172- Courage to Leap & Lead with with Steven Feinberg, part 2

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.

Okay.

Well, I tell a lot of stories. A lot of these stories are actually in this, you know, Do What Others Say Can't Be Done.

Yeah, let's talk turkey now. Um, your, your latest book is called— so can you— do you have a copy of it?

Yeah, I do. Thank you. It's Do What Others Say Can't Be Done: Play the Metagame.

What does metagame mean?

So metagame means the game of games, right? It's the game of patterns. So it's looking at what are the patterns that are happening. So in all games, the— let me just back up and say that the, the foreword by the book is written by an astronaut. a 2-time space shuttle pilot who is a client of mine, and his name is Greg Johnson. And he flew the space shuttle Endeavour twice to the International Space Station. And he would talk about how he prepared himself to deal with all this challenge, right? Like in the first story, one of the early stories in the book, it was What was it like for you, Greg, sitting on top of that firecracker? You know, giant firecracker.

Yeah, yeah.

Huge, powerful thing. Like, how did you do that? Right? I said, my son Zach wanted me to ask you, like, how did you get in there? And how'd you feel? You know, were you nervous? Were you scared? And I asked, I said, so how was it for you? Greg, and he said, confident. I was confident. How did you feel? Confident. Excited and confident. And I went, he said, how did you do that? How did you get, you know, like, because—

Was he confident of himself or all the people that—

Everything. He was confident in himself. He was confident in the machine. He was confident in the people. And I said, how did you get to feel that way sitting on top of that rocket, you know, the space shuttle? And he said 2 things. He said, first, I focus. I have complete focus. I focus on the mission. I focus on the task at hand, and I focus on what I'm supposed to do. And there's a lot of things to do, and my mind is completely on it, right? So I stay focused, right? There's a lot riding on this, and we want to be safe. These guys are not like, Nervy. Well, you know, like, it's not like, let's take risks for the risk's sake. It's not that. They know the risks. They know what they're doing. They want to go where no one has gone before. They want to do that. They want the thrill of seeing what others don't see, of doing what others say can't be done, but they also want to do it skillfully, right? It's very— then responsibly. And so the first thing was the focus. The second thing was, is he knew all the challenges, but he put it in the back of his mind. And I said, so you're compartmentalizing. Right? He said, yes, I compartmentalize the experience. So I know that I want to review it and learn from it and discover it, but I'm focused and I compartmentalize my emotions while I'm in the task. So he's engaged in his brain doing very specific skill sets, right? He's definitely Using his pattern recognition skills, right? And to go through the step by step, he said, and I know in advance that the alarm signals are gonna go off during the mission. He said, and there's different levels of alarm signals. And when the alarm signal goes off, I know exactly what to do. Because I've trained and I've trained. He said NASA and astronauts train and we train thousands of times. We do the same thing over and over again. So it becomes muscle, what we call—

Muscle memory.

Right. But it's knowing that in the brain, it's another form of being able to do it. And it just sets the neurology on immediate action. So he just reaches for the book, reaches for the action. They move through those things. So they're ready, right? So, you know, you talk about people doing these enormous things. You know, people, some people think they just get up on stage and, you know, one-night wonders. It's like these guys are well-versed in what they do. They're very skilled. They know, you know, it's their intelligence, but their entire focus and ability is brought to bear To achieve that. That's what makes them high achievers.

Can, can the average person do the same thing?

Yes. In fact, that's what I show people how to do. And when I work with them is how to use their brain to handle the overwhelm, how to handle challenges, how to, you know, like a lot of the executives who come to me and entrepreneurs that come to me, Is they want to know, in, in the midst of uncertainty, when uncertainty strikes and I have a high-stakes challenge, how can I be great when that's happening? And that's really what the focus is of the book, is how do you be great? How do you create the exceptional when in high-stakes situations?

Hmm. Okay. And so Give us an example of how an average person can be great versus recall from a situation.

