#164: Getting Into The Breath: How Mental Performance Works With Grant Parr

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 am taking a breath in this moment and feeling how blessed it is to be able to just sit for a second in peace and quiet before we move forward. It's such an interesting thing. There's so much going on in our world right now, and a lot of it is super concerning, to say the least, and a great deal of uncertainty. And in the midst of all that, we still have this profound opportunity in any moment, in every moment that we choose, to create peace, to create a space, to just be still for even a second. And feel what that feels like. And it's hardly been my experience that when I do turn my attention in that direction and I take a conscious breath, a moment to be peaceful, that it doesn't create a sort of a mini transformation. It's a big term, big word, but it always seems to produce that for me. It's kind of a miracle. And I feel more today than even yesterday that the peace inside of us Is so vital to how we navigate all of the discomfort and the uncertainty and the disruption and any other things that we might say are a part and parcel of what's happening in the world right now, as well as this very important chance to gain clarity, to actually come away with something that feels like truth. And we may not have had that opportunity but for the fact that there has been such a shaking up of the norm and of the status quo. So that's what's on my mind as I start. And when it comes to things on the mind, I've got a great guest to talk about what's on the mind because Grant Parr is a highly regarded mental performance coach. He's a keynote speaker like myself. He's a podcast host, former Division II quarterback, author whose clients are Olympians, Olympic coaches, professional athletes, collegiate athletes and teams, business executives, Fortune 500 and 1,000 sales organizations. Grant recently released his first book. The Next One Up Mindset: How to Prepare for the Unknown. Pretty good title for the times for sure, which is becoming a highly regarded must-read within the athletic and workplace domains. Grant has taken his unique experiences as an athlete, coach, sales leader to create the 90% Mental Podcast that provides a window into a broad range of athletes and coaches' mental game and where they share their insights into the journeys around mental performance. I am fascinated with this topic. Grant, I'm so happy to have you on the show today because mental performance is really, I think, going to be one of those unsung heroes in this time that we're living in and through. So Grant, thanks for being on the show. Appreciate you being here.

Thank you, Adam. And I want to thank you because that introduction, even though that before the show I have my routine ritual, what I do before I speak with people and get on podcasts, but it's all about getting your breath. So when you were going through that introduction, it just allowed me just to remind myself to get into my breath and be like right here, right now, and be very present. So I thank you for that introduction because it got me centered. So I'm really excited for our interview today for sure.

Yeah, way cool. There's a— I saw that this morning, I think ESPN announced they're going to be moving up the timeline on a docuseries they created about Jordan, about Michael Jordan, not Michael B. Jordan, by the way, for the folks that may not be old enough to remember the The only Michael Jordan. Yeah, the greatest basketball player that has ever played the game, in my humble opinion. But regardless, a great player who played on 5 or 6 championship teams. You probably know better than me, Grant, how many the Bulls won.

Oh yeah.

And their coach, Phil Jackson, and this is my only connection really to the Bulls other than the fact that just like so many of us, we watched in awe, just mouth-dropping awe. It was kind of like, what can they pull off? And this is kind of in the '90s, right? That's their heyday. Yeah,

for sure.

And what could they pull off? What could he pull off? What could that team pull off? And Phil Jackson is the coach of that team. He was a former New York Knick. I'm from New York, and it's painful to even admit that I'm a New York Knicks fan. I mean, it's just like, it's so brutal. There's no words anymore for us Knicks fans to describe it. Like Spike Lee, he could create miracles. I mean, the man finally found a way to win an Oscar, but he can't somehow will the Knicks to produce a winning team. It's just brutal.

Right.

But Phil Jackson was a Knick and he became their coach. And one of the things I think that Phil Jackson, like a John Wooden and some of the other great coaches in history have been known for, is the work of the head, of getting the players in the right mindset. So it's kind of a general question just to start, Grant, but I'd love to get a sense of why why this work has been so important to you and give us some of your background and anything you want to riff on regarding just that space of the mindset importance when it comes to coaching and leading people and teams.

