 I know we've known each other all of five minutes right now, but based on the fact that I'm a performance coach, and now you've had five minutes to know that you're going to spend three hours with a performance coach, what are the things, and that's why you teed it up beautifully, that you individually would like to get out of this session. In the last five minutes, have you thought of a question that you're thinking, I hope this guy up front answers this or talks about this before the three hours are over? My commitment is I will not hop on my flight and head back home until we have answered every single one of those things, and you guys feel great about it. The challenge in my life over the last year or so has been suppressing those feelings and emotions and persuasions and following it up with one another, and that's played into personal life matters, personal relationships. You're allowed to feel fill in the blank. You're allowed to be angry, upset, irritated, frustrated. You're a human being, so don't try to suppress those things, because fighting against those feelings will only make them worse, and then stacking shame and guilt on top of those will exponentially make it worse. It'll make it so much heavier, so just say, yeah, I'm allowed to be in a bad mood. I'm just not allowed to treat others that way. I've literally had to say that to my kids, Luke, you're allowed to be upset. You're not allowed to punch Jack in the throat. I've had to say that statement before to my twin sons. I didn't think I'd ever have to utter those words, but I had to, and with anyone that if you know anything about 13 year old twin sons, I've had to say that on more than one occasion. But I think giving yourself permission to say it's okay to not be okay. I'm allowed to be frustrated. Now, how can I make a decision moving forward that doesn't drag others down, isn't disrespectful, I'm not diminishing anybody else? But definitely don't try to suppress it. And the last thing I'll say, and I know we had, I think someone's hand went up, it's kind of like having a rock in your shoe. If you have a rock in your shoe, you got to take it out at some point. So why walk nine miles and then take it out? Why don't you just take it out right now and save yourself the grief of the next nine months? So trying to resist or suppress those, it's all gonna come out at some point. If you're bottling up frustration, it's gonna come out. So just acknowledge it right from the get-go. Acknowledge it when it's probably smaller. Like I'm really irritated by what so and so said. Okay, you're allowed to be irritated, that's totally fine. Unpack it, figure out why you're feeling irritated. Give yourself permission and space to be irritated. Be conscious not to treat others poorly because you're feeling irritated. And most likely it will start to just kind of disappear on its own. Just looking at the resonating with the hands around the personal core values. Sure. I think that we have our organization core values. I do think some of those definitely carry over into what I would think are my personal core values, but I've never really gone through that exercise. I put a lot of thought into what are my true personal core values. We're about to go into annual evaluation period where we're gonna be thinking through in our work life, how do I carry the organization's core values in each day to day and really that's a thoughtful part of our process. But how do I incorporate that on a personal level too? For those taking notes, write this down. Awareness is always the first step to improvement. Always. You know how I know that? Because you'll never improve something you're unaware of. And you'll never fix something you're oblivious to. So anytime you can bring something to a level of awareness, that is a huge win. That is a gift. It might not be preferred in the moment. It might be uncomfortable in the moment. Like someone exposing one of your blind spots and giving you some much needed feedback, it rarely feels like a gift in the moment. But it is because now they're bringing to light something that you can now make a change because you can't make a change if you're unaware of it. So just get crystal clear. And with the core values, this doesn't need to be something that you can robotically recite at a cocktail party. You don't need to have it tattooed on your inner arm. Like you just need to have a code that just says, like respect is one of my major core values. I try and treat everyone and everything with an incredibly high level of respect, including myself, including my body, including the environment, including animals, including other people's beliefs. Like I just believe in treating everyone with an incredibly high level of respect. So I try and make every single decision in my life can grow it. Is that a respectful thing to say or do? And if it's not, I do my darnedest not to say or do that thing. Mm-hmm. You can be aware of something, but if you won't accept it, then you won't change it. Agreed. Well said. I look at humility through the lens of are you open to being coached? Are you open to feedback? No matter how good you are at your job, are you still open to getting better or do you feel like you've hit the ceiling? To me, those are signs of humility, which is why some of the most brash, and let's just use athletes as examples, somebody like a Kobe Bryant, most people would not think of Kobe Bryant and humility as being in harmony. But he was humble because he was always open to coaching. He was always open to feedback. He would beg for coaches to be able to find minor flaws in his footwork or shooting mechanics because he knew that was a gift. He knew as good as he was. If you could find ways that he could still get better, he was heavily attracted to that and drawn to that. And no matter how good he was, he's on the Mount Rushmore of all-time players, he still knew he could get better. And that is a special kind of humility. And being able to blend humility with earned confidence is a recipe for really high performance. Because you all need to be confident in what you do. And you earn that confidence through demonstrated performance during the unseen hours. You earn confidence through repetition by putting in the reps. Kobe earned confidence by being in the gym at 3 in the morning every single day in the off season. So his confidence wasn't, this wasn't a fake it so you make it. This was, I'm going to earn the right to be confident because I put in the work and deserve the right to be confident on the court. But no matter how good I get, I'm not going to ever feel like I've tapped out or I've hit that