Navy SEAL’s Guide to Mastering Uncertainty with Rich Diviney

25:48And people, once people start to actually engage their conscious thought and do this, they find a new sense of superpower in terms of their ability to manage what's going on. And I'm glad you brought up your dad because what, here's the great news, Ed, is that every single one of us human beings has done this. We all do this. The idea is start to think about when you've done it, start to put it together, and now start to do it more deliberately. because if we start to do it deliberately, that means we can practice it. You start practicing it and you do it enough, you start doing it without thinking.

26:18And this is where the Navy SEALs are. We do this stuff without thinking and that's where you want to get. And the coolest thing about this, and the reason why I'm excited to get this out is because if one can practice and start doing this without thinking, guess what happens? You start deliberately stepping into uncertainty and that's where growth lies. You start to grow as a human being. You start to say, I'm going to pick the next new challenge and I'm going to go for it because you know exactly what you need to do. And so it's an encouragement for people to just start growing as human beings, doing the incredible, going for their dreams that seem unsurmountable.

26:52You can surmount anything. Just chunk it and choose your horizons. Chunking, it's huge. You know, it's always embarrassing when you have someone of Rich's caliber on the show and you do anything to compare or equate yourself. I always just feel embarrassed. I'm serious. And so to compare getting through Buds or some raid somewhere in the middle of Afghanistan with a speech day of mine is rather hilarious, right? Having said that though, I just want to give everybody applications of these things. When I have days where I speak, I'm doing about everything I can during that day, especially if it's, you know, 15, 20 ,000 people.

27:27I'm just thinking through to, to arrive at my optimal state when I hit that stage. And so I'm doing things energetically to concern myself. People probably think, do you do a lot of preparation those days. I actually don't. I don't look at my notes a lot. I don't look at too much stuff because I feel like it's almost depleting me cognitively to some extent. You described how that's happening, but I like to arrive to that moment with every, all my faculties at their best in that moment. So I will create structures and move horizons around, so to speak, for that moment today, for example, not feeling well, I've got walking pneumonia, three podcasts.

28:05When I woke up this morning to look at a day of that is different to me. I just got ready for the first one. And then when it was done, I got that dopamine hit that you relate to. And I'm like, I'm actually ready for the next. And I recovered in between. So I just want to share the application because not all of us are doing the save the world things that Rich has done in his life. Let me add, first of all, I did the same thing when I started public speaking. I did not like public speaking. And I had to do the very same. Every lesson that I learned in the battlefield and the SEAL teams, I used to public speak.

28:38So this is the same thing. You know, the other thing I want to make sure that people understand, because you brought it up and I think it's important, is that Navy SEALs and those who are masters of uncertainty, we never worry about that which we can't control because it's energetically very expensive. And so if I can't control it, I'm not going to worry about it. Now, this does not preclude proper planning and preparation. Okay, proper planning and preparation is something you do for your talks. I do for my docs. We did for our missions. We don't achieve paralysis through analysis. In other words, we don't try to over plan.

29:09We just pick the couple things. Hey, I'm going to plan for this, plan for that. And then once we're in it, we don't worry about it until it happens. And that's very, very powerful in terms of hitting that stage with as much energy as possible, because you have people don't understand how much energy they lose just by worrying about stuff that they can't control. And we have to understand anxiety is all about the future. Stress is about the now. Anxiety is all about the future. And, you know, the future is fiction. The past is history. The future is fiction. We only have the now. And so if you want to really maximize your energy in the moment, worry about the moment.

29:43And that's it. It ruined my baseball career. I was a competitive college baseball player and beyond. And my worry over preparation, stress, fatigue, I would show up by the time the first pitch gone, absolutely exhausted physically, legs gassed, mentally gassed. And I remember telling myself, this is not going to work for me when I go into business, whatever it is I do, a big sales presentation or a speech or a one-on-one. And not only was it debilitating physically and mentally, and a lot of you do this more than you realize, you're not at your optimal state, but also over time, you're robbing yourself from the dopamine that Rich is describing.

30:25And eventually you convince yourself, I don't want to do this at all anymore. And then your very desire to prepare is gone because you're getting no reward for doing so. So, hey, guys, I want to jump in here for a second and talk about change and growth. And, you know, by the way, it's no secret how people get ahead in life or how they grow. And also taking a look at the future. If you want to change your future, you've got to change the things you're doing. If you continue to do the same things, you're probably going to produce the same results. But if you get into a new environment where you're learning new things and you're around other people that are growth oriented, you're much more likely to do that yourself.

