#57: Trevor Moawad, Mental Conditioning Expert: How To Think Neutrally

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I'm ready for my close up.

Hi, and welcome back. I'm so glad you're here with me this week. Okay, so to get you up to speed on a few things, my first ever virtual mentoring program, which I invented overnight because of COVID 19, has been a major success. And I just want to share. I'm so proud of the people that I got to work. Work with. But I also want to share. I have a couple things to say about this. Number one, you can feed 30 different people the same thing, and 20 of them are going to take the ball and run with it and execute, and 10 just will do nothing. And I saw that so clearly that wasn't the breakdown in numbers, but, you know, there was a couple of people that just really didn't execute and really didn't take the ball and run with it and, you know, would cancel on meetings or just didn't make it happen. And it reminded me of the situation last holiday. I live in a building, and I came home one day, and the woman at the front desk was exasperated, and I said, what's going on? And she said, you know, I'm working multiple jobs. I'm just. I'm not getting paid enough. I'm not valued. I. I'm just. I'm barely making it. I can't keep living like this. And I ran upstairs, I got her my book Confidence Creator, and I gave it to her. And I said, read this book, book, and if you have questions, let me know. But you need to start having confidence in yourself and going for what you're worth and asking for your value and putting yourself out there and pushing the limits. Just don't accept what you're being given and blah, blah, blah. And so the next day, I had gotten Uber Eats, and when the delivery man came, it's the same guy all the time. And this day, he was super bummed out. And I said, what's the matter?

And.

And he said, you know, I work three jobs and I never sleep, and I have no life. And I said, but why not? He said, I don't know. I just don't know how to get to the next level. I don't know how to make more money. I gave him my book Confidence Creator. I said the same thing to him, and I said, read the book, and I want you to come back and talk to me about it, and I want you to take some action here and move things forward. So to make a long story longer, I don't know, maybe a couple weeks pass and the woman from the front desk resigned. And I walked in the building and she thanked me and she said, I read your book. And I went to both employers I work for. I put myself on the line and said, I need more and this is the number I need. And I can't keep working two jobs. I'm worth more. And one of them offered her exactly what she asked for and unfortunately it wasn't my building. So she left working here. But good for her. She got paid what she was worth and she didn't have to work. Work two jobs anymore and she could start bettering herself in her free time now that she was giving up a full time job, which is amazing. I'm so happy for her. Fast forward to next week. I see the Uber Eats guy and.

I said, what did you think of the book?

Oh, you know, I read a chapter, but I really haven't had time. Okay. A month goes by, two months, three months. I ask him again, hey, what's going on? Oh, I don't know, I'm just, I'm too busy. I don't know. Whatever excuse he gave. But having this mentoring program is really opening my eyes to. We can all have the access to the same things, we could all have the information, but if we choose not to execute, we just have ourselves to look in the mirror and deal with it. And it was really glaring how many phenomenal success stories I saw this month. And a couple people that just really didn't do much. I really felt badly for them. However, it's not shocking that, you know, their situation is what it is. So let's talk about some of the success stories. And one person had been really bored in her job, always saying that she had a better idea but didn't know what to do. From day one, she hit the ground running. She knew what her business plan was, what her concept was. So we started sitting down, strategizing on how to build a business plan, what action steps to take, what to do first, how to prioritize, how to hold yourself accountable to, you know, create goals with dates and times on each one so we could start knocking these things off. As she did that, she found out she started telling people that she was working on launching her own business. While she was having a conversation, someone told her about this group that offered. It was an innovation group or innovation lab local that, you know, offered support and investment in startup companies. And the pitch was actually today. So over the last month she's been working on her presentation, working on her company, working on the product and the software. She went in and pitched today, and this woman is not. When I first met her, she wasn't confident. She hated speaking on our group calls. She got very nervous. But we, you know, we practiced. We kept putting everybody into the fire. And today she went in and pitched herself for this innovation opportunity. And when she walked out, they said, oh, you'll hear from us in 24 hours. She got a phone call 15 minutes later and she landed it. She got the deal and she's got the backing, she's got the support, now she's got the team, and she's off and running with her new company and I'm so freaking proud of her. Another person was a stay at home mom and just felt like, you know, she needed more passion and purpose in her life as her kids had gotten older. And at first she thought she wanted to start a subscription business and she was really into that. And so we went all the way down the line on that and she started seeing, well, you know what, I really wanted to import things from other countries and bring something new. And we can't do that right now. And then she said, I'm running the numbers now. You know, we created action steps for her to take to really build out this business and look at exactly what it was going to be. And as she took the steps, took the action and did the work, she came back to me and said, I'm doing the work and I'm two weeks into this and I don't think this is going to work. I just don't have a good feeling. And I said, well, what would you want to do if it isn't this? And she was so smart. She said, you know what everybody asks me to do, they don't offer to pay me, but what they ask me for. What, what is everyone asking for? She said, everyone's always asking me to decorate their house. She said, people love how I decorated my house. I've been asked this for, for years and it was such a great, you know, remember, what is it that people ask you for? Because that's how you can add value, that's how you can drive revenue and you can monetize that. And she said, I guess I should build a business around me doing interior decorating or design work or something. So I said, let's do the first step and just put it out on social media. You got to put it out to the universe. Well, wouldn't you know, this woman fired up an Instagram video and that same day got a ton of responses of people. So excited she got in this business and the following day she closed her first client. So I was just so and she was so happy and she's so excited on the creative side, she's excited on the business side. You know, this was the right fit for her and it took going down a wrong path to figure out what the right one was. So I thought that was really cool. I've seen so many amazing I saw this woman who was launching her coaching business end up doubling her rates and selling out her program. You know, just all about when you surround yourself with people who are like minded, who are pushing you to get to the next level, who are teaching you how to instill confidence in yourself, and you're taking the action and do it. Momentum is built and an object in motion remains in motion and speeds up. So it's been amazing watching this. And while this has all been going on simultaneously, I've been building out this Shopify store where I'm offering my course now so that I have conversion opportunity. You know, my job is to drive people to the conversion site. Conversion happens right there on the site. I've got my testimonials, I've got my product offering and the shopping cart and you pay and everything is done seamlessly there. So it's my new experience just learning about Shopify. So I reached out today to find an expert on it to see how I could, you know, what am I missing? How can I be more efficient? How can I optimize? I'm in this learning process too, in this different arena and I'm spending a lot of time working to find out how to do it better. And I'm learning so much and making tons of mistakes along the way. So I was able to raise my prices for June. The testimonials I got on my May team were amazing. However, I still can't run this business while I'm sleeping, as I know I want to. Right? You want to find ways to have businesses that are driving revenue for you, that you don't need to be hand holding all the time. Or at least not quite so much. So that's really been my new focus and I'm actually branching out and doing some. I'm going to do a couple different things this month in June. I'll share them with you, of course. Who knows if I'll fail with them or if they'll be successful? I don't know. But I Do know this. Not innovating is not the answer. Right. So I didn't know anything about Shopify. We put up the store and gave it a shot and it seems to be working well. But there are some glitches, some things I could do better. So I just keep improving along the way and I don't have some blueprint on exactly what it is that I should be doing. But I will tell you, the interesting thing about the quarantine has been I had the time to sit down all day long and work on this, which I would have never launched a course like this before because I didn't have the time. I was constantly on planes. And it's sort of interesting because this new model that I'm moving towards, I haven't figured it out yet, is something that it's going to allow me to make money without jumping on planes, without jumping on stages. And I'm grateful I'm given this chance right now to build and learn this business. And then hopefully in the future, a year from now, I can go back to that other business too, because I do love stuff speaking on stages, but I've been speaking virtually and the feedback's been fantastic. And you know, again, I'm just learning these new ways to take my talents, to add value, to make my talents more marketable, more profitable. And being forced into these negative situations and changes and uncomfortable moments forces you to dig deeper into how can you do things differently.

