High Performance Psychologist: The #1 Fear Holding You Back From Your Full Potential

0:00Most people are not afraid of dying. They're afraid of living poorly. They're afraid of the regrets that they'll have. No one wants to die. Even the most forward-pushing people that operate in environments of consequence, like Alex Honnold. So Alex Honnold, I believe, is one of the most significant minds in all of sport right now. Most recently, he scaled the Taipei building. Prior to that, he scaled without ropes, without harnesses, El Capitan, 3 ,000 sheer feet of rock. So all he's left with is his hands, his feet, and his head, and navigating a sheer cliff. He is showing us what a full command of the mind is.

0:33And he is disciplined in how he uses his mind. He's disciplined in how he builds his craft. And he's disciplined in how he uses and fundamentally organizes his life. The reason it is so foundational for so many of us is because we are still operating under our biological dictate to survive, as opposed to the psychological ambition to go explore, to figure out what we're capable of. Welcome to Open Book. I am your host, Anthony Scaramucci. Joining us today is Michael Gervais, best-selling author, high-performance psychologist, and founder of Finding Mastery. We could all use a high-performing psychologist, by the way, Michael.

1:15Okay, the first rule of Mastery is the title of the book, Stop Worrying About What People Think of You, Perhaps the Hardest Thing for a Social Organism Known as a Human to Do, which I always tell people that my grandmother said what other people think of you is none of your business. I'm 62 years young, Michael, and I'm still trying to live up to that. And I have to confess that I'm not perfect at it, but you're here. And so you're going to help me. You've worked with elite performers across sport business and the military. And before we get into how you're going to help me and everybody listening, what drew you to psychology and high performance in the first place?

1:59And welcome to the show. What a fun introduction. So I'm a work in progress too. So like we're all, we're all trying to figure it out, Anthony, but all right. So what led me to psychology is that I would go back to high school years. I was a good little athlete and there was a difference for me between competition and free surfing. Surfing was my sport of choice. And I could do the thing when nobody was looking. But then as soon as there were some stakes in the, you know, there was judges and there was people watching, I was not as good as I knew I was capable of. So something changed overnight, something changed.

2:39And I was in a heat competing. The person I was competing next to paddled by me. There's only three people out. It's like seven in the morning, glassy conditions, head high waves, ideal conditions. And he paddles by me and we're about mid heat. And he says, Jervais, I'm out here surfing with you every day. You got to stop worrying about all the things that could go wrong. And I thought, how does he know? This is me as like a 16 year old kid. How does he know? And he didn't like a good competitor, he didn't give me the answer, right? But he left me thinking, oh, this is about the way I'm thinking.

3:14Now, Anthony, in my family, in my unique niche sport, in my region of the world I was in, Southern California, a young 16-year-old boy in the 80s did not go to a psychologist. That was for someone that didn't have their stuff together, that was kind of a mess that was depressed or anxious or something worse. That was the narrative. And it was a sign of weakness. So thank goodness we're in a different world right now where the best in the world are raising their hand and they're saying, hey, listen, the mental part of the game is the foundation of the whole thing. You want to be great in life? Train your mind.

3:51Thank goodness we've got those folks that are telling that story now. But back then in the 80s, that was not an option for me, at least my little circle. So I studied it because I knew that there was something there that I needed to unlock. And it was private. It was painful. It was not sophisticated. And then come to find out I was not alone. And I was attracted to the psychology of excellence, sports psychology. And it's the unique science of how the best in the world use their mind and train their mind to be their best. And that once I found that discipline, I was like, these are my people.

4:29And so that's it. You know, Henry Ford was a difficult guy in many ways. Obviously, one of our great industrialists also had some weaknesses in his personality, like anti-Semitism and racism, et cetera. But one thing he said that I always share with people, particularly my children. Henry Ford said, if you think you can or you think you can't, Michael, you're right. So if you think you can or you think you can't, you're right. And your book to me is a battle about the mind first. And it's an internal battle before you take on the external world. And if I have that right, please expound upon that in terms of the direction that you took the book.

5:14Yeah. I mean, let me just tell you the origin story because I think you'll appreciate this is that I thought I was alone in this excessive worrying about being okay in the eyes of others. And I did not bring that forward. Even after I was licensed as a psychologist, like I thought I was uniquely alone in this. And then I'm sitting across world world's best in my office and time after time and after time again, they had this burning desire to figure out how good they could become. They knew that there was more potential for them to unlock. And they would say things like, look, I'm not afraid of getting physically hurt.

