, like what advice do you have? And just being open. Yeah.

Well, you know what? I'm gonna get to the bone that I got to pick with you really quick. So, just because somebody must have gone, get what? What is that? All right. So, I am born in New York, bred on the East Coast, the Northeast. So, I was and am a Giants fan. I was a season— well, my father-in-law first, better part of 50 years, was a season ticket holder in Giants, what is now known as, I think it's MetLife Stadium, but it's the Giants Stadium. And so, yeah, man, you were a center for the Cowboys. And that's it. I don't know what else to say. We sort of on the field of football, those are mortal enemies. I mean, only Philadelphia probably would irk a New York sports fan, a Giants fan, more than the Cowboys.

You're not kidding. With— well, I grew up 20 minutes outside of Philly.

Oh, you did?

To play for the Cowboys. Yeah, so I grew up in South Jersey. And the story I always tell is, I swear to God here, my brother wouldn't wear the hat for about a month. I'm playing for him now. Like,

you

gotta, you gotta cheer for us. And pretty much everybody in my family, they said when I was done playing, they go, thank God I can cheer for the Eagles again. You know, like, it was painful for them. I have stories. Yeah, Giants are the same thing, but I have stories of my buddies coming down and They're sitting in the family section at Cowboys Stadium wearing all their Eagles stuff. And yeah, it's definitely a big rivalry.

Yeah, no doubt. Well, look, the Eagles were suffering big time until just, just last year. And maybe all that pain is a bit forgotten because that was an incredible season, incredible finish this season, utterly miraculous, really was great to see. And, you know, as a sports fan, I always think Wow. We all love a comeback. We all love when the underdog comes back, even if it's not your team. And I think that's also an important thing. I don't know that we'll digress into any conversation around politics, but there certainly seems to be that sort of team spirit in our political discourse these days. You know, different team, different colors, all that kind of thing. But I will say with honesty, I'm not saying this because I'm patting myself on the back here. When the Eagles won, I was happy for them. I mean, I would have been happier if the Giants had won that season.

Yeah.

They weren't in it and they weren't playing them in the finals either. So when they won, I was happy for them. Just like in 2004, as hard as this was for me being a Yankees fan on top of it, I watched the Yankees be up 3 games to nothing in the World Series— excuse me, in the pennant race and championship there against the Red Sox— and watched them come back and win 4 straight, have one of the greatest comebacks in baseball history, certainly. and go on to sweep the World Series, I think, against the Cardinals. And I was happy for them, happy for the Sox then. I'm not happy for them now because the Yankees are the ones that seem to be cursed these days. But in any event, I think it's important on that level to root, to root for not just for underdogs, but to root for great performance. And I don't know if that's— I'm going to turn this into a question somehow. I don't know if that was the case for you when you were in the professional game. in the arena or whether it's even the case for you now, but are you able to just kind of root for performance versus just abiding to a sort of a team that you follow and root for only? Are those 2 things mutually exclusive from the standpoint of a former NFL pro?

For me, it's more— I love when I'm watching a game and I know who's playing the game, I know who to cheer for.

Wow. The pace of change over the last couple of years has been rapid. And if you're a leader, a business owner, an entrepreneur, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Every day it's something different and something new, but the one thing that I've learned in performing at the height of all of those roles has been that we must be resilient. In fact, it's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about, and it's the reason why my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken And all you have to do to get your own free Resilient Leader Assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are. Yeah. There was a great book from years ago called The Inner Game of Tennis. It's like a 1972 or '73 book by Tim Gallwey, sold millions of copies. It's a book more about Zen than it was about sports, but he was a master teacher, coach for tennis. And one of the things I remember from that book was that he defined competition a little bit differently because I think competition is a bit of a virus in our world. And yet part of it is because The way we look at competition is that there's a winning one over the other and there's a sort of a mentality of trying to even beat the other guy. What I remember from that book that was pretty cool was the idea that competition is really about wanting the best out of the other team or the other person that you're working. So in business, there's competition. There's competition in sports clearly. And yet, if you look at competition from the standpoint of I just want the other guy to perform at his best so that when I do perform that much better, it's not because I beat that person or that person fell down on the job. It's because on that day, in that given situation, we were better. Our team was better or I was better. I always thought that was an interesting way to look at competition versus this idea, you know, you got to sort of beat the other guy into the dirt and it's this killer instinct, which is what I remember growing up as being in sports, that that was applied to the term as well. Any thoughts on the difference between sort of what competition means and in a business context, even the difference between competition and cooperation or collaboration?

