Work Under High-Stress WITHOUT Burning Out! Sebastien Page

What if you could manage stress and perform under pressure like someone who is responsible for managing $500 billion every single day?

In the early years of my career, I had goal-induced blindness. I was overworked, I was tired, I almost died.

Sometimes we're burnt out or stressed not because we're doing too much. Sometimes we're burnt out because we're doing too little of the things that really matter.

It's the only link between what you can control about your body and what you cannot control.

Our brain occupies about 2% of our body mass, but it requires 20% of our energy.

Different tasks have different Yerkes-Dodson curves. They have different optimal levels of stress.

Chess players can burn upwards of 6,000 calories a day while they're competing.

Is what is the true meaning of what I am doing?

If you've ever felt overwhelmed by work, by life, and you want to thrive under high-stake conditions, this is the episode for you. Welcome back, Kwik Brains. I am your host and your brain coach, Jim Kwik. How do you think the world's top leaders perform under extreme pressure. And this episode is for you, whether you have the title of leader, quote unquote. We all lead somebody, right? Whether it's our family, it's our kids, our community, it's in our work. So it's more than a title. So this is really episode for everybody because how do leaders under extreme pressure, how do they manage avoiding a burnout, right? And this is really gonna be a masterclass on that. Today I'm joined by Sebastian Page, and he is the Chief Investment Officer at T. Rowe Price. And this is where he leads a team managing, uh, half a trillion dollars in assets. But here's what's really fascinating. Beyond the numbers, Sebastian has spent years researching the psychology, the mindset of leadership, performance, and stress. And I recently read his book, The Psychology of Leadership. I highly recommend everyone get their copy. He's really blended finance with brain science. And in this episode, we're gonna talk about how to use the stress in your life to your advantage, not your downfall. How do you set goals that really stretch your capability or capacity without burning out? And how do you protect your brain from things like decision fatigue? Welcome to the show, Sebastian.

Jim, I am fired up and I'll tell you why. For 2 reasons. I love doing podcasts. It's so much more relaxed than live national TV talking about financial markets. But the other thing is, I started listening to your podcast over the last couple of weeks and I thought, oh my God, where has this podcast been all my life? I told you, I've become an instant fan, so I'm absolutely fired up for this today.

Thank you. You know, I think our community echoes that. I mean, we're all bonded. by this love and passion for lifelong learning and, and growth and contribution. Maybe we could start with just some context. You know, it's hard to get some foreground without some little bit of background. Your background in, in high-stakes finance, you know, the skills that you developed in leadership and psychology, it provides a very interesting perspective when it comes to stress, pressure, burnout. I'm curious, you know, how and why did you move into researching and learning about psychology and, and optimizing your, your inner, inner states for better performance?

Jim, I was stressed at work several years ago, and I was stressing about stressing. In my mind, I've been in this business for a couple decades. I should not be that stressed. So I was adding another layer on top of it. And that's when I decided to talk to a sports psychologist. I had an amazing conversation with him. And the takeaway, I'm going to say it right off the bat, this idea of going through life trying to drive yourself to a stress level of zero is counterproductive.

Hmm.

It's impossible anyways. And then here's what I learned from sports psychology. Optimal performance does not occur at zero stress. In other words, stress, or sports psychologists like to call it activation, will increase your performance up to a point, after which we all know chronic stress is bad, being overly anxious is bad, and— Ultimately, it'll, it's really, it'll kill you. But there is an optimal point, and that is not zero. Massive realization for me. And that started, it started the spark. Jim, I want to tell you a quick story about Felix Baumgartner. Does that ring a bell? Felix Baumgartner. He's not that well known. He's a daredevil. In 2012, he went into a small capsule Attached to a giant helium balloon.

Mm-hmm.

And he went up 24 miles to the edge of space, and then he did something remarkable. He jumped out and skydived from space. He fell for 10 minutes, 4 minutes of which was free fall. He's the first— he was just wearing this special suit, that's it, and a helmet. First human being to break the sound barrier So it's a nice story. It's kind of lost, you know, in 2012. But what's remarkable about this, or interesting, the context of our discussion and high-pressure situations, is that Felix Baumgartner was coached by a sports psychologist every step of the way, including the day of, including the preparation. I'd like to use that story to say psychology, of course, is incredibly important to cure anxiety and depression and clinical problems. But about half the research of everything that's going on in the field of psychology is on the positive side. The positive side. And sports psychology and positive psychology helps people thrive and helps seek even not, not just high performance, ultra high performance as well.

And it's kind of like the sports figures that, that I get to, to be able to coach. A lot of it actually for me is like the psychology of dealing with like a mistake or, or failure.