You know, for me, the reason the importance for this work and why it resonates and connects with me is that I had to deal with a lot of shit for a long time after I left the game of football. So I played football for 13 years. I was a quarterback and I had a career-ending injury. So I didn't have a chance to make the decision to leave the sport I love. It was forced on me. And so I actually was frustrated and I was pissed off and I didn't deal with those emotions. And what had happened as I— my injury, which was to my left hip, had a compressed fracture. Over time, it just started getting worse and worse and worse. And I started to walk funny and then my spine was getting affected. And then my emotions and my psyche and my confidence, my ego, All that being crushed and it led me into depression, identity crisis. If you wanted to talk about the touchdowns that I threw, the records that I broke, I didn't want it. I removed myself from it because I was so upset about that game. I didn't even like it anymore and I couldn't tell you like in my 30s, I'm 46 now, I couldn't tell you that I was an athlete because I'm like, I'm not an athlete. Now that I redesigned myself and reignited my warrior in me, I'm an athlete. I love being an athlete. I love being a lot of things right now. But it was going through all of that and having 2 hip replacements on the same hip before I was 40.

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And one of them leaving me handicapped for about 4 years. So I— all that adversity allowed me to get to this point to really understand this work, because it wasn't until my going into my second surgery Where I did the work. I mean, I literally got in, I had breathwork, intentional work, gratitude work, meditation, all this stuff I started to implement within my life. And as I got my life back after my second surgery, that was at the point where I'm like, I need to reignite who I am. I get to create a new Grant and I get to, and that's a huge word or a statement, I get to. And I spent 2 decades going, I wish I used to be the old Grant. I wish I was the old Grant. And I had lived in that paradigm for a long time. So when I started the work, I saw what it did to me and I started to get a new view of what I wanted. That was what kind of sparked me to go towards sports psychology and mental performance. So that's how it got me to this point. So when I came out of my second surgery, I started to realize that all the work that I was doing Mentally, spiritually, emotionally, that was getting me prepared for the rest of my life. It just it energized me and made me realize I was in a position to get to, and I get to do to redesign and reactivate who I am. And and I spent a lot of years trying to be the the old Grant. So now I got to be a new Grant, and more powerful and more present and purposeful. And and so when I got to this point of of really embracing mental skills and mental performance, I literally I started to go back to my professional. life as a salesperson, as a sales leader, and started to look at all the things, man, like if I can go back, I don't live in regret, but if I can go back and do things differently and teach people how to do things differently with their day and with their emotions and their mindset, man, I was all for it. So when I answer your question of like why I got to this and how I got to this, basically it's based off a lot of my adversities that I had to deal with. And I don't regret them. I love that I went through all that. As much as it was pretty shitty to go through all that, I'm in service now and I love what I do and I found my passion.

Yeah. So let's talk about mental performance because clearly in the time that we're living in, probably the worst enemy that anybody, any of us can have exists right between our ears. So what can we say about how it is that our minds will either be a good friend to us, maybe a great friend to us in these times, or Where they could in fact be the worst enemy that we've got? And in answering that, maybe just draw on your experience as an athlete and in working with Olympians and the folks that you work with are top, top performers. So I mean, they just don't get to have a mental bad day, right? Somebody's on the, you know, up for the Olympics. They get this one shot to make the team. They get one, maybe one or two or three shots to win a medal. There's just not a lot of margin for error to just sort of have a mental bad hair day, right?

You know, I think what's really important for athletes, for performers, anybody that wants to control all that traffic between your two ears, right? We're gonna have a bad day. It's gonna happen. The main thing is that we're trying to make sure that we're doing the right things during practice and outside of practice that we have the most control of ourselves when we are competing or when we have to perform. So for me as a mental performance coach, what I think is really important, if you really want to control that, the activity and the inner dialogue between your two ears, is two things. Is work on that relationship with your breath. If you want to be present, if you want to be in the here and now and be where your feet are, you have to actually have a relationship with your breath. And also, we're going to have a lot of thoughts. We're going to have a lot of positive thoughts. We're going to have a lot of negative thoughts. So we as performers, we have to learn how to not listen to our thoughts, but to talk to them. We got to get ourselves back into power, back into control. We have to build self-awareness with our breath that when these negative thoughts, negative emotions do arise, we actually talk to them and we stay in power. And the way, the way that I say it is, it's called champion talk. Yeah, I think it's just really important for, for performers and athletes to, to really to have that relationship with their breath and also their self-talk, the way that they actually connect with owning themselves in the moment and When you think about performing, the whole goal— nobody wants to fail, right? It's all about succeeding. But we all— what we're trying to do is teach athletes is to have a different relationship with failures in practice, outside of practice. So when these adversities, when things do arise, when they are— when they're competing, right, they have the tools like knowing how to get into their breath, knowing how to talk to themselves, learning how to visualize. And I'm going to stress this on the show: if you want to be gritty, mentally tough, You want to be resilient, it all starts with the breath. And when you have your breath, you have your mind. And when you have your mind, you have your body. And that, that whole process happens really, really quick if you know how to get into your breath. So to answer your question, when, when an athlete is actually competing and they start to feel the wheels are coming off a little bit, or maybe their performance is not the way they want it to be, they have to literally get into their breath and And they actually have to start talking to themselves so they can actually stay focused on the right things.

