240: We're All in This Together & Focus on the Good Stuff by Mike Robbins

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Welcome to the show. This is Jason Hartman, your host. And every 10th episode we do something kind of special, kind of different. What we do is we go off topic. So regardless of which show it is on the Hartman Media Network, whether it be one of the financial shows, economics, real estate, investing, travel, longevity, all of the other topics that we have, every 10th episode we go off topic and we explore something of general interest, something of general life, success, value. And so many of our listeners around the world in 164 countries have absolutely loved our 10th episode shows. So that's what we're gonna do today. And let's go ahead and get to our guest with a special 10th episode show. And of course, on the next episode, we'll be back to our regular programming. Here we go. Yes, we're probably all cooped up and not much to do because not much is open. But you know, maybe this whole thing is going to lead us all to a little bit more of a peaceful life in some ways. You know, I've said there are a lot of good things that are coming out of this crisis. It's certainly a crisis. There's no question about that. And we can talk about that all day long every day. But there's more to it than that. We got to look at some of the good sides of it. And one of them is, I think it is making culture a little more mindful, a little more focused on what's really important. Maybe some of the things we thought was important aren't that important. I noticed my mind shifting a lot in a lot of ways, and it's quite interesting. And one of the other really good things that's coming out of this is I think there's this, it's sort of, it goes both ways, if you know what I mean. There certainly is a rising sense of nationalism that I think will pervade the world. And I think we've really seen why countries should have borders and should protect their borders. Yes, I know that's a Trumpian concept, but you have different sets of laws and different ideas of how to handle a crisis like this in different borders. And when you have that, each country has to control their own borders so they can have their practices within an isolated control group, if you will. Right. Just like a science lab. And so you can't have the borders just be open. Right. But at the same time, at the same time where I predict we will have a rising sense of nationalism, we have this other beautiful thing that is a rising sense of cooperation because of the way countries have had to, for the good of humanity, work together and cooperate. Now that's a general comment. Of course. You know, science has changed the way science is being handled and the way labs and scientists around the world are working together for a common goal, which is great. Now, of course, many countries, and they won't play ball. They won't be fair, they'll lie about their numbers. China and, you know, everybody's got their agenda, right? Every person, every country. And Bill Gates. Can you trust Bill Gates? I don't know. There's lots of conspiracy theories floating about Bill Gates, but, you know, I don't know that all of them are unfounded. Maybe some of them are. You know, maybe all of them are. I don't know. Just look at. We will not know until later. We're in the midst of the storm. And when you're in the midst of the storm, it's very hard to see, but when you get past it, it becomes much clearer in so many ways. In so many ways. So today we've got a 10th episode show where we go off topic. I think you're really going to love this guest. I thoroughly enjoyed my interview with him. It's Mike Robbins, and he'll be with us here in a moment. And we're really going to address some of the, you know, the attitudinal and psychological aspects of this crisis, and I think this will be very helpful. Please share this episode with people you care about and share it with them, because I think it'll be very helpful to people. But before we get to that, I just want to talk about something you may have heard about. And I had mentioned it yesterday to our podcast producer, Josh. And by the way, shout out to Josh, who's been doing a great job since he took over the podcast from Adam. He's really taken the bull by the horns, as the expression goes, and he's just jumping in and doing a great job with the podcast production. So big shout out to Josh. Thank you for all your help. So we were talking and he was not familiar with the hundredth monkey theory, and maybe you are or you aren't. Maybe you heard about it in passing and never really thought too much about it, but it could be a factor that plays into what the world is going through now. And this idea of more global cooperation, an increased sense of cooperation between countries. Because at the end of the day, you know, we realize, hopefully we realize as a world, as a planet that we're all in this together, right? You know, this is not an isolated thing. It's not like it only affects one country and not another. We've seen it break out in different parts of the world, just in all sorts of different places and the effects very unevenly distributed. But the need for cooperation and sharing data, sharing information, very, very important. And a lot of bad things going on. In my pandemic investing presentation, I this morning even added to it and talked about how we're moving closer to a national housing assistance program, moving closer to more income inequality, moving closer to UBI Universal Basic Income, moving closer to