Yeah. You know, my first conversation with the sports psychologist, his name is Dr. Daniel Zimmet. He lived where I live in Maryland. He's outstanding because not only is he a PhD sports psychologist, and he ended up guiding me throughout the book and helping me with the research, but he's also a top athlete.

Hmm.

He has 40, 4-0, national titles in the sport of handball. You know, that's like squash, but you whack the ball with your hands. 40 national titles.

Wow.

So here's someone who has his mental game together and applies it in practice. And this is where the discussions on optimal performance does not happen at zero stress levels. Do you think top athletes aren't stressed? They are.

They are.

Watch any Netflix documentary and you'll see they experience stress and anxiety. They are able to reframe it. But they experience it. So Zimit, first discussion about sports psychology, starts telling me the story of his best match ever. And it's fascinating because he remembers everything. He remembers where the ball was, what shots he made. And there's a point where he's almost got a tear in his eye. He's on his knees. It's an extreme shot. He's telling me all of this. And then, Jim, it's the biggest letdown of all time because— He goes, oh, and then I lost the next 2 points. I go, what? Wait, you lost the game? You have 40 national titles. Your best match ever is, is a game you lost. And that's your question about how sports psychology is a lot. It's actually about losing, not winning. In his mind that day, he was playing a much stronger opponent. And this represented a complete shift in his ability to play at a higher level. And so in the sports psychologist's mind, that's what mattered. So it's about losing and what you do with the losses, whether it's in financial markets, whether it's in your personal life, learning the resilience. And I mean, you can take this to an extreme and say, I almost appreciate my losses more than my wins because I have an opportunity to grow. That's how sports psychologists and top athletes think.

And with that challenge comes change where people are trying to avoid stress at all costs. You're saying it's a necessary ingredient because, you know, we don't learn a lot from, from winning, right? We, we, we grow through, through those challenges. And it's, it's interesting, like when we're stressed, we create the cortisol, the adrenaline. It really drives our alertness, which helps with our focus, you know, leading to some flow. In your— it's interesting in your book when we're talking about our listeners, a lot of them have challenges and they complain about mental burnout. And, you know, is something a lot of our listeners struggle with. And I know in the book you stated that our brain, right, occupies about 2% of our body mass, but it uses, it requires 20% of our energy. You talk about, as an example, chess players can burn upwards of 6,000 calories a day while they're competing in a tournament. And I, and I'm curious, like, how do you personally manage things like mental exhaustion along with the daily stress and decision-making pressure that comes from, from, from your job?

One of the things I talk about is goal-induced blindness. And in the early years of my career, I had goal-induced blindness. I was overworked. I was tired. I almost died. There's a story about this in The Psychology of Leadership. Yeah, I want to avoid goal-induced blindness. So it comes down to a lot of the things that you talk about in your podcast— mindfulness, periods of rest. Athletes incorporate periods of rest in their training, and generally being able to recognize when you're running your engine too hot and step back. But Jim, it all comes back to, you're not always trying to be at zero stress. And the optimal point is described on something called the Yerkes-Dodson curve. There's actually decades of research on it. It's a little bit controversial. It started on Japanese dancing mice, if you can imagine, like 80 years ago. But there's some real research around it. In some cases, it's been pushed a little too much. But here's the idea. Different people have different curves, so different people will optimize their performance at different stress levels. And you can actually change that through training, repetition, reframing the stress. But also, different tasks have different Yerkes-Dodson curves. They have different optimal levels of stress. So let's start with tasks. Well, if you're going to do powerlifting or a 100-meter dash, You want to be at a very high activation level. Your optimal performance is going to occur at a high stress level because it's a simple, straightforward task where you need to get your adrenaline going to perform optimally. But if you're going to do archery or sit down for a math test or the chess contest, the chess match, your optimal performance is not going to be at zero stress, but is you're going to reach the peak of the curve.

Mm-hmm.

At a lower stress level because it's a more complex task. So once you recognize that in your life and as a leader, you can avoid burnout because you know where you need to be fully activated and you know where you need to be calmer and practice breathing and meditation and other techniques and rest to optimize at a lower stress level. You're just not going around in life trying to push your stress level to zero like I was. That's just not productive. You're just adding the other layer of stress. And then you can train yourself. Different people have different curves. I have this example of Neil Armstrong when he landed the lunar module. You know, everything went wrong. His average heart rate, Jim, for most of the mission, except when he landed where it spiked to 150, was 75.

Wow.

