Train Your Own Hero with Dr. Don Greene

Don, a huge welcome to the Lead On Purpose podcast.

Thank you so much. Real pleasure to be here.

I'm so excited about this and the listeners are going to find out why in just a moment. Why it's just so exciting for me personally to connect with you of all people. So before we do get started, I'd love to ask you a question. So what do you believe about leadership?

That's a great question. My definition of my view of leadership is taking people where they're not used to going, that's unfamiliar with them, that they may need help, encouragement, support, going into those areas that are unfamiliar or require change. And change is uncomfortable for most people. So leadership is helping people make changes in a positive direction.

That's beautiful. And what's so amazing about that is I look at your work as leadership and I'm going to just kind of pre frame that for the listener right now and say that. When I was a youngster, I won my first World Solo Drumming Championship at 13. I retained the title the following year at 14. And then puberty hit. I got very nervous, I got very self conscious. My performance deteriorated greatly. I cared a lot about what others thought about me. I put a lot more pressure on myself. I got in my head, I got out of flow. But thankfully I came across a book and I was in Northern Ireland at the time. I was 14 or 15, it was the early 2000s. And that book was called Performance Success by Dr. Don Green. And that changed my whole performance life. And I'm really, really thankful to say that after reading that, working on that, implementing that, between the age of 18 and about 23, I won another five world championship titles. So a massive thank you.

You're very welcome. I'm so delighted. Congratulations.

Well, your work is incredible. And I think it's important for the listener to know that it works. It's not just words in a book, it truly works and it's powerful stuff. So can we go back a bit? Where did your appetite, your interest, your excitement for performance and managing oneself, where did that come from?

Well, it came from my athletic background because I started very early, at 7, on trampoline and gymnastics and I just fell in love with it and had a great coach, very inspiring coach. And I, I just love being on the trampoline or doing gymnastics and learning control of my body, being upside down, landing on my feet, not my head. And two years later I started diving, springboard diving. And because I knew how to control my body and my space, you know, in air, I. It came easy to me. So I started diving at 9, and by 10, I won the New York City championship, my age group and. And picked up a great diving coach who was wonderful, who took me all the way through high school and. And that was my athletic background. And I relate a lot to that. The unfortunate part is I got recruited by a lot of colleges, and I chose to go to this one, which was West Point, which was a military academy, but as much for the military as for the diving coach. And three months after I got there, he was replaced by another coach that I would not have gone to that school. I would not have chosen him to be my coach. And I started struggling with my performance and trying to figure out why I could hit some dives, not other dives. And that's when it started my fascination to understand my own performance, because.

I went from really good to not so good to sometimes embarrassing. And I tried to figure that out. And after I got out of diving and after I got out of the Army, I had a commitment of five years in the Army. I wanted to come back to that. I went back and got my master's degree and eventually my PhD in Performance Psychology to figure it out. And that's when I started figuring it out.

That's incredible. And I love that you say that's when you started figuring it out. You'd done all this study, you'd got all this success academically, but actually, that was the beginning of the journey.

Oh, yeah, it was the beginning of the journey. And I was fortunate to have as my first major job working with the Olympic diving team with the world's best diving coach and the guy who would become the world's best diver, Gregness. So I got into just an amazing environment right away with some of the best athletes in the world. And that led to working with other athletes and then eventually with musicians that I really enjoyed working with and worked with them. Converted what I knew from sports.

To musicians competing for auditions, and what I found out with musicians were wonderful people. They were very musical, but they didn't know how to compete.

So I started teaching musicians how to compete, and I started winning a lot of auditions.

The first four that I worked with were French horn players, which is a very difficult instrument. I didn't know at the time. I didn't know one instrument from another, but that's a pretty tough instrument. And.

This horn player from Juilliard asked me to work with four students, four of her students getting ready for the Met audition, the Met Orchestra, one of the top orchestras in the world, and 250 people had applied for these positions. Okay. Basically two positions.

They accepted 59 people to come to New York to play the audition. Okay. So this Juilliard professor introduced me to these four women. I met with them and used athletic assessments to test their competitiveness.

Well.

And started working with them individually for two months.

And when the audition came, of the 59 people, they came in first, second, fourth, and fifth. Wow.

Yeah. And that's when the president of Juilliard wanted to meet with me and see if I could teach this in a classroom setting. I said, yes, that's what I do with athletes. I can do the same with musicians. So that's when I started working with musicians, and I loved it. I was fumbling my way through the first few semesters. I couldn't speak the language. I could adapt mine and hopefully had them meet me halfway, which they were more than happy to do. And then I got contacted by the New World Symphony. The New World Symphony is where graduates from the top music schools want to go. It's the next stepping stone where they can really get expert coaching and teaching. And it's in Miami beach, and they get a paid fellowship for three years, and they pay just to rehearse and play and get top coachings. And.

The dean of the New World Symphony called me and. And we had a nice talk. And she said, we just had one of our musicians leave the New World Symphony. He's a percussionist, and everybody loves him. And he's been here for three years, and he's failed every audition he's taken for three years.

And we couldn't keep mod for four years. A fourth year that it ran out, and he's. He's left and he's. He's going to massage school. Wow. He's given up percussion. Would you work with him? I said, sure. So I'm not sure if he came. I think he came to New York and we spent several days together.

