#200: Fair Game: The Leveling Of The Business Playing Field With Beri Meric

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 really feeling the synchronicities this morning. It's interesting, I didn't know the origin of that word synchronicity, and I was reading a book that a buddy of mine just came out with called An End to Upside-Down Living, which was a companion book to his first, which was called An End to Upside-Down Thinking. And his name is Mark Gober if you want to check that book out. But I was in the book and it was talking about synchronicity and I didn't know that Carl Jung was the creator of that concept or the one that first articulated it. But I've been experiencing that more and more and I think that's one of those things that in my life, when I look for things, I tend to find them. I don't know if you guys can relate to that much, but I think there's some truth in that. We often find what we look for. And so, calls into question what are we looking for, I guess. This morning, I was looking for great conversation and someone else that had a really enthusiastic energy when it came to dealing with a lot of the challenges that we're facing in our world this morning. I was so lucky to wake up and start cooking with my wife. She had been cooking for a while, so I was just assisting her getting ready for the holidays and good cup of coffee. And then a buddy walked in the door. Hi. we know we're gonna see in a couple of days, a family member and a friend both, and would be here for Thanksgiving with us. But I got to chat with him this morning, and as it turns out, this is the interesting synchronicity here, not only did he show up and we start talking about something that's been on both of our hearts separately without speaking about it, but he, some months ago, had introduced me to this guy that I found sort of instant kinship with, somebody that I really respected, love the work he's doing in the world. I was fortunate enough to be a guest on one of his platforms to present information and some strategy around the topic of resilience. And interestingly enough, I invited him. We wanted to have him on our show and share his wisdom with our community. And the guy who introduced me to him walked in the door this morning only to find out that today's the day that I have that gentleman on the show. His name is Barry Merrick. So I'll say a little bit about Barry other than just the fact that It is absolutely synchronistic that we are speaking today and enjoy, and I'm taking a great deal of pleasure in this moment, just experiencing it and really feeling how connected our world is. And it only takes me noticing it really, I think. So I did that this morning. But Barry Merrick is the CEO and co-founder of an organization called Ivy. That's the organization I was referring to earlier. And Ivy does some really amazing things. I actually want Barry to share more about the work that they do, but they are a very expansive— platform, more than just a network of like-hearted, like-minded business people organized, folks that are entrepreneurs and running organizations. He's been actually at the helm of that institution for 7 years plus. They're now, I understand, in more than 50 countries. Barry has an interesting sort of background. I think— I know you lived in Scotland for a while. I can't recall where you lived before that, but you were born in— Turkey, and then Scotland, and then to the United States. Studied at Brown, went to Harvard Business School. So, you know, a guy who's intellectually challenged, but I always want to have people like that on the show just to sort of round things out. Barry, it's great to have you, brother. And I should say also, he's got a great barber. So if you're watching this on YouTube, you get to see what I mean. But Barry's got the right haircut for the show. Barry, welcome to the podcast.

So good to be here, Adam. How are you doing today?

Good. I feel like The Conscious Pivot is perfect for where we are in the world right now. You know, I said a little bit about your background at the outset, but what's something that I didn't say? One thing in particular that I didn't say that you'd love for people to just know about you at the, at the start?

Well, I absolutely love people. I love life, and I love bringing people together specifically through learning. That's maybe an addition to the bio that you shared.

Yeah, loving life, even being in love with life, I think is a really— it's a tangible tool right now to develop strength through difficult times. We have a book, I mean, it's a little self-serving, I suppose, but we have a book that's in pre-order right now called the I Love My Life Challenge that's gonna launch officially in stores and things like that beginning in January. But to what extent, you know, Barry, has loving life either been easy for you or been a challenge for you?

Well, many of us, all of us, life hasn't always been easy, but there's also never been a moment where I wasn't in complete awe of, you know, just being alive, how amazing people are, like the ones I know, but also humanity in general. And just the fact that like there's so many, like it's so miraculous, all of it, if you just reflect on everything about life. So loving life, has been a constant. And also, it's also given me a pretty— I've always felt very, very grateful to have it. So what that has meant is that I've also always felt like a great deal of responsibility to make the most out of it, to, you know, make the biggest possible positive impact that I can with all the incredible opportunities that I've been given, many of which I didn't, you know, work towards earning. Like, I was born with it. I was given it by loved ones and family and the schools I got to go to. So yeah, even I think in the darkest days, I've been— I found it relatively easy to love life because I'm just like in awe of it.

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 And 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. And can you love life even when they're drilling on the roof above you in Europe?

Especially, especially. Means I have a roof. I also listen to music pretty much the whole time I'm working, so I only hear it In conversation, so apologies to all the listeners.

Oh no, no, no. I just— look, hassles and inconveniences are constantly around. To some extent, anybody that might think that loving life, whatever that means to a person, that you're free of the hassles and inconveniences of life, at least that's not my experience. I'm a great lover of life, but it doesn't mean that I'm not annoyed or get taken out momentarily or maybe even more than momentarily. Here and there when there's a hassle or an inconvenience. So yeah, I mean, we were just laughing before we started the show. You know, we have a choice, right? When the universe decides to have guys with jackhammers on the roof above making noise while we want to, like, we're so important, we're filming a podcast. I mean, this is the Conscious Pivot podcast. How dare they? It's absurd on some level and absolutely didn't require from my standpoint that we adjourn a great conversation because of— Absolutely.