stagflation, moving closer to socialism and moving closer to an Orwellian 1984 style world. You don't need me to tell you that if you've been following the news and you're looking what all the tech companies are doing and how all this tracking will begin, and it's interesting because I don't think anybody's too terribly concerned about it at the moment, and I'm not either. But we do have to be mindful of, of our rights as citizens and the freedoms we're going to give up out of this. Just like we gave up all kinds of freedoms post 9 11. And the government never lets a good crisis go to waste, as the saying goes. So anyway, let's always be mindful of that. Okay? The hundredth monkey theory before we get to our guest. So this has been disputed. Some people say it's true, some people say, well, it's not exactly true. And this, that and the other thing, I don't know. I'm just going to tell you what the theory is because I think it's darn interesting. And even if this theory isn't exactly true, right. It doesn't matter. Don't get so like some people, you know, especially in the political world, they get so hung up on whether there's an academic study on something when you don't need a fricking academic study, you just need some common sense. Okay? And there's an element to that in all areas of life, of course, right. So, you know, here's the theory. You make of it what you will. I think it's Very interesting. I think it definitely could be true. And I think it. Even if it didn't exactly happen this way historically in this scientific research, maybe it still is happening in other areas of life all the time because there is so much we don't know. Remember when I talked to you about holographic brain theory and Dr. Carl Pribram at Stanford University, the neurosurgeon, and how this is my theory? Again, this is not him. But, you know, I kind of added to, like, some of the stuff I learned from him. And I'm not a scientist. I don't know. It's just my theory that the mind, instead of being a processor of information, well, there's a difference between the brain and the mind, right? Rather than just being a processor of information, it's also a generator of. Of wavelength. And there's no question that there are things going on outside of our skull and outside of our body. There is an aura that is true. You can verify it scientifically. You can use Krilian photography, and you can see that there is stuff going on outside of a person's physical body, right? And a thought is nothing more than its base component, an electrochemical component. Event, okay? It's an electrochemical event. And electricity always creates magnetism, and magnetism attracts and repels things depending on polarity. Okay? So like I said before on a prior episode when I talked about guided visualization, and I have that other podcast on guided visualizations that you can find on any podcast platform. Just type in, oh, probably Jason Hartman visualization, and you'll find it. And so check that one out. And do we attract and repel certain things in all of our lives by our thoughts? Of course we do. This isn't fully understood yet. It doesn't have to be. We don't have completely firm evidence to say this is as true as gravity. Okay? And interestingly, gravity is really hard to understand. You know, physicists don't even really understand gravity, but we all know that if you walk off a cliff, there's a high likelihood you're going to fall. Okay? So even though we don't completely understand gravity, we know it exists, right? So anyway, the hundredth monkey theory. I digress. 1952, on a Japanese island, some researchers were researching these monkeys, right? And as they were researching the monkeys, they used to give them raw sweet potatoes, and the monkeys liked them. And they would throw them to the monkeys and they land in the sand in front of the monkey, right? And the monkey would pick them up and eat them until one day, one of the younger monkeys started washing the sweet potatoes in the ocean. And so they'd have a salty taste, but they wouldn't have the sand on them. And then other monkeys saw this and started doing it, and they all liked it better. So this became the practice, the regular habit of the monkeys. You know, they'd pick up the sweet potatoes, they'd go and they dip them in the ocean water and wash them, and they tasted better without all that gritty sand on them. And then in 1958, okay, six years go by, and this is how the theory goes. 99 of the monkeys are, you know, started washing their sweet potatoes on that island. And then as that happened, suddenly all the rest of them started doing that. Here's the most amazing thing of all. In 1958, on other islands that were completely unconnected, there was no way for these monkeys to get from one island to the other. Okay? Other monkeys in several other places started doing the same thing before, they did not wash the sweet potatoes. They just ate them with the sand on them. But then suddenly, the scientists were noticing as they were researching these monkeys in different places, that all the monkeys started doing that. And the theory of the hundredth monkey theory is that there is a certain point at which a universal consciousness develops, and it spreads throughout the population even when they're unconnected. It's not because one of the monkeys saw it on YouTube. Obviously, we didn't have YouTube and the monkey. We didn't have the Internet in 1952 or 1958. That came about in 1969. Contrary to popular belief, Al Gore did not invent the Internet, thank you very much. He did invent global warming.

