S2E7: Tim Gallwey, author and personal development expert

This is the No Ego Podcast, where we ditch the drama, end entitlement, and transform your world place. I'm Sy Wakeman. Welcome listeners to another episode of the No Ego Podcast. It is season 2, and my goal this season is to bring to you the people that have impacted my life and really taught me a lot about living happy and free from ego in those moments that we get to make that happen. So today I have Tim Galloway on the show. He wrote The Inner Game of Tennis and a lot of other books on the inner game and is just a fantastic teacher of mine. I'm a bit starstruck because this was one of the first books I ever read that helped me understand how to move beyond that voice of ego. Tim, welcome my show.

I'm so happy to be on. You sound great, and I'm ready to go.

Well, thank you, Tim. So I'm gonna let you start. I know a bit about your story, but, uh, how did this concept of the inner game begin? Can you go back for us and when you first, uh, started to discover the power of perfecting your inner game?

Well, first of all, I was— I had just left Claremont College on a government grant to study change in higher education. I left early because I found out in 2 months that it didn't change.

Disillusionment.

And so what am I to do? I went up to Carmel, California, living with my parents, decided to take a sabbatical when an opening in a tennis club became available. And so I just offered my services and they were accepted, and I was stringing rackets, selling tennis dresses. Mostly to women, and teaching tennis the way I had been taught.

And you were a championship player, I understand.

Well, I was ranked number 7 in the country at 15 in the, in that age group, and I was captain of the Harvard tennis team, but I never entered the professional tour. Teaching at John Gardner's Tennis Ranch, Famous, high-level participants. They weren't accepted. They weren't prominent. And so this was a CEO, same problem, but more graphic. He said, I said the same thing, I can't hit a topspin backhand. And I said, why not? And he said, the last 12 pros I've been to have all told me I take my racket back too high. And I said, let me see you. We were in the courtyard at lunchtime when he approached me and said this. Take a few swings right here, no ball. And he took it down really low. And then just about when the ball was gonna bounce, he whipped it up head level or over his head and came down on the ball, which puts an underspin slice. And I didn't want to be the 13th pro to tell him he was taking the racket back too high, but I didn't know what to tell him except take it lower. But I didn't. I was hungry, looking in the window of the lunchroom, and I noticed it was reflective. And so just impulsively, I said, go over to that window and take a few more swings. And he did. And after the 3rd swing, he just stopped, his mouth open. He said, oh my God, I really do take my racket back high, don't I? And I said to myself, he told me he did. He told me 12 pros said he did. How can he possibly be surprised seeing his reflection? In the window. And to me, it was impossible if he knew his racket was too high. He just believed it was too high. And that distinction between believing and knowing became the cornerstone of Inner Game instruction. I took him down to the tennis court. I wasn't hungry anymore. I was very excited. I hit through some balls and I said to him, I want you to tell me the level, the precise level of your racket at the back of your swing. He said, what kind of an instruction is that? I came to you to fix it. And I said, yes, you did. So let me have No more than 5 minutes and just follow along with me. He was— for him, the CEO of a conglomerate, the way you change something is tell somebody how to, right?

Yeah, that's what so many leaders believe. And you know, I tell people the power of a leader isn't what you tell them, it's what you get them thinking about.

After the Criticism of I'm teaching him wrong. I said, so what I mean by be aware, which he had no clue what aware meant. So I said, just tell me if the racket is level with your head, your ear, your neck, your shoulder, so forth. And he said, oh. I can do that. I don't know why, but I can do that. So he took it up and he said it was ear high, level with his ear. I said, okay, that was right. He said, that was right? It was right. You knew where it was and it was level with your ear, and that's all I meant. He said, okay. And I said, swing again. And it went ear, neck, ear, shoulder, chest, shoulder, waist, shoulder, below the waist, below the waist, below the waist, below the waist. Perfect backswing. No instruction. And I told him, don't try to lower your racket. So I said to him, did you try to lower your racket? He said, no, I didn't. My racket did it.

There's something in all of us that is capable if we get out of our own way, isn't there?

