 All right, Steve. Welcome to the show. And I guess to kick this off, why don't we go ahead and discuss why you got interested in peak performance. Yeah. So it's been a long interest of mine. I mean, I was a runner growing up in high school and then into college. So I've always kind of been in the performance world and always kind of looking at how to improve my own performance. But as I kind of grew up and maybe didn't hit some of my own goals in different aspects, I kind of transitioned into, well, what's the next best thing that I can do? And that's help others. And it really was like helping others, coaching, helping other people reach their goals and see things in a different light was really that the only thing that kind of filled that void of performing and competing that was lost once I wasn't competing as an athlete myself. So it really kind of gave meaning and purpose to my pursuits. Well, we appreciate your modesty. I know you say you're a runner, but you are flirting with a sub four minute mile. And when you talk about a goal of breaking that four minutes, for those of us who run casually and enjoy it, that's quite a feed-in of itself. And you talk a little bit about your potential and not meeting that goal and then helping others. And we've had Daniel Pink on the show to talk about regret. How much would you say not meeting that goal has fueled you in this coaching pursuit of yours? I would say initially very much so, very strongly, because it is like in the running world that is the holy grail. That is the defining thing where if you can just say, hey, I ran under a four minute mile, it's like this instance gratification, this instant acknowledgement. So to be on the just barely on the other side of that, and being, you know, having gone after that barrier so many times and falling just a second or two short, like it drove me nuts honestly for a while. Because I was like defining myself by being really, really good at something, like so good that, you know, very few people get to that point, but being just short of like that ultimate, you know, validating factor. And I think that really, I was forced to come to terms with something, which is it's about exploring your own limits and seeing what you can do. And if you get wrapped up too much in towards that, like just random arbitrary mark, which a four minute mile, like it's arbitrary, it sounds great, four laps around the track under four minutes, like it sounds great. But, you know, if a minute was a little longer in time, I would have been fine. So it's completely kind of arbitrary. So you just have to kind of learn how to let go of that. But I think falling short really kind of, you know, in going through that struggle really kind of shaped my career and what I wanted to do because, you know, I felt like I had this own battle that I'd kind of fallen short on. And maybe I could help others navigate those situations. And I think we all have a four minute mile or some sort of barrier in our life that we face. And you had this at a young age when your coaches saw all of this potential and placed these expectations on you and you didn't even realize how big of a feat it was in the beginning in your running career. So how do you view coaches setting expectations on the athletes that they work with the executives that they work with? And what is that relationship now in the coaching that you do? Because we have parents, we have family members, we have friends who will coworkers, managers who will place these expectations on us. And many times we don't see our own potential, we don't realize the expectation that has been there. And then falling short or having someone push us, we could talk about how we're so often in our definition of toughness, that internal struggle, that battle, I think we can all relate to even if we're not runners. Yeah, exactly. No, I think this applies to every aspect of your life because whether it's in sport or life or business or even relationships, like the expectations you set shape how you're going to see reality. And they can either be things that open up a new world where a coach, a parent, a teacher, you know, opens you up and says, hey, you're capable of this and you don't see it, but I see it. And that can be incredibly powerful. On the flip side, expectations can hold us back and get us in the way, right? Instead of these opening effects or these goals that motivate us, they can become these barriers that almost define us. And I think, you know, in my own running career, setting that expectation initially opened up, opened me up. I was like, oh, this is what's possible. Great. This person thinks I can do it. But over time, I kind of let it become this barrier where it was like, I was pressing and striving, not out of a motivation of like joy and experience and exploration, but of a motivation of almost, I have to do this. And when we perform out of that place of, I have to, instead of I want to, causes us to tense up. We don't perform as well. We feel more stress and anxiety and we're almost like playing not to lose instead of playing to win. That concept of playing not to lose, right? So that one, I feel really hits home, especially around those expectations that the people we look up to place on us, because there's the self-disappointment and then there's the disappointing of the family, the coach, the boss who sees this potential. How did you wrestle with that through your running career? And then how do you approach that now in the coaching work that you do? We have these kind of basic psychological needs and one of them is to feel like we're competent and to feel valued and to feel like we're satisfying those who we see as mentors or authority figures in our life. And often what happens is if we just get that kind of negative feedback back or those expectations become a burden, it puts us in that play not to lose. And you just feel like you're disappointing others. And actually, I think the research in choking and sport is really helpful here. Because if you look at, okay, why do athletes quote unquote, choke and sport, most of it points to a sensation or feeling of judgment. Man, choking doesn't occur in practice. It occurs when there's something on the line and people who have importance in our life or meaning around it are there kind of evaluating and judging us. And there's been some fascinating work that has shown that just having a coach and a coach with either an approach where they almost like have put this fear on you where you better perform or else versus a coach who says like, hey, win or lose, like, yeah, I might be disappointed, but I got your back. Whenever we have that coach with that fear base side, we tend to choke more often. Because again, we're in that area where, you know, we're playing not to disappoint