Okay, I won't go into that. So that's what happens. Now, what's interesting, the parallel that you've heard about with coronavirus recently, is the idea of herd immunity. Herd immunity, which is a scientific thing. And with herd immunity, that is.

Sort of parallels the idea of the hundredth monkey a little bit, doesn't it? So we'll see. It's a totally different concept. It's a virus. I know. I'm making a big leap there. I get it. I get it. Don't send me a bunch of feedback@jasonhartman.com Ask about that. Say, Jason, herd immunity and the hundredth monkey theory have nothing to do with each other. I know I said I was making a bit of a leap, but they do parallel in some ways, so give me a break. Okay? Anyway, but do leave your questions and comments and feedback@jasonhartman.com Ask because we love to hear from you. Okay, let's get to our 10th episode show today and let's talk to Mike Robbins. I think you'll really get a lot out of this interview and I think you'll want to share this interview with other people. Send some other people a link to this interview. It's a good one. It's a tenth show, so here we go.

It's my pleasure to welcome Mike Robbins. He's a New York Times bestselling and international number one best selling author of several books including Focus on the Good Stuff, the Power of Appreciation, and his latest, We're all in this Together. And I think these are very topical. He's got other great books as well, but very topical nowadays with what's going on in the world, has got a huge list of corporate clients including Google, Wells Fargo, Microsoft, Charles Schwab, LinkedIn, Deloitte, US Department of Labor, the Gap, Harvard University, Coca Cola, and a zillion others you've heard of. So I don't need to go into all of them. But what's interesting about Mike is he turned down an opportunity to play for the Yankees to go play college baseball at Stanford University, where he pitched in the College World Series. But then he was recruited by the Kansas City Royals and he's a lefty pitcher. So let's hear from him. Mike, welcome. How are you doing?

Thanks, Jason. I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on the show. I appreciate it.

Yeah, it's great to have you. So there's a lot of people right now around the world, billions of people quite literally sitting at home worried about the future.

Possibly very lonely and very isolated. What can you say to them?

Well, I mean, I think the first thing is I get it. It's, you know, we're dealing with something that none of us have ever dealt with before. And, you know, one of the things I find myself saying to a lot of people, Jason, these days in my life personally, and a lot of the leaders and teams and people that I work with is just like, there's no right way to feel right now. And I think we're all sort of collectively going through, you know, a bit of an emotional rollercoaster. And I read something in HBR at Harvard Business Review a while back. There was an interview with David Kessler, who's an expert in grief, and he said that what's happening for a lot of us right now, whether we're fully acknowledging or not, is we're collectively grieving all of the loss, not just the loss of Life and what's happening, but the loss of jobs and the loss of life as we know it in certain ways. And while we all hope and believe that we're going to get to the other side of this in some way, shape or form, there's just a lot of loss. So if you think about the different stages of grief, right, it's denial, it's bargaining, it's anger, it's that sense of sort of sadness and depression and ultimately acceptance. And so. And again, having.

Those are literally the stages of grief. Okay?

