Dr. Michael Gervais: Master Your Mindset to Dominate in Business and Life | Human Behavior | YAPClassic

25:37It helps with confidence. It helps with self-talk. It helps with neurological firing of behavior patterns, meaning it's code for it helps you be better at something that you want to do later. It helps provide psychological safety because you're imagining a future state and seeing yourself do well in it. Okay, and, and, and, and. So really what that is, is using your imagination. Most people close their eyes. You don't have to. But you use your imagination to see yourself being great in the future. So you want to use all five senses. And when you use all five senses, you're trying to see it and feel it and hear it, smell it, what tastes like or touch what that's like.

26:21It's as if it's so lifelike that you're actually experiencing it. Your brain, our brains have a hard time distinguishing if it's that vivid of an imagination, if it's real, or if it's in our imagination. So it defaults that it could be real. And it starts to lay familiarity with excellence. It starts to lay, or whatever you're seeing, it starts to lay and groove tracks at a neurological level around it. And so it's really cool. It's very powerful. It's something that I think most of us can relate to in a, I'll use this in a non-traditional way, is that if you close your eyes and imagine the sexiest human you can imagine and complete provocateur imagination here.

27:07Your body, if the image is lifelike and it's sensual and it's amazing, your body will likely respond to that. So that type of experiment, most of us know, right? Now we're using that same type of experiment for performance excellence. And then I'll add one more detailed nuance here is that I think this is not research-based, but I think 85%, 15 % is a healthy ratio. 85 % of the time you're seeing a compelling future that is you being successful in it. When I say seeing, I should strike that. You're imagining where you're successful in it. And then 15 % of the time, you're putting yourself in a very compromised situation, in a situation where it could go wrong, where there's a quote unquote trap door in the future experience where it feels like you're just sliding out of control.

28:01Putting yourself in that situation and then seeing yourself figured out from that is also incredibly powerful and rewarding. So 85-15 is the ratio that I ask most of the athletes or performers that I work with to do. And when you say 85-15, what do you mean by that exactly? Sorry. So the 85 % of the time is seeing and feeling success as if it's easy. and then 15 % of the time is putting yourself in a compromised situation and working out success from that compromised situation. Oh, I love that advice. Cool. Well, this reminds me of, I do a lot of speaking and presentations and I find that for me to do my best job, a lot of the times I'll be dreaming about having this presentation and I'll actually get very little sleep the night before because I'll just be dreaming, this is exactly what I'm gonna say, this is exactly how I'm gonna move, this is exactly what I'm going to do.

28:55And I end up being very tired the next day, but knowing exactly what to do. And I end up rocking whatever I have to do because I've practiced it all night. And that sounds very similar, but I should probably find the time to like meditate and do that beforehand so that I don't end up getting insomnia the night before or something like that. Yeah. Your first insight is totally on it is that you know that it works. You know that when you can rehearse in your mind that you're able to be more familiar with it later. Awesome. You don't want to wait and cram for a final exam. And that's kind of what you're suggesting your practice is, is that you're cramming.

29:32And so if you could build that into a daily rhythm, if you could build that into a daily practice and not just wait for the quote unquote big moment where you're going to do mental imagery, you'll be far better at it, exponentially better. And then I'll just thin slice something I heard is you talked about doing meditation. Meditation and imagery oftentimes are collapsed on each other, but they are different practices. And meditation in and of itself is more about awareness and it is more about working to get to the truth of something. Imagery is about seeing a compelling future. When you're in a meditative state, you certainly can slide into mental imagery or rehearsal.

30:18But meditation really, from an ancient wisdom perspective, usually has a bit of a different base on the purpose. Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to ask you about is, how do we actually bake this into our routine, this imagery practice? I would start with something small. Start with three minutes, work your way up to eight minutes, and then if you really are finding value in it, keep it going. On a regular basis, for me, When I've got something that I'm really working towards and it's very crisp and clear, it's about 15 to 20 minutes a day. And it's helped me exponentially. It's helped work class athletes exponentially.

