How to STOP Worrying About What Others Think of You (Michael Gervais)

Fear of people's opinions is one of the greatest constrictors of people's potential. It's such an intense thing that we will abandon our sense of self or the approval of others. So we have this mechanism in our brain that is scanning for potential rejection. Because rejection 250,000 years ago was a near death sentence. Yeah, it's not now.

Feels like it though.

That mechanism is so powerful that it hijacks our ability to think clearly and creatively and critically. If we don't have a good relationship with how our inner body, our inner self is working, we're caught off guard. And if we don't have the tools to be able to manage that, it's very difficult.

Where do we even begin as a.

Society to shift that narrative Re anchor to purpose. What am I here for? We haven't introduced that at a young age on how to think about purpose, but we do introduce how to perform, how to get the right grade. We're obsessed with performance and so early on we are forced ranks, stacked grades compared to other kids on the sport team or the music, whatever. It makes perfect sense that a cultural obsession with performance, that we would have a performance based identity, fundamentally commit to a purpose as opposed to having a performance based identity. I just think that that is one of the great inoculations to the fear of people's opinions, is to know your purpose and when you do that, be about it as best you possibly.

Michael, welcome to the show.

Stoked to be here with you.

This is the triple header for you. You're on a fun tour. You having fun on the book tour. It's got to be amazing, you know.

Being able to talk about something you love and you've invested, you know, in trying to express the nuances of it. It's really fun and it's really challenging. I'm most interested in things that fall just below the ability to communicate easily. So, like beer and pizza, you know, like it's easy to talk about those things. Sports, relatively easy to talk about. And the things that are complicated, they're invisible, that have complexity in it and they really matter. Those are the things I'm naturally attracted to. So, you know, psychology kind of squarely fits there. And the psychology of performance is something that for me seems really stimulating.

2018 was the last time you're on the podcast. It was like a quick 30 minute interview. Harley headquarters, I think, down in Cali.

Yeah.

And we moved to Austin in 2020. There's been so many changes, man, since think about this.

Pull the E brake 2018 to now.

The new book, which we're gonna talk about, what's been one of the biggest awakenings in you since that time five years ago.

Essentially, when people ask me about, like, what success is, I answered it differently then than I do now. And so I've got a 15 year old and he's my only son. And I think about success right now of when he's older, if we're so fortunate that I get to have an adult relationship with him. And that's how I think about success right now is like I'm putting in to my best ability, the ability to be fully present and invest in a relationship. And so I just hope that the seeds plant because I don't have the relationship with my father that I would like to have. And so he did his best, I'm doing my best, but it's just not what I would hope. So for me, success is like right now, it's having a meaningful relationship, you know, with people I love. And so I just kind of put an emblem up to say, yeah, with my son would be cool.

I think I heard that we're going to link this in the show notes. There was some teacher, it might have even been someone from Stanford, and he said, you know, real success is when your kids want to hang out with you when you're older.

Oh, that's cool.

That's actually a big barometer of success. Yeah.

How about it?

So I'm a new dad. You're much more on the continuum than I am. Being a parent's interesting because so much of like, how we can just be authentic and just be ourselves. Like the calm confidence that you have. I noticed that then in 2018. I feel it from you now. It's what doesn't age you as quickly. You have a youthfulness about you.

Thank you.

And it's probably coming from this place of curiosity about the human condition. Like, what is it about the mind and just how we think and how we are that makes you light up? Like, you don't do this unless you love it, essentially. So what is that for you?

Well, I needed it. I. I was. When I was. I was like a punk rock off access get after it, you know, counterculture kid. I was attracted to the counterculture sports, you know, the action adventure stuff. I didn't fit in with traditional stick and ball stuff. I didn't understand these artificial rules and these adults screaming at kids. Like, I didn't get it. I didn't fit there at all. And so I was attracted to the environments that were honest and pure and had real consequence involved in them. And if you hesitated or thought a little bit too much of yourself or were over your perception of your actual abilities, that Mother Nature would remind you, like, that's not how this works. Like, pay attention.

You would be humbled in certain ways.

Yeah. It's more about being honest. Right. And so there's two types of surfing. And I came from an environment where no one in my family went to school. College. They barely got out of high school, if you will, but. So I didn't value the educational path, but I did value learning. And there's two types of surfing. There's core surfing, and then there's competitive surfing. And the two worlds don't really mix. Well, core surfing is about. Be about it. Put yourself in a consequential position, you know, in a consequential wave. Don't talk about it. Don't even mention it. Just be about it. Earn the knowing of what it takes. And then competition surfing was like, you got a show and you're being critiqued and you're being judged, and it's not artistic. It's like you're actually trying to get scores out of it, and you need the approval of other people for that score to happen. And I couldn't do it. I couldn't do the competition bit. I tried. I wanted to. And I was surfing one day in perfect glassy conditions. It's what you would exactly hope for is about a foot overhead in my local beach break, and there's only three people out, and there's usually like 50, you know, and there's a really competitive edge to trying to get a wave amongst 50 people. There's three waves per seven to 15 minutes.

Everybody's fighting for the peak.

Yeah. Yeah. And so I'm out there, and this the gentleman I was surfing against, competing against, he paddles next to me and he says, gervais, you gotta stop worrying about all the things that could go wrong. I surf with you every day and, like, you're a mess. And he kind of looked at me like, get your shit together. And then he paddled away. He did not tell me how to fix it. And so I thought, how does he know? How does he know that, like, I'm a disaster in my head? Yesterday, I could do all this stuff when no one was watching. Today, I can't even feel my surfboard. Like, I'm a disaster. And in that moment, I said, okay, what do I do with that? Well, let me think about what I would like to have happen. And it was that innocent. And I started to be more tuned to like how I wanted to be and what I wanted to do rather than what I didn't want to do and how I didn't want to be perceived. And it was that innocent. It just kind of happened. And I felt a sense of like freedom in that. From two, if you will, right from constriction to some freedom. And I said, holy shit, there's something here. You know, there's something. This is a 15 year old scrappy counterculture kid saying, what is this mind thing? And I wish I could have said there was a lightning bolt that changed my life. I know that that happened. But I didn't go home and say, what is psychology? Let me invest in it. I needed more time, more hardship, more mistake making to come back around and say, I want to really study this. And so that's, that was kind of the origin of, of how I got involved in it.

The bomb drop on your board at 15 from maybe a guru who just paddled in and paddled out. You never saw him again?

No, I, I don't even know who he is.

Just was he had like a long beard or was he a guru?

No, I don't, I actually don't have the image very well. Like I could conjure something.

You have the memory though, the memory.

It was a felt feeling and it was the, it was the idea that this guy and I knew and I was 15, I didn't know who was in the lineup as much as he did. And so it was a cool moment for me.

That's so amazing. We get wisdom at the right time. And I don't know if you followed Rudolf Steiner's work, but he talks about one of his books that when the intention is pure from the student, the right guru, the right teacher will appear. Has that happened for you since 15?

