Nic Peterson's EXPERT Guide to Engaging the Field

Welcome everyone to Entering the Arena and Engaging the Field. For those of you that don't know who I am, I'm Scott Perry. I am your friend and fellow traveler at Creative on Purpose. Uh, what, what's most important to me about me is that I am a husband to my best friend of 36 years, a father of two incredible young men, and a grandfather, full-time grandfather to my 2-year-old grandson. What other people usually find interesting about me is that I leveraged a 7-year association with Seth Godin to, uh, transition from a 25-year career as a professional guitarist to building a business around my grandson's nap schedule. And what I do now is I help people make a better living and a bigger difference doing work that matters to them with people they care about by helping them clarify their priorities and crafting a path that will get them there. And collapsing time while having a little bit of fun at the same time. So that's a little bit about me. Before we start the conversation around the topic at hand, Nick, I'd love for you to just go ahead and tell people who you are, what you do, and I would love to know what excites you most about what you do.

Well, that's a great question. I know where you got that from. For those who don't know, uh, if you're familiar with Chris Voss, he wrote the book Never Split the Difference. He's a very good friend of mine And that was a tip that he shared with us is, uh, at a networking event, ask somebody, because by the end of the day you're tired, you don't want to talk about what you're doing, uh, etc., etc. So you ask somebody, what do you love about what you do? And it typically, especially after a long day of like these networking events, uh, typically snaps them out of the lull and gets them talking about what they love, which obviously tells you their values. Um, so my name is Nick Peterson. What do I do? It depends on the day. Uh, I got a lot of stuff going on, but basically just do whatever I feel like doing. And generally what I feel like doing is showing up and trying to help people, uh, understand this very thing. So my background is, uh, interesting, but some of my biggest successes and biggest paydays are things like, uh, in, uh, medicine, and I'm not a doctor. Uh, and across many, many industries. And you could probably go down the Google rabbit hole if you want to go down the Google rabbit hole to see. And, and the reason— somebody asked me, uh, I was speaking at their event and they were interviewing me, and they asked, how do you have so much success in so many different industries, uh, doing so many different things? And my general response is, I don't. It's the same thing over and over and over again. You call it different things, it manifests differently. Each industry has different language, you got to learn lingo, but it's the same, like, 5 or 6 patterns over and over and over. And the biggest one where I think I've had the biggest impact is, uh, the number of people that are way smarter than I am, they come and say, hey, we need your help because It's this whole concept of stepping into the arena and engaging the field, which I didn't have the language for 10 years ago, you know, um, which is what, what I do really well and what I, what excites me is we all know, we all have a pretty good idea what we need to do. It's like you want to go on a fitness journey, uh, move a little bit more, eat a little bit less. It's a lot of this stuff. You want to make more money, you want to spend more time with your family, whatever you want to do, it's probably not complicated. The real question is, why aren't we doing what we know we need to do? And how can we build an infrastructure or, or a community or tools to get people to actually engage the field, which is start to do the thing that they know they need to do so they can start to reap the benefits of all the things they know about. And that gap, the things that you know you should be doing and the things that you're not doing, if you can close that gap, you're probably going to get a lot closer to the things that you want. And what most people are doing is widening the gap. They're learning about more stuff that they should be doing, and they're not even— they haven't even quite figured out how to do the stuff they learned 5 years ago. And that create— that gap creates anxiety. So what I love is talking to— I don't care what industry it's in, I don't care the demographic— we got this gap. This is what I know I should be doing, and this is what I'm actually doing. And can we just systematically close that gap? And if you can close that gap, anxiety goes down, the feeling of powerlessness goes down, and now we have control. May not be where you want to be, but at least you have a feedback loop that can help inform you as to how to move forward. So that's what I do. I just kind of float around and try and help people actually do the things that they want to do or know they need to and haven't been able to for whatever reason.

Thank you, Nick. I really appreciate that. And I've been in Nick's world, in his various ecosystems for a couple of years now. We're going to talk about this idea of The Arena and engaging the field. Just to be in full transparency, Nick has a program called The Arena that I'm sure he's happy to share more about. And we have partnered up to get some of my folks, the people in the Creative on Purpose community, access and to the head of the line in The Arena program, in addition to getting some additional benefits. But we're not here to promote or pitch you anything. So what we are intending to do here is share from a philosophy and principle point of view what it means to enter the arena and engage the field. I'm sure Nick will also be sharing some tactics and strategies around how to do that more effectively. And our hope is that you can take these concepts, these principles and practices, apply them to what you're already doing, or apply them to helping clarify what it is that you want to do, what you know, what you want to excel in. And if anybody has any questions about the arena or the Arena Catalyst program. Happy to chat about that at the end if there are questions. But just to get us started, Nick, I'd love to— you said it took you some time to come up with this language around entering the arena and engaging the field. I have a sneaking suspicion I know the source of the arena, but I would love to have you start off just like where, where do you get this concept of of the arena?

Oh man, let's see, how much time do we have? So I have a— I'm a better doer than a teacher, and some people are better teachers than doers. So I'm a far better doer than a teacher in whatever I'm explaining, or I have a strong desire to teach. I'm just not as good at it as I am at doing stuff. So a lot of it is doing stuff and then looking back and saying, okay, what worked, what didn't work, and why. And I think it's helpful. I'm not a big fan of comparison, but I think it's helpful to look at kind of the world that you're in. And then when you do make a, you know, you go upmarket or you make a kind of quantum leap in the quality of people you're around and how much money you're making or how much free time you have or whatever it is that you're optimizing for. I think it's helpful to look at like, okay, what are, what are the people doing that didn't make the leap? Because whatever they're super dogmatic about is probably the false belief that's holding them back. Uh, and so it's a lot of, it's a lot of, you know, move forward. And then I spend time— you're familiar with the rearview mirror concept— I spent time looking back and saying, why did I move forward and they didn't? Or why did they move forward and I didn't? Uh, what things— I'm specifically looking for the things that, uh, beliefs that I'm holding on to really strongly, or that they're holding on to really strongly, and I'm trying like hell to put a crack in them because I don't want to carry around false beliefs. So I'm, I'm trying as hard as I can to challenge everything that I believe. And through my— if you guys are Kolbe fans, I'm a high Quick Start, I'm a high Implementer. So my personality lends to I'm going to do a thing, I'm going to touch it, I'm going to fight with it, I'm going to wrestle with it, and I'm going to figure out what I think about it later. And so it took 10 years of trying to figure out like, why can Why, why are there things that I'm really good at that other people can't seem to pick up? And I think a lot of it is that kind of natural disposition. So what is that natural disposition? That natural disposition is engage the field. Uh, so I'm high Quick Starter, I'm high Implementer, and I just do stuff. And I used to get really frustrated that other people wouldn't just do stuff. Uh, it's like, if I post 10 days in a row on Substack, what's gonna happen? It's like, I don't know, go post 10 days in a row and then we'll know. We don't have to guess. And so it's that block that, you know, a year later it's like, hey, did you ever post those, uh, 10 Substack posts? It's like, well, no, because I don't know what's going to happen. Well, you can't know what's going to happen until you do it. And so it's just this— it's been this constant thousands and thousands of conversations of trying to figure out how do we get people to take that first step, because it's that very first step that's going to give you the data you need to take the next step. Like, if you imagine everything about the future is pitch black, nobody wants to think that because it's scary, but the truth is, have you ever had a day that went exactly like you thought it would the day before? Very uncommon. It doesn't happen very often. So on some level, we're driving around in the dark. We're making a best estimation of the future. So if you imagine, uh, uh, you're driving in the pitch black and your headlights highlight, you know, you can see 2 feet in front of you, the human brain goes, oh my gosh, what is out there? I need to know everything that is out there. And you're paralyzed. And that's where a lot of people live. And the concept of engaging the field— and I'll tell you where I got the language— is just understanding that the— you just gotta drive one foot forward and it will illuminate the next foot. Yeah, well, what if I can't go 10 feet? Like, okay, but just drive a foot forward and see if there's, there's more road or not. And so it's just this constant progress and understanding that is— for those people that really, really want like a 5-year plan understanding that things change so much that there is no 5-year plan that is going to look exactly like you think it is a month from now, let alone 5 years from now. Uh, so I've been, I've been struggling with trying to find this language and trying to build a structure around it. And it was, uh, uh, the arena comes from The Man in the Arena. The, the quote, uh, engaging the field actually comes from Randy Massingale, who was senior advisor to Bill Gates. He's a good friend of mine. Uh, we used to teach a certification together. And as soon as he explained engaging the field, which is, uh, it's basically a scientific experiment minus the, you know, performing it in a vacuum, because we don't live in a vacuum.

