 Taking responsibility and taking accountability is taking control of a situation, that's what it is. You are basically taking control of everything that just happened by saying I am accountable, this is on me, and then immediately you're put in your position where you can now solve it and you can now get better. What's up everybody and welcome to the show today. We drop great content each and every week and we wanna make sure that you guys get notified and in order to do that, you're gonna have to smash that subscribe button and hit that notification bell and if you've gotten a lot of value out of this, make sure you give us a like and share our videos with your friends. The other attribute that stood out to me in the book as interesting, maybe even counterintuitive to what we hear in modern media is cunning, right? It's a term that many probably have a negative connotation to, but of course, it much like narcissism can help us reach those goals we have in our lives and make us successful. How did this attribute come about in your research and what lessons did you draw from it that might be counterintuitive to those in our audience who have a negative connotation around being cunning? Yeah, yet again, it was introspection because I think at the heart of the Navy SEALs, one of the most predominant attributes amongst Navy SEALs is cunning. And the reason is because special operations forces to begin with were created basically to frustrate and agitate the enemy, to basically do things that the regular forces couldn't do, sneak into areas that other people couldn't get into, be invisible, be ghosts. And that took cunning because you were going to, you're going to areas with small units, small groups of people that if you got caught, you were done, right? There's no way you'd survive. And that took a way of thinking that was beyond and outside the normal perceived boundary. So it's really, I mean, in essence, cunning is thinking outside the box, I mean. But ultimately when I kind of give you, if I give you the SEAL example, I kind of use a medieval fantasy example on this. If you think of a tower with a princess in it guarded by a dragon and the king wants to save the princess, right? So he sends his best knights every day to go slay the dragon and save the princess. And every time that the knight goes and tries to slay the dragon and gets killed, right? And then finally the SEAL shows up and asks the king, hey, what's the mission? And the king's like, save the princess. He's like, well, who gives the damn about the dragon? And the SEAL will begin to figure out a way to save the princess without even touching the dragon, like going around, this is cunning. This is where you start thinking and taking a problem. Because a lot of times when we approach problems, we attach to that while we're trying to solve it either preconceived or even imagined boundaries and rules and constraints, right? And the cunning person is someone who asks the question, are these rules bendable or even breakable? And if they are, and if I do, what are the consequences? Okay, because if the consequences aren't dire, then you're gonna look for ways around. But I think entrepreneurs and people and innovators and iconoclasts, these are people who are cunning. They think outside the normal scope of what other people think and part of that is cunning. So yes, cunning used maliciously is bad. It really is. And we know this is the folks at Enron, whatever, I mean, you could, you know, but look at Oscar Schindler, right? I mean, this is a cunning dude who used it for good, you know? So cunning used for good is different than cunning used for bad. And I think we should separate the judgment of the word from the actual word and put the judgment on the action, not the word. Such a great point, I think. Again, we have these connotations in our head and these ideas that have not been tested and not looked at and introspectively viewed. So of course, when we look at others, it's easy to label. Well, we have to look in the mirror and look at ourselves and say, okay, who do I want to become and what are the attributes that are important in becoming that person? It's interesting in researching for this interview and reading the book that you throughout your career have faced down your fears. So at the start, you said you wanted to be a pilot but you're afraid of heights. We heard that you're also fearful around public speaking but you mentioned now a big part of your career is just that, facing down these fears, jumping out of planes, facing a giant crowd and actually speaking to them. How do you face your fears and what can we learn from that to face our own fears in our lives? Yes, so there's good news here and I think, Johnny, you had mentioned that human beings inherently, I'm not sure which one you, but we're wired to kind of feel safe, right? And we want to feel safe, which is true. We do want, and I would actually, I would modify that to say, instead of safe, I would say certain. We like certainty in our lives, okay? Which is synonymous oftentimes with safety. The good news is that we're also wired to step into our fear. And here's why, because fear is, experiencing fear