I gave him the same assessments I gave to competitive athletes back then. And again, he. He was a great musician. Well practiced, well experienced. He just went to auditions and couldn't compete. So I taught him how to compete, and he went to Cleveland Orchestra and won the audition for principal.

Wow. That's amazing.

Yeah. And that's when Michael Thomas wanted to meet with me in charge of that. And that's when I started teaching at the New World Symphony several times a year.

I love that you're leading from the front. You're always showing from results. Hey, I'll produce the results, and then we can have the chat.

Well, yeah, people are interested in results and I mean, just athletes and people winning, taking auditions, just don't want to go there and flop. They want to win, but most of them don't know about winning. They just know about playing.

So that's, that's when I converted my athletes assessments to assessments for musicians in musical terms to ask them about focus and anxiety, recovery from mistakes and all the things pertinent to musicians. And that's when I really started having success with a lot of musicians.

Well, your system is, is very straightforward to follow. It's incredible in terms of the results it's able to produce. And I can say that personally, what I found is that a lot of these skills and frameworks that you have, they apply to athletes, they apply to musicians, and they apply to people in the corporate world as well.

Oh, well, that's exactly true. In fact, I just got off the phone with the former head of trading of Merrill Lynch Worldwide. Wow. So, so he called me up and said, do you work with business people?

And I said, no, but I'd be willing to talk about it. Okay. So I had this meeting at Merrill lynch with the, the president of Merrill lynch and this guy, head of trading. And the first thing he asked me says, can you help me break 80 in golf?

Of course he did.

I love it.

And by that time I was working with a lot of professional golfers. I was teaching at Golf Digest schools, which is the top Golf Digest. So top golf school. So yes, I work with a lot of pro golfers, but so I said, what's your handicap? He says, I'm a mid handicap, which means he Normally shot around 85. I said, have you ever broken eight? He says, no. I said, I'll help you break 80.

That's so good. That's a great.

So they had, so they hired me to come in once a week and work with individual traders.

Competition again. It's, it's competition, it's, it's the winning mind. A positive optimistic mindset. Yes, this is going to go well. So not only did he break 80 like, like 40 times.

Wow. But his, his, his traders, P l went up 21%.

That's magic.

That's what they care about. Besides golf. A lot of them golfers, they went up 21%. Okay. And then.

And then the disaster hit.

With the plane crash.

And we had to move across to Jersey City.

And the tech guys had to set up trading desks totally in blank rooms. Trading desks with the four screens and the computers and all. And after four Days. Well, I was with them every day. But after four days they started hallucinating because lack of sleep. But so I started started monitoring their delusional states and trading and say go to sleep for a while and you get back on the desk. And we got the training desk up on time and it was a huge success.

That was as much fun as the Olympics.

I love it. I really love it. And I'd love to chat about the process. So since I read the book in the early 2000s, which was performance success, you've released a number of books and your most recent book is Train your your own hero and it's about reaching peak functioning in one month or 21 steps. So what inspired that book? And tell us a little bit more about what's inside that book.

Yeah, I'd love to. Well, I wrote performance success and fight your fear and win over 20 years ago. Okay. And they're both about optimal performance, doing as well as you can considering the circumstances that there are distractions or other people or whatever. So optimal, but usually optimal is what wins medals, doing pretty good under pressure when everybody else is choking like big. Okay? So that's in my experience, what wins auditions and gold medals, world championships, okay. Optimal performance. And that's what my books are about. So after I wrote that last book, now I'm working with some of the best athletes, best musicians in the world, and they're still making mistakes.

They'Re doing really well, but they're still making unforced errors. And my question was, why do talented, highly trained, very experienced people still make unforced errors when they shouldn't?

And that was the question that haunted me for 20 years.

Whether it's professional golf, the best golfers in the world missing three foot putts.

The best tennis players at Wimbledon in the Open. I'm watching these. The world's best tennis players miss easy chunk shots that I could hit.

That they go back like, what was that? The coach can't explain what, what was going on.

Professional football, United States paid millions of dollars just to catch a ball bounces off their shoulder pairs. Like, what was that?

And that was the question I asked. Nobody could answer it. It's like, well, they're a choke artist or they weren't paying attention or their mind was somebody, but nobody with it with an answer or a solution. And that's when I what I went looking for. And it took me 20 years to figure out.

And five years ago I figured it out.

Tell me, I'm dying to know.

No doubt I figured that. And Everybody, everybody I teach it to wins not one audition, but back to back auditions. I mean, people that never won an audition their whole life, they went back to back auditions. I figured it out. I cracked the code. And nobody else has cracked the code in sports or music. Maybe in deep psychology and other things, but never functionally with athletes and musicians and, you know, extrapolations of that. Dancers, actors.

Pardon?

Would I apply to public speaking as well?

Oh, absolutely, yeah.

Great.

Because that's, that's the other reason why I came into this is because from a young age I was a fearless athlete, but I was afraid of public speaking. I got diagnosed with a speech impediment when I was about five or six. I couldn't certain sounds. One of the sounds I couldn't pronounce was gr.

No problem except for my last name.

So every time they asked me to say my name, people laughed. Not in a good way. So I stopped talking.

Afraid to talk. I never raised my hand in class.

Ever. I was afraid to death for being called on. Then I just choked and froze.

I worked around it all through school and high school.

At West Point, I went through heaven and hell with classmates. My senior at West Point, I had to give a short 5 minute presentation on my major. I couldn't sleep the week before.

