Order of Man - The Art of Coaching

00:00:00.100 Every one of us wants to be a more effective leader, but there's a huge difference between being a boss and manager and being a leader.

00:00:07.820 And if you want to take it even further, a coach, a coach is someone who helps guide another individual to do and to be more.

00:00:15.500 Today, I'm joined by a great coach, Brett Bartholomew, the author of conscious coaching to talk about what makes a successful coach.

00:00:23.500 We talk about the social skills needed to effectively coach others, the distinction between compliance and commitment, the nuances between influencing others and manipulating them, and ultimately how to coach others well.

00:00:37.200 You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest, embrace your fears, and boldly chart your own path.

00:00:42.940 When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.

00:00:47.380 You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong.

00:00:51.980 This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become.

00:00:56.700 At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.

00:01:02.040 Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Michler, and I am the host and the founder of the podcast and the movement that is Order of Man.

00:01:08.880 I want to welcome you back. I want to welcome you here.

00:01:11.560 We need more men in this battle to reclaim and restore masculinity.

00:01:16.160 I know there's a movement in society to quote-unquote redefine what it means to be a man.

00:01:22.280 I saw a news article or a magazine, I believe it was GQ, that says the new masculinity.

00:01:28.440 There is no the new masculinity. It doesn't need to be redefined.

00:01:32.940 Guys, our mission, our goal, our objective is to restore masculinity in a society that seems to have forgotten what it means to be a man and how to show up as one.

00:01:42.040 So it's my goal and objective to give you the tools and the conversations and the resources.

00:01:47.320 And obviously in this podcast to give you the dialogue between me and other highly successful men.

00:01:54.000 Today's podcast is no exception.

00:01:55.900 And then get the wisdom, the information, the experiences, the knowledge, the stories from these highly successful men and share them with you.

00:02:03.980 Distill them into a conversation and get that into your hands.

00:02:07.840 And so you can improve as a father, husband, business owner, community leader, et cetera, et cetera.

00:02:12.800 So that said, we're going to get into this pretty quickly here.

00:02:15.980 I do want to make a very quick mention that we've got a giveaway going on right now.

00:02:21.680 A lot of you guys know that we've started to make the podcast available on YouTube.

00:02:25.500 By the way, if you're interested in that, and you will be here in a minute, if you're not already,

00:02:29.420 is at youtube.com slash order of man.

00:02:33.680 Again, all of our videos, this podcast, the ask me anythings, the Friday field notes, they're all over there on YouTube.

00:02:40.400 So make sure you check that out.

00:02:41.660 And speaking of that right now, as of the recording of this podcast, we're at, I want to say roughly 68,000 YouTube subscribers.

00:02:50.000 It's my goal to get to that a hundred thousand mark initially.

00:02:52.480 And of course grow well beyond that.

00:02:54.880 In order to do that, I thought I would try bribing you.

00:02:58.380 So, and I was talking with my good friend over at origin, Pete Roberts, you probably know him or know of him.

00:03:05.140 And he said that he would be willing to throw in a pair of boots, brand new origin, a hundred percent sourced and made in America boots.

00:03:13.000 I've got the bison boots and you should probably consider entering the giveaway for these boots as well.

00:03:18.540 So here's how this is going to work.

00:03:19.980 If you go to our YouTube channel, again, it's at order of man, go to our YouTube channel, subscribe and take a screenshot of that

00:03:28.000 subscription and email it to operations, operations at order of man.com.

00:03:34.220 You are entered in that's it.

00:03:36.100 And you can get a bonus entry by going to origin USA's YouTube channel, taking a screenshot of your subscription,

00:03:44.500 and then emailing that as a separate email to operations at order of man.com.

00:03:51.060 It's that simple on Friday of this week.

00:03:54.880 So that date would be the 25th.

00:03:59.040 I believe I just want to make sure I've got this right.

00:04:00.720 Yes.

00:04:00.900 The 25th of October, 2019 at 11 59 PM Eastern standard time.

00:04:07.160 I almost said mountain because that's where I come from Eastern standard time.

00:04:10.280 We're going to draw the winners and here's what you're going to win.

00:04:13.020 If you do get selected, the third prize winner is going to receive an order of man battle planner.

00:04:20.540 A lot of you guys have these and are familiar with them.

00:04:22.140 An order of man battle planner.

00:04:23.120 The second prize winner will, will win a battle planner, an order of man, leather wallet, and an order of man hat.

00:04:29.920 The first prize winner will win a battle planner, a leather hat, excuse me, a leather wallet, our order of man hat, and also a brand new pair of origin boots.

00:04:41.220 So there it is.

00:04:42.300 If you need the instructions again, hit rewind, go listen to him again.

00:04:45.680 Go subscribe to our YouTube channel origin USA's YouTube channel.

00:04:48.960 Send the screenshot to operations at order of man.com in separate emails, and you'll be entered in twice.

00:04:55.340 All right, guys, that's all I've got by way of announcements.

00:04:58.560 I am very, very excited to introduce my guest to you today.

00:05:01.800 As I stated earlier, he is an absolutely phenomenal coach.

00:05:05.460 His name is Brett Bartholomew.

00:05:07.220 I only met Brett recently, but I did watch him present some of the ideas that he's going to be sharing with you today at Soren X's summer strong earlier in the year.

00:05:16.580 And I can tell you that without a doubt, this is somebody who is extremely qualified and competent when it comes to human psychology, human performance, and ultimately how to optimize the body and brain for, for performance.

00:05:29.420 He's a strength and conditioning coach.

00:05:31.360 He's a consultant.

00:05:32.400 He's the founder of a consulting company, the bridge human performance.

00:05:36.000 He's also worked with professional athletes, Olympians, many members of special forces units, Fortune 500 companies, and of course, a ton more.

00:05:44.880 I'm honored that he's joining us to share his in-depth knowledge of coaching others well.

00:05:51.120 Brett, what's going on, man?

00:05:52.180 Thanks for joining me on the Order of Man podcast.

00:05:54.260 Yeah, my pleasure, Ryan.

00:05:55.100 Thanks for having me.

00:05:55.760 Really appreciate it.

00:05:56.620 Yeah, of course.

00:05:57.080 It's been, what, I don't know, two or three months in the works now or so.

00:05:59.500 I think you, we had just mentioned that we were talking when I was driving across the country here to, here to our property in Maine.

00:06:06.860 Yeah, yeah, exactly.

00:06:07.840 And I, I knew exactly what that feeling was like is three years ago, my wife and I did that same drive from LA to Atlanta and we had never really been to Atlanta.

00:06:16.020 And so, it was just kind of a new journey, new adventure.

00:06:17.960 So, I loved when you said that, that really resonated with me and made me smile.

00:06:21.120 Yeah.

00:06:21.540 So, you're in Atlanta now?

00:06:23.420 Yeah, we live about an hour outside of the perimeter in Woodstock, but yeah.

00:06:27.080 Okay.

00:06:27.800 Yeah.

00:06:27.960 What, what brought you out there?

00:06:30.100 I mean, I, it's weird when people ask that because I don't have a clear answer for what brought us out here.

00:06:34.360 I don't know if you did or, or where you are with that.

00:06:36.940 Yeah, real simple.

00:06:37.800 And I'll try to keep it short so I don't bore anybody.

00:06:39.760 I, I had made the decision to go out on my own.

00:06:42.000 And so, I train athletes for a living, but I also work with special forces and some organizations.

00:06:47.060 So, we knew that we needed a city that had a large international hub because I'll fly about 80 to 100,000 miles a year,

00:06:54.080 but also an organic population where a lot of athletes resided in the off season, around some military bases.

00:07:00.440 And then, they're also, you know, out of respect to some friends of mine that have established businesses and things in other states,

00:07:06.840 we kind of wanted to explore a new area of the country.

00:07:08.780 So, this was two hours away from our hometown of Omaha, Nebraska.

00:07:12.000 Good values, very agile in terms of the airport access, like I said.

00:07:15.940 And, and this was a better place for us to raise a family than somewhere like Los Angeles, just in our opinion.

00:07:21.380 You were, you were way more thoughtful about it than I was.

00:07:23.600 I was like, yeah, man, that sounds good.

00:07:25.080 Let's do that.

00:07:25.840 I kind of felt like any, many, mighty mo and just, this is where we ended up.

00:07:29.400 Hey, either way, it looks like it worked out well for you, judging by the background and the sense of peace in your voice and calm, man.

00:07:35.500 So, whatever works.

00:07:36.420 Yeah, no, it's been good.

00:07:37.380 You said you decided to go out on your own.

00:07:40.040 Were you working with an organization, a team?

00:07:42.600 Like, where were you before you branched out and got on your own into Atlanta?

00:07:46.440 Yeah, so a combination.

00:07:47.540 I worked in college football for a while, both at the University of Nebraska and then Southern Illinois University.

00:07:52.600 And then, I worked for a private organization named Athletes Performance, now Exos.

00:07:56.680 And within that organization, I did everything from working with high school kids, middle school, to professional baseball players, football players, rugby, kind of a gamut.

00:08:05.760 At this point in my career, I worked with athletes from 23 sports.

00:08:09.560 And so, I was a part of that organization, went and co-owned a gym out in Los Angeles and was contracted out there to kind of help them create a system and get some things going.

00:08:20.580 That was a one-year agreement, one-year contract.