30:58And then what I do on a regular basis when I don't have something that is like electric and charging, call it public speaking or whatever it might be, is that it's more like 90 seconds a day. It's finding something. And I can send your listeners something if they would like an audio of what I would call my morning mindset routine. It's four steps to do in the morning. And I can give them to you here. And this is where I get my imagery in. Before I pull my sheets off, there's just a handful of things I do. And it takes about 90 seconds. And world-class athletes have been doing this with me for 20 years now.

31:33The first is one deep breath. That's it. One inhale and one long exhale. Before you check your phone and all that stuff that everyone knows is not optimized, one deep breath. It wakes up part of your brain that says, hey, you're in control and you're safe. You're okay. And so it's one deep breath. If you want to do two, three, four, five, awesome. But I'm just saying do at least one. The next step is at least one thought of gratitude. Now, the gratitude wakes up a different part of your brain, circuitry. And this is not a check the box, like I'm grateful that I have my heart or I'm grateful that I have my wife.

32:10It's not a check the box. It's hit on one and completely be embodied with it, like really feel it. And then the third is one intention. And then the intention is really using your imagination to see yourself being great later in the afternoon, later in the day. And so what is your intention for the today? Today, my intention was roots and reach. So to be grounded and be able to share ideas with your community is the reach part. And so I just had a quick hit of feeling how I wanted to be in this conversation with you. And it only lasts like 10, 15 seconds. No problem. That's it. And then the fourth thing is take your sheets off and just take a moment and be where your body is.

32:52Just practice being fully present. And it's those four steps that I think are foundational to waking up very specific parts of the brain circuitry that I want to be more active throughout my day. Oh my gosh. I love that so much. I'm like practicing this whole new morning routine. So I'm definitely going to start implementing those four steps in the morning. Okay. So let's move on to your new book. So you've got a book called The First Rule of Mastery, your most recent book. Can you talk to us about the genesis of why you decided to put out this book? If I were to say the first rule of mastery for health or the first rule of health is to stop drinking poison every day?

33:30You'd say, yeah, okay, that makes sense. The first rule of mastery is to stop worrying about what people think of you. So that's the external noise that corrupts the internal signal. And I'm not saying don't care about what other people think, but I'm pointing to the excessive worry that happens for the majority of us. How did it start? I was 15 years old, back to this age in my life that was really important for me. And I just got my permit to drive and I'm driving and I had saved up for my new car. And there was somebody that was passing me in the same direction. And I thought, I'm going to look cool.

34:10I saved up for this car. I sat up, I grabbed the steering wheel in a way that was like the cool kid kind of lean. And I tried to catch the eye of the person as they were passing to see if they thought I was cool. They never looked. They never looked in. It's the most dangerous driver in the planet, right? But they never looked in. And I thought to myself in that moment, what am I doing? What is all this activity, psychological and physical that I'm doing to look a certain way to somebody that I've never, what am I doing? And I was so embarrassed by it. I never spoke it out loud, but I knew that I was a bit of a fraud.

34:47There was a phoniness to me. I was pretending or trying to look a certain way for approval. And I kept it quiet. I knew that that was not the right way to do it, but I didn't really have a better way to do it because there was no book on it. There was no course on it. There was nothing about it. So eventually, as I started working with elite athletes, I heard the same thing in them. I heard, I don't want to let people down. I don't want to look stupid. I don't want to blow my opportunity. So there's this thing that kept emerging, which is the first rule is to be true to yourself. The first rule is to work from the inside out.

35:27And as a young driver, I was working from the outside in. I was wanting people to see me a certain way, so I was changing the way that I presented. So the first rule is to work from the inside out. Come to find out, I wrote an article for HBR on this topic. And I called, just for fun, I called it FOPO, fear of people's opinions. And I called it the greatest constrictor of human potential is the fear that we have of other people. That's why public speaking is so terrifying. There's nothing dangerous about public speaking other than what's behind the eyeballs of people in the audience. It's just their opinion, just their thoughts.

36:03And so I wrote an article and 12 months later they called and they said, listen, you were the number one downloaded article 12 months in a row. You really touched a nerve. Let's write a book about it. And so I said, okay, cool. And as I wrote the book, I come to find out our brain is intimately connected to needing and wanting and craving the approval of other people. The approval from others means that we're safe. At the center of a community, we're not going to get plucked off from the warring tribe. The sheep that's at the middle of the herd doesn't get plucked off either. So there's something about safety and belonging.