At certain times I've been fortunate to have people in my life that I would consider mentors. And I wish I could say to you that I had a grand plan and I had this grand vision and I've been working away at it and working away at it, but I've been following breadcrumbs more than having this grand plan. And so at 15 I was out on a ski event and there was a gentleman who was chaperoning. He was a little bit older and he's still my mentor today. And we sat and we had this really rich conversation. I think I was actually a little bit older and he saw me and I felt seen and that felt Amazing. And so I didn't have that growing up in my family. Dad's an alcoholic, mom's codependent. That drama that comes with those two, they're trying to figure out how to keep their head above water. And they're loving and kind, but they had their drama that they're working through, you know, their trauma, I should say. And so then I'm sitting across this person as a teenager and I'm like, holy shit. This is what it feels like nonjudgmentally, to be experienced and seen. That was cool. And so we built this relationship. And if the intention was pure, it was actually accidental. It was an accident. And I was just trying to be me and he was just holding the space for it.

Yeah. My mom's manic bipolar. She's been Iowa ever since I was a little kid. I have memories of them carrying her out on a stretcher and just coming from. You said an alcoholic father and a mom that was doing their best. That has to have baked something into your unconscious and psyche that possibly fueled the book. So how to stop worrying about what people think of you if you come from a space where you only got love when you acted a certain way or when you made mom and dad safe. Like, there's a lot in there, but in some ways, I'm sure. I wonder how you feel about this. In some ways helped you write this book.

Oh, 100%. Well, I mean, the way that this happened. So I wrote an article in hbr and it was me working out some stuff. It was like a two or three page article. And it was, you know, lessons learned about how to not worry about what people think of you. And so that's been something that I've struggled with. And I was embarrassed by it and it was private, and I would shape it. Ended up helping me get good, have a good social IQ and a good emotional intelligence because I knew how to tap and read a room and read a person and figure out their micro expressions. And then I could fit in. And I'm not saying fit into, like fit in for the sake of fitting in, but I could shape shift in a way where I was okay in their presence. And so that's what you get when you're not sure what's going to come home. You have to read a room quickly. So it's a great asset that comes from that, but it's at the cost of knowing who you are. So I would do that. Well, and then I figured quickly, like, this is embarrassing. This is not how you're Supposed to be doing this thing like, who am I? Am I the dude that just fits in like, who am I? And come to find out then as later as an adult, athletes that I was working with, like some of the best in the world across multiple disciplines, had the same type of thing and it wasn't, it was different in this respect. They would say, man, I just don't want to let people down. I don't want to go out there and embarrass myself. I don't want to let my coach down, my mom down, my agent down, my dad. Like, there's a lot of people, like, I can't. That's the pressure. Well, where's it come from? I would ask and they wouldn't say them, they'd say, well, it's from me. And go, what do you mean it's from you? Where'd you learn it? And they would always want to inhabit that. It was their responsibility. They developed the psychological mechanism. But really it's the relationship that you had at a younger age with folks that, to your point, that informs the way you think about yourself. Yeah, so I wouldn't have had the insight without the pain. True. For most of us. And so that's where it came from. And so. But let me finish the story. HBR, I wrote the article. 12 months later they called and they said, it's the number one downloaded article the last 12 months. You touched the nerve. Let's do a book. I said, I don't know the science of this. I was just kind of thinking it through in real time. And so I come to find out not only was I wasn't alone in it, there was great world class athletes that were thinking about it in that way. And apparently a bunch of us, you know, are worried about what people think of us.

Oh yeah, you have a cool term. I've never heard it before. It's fopo. We all know fomo.

Yeah, right.

Because that's what Instagram makes money off of. It allows certain people with the right level of consciousness to evade that. But for the rest of us, at times, I'm human. I'm sure you felt this too. We look at Instagram, we compare ourselves, we have fear of missing out, but FOPO is way different. What is fopo?

How did you come across this fear of people's opinion? And so that's the, that's the, the golden thread between my experience, the pro athletes and what I think the article tapped on is that. And I think it sits right underneath fomo. And I had the pleasure of having conversation with the author of fopo, or, I'm sorry, the author of fomo. And it was a fun conversation and I borrowed from his tongue in cheekness of FOMO to just have fun with this idea of fopo. But I do think that FOPO fear of people's opin is one of the greatest constrictors of people's potential. It is the water that we're swimming in. There is a biology that has helped us survive over the last 250,000 years that you and I are here. This thing of knowing how to be part of the community, part of the tribe is ingrained in us. Because if you and I were doing whatever we're doing and the elders of the tribe say, listen, you're creating too much noise. Like, I'm giving you a warning. Sharpen it up here, you know, like, all right, all right, all right. Come back around. Hey, listen, this is the second time we're serious now. Like, we don't. This behavior over here, you messing around over here and doing this and playing with fire. And by the way, you're not holding your weight when you're out hunting and gathering. Like, get it together. This is the last warning. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not until we get kicked out of the tribe where you and I are now trying to figure out how to fend and forge and fight and protect and hunt and gather and like, it's too much. It's a near death sentence. So we have this mechanism in our brain that is scanning for potential rejection because rejection 250,000 years ago was a near death sentence.

Yeah.

It's not now. It is not now.

It feels like it, though, because the.

Brain is optimized without having to think to respond to threat. And the threat of rejection was a near death sentence. So when somebody scrunches their forehead or kind of cocks their eye or gives you some sort of statement like, really, dude? Or I don't get you, that. That is such an intense thing, whether it's in a living room or a boardroom or social event that we conform, we contort, we will critique them or critique somebody else to take the heat off of us, or we'll just disconnect from the relationship. So it's such an intense thing that we will abandon our sense of self for the approval of others. And it's so radical that that's why I think public speaking is the number one fear for most people. There's no snipers. There's no one really you know that's going to take you out, so to speak, if you make a mistake on stage. But the most dangerous thing is what's behind the eyeballs.

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There's some neurology going on. Is it, is it amygdala based? I had a guest on the show, Mark Wolin. He's the founder of Family Constellations. They deal with generational trauma and there's studies about mice having, you know, traumatized rat or mice gets five generations projected on to their offspring. There is something to be said about the way that we experience it or I've experienced it when I started the podcast or when I've spoken on stages. I feel it too, like it's real for me. And then I just, you know, I do my box breathing and I tell myself it's not about you, Josh, it's about the message that you're giving. And I have different dialog that I share with myself now. Am I perfect in that? Hell no. But it's something that works kind of most of the time. For me there's. What is the neurology of why we feel that so deeply that that fear, the fobo, what is that really?

Well, it's not so much the neurology, it's more the general need to belong. That is the survival mechanism. So it is primal and again, because if we're rejected, it meant a near death sentence. So what happens from a chemistry standpoint is that it's very similar to the fight flight freeze mechanism, which is that full on endorphin based readiness to go to war with a wildebeest, you know, like to run away or, or wrestle with a saber tooth, whatever it might be. That mechanism is so powerful that it hijacks our ability to think clearly and creatively and critically. And so if we don't have a good relationship with how our inner body, our inner self is working, we're caught off guard. And if we don't have the tools to be able to manage that, it's very difficult. And I would say to you, I just want to double down on your point, which is there's one thing to try to manage the adrenaline when you're backstage and once adrenaline is in your system and there's some cortisol and there's some agitated, there's an agitated state. Once that's on, that's going to be in you for a while, no problems. Call it 35, 45 minutes before it cycles through your system. So a little bit of box breathing backstage or whatever, it's cool, but it's not going to take that full agitated adrenaline state away.

Sure, I feel that.