00:08:23.000 And then, after that, wrote a book and decided, you know what?

00:08:25.400 It's time to kind of roll the dice for young and we wanted a little bit more freedom and autonomy in some things that we were doing.

00:08:32.080 Where I worked before, they were all great places, but you couldn't really own your intellectual property.

00:08:36.660 And I just felt like it was time for me to kind of do that and establish that.

00:08:40.120 That's cool.

00:08:40.460 Yeah, I actually felt that way a lot with regards to my financial planning practice.

00:08:44.240 I was six years or so, maybe seven tops in my financial planning practice.

00:08:48.420 I was working with another firm and great firm.

00:08:50.880 Didn't have anything bad to say or anything wrong necessarily, but felt like I really wanted that control and autonomy of my life and developed and started my own financial planning firm.

00:08:59.860 And here we are, well, 10 years later and it's pretty crazy.

00:09:04.520 So, it's…

00:09:04.940 And I think there's no better time to do that, right?

00:09:06.900 Yeah, that's true.

00:09:07.380 Like, there's no better.

00:09:08.040 And I think there gets to be a point where it's…

00:09:09.880 Some people take that jump too soon.

00:09:11.480 I'm, like you said, I'm really grateful for the experiences I had that all primed me.

00:09:15.920 But, you know, in my field, it was a little weird.

00:09:17.760 It was kind of, you know, there were also some opportunities where, you know, we looked at going back into pro sport.

00:09:23.460 But some of the organizations said, hey, if you come and work here, you got to kill the book.

00:09:27.360 No more book.

00:09:28.240 No more speak.

00:09:29.060 And I was like, well, why?

00:09:30.380 And they said, well…

00:09:31.100 That's strange.

00:09:31.520 Yeah, they were, you know, their word to me, this specific organization is we want to hire a coach.

00:09:36.000 We don't want a brand.

00:09:37.560 And when I talked to people in other, you know, domains, they were like, man, if I wrote a book, I'd be able to get a promotion.

00:09:45.200 Or this and that.

00:09:45.860 So, that's just kind of the way strength and conditioning is right now.

00:09:48.280 I don't, you know, as a profession, it has a lot of growing to do.

00:09:51.160 It's a great field.

00:09:52.420 But it doesn't really know kind of where it sits in regards to these kinds of things and having a presence outside of the classic role of a strength coach.

00:10:00.820 Yeah, that's a great point.

00:10:01.580 I think there's, I think it's almost viewed, not even almost, I believe it is viewed as a threat, right?

00:10:07.740 It's a threat to the status quo.

00:10:09.140 It's a threat to the system.

00:10:10.900 We don't want this independent thinker.

00:10:13.740 We want a drone, right?

00:10:14.720 And I'm not going to talk bad about the organization you were with, but it seems like generally a lot of these companies and organizations kind of feel that way when they have a high producer, somebody who wants some autonomy and control and individual freedom over what it is they're doing and how they're running their side of the business.

00:10:30.840 I think you stated it perfectly.

00:10:32.040 I think it's a lot of, the word is thrown around a lot.

00:10:35.360 It's systems-based, kind of going back to Frederick Winslow-Taylor that kind of just said, hey, we're going to optimize everything.

00:10:42.080 Everybody's replaceable as long as the system's in place.

00:10:44.440 I don't really believe in that.

00:10:45.860 I think that, you know, of course, people have to play within a certain sandbox.

00:10:49.880 Otherwise, everybody just runs around being robes.

00:10:52.280 But I think at the end of the day, people are the ultimate performance variable.

00:10:56.200 And not everybody, everybody is not replaceable in every circumstance.

00:10:59.220 You can have the best system in the world.

00:11:01.180 That's just not how the world works.

00:11:02.460 Or, I mean, look at airlines, right?

00:11:03.820 Like, they have systems.

00:11:05.120 You check in at this time.

00:11:06.080 You do this.

00:11:06.720 Everything is very clockwork.

00:11:08.680 All it takes is one person to have a little bit of apathy or one person to not have a great demeanor.

00:11:13.980 And that can cause a cascade of issues down the road.

00:11:16.300 So, I don't think people are plug and play.

00:11:17.860 But, you know, everybody's going to have a different view on that one.

00:11:21.000 Yeah.

00:11:21.040 I mean, even take the airline industry.

00:11:22.920 You know, you have an organization, for example, that's so stuck in their old patterns and their old ways.

00:11:27.260 And then you have one bitter or negative employee.

00:11:29.780 And the airline industry is a great example of this.

00:11:32.740 I remember when I was little, I actually used to like flying.

00:11:36.000 It was pleasurable.

00:11:36.860 It was enjoyable.

00:11:38.240 The stewardesses at the time, you can't call them that now, they're flight attendants now.

00:11:43.140 They were attractive.

00:11:45.220 They were pleasant people.

00:11:46.860 And I enjoyed it.

00:11:48.280 And now it's just, I mean, you travel, like you said, 80,000, 100,000 miles a year.

00:11:52.160 It's miserable.

00:11:53.140 And the threat to the status quo now is that you have private planes, they're on the rise.

00:12:01.760 You have leasing companies, right?

00:12:04.500 And so, there's this threat to the old way of doing things.

00:12:07.400 And if those companies don't evolve and don't grow, they're going to be left in the dust.

00:12:11.480 Yeah.

00:12:11.700 You bring up a great point, Ryan, with kind of referencing the halcyon days of traveling, right?

00:12:16.460 That madman, Pan Am, everybody gets dressed up.

00:12:19.540 What an experience.

00:12:20.200 And now it's like, you know, it's so funny.

00:12:23.060 I used to belong to TSA PreCheck.

00:12:24.900 And then that line gets longer than the regular line.

00:12:26.840 Oh, for sure.

00:12:27.220 I've seen that longer.

00:12:28.180 I'm like, suckers.

00:12:29.360 So, now I had to buy Clear.

00:12:31.220 And now, you know, people are starting to find out about Clear.

00:12:33.460 And it's just like, there's always a new obstacle.

00:12:35.280 And I live an hour and a half away from the airport.

00:12:37.100 So, I got enough crap I got to deal with.

00:12:39.640 But you're right.

00:12:40.380 It's just different.

00:12:41.340 We've fallen in love with systems.

00:12:43.060 And I think that happens in a lot of different industries.

00:12:45.580 And we've gotten away from people and social skills and the necessity of being able to show mastery in that domain.

00:12:52.240 And I think people always kind of refer to that as soft skill.

00:12:54.840 But, man, there's nothing that brings harder results and more concrete outcomes than somebody that knows how to interact successfully and read people.

00:13:01.680 So, it's funny to me that during a time when technology reigns supreme, we've kind of offloaded those as kind of like a nice to have and not a need to have.

00:13:09.280 I think that's a big issue.

00:13:10.660 Yeah.

00:13:10.900 Well, and I think there's a lot of humanity that's stripped away from it as well.

00:13:14.020 And the more we move into this technologically driven world, I think the more that people are going to crave and starve for human and personal interaction.

00:13:23.420 Agreed.

00:13:23.900 That's the thing that's going away, it seems like.

00:13:26.300 Yeah.

00:13:27.120 Like, and I'm always interested.

00:13:28.420 I know this is your show and I don't want to, you know, take over and ask you a question.

00:13:32.280 But, you know, just studying your history, I mean, I remember you talking about you never had a kind of a permanent male role model in your life.

00:13:38.900 And anybody that you did, right, was kind of, it just wasn't the best example, right?

00:13:43.740 Less than stellar example.

00:13:44.860 Where did you really start to hone in and get more of a mastery of interactional-based mediums, you know, and everything you're able to do with the podcast?

00:13:53.300 Where did you start learning more about people?

00:13:54.720 Was it first introspective?

00:13:56.440 Was it learning more about yourself?

00:13:57.940 Or was that something just, have you always studied other people and been inquisitive?

00:14:01.080 I would probably say that it started in my financial planning practice when I realized what had happened.

00:14:06.860 And this actually ties into what we're talking about is, you know, you think about the financial planning industry.

00:14:11.620 And all the advisors are the same.

00:14:15.260 They're middle-aged, old, slightly overweight white guys just, like, teaching you how to pitch and how to, like, ask for referrals.

00:14:24.720 And it's, like, done all the old way, right?

00:14:27.100 And they sit in their high chairs.

00:14:29.600 They're quite literally higher than their clients behind this big, huge, gaudy desk.

00:14:35.260 It's a miserable experience.

00:14:37.720 And that's who I learned the financial planning business from.

00:14:41.120 And I wasn't having success, obviously.

00:14:44.100 So I had to figure out how to make it work with myself and with a different clientele.

00:14:50.740 And I really started, the way that it started is I put together CDs that would have my sales presentation, if you will, on it.

00:15:00.520 And I would give it to prospects.

00:15:02.320 And I noticed that people were coming in and I wasn't having to sell them when they came in.

00:15:07.620 Because I had already qualified them because they listened to the CD and decided, based on that CD, if they wanted to work with me or not.

00:15:13.980 Sure.

00:15:14.100 And that's really, I mean, long story short, that's really how I realized that, oh, this audio thing is pretty powerful and you can connect.

00:15:21.100 And I started another podcast.

00:15:22.400 It's a whole other story for the financial planning thing.

