171 - Courage to Leap & Lead with with Steven Feinberg, part1

You've got courage to leap, courage to lead. Be brave and be bold. Whoa, let it roar. Welcome to the Courage to Leap and Lead podcast, where each of our guests share the stories of courage that helped them become powerful leaders. Before we start today's show, please remember to visit courage-consulting.com. Where you can find all the episodes and other excellent resources, all at courage-consulting.com. Now, here's your host, Leadership Courage Coach CB Bowman.

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. You know it's CB Live. So, I just had my hair done. So, how do you, how do you like it? Yeah, good. Okay. Well, you are visiting today Courage to Leap and Lead, and we have another fantastic guest. I just— I don't even know how I find all these awesome people, but you know, it must be me. Listen, we've got Steven Feinberg on today. Who is a great author of 2 books. I'm jealous. But more than that, he has had a really wacky set of careers. And so I want to know all about them and how he got from one, how he went from one— excuse my English— how he went from one to another. And let's find out a little bit about his background. Hi, CB.

It's great to see you.

Same here. You know, everybody, I'm so used to saying Steve for Stephen, but this Stephen likes Stephen. So you'll hear me correct myself during the show. So Stephen, at my—

at the university where I've taught almost 30 years, I'd start off classes And I'd say, my name is Dr. Feinberg. You can refer to me as Dr. Feinberg. And everyone's energy would drop to the, to the floor. Or you could call me Stephen, yo, dad, mom. As long as you refer to me in those categories, that's— then I'll respond to you or teach. And the— and, but, but we're gonna stay within those categories of how I respond back to you as well.

So how many yo's did you get?

How many what?

Yo.

Yo's? Quite a bit. I had, you know, sometimes I had some of the professionals, uh, uh, football players who were in the class also. They come back to school, finish up their degrees, and they would say, yo, teach. I went, what do you say, yo, Teach? You know, he said, no, no, it's an act of respect. They said, understand, this is a true act of respect. Yes, we're good.

Or the other one is Doc. Doc.

Yeah, one of my other— one of my closest friends used to refer to me as Doc.

Hey, Doc. Yeah. Yes, to me that's very respectful.

Yeah. Yeah, I would— felt good. You know, it wasn't like over the top or something. It was just You know, friendly.

Yeah, yeah. It's a way of bonding with the person.

Yeah.

So yeah, it's so good. So listen, where did you grow up?

I grew up in a little town east of the Mississippi called New York City.

Yeah. You know, I was— I had you pegged for somebody who grew up in the Bronx.

In the Bronx. My dad was from the Bronx.

There you go.

And, but I grew up sleeping on a fire escape in the Lower East Side on Delancey Street.

No way.

Right off the Williamsburg Bridge. In fact, the building that I grew up in, 135 Delancey Street, you know how it is in New York, everyone tells you the neighborhoods and the next block. was the Jewish— they built a Jewish tenement museum, and it's an exact replica of my apart— of my home, my apartment that I grew up in. And then so in effect, I grew up in a museum.

Whoa, wait a second. Okay, let's go back. How come you slept on a fire escape?

Well, because at certain points earlier in my life, my family didn't have enough money. We moved back in with my grandparents. And it was a 3-room flat, you know, like a railroad apartment. And they didn't have enough places for everyone in the family. So I was a little, you know, 4 or 5 years old. They put me out on the fire escape. And my wife insists that I tell everyone when I, when I share the story, she insists that I say that when it was rainy or cold, they brought me back in. Because they were very loving. I never felt, I never felt poor. Yeah, I was— it was because there was a lot of love and, you know, connection and affection.

There was a lot of support in the neighborhood, right?

That's right. Yeah, in my— in the apartment building that I grew up in, there was a 6th floor, 6 floors. Of those 6 floors, it was like 4 4 or 5 apartments on each floor. And so it was about 24, 20, 24, something like that, apartments. And probably over half of them were either family or close friends.

Yeah.

So I thought we owned the building. You know, I was 4 or 5 years old, and I was like, I didn't know. But I would go out so that my story is often I told, it's like, how did I go from sleeping on a fire escape to becoming a neurostrategist, right? And that's, that's the story in the book and also in Do What Others Say Can't Be Done and Play the Metagame. And in, you know, like, um, how it is that I see the world the way I did and how I got to do what I do.