5:57I just don't want to let my people down. I don't look. It's hard now making a mistake publicly like that. I just want to hide. There's nowhere to go, but like, that's the hard part, Mike, help me out. So there was this theme over and over and over again that the great fear that they had, just like me, was looking stupid, looking bad, looking dumb, looking whatever. And we're not alone in that, Anthony. That's something that come to find out the brain is designed and primed for. 200 and 300 ,000 years ago, we needed to fit in. That was safety. So being accepted meant safety. the brain hasn't changed that much hence why we find ourselves so tribalistic right now trying to fit in the right or the left or whatever it might be we're trying to figure out safety first and foremost so yeah well you know yeah uh fauxpo felt like you're on the police when i heard fauxpo like we're getting the police involved but it doesn't mean that so what does it mean fear of people's opinions and what is it?

7:02It's this exhaustive attempt to interpret what others are thinking or might be thinking about us. And really what we're trying to do is avoid negative evaluation. We're trying to avoid rejection. We're trying to gain acceptance. And as strong as you might think you are, whoever you are in this conversation, you got it too. Like this might be, unless you're a narcissist. If you're a narcissist, you do not suffer from POPO. You really don't care. about what people think. It's interesting. So you want people to care less about what other people think, but you don't want them to become these self-absorbed, all-consuming narcissists.

7:40But I want to go to that tribal instinct that you're talking about. I want to talk about the evolutionary concept of tribal survival. Do you think the fear of other people's opinions outranks the fear of failure or even the fear of death? yeah 100 well fear of death is interesting um when we when we do research most people are not afraid of dying they're afraid of living poorly they're afraid of the regrets that they'll have they no one wants to die even the most forward pushing um people that operate environments of consequence like alex honnold when he was on the finding mastery podcast he was talking about like look i don't want to die but i don't and we know who alex honnold is right yeah scaled down Tell our viewers who he is.

8:28Sure. So Alex Honnold, I believe, is one of the most significant minds in all of sport right now. Most recently, he scaled the Taipei building. Prior to that, he scaled without ropes, without harnesses, El Capitan, 3 ,000 sheer feet of rock. Again, no ropes, no support. It's called free soloing. So all he's left with is his hands, his feet, and his head and navigating a sheer cliff. And anything above like, I don't know, 75 feet is pretty consequential, but he's 3000 feet up navigating without ropes again. And the reason I think he's the most significant mind is because he is showing us what a full command of the mind is.

9:13and he is disciplined in how he uses his mind. He's disciplined in how he builds his craft and he's disciplined in how he uses and fundamentally organizes his body. I'm sorry, his life. So the question that you're asking though is about the biological piece. And the reason it is so foundational for so many of us is because we are still operating under our biological dictate to survive, as opposed to the psychological ambition to go explore, to figure out what we're capable of. And that's one of the reasons he's so special, because he operates in environments of consequence, but does not consider himself a risk taker.

9:59How about that? Thank you for tuning in to Open Book. And if you haven't already, please hit the subscribe button below so that you're the first to know when our new episodes drop each week. We've got a lot more coming. And now back to the show. Yeah. Listen, I've watched some of these interviews and a lot of what you say in your book is imbued in those interviews. And I think you bringing him up though also talks about the unleashing of human potential. And one of the points that you make in the book that I love is that the faux-pope is a constraint on human potential. Uh, and, but why do you think it's so pervasive?

10:40I, yes, I get that there's a tribal thing and there's an evolutionary thing. Um, and I'm pretty well-read guy and I'm a pretty, you know, educated guy. And I know I'm supposed to not care, Michael, about what other people think, but guess what? I still do. Okay. And so why is that? Right. We know like, it's almost like, you know, I need to lose weight. Don't eat the cookie, but I'm eating the cookie, right. Unless I'm on Ozempic of course, but I'm eating the cookie. So why is that? And are they related? I mean, are there certain things that are just going on biologically that even though we know that we're supposed to hit an override switch to control, we frankly have a hard time controlling.