It's a really powerful distinction you just made there, Grant, which is the difference between talking to your mind and listening to your mind. Because I think, would you agree that a lot of people just spend tons and tons of times listening to their minds?

Yeah, a lot.

Yeah. So what's the— give us a little bit of the difference because that to me is I'm learning as everybody else is listening to this and hopefully learning alongside of me. I'm just curious, if I, if I knew how to talk to my mind instead of listening to it, what does that do for me? How does that change the game?

What it does is it puts you back into control, puts you back into power. And typically when you start listening to thoughts, this is what I have noticed, you're either listening to something that just happened or you're listening to thoughts that's going to happen. So if you want to be great, if you want to be excellent, that— or excellent, it only happens in the now, like right now. So for me to talk to my thoughts, I need to get into my breath. That starts the whole process of me being self-aware and getting into now. I shoot, man, like in my whole life as an athlete and as a sales athlete, man, there's so many times where I've got caught into listening, like how shitty I was, or I should have done that. And you know what? That doesn't do me any good. I've lost my power. I've given it all to my thoughts that are in the past. I have no control of. So I got to get back into the now with my breath so I can start talking to it, meaning getting back into affirmations. I am statements. I can statements. I will, right? And anytime you use the word or the statement of I am, I mean, that is besides saying your name. That is the most That's confirming your most present authentic self in this world is saying that I am anything. I am a champion. I am a winner. I'm a husband. I'm a best friend. You're confirming who you are in that moment.

It's interesting because John Kehoe, I remember hearing this from him years and years ago. He's an author and a thought leader and a human potential expert, I would call him. He talks about the mind as something that we can't trust necessarily. Our mind is not necessarily our best friends. And he even called the mind a trickster. I think it's really important in this discussion when people are saying, so you're telling me I shouldn't listen to my mind? I thought self-awareness or mindfulness might actually be about listening. And I'm not saying based on what you're saying that it's not, that we don't have the opportunity to listen or that there isn't a value in listening. What I am thinking about right now based on what you're saying that is making a lot of sense to me is that if our mind is something That is not necessarily our best friend at times, certainly, and that it is in fact a trickster that we can't always trust. Well, then if we're listening to the trickster, what is that doing? What is it doing for us? What is it doing to us? Versus what you're talking about, which is that to take the trickster out of the equation and to speak directly to the mind from a place of a deeper knowing or from the place that we know empowers us to be at our best. So is that— am I near to the core of what you're saying?

You are actually. And when you think about those thoughts that we tend to listen to at times, a lot of those thoughts are based off our belief systems that were formed throughout our life. And to bring it to light and not to chew up a lot of time on your show, but to give you a really authentic and vulnerable experience that my whole life I spent And I'm 46. I spent maybe almost 35 years in my life thinking that I wasn't smart enough. Now, that was something that was developed that happened to me in elementary school and that I carried it through my whole life. But when you think about all the things I've done in my life, I played the hardest position of all sports, all the promotions, the money, like all these monetary things, but really cool things. I wrote a book, got my master's, like all this stuff. Well, how stupid was I? And so when you think about these thoughts that come up, you know how many times in my life where I'm having an articulate or a sophisticated conversation, or I'm in an interview, or I'm talking to someone where I hear that, man, you're stupid, you're not smart enough, you haven't earned the right to be at this table, all because of that belief system that I've allowed myself to hear that narrative for so long. So I got to a point, and I've done a lot of work, to work on that narrative. And now when it comes up, I'm like, no, I talk to it. What are you talking about? I'm not stupid. I'm gonna light this thing up. I'm here. I've earned it. Like, so I've changed my energy with my language, but I have to— you have to train yourself to do that. But that's where you and I are talking about. You have to talk to it. You're going to listen to it. It's going to happen. We're human. Our minds are not built to focus on one thing. It goes all over the place. So we just have to be— we have to understand, we have to Build self-awareness with our breath and to be vulnerable in the moment to talk to it.