Well, I get it because, and we have a connection because I grew up on the Lower East Side.

There it goes.

That's why I knew about that.

That's what I meant when I said earlier, game knows game. You know, for— because out of the fire escape, I would look out for the fire escape, and I look out and watch the game on the street, right? And people interacting, how they schmooze and how they say what they say, and who's winning and who's losing, and who's on top and who's on bottom, and who's recovering. And so all those kinds of things are Like the game board that people play on. And I got to see it very early on. And I'll tell you more about my dad in particular.

Yeah. You know, it's interesting because, you know, growing up on the Lower East Side, I knew lots of people who slept on the fire escape, but it was because we didn't have air conditioning. You'd go out, you know, you'd socialize. Hey, hey, you know, how you doing?

Kind of thing. And sometimes that was actually true also, but—

Yeah, exactly. So—

But I was sleeping with my, you know, in the beds. We had multiple people in beds and all that kind of stuff, you know, just to survive and thrive, you know.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So tell us about your dad.

So my, um, my dad, you know, like when it— when I talk about how did I get from, uh, fire escape to NeuroStrategist is to think about my dad. So looking at me, what do you think? My dad did for a living. Accountant, lawyer, male model.

Male model. I'm selecting male model.

He was a big-time bookie, and not the type—

Yes.

And not the type that reads books. He was a big-time bookie in the— in New York City in the 1940s to 1980. And, you know, a bookie, for those who don't know, is not the type That reads books, right? They, they place, they take, they place odds, they take bets. In one sports game, so he's a sports bookie, in one sports game, he lost—

Keep going. I'm coming back.

He lost 10 large. That's $10,000 in bookie parlance, $95,000 today. And then by the end of the day, he won it all back. And he won more money. So it was— every single day was instability. I felt out of control. And so growing up in that intensity was a masterclass in how to handle and mishandle uncertainty.

So, so for those of you that don't know much about The Bookie, the best movie to watch is The Sting. With Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Yeah.

Right. And I went to see The Sting. I went, this is exactly how the game is played.

That was absolutely one of the classic movies. Yeah.

It is a classic movie. Right. So my dad— so growing up with all that uncertainty, as I said, it was a masterclass in how to handle and mishandle uncertainty. And, you know, talking about courage, right? which is your bailiwick, is that's the uncertainty is my— is the foe. One of the things I did in the book was I'd asked 50+ world-class leaders and creators and entrepreneurs what's their number one foe. And they— and I've— we sorted it out and I've got it and we'll talk about it. But for me, the number one foe was uncertainty. Just how to deal with uncertainty and how do you, as a neurostrategist, neurostrategy. So what is neurostrategy? It is brains, games, and foes. So what's the answer? How does your brain resolve uncertainty? How does your brain deal with games? Or how do you deal with the games, the game board that you're playing on? And then what are the foes? And foes are the obstacles in our life.

Inner game, So is it pretty much like a mini SWOT analysis?

Um, the— when we're looking at what is a game, so a game is a pattern of interactions. So we look at the pattern of interactions in which there's a story with— on a game board with— that has Rules, threats, and rewards. So we're looking at what are the, what are these patterns of interaction? At the root is to understand the rules and the patterns of interactions that are going on in our lives. In every interaction, there's a game going on.

So what did you learn specifically that you took with you watching the games on the street?

First of all, it's game spotting, is to become pattern recognition.

Mm-hmm.

That one of the key things, like I interviewed the EVP of eBay, Steve Wesley, and one of the things that he said, he went to Stanford, right? And he, they, it was in the early days that he created that, not he alone, but his team, they created eBay out of nothing. It was a land grab. And one of the things he said to me, you know, I'm okay. I got into Stanford, but these people at Stanford were like heads and shoulders intelligence. The brainpower was incredible. He said, but the thing that I could do that others couldn't as well was pattern recognition. I could recognize patterns. And so our intelligence, the ability Our brains are pattern-seeking engines. So when we release that or engage our pattern ability, we get to a higher level of effectiveness and also how we operate in the world and what outcomes we get in the world and how we are more effective. So recognizing that games are From sandbox to international intrigue, games identify, or games reveal our identities and how we can become more effective in the world. So I was always trying to figure out a way to survive and thrive.