So Neil Armstrong was someone who had flown fighter jets in the war. He had a lot of repetition. And acceptance of high-pressure situations, was prepared for it. But other people will get really anxious really quickly and will not optimize their performance at a very high stress level. So task-specific, people-specific, this whole fascinating area of research on this that I think is pretty much untapped. Like, we don't really talk about optimal stress levels enough, in my view.

And it takes a level of self-awareness, right? And also outer, there's an outer game and there's an inner game. Like everything, whether it's sports or business, life in general. In our community and our students, you know, we believe that genius leaves clues. And that genius is not necessarily born, but it can be built. And if somebody's doing something magical, like, you know, that looks like they're managing $500 billion daily, or they're on the court or the field performing, that there's a method or a mindset behind that, what looks like magic. You know, and a lot of this, what we do is deconstructing that. And I'm curious, you know, you've led at the highest levels of business and finance. In your personal experience, what would you say is the most underrated psychological trait of great leaders? And, you know, if there is one or two answers, you know, why do most people overlook it? Right. And can this trait be trained or developed over time?

Jim, it's what we were just talking about. As leaders in high-performing organizations, we become addicted to the goals and hitting our goals and achieving And winning. And I wanna be really clear to our audience, having measurable goals, achieving them is incredibly motivating and it galvanizes organizations. But your question's about what's the most underrated or more underappreciated leadership skill is as leaders in high-performing situations or in everyday life, we don't embrace losing enough. We don't embrace it enough. And that's the mindset from sports psychology. I love to talk about what happened with Federer. I don't know if you caught this, Jim. Federer, about a year ago at a commencement address, went absolutely viral.

Oh, yes.

He was speaking to students and he said, you know, one of the top tennis players of all time, he's played 1,500 matches. And he goes, I've won about 80% of my matches. But then he asked the students, what is the percentage of points that you think I won? And Federer, Federer lost almost half of every point. His hit rate point by point was 54%. Take that to money management. It's very hard to outperform the markets. You need to develop a small edge that you apply consistently. But if you have a small edge over something, and that's the difference between Federer and, say, a medium-performing tennis player. If you can accept that what Federer said, whatever game you're going to play in life, you're going to lose, get used to it. And he also said, the myth of effortless excellence is just that, a myth. So I think that's Underrated is, okay, we got something wrong. We did some— we made the wrong decision and maybe we got unlucky. So separating whether it was bad luck or a bad decision is really important, and those aren't necessarily the same thing. But things didn't turn out as expected. Being able to honestly turn back and appreciate the opportunity to learn from it. What should we do different next time? And how can we pivot. And so this applies to business for sure, because you have to make a lot of investment decisions in projects or markets, but it applies in pretty much everything. You know, we all get it wrong sometimes, and embracing it and learning from it is just not only liberating, but it works. It really works.

And in sports, whether you're on a tennis court or a basketball court or, you know, football field, You know, it's a contained environment. You know, life is obviously very dynamic, right? The market is very dynamic. And I'm curious, uncertainty, right? This volatility is part of the leadership landscape. You know, how do you personally stay calm and focused in high-stakes environment? You know, do you go to— A routine, like, like a lot of tennis players, they'll, they'll bounce the ball a certain amount of times to kind of get a reset. You know, I do certain things before I go on stage. You know, are, are, are there any personal routines or rituals that help you to maintain clarity and performance when, when, you know, there's, there's pressure? Is there kind of a go-to for you?

You've talked about this in your podcast, but exercise. And I basically exercise every day, but I build in rest or easy recovery exercise that will reduce your baseline stress level. It's been extremely well researched and it works cardio, but also strength training. I use breathing. So this afternoon I'm on my way to New York City. I'm going to be on live national TV on CNBC tomorrow. I'm going to have maybe 4 or 5 minutes where The anchors are going to fire questions at me, test my investment ideas. I'm going to be stressed. There's no doubt about it. But I'm going to do 4x4 breathing for the few minutes before I go on the air. So inhale for 4 seconds, hold it for 4 seconds, let it go for 4 seconds, and then wait for 4 seconds. It's called 4x4 breathing. Whatever breathing method you can use, it's going to help in the moment. So you have your baseline stress that's controlled through exercise, and of course diet and sleep, those things all work together. And then you have sort of in-the-moment breathing. I used to think this whole breathing advice was kind of overrated, and I talk about it in The Psychology of Leadership. I go, isn't that trite? Like, isn't that easy advice? But if you think about it, it's the only link between what you can control about your body and what you cannot control.

Yeah.