Well, so one of the things that happened that I talk about in the book is the— that our brains, the, the foes— remember I asked you, yeah, I mentioned that I asked all these leaders what's the foe, and it turns out it's a triple-headed dragon. The triple-headed dragon is criticism, mediocrity, and familiarity. So one of the things you have to do is be able to deal with criticisms, be able to deal with, instead of playing small and being mediocre, you have to play big, right? And then familiarity, staying within the known, staying within the status quo, staying with what you know. Familiarity is often the challenge. So one of the things to do is to go, what's the rule set you have that's going on in your brain? So for example, I worked with an owner of a company and he wanted to— the way he thought about running his company was he was the general, right? And he had to bark orders at everybody, and he had to tell people what to do. Now, the intent of getting it right, right? Because people want to be able to get it right, as you want to be able to— the better patterns you can see, the better predictions you can make. That's one of the skill sets that I talk about. The better patterns you see, the better predictions you can make. So he was looking at the situation, but he was acting like a general, and he was getting people upset. They didn't like being barked at. They didn't like being told what to do all the time. And guess what? He didn't like— he didn't like the way he was feeling, but he thought the rule in his head is, this is my job, this is what I have to do. And so we questioned that rule set in his head. about whether or not he needed to be the general. And you said— and he actually had a musical background. And we said, what would be a different role set, identity, if you will? Remember, games are identity. What's a different game you can play on this game board? You're looking at the game board as a battlefront, battle stations. He said, what came to— he said, you know, if I was like a composer or the conductor, he said, I could be the conductor of the symphony. And he began to go, as a conductor, here's how I would behave. Here's how I would— what I'd be thinking about. Here's what I'd be— how I'd be interacting to bring out the best in my people. Knowing that they had it in them. And so he switched this one little knob in his brain, right, in his concept of himself from general to conductor, and it changed the game. And he won more. He got— he was more effective as a consequence.

How did he know to select conductor versus some other descriptor?

Well, part was out in our discussion. Right? He, he, he— it was using his imagination, right, to come up with that, this behavior. Because what happens when in the shutdown syndrome— that's what I refer to when the foes take over— that shuts down and gets too narrow. So we keep, you know, that's what people, when they talk about take a deep breath, you want to take a deep breath. Well, what you're doing is Instead of having your sympathetic nervous system, it's fight or flight. You have the parasympathetic system start to work. The vagus nerve in your brain, which controls everything, just comes, begins to become more friendly. And he calmed down and he could feel more spacious.

Right.

And in that, he just started to allow his imagination and You know, we talked about, you know, what things that he liked to do and things that he preferred and how, what would be, how he could be more effectively himself, you know. So let me add—

What did he see as the acceptable link between being a general and being conductor?

What did he see? It was, well, because it got, it brought out the outcome. Ultimately, he got a better outcome both for himself. So he got to play an inner game. I talk a lot about inner game and outer game. So we were looking at what's the inner game you're playing. So the inner game he was playing was, you know, like being tough guy, right? And making it happen. The outer game was getting the most out of the people, out of the resources and the people. that he had. And he started— so when we switched that inner game, the outer game changed also. It's like bringing out their music, bringing out their effectiveness, bringing out what they could do, right? Adding, asking them. So he had an extra set of eyes and ears and abilities that he didn't all have to, you know, he used. He started seeing them as a big game board. an experience that he could have. He'd like to have, you know, he— so one of the things we talked about in working was I like to help push the experience boundary, right? So, you know, we talk about pushing the envelope. Well, it was pushing the experience boundary. He wants— in our lives, we want to have more experiences. So it was like, I don't need to play so narrow, right? He was myopic. This is a narrow— and so it was, what's a more panoramic view of this? how I used to see things. So he changed the view, the lens in his brain to see it more panoramic. And it was like, oh, I know, remember, I know, I've seen conductors, I've done that, I played music with a good conductor. So he started accessing those internal resources, experiences to go, I can play this game. My identity doesn't have to be this. It can be much bigger. So we can play bigger. So the shutdown syndrome basically can diminish that, right? The shutdown syndrome makes us smaller. Makes us—

And he was able to see that the general was a shutdown syndrome, where—

That's right.

The conductor was an orchestra of many that played as one.

That's right. He could see exactly He could see a much bigger game and a much more fulfilling game for himself and for the people. And it was actually more aligned with his purpose and the meaning. Like, I say that what— in order— winning only matters if it has purpose and meaning to it.

Mm-hmm.

We like— it's like, I know how to win. I know how we— I grew up in the sports arena, right? And I played sports, but my dad was winning and losing was on the line. So that's about money. But there's also about doing what's meaningful and on purpose. So winning, because you could be focused on winning. You hear a lot of people go, well, I gotta win. Well, you'd be focused on winning, but you could, you could leave a lot of people in your, in your trails because you win and they lose, right? And so, but winning When it's tied to meaning and purpose, then you have a bigger— you're playing a bigger game. You're playing a more meaningful game and you have more mastery. I like to say that the kinds of work, when I focus on it, is you end up with more meaning, more mastery, and of course, more money.