30:57And that's why I love Growth Day. Write this down for a second, growthday.com forward slash ed. My friend Brendon Brouchard has created the most incredible personal development and business app that I've ever seen in my life. Everything from goal setting software to personal accountability, journaling, courses, thousands of dollars worth of courses in there as well. I create content in there on Mondays where I contribute as do a whole bunch of other influencers, like the Avengers of influencers and business minds in there. it's the Netflix for high achievers or people that want to be high achievers.

31:27So go check it out. My friend Brennan's made it very affordable, very easy to get involved. Go to growthday.com forward slash ed. That's growthday.com forward slash ed.

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32:39So let's talk about leadership because that's what I always think of when I think of you. And in the book, in segment three of the book, guys, by the way, He talks about team dynamics and leadership. And obviously, dynamic subordination is this term that just stands out from the book. And then you kind of flip it on its butt a little bit in the book, which surprised me. So what is dynamic subordination and what are your thoughts about it? Yeah, so dynamic subordination is quite literally the tax organizational structure for high-performing teams. That's where it is. And this came to me in a moment.

33:14I was being asked by some executives in front of executives. And I had a whiteboard flip chart next to me. They said, hey, Rich, can you draw for us the task org shape that would describe a high performing team? And I was stumped because the models I had didn't tell the story. I could have done the pyramid with the leader on top and all the word goes down. I can't use that. It's too crowded, too slow. I could have done the flat model, the flat line, right? We've all heard about that. You know, no one ranks anybody. We're all in this together. It's all groovy. Problem with the flat model is that, you know, sometimes it's difficult to figure out actually who's in charge and you can happen on the right side of that line that's not seen or heard by the left side of that line.

33:48In other words, information gets siloed in a flat model pretty easily and that's not what happens in a high-performing team. Finally, I had the Robert Greenleaf Servant Leadership Model where he flipped that pyramid upside down, put the leader on the bottom, said, I'm in service to the people in my span of care. That's probably the most beautiful one if I were to pick one, at least philosophically. However, still not how a high-performing team operates because in a high-performing team, burden is distributed. it. It's not all on one person. And so really largely in frustration, I drew a blob on the flip chart.

34:18And I said, where do you think the leader sits in this blob? And I got answers like front, back, top, bottom, center. I said, you are all correct. The leader is wherever the leader needs to be in the moment. And this is what we call dynamic subordination. Dynamic subordination means that a team understands challenges and issues and problems can come from any angle at any moment. And when one does, the person who's closest to that problem, the most capable, immediately steps up and takes lead. And everybody and supports. And then it switches. The environment switches and someone else steps up. It's a dynamic swap between leader and follower.

34:49I also call it alpha hopping. That alpha position just hops to wherever it needs to be. This is how all high-performing teams operate. And I say this. I was an officer in the SEAL teams, okay? I did hundreds of missions. I was in charge of every single one. It did not mean I was always being supported. In fact, most of the time it was the opposite. I was supporting other people. My snipers, my breachers, my assaulters. Sometimes the environment much shift that they'd be in support of me. All this tells us is that very important concept that our position on a team has nothing to do with our rank or hierarchy.

35:17Our position on a team has everything to do with what we're there to contribute to the team. And as leaders, it's our job to create that dynamically subordinating environment so that we have the highest performing, most efficient teams possible. In order to hold that together, though, you have to have trust amongst that team. Yes. And well, I tell you, I'm thinking of some businesses that I'm involved with where we had leaders that maybe not even been as dynamic or as talented, but they had really established trust and how we just flowed together as a group. And then other teams I've been on where there just wasn't that trust established by the leader.

35:53It just never got established. And no matter how talented we were, how prepared we were, long-term we struggled. You talk about competence, consistency, character, and compassion. Of those, what do you think lacks most and why are all four important? Yeah, so competence and consistency are often what teams, especially in the business world, focus on because competence and consistency do the thing right. Consistency is do the thing right over time, okay? Those are in large part visible and measurable, okay? Skill and skills-based, I would even concede. The problem is you're missing two very important ones.