00:15:25.300 But then I just started studying people and how they were interacting.

00:15:29.160 And I look at great interviewers like, well, Joe Rogan's a great example.

00:15:33.060 My friend Jordan Harbinger is another great example.

00:15:35.980 Lewis Howes is a great example.

00:15:37.580 There's so many great podcasters who, I don't use the term interviewers, but more conversationalists.

00:15:43.080 Lewis Howes is actually interested and curious about people.

00:15:46.860 Lewis Howes Yeah, that's a huge thing, right?

00:15:48.160 Is being able to, I think people are often confused too.

00:15:51.740 And I'd love to hear your take on this.

00:15:53.360 Because being interested in people means you know how to listen, not just hear.

00:15:56.720 Like I always say, hearing is a physiological act, right?

00:15:59.180 We can discern what a sound is.

00:16:00.600 We hear something fall.

00:16:01.780 What was that?

00:16:02.680 Is it a threat in the environment?

00:16:04.000 Is it a baby crying?

00:16:04.980 Whatever.

00:16:05.820 You know, listening is a decoding.

00:16:08.260 It's more of a cognitive act.

00:16:09.700 So one's physiological, one's more cognitive.

00:16:11.780 It's, all right, now how do I decode what Ryan's saying to me?

00:16:15.520 What's the surrounding context around that?

00:16:17.800 And then how can I complement that?

00:16:19.200 And I always tell people that's why coaching and conversation is just improv.

00:16:23.080 Improv is never about, you know, being the funniest person on stage.

00:16:26.720 It's about yes and.

00:16:28.060 So you give me something, great.

00:16:29.380 I build off that.

00:16:30.440 And by and large, now we're building honest rapport.

00:16:32.820 We're not waiting for our turn to speak.

00:16:34.680 I'm actually taking what you give me and being truly interested in that.

00:16:38.060 And I think that lacks in most people.

00:16:39.980 And the folks that you mentioned are all great interviewers for that reason.

00:16:43.260 They're curious, you know?

00:16:44.540 Right.

00:16:45.580 Yeah, you bring up a good point.

00:16:46.880 And even I think about our conversation with the past 10 minutes or so.

00:16:49.860 I mean, I may have asked you a few questions.

00:16:51.600 You may have asked me a few.

00:16:52.800 But really, it's just a conversation.

00:16:54.800 I say something, you say something.

00:16:56.220 I say something, you say something.

00:16:57.520 Like, these aren't real complex frameworks.

00:17:03.180 But man, so many people have lost the ability to interact with other human beings.

00:17:07.660 Like, I've heard that we're so connected.

00:17:09.720 We're connected better than we ever have been.

00:17:11.740 And yet, we're so disconnected.

00:17:13.760 We can connect with somebody across the planet easier than we can connect with somebody across the table.

00:17:19.100 Yeah.

00:17:19.340 I mean, that's one of the, what you just mentioned is one of the hallmark phrases I put in my book.

00:17:22.680 You know, is kind of, we have this idea, we've lost social agility.

00:17:26.240 We've lost social intelligence.

00:17:27.840 And what you see is people are so starved for kind of basic elements in their life that it's funny.

00:17:32.900 You see kind of everybody, and I love it too, but decor-wise, we see people almost wanting this restored wood and this nature look.

00:17:41.160 And I think we crave the same thing in our just social lives.

00:17:45.200 I think what I've even learned about myself is the harder I work, the more reprieve and relaxation I find in just good discussion.

00:17:52.680 Right?

00:17:52.760 Like, that in and of itself, I just spent a few days in Puerto Rico with my cousins down there.

00:17:57.840 And he's like, well, what do you want to do when you're down here?

00:17:59.360 Do you want to, and I'm like, man, you know what?

00:18:01.140 I just want to talk and kind of hear what you've been up to because he's a really intriguing guy.

00:18:06.540 And it's hard to not find, it's hard to find people that aren't transactional now.

00:18:10.720 It's hard to find people that aren't takers.

00:18:12.380 I say it's two T's.

00:18:13.480 They're takers or they're transactional.

00:18:15.220 They don't really care.

00:18:15.980 It's just kind of, it's a quotidian part of their existence.

00:18:19.120 What can you give me?

00:18:19.860 All that shit.

00:18:21.040 Pardon my language.

00:18:21.900 And it's just like, we've got to find some kind of common ground.

00:18:25.140 And it's like, but we haven't been taught that.

00:18:27.860 What can we expect when the formal education side of things doesn't really deal with this?

00:18:31.980 Like, yeah, you maybe take a sociology class and you take a psychology class, but how many

00:18:36.380 people really are able to think on their feet, adapt on the fly, take what somebody gives

00:18:40.080 them and build off of that in a way that's actually intentional, in a way that's authentic,

00:18:45.620 in a way that's actionable across domains, no matter what your profession is.

00:18:49.800 Yeah.

00:18:49.940 And it's really, I mean, it really is that it's simple.

00:18:52.580 You know, I think about with, with my kids, we've got four kids and we were at dinner the

00:18:56.980 other night and my, my kids order their food.

00:18:59.560 They're, they're old enough.

00:19:00.540 Even my three-year-old, he, he knows how to say words.

00:19:03.560 Yeah.

00:19:04.000 So they, they placed the orders with, with the waitress and she was blown away.

00:19:09.520 She's like, Oh my gosh, I can't believe your kid.

00:19:11.680 Like, thank you for letting your kids order their own food.

00:19:13.740 I'm like, what do you mean?

00:19:14.560 She's like, yeah, nobody does that.

00:19:15.720 They order their own food.

00:19:16.620 And I'm like, what a disservice that we're doing when we don't give, you know, our children

00:19:21.160 an opportunity to communicate, to use their words, to relate with other people, to connect

00:19:25.640 with other people.

00:19:26.840 Uh, and it is that simple.

00:19:28.380 It's using little opportunities like that to give them experiences where they're going

00:19:33.040 to be able to better interact with another human being, not a robot or a keyboard typing

00:19:38.600 away and, and being negative on social media or whatever it may be.

00:19:42.320 Well, I think to pick up on a specific word you use in that phrase, you said it's, it's

00:19:45.380 simple, right?

00:19:45.960 But some things are simple, not easy.

00:19:48.020 And I think what I've learned is most people don't work on their communication because it's

00:19:51.700 taken for granted.

00:19:52.660 Yet, if you ask an audience of 4,000 people, Hey, how many of you, um, have miscommunicated

00:19:58.480 at some point in your life or had a misunderstanding?

00:20:00.760 Yeah.

00:20:01.140 Everybody's going to raise their damn hand if they're honest.

00:20:03.080 Right.

00:20:03.400 And, but like how many of you, I remember when my book came out, there was somebody, you

00:20:07.560 know, we all have trolls and this guy was like, I don't need a book to learn how to

00:20:10.620 communicate.

00:20:11.040 I do that every day.

00:20:12.320 And I was like, well, that's right.

00:20:14.000 And I'm like, well, that's actually why we should need it to anything you do every day.

00:20:17.320 We can probably optimize.

00:20:18.560 And I think my big learning from that was I was hospitalized at a young age at 15 years

00:20:23.160 old.

00:20:23.360 I spent a year of my life in the hospital.

00:20:24.800 I was around a lot of subject matter experts that could tell you anything from, you know,

00:20:29.060 there's dietitians, psychiatrists, psychologists, doctors, but none of them really knew how to

00:20:33.420 relate.

00:20:33.740 It was almost like they were socially skewed more than they were socially skilled.

00:20:37.240 And you felt like a silhouette, you kind of felt like this nameless, faceless thing that

00:20:41.160 was just a patient that was a symptom.

00:20:43.600 And I think that was my big aha moment.

00:20:45.440 Cause I saw all, you spent a lot of other time with other patients in this hospital and

00:20:50.040 there was a junior Olympic wrestler who was beaten by his father.

00:20:52.960 There was a woman whose husband had left her.

00:20:54.960 And so that kind of created issues in her life.

00:20:57.200 Everybody had their own story.

00:20:58.560 Yeah.

00:20:58.940 The doctors and nurses just kind of saw us all collectively lumped together as like symptoms.

00:21:03.460 And that was really when it dawned on me, like, Oh, there's a difference between having

00:21:07.740 content knowledge and having knowledge of people and the interactions between them.

00:21:11.660 And that, that was a huge game changer for me in terms of just being more introspective

00:21:16.740 and more interested in other people.

00:21:17.980 Cause it's not just like Ryan, it's not like, all right, if I, in your financial planning

00:21:22.460 practice, right.

00:21:23.500 It's not just like poor interactions don't just lead to poor outcomes.

00:21:26.800 Like they could change somebody's life dramatically, right?

00:21:29.960 It's just, it can cost somebody their life.

00:21:33.040 It could cost somebody their life savings, no matter the context, it has huge consequences

00:21:37.340 yet.

00:21:38.080 All right.

00:21:38.360 It's just something we kind of passively are like, yeah, I'm not really good at communicating.

00:21:41.160 It's very odd.

00:21:42.360 I think maybe the reason that is, is because we do it so often that it's like once you,

00:21:48.120 once you were immersed in something, it's no longer something you have to be real conscious

00:21:52.400 of a hundred percent.

00:21:53.760 Right.

00:21:53.940 So we talk every day.