But he couldn't recognize it. I mean, he said something preposterous. My racket lowered itself. And I said, Oh, well, if it's a head rocket, they're very intelligent. So the self that is beyond ego was so subtle that he didn't recognize, and so foreign to him that he didn't recognize it. And so he blamed it on the racket, but tears were coming out of his eyes because he was hitting forceful topspin backhands that had— that came over the net and went down in the court. And he exclaimed, Tim, those are topspin backhands! This is probably the one thing he could never do. And according to him, and he said, what did you tell me? I have to remember it. And I said, I didn't tell you a damn thing but to notice where your racket was and don't try to change it. But something more subtle than you try when you doubt you can do it. And he didn't He was just watching. So there was nothing to doubt. He was feeling his racket for the first time in his life. Before that, he was following a conceptual instruction. And the conceptual instruction, he believed in it, but he actually didn't know it was going up because he was taking it low until the ball bounced. And then his attention was distracted To the ball, and he didn't know his racket was flying up, but all the pros said it was. But obviously, there were 12 of them. So none of them enabled him to feel what he was doing without judgment, without right and wrong, except on accuracy of knowing where it was. Knowing, and it felt good to be hitting topspin backhands, and the results were good. Those were the 2 positive reinforcers of evolution.

The reinforcers of evolution. Yeah, absolutely love that.

But we don't know how to feel. We also only know how to follow instructions. But it's then everything— I tried it to a person who wasn't bending their knees, and I would say Notice your knees. What are they doing when you hit the ball, before you hit the ball? And they'd say, they're stiff, they're straight, no bend at all. I said, well, maybe he just has never felt a bend. So I said, so bend them too far. And he bended too far. And then I said, don't try to bend them too far, just notice what they do now. And They would bend and he would find the perfect bend for his body that a pro could never articulate, the right amount of bend for his body and his skill level in his growth in the skills of tennis. So whether it was knees or the speed with which he Took his racket back, or where do you hit the ball? Make the— make a clock and tell me what time it is when you make contact with the ball. And it all— it went from, um, 9:30 to 9 to 10 to about 10.5. Which meant in front of, in front of his body. And he'd follow through and have more powerful contact and control. Everything resulted in increase of power and control.

And it starts with that awareness, the internal rather than the external.

Yes, yes, yes. The thing we're all looking for is inside us. We are looking outside for it. The satisfaction we're looking for is inside us. It's a feeling. It's real. The joy we're looking for is inside us. It's already there.

It's already there. It's our natural state. Once the interference is gone,

Who's not caught up in the trap of, in your words, ego, and I call Self 1, the one giving all the instructions, the one doing all the judgments of right and wrong, the one that identifies with lower than his optimal performance. I'm uncoordinated. First, he hits a few bad shots. He says, my backhand's off. And then he says, my backhand's off today. Then he says, oh, I have a terrible backhand. Getting closer to him. Then he says, I'm a lousy tennis player. And that am verb identifies him with his present performance and locks in through the means of identity The lower performance. And in a demonstration, I'll ask for a 3-ball person. I'd like to coach a 3-ball person. And at first, nobody raises their hand. And I say, none of you know what a 3-ball person is, because I made up that term. Why did no one raise their hand? Oh, We didn't want to be the one that didn't know. And it's the old classroom indoctrination. If you don't know, hide it. This happens later on in corporations. If you don't understand, hide it. And you have to break the ego that wants to appear smart, even if they don't know something. And the manager never knows they don't know. So anyway, the player— I say a 3-ball person is someone who, after the ball has gone, after 3 balls that he's hit go over the net and in the court, he starts getting nervous. I tell him to say bounce the instant the ball bounces. And hit when the ball hits the racket. And he finds himself hitting the ball 13 times over. And he doesn't get scared that he went beyond his identity because he's not focused on hitting balls over. He's focused on the bounce and the hit and the bounce on the other side of the court. So it's all kind of indirect to get around the identification with poor performance. It's, it's really uncanny, son.

I'm— I love it. I am such a fan. I remember reading the book The Inner Game of Tennis, which you've gone on to write so many other wonderful books. It's not about tennis, is as I— because I've never played tennis in my life, but I remember The Inner Game of Tennis being such a profound insight for me. Um, in my college years, I, I was the first person to ever go to college in my family. I was so far out of my league. I just, I had so much anxiety. And I remember the power of thinking, you know, hit, bounce, bounce, and just naming what's happening in the, happening in the present. And it was almost like just almost enough of a tension or distraction that that subtle energy, that really creative, innovative stuff, um, happened for me. And, you know, you get in and out of that zone, but, um, I just am so excited for listeners to be hearing about your first discoveries and then how you help people apply it.