36:34Character is the next one. And character is a big word. I'd break that down and maybe say integrity. Okay, so you have do the thing right in competence, do the thing right over time in consistency, do the right thing in character. And then finally, you have compassion, do the right thing because you care about me as a human being. Okay, now, you can build an environment of trust, you can at least start building an environment trust inside of any one of those four elements. It's only when you have all four that you have the longest lasting, most durable trust. And I'll give you a quick example.

37:02Okay, imagine you and I are out having dinner somewhere. We decide, we have some drinks. We decide we're not gonna go home or we're not gonna drive home. So we call a cab. The cab shows up, we jump in the cab. The cab rolls out and within 100 meters runs into a telephone pole. We're not injured. We get out, we find our way home. No big deal, okay? Couple nights later, we're out again. We're having dinner, having some drinks. We decide not to drive home. We call a cab again, okay? The cab shows up. It's the same driver from the night before. Are we gonna get back in the car with that driver? The answer is no or not.

37:31But rewind that whole scenario. You and I were out having dinner, having drinks. We decide we're not going to drive home. We don't call a cab. We call our mother, father, sister, spouse, brother, best friend. That person shows up. We jump in the car with that person. That person with 100 meters runs into a telephone pole. A few days later, we need to get back in the car with that person. And now the answer is likely yes. Some people are like, nope, still not getting in the car. But we probably will. And the reason is because of that second person we had all four. With the first person, the cab driver, we only had the first two.

38:02We had the consistency of the cab company. We had the perceived competence of the driver. As soon as competence took a hit, trust went away. With that second person, when competence took a hit, we had something to fall back on. So what we need to focus on is building all four elements through our behaviors. Trust is a belief. Trust is a feeling that's been rationally justified by that person. So in other words, you cannot make anybody trust you. All you can do is behave in a way that allows someone to choose to make a decision to trust you. And so all this nonsense about someone coming is like, oh, I'll trust that person when they earn it or whatever that is.

38:36That's nonsense. We as leaders have to go first in these behaviors and build that environment. Gosh, this is so good, you guys. Every time Rich is on. So there's two things you're always doing. See how I go, guys? Like we just keep going with them. There's two things you're always doing, even if you don't realize it. You're always breathing and you're asking, you're actually also always thinking and thinking is the process of asking and answering questions to yourself. That's really what a thought is. And so when we last talked to Mike, this is going to be good because now I doubt, maybe I'm wrong.

39:10I doubt when you were a seal, you were into maybe, well, probably not true in the water you were, but overall, I doubt breathing techniques were the number one thing you were focusing on every single day. No, not at all. Yeah. Good. good so that assumption is accurate so talk to us about activating our optimal neurology through either questions or breathing or both and take as long as you want on it because this is guys this is almost like pull the car over stuff right here yeah yeah so the breathing so so one of our uh one of our uh pathways into our autonomic response our autonomic nervous system if you will is the respiratory system we have a visual and respiratory system connected directly to the vagus nerve.

39:51And we can quite literally shift our physiology from sympathetic, which is our action state, to parasympathetic, which is rest and digest, just through breathing alone or through visual tools. Breathing is very interesting because breathing you can actually use to modulate your autonomic response up, down, or even keep it neutral. So a couple ways to do that. So if you want to up your autonomic response, you want to get more excited, get more engaged, okay? that's, you know, Wim Hof does this type of reading, Breath of Fire, things like that. You are inducing some autonomic response and there's some techniques in the book you can do that.

40:28That's typically not what we're talking about when we're dealing with people in stress, challenge, uncertainty, because in stress, challenge, uncertainty, what's usually happening is our autonomic response is starting to go up too far and we want to get it back down so we can actually make conscious thoughts and then ask better questions, which we'll talk about here in a second. This episode is brought to you by Indeed. When your computer breaks, you don't wait for it to magically start working again. You fix the problem. So why wait to hire the people your company desperately needs? Use Indeed's sponsored jobs to hire top talent fast.

41:01And even better, you only pay for results. There's no need to wait. Speed up your hiring with a$75 sponsored job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Muteen. Adjective. Used to describe an individual whose spirit is unyielding, unconstrained. One who navigates life on their own terms, effortlessly. They do not always show up on time, but when they arrive, you notice. An individual confident in their contradictions. They know the rules, but behave as if they do not exist.