Steve, have you ever been in the position where you've had to make this kind of change?

Today, tomorrow, the next day.

Well, tell us about one that was really meaningful to you.

So I was running a strategic offsite. I was facilitating a meeting at— it was so long ago, I can say it was Wells Fargo, right? It was Wells Fargo Bank. It's a big bank, one of the top banks in the country. And I was running this meeting with the CIO and his team and we were doing an offsite, about a team offsite and working things out. The CIO gets a call, by the way, his name is Barry and Barry wrote the foreword to my first book, The Advantage Makers, right? So, Barry's the kind of guy who everyone ran through walls for, like one of the best leaders I've ever seen and listened and had the honor of working with. And he's one of the funniest guys. We still joke all the time. He sends me dirty jokes all the time. He's a good guy. He's from New York also.

Ah, of course.

Happens. From Brooklyn.

Oh, there you go.

But I mean, I work with people all over the world, but he— I'm just talking about this particular guy. And so he gets a call from the CEO of Wells Fargo, and he turns like white, right? And, you know, he's already— he's Jewish, but he's white, right? So he's also—

Uh-huh.

And he looks like— and he goes, oh no. And he stops the meeting and he starts telling everyone what this call was about. Like some, some technical thing had broken down. It was costing their customers, couldn't get their money. This thing, you know, it was consequential of huge magnitude. It wasn't just, yeah, we'll go fix it later. And they start talking back and there's this back and forth talk to his, his lieutenants, right? And the women lieutenants and the male lieutenants are all there and they're all Brilliant people. And they're just like, I became a wallflower. And it wasn't what I— my job to be that.

Uh-huh.

Uh-huh. But I didn't know what to do, right? Because they would talk, speaking on such a technical level. It wasn't about their, who they were and how they deal with things and their point of view and vantage points and how you get, how you get to the better view of this. They were just caught in the wave. And I looked at Barry and I'd never seen him nervous before. And he looked nervous to me. And as soon as I saw him nervous, I got nervous because I wasn't sure what to do in that circumstance. I knew it was a big deal. I had been paid a hefty sum to be in the meeting to contribute, and I wasn't fulfilling my role, my identity of what I was supposed to do. It goes on for a few minutes, what seemed like hours, this goes on. And then Barry said, okay, let's keep going. Right?

They just— let's—

and I had like this silly game, team building exercise, which are good at times. But this was like, these guys were like, they were bleeding. And I was playing like You know, Monopoly, you know, it didn't, you know, here's where the board game didn't fit, right?

Right.

It didn't, right? We passed through it. I, you know, I powered through it. I pushed through it. They got through it. At the end of the offsite, the next one, he called me and he said, Stephen, what do you think? He said, let's go to lunch.

Right.

And so we went to lunch and I was like, I knew something was up, right? And I thought this was, you know, he's gonna give me the heave-ho, say, here's your hat, watch your hurry, don't let the door hit you on the way out. And he said, what'd you think of that, the offset? And I, you know, I started to get nervous and I, you know, I was trying to protect my survival and my finances and for my family. And I looked at him and I said, it didn't go the way we wanted it to go. It wasn't as good as— it wasn't my— one of our— my better or better offsites. I'd done stuff with him before. And he went, you're right. Do better next time. Right? And so he was the kind of guy that you make mistakes, he just wanted to get it off his chest. Right? And he— to say something. But here's where it gets interesting.

Well, but he was the cause of it.

No, not really. He, he wasn't.

I don't—

I see it differently. He, he didn't understand. He was— that's what they hired me to do, to help them solve these kinds of high-stakes challenges and when uncertainty hits. So, but what I had done prior to that As I went to one of my colleagues, and my colleague Jeff, and I said to him, here's what the situation was, and I just felt so out of sorts. I lost my inner power. Like, I felt nervous and I felt scared. And as we talked, I realized that I had this program, this rule in my head: if I'm included, it leads to opportunity. If I'm excluded, all danger, you know, like I'll become a bagman.

Ah.

Fired off in my brain automatically. Inclusion, opportunity. Exclusion, the end of the world as I know it, right? And it was— who was in the driver's seat? Not the guy who they had hired, but I'm getting excluded. I'm not on the inside. I'm excluded. Right? It's kind of like a mafia, you know, you're in, you're on the inside or you're outside, right?

Family or not.

A lot of people, when I talk about that, a lot of people can identify, you know, you're on the inner circle or outer circle.

Yeah.

Good with the people you connected and so on. And I was on the outs at that point in my mind.

Mm-hmm.