11:27Yeah. I mean, I think the question is like, why are we doing it? And I do think it's, I don't think we have to look too much further than the biological mandate for survival. That's what your brain's job is supposed to do. Scan the world and find all the dangers. And again, 300 ,000 years ago, one of the most dangerous thing was not the warring tribe, because you don't see them very often. It wasn't the saber tooth or the, you know, the hedgehog that was going to whatever it wasn't them hedgehog i don't know why i said hedgehog it was not the animals or the tribe it was the acceptance of rejection from your neighbors from the elders and because if they kicked you to the fringe the wild's too wild so we've got this whole mechanism in our brain to scan the world and find the dangerous things that's survival and what is most dangerous what you think of me and this is why public speaking is so dangerous for so many people, it's not actually physically dangerous.

12:22It's dangerous to this perceived survival mechanism because if they say, the Scaramucci guy, like get him out of here, never again. Well, then quickly we go to like, oh, what do I do with my life? And I haven't found my people. And like, is my business going to survive or whatever the narrative might be. And once you become aware of it, that that is the guiding dictum, you give yourself a chance to work with it. And the way we work with it is to use our attention to focus on the signal as opposed to the noise. So the noise is what everyone's thinking, potentially. And the signal is your ability to bring your very best to the situation, to bring your best part of yourself forward.

13:10work that that's what masters are able to do masters of self and masters of craft that's what you're able to do consistently on air and hopefully you know in intimate conversations is you you are more interested to bring yourself forward and to really explore an idea wrestle it down without thinking about how are they perceiving me and when that does pop up do they think i'm okay you probably are more skilled than you ever were to say wait hold on let me gate that out let me come back to trying to figure or work the problem in front of me. You write about high achievers and you mentioned, you know, first couple of questions, we're talking about high achievers and their lack of fear, maybe the lack of physical fear, but we're in there.

13:53They're always shooting for trying for the best, Michael, but there's an identity fusing between achievement and who they are. And you write about this and there's trouble with that though. Isn't there a little bit because we don't want our self-worth overly tied to our achievement. Do we or do we? It's a great question. So what you're talking about technically is called a performance based identity. And here's what happens for people that are talented at a relatively young age. Like yourself, people probably told you at a young age, oh, that guy's really smart. Or that guy's very good at basketball.

14:32I'm still at a young age, Michael. Still at a young age. Oh, it's still happening. Nice job. Okay. No, no, no. You imagine saying that I'm young. Am I saying that that's particularly happening in the phrase? Okay, got it. You're saying that I'm still young, Michael. Yeah. So like you can imagine the more talented basketball kid in the local whatever, and he's a little bit taller and scores more than everybody else. And the world kind of collapses on him, unfortunately, about the thing that he does. And it's basketball, let's say. And so uncles talk about it. Auntie talks about it. You know, teachers are talking about it.

15:06Friends are talking about it. So it's very natural for young, talented folks to build what's called a performance-based identity. And what that does, what am I talking about? It's a performance-based identity is you define who you are by how well you do things. And then that's why when you go out later in life to go do the thing that you're good at, it feels like your entire essence is at stake. Like that's why the batterers in a battering box, like they talk about, like, I've got so much nerves and so much overwhelming. What's at stake? What's at stake is that you'll look bad if you underperform.

15:42What's at stake is that your identity is on the line. And I use baseball here as an example because there's really physically nothing on the line. Like Alex and all, there's a lot on the line, you know, like a UFC fighter. There's a lot on the line. So what am I pointing to? that performance-based identity will help you get good because you will work really hard to prop up your identity based on how well you perform. And in the Western world, our kids, us included, were force-ranked. Here's the kids with A's. Here's the kids with B's. Here's the kids with C's. All of that combined gives you a GPA.

16:19Now you get access to a good school or a not good school or no school. It makes sense. In our Western world, we build this performance-based identity. And again, I want to reinforce that'll help you get good, but at some point it becomes problematic. Yeah. You don't want to be overly tied because if you, you know, listen, I've had my series of setbacks in life. I don't want to be, you know, doing well, thinking I'm great, doing poorly, thinking I'm terrible. You can't do that to yourself, you know? Yeah, that's right. That's exactly right. Another great concept in your book, which is the tug of war between authenticity and approval and we're in an approval-based society right now we're in a society of instant gratification social media presence so on and so forth um how do people trade one for another why is approval so addictive michael and what would you say to somebody let's say you had a young very talented athlete came in to see you and i'm you I'm the dad or I want to get the kid off the social media and back dialed into the authenticity.