means that we're experiencing something and our amygdala in our brain is getting tickled, right? We all heard of our amygdala, it's our threat detector in our brain, all right? And when that starts to ramp up, we can, we start to feel that fear, okay? And if it ramps up too much, we get into a amygdala overload, which means we're acting without thinking. And in any type of amygdala ramp up, we're starting to be given two choices. Our brain is starting to give us two choices. Either fight, which is step into the fear or flight, retreat from the fear. Now, there are specific circuits, there are specific circuits in conjunction with either one of those choices. Now, we've also heard of the third choice, which is freeze. But what they've realized neurologically is that there is no freeze circuit. What freeze really is, is an oscillation between the two. They're deciding whether or not you should fight or fight. When we decide to fight, when we decide to step into our fear, that switch goes off in our brain. And as soon as that switch gets clicked, we get a dopamine reward. We get rewarded for stepping into our fear. Now, this doesn't mean we're stepping in and we're done. We've accomplished the goal. It means every single step we take, we get a dopamine reward. This is actually by design, by nature's design. We were designed as a species to go explore, to discover, to go find new territory, go find new shelter and food. It's what's in fact caused us to go from cave dwellers to space explorers. In fact, that we're actually, in fact, rewarded when we step into our fear. So I think, and I didn't understand any of this while I was a seal, by the way. I think what I did understand, I think what seals and those people who actually more habitually step into their fear is what they've experienced and they've kind of realized is this reward that it feels good to do it, you know. When you step in, it feels good. When you step in, it feels good. And it's encouraging you to go. So I think any one of us can actually practice our courage. You know, we could practice our courage by doing things that scare us. Now, it doesn't have to be extreme, okay? You don't have to go skydiving tomorrow, right? You can, if you're an introvert, you can start a conversation with a stranger. I mean, you can give, you can stand up in front of people and give a, read a poem. I don't know. Whatever that is, but just notice when you do it, when you step into it, notice the feeling you get because it's a, it's a reward system and it allows you to keep going. So, so I just think I've been fortunate enough to somewhere along the line early, I guess early on, have made it more of a habit to step into those things that, that I don't, you know, that kind of make me, might be frightened, right? Whether it's heights and I didn't, I never put flying in the category of heights. And when you're in an airplane, it doesn't feel like, at least for me, it doesn't feel like I'm high up. It's really open heights jumping out of airplanes or, you know, things like that. But yeah, every time I did that, I had to proactively step into it and do it. And then when I was getting out of the Navy, I realized, you know, based on some things I wanted to talk about and kind of put out in the world, hey, I should probably get good at public speaking. And I don't like public speaking. So what did I do? I said, well, let me find a job where I'm doing that all the time, you know, and practice it. And so, and so now I've, yeah, I've gotten to the point where I no longer, I've inoculated myself, you know, I no longer feel the same fear going into a public speaking event or, or, now I haven't jumped out of airplanes in years, right? It's been, it's been quite a while. So I think I'd still feel the fear, you know, cause you can't, you know, it does, it does atrophy if you don't practice it a lot, right? So, so you have to practice it, but, but we can do it. And it's a reward system that we should, in fact, capitalize on. We drop great content each and every week and we want to make sure that you guys get notified. And in order to do that, you're going to have to smash that subscribe button and hit that notification bell. And if you've gotten a lot of value out of this, make sure you give us a like and share our videos with your friends. You mentioned about stepping into fear and making it a habit. And, and I think that's important for people to realize, and when you accept responsibility for the choices that you make, knowing that there are consequences to those choices, eventually you make your way to taking responsibility for even the presentation that you're putting out there. But also you're going to get to a place where you're taking responsibility for how you view those fears. And, and, and we have opportunities every day to start building habits to step into that fear. And I, and I, it's difficult for people to understand all those opportunities that they have without accepting that responsibility. Totally 100% agree, 100% agree. And it's, it's, so it's interesting account, you know, taking responsibility and taking accountability is an interesting thing because people talk about it. Hey, it's such