Breathing is that connection between the two. And so it's useful and it works in the moment. Well, you know, we all have to find different ways to deal with stress. But I also want to say again that just realizing that you are going to be stressed in a lot of situations And it's not just about clinical anxiety, it's about just performing in life, accepting it and being able to reframe it into excitement, into activation. Okay, I'm ready. I'm going to the top of my Yerkes-Dodson curve. I know my performance is going to increase. Jim, you know, do you want your surgeon to be like super chill and not stressed at all?

No.

You know, you get the impression if, if you're searching, if she's really not stressed at all, is she really gonna prepare for this and pay attention to the surgery?

And these emotions are like, like signposts that we maybe need to prepare or get engaged and, and, and focus. You know, people talk about the world and how fast things are going, right? And I'm curious how we map your personal, you know, process to others? Like in a fast-paced organization like you have, how do you help people stay focused on what really matters and avoid the cognitive overload? You know, I often say that sometimes we're burnt out or stressed, not because we're doing too much. Sometimes we're burnt out because we're doing too little of the things that really matter. Right. And so how do you help, whether it's your team or those that you happen to, to advise for, How do you help them to stay focused on what really matters to avoid that cognitive overload? And, you know, whether it's mental clarity, you know, is it priority management? Is it, you know, attention management at scale?

You know, as a leader, you're the one setting the goals. If you don't set goals, like, who's going to set goals? So one way to bring alignment and resilience into your organization Is to set very clear, longer-term goals that everybody's driving towards.

Hmm.

I think in my business, within the next 7 years, we can grow to $1 trillion assets under management. And we talk about our roadmap to $1 trillion, and this galvanizes the organization and it organizes the work in ways that people start asking themselves, Am I contributing to this big goal that we have as an organization? And if not, I can realign. On a personal level, this is hugely important, well-researched in psychology and philosophy. Your long-term goals, where do you see yourself on your deathbed, are super important to building resilience in everyday life. Because it just, you zoom out and you gain perspective on your day-to-day challenges, and you interpret those day-to-day challenges in the longer-term view of what you want to accomplish with your life. It sounds really soft and philosophical, but this kind of thinking really builds resilience, motivation, and it increases ultimately your engagement. And Jim, your question is a tough one. Like, if you look at surveys, it's over half of people in the US are not engaged in their work. You know, there's kind of a bit of a crisis of engagement. So having clarity on long-term goals helps a ton with that.

When we talk about the human brain, you know, I talk about how the brain is mostly a deletion device, right? If we let everything in, we would, we'd be overloaded and overwhelmed. So what we focus on becomes a lot of our reality. And, you know, in psychology, there's this reticular activating system that determines what you shine a spotlight on. And a lot of it's driven by the questions that we ask. So if we have an average of 60,000 thoughts a day, a lot of those thoughts come in the form of questions. And I do believe that, you know, when you're taking something that looks like magical and you turn it, you know, you reveal, pull back the curtain and show the method or the mindset that leaders are asking different questions. People are succeeding or asking consistent questions that maybe other people haven't asked themselves yet. You know, and this whole idea that you ask and you shall receive is, can you think of a powerful question a leader should ask regularly to stay, you know, to stay productive, to stay grounded, to stay Purpose-driven, you know, any above, is there certain questions that you ask yourself or that you see a pattern, you know, in others that people could help direct, our listeners could help direct their focus in having a more, you know, thriving life? Are you tired of constantly feeling overwhelmed by your never-ending to-do list? Do you struggle to find enough hours in the day to accomplish everything you need. But what if I told you there's a solution that can help you take back control of your time, your focus, your productivity? I'd like to introduce you to Kwik Productivity. This 10-day course is designed to provide you with the proven strategies you need to get more done in less time without burning out. So if you're ready to learn to get the most out of your time, your tasks, and your life, then don't wait any longer. Click the link below to learn more and secure your spot and your access right now.

You kind of gave the answer in your question when you used the word purpose. And this is about life, about leadership in companies, but it's about all of us. The question is, what is the true meaning of what I am doing? In The Psychology of Leadership, I have the old story of the 3 bricklayers. This supposedly happened about 100 years ago. An architect walks to 3 people laying bricks. The architect asks the first person, what are you doing? And the first person is unmotivated, tired, it's hot outside, and they say, I'm laying bricks, I got to feed my family. The architect walks to the second bricklayer, and the second bricklayer says, I'm a wall builder, I'm building this wall. And that bricklayer is a bit more engaged. And then the architect walks to the third bricklayer who says, I am a cathedral builder. Hi, I'm— this is what I'm doing. I'm building this awesome cathedral. 3 people doing the same task have a different sense of meaning in what they're doing. And guess what? In business, maybe in life as well, with your family, with your own goals, maybe we all don't think about and frame our actions and reactions in the context of the meaning of what we do. Simon Sinek made the question, what's your why, very popular. What I'm trying to do with the psychology of leadership is make this practical and what it means for how leaders can drive their— themselves to success in their organization. You know, I could walk in my business, I could walk to someone working on a spreadsheet and they might say, well, you know, I'm just debugging that spreadsheet. And I could walk to another person and say, well, I'm building a strategy trying to beat the markets. And then the third person might say, I am working to make money for our clients so they can have a better retirement, a better financial lives, pay their bills, put their kids to college. 3 people doing the same thing.