17:23Tell me about your thoughts and perspective on that. We say we value authenticity. We say we value truth tellers. We say we value the uniqueness of a person. But when that becomes prickly, when that becomes uncomfortable to others, not because of out of kindness, but because sometimes the truth is hard to hear, we don't like it. So we say in business, fail fast, fail forward, fail often, learn, learn, learn, let's go. But when people make mistakes and they fail, we don't like it. So we speak out of two sides of our mouth about what we really want. And so authenticity is said to be valued. But where do we go to learn how to do that?

18:05And once we learn who we really are, where do we go learn the mental skills to navigate that sense in a highly volatile, uncertain, complex, the VUCA environment. So that's the whole psychology of excellence. Who are you? What are your first principles in life that you're going to work from, your authenticity, if you will? And what are the mental skills to help you navigate it when it gets tricky? You put those two togethers with a skill, maybe shooting a basket, or maybe it's coding, whatever the skill might be, you got something. But we say we value it, but we don't teach it. I was never taught how the basic mental skills to navigate a highly agitating world around me, you know, to be calm and confident.

18:50I had to go, unfortunately, study to learn it. But the world is changing. I'm excited about how the best in the world are saying, you know, I need more help on this part of my life. And then I think, Anthony, you'll appreciate this i did talk about this in the book but beethoven beethoven is he's like punk rock you know he is like he he was such a disruptor as as brilliant of a performer and an artist as he was he suffered from faux pas too he was going deaf is is if you remember and it wasn't until he wrestled with that deafness and he allowed people to know that somebody as quote-unquote perfect as him, that's what he always described himself, could have such a malady to lose his hearing, that it wasn't until he really wrestled with it did he come back and do Symphony No.

19:495, bum-bum-bum-bum, one of the great songs ever, right? So the point of this is even the greatest of the greatest that stand up historically over time until they wrestle with authentically who they are and the conditions that they have do they even become close to knowing what they're capable of so well said you know i i i think there's a a broader question here also about identity uh and so how much of the faux po as you describe it is tied to not really knowing who you are or what you stand for. Yeah, I think there's two identities that are, I think, most important to understand. There's the performance-based identity, and then there is purpose-based identity.

20:38And when you study the most powerful people on the planet, and I'm not saying this naively, I'm saying this, you know, some of the most powerful people are not benevolent, and some powerful people are benevolent. But when you study very powerful people, whether it's Gandhi or fill in the blanks, you know, whomever comes to your mind, they had a purpose. They were clear about their purpose. And what they did is they fundamentally lined their life up towards that purpose. Now, when you deconstruct the science of purpose, there's three legs to that stool. It matters uniquely to that person. So I can't give you your purpose.

21:20You know, you have to say this matters to me. And then it's bigger than you. So you can't solve it alone. This is why narcissists have trouble oftentimes. And then the third is that it's out in front of you. So those are the three legs, according to research. If you want to free yourself from this performance identity that, which is like the encapsulation of you worrying about what people are thinking about your performance in life, how well you dress or how well you show up in respect. The inoculation to that is become aware of it and then to line yourself up to how the greats do it. What is my purpose in life?

21:59And it sounds simple, but it's relatively rare for most people to examine that and then fundamentally commit to it. It's interesting. It's an interesting perspective. I find that the stuff that you say is incredibly valuable, but the execution, the day-to-day execution, I think is hard. And I think the lesson that I'm hearing from you is that it's like anything else. It's like weight training or dieting or any other thing. You got to get yourself into the repetition of the mental discipline of this. So be my life coach for a minute, okay? And say to me, Why are you laughing, Michael? Well, it's funny because like, I got to really know you to be any kind of coach to you, but like, all right, but let's play role play music.

22:50Yeah, let's do it. How do you get somebody off of zero? Off of zero and zero meaning what? Zero meaning I'm in my own head. I think about what other people think about me. I have some defeatist streaks in my personality of self-sabotage. You know, the things that you write about in the book that you want to overcome. You know what I mean? This will be unsatisfying to you, but it is a first principle that I work from and I think people that are very successful working with people will work from, is that you are not gonna make a change unless you're sick and tired of being sick and tired. So one of my first principles would be to help you get connected to like the suffering, the pain, the way that you feel dissatisfied with how you're doing.