36:43and come to find out that we are exceptionally skilled at just listening for and scanning and searching for even the slightest hint of rejection. Because if you and I, 200 ,000 years ago, we're in the tribe, Hala, and you and I were supposed to go do something for the tribe. And we came back and we didn't have the right result and we kind of took it laissez-faire and we just didn't do a good enough job. And maybe some kids went hungry or maybe there was some rationing that needed to happen across the tribe because you and I didn't do a good enough job. They might give us a pass. They might give us a second pass.

37:18But at some point on the third pass, they're going to say, Holla, Mike, listen, you don't fit here anymore. We don't trust you. You two, you got to go. You're out. And that meant certain death, right? Because the wild is just too wild for two people to figure it out on their own. And so we need each other. We need the tribe. We are social beings. We masquerade like we're these individual selves, but we are more like a coral reef than we are like individuals just trying to figure it out on our own. And so 200 ,000 years to today, we are exceptionally skilled at picking up just the slightest hint of rejection.

37:58And that's what FOPO is. It's this anticipation. Are they going to think less of me? What should I wear? How should I sit? What should I say? Am I going to be okay? hey, do I laugh at the jokes? Do I not laugh at the jokes that are slightly offensive? There's this anticipation phase. And then when you're actually in the environment, there's a checking phase. So I'm no longer tuning to the task at hand, but I'm looking to you to see if I'm okay. I'm outsourcing my self-worth. I'm outsourcing my self-confidence. I'm outsourcing to your approval. And I don't know what you're thinking. And so now I'm playing a game to get favor from you.

38:40And that is the corrupt. That is the corruption to authenticity. And that is now we're in the throes of the constrictor of potential. And an example of this FOPO experience is like checking your phone so that you appear to be busy or in demand. It's laughing at a joke that you don't find funny so that you look like you're part of the in-tribe. It's staying late at a job because you know that your boss values that, but your job is actually done. It's pretending to know a song or a movie that everyone is talking about because you don't want to be the weird one. It shows up in lines at coffee outlets where you're nervous about getting your order out in time because you've got 10 people behind you that are a little agitated.

39:24It's all of these weird ways that it shows up in modern times. That's FOPO. So then the last thing that takes place in FOPO is that the way we respond is that we conform to the approval. We'll contort our basic principles. Sometimes we will confront another person just to see if we're okay in their eyes. So the net-net is that there's all of this underpinning activity that takes place just to see if I'm okay. And that's exhausting. It's expensive to run the organism that's trying to be okay rather than to be oneself. And it's incredibly problematic for people to live what I would consider the good life.

40:07This resonates very heavily probably with everybody who's tuning in right now because we all feel it. And in today's world, we probably feel it even more than our ancestors did because we've got social media and all this comparison and everything's just so transparent now where we can see how other people are doing very transparently. So I imagine that it's getting worse and worse. Can you talk to us about how giving in to FOPO actually hurts us from progressing towards our goals and can hurt us? Well, if FOPO is an unproductive obsession with what other people think of us, if we don't do something to work with it, what ends up taking place is we live life on other people's terms.

40:50We live life according to what the tribe wants rather than what is good for ourselves. And there is a harmony between being connected socially and being oneself authentically. There's a harmony between those two. And if we're over-indexing on just being approved by other people, we miss the opportunity to live life according to our unique experiences in life. And so what ends up taking place is that we play it safe and we play it's small and we never truly know what we are capable of. And so if you're listening and you're like, do I have FOPO? I think I do. I'm not sure. We built an assessment for fun and we found three different types of people that have FOPO.

41:32And so you can find that on our website, which was findingmastery.com forward slash assessment. It's on our website. And I think for the most part, the only people that don't have FOPO are sociopaths, narcissists, and the truly enlightened. And so everybody else is at some level struggling with it. And so, I mean, welcome to the club. This is something that is not unique to just you. So a great example that you share in the book is Beethoven, how he got over his FOPO. Can you share that story with us? Beethoven, one of the greatest of all time, come to find out he too had an obsession about what people thought of him.