people. So in all aspects of your life, I think that's where it's really important is like, how do you set yourself up where you kind of leave that burden behind? Now, there is a ton of amazing, great data and research that you have put into this book. And I want to get to that because our audience is going to love it. And there's a lot of revelations in there that open things up. However, I do want to go into the scandal because there is some value there in how you dealt with that and what you've been through and persevered through to be able to continue this career when it came to something so notorious. And it could have been a career ending episode for you right there. And I think a lot of our audience, if we're going to be talking about resiliency and toughness, we need to hear this story. And I think it will certainly color a lot of the other conversations that we're going to have. Basically right out of graduate school, I hadn't had a quote unquote real job in my life. And I get this call up from Alberto Salazar, the famed runner who was working with Nike and he offered me a job. I mean, he said, hey, do you want it? Your finalists come interview. And I was like, why are you picking me? I moved out to Oregon and I took what I thought my expectation was, it's my dream job. Like I was working with the best runners in the world, athletes who would go on to win Olympic gold and Olympic medals and all this stuff. And I was an assistant coach out there, you know, helping out. So in my world, here I am, I forget maybe 25, 26. And I'm thinking, I just hit the jackpot. Like I didn't have to work my way through and up and go through all this. I just like literally hit the jackpot. But over time, I started seeing things that didn't match up with how I thought sport was done. In long story short, I stayed there for a year and a half, but I ultimately ended up blowing the whistle on anti-doping violations that I saw. So things that I saw that broke the rules of sport and I reported them to US anti-doping. And people hear that and they often think like, oh, you're a whistleblower. That took courage and all did that and it did. But the reality is, we think we have this one moment where you're like, okay, here I am with these ethics and morals and they're going to be superior and I'm going to do the right thing if I'm put in a bad situation. But that's not life. Life is much messier. And what ended up occurring is, again, I thought this was my dream job. So for a long time, I justified, I rationalized. I said, oh, yeah, that's a little bit off. But you know what? I'm just going to ignore that or justify it. And even when I asked very close friends and mentors and my parents for advice, from the outside, they're like, yeah, maybe that's a little weird. But these are the best of the best. This is Nike. So they're not going to do anything crazy. So maybe just stick it out a couple more months. The amount of people who told me, just make it through the next Olympic Games and then evaluate it. That's what everyone's advice was. And I understand that. And I think, maybe my message on this is it's not about like, we all like to think we have this ethics and this morals and the superiority and what have you, but you never know until you put in that situation. And it's much more nuanced and messy. And you find yourself doing things sometimes that cross even your own ethical boundaries before, hopefully, you find yourself on the other side and like, you know, get your mind on right to do the right thing eventually. I think there's a lot of trial and error that goes along with that as well. If you're very interested in a subject, let's take marketing. It's a notorious field. And you're trying to figure out what is reaching a certain audience. And you're determined to understand that audience to the best of your abilities. Then there's going to be a lot of experimentation that is going to come with learning and understanding that. And sometimes to get the ultimate results in that, you might have to push the boundaries of what you may or may not think is right in those moments to get the results that you need in order to be more effective at your job. And so to go along what you're saying, it is quite messy. There is that movement there of testing those waters and then having an understanding of where you stand and what you have seen and what you think is moral and ethical in those situations. Well, I think the other thing that comes up in this is this view that you were green in this situation and they didn't outright say, hey, go cheat on this. They were asking you to do things that raised alarm bells internally, but when everyone is going in one direction and you're new in this role, that inner turmoil, it is very easy to be like, well, I'm going to listen to what everyone else says, stick it out through the Olympics. This can't be real. And that disbelief that's going on. So we talked a little bit about the expectations that coaches put on us. This is the flip side of the expectations of you had of people you looked up to. And when they fell short of it and then going through that whistleblower process, was there a clear decision point for you? And how did you deal with that fallout after? Because obviously when people get called out and for misbehavior, it's usually not with a pat on the back. Great job. So thankfully you did that, Steve. Yeah, that's a great that those are both great points, Johnny and AJ. And I'm glad you brought this up because it is in part of it is, you know, it sounds really weird, but you're almost having this internal struggle. Because you're right, AJ, like those are people like the people I was working with are people I literally looked up to. I mean, there are people I read books about, right? So you have this image, you're like, these are our heroes in this world. These are the people that I should mimic. And so there is a very strong pull when everyone is going in one direction, like you just kind of go in it. And in that to me, the lesson there is, again, is how strong the environmental pull of the people around us, the places we're in can take us. We like to think like, oh, I'm an individual and I think for myself, but the reality is your environment pulls you. And if you're not aware of that, you're just going to get pulled along with it even more so than you would if you have that awareness. So that's number one. And I think to answer the rest of your question is, did I have this singular moment? I think it was like this wrestling with this internal and out external experience. And even actually after I left, I didn't blow the whistle initially because I just want to be done with it. I was just like, I don't know what I need. I just experienced. I know it. It wasn't what I expected. It was almost like my brain kind