And.

And that's forcing all of us to evolve as people and as businesses. And not every day is great. You know, I'll definitely say that this morning I had such a hectic day. I was somewhat not looking forward to my day and I jumped on with one of my mentees for May and he had this really cool realization I want to share with you. I'm so proud of him. He was kind of stuck in a bit of a rut. And he said, I figured out what my challenge was. And I said, what is it? He said, I'm so focused every day on taking action steps and achieving A, B, C and D. He, he said, I lost connection with what my bigger, longer term goal is and I need to redefine that and reevaluate that and make that my top priority every day. And I. That was really important. Smart. Because I do that. I'm so action oriented and action focused that I wake up some mornings and I look at the massive list of to do. And some days I get, ugh, gosh, this sounds like a lot of freaking work. And I'm not so excited. But hearing that, it reminds me, okay, wait a minute. My goal is to have a company where I make money while I sleep. I make X amount of dollars that I'm making millions of dollars in this business. There's multiple pipelines and revenue streams. I've built out a successful team. You know, really looking at that really rich forecast of your future and what that bigger picture goal is not for today, but, you know, for months to come or for the year to come or years to come for that matter. It could be a six month, a one year, and a five year, but starting to really envision that and focus on that Instead of the 20 meetings that you have in the day and how sick of zoom you might be. Because when we focus on those granular things, sometimes we can get down. And that was what was happening to me until I had that call with my mentee this morning. And he really taught me something very special. And I hope that you find that to be interesting too. If you're not focusing on that bigger picture goal and, you know, write it out and let people know what it is and remind yourself that that's why you're working so hard. Because when you do that, the hard work gets a little bit easier because you get that much more excited for your future. Okay, but now enough about me. I'm really excited for you to meet my guest today. So this is super interesting. I got a note from Ed Mylett that he loved this guest so much that I had to have him on my show. His name is Trevor Moad. And and he's a renowned mental conditioning expert and strategic advisor to some of the world's most elite performers. In 2017, Trevor was named the sports world's best brain trainer by Sports Illustrated. From Fort Bragg to Harvard Business School, from elite quarterbacks to top level CEOs, this man coaches them all. His new book, it takes what it takes how to think neutrally you and gain control of your life. He's gonna walk us through all of this and more. I'm really excited for you to meet Trevor and to find ways to stop thinking negatively and maybe not pivot to positive, but shift into neutral, which is a very new concept to me. And some of his stories are going to flipping blow you away. So hang tight. We are gonna be right back with.

Trevor, different guests each week. Hi and welcome back. I'm so excited for you to meet Trevor today because I had the honor. Trevor, first of all, I don't even know how I didn't know you. That's embarrassing number one or just shows how much media and how many people are on social media, period. But our mutual friend Ed Mylett reached out to me and told me you were a must have, one of the best guests he's ever had on a show. So I'm so grateful for you making time for me today.

Well, thank you. It's an honor Heather, to join you. You know, I'm new to social media, probably only with the Instagram actually, you know, myself using it in the last six months and in the sports world, the places I worked, they did not, they did not value that nor were we allowed to have any social media, you know, in the sports world. People who need to know, you know, you the traditional marketing, marketing. I think that I've learned more since the book with respect to the peak performance community, business psychology, executive coaching. That is not how it's done in the sports world.