Yeah, so. So the way that we help athletes get ready is to fundamentally commit to a purpose as opposed to having a performance based identity. So if your identity is wrapped in to how well you do something, which most of us have, that we live in a culture that is obsessed.

Unless you've ascended to nirvana where you're completely evolved.

Yeah, that's right. And so, and a step towards that is purpose. And so what you just described is doing some box breathing. Cool. That's a little bit of a downregulation to take some of the edge off, which is, it's a good tool. The second is like re anchor to purpose. What am I here for? And if you have a big purpose that is compelling, like you've got, you know, some children, right? Two children, is that if one of them were in front of a bus oncoming and like it's real danger, I would imagine you do whatever it takes, you'd run into the street, you do whatever. So the purpose is very clear in that because you want to be a provider, you know, you want to create safety. Okay. So you do whatever it takes. The greats, the historical greats, their purpose is so big and real, just like saving or protecting your child, that they'll do whatever it takes. They go into rooms. And it's not about them. It honestly is not about them. It's about sharing a message, it's about enrolling, connecting with other people to maybe support the purpose of which they are not. Their identity is not wrapped in it. And those are the people that I've loved studying and being around. Ones that are like, honestly connected to a purpose that is bigger than them.

Yeah. One of the things in the book you mentioned, most of us have a distorted sense of significance.

Yeah.

Which is essentially what I just shared. In different words, where does that come from, this distortion? In other words, like, when we're a kid, we take everything personally because the brain is still forming. The hemispheres are basically on drugs before seven. But what are we missing from a developmental standpoint as adults? Like, what did we not get in order to have that maturation process where we don't feel that we're so significant and we care so much about what others think?

We're obsessed with performance. And so early on we are force, ranks, stacked grades compared to other kids on the sport team or the music, whatever. And so it makes perfect sense that in an obsession, a cultural obsession with performance, that we would have a performance based identity. And so the performance based identity is problematic in a lot of ways. It could propel you to be anxious enough, compulsion enough, neurotic enough to become very good at something. And so that's kind of the mix that most of us are, you know, experiencing. And it's not until we examine that that's the water that we're swimming in do we able to decouple what I do from who I am. And so what we're missing is an equally powerful track of what is your purpose. And if you ask most, when I ask most people, what is your purpose? It's kind of the eyes get big and go, man, I don't know. Like, that feels too big. Wait a minute, you're 50 years old. What do you mean? Yeah, I just don't know where to start. That's because we haven't introduced that at a young age on how to think about purpose. But we do introduce how to perform, how to get the right grade, how to get into the right school eventually, how to da da da da. So we are on the track of performance, not on the track from an early age on purpose. And so I just think that that is one of the great inoculations to the fear of people's opinions, is to know your purpose. And when you do that, be about it as best you possibly can. And it's a hard thing to practice for somebody who hasn't developed that muscle over time. Yeah.

So many people either comment or write in and they literally say what you just said. I don't know my purpose. And it's all ages. It could be like 18 to 50 plus. There is no purpose 101 in school. Like, it doesn't exist. But what could we do? This is why we see kind of the deconstruction of traditional education right now, especially the unschooling movement, people doing homeschooling. Really, during the pandemic, that stuff went down where people started to actually take their kids out of school. And there's got to be a different way for this. Like if you could wave a magic wand. And in some ways, you are with the book, teaching people that it's not about performance. It's actually about being really clear of who you are and your purpose.

Yeah.

Being able to just be comfortably Mike or be comfortably Josh and whatever you're doing.

Yeah.

And just do that to the best of your ability. Where do we even begin as a society to shift that narrative?

Oh, I think we've got to act locally, you know, and be about it first. So for your community to hear you say that and say, well, where do I start? It starts with being about it. What does that mean? Means you're the pebble in the pond and you create ripples across, you know, your relationships. And what does it mean to be about purpose? It's actually quite simple. But let me thin slice it before we get to the grandiose purpose. So a thin slice way to practice purpose is you would say, like, what is my purpose for today? What is my purpose? Fill in the blank role. What is my purpose as a father today? And so you're just thin slicing it where it doesn't feel overwhelming and huge. And then you practice over time, after you practice daily purpose, you would practice like, what's my purpose this month? What's my purpose this quarter? What's my purpose this year? And so over time, when you practice purpose thinking, eventually you're like. Because in the background you're like, what is my life purpose? What is it? You just get a little closer because you're practicing just like any other skill in sport or performance. You start in a calm, controlled, exploratory environment and you start learning the skill there. And then you move up to something that is rugged eventually and maybe even into consequences. So you start stacking intensity on top of the skill to be able to get better at it. So you push the edges. And that's how I think we would start with purpose. And there's three ways to get more clear on just about anything. It begins with some awareness. Right. So awareness training comes from mindfulness a la meditation. It comes with conversations with people of wisdom and journaling. Those are the three that I'm familiar with. At least those three. If you have that practice, you become more aware and what we're talking about here is more aware of what is my life efforts about. And it sounds so dry and boring but when you have it like you end up having this different level of fire about you. They're the, they're some of the most powerful people because you can't, you can't move them around. They're just. They walk into a. If, if Dr. King Jr. Was here, you know what we'd be talking about? Freedom, civil rights, equality. Because his purpose is so real and big, it's probably going to outsize out impact where we are with ours. And so because he's so committed, he's all in about it. So those are the ones that I think are really special.

It drove him to exhaustion. He was hospitalized for exhaustion. He was so on purpose.

That's right.

I mean that is like I actually heard once a man would crawl through broken glass naked for his purpose. I agree. Nobody, nobody could take away my purpose. Like if. If for some reason.

Clear.

Very clear.

Yours is clear.

Yeah. My purpose is to live life well and to share how I'm doing that with the world. And of course I'm not perfect with it, but I think it's a amalgamation of like the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual self like all the. And the financial self. The parts of the house we live in. So we live in one body. We have one opportunity. I don't want to waste it now. It's not, it's not an away from. It's definitely my come from is towards abundance. But in the past what drove me is kind of what you talk about in the book. It was actually the scarcity of like I don't want to be like my dad. I don't want to be like my mom. I don't want to be like that. So my, my intention and my Drive was like, coming from anger, from woundedness, from hurtness. And now it's like, okay, it's been almost 10 years of podcasting. Like, that doesn't work anymore. What works now is actually me living abundance and living life well and sharing that with people. Now, was it crunchy? For sure. Lots of bloody times where I fell down. And actually, we just released a podcast about how almost broke up in our relationship. Because people get to hear this, right? It's not this sexy path. You said it was dry. I think it's very sexy, and I think it's very hard at times. It's not dry because if I really go into myself and I figure out who Josh is, then everybody gets to know who Josh is. But if I'm lying or if I'm kind of fabricating who I am, people can smell that there's an inauthenticity that repels people on some level. And I think the more we can get clear with, like, not actually having fopo be real now. Am I 100% clear on that? Probably not. You know, I probably deal with stages of that as. As you wrote the book, did you find layers of that within yourself? The faux pau of Mike?

Oh, yeah. Like, just because I wrote about it doesn't mean that it's distinguished.

Yeah.