I'll talk extra loud.

But it's sort of, you know, there's a metaphor there too. Where's the extraneous noise happening around a lot of business people today? You know, you work with business people. You're constantly in the mix in connection with the work that Ivy does. So maybe give us a little background on what Ivy actually does, is in the world, and then let's track back to that question of what is the noise in the space right now for people that are, you know, in startup mode or even in, you know, some more mature business models?

All right. Well, in the spirit of stepping out of my comfort zone, I'm going to run with the metaphor of noise that you just crystallized there and maybe share what Ivy is from that perspective, which I haven't done before. So here we go, freestyle. I would say that all of us, when we're young, it's so obvious and natural, right? Like, We're constantly learning, like when we're young, from our parents, our classmates, and so forth. And throughout that experience, that act of learning, we're also bonding with each other, right? We're getting to be there for each other and also being able to receive better support from each other. And this is like the most natural, basic thing when we're young. For me, what inspired me with Ivy was when I moved from Turkey to Scotland, I was 11 years old. And I didn't speak the language. I was the only foreigner in my school when I moved, and I had to be basically a complete outsider for like first couple years that I was there because I wasn't just a foreign kid, I was a foreign kid who couldn't even speak and a total, total stranger. And that was really difficult for me because in Turkey I was like the most extroverted, well-adjusted type kid. tons of friends, life was good, and everything was well. So that was a hugely kind of a definition of a crucible moment. It was super tough. I really didn't like it, but it made me who I am in the sense that it forced me to ask, like, what does it mean to belong, to have community? What brings people together? What's the purpose of humanity? All these questions that I probably wouldn't have been asking at age 11 if, you know, everything was— standard operating procedure. I was like shocked into that kind of reflecting, but I did eventually adapt. And by the time I left Scotland 7 years later, I had fully adapted to the point where no one in Scotland could tell that I wasn't Scottish to begin with. From there, I came to the US for college, and moving from Scotland to the US was the exact opposite of my experience going from Turkey to Scotland. American collegiate environment, the warmest, most welcoming, most fun, just everything was like the opposite. It was so easy to adapt because everyone was there to learn and grow together. Everybody was dreaming about the future. We were all learning from leading minds, and we were having the time of our lives when we weren't learning. So that planted the seeds for, you know, a lot of essence of what Ivy eventually ended up being. After my undergrad, I moved to London. I worked in finance, and, you know, London's a place with millions of amazing people, thousands of amazing stuff going on. But I found that I would— it was the opposite of a collegiate environment because I was working nonstop. I could barely meet anyone outside of work, and all the learning was focused on just one very particular field. I then went back to business school, and that's where I got the idea for Ivy. So as an adult coming back to school again, having lived in the real world and come back, I really thought, okay, this collegiate environment where everyone's a classmate, where everyone you meet is a potential lifelong friend, potential business partner, a thought partner. I thought something is very special about creating an environment like that. But there was also something missing, right, is that when you graduate, there's all this noise. You have your work, you have all these things, you barely have any time for anything. So that ability to learn and connect with people just fades away. What I wanted to create was a lifelong equivalent of that collegiate environment where you're always learning from leading minds, You're with amazing peers, and you're there solely for the purpose of learning, and growing, and connecting together. So that was the vision, to like create that space for that, because I thought, for one, I wanted it for myself. Two, if you look at every trend in the world, given how fast things are changing, and how much we have to constantly adapt, learning, lifelong learning isn't some luxury for just some group of people. We all have to do it constantly. But also people are more hyper-specialized, are overwhelmed with digital noise than ever. So real human connection has become much harder to find, real deeper conversations. So whether that's noise on media where there's interviews, but are people really talking or are they, you know, following agendas? So I wanted to create a very collegiate environment where dialogue and deep connection was at the heart of it.

Just the way you put that, the idea that noise is a distraction in many ways, whereas something that you are tuned into, listening to, attentive to, can potentially really be beneficial. How do you parse those things out? So if I got it right, you created a platform. It's not exclusively online, right? When in pre-COVID or non-COVID times, people actually were getting together physically, correct? That's right.