President of AT&T who was in charge of taking the company from A monopoly to a competitive marketing enterprise. And he said to me, everything needs to change. He said all this in about 2 minutes at lunch, which he invited me in the following manner: Tim, you and I are going to have lunch together. That was his invitation. So it gives you an idea. Of his mindset. And he told me the problem in 2 sentences: everything has to change. And then asked me a question: so what's the problem? And I had no corporate experience at the time, and Self 2 blurted out Something I didn't— would never have said to the vice president of AT&T. He said, ignorance of self is the problem. Not knowing who they are. Your employees identify with their position, with their way of doing things, with the AT&T monopolistic mindset, and that governs their performance. And is why it's so hard to change it, is you're changing them by changing it. It's easy to change backhands. It's hard to change my backhand, which is ego's backhand. The ego, the backhand that I've identified with. And He— we went on and talked a little bit, and he said, okay, uh, you know something about change. I don't know, I don't understand. Uh, I'm— but I experienced it in my lesson. He came without announcing who he was. The assistant gave him a tennis lesson, and, uh, he was a golfer. But his tennis improved vastly without instructions, except with only awareness instruction.

Which is such a different type of instruction. And I just want to clarify for our listeners, Tim, when you talk about Self 1 and Self 2, we talk about, you know, a toggle switch on your forehead where you're in low self or high self. Although that's— I like yours better because it's less judgmental. Um, but when you try and use change techniques that we all have been taught and people are in self 1, you're asking them to change themselves. It's too threatening. But if you can get people into self 2, then change isn't that difficult. It's that subtle energy behind the backhand I own and the backhand I perform when I'm just focusing my attention on where my racket's at.

Well, need a little more understanding. Self-1 has an ancient means of instruction, of helping people change. And to make it simple, it's called should and shouldn't, is the technique. You should do it this way. You shouldn't do it that way. And then that introduces into the mind of the performer I'm doing it wrong, or I'm doing it right. And so he tries hard to do it right, because he doubts he can. And that judgmental mind is right at the source of what ego is. I'm good. I'm better than somebody else. And it's not more complicated than that. I want to show how much I'm better than other people. And the showing becomes more important than the doing, which who cares if it's better than someone else? Just keep evolving. And different plants grow at different speeds. And it's like, it's like a plant growing. It unfolds. Whereas when you're trying to do it right, what's right? That's the plant in full bloom, and they give instructions taken from the highest performance of right that they know. And if a flower had to do that, it would never put roots into the ground. It would try to go up. I'm supposed to go up, and I'm supposed to bloom right away. That's not how growth happens. It happens.

That's not natural.

It's not natural. And so if you can eliminate the— even the subtlest influence of what's right and wrong and stick with what feels good and what works, you're continuously learning from experience instead of Reality

is the best teacher, I would say, and learning from experience rather than formulas is, is an amazing process. It's also very sustainable because you can, you can feel your way back to or into that place when you leave it. It's easy to come back to.

So one of the first assignments I was given, uh, not the first, but one of the I spoke to board members, to leaders, to vice presidents. But one vice president said, will Inner Game work with low-performance jobs? I said, like what? Well, I'm the vice president of telephone operators, and there are 20,000 of them, and we have 3 Performance or productivity is how fast it takes you to conduct your conversation with the client, and the standard was below 26.5 seconds or below. Okay, so they're all trying to go fast. Second standard was accuracy. You had to type in the numbers Telephone numbers as given by the client into your computer so that it would connect with the right receiver of the call. And so accuracy, that was called. And he said, those are okay, we've gotten them to be productive and accurate, but we have one more standard and it's courtesy. And we have third-party listeners who listen to courtesy and grade it on a 1 to 100 or 1 to 10 scale. And we're low on courtesy. I said— he says, will Inner Game work? Meaning, can you improve the courtesy ratings without lowering productivity or accuracy? Don't want them chit-chatting on the phone. I said, Yes, Inner Game can work in that, on one condition, I'll accept that job. And that is, I don't require of me that I talk about courtesy. He said, I don't care what you talk about, as long as the courtesy ratings go up. I said, fine. So I meet with a pilot group of 12 operators. I say, how's your work? They say, boring, stressful, and no fun. They all agreed unanimously. Those are the 3 characteristics of work. And I said, some of them have been on the job bored, stressed, and having no fun. For 20 years. For 20 years. So I said, well, I'd like to take those 3 observations, turn them on their head, and make those the goal of our training. And that was interesting— turn boring into interesting— we'll turn stressed into enjoyable, and Overall, no fun, and to look forward to working. They said, well, that's, that's impossible. I said, no, we can do that. I was given 6 hours, 1 hour a week for 6 weeks, and it won't be hard at all. And I said, you're trying so hard to be productive and accurate that you don't really hear The customer. So what I want you to do is divide into groups, customer and operator, and the operator is to listen to the tone of voice of the customer and just note down what adjective you'd give to that tone of voice. The most prominent one was irritated. Irritated. Others were rushed, others were demanding, others were subservient, looking down at a servant. And there were about, you know, in the course of a half hour, they came up with 25 different tones of voice. So now let's reverse it. The person who was the operator becomes the— well, we split them up into different groups and The operators were to listen to their own tone of voice, and the person listening would listen to that tone of voice. So you be the client and just use whatever tone of voice you would like to express. And whatever attribute You would like to grow in you, use that tone of voice. So they said, I want to be confident. So they'd express confidence in their tone of voice. I want to be affirmative. They use that tone of voice. I want to be enjoying myself. They used enjoyment as a tone of voice. And that went on. The ball was the tone of voice of the client. The hit was the tone of voice of the operator. Got it?