a great, I have it as an attribute, right? And it is a great, and it's one of the leadership attributes. But sometimes people don't understand the power of accountability, right? Human beings want certainty, you know? And oftentimes certainty also means control. We want to be certain, we want to take control. Well, accountability, taking responsibility and taking accountability is taking control of a situation. That's what it is. You are basically taking control of everything that just happened by saying, I am accountable, this is on me. And then immediately you're putting your position where you can now solve it and you can now get better. You have taken the driver's wheel, taking control of everything that just happened regardless of whether or not it, it was totally in fact your fault, right? It's a process by which you can actually take control. And that's why it's so powerful. And when you have that control, as soon as you're in the driver's seat, you can drive that car wherever you want. And oftentimes you're gonna drive it and steer it towards learning development and growth. Well, there's certainly been decisions that I have made strictly on the fact, regardless of how I felt in the moment, that it's just, it's better for me and the results are gonna be more beneficial if I just go through this. When, it would have been very easy for me just to say no. But again, it's taking responsibility for those decisions and knowing what's on the other side and knowing what's best for me, regardless of how I felt in the moment. And the science is clear. Exposure therapy works when we're facing down our fears. It doesn't necessarily mean that you actually have to be jumping out of the plane, but even a VR headset that simulates that to allow your body to work through that fight-or-flight response in a meaningful way, practiced, measured, gets you to a place where that fear shrinks. It doesn't go to zero. You're not going to be fearless because it's a biological process to keep us alive, but we are wired that the more we experience some discomfort, the less painful that discomfort becomes. And that fear of the unknown, the uncertainty, doesn't have the same grip on us. And we practice that in our coaching with our clients in core confidence where we create exercises to step outside of your comfort zone. And that forms the building blocks of confidence. And I know you have thoughts around building confidence as well. It's been a big part of your career and success. So for those in our audience who are feeling a lack of confidence, and of course this last year has set a lot of us back, what advice do you have around building confidence in our lives to take action to face these fears? Yeah, I think the way I would define true confidence is this idea that you feel, it's not so much you know what's going to happen, you can anticipate or you have a bunch of skills. You, I think true confidence is knowing that no matter how, no matter where this environment goes around me, I'll perform, you know, and that's what it is, right? So, and I think what you said is both poignant and in line with what, with the answering the question. And that is when you are exposing yourself to something you are afraid of over and over again, what you're really doing is you're actually training yourself in those tools required to actually in fact buy down that fear. You know, and the way we do it, so fear is interesting. Fear is a combination really ultimately of two things, uncertainty and anxiety, okay? Both of those combine great fear, because you can have one without the other and fear doesn't exist. You can be anxious without being uncertain. That's like I got a presentation next week that I'm giving to the boss and I know the presentation and it's, you know, I know what it's gonna look like. I know where I'm going, I'm a little anxious, okay? I'm not fearful, I'm just anxious and I'm not uncertain. You can be uncertain without being anxious, okay? That's every kid on Christmas Eve, all right? So, there's no fear there. If you have both, if they start combining, you start to tip into fear, all right? And when you do, you can begin to buy down your fear by buying down either one of those, okay, those polarities. Anxiety is internally focused, it's physiological and that's, you know, people's dilating, breathing, quickens, all that stuff. You can begin to buy down that with physiological means. You can do breathing exercise, you breathe slower, you can do open gaze, you know, things like that. That starts shifting your sympathetic towards your parasympathetic systems. So you can buy down anxiety. What that's also doing is it's also bringing your conscious mind back online because when our amygdala starts ticking up and getting overloaded, our conscious mind begins taking it back seat. So by buying down anxiety, you're bringing your conscious mind back online. As your conscious mind comes back online, you can begin buying down uncertainty. Little bit more difficult because uncertainty is external, right, that's the world around you that it's going on without you controlling it. But you can do that by asking yourself some questions and we do this, seals do this all