00:21:55.140 So because we do it every day, we don't think much about it, but if we were going to go

00:21:58.960 fly a plane and we're learning how to fly a plane, we're going to be conscious about

00:22:02.200 the steps and how to go through the sequence of events because we're not familiar with

00:22:06.640 it.

00:22:06.940 And I think that familiarity probably breeds some level of complacency and really not

00:22:11.700 worrying about how to communicate effectively.

00:22:14.000 A hundred percent.

00:22:14.680 I mean, that's, and that's where the Dunning-Kruger effect is amplified, right?

00:22:17.600 The things that we do most commonly are the things that we're most confident in.

00:22:21.980 And that Dunning-Kruger, right?

00:22:23.440 Like if you look at that classic image, it says, when you're the most confident in something,

00:22:27.400 you're usually the least competent in it, right?

00:22:30.240 The brightest people are dramatically aware of their deficiencies, right?

00:22:33.660 Like I, somebody came up to me the other day and they're like, Hey, I'm sure you heard

00:22:36.820 this all the time, but I enjoyed your book.

00:22:38.260 I'm like, listen, one, I don't hear that all the time.

00:22:40.940 And two, the internal voices in my head constantly tell me that book was not good enough.

00:22:45.100 The internal voices in my head tell me, and I'm not like some negative, like, uh, you're

00:22:48.680 worthless, right?

00:22:49.640 But like you're a perfectionist when you want to add value to people's lives.

00:22:52.800 It's never good enough for your own taste.

00:22:54.420 Do you get that in your work ever?

00:22:55.780 I feel that way, but I make a very, very conscious effort to accept people's compliments

00:23:01.300 fully.

00:23:02.300 I'm, I, and I, that's something I've been working on more this year.

00:23:05.200 And, uh, that was something that I just knew like, all right, take the compliment.

00:23:08.500 Yeah.

00:23:08.820 That's a, that's a tough one for sure though, because in your mind, you, you, you're a high

00:23:14.080 achiever.

00:23:14.580 You want to be successful.

00:23:15.600 You know that you could do better and you will do better next time.

00:23:18.460 And that's like the internal script that's playing.

00:23:20.980 And externally, you just need to say, thank you.

00:23:23.720 I accept your gift.

00:23:24.980 Yep.

00:23:25.340 Excellent point.

00:23:26.380 I think also I've had to be more aware of the fact that I've always had a chip on my

00:23:29.400 shoulder, you know, just cause I've had a litany again, going back to your kind of origins

00:23:33.180 about this podcast, at least from what I understand of it, you know, you wanted to like challenge

00:23:38.080 people on different aspects of manhood and some things that you maybe weren't like, I

00:23:41.840 just felt like I had a lot of people when I was trying to go a different path in my career.

00:23:46.240 There were a lot of people that openly voiced like, oh, you're too young.

00:23:49.680 You shouldn't have written a book.

00:23:50.620 Or if you get out of college football, you'll never get back in this again.

00:23:53.640 It was, it's just a very competitive field, right?

00:23:56.900 You have people that inherently scarce resources, especially working with elite athletes.

00:24:01.840 So everybody feels like, oh, I got to control my little thing.

00:24:04.340 And it's like, well, I'm going to take a lateral step here.

00:24:06.860 But because I've had a chip on my shoulder, that makes it harder because when people are

00:24:11.100 like, oh, you've done so much.

00:24:12.360 I'm like, I haven't done enough.

00:24:13.500 Like I need to get better.

00:24:14.940 You're right.

00:24:15.560 It is this part of just being intentional and saying like, hey, I can sit here and take

00:24:20.340 stock of where I'm at.

00:24:21.300 I'm not saying I'm satisfied with it.

00:24:22.800 I say it's a family motto.

00:24:24.040 I'm always grateful, never satisfied.

00:24:26.720 And I need to live that more.

00:24:28.560 I like that distinction.

00:24:29.600 You know, one thing I've tried to do is I feel the same way in that I have a little bit

00:24:34.900 of a chip on my shoulder, even something to prove.

00:24:36.760 I think a lot of successful people probably do.

00:24:38.740 And you're probably more familiar with that, with your work and the elite athletes that

00:24:42.520 you're working with and warriors that you're working with as well.

00:24:45.820 I look at it and think, okay, I'm going to try to harden myself internally in that I'm

00:24:51.300 going to try to be tougher, more resilient, stronger, physically, mentally, emotionally,

00:24:54.560 but I don't want to harden myself externally to the world.

00:24:57.960 I want to be hard.

00:24:59.020 I want to be tough and strong and capable, but I don't want to harden myself to other people

00:25:03.140 because I have that chip on my shoulder.

00:25:05.500 Right.

00:25:06.040 Yeah.

00:25:06.360 I think there's nothing more to add on that one.

00:25:08.760 I think you just, you start to callous it, right?

00:25:11.620 And to a degree you have to, because you got to take the lumps too.

00:25:15.080 There's going to be things in every venture, there's a vulture and whether that's something

00:25:19.140 that didn't go the way you wanted, right?

00:25:20.820 So it's a metaphorical vulture that just kind of eroded away at that outcome, or it's people

00:25:24.920 that will try to kind of, you know, people will rip off intellectual property.

00:25:28.540 Like all this stuff is just like, you're going to have to deal with it.

00:25:30.800 You're going to have to, it's kind of death by paper cuts and you got to be able to move

00:25:33.700 on.

00:25:34.320 And I think that that resilience, like my background was in boxing.

00:25:37.440 And so the more I kind of realized, oh, you know what?

00:25:39.520 It's just punch, counter punch.

00:25:40.920 You know what I mean?

00:25:41.380 Keep going and never get too hung up.

00:25:43.820 Cause in a fight, if you saw red, you're dead.

00:25:45.740 You just start swinging like Rocky Balboa.

00:25:47.720 Oh yeah.

00:25:48.200 But that doesn't work like the movies, right?

00:25:49.840 It doesn't work.

00:25:50.640 Oh, I don't know.

00:25:51.280 I don't know from experience, but I imagine that's the case.

00:25:53.840 Sure.

00:25:54.040 Like you just got to chill out.

00:25:55.240 And I think like the more I go back to those experiences, my first fight won by knockout.

00:25:59.440 Second one, my girlfriend was in the crowd.

00:26:01.520 My girlfriend at the time, I just, and I ended up just getting picked apart.

00:26:05.860 And so like, I have to remind myself, Hey, you've learned this lesson before, just in

00:26:10.120 a different way.

00:26:11.020 Chill out.

00:26:11.720 Like that chip on the shoulder doesn't always serve you.

00:26:14.100 It can kind of be, sometimes it fortifies you.

00:26:16.420 And sometimes that emotion leads to erosion.

00:26:19.340 Yeah.

00:26:19.740 As long as you use it correctly.

00:26:20.740 I mean, the analogy that ties in with what you're saying is I've started this jujitsu journey

00:26:25.160 over the past three to four months.

00:26:26.500 And you know, the first couple of classes I was, I pride myself on being strong.

00:26:30.640 I was, I was relatively athletic, uh, in, in high school anyways, I never played college

00:26:35.280 sports as I was decent.

00:26:36.520 I was okay, small, but decent.

00:26:38.920 Um, and so I prided myself on being capable and being strong and, and, and, and being technical.

00:26:44.940 And then you get to jujitsu and I'm like, I'm just going to bull rush and strength and

00:26:48.120 power everybody.

00:26:49.000 And then I'd have these 150 pound dudes who would just like tie me up in pretzels and knots.

00:26:53.220 And I was so frustrated until, and I'm still learning, but learn how to just relax, be,

00:26:59.860 be present.

00:27:00.540 You know, you don't need to be Hulk, but you don't want to be a wet noodle either, right?

00:27:04.840 But just relax, take it in, figure out, be calculated about what's going on.

00:27:09.220 At times you may need to exert a little bit more strength in, in bursts and moments.

00:27:13.400 And then you go back to your controlled and relaxed center.

00:27:15.940 And so this is an analogy for life.

00:27:18.040 Yeah, a hundred percent.

00:27:19.380 And I think that the combat sports in general are that right.

00:27:21.940 Whether it's jujitsu, wrestling, boxing, what have you.

00:27:24.360 And I'm expecting my first child in December.

00:27:26.320 And I know that's something that I'll get them involved in some kind of discipline.

00:27:29.680 And we had a neighbor one time that's like, aren't you worried about this?

00:27:32.240 I'm like, listen, like they're going to be exposed to a lot of things in the world.

00:27:35.280 I can worry about all this stuff all I want.

00:27:37.020 I'm not saying that I'm going to put the kid in like a blood sport death ring at four years

00:27:41.220 old.

00:27:41.600 Right.

00:27:41.880 And he's going to get head kicked.

00:27:42.900 I'm saying the kids got to learn what it's like.

00:27:44.840 I, I didn't learn my biggest issue was I didn't know how to deal with failure early on.

00:27:51.780 I internalized, I played baseball my whole life too.

00:27:55.220 And if I struck out, I was that kid that would be OCD at the batting cages the next day,

00:27:59.920 you know, for three hours and combat sports helped me deal with that.

00:28:04.220 Combat sports helped me deal with like, no man, it's just you.

00:28:06.700 And you know what?

00:28:07.440 You took the L and now you got to go back and learn how to fight this situation.