Yeah, well that makes a lot of sense. When I first released my book Confidence Creator, I never thought I'd hear from an athlete because I think that most of the general population, myself included, doesn't understand how much pressure, stress and self doubt professional athletes have. And I actually had an NBA player reach out to me asking for coaching and help, which was shocking to me. Trevor. I had no idea how these guys struggled. It's really amazing.

Yeah, I mean I just think the vast majority of the coaching and the athletic community is not actively involved in the self help industry. So the 99.9% of athletes, like if you take a look at somebody that works at Google or you take a work, you know, at your population or Ed Mylett's, they're looking for the next podcast to drop. They're looking for help. Athletes are not looking for help. They don't listen to podcasts. There is no Tony Robbins in sports. You know, there's a handful of us that have found a way to create a living in that world, but it's a much different living than in the business world. You know, there's no bullshit, there's no if your information soft or it sucks or it's stupid, they'll yell you off the stage. And so, you know, Even in my 18 years, from the Dolphins to the Jaguars to Alabama, Florida State, Georgia, all those places, I've never signed more than a one year contract. So it's a tough world. And I think most of the people from the business psychology community, executive coaching are smart not to be in that world because you can make a lot more money outside of it. But what I will say as Somebody that survived it 19 years, almost 20 years now. It makes you good because you can't not be good and survive. And then ultimately for us, I think it allowed us to adapt a message that as I stepped in and I started looking, I didn't know anybody in the business, psychology or executive. You know, my dad had been in it for many years and was one of the original authors of Chicken Soup for the Soul. And so I grew up on Brian Tracy and Zig Ziglar and Earl Nightingale and Norman Vincent Peale and Maxwell Moss. But I didn't really know any of the new people. And so once I started to research that, I felt comfortable that I had a message that was going to be much different than the message that I was seeing out there.

You grew up in this idyllic situation and that your father was legitimately coaching you along and exposing you to this great information at such a young age. But did you readily take that on and really immerse yourself in it right away?

Yeah. So coaching was not the term that he would really use. He liked. I mean, it was more. He didn't like one on one very much. So it was mostly businesses. Corporations like IBM, NASA, Pepsi, Coca Cola. He had three big kind of systems. Increasing human effectiveness, Committed equality, Unlocking your potential. Unlocking your potential was in 2,500 school districts taught in health classes. So my dad, in the mid-70s when I was born, my dad had just transitioned out of being a high school basketball coach and teacher with four other coaches in Seattle. And they kind of went into this industry, formed a company called the Pacific Institute. And then, so I was kind of born into that. So I liked it. It was strategic. I mean, I started at the affirmations and tapes and cybernetic waves at 4 years old and really had a good understanding. Weren't allowed to watch the news. No country music, A real absence of negativity. Couldn't say the word can't. It was called stinkin thinking. It was a great way to grow up. I struggled with being positive. That never really resonated with me. Positive thinking just was tough. But you know, I understood negative thinking was a real problem. And so I steered clear of that. But it was a great way to grow up. And then, you know, when I was in college, my second year of college, I got sick and dropped out of school. And that's when it kind of all really hit home for me because I realized that, you know, the whole idea of attitude and mindset and all those things, you know, it wasn't bullshit. It was really, it was real. And when you're sick, you know, you know, you're, you know, sick of the day after diagnosis than you are the day before, but you feel different. I was, you know, 18 years old and this is mid-90s, and they had no idea what was going on. So I really, at that point I was like, man, I'm really glad I have this foundation, this education. And then it allowed me to really understand the power of what my dad was teaching. Disappointing that it took that much for me to get it. That's why I've never really had, you know, much expectations on the self esteem movement. I've never believed it would grow. I don't see it as a growth industry. I don't see people actively wanting help. I think it's really too, it's hard for people to understand. And I think the concepts that we brought to the forefront are too complicated for most people to get, so they quit. And my goal and my hope and what I've learned in the sports world is how can we make it easier so people don't feel like they have to read something from somebody that's got 38 PhDs from Harvard, but something that's simple and it's basic and it's for everybody. And that's what Russell Wilson and I really tried to do in the education system, in the business world. Create a model that whether you, you're into it or not, it can help you and you're not going to really be able to debate it. You know, all the philosophies around positive thinking are anecdotal. The data is all anecdotal. Meditation obviously has really taken over the industry now. Mindfulness. There's not an athlete I've ever met that would engage in that. It's a really complicated skill. I think, you know, by our second, third year, we can advance to that skill. And learning it's an important skill, but it's a very challenging skill. And so, you know, how do we make this thing easier and more inclusive for everybody? But I also don't like, you know, a lot of the way, the traditional what I'm seeing on the inter, you know, social media with a lot of these business coaches that are telling people fuck off and you're weak and it's not hard. I made 800 million. You can make 800 million. Just do it this way. And they're yelling and screaming at people. That really turns me off. Even though I know those guys make a lot of money running their wineries or whatever that's not what I believe. I don't think that that gets people involved. You know, that's not the population that that I want I would ever really stand to be talked to that way.

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Completely appreciate what you're saying and I believe that, you know, people connect to and listen to different types of people. There's different frequencies and messaging are needed, but you have a different philosophy and a different model. Can you walk us through what that looks like when you work with an athlete?