They are, and they're not. They're not linear, right? They don't go. You don't go from 1 to 2 to 3 to 4 to 5, and then you're done. Anyone who's ever grieved any loss of any kind, you know, I've had significant people in my life pass away. My baseball career ended when I was in the minor leagues with Kansas City. After starting at 7 and playing into my 20s and playing professionally, I blew my arm out. Three surgeries later, had to retire from baseball. That was a huge loss that I had to grieve, and it took me quite a while, actually, to grieve that loss. So, I mean, part of what I can say right now, we're in the midst of this thing that is so unprecedented and so challenging, but feeling lonely, feeling isolated, feeling depressed, feeling scared about the future, even if you're a relatively confident person, even if you look around in your life and say, hey, I've had some success. I know some things, I've learned some things, it's totally okay to be feeling any of those, if not many other emotions right now.

Yeah, I agree with you. You know, one of the things that I think really will help people, but it's hard to do while you're in it, right? But, you know, we have only been in this mic for a very short time that you can count in weeks. It hasn't been that long. And I think we've all just got to, like, step back and maybe cut off the news media for a while. Except my podcast, of course, which is the exception to the rule. And just step back and look at the big picture. And remember, this is just a little blip. I mean, so far. Okay, so far. Now, granted, maybe it'll become longer, maybe it'll become worse. Let's hope not. But so far, this is a little, tiny blip in life. It's really just no big deal.

So far. Yeah, I mean, I think. Look, perspective is important, and the challenge with perspective is when we're in the middle of something, it's hard to have perspective on it. So things right when they're happening, we don't know the outcome. Everything that you and I and everyone listening has ever been through challenging in our lives, we made it through those things. When we're in the middle of a challenge, and right now we're in the middle of a collective challenge, we haven't made it through yet. So we don't know exactly how the story ends. And look, the reality is, without getting too sort of grim and negative about it, like, we don't really know what's going to happen. We don't know how we're going to be impacted physically. Am I going to get sick? Are people around me going to get sick? We don't know how we're going to be impacted financially. What's the impact of the economy and what's going on in the markets right now going to be on me, on my business, on my life, on the people around me. And we also don't know fully how we're going to be impacted mentally, psychologically, emotionally, and that. To your point, though, right now, if we think about the amount of time we've been in, this, it is relatively short and will seem quite short, even if it lasts for a lot longer once we're further away from it. I remember as a kid growing up, my mom used to talk about being in college, and she would talk about college like it was this thing, just like this little story, this little blip in the story of her life, which my mom was probably in her 50s at the time when I was starting to pay attention to this. And that college was four years way back when she was young, in her 50s. But for me, as I was going through high school and then wanting to go to college and then in college, when I'd hear my mother talk about it, college was like this big, expansive thing, you know what I mean? So some of it is literally perspective. And one of the things that I also think we can do in a really practical way right now is someone said something to me about 10 years ago. I was going through a pretty tough time personally, pretty tough time financially. My business got hit pretty hard by the recession. We were in a difficult situation with our house, and I was just going through a lot. And my friend Theo said this thing to me. He said, mike, even though it may not seem like it right now, it's important to remember that you have more than this requires. And I said, what do you mean? He said, you have more within you more strength, more resilience than you even realize to get through this thing. And what he challenged me to do was to think about all the difficult things that I had persevered through in my life up to that point. And he said, look, it's not going to be a fun list to make, but if you actually sit down and write it out, like in your journal and think about the stuff that you've gone through, that you figured out your way through, it'll remind you how resilient you are. And as someone who myself, in my work, focuses a lot on appreciation and optimism, Optimism. I'm not saying go back in your past and dig through all your skeletons and all the terrible things that have ever happened to you, but for the most part, most of us have been through some stuff in life, some of us some pretty significant stuff, and we've made it through. So again, right now, if you find yourself in a place of wondering, how am I going to get through? How are we going to get through? Sometimes I think about the country and the world, too. It's like the world and our country have been through a lot of stuff as well. I think we forget sometimes how strong and resilient we are, especially when we get scared.