00:28:10.700 And I felt like the, and I still know a lot of friends that, and that are scared of failure.

00:28:15.100 And I think the earlier you can learn that that's just an inherent part of life that you've got.

00:28:19.160 I mean, how boring would it be, Ryan, if we were successful at everything?

00:28:22.540 Like, what would you learn?

00:28:23.700 And so that just kind of led a hallmark tenant of mine.

00:28:25.980 I said, don't trust anybody that does not tell you about their failures.

00:28:28.920 Just don't run.

00:28:30.340 Yeah.

00:28:30.860 Great point.

00:28:31.380 And you know, I mean, failure really isn't a permanent status either, unless you voluntarily

00:28:36.000 decide that it is right.

00:28:37.180 I'm a loser.

00:28:38.120 So now you assign some sort of weird meaning to it and you place yourself in the category

00:28:42.560 of loser.

00:28:43.020 And then you are a perpetual loser because you've decided you want to be.

00:28:46.520 Yeah.

00:28:46.780 I think the only time you really lose on anything, you know, like, I think the only is when you

00:28:50.580 don't.

00:28:50.840 And when you go through life perpetually without putting skin in the game, I think at some

00:28:54.520 point you've got to have skin in the game and in, in what you do and not everything.

00:28:58.100 I don't really like that quote of how you do anything is how you do everything.

00:29:01.000 That's not, I don't believe that to be true.

00:29:03.140 Right.

00:29:03.360 Like I had to take a math class in college that hadn't, it had no bearing on anything

00:29:08.180 I was ever going to do.

00:29:09.240 Did I approach it with diligence?

00:29:10.940 Sure.

00:29:11.580 Like, did I let it run my life?

00:29:13.380 And did I approach it the same way I run my business now?

00:29:16.020 No, because that doesn't have the same impact.

00:29:18.700 Sure.

00:29:19.060 But like, I do think there's like a point where you've got to take a stand for something

00:29:23.640 and you've got to put skin in the game for things that you care about and you've got

00:29:26.380 to see them through.

00:29:27.220 And the earlier you can teach somebody to do that, not be so risk averse at all times.

00:29:31.840 I mean, how would that work out in the investing world, right?

00:29:33.960 Like you have to manage risk for a living and skin in the game.

00:29:38.140 Yeah.

00:29:38.720 You had said that you were in the hospital at an early age.

00:29:41.740 Do you mind sharing with me what were you, did you have a medical condition or an injury

00:29:45.700 that you were dealing with?

00:29:46.880 Yeah.

00:29:47.120 A combination of things really.

00:29:49.200 So, and this is a big part of my book because it was a big part of my journey, right?

00:29:53.300 Like, especially getting to learn, know more about myself.

00:29:55.620 So, as I alluded to, competitive athlete pretty much my entire life.

00:30:00.320 And I went to a high school at a point in time where, you know, there were kids that

00:30:05.620 like we came kind of from middle income family, what have you, but the high school we were

00:30:10.400 going to pretty well to do kids, right?

00:30:13.140 And so, I was kind of shifting gears, wasn't going to the same high school as many of my

00:30:16.900 friends.

00:30:17.760 But around sophomore year, the social group that I had hung out with, which was mainly

00:30:21.660 other athletes and things like that, a lot of them got into hardcore drugs.

00:30:25.620 And I don't mean like casually drinking beer and smoking some weed in their parents' basement.

00:30:29.040 Doing what every high school kid does, right?

00:30:31.160 Yeah.

00:30:31.460 I mean, it got weird to the point where like the guy, the person's house we used to hang

00:30:35.760 out with, you know, almost like overnight, you went over there and people were doing

00:30:38.720 meth and coke and like, or the people involved, people were doing coke for sure.

00:30:43.400 And then like there were other kids in the high school that got hooked on meth, you know

00:30:46.760 what I mean?

00:30:47.120 Like, and one of them was like my best friend at the time.

00:30:49.980 Like his sister dealt meth and then he got into it and it was just kind of like, holy,

00:30:54.760 this is not my crowd.

00:30:56.080 Like people just getting blitzed all the time, drinking, doing coke.

00:30:59.680 Like it was just kind of a weird deal.

00:31:01.300 It wasn't my bag.

00:31:02.700 And at that same time, my parents were going through divorce, joint custody.

00:31:06.720 So, I'd spend Monday, Wednesday, Friday with my mom, Tuesday, Thursday with my dad, every

00:31:11.860 other weekend switch off.

00:31:13.080 So, I got really astute at packing a duffel bag, right?

00:31:16.940 You're going.

00:31:17.700 I bet.

00:31:17.940 But like, there's just a lot of crap going on, man.

00:31:20.620 And I didn't really feel like I belong anywhere.

00:31:22.720 Like, so I'd work out after school just for general, like, you know, doing training for

00:31:27.560 sports, what have you.

00:31:29.100 But then I'd go home.

00:31:30.120 I wouldn't really, you wouldn't feel settled at home or you'd hear your parents fighting.

00:31:33.160 So, I'd go work out again because that was just kind of how I dealt with anxiety or it

00:31:37.800 just got me out of the house.

00:31:39.080 And then, you know, ever since I saw one of my first like Rocky movies when I was a kid,

00:31:43.040 I obsessively started doing push-ups and sit-ups every night.

00:31:46.000 Like, Christian Bale, an American psycho.

00:31:48.220 Really?

00:31:48.620 So, yeah.

00:31:49.440 So, like, I just started going down this path, man, where, you know, how I dealt with anxiety,

00:31:54.320 how I dealt with a lot of the changes in my life was through training.

00:31:57.780 But, you know, I was 15 years old.

00:31:59.480 I didn't know anything.

00:32:00.320 And so, it became, first it was a release, like a release, then it became an obsession,

00:32:05.600 then it became a compulsion.

00:32:07.480 And I was reading, you know, these muscle magazines at the time of how to get lean and

00:32:12.020 ripped.

00:32:12.560 And this was like right during the nexus of low carb and low fat.

00:32:17.180 So, like any good extremist, I did both.

00:32:19.240 Of course.

00:32:19.740 Why not?

00:32:20.240 I mean, that's go big.

00:32:21.760 Right.

00:32:22.160 So, I'm working out.

00:32:23.140 I'm a high school kid working out three times a day all the time, basically eating egg

00:32:29.460 beaters and turkey bacon.

00:32:30.920 And it doesn't take much of the imagination that I just kind of started wasting away.

00:32:34.740 Yeah.

00:32:34.880 I mean, I became hyper conscious of everything I was doing, which is a form of anorexia.

00:32:38.640 Like, it was just like I was eating, but everything had to be a certain macronutrient

00:32:43.040 profile and I was burning way more calories than I ate.

00:32:45.740 So, long story short, one day training blacked out.

00:32:49.740 Went to the doctor.

00:32:50.620 Doctors like heart, kidney, and liver are so, like you're so malnourished.

00:32:54.520 Heart, kidney, and liver are risk of failure.

00:32:56.800 You need to be hospitalized immediately.

00:32:59.540 So, I get sent to an inpatient eating disorder hospital in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

00:33:04.400 And I promise you, there's no embellishment here.

00:33:06.880 Anybody that's been to a place like this would call in and tell you this is 100% the

00:33:10.500 truth.

00:33:11.140 You wake up and your blood's drawn.

00:33:13.280 You're in a gown.

00:33:14.400 You can only shower if you meet a certain BMI of all things.

00:33:18.120 So, for the first two weeks, I couldn't shower because they thought the initial shock

00:33:22.140 of hot or cold would send me into cardiac arrest.

00:33:24.620 Oh, really?

00:33:25.000 I was going to ask why they wouldn't let you shower if it was like punishment or something.

00:33:27.820 At this point, my resting heart rate, man, and this isn't a good thing, right?

00:33:32.100 This isn't like an endurance athlete, you know, who's otherwise healthy bragging.

00:33:35.540 My heart rate was around 35 beats per minute.

00:33:37.760 I mean, I had gone from 135 pounds as a high school freshman, which is what I was just naturally

00:33:43.580 at that time.

00:33:44.260 I weigh 195 now.

00:33:45.460 But to about like, I got down to like 95 pounds, man.

00:33:48.900 And none of this was shit I realized because I just, it was a lot of depression.

00:33:52.460 Like it was just, you get on autopilot, you know?

00:33:54.700 And I just knew that I didn't feel weak, but I was so pissed.

00:33:58.260 Like I just kept defaulting into my drug of choice, which was training.

00:34:02.000 Ryan, you're made to sit in a day room surrounded by plexiglass where you're under constant observation

00:34:06.940 by nurses.

00:34:08.500 And if you fidget, if you stand up, if you do anything that burns more calories than just

00:34:13.380 sitting, you get reprimanded.

00:34:15.300 You get one warning.

00:34:16.620 If you get a second warning, if you get a third warning, you're either made to drink a boost,

00:34:20.920 ensure, or you're fed intravenously.

00:34:23.660 Oh my goodness.

00:34:24.520 When you do eat, it's hospital approved meals.

00:34:27.060 You have to select based on like kind of the diabetic charts.

00:34:29.620 You have to have a certain amount of fruits, vegetables, fats, proteins, milk, dessert, all this shit.

00:34:34.840 And then you're, you eat at a glass table with nurses on both sides, kind of bookending.