Yeah, absolutely. Just to put it in a more clear bucket, I think so the whole mission of Ivy, but also my life mission too, is you want to help people unlock their potential. The 2 ingredients that you need and all you need is learning and connection. That's all there is. The issue is most of us are so distracted that we don't make appropriate time for this particular thing. So yes, pre-COVID, 80% of what we did was in person. And we did it across 8 cities. When COVID took place, we were able to pivot to a fully digital approach. And what that's enabled us to do now is to essentially partner with individuals and companies and organizations all across the world to introduce them to the leading minds of our time, and also enable them to go deeper peer-to-peer. So while we missed all this face-to-face, you know, human contact, We have been able to now impact a much, much larger audience at a deeper level in the sense of not having any barriers in terms of time and space. So it's—

Reading into the next, where I wanted to track that to was more of a report, like a pivot report post— I'm waiting to say post-pandemic. I mean, we're still sort of in the middle of this thing, but where you are right now, report back on the pivot because I think a lot of people for sure were required to make some small changes. And that's, you know, a conscious pivot as we define it is a change that you that you design versus a change that you react to, for example. So much of our change, I think, is really kind of thrust on us, and we just have to react in the moment almost out of fear or survival. It sounds to me like that wasn't the kind of pivot this was for you. So give us a sense of— take us back to that moment, because I remember it. I mean, we're in similar, not quite the same business, but we— thought leadership and having an influence in a positive way with people through education, etc., I think is a common thread for us. And we were also doing most of our work live face-to-face. So take us back to that moment, a little inside the belly of the beast, and let us know what those conversations might have been like. And then how did the pivot unfold? And where are you kind of— where are you in that today?

Yeah, I think the most critical piece of this How we were able to actually make it all happen was just really, really a focus on clarifying, like, what are we here for? We're here to help people unlock their potential. How do we do that? Learning and community. So if in-person is not possible, then how do you best do learning and community in a digital world? But also, who do you do that with? Like, so it no longer makes any sense to just do it based on geographic cities, because that only makes sense if you're actually bringing people together. So what was super interesting is first, like mid-March, right? Like when the shutdown happened here in New York City, you know, 2 weeks after that, I very likely had what was COVID, 'cause for 2 weeks I was in terrible, terrible shape. But as every business owner knows, those were also the every minute, every hour counted like crazy. Like you had to just execute and like shift as fast as possible. Because everybody was asking the questions, what's going to last, what's going to go away. So we were unilateral in terms of like, this is absolutely— what we do is more important now than ever, and we're going to deliver this. There was zero doubt on whether or not we're continuing. So it was like, we're absolutely continuing. And at a high level, nothing changes. Learning and community unlocking potential. How we do that, how often do we do what, who do we do it with, how do we deliver it, what platforms we use, All of that, right, up for discussion, experimentation.

That's the thing Mike Dooley calls the dreaded house.

Right. So, so yeah, that, that was the, that was the thing. So the other thing I would say is, as many who've done anything entrepreneurial or creative, whether it's artistic or business or so on, as you know, you do not need a pandemic to have an insane amount of turbulence, uncertainty, feeling like you're on the edge of a cliff, feeling existential threats. It doesn't take a pandemic, right?

No.

This is for anyone taking any kind of risk, putting themselves out there. Like every time, even Adam, you go on to a podcast as a guest, anytime you're delivering a workshop, there is a non-zero chance that you will fall flat on your face and it could be bad, right? You could lose a client. You could also potentially cause— I mean, there are things that could also, you know, quote unquote, You know, really damage what you're trying to do. So you don't need the pandemic.

I like how you put that, by the way, that there's a non-zero chance.

There's a non-zero chance. What I feel like the pandemic did though, for me, and maybe a lot of entrepreneurs that might not say it, is all of a sudden I felt like, wow, the whole world is now on my level, because this is the environment, right? Like, when it comes to the topic of resilience, like, you know, we had in our first 7, like, 7 years, We had 4 years in which we doubled our revenue, doubled in size in every metric, every single year. But guess what? After that 4th year, we hit the inevitable bumps in the road. We had very scary moments, and it was never because of bad intentions. We had the best of intentions, but we had a lot of learning to do, a lot of learning that came from the challenges. So when the— by the time the pandemic hit, I'd already gone through several of those, but it was the first time with the pandemic where I felt like, wow, everyone is going through it now. So that fear of like, you know, screwing it up and being ostracized, like how could you possibly take something so successful and screw it up?

Yeah.

All of a sudden it was like everybody was at this equalizer, like it was all fair game from the biggest companies you've ever heard of, to obviously the smallest. So actually I found it a very exhilarating, positive time where I feel like, well, this is what I've been kind of training for, and again it goes back I guess to All the toughest experiences give you the strength when you most need it in the future.

Barry, I want to track that just a little bit more because I got a little hit there that as you were seeing that there were challenges that other companies, really significant companies included, were facing in the midst of this thing, there was something you felt there. I'd love to know a little bit more about if you could explore what that feeling was like for you right in that moment. Because, yeah, failing at something sucks. We get that, especially what we make that failing mean, whether it's at the very beginning of a business or it's sort of after you've already cleared some hurdles, and then something else comes out of kind of left field, etc. And I think a big part of what helps any leader, whether it's their own company or it's in someone else's company, to succeed is that day-to-day, even moment-to-moment that you are internally paying attention to. So something happened for you in that moment when the world was turning upside down that gave you an interesting feeling. Yeah, what was, what was that all about?

I guess I've always got, you know, 2 narratives running in my head simultaneously. One is this like sense of purpose, sense of destiny, sense of like everything we're doing is so positive and it's intense. Right? That there's no way it's not going to, you know, be super positive, whether big, small, whatever, but it's going to succeed. That is my bedrock, right?