I agree with you. And you know, your book focus on the good stuff, the Power of appreciation. Let's talk about how that interplays with all of this, because I think one of the things that happens, I've certainly noticed it in my own self, is that when we are down, pressed, grief stricken, whatever you call it, we're focusing internally, we're focusing on ourselves. And one way to cure that is to do something nice for someone else, to volunteer for someone else. It makes you focus outwardly, and appreciation or gratitude is another way to do that. Right. Because the common element seems to be that if we are experiencing difficulty, we are focusing internally rather than externally. Would you agree with that?

For sure. One of the stories, so focus on the Good Stuff was my first book that I wrote a number of years ago. And one of the stories that I share in that book is often a story that I still share all these years later when my baseball career ended. So again, I was 23. Right. You mentioned in my introduction. Right. I didn't sign with the Yankees when they drafted me out of high school. I went to Stanford. I got drafted by the Royals. I go into the minor leagues of Kansas City. I'm on my way to make it to the big leagues. That's been my lifelong dream since I started playing baseball. When I was seven, I got to pitch one night. I throw one pitch. I tear ligaments in my elbow. I blow my arm out. My career essentially ends. Yeah, it didn't end instantaneously. I spent the Next. I was 23 when I got hurt. Spent the next two years, had three surgeries, finally forced to retire at 25. And when I was in that process of transitioning out of baseball and trying to figure out what I was going to do next, Jason, I was going through a tough time. Sure, I was questioning a lot of things, and I was reflecting on the experience. And I remember asking myself this question over and over again. Did I have any regrets? Like, if I could do it all over again, would I do anything different? And I didn't regret a lot of the stuff that I thought I would have, like the games that I blew or the times that I, you know, this. We didn't win this championship, or I didn't, you know, I. Whatever. All this stuff that I got super upset and stressed out about when I was playing, none of that stuff mattered to me anymore. The only regret that I had was I didn't fully appreciate it while it was happening. I was too busy trying to make it right. I was this kid from Oakland, California, raised by a single mom. We didn't have a lot of money. I was going to make it to the big leagues. I was going to make some money. I was going to be important. I was going to be successful. But up to that point in my life, even though I was actually pretty good, I spent most of my time thinking that I wasn't good enough, comparing myself to everyone around me and literally, like, holding my breath, hoping that I didn't screw it up. And when it was all said and done and I hadn't made it, I thought to myself, oops, I think I missed the point. And I think, look, most people listening to us right now probably did not blow out their pitching arm in the minor leagues trying to pursue a professional baseball career. But all of us, and many of us right now, collectively, we lose things in life, whether we want to or not. And one of the things about being human and our human nature is that we're so focused on where we're headed or what we're trying to accomplish or how is this business project going to work out, or this investment or this risk I'm taking. And when things don't work out, as painful as it is, one of the things that we can do when we have a moment like we do collectively, one of the silver linings of this. And I don't want to over. I don't want to minimize it or sugarcoat it. One of the silver linings of this moment, even if you're sitting there and you've lost your job or things have really gone sideways for you financially or health wise or otherwise, this is the world has intervened in a way and forced all of us to stop and pause and reflect what matters? Who matters. It's kind of back to the grief thing.

When both of my parents passed away, as painful as that was, when I've had other people in my life pass away where it's been really sad. The thing about grief that I have experienced is it does stop us mid track of life and knock us out of life in a painful way. But for me, there's always that. What it boils down to is what matters and who matters and why. And it gets really, really basic. Who do I want to talk to? What do I want to talk about? What do I want to focus on? Because a lot of the BS and superficiality of life kind of goes away in the face of grief, in the face of loss. And right now, what I'm trying to do as best I can, manage my business and take care of my family and launch my new book and all the practical parts of my life. But I'm also trying to take this time and this opportunity to take a step back and go, okay, I don't know exactly what my business and what the world's going to look like when all this is over. I hope I'm going to be okay. I hope everyone around me is going to be okay. But what can I learn from this experience and how can this impact me? We're going to be different on the other side of this. The question is how? And that's really up to us.