00:34:40.820 And the glass table is because certain people will try to hide food and do it, but like it gets so weird that

00:34:47.480 let's say you had pizza that day.

00:34:49.080 If any remnant of the sauce or pepperoni grease or whatever is left on your tray,

00:34:53.940 you're either made to like lick that up, like unceremoniously, like, cause every calorie has to be accounted for.

00:35:00.160 And if you refuse to, which I certainly did a couple of times, cause there's just demeaning, right?

00:35:04.080 This is like, screw you.

00:35:05.340 Like I'm a high school, like not doing this.

00:35:07.520 You're either given a boost or insure or fed intravenously.

00:35:10.240 Now you're a minor, so you can't leave.

00:35:12.400 You have no choice like, but, uh, and then if you do disobey in any way, according to their perception,

00:35:17.720 it's written in your chart.

00:35:19.660 And so now your stay is extended or they try to just med you up, you know?

00:35:24.120 And so a lot of times, like, Oh dude, like the amount of times I saw nurses and doctors

00:35:28.280 sitting there debating what antidepressant they should put somebody on.

00:35:32.020 And like, just because they basically didn't say what they thought they should have said in

00:35:35.880 like group therapy.

00:35:37.020 Yeah.

00:35:37.500 I mean, it was basically like just drugging people up and not trying to get to know what

00:35:41.720 really underpinned their issue.

00:35:43.440 Like I said, there was a guy in there, there was a junior Olympic wrestler that developed same

00:35:47.520 kind of like OCD with training that I did.

00:35:49.760 That was in there because his father beat him after losing a national level tournament.

00:35:53.600 And instead of like people understanding, Oh, exercise and nutrition manipulation are

00:35:59.640 his form of control.

00:36:01.120 It was like, Nope, you're scared of a calorie.

00:36:03.740 We're going to force feed you and we're going to med you up.

00:36:05.820 You're not allowed to exercise, Ryan.

00:36:07.660 Like you can't, if you meet a certain BMI, which in and itself is ridiculous, you got to

00:36:12.140 do like ankle weights and physio ball crap.

00:36:15.260 So I'll spare your guess of the rest, but the gist is.

00:36:18.520 So one time I finally got to leave the hospital because for the full year, you're stuck on

00:36:22.140 the eighth floor.

00:36:22.860 Like you don't just get to leave.

00:36:24.380 Right.

00:36:24.500 I mean, even to use the restroom.

00:36:26.220 You were there for a year, you said?

00:36:27.340 Yeah.

00:36:27.580 I was there for a year.

00:36:28.640 I spent my 16th birthday in this hospital.

00:36:30.800 Oh my goodness.

00:36:31.740 Cause, and I remember leaving and I got like, I went to a Barnes and Noble and I bought two

00:36:37.320 books while I stole them.

00:36:39.100 And it was like complete conditioning for football and then a nutrition book.

00:36:43.880 And when I say I stole them, it was like the hospital doesn't allow you to bring anything

00:36:47.600 like that in.

00:36:48.360 Cause anything that's diet or exercise centered, they'll, they'll toss your room.

00:36:52.160 Like you don't get any of that.

00:36:53.360 Yeah.

00:36:53.560 All that contraband you got.

00:36:55.240 Right.

00:36:55.680 So I hid those books in the book jacket of like, I don't know, some motivational book and

00:37:00.440 some book on golf because you'd have to go in and be like, this is what I got.

00:37:04.080 Yeah.

00:37:04.500 And, uh, read those books like as fast as I could.

00:37:07.900 Anytime I was in my room alone and eventually a therapist in the hospital that, you know, we

00:37:12.820 were able to meet and kind of just got it was like, I don't think this is the place for

00:37:16.760 you.

00:37:17.100 We got to get you out of here.

00:37:18.020 She convinced my parents of that.

00:37:19.660 And so basically after learning everything I could about nutrition and proper training

00:37:23.160 within a month of getting out of that hospital, I put on 54 or three months.

00:37:26.960 Sorry.

00:37:27.620 I put on 54 pounds and never looked back.

00:37:30.060 And that's when I knew, okay, I want to get into a field where I can learn how to optimize

00:37:34.100 the body right way and where I can help people from a psychological standpoint, because it

00:37:40.000 was all, it was just like you, right?

00:37:41.220 You didn't have these role models.

00:37:42.500 Like my role models were like these negative power dynamic, manipulative people that were

00:37:47.640 supposed to be in positions to help others.

00:37:49.780 And instead their inability to get to know what drives people cost some people their lives.

00:37:55.320 What was the, uh, what was the difference for you a year earlier when you were responding

00:37:59.900 to this stuff and you had the compulsion and things like that negatively versus you,

00:38:04.080 you a year later, learning some of this information and then using it in a constructive manner,

00:38:09.240 using it as a tool for productivity rather than self-destruction.

00:38:12.300 Yeah.

00:38:12.380 I think there was two things, man.

00:38:13.640 I mean, one, just learning more about the body in general helped.

00:38:16.320 I mean, you read, I mean, you'll still read stuff that'll be like, oh, to lean out, you

00:38:19.120 got to burn more calories than you eat.

00:38:20.920 Well, that's not true.

00:38:21.680 Most people have basal metabolic rate where you need a certain amount of calories, whether

00:38:25.240 that's 1200 or 1800, depending on a variety of factors just to survive.

00:38:30.320 You know what I mean?

00:38:31.060 Right.

00:38:31.220 But like, I didn't know that.

00:38:32.260 That's that, you know, again, I was taking whatever I read.

00:38:34.080 I read in these muscle magazines at face value, you know, as you were calculating how many

00:38:38.140 calories you were taking in versus how many you were burning solely for exercise.

00:38:41.720 Yeah.

00:38:41.880 I had those weird books that told you like what a chicken sandwich at Hardee's had,

00:38:45.500 you know, and, and, uh, you know, it's just information wasn't like it is now.

00:38:49.620 I mean, people have access to all kinds of subject matter experts.

00:38:53.240 Then, you know, again, you read muscle and fitness or you read men's health and you read

00:38:57.440 this stuff that was meant for a completely different audience.

00:39:00.620 And a 15 year old who is obsessed with this stuff and taking it 20 levels above.

00:39:04.760 Um, and so, yeah, I would totally do that.

00:39:07.680 And then I think too, I just got a little bit better hold on my personal demons, man.

00:39:11.580 I mean, when you're in a hospital for a year of your life where you can basically color

00:39:15.680 and journal and like, you can't even watch rated R movies or anything that it's all got

00:39:20.100 to be approved because it's just what it could send a message that quote unquote triggers

00:39:24.880 somebody out.

00:39:25.540 You're in a day room with 20 other people.

00:39:27.520 It's like child daycare.

00:39:29.340 And so you have a lot of just like, I just listened to a lot of music and I learned how

00:39:33.440 to deal with my shit in different ways.

00:39:35.220 And I was just like, you know what?

00:39:36.860 Like, I got to get out of this.

00:39:38.320 And I think a big issue, man, is I just never really related to like the high school.

00:39:43.000 I felt like at a young age, I was a really serious kid because I saw a lot of my family

00:39:46.880 die early.

00:39:48.140 And so I think it was ingrained in me that like, we're not really here long.

00:39:51.940 And so when I'd look around and see people just getting wasted and doing other stuff,

00:39:56.460 it wasn't that I felt like I was better than them.

00:39:58.600 It just felt like I didn't relate.

00:40:00.180 I felt lonely.

00:40:01.360 And so this other stuff helped me deal with that when, so what changed is once I found,

00:40:05.640 all right, now I could dive fully into social dynamics and human performance.

00:40:10.840 That's where I poured all that energy that came from that anxiety.

00:40:14.240 I felt like I had found a path.

00:40:15.880 And when I got to college, it was game over.

00:40:17.820 Everything was geared towards that.

00:40:19.560 And I kind of felt like I had true direction.

00:40:20.980 Does that make sense?

00:40:21.940 Gentlemen, let me just hit the time out the pause button real quick.

00:40:26.200 If we can, obviously in this conversation, Brett and I are talking about leadership and

00:40:30.560 coaching on this podcast and ironically enough, and I didn't plan this.

00:40:34.940 It worked out this way is that we are doing a deep dive into this exact subject inside of

00:40:39.740 our exclusive brotherhood, the iron council this month.

00:40:42.820 If you want to learn more about what it takes to lead and coach others effectively, then consider

00:40:47.680 joining us and tapping into the conversations, the resources, tools, accountability,

00:40:51.780 everything that you need to help you become a more effective leader inside of your business,

00:40:56.800 your home, your community, wherever you're showing up.

00:40:59.000 We've got over 500 members now inside the iron council, and we are going to give you a broad

00:41:03.980 range of perspectives on topics ranging from leadership and self-development to time management

00:41:10.560 skills, stoicism, you name it.

00:41:13.560 We've likely covered it, or we will in the very near future.

00:41:16.460 If you want to learn more and lock in your spot to this exclusive brotherhood, join us

00:41:20.800 at order of man.com slash iron council.

00:41:23.380 Again, that's order of man.com slash iron council.

00:41:26.540 You can do that after the show.

00:41:28.240 For now, let's get back to the conversation with Brett.

00:41:31.640 Oh, yeah.

00:41:32.380 A hundred percent.