Yes.

However, on top of that, there's another one, which is, well, in the very near term, though, I'm fallible. I've made mistakes. I'm going to make mistakes. We have, you know, compared to everyone else out there, there's these like, you know, we're limited in resources and time. And, you know, so I don't want it to slip through my fingers, like the fear of failure, right? Yes. You know, what if I screw it up? So there's 2 of those things. Now, the reality is, you know, nothing ever shakes the bedrock, but sometimes I forget it because I'm so caught up in the near term. I think what the pandemic did is all of a sudden, first of all, it didn't matter how big a given company is, who had what resources, who had whatever. It was a time of like shakeup. Everything was fair game. For me, actually, it just got rid of all the noise. I actually didn't worry about failure when the pandemic hit because it was this time of pure execution. I knew we had a lot to offer to the world, and I knew that we could be faster and more agile than many others out there.

The vulnerability was visible. I think if I'm going to unpack that just even a little bit for myself, It was seeing the fact that sort of the sacred cows are not really sacred cows, meaning that to think that another organization somehow doesn't have the same potential fallibilities that your organization does, or that mindset isn't as important in a company that's gotten into momentum or scaled, but somehow we're comparing ourselves to those other organizations. The representations of success or the kind of success we might even aspire to that we forget that those organizations are made of people and people are people. People have the same sort of frailties, the same insecurities, the same ability to both make right decisions and make wrong decisions. You know, when we see a company like years and years ago at the outset of the last Great Recession, the financial collapse, we saw Lehman Brothers go out. 100-plus-year-old investment banking icon, the blue ribbon for that space, go bankrupt. It was a reminder that that can happen to anyone. I think it's interesting at the start of this latest disruption when those tectonic plates started to shift and you could just see everybody was dealing with a lot of the same challenges, that it It leveled the playing field in some respect. I want to just be clear. I didn't get any— I don't think you got any pleasure in seeing real, real strong competitors also struggling, but more like it revealed that there's this common— that we have something in common, all of us. Anybody that has the audacity to be in business to begin with is cut from a cloth that we could say, We're kin. That's how I opened this up was to say that I felt that kinship with you at the beginning because it's just on the best of days being in business is tough. It's a wonderful tough, but it's not easy, right?

Totally. I think that's— I mean, when you zoom out and look at the facts, it's not the same companies in the S&P 500 over the decades. It's like even the biggest companies turn over. It's actually very rare for a company to last decades. Centuries. Like, it doesn't really, really happen. So the nature of business is that the world is constantly changing. And, you know, some businesses adapt, some don't. Things change, people move on, people get old. What I think though is that, let's say, a higher risk, higher return, more vulnerable upstart type organization where you have the audacity to be like, oh yeah, like we're going to create lifelong learning and community like these 3,000 colleges in the US. haven't figured it out, we're gonna be the ones to figure it out. It leaves you open to this extra risk. So, you know, in an environment where like there's more tectonic shifts, actually I think it's very positive for the younger ones because it's not like that— the snobbery of like the established companies—

Yes.

Is less because everyone is shaking it up, and all of a sudden you might be the one that better delivers for everybody with the shake-up, whereas otherwise You know, the incumbents, they have a bit of a home court advantage, right? They already have the models that work.

I mean, being agile at that time, being flexible, and ultimately, I think, resilient. So, it's funny, I'm going to put this up on the screen here for folks that are watching YouTube. Great, check it out. And those who can't, we'll just explain it. But this is really a study that McKinsey did of companies coming out of the Great Recession of 2008. And it's Really simple. I mean, I like simple charts, and this is a simple one. Resilience. The resilient organizations not only recovered more quickly, but they also were able to extend their gains over time. And I think that's really the thing here is that ultimately, whereas maybe years ago, while resilience has been something on the radar in organizational development and other areas, I think a lot of people thought, that it's a bit of a soft skill, that some people are just born resilient and others aren't. I think there's been debate about whether you can actually teach resilience or train it. People can learn it at any phase and stage. And this has been an area we've dove quite deeply into. And I think that's what we're talking about is that when those— when the world was shaking in the way it was back in March, it's just like back at the start of that financial crisis. You know, the organizations that are around today, the ones that have extended their gains, the ones that will be growing their business models 3 years from now that we'll see, are the ones that are the most resilient. So, I'd love to get your sense. I just put our definition up here, but, you know, you've got to be prepared to pivot, to make changes, in other words, when things are disrupted. And I personally think that it's better to positively interrupt the status quo. than to wait for market disruption or more macro disruption. What's your definition, Barry, of resilience?