And so it's still in there. It's. I think the. The high note is that it's. I. I wrestle with it less than I did 10 years ago, and I wrestle with it less than I did last week, you know, so there's an arc to whatever it is that you work on. You become a bit more proficient with it, hopefully. And, yeah, so I worry a lot less than I ever did. And that's because purpose is a bit more clear for me. And I've got a roundtable of people that have demonstrated time under tension, and they care about the wellness that I'm trying to create within me, and for that. And so there's. I feel like I'm connected in a way that I've given myself to. To be seen. And they've said, I see you. I got your back. And so when you have a mini tribe like that, that will hold you accountable to the words that you say, the actions that you take, the way that you organize your life, there's an exponential kind of gift that comes out of that as well. So I'm not trying to please them. I'm trying to be true to me, and in return, they're trying to do the same thing. And so that's the one plus one is three.

Is it specifically like, men's groups or specific men's work that you're talking about in the roundtable, or is it.

Yeah, no, no, no.

It's.

So to get on the round table, for me, there's two criteria. One is that there's time under tension, and you've demonstrated that you've taken the time to understand my scars, my traumas, and the ambitions and the hopes and dreams. And so when I turn to you and say, hey, what do you think? It's in context. So they've demonstrated care, and I've demonstrated care. So that's the first kind of criteria to. It takes a long time to get on a roundtable of eight. Sure. You know, like. And so that's the first one. And then the second is that they've poured themselves into something, so they've been in the amphitheater themselves, or they really know what it feels like to go for it. The quote unquote, good life for them. And so those are the two criteria. So it's not gender specific.

Yeah. Is Dr. Tim Brown in that roundtable?

Oh, no, he's right on the outside.

Okay.

Like, yeah, Tim Brown is like, Tim. Tim and I have spent great spiritual energy, you know, kind of like, I love his philosophy and approach. We haven't had enough time under attention. Sure, yeah.

Yeah. One of the things that I loved is you talk about the three screens, which is, I love the rule of thirds. I don't know if it came from Fibonacci sequence or just in your own models of psychology, but there was a reference to Nate Hobgood Chittick. I hope I said his name right.

You did.

NFL player. He was young. He was in college sports and even, I think, peewee football. And his coaches were telling him, you're too slow. You can't do this. And he developed this screen where he would only let certain things come in that were actually of service to him. Can you talk about the screen model? Obviously, this takes practice. This is not some, like, panacea where once you hear this, you guys, it's going to fix your life. But if you practice it, just like meditation or breath work, it can fundamentally shift you.

Yeah.

You talk about the screens a little bit.

Yeah. So Nate Hobgochidic, dear friend of mine, no longer with us. He passed away, we believe, related to cte. He won a Super bowl. And so he was an elite athlete in the NFL, I should say. He didn't win the Super Bowl. He was a member of a Super bowl winning team and a significant contributor in a lot of ways. And so during our friendship, at one point he goes, he's laughing and he's got this huge personality belly laugh that's like a abundance of joy inside of him. And he's a large human at like 6, 4, 300 pounds.

Was he like offensive line or D line?

D line.

D line.

Yeah. And which, for folks that aren't familiar on the defensive line, you're one of the humans that is trying to dismantle the quarterback. Yeah. And so very large, fast, powerful human, big joy, belly laugh, spirit for life. And he's. And he's laughing as he says this to me. And he says, mike, you have no idea what it's like to grow up in football where grown men in front of your friends are screaming at you. There is spit flying from their mouth. They say that they want to help you, but it's really about you getting the shit right that they're trying to explain to you. And it's not going according to plan. And they scream at you, when are you going to get it? You're too slow. You're never going to figure this out. I've told you a thousand times, a half step, just a half step. That's all. Why are you taking a full step? What's wrong, guys? Look, do you think Nate's ever going to figure this thing out? Jesus, dude, why don't you get in the locker room? Wrap it up, dude. Because it's not working out. I'm tired. So that's a coach's voice. And, and Nate says, like, that is so dismantling of self to be humiliated in that way where there's, like I said, spit flying from the animation, you know, and the vitriol of disdain from the coach.

I remember that myself in high school football feeling that feeling.

Yeah. And so, so what he said is that he had to figure out, and this is kind of his own creativity, he says, I put up a screen. I knew that the only thing out of that entire dramatic experience was it was not what my friends were going to think. It's not what the other coaches were going to think. It's not all that. You're never going to make it. It's. None of that was going to help. I put up a screen that was porous in such a way that the only thing that was going to come in was the thing that was going to help me. So I had to look for it, though. And the thing in that narrative I just said is half step. I told you that what you need to do is a half step. And so that would come in and all of the other nonsense would fall away at the outside of the screen. The thing that would come in is half step and you'd walk away. Right, got it. Half step. That's what I'm doing. So all that other noise was just that. And I think that this signal to noise ratio tends to be a well accepted principle in engineering. It's a psychological principle as well. If you can figure out the difference between noise and signal and you have a tuning fork for the signal, you're on your path now. To figure out the noise of what others think for the most part is radically distracting. And the signal is how do I line up my thoughts, words and actions to be my very best right now. And there's microchoices that we're constantly making. And him putting up a screen was helping him with that micro choice.

Sure.

Let me take in the information that's going to serve me well to be able to later line up a thought, word and action. And the action was a half step in this point. And so I just, I miss Nate. I love Nate. He offered so much to the world. And I want to share the screen pass, if you will. You know, the screen that he developed and I think I share it with my son, I share it as often as I can. I think it's a really powerful tool.

The third screen is important. It's related to him as well. It's death.

Yeah, that's right.

So if you're in the remembrance of death, then there's nothing that could really get in your way. If we can embody that. Now, embodying that is not always easy because it's not like I'm sitting here with you ruminating on death the whole time. Right.

But no, you don't want to do that.

Just talking about it though, just, just reminding oneself at the opportune moments can maybe help that tuning fork.

Yeah, I think the idea of it's. This is not a new idea, which is, you know, life is fragile, death is coming. Prepare yourself well for death. And the samurai approach that I've been attracted to with death is that I want to die a noble death. And that doesn't mean in a certain way or a certain time. It means at the moment of my death, I want to be very clear. I want to be connected to my core virtues at the moment. Maybe my head will be lopped off and I think about the moment that I'm going to die. Will I be present Will I be connected to the experience and will I. My training of today, will it show up then and then? So that's kind of the long arc of it, and we don't know how long, but the history, the small arc here is not attending to that death is going to happen between you and I. But that life is fragile, so be in it. And when you experience death and trauma, you can begin to embrace just how fragile life is. No one's getting through this world without trauma. You know, small T, big T. You've got it. We've all got it. And if we can get in touch with that, and hopefully we know people that you know. Not hopefully, but because I don't know the age of your audience. But death has happened around us as well. It's a reminder that, hey, listen, it's coming. How do you want to honor the time that you're with your people? So I have a small practice that now I'm kind of giving the gig up is that when I say goodbye to you, like, I'm going to mean it. And so it's a small practice to me because I don't know when I'll see you again.

Sure.

And maybe it's never. Maybe it is, you know, maybe you're out in Cali in the next couple weeks. I don't know. So when I say goodbye, I mean it. And I just honoring the fragility of it. So that prepares me for my next engagement with anybody to be more in it, because I just practiced a mini death. And, you know, my wife is like, God, Mike, it's just so heavy, you know, can't we just. Whatever, you know? But it helps me be more present because I don't know when it's going to evaporate.