of blew up and I couldn't make sense of reality anymore. So I just for a couple months, I just went back home, moved and like found another job and just tried to put it behind me until, you know, one day it was kind of like, okay, I can't let go of this. It's eating away at me. I don't want anybody else to go through this same situation. So I'm going to blow the whistle. And again, even there, I remember parents, close advisors, like mentors all said, like just move on with it. It's not worth the battle. You're kind of David versus Goliath. And I went with that for a couple of weeks, but then I was just like, that internal pull is telling me I got to do it. So I did it. And then afterwards, to answer that, I mean it, I'll put it this way. Whenever somebody thinks like, oh, this person is blowing the whistle for fame or a notoriety or whatever, let me tell you, you don't get anything out of being a whistleblower. It is not a fun experience. I mean, it's just not. That's why it doesn't happen, truthfully. I mean, that's why they offer rewards and try their best to incentivize you too, because all the incentives and the peer pressure is against it. Exactly. And that's 100% what it is. And the experience for me was, I'm like a science nerd, man. I'm like an introvert. And all of a sudden my life is being picked apart in the public. I'm having random reporters track me down at my house, at my work, and getting hate mail and all that stuff. And again, I was just some quiet, mild-mannered introvert that didn't like to deal with publicity. And here I am, my life is picked apart. And more so than that, it's like now, especially in the niche world of Olympic sports, track and field that I was in, everybody that I interacted with already had this judgment on me before I even met and knew them. So I'd go to a track meet and it would be like, oh, you're either avoiding me or you respect me. And there's no in between. It's just everybody has an opinion already on me, which was really weird to deal with. And I'm sure you guys experienced the same with being a big podcast host, but it's just a strange phenomenon where your life story is in someone else's hands. Yeah, it's under the magnifying glass and judgments are being placed whether you like it or not. Exactly. And it's like that lack of control plays a big part in it. So it's very stressful. And what I would say to people is if you find yourself in one of those situations is really make sure that you've got close friends or family or support in your corner that you can fall back on because it's going to be tough. And you're going to kind of lose perspective a little bit and lose your mind a little bit to a degree with the stress. And you've got to have people to ground you and then also things and pursuits and interests outside of that kind of area that where you can kind of escape from and have that moment or space where you can get away from the craziness so that you can survive and get through the stress. It's a harrowing story and I appreciate your candor in the experience because we all will be faced with difficult choices, especially around people we look up to because our heroes are human. And the closer you get to your heroes, the more you see the flaws that you'd like not to believe. You hope weren't there and to come out the other side. And that's the other great part about it. And I want to talk about your life's work now and especially this book because what I love about the book is just how much it dispels toughness and this view that we have in society, this machismo idea of toughness. And you were talking a little bit earlier about the authoritarian coach who just beats you into submission, gets that toughness out of you, brings it to the forefront. And then the supportive coach who is there to help you set the right goals and expectations, but also to support you if you are facing defeat. Why right now do so many of us view toughness as you highlight in the book that Bobby Knight in your face just yell and scream until you get the champions over the finish line? Yeah, I think what it is is it's kind of a societal thing for us, especially in the US, is what happens is because of sport, because of our often misguided view of what the military is, we kind of say, okay, the authoritarian style coach is how you create discipline and leadership and all that good stuff. But what we miss is a couple of different things. First, Bobby Knight, like that was a different era. And if you look at that era as one football player from that era told me, he said, Steve, you know why I didn't quit when my coach was a jerk and all that stuff? It's because either I played football in college or I went home and worked in the fields with my family. So I was just going to stay no matter how bad it was. And I think people look at that and they say, oh, look, we're not tough. It's like, no, we have more options now. What happens is people, if you're put in that situation and your coach is a jerk playing football, you're like, why am I suffering through this? I'm going to go find something where I can utilize my talents. And maybe it's another sport. Maybe it's another activity. In the book, what I try and do is say, all right, this old school method might work for a few people, but we're losing a whole bunch of people along the way who are very talented, capable people. So instead of just throwing the eggs against the wall and saying, okay, the ones that don't break, you're great. How about we focus on how do we develop everybody? How do we get the most out of everybody and allow them to flourish and thrive instead of just trying to get them to survive? Yeah, it seems to me part of that survival that weeding out, as you call it, is simply self-selecting for the people who have these mental tools that are not innate, that they just had the luck or the experience throughout their childhood to have developed them sooner than others. So why are we throwing the baby out with the bathwater and only focusing on the select few that stay till the end, that stick it out, that have that emotional agility, that psychological flexibility, that internal value encompass that allows them to push beyond their own limits, not regardless of the coach screaming at them. Harg is back to my high school football days. I had a very hard-nosed coach like this, and we were doing two-a-day practices, and we had players passing out of heat exhaustion, and we were a losing team. We were not a good team. It did not develop my character in any way. I don't look back on it fondly. I don't go now with adversity with the art of charm, like, oh, I'm so glad I went through that experience. But movies are made about these stories, and we sort of hero-worship these really hard-nosed coaches and these super tough people, and there's this