Well, I just think in general, you know, when I got to Alabama and whether you follow sports or not, you know, sports is an EBITDA driven business. It's, people say, well it's, I mean, we're the best are promoted and you know, ultimately if you don't win, you don't, you know, we lose about 35% of our professional coaches every year to getting fired. Only 28% of our players in pro football make it to a fourth season. I mean, it is the ultimate, you know, competition. There's no, you know, and it's so much of it's physiological, but a lot of it's psychological. So I think the big thing that, you know, Heather, when we started to look at, okay, we've got 22 hours a week in college football and we got a minimal amount of time in pro football where we could implement a psychological architecture. Now we want to have clinical support, counseling support, employee assistance support. But we also wanted to have a proactive sort of self esteem based support. But it's got to be, it's got to make sense. And so when we started looking at the data, positive thinking was not readily received by our players. But the data all said that negative thinking was clearly provable, somewhere between 83 to 100%, 83% by the Mayo Clinic, 95% by the Cleveland Clinic, and that all the data in and around being negative. We lost our creativity by 18%. Our ability to make decisions dropped almost 50% with our becoming more indecisive because we were so filled up with negativity. And that negativity was almost a multiple of four to seven times more powerful than positivity going back to the way we were wired 10,000 years ago. And so what we wanted to do to be efficient was if negativity is more powerful than if we could eliminate negativity or lessen it, then we never really had to try to teach a message of being positive that didn't resonate. And so that's really what we focused on over the course of this sort of 3, 4, 5, 6 year run. And we found out that negativity was most powerfully carried by language. That when we verbalized negativity, it was way stronger than when we thought about it. So we said, fuck it, we're not going to worry about what people think, because thoughts are all over the place, and our internal thoughts really aren't that powerful, but our outside words are ten times more powerful. And if they're negative, they're four to seven times more powerful. So when we say negative things out loud, we increase the likelihood that they'll happen by 40 to 70 times. So what we decided was if we could get our players not to say stupid things out loud without ever being positive, we could change our culture. It's exactly what we did. We went from six wins to 12 wins. We were able to do it at Florida State, we were able to do it at Georgia. I've been able to participate in my role in the mental conditioning side in eight national championships with three different teams, which is very much a big business, much harder than 90% of the jobs that people are listening to this podcast or Ed's podcast or whatever are. So in terms of eliminating that, that became powerful. And we had so much data, articles, video examples, stories I was able to find with our team, so many visual examples, so many specific examples of how negative thinking would weaponize you against you, particularly articulating it. And so our players agreed with it. They believed they didn't want to be negative. And so the problem that people had with positive thinking was you play poorly, you go through a divorce, you get fired, you get furloughed, you immediately have to pretend that that didn't happen and see yourself in a better outcome. Like, you know what? I'm going to meet somebody new, I'm going to get a better job, I'm going to play better next game. But you don't know if any of that's true. And so what we ultimately came with was we didn't want to be in negative because negative was so strong. It catastrophized and ruined our next series of moments. Positive was disingenuous in many respects for our players because it too quickly forced them to move to a different alternative state that they naturally weren't ready to go through. I knew it. Going through divorce, I couldn't just say, you know, people would say, think about the people you got to meet. Why got married not to meet anybody, you know. And so that wasn't where I was eventually going to get there, but it was going to take time. So we came up with this middle ground called neutral thinking. And what neutral thinking worked for us. And it was, it wasn't based on Asian religions or anything from that perspective, or stoicism. It was just based on a car. Car goes reverse, neutral forward. And you can't go from backwards to forward, you got to get to the middle. We would just call it downshift into neutral. And what neutral meant was the past is real. So if something bad happens, it happens, but it's not predicted that what's going to happen next is going to be based upon what I do, not how I feel. And even the most cynical people, if I say, well, tell me what happens three days from now, they can't tell you because nobody knows. Even with the challenges we're going through right now, the 21st looks like versus the 31st could be a lot different. So we really don't know. So neutral is basically this middle ground of, hey, I accept that this is good or bad, this is the reality, but I'm not projecting that onto my future because my future is going to be determined by how I handle now, what I think about how I focus, etc. So that's kind of a seven minute version of how we got to it. But you know, the data was clear that just negativity worked negatively. And so we wanted to eliminate that. And the elimination of negativity doesn't mean you have to force positivity. By eliminating negative, your mind all of a sudden frees up and becomes more solution oriented and more creative. And telling people always to be positive creates a lot of resentment. I know I grew up being told to be positive my whole life.

It's so interesting to me. I just, I don't know why, but I definitely am someone who's always putting positive out there and it drives some people crazy and they'll tell me I'm just not like you, you know, that's not my thing. So when you find someone like that, how do you shift them from negative or reverse to neutral?