Yeah. This idea speaks to me personally. I've seen it at the pro level in the NFL. And then when I was working in medical device sales, I saw it in business there. And I'm a true believer. I did this in my mind in college all the way into pros and the same way in business afterwards. I want to win because I want to win and I perform, but not because the other person failed. That was such a— where I saw, you know, you got guys making a lot of money in the NFL, and I would see their approach and it was more like against the other guy compared to just be the best you can be, you know, put your blinders on and perform at your best. And that was always a track I tried to stay on. And the same thing in business. When we were, you know, medical device sales to doctors, and it's the same thing, you know, some guys would sell against me and that was their approach. That's how they went at it. I never went at it that way. It was, you know what, this is a great product and you're reliable or trustworthy. You do all these things and you just be as great as you can be. You know, put your blinders on and don't worry about the other.

Yeah. Look down your own lane, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Because it's so interesting if you ever see some of the Olympic finishes, whether it's on the track, track and field, or it's in the swimming pool where I was a competitive swimmer in college. And, and there were people, and are, and still will be going forward, who will lose a race, an Olympic race, will lose the gold medal because they turn left or turn right in the last few meters of a race. They take their eyes off their own lane. Isn't that interesting? Yeah.

Right.

So, I think it just, it is prevalent more and more in the world that we look at other people, whether it's the individuals or it's the businesses or things, and look at them with envy. We look at them as like seeing what they're doing and we get distracted by what we think is success on their part. And I personally believe, and not just believe but know from experience, that what you see on Facebook, what you see on Instagram, what you see in any of the places that are having people sort of look left or right, distracting people away from just focusing, like you say, have their blinders on and run their own race, that they're looking at other people not just for validation, but they're also seeing those people and thinking somehow they figured it out. And then that makes them feel like crap that they haven't figured it out, A, and B, that maybe they should be doing what those other people are doing. Is that your take on it as well? And did you see some of that either in the business space and medical device sales, or even when you were in the NFL?

Yeah, to add to what you said, my head coach when I was there, he would say to us, keep it on your own mat. And, you know, it was that idea mixed with control. And this is one of the biggest ones that I loved when I played, is control what you can control. And that's something that my brother, mom, dad, and to me, anytime you're going through a tough time, is to repeat those words, control what you can control, and that's all you can do, you know, because you can't think about what happened, you can't think about what might happen. Kind of be in the present and just do what you can do now.

And your position on the football field, for people that didn't either hear when I introduced you or don't maybe even know what that position is, was center, right?

Correct.

So tell us what it means, that concept, from a center standpoint.

Yeah, the idea of control what you can control. I had a mentor from high school, college who, you know, that's what he would say to me when things were going well, when things were going bad especially, is control what you can control. And as a center, you know, you go out there and you're making the calls for the guys to the left, guys to the right, putting everybody on the same page. So that's what you can do in that moment. You know, the quarterback has the ultimate say, but— The idea of control what you can control, I think, really hits home in hard times if you're having, say, during sports, having a bad game. It's like, all right, next play. You can't control it in the past, but control what we're going to do right now.

Yeah, exactly. Can't control the past, but you have some measure of control over the present, certainly over your own mindset in the present, right?

Certainly.

Before we turned on the record on this thing, We were actually chatting about the TED Talk, the talk that we gave a couple of months back. It just got released and it's this concept of doing this for 10 seconds can change your life. And so you watched that TED Talk and you were talking to me about the embrace piece. Would you share a little bit about your thoughts on embracing, embracing change or embracing the transition or in that case of the talk, it was embrace the pivot.

Exactly. Yeah. You know, you called it the embrace the pivot and to me that was really interesting And it jumped out to me right away because we would say, with the Cowboys, in the NFL, especially during camp, is embrace the grind. Embrace the tough times and go with it. And that's such a key part of, I think, of enjoying— during camp, you have 2-a-day practices, and you're beat up, but if you take that mindset, I think it helps you enjoy it and understand where you're at a little more.

And do you feel like that's been applicable for you outside of training camp and that arena?

Yeah, it just made me jump to it and think about it. Really 2 times. When I was trying to learn everything for the heart surgeries, you know, how hard I had to study to be able to have a conversation with a heart surgeon who's been in school for the past 10 years, you know, just in medical school alone, pretty much. And same thing with business school and same thing with football. I always had to work harder than the next guy next to me. It wasn't all God-given ability to go play in the NFL, to get good grades. That was not God-given ability. It was just hours of studying and hours of making the right choice of studying compared to going out and going to a party. A lot of little decisions that I think add up.

Yes. You've written a book and I'd love to just ask you and we'll ask you what inspired you to write the book, The Transition Playbook.