Yeah, no question about it. So your earlier point in that segment was this orientation of living in the future, right? We basically get three orientation choices in life, right? We can live in the past, the present or the future and we all have to live in both, right? But if we spend too much time dwelling on the past, maybe we're dwelling on bad things that happened and beating ourselves up over them, or we're dwelling on like nostalgia and oh, it used to be so much better in the good old days, blah, blah, blah. I kind of find myself doing that. Honestly, it's not great. But generally speaking, I'm a very future oriented person. I'm always about the next thing. So either way, you're missing the thing. Thing you're in now. You're missing the middle thing. And what's interesting about the situation, Mike, that we're in now, and I just said this on today's episode of my podcast. It's the one time in my life, interestingly, where I don't have really any sense of fomo. Fear of missing out. I travel constantly. I've been to 87 countries. I'm probably someone like you. I'm going to mastermind groups, I'm doing speeches, I'm doing all this stuff. And, you know, it's like, I don't look at social media now and think, oh, my friend has such a great life and I'm stuck here at home. Everybody's equal. We're all on the level playing field now.

It's funny you say that, because there is something odd.

No one's going out to dinner. No one's doing anything now.

Yeah, no, it's true. I mean, it's like it is an odd experience to. Then I'm someone like that.

It's a leveling.

It is a leveling. It's like it doesn't matter. I've been appreciating, you know, some of these late night hosts are doing their shows from home and they're having people sort of Skype in or zoom in.

And you see people. It's funny, I know.

And even these big celebrities with their fancy homes and whatever, you realize they're at home with their families, like, trying to figure out what to eat and what to watch on TV and how to get stuff done. And, you know, it is, in a way, it is leveling us. And I do think, though, that there's something about it forcing us to be in the present moment. I was talking to my own team actually, earlier today about this, and we were all sort of reflecting on how we were feeling. And this. The conversation came up, I was kind of wanting to know, when is this going to end? Like, when are we going to get back to normal, whatever that is. And I said to my team, I was like, look, I don't know. I'm reading different things and different models and different projections. I was like, but the truth is we just don't know. And what we do know is that we're here today with each other. We're focused on what we're focused on. And yes, do we need to plan for the future and have some scenarios if this happens? Yeah, of course. We all do. Even when there's not a pandemic, we do that. But I think a lot of us to Your point? We're either stuck in the past or we're so focused on the future that we miss out on the present moment. And maybe one of the things that we can all do a better job of through this experience is bring ourselves into the present moment, because we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, or how long this is going to last. But we do know right here, right now, you and I are talking to each other. And as people are listening, they're in their house or walking around their block or doing whatever they're doing with themselves, by themselves, or with their families. And there's something oddly not only leveling about that, but there's a way in which that can actually be peaceful if we choose to let it. But so much of this comes down to choice. I have a friend named Robert Holden who's a psychologist, and he likes to say that by the time we get to 30 years old, most of us have more than enough reasons to be miserable for the rest of our lives. That usually, if you've lived enough life even just to get to 30, maybe some people listening are under 30, maybe many of us are older than 30. But you've had enough stuff happen to you that you could have a story for the rest of your life that would allow you to justifiably be miserable. And what he's basically saying in sort of a tough love kind of way is, look, it's a choice. How are things going to be? How's your life going to be? How are you going to say it is? What's the story you're going to tell yourself and everybody else? And one of the things I've been saying to my own team about this pandemic is, hey, let's have a really great story that we get to tell when this is all over about how we showed up, about what we learned, about what happened, about what the experience was like, because that's going to be the story. And I've been saying to our daughters who are 14 and 11, even though they roll their eyes at me a little bit like, hey, girls, I know this is scary and this is hard and weird, and you're not at school and you're missing out on a bunch of stuff, but you're going to be telling this story for the rest of your lives, right?