I got up and blanked out. I was embarrassed. Terrible.

I graduated nonetheless. A couple years later, I went to Toastmasters where you just go to a room with other people afraid of public speaking with a brown bag lunch around the conference room. Well, you only have to say his name. And where you're from, they're going around saying their name, where they're from. Before they got to me, I left.

Now, I'm not a normally scared person. I went through paratrooper training. I've had 12 parachute jumps. I blend through armor Raging Ranger training. I was a green Beret.

The only thing that scared me was public speaking.

So I went, got my master, my degree in sports psychology and I learned sports psychology and centering.

No longer a problem. I love, I love to give speeches. I missed it during COVID I didn't get to do any public speaking.

I. The more the merrier.

That's incredible.

These Zoom calls have 500 people on them and I can't see them, which is kind of a challenge. It's nice to be able to see your face. But all I can see on these is my face. Anyway, so I love, I love it. And if I can do it, anybody can do it. So, okay, so.

Let'S go back to psychology. Okay. Started in the late 1800s with Sigmund Freud, okay, early 1900s. And people are familiar with him and his theory of personality. And his theory of personality is id, ego and superego. Most people are familiar with this. Our ego is our sense of self, our reputation, our identity.

On a conscious level.

Then we have the id, which is our somewhat unconscious level of our seething urges and impulses and monster, if you will.

And a superego which has our moral guidance. And we shouldn't do that. Don't have those thoughts and all of that stuff. And they're. They're kind of all engaged in the same thing, okay?

But Freud had. Well, Freud had this theory of personality, but along with this, he had a thing called ego syntonic. And ego syntonic means doing things that are in line with our ego, in sync with our ego, if you will. For a musician, this means practicing. You know, you should practice. And when you're practicing.

It'S all fine, okay? But you don't always feel like practice.

That's true.

If you like doing other things. Like the end wants to screw off, okay? So when you're screwing off, it's ego dystonic. It's not in line with your ego.

And that brings in your super ego and guilt, saying, you should be practicing, you shouldn't be doing that stuff.

Totally.

And this causes conflict, okay? Conflict between these three parts.

But Sigmund Freud thought of this as a complex, not a real thing, like a fetish kind of figment of your imagination, not real.

Part of his personality system. Okay?

It doesn't work.

It does not work. Well, for me, telling, well, you should be practicing, your teacher, you should be practicing. Yeah, that's fine until you get home and you feel like screwing up.

Then you feel guilty and that does no good at all. And then you pick up the drumsticks and you feel guilty and you say you're not at your best. Right?

Yep, I get it 100%.

Well, Dennis, other.

Psychiatrist, Dr. Carl Jung, J U N G came along. He's from Switzerland, and he came up with his own model of personality, which was different than Freud's. Now, he and Freud's were contemporary. He came along in the 1900s and they met several times and they agreed at first, but then they really disagreed, especially about sex, because Freud messed with sex and sex is part of our lives. But it's not that important a thing, and it's not why people lose auditions.

Yeah, I would like to think so.

So Carl Jung came along with a very different model, okay? And he says yes, we, we have an ego that's kind of like organizes things, keeps things involved. No, but that's, that's not the main thing. The main thing is our Persona. The Persona is the mask that we share with the world. It's our public personality. So when you go into a band rehearsal with other people, they see you. Persona. Hey, everybody. How's everybody doing? I'm fine. You have a great time? Yeah, that's the Persona. Okay. Now the Persona starts forming at an early age, as soon as we're kids. Because what we want to do as early children with our Persona is please our parents.

And later our authority figures, like teachers.

So we want to please them. And at first we'll do what they tell us, even if we don't want to, or not things they tell us not to do even though we want to, to please them. Okay. And so for most people's childhoods until a certain age, and this varies from 7 to 9 to 11 depending upon if they become musicians or not.

Right?

Interesting. That's when it really gets interesting.

So most people live a happy childhood. They go along with it. Unless it's really bad.

If it's really bad, that's when the shadow starts to develop. But let's wait on that one.

There's a show in, in the US called Oprah, Oprah show. And she has on interesting guests. And I watch it because it's normally pretty interesting. And I, I like her take on things and she's got a good heart.

So she has this woman on this one day, woman's black, middle aged, she's way overweight and has had a terrible life of tragedy. One after another. Psychological problems, divorce, poverty.

You name it. And she said all during her childhood when she would go to people, they'd always ask her what she said was the wrong question. Like, what's wrong with you?

He never asked the right question. What, what happened?

Because what happened to her was sexual abuse, poverty.

Violence, you name it.

That caused her to develop a shadow at an early age.

The things with shadow with childhood is that when children are abused.

They don't know how to cope with. They don't have the skills, so they swallow it and get really angry and resentful. The beginning of the shadow.

For most children, unless they're abused and they have a fairly fair normal situation.

It doesn't happen until puberty or in school when reality hits them and teachers are criticizing them, tell them they can't do this, kids are bullying them.

Yep. Shadow. Unless they take up music. Now, if they take up Music.

It starts to develop earlier because music is challenging and positive reinforcement works well. But you can't tell a kid that's not, yeah, you're doing great. Just keep on playing out of tune, Keep on playing out of rhythm. They're going to say, hey, playing out of rhythm. Namely, they're going to criticize. And because they're an authority figure and you don't want to piss them off, you go along with it.