I love it.

So the operator comes in, the client comes in with an 8-level irritation, and the customer Says he has to repeat the number. He repeats the number with an 8-level kindness. And the person says goodbye with a 3-level kindness. And they said, oh my God, we're just by controlling our tone of voice, we are impacting the client. And the client Is one of millions that operators speak to every day. We speak to more individuals than anybody else in the world. Very short, 26.5-second conversations with no content other than numbers. But by modulating our tone of voice, we're not only enjoying expressing that quality, But we're having an impact on the other person, uh, registered by the change of their tone of voice.

Tim, that's just genius stuff. It— and to me, it, it speaks towards the power we have if we operate at a higher level of frequency. We can co-create and impact everything around us if we put our attention there and elevate our own frequency.

Well, how do you elevate your frequency? So a tennis player comes and says, I have the most defensive backhand volley of anyone in the world. And I said, really? Wonderful. I'd love to see the most defensive volley in the world. And he hits. When the ball comes to him, he steps back, tightens his arm, takes his racket back a little bit to his inside of his shoulder, and kind of stabs at the ball. Hits it, hitting it way behind him. And I say, that was wonderful. I have— most people exaggerate their weaknesses, but you didn't. That is probably the most defensive backhand I've ever seen. And he laughs, and I'm congratulating him for not exaggerating. And I don't even know where to start. You know, there were so many things wrong. His feet, his knees, His shoulders, his backswing, his hit, all, all, everything was wrong. It was, everything was governed by fight-flight. And he was in stress seeing the ball come. It was a mistake coming through the air. He didn't see a ball. He saw something that's going to make him look foolish. And so I said, well, I now I know the worst. Can you— but I don't really know how you'd like to hit it someday, maybe 5 years out. If you could show me. And he started saying, well, I'd like to be— no, no, no. I said, I don't want to hear it. I want to see it. Just show me how you'd like to hit it someday. So he hits it. A little bit in front of him and a little stab. And I say, is that it? He says, no, I want to hit it more like this. And he's more in front and more aggressive. And that goes on for 3 or 4 times. And he's hitting aggressive, powerful backhands into the corner he's choosing. And in his mind, He's not doing it because he can't do that. He was just showing me how he'd like to do it someday. He'd never told himself he couldn't show somebody what he'd like. He just told himself, I can't do it. And the audience— there was a, uh, a lot of people watching. Started to laugh because the contrast was so immediate and so great. And so their laugh was going to burst his bubble. He was hitting obviously in a higher frequency.

I love it.

But unlike him. And so I said to him, I wanted to break the bubble. So I said to him, It's too bad you can't do that right now. He said, oh my God, and immediately started hitting the defensive backhand. And I said, right, that's the way you're hitting them now. Show me again how you'd like to. Poof, boom, boom, boom. I mean, you're going from minus, minus 10 on the Aggressive scale to a +10 without passing go or collecting $200. Just night and day. And every time he found himself doing it, he'd go back. So he went back and forth between showing me how he liked it and his defensive volley. And then it was time to end the lesson, you know, the demonstration. There was so much to learn from that. And I, uh, he came up to me shaking, literally trembling, looks me in the eye and says, so who am I? I mean, perfect. And I should have said, you aren't either one. But what I did say was, it's your choice. But it's 10 minutes of doing or 5 minutes of doing aggressive and 20 years of doing defensive. But they're both in you. They're both in you. Don't even have to grow.