mental component. And obviously, being a runner, there's the physical battle, there's the mental battle, let's unpack for our audience what are those mental tools that create this toughness, not this physical, like, military toughness, but this toughness that we all need to be more resilient to get through life's challenges. If I look at toughness, the way I kind of defined it is, anytime we feel anxiety, stress, discomfort, we're pulled towards sounding the alarm and figuring out how to escape or get through it. What we need to do is figure out how do we create the space to navigate that mental battle instead of just saying, hey, here's a hammer, beat your way through it. There's got to be more ways. A lot of it is coming to terms and working with how your brain and biology and psychology works. First is that mental-emotional space. Well, what happens? We feel stressed. We feel fatigued or pain or discomfort or anxiety. You need to learn how to deal with that and navigate that. A couple of tools that work really well is what research shows is it's not running away from it. It's not avoiding it. It's not saying no crying in baseball. It's learning that emotional regulation is a skill. In order to learn about emotional regulation, we have to essentially spend time with it. The example I like to give here is my wife is an elementary school teacher. For a while, she taught kindergarten and first grade. She'd always say, this is what happens. Kids come to school often for the first time in kindergarten, and they just start throwing tantrums over everything. You're sitting there like, why are you kids yelling and screaming still? You'll ask them and they'll be like, why? They'll be like, I'm sad. Sadness is the answer to every single one of their problems. It can be from, well, someone didn't pick me for kickball at recess, to someone didn't help me on my homework or whatever it is. It's just all sad. Why do they say sad? Because they don't know how to understand the emotional experience they're feeling. The only word they have is sad. The only thing they know to do is cry and scream. Well, in a lot of ways, unfortunately, because we never have been taught or like learn how to deal with this stuff, is we have a bunch of adults who kind of act like kindergartners or have the emotional flexibility of a kindergartner. So instead, what do you do? You have to sit with an experienced thing. So if you find yourself in that discomfort, that anxiety, you feel emotions, like don't push them away. Try and understand the nuance of it. Is it frustration? Is it sadness? Is it jealousy? What is coming like leading it to that moment? And the psychology is very clear as if you can separate the nuance out of it, then you can actually deal with the thing because you know where it's coming from instead of this overwhelming feeling or sensation that just kind of causes you to spiral. And the more you experience it, the less impact it has on you ultimately. The more you can diffuse yourself away from that emotion derailing you, becoming your identity, forcing you into behaviors and actions that aren't necessarily suitable for the goals you have. Exactly. And the analogy I'd use here is pretty simple. It's like exercise. If you haven't worked out in months and you go outside and you say, I'm going to go run as hard as you can, well, what's going to happen? Like within 30 seconds, your brain's going to be like, what are you doing? This hurts a lot. Like stop. Now, what happens if after a week, after a week, you didn't go all out, but you just slowly got used to what it felt like to exercise? That alarm gets turned down. Yeah, you still feel the fatigue and discomfort, but it's not like a five alarm fire. It's just like a little voice that says, oh yeah, this kind of sucks, but I'm okay. We do the same thing with other psychological feelings of discomfort, anxiety, stress, all that stuff. We can either train our brain to say, hey, this is an alarm and hit the panic button all the time, or if we put ourselves in situations that are a little bit stressful, then over time, we're going to inoculate ourselves to that. And our brain's going to be like, yeah, you know, this is a little unnerving, but it's not life or death. You're not on the savannah being chased by a lion. You're going to be okay. So it turns that alarm down. This definitely seems like it is a problem that we're, our children are going to be facing more and more due to having screens in front of their faces at all times and feeling completely safe and not having to sit in those emotions and learning how to deal with them. You're spot on. And I think this is one of the problems is we've mistaken safety for security. So safety is like, oh, I've got to protect my child all the time and I'm not going to let them, you know, get on the swings or the jungle gym because they might fall. Security is, on the other hand, like knowing and having the security that I can take risks and maybe fail and maybe, you know, scrape up my arm, but it's not a big deal. I'm going to be okay. And I think that's what you're getting at with this sitting on the screens or like not doing in, you know, difficult things is that if we do that, all we're doing is detraining our alarm so that it's hypersensitive whenever we actually do feel something uncomfortable. So actually, I was talking on, you know, with a good friend who essentially relayed the story of, you know, he was taking a friend's child on a hike and the kid all of a sudden says, like, I've got to stop. I've got to stop. My legs are burning. They're on fire. I'm going to lose them. And he's like, what? And then it clicked with the friend is like, oh, this is the first time this kid has felt like the fatigue of walking up a hill, right? So of course it feels really strange if you've never experienced it. But if you put yourself in situations that not just aren't just physical, but also psychological stress of getting up in front of the classroom and presenting of whatever it is, you know, going on the big stage, doing things that are a little difficult, like all of that is, is mental training to train that sensitivity of that alarm to go off at the appropriate time and not be incredibly hypersensitive. There's a park by my house that my family would always take us to during the summer. And in this park, there was an old sliding board. Now I'm 48. So for me in this story, this is the 80s, early 80s. And this sliding board, this thing was very archaic. It was from a very long time ago. And this was a sliding board that everyone has wounds to this day because of this sliding board. And then when you got to be a teenager, you learned that if you got wax paper, you slid down this slide, it was an extra adventure. Well, they put an end to that. And they redid the slide. It's