Even if the teacher's wrong.

Even if you know the teachers are wrong.

And then you get better and you get into high school now you. You're really encountering problems and recitals that you can fail and be really embarrassed. Shadow. Shadow does not like to be embarrassed.

Teachers that are nasty to you, some teachers are nasty. Other students to put you down, tell you, not good enough.

This is when the shadow starts to develop. This is what Carl Jung saw, that we have a Persona.

We have a shadow near both parts of our personalities. Real parts of our personalities. Not figments, not fetishes, not complexes. They are as real as you looking in the mirror, looking at your Persona. This is shadows right there. And it's been at every situation where they criticize you, where you didn't play a good recital, where you failed an audition.

But it can't complain. So it resents, it builds up anger.

And you don't know what to do with it, don't want to talk about it, and you hide it from everybody. Anybody sees this, they think I'm a monster. Part of the shadow is a monster because it's really pissed off.

So Carl Jung figured this out. Carl Young predicted World War I and World War II because of mass shadow. Because you look at collective shadow like Nazi Germany.

Created. Wow.

You look at the situation today because of COVID and a lot of people develop problems during COVID A lot of people resented Covid with good reason. Good reason. And develop strong shadows. In the United States due to, Due to the shadow. Violence is out of control. People are doing nonsensical, violent things just for no reason at all. It's never been like this since I've been alive. And I think it's just pent up anger, frustration, resentment, shadow stuff.

Huge. And that was, that was Carl Jung that really brought that to the floor.

He was the one. He's the only one. And.

Boy, I, I just, I was looking and looking. And finally I was working with one of my students at Juilliard. He was a junior. But even as a Julia Julie Juilliard Jr, he won the orchestra principal position for his instruments. Wow. Really good. All his teachers loved him. He was handsome, personable, respectful. Just an awesome kid. Both of his parents were physicians. He grew up in a really exclusive neighborhood of New York. One of the happiest kids I've ever met. One day I'm talking with him, having a meeting with him. I said, you know, you just seem so unhappy. Is there anything you know in your life that you're unhappy with? Are you kidding me? He just started screaming.

I was blown away. I said, what? He says, I was a baseball player in Little League. I was the best player in New York. All I wanted to do was become a professional baseball player.

Wow.

My parents took me out of Little League and started me in music lessons.

Wow.

He was one of the best.

Yeah. And there's the shadow.

So the shadow grows up and you know, musicians lead a different kind of life. They experience pressure that other kids at school are not familiar with. They have to practice in ways that other kids don't and not do things other kids are doing. And they start resenting it. And if it's not that, then bullying, or in high school or college, picking up a terrible teacher that doesn't like the way they're playing. And the shadow starts to develop, okay? So it starts to build. And we don't want to think about it. We want to keep it suppressed because it's part of the unconscious. We don't want it to be part of our conscious life and drive us nuts. So we use the ego defense mechanisms, Freud ego defense mechanism to keep it down. Now this is something Freud did that, that does make sense. These ego defense mechanisms such as denial, rationalization, intellectualization, repression, or what keeps that stuff from constantly being on our minds. And you know, when the shadow starts to develop and you want to think, I want to kill this teacher, you can't entertain that, so you push it down. Which caught which is repression. That's an ego defense mechanism to block out reality. That's what they do. Denial blocks out reality so you don't have to deal with it. Rationalization, you rationalize it away. It's not really so this protect our ego and from guilt. Because you should be practicing all the time, but you're not because you don't like the teachers exercises. That's why you're not practicing, because the teacher's an idiot, but you can't tell the teacher's an idiot. You. So you push it down. And over the years, and especially if you become a professional musician and you get the rejection of either auditions, you're not hired for the gig. Well, they don't like your style of playing and all that. More repression, more resentment, more anger. Okay. And the ego defense mechanisms are to keep it down and out of consciousness, but in the meantime, it builds up and it's the Shadow. And what you're doing is you're not recognizing the shadow. You're dismissing it. Like, get out of here. Don't bother me. I don't want to think about you. Which causes more resentment. Okay? So what the Shadow wants, believe it or not, is not to take two months off and go party. It's to be recognized as real.

As a real part of you, as your Persona. It wants your attention. It wants to complain about all the shit your Persona has tolerated to please other people, which really pissed it off.

I get it.

So it waits until the ideal time to get your attention because it's tried everything else. But again, people don't want to deal with it. So it hasn't broken through. So it keeps on trying other things. Okay. And what I find with talented, trained, professional musicians, it doesn't happen in the prelims. It doesn't happen in the semis. It happens in the final with a mistake that. What was that? I haven't made that mistake since I was in high school. Are you kidding me? Got it.

Why is that?

Because it. That's the most important thing to musicians.

Wow.

And that's what it. I'll try this. I'm gonna make you mess up another audition. I'm gonna cause another. Unforced errors that you can't explain because it was me, by me. And you're still not admitting I'm real. So I'll wait to the next audition. Till then, you'll probably play great. I won't bother you till the next.

Audition when it really matters.

When it really matters.

And that's what I found.

It's incredible.

And everybody I tell that to said, yeah, that's. Yeah, that explained. There's nobody. I've no musician or athlete I've ever explained to students that doesn't say, yeah, that's why I failed that audition. That's why I lost that job. That's why I dropped those passes. That's why I lost the Olympics.