Yeah, yeah. To your kids and grandkids and, yeah, it's pretty amazing. Okay? So I'm sure 99% of the people listening agree that we should focus on the moment, try and Be in the moment, try and enjoy the moment, appreciate the moment. But the question is, how do we do that? How do we do that?

So there's a couple of. You're right. It's easier said than done.

What's the technique? Okay, we agree. Yes, do that. That sounds good. It's like exercise more, eat more vegetables. Yeah, that sounds good. Do it.

Look, I mean, I think one of the things that's important to acknowledge is that it's hard right now for most of us. Not like a whining, complaining thing, but it's hard. This is weird, this is different. We're all out of sync and sort of knocked off our center in lots of ways. So as far as practices go, like, I'm just a big believer in, like, anything. If we put little things into practice, we take baby steps if we need to. Having some time where we can, you know, sit quietly. If we have some kind of meditation practice or mindfulness practice, have some time where we sit and maybe write in a journal, take a walk around the block. I mean, some time that we carve out for ourselves that's focused on our own mental and emotional well being. Maybe it involves something physical, maybe not. But like, I think that's important all the time. I think it's even more important now. And I've been finding it for myself both more important but also more challenging just because of all of the different things that are going on. I think a second thing though, that we can also do is, and this is something that most of us struggle with in general, but especially right now, is ask for help. You know, Jason, one of the questions I ask when I'm speaking to groups of people, I'll say, how many of you like helping other people? And it doesn't matter where I am, what kind of group it is, how big or small, what state, city, country I'm in. Literally everyone in every room raises their hand. I usually figure about 90, 95% of the people mean it. The other 5%, social pressure.

Social.

I don't want to be the jerk that doesn't like helping people. Most of us enjoy helping.

I'm Scrooge, but yeah, but I'm going to lie and raise my hand anyway.

Okay, but then follow question that I ask is, how many of you love asking other people for help? And usually about 10, maybe 20%. Most of the hands in the room will go up. And even as they do, people almost look around and start to think, oh, am I not supposed to raise my hand? Like, is this. And I usually say, Listen, first of all, if you're comfortable asking for help, be proud of that, Keep doing it, and teach the rest of us, because most of us struggle with it. We get uncomfortable, we feel weird. We don't want to get judged. We think it's weak. We think some people reject. I mean, all of these reasons we have not to ask for help. But right now, we all need help. Practically speaking, there's a bunch of stuff like, just how does this work? I need to do this. I'm not good at zoom. I need to. Right? We're adjusting the way we're working, but we also need help mentally, emotionally. And we have people in our lives who we can reach out to, like, hey, I'm struggling, or I'm feeling lonely or I'm feeling scared about this. And if we can do that authentically, the people in our lives, the people we work with, the people we live with, the people maybe we haven't talked to in a while, like, most of us really love to be able to help and support other people. So if we can get a little bit better and have a little more courage to ask, not only do we get some help, we give other people permission to do the same. And to your point earlier, people who are stuck in their own experience of being stressed out or lonely or whatever. If I get a phone call while I'm feeling really lonely or stressed or stuck, and someone says, and Jason, you say to me, hey, Mike, can I talk to you for a few minutes? I'm having a tough time. Can you give me some support? I'm like, great. I don't have to think about all my own crazy stuff. I get to focus on Jason and support him. So we actually are doing each other service.

Good points. And we're forced to focus out. So if you ask someone for help, you're forcing them to focus outside of themselves. Right? And so, in a way, you're really helping them.