Yeah. I want to come back to the breath in a second. I'll just say that to remind people where you've taken us so far, Grant, which I absolutely love, is that when you have your breath, you have your mind. And when you have your mind, you have your body. And for those of you that, again, I would say want to connect the dots here, if you were an Olympic athlete, if you were a professional athlete and basically How you're judged, how you determine success or failure, how much money you earn, how many endorsements you get, just pretty much everything will depend on how your body functions, how it operates, how it performs under some of the most intense and pressured situations you can imagine. I know what that's like because I was an athlete, not at that level, and at another point in time early in my life, I was a lifeguard. I was a Jones Beach lifeguard. That was a very intense environment to perform on a daily basis at, meaning we were on a very crowded beach with a lot of people in the water in conditions that were often extremely challenging. And we made rescues all day, every day, all throughout the summer from— for— I was there 7 years. And that was life and death. So forget about the gold medal. For us, if we got a silver medal, On any one day, it meant that we lost somebody or somebody got hurt. And so silver wasn't good enough, bronze certainly not. It was gold every single day on that beach. Gold medal meant everybody walked, everybody came in, left on there, and we didn't lose anybody, et cetera. So really so important that we get how it is that we can perform in conditions that are extreme often and are difficult. Most often, it's like daily. And right now, given what's going on in our lives, in the world, in the economy, in the global economy, et cetera, this is a time when performance is going to matter. And that performance is something that we're all interested in. And so I want to bring it back to that beginning point, Grant, that you talked about regarding our breath. So I get now that our mind is this real key ingredient in terms of how our bodies will conduct Themselves. That's the right phrasing. And the mind is something that, because it is often, as you say, running on its own sort of autopilot and jumps all over the place and often is even retracing old territories. I mean, it's going back and telling old stories about the things that we may have believed about ourselves at points because of whatever. Maybe things that other people said to us like, you're not smart enough, you're unkind, or you're angry, or— Right. You should stick to something you're good at, or, you know, right, whatever it is that we've heard all along. You go, that's the mind's— the mind will repeat those things to us under various conditions and in different scenarios. You go, okay, so I don't have to listen to that. I could instead direct it. And, and that, I think, is so empowering to most people if they just knew how they could direct their mind so that their body would follow. And, and that's where I want to I want to come back to you, Grant, to ask you, what is it? What's the connection between the breath and the mind and the mind and the body? 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. 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.

I think that's where when we talk about being locked in and being fully present, I think it's not just being present, it's just with their breath. It's the whole vessel. So I think when you, when you get to that situation where when you have a relationship with your breath, When you're met with adversity, when you're met with the unknown, the unexpected, you can get right into that breath. And so you need your— you need all of it. You need your breath, you need your mind and your body to make the best decision in that moment. Whether if you're gonna use your body or not, maybe your body is more body posture, maybe it's the way you need to move the body, but that whole process needs to happen real— or it does happen very quick, and you can actually make it quicker depending on the relationship that you do have with your breath.

So when it comes to somebody that's in, let's say they're gonna go, they're a downhill skier or they're gonna go off that jump. I forget what that ramp, you know, the—

Yeah.

That insane event in the Olympics, right?

Yep.

I mean, and there's such a small margin for error in that. What are some of the things that you will work on with an Olympic athlete or a professional athlete on how it is that their breath will produce the right mindset or the kind of thoughts that would then direct their body to be able to perform at the highest levels they're capable of?