Great question. Love your definition. For me, resilience, I guess the key ingredients I would put in resilience is, I guess, like a relentless determination to get from A to B without any, you know, Hardcore allegiance to a given path. Like, doesn't matter what the path is. I'm going from A to B. Gonna do whatever it takes to get there. I'm going to get there, and the methods or the like how it's done doesn't matter. But just that, and I would say when I think about it in the past, I used to think maybe what that requires like those who really are successful leverage resilience. Maybe they're the ones with the biggest visions, or maybe they're the ones. who have the most perseverance, they just have, like, they can take a lot of pain, you know? But now, you know, it's very clear to me that at the heart of it, the most important thing, more than vision, and more than perseverance, I think it's conviction. You have to just believe, like, you've got to believe in what that goal is, right? If you're going from A to B, you really need to believe in the importance of getting to B.

Mm-hmm.

And of course, you need to, Believe on the person undertaking the journey, which is yourself. So if you don't believe in the B, the destination, if you don't believe in yourself, it is absolutely not going to happen. If, you know, unless you get really lucky, but if you're not that lucky and the world is changing all the time, right? You know, cause like everything can change, but as long as you're alive, you still believe in yourself and you believe in the destination. No one can stop you from trying. Doesn't mean you're going to get there. But you're definitely probably going to outlast people who waver in their conviction in themselves or down the goal that they're going 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 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. I think that's one of the things you can say to people inside an organization to sow a seed of resilience is to say, A, I believe in you. Like you say, you believe in yourself and you believe in those on your team. And I believe in our ability to succeed because that's that level of conviction that is contagious. I mean, and we are contagious in so many ways, more than just the pun of the pandemic. We really are contagious.

Yeah, I think it's powerful to remind people that you believe in them, to reinforce their belief in themselves. I think that's super important. It was my birthday yesterday and I was with a small group of friends given the times. And, you know, they were very generous to share why they believed in me. And I was, you know, it was probably gave me 10 to 20 years worth of like energy, like just hearing that stuff. But the other part of what you said is it's not just about how much I believe as an entrepreneur and CEO about getting to B, because obviously, you know, I've drunk the most Kool-Aid. So that doesn't mean necessarily that everybody is going to believe you just because you believe. Obviously, if they doubt that you really believe in it, it's game over. But I think from a leadership perspective, the most critical thing is getting people to believe that not only is the destination worth getting to, but that it's eminently achievable. Achievable. Like, yes, there's a ton of issues, but all we gotta do is X, Y, and Z, and we're there. Now, is it gonna be easy to do X, Y, and Z? Not super easy, but it's not rocket science. We don't need to, you know, invent E= mc². We just gotta Be smart and execute. So I think that's what oftentimes in my best leadership moments, what I've done, and my worst ones, what I failed to do is to just be super clear on this is the destination. All that needs to be done is XYZ, and we got what it takes. Like we've got the people that can do that, right? And then that's where, you know, organizational resilience I think is boosted by that kind of inoculation, right?

Yeah.

Like really getting people to be like, okay, no matter what happens, Because we know where we're trying to get to and we have what it takes.

That's fascinating. I just want to get clear, you— that's— you defined pretty well what a best leadership moment looks like for you. What's a worst leadership moment?

Worst leadership moment, I mean—

Like, what does it look like?

I don't have them rank ordered, but one really bad one that comes to mind right away is whenever I focus on the intermediate Facts and what happened and what needs to be done versus the end goal, the objective, the very end. So one really powerful suggestion somebody gave me is like, let's say if you're having a disagreement with somebody, if you simply just ask the question, how do you want this movie to end? You ask that person, like the person you're talking to, but also yourself, how do you want the movie to end? What do you want the conclusion to be?

Right.

Because it's not so much about what you did right or what I did wrong, or You know, what's like all the noise, right? All that matters is how do we want this to end, right? And then how do we get there? This objectivity versus subjective squibbling. So worst leadership moments a lot of times is, I'm so frustrated, I can't believe this didn't get done, I can't believe this didn't happen. It gets very interpersonal and like that's not helpful, right? If you imagine like a war movie and it's the middle of a battle, and you're on the bridge of a ship and there's like torpedoes and whatever aircraft flying over, who cares who said the right thing or the wrong thing? All that matters is like, we gotta survive and we gotta get out of this alive and we gotta like, you know, thrive also. So I think anytime a leader can do that, like, hey, let's zoom out.

Zoom out and focus on the process.

Exactly.

That's really tangible, Barry, and I think It leads me to want to understand better your philosophy around uncertainty. If we knew it would all work out, for any leader in that moment, we're frustrated. You put yourself in war, for example. You're on a battleship in the middle of World War II in 1943. Let's say you're an American. There's a lot of uncertainty. There's chaos, bombs. Flying by your head, everything imaginable you can think of, tremendous uncertainty, and you say, but it's all going to work out. Not a hope or a prayer. In 1945, this awful conflict will be over. You'd be able to get a hold of— your emotions and your way of approaching that moment would be different because you knew it would all be all right. That's the trick of it because in that moment where you're frustrated that things aren't getting done, And you want to focus on the process, a part of the reason you do that is because in the end, it all works out. So I'm curious how you would leverage uncertainty or how, how you do leverage uncertainty for its benefit.