The game was being played in my mind, not in— and so my friend Jeff said to me, and a colleague, I was working on myself, you know, to reflect upon what, what this was so I could have, you know, I— because I, I didn't have the courage to speak at that moment, you know.

Yes.

Speaking the word, right? I didn't have the courage. And he asked me a question. He said, do you value freedom and, um, truth? And I went, yeah, of course I do.

This was in the meeting or during lunch?

This was, this was separate from all that. I'm sorry, I'm with my friend, my colleague Jeff. Do you value freedom and truth? Okay. And I said, of course I do. But I obviously wasn't acting that way. So it was a high, it was a high-level value that I have of being truthful and, and freedom, being free to express yourself, being free to be strong, being free and independent. But my behavior didn't reflect that at all. And then he said, are people— my friend Jeff and colleague said, are people free to see you any way they see you, the good, the bad, the ugly? Are they free to interpret it, to make assertions about you, true or false? And I went, well, I could feel like I was trying to control how people perceived me.

Yes, of course.

It's like I wanted them to see me as master, as a guru, as someone in the mix, as the go-to guy, right?

In the know, problem solver.

And yet I was being— I was trying to manipulate them to see me that way. I was focused more on that than on the outcome of what I was there to do.

Yes.

I focus more on this inner thing than on the outcome.

Yes.

And so as soon as I went, people are free to see me, and you can see me as likable, unlikable, helpful, not helpful.

You could—

I have no control. You're going to see me how you see me. I felt this inner strength, this power, this spaciousness, this capacity that was always resonant within me and available, but I hadn't accessed it in that condition, that situation. And as soon as— that's what I brought to the, to the table when I said to them, when Barry said, how do you think it went? I said, it didn't go so well. You know, it wasn't good. And I was comfortable however they— I was able to be forthright and honest and talk about reality rather than make up stuff. Which is, if had I, had I tried to make up stuff, had I tried to say, well, you got nervous and I got nervous, he would have gone, you know, it's not going to work. But I took ownership of it and I took, and I was, fortunately, the experience was so powerful that I transformed on the inside. But here's where it gets really interesting. About 2 weeks later, CB, I was running another strategy session at another company and we were there with the CEO and his team and they, we had been working on this strategy for a couple of, like a month or so and we were supposed to show up and have a discussion about the high stakes Challenge the strategy that they would, this business decisions that they were making. Well, the team was upset that the CEO never showed up for the previous meetings. He just said, you guys work on it. Now, they love this guy. They love the CEO. He wasn't, there was no unusual untoward feelings. He wasn't, you know, a nasty guy and he was a wonderful guy and people would fight for him and do so. But he was like, just make it faster, better, cheaper. Just tell me what to do, you know, and we'll discuss it. Well, they were, during our meetings, they were always concerned that they couldn't come up with the final decision without him in the room. And it didn't work, not only the final decision, but work out things along the way. So we get to the meeting and we start to run one of the VP of HR is like his right-hand woman, if you will, right-hand person. She's a great person. And she said, he'll listen to me. At the appropriate time in the meeting, the strategy session, I'll stand up and say to him, John, you needed to— I'm using a different name. We need to address these issues of how we work together at this higher level and get your input. And that's why this report. was at the level that it was. I'll bring it to him and he'll listen. We get to the meeting, we run it, and just at that moment when he starts to go, where's the report? Why don't we have this report? And he looks at me, he says, you know, if you don't— if your job was to bring us this report, and if you don't have that, I can show you the door. And just at that moment, she gets up and walks out of the room. She leaves. I, you know, it was like she had to go to the bathroom. She had to— she got a phone call, an emergency. So she leaves. So I'm standing there right at that moment being told, here's your hat, don't let the door hit you on the way, on the way out. And it's like this replay. It's like a put-up job, this replay of how Am I going to try to maneuver this? Had I not had that deeper conversation of where I connected to myself, I would have been very reactive. I would have been very defensive. I would have been trying to maneuver the situation. I said to him something to the effect of, in a non-defensive way, you know, this is your strategy. It's not mine. This is your strategy. If you want me to leave, I will. But your team values your input at an enormous level. They think you're one of the smartest people around, understand this as well as— and they have skills also, but they want you in the mix, and you haven't been there. And that's what we would like to also discuss, if with your permission. He turned red.

Okay. Wow.