00:41:33.080 Well, I guess the natural progression of this is then how do you take that?

00:41:37.960 Because the way that you approach, let me back up.

00:41:41.460 Yeah.

00:41:42.460 You're what, in what roles did you serve with the teams and the organizations that you worked

00:41:47.120 with?

00:41:47.420 Because obviously strength and conditioning, but it seems like there's more to it than simply

00:41:51.520 getting strong.

00:41:52.180 Yeah, a hundred percent.

00:41:53.840 I mean, I think what I learned, you know, a little bit into strength, formal strength

00:41:58.200 and conditioning is, you know, you're always looking for ways to make your programs better.

00:42:01.900 But what I learned after a while is the limiting factor to any program is one's willingness to

00:42:07.080 buy into it, right?

00:42:08.320 Like what kept one athlete who enjoyed training, like if two people are on the same program and

00:42:13.160 let's say, you know, their nutrition, let's say all things being equal for the most part,

00:42:16.600 the person that likes training and understands the why and enjoys training and gets

00:42:22.180 the true transfer and purpose of it is going to get better results from the same program

00:42:26.920 as somebody that's halfway bought.

00:42:28.340 And you saw it all the time.

00:42:29.200 Like you saw, you know, we had an athlete from St. Louis.

00:42:32.820 The kid had always been naturally gifted, didn't like the weight room.

00:42:36.900 He'd gotten hurt a lot of times before in the weight room.

00:42:39.560 And so when coach would say, hey, we got heavy squats today.

00:42:42.820 Well, this kid's just kind of doing what he needs to do to get done with this workout where,

00:42:47.320 you know, a lineman from rural Iowa who he loves that, right?

00:42:51.540 He's going to get under and have a higher output.

00:42:53.560 And so what I learned is just the limiting factor in anything in life is engagement,

00:42:58.720 buy-in, consistency, and not compliance as much as commitment.

00:43:02.720 So that's when I started getting into the headspace of like, all right,

00:43:05.500 I got 110 athletes here or 105 or 15 or whatever it is.

00:43:09.980 I need to get them locked in from a psychological side.

00:43:13.320 And once I have that, the physical training is easy.

00:43:16.480 You know?

00:43:16.580 So let's take this example with this young man you were talking about.

00:43:23.100 Did you change the programming or did the programming stay the same?

00:43:26.440 And once you kind of backed into it from the psychological motivational standpoint,

00:43:31.020 the programming became a non-issue?

00:43:33.020 In this instance, the programming stayed the same.

00:43:34.900 How I spoke to it was different, right?

00:43:36.600 Like, so this guy just cared about speed and he wanted, like, he had a friend that got injured

00:43:40.820 with a devastating ACL injury.

00:43:43.480 So he kind of had this drive to acquire a certain status, wanted to be the fastest guy on the team.

00:43:48.900 But he also had this big loss aversion kind of dynamic of like,

00:43:52.260 I don't want to get hurt.

00:43:53.000 Right.

00:43:53.580 Yeah.

00:43:53.740 So, you know, now you target everything to there, right?

00:43:55.860 The lineman, like that dude just likes getting strong.

00:43:58.300 So I'm like, hey, bud, get to push some weight today.

00:44:00.060 And he's like, he's geeking out.

00:44:01.680 Yeah.

00:44:01.940 This guy, I'm just like, listen, dude, like, I know this isn't your favorite thing.

00:44:04.460 This is going to help you get faster.

00:44:05.600 And then for every 1% increase in quad strength, which squats are going to help you with,

00:44:09.980 you have a 3% decrease in ACL.

00:44:12.360 And like, he's like, what?

00:44:13.600 And that kind of statistic really, you know, piqued his interest.

00:44:16.760 So there's a lot of influence tactics you can use and all of them ethical.

00:44:20.880 Influence just means to bring about change in one psychological environment.

00:44:24.740 Yeah.

00:44:24.880 It's no different than a hammer, right?

00:44:26.260 A hammer can be used to bludgeon somebody or it can be used to build a house for the homeless.

00:44:30.840 So people tend to hear influence and manipulate.

00:44:33.320 And they think a negative connotation.

00:44:35.880 Well, guess what?

00:44:36.680 Everybody listening to this has manipulated the volume or manipulated their air conditioner.

00:44:41.600 It's all context relevant.

00:44:43.320 So what I learned is there's through the research is there's 11 primary different influence tactics

00:44:48.180 you can use when dealing with others.

00:44:50.280 And so I'd stumble on this and I'd be like, wow, like I already do these five things.

00:44:54.880 Now I can periodize my interactions with people just like I can my programming.

00:45:00.220 And so, yeah, just change the way you speak to things and learning how to talk in color.

00:45:04.080 Yeah.

00:45:04.300 That makes sense.

00:45:04.960 There's a book by Robert Cialdini.

00:45:07.520 It's called Persuasion.

00:45:09.500 Great book.

00:45:10.300 Yeah.

00:45:10.600 You read it.

00:45:10.940 Okay.

00:45:11.400 Persuasion.

00:45:12.060 Well, that's the newest one.

00:45:13.540 Yeah.

00:45:13.760 So influence was his kind of-

00:45:15.540 Influence.

00:45:15.680 That's what I'm thinking.

00:45:16.300 Yeah.

00:45:16.400 Yeah.

00:45:17.080 Influence.

00:45:17.800 And he talks about that.

00:45:19.040 Of course, now he's studying con artists is what he's studying.

00:45:21.960 Right.

00:45:22.240 But he's teaching you the manipulation or influence tactics.

00:45:27.180 Now, the way that you use them is what makes them moral or not.

00:45:31.440 100%.

00:45:31.920 Just like anything.

00:45:32.880 And so leadership is about that.

00:45:33.600 It is about influence.

00:45:34.520 It's about getting people to respond in the way that you want them to respond.

00:45:38.960 Right.

00:45:39.340 And this was really important because my doctorate, my doctoral work now focuses on this because

00:45:44.540 I went from working with athletes to now working with teams and organizations in dealing

00:45:49.640 with this.

00:45:50.040 So, you know, I'd gone and spoke about this at Microsoft, special forces communities, different

00:45:54.300 things, but I knew I needed to get really clear about what the definition.

00:45:58.040 So when we look at power outside of a training context, let's say power dynamics amongst people, power is

00:46:04.340 defined through the research as the ability to bring about change in one psychological

00:46:09.660 environment.

00:46:11.060 Influence is the use of that power to bring about change.

00:46:15.980 Right.

00:46:16.080 So it's the ultimate objective or the outcome of the influence used.

00:46:21.120 Is that-

00:46:21.340 Very well put.

00:46:22.080 And to put it in a training perspective, right?

00:46:24.240 We know that the definition of strength is the neuromuscular system's ability to produce

00:46:29.440 force.

00:46:30.400 That's the true definition of strength.

00:46:32.340 Now.

00:46:32.980 Is it just, you say, I'm going to back up here or slow down a little bit on that.

00:46:37.220 You say that again.

00:46:39.160 Strength is the what?

00:46:40.180 Strength is our neuromuscular system's ability to produce force.

00:46:45.060 Okay.

00:46:45.220 So it's not just neuromind or brain, but it's physiological too as far as how big the muscle

00:46:52.840 is or how dense it is too.

00:46:54.300 Is that what you're saying?

00:46:55.120 Sure.

00:46:55.680 Right.

00:46:56.000 And that's, yeah, that's why.

00:46:57.120 So you've got to have the neuromuscular component because the neuro, right, is the signal to send

00:47:01.860 an impulse to facilitate muscle contraction.

00:47:04.180 But the muscular part is obviously we have to have a cross-sectional area and certain

00:47:08.400 things that allow us to produce force and leverage.

00:47:11.280 But-

00:47:11.400 Yeah, because you're not going to will yourself into strength.

00:47:13.580 Like that's not how it works.

00:47:14.620 No, that's not right.

00:47:15.500 There's an overload.

00:47:15.820 You might will yourself into doing some squats, but you're not going to will yourself to be

00:47:19.300 stronger.

00:47:20.040 Right.

00:47:20.580 And just like that.

00:47:21.820 So I'm trying to draw the, like, the similarity between, like you said, power is a byproduct of

00:47:28.140 the influence tactics that we use.

00:47:29.820 Just like strength is a byproduct or outcome of the training tactics that we use.

00:47:35.980 And so that's where I started to get really clear about, all right, if we're teaching people

00:47:39.780 the ethical use of these strategies to get better engagement, to drive better outcomes,

00:47:44.740 to help them from themselves, to open up conversation, we need to really get clear on

00:47:49.060 the definition of those things so that we don't demonize them, you know, in lay literature

00:47:53.060 or like, you know, it's just like people, again, they think power and influence and manipulation

00:47:57.620 are bad.

00:47:58.260 I'm studying and trying to bring to light the ethical use of those things and show

00:48:02.020 that it's really every day.

00:48:03.320 Every day, somebody asks somebody to do something for them.

00:48:05.740 That's some form of influence.

00:48:07.840 You ask your wife to do this.

00:48:09.360 Wife asks you to do that.

00:48:10.780 You make a deal with somebody.

00:48:11.680 Hey, can you cover lunch today?

00:48:12.700 I'll get it tomorrow.

00:48:13.620 That's an exchange influence tactic.