Well, first of all, I think it's really important to clarify that no one knew the war would end in 1945. There's absolutely no guarantee. You know, I think being a soldier is the most extreme version of this where like, Business people use all these metaphors, but like, actually, you can be the best soldier and you can still just, you know, it takes one bullet and you're out. So it's the ultimate uncertainty, yet you still need to perform even though that can happen at any moment. You still need to give it your best. For me, it's not about knowing, like as a soldier, it would be ridiculous if you said, well, I will not get shot and we will win this war because I just know it. I don't think anybody, any general, soldier, thinks that way. What I do think though, because that's not in your control, there's like millions of people involved, there's all the decisions, and there's all the stray bullets.

That's what people seek. They seek control, right, Barry? So in a moment of uncertainty, they're reaching for control. That's where the frustration comes from, is that you're not— you don't have control of something.

So what I would say is that what in these situations What you do have control over is, am I giving it my absolute best?

Right.

Right. And am I fighting for the right cause?

Am I fighting for the right cause?

Yeah. Am I fighting for the right cause? Am I giving it all that I have? Those are the only 2 things that are really under your control. And then I think, you know, zooming out, uncertainty is like probably my, one of my favorite subjects. The universe is incredibly well balanced like that supply and demand curve. in economics applies 100% to, you know, every individual. All the greatest feats that have ever been accomplished have been done by people who were willing to die for it, right? And dying doesn't always mean taking a bullet for it. It can also mean just dedicating your entire life to something, knowing full well that it might be a complete fool's errand, and you might be absolutely forgotten, and nothing amounts to anything.

Yeah.

But, you know, so all the great— so I think there is a correlation. So those who are willing to you know, up the ante and go all the way to quote unquote die for it, or the other side of that coin, to live for something. Those are the people. But those people also know that there's a very good chance it doesn't actually happen, but it's worth it because, you know, that's their calling, that's the cause. So Einstein could have worked on trying to figure out E= mc² for his whole life and still not got there. That was his purpose, was trying to figure that out. So You know, and he tried to figure other things out that he didn't get to, but he knew that that mission was clear. The one clear example I'll give is Alexander Hamilton. I just read his biography, which I highly recommend. So the musical is obviously incredible, but the biography is like, you can't make this stuff up, right? Mm-hmm. But every step of the way, he was just willing to not just work harder than anyone else, but there was a lot of hardworking people, But he was willing to die for it so many times, or risk absolute defeat and humiliation so much more. And he combined that with obviously a lot of innate talents with like a ridiculous work ethic. But let's say the innate talents and the work ethic as table stakes, like you're not gonna change the world without those things. So what changes things is like, okay, then is your ability to embrace uncertainty, actually to die for it, right? Like, or to live for it. I think that's But I don't think, by the way, that's— I don't think that's something that I would teach as a teacher, like everyone should just like live and die for something. I just think that we all have our own internal kind of comfort level with risk. I think we should all push our boundaries and get, you know, step out of our comfort zones, but it's not for everybody to, let's say, start a business or go to war or like try to be an artist. And, you know, it's not for everyone, it's for some people. But all those people that maybe have the more glamour, they're supported by unbelievable people with maybe lower risk tolerance, but maybe higher consistency or talents in different ways to support them. So for every Hamilton, for every Einstein, there's still so many thought partners, collaborators, all the other people that maybe don't need to go all the way, Right, but can still be part of creating an amazing journey. So that's basically the team of every leader, right, until they themselves become the leaders. So I can go on about this, but I— Fascinating topic.

To me, the, the word you said earlier, conviction, is really what this is about. You're creating more of a depth to that word, and, and to be convicted, to die or to live for it, however which way you look at it, I think it's It's the thing that moves you. It moves you through those moments of indecision. A person in a battle moment, in a moment of battle of any kind, whether it's internal battle or it's literally being on the battlefield, you can't be indecisive. Indecision kills. Hesitation kills. Just look at a squirrel trying to cross the street. That only causes suffering, I think, indecision. But conviction is one of those things that cuts through it. I know I shared this story with your group back, I think, in September or something, where I blew these 3 whistles. I have my lifeguard whistle with me kind of all the time, or at least here at the desk. But it reminds me of a conviction and learning about conviction when I was 19 years old working at Jones Beach. And that first summer, we had a devastating thing happen. We missed somebody. We missed them in the surf. They went down. And went out on a long search and rescue and didn't find him. And we still had to do— we had to continue to do our job that day and day after day throughout the summer. And when it happened, the captain of our beach gathered us for a brief period for saying a prayer, a moment of silence for the family. It was just the most awful thing to see, be witness to. And he said to us that day, he said, look, You either make the save or you die trying. That was the conviction level at our beach. For 7 summers, I still worked at that Field 4 at Jones Beach, and we never lost anybody after that. Nobody ever went down on our watch again. I think the word that you brought up earlier was just such a powerful component of that. How do you move through uncertainty? Well, you don't try to create— first of all, you don't try to make something certain that's by its nature uncertain. It just doesn't— it creates frustration. It creates an unwinnable situation. It depletes our energy, all that kind of stuff. But conviction is a clear inoculant, if I've just made up a word there, but maybe. That feels right to me. So Barry, thank you for sharing that. The last question I have for you is really just about your own personal rituals. What do you do to either create or maintain your own resilience?