Yeah.

Different levels of meaning. Greatly underrated question. Why don't we talk more about meaning and align around meaning? In organizations. I think we should.

I love that. There's that anecdote of while President Kennedy, JFK was in office, there was some kind of tour. I heard this through other individuals. I don't know if this is historically accurate, but the person that was cleaning in the White House was doing it with vigor and passion and a sense of purpose. And somebody asked them, like, you know, why are you so excited about this? And he says, well, we're, you know, we're sending a person to the moon, right? Like, this is, and so you feel that, um, you know, I'm curious, like mapping out, it's, it's interesting when you could learn from other silos or verticals, right? Take those same first principles and apply it, uh, to, to yours, right? Helps to drive innovation and everything. Um, in, in your, in your primary job, you're, Part of it is you're allocating clients' assets for greater leverage, right? In return, can you apply that same approach towards stress allocation? You know, I'm curious, like there's the physical, the mental benefits to approaching stress, you know, logically and rationally versus purely emotionally. How do you maintain stress levels that don't spill into your team? You know, or your company? What are your thoughts about stress allocation?

Yeah, that's a really good question. And if you think about, in our business, risk tolerance, so you invest your money, you kind of have to decide how much risk you're willing to take. And in the short run, markets can go down and it's going to be really uncomfortable. But if you're willing to take a certain amount of risk, Over time, it's more likely than not that you'll get higher returns. And there's a parallel to stress and stress tolerance here. I said every athlete is highly neurotic. That's what I've learned from sports psychology. So they accept a certain level of emotions, of ups and downs, of adrenaline in their lives in order to reach long-term high performance.

Mm-hmm.

There's an analogy to investing, right? I'm willing to take more risk in my portfolio. I'm going to have more ups and downs, but in the long run, there's a meaning to what I do. There's a long-term goal of wealth accumulation so I can retire comfortably. And so I hadn't thought about it, Jim, but you just made a really— helped me make a really nice association here between the two concepts. I just think in general with stress, look, we have to be clear, it can be bad for you, but it's just so underrated how you can harness it, accept it, and reach your optimal performance with a certain level of it. And if you can reframe it, that's even better.

I love it. You mentioned emotions. I'm curious your perspective on IQ and EQ, if there's this emotional quotient, like these levels, right? And how that plays into stressful situations, right? And what's determining that? Do you have any thoughts on like IQ, EQ? Yeah.

And Jim, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it as being the brain expert, but I'll tell you what I talk about in the Psychology of Leadership. that I've observed over 2 decades in high-performing businesses. When the IQ is engaged, when we're having an intellectual debate on ideas, generally speaking, as human beings, our EQ tends to go down. So if we're having a disagreement on something mathematical or complex, It might become confrontational and we might sort of, our EQ might go sideways. And I've always thought that's fascinating because in order to be good investors, we actually need to kick ideas around, have ideas confront, not take the ideas personally, and uncover our best thinking through the debate and the competition. of ideas. But I've observed this in business over the years that it's a little bit like 2 pistons where if you crank up the IQ in a decision and you get very intellectual, and famously academics just like to debate all the time, right? And it gets confrontational. It's difficult to keep your EQ up there, right? And then if there's stress and tension and it's an intellectual debate, then it's even harder on the EQ. What do you think about that, Jim?