this tiny little thing now. And there's a lot of us Gen X are like, that slide board was a rite of passage. And it was allowed you to know that you're now a man, because now you're wax papering down this slide. These kids have no way to gauge this anymore. I'm like, well, who's they even say that there's kids even at this park anymore? Because when I look around, you know, even in my old neighborhood, I asked my dad, like, what are the kids doing? My dad's like, kids, there's no kids in this neighborhood. You're the last one. It's just funny to me to see even a playground from the 1950s to what a playground looks like now. You know exactly. And I think there's actually some brilliant research in the area of playgrounds and play with children, where we've almost created again, the safety element of it, which takes away some of the learning. So if you look at the research on play, it shows that back in the day, I'm going to sound old now, but back in the day, like you go out, you play pickup basketball, you play football on the nearby field. And sometimes you get in disagreements and you get in arguments, and you might even get in like a fight or two. But there weren't any adults around. So what happened is you had to learn how to solve conflict and to navigate these situations without someone else stepping in and solving it for you. So you develop some of these skills that allow you to be resilient or navigate difficult situations. And often nowadays, those situations aren't there anymore. So it's one of those situations where again, sometimes if you look at, well, how come you think people are soft? Well, it's not that people are soft. It's just that some of the natural mechanisms or ways that they would learn these skills in the past aren't in our environment anymore. Right. That experience is lacking. Exactly. So we have to create that experience and then that environment. And if you do so, people respond just like you did in the 80s, Johnny, like they'll figure it out, but they need to have that experience to do so. Well, we've talked about this on the past, you know, for a while, it was helicopter parents who would be standing over you at the playground. And now the new phenomenon is lawnmower parents. And basically they're clearing the path to safety for you. So they're anticipating, oh, you might fall. So let me run over there and catch you. They're going to talk to the teacher before the poor test results to say, oh, you Johnny stayed up all night and he didn't get a chance to study. So that's why he's not getting a passing grade. What can we do? And of course, this doesn't allow you to navigate the uncertainty of life. And your brain is wired for certainty. It seeks certainty. And there is no certainty in discomfort. There's a lot of uncertainty. What happens if my legs burn so much that they fall off? Right. That kid hiking. Well, that's where your brain goes in the face of uncertainty. And I love to just break down how we go from discomfort to action, because I feel a big part of toughness is action, whether it's getting on stage, whether it's approaching that person you're attracted to, whether it's asking your boss for a raise. And we've had tons of guests on in the past who talk about physical feeds and athletes. And it doesn't always resonate with many members in our audience who aren't as into physical fitness or aren't as experienced with athletics. But again, this action piece is such a big part of understanding grit, resilience and toughness. But many of us stop at the discomfort. Yeah, exactly. So I think it's twofold here. And I think I'm glad you brought up the action because action is an important part. And to me, it starts with creating that environment where people, again, don't feel safe, but have the security to take risks and fail. So if we look at, again, parenting and children, you don't want to be the helicopter or the lawnmower parent who's trying to bulldoze their way through things. You want to create the space where, you know what, the kid can lose at the game and it's not the end of the world. The kid can fail and you're not going to run up to the teacher and be like, you need to change my kid's grade. Like that is part of the expectation and the environment that needs to be there. The second part is I think, you know, we need to have the appropriate expectations around things to get to the action. Too often, especially in our modern world, is we create this expectation that it's either perfect action or I shouldn't do it. So I either should win or I shouldn't try. And all you're doing there is you're setting yourself up to almost have another, you know, tick in the box to don't do anything because taking a risk, which is what action is, is putting you in a place where you might not succeed, where you might fail, where you might get exposed. And I think in our modern world, especially with social media, we're so enamored or living in a world where we're judged all the time. So our natural inclination is to protect us from being exposed to anything. So again, environment expectations and then getting to action, I think, is how do you navigate those feelings and that inner dialogue? But more so it's making sure that the action behind it has some sort of meaning and purpose that is relevant and resonates with you. So the athlete who's able to come through the pain and discomfort of a race or a performance and come out on the other side and do the right thing, often they're able to do that because it's important to them because it's not just about them, but it's about their team. It's about something greater than themselves. So getting to action and being tough is often how do you create that space where this thing means a lot to me, where this thing has some momentum behind it? So I'll give you again the example we talked about earlier with whistleblowing, which wasn't an athletic feat, but it was like, how do I get to action? It took a while, but at first I had to come to terms with, okay, why should I speak out? What's the good coming out of this? And then ultimately came down to, for me, it was like, I need to put this out in the world to unburden myself and also so that others don't have to go through the same experience that I did. So it wasn't just me of being like, oh, I'm going to be a whistleblower. It was something much greater, which propelled me through the difficult stuff. So for you on or for anybody on going through a challenging time is create that meaning and purpose behind the thing that kind of kind of propels you and gives that notch or that momentum behind the action where it's almost like, okay, I have to do this or I want to do this because if I don't, like it's not going to be good. So for all the other David's behind you, right? It wasn't just for you, the singular David