ceiling. So humility is incredibly important. Humility doesn't mean that you're weak and that you deflect compliments and then it, no, you can be both simultaneously. Everything in this world doesn't need to be mutually exclusive. In fact, I highly recommend you blend confidence with humility because that is a lethal cocktail when it comes to being a really high performer and improving personal influence and impact. But looking at the list, I've realized I've prioritized filling my cup on the weekends, but not during the week. Why do you think that is? Is it just because you have a little more flexibility and time or perceived time on the weekends? Yeah, it's the weekends what you want to be. Sure. You plant it around that, but on weekdays, it's easy to like go home to the dinner and sit on the couch and that's the day. If going home and making dinner and sitting on the couch and watching Netflix is how you unwind and then end up having peaceful sleep, don't judge. Like literally that's one of the things I do. You won't find very many motivational speakers that watches as much Netflix as I do, but I love it because it allows me to turn my brain off, which is required for me to get a peaceful night's sleep. And keep in mind, the evening routine is just as if not more important than the morning routine. Morning routine gets all the headlines and all the glamour and it's what everybody talks about on podcasts and on social media, but the evening routine is incredibly important because it's like the chicken and the egg. You know what comes before your morning routine? The previous night's evening routine, yes, exactly. So if you wanna prime yourself to have a good morning routine, it's in your best interest to get quality sleep and how do you do that? You have some type of winding down process. How do you balance this perceived perfection? And I'm a perfectionist. Are you willing to change the lens at which you look through? Like it seems now you are proudly identifying as a perfectionist, but you do know that is a label that you've chosen to give yourself. It's not a truth, correct? We can't agree on that. Is there a label somewhere on your body that says when you were born that you are a perfectionist? That is a truth. Or is that a title you've given yourself and a paradigm at which you've chosen to see the world which is you choose to strive for perfection? And I'm not, you use whatever operating system works best for you. And I don't really give people advice. All I'll do is I'll just share my thoughts on it. So how do I deal with it? I threw out perfection years ago. It's not even something I tried to attain because I don't believe it's attainable for the reasons that you just shared because it's just, it's not sustainable. Now you can strive for excellence in everything you do as consistently as possible but it might relieve a little bit of pressure and take a slight weight off of your shoulders if you're willing to untether from the ideal that you have to be perfect, that everything you do has to be perfect because it doesn't. You have to give yourself that permission to breathe. One second, I'll get you. Give yourself that space and that grace to be less than perfect. And yeah, there's no way any of us can be perfect 100% of the time in everything that we do. Hopefully, and what I can offer some advice is how can you strive for excellence with the one thing that's right in front of you right now at this moment? And then do that to the very best of your ability. And regardless of whether or not it falls short, then shift your focus to the next thing that you choose to place your attention and see if you can strive for excellence in that. But I would recommend letting go of the idea or the ideal of being perfect because nothing's perfect. I mean, you just said you wanna be the Kobe Bryant that you said of marketing, was that your? Yeah, you know Kobe missed a lot of shots, right? You know, he lost a lot of games. Like, yeah, he was not a perfect player because basketball is not a perfect game. In the history of the game, a perfect game has never been played. Ever, think about that. In the history of basketball, at every single level, every single game played, someone has missed the shot, someone has committed a foul, someone has turned the ball over, so it's not a perfect game. There have been some real excellent games and some real excellent players like Kobe Bryant. So I would just sit with that for a few days and give yourself permission to be less than perfect. That might give you some space to breathe a little bit and still strive for excellence in everything that you're doing because I'm not living in a kind of a touchy-feely woo-woo world like, eh, just don't work. No, performance matters. Productivity matters. The signature you put on your work, that matters. But don't worry so much about it being perfect, just being as good as you're capable of doing at that time. Because remember the other quote, do the best you can with what you have, where you are. If that means on a certain day for a certain project, 80% is the best that you're capable of, then learn to have some pride in, that's the best you could do. Don't focus on the 20% that you feel you fell short. Take pride in the 80% that you over-delivered this. How do you rise to the perspective that that is what you hope it is? Well, there's also a difference between being the best and being your best. This is just an operating system I use. And please know with every single thing I'm sharing, I'm not telling any of you all that this stuff is gospel. If there's anything I'm sharing that doesn't resonate with you or jive with you or doesn't fit in your operating system, all I ask is that you approach it with an open mind. I'm not telling you all to see the world through the same lens that I see it through. If everything I just shared with you about perfectionism, if you're just being polite and smiling and then saying, I ain't doing none of that, I'm gonna stick with what I'm doing, by all means, I encourage you to do that. Everyone needs to figure those things out. I have no desire to be the best. I just have a desire to be my best and just let the chips fall where they may. Because most of it's rather subjective anyway. I mean, if you were to say who is the best keynote speaker you've ever seen, we would have a whole variety of different answers because it's completely subjective. It's like beauty, it's like art. Like there's no right answer. So even something that you're defining as perfect, someone else might even have a different definition of perfect, which means you're constantly chasing a moving target. And