Well, there's a lot that goes to it because you want to understand what the athlete— how the athlete prepares, the history of the athlete going down that ramp, what they see, what they feel, and you really want to get to understand their process. Now, When you, when you step back from that, that whole process, the breath gets you in a position to get so present so that you can actually move forward with your routine and your process. Now again, when we, when we perform, I know there's a lot of people that want to win. They, they're results and outcome driven. Okay, I'm not about that because we can't control it. We can do things to position for those things to happen. We can't control it. So what I want to do is that if you're going to judge yourself on anything with your performance, how present are you? Judge yourself on that because you can control that. So when it comes to like techniques or processes, when it comes to maybe a downhill, a downhill skier, it's all about getting your breath. It's all about visualizing. And listen, if you want to be good at anything, if you want to be an overnight success, which usually takes about 10 years anyways, you have to get reps, mental and physical. And your brain doesn't know the difference between a physical rep and a mental rep. So you need to combine both of them. So you need to get a lot of reps, and there's various ways of doing visualization. And you also have to develop that champion talk. So those 3 things and your mantras— so those things help you to get very present, the most present you can be before you go down there. Now when you go down that ramp, all that work, right, it's going to take you to that moment where you trust and you just trust yourself and you trust your craft, you trust your breath, you trust how being present you are, and you just go do what you do. And if you get into that mindset, you can actually lock in. Then guess what happens? The most beautiful thing that happens as an athlete outside of winning a gold medal or championship, and that's getting into flow or zone. And that's what we're trying to do is we're trying to get us positioned To get totally present that if you can't get in the zone and flow, beautiful, but you can still do beautiful things with your performance without being in zone. But more often than not, when you get locked in and you get fully present, beautiful things happen like flow and zone.

So flow and zone, I know this is not an easy thing to define, but I'd love for you— I'm gonna put it to you anyway to give your definition of what that looks like. Because is that being— is that purely being present or is it Presence plus.

It's great. That's— I like that. It is, to me, it's present plus. It's actually, to me, it's trust. You've done the right things or enough things for you to trust yourself. Now, for me, flow and zone are interchangeable. They're words that we use a lot in performance, but also you can be in a flow state of just walking down the street, right? You can be locked in and be flowy, but I'm talking about when we're performing I think it's, it's being present plus. So you're— it's a— it's about trust. It's really hard for you to experience these things that happen in zone, like things that are happening really fast, but you don't know what the hell is going on, but everything's going right. Or things are super bright and clear and crisp. You don't know why, but you're doing everything right. Or everything is really dark and dim. You can't hear anything, but guess what? You're doing everything right. That's because your body is trusting itself. It's trusting all that work, all the physical and mental reps that you put into your craft.

Yeah, it makes sense. And maybe the plus is the trust. You know, I'm just kind of hacking it with you now, but for sure, right? Because if you're present plus, what's the plus? If you trust, I mean, if you could, because you could trust yourself, but still your monkey mind takes you out of the present moment. And then even somebody who trusts themselves can make a mistake, right? I mean, we've seen the greatest athletes You know, have bad days. How does that happen? Well, because perhaps they just weren't— they weren't there right then. They weren't in their body. They weren't present in that moment and they missed the shot or they— 1 millimeter change in direction and they missed the Olympic gold or something. So this idea of those 2 things working together, I think is a really tactical, tangible takeaway for people right now to go, all right, so I'm in the middle of this thing. We're all in the middle of this thing that we don't know when it's going to end. Right. And what post-virus looks like, or the bigger world around me that I'm a part of, all of that. You just don't know. So what can I do right now in this moment to truly be in my best state, which I would call the flow state, being in the zone, whether you're an athlete or not, you know what it feels like, as you said, to walk down the street the way— do you remember that movie? I mean, I know you're 46, so you remember Saturday Night Saturday Night Live, right?

Oh yeah.

All right, John Travolta. And, and people right now, if they know that movie, they're smiling because, I mean, to see John Travolta in, in his '70s getup—

Oh yeah.

Walking down the street with the Bee Gees music, right? And it's like, staying alive, staying alive. It was like the dude was— I mean, that's the definition of flow, right? I mean,

he's in it. He's in.