41:43so a couple ways well one of the ways you can do that is you can do what's called um co2 blowout breathing okay in other words you're breathing you're blowing out carbon dioxide why does this matter one of the things that people don't recognize is that when we're say underwater or holding our breath okay that that discomfort that stress that we feel is not because of a lack of oxygen it's actually in fact a because of a buildup of co2 now people like freedivers and some seals understand this. In other words, you can push past that discomfort because you have different oxygen reserves in your system.

42:16This is what freedivers do. That's how they can hold their breath for nine minutes is they know how to push past that discomfort and start accessing the oxygen reserves in the other part of their body. I do not recommend this. This is very dangerous because what happens is as soon as you push past that first warning sign, you don't get another warning sign. In other words, you'll just go out, okay? So I don't want anybody to try this at home, all right? Unless you're a freediver, you do it, right? But all this to say is that buildup of CO2 is what's causing the stress. And so what we can do is we can literally begin to blow out our CO2 and begin to de-stress just through breath.

42:48One of the best ways to do this is called the physiological sigh. All it is is a deep inhale and then up our top and then a really slow exhale for, you know, eight to 10 seconds. So deep in. So is that a breathe in and then another one? Yeah, breathe in and then a top off breathe in. So a nice fast breathe in. Top off. nice, slow exhale. You do that two, three, four, five times, you will literally feel yourself calm down. You're bringing your autonomic arousal down. You're bringing your frontal back online in a position where you can start moving and picking horizons. Okay. The other breathing technique I talk about, and many people have heard about this is box breathing.

43:26Okay. Box breathing is in fact a technique that if you are at a perfect level of autonomic arousal, we might be like, maybe you and I, we just got on stage. You're like, okay, I'm right here. I don't want to get any more nervous, but I don't want to get it less. I'm really, I'm charged. I'm right where I want. Box breathing is a great way to do this. Box breathing is simply, you're going to breathe in for a period. So say four or five seconds, I say five seconds. You're going to hold on top for five seconds. You're going to exhale for five seconds. And then you're going to hold on the bottom for five seconds.

43:56It's literally just a square box. You can pick whatever timing you want in any of those lanes, whatever's comfortable for you. But But if you do box breathing, it actually keeps you at your autonomic level and allows you to actually engage at the state you're in. Do you breathe through the mouth or the nose or both? Usually it's breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth, but it doesn't really matter. Okay. To the extent possible, in through the nose, out through the mouth, but it doesn't matter. Okay. So this is the way we can actually start to manage and manipulate our autonomic arousal.

44:26Once we do that, once we are able to do that, our frontal lobe comes back online. and now we're in business because now we can start asking better questions because you and i talk about this technique of asking better questions when we first talk and like you said our brains are question answering machines all we're doing all day long is just asking questions about our environment often unconsciously it's picking out okay what do i mean what's the duration pathway outcome do i understand it if you understand if you're getting answers you feel great if you're not getting answers you're confused you might feel uncertain all right all this to say is if we if we were whenever we consciously place a question into our conscious mind, whatever that question is, our brain begins to come up with answers.

45:02A lot of times we do this the wrong way. We say things like, why am I so bad at this? Why did this always happen to me? Why are these people out to get me? As soon as you place that question in your brain, you're going to come up with some spectacular answers as to why you're so bad at this or why people are out to get you. It's inevitable to say, why am I so pissed off? You're going to come up with some spectacular answers as to why you're pissed off. All my performers do is they flip the script on the questions. They ask better questions, they get better answers. They say things like, what am I good at?

45:31Who's out there that can help me? You know, how can I make it through this? What can I focus on in this moment? What horizon can I pick? And you will begin to get answers to that question. This is the, you know, it's funny because we are, you know, physically we do this all the time. We go where we pay attention to, You know, I think you and I at one point, in fact, I think when we were together at one point when I gave a talk, we were talking about driving. I love everything about driving. Give me anything to drive, motorcycles, boats, cars, whatever. So I, you know, in the teens, you get to go to driving and racing schools.

46:02And I signed up for every racing school I possibly could. When you go to a racing school, the first thing they teach you is how to get out of a spin or how to get out of when your car starts to lose control. And the first thing they tell you is never look at the wall, because if you look at the wall, you're going to hit the wall, you know. So you are and literally be facing the wall, but you have to be looking where you want to go because your body will start. You start steering towards that. So all we're doing neurologically with asking better questions is we're neurologically steering our focus.