Yeah, just to go off of the very last point you made there, I do think that, you know, no man is an island, as they say, right? So, and it's, you know, the opening of For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway, right? So at the end of the day, you know, no matter how much conviction you have and so on, whether it's Hamilton, whether it's Einstein, like, without your good friends, family, Mentors, you know, could be subordinates, without people reminding you of like, hey, wake up, you still got it, this is still worth it. Like everybody, the strongest person still needs a coach, the strongest person still needs somebody. So I think, you know, making sure to have a dose of that in your life, like the people who will prop you up, lift you up, remind you of what's at stake. So many of those people are alive, they're friends and family and so on. But many of those people are dead, and they wrote all these books, and, you know, or they lived these lives that we can learn from. So actually, I think it all comes to like learning and connection, which makes us more self-aware and objective about the world, right? Mm-hmm. Which then helps us reset our vision, set better vision, set better goals, and to take better action, right? So that, I think, is really critical. So doing whatever I can to infuse learning and connection in my own life, like I don't just do it for my own business, Sometimes as an entrepreneur, you forget to do it for yourself, but that really, really helps. So other very practical rituals. One is Shabbat, Saturdays, like Friday night to Sunday morning, absolutely zero work, no emails, no talking about work, nothing. I had, at the very early stages of entrepreneurship, I had those moments that, you know, many have unfortunately tasted, which is like, okay, I don't even have enough money to pay my rent next month. Right? Like, that's how bad it is. And I was thinking, like, how did I screw up my life so bad? How did I make so many bad decisions? I was being a whiny, you know, person. And all of a sudden, in that darkest abyss, I was like, hey, Barry, like, wake the fuck up. Like, what is wrong with you? You had the best parents, best family, best education. You were blessed with so many abilities. You have the best friends. You've got all these opportunities. just graduated from Harvard Business School and you're like pitying yourself? Come on. Like, did you— like, you had all these miracles and you were fine, and now that you're in a tough situation, you're like— So that was the moment I went from working 7 days a week, morning to night, to then being like, you know what, I gotta have that, you know, day of reflection, day of, you know, quote unquote, you know, just letting go. And that has completely saved my business, saved my life. Because every Friday night, I know that no matter what's happening, right, I'm like, I can't work till Sunday morning. So it gives me an incredible recharge. Mm-hmm. It lets me really sleep, catch up, like get real with life. And then there's no one stronger than me on a Sunday morning after that kind of a recharge. So that's been a great one. Other ones is, you know, I don't look at emails or anything like that until, like, I've done a whole bunch of things in the morning, whether that's working out, meditation, Little things like that. And then yet trying to pause my inbox as much as possible, trying to not let noise come through. Obviously only some of the noise is external, a lot of it is internal. But whenever, there's usually, I'm never in as good a mood as if I've not looked at my inbox for 6 full hours and just got a whole bunch of work done, whether that's through discussion or writing proposals my own self. Got it. Those are some, for what it's worth.

The research is really clear on this too, that resilience is not about how we endure. I think so many people think of resilience or developing that strength in terms of like the Rocky model, Rocky Balboa getting knocked down, gets back up, knocked down, gets back up. It's that ability to bounce back that people think is what resilience is all about, and it's It's fine, and we respect, love when we see people get back after, you know, get back up, are able to rebound. But it's over time what it shows is that it really depletes people, really, it takes a toll on them physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually even. And again, the research is clear that resilience is created by recovery. 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. By Rituals for Recovery, Not rituals for endurance, not winning the Night Owl Award. So, I take exception with folks that are in the space that have— I shouldn't say take exception. I just don't feel the same way as folks that are out there saying, you know, you need to work your 20-hour days and what I think is horseshit advice like that. And I also think that for me personally, I had to eat my own cooking. I was doing a lot of what I was saying not to do when COVID hit. There was a lot of uncertainty in the space. I leaned back on an old default that when there's uncertainty, I'll just work harder. I'll work longer and harder than anybody. I'll be more tenacious. For several months, that was the mode we were in. Then my wife and I, we transplanted ourselves from this beautiful place we live in a lot of the year in San Diego, and we went to the East Coast to spend time on a little island. No man or woman is an island, but you can live on an island. And we did that to hunker down and work from, from that location. And when we did, we started to recapture our weekends, Barry. So I realized that, you know, when you're talking about the honoring Shabbat from sundown Friday night till sundown on Saturday, you've given yourself a solid 24-hour period to just be unplugged from technology, from all that kind of stuff that takes you out of Takes you out of the recovery zone. We started to just call back. We started hashtagging, you know, bring back the weekend. And what is a weekend? There's no— the week doesn't end for so many people, especially people in business, right? So, uh, so maybe that's one of those really great things that folks can commit to even as a result of listening to this. You can recapture, recapture your weekend because the recovery that you get from that, as you said, you're a beast. Sunday morning. I'm a beast on Monday. I don't dread Mondays. I don't remember the last time when I felt that anxiety on a Sunday night anymore about the week starting. And again, statistically speaking, you're more productive and you can go longer distances and help more people. So, I love what your business is about, Barry. That's why we really wanted to have you on the show, learning in community and how it is that, as you said, you just be a positive influence in ways that are so meaningful today. I've got one final thought to share with our folks, which is my waking ritual. And Barry, if you've got a waking ritual, chime in here. Mine is 3 very simple steps because I like things that are actually usable. So this is something I've been doing for 12+ years. Don't deviate from it. It's too simple to have to make any little tweaks to it. I wake up. Every day. That's the first thing, right? So, Barry, did you wake up today?