I'm thinking of an Olympic athlete that won every nationals. And. And the olympics, they take two people on 3 meter and two people on 10 meter. She came in third and third. Wow. I saw Ms. Dives. She never missed.

Shadow. The only explanation. Nobody else can explain it. I can. It's the Shadow.

And how do we first of all come to terms and go, yep, that's shadow. And then secondly, what are our steps to actually.

Well, that's what I'm coming to. I'm doing this for a reason.

You're building me up. I love it.

But. But again, I go back in your own history to those times when you made mistakes that never made. Yeah. In consequential situations.

Yeah.

Oh, very clear. I can go back to multiple.

That's what I'm saying. You could just check them off.

Yeah, I can go back. One in Vancouver. One was in Washington state. One was in Glasgow, Scotland. One was like.

Exactly what I'm saying. Ask any musician. They'll tell you the same thing. They'll be very specific. Not. Yeah, it kind of happened. No, it was in the Pittsburgh audition. It was the meta artist. Yeah. And. And if I gave you more time, you'd come up with more.

Yeah, of course. There's probably 50, 60, 70. Like, there's lots.

That's what I'm saying. I talked to a musician today. He's 37 years old. He has failed 90 auditions.

Talk about shadow. And when I talk. Started talking about shadow. Oh, my God. He was abused.

Really abused. How he's still playing, I have no idea.

90 auditions.

Horrific. And couldn't figure out why. Again, when I even explain this to coaches, I say, oh, oh, yeah. Okay. So that's the problem. Everybody can relate.

So Carl Jung came up with a thing called individuation. Namely, our goal is to recognize our individualness, and most of that is our shadow.

Everybody has a unique shadow.

Okay? So that's step number one. Step number two is understanding that it has caused problems but for a reason that we now know for lack of attention, lack of recognition. And. And so that's going to be the beginning solution. Okay.

But this whole thing is. Is.

Called assimilation and integration that you assimilate and integrate your shadow into your whole personality to your whole self with a capital S.

All parts of you coming together.

And it goes from the shadow being your worst enemy.

And a trickster that you can't trust that causes doubt.

To your best friend and ally called the golden shadow. That can play better than your Persona can play because it's fearless. And reason people hold back is they're afraid of the shadow. Then they don't play out, and they play guard and safe. And that never works because they're afraid of the shadow causing problems. And once you win the shadow over to your side that's on your side, it will play better than your Persona can Play because it doesn't care about mistakes.

And that sounds magical and it caused them. And once you stop it from causing them, it won't. You won't make any unforced errors, you won't pay perfectly. It's too challenging an instrument, too much going on. But you will stop self sabotaging. And that's what the. That's what this is all about. It's incredible. And then people start playing in the range of 95 to 100. A couple technical glitches there. A couple. Yeah, yeah. A little off there, but no. Unfortunate. I was like, what the hell was that? Yeah, self sabotage. And that's what the shadow does. Unless recognized and appreciated.

Wow, that's game changing. It really is.

Well, that's, that's what I'm saying. This is game changing. That's why I'm so excited about it. It took me 20 years to figure it out, but I did. Everybody I give it to, it's totally life changing. Not just game changing. Because the shadow affects you on a daily basis.

Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

All of a sudden people are the happiest they've ever been.

And, and the reason why I do this, because it's not easy. Believe me, it's not. I'm coming to the hard part. Reason why this is important.

Is because you become the happiest of your life without the shadow continually, the darkness lifts. You don't have this oppressive thing constantly on top of you. Because I'm convinced happy musicians sound better than miserable musicians.

Oh, 100%.

And this musician say said, I'm starting to enjoy playing again.

I'm loving music again. I've hated it for years. Hating music is just going to cause mistakes. It's not going to be good. So part of this process is becoming happy.

By not fighting on a constant base with your shadow. Because your shadow is a fierce fighter. But it's a great ally once you stop giving it reasons to oppose you. Because that's what it does. It will oppose you until you start recognizing it. And it keeps on going up through better and better auditions that you should win. And wow, that one. I really wanted that one. I can't believe I missed that. I'll give you an obvious example of a person I worked with years ago before I figured this out. She was auditioning, I think at the Meta, the New York Philharmonic.

And it was a crescendo with a run, a run up. And it was either half a step up or a whole step up. I know. You know what I mean?

Yep.

She did the Opposite. Oh.

She had done that since grammar school. Wow. And. And still didn't figure it out. And since I learned she has this incredibly fierce shadow.

A lot of problems she's never dealt with.

People don't want to deal with these things because they're unpleasant, bad memories, uncomfortable. That's why the repression keeps it down so we don't have to deal with it. But that doesn't solve the problem. They just wait for another occasion to get your attention.

Creates more misery in the long run.

Oh, well, that's just it. And that. That's why I found most of the people in major orchestras, although they should be happy or not.

And in constant fear of their shadow messing up and then being fired.

I can relate to that. When I retired from international competing, I was.

I borderline hated competing. I hated it back.

What I'm saying, with good reason to.

Yeah.

But you never heard the shadow why it hated so much. That's right. And it was because of rejection.

Yeah.

Shadow hates rejection.

Of course. Yeah.

You know, I remember a very influential teacher.

Said to me at one point, such and such. You know, he was born to be the world's best player. But you, you're just a good player.

That's exactly. That's exactly what I'm saying.