Well, it started with the idea of the transition playbook for athletes. So we have 100 athletes in the book from college, professional, and we have 25 Olympians included in there. And we asked them all the same 10 questions. So we asked them these questions and their advice is what makes up the book. So the original idea and where that came from was I struggled with the transition, you know, as I shared before. And what happened was When I struggled, I said, okay, you know, came out the other end. And at that point looked at what are the resources out there? What could have made it easier for me that I can hopefully pass on to the next person? So I bought probably 12, 15 books specifically on this topic. And after reading all of them, I feel like we found a niche in the market and something that was missing, which was, you know, the 2 types of books, 2 types of categories for these books that were for athletes were One was written by a sports psychologist who had great advice, but they used words that you'd have to look up in a dictionary. They didn't speak to the athlete. So that was the first category. The second category, a lot of great athletes who have successfully transitioned have written this book. The one issue and the one, I guess, little knock I had on that was, well, I'm interested in the topic and I found the best advice on page 112. Where it's great advice, but it's surrounded by, you know, 200 pages of biography. So what we try to do is mix both worlds. We do have sports psychologists in our book, but what we try to do is just say, hey, here's the meat. If you're struggling, you don't want to go searching. Here's hopefully one of the answers from one of the athletes that you grabbed onto, but it's advice from a lot of people and it's the meat of it. I'm

going to ask you kind of a challenging— I think it's a challenging question, which is, do you feel like this book also has a wider applicability beyond someone who's— because maybe there's somebody listening to this going, I would love to get this book, read this book, but I'm not an Olympic athlete. I'm not a professional. I'm not a college athlete. Is this book for me or does it offer something for me?

Yeah. And during the process, we had military individuals ask us about it. We had people who were retiring. You know, there's so many life transitions.

Yes.

And I would say to them, yes, this book, the one thing that I think they will be able to grab onto is the routine parts. You know, what are these elite people doing? And they share some of their insight, their day-to-day life, what they're doing. But with any transition, what we think is kind of unique and special in the book is, you know, we kept it simple. We kept it simple for a reason, and we specifically asked our athletes to Just be direct. We're not using big words. We don't want you to have to, you know, go get a dictionary. It's direct, simple, and here's the meat of what hopefully will help you transition.

Like you said, transition is happening for people in all different demographic groups. Millennials, you think I'd start with like sort of baby boomers or people who are at retirement age, and there's a ton of those folks that are out there. I think 10,000 a day, there's 10,000 baby boomers per day retiring. And by retiring, they're not really retiring. There's a huge percentage of those folks who are just moving on to a different thing in their life. They're creating something, maybe there's something they always wanted to create. And a lot of those folks can't really afford in financial terms to retire, so they're moving on to something. But these younger, you know, see the other end of the spectrum are the younger millennial group in their 20s and early 30s who are Transitioning out of a job every 18 months on average right now. So the turnover and the transitions are faster and faster, and it's a big group of people that are not satisfied in their current position, their current job, or the business that they're devoting so much of their time to. So I think it's a very important topic, and I know we addressed it in a particular way in the book Pivot, and I'm very much looking forward to reading The Transition Playbook and, you know, was an athlete long ago, consider myself still somebody who's athletic. But yeah, it'll be relevant for me in business. It'll be relevant for me to just get some insights from these folks. And that's, you know, it's terrific. My next-door neighbor until just, I think, maybe a year or so ago was Marshall Faulk, who had a—

No kidding.

You know, Hall of Fame career and all that kind of thing, and moved on from that into a different world, a completely different business world. sports-related, but something entirely different. So yeah, transition's key. Phil, it was probably the case that when you were in that athletic world every day that you had certain rituals, physical rituals. Do you have rituals right now that you've maintained, whether they're physical, they're mental, emotional, spiritual even, that you would say really help you to be at your best? And maybe pick one of those and share that. Our community, they love to hear those things.

I think the one ritual, and for me, you know, I love the idea of multitasking. So the idea of multitasking with a ritual is this: one of my personal goals, not a professional one but a personal one, is to be able to learn Spanish. So, you know, they say the best way to learn a language is to do something you enjoy doing while you're learning the language. So every morning, one of my rituals is I do yoga now, which was a From being 320 pounds back in the NFL to you know probably about 240 now. Never thought I'd be saying that, but yoga is my ritual. But I multitask and combine that with I do yoga in Spanish. So you're getting the workout, getting the language. It's a ritual as well. So it's hitting a lot of check marks for me.

Wow! Well, I'm massive fan of yoga these days myself. I gotta remind myself there's other things to do too because I. I surf, I love to walk. What kind

of

yoga do

you do?