We developed something, an assessment to determine people's primary brain types. And we, we categorized into 4 categories. And I put animals associated just to kind of make it a little fun and more, more vivid. Is this idea about code, C-O-D-E. The C stands for cheetahs, and their primary trait is, is their default is action, right? They don't really think about it. They go on instinct. They love these short sprints when it comes to learning or in conversations. The O are your owls, which have strong IQ. Their primary trait is logic, right? They love data. The— and it's interesting because you would sell, for example, or influence or lead differently based on brain types. The D is— are your dolphins, which is dominant traits, creativity, have a vision, strong, strong levels of passion around that vision and, and great pattern recognizers. And then the E, to answer your question, are your elephants, which have high levels of EQ. They're highly empathetic. They want people to feel seen and heard. You know, if you're selling to, or trying to influence or get an investment from an owl, you would give them the data, right? You give them the evidence, the research. If you're selling to a dolphin, you would, you talk about the vision and that would have more of an impact than doing that with a cheetah. And the E, while the data and the social proof and the evidence and the vision's all important, the, you know, they, they, They want the relationship, right? They prioritize the relationship itself. And so, you know, just like there's personalized medicine or personalized nutrition, we kind of created this personalized learning performance based on dominant brain types. Because everybody's a little, you know, bio-individual, obviously. And some things work more strongly than others. Just like you say, like some people have a higher risk tolerance, right? And so they're going to lead and focus on, you know, and it changes everything in terms of how they think, how they feel, how they act. We've done a couple episodes, you know, around flow states with people like, you know, like Stephen Kotler and others that have done research. And, you know, there's a certain level of challenge and capability, right? If there's high challenge and low capability or capacity, then that person's gonna be way overloaded. But if you switch it and somebody has little capability and high challenge, Then, you know, I mean, so if they're high capability and low challenge, then they're bored, right? They're really checked out. And I'm just curious your views on, you know, of flow states, um, focused on performance, right? You know, what gives you the greatest return on your time? Um, you know, and, and is it misunderstood? You know, with, you know, we're thinking about flow, performance, uh, leadership engagement, What are your thoughts on flow?

So you've defined it well, and I see it the same way, which is you want the challenge to match your skill level. If it's too easy, you get bored out of your mind. If it's too hard, it's impossible to do, so you disengage. There's this channel where you operate and you lose track of time. You think of people in flow like the tennis player in the middle of a match, the chess player, the surgeon. The task is difficult, but the surgeon is qualified for it, and so on. In The Psychology of Leadership, I introduced the concept of team-level flow.

Ooh.

And I think that's super interesting. If you go back to the father of flow research and theory, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, very hard to pronounce. I practiced it. I'm sure I have it wrong still. But here's one thing that is in his research. Conversation can be a source of flow, like the conversation we're having, Jim. I have no idea how long we've been going. I feel like we're in flow.

Hmm.

And so he talks about the social aspect, and I see it in meetings. Sometimes we're in a meeting and we're exchanging ideas. And bouncing ideas off each other. And I step back and look around the room and I realize, oh, wow, the team is in flow. So there's a team aspect to it that's underrated. Think about soccer teams working together or the orchestra working together. And so if you're in business, you want to calibrate your goals to be hard enough, but not, you know, not too easy, not too hard. organize things in a way that will foster team-level flow. So I cover this in The Psychology of Leadership, and I wouldn't say it's misunderstood. I would say it's just underestimated the power of bringing flow into a team, not just an individual.

Yeah. The markers you mentioned, the markers in flow is you lose your sense of time, you lose your sense of self. Things become, you're in that zone like they are in sports. And that could go for your writing, you know, deep conversations. So it's just not your neurological networks, the team, it's your social networks also as well. And having group flow, I mean, you become really more unstoppable. And our lives are the sum total of all the choices we've made up to this point, right? And these difficult times, they could distract you. These difficult times can diminish you. Or these difficult times, they could develop you. We, we just always decide. And I'm just curious, like, especially in the role and in your position with all that pressure, do you have any process for making high-stake portfolio decisions? You know, I know also a lot of people, whatever age or stage of life, they also struggle from decision fatigue, right? To the point where they made their decisions and at night they're at a restaurant and they can't even decide what they want on the menu because they're just, you know, so spent. You know, I know this probably could be a full, you know, masterclass hour, 2 hours talking about frameworks and, but I'm just curious, how do you approach a big decision that needs to be made? Do you have any, a conscious like process or a tip even for our listeners? Because I'm sure a lot of people listening have a decision to make.

I love that question, Jim, because money management is about making decisions under uncertainty. It's super important for us. And people giving us money to manage, they know we won't get it right all the time, but they want to know that we have a process that can be repeatable. And that includes a decision-making process. So you're right, it could be a masterclass in itself. There are decisions made by individuals, but also there are decisions made by committee. For example, we have an asset allocation committee. And the science of decision-making under uncertainty shows that there is group bias. So if you say something and I'm uncertain, if you say, I think we should buy more European stocks, and I'm uncertain because you just said it, I'm more likely to agree with you. And then the third person's going to be even more likely. So there's a compounding of a groupthink that happens. To control for that, part of our process is to solicit investment views for each committee member independently, not knowing what the other committee members are thinking ahead of the meeting. Then we compile them and then we discuss them in the meeting. Research has shown that that improves decision-making over time. So that's just an example. That might be my next book, Decision-Making Under Uncertainty. Annie Duke has a great book about this. It's titled Thinking in Bets. She endorsed The Psychology of Leadership. She wrote a blurb for it. I love giving her credit for this unbelievably clear concept of separating luck from skill to improve your decision-making. Jim, if you decide to drink a bottle of wine and drive home, but you make it home safely, Well, you could say that's a good outcome, but it was a bad decision.