Evaporate's an interesting word. That's basically what happens because we're mostly water. I just took a sip of water. You know, it's funny to me because you appear the same as I felt you before in 2018.

That's fun.

And also, I know that there's been fundamental shifts like you talked about how you now relate to your son. So has there been other shifts in writing this book within you where maybe some consequences that were beautiful, maybe some consequences that were challenging because y' all writing a book ain't easy. Like, it's a process. Editing rounds and going to the table with different parties. And it's a lot of work. It's not like you just whip it out on Evernote. What else did you learn about Mike when you wrote the book that I'm.

I'm a bit stubborn and pigheaded, you know, with the ideas that I think are important. And I'm not a great writer, so I got plenty of help in stitching the ideas together. So I would write something and I'm like, that's it. And then other people would read it and say, but that doesn't make sense to me. But it makes sense to me. And so figuring out how to artistically translate ideas into something that is palatable, that is enjoyable, that's hard. That's, for me, the hard part. Yeah. And so there. And, you know, I do know how to write. Don't. Don't get me wrong. But I don't know how to write at that level. So having the right support mechanisms. Kevin Lake helped me tremendously. He's on the COVID of the book. He helped me tremendously create something that was rigid to something that was flexible. And I learned how hard it is to square when you can't see it. And we were good friends. We are good friends. During that time when we're writing, we were good friends. And it almost cost us our friendship because the argument and the fire to be. For him to hold his ground, for me to hold my ground, and to try to figure out that space between. It's hard when you're principle based and. And you're not very skilled at getting the idea out, but you know that the kernel is there. And so that was one part. The other part is trying to stitch together science. There's a compromise on what science that you're going to share because there's so much to lean on. That part is a little tricky, but that sounds super academic. I learned that I'm better at FOPO than now, than when I first started the book, and I'm better at it when I first started than I was before. So that part is quite freeing. I don't know. Those are some. Those don't sound very revolutionary, but I don't. I don't know what it feels like to have massive moments in my life that fundamentally, you know, change a trajectory. It doesn't work that way, really, for me. I don't. It's fine if it's good, if it works for other people, but it's like I said, it's more like breadcrumbs and small little things that take place. And then when I cobble enough of them together, I feel fed and it's like, oh, that's what this is.

What do you attribute to the regulation of your own nervous system. Because in 2018 to now, when I say you feel different, I mean when I'm around you, I feel regulated. So it's a testament to whatever work you've done. And I wonder if you could share that, because, look, this is probably a book of a series of things that you're going to put out in your lifetime, but where you are now, hopefully, as long as he can still be on your round table.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, right. So there's got to be maybe some core practices that you actually have embodied over time that really help you to regulate your nervous system. That would be of huge benefit to anybody who's dysregulated on a regular basis.

I don't think what I'll say is new to you. And so I will share all of the practices because they've been materially important. And so let me start with a couple. One is the fundamental commitment to. It is different than looking for a shortcut, a hack, a trick, a tool. So it's like a fundamental orientation. And for what? It's an orientation. So that a commitment. Sorry, let me be more clear. It's a fundamental commitment to work, to go into a place where you can be you in any environment. So I felt whipped around enough by the external world that I had to say, bullshit on that. What I need to know how to do is be me in any environment. And that fundamental commitment is the same commitment that great athletes make, is that every day at practice, they're going to the messy edge in front of their peers, in front of people that want to take their job, in front of coaches that hold the power of whether they play or not, whether they're ejected from the team or not. They have to go to that, be vulnerable enough and take the risk to get to the messy edge where they could fall apart in a thousand pieces or catch the ball. And so that I have such deep regard for that, that's the orientation first to make a fundamental commitment. Okay, now then, I need a place to practice. The way I get to practice is when I'm speaking with somebody, I make a promise, sometimes explicitly, but definitely privately, to be able to hold the depth of the two of us. So these elite performers are motivated to go somewhere, they want to get better, and in return, I have to hold the depth of the emotional spaces that we're going to go. And so if they start to go deeper than I am, I am now useless in that conversation. So I have to know what it means to be grounded and calm and present when my emotions are really High. And so I had a ceiling effect early in my career that they would want to go somewhere, but I didn't know how to do it. So I keep us at the more surface level.

Where would they want to go, though? What do you mean by that? Go deeper.

They want to talk about things that are maybe hard for me to talk about or they want to like when they want to talk about things about trauma that are triggering for me. So I had to work on my own shit. So that when they say whatever, I'm not triggered. And I can hold a sense of peace and grace. So it's like a bit of like a well is that I need to be. Have a deeper well than they do. So that if they want to, you know, go deeper, I can hold some space for it. And I do think that that's where healing happens, is that trauma is the nature of traumas, micro traumas, massive traumas, is that it's not the event itself that is the traumatizing bit. It's that that triggers a sense of aloneness, isolation, fragmentation, where others around you don't relate and can't relate. And you feel a sense of isolation from the coral reef of other humans. And when that isolation, when it kind of, you feel broken off from it because of this event, it's the way that you've made sense of that event and the way that you feel alone because of it. Isolated is another word. So healing happens when another person just looks at you and holds space and says, oh, wow, what was that like? Oh, oh, you mean it's this. Oh, okay. And it's that, geez, you know, and you're just holding space for it and you're in it with them. You might cry with them, you might laugh with them, you might get pissed and irritated, but you're holding the space for depth. That's how I think where healing actually takes place for folks. So I needed a place to practice. So I practice every day when I have conversations with people and. And then the other skills and tools. I think this is probably what you're really looking for, but I don't want to miss. Fundamental commitment, a place to practice, and then the tools. What are you practicing? Breathing. How about it? It's not complicated. There's maybe three basic types of breasts that I'm interested in. Breasts to downregulate, breasts to focus, and breasts to build capacity and just orientate my breathing practice across those three, there's a meditation, mindfulness practice, which is about becoming more aware, you know, understanding how thoughts and emotions and feelings work together. It's less about the content, it's more about the stitching between thoughts and emotions and then. And then ways to be able to develop a sense of agility so that I, I can develop a sense of trust, of self. So agility is the ability when I get, I feel brushed back or knocked off balance, I'm not trying to be flexible and kind of dodge it. I'm not trying to be resilient, which is once I've been on my heels, I kind of fight my way back. I want to be agile. I get brush on the shoulder that I can pivot, put my foot in the ground and keep moving forward towards the purpose that is important to me. So to develop a sense of agility, and I can explain that in a minute, allows me to trust myself better. So agility means I need to know what it feels like to be knocked off balance. And I'm talking more emotionally than physically. So in conversations, in an honest way with people I trust, where I'm going deep and they're holding the standard for me and I'm rattling and then they're helping me navigate that space. So it's partnerships with other people. And so the last piece here is a fundamental commitment towards optimism. I haven't met a world's best that isn't fundamentally optimistic, which is a simple little idea like, hey, it's going to work out, Keep staying in it, keep figuring out it's going to work out. And when you know you need to leave the relationship or you need to exit from it, like, that'll be apparent too. But keep staying and working as long as it makes sense. Not naive optimism, not this idea that we're going to be different. Yes, because I think, think magically we're going to be different. Naive optimism keeps people in battered, abusive, dysfunctional relationships. When you think that I'm going to change, and so you're like, you want to be friends, but we're. But I make you feel like shit every time somebody else is around and I say to you, oh, my bad, sorry, man. And then I say, I'll be better next time, but I don't actually do any work other than the words of the promise, I got to go do work on that. And when I come back next time, I've trained myself to be better, to see you, to take care of you in that whatever kind of micro trauma experience. So that's it. So those are some of the basic core skills. Self talk, breathing, awareness, training, optimism work so that I can be more agile So I can trust myself a little bit better. And so how do you do it? Fundamental commitment, place the practice and then getting to the edge.