Well, I was doing hot yoga. These days we're doing it more of a vinyasa flow that's not in a room that's 105 degrees. My wife doesn't so much like the whole getting so sweaty thing, and I love it. And what I really love about it is it is a place for me to really learn presence, to be more present, to shut my mind down without having to Meditation is important. I'm a crummy meditator. I think you probably remember that from the TED Talk. I'm a really crappy meditator, but I love to pray, and yoga gives me access. So I'll put it in your paradigm. I guess my multitasking when I'm in yoga is that it is a prayerful place for me. So I'm praying at the same time that I'm following this moving meditation called yoga that's being guided by some other beautiful divine soul. And for people that don't know yoga, have never done it, or maybe have heard things about it, it can be spiritual if that's what you bring to it, but it is certainly not religious. There's no sort of indoctrination. There's nothing going on in that space that might interfere with your own spiritual beliefs. And it is ridiculously good on the body, right? I really hope you're enjoying this episode. of the Change Proof podcast. If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy of Change Proof, it's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going to changeproof.com and not only getting the book and all the bonuses there, but getting access to our proprietary resilience assessment tool. It'll just take you 3 minutes to do, and it's something that will really help you to utilize the book even more effectively to create practices and rituals and habits that will increase your mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience for the long term. Again, go to changeproof.com to get your copy today.

That's a good way to put it. I like that. Spiritually, not religious. But I have friends who, you know, my buddies who played, and especially with injuries, I swear, you know, I had a fracture in my back. I started doing yoga, and I mean, worlds, worlds apart. You know, I can make it through a night sleeping now. But I have buddies who would say to me, and they still do, is like, oh, you do yoga? Like, nah, like, I actually like to work out. And when they say that to me, I just laugh. I'm like, dude, Come do a yoga class with me. You'll be crawling out of there. I do the same thing. And for you, Adam, same thing with— when you make it over to Madrid for a speaking event or anything, let me know. And there is a tough, tough yoga class there that's hot yoga

in

Spanish. So it's gonna be cool. I think you'd enjoy it.

Oh, brother. That's date. We got that worked out. Awesome. Hey, listen, what a blast, Phil. Thank you so much for making the time. I know it's many hours ahead in Madrid, and I appreciate you taking time out of your day and offering up what I believe is just sage, sage advice to our community. People, get out there to support and learn really from, I think, 100— did you say there are 100 athletes were interviewed for the book?

Yes. Yeah, we have just over 100 athletes in the book. Yep.

Wow. Incredible. So you don't have to be a sports fan. to get great knowledge from it. But if you are, I'm sure you're going to really love it. The Transition Playbook, in our show notes, there'll be information about that where you can access it. But there are presales, you can get it on presale now. And certainly that's really cool too, because I know that the presales are all going to support a foundation, a charity that Phil is supporting with the sales, the presales of the book. So fantastic stuff. I will sign off as I always do in the same way, because we start with gratitude. I think it's a wonderful way to bookend this show, to begin in that space of being grateful. And I started by feeling peace and being grateful for the peace I was feeling and excitement at the same time. And, and now I know why, because this was just a great conversation. I feel like I've learned a lot and I'm grateful for that. Phil, I'm going to ask you this question. It's kind of a cheeky question, but did you wake up today?

I hope so.

I think there's a lot of people out there not so sure how to answer that because I ask it quite a bit and when I'm doing corporate talks, I've been on the road quite a bit in Singapore 2 weeks ago and then in various places around the country. I always ask our audiences that, did you wake up today? And it gets a chuckle because there are people who are kind of the walking dead out there. I saw it in New York when I was a lawyer and I used to walk the streets of that city day after day and just couldn't meet—

Right.

You know, saw a lot of deadness in the eyes of people walking. So waking up is a big deal, metaphorically speaking. Bring your awareness and your consciousness up. So I'm glad you woke up. Me too. I feel the same way. And it's a process. We're still waking up. But here's my prayer and my hope is that we all get to wake up again tomorrow. Because it's a fact that as we do wake up in the morning to start a new day and take that first breath, that first aware breath of the day, there are people who are taking their very last breath. in that same moment, that very same moment. So if nothing else that you can think of then to be grateful for, realize that that's a special moment. That's a sacred and a holy moment. There are people who would love to have that moment and won't. So it's sort of 3 steps to just begin the day, and this is a ritual for waking. Be grateful. Yeah. And see if you're inclined to say these words, to take 10 seconds to put your feet on the floor and Feel that gratitude and that appreciation for yourself, and say out loud these words: I love my life. I love my life. Phil, what are the words?

I love my life.

Yes, brother. Thank you so much for being on the show. It's been a pleasure.

It's been a pleasure to be here. Appreciate it, Adam.

Awesome. Take care and ciao for now, everybody.

Thanks for listening, everyone. We hope you now have the tools and greater insights to navigate your own pivot. Help us inspire others by sharing this episode and leaving your comments over at adammarkel.com/podcasts. For more tips, strategies, and support as you consciously pivot into a new business and lifestyle you love, join our Pivot Community on Facebook at pivotfb.com.