It's—

you form a hypothesis, you take the smallest step possible And if you invalidate the hypothesis right away, then you, you move on. Uh, but that's it. It's just an iterative— consume something, think about what you believe. Like, okay, I consume this thing, how am I going to apply it? Apply it somewhere. Be, be perceptive to the difference, right? This is the point of the scientific method. Uh, I thought this would happen, but something else happened. Why? All right, so we're starting to challenge— we're starting to identify the gaps in our knowledge. I'll give you a quick example. And yeah, I work with a lot of business owners. Uh, okay, I did a direct mail campaign and, uh, it oversubscribed by 30%. It was awesome. It's like, cool, so what are you trying to accomplish? Well, I really want like results like that again. Cool, run the campaign again. And this— business owners do this all the time. Well, that won't work. That's an assumption. That's your hypothesis. Test it. Try it again. See if it works, right? So it's just getting in this habit of challenging our own assumptions by engaging the field, by doing the thing. And it's— there's no fail. The, the biggest risk to engaging the field is the fear of failure, but there's no failure. It's all data. You can't fail a scientific experiment. Hypothesis, test, hypothesis, test, hypothesis, test. And each time you should not go, oh man, I failed, and like go hide and, you know, curl up in a ball in the bathtub because you failed. Instead it's, huh, I thought this would happen and this happened. Interesting. So you're updating your own operating system based on what's happening in reality. And, uh, so I've been trying to explain that and teach that And then Randy Massingale says, uh, the first step to becoming an extraordinary leader is, uh, engaging the field. And he broke that whole down. I said, that's it, that's what I'm looking for. Uh, so then the 3 years after I met Randy, uh, been working on a structure and a framework and language to, to pass on to other people so that they can kind of like adopt some of the engaging the field method methodology and start getting results.

Yeah, love it. For those of you that aren't familiar with the Theodore Roosevelt speech, The Man in the Arena, I would encourage you to Google it and take a look. Obviously, we would use different, less gender-specific language around that right now. But one of the things that as a, as a student of history, that speech has always really resonated with me. The underlying message is, you know, you have a choice. You can be a spectator, you know, cheering and jeering from the cheap seats in your life, or you can be a person who has entered the arena and is engaging the field, getting dirty, getting sweaty, getting occasionally cut up and bruised up, but in pursuit of of achieving excellence in some sort of enterprise. It's a really powerful metaphor.

I—

Penny may remember a long time ago I had a program called The Arena, and we didn't use engaging the field, but we, we talked about doing the work, which is something that I know several of you through Seth Godin's network that, that he talks about. It's a really powerful metaphor. There are people, you know, just because I know some of the folks here and know some of their background and where they are in their journey, there's this element of, you know, you mentioned the Kolbe indicator. I am also a high quick start, high implementer. There are people that are more they prefer to gather information, to do research.

Or—

and so there's, um, but there's an element— I heard Lucas say this at an event recently, um, as someone that's, you know, Lucas Roszczewski. Some of you know through the things I've shared around his Clarity Hierarchy, um, he is a Fact Finder. And but he, he talks about the virtues of engaging the field because it provides— it actually is the fastest way to, to get the facts, to get the feedback, to get the data that you need to clarify either your— further clarify your destination or further clarify your path. In most cases, probably a little bit of both. And I'm just one I'm wondering, Nick, if you would share a little bit around, you know, for some folks that are here that say, yeah, entering the arena sounds great, engaging the field sounds great, but I don't really know where I'm headed. I don't really have my priority clearly defined yet. How would this idea of entering the arena and engaging the field help someone that needs, feels they need a little bit more clarity of destination? Achieve that clarity?

Well, finding, uh, getting clarity on where you're at and where you want to be, okay, is— if you don't, if you don't know where you're at or where you want to be and you think about the sequence of getting somewhere, right? When you go to Google Maps, you need the 'you are here' and you need the desired location, uh, and if— so if you want to go to Google Maps and you're not quite sure where you're at or where you want to go, what do you do? You prioritize figuring out where you are and where you want to go. So you engage the field, right? It's like, it's a weird chicken-egg thing. You engage the field to figure out where you're at and where you want to go. So you, you're stepping into the arena again. I don't— I think it goes back to this idea of like winning or losing or, or success or failure. But, uh, yeah, you, you, when engaging the field at any time, say, okay, so what should I do? You should remove, remove the most immediate constraint. And if you don't know how to identify the most immediate constraint, then your most immediate constraint is not knowing how to identify the most immediate constraint. So the skill to learn would be the skill to identify the most immediate constraint. Uh, so you're always engaging the field. There is no, I'll do it tomorrow. Uh, you're just sitting on the sideline doing nothing.. And I'm sure you've all been there. Purpose, clarity, all these things come from engaging the field. You can't just guess. What happens when you guess is— I know a lot— is anybody a doctor here? I don't want to— I know I have a lot of clients that are doctors, a ton of them. And, uh, at least half of them, when I met them, realized sometime near the end of medical school that it's not what they signed up for. You know, they wanted to like help people, not do paperwork. Uh, and, and this is what happens when you sit and you go, hmm, you know, even as an adult, when you go, I know exactly what I want, not from engaging the field or experience, but because I feel like I have to sit here and come up with something. So you make a vision board, and then 3 years down the road, through engaging the field, you realize you've been going the wrong direction for 3 years. It would have been better to do nothing. Uh, so if you're not clear on, on what your priorities are, the action to take is to get clear on what your priorities are. And generally speaking, the, the best way to get clear on your priorities is, is engage the field. But what you're doing is you're engaging the field. You're going to— you're trying this, you're trying that, you're spending more time with your family. Oh, maybe you don't like that so much, so you spend a little bit less time with your family. Uh, you know, whatever, no judgment, but you're engaging the field. But instead of trying to win, you're, you're being receptive to how these things make you feel, uh, are they aligned, etc., etc. So there's a clarity piece, which is what you're referring to, where the purpose of that clarity piece is to engage the field to figure out what is worth continuing to do. Not to win, not to do it better than anybody else, because you can't win a race you don't want to be in. Um, but the purpose is to find the purpose, and that's okay. And we have such a strong desire to look back and see this distance from where we started to where we're at, but we live in a three-dimensional world. There are infinite number of ways you could go that are further away from what you really want. So just measuring the distance for how far you've gone— I know a lot of motivational speakers do that, like, look at, look at the look how far you've gone. It's like, but, and look how fast. Well, the velocity, you know, like the vector component, the direction is pretty important. Uh, so it's almost better to walk in circles with the intent of figuring out what is the proper direction to go than to go the wrong direction for any amount of time, right? So it's, uh, we use frequency, intensity, purpose, which generally means Uh, if you don't know what to do, work. Pick something that is mundane and do it. And what happens, especially if you're one of those ADD brains, your brain starts coming up with all kinds of interesting stuff. And so I promise, refreshing a Google document and walking in circles and making vision boards is probably not going to serve you as much as just taking the stack of work on your desk and just do it. One, something will emerge, and that something is something you can't think your way through. You got to work your way to it. Uh, and two, you're getting the work on your desk done, so you can't really lose. Anything you're procrastinating on, just do it, and, and things will emerge from engaging the field. Uh, and then if you think about— I'm just going to address the fact-finders real quick. That's okay.