23:35Agitate that in such a way that you go, yeah, what am I doing? I don't want this anymore. So not until you get to a place where you're like, I need to change this thing. Will you actually do the work to change it? So that would be a first principle. And I would ask you questions like, what's it like? You know, like, tell me a time when that type of thing. And like, what's so bad about it? And is this really that bad? I'm kind of playing devil's advocate a little bit. And you go, listen, dude, I'm done with this. I say, okay. Okay. Tell me what your purpose is. I don't know. I'm just trying to keep my head above water.

24:08Are you kidding me? Like in this world, as toxic as some of my conversations can be misinterpreted, like I'm just trying to figure it out and be honest to myself. Okay. But what is your purpose, Anthony? And I would force that as a North Star. And you say, how do I figure out my purpose? And I say, what matters most? What are you fundamentally organizing your life around that's bigger than you? And you say, what would you say, Anthony? I mean, it's so funny that you ask this because I try to do this once in a while and I did it recently. I'm organizing around balance. And if I was at a different point in my career, I was probably organizing work like this outside the viewer's range of my hands and family life like this.

24:57I was a brutal, unselfaware workaholic. And so I'm really trying to balance, which requires me to not be a people pleaser and requires me to say the word no to lots and lots of different people. Do you want to come to this event? No. Do you want to travel here? No. And I have found that less is more, my goal. I find that the less I'm doing and the more concentrated my mission is, the more effective I am. And so that's basically where I am right now. Okay. So I hear that and I hear that's an ambition. That's a goal. That's something that you want to sort out, call it balance right now. And that is, it's going to benefit other people because you're going to have more time with your family and make some changes on the way that you're saying yes and no to work commitments.

25:52I don't think that that's exactly a purpose though. A purpose is like, why? Why are you pursuing a path in media, saying the hard things in your take politically? Why do all of that? And unexamined, you could say, look, it pays me well. I like the attention from it and it affords a lifestyle. And all of that is about you. So it's not a purpose. But if you say, look, there's a real thing we got to solve right now. And I'm going to put a tall flag in the poll. I want to stop you for a second, though. It doesn't pay well. It gets me into a lot of trouble politically and in business. Okay. And the only purpose that it's serving is to have my balls busted.

26:35But continue. Okay. I just want to make sure you know I'm doing it because I feel like I owe it to my kids. I'm doing it because there's something so wrong right now where we're not telling the truth to each other. you know, what's made you a very effective, made you a great author and great at what you do is you have a wonderful way of telling people the truth. I mean, you can tell them the truth and they can actually hear it. They can get themselves better. Well, I think it's uncomfortable. I'll back you by saying when I tell people the truth, it's so agitating that people don't really want to hear it.

27:10So I first have to create the condition where people want to hear the truth, you know, and are okay with that agitation. And then we work from there. But I love your point. Like it doesn't pay well. It gets me in a lot of trouble. Okay. But you said your purpose. I'm doing this because I want to create a better way for my kids. Yeah. But I want the kids to know that their father's got a backbone. You know, I want the kids to know. Okay. You know, it's, you know, you, you know, how many kids you have? I have one 17 year old. All right. So I'm going to stipulate and you can agree or disagree. I feel like my kids, you know, they don't listen, but they watch your actions.

27:44You know, I can tell you to do something, but they don't really listen, but then they watch what you're doing. I feel like they're mimetic in a sense where they'll, you know, if you're doing the right thing, it'll hopefully rub off on them, you know, that sort of thing. So that is the same in any position of leadership, even in like the modern corporate worlds is that we are watching our leaders. We're listening a little bit, but we're watching. And what we're trying to sort out is trust. And trust also, according to science, has three legs to the stool. I'll come to that in a minute. but your purpose is something about creating a better way for the next generation.

28:23Call it your kids, okay? Creating a better way because something needs to happen right now and your methodology is to speak the truth and have a backbone. Polarizing and congealing all in the same way. So that's your method is to try to scrub the information to figure out what you feel and think about it and say it. So your purpose is to create a better way. Now you are stronger when you walk into an environment and you are bringing your purpose mindset with you. Right. That's how all the greats did it. Now where you are weaker, me too, is when I'm coming into an environment and I'm like, man, I got to nail this one.