Yeah.

And you got lucky. You don't want to start thinking you're smart and it's a good idea to drive home after you drink alcohol. Now, you could also decide to use a designated driver, and the designated driver will get in an accident. That was a good decision with a bad outcome.

Right.

Now you don't want to interpret that as I should not use designated drivers going forward. So the world is full of that luck versus skill confusion, not just in investing, in everything we do. So I could go on. I love that question. Probably a topic for another book.

Yeah. And in these decision makings, and Annie's great and is a great endorsement because there's high stakes when, you know, whether she's playing poker or something else, you know, a lot on the line in the moment. And in these decisions, as you mentioned, getting advice from others, there are cognitive biases that people struggle with, these blind spots when they need to make a decision, these mental traps that potentially leaders can fall into. And we have to be able to train our minds to be able to avoid them as best we can. Obviously, nothing's for certain.

And Jim, sorry to interrupt, because you also talked about decision fatigue. There's also this thing where you take away as many decisions, small decisions in your day to manage decision fatigue.

Yeah.

So as an example, I don't recommend this for everybody, but depending on your fashion sense, I have like 14 blue shirts, same model, same size, and 8 white shirts, same model, same size. So there's, I take out that decision from my daily routine.

Yeah.

You know, and I have blue suits and black suits. Now, whatever it is in your life to just reduce all these micro decisions you make all the time will actually, it's proven, will reduce decision fatigue.

Yeah. So then you could use that energy, that mental bandwidth on something that, you know, is, has more consequence, right? You could automate, you could have, you know, healthy meals delivered to your home or, or food prep, like, You know, and you simplify so that you could, you can amplify. You, you mentioned, you know, advisors, and I'm, I'm curious, you know, what, what role does, do role models, mentors play in, in achieving a, a goal? Do you have, do you have thoughts on that? Because I'm sure some people are looking to fast-track You know, and learn from others, have some kind of guidance. They maybe have a blueprint or a map, but they're looking for a guide. You know, what are your thoughts on role models or mentors in this process?

Well, first of all, the research shows that they influence our own behavior more than we think. So you want to be careful and think about the people you admire. They're not perfect.

Sure.

I have a couple chapters in The Psychology of Leadership about billionaires, and we tend to admire billionaires. They have a huge sense of mission usually. You know, after you've made like $100 million, like, why would you keep going? Probably not really for the money, maybe for social comparison because you want to make more money than the next person, or maybe you have a real sort of sense of mission, right? But at the same time, like, I don't have specific research on this, but I've read maybe, I don't know, pretty much all the biographies of billionaires out there. And you realize, oh my God, they're all horrible at relationships.

Hmm.

And that's kind of very consistent. And you think about positive psychology, which says the things that will make you thrive in life are engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. Not day-to-day positive emotions. And you think of the Harvard study, which went over 80 years where the researchers tracked the life satisfaction of generations of people, and they found that those that made money, that climbed the social ladder, weren't necessarily happier than those who maybe even got sick or even lived in poverty or And the one factor is relationships. So the factor that drove people's long-term ability to thrive and self-reported scores on happiness was the quality of the relationships in their lives. So be careful who you admire. And you, you know, you don't want to be a jerk just because you look at billionaires and they act that way. You can be extremely successful and have fulfilling relationships in your life. That's super important. Don't get into what I mentioned earlier, goal-induced blindness, where everything else stops to matter except for your goal.

Yeah, there is this cognitive bias I feel like is a groupthink where if somebody is successful, they reach billionaire status, that they're just successful at everything, right? But there are lines of development. And certainly, you know, it takes a certain level of focus and attention and energy and passion to be able to to grow, you know, certain lines. But these are these spiral, you know, evolution in different areas. We had the director of that Harvard study on our podcast talking about that. And then you're absolutely right. You know, they measured while diet is important, exercise is important, what far outweighed that for longevity and happiness was their relationships. You know, which is why, you know, I feel like leadership really is, you know, optimizing a big part of that, you know, in, in the culture, whether it's your family, your team, or what have you. As we wrap up, I'm, I'm curious, I just have 2 more questions if you have time. Quick questions. If someone is listening right now, they wanna be a better leader in whatever that means to them, not someday, but what, what is, what would you recommend they take away? A small, simple, we always talk about S3s, small, simple steps. Right? What's a small, simple action that you could recommend a listener take to become a better leader that maybe even compounds over time? Because just like capital, right, consistency compounds also. Little by little, a little becomes a lot. So, you know, it leads to a bigger change, you know. So if someone wants to be a limitless leader, what's one small step they could take to move them in that direction?