Yep, did it.

Did it. Check.

Check.

Now, here's a question because I was a lawyer for 18 years. So, did you have an agreement, a contract signed or otherwise, oral agreement of any kind that you, when you went to sleep last night, that you'd get to wake up today?

No, no guarantees.

No guarantees, right? So, I think in addition to waking up, it's the recognition for me that what waking up means is more than just another day. It's a gift. It's sacred, holy. In the moment that I recognize I'm breathing and there are people in this very same moment who are about to stop breathing, it grounds me at the start of the day. And my grandmother used to say, start the day on the right foot. And I think that's the best thing that any of us Or I just speak for myself. The best thing I can do for myself is to ground in that way at the start of the day, and that's the first seed that I plant, is a seed of recognizing the sacred nature of being given another day. And then I move into the second piece, which is what I'm grateful for in that moment. And it could be a short list or a long list, but it's not difficult in that moment to feel gratitude. Did you— was there something you were grateful for when you woke up this morning?

Yeah, absolutely. Shall I share it?

Please.

Yeah, I mean, I was so grateful because like I said, it was my birthday yesterday. We had a small group of friends come together and we did 2 activities that everybody could keep in mind if they like. The activity I brought to the table was I paired everybody with somebody they didn't know well so that they could introduce each other to the whole group, like find out what makes that person amazing and then share with everybody. That was really strong. And then someone in the group said, okay, let's all share, you know, one thing we appreciate about Barry, like one thing about him that we're grateful for. And honestly, it was like hearing a really good eulogy while still being alive. And it was so, so, like, so meaningful. So I just woke up filled with gratitude, you know, for those people sharing those things and giving me that energy boost.

Yeah. That's

right.

Yeah. And the thing that I also wrote, just sort of curious about, is that there's such a power in what we say out loud versus just even what we think. Because so many of our thoughts, if we were to have to watch a replay of all of our thoughts throughout the day, I think most people would be pretty horrified. Some people would get locked up. Right. And I think that's all of us, too. It's not— nobody has to feel strange if that's particularly true. But what we say out loud, I think, is extremely powerful. So I wake up, I have that moment, I think of something, I feel something I'm grateful for, and then I say out loud 4 simple words, but they've made a huge difference for me. And, and those words are, I love my life. I love my life. Do you remember the first words that came out of your mouth this morning, Barry?

No, I don't.

Yeah,

I don't.

I think that's just the case and has been the case most of my life that I couldn't tell you what I said first thing. But for the last 12 years, I know the first words that come out of my mouth because they're, they're specifically designed for, for what it is that I actually want to experience, how I want to experience myself being for the day. So it doesn't have to be those words. We do have a book, as I said, that's right now coming out called the I Love My Life Challenge, which is 28 days of these kind of practices. But it doesn't have to be those words that come out of your mouth. But the suggestion I'll make to folks in our community listening to this now, watching this, that you do think about Something you want to say, or at least pause in the moment when your feet hit the floor and take 10 seconds to decide right then and there, what do I want to declare out loud right now? And it could be obviously anything. I know when I was a lawyer for so many years, I was unhappy and unfulfilled in my work, even though I had so much to be grateful for— married, long relationship, 4 healthy kids, but still miserable. And when I put my feet on the floor back then, the first words out of my mouth were usually a curse. I mean, I literally would grunt. I would breathe heavy. I'd feel anxious. I'd say shit or something like that at the beginning of the day. It's like, talk about the first domino. So, you know, what's the first domino now and what can that look like? So, Barry, this was early, early for me, a little later for you because I'm on the West and you're on the East Coast, but a great way to begin the day and a wonderful conversation, brother. It's always great. Thank you.

Absolutely, Adam. Such a pleasure being here. Really enjoyed this. I'm excited to, you know, keep exploring together how we get to be more resilient. So thank you.

Cheers. Folks want to know more about Barry Merrick and Ivy. Ivy is an incredible organization. There'll be more information about that group in our show notes. So go ahead and click on and find out more about that. Also, we'd love to have you take our resilience assessment. So if you want to find out a little bit more about your resilience score, just go to your.resilience.com. your.resiliencerculture.com, your.resiliencerculture.com, and in 3 minutes you can find out how you're doing mentally, emotionally, physically, and yes, even spiritually when it comes to resilience. All right, ciao for now, everybody. We'll see you again soon.

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