These are great. So if somebody's taking notes, that's a good start. But don't buy a T shirt that says good vibes only.

How about it?

Because you're essentially bypassing. So I love what you say, and I actually saw this in some different media. Optimism is at the center of mental toughness.

Yeah.

And I really love that because, you know, David Goggins of the world is like, stay hard, pussy. And it's like, well, is that really being an optimist? That fuel source doesn't seem sustainable.

No, that's not sustainable.

I'm curious for you, and maybe you could articulate this in a deeper way. How do we hold both of the worlds? One of them being, I'm an optimist, I'm seeing the best in myself and others. And also not spiritually bypassing, emotionally bypassing the pitfalls that are right in front of us. How do we see the tar pit and the sunset at the same time?

Well, that's not optimism and pessimism. So orthogonally, optimism is this idea that something's going to be good out of this. Pessimism is like, what is this shit? This shit's not going to work out. This is terrible. Why me? Why us? This is lame.

Yeah.

So what I hear you saying is like getting to the truth of the duality of something.

Exactly.

Like. So, like, you know, holding the tension between duality and trying to work from non duality is an ancient idea. And the world is complex. Humans are incredibly complex. And to be able to think that we have it all sewed up is kind of silly. And so if you can understand your experience and be curious about others, that's cool. And you and I can experience like the same perceived event. And you and I have very different takeaways and actual experiences of it. So the best coaches that I've been around, like sport coaches, true masters at coaches, they ask way more questions than they give direction. The most amateur of coaches, they talk a lot now. And I know I'm talking a lot here, I'm monitoring myself beyond belief of how much I'm talking, but they point in directions that are maybe accurate, mostly inaccurate. But high performance coaches have a nice, interesting blend. Not master coaches, but high performance coaches have an interesting blend between being directional and accurate and asking a lot of questions. But true masters ask way more questions than not.

So in the process of finding mastery, if you're a coach, if you're somebody that works with people at all, it's not about dominating the conversation.

Yeah.

Which I think at times can be like perceived as something good. I'm talking so much, I'm telling somebody what they should and should be doing. When you were in the maybe the beginning stages of being a high performance coach, it's been about 30 years now. 30 years of you doing this work.

Yeah.

Can you reflect back on times where maybe you couldn't hold the space? You said I would go back and do the work. What exactly was that work?

The work going deeper with emotions.

Yes.

Yeah. So that's exactly what it sounds like is like feeling something and following the thread. And what you'll notice is that even joy, if you follow the feeling of joy, there's like this threshold where you want to pop out of it. And because joy is an overwhelming emotion and so we touch it and then we pull back out. Or you'll see people that are kind of in the throes of joy and then they'll need to look away or they'll smile and start laughing. And it's a way to kind of pull out of it because it is a radical emotion. Same with sadness is like you'll. If you're just sitting on a pillow, you know, and you're doing your kind of internal work and you're like, oh, there's sadness. Oh, it's in my chest, it's in my throat, it's in da da. Okay, I'm just going to follow it. And then the content could be really scary as well. As you keep following the content of the idea is like, wow, I feel like I'm 6 years old and I'm back in the da da da. Oh my God. Wow. And like I feel really small. And like you keep going into a place you feel you're. It's time under tension with sadness. And as you have time under tension with anything, you tend to get better at it. Time under tension of being self critical, you get better at it being critical of others, you know, being funny, you know, like whatever it is, you tend to get better at it. So time under tension with sadness is a way to get better. And for me it's sadness and anxiety to get better at those two. And it's more sadness than anxiety. Like I'm pretty good at anxiety.

Okay, well maybe that's a high performance trait. You know, a lot of us that want to do big things that fuel source of anxiety and maybe the wounding of childhood, it fuels us for a While. And I'm sure at some point you're like, well, I want something else. I want a more sustainable fuel source of how I can accomplish things. Do you remember now, you said in your life it doesn't happen in lightning bolts. But what was the amalgamation of that for you?

Well, looking back, I know where this lightning bolts or the. The origin of me going after it started, but I didn't know it at the time. So this is not. I'm going to share what would be considered a lightning bolt moment because I'm tracing it back, but I didn't know it at the time, which is kind of my point.

Do we ever really. I mean, unless it's like, totally outstanding.

Yeah. Like, I think some people are really good at. They're like, this is the moment.

That was it.

Yeah, but. So I was in third grade. I couldn't figure out some basic math. My mom's frustrated. She's pissed off. She calls dad up. Dad hovers over my right shoulder. Mom's over my left shoulder. I'm sitting at my little desk in my little room. And he says, okay, I got this, honey. And he kind of leans over and he says, mike, it's this, like, how do you do this problem? And I said, I think it's this. I think this is the answer. I think. And he got frustrated. This? No, this like, Mike. Okay, how about this one? And now he's agitated, quick to temper, and he leans over and he says, babe, maybe he's just stupid now. My dad tried his best. He reached his limit of being compassionate and kind and thoughtful and aware. And he called me stupid as a seven year old or as a not seven year old, third grader, third grader, whatever that age is. And I remember feeling like, ooh, wow, maybe I am. Because I really don't understand what I'm trying to do. And so I just went numb. And so that was the beginnings of me saying, am I stupid? No, I don't think I'm stupid. Well, you know what if I try and I really go for it in school and I don't get a grade, man, I'm gonna be stupid. They're right. So you know what? I'm gonna be a punk. I'm going off access and I'm just gonna kind of make my own rules. I'm gonna do my own thing because I'm never gonna be vulnerable enough to see if they were right. And so I got shitty grades. I barely went to high school. I surfed a lot, you know, like the, the. So I Married my high school sweetheart and the dean of discipline at the school, pulled my wife aside, my girlfriend at the time aside, and said, what are you doing hanging out with him? You got so much going for you. And so the world does not need an 18 year old or a 22 year old, Mike. It wasn't good to be in me and it wasn't good for my friends. And so then I figured out my parents gave me this ultimatum. Hey, we tried again. I love my parents. You know, I was just high school the senior year and they pulled me aside and they said, hey, we tried. We didn't go to school. We don't know. We know all of your friends are trying to figure this thing out. You got a zero on your sat. You just don't have a lot of options here, Mike. And we're going to give you an ultimatum now because we can't keep going the way we're going. So get a job and move out. We'll help you find a job, but like, we'll give you a couple months to find something or go to community college. I thought, that's for losers. All my loser friends go to community college, you know. But I knew I could keep surfing and going to school, quote unquote, going to school. So I chose that route. And it was a two year college and there was three professors there that were best friends. And it was a theologian, a psychologist and a. And a philosopher. It sounds like, you know, this is a bad joke beginning. And they saw me coming and they're like, hey kid, let me show you the world. And the invisible, like, you got a fire and a spirit about you. This ship probably is going to make sense to you. Meanwhile, I got an F in psychology in high school. I didn't make, I didn't understand any of it. And so I liked one of the guys. I liked the psychologist a lot. He had a spark. He was awesome. And so that's kind of where that navigation and here's the dangerous part. I started to like studying and now I needed to make a decision. Be off access punk rock, Fuck y'. All. Like, I'm gonna get Fs, but kind of because I don't want to show up or really apply myself. I applied myself, it worked. I got good grades in this two year school. And then I thought, shit, I gotta keep this thing up. So now I gotta front that I'm smart. Looks like I might be. I'm getting good grades. It's kind of making sense to me. So then I had to flex being smart to my friends, to my people that, you know, I was around. And that carried me into, like, early 30s where people didn't want to really do work with me because I just stayed up in my head and I'd use knowledge as a weapon.