46:29And once you steer your focus, man, you're in business. You can do really anything. So good. But guys, one thing I love about Rich is that I think he humanizes elite performance. And obviously, he has an unusually high IQ. He would not admit that himself, but he does. And his temperament is really, really special. But you're behind the scenes now. If you've ever wondered how these special operator guys think and work and navigate through their lives, they have similar fears or anxieties just like you do. Maybe they're not similar, but they have them. And I'm just curious as an aside, just as a side, I'm you and I are both sort of doing a lot of work in our lives on this parasympathetic sympathetic state stuff.

47:12Right. It's it's kind of like the new frontier in performance and happiness and longevity and heart rate variability and all this stuff that you and I are learning and growing into. Do you do any other hack stuff with it? I'm curious. Do you use like a Pulsetto or one of those Nuvana devices? Do you and most people don't even know what I'm describing? I'm not endorsing a device. I'm just curious beyond breathing and questions and meditation. Are you doing any any of these hack devices? Do you believe in any of them? use them experimented with some of them the the the bio stuff that i'm using i have the aura ring which i love because i yeah i want to monitor my sleep i have a gps watch that kind of yeah show how far i want i have gotten very good at at controlling my own levels of i don't i just don't get stressed out i i just know and i think obviously i got you know as hyper developed again as a team guy so so um so i don't find myself needing to um defer to some of these more conscious techniques because I just automatically, it's funny, we just, we automatically calm down.

48:11Here's a funny story. You know, I live in, you know, I live in, I'm in Virginia Beach. I've been in the same house for 23 years, my wife and I, and we've been married the whole time, right? And, and across the street from us, a seal lives, a Navy seal lives. Down the street to the left, there's a Navy seal and down the street to the right, there's a Navy seal. And so I, I remember Kristen saying, you know, I love that these guys are in the neighborhood. And I said, why? Because if anything, if you weren't here, anything went wrong, I know I could go to them. And it acts like you act. And I said, what do you mean by that?

48:39It's like, as soon as something happens, as soon as the shit hits the fan, all you guys do is you immediately calm down and you start solving the problem. You take it step by step. And so all this to say, I've experimented with some of that stuff. I very highly recommend. There's breathing apps. I mean, the more people can practice this consciously, the more you create the unconscious competence and you do it in times without even thinking. And so if there's something new to you, then go make a conscious effort to practice some of the stuff, whether it be breathing, whether it be DPOing and shifting horizons.

49:10Because the more you do it, you'll begin to achieve an unconscious competence. And so you'll start hitting uncertainty, or uncertainty will hit you, and you'll just start moving the way you need to. And of course, like we said, the collateral of that is you'll start picking deliberate steps into your discomfort, your uncomfortable zone, and start growing as a human being. You really believe your language can override your thought. In other words, in the book, you put forward this I am statement stuff. Yeah. And so I wanted to ask you about that. It's the part of the book where I've struggled in my own life believing my own language.

49:46Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wanted to ask you about this so you can help me with it. But you push in the book, suggest I am statements and how that can begin to create the identity. And maybe, by the way, I do more of that to my benefit unconsciously than I realize. You know, maybe I maybe I must have, I guess, because it works. So talk about I am statements and how it correlates with identity, because we we moved off identity earlier. But I want to give everybody the tool as well. Yeah. Well, at a minimum, what an am statement does is it focuses you. It focuses your attention. Anything we put. I always kind of say that the two most powerful words in the human language are I am, because whatever you put after those two words is where you focus your behavior.

50:28I am a father. I am a Navy SEAL. I am whatever. I'm a smoker, right? I mean, we've heard about people quitting habits like this by just saying, I am not a smoker. So at a minimum, what an I am statement does is it focuses your attention appropriately. However, neurologically, this is also true. And, you know, like Andrew Huberman will talk about this part of the brain. It's called the anterior mid-cingulate cortex. Okay. It's a, it's just saw him talking about this go. This is great. It's a part of the brain that, that allows human beings to do hard stuff. And if we're not doing hard stuff, it actually shrinks.

51:04If we're doing hard stuff, it actually grows. But one of the things, one of the techniques that he talks about is that you can literally be doing hard stuff and say to yourself, I love this stuff. I love this stuff and be lying to yourself. And if you do it enough, your brain will start to believe that you actually love it. So I am 100 % believer in the fact that our words and our thoughts focus our attention and can in fact change the outcome even neurologically. I believe the reverse is also true, guys. When you're doing something that didn't work out or doesn't serve you, to use your language to separate yourself from it so that it doesn't become a part of your identity.