Mm-hmm. How dare— let me just say it, call it like this, the game of life. games in life to board games. Like, what causes the popularity of Monopoly and Scrabble? Are they really related to life? And that's what intrigues people?

Well, I think what it is, is we're trying— our brains are— what part of what your brain is trying— is doing, it's designed to do, is to resolve uncertainty. That's one of the functions is is to pattern and resolve uncertainty. But your brain, you also, your brain likes to play, right? And like I oftentimes in my speeches, I say, do you like to play games? Because your brain does, right? It's the ultimate game master. That's your brain is a game master, right? And that especially likes to play what I call the hidden game of patterns. And it's And when uncertainty strikes, it's game on. And so what we're doing when we're playing board games is like we're figuring out things in our life, but not directly one-on-one. We figure out how to solve difficulties. We figure out how, and we like to get, you know, the dopamine effect of winning more and getting some more stuff so we can have little scenarios that we play out on the game. You know, it's like when you get sit around and play Monopoly. and you have your friends there, and all of a sudden now they're the adversaries, and you're seeing how you are, you know. Do you stand up or do you give in, you know, because you're afraid that if you win something— I had some friends who wouldn't want to beat their other friends because they thought they would lose them. And other guys go, come on, let's play, you know, let's compete, right? And so it's part of our identity that we get revealed in the process of doing that and our mastery. Like, we want— like, we like to master things. So games, games are— and game boards, and also the games, you know, that the folks play on the internet and all these games that they play is really about play and the ability to master something. In the process of doing it. And so we enjoy— it's enjoyable.

You know, as you're speaking, there's, there's a relatively new show on TV called Special Forces. Have you seen it?

No, I haven't yet. I will.

It's not for the faint-hearted in the sense that it takes ordinary people— well, quasi-ordinary people And it puts them through SWAT training for the military.

Okay.

And you sit there and you think, okay, this— I think of it as a game, right? And but it's so intense. And I thought, this is an amazing show because this shows you gameplay at its most intense.

Yes.

And I hope they bring this show back because I'm learning so much about mastering control and playing the game versus just looking at a TV show.

Yeah. You know, I led a seminar on leadership that I was working with, and they brought people in from all over the world and I was running the show. But one of the things that they had us do as part of the whole program is we went to the Navy SEALs Center in California and for like half the day. So I was leading everything, but I became a member of the group. Right. And we went to work with the Navy SEALs and they put us through all these exercises right on the beach, doing sit-ups, running.

Yeah. It's more like I said, but it's more like the Navy SEALs. Yes.

Right. And we were going through this stuff. You know, and what was intriguing was one of the Navy SEALs guys said we were online. He said, okay, line up and count off 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, right? And we're going 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10. And they said, where's number 8? And number 8 was one of the participants in the group, one of the managers who decided He wasn't feeling well, so he sat down. He said, this would never happen when we go on a mission.

Yes.

You have to know where your person is. You're responsible for yourself and the person in front of you, the person behind you, the whole boat. He said, you— so this is what teamwork is really about. So here we were playing this silly little thing, right? And but he was He got very real and very fast, right, of going, the consequences. What's the real consequences? And boy, I learned an enormous amount. I mean, I feel— I felt that fully. And I went, well, I thought I was just, you know, being nice to the guy. Go sit down, right? And he went, when we go on a mission, it's no person left behind. No man.

That's right.

No one gets left behind. Right. And we mean it, because you're out there and you, you know, you get at the recovery center and your guy fell out of the boat. Right? That's not— that's not— we would never let that happen. Right? And so it was like, get real. Be, you know, it's a game here. You're safe here. It's a scenario, you practice it. But, but— It's a life lesson. Lessons learned for how we are in the world.

Yeah, absolutely. So, so you then decided that you were gonna go into this field. But what happened on the way to the road?

What happened on— well, so I—

You were, you were involved with the circus or something, I saw.

No, no, I was not involved in the circus.

You were a barker.