Absolutely.

So fact-finders like to do— and I know we probably have some fact-finders here— they like— they, they sometimes get stuck because I need facts, I need evidence, I need information. Uh, the issue is very few people have been trained on what is evidence and what is not, right? So it's like, okay, if you're a high fact-finder and you want to know stuff the way many operate is the equivalent of— do you remember MapQuest, where you like type it in and then you print it off? And it was like a 2-hour drive. There was always the chance that like one of the roads closed or there was a wreck, or— right? So what most fact-finders are doing is the equivalent of working with Google Maps. They're like, I need to know this, this, this. They're looking— they're not even looking— a 2-hour drive with MapQuest was risky. Because so much changes in 2 hours, right? The, the fact-finder type, and a lot of people, they're trying to look 1 year, 2 years, 3 years down the road. Now, would you rather have MapQuest printed off or Google Maps actively rerouting you in real time? Because Google Maps is engaging the field. It's saying you're here, satellite, other info, here, satellite, other info, and it's adjusting in real time. That Google Maps is the equivalent of gauging, engaging the field, where at first it shows you a route, but if you were driving 30 hours across the country, you would get rerouted many, many times because that's just, that's what reality is right now, right? So I would argue to the fact-finder type or anybody that gets paralyzed, I need more information. Any information that you get is a guess. That's— it's an estimate. Now, it might help orient you, it might give you a fair, uh, expectation. So when you map it, it says, oh, it's 32 minutes away, well, then you have a ballpark about when you're going to get there. Uh, so broad stroke is good, having a plan is fine, but to think that sitting right here and collecting more facts about next week is gonna help you, uh That's not true. I don't believe that's true. So a lot of times the fact finders, we can switch— we can orient their brain or kind of give them a frame shift where if you truly want the facts, the information, and the data, you have to go get it for yourself. That's the only real data that is relevant and accurate to you right now. Everything else is a guess, an estimate, an average, a group indexed average of many people that are like you, but they're not you. So that's kind of the shift, is, yeah, cool, you're a fact-finder, great, get the facts. And they go to Google. It's like, that's not where the facts are. That's where a bunch of opinions are. That's where a bunch of averages are, etc., etc. You want to know, uh, anything about your, your pursuit. You know, what happens if I call my grandson? I don't think he'll He'll answer. Okay, call him. You'll know right away. And if you're really a fact-finder, then you would want to know, you know what I mean? So it's just, it's just orienting people to understanding. Take really small steps, get the data. Small step, get the data. Small step, get the data. Just like Google Maps does. It's the most efficient. There's two reasons. There's two reasons to do that. One is Google Maps, you can choose fastest route, and it will give you the most efficient way to get to where you want to go because it's engaging the field all the time. It's getting new data. Um, and you can also just go, yeah, avoid highways, or, you know, so preferences. You don't always have to go the fastest path. You might have preference, personal preferences of your own, uh, and you have to consistently engage the field so that you're not just making money or, you know, spending time with your family, but you're making money in a way that you like to make money, and you're spending time with your family in a way that— doing activities that you like to do. So it's, it's just constantly engaging the field so that you can find the best balance between, yes, I'll get there in time, and also, these are my preferences.

What I'm hearing, Nick, speaks to this idea that we talk about in my community around taking intentional action. Right? So I have this thing that I frequently say to my clients: if you don't know what to do, do something. But do something with, for, and on purpose. And because purposefulness begets purpose, intentionality begets intention, and nothing clarifies more quickly than intentional action. Nothing reveals more quickly than intentional action. If you take a small step into the possibility that you are pursuing or imagine for yourself, you will get information. You will reveal what is missing, broken, or needs work in your path. You will reveal, um, you will reveal the things that you thought you know, you knew that you don't know so well. So much of the time we are, and I think this is part of our conditioning and programming. Um, as human beings, we're programmed in some ways for certainty and, um, also to, to do what's expected and to, to measure ourselves against where we stand against other people. But, you know, you need to reveal what your temperaments and tolerances are, what your personality and preferences are, and that will happen by taking small steps that reveal and clarify for you, and then you can decide what the next best step is. And so none of this has to do with recklessly taking a leap into the abyss or charging headlong into your fears, doubts, and uncertainties, but simply doing the next right thing is, um, often going to be really revealing. I want to turn, uh, ask Nick, I wanted to ask you one more question, and then I'm just going to let people know that we are happy to take any questions that you have about these principles or concepts. Before that, Nick, I'd love— you have this really fantastic kind of 4-step approach to how people, like, what it means to enter the arena and engage the field and how it creates a virtuous cycle of, of progress. And, uh, I'd love for you to, to— just because it's, it's a little bit more pragmatic, practical, and tactical, it, it might be of benefit to the folks that are here.