42:12So much so that he ended up having to leave and go away from the city life. And he held himself up in a private little cabin in the woods where he was terrified. He was terrified that people were going to find out that he was losing his hearing. And what's really interesting is that, so he's one of the best in the world at this time. and he couldn't hear. And he was so terrified that somebody as perfect, pitch perfect as he was, was losing his hearing what they would think. And surely it was going to ruin his career. And so what he did, this is so clever and I think it's so common amongst so many of us, is that he was pretending, even though he couldn't hear somebody, he was pretending as if he was in an aloof creative space.

43:02When somebody would say, Beethoven, can't you hear me? He'd say, because he really couldn't. He'd say, oh, I'm sorry, I was in my raptus. I was in my creative world. So sorry. Yes, mere mortal, what was it that you were saying? So he was creating a persona or an alternative excuse for something that was honestly taking place for him because he was afraid of what they would think of him. So he goes away for a handful of years. And when he finally says to himself, I can't do it like this anymore. I cannot live, hold up, and afraid of what other people think. I'm not quoting him exactly because there was no term called FOPO at the time, right?

43:40But I can't do this anymore. I need to keep creating my music. So he started to tune to his music inside rather than the music and the approval of other people. And it said that we all know Beethoven's Fifth, that that came from him being frustrated, pounding his piano because he can't hear it. And it was like a bang, bang, bang, bang. And then from that, he said, wait a minute, what was that? And he extended it, bum, bum, bum, bum. And he ended up creating some of his most beautiful memorialized work ever, Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 and 9, while he was held up in his cabin, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. And so just awesome.

44:24I see myself not as the genius of Beethoven, but needing to create a secondary narrative that no, no, no, I'm actually okay. hey, I was just doing something different, so sorry, when actually I was struggling inside in some way. And so I recognize it in elite athletes, elite executives, and my friends as well. Great example. So something that you mentioned before was that we contort ourselves because of FOPO. Can you talk to us about some of the ways that we contort ourselves and why that's not a great thing to do? It's an abandonment of our first principles is when we're laughing or nodding or not speaking up to something that is offensive or degrading to self or others.

45:09And we abandon our first principles for the approval, for the acceptance, for the safety of being included by somebody else. And it happens in subtle ways, and it happens in pretty radical ways. And all of the world's greats. I'd be hard-pressed to find one of the world's greats that didn't wrestle with this. Gandhi, Mandela, Mother Teresa, Dr. King Jr., and the list goes on and on and on and on, where they felt something and they didn't like how that felt, so they spoke against it. So the greats understand this tension. They too found it challenging to speak up, and they risked their lives for it.

45:52And it changed their livelihood. It changed the way that they lived by speaking truth to power. So all of the world greats, all of our quote-unquote heroes in life did what we consider to be the rare and extraordinary approach is speaking truth to power rather than swallowing our words. And so we can practice that in small ways at holiday parties or in hallways inside of our offices is instead of maybe seeing it truth to power, just speaking truth. And if you can just speak your truth and you can do it gracefully and you can do it with kindness, people pay attention. And it's not so much about their changing of behavior because we can't change them.

46:33We can't change how their thoughts work or how their behaviors are going to go, but you're honoring your first principles and you're no longer contorting for approval or acceptance or safety, but you are honoring your first principles. And there's one more piece here that we highlight in the book, which is how to move from a performance-based identity to a purpose-based identity. And all the greats that we just talked about and the ones that come to your imagination were purpose-based. And that's available to all of us. We live in a culture, Hala, that is obsessed with performance. And I live in the world of high performance, meaning that if I don't help the best in the world be better in business and or sport, that I'm asked to stay at home.

47:19Please don't come again. Please, you're not invited on the next whatever. So it's requisite to help people in my industry be their very best. However, in this performance-obsessed culture that we live in, doesn't it make sense that by default we would develop a performance-based identity? And that is quite simply, I am not who I am, not what I stand for, but I am what I do relative to how well you do it. So I'm okay when I'm just a little bit better or just slightly not as good as you, but I'm in the ballpark. That's the majority of people. Then the kind of quote unquote crazy performers are the ones that have to be the best in the world.