The number one goal is just if people just stop first, stop saying stupid shit out loud, it would change their life forever if that was all they ever did. So neutral is an alternative that we teach and that we present, but if people just didn't Say, well, hey, but Trevor, I got a vent. You don't have to vent. There's no data and science that venting is good. If you vent about how frustrated you are, upset you are, and all the different types of things, there are consequences because you're externalizing negativity and you're exacerbating your current reality, just a reality. So are there times where you have to strategically talk about things? For sure. Like, hey, we got to find a way to get through this. I mean, Q2 wasn't where we want to. We got to figure out how we can virtually do this, this, and this, or we're not going to make it to Q4. I mean, you got to have realistic toxin things like that. But I think there's nothing like positivity has strength in the absence of negativity. The problem for most people is think of it as food. Negative is seven bags of Dorito. Positive is an apple. You've eaten seven bags of Doritos and you're like, damn, I better eat an apple. Just stop eating. Eat less Doritos. And I think that that's. And I think the second thing, Heather, is consumption. You know, we know that three, three minutes of cable news increase our probability by 27% will say that we had a terrible day. And the, you know, part of my opportunity to learn in the special forces community, I've learned, you know, they would take these courses called new media that would study msnbc, cnn, fox, pbs, cnbc, all these things. Who spends the money on marketing with them, who are advertising, therefore, what's the message? And the message is designed for the marketers, the people investing in them. They don't have any responsibility to be truthful. And because negativity is so much more powerful, their job is to be as possible to fuck people up. And that's how they keep people engaged. And so when you learn what I say and what I consume, in many cases is in my control. During this whole thing, in the last eight weeks, I haven't watched a minute of news, Nothing. I work for one of the NBA teams in Southern California. We get updates every week. This is what we need to know. This is how many people have this. This is the situation. This is what we're learning about testing. This is what we're learning about vaccines. So I need to know, you know, it's all I need to know. I know everything that I need to know. I can follow the rules. I can wear my masks. I could do my things. I can go outside. I can understand social distance. And for me, why would I consume all that negativity? Why would I follow a president's Twitter account? Why would I, you know, do any of these different types of things if the consequences are so very clear? You know? And Trevor, I just need to know. There's a lot of ways you can know. You can go to your state website. People torture themselves by watching the news and by watching those different types of things. And it's discipline. And a lot of the best athletes you want to. Russell Wilson, $36 million a year, highest paid athlete in the history of pro football, doesn't watch any of that, doesn't engage. It doesn't go on social media outside of to control the things and to control and put out a narrative and things along those lines. There are consequences to stupid behavior, to consuming negative things, to saying negative things out loud. I can't prove the benefits of watching positive things and saying positive things out loud. The data just doesn't lend itself in the same way.

Wow, that's really interesting.

So from what you just said to me, I'm hearing fire the negative people, get away from negative people, get away from negative media, get away from negative social media, unfollow those people. But you're also saying something that I think is really unique around changing words. I had a call yesterday with a friend who kept saying, I'm in a funk, I'm in a funk, it's okay, I'm in a funk. And hearing him repeat that, it was almost selling that to himself. How could you reframe something like that? Or do you suggest different words to people?

Well, I mean, I'm a big believer in marketing campaigns. So when you study the science of influence, you know, like your influence over your kids is 1 to 10. And that's a tough thing for parents, it's a tough thing for business leaders, tough thing for coaches. An individual has 10 times the influence over themselves than somebody else. So you can help somebody by believing in them. You know, I was married to a model for many years, which was a tough industry to be in. As supportive as I am, you know, you can do this. I know you can. You look great. You look fantastic. It's just a go see, go. I was still going to only be 10% as influential as whatever she was saying or whatever she thought to be true about herself. So I think if you look at marketing campaigns, you just look at, you know, Nike. Nike in 1988 was a $1.2 billion company chasing Reebok in 1988, which was a $1.9 billion company Reebok had dominated the aerobics industry. And then Nike created an advertising campaign called Just Do It, a marketing campaign from Wyden Kennedy. And in 18 months, they'd gone up $7 billion. So your marketing campaign Just do it, by the way, is a neutral term. It's not connected to an outcome. It's not winning or losing. It's just do it. So when people are saying, I'm in a funk, I'm in a funk, then obviously they're increasing their probability by 70 times that they'll stay in it. So what's the magic thing? To me, the magic thing is education, you know, not. I'm not in a funk. Because they're going to say, well, Heather, I am. So it's going to be a matter of I'm working on finding a way to navigate myself through this and kind of coming up with different ideas just to get myself sort of back on the direction I'm trying to head, which is more connected to behavior than any outcome. You know, like, I'm doing great. Well, you don't think you're doing great, so it creates that cognitive dissonance. But I think the biggest thing is you don't have to unfollow. You don't. There's just consequences. You know, a negativity like our book, it takes what it takes. It's just. It just proves the power of negativity. That's all I focused on. You know, you could be the biggest asshole in the world, and there's nothing you could say that would say, you know what? The more negative I am, the more dumb shit I say out loud, the more stupid things I watch, that just makes me perform better, that's not true. And I can win that argument with athletes. But if you're trying to say, hey, man, be positive. Know what? Just lay down and meditate. You know, all the different things people like, I don't know, you know, I don't. I don't know. And as you get rid of that, if you minimize the negativity and then you start to learn the power of your own language, and then you get behind the right behaviors, well, then all of a sudden you can start focusing from the inside out, you know, affirmations and meditation. I mean, the power of meditation is you close off the current world and you recreate and imprint a new world and start to visualize that new world, and your body cybernetically can't tell the difference between the real and imagined, and you're experiencing a new world in advance of that being true. That has a ton of power. But not if you don't do the other stuff right. You know, if I'm, if I'm going to my headspace app at 10 o' clock at night after I watched six hours of Fox, you know, and then said three hours, you know, of just I'm in a swamp and I can't do this. Our business never going to turn. What's the point? The Headspace app can only help you if you learn how to do the other things right. And that's just, I'm hoping that that message will be more pervasive. Like I said, I don't, you know, I don't have many social media followers or all those different things, but we do have a book now, you know, and you know, in the sports world I've always had a great voice, but in the sports world, if you're not a coach or you're not a player, those are the consumer facing brands. So I'm hoping Russell Wilson's company and, and Mind, Limitless Minds and some of these other things we're going to teach neutral and the minimization of negativity and hopefully that helps people. Because Heather, you're always in control of what you say out loud and you're always in control of what you turn on your clicker, you know, and I just think if people could get better at that, particularly now when what we're dealing with is really scary, you know, it is really scary, you know, let alone sensationalizing. Absolutely. Yeah. And you know, in certain networks they're not talking about how many people have been cured or the minimal percentage or this and that. They're just scaring the shit out of people. And so like there are consequences to allowing myself to be scared, you know, but you can't be ignorant either. So you got to find that balance.