the time really unconsciously. You say to yourself, what about this environment do I understand, okay? And however, whatever that list is, however small, you look at that and say, okay, what can I control in this moment? You pick something and you control, you move towards that, okay? As soon as you make that movement, you get a dopamine response, you get a dopamine reward, right? And that dopamine reward allows you to then ask the question again, okay, now what can I control? Okay, now what can I control? You're basically stepping through your fear. What exposure does, the way that we're talking about, whether it be VR or real, is allow someone to work through those processes mentally so that as they do it over and over again, they begin to get very good. They begin to understand exactly how to step through that particular fear neurologically. They know how to do it. And so that's why it gets easier. In fact, it's not that they're getting used to the fear. In fact, they're getting less afraid because this is what happens. And as you get less afraid, by the way, the amygdala starts to come up. You don't get that amygdala response. And when fear no longer shows up, there's no longer courage either, which means you don't get the dopamine reward, right? So you can in fact inoculate yourself so much to something that you no longer need courage to do it and you're no longer feeling the rewards of dopamine either, right? This could be the person who's afraid of skydiving and ends up doing 20,000 jumps, right? By the time they're on that 20,000 jump, they don't need courage to do it anymore. They're just doing it because the amygdala is not even getting tickled. So it's that process by which people can actually use. I love this. And what's interesting here and why a lot of people have difficult deciphering when it's fear or when it's anxiety is because it all comes from the same place. It begins in your gut. And it's difficult to separate what that is. And this is exactly why we built our core confidence program because it allows everyone an opportunity in a safe environment to have that feeling. And then as you mentioned, start to go down the list of questions to decipher, am I in a place where I can get harmed? Am I in a place where I can gain something? And if it's a place where you can gain something and then going through the cognitive processes to allow you to go through it and then be reflective and pull out of that something that makes you a better person. Yeah. Well, and what you're saying is really important because that first question is also important. Is this something that can get harmed from, right? Because sometimes flight is the right response. Right? Absolutely. And people think, I mean, okay, fear, yeah. Fear is also by nature's design to allow us to appropriately assess risk so that we may survive because sometimes, yes, you need to run. It's not a good idea to step into it. And so I think that's an important distinction. Well, look at all the other mammals. When they even have that inkling of that hit of fear, anxiety that's going on, they bolt, right? The rabbit, the deer, they're out of there. What are they missing in life because they have this automatic response? We had this opportunity to work through these feelings but you're not going to learn how to do that without that reflection and then that understanding of what your emotional processes are to that stimuli. You're totally right, yeah. And I think nature can teach us a lot about that because we also see aspects of nature when fear causes them to fight too. The dog that bites you is likely biting you because it's afraid, right? I mean, so there are, I mean, even the bear that attacks you, there might be cubs. I mean, that bear is afraid of the cubs getting it. So nature, I mean, we're part of nature. I mean, we're animals at the end of the day, right? So we need only look to the animal world to learn some lessons about how we operate. We certainly have been given through our conscious mind some opportunity that other species, at least to our knowledge, don't have. But there's a lot of lessons there. I think for those in the audience who are feeling that fear and thinking about this, the most important thing that you mentioned is taking that step because fear locks us up. And whatever that may be in your life, that first step is gonna be the most difficult and then the next step is gonna be easier and the next step thereafter is gonna be easier. So when we're facing down those fears, reminding ourselves that that first step, it's going to be hard, that's okay. It is a part of the process that I'm working through. And of course, through experience, you realize that in other areas, really, that's where we get away from just situational confidence and we start building confidence that allows us in areas where maybe we didn't even know we were afraid and we have that feeling. And I think it's important because we have to understand that our nature designed our systems to protect ourselves from ultimately death, right? Or serious injury. And that's why fear exists in the first place. But we have to understand that in today's environment, especially in the first