Yep. And I'll try to be quick because there's always, with all of my stuff— it's why it's hard to find my stuff on the internet— uh, there's like a prereq, there's like a base knowledge that we need to kind of share to have this conversation. So I'm going to firehose it to the face, and I hope it's useful. The first is, in order for this to make sense and have a high utility to you, we have to agree on the definition of intelligence that we use. And the definition of intelligence that we use, you may have heard it before, is the ability to get what you want. That's it. If something increases or improves your ability to get what you want, it's made you more intelligent. I don't care how sound— how smart you sound. I don't care if you can test well in it. If, if it does not increase the ability to get what you want, it has not made you more intelligent. I don't care how smart it sounds or how well you present it, you know. If you can present the Good Samaritan word for word and blow everybody away, and then you go step on homeless people, like, you don't get it. Uh, and if you can't remember the Good Samaritan to save your life, but you go, you go be kind to the homeless person and your waitress, then you get it. You got smarter. Uh, you got more intelligent. So then what is learning? Learn, uh, learning— how do we know if you've learned? You've learned when the circumstance is the same but your behavior has changed. Same circumstance, different behavior. That's how we define learning. So that's all we're trying to do is make you more intelligent, improve your ability to get what you want. And so that's what this process is designed to do. Now there's two parts of that. There's the tech that's everything out in the world. There's everything that's not you, and then there's you, because you're engaging with all this stuff. So you are part of the equation whether you want to admit it or not. And if you don't accept that, this process won't be as powerful. Or if you won't at least consider it for a short amount of time, that I'm part of this system, so improving me is also part of everything. And if we can agree on that, then this is the process. It is first consume or observe or You know, sometimes accidentally you overhear something, but it's, it's taken data. It's taken data, and we call that consume. And then when you consume it, reflect on it. The first thing your brain is going to try to do is Google it. You ever hear something, you're like, oh God, I gotta Google that. Your brain's trying to close a loop. It's not allowing you to process the world with a new belief. It's trying to make sense of it quickly so it doesn't have to Uh, so anytime you go to, wow, that's new or interesting, and you go to Google it, catch yourself and stop and sit with it for a day. Then Google it tomorrow, it's fine. But if you can sit with this stuff with the loop open, you do observe the world a little bit differently. So, okay, boom, new thing. Uh, reflect on it. We use 6-word updates. I like to journal, discuss, etc., etc. So we reflect on it first. This is kind of the scientific, uh, method component. We reflect on it first. Okay, so I journaled about it, 6-word update. I think this is hogwash, bullshit, or awesome. I think this will change my life. I think this will do nothing. Whatever, that's your hypothesis. And then just pick an area of your life. It could be a blog post, it could be you go talk to your wife, it could be you email a list, it could be you just go for a walk and do whatever thing you just heard. Maybe it's a meditation exercise. You just do it. So consume, reflect, engage— that's engaging the field. You're engaging the field with an open loop. There's just something that you're not 100% certain about, but you're engaging the field, and that's allowing new connections to be made. Okay, and then after you engage— so it's a very small step. I'm not saying, hey, build a business and then reflect on it. I'm saying like every single step should follow this process. And then you engage, or then you reflect on it again. Big reason being, here's what you thought would happen— that's your first reflection. You engage the field— your second reflection is basically hypothesis, right? Test. And then you got your summary. And if you want to improve yourself, your ability to get what you want, you want to look at the difference between what you thought would happen and what actually happened. Because that's going to start highlighting the gaps in your, in your knowledge. And if I do this, pretty sure this will happen, or I'm not sure what will happen. Either way, when you engage the field, you come back and reflect on it, you can see the gap between where you were and where you are now. Uh, most people don't do either of those reflections. They just make a decision whether they're going to do it or not, and then they do it. It either works or it doesn't. They're done. They learned nothing. They won or they lost in their minds. That's it. I tried a thing. It didn't work. The end. They did not become a better human in any way, like a more effective human updating their operating system. So consume and consume, reflect, engage, reflect. It doesn't take long. Just think, oh wow, that didn't happen the way I thought. Why was it randomness? Was I missing a piece of my operating system? Did I not account for something that I should have accounted for so that I can account for it next time? Now we're learning. Uh, and then you can engage again, but then we go back to consume. I would actually go, uh, consume. So let's say you read my book, and I'm— it's super short. So you read my book, like, wow, chapter 1, that kind of shook my brain. Reflect on it, go do something with it, come back, reflect on it again. And if those two reflections are different, I would actually read chapter 1 again, and I would do that over and over and over, because if it hits you different every time You are still learning. It's— if something has improved your ability to get what you want, I would consume that same thing over and over and over and over until it stopped. At some point you will read it, engage, and be like, okay, I get this, I've applied it in different— like, that's how you become the thing that you're trying to learn. Then go to chapter 2 if you want. Yeah, or you could try the whole book. But you see the process where it's like, this is how you become the thing that you're learning. Or decide. You might decide in the process, I don't want to become this. I thought, you know, doing all these sales and making all this money would be awesome, but it sucks. Cool, you learned. Yeah, now you've, you've increased your ability to get what you want in a way that will be more aligned with your preferences. And the only way you get there is— or lots of ways to get there, but if you have this really tight feedback loop instead of You ever come to a realization like 5 years later, like, shit, I should have seen this 5 years ago? All right, cool. So we got a 5-year feedback loop. Let's turn it into like a 1-week feedback loop and recapture those 4 and a half years. And that's really— it's the Google Maps. We're just trying to, you know, we're aiming creatures. We got to go towards something. Um, and if we don't have a really tight feedback loop to check ourselves, we'll just keep going. I'm sure people here have done it where you're just like, I fucking hate what I do, I don't want to get up in the morning, but I'm going this way. Everybody expects me to go this way. I said I would go this way, so I'm just going to keep going this way. And if you have this process of engaging the field, you'll actually get the evidence quicker that stops you, and you'll understand why, instead of just mindlessly following this consistency bias to do what you said you would do 5 years ago, which is a lot of the doctors that I work with are like, I, I don't want a doctor, but, you know, when I was 18, I said I wanted to, and then I had all these expectations, and I was halfway through medical school. I couldn't quit because, uh, expectation, consistency bias, sunken cost. But the main reason people can't quit something that they don't want to do is they have no evidence. They have no hard evidence as to why they should, to justify it. This process gives you that evidence. You can, you can justify it. You can validate, yeah, I don't want to do this, instead of mindlessly going down some path for a year, 2 years, 5 years. Uh, so hopefully that made sense. But that's the consume, engage— or consume, reflect, engage, reflect, consume again. And I personally will read or watch the same thing over and over until it stops changing me. And then I'll put it on the shelf and I'll come back a year later and it'll probably change me again because I'm a different person. But that, that's how, in my opinion, you extract the most value in terms of increasing your intelligence using our definition, uh, with content, you know, with experience, with engage— with exposure, proximity, and access to people. You just take it in. Don't Google it. Sit with it. Engage with it. Come back and, uh, Again, if your first— if your second reflection is different than your first reflection, same content, but what you've done is you've taken that content, you've applied it to your specific situation through the lens of your unique disposition. That data that you gather is the only data on the planet that is accurate and relevant for you right now. So again, if you're a fact-finder, you don't actually have any facts till you do the damn thing. That's the, that's the process.

Awesome. I hope that's helpful for everyone. That, that framework has been really powerful for me. Just before we turn it over to questions, I want to— we picked a little bit on the fact finders. I want to pick on the people that are more like me, that, that, that are the leapers that do a lot of things and are capable of doing all the things and finding themselves not making progress. Uh, it is, it is easy to be seduced into knowledge gathering as a, you know, it can be a seductive way to hide from actually stepping into possibility and your potential. It is equally seductive to conflate productivity with progress. You can be doing all the things and staying busy and checking things off your to-do list and not be making any meaningful progress towards your priorities. But it feels like you're doing a lot, and therefore you're getting that dopamine that you need, just like knowledge gatherers are getting dopamine from learning stuff all the time or engaging in new courses, YouTube videos, what have you. And the thing that I have found really powerful about the framework that, that Nick has shared, and something that has helped me with my kind of default position of I'm just going to keep adding things to what I'm doing and which only can move me further away from what I actually want in life, is it has helped me prune away all the things that aren't actually serving me, aren't actually helping me get closer to what I want. And, and what happens is whether you're a Fact Finder or a Leaper, you become a person that is able to clarify the essential things that need to happen to get you from where you are to where you want to be. And you learn how to do those things more and more effortlessly because you are continuing to build a skill. Everyone that's here that is in my world knows, and one of the reasons why I was drawn to Nick is he— this is one of his favorite quotes as well. My favorite pre-Socratic philosopher quote comes from Heraclitus: no one steps in the same river twice, but neither are they the same person nor are they, um, the— nor is it the same river. And so that cycle that Nick was talking about is you're in this constant state of iterating and improving yourself and clarifying your destination and clarifying your systems and processes. Because every time you come back to the consume piece, you are a different person than the one that consumed that the first time. So it can be really, uh, a super powerful, um, system, a process for, for you regardless of, you know, what your personality type is or what your Kolbe score is or what have you. But here's the most important thing that I want to share before the questions, and that is one of the things that I learned pretty early on as someone that loves to— you know, if you've got a course, I'm, I'm buying. And one of the things that I have found after working with a lot of different coaches and buying a lot of you know, low, medium, and high ticket programs is what is on offer is this cookie cutter blueprint roadmap, whatever you want to call it, that people just want to cram you through this. They have a system. It doesn't matter who you are, what you want, what your, um, temperament and tolerances and talents are. They just cram you through their system. And if you don't get the results that they promise, then it probably had something to do with your mindset. The Arena is actually taking you as you are, where you're at, you know, based on who you are now and who you want to become. And it provides a process that is actually tailored to everyone's unique disposition, their point of view, their values, their talents, and so forth. And you get to chart your own path. So for me, it's much less a program about following a roadmap and a program that helps you create a compass and learn how to use it so that you can chart your own path. You can draw your own map to your unique destination. Maps can only take you where other people have been or where other people want you to go. But if you have a compass, you can wayfind your way to the place that is best for you.