48:03That's still a performance-based identity. So a performance-based identity is an obsession with how good or well I do something. That could get you on the world stage. That could help you have a gold medal around your neck, a billion dollars in the bank account. However, there comes a point in time when the cost of a performance-based identity to living, quote unquote, the good life is pretty high. So the purpose-based, the navigation from performance-based to purpose-based identity is a road that has not traveled enough and is incredibly rewarding. And those are the people that I've studied to understand how they've done it.

48:43And it's remarkable. It's available for all of us. Have you done the work, Hallett? It feels like you probably have, but have you done the work to be clear about your purpose? I'm pretty clear about my purpose. I've interviewed a lot of people about this topic and I'm pretty good at visioning and manifesting. And I'm pretty clear about my purpose, but I don't think I've probably not done enough. I think there's always room. Not as clear as like Nelson Mandela or not as clear as Mother Teresa, right? Yeah. That would be cool if you spent some time and then flip it over to me. And I'm happy to go back and forth with you about how to clarify it in a way that feels organically honest to you.

49:22And when you do that, it ends up being the greatest bellwether. I don't want to be too esoteric. The greatest factor to be able to shape your thoughts, your words, and your actions to be fully aligned. And so without purpose, it's just so easy to get pulled down into performance or pulled out into approval. And so, yeah, it's really good work. Yeah, and young and profiters, there are so many gems in Michael's book, The First Rule of Mastery. So I highly recommend that everybody go out and get that. Michael, we end our show with two last questions that we ask all of our guests. What is one actionable thing our young and profiters can do today to become more profitable tomorrow?

50:05out. Very cool. So I love the idea of thinking about the types of riches that you inhabit. And so the profit of living the good life, of having joy and happiness, and that type of being profitable and being generative to your community and giving to other people. Bob Marley had it right when he was like, those are the riches that I want. And so what is a simple practice? The morning mindset routine is quite simple. It's a 90 second practice that happens before you get out of bed every morning. I think that I would start there and make it incredibly simple to do. I'm going to recap that in the outro guys, because I'm going to be doing that as well.

50:46And the last question is, what is your secret to profiting in life? Now this can be more broad and profiting in all aspects of life. Well, I'll keep it consistent with our conversation today. And on the Finding Mastery podcast, I had Michael Phelps coach. And I asked him a very similar question. And Michael Phelps is one of the greatest Olympians of all time. And he talked about the power that Michael committed to of using his imagination to see a compelling future for himself. He was incredibly disciplined in the pool, according to his coach, and incredibly disciplined outside of the pool, on dry land, as they call it.

51:22So it's this discipline to have a compelling future, to use your imagination on a regular basis to see yourself being your very best and to have the discipline. So that's part one of discipline is imagination. And then part two of discipline is being disciplined with the way you speak to yourself, to back yourself, to choose the highest available way to coach yourself, to help yourself through it in a way that if a nine-year-old girl or a 12-year-old boy were listening, that they go, Oh, that's how you successful people speak to yourself. Because most of us say, when asked, do you speak to yourself in a way that you would want your kids to know or your nieces and nephews to know?

52:05And most of them say, oh God, no. No, I would not want them to know how I really speak to myself. So be the beacon for the next generation. And the way to do that is to speak to yourself in a fully transparent way that if they were to know how you spoke, they'd be like, oh, I get it. I want to do it that way too, because they're looking to us. And this next generation is going to need the best of us, because what we have worked through, we have screwed up in many ways. I'm Generation X. We screwed up in a lot of ways. And so AI is fundamentally changing. It is the new industrial revolution. It is fundamentally changing the game.

52:45And we're no longer going to need to know the answers to the test. We're going to need to know how to write the right questions. And so hopefully the power of AI is going to help the planet. It's going to help people's ability to unlock their potential for humans to flourish. And I would say to be profitable in any way that they deem to be important. Oh my gosh, so, so good. And just so you guys know, I'm interviewing so many AI experts lately. So you guys are going to hear all about it. Michael, this was such a great conversation. Thank you so much for your time. We learned so much about FOPO, about imagery, about so many different things, about how we can become better masters in everything that we do.

53:22So thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for including me in your passion.