world environment, right? There is actually very few things that are actually gonna hurt us or kill us, right? And a lot of our fear is based on assumptions and predictions that are false. So I think a question that can be asked many times is, hey, what's the worst that can happen? And answer that honestly, because if you actually write those answers down, you're gonna find, well, actually that's not that bad. And that's, and certainly that's not bad enough to limit my desire or my ability to try, because man, the reward from trying is way, way better and more powerful than just maybe this bad thing happening. So I think that's a good question to ask. And test that hypothesis, because so rarely happens, but that governor kicks in. So test the worst. And science has actually shown that thinking through the worst and actually feeling what the worst result is lowers that fear innately inside of you. And even if it happens, I remember in college, there was a girl I had a crush on, and she was really beautiful, and she was very intimidating, and I had kind of just chatted with her here and there, and I never kind of got the courage, I didn't have the courage to kind of ask her out. And so it was one day or evening or whether I saw her out and I, okay, I'm gonna do this. And I went up and I asked her, and she said no. I'm sorry, I have a boyfriend. That's very sweet, but I have a boyfriend. So the worst happens, right? Because she said no. But I still feel great. And even to this day, I'm like, hey, at least I tried. At least I tried instead of thinking like, oh, I could be sitting here at 47 years old saying, I wonder what would have happened had I actually asked. Well, I asked, right? And I felt good. So even when you do fail, just the try, the step into the fear, that will also feel good, you know? Well, in rapping, we love asking every guest this question, what is your X factor? And with you, especially Johnny and I got really excited because we think semantically X factor is an attribute. And we built an entire year-long mentorship program to allow people to test and introspect in themselves to identify which of these attributes they have that they want to use as that strength to get ahead and succeed. And as we talked about earlier, many of us don't self-assess. We don't take that opportunity to be introspective or in those cases where we do, then create a life where we build out on those strengths and maybe build out some of those weaknesses. What do you overindex in? What is your X factor that's allowed you to be so successful? I'm gonna say humility. And I'm not gonna say humility in a sense that makes me not humble. Oftentimes when you say you're humble, it doesn't mean you're humble, right? I'm gonna say humility in the sense that I've tried to make it a habit to surround myself with people who I find way better than me, right? Who I say it myself. I mean, these people are intimidatingly better than me. And every time I've done that, it's forced me to step up my game. It's forced me to become better. And I remember thinking this when I went through SEAL training, I mean, got through SEAL training and looking around and saying, these guys are superheroes. I mean, what the hell am I doing here? How did I get here? And I remember even going through my career, regardless of what echelon I succeeded to achieve or what specialized or elite commands I ended up at, I would constantly say to myself, these people are way better than me and I need to step up my game. And I think that type of humility, it's almost self-induced, throw yourself into environments where you're not surrounding yourself with people who you're better than. I've been able to do that and I still do that. I mean, listen, I have a couple of few very good friends who are very successful authors. And I said to myself, well, let me see if I can step up my game. Let me see if I can aspire to do some of the great work things that they do. So even today I'm trying to do it and I will continue to do it. I love meeting people and experiencing people and talking to people who are inspirational that way. Well, this interview has fired me up and I'm sure many in our audience want to find this self-assessment. So where can we go to take your self-assessment and find the book? Yeah, best place is the attributes.com, pretty simple. And yeah, you can get the book there, you can take the assessment. I would recommend if you're able to read the book before you take the assessment, it'll just allow you to take it a little bit more introspectively. However, that's not required. You can take the assessment like right now if you go get it. So it's easy and it's free. So the attributes.com, you can find it there. I have the book, the assessment. I got some workbooks on there that people can actually get that help guide them and coach them on how to develop each attribute, at least in the first three categories. I'm working on the leadership and team ability. And that's a blog post and then my Instagram handle is there and LinkedIn, you can find me there. So anywhere, the website's a good kind of catch-all. Awesome, thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me, it's been great.