So all these all these coaching programs, and I apologize because we're probably going to go over time, uh, all these coaching programs are like— not all of them, many of them are like, uh, okay, so we have the MapQuest Google Map example. This is like when you buy these cookie-cutter courses and they'll try to shove you through the same process. It's like buying somebody else's MapQuest directions. It's not even your destination. And they're not starting you where you're at. Imagine if somebody gave you a set of MapQuest directions and it started somewhere other than where you're at. It's like, all right, so now I got to figure out how to even get to this stuff. It's going to take me twice as long to get to the starting point that they want me to start at than it would to get to where I want to go. And the destination is something that they made you believe that you should want. It's not— didn't come from you. The course could not have existed before they talked to you if that was the case, right? And so it's, I think the, the map analogy is really helpful in the sense that you're like, yeah, I want that. Like you're gonna pay a whole bunch of money to get a map, a set of MapQuest directions that was created 6 months before they even knew who you were. And, and then you're just gonna follow it. Uh, but yeah, that's the equivalent because when I see Arena, it's like MapQuest, right? But only because MapQuest has been proven— or, uh, Google Maps. Only because Google Maps has proven to be so reliable do people trust it. And only because it gives you a route when you plug it in. Like, if you plugged in, uh, to Google Maps and it was like, cool, start driving, I'll tell you what to do as you get there, you'd be like, oh shit, because of the uncertainty. It's the same thing. But we like to have— our brain craves a promise of the future that is You know, and that, that's one of our biggest liabilities is, uh, we'll rather lock in a shitty future knowing what it is than have a better future but not know what the— what's next. It's most prefer the certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty. And that's the thing that the Arena is fighting is, you know, and everything we talk about— I wrote a whole book, uh, I thought I had a copy here. Oh, I have it right here. It's the whole thing. It's like, you know, um, but that's what it is, is just recognizing that, hey, you, you want a Google Maps, and I can't give you some— I could, uh, give you some 5-year roadmap, but why? I know it's going to be irrelevant in a week. Yeah, election cycles, COVID, like there's a million things that are going to happen that you're going to render this irrelevant. So that's the, that's my spiel on coaching programs.

Appreciate that, Nick. For anyone that has any questions, or if you want to share a reflection, or you want to push back on anything that we've, we've been talking about, just feel free to. We're a small enough group, if you want to just come off mute and ask, that's fine. If you want to raise your hand or you prefer to put something in the chat, feel free to do that. And just to— well, I had a thought there for a second. But, you know, one of the things that Nick frequently talks about is this idea of the process being the shortcut. And I like the, the W.C. Deming quote around system. Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it's getting. If you are not making progress towards your business life priorities and you wake up every day doing the exact same things that you did yesterday, you are getting the results that your system is designed for, and you will not make any meaningful progress. So there is this component. And at the same time, you don't want to blow everything up and just, you know, try to build from the ground up. That, that will take a lot of time. So what, what you can do by trusting, you know, by investing in this process is that you will be taking small steps into possibility and potential that will help you course correct as you go. And again, to Nick's point, you'll end up maybe not exactly where you the point on the horizon you set for yourself or where you expected to get, but you'll end up somewhere that is, um, maybe even better than where you— the destination that you set forth at the beginning, because you're going to end up at a destination that aligns with your core values, your core beliefs, your guiding principles, and puts you in community with people that share your values and need your talents to enhance their lives because your talents enhance their lives. All right, Sandra, I knew I could count on you to kick us off. Go ahead.

Hi, Nick. Hi, Scott Perry. So I'm not sure this is going to come out very coherently, but there is a question coming. How do you, like, how do you, or do you even factor in that vision of where you want to be in a year or where you want to be in 5 years with your work or with your life? Because, I mean, we're all encouraged to do that with so many of these coaching programs, for example, because does that not offer you a general direction for that vector? Or—

Yeah.

Like, how do, how do you factor that in?

So here's how I think about it. And, and there's this constant— the skill, and it's a little more advanced, but the skill to learn is you have to be able to zoom in and zoom out. You got to be able to like get up in the trees and then zoom back out and see the forest. And, and have some, you know, some people are wired where they're doing that all the time, like Elon Musk, you know, uh, he can see both simultaneously. Some people can do that. Others have to strategically, you know, Bill Gates takes a week off every whatever, you know, you have, there's times, uh, because you do have to like pick a direction and go in that direction. They got to zoom out and kind of see yourself and make sure that like, okay, it's still the right direction and is that still the destination that I want? Because in the pursuit, new evidence has revealed itself and I've gotten older and I have more experience and all these things. So I think Uh, I'll back up a little bit and I, I will answer that question. It's all risks and probabilities, and our brain hates that. There is no guarantee. There's no guarantee about anything anywhere in life. So it's all risks and probabilities. So when you think in terms of risk and probabilities, that's the lens that I'm coming through. Uh, first, you're going to end up up shit's creek at some point. Everybody does. So the question is, do we want to We don't know how, we don't know when. We can do all the right things, still end up right up shit's creek. So the first question, we're talking about risks and probabilities, knowing that there's a very high probability you're going to end up up shit's creek. Uh, the next question is, do I want to have a paddle or not, right? You've heard the term up shit's creek without a paddle. And so I want to make sure that I have a paddle. I want to go in the right direction but also develop the skills and the efficacy so that when shit goes wrong I'm not helpless and useless, you know. So I come from a place of skill development, which means we would say— I also come from a place of trying to engineer luck, engineer asymmetry to the upside, which means, okay, yeah, Zula, that's where I want to be in a year. I'm pretty damn sure. But there have been many years in your life, I'm sure, where you thought you wanted to be in one place and a year later you're like, meh.

Nope.