He was locked in. He was so present in that moment. And man, oh man, did he trust himself, especially out on the dance floor. So you go, being where we're at right now, I can't really think of anything that's more beneficial to all of us than to be in our best state, that flow state. And that really does mean being present and also being able to trust, trust yourself and trust around in the universe, so to speak, that everything is happening as it's— as will be in our highest interest. So the starting point for that for you is to be able to breathe. And I don't mean just breathe the way we all breathe, kind of unconsciously, but somehow or another to get those conscious breaths in. Like, those are the reps almost, right?

Yeah.

Am I getting that?

Yeah, man. You just jumped in my lane, man. We're riding this, this car together for sure.

Beautiful. Yeah.

Yeah. And I like to add to that too, because when we talk about like, especially this time right now that we're living in, And I want to give your listeners— it's one thing to say like, hey, get into your breath and talk to yourself, but like, how do you do that? And some of the frameworks that I've— that I work with and created, when we talk about creating the mind and body connection so we can actually be more present, I do have a strategy that's called MVP. And so who doesn't want to be their most valuable player, right? So it's meditation, visualization, and powerful self-talk. And so what you do is you work your energy down throughout your body or up through your body, and you get into a meditative state, and you start visualizing whatever that thing is or what you want to do or that goal. You start visualizing it, and then, then you start putting in that talk. You start— that's how you start teaching yourself how to talk to yourself when you're in that meditative state. And then you work your energy back throughout your body, and you come out, come out of it. And that takes about 3 minutes to 5 minutes. Could be, it could be longer, it could be shorter. But that's one way. And another way, in the moment when you start to feel a little bit the wheels are coming off the car a little bit, or you're feeling a little nervous or scared or fearful, then you do a BVT. Get into your breath, you visualize real quick, and you talk to yourself. You talk yourself back into the direction where you want to go in a positive way. So MVP and BVT are some strategies that, that people can use. And I would also say right now in this time, I know this is a crisis. But I always say where there's a crisis, there's an opportunity. And how do we see that opportunity? We got to get present. We get— we got to get into our breath. And right now I see this as an opportunity and I'm seizing it right now. I feel great on the things that I'm doing. My business has stopped for the most part, but I'm keeping on going and I'm being creative in this moment.

So let's go over the MVP and BBT for people again, just so they can get it one more time. So MVP

Meditation.

There you go.

Visualization and powerful self-talk.

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 Go to changeproof.com to get your copy today. Beautiful. So those are those I am statements that you were referring to earlier.

Yeah.

Beautiful. Okay. And then the— then let's say again, you get hit with that sudden rush of anxiety, your, your body temperature rises, you start to get a cold sweat because you're thinking about the money or something. Or some other thing, that's sort of a crisis, you know, there's an intervention required right there. Yeah. So how do we intervene on our own behalf then? It's BBT.

BBT, and it's more of a refocusing strategy or tool. And going back to your initial image of going down that hill as a downhill skier, like right before you do something like that, you take a deep breath, get into where your feet are, get fully present, See what you're going to do real quick. Say that one word, that one statement, and boom, go trust yourself. It's no different from going to go talk in front of tons of people. You're going to get nervous. You're going to be human. That's okay. Right? But get into your breath, visualize how you're going to be talking, how you're going to move on stage, and then say that statement, say that mantra. And it's something that, as a mental performance coach, I'm my work. I am my work. I do this stuff all the time. And to be honest with you, before I get on this podcast and before I get on to any other podcast or any team or company that I talk to, I always say these 3 things: I get to do this, they want to hear me, and tap into your joy. And so I said those 3 things before I was speaking to you today. So it's just getting into that, that present moment. And when I can get into those 3 things, for me at least, I can see an opportunity. I've allowed myself to be comfortable and open and joyous. I mean, that's my favorite emotion.