Totally. And then the third thing I would say, and this again, is like, we know this, and we know how important it is, but I think it's even more important than ever now. And we were just talking about it a few minutes ago. But being able to focus on what we appreciate, what we're grateful for. Look, if everybody who's listening to us, they're dealing with different circumstances. Again, from the most extreme. You could potentially be sick, you could be out of work or in a really difficult financial place all the way to. Neither of those things are the case. You're completely healthy. Your life, your business, financially, is not impacted by all this and anywhere in between. If you're well enough to be listening to us and you're engaged in this podcast, in this community, I would assume and imagine there's probably a bunch of things that are going well in your life, even if there are some challenges. And as I've been talking to people who are having a hard time working from home without sort of discrediting their challenge, one of the things I'm trying to remind people is like, hey, you know what? You get to work from home, there's a bunch of people that don't have that option.

Or my family's getting on my nerves. Right. Which I can relate to. I mean, I love my family, but we're all getting on each other's nerves because we're on top of each other in the house all the time. But again, there are people that are sitting all by themselves right now really wishing that they had family around them to get on their nerves. Whatever the case is, it's not about family.

And just realize it's huge human nature to want what you don't have. Right. Married people want to be single. Single people want to be married. You know, it's just. That's just the way we're wired. Okay. We're always looking at the greener grass, right?

Totally. And if we remember that. But bring it back to in this moment, like one of my most important practices throughout the last 20 some years of my life has been keeping a gratitude journal and just reminding myself, even when I'm stressed and pissed and annoyed and frustrated and tired and all these things. Can I stop for a moment and just write down a few things that I'm grateful for? And there's always stuff there. And once we open up that box, if you will, of gratitude, what we find is in the healthiest, most positive way, it's kind of a Pandora's box, in a good way, of, oh, there's so much more there. Once we start to go down that path, if you will.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. What else should we cover that's maybe from one of the other books or anything, just to wrap this up. Probably something I just didn't ask you about, I think.

I mean, look, one of the things that I think is important from a mindset perspective right now is to try to focus on the things that we can control. I had a baseball coach years ago who I adore say something to me that I never forgot. He was talking about this in the context of baseball and he was giving me some coaching, some feedback on, you Know, my challenge at times was I would get upset, I would get frustrated. Umpire made a bad call, the second baseman missed the ball, the team didn't score enough runs, and all the normal things you could imagine. I was a pitcher in baseball, right? And he said to me, mike, there's only two things you can control in baseball. This is also true in life, by the way. You can control your attitude and you can control your effort. Everything else is some version of out of your control. You can't control what your teammates do. You can't control the weather, the umpire, the outcome. You can control what's the attitude you bring to the field, to life, what's the mindset and how hard you work, how much are you willing to put into it. Everything else is some version of out of your control. And it was simple advice, but really important wisdom for me at that time. And I think about that now. Even in this situation with this pandemic, it's like I can't control how long this lasts. I can't control the decisions that are made by people in positions of power, in the government and otherwise. I can't control, control whether people abide by the stay at home orders or not or whatever all the things are. I can't control what happens with the stock market and the economy and how many people get laid off. I can't control any of that. What I can control, what we all can control, is our attitude and our effort. If we focus on those things, then we have more autonomy, then we're more empowered. If we're focused on all the stuff that we can't control, then again, we're riding the crazy rollercoaster of watching the news and watching the stock market and all of these things that are just happening. And then we decide, oh, it's a good day or it's a bad day based on whatever we hear, as opposed to how do I choose to focus and what do I choose to focus on and how much effort am I willing to bring?

Yep. It was said decades ago by Viktor Frankl and you know his famous book, Man's Search for Meaning, I'm sure you're quite familiar with, and that he called it the last human freedom. The last human freedom. If everything else is taken away from us, food, physical comfort, shelter, whatever, we always get to choose, no matter what. How we take any experience, how we think about it, we always get to decide how we process it. Nobody can take that away. It's the last human freedom. And I think that's a very good point, Mike. Give out your website, tell people where they can find out more about you.

The best place is our site which is just Mike Robbins.

Excellent mike-robbins.com thank you so much for joining us today and stay well.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

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