So we're zooming in, zooming out. The question is, okay, I would like to have a million-dollar business a year from now. I think I can do it. I'm not looking at the steps I need to take because the next step is the only one that matters. I'm looking at, okay, if that's the case, who do I have to become to have a million-dollar business in a year? So it's always the becoming. So even if you don't have a million-dollar business, and even if you're plans change, you've engineered luck in the sense that you still won because you developed the skills, which gives you a higher probability of achieving the next thing. If you just beeline it straight to the goal, whether you make it or not, and you're not actively becoming the person that can do that repeatedly, it's very fragile. So yeah, direction for sure, but then it's like that direction— okay, that's the direction, who do I need to be Who do I need to become to be that kind of person that has that kind of thing or is there? And then it's kind of like, forget about the direction and work on becoming that kind of person. Does that make sense?

Yeah, totally. So it's the Google Maps where you're, you're establishing your destination where you want to be, but having open loops on the journey because things are going to change on the way.

Yeah.

Yep.

And then we zoom out, you know, we course correct and And then sometimes, uh, some— most of the time we realize that that number one priority that we put on paper and said out loud is not really our number one priority. It's more like the thing we thought we were supposed to say, or the thing that we could say out loud without being judged. Or, you know, uh, parents struggle with this, moms in particular in my experience, where it's like, you know, like, what do you want? Like, I just want my kids to be happy. It's like, okay, but what do you actually want? You know, like, they're kind of stuck on what they're supposed to say, otherwise they're bad mother or a bad boss or a bad sibling. So that's why I think the iteration is really important, because myself, I mean, I do this all the time. We tend to realize that there's a thing behind the thing. And it's another reason why I wouldn't just beeline for the thing, because it's probably not the thing. Yeah, it's again, it's often the thing we're comfortable saying out loud, or, you know, But, uh, so we want to just keep engaging the field and allow— is anybody here ever thought they wanted something more than anything in the world and later realized that they didn't want it that much? You know, we want to just have a process to recognize that as soon as possible. But we do need a direction. We're aiming creatures. Without direction, we'll do nothing. So we're— it is a guess, and people hate hearing that, but it's a— it's the best estimate we could make right now about what we want in the future. It's a hypothesis, and then we test it and we test it and we test it, and we hope that through that testing we become— uh, generally speaking, through this testing, uh, you get more, you get more, uh, power out of the outcome, or you get more power over the outcome. You get more reliability because your, your estimates, uh, and your expectations get closer and closer to reality. Right, so if your expectations are this, reality is this, uh, you're going to be really unreliable, you're going to be frustrated all the time. So the process is, is closing that gap, uh, and yeah, so you do need a direction. I get a direction, I turn it into a set of behaviors, and then I forget about the direction entirely until, you know, a quarter later or a year later, uh, because becoming a kind of person puts you in a position later on to have more options.

Thank you.

There's, there's two dangers, I think, around the destination. One is that we don't know where we want to go, so we don't do anything. And the other is we, we have a, a false sense of certainty about where we want to go, so we put blinders on and grit and grind our way there, only to find out that it's actually not the rewarding, fulfilling destination that we hoped be. And so what this process that Nick's been sharing helps you do is approach, approach your, your life and your business with a reserve clause. Like when you set that destination, you can't know what the obstacles and opportunities that are going to come up are. But as you engage the field, you are afforded the opportunity to change your mind, to course correct, to develop the skill that, that, that's missing, or to release the practice that is no longer serving you in pursuit of that goal. So it's, um, it's powerful to me regardless of what your default position is. Like, if you don't know where you're going, taking small steps into possibility will clarify a destination worth heading towards. If you're— if you have false— about where you're all steps into possibility will help you clarify where you're actually wanting to go. Jay, you're next. Go ahead.

Yeah, I just, I just want to share. I mean, I've been in Nick and Scott's role for a couple of years now. Just want to share that difference it's made in my business to engage the field. In the past, I probably would have created a roadmap, and just by slowing down and engaging and reflecting over and over again has helped me build a much better program. If I would have, I look back at my notes, and if I would have followed my initial thoughts on what the business was, I probably would have been wrecked. Actually, I would have been wrecked. So I just want to say thank you for sharing this concept of engaging the field with us.

Thank you, Jay. For those of you that aren't familiar with Jay, I would check out his program Base Case and Build, especially if you have young people in your life. I'm sorry, Nick, go ahead.

I was going to say, if any of you ever sit around on a call like this, or probably, you know, with Scott Perry and people smarter than me, and go, man, I wish I would have known this 40 years sooner, you know, 30 years sooner. That's what Jay's doing. Jay's actually taking this stuff and building structures for, for kids so they don't have to wander around like idiots like I did, you know. So yeah, check out his, uh, his program. It's great.

Yeah, well, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is right now, as the saying goes. So, um, letting go of sunk costs is, is a really powerful skill. Chris, great to have you here. Go ahead. Hey, what's up guys? It's a pleasure to see you again. You guys are looking good. Um, so using your Google Map analogy and like, you got your destination, you got some things that you think you could try.

You do the thing, get the data.

I don't know if you can answer this, but how do you know maybe when it's time to course correct? Like, let's say I'm trying a certain route, I'm getting some data back, and I don't know if it's maybe time to try something else.

Do you kind of have like a framework for making those kind of decisions? I do. It's a little more advanced, but I have resources that I can— Scott Perry knows where they're at. Uh, this is, this is really getting clear on a bimodal structure, which I know Scott's talked about before. Um, this, this particular bimodal structure is, uh, explore-exploit. You have to know whether or not, um, you are in explore mode or exploit mode and do not get stuck in the middle. Like any, any bimodal structure, you want to avoid the middle. So if you're in a phase where you're saying, I'm trying to figure out what things— I'm doing things to figure out what is worth doing. Versus I'm doing things because I got probably a short timeline and I need to maximize the benefits of doing things. So if it's like, okay, I got a huge tax bill coming up next month, we're not exploring, we're exploiting what we can to make sure that we can pay that giant tax bill. So the first is understanding, am I in exploratory mode or exploit mode? If you are in exploratory mode, the whole point of the data is to figure out whether or not it's worth doing. Is it worth doing? Whether or not it's worth doing is entirely up to you. So we always default to money because it's easy to measure, but there are a million reasons you might do something. Like, I went fishing and I really enjoyed it, it was cathartic. Okay, then maybe it's worth continuing to do if you need more catharsis. So I caution you against, uh, defaulting to money because that's what most people do. If you have a gun to your head for money, then you kind of got to focus on it. So exploratory, you said You have to tell your brain, I'm in explore mode. It's okay. It's okay that I don't have a direction I'm driving towards because I'm finding that you are here and this is where I want to go. And if that's wrong, the next 10 years will be a waste. So I'll take a freaking month to figure out what's worth doing. So it's that willingness, you know, it's like chess versus checkers. It's like you have to be willing to even take a step backwards to strengthen your position on the board for the future. So we got to get over this, like, I gotta strive forward, I gotta have these kind of metrics, I gotta— everything I do has to make money, or whatever. So if you're in explore mode, you got to tell your brain so it doesn't try to exploit, uh, and I'm only doing things to figure out if they're worth doing. Your biggest liability in, in that stage is obligation. So if you're in that stage, you and you want to explore, you want to be very careful not to take on long-term obligation, right? Because you're going to explore things, you go, oh shit, just found out that's not worth doing, but I signed a 5-year contract, so now I'm married to it. Uh, if you are in exploit mode, uh, you can back into metrics, right? So you can— there's enough group index data where you can figure out, okay, if I need this much by this time, which is exploit mode. So you can back into the things that need to go right. And then on the very front end, if the metrics aren't lining up, you either fix— figure out, do I try to improve this or do I try to find another thing? So hopefully that makes sense. It's, it's really— it's important to me that you— and you could do both. Um, like when you switch tasks, your brain has to know whether you're exploring or exploiting. It has to. Otherwise you're gonna— what do I quit? What do I not quit? Am I giving up? Is it too soon to give up? But if you know you're in exploratory mode, you go, yeah, this isn't worth doing, the end. Or, huh, maybe this is worth doing, interesting. And then you could recapture the attention you're putting into the other stuff, reallocate it here, Uh, and then exploit here. So yeah, it's an ongoing process of trying to figure out what the hell's going on.