And one of the things I just— I love the story you just told about once you unhook from who you're so sure you are, You know, you tap into the possibilities and how quickly you can do that. In the same, you know, minute, he could be, um, either person. They're both in him. And one of the questions we use to try and unhook that— I love your technique, show me what you would like to be hitting— like, is we'll say, you know, what would great look like? And suddenly people put down all the barriers and obstacles and they tell you about what great would look like. And then it's like, well, then go be great. It's, it's the, the practice and helping people understand how when they unhook from what they've identified with, they have so many additional possibilities available. You know, you, you find out the obstacles may not have even ever existed.

Well, not really, just in your thoughts.

So unfortunately, Tim, as we wrap up, I would love to just to spend about a year with you because there's just so much deep information that you have learned to teach people through experiences, not telling. And I just, I love that.

I'd love to get you on a tennis court.

Well, I'm coming out then. Is that an invitation? I'll be out.

Yeah, or the golf course. I'm gonna tell you one more. Uh, it's interesting, but it brings a technique That can be used.

I love it. So as we wrap up our time together, are there some things that you've maybe synthesized down as to some of the key lessons? Or if you want our listeners, if you had some advice for them or some suggestions, what those would be from all of your years?

Let me just give the principles. Work needs to be redefined. Work equals performance in everybody's mind, and it's a very narrow view of what work is. Work— if you look at any kid working, you know, his father says wash the car, he's performing, but at the same time, he hasn't given up His instinctive evolutionary desire to enjoy. So he's having fun doing it, and he's learning from everything he does. That's work. It's a triangle where performance is supported by enjoyment and learning.

Love it.

Uh, evolutionary seeds That are in everyone. They want to grow. Do you want to enjoy yourself or be stressed? I want to enjoy myself. Well, do what you're doing in a way that it can be enjoyed, and it'll be enjoyed if you're learning while you do it. You're conscious while you're doing it. So what shall I be conscious of? We're not playing tennis, we're not talking on a phone. You're conscious of one of the— one at a time of the critical variables of that activity. So in tennis, where you follow through, how you bend your knees, you can just take any of the variables and observe them. The rest will follow, even if you're not— In fact, the rest will cooperate with the mindset Of awareness, which is non-judgmental. It's just things are as they are, and in a moment things are a little bit different than they were. And no, and you just move in the direction of what, uh, works and what feels right. And so that's, that's, uh, Means you move in the direction of where your attention is placed. So just follow your attention. That's kind of a key principle I call, you know, what you call higher level, I call focus.

Mm-hmm.