Trevor, one of the things that you mentioned was talking about in this idyllic situation where we could meditate and visualize a future that we want to create for our life. It reminded me hearing you explain that of a story that shocked me that you shared about Bill Buckner. And as a Red Sox fan, someone who grew up in Worcester, Mass. And remembers that game of Bill Buckner costing the World Series. When you shared that story, you really got my attention. I was hoping you could walk us through what happened there.

Yeah, so. So Bill Buckner was a really successful baseball player for the Red Sox. He was a eight time gold Glover, which means he was the best at his position in his league and a 10 time All Star. And the Red Sox had had this sort of miss curse going back to 1918 for all these years. Well, he was interviewed 12 days before the World Series and I happened to see this show on an E60 and ESPN special. And he said, the dreams are that you're gonna, you know, get the game winning hit to win the World Series. The nightmare would be that you would cost your team the World Series by letting the, the game winning run score on a ground ball through your legs. And as it would turn out in the 10th inning, in Game 6 with the opportunity, basically it was already won or the ninth inning was already won. Really all they did to do is get one more out. Mookie Wilson hit a ground ball to Bill Buckner, it went through his legs. The Mets won, won the next game and won the World Series. And one of the things I think that we learned, that we teach from it is just when you say like saying that out loud didn't make it happen, it increased the probability. Saying, I don't know if I'm going to get through this. I don't know if I'm ever going to meet somebody new. I don't know if I can get healthy, you know, I don't know if I can find a new opportunity. I don't know if I can ever get myself back in shape. You know, I think the more we externalize those things or I'm in a funk, like your friend said. The only counter narrative to that, Heather, is what to do. Lie. Fucking lie. Like don't say it right? Just like don't say it out loud. The data is so clear. Think it and then be more strategic. I'm not telling you to be positive, but think it. And at a minimum, if you didn't say it, you would dramatically eliminate its power over you. And baseball players talk about all the time because every baseball player is going to go through three or four games where they don't hit well. But how do you make it three or four games instead of 14, 15 games. And as we were, most of us have fallen in love with talking about our problems. And we found people who are happy to listen to us to consume those problems. And it's just, you know, when I first got married, my wife worked at an animal clinic and she'd come back every day and take a nap and then her friend would call like six and they would both talk about how they hated the animal clinic. And like two months into it I just said, hey, you don't really like this No, I said, let's not work there. There's no reason to be at a place that you don't, you know, that's consuming you when you get home, you know, which is hard enough, you know, working from 6:00am to 4:00pm so, you know, I just think we have a lot more control and what I'm talking about, you know, and if people say, well, what about my inner thoughts? Your inner thoughts are an advanced process that most people have not earned the right to even deal with, you know, and because of the way I was educated, because of, you know, my understanding, I understand that a little bit. But if my language and my behavior and my consumption's not right, why am I looking at note cards creating affirmations that, that I haven't earned the right to do? And that's what I just. As I look at our industry, I just think the industry, you know, is embarrassing to me. You know, the things that people are teaching, the things that are leading it, being raised in it. My whole life, 44 years, just disappointing.

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So Trevor, one of the things that.

You'Ve mentioned just a few minutes ago was cognitive dissonance and I have a.

Personal experience I want to share with you. That reminds me of the SAT story I heard you share which was Growing up for me, I had an older sister who had a perfect score on her SATs. She skipped grades. She was known as the smart one in our family. And I, as a result, was known as the social one. And so growing up, I just always assumed I wasn't smart. And I remember going through many different situations in business where I'd have to go in to meet with venture capitalists. And this one graduated from Harvard, and I would oftentimes try to not go to meetings like that because I didn't ever want it to be revealed. I wasn't smart. This was all internal dialogue I had. I never talked to anyone about it. Fast forward to this past holiday. Went to Disney with my sister, and we were at dinner alone. Our kids were out on rides. And she said, oh, I took my kids in for the IQ test that we took when we were kids. And I said, what are you talking about? I don't remember that at all. And she said, oh, when I went in for my IQ test, because they wanted to see where I scored, we didn't have a sitter. You came with us and they gave you a free test because you were there. And I said, please don't tell me.

What I got because I'm actually having.

A good day, and I really don't.

Want to listen to this.

And she said, well, yeah, I tested off the charts. The highest test score they'd ever seen. She said, but you were at the very highest part, too. You scored just beneath me. And I said, wait a minute, I'm smart. And she said, oh, yeah, you're really smart. She said, not as smart as me, but you're very smart. And so that was. I guess it was December. And the way I am approaching things now, now that I know I have this pass, that I'm smart. Harvard asked me to teach a class remotely for them a month ago, and I was like, all in. Let's go. And I was so excited for it, where before I would have tried to opt out of it. And I wondered if that was sort of the same kind of story, similar to that SAT story that I heard you tell.

I think what that is is just. It's external approval that gives you permission to act like somebody who's really smart, you know? And I think that the SAT story, what I think it's meant to be, is if you act like a 1480, that's who you're going to become. Now, his story was, you know, he never really got a 1480. So that was by acting like it, he ended up creating these incredible outcomes, even though he never actually was a 1480 out of 1600. So that's, I think, the uniqueness of that Story to me what the point is, your behavior, procedure, success. Sometimes we get something like you have an incredibly high iq, and then it affirms for us, all right, well, now I'm going to unleash the beast and kind of go forward. But for the most part, a lot of us aren't going to get something external like that. So the point is, rather than waiting for that, just do the things that people who are successful would do. You know, I went to a great prep school, number two in state of Washington and Occidental College, undergrad and graduate school, a great small school where Obama went to school. And I was way over indexed by everybody in terms of intellect. But I was right with all of them in terms of grades and graduating, both just because of my behavior. And I never judged the fact that, hey, this takes me four hours. It takes that person 30 minutes was what it was. You know, I learned a little bit differently, processed information a little bit differently. So that's what it was. But the cool thing is when you have an experience like that, Heather, it's awesome. I mean, it just, it can help you from the outside in and then ultimately it changes you from the inside out.