Okay, cool, cool. Yeah, uh, well said. There's a, um, there's several articles on, um, the barbell, the bimodal, uh, decision-making process in the Guardian Academy. But there's also— we did a presentation in, in the My Community on Seneca's barbell, just, uh just last month, I think. So there, that replay is available. I just, I want to layer on, because the barbell is a fantastic tool for just making decisions about staying out of the middle and, and deciding, am I an explorer or exploit? But there's, just to go a couple, um, levels lower to philosophy and principles, one of the things that I have noticed, uh, in my work, you know, I've worked with thousands of students in Seth Godin's programs. I've worked with hundreds of clients on my own, and I have arrived at this understanding that most people are clearer about where they want to go than they give themselves credit for. And I believe— and now I'm getting into the woo, but, you know, Your life is speaking. Your life is constantly speaking to you because it wants to speak through you. You know, the Bhagavad Gita has this idea about dharma, about your sacred duty, this thing that you're meant to do. And life is always speaking to you because it wants you— it wants to work through you to get there, because you had this gift to offer the world. You have this excellence within you that it wants you to explore and exploit. The thing that I find is less well known most of the time is people don't know exactly where they are and what they're starting with. And in part because they don't really know who they really are, because we come up through this system of institutionalized education and occupation, and we're surrounded by, you know, parents and family and friends and peers that have certain— have scrutiny and expectations, to use a Randy Massengill phrase, around what's expected of us. And we don't, you know, in the ancient times, self-reflection, self-awareness, self-efficacy in the pursuit of self-actualization was something that was really an important part of life. But we don't, we don't really talk about that anymore. It's not something that we teach in our schools. It's not something that you're invited to explore your potential on the job. And so it can be really helpful to accept that you can only have enough clarity for now about where you're heading, but you actually always have at your disposal the ability to know thyself a little bit better. That's what's inscribed, one of the three exhortations over the Oracle of Delphi: know thyself. The Kolbe assessment is a great tool for defining, you know, your personality and your proclivities and your preferences and all that sort of thing. The values in action Character Strengths Indicator is another one. That one's free. I would, I would encourage anyone that is trying to establish that vector and struggling to get the two points to spend a moment in, in self-reflection about who, who am I really? What do I truly believe? What am I truly like? What are my talents? What am I good at? Where do I belong? And if you are spending more time with people who share your values and need your talents or whose talents you need and are engaged in the field, in the arena, doing the work, you will gain more clarity, not just about where you're actually wanting to head, but where you're actually starting and what you're actually starting with. One of the first things I do with my clients is we, we do an assessment an audit of all their resources. And it's not just their money, it's, uh, and where they spend their time and where they're putting their energy. But like, what are those gifts and talents that you already possess, those skills that you have learned in school and on the job that you actually enjoy doing? Like, in your journey should be informed by your unique personality, talents, disposition, attitudes, and so forth. You can become a person, the person that you want to become, but you have to start where you are. And so paying a little bit of attention to, you know, the start here that Nick was talking about on the Google Maps, like you are here, you have to know where you are. And if you don't really know where you are, you can't ever get to where you want to go because The vector is not established. There's no direction. Sandra, I see your hand up, but I wanted to let Andrea come in real quick because she volunteered in the comments here to share a perspective. So, Andrea, if you want to come off mute and share, and then we'll get to Sandra. And unless someone else raises their hand, we'll start to wrap this thing up.

Sorry for that, guys. Can you hear me?

We can.

I am on weekend mode and I cannot figure out how to put my camera on, so you won't see me, but never mind. So I just wanted to share, I recently joined the arena, um, and just a couple of weeks ago actually, and I wanted just to share, um, how, how much this kind of questioning, this engaging the field, uh, really asking or learning to ask the right questions has helped me to start finding the right answers and start allowing me to move forward in somewhere where I was completely stuck. Um, I, yeah, I was definitely stuck in my business, and so I have still a long way to go, but it allowed me really to take the next step. Um, and Nick is very good at that, that he asks the right, or yeah, allows me to ask the right questions, I think is better said. Um, so sometimes not easy, and it drives me sometimes mad because I'm somebody, I want the quick fix, right? I want to get there now, now, now, now, now, immediately. And I know it's the journey is the way, um, or the journey is the fastest way actually. So it's really good. But maybe what I wanted to add there is should anybody think about the Arena or wonder. So Nick is an amazing brain and mind, and I really, really do appreciate him, as he probably knows. There is a whole lot of people around that. First of all, obviously there are the members of the Arena, but also there are the— I don't know what you would call it— the experts, let me call them, that are part of the arena as well. And I like that really because there is Dr. Jeff Spencer, whose program, by the way, I'm in as well, who helped me to gain within 1 or 2 weeks 5 to 6 hours per week with what I learned through that. There is Laurel Portier as well, who is an ads genius who I learn every day from, who's absolutely amazing. Plus there are plenty of other people, obviously, Scott Perry is around, he's amazing and contributing, but so many other people as well. So that has helped me really a lot. So I wanted to express my gratitude and just share that.

Really appreciate that, Andrea. I'll just jump in real quick and talk. Nick and I were on in a conversation yesterday where we were talking about this. One of the things that will expedite your journey from where you are to where you want to be are finding and leveraging force multipliers, things that enable you to get where you want, get the results that you want more effectively and more efficiently because they provide leverage. And the biggest force multiplier available to any of us at any time are the relationships that we're in. And force multipliers can work in either direction. If you are surrounding yourself with people that do not support, encourage, or help enable the journey that you want to be on, you know, your journey into emergence and becoming, then those relationships are going to take you farther away from where you actually want to be. And if you strategically, intentionally, and judiciously spend less time and invest less energy and attention into the relationships that don't serve you and seek out the relationships that do serve the journey that you're currently on, then you— that will be the biggest force multiplier in helping you close the gap between where you are and where you want to be. And, you know, The Arena is one of those programs that puts you in proximity and gives you access to the kind of people that can actually catalyze your journey. I don't know if you have anything else to add there, Nick.

I—

and, and Sandra, I see you queued up, so we're going to let Sandra ask the very last question. But any, anything to add about the, the, the team approach?

I just think, uh, relationships are important. To your point, um, you know, we have this whole spiel about teammates and how to show up as a teammate. And again, it's just one of those things that the human brain has a really hard time measuring. The brain likes straight lines. It's like very linear. Like when you map out, I'm here and I want to get here. If I, if I drew it out for you, you— if I said, cool, draw it out for me, you guarantee you do a dot here, dot here in a straight line because that's what the brain craves. And force multipliers— you ever seen something like a hockey stick growth, multiplicative growth? Force multipliers aren't a straight line. They're this exponential growth curve. And so our brain has a really hard time appreciating that. So we have a hard time fully appreciating the community that we're around. And it's a— it's— it just takes a little bit extra effort for our lazy brains to fully appreciate these force multipliers.