I never forgot that.

Of course. No, the shadow never forgets. I'm telling you, when you start doing this, you'll get things that you have really buried from long time ago. Yeah, the shadow. It's like yesterday. Like yesterday.

So this process involves meeting with the shadow.

And in my book, it leads up to this and how to do it because it's. It's tricky stuff. And again, it took me a long time to figure out. But you. It's explicit in my book and details of a series of shadow sessions with a time. With time out in between to recover. Because it's time, tough work, heavy lifting.

And Don, I can imagine this would apply. So if I got a listener listening right now who's not a musician but who runs a business, has a family, they're running a team, this would equally apply. The shadow is going to show up in their life.

Absolutely. I'm convinced that anybody who grows up in the world nowadays.

Has to have a shadow. Of course, whether it's parents own shadows and being abusive or getting frustrated with their kids, or screaming at their kids, or hitting their kids or teachers in school or bullies in school or financial situations. You got to quit school and take a job. The world's a harsh place.

Even if you grow up rich. That's not an easy pass. You get bullied for being rich.

So I'm convinced just about everybody has a shadow, and the vast majority just depressing it. I don't want to think about that. I'm living a happy life now. Yeah, it was a long time ago. And it's going to affect their business decisions or losing their temper with their children. Not often, just once in a while. But if they lose their temper, that's.

Shadow.

And getting out of the head. I don't know all the steps, but for me, getting out of my head and onto a page through journaling.

That's why I did the journal.

I love it.

Because it's not enough to say, I know this. You've got to get it, like you said, out of your head on the paper, where you seeing it and looking at it at a conscious level. Because this whole thing is about going from unconscious to consciousness, from unconscious, burying it.

To conscious. Because a lot of it got buried when you were a child that didn't have the skills. You were a child and couldn't figure it out. Still couldn't as a child, figure it out. But now when you bring up these painful things, you're an adult and you can deal with it as an adult and say, yeah, it was, but bad. But look, I. I live a good life now, you know, it didn't destroy me. And yeah, that guy was a total jerk. I should have told him I quit, but I didn't, but I. I couldn't.

So you sit down with your shadow, with the journal or a piece of paper, and you interview your shadow, say, tell me. Start telling me what you're so pissed off about, what you resent.

I am so excited to do this, and I'm going to share my journey of it with you and with the listeners as well. When I do it, I'm very excited to do it.

I would love it. The first one is the hardest because the shadow has its own pecking order, not your Personas. And be surprised. Your Persona is going to be that. Oh, I forgot about that. You. Oh, my God. Yeah, that. I haven't thought about that.

I should have told that teacher I quit. But he was. He didn't know any better.

Yeah, if I could go back to that teacher, I'd probably say something with a few more choice words.

Oh, that's what I'm saying. And you're gonna say them. You're gonna allow your shadow to say them out loud, and you're gonna write them down. That's all it wants. It does not want to go find that person and kill them. Yeah, mine does. But I won't let that happen.

I love it. I'll tell you, Don, there's been times in my life. I mean, I've carried that for, you know, 20 years. Yeah, about 20 years. And there's times in my life when I've been consumed by this person and what they've said and what they do and what they do to hold me back and consumed.

Oh, believe me, I know. I told you about my college coach, the one that I didn't. Okay.

Because of his coaching, I have two titanium rods six inches long in my back.

Wow.

Because of him.

Serious back surgery. I couldn't walk at a certain point. And it's because of him and his poor coaching, but he's still alive.

He survived the wrath.

Alive. He's alive. So. So yes, you need to write this stuff down and take it real seriously. That's all your shadow wants.

And it.

It doesn't repeat. It has a long laundry list it wants to get to. And it won't repeat, but it's. It's in its own order. I was most serious issues and complaints first.

And once we identify them, then do you in the book, provide methodology for how we overcome them or how we re.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, then there's a second session and a third session, and after that, the first two or three, which are the hardest and gut wrenching because again, painful stuff you've been burying for good reason for years. If once you get all of that stuff out, you reach a point of neutral.

Okay. Because when you first start with the shadow, it's like a. An adolescent, like, I don't even want to talk to you. Leave me alone.

So after you get through that and it uncrosses after the second or third session, you reach neutral, where, okay, you heard all the complaints. Finally. Finally. Okay. So then when you go to practice or play, you won't have to worry about it. Making mistakes. It's just sitting in the corner saying, saying, let me see what you got. Okay. So it stops opposing you.

Then the last few sessions, you win it over and it becomes your best ally.

And what I do with people, then it blows people away. It turns into the golden shadow. It would like to help you. It would like to be your best friend, but not until you hear its complaints and resentments to let hell with you. I'm just going to cause problems.

Any relationship, to trust the person, you've got to know the person, right? And so this is no different to trust the shadow. And for it to trust you, you've got to know.

Understand the shadow. This is all about understanding your worst features. And after a while, you realize they're worse because you haven't been paying attention to.

Yeah.

Not because they're evil or bad. They're not. They're not. They would like to be your friend, but not until you hear it and recognize. Then you start appreciating. Okay, so I have this young lady in Europe, clarinetist, who. Very dedicated. Good teachers, but a really tough upbringing. But she's always had a problem with her tongue in tonguing fast enough.

She does auditions and basically wins the auditions.

Except for tongue in this one specific movement.

That's the only comments we get. You need to tongue faster. Too slow.