Yeah, but I go back to what you just said. Had I been operating under that guise for my entire life, how many things would I have jumped into?

So why not start behaving like that?

Tell yourself that different story now, so you start taking on those behaviors and.

As if it already was true, which.

Is a really beautiful thing. Tell us a little bit more about the book. It takes what it takes. I know that that just came out in February and you're having some amazing success. So congratulations.

Yeah, it's just a series of kind of 12 chapters that really focus on sort of the evolution of neutral thinking, non negativity. A lot of different anecdotal stories from NASA to sports stories, to national championships to rose bowls to personal experience stories, different challenges. You know, I really wanted to be open the fact that I've had a lot of problems, I've faced a lot of adversity, I've really had a lot of challenges in my life. But, you know, I take great pride that I've tried to be neutral, tried to get through them the way my dad taught me. And you know, I really didn't want to write the book like a superhero. I mean, you know, like, I don't have a plane, I don't own an island, all those things. So I wanted to be. Be honest and be truthful with the challenges I faced. You Know, because a lot of times when you write these things, oh, Sports Illustrated, best brain trainer, which, I mean, who even knows what that means anyways? I don't even know what a brain trainer is. And some of those things that you want people to know that you're human. And I thought that that was really important for me to explain. But to take the principles that we're trying to teach, you're trying to teach. Ed's trying to teach all these other people and show that you can live those principles, and then it's kind of a pivot into the business world. You know, the business world is ultimately, I think, the industry that in the last few years, I focused a lot more on. And I think the message is really well distilled for that world. And then it just gives you some scale. You know, Maria Shriver, JFK's niece, had talked to me a few years ago and really challenged me. She was trying to track me down, couldn't find me even on the Internet, ultimately tracked me down and had me come out to Brentwood in Southern California and just said that my voice was bigger and I needed to be speaking to more people, and more people needed to hear what I had to say. And so part of that was going to be a book, and HarperCollins was great. And so this is the first step, and we'll see how it goes. Heather. So we're doing more podcasts, we're doing a lot more of these things, and hopefully we got a message that resonates.

I'm so proud of you that you took that challenge that she put out there for you and really went, you know, took it to task and wrote the book and showed up on the podcast and jumped into social media, because anytime we put ourselves into that uncomfortable, unknown area, we're making some major gains. And you're living what you're teaching, which is really impressive.

Well, you know, the book's called It Takes what It Takes, you know, how to gain control of your life and think neutrally. And It Takes. What It Takes is really an agnostic statement, like, you're either gonna do it or you're not. So, you know, I hired a PR firm, spent a lot of money, and just wanted to do everything I can, kind of. Unfortunately, a month after we released it, we went into this pandemic. But that's okay. I think it's going to be a lot more realistic going forward for people to think neutrally than it is for people to think positively. And so, you know, we're starting right now, limitless minds. We're starting to educate. We just did a podcast for 130,000 people, Russell Wilson and I in one business. And really all in and around neutral thinking, we'll start to do some of the TED Talks in and around these things and things people haven't heard of. And again, like Norman Vincent Peale. The power of positive thinking. You can if you think you can. These are hugely influential in my life, but I think there's a middle ground that's, that's an easier place for people to get to that I think we need to focus on. So I'm excited about the book, excited to join you today and bi Coastal south beach to Manhattan beach. And so we'll see if we can keep moving the needle, Heather. But I really appreciate the opportunity to join you today.

All right, if you need help getting your first TED Talk or you want some inside track on it, I just.

Gave my first one.

I'm happy to help you out any way I can.

Well, Russell got one. So we'll let Russell lead us. And when and if the appropriate time happens and I get the opportunity, I'll be ready to roll.

All right, I'm giving you the challenge on that one. Well, I'll be standing by for your first TED Talk. Trevor, thank you so much for being here. And tell me, what's your handle on Instagram so everyone can follow you?

Revort Moad. M O A W A D. Same with Trevor Moad. Same with Twitter and LinkedIn. I only know how to use one of the three, but I'm learning the others quickly. But yeah, it's been a blast. And on Instagram we're trying to put out good content, simple content pretty often and real simple messages. So I thank Ed for telling you and giving me the opportunity to join today. Please give him my best. And then the opportunity to join the 17th ranked top podcast on Apple with Heather Monahan. Certainly a great opportunity to, to join your crew down in south beach. And then I really hope people just stay safe. And if your state goes crazy and doesn't follow rules, hopefully you can still follow the rules.

Thank you, Trevor. So appreciate your message. And definitely check out the book, follow Trevor on Instagram. I'm following him there. And hang tight.