Excellent. Okay, Sandra, take us home.

Thanks, Scott Perry. Nick, in the, the progress cycle that you had outlined for us— consume, reflect, engage, reflect— to, and then taking that information to close the gap. Um, Scott gifted me with your book Bumpers, and in the part that you talk about establishing your non-negotiables, I see how that in that process can help tighten, one, the time and the effort that you invest into trying to figure out how am I going to close the gap with this information. But I froze there. Do you have tips on how we can reflect and look into what are our non-negotiables?

Yeah, I mean, there's a few. There's a few ways you can— this is totally preference-based because there's no right answer. And it's also, it's relative, meaning if you have no non-negotiables today and then you have one tomorrow, it doesn't matter if it's the right one. You've made a relative improvement, and that's all we can do is just make small relative improvement. So I wouldn't get caught up on the right one. Uh, you can say, given where I'm at right now, you look back historically, uh, there's a handful of things that you probably get roped into that you never want to do again. Like a, uh, argument about politics. Not doing it. So you can use the, the science of hindsight, as we call it, look back and you say, okay, what are the things that have, uh— and, and even if you can't look back, you plant the seed now. And there's these things where it's like, ah, somebody wants to start talking about politics and my brain is like, ah crap, here we go again. So you can just recognize anytime it's like, oh God, here goes another 3 hours of my life. You know, uh, here's another thing that, uh, not worth my time. And just establish it as a non-negotiable. So I would look back at the things that you're the most— learn to appreciate when bad things don't happen. So I would develop the skill of looking back and saying, are there these repeat— these things that repeat themselves every so often? Because even if you got to stop and think, oh God, do I really want to have this conversation right now? No, I don't want to. Then you got to communicate it to them. You're still sapping your bandwidth. So if you can decide ahead of time, if somebody goes, hey, let's talk politics— nope, I'm putting zero bandwidth into that conversation. Uh, there's no upside. And there's also a number of things that have zero— like, I don't— another one that, uh, it's not a non-negotiable because I am inoculated to data for the most part. But I think a non-negotiable for most people should be I refuse to look at data if I'm not ready to make a change. Right. The only benefit of data is to change your behavior. So let's say you walk by a scale and you're like, oh, I wonder what I weigh. Are you willing to make a change? If not, you can only incur negative feeling from that scale. There's no benefit. The asymmetry is entirely to the downside. It's all risk. So you can go through and say, is there any upside to this thing? And, and again, fact-finders hate this. Like, why would you step on the scale? So that I know. Well, so that I know is the worst reason to do pretty much anything, because you can only incur anxiety. If you're willing and ready to change your behavior, that data is useful. But in any other scenario, it's negative. So you can look back and say any data that you expose— you're stepping on the scale, asking questions, You know, like, you ever been like, I really got to ask this question. I don't want to know the answer, but I got to ask. Frankly, if it's not going to change your behavior, don't ask the question. And so you can kind of look at these, these things and start establishing non-negotiables in a very simple way. I'm not going to look at data if I can't— if I'm not in a position to change my behavior. The end. You just— you'll be shocked how much bandwidth you recapture by not looking at data you can do nothing about. So that's it, just science of hindsight. One of the things that I just don't— here's one of the things I don't want to fucking do ever again. It's good enough. It's your preferences. So you got like time sucks, you have bandwidth sucks, you have energy sucks, you have, uh, personal preferences. You can establish your non-negotiables in any of those. It's all a relative improvement. You're just because you could just— I want to, I just don't want to do this anymore, and that's my non-negotiable. So F you guys if you want me to do it, you know. Uh, so it— I would start really small, really simple, um, and you'll be shocked. My guess is you'll be shocked at how well people respect your, uh, respect your boundaries, your non-negotiables, as long as they're communicated ahead of time. If I say, hey, will you do this? Oh, sorry, I don't do that. Like, that sounds like an excuse to me. But if before we, you know, right off the bat you say, hey, look here, this is what I'm not willing to do, like, okay, I totally respect it. So as much as possible, we want to make, uh, we want to establish those and, uh, communicate them ahead of time. And people are super— okay, that's, that's your boundaries, that's your boundaries. Uh, so yeah, I would just look back and just look at what are the things that I'm the most prone to that, uh have more downside than upside. Could be in any area of your life, could be business, relationship, doesn't matter. Just— and then write it for 2, 3, 4, 5 months, and then add another one. And eventually you develop the skill. You just— I just develop it in real time. I just make a mental note. Oh shit, never do that again. Okay, done.

But do not— cannot— not can, but do in your sphere, do non-negotiables have exceptions?

Uh, yeah, but very rarely. The whole point, the whole, the whole purpose for me is to not have to think about it. So the, the problem with exceptions is, is the world is— there's so much going on right now, there's so much opportunity, there's so many things, you know. And someone was like, yeah, I don't do this, and somebody's always willing to say, yeah, but exceptions. It's like, yeah, but if I spent all day going over all the things that have exceptions, I would get nothing done. And I want to get more intelligent. I want to improve my ability to get what I want. So generally speaking, um, exceptions are exceptions for a reason, and we have to be able to quickly discern. So it's saying, yeah, I don't do this, I don't talk about politics for all these reasons, and you can show me plenty of scenarios where none of those reasons came true. But if I had to go through each scenario to see if it's an exception, it's actually hurt me more than it's helped me. I'm trying to recapture bandwidth, and now I got to spend all this time trying to find out if this is an exception. So it's, it's a very broad stroke. There's always exceptions. Um, the, the goal is day to day you have this, these bumpers, these boundaries that you just don't have to go into everything. And sometimes there's, there's a, there's a goal, which is what you set to, to aim for, and then there's a calling, which Dr. Jeff Spencer talks about. And sometimes when you get a calling, it's like, really? That is so random, you know? Like, you get these random— Dr. Jeff was at the height of his game coaching the top athletes on the planet, and we need to adopt a 10-year-old girl. It's like, what the hell? He's like, it's called— I just, you know. So there's always things that come out of nowhere that change everything, and we want to be receptive to that. But we're trying to recapture day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month, so that, um, generally speaking, I would have a conversation about politics if I was at a crossroads and deciding maybe how I want to vote, because that conversation, that, that would inform my behavior in a way that is useful. So anytime, even if it's non-negotiable, if it helps you inform, if you're sitting at a crossroads and it helps inform behavior, then, you know. But so, you know, it's mostly day to day, month to month, week to week.

Thank you.

That is a great place for us to wrap this up. Um, so for anyone that is at all interested in the Arena program, I'm just— you've, you're, you've got access to my email. I'm happy to share the link that will get you on the waiting list if you're interested in going to the top head of the line and getting a discount and some other benefits. You can ask me about that. We're going to leave it there. Nick, I can't thank you enough for just, you know, giving us this, this much of your time and being so generous and sharing your insights and experience with us. Appreciate all of you that have stuck with us for the last 90 minutes talking about these philosophical principle-based tools, tactics, and strategies. We hope that it's super helpful for you and and helping you clarify your journey. And stay in touch, and we'll look forward to seeing everyone again really soon.

All right. Appreciate y'all.

Thank you so much.