If you're forcing me to pick one, I will say the ability to think longer term. You need to do that for your family, for yourself, for your organization, because if you don't really, you can't be an effective leader. That is the one thing, if you force me to pick one, that I would mention.

I love it. And that's something, you know, that we can all employ right away. You know, as, as we wrap, I like to ask this one question of guests. You know, our podcast is primarily about learning. I'm in deep love of learning and growing, not being the same person, you know, being smarter than you were yesterday, right? What is, what is one thing you're outside of this topic area? Is there one thing that you're currently learning about, or maybe you're, you're studying that has you particularly excited?

So my son is 17 and he's gotten really interested in philosophy. And the applications of philosophy into modern life and what we talked about today are super interesting to me. So I started reading more books about that. I really like Ryan Holiday as an author, but there are many other authors. And this whole area of things that people have been thinking about, talking about for thousands of years, And that can actually help with positive aspects of your life or better mental health. I think that's super interesting. So that's what I'm into these days. I just finished a book on time, 4,000 Weeks by Oliver Burkeman. I thought it was a fantastic book and quite philosophical about life and mental resilience as well.

I love that. You know, if you're watching this on video, I'm wearing a shirt, you know, readers are leaders, that you read to succeed. If somebody has decades experience like you do and you put it into a book, which you did, and somebody could sit down and read that book in a few days, they could download decades of insights and wisdom in days, which is, I find, is just one of the most powerful ways to be able to grow.

And Jim, I'm way overdressed for your podcast. Podcast for your audience, but we're talking about, so I'm wearing, for those who are listening, I'm wearing a suit and a tie and a white shirt, but this was a decision fatigue moment. I thought I didn't, I was at work and I had to wear a tie because I recorded something and I thought, I'm going to do this podcast and I just eliminated the decision of what I was going to wear.

I love it. I, I, we built our, our brand just on $20 t-shirts like this. So I don't have to think about what I'm going to wear, you know, going on stage or on television. I really appreciated this. I made this note at the end. You know, I have a certain way of highlighting and, you know, takeaways out of the book. And I made this acronym, LEAD, you know, and it doesn't encompass everything there, but just to remind me, you know, the L was for listening, right? Listening deeply. It builds, you know, trust, emotional intelligence. The E was elevate minds, which it just, you know, I just was inspired when I was reading. You know, because it's a way of, you know, triggering and prompting growth in the mindset of others, right? So they evolved. The A was alignment in leadership, which I kind of, you know, which you talk about in your book, which really from a neurological level engages your brain's motivation, the circuitry, the dopamine. And then the D in LEAD was decide, like we talked about, you know, You know, and, and could also be discipline, a certain level of discipline, right? But the decision to minimize cognitive fatigue, automate things like you mentioned to help free up bandwidth to sharpen your focus. But highly recommend The Psychology of Leadership to, to our community. If you're on the fence, I, I, I would pick it up. It's, it was, it was one of my favorite recent books of, of the year. So, so thank you for your, for your time and talent, Sebastian.

Thank you so much, Jim. This is a lot of fun.

All right, everybody, I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. Remember that stress isn't always bad. It's how you focus it, how you channel it that really makes the, the difference. As always, you can find the extended version of this episode, this conversation, which actually another, it's at least twice as long if you're listening to this on audio, on our YouTube. Please join 1.8 million subscribers there. You could connect with us. Sebastian, what's the best way for people besides the book? We'll put in the show notes, jimkwik.com/notes. Are there any other resources you like to, people want to go deeper in your work?

Easiest way to follow me is on LinkedIn.

Perfect. We'll put your LinkedIn in the show notes also as well. If you love this episode, highest compliment is you hit the subscribe button and you share it and leave a comment. I speed read every single one. You know, I believe feedback is the breakfast of champions, you know, and I think I really, really appreciate our time together. I hope you do write that other book also as well. Everyone let us know your big aha, get the book. And until next time, this is your brain coach, Jim Kwik. Until our next episode, remember, stay limitless.