We're going to be right back. I asked you to try to find your passion. I hope you enjoyed meeting Trevor as much as I. I did. He's a super different guy, right? Definitely very different from me. But I learned a lot getting the chance to speak with him and learn from him and listen he's got the science to back it up, right? He's got a successful, beyond successful business with the most elite athletes in the world. And that whole idea of the shift from negative to neutral is something I'm going to embrace because a lot of people get annoyed with me that they think I'm too, too positive and that they can't be that way. But after talking to Trevor, I sort of understand why that is. And now I get that people need to go from negative to neutral instead of aspiring maybe to try to get positive. So, super happy that you got to meet him. Hope you got a lot of great takeaways. So one of the questions that I got this week I wanted to dig into a little bit is actually from one of my new June mentees. But it started as a DM on LinkedIn. I got this DM from a woman asking she had heard about, or I must have posted, I guess, about how I pitched my literary agent a few times on me, and then she said she needed a book proposal. And I ended up writing and rewriting the book proposal 15 times before she said yes, sign me and started pitching me to publishing houses. This is just in the past few months. So what this woman found interesting or she was curious about is how do you know at number 10, number 11, number 12, if maybe you should just move on and go to somebody else? Or if you should go 15 times. And I love that question because, I mean, you don't know, right? So I, in this literary world, I had gone after Rachel Hollis's agent and ended up getting in a conversation and so on and so forth and then back and forth with them about the book proposal. And I was adamant that they were the best in the, the business because that's the genre that I'm in. So it makes sense to go to the top literary agent in that area. So to me, that was who it was and I was crystal clear and I could see it and I was just going to work my tail off to make it happen. But I, I will say around revision 11, 12, 13, 14, like right near that end window, you don't know it's ending, right? I didn't know I was going to get the yes at 15, but somewhere between 11 and 15, I started questioning, maybe this lady just doesn't like me. Maybe I'm just not the right fit for her. Maybe she and I just don't connect. I did absolutely have that thought and I had spoken to an agent in LA who had already told me he'd rep me hands down number one right away, you know, first thing, I sent him the proposal. So I did start thinking about that, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. You know, the clarity in my mind was that I wanted to go to the top agent and who was repping the biggest person and having the most success. But when I got ninth inning, two outs, and I'm saying maybe this just isn't for me, I think that's okay to consider that. You need to look at all of your options. But I also really felt strongly that I wanted this person to be it. So anyhow, I, as you know, as I explained, I did end up going all the rounds, but on the 14th one, when that proposal was already so far flipping good. And she wrote me back in the nicest way. Heather, wow, this is an amazing proposal and I'm so excited to go to market with it eventually. I do believe we can fix A, B, C and D, you know, whatever. She was very nice. She wasn't harsh on me. But I was frustrated as all get out because I had spent so much time in the last year working, reworking, working and reworking. And even my editor said, I've never seen someone rework a proposal so much. So I had exhausted myself and I decided on 14. I made a decision internally in my mind, didn't say anything to anyone. This would be the last proposal I was going to send her. It was beyond perfect. It was fantastic. No one would say no in my mind. That's what I thought. And I decided, okay, here goes. Lucky number 15. And if she doesn't take it, I'm going to move on. So I think, I guess what I'm sharing, that is. It is okay to be super clear on something and pursue it 100%. But when you see that something is so good and you're delivering and you've made the changes and you're still not getting yes, it is also okay to give yourself an end date. That, okay, maybe this just isn't for me. Maybe something's just off and I need to go a different direction because I drew a line in the sand in my mind. I didn't tell her that, but to myself, I said, this is the last one I'm sending. And of course, wouldn't you know, that's the one she said yes to. So it's irrelevant anyhow. So I would say that, you know, how do you know? You need to listen to your own inner voice. That's the most important thing. Because for the first 11, maybe 12, I was just, boom, to the wall. Nothing was deterring me. Nothing could have stopped me. I wouldn't. I wasn't caring. It was. I saw that I was gonna sign with this lady. It was happening. And I was so committed to that vision. I just started feeling differently, you know, closer towards the end that some. I said, hey, this is way too good. So something's not working here. And you want to observe yourself, you want to have perspective, you want to stay committed to your goals, but you also want to listen to your voice. And my inner voice was saying to me, yeah, this is really good. I think, you know, it might be time to move on. I gave it one last shot. It worked out. Here's what's funny. So I sent a note back to this woman. I said, well, let's jump on a call right quick so I can help you answer whatever your question is. And we jumped on a call, and it was actually over Memorial Day weekend. And I said, let me answer your question. I kind of got into a little bit of what we were just talking about. And she says, well, I'm actually. I'm looking to pursue another job, and here's what I'm thinking. And she starts mapping out for me all the different things that, you know, she wanted to work on and who she wanted to connect with. And she said, but I just feel like I don't know, if I call this person I know that works at the company, maybe that's bothering them, and they don't really want, you know, to hear from me. And I said, hang on. Pump the brakes. Maybe if you reach out to that woman, you're going to be adding her value. Why wouldn't someone in a company want to bring other talented people on? And why wouldn't they want to be the one that gets the referral that says, hey, so and so who I know. I'm referring for this position, they do. We all want to be surrounded by winners and good people, and you're going to make this lady look like a million bucks. And she just hadn't thought to see it in that way. So it was funny. She had reached out to me with one question that was really completely irrelevant to the answer. I ended up giving her about something else that propelled her to take a chance, reach out to somebody and set up a meeting with the intent of her potentially going to work at this company and taking advantage of that relationship and making that person look good. And, you know, sometimes we are so in our own little microcosm that we can't see. See the value that we bring or how someone else might appreciate us offering it. And also it's not our decision to make decisions for other people. Right? That's not fair. We've got to give that woman the opportunity to say if she does or doesn't want to introduce us, if she does or doesn't want to refer us. But I think it's really wrong to try to make a decision for someone else. Give them that chance and I hope you take that chance and give others that chance to refer you, promote you and you double down this week on you and keep creating confidence within you. I'll be doing the same. I decided to change that dynamic. I couldn't be more excited for what you're going to hear. Start learning and growing. Inevitably something will happen. No one succeeds alone.

You don't stop and look around once in a while. You could miss it.

Come on this journey with me.