Because down to earth and people know they can do it. And they know activities in which it's very natural to be focused. And when you're focused, you can't hear the negative voices in your head. You put all your attention on reality, or external reality and internal reality. How does it feel? How does it feel? How does it work? So you're playing inner and outer together. But in that formula, you're the human beings, the employees, whether they're doing the most mundane jobs or the highest level in, in management. They are feeling good. They are enjoying. They are being— they are following the, the forces of evolution that have been suppressed in school, in graduate school, in work. Nobody says, how did you— Dad comes back from his round of golf and Mother says, how was it? And Dad said, it was pretty good. I got a 92. What I did was my score. But was it any fun? Oh yeah. And he's playing in the most beautiful golf course in the world at Pebble Beach. I have managers that I've had play that course. They wanted coaching, and I said, just stop and for 10 seconds Before you hit the ball for 10 seconds, observe your environment and what you can appreciate in it, what is beautiful to you. And they did it miraculously. Their golf was good and for the first 6 holes, and then it started dropping off. And by the 8th hole, nobody was doing it. They were caught in by the pull of the game. Hit the ball well, do what the pros said, uh, get a better score, get a birdie. And beauty went out the window, the feel of the swing went out the window, and Their score climbed because it wasn't supported by enjoyment or learning. So that's one thing. Learning is focused awareness, A. Choice. You don't move without choice. I want to learn. I want to— I want excellence. I may not know how to get it, but that's what I want. And the third is the answer to how you get it. You trust yourself. You trust. You don't look at yourself through the image of, I don't know how. You You know you can move in the direction of your choice because you're a human being, no more, no less. So those are very broad principles, but they can be applied even to the most abstract. I've applied it to chess. I've applied it to, oh, to technicians at AT&T who, uh, had to shift. They were maintenance and installers, and the guys at Bell Labs invented the, the digital phone, and it worked differently than the mechanical electrical. Phone. So they sat in class, their eyes focused on the teacher who was giving them a 6-month course in computer science, and they were flunking all their exams. And I was called in and I said What are you trying to do when you're listening? We're trying to understand. And I said, well, that's pretty hard. Do you know how to understand? Uh, well, we know how to understand what's understandable to us. And I said, do you know how to understand what's not understandable to you? No. I said, well, Here's how you do it. You're just— do you know how to— do you know when you do understand and when you don't? Yeah. So every time a sentence or a point is being made, put a plus down if you understand, a minus down if you don't, and a zero down if it's in between. And if you have, then the— when the instructor asks for questions and you have a minus, ask the question or make the statement. I didn't understand the part about superheterodynamic friction. Nobody wants to say, I am probably the only one, but when it's everybody's doing plus or minus, How many had pluses? The instructor— I mean, minuses? The instructor said, and 2/3 of the class raised their hand. Guy doesn't feel so stupid. And maybe the instructor says, would somebody who did please explain, make it clearer than I did? Because I obviously didn't make it clear enough. And I told the, the technicians, the stuff that the instructor tells you is probably correct and pass-through accuracy, but that doesn't mean he knew how to write English. And if he doesn't know how to write English, doesn't matter how— at least English in a way That a non-computer expert could understand. So there are a lot of those sentences that aren't understandable, and that's the writer's fault, not yours. So when you don't understand, you don't know which it is. Is it because the way it was said, or is it because I didn't understand? So that erased the stupidity. And when they had a zero, they said, I understood the part about X, but I wasn't clear about Y. And that sounds like a really intelligent question. And the whole obstacle was they were scared of looking.

They didn't want to be seen as— they're focused more on being seen as stupid than just the reality of That's a plus, that's a zero, that's a minus for me. I love it.

It's— and it may not be my fault,

right? And it may not be anybody's fault. It could be just the reality, the reality as it is. You know, your work certainly is applicable in every aspect of life, and it just— it— the more I read your work, I, I just— it goes deeper and deeper and deeper. I just I'm so appreciative, Tim, of what you've given the world. When I think back, you were just one of the early folks that really helped us look at things differently and then bring that into work. And so I really encourage my listeners to— I hope they're absolutely intrigued by what you're saying and to get out there. Start with The Inner Game of Tennis, but there's so many books out there. The Inner Game of Stress is a new one Tim just wrote. Listeners, get out there, get yourself The Inner Game of Work and just get your mind blown. That's your assignment. And tune into Tim's work. And Tim, what's your website if people want to connect with you?

Um, theinnergame.com.

Perfect.

All small,

all small letters, theinnergame.com. I'm telling you, Tim was, um, such a mind-blowing entity for me as I was early in my career and It's a concept I have to continually reintroduce myself to. And it's so helpful. You're just helping us move from a focus on just performance to a focus on evolution and what naturally promotes evolution. How we can benefit from that at work, Tim, is so wonderful. I'm sad our time has come to an end, but I am going to take you up on that invitation to play some tennis.

Okay, and you've never played?

I've never played.

Oh, that's great. But you knew you were no— would be no good at it.

Yeah, I already knew that part.

There's no learning without not knowing.

That's so true.

And I suggest, just for a nice exercise, take, take a group for a walk outside of the room. into some part of nature, where some trees or beach or ocean, sky, anything, and just say, don't know anything. Be ignorant and see what you see and feel what you feel, and you will be surprised. You will see the leaves of a tree in a way you've never seen.

Because if I can get beyond ego into that I don't know mind, the world becomes enjoyable and learning happens and evolution happens and all that we desire really is there. So Tim, thank you very much. I so appreciate you coming on the podcast and for sharing with us your incredible wisdom. Thank you for all you've done for us in leadership. And I understand you just turned 80, so I want to also tell you happy 80th birthday, my friend.

Well, I got married.

You got married as well? I love it.

I got my wife for a present and it's been wonderful.

Oh, congratulations. You do it in style. Well, you take care of my friends and, uh, I look forward to our tennis lesson. This is the No Ego Podcast where we ditch the drama, end entitlement, and transform your Worldplace. I'm Sai Wakeman.