51:42Just to kick in here a little bit. So like with my golfers that I work with, I'll just share this in front of Rich and I'll ask another question, but when they putt, if you've ever played golf, usually when you miss a putt, when you say, I suck, I can't putt, blah, blah, blah. And believe it or not, even elite professional players do this and they'll miss a putt. Shit, I suck. And they're actually reinforcing this part of their identity with their language. And so if you just simply say, when you miss the putt, that's not like me. That's not like me. That's not like me. You bang a drive to the left out of bounds.

52:13That's not like me. And believe it or not, if you repetitively do this with your language, it's that powerful. I am or I am not are powerful language statements. Now, obviously, your brain is accepting the I am statements much easier if you understand how the mind works than it is an I am not statement. But when you separate from something with your language as well, and even when you have a disagreement with your spouse, that's not like me. I shouldn't talk like that. I don't talk like that. There's a separator. Let me ask you this, Rob, because we're going to run out of time and there's way too much stuff in the book.

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53:30I got breathing stuff. I've got moving my horizons. I've got my language. I've got all these different things. What's something I didn't ask you that should be in here? And we had a great we we've messed the conversation up if we didn't cover it. Well, yeah, that's a great. Here's what I would say is uncertainty by definition cannot be predicted. So it'd be it'd be impossible for you or I to give examples that people could lean upon in terms of using this. The great news is you can start using and practice this stuff in fairly certain environments. We do this, by the way, when we work out. OK, I was I was this morning on Mondays.

54:02As I go, there's a huge hill here in Virginia Beach. And I basically put on a 40-pound weight vest. I run up the hill. I do sprints up the hill. I was DPO. I was picking horizons as I go up that hill, you know, because it really is. When you're working out, you can pick horizons. If you want to get healthy and, you know, eat right, you know, don't talk about, you know what, I'm going to start Monday. I'm going to eat healthy for the next six months. No, no, no, no. Start Monday and eat healthy for breakfast. That's your first horizon. And then you say, you know what, my next horizon might be lunch.

54:30my next horizon might start experimenting with some of the distances on these things and getting good at this idea of picking horizons and creating dpos and it becomes habitual you'll start doing it everywhere and so you'll begin to at a minimum take some of that mundane stuff and actually start to make it more uh palatable and in some cases more fun just by using this technique and the collateral effect of that is when uncertainty in fact hits you'll start to do it you'll say okay what do I know kind of control? Here's what I'm going to focus on. I'm going to move to that. And then do that and you're going to move to the next thing.

55:03So, so the, the reason why I get jazzed about articulating this, some of the stuff, even though I, you know, you know me now, I just love doing it. I love figuring the stuff I'm putting words behind it is again, once you can say it, you can practice it. And once you can practice it, you can get good at it. And once you can get good at it, you can master it. And so in there become a master of uncertainty. The, uh, I was thinking when you were talking earlier, I was, um, this year's Superbowl, everyone knows I'm sort of a Brady fan we were neighbors for quite a while and and he broadcasted the Super Bowl this year Rich where the Chiefs were getting beat really really bad and there was this ongoing conversation hey is Mahomes the Goaters you know which was ridiculous of course sorry Chiefs fans but having said that that game got away from the Chiefs and I thought this is such a great analogy of horizons and moving horizons Brady was asked afterwards what do you think happened because Brady was down 28 to three in a Super Bowl and came back and won it.

55:57And he said, he literally used the word horizon. He said, I think they tried to score all 20 points back on one possession. He said, when we were down 28 to three, I changed the horizon. I just wanted to get a first down. It's okay to throw a screen pass and just move the ball three yards. Now it's second and seven. Now it's a lot more manageable. And to begin to chunk the game or to bite the elephant one at a time. If you look at almost anything, you guys, that you admire, someone who's come back or someone's overcome something, they do exactly what Rich is describing. My dad's sobriety, Brady in a Super Bowl, someone preparing for a big test they've gotten, seventh grade to get into eighth grade.