versus the Goliath, it's like, hey, if I just quit, there's going to be someone else green in this role who's a graduate student who loves psychology, who looks up to these guys, who is going to run the test samples over. So it's not just about me. And I love this, this concept I was hanging out recently with one of our bootcamp alumni Oscar. And this idea of making that meaning and purpose larger and he created a little mantra for himself of never miss. So when it comes to working out for him, him and his wife remind each other never miss. And that attaches it to the larger purpose. And it doesn't mean that they have to do Barry's bootcamp seven days a week, they got to run five miles every single day. But it's I'm going to do something physical with my body every day, I'm going to move it because I know all the benefits that that has and it's tied to my core value, my purpose with this great tagline. And it made me think about you see college athletes every year they have a new tagline that the team adopts and they build around not just okay, I want to beat last year's stats or I want to be a national champion for the MVP trophy, but it's always attached to this greater meaning and mission and purpose for that upcoming season. We can borrow that from athletes and bring that into our own life, identify the core values, tie it to a greater purpose. And then it's not just about that one conversation, that one presentation on stage. It's about much more than you, which goes beyond any of that discomfort or that even fear. It works. But one of the mistakes people often make and we make this so often in the corporate world as we think like, oh, values like core values that stuff in what happens is someone at top picks out some core values, they like put it on the on the poster in the halls and says, this is what our business or organization or team stands for. But to your point, AJ, it doesn't have that meaning attached to it. And it needs to have that context that meaning that personal relevancy in order to have that power. And actually, there's some brilliant research behind this that says when when goals are imposed upon us, when they're we're told what our goals are, they don't help when goals have that personal significance, when we feel like we have some ownership in developing them and have that that context behind them, then we're more likely to reach our goal and have that goal attainment and be more resilient and tough. So I think, again, it's spot on. It's like, make sure you're contributing to that and you take ownership of it. And you're again, like you said, tying it somehow to something that is personally relevant to you. Now goals are a double edged sword. You talk about this in the book that many of us make mistakes with goals to where we don't base them in reality. We set them so far out of what we're actually capable of. And then it actually becomes a self reinforcing mechanism to just quit. And, you know, even in my novice running half marathons, there are always those moments of like, why am I doing this? What am I here for? There's no way I'm going to get to 13.1 miles. I'm on five, my legs are burning. There's no way I could possibly get there. So when it comes to goal setting, you know, what can our audience do to make sure that the goals actually create the opportunity for them to succeed versus mentally work against us and become that excuse mechanism to quit? You know, what it is, is often we get told, like shoot for the moon and all that stuff. And I think there's a difference between dreams and goals. And goals to me are like in the here and now trying to get you through the thing that you're going through. They're again, athletically, business wise, whatever it is personally. And what happens is, as you said, if they set our expectations. So again, I'm going to use the marathon example, because it's the simplest I think to understand. If I say, you know, this is my goal, my goal is to, you know, run four hours in the marathon, and this is make or break. And I set my expectation there. Well, that can get me motivated. But if all of a sudden I'm on mile five, as he said, and like maybe I'm a little slower than four hours, all of a sudden I start spiraling, right? And I'm not going to meet my goals. So our body and brain essentially default to, well, what's the point? You're not going to meet your goal. And you aren't able to give the effort. So what do we do? I think with goals that comes down to a couple things is a setting appropriate goals. So goals that yes, are challenging, maybe that are just beyond your reach, but are within that capabilities, right? They're at least possible. And then the other part that I think is really important that we just talked about is make sure it's authentic as well. And then I think secondarily, or third is have some sort of flexibility within them. Meaning if you want to run that marathon and four hours, like have some BC and D goals, if you want to accomplish whatever in your sales job, like great, but have some goals that are not directly tied to maybe the sales numbers, but something that is related to the process that you can execute on, even if you're not able to accomplish this outcome-based goal, because we still want to be able to do the tasks that we need to. And we want to prevent us from going to what's the point mode. Yeah, it's so important to reflect on the improvement. So for many of our X Factor Accelerator members, they'll come in with a goal of like, I want to approach five people a day and strike up a conversation, or I want to make three friends in the next month. And it's like, well, how looking historically easy has it been for you to make friends, right? Science says it's hours and hours spent to make a real friend. So do you have 100 plus hours in the next month to make three real friends? Well, no, not really. I have a job and I also have some family obligations and I'm taking some coaching with you guys and I'm doing this other training. Okay, so then we need to reset the goal to be, as you said, like actually in line with what is accomplishable and the amount of time that I've set for that goal. And then we need to take some time and reflect backwards of, okay, you didn't make a friend this month, but how much more social were you this month? How many more social events did you go to? How many more experience did you have? And how did you feel in those social settings? Was there as much fear and anxiety as you had in the past? Was there discomfort? And how many times did you say no to social gathering or event versus yes, month over month, right? So even if you fall short of making that friend or approaching the 15 people you had set out to in the month, you have to look back and go, well, I'm a lot more comfortable in social situations. I'm