She's been every teacher in Europe. Every fast tongue.

Nothing.

So after she got to neutral with her shadow, which was really fierce.

I said, take a master class with your shadow. Let your shadow tell you how to tongue faster.

In one hour, she tongue faster than in her whole career.

Wow. That's mind blowing.

She just came out of an audition last week. I talked to her.

And she said it's not an issue.

Wow.

Incredible. I could give you other examples on other instruments. It's the same thing. The shadow has been to every lesson you've been to.

It's been to every performance you've been to. Good and bad. And it has things to tell you that his. It knows about your playing that could be better. But people are afraid of that they'll, you know, it would blow up the instrument or break the snare drum or, you know, that kind of thing. Well, play like a crazy person. It's not the case. It opens up things that has been trying to tell you that you just wouldn't trust or no go away.

And all of a sudden, you're playing the best of your life and winning auditions. And that's been my experience.

Wow. This is transformational for.

Well, that it is. It is. And it. It changes people's lives.

Yeah.

And they're playing, so it doesn't matter if it's the snare drum or, you know, trading stocks. Because the shadow affects your decision making and can cause people to make screwy decisions.

Yeah. 100.

Yeah. It's the same mechanism. So. So once you do that.

It changes transformation.

So the last few shadow sessions are very happy occasions. And you're rewarding the shadow and. And now it's on your side, and you don't have to worry about it. Making mistakes. So the confidence goes up and a doubt Level of doubt comes down. You start. Stop doubting yourself, because the reason you're doubting yourself is because the Shadow.

That's incredible. And you walk hand in hand with it. You almost do a dance with it.

Now, moving forward, but that's exactly it. It's your best friend, not your worst enemy.

Yeah.

Women describe it like going out to lunch with their best friend and having girl talk.

I love it.

That's so good.

So that gets into the area of the Golden Shadow, because the Shadow is the source of creativity.

And musicians are creative artists. Yeah. A different way of playing this piece a different way.

And. And it opens up your creativity because again, it's people afraid of, you know, weird ideas or wild ideas. Again, when it's not opposing you, it has some really neat creative ideas or creative projects. I've worked with a woman that's been playing with an orchestra in Chicago for 30 years. For the first time in her life, she started singing.

Wow. Another one that started dancing instrumentalists. This girl I talked today who had to give a speech in front of her boss.

She was basically asking for things. And. And she was afraid the Shadow would yell at her boss.

So we went through the Shadow stuff, and I convinced her Shadow could be charming. And smiling, she said, that's not my style. I said, I know, because you're afraid of the shadow.

So I talked to her, and she said the meeting went great. It was all flowing. I wasn't worrying about Shadow.

I don't think it could have done better. She won't let me know till next week. So I don't know. But there was. It's the best presentation I've ever given.

Wow.

And she said, you know what? She said, you know, you asked me to write out my ideas before this. And I realized my Shadow is a good writer.

Never before. Wow. 39 years old, mother of two, never written. She realized that she can write.

That's an epiphany moment for her, Right?

Yeah. But again, the Shadow is the source of creativity. And there's nobody I know that doesn't want more creativity. Oh.

In any walk of life.

That's what I'm saying. It's the essential element. And you look at relationships, relationships go bad because people get stuck. They run out of ideas, and they just keep on doing things, thinking the same way they have the entire relationship. And now they're both burned out on it. Yeah.

That creativity keeps that variety at the core of it all. And that's. If I look back when I. There was many different reasons, of course, that I stopped competing at that level. But there was a sense of boredom, there was a sense of sameness, a sense of this again, like, I just thought there was nothing else that could be exciting or challenging. Not in an arrogant way, but. I'm bored.

Your shadow got bored?

Yeah.

Shadows get bored real easy, have a really short attention span. But the good news is these shadows like excitement. And you've got an instrument you can play with a lot of excitement.

When I retired from competing, I started doing some retreats for drummers in Hawaii. And I would just perform in an evening with the sun setting. And it was the most passionate performance and I didn't care what was happening, but it was fun. Right. And enjoyed it.

Yes, there it is. The shadow loves to have fun.

These are the good qualities that, you know, creativity, fun, excitement, adventure, thrilling. That it's all buried under this dark cloud. Repression.

Resentment, anger. Once it's out. And again, it only needs to come out once. I work with really aggregate people, abused people, and you only have to do it once. That's it.

It's amazing. Well, I'm pretty confident.

Pardon?

I'm pretty confident that the listener that's listening right now is going to look at the show notes, click on that link and buy the book. I'm very confident.

So that's the third week. It's. It leads up to that again. The first two weeks of conventional sports psychology. Optimal. Then heavy into the shadow. Several sessions. Yeah, it continues into the fourth week. Now we're talking about golden shadow and happy chemicals in the brain like oxytocin. Oxytocin and dopamine, serotonin that are now released into your brain. And people get incredibly happy.

I mean, and joy comes into their life in buckets.

And that's incredible. What a journey.

So at that point, then I asked him to do the final exercise.

And it's death and rebirth that you imagine your own funeral.

And in detail.

That's very intense. That'd be very, I imagine, very intense.

People have a hard time doing this one, too.

But then right before they take you away.

They say, a very important question. This has to do with you.

Is there anything in your life you didn't do?