56:38These are the things you do that Rich has described here. So I just want to acknowledge the power of your work. Masters of Uncertainty, guys. That's the title of the book. Let me ask you outside of the book. You've had, I said earlier, I referenced, I want to just get into you here. The book is so good. He sold it to you guys today. If you didn't even read the book, your life's a thousand times better. You've, you've had a view of life though, of leadership, of people you've led, of the world in general. Um, the very few people have had, I always love your opinion, especially when the world is chaotic and stressed and uncertain as it is, I guess every day, but sometimes the light shines brighter on the uncertainty than other times.

57:18So whether you look at the economy right now with tariffs or you look at the geopolitical environment in the U.S., you look at the border, you look at Gaza, and you look at Ukraine and Russia and Iran and China and the world. What is your view? Are you optimistic? Optimistic? Are you bullish on the world in the future? AI coming. All of this uncertainty, right? Like I could keep going, right? Oh, you're right. AI coming. What is your overall worldview right now? And is it different than it was 10 years ago? Well, okay. So the second part of that question, I'm not sure if I know that. It likely is different.

58:03I think we change as we mature and we grow older. So it would be tough to say how it's different, but it certainly is different. Here's what I'll say is, and regardless of anybody's politics or your mind, you and I share a lot of the same views. I am someone who, once we have someone running our country or an administration, I root for them. I want them to do great. I really, I think that's what patriotism is. Patriotism also, though, is taking a hard look and being honest with your assessment of what's going on. And I will say that I want to I'm remaining optimistic because I think that I think that there are some initiatives and directives that I think are worthwhile and are meaningful.

58:46I want to make sure that we as a nation are making sure are looking at what's going on both in our country and with geopolitically and all that stuff and the way we're responding and constantly asking ourselves, are we still doing the right thing? Are we still doing the right thing? Because the beauty of this country is we get every two years, we get a chance to vote our opinion or vote our conscience on this stuff. And what I fear in today's society, in today's politics, is the polarization to the degree that some people are like, hey, that's my team. And even though I believe these two issues, I'm going to go all in on this side.

59:26And none of us should go all in on any side. As Americans, it's our responsibility to not go all in on just one side. It's our responsibility as Americans to look at things holistically and ask ourselves some really honest questions about how things are running. And I think if we do that, I'm optimistic about the fact that I think we will get some good stuff done and some good stuff will be done. And if we start to see that it's overspill or things are starting to go in a direction we don't want to, let's make a stand and let's vote a different direction and let's find a different way to do it.

59:59If we find things are going great, let's keep doing what we're doing. But overall, Ed, I remain optimistic because I think pessimism, in my mind, is energy expensive. There's not a lot of value I can derive from pessimism. I can still, as an optimist, be skeptical. I don't think skepticism and pessimism are the same thing. I think skepticism is an honest look at questioning what's going on and thinking about answers and thinking about solutions. I think pessimism just veers towards negativity and is less valuable. So I will remain optimistic, but I will also remain a skeptic, a healthy skeptic, and be looking at things very carefully as we move forward, staying engaged, staying positive, and also making sure I'm not getting drawn into either of the polarities.

1:00:48because if you're in those polarities, man, you're just know you're lost. You are a sheep. If you're one of those polarities, you're a sheep. Even though you're accusing other people of being a sheep, you are a sheep. So stay out of the polarities. CY is one of my favorite people. You guys, I just get a sense of humans. And the minute that I met Rich, I liked him instantly. I mean it instantly. And every time I'm around him, it's confirmed. It's one of the things that as life gets busy and you get older, when you initially meet somebody, you think I'm going to know them and be a lot closer to them.

1:01:17And then eight years goes by and you're like, I've only seen him a couple of times. You know, I enjoy his company very much. And you can tell why. I just think he's a bright mind and a good mind and a good man. And by the way, I've only written, I've probably been asked four or 500 times. I've only written an endorsement or a blurb and I think eight books ever. And when he called and asked me to, it was just, yes, I hadn't even seen the book. I'll be honest with you at the time. It was just because he had asked me to. And so I was honored to do it. and after reading the book, I'm really glad my name's in it.

1:01:49I'm honored that I'm in it. And so Masters of Uncertainty, everybody with Rich Divini, you don't hear conversations like this every day, everybody. You get to hear them here. And I'm very grateful for our friendship, brother. Thank you for being here today. Thank you. I'm grateful and honored as well. So I look forward to all the future conversations. So thank you. 10 out of 10. God bless you, everybody. Share today's episode. Max out. This is the Ed Myland Show.