He turned red and I simply said, it's your choice. I said, if you and the team want to continue to talk, we will. If not, you know, leave. And he said, let's go, let's keep going. And they had one of the best meetings of strategy than they had ever had in the history of the company's strategy and how they go about doing it. And so it came, you know, I I got, you know, in some ways I got lucky that I screwed up so bad early, you know, it's like, and that's one of the things most of us are trying to avoid. If we look, examine ourselves, we don't wanna be, you know, I asked one of the execs from Apple that I work with, what's the number one fear? What's some of the fears? And he said, typically said, you don't wanna screw up. He used other terms. I don't wanna, You know, screw up. And, and so I'll do anything not to do that. But even more important, I don't want to be perceived as screwing up. Right.

You know, it's amazing that you were able to hold your composure during that period of time.

But I appreciate that. Yeah. And it came from working on the inner game. You know, like when I talk about the working, there's the inner game and the outer game. You have to work on both. And if you're gonna, so it's to walk into danger with that sense of confidence that you can handle it. If it doesn't work well, you can handle it. You know, in my book, I talk about this 3 different levels of consciousness when you walk into situations. And there's one where your brain is focused on, you always hear people go, that'll never work out. That's terrible. That's not gonna, You know, they always see the negative. Oh, it's gonna fall down or it's gonna break. Yeah, it's momentarily. And so that's one orientation. That's stage 1. The next one is where brains, where people focus on, I can do anything, you know, no matter what, it's gonna work. You know, you often hear that, you know, people play, you know, play to win. Let's go. You know, first one is play to avoid losing. Second one is I'm gonna play to, I'm gonna, I'm a winner. Right? And they have that— they associate themselves with being winners, which is much better than the first one level of consciousness. At least you can bring your resource to see the positive, to see an outcome, to make something happen. And, you know, there's times when people do that. But there's another level where you play this metagame, where you play to play and you play to win together. And that's what happened when you say, and I appreciate that, what you said about to maintain my composure. It's like, because you can handle it, right? Recognizing I can handle it. There's a spaciousness, there's a fullness of being, there's an awareness that you can bring your full capacity of self, your full sense, your wide range of experience, and push the envelope. into places that you haven't been to before.

Give us the name of your book again. This is just amazing.

Do What Others Say Can't Be Done: Play the Metagame. Right? So it's these patterns— thank you— it's these patterns of interaction, right? A lot of people focus on just the outcome, but it's the patterns Right? Patterns are destiny. And what I say to people is choose wisely, right? The situations that those moments of what you do is like a choice. And like when I was not resourceful internally, I was not, I was being react, my choice was reactive. It's just reacting, letting the circumstances dictate my behavior. When I was choosing wisely, I was— you can see me any way that you see me. I would prefer that you see me as competent, as capable, and include me. And so, but if not, it's okay. I can survive. I'll live, right? And so, you know, being honest, being the little kid is like playing small or playing big, right? So people, you said earlier, what are some examples of playing small versus playing big? So you get to play big when you, you play the inner game big, right? And then you can play the outer game big as well. And so when it's like, choose wisely, don't wobble. Uncertainty. When uncertainty strikes, you feel— when it goes unresolved, you feel vulnerable, hesitant, and wobbly. And when you learn how— when you work on yourself, you become more confident, more like sitting on the, you know, in a space shuttle, because you trained yourself and you, you know what to do. You know how the steps is going to happen, and you're accessed. You have that memory that, that supports you from the inside out.

I love the 3 levels of consciousness. I'm a loser. I'm a winner. We can handle this together. Yeah. Very powerful.

Yeah. And that work was for one of the— Connie Rae Andreas was the person I interviewed, and she said that's what her work is about. Wholeness. Being whole is this different levels, because I tried to find out what are these different levels And then as game changers, the last one I can handle is being the game changer.

Stephen, I have a weird question to ask you. How did you get in to interview all of these people?