being invited to more things. And I actually have a few people that are acquaintances right now that I didn't have before the month started. And that allows you to stay on track and not get so hard on yourself that you're like, well, I'm just going to quit. Like this isn't accomplishable for me. I'm going to move on. And we do this every single month. The x-factor accelerated around, okay, if the goal over this month is not in line with what you can truly expect to achieve, it's actually going to be demotivating. It's going to become the reason to turn on Netflix, to flip on the PS5, to surf online and not go out at all. And it just is so unfortunate because many people haven't had that goal-setting conversation. And they see other people around them achieving larger goals, setting larger goals. And they think, well, why can't I do that? Why doesn't it work the same for me? And I think that's really where the benefit of coaching comes in. Because a coach is good at being honest with you, sharing their experience around goals, and also can help you with the BC&D subset of goals that you might not be thinking about that can be wins that are very motivating as you continue working towards that larger goal, even if you miss it in that timeframe. Spot on. I mean, coaches provide perspective that you often can't see when you're in the thick of things, right? And they can pull from that experience. And I think with goals right there, what you outlined brilliantly is that one of the major motivators, and there's decades of research around this, is seeing progress. So we often just shoot ourselves in the foot because we make seeing progress like impossible, or like, well, I'm not meeting the five people, so I'm not making progress. So you're just making yourself unmotivated. When the reality, as you said, if sometimes you turn around, and you look, and you're like, Oh, yeah, like I'm acting differently. And it might not be like all these things I set out. But there's obvious progress towards this person that I want to become. And I think that is often another place where the coach can come in and help you because, and I think you guys do this, you know, very well is that, like, again, you provide that perspective where the person is so it's when we have these goals, it's almost like we get tunnel vision on them often. And the coach can come in and it's like, Yeah, yeah, we got it. You want to hit this, but like, look how far you've come like that in itself should be celebrated and motivate you so that you can continue along this journey. Yeah. And that timeframe might just be 45 days instead of the 30 that you had outlined, right? So that's really the power and the perspective. What comes out in a lot of these situations and a lot of the work we do is this inner critic, right? And this voice in our head that is meant to keep us safe. That is meant to keep us in our comfort zone to avoid all of those fears of failure, rejection of not reaching the goals that we have. And we've had David Goggins on the show. Some in our audience really resonated with that, you know, argue, call your inner critic a bunch of names and fight through it. And then a lot in our audience were like, that does not resonate with me. That inner critic is not going to just sit quietly and he's not going to break if I'm arguing with him. So what does the science actually say around that, that voice and having a more meaningful conversation with it? Because I think the other fallacy that a lot of people have is like, I just want to turn it off. Like how do I mute that inner critic? You know, often what happens is taking either extreme often amplifies in their critic. Because if you fight with it, it's almost like getting in a fight with someone online on Facebook or Twitter or whatever have you like, if you respond to the troll and get an argument, it just amplifies it never goes away. That's kind of what our inner voice is. So, you know, for some people fighting it obviously worse for David Goggins. But if we just have that as our only tool, what happens is we're often amplifying it. And then on the flip side, I hear the same thing all the time is, well, if I ignore it or push it away, well, what you're doing there is essentially you're saying no, no, ignore, ignore. And it almost comes back like five fold where it's your brain goes, oh, you're trying to ignore me. That must mean what I'm saying is really important. So I'm going to come back at you with more. So instead, like what I try and teach is, is again kind of maybe this middle path of, and the research shows is it's, we're going to have that negative critic, like just accept it, it's going to be there. And what you want to do is figure out, okay, how do you dislodge yourself from it so that that negative voice isn't the dominating force in those stressful moments. And there's some fascinating, again, simple things that the latest psychology shows us we can do to dislodge that. And one is like, change how that, how we're talking to that inner critic. So some research by Ethan Cross out of University of Michigan show that, you know, when we start talking to ourselves instead of in first person, but second or third person, it creates a little psychological distance. It decreases the emotional power behind that critic, right? And it allows us to kind of have that space where now we can kind of navigate and see if we want to talk to it or not. Another thing that works really well is if you watch, again, to use the athletic example, if you ever watch great tennis players, such as Raphael Nadal, like watch them in the thick of it in the middle of the game before they're about to serve. And often they'll be talking to themselves or muttering to themselves. And all they're doing there is what they're taking their inner critic in making it external. And what the psychology shows there is, again, that subtle flip allows us to almost dislodge ourselves because our brain interprets it as, oh, this is coming from a different source. So maybe I should listen to this external voice instead of the internal one so we can shift what we're focusing and paying attention to. So again, there's lots of different ways. But the basic gist of it is, is like, try to develop different strategies that allow you to kind of dislodge yourself, take you out of that spiral so that you can kind of, again, deal with the thing instead of fighting it. We've had Ethan on the show and completely agree with that method. And it's worked for me in my life and with so many of our clients. And the great part about it is you start to realize that that presence just means you're investing in things that matter to you. Like the time when there is no inner critic is the time where you're sitting in complete boredom and you have nothing going on and you're just