Because I'm convinced you probably are. We come here with a sealed envelope of our mission, of our purpose in life, what we're here to do that nobody else can do. Talk about leadership. We are given these gifts and the shadow stuff.

That makes us very individual with our own purpose, our own mission. And this exercise gets you in touch with that. That's Incredible. People don't give that enough time or attention. And really again, once you're done with the shadow and all the negative stuff and you're in a very happy place with renewed energy, believe me. A total burst of renewed energy for life. What do I want to do? What do I need to do?

And it's a renewed new sense of purpose that gives life to people at any age. That's. That's what I'm experiencing. That, that again is, is why I took five years to write this book. Because it was five years of not happy.

Yeah.

And struggling. But it was on purpose because I knew. I knew once I got into the book, I was the only one that could write this. Not, not egotistically, but with my background and athletes and musicians and, and understanding and watching people fail for 20 years.

I was the only one that could write it. And I had to write it. And it was not easy, I imagine. I'm not a trained writer. I never aspired to be a writer. The highest grade I ever got in college for term paper was a D.

You're a best selling author.

I love it. That's so.

Because of the very reasons I'm telling you. Yeah. Is I figured it out with the shadow. And I figured out I'm the only one that can explain it. And I know I've explained it well. I. I'm. I've turned into a good writer from writing and, and coming to terms with my shadow and really having something to say. But that's why it took me five years. Because I really wanted to get it right. Yeah. And the last two months.

I was burned out. And it was pure shadow. My shadow wrote the last two months. And I was absolutely, absolutely miserable. But let me repeat that. Sorry. The last two months I was absolutely miserable. I didn't sleep, My body hurt. I ached. I was living all these bad memories and I thought I've got to do it. And I did it. And because of the stress of that. That's why I lost my voice as soon as I finished. Wow. Once I was finished and. And the stress of five years hit me like a. A rocket.

Wow.

I went to the doctors and I did all tests. I said, I've been under incredible stress. Nobody listened to me. I thought, give me two months without the stress, I'll heal myself. I can heal myself. Sure enough, two months without writing. My voice was back better than ever.

The body keeps the score, eh?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm working with a violinist now.

50 years old. Top orchestra.

Heavy shadow, all of a Sudden, both of her hands froze.

She couldn't bow. She couldn't finger.

She's been a concert master in several orchestras. That's how good she is. Wow. She can't play. She. She's off for two months.

Heavy shadow. I started talking about her shadow. Oh, my God. Never dealt with it. So I'm finding it localizes again. The shadow localizes in the areas that are key. I'm not a violinist. Didn't bother my wrists at all. I'm a speaker. I lost my voice. She's a violinist. She lost both wrists.

It hits you where it counts.

Yeah, localize. It's right there.

Wow.

Shadow is smart. It's wise. That's why I'm saying when you take this masterclass with your shadow, you'll be surprised. Wow. Why didn't I ever think of that?

I'm looking forward to sharing it with you. And, you know, I imagine there'll be thousands of others that will hear this, want to do the work, and want.

To share it with you, so I hope so.

They will. I know they will. The people that listening, listening in to lead on purpose, they are after the next level. They're striving to be their best selves. They're trying to overcome their self doubts. So this book is for them.

It really is for them. Yeah, this is. This is not necessarily for college kids. College kids don't have enough experience. They haven't been out in the world, been kicked around enough. So the shadow develops into a real entity, which it is. It's real. And in college they say, nah, it's just. Just negative thought.

Well, I feel like obviously we're getting close to wrapping up, but I feel like there's another conversation that needs to be had. And perhaps after I do the work and go through the full book to train my own hero, perhaps we reconnect and I share.

I'd love to. And maybe have other people involved, you know, get on it. You want Q and A?

That'd be amazing.

I'd love. I know I'd love it.

Let's do it. I love it. And just one last question I want to ask before we wrap up. If we fast forward to the end of your life, it's your last day, it's your last moment, it's your last five minutes. And someone very young and very precious in your family or someone close to you comes up and says, hey, Don, how do I go about leading my life on purpose? What advice would you give them?

Read my book.

Because that, to me is what gets in the way of purpose.

The shadow.

Yeah. You know, you get enough abuse, enough negative stuff. It's. This is not worth. I don't. I don't need to do this. And we give up on our purpose and find an easier way because purpose is not necessarily easy. Yeah, yeah. That's just it. So it's easy to find excuses for dropping out knots. It's not the current thing.

And it's because of the shadow. Yeah, it's still complaining. I don't want to go through that again. You know, I don't want to take that abuse again because sometimes it is abusive. You know, working for a conductor, that's abusive. What are your choices? Well, put up with it.

That's beautiful advice. And for the person that's listening, I will put the link to get the book on Amazon or directly on Dr. Don Green's website. And Don, I just want to say a heartfelt.

And also. I'm sorry to interrupt. Also on trainyourownhero.com are my webinars, the two webinars on the Shadow.

Awesome.

Yeah. And they're there. And all I have to do is Click to reach 40 or 45 minutes long. But it's a really good introduction into the Shadow. Even before they read the book.

We'll make sure and put a link to that end as well.

Great.

Absolutely. I just want to thank you so much. It's been an incredible opportunity to get to know you, get to understand your work even deeper.

My pleasure. I'm so glad. This has just been a delight and I really look forward to the next one. Whenever you're ready. I'm ready.

Fantastic. Bring it on.

Exactly.

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