I asked. Some of them I knew, right? Some of them were people that I worked with. A lot of these folks that I work with in my executive coaching practice, it's always, when people say you practice, they don't hire me to practice on them, right? So it's like in my profession, you know, when I was operating as an executive coach, when I was helping them out, And then I go, do you know anyone who might be interested? So-and-so said so, you know, so it was a network effect. And I went up, I heard Jeff Blyth, who was the ambassador for the United States to Australia, and his story is in the book. And I heard him giving a speech and I said, I'm writing this book about people who are able peak performers who are people able to do what others say can't be done. Would you be willing to be interviewed? He said, sure, call my office. I went up to the controller of the state of California and I said, I'm writing a book. I'm researching how people of your caliber— he was also the EVP of eBay that I spoke about. He has funny stories. just absolutely brilliant guy, this pattern recognition guy, great guy. He's a VC now. And I said to him something similar. I'm doing this book. I have an astronaut who's written, who engaged in this and works, I work with, and he, you'd be amongst these people. So they want to be members of A very unique set of people, but they also want to give back. You know, they want, they go, sure, I'd like to talk about that. And it looked like I was doing something engaging, different, intriguing, right? I was finding out things. And once they start, and I said, I'm a neurostrategist, I focused on brains, games, and foes and looking at how you deal with uncertainty to become your best. to bring your best foot forward. And I do have some experiences like that. And he said, sure, I do. You know, it's like I work with one client who I work with who's actually named the cloud, who's the original person who gave the term the cloud, right? And he was a CEO that I worked with previously, right? And I said to him, Andrei, Andrei Shweiger, I said, Andrei, can I interview you for my book? I'm looking to talk to game changers. He said, well, I don't know if I'm a game changer or not, but I'll be glad to talk to you. Right.

Fantastic.

Right. And same thing, I talked to the former CEO of Apple, Gil Amelio, right? And it was basically by a network. I said, I was talking to someone else. I said, do you know anyone who'd be interested? And I said, yeah, I know, happen to know Gil Amelio. They'd call him up and he was as gracious and as forthright and engaging as, as you are being, right? It was just lovely. You know, he was just a decent guy. You know, after I interviewed him several times for the book, and he was really helpful, and he said, you know, next time I come into town, let's go have lunch, right?

Wow.

He was really respectful. And, you know, I respected him, he respected me. It was mutual. You know, so I think to the point, there's a mutuality. You bring something to the table, right? You bring something to the table. You bring your— as an author, you're bringing some skill set. And it wasn't about me, it was about them. I wanted— people like to talk about their own experience, and you ask them intriguing questions, and they want to know. You know, I asked some people questions. I haven't ever thought about that. Let me think about that. I said, well, let's talk about it. And they would go into— so they, they found it useful. They found, you know, an hour or 2 that they had the time to do.

Yeah, I always think it's fascinating how people can get in to see other people that other people would love to meet for the purposes of interviewing them, you know, an honest discussion. And I think it starts with having the courage to ask. Right.

You're willing to, you know, I always say my, um, I remember my, uh, daughter was a little, she was very young. Now she's married, has a baby. I'm a grandpa, you know. She's wonderful. And, um, my wife made, you know, dinner and she called down and said, Samantha, It's time for dinner. And Samantha says, she says, can I eat down here in my room? And I went, oh, okay. She just asked, you know.

She just asked.

Sometimes you just have to be willing to ask, you know.

And with that, ladies and gentlemen, we're gonna end the show. We've had a great discussion. About how you can look at yourself differently, how you can change perceptions that you have about yourself, and how you can just ask. With that, Stephen, I am so happy that you came on the show. Can you just show us your book again?

Yeah, it's, it's Do What Others Say Can't Be Done: Play the Metagame. And it, by the way, If folks want some more, you can contact me on my website, stephenfeinberg.com. But there's also a free assessment, like how do you compare, how do you stack up to these leaders, to these people who are able high achievers? And it takes 3 minutes and it's 9 questions. And it's basically these 3 skill sets that I talked about.

Wait, where do you find it? I wanna take it.

Okay, go to my website, stevenfeinberg.com. Excuse me, s-t-e-v-e-n-f-e-i-n-b-e-r-g.com. Go to my website. It's called the First Adaptive Scorecard. It's the first thing that comes up, and you have these 3, 3 factors that you'll be evaluated on, and it compares you to the best of the best. and how you do, right? And these, there are these 9 questions that have been specifically asked to identify your ability to pattern bust, your ability to spot the game, and your ability to set the frame and influence people. And all that adds up to is your strategic agility. Because the thing that makes these people what I call first adapters, I don't know if I mentioned that before, they, I call these people first adapters. who are able to detect the patterns early and to be able to see what's missing to make the best decision in their favor and to influence others. So the strategic agility is this adaptive power and it gives you, it represents another way of measuring their courage and capacity. So you want confidence but competence together, they give you the courage to move forward.

I love it. Stephen, thank you so much for coming on today. I can't wait to get a copy of your book.

Well, thank you.

I appreciate it. Where is it available?

On Amazon. You can get it on Amazon.

Of course, you can get everything on Amazon.

Amazon. That's the place to get it. Let me know what you think when you read it.

I will. Everybody, thank you for tuning in and hearing a really great conversation. With Stephen Feinberg, I'll see you next week.