Oh, yeah, that one example. So when I was 17 or 16, 17, you know, I needed a job. So there was a local carnival came through town, right? And so I got a job as a carnival barker, right? There, one of the guys who, you know, I said, hey, come up here, spin, you know, a quarter, dime, throw a nickel into the bottle, throw a dime in, you know, put a ring around the bottle. You know, throw balls into a basket. They had shoot out the star and all that. So I got that job, right? I got a job because I needed a job. So I just went over and started doing that. And I watched the way people operated and dealing with the carnival bark, the carnies, the real guys there.

Yeah, yeah.

That was a lesson in life, right? This is a way of understanding How they were watching eagle eye of every movement you made with your hands. In one situation, I was working with those machine guns where you shoot out the stars. This father, he had his little kid next to him and he was spending dollar after dollar. This was expensive in those days, right? He's spending ticket after ticket for this, to get his ticket, and he couldn't do it. It was almost impossible to shoot out those stars. It was set up in a certain way. And so I figured out a way. I was looking at this little kid, I felt so bad for this little kid, you know, and the dad, and he was spending his, you know, hard-earned money. You know, it's fun, the exchange, but he was going over, you know, losing more and more money.

Yeah.

It was like, this isn't worth this little Tchotchke thing that you got, you know, but it was, it wasn't about that. It was about doing something for his kid and looking good for his kid.

And with his kid, yeah.

And caring for his son and loving him. And so I figured out a way to switch the stars so that I, I said, we've got a winner. And the carnival barker, the, the carny guy looks at me and he looks at me and says, no one ever wins this game. And I went, we got a winner, right? So I did it right in front of him, like, And he didn't see it, right? He watched me like a hawk to try to figure out what was going on. And I was trying to do the right thing. But, you know, you guys made enough money already, folks.

Yeah, yeah.

This kid, you know, maybe—

Give him a break.

Give him a break, you know. And what was funny thing is my friends who were there, my high school friends, over there, we wanted to get a raise. So they all walked, you know, we wanted to get a raise and said, Stephen, you go talk to these guys. You know, you talk to them, you could handle them. I went, no, no, you talk to them. You know, we all know these guys are serious characters, right? And so they all stepped back and I ended up stepping forward to influence them to go to end up, you know, like moving forward and And getting— we got an extra quarter or, you know, 50 cents, you know, to, to, to, to flower salaries for, you know, per hour that we made and stuff like that. So I learned tremendous amount about how to move around the, you know, that world, you know. It's like being able to, to deal with difficulties and having the courage to speak up.

Yes. And having the courage To support a kid and his dad.

Like, do the right thing. And my dad, my dad always told me, my dad, you know, I had mentioned that he was a bookie, but he wasn't in the mafia. He was, he was a good man, but we could say he was mob adjacent, right? We actually, you know, like he was actually, we dealt with these guys and then it was like he never wanted me to go into the family business. He didn't want me to be near these folks. They were tough people. And, but I understood how to navigate that world. That was part of the training ground, right? That was my Navy SEALs training ground.

Yes, absolutely. And you were also a doorman?

Yeah. Yeah. So right after college, I needed a job and I was driving. I was also a cab driver. New York City, right? So I drove a cab.

Talk about fortitude.

So I drove a cab in New York City, and I'm driving and I'm taking people around. It's funny driving people. The cabs in New York City, you know, it was held together with gum and glue and all these things, and you try to, you know, survive it. And the people who get in the cabs are pretty tough sometimes. It's not just, you know, the cabbies are tough, but the people who get in are pretty tough. And so, you know, I learned about how to navigate that world, right? The first cab, the first time I, my very first fare in the cab, I went down to Penn Station, which is the big station where all the trains come in taking people. So I knew where to go. I knew New York City and how to get there, you know. And so, and I, as you pull out, this guy gets in the cab and he says, take me to 75th and Park, or 75th and the East Side. And I go, yes, sir. And I write it down, you know, it's like I'm dutiful and studious and, you know, I'm just a college kid and I'm just trying to do the right thing here.

And before Waze, right?

Oh, way before Waze. And I— and you could turn right or turn left out of Penn Station. And I said to him, do you know if I turn right or turn left out of Penn Station? I'm just asking an honest question, legitimate question. And he goes— And then he gave me a ration of crap. I won't say the language that he used, but he attacked me verbally. For that, for thinking that I was trying to, to, um, gyp him out of something and make, and make it, make the, the fare go up. And I would, I'm just trying. You're the very first. He said, no, no, I've heard that nonsense before. Oh my God.