Big words.

Yeah. And like, double clicking, you know, like, what do you mean by that? Why'd you say that? You know? Oh, you think it's that really? Well, did you read this? Well, the research, according to the. And it was just I was in a shithead, you know, with all this knowledge fronting to other people, that I was smart because I needed to know that myself. And it wasn't until, like, I, I. I had to settle in, like the. You are not cool. This is not a nice way to be. You know, you're a shitty piece of the reef. So what are you doing? Like, is this really the way you're gonna go? And so it wasn't until it was my wife, basically, that was like, hey, can I hold a mirror up for a minute?

Yeah. I was gonna guess either wife or kids.

Oh, yeah. I didn't have kids at that time. It was my wife.

I've learned the most about myself through sacred union and through being a father. It's almost like that movie Stargate where Kurt Russell goes through the portal. When you have children or when maybe you have a spouse that mirrors back to you how you're being, there's no way you could ever go back to it being the same.

Yeah.

Like you're going to fundamentally be different.

Yeah.

So that seems like it was a lightning bolt moment. Would you remember there was one talk with your wife where she was like, hey, this isn't working again.

At the time, I wouldn't have known. But looking back, she said, you need to move out. Seven years into our marriage, that seems.

Like a lightning bolt, Mike.

Dude, I'm telling you, I wish that I was more like, you're just a contemplative dude. You just see, I needed it. Like, I've studied what I needed. And so, like, I need to be more aware. And I was. How old was I married at 25. I was 32. And I was like, no, come on, we'll figure it out. Like, really, come on. Okay, I'll be better, I'll be better, I'll be better. You've said that before. I'm telling. So I'll never forget this. Now. She says, I'm telling you as your best friend. I can't be me around you. It's suffocating. You're a Good man. But you got to go. Holy shit, did the world change? You know, this is my. This was my best friend, and I fucking selfishly was blowing it. And so I try to share with the greatest transparency that I'm a work in progress, trying to figure it out. And I needed better awareness. I was breathing. I was doing my practices, but I was more fronting that, look, I'm breathing. I'm the. I didn't like yoga because of the community, but. Sorry, it's just pissed off like a billion people. But I, I, I would flex that I understood things rather than having the applied wisdom of being about it.

That's it.

Yeah. And that. That was the early version versus the what I'm trying to do more.

What I heard from you in. From you in my own words, because earlier you said we can both hear and see the same thing and we'll have different experiences. Why when my lady and I get in a fight, we go different realities to you.

Yeah.

We learned that from one of our coaches, one of our mentors. It seems like in that moment, there was a choice point, like it was a true fork in the road, and you chose. Okay, I'm going to connect my head and my heart, which, you know, Hawkins talks about, with his frequency scale. That's the greatest space for us between the head and the heart. It's really only 12 inches. I guess it's more if you're an NFL player or something. But in that moment, it seems like, I wonder how you feel about this. The. The space between your head, your ego, and your mind, and your heart was closing down.

It was.

It was coming together.

Your heart coming together.

Yeah, there was an integration that was happening.

Yeah, it was more like, you know, it was, like, poorly. It was there, but, like, poorly conducted, you know, like. Like a wire that had electricity fraying out of the, the tubing, you know, and so, yeah, that. It's one of the great journeys and it. All it really is is, do you have the ability to be vulnerable? That's kind of what connects the head and the heart. Can you feel and then talk about that? And when we live in this obsessed world of performance, there's very little value of performing or sharing that, you know, like, we want to see can you get it done? You know, can you do it well? And, man, there's just a real power in just being still and being here. But it's not deeply valued.

No.

Yeah.

I'm sure in some way that's what continues on Fopo is fear of vulnerability, not just what will people think of me? But how much pain and how exposed will I be if I actually share my truth? If I actually go there?

Yeah. And, and, and also we need to know the context of when. Okay, so here's what you just read. The answer is, I say, I nod my head to yes. But there's this idea in the business world, and I talk about this a bunch on the Finding Mastery podcast, which is psychological safety in business. That's a great concept. Now, however, we're not doing therapy at work, so bringing your whole self to work, I'm not down with it.

It's not necessarily a safe space for that.

No. We have a handshake. You and I are going to be on this team when you back your promise and I back my promise. I'm going to help you now and hopefully you help me. But this is a performance based environment and if you can't get it done, you can't stay. And if I can't get it done, I can't stay. And so psychological safety is to be able to speak truth to power. There is a power structure in modern business, and I think it's, I think it's, hopefully it's going to change because we're starting to see a calling for better autonomy. But with that comes greater accountability. So people want autonomy, they want to be empowered, they want to make decisions, they want to be kind of, you know, whatever. I don't know if I want to put my ass out there and be accountable too. And so there's a little shape shifting that happens for many of us. But my point is that psychological safety is to create an environment where you can speak truth to power. It does not mean that if you want to wear this or say that that is fundamentally disruptive to the unique culture that has been established, that that's okay. That's not what this is. And I know I'm pushing against the grain. Psychological safety is radical. It means that you have the ability to speak truth when power's in the room. And I have radical respect for the people that can create that environment and people that can step into it and be about it and then secondarily do it with some sort of kindness, grace, compassion, you know, do it in a style that is awesome to other people. Oftentimes when I'm scared, it comes out with like a prickly agitation. Like there's an, there's a, there's an edginess to it because I'm just trying to figure out how to do it. And like, I'm kind of rattling inside and I'm not finding the contour to include you in it. And so people that can step in, speak truth to power, be vulnerable in that state, and at the same time be aware of the other people's well being as well. That's rad. I want a teammate like that and I want people that demand psychological safety because power in itself is pretty tricky for folks. And so speak the truth of power is rad. And locker rooms spent a lot of time in elite sport. Locker rooms are some of the most honest rooms on the planet. There's some really good honest rooms, but it's one of them. People are naked, they're made fun of. Everybody knows what you're able to be, what you're capable of, and whether you're bringing it or not, if you're blowing it in your preparation, if you're a disaster in your life, you're called out, you're supported, you're loved on. It's like there's all of the experience in locker rooms. Not again. You can get a lot of trouble because there's some locker rooms that are pretty damning and you know, and like really awful. But, but there's the potential for it to be great. Coaches rooms where all the assistant coaches and the head coach and where they get together and team up and have conversations. It's one of the most dishonest rooms. There's protection, they're on two year contracts. One person really holds the power. Whether people stay or go, their jobs are directly related to how well the athletes do. And so there's, there's a lot of blaming and finger pointing in those rooms because they're trying to keep their job, they're trying to do the thing that they love. And it's not me, it's not my coaching, it's a kid. And so the dishonesty in some rooms is nauseating and the honesty in other rooms is so refreshing.