So yeah, indeed. As we wrap things up here, Grant, I've so enjoyed this conversation. Clearly, resilience is a key ingredient right now in how the world doesn't just recover from what's happening but can thrive. Because I agree with you 100%, it's the ability to see and to seize opportunities right now and in the near term when there's this chaos And I'm not talking about, by the way, taking advantage. I just want to make this clear to everybody listening. This is not about somehow figuring out how to take advantage of the chaos and the— what I would say is a moment in our markets, a moment in the business context where things are inefficient. I'm not saying take advantage, but I am saying there are opportunities as a result of that inefficiency or the things that are kind of upside down at the moment that we will look back on and say, geez, I wish I had been more proactive then. I wish I had been building my business instead of trying to protect or defend or to be paralyzed, honestly, just doing nothing or being in fear. So this is really an opportunity for more inspired action at the moment. And so I think what you're sharing with us is so, so important for that. I want to understand, what do you do on a ritual basis each day? So that you create— you're working on creating the resilience for yourself in the midst of all this. What is one of those things, one of those rituals look like for you each day?

It's really quick. It's— there's a few things that I do. The first thing that I do actually is I light a candle because I'm all about energy. And I understand that I've spent, you know, your whole podcast talking about breath because that is the basis of mental performance training or mental skills training and mindfulness training. What fuels all that? It's our energy. And so the candle for me and the light is, it's a representation or a symbol of lighting my fire and lighting my— and that's because that's why I'm here is to share my energy. My energy is my offering. So I light my candle, I do gratitude work, and then I put in some music on depending on my mood in the morning. And that's when I start doing my intentional breathing. And then after that, depending, I'll end up walking my dogs or I'll come back After my dogs and do some meditation, and then then I'm off to work. Then I do my thing. But that that's kind of my morning ritual.

Hmm. That's beautiful. I so love that, Grant. Thank you for sharing that again. I've got a visual already of what that candle is representing, and even thinking, yeah, you know what? Where's my candle, man? I'm gonna light my fire. Like you know, like the Doors, the Doors song. Light my fire, light my fire, light my fire. Exactly, exactly. Light, light, light. Yeah. So all of you don't judge me. Okay. So don't judge my musical selection there and just sing it for yourself. And hopefully you got a better voice than I do. I've so enjoyed the conversation, Grant, and I know our folks have. I'd love to, first of all, recommend that finding out more about Grant Parr is easy. Just check out the show notes because that's where we'll have access to information about Grant and his work, his book, and website, all that kind of thing. So do check that out. Do please leave a review. Let us know what you think. Go to adammarkel.com/podcast to leave a comment. We respond to those. We're happy to receive them. You can even email us at team@adammarkel.com. You can join us through all the social channels, @AdamMarkel on Instagram, Facebook, et cetera. All of us navigating this uncharted territory together. So we are all explorers. We are all pioneers. And And the best thing I believe that we can do in going forward in this exploration is to remember and be mindful of what Grant has shared with us today. And that is to, to check in with our breath, because our breath— when we have our breath, we will have our mind. When we have our mind, we will have our bodies. And that's a pretty integrative approach to getting in the flow and getting in that zone. This idea of presence plus presence plus self-trust and trust as well in the universe. As we say goodbye, I'll just remind us all of the waking ritual that I've practiced for more than 10 years now, and that is simply to first wake up. So I hope everybody is keen to do that tomorrow, to wake up and to then cultivate a feeling of gratitude. And that's not just something you do in a sort of a gratuitous way. It's possible to do that, of course, but you could also focus on the fact that as you're waking up and being given the gift of a brand new day, that there are also people that would love to get that gift and didn't that day. So there's something truly important and sacred about that moment. And lastly, to plus what Grant shared with us, what's the kind of a statement that you could say out loud? To set the course of the day, to set the trajectory, set the coordinates for what your day is going to be like. I have a statement that I make, and it is very much a power statement. It's very much an intention and something that I want to manifest in the day. And it is also recognizing that our words have great power and great meaning in terms of setting the course and also giving us a sense of our own identity. You know, when the winds of change are blowing so greatly, you know, sometimes even, even those roots can get kind of dragged up at times. So the 4 words I say after waking and feeling grateful for the— for that blessing, I say, I love my life. I love my life. I love my life. What will your words be? What statement do you want to make to grace a brand new day? That's your choice. We'd love to hear from you, find out what some of those statements are. And again, Grant, thank you so much for being a guest on the show, brother. Appreciate your time, appreciate your energy and everything that you shared with us today.

Absolutely, man. This was awesome and I really appreciate it. And it's been a great time to talk to you for sure.

Okay then. Ciao, everybody. We'll

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