that will absolutely add to stress stagnation and burnout if you're spinning your wheels always trying to hit a target that somebody else is setting for you. Politics, both internal, external, even some legal things that we have to deal with on a day to day, which I think this does roll up into some of the curve balls too that we get. So it's going back to the basics, which has been the theme of all of this. We make it binary intentionally. So the first thing you ask is there any room for this system to change or make improvements or tweak even as minor as it may be? Now you acknowledge that you don't have a magic wand that can tomorrow change it to be exactly like you want it but is there anything that you believe can be done to make the situation a little bit more palatable or better for you? So that's one question to ask. I'm not asking you now, this is something to sit with. So question number one is is there any room, and this is going back to I'm not gonna make an assumption that there's not, I'm not gonna make a judgment that these people have put these layers in place just to make my life harder. It's probably not the case, but just ask, is there anything that can be improved? And then the other half of that, let's just say the answer is no. It is a rigid system and it is not going to change. Then what do you have control over? Your half, which is your side of the fence, which is well then what's something thoughtful and intentional I can do to make the best of a less than preferred situation. This is less than ideal. I wish I had my magic wand and could have it done this way. That is not gonna be the case. So what can I change on my end? So only you can choose whether or not to let the powers that be continue to frustrate you or make you feel overwhelmed. Don't give that power away. Keep the keys to the car. This is not my preference. This is not the system I would choose if I was in charge, but I'm not in charge. So I'm gonna make the best of it. I'm gonna do the best I can with what I have and where I am. And that's really, that's where we get the power back. And everything comes down to choice. We have very little choice in external circumstances. We have 100% choice in how we respond to external circumstances. And sometimes just reframing how we choose to view something can make it a little bit better. Well, I think you just have been down there. I really think that mindset is what we have and we can control, you know, within second to that is transparency. Yeah. Where you say like, you know, this is the reality of like, there's time long that can happen, but really we have what you said, you know, our mindset really makes the difference. Yeah. And I don't, see, I want that to make you all feel empowered not feel helpless to think I don't have any control over the system. That's a defeating mindset. That's saying, yeah, like I don't want that. I want you to say, yeah, I don't have any control over the weather today either, but I absolutely control how I'll respond to the weather, which puts me back in the driver's seat, which means nothing in the outer world, in theory. Now in practice, this is really hard to do. It doesn't matter what goes on in the outer world, I'm going to choose my response. So in fact, I'm in full control and that's a subtle mind shift. And some days I do a good job with that and some days I get stuck in my old ways as well, but it's just something to at least consider. And then a personal level one, a personal exhaustion too that leads to the burnout and kind of amplify that burnout too. I will touch on that one for just a quick moment in case that you don't feel that we did. Number one is that self-audit. If you can start to take a little bit more control over the morning and evening routine, the bookends of your day and even 10 to 15 minutes of something that infuses you with energy and optimism and makes you feel alive, just a little bit on the bookends of the day can help ward off some of that mental, physical and emotional fatigue that is incredibly common when you guys, you do the work that you do. The other thing is, and this is very similar to what we've been sharing, I heard, do you guys know who Eckhart Tolle is? He is kind of like a modern day philosopher. Well, he set a definition of stress a few years ago that really resonated with me. And I want you to think about this for a moment. He said stress is nothing more than the desire for things to be different than they are in this moment. Think about that for a second. Stress, and it's okay if you don't agree with it. I'm just sharing what he said because this resonated with me. Stress is the desire for things to be different than they are in the moment. Well, the reason that resonated with me, what I pull from that is, is stress is not actually caused by external events and circumstances. Stress is caused by our resistance to those external circumstances and events. On some level, a level of acceptance and surrender to the things outside of our control does lower stress. Now that is in a perfect world, and I know that is not a practical world. But let's go back to my somewhat tongue and cheek analogy of sitting in traffic, that it's my preference that every car gets out of my way. It's my acknowledgement, I fully acknowledge that the cars in front of me aren't the cause of my stress. It's me wishing those cars weren't there. That's what's causing my stress. Because two people can be, Jen and I can be in the exact same traffic jam. So the external circumstances are the exact same for both of us, and one of us chooses to be stressed out. White knuckle the steering wheel, honk the horn, give people the finger, like that's one person's response. Someone else's response can be to enjoy some stillness. Listen to a podcast, make a phone call. Same circumstances, completely different response. One of which would increase stress, one of which would decrease stress. So just keep that in mind. And I'm not saying there aren't certain events and circumstances that are inherently more stressful feeling, but it's a perception, but it's just something to consider. So we start filling our bucket on the bookends of the day and we accept the fact that stress is derived from us wishing things were different. So nonce again, this is empowering. This gives us the control. You do those two things and you will see stress incrementally starts to reduce. And that changes in the different seasons of our life and there's different circumstances. I understand all of that, but I'm all about using operating systems that give us the power, not to take it away. So I appreciate you guys very much. Thanks.