Dude, it's almost like when there's more to lose, there's more falsities, there's more fakeness with people. When there's more on the line, essentially.

Well, it's the likelihood that you would want to deflect, you know, and not, not be accountable.

So then, so then real power only comes from peace. Because if you're at peace and knowing who you are and knowing that you're great and not caring if you get well, I mean, I don't know if that'd be possible. To not care if you get fired, but, but to really know who you are, know Your own value at any level of sport or life. Doing the work on that could probably diffuse the fakeness in any environment.

When somebody walks in, that's really about it. Whatever it is for them.

Yeah. And they know themselves.

It holds up a radical mirror to everyone else. And so this is like, I've spent the last. I've never really had a formal job where I've had a nine to five thing. I've been an entrepreneur, solopreneur entrepreneur most of my life. And I never wanted to make a decision. Like I don't come from wealth and I want to be successful on a lot of different variables. Financial success is, is cool too. You know, it's like spiritual health, emotional health, financial. Like there's lots of variables. And so I never wanted to make a decision where I had to take a job because I didn't have enough money in the bank account. So I didn't buy a lot so that I could say, hey, why don't you go fuck yourself? This isn't cool. And so there was my first moment in pro sport. So the coach brings me in. The GM wanted me there, and I. It's a radical mistake. I didn't even realize it. The GM wanted me there, signed a contract, but I didn't know that the head coach actually was not involved. And so in hockey, the guys are skating. He asked me to come to practice. The guys are skating. He sees me come into the ice rink, blows a whistle. All the guys come to center ice. He then bags them, gets them sweating, gets them like agitated after practice. And then sends him into the locker room and he says, mike, come on in. And so as we're passing through the locker room and guys are taking off their gloves and kind of unlicing their boots, he says, hey boys, take your gloves and your boots off, but stay in your gear for just a second here. And guys are like, what the fuck? Like smelly agitated. Like, what are we doing? So he, he brings me into his office and he says, chit chat for like three minutes. Pleasant. And I'm like, what are we doing? Why are they there? This is weird. This is my first kind of gig in pro sport. He goes, all right, Mike, let me introduce you to the boys. Brings me out and he says, all right, everybody, this is our shrinker. And if you're fucked up in the head, he's your guy. And he turns to walk off. And I thought I just got fucking done up. Like, oh my, this is the moment. What am I going to do here? And so as he's walking halfway. This is the off axis kind of punk in me. As he's about three steps away, I said, hey, coach, door's open for you anytime. And I was for sure thinking I was gonna get turned. He was gonna turn around and be like, hey, dude, we've had enough of this shit. I didn't want you here anyways. Buzz off. And I needed the money. I needed the job. But I needed to know that I could back myself more. And then the rest took care of itself. The boys started hooting and hollering. One guy takes the Gatorade kind of thing, throws it up and down, and they're like, they loved all of it and instantly slid right into the. You know, the. The culture that was there. And so it's one of my highlights in sport. And it was my first, kind of almost blow the whole thing up. And so it's cool when you. When you can be a little punk rock, when you can speak truth to power.

Yeah.

And it's hard. I find it really hard to do.

Yeah. Because the price that's paid that you talk about with FOPO is we actually lose our authenticity. We lose ourself. What an ultimate price that is.

If you play the second game to be approved rather than to be about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You lose yourself. And you know what? You're giving yourself to them, which is their approval, which is pretty dangerous.

Yeah. And you're also losing the core essence of your own expression, which sucks, to put it in simple terms. Yeah, man, this has been great. I've really enjoyed the talk at this table a lot. There's been some good ones. This is one of the great ones. Tell people where they can get the book. And also, do you actually go into your DMs on Instagram or do you let a team manage that?

I have some help. Okay, good.

But if they're really good, do you, like, if somebody shares something that your team is like, you got to look at this.

Yeah. For sure. Yeah, yeah. No, that all rises up. It's really good. Why do you ask that?

Oh, because sometimes people say, I don't do Instagram at all.

Oh, no, no.

Just because of the attention deficit that it causes.

No, no, I've. I've got help to help filter it out. And so. But the ones that are, like, say, hey, dude, like, stop talking, which is the narrative that's in my head right now about this conversation. Or. Or like, hey, I love this. It's. It's been helpful. Like, both of those rise to the Surface for me, but amazing. Yeah. So Finding Mastery podcast is kind of the place, and the book is available everywhere. It's called the First Rule of Mastery. And, you know, it is about fopo. We built an assessment to, you know, if you want to check out. It's free.

News flash. Y' all have it?

Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I think that's. It's got. What's the percentage again of people that have it?

Oh, I think 100. Unless you're a narcissist, sociopath, or enlightened.

You know, everybody else, which I think is like. That's actually 5% of the population, isn't it?

Yeah, Yeah. I don't know. I don't know what the enlightened 5% for sociopathology is. Narcissism, but yes, enlightenment. I don't know. It's probably pretty small.

Well, dude, enlighten us as we say goodbye. I asked you this question five years ago. I'm curious how you'll answer it now. How do you define wellness? You know these crates that are on the wall, they all went to jail because they were willing to turn around to the coach and be like, hey, the door's open whenever you want. They were willing to actually just be themselves, and they got put in jail for it.

They love that.

In my opinion, they lived more well than so many people because they were willing to just be their fucking selves even if they were to go to jail. And they said, cool, I'm going to do it anyways. I think that's a part of wellness. How do you define wellness? Like, what is. What is wellness to you now? A father, an entrepreneur, a bestselling author? Like, how do you define wellness? You talked about success earlier with your son in the relationship, but now where you said five years ago, you answered this. How do you answer that now? How would you put even a definition on a life well lived or what it means to be?

Well, there's a coup. There's. It's not orthogonal, it's not simple. It's actually quite complex. Question. Having a zest for life is evidence that you've managed your energy system well, you've stressed well and you've recovered well. And net. Net. You have a zest and a fire for life. Towards what? Towards purpose. Towards relationships. You've traveled in ways that you've gone to the edges and you know who you are when you meet yourself at the edges and you have an understanding of who you really are. So, well being and wellness for me, is the evidence of it or The. The. The artifact of it is a zest for life. Like, you've got that fire, you've got that ability to. To do it. Life happens in the present moment, and so we need to train ourselves to be here more often. That's where high performance is expressed. It's where wisdom is revealed. It's where all things that are amazing and true are experienced. So training our mind to be in the present moment is the keyhole to the good life, to, well, being, to wellness. And having that fire and zest is the expression of it.

Beautiful. Thank you, man. Thanks for being here. Thanks for coming on the show.

Thank you for creating this space. I really appreciate how you've held the space and allowed me to kind of go and ramble and. And I. There's a felt experience being on the other side of your gaze, which is like, you're really curious and you're really kind about your approach. So that's noted and appreciated.

Thank you, man. Feels good to receive that from you.

Okay.

Until Mike and I see you again, we're both wishing you love and wellness. We'll talk to you guys soon.

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