Well, New York cab drivers were notorious for that, especially around Penn Station where they, where a lot of tourists came in.

Right. Do you want, you want to go the, you know, the line is, do you want to go the scenic route or do you want to go the direct route?

Exactly.

So, so I got that. I navigated, you know, trying to get there. But, but one of the— to the point about being a doorman, so I'm driving people around, right? It was during my college years. I'm driving people around and I stop at this apartment building on 65th or 66th Avenue and guy gets in. He happens to be the old doorman from that building. I mean, he's the doorman. He's old, right? He's an older guy. His name is Eddie. And he says, take me to this place and I want to go. And he had me drive him all over the city doing errands, right? Getting stuff. Then eventually I talked, he liked me. He said, come up and meet my missus, right? So I went up to his house and his wife made us a meal and stuff like that. And he said, hey kid, you want to take— you need another job? He said, hey kid.

Yeah, yeah. Sure.

You know, I just— sure. And I ended up being a doorman, you know, and I had long— at that time I had long hair on my shoulders, right? And, and I didn't have my beard then. I don't think I shaved it off.

So where were you a doorman?

Excuse me?

Which apartment building were you a doorman?

365. I think it was 360, 365 East 65th Street. It was in a— was it right off First Avenue? It was an apartment building. Big, big fancy apartment building, you know. I mean, I was such a knucklehead at the time, you know. It's like I, I was just like a kid just trying to make, you know, some extra coins, some extra money. And most of the people, I would open the door and, you know, I talked to them and became friendly and all. But there was one lady there who, like, she stood there and she was haughty, and she thought she owned the world, and she thought that I was less than. And, you know, I was a kid. I was like, you're not going to talk to me like that. So I refused to open the door. I mean, I'm telling you, I was a knucklehead, right? But, you know—

Last in that job.

What? Excuse me?

How long did you last in that job?

Uh, you know, for, for a summer or something like that, you know. That's good. That's all I was going for. It was like an interim job before, you know, I went off and it's like, go west, young man, you know. Yeah.

Yeah. And, and how in the world did you own a pizza shop?

Well, my dad owned the Italian restaurant and pizzeria, right? Um, and—

Was your dad Italian?

My dad is— so my dad was an entrepreneur, you know, he was an entrepreneur before they used the term entrepreneur.

Right.

And he knew how to make things. So he wasn't just a bookie. He had other enterprises, so to speak.

Right. That's what they used to call it. Yes.

And so he bought a restaurant and he made it better. He made the pizza better. He made the food better. He made the veal better, made the meatballs better. He made everything better. He was a connoisseur. And so we— it was the best food. Eggplant Parmesan, meatball subs, all that kind of stuff. In fact, I have on my wall the— it was called Pizza Pantry, Pelliccia's Pizza Pantry. That's who owned it before. I have on my wall the menu, and guess how much a pizza cost? A whole pizza.

$5?

$2. An entire big pizza, right? A sub, a hero, what we called heroes then, right? Cost like $2.50 or something like that.

Oh my God.

Right? This was a long time ago.

Where was this pizza place?

In Forest Hills. That's where we moved to, in Forest Hills. Mm-hmm.

Out in Queens.

Out in Queens.

Wow.

On 67th Avenue. In fact, from my building that I grew up in, or this building that when we moved there, I was up, you know, like going from the Lower East Side to Forest Hills. I was, we were like—

That's big time.

Moving on up.

Yes.

And, and it was— there was right over the train tracks was the Forest Hills Tennis Stadium, right?

Yeah.

Oh my God, we walked through.

I saw Bette Midler there.

So speaking of all the shows would come there, I would go up to the roof on my building. It was a 12-story building, right? We go up on the roof and we saw the Beatles come in.

No.

Yeah, we listened to the Beatles from there.

Wow. Could you actually hear the music?

Oh, 100%.

Wow.

I didn't have enough money to go see them, but I could listen from my— on the rooftop. And it was really close, you know.

And you had perfect sight, right?

No, the sight was— there was a little— there were trees and other buildings and stuff, but we could— it was Direct to it.

It was—

the music was right in your— right there.

You absolutely have to write a book about your life.