totally detached from any outcome or anything that you really care deeply about. So it's also a great guide on that compass of like, hey, I am moving towards my North Star. The fact that this voice is coming up means I'm doing hard things. I'm making hard choices. This is the path I need to be on. I think competence and confidence changes the relationship that we have with the inner critic as well. When we're first starting out and it's, we're trying something new and we're flailing around and fumbling around, yeah, our inner critic is like, you thought you were going to try something new, look at you and it's tearing at you. But then you start to gain competence over it. And then you're talking back to your inner critic like, oh, and you're the one telling me I couldn't do this. What do you got to say about it now? And that relationship by the time that you have mastery over it, there is a relationship with the inner critic where you guys have seem to have gotten along. And I've always said on the show when for all the folks that we've had on, those who were the most successful at the jobs that they had done had the best relationship with their inner critic. And it changes. It may be adversarial at times, but then they're learned to get along. And then at some point that same voice can become your biggest advocate. It's rooting you along as you've gained control over that relationship. Yeah, I think you're spot on. And I think it, you know, it comes down to or back to something AJ said a moment ago, which is your inner critic is meant to protect you. I like to think of it as like, oh, this is just my body and brain's way of telling me that like I'm in a situation that might be a little bit different from normal. Well, if that's what your goal is, which often it is, great. It's a positive signal. It means like, Hey, I'm in this place that that is a little bit difficult, but that means it's a place for growth and development. And I think you're right, you know, Johnny, the more time you spend with it, the more confidence you develop in understanding and navigating that space, the more you kind of become a friend with it, even when it's adversarial, you know, I've been a runner almost all my life and still that voice to like quit will come up. It's like a friendly voice. Now I'm like, oh, there's that voice to quit. Like, I don't have to listen to it, you know, hi. Thanks for telling me that I'm working hard right now. That helps. That's where I want to be like, let's continue along. Now, Johnny and I have definitely found that the more hard things you do and tough choices you make, the easier it is to take on other challenges. We have a phrase here, B over A, A being the path of least resistance, the well-worn path to the mailbox and the snow that you've done over and over again. That feels easy. And then B, path B, being that ton of snow, never walk this path, difficult, challenging. And the concept of making the choice, I'm going to do the hard stuff. I'm going to choose B over A. We've had clients and graduates of the program tattoo B over A in some form on their body for this exact reason. How can we start to build a foundation for doing hard things? Because yes, there are physical feats of toughness. There are going to be mental challenges and we've come through this pandemic realizing how quickly those can knock us off our feet. So how do we start to build a foundation to build this amazing rich life off of where hard things are always going to be present, but they are path B that we choose over A soft, safe, comfortable, not in line with our core values, not reaching those goals. So here's the important point of this conversation. If you want to train resilience, toughness, grit, whatever you want to call it, you have to make the choice. And the research and psychology is clear on this is we train toughness when we are actively choosing that path. So to me, it is how do you set up your life where you are taking the necessary risks, putting yourself in the space that is often uncomfortable, and giving yourself the freedom to do so. And a lot of that comes back to what we said earlier, which is create that environment. Create that environment where it's okay to take risks, where it's a good thing maybe to get on that slide board and get scraped up. Because that allows you to do difficult things. So to me, when people ask resilience, toughness, all this stuff, we often think of the big difficult things. But to me, in my life, it's how do I do the small difficult things routinely, so that when that big difficult thing comes, I'm ready for it. So sometimes it's the simple choices. Having a movement or exercise routine that maybe puts you in a difficult moment. Doing, you know, being outgoing, talking to people you normally wouldn't talk to or sending emails to people who you normally wouldn't reach out to, like putting yourself in those places of discomfort, that are maybe small, or even something as simple as putting your phone aside and go and spending an hour without checking your email or social media or what have you, like that is now difficult nowadays. So like find those moments and those small things that you can do over and over again, that like train that mental muscle and then give you that confidence for when that big thing arises so that you're going to be actively be able to say yes and to choose that difficult path. That concept of seeking boredom, you covered it in the book. And of course, we've heard of those physical feats of toughness. And we've seen movies about the Navy SEALs and all of that great training. But even today, the simplest act of seeking boredom with all the devices, all the screens, all the easier options we have in our life is something you can do on a daily basis, weekly basis to build up that ability to take on more difficult challenges later. I absolutely agree and love that piece of advice. Johnny, I love asking every guest what their X factor is. What do you think makes you unique and extraordinary, Steve? Oh gosh, I think my curiosity and ability to explore. So I am someone who is very internally driven. And the way I kind of live my life is I find things that are interesting to me and challenges that are interesting to me. And then I go explore them to the depths that I can and just see what comes out on the other end. And that's worked in my athletic career, my coaching career and my writing career. And I think that's my X factor. Thank you for joining us, Steve. Where can our audience find out more about all the great coaching work you do in your latest book, Do Hard Things? Yeah, you can find me all on social media at Steve Magnus and then all of my work and coaching and writing at www.stevemagnus.com. Thank you again, Steve. Great conversation. Enjoyed having you here. Thank you.