00:48:15.620 This stuff is, it's everyday stuff.

00:48:17.420 You just maybe don't know what it's called.

00:48:20.040 Yeah.

00:48:20.180 And I think understanding the meaning behind it is critical.

00:48:23.340 You know, words are nothing more than noises that our bodies make.

00:48:27.500 We just, we assign the meaning to it.

00:48:30.300 Collectively, we assign the meaning to it.

00:48:32.000 And if we're going to have a discussion, for example, this podcast, then we need to

00:48:35.880 get clear and make sure we're talking about the same things or we're using the same definition

00:48:40.560 for the words that each of us or the noises each of us are making.

00:48:44.620 Right?

00:48:45.120 I agree.

00:48:45.620 I mean, I got a lot of heat because the word buy-in is a part of my book title.

00:48:49.060 And there was somebody who was like, well, I don't like this term.

00:48:52.300 It insinuates that we're trying to sell somebody on something.

00:48:54.960 And I go, uh, well, yeah, you are like, if I'm coaching an athlete who just signed a $30

00:49:01.300 million deal and he steps in front of me and sees a five, eight white kid from Omaha,

00:49:05.000 Nebraska, right?

00:49:06.460 Like, and I'm telling him, Hey, I'm going to be able to make you stronger, faster, more

00:49:09.880 agile, what have you.

00:49:11.180 I'm selling this individual on a future result.

00:49:13.840 He can't see or feel yet.

00:49:15.880 It's not like a test driving, a vehicle, like you can get behind the wheel.

00:49:19.340 There's a lot of trust.

00:49:20.600 And so in the book, I make it very clear buy-in is synonymous with trust, you know?

00:49:26.240 And that's like, you have to, you're right.

00:49:27.700 You have to get really clear on nomenclature.

00:49:29.500 If somebody's bought in, that means there's a level of trust there.

00:49:32.900 There's commitment.

00:49:33.780 It's not just compliance, compliance, Ryan, right?

00:49:36.560 Like somebody will do, somebody's compliant, they'll do something, but they're probably not

00:49:40.540 going to feel good about that and throw their full weight behind it.

00:49:43.420 No, I mean, I mean, with my kids, like I asked them to do the chores and they're compliant

00:49:46.880 because I'm the dad.

00:49:48.500 You're the dad.

00:49:49.120 Now, I, I, I tried to develop trust.

00:49:52.060 So they, they see that doing chores, although it may not be pleasurable as part of being

00:49:56.400 a member of the family and, and, and the, the, I wouldn't say downside, but the responsibility

00:50:02.300 of having a beautiful home to live in.

00:50:04.400 Yeah.

00:50:04.640 So I try to get those things, but yes, compliance is sometimes the way it goes.

00:50:09.360 Right.

00:50:09.700 Whereas commitment is like, yes, dad, I will do this.

00:50:12.680 And with bells on, they're locked in.

00:50:18.000 And, and that, even that Ryan is like, Hey, do this because I said, so that's, what's known

00:50:22.240 as a legitimating influence tactic.

00:50:24.580 You're using a formal kind of authority to facilitate an outcome.

00:50:28.400 So there, there are what are called hard influence tactics that do this or else, or these are the

00:50:34.080 rules, the hard nose.

00:50:35.560 And then there are soft ones where it's like, Hey, like let's exchange its reciprocity or,

00:50:41.420 Hey, I'm going to tell you why rational persuasion, or I'm going to give you an inspirational

00:50:45.660 appeal, like a rah, rah kind of there's, there's an influence tactics on all ends of the spectrum.

00:50:50.460 It's just knowing how to serve the curve.

00:50:52.460 Yeah.

00:50:52.600 And, and, and this goes back to what you were saying earlier is being able to listen and

00:50:56.780 be curious about other people.

00:50:58.560 Like this is not going to work.

00:51:00.280 I imagine if you're gaming the system, you don't actually really care about your athletes

00:51:05.960 or employees or family members.

00:51:07.580 You just want them to do what you want them to do.

00:51:09.840 You actually have to care.

00:51:11.420 It's sad.

00:51:11.920 I would even need to say that, but I think it kind of needs to be stated.

00:51:15.280 Yeah.

00:51:15.400 And that's the beauty of it, right?

00:51:16.520 In a time where it's so easy for us to kind of get like fooled by some kind of chicanery

00:51:21.400 or like just charlatan.

00:51:23.080 Like what's, what's interesting is even if you're a very skilled order, eventually your

00:51:27.980 actions are not going to be synonymous with what you're delivering.

00:51:30.400 So it's very easy to ultimately see if somebody is full of it or not based on the buy-in process

00:51:36.680 if you're using ethical means.

00:51:38.160 Cause it's like, you're either going to get the outcomes or you're not.

00:51:40.460 At the end of the day, I still got to get results.

00:51:42.820 Then that's why we don't trust politicians.

00:51:44.540 They can speak well and they say all the right things, but we know their actions.

00:51:49.100 There's, there's a gap of integrity there.

00:51:50.900 Right.

00:51:51.280 And it's almost like an expectation.

00:51:52.540 And, and it's also, it's also what drives me nuts a little bit.

00:51:55.460 I might take some heat from this, but it's what drives me nuts about like guru seminars

00:51:59.760 where people are just like chanting and pumped up.

00:52:02.500 It's, it's one thing to think positive, right?

00:52:04.860 And you need that.

00:52:05.800 There's, there's true power in that.

00:52:08.080 But I actually think that people run too far from like the dark, there's an upside to your

00:52:12.420 dark side.

00:52:13.020 And I think for me, that's what the hospital made me focus on.

00:52:16.340 And I remember this quote, I think it was from Carl Young.

00:52:19.020 And he's like, the best way in dealing with the darkness of others is to know your own

00:52:23.540 darkness.

00:52:23.900 And I've probably altered that a bit, but like, he's right.

00:52:27.240 Like we live in a world that even if you're the most positive thinking, altruistic individual,

00:52:31.180 you're going to deal with some a-holes.

00:52:33.480 Yeah.

00:52:33.560 And so with a lot of my work, I try to say, Hey, you're going to see these things.

00:52:37.180 You're going to see power dynamic, hungry, manipulative people in the bad context.

00:52:41.380 I want to teach you how to navigate that and deal with that in an ethical way so that we

00:52:46.340 can derive a utilitarian outcome and everybody wins and kind of has a more beneficial outcome,

00:52:52.340 so to speak.

00:52:53.360 Well, and I think also based on what you're saying in that quote, there's a level of empathy

00:52:56.900 and leadership as well, meaning that, okay, so I see this dark side of an individual,

00:53:01.120 whether it's an integrity gap or pride or, or laziness or whatever, pick, pick something.

00:53:08.140 If you see that and are not see it, but if you were willing to recognize that in yourself,

00:53:12.060 because we all have that too, that I think equips you with some tools and ideas of how

00:53:18.380 to best approach this in somebody that you are trying to motivate or influence.

00:53:24.020 100%.

00:53:24.460 And this happened the other day, you know, I was training an athlete and somebody asked,

00:53:29.920 hey, can I shadow you?

00:53:31.060 And I'm like, sure, you know, just like respect kind of the privacy of the individual.

00:53:35.100 And they're like, that's all good.

00:53:36.600 And the athlete and I were doing some stuff with a weight vest, kettlebell, TRX, not traditional

00:53:41.060 like squat, clean, deadlift, what have you.

00:53:43.440 And the guy gets done or we get done with the session and the gentleman that comes over

00:53:47.800 and shadows like, hey, kind of disappointed.

00:53:51.020 And I was like, well, how do you mean?

00:53:52.280 He's like, well, you know, I've followed you for a long time.

00:53:54.840 And I know you're big on the classic lift squad, like just good old fashioned strength

00:53:58.620 training.

00:53:59.020 And I go, yeah.

00:54:00.400 He's like, I didn't see a lick of that.

00:54:02.060 And I go, well, do you understand who I'm training?

00:54:04.480 And he's like, well, it just looked like a pro athlete to me.

00:54:06.320 And I go, yeah.

00:54:06.760 Anything about his background?

00:54:08.100 He's like, no.

00:54:08.580 He had no idea this guy had had 13 different surgeries, couldn't do certain things,

00:54:13.120 right?

00:54:13.300 Like it had avoided resistance training for almost half a decade.

00:54:17.200 And this was the first time he had quote unquote been under load.

00:54:19.960 And I said, brother, you got to meet people where they're at.

00:54:22.100 You know, like where do I, what do I gain?

00:54:23.920 If like this guy comes in and I try to force in a certain direction, overload is relative.

00:54:28.560 And so for him to do weight best stuff, kettlebell work, all this stuff, that is a tremendous

00:54:32.620 stimulus for somebody in his position.

00:54:34.340 And the guy was like, well, I never thought of that.

00:54:35.680 And I'm like, it's like you said at the beginning, Ryan, like you spend more time listening,

00:54:39.520 seek to understand, right?

00:54:40.920 Because at the end, and we live in a time now where it's like that gets shot on the interweb.

00:54:44.640 Like, oh, I saw Brett Bartholomew do this.

00:54:46.880 He doesn't do that.

00:54:47.580 And it's like, bro, like, you don't under, like, learn how to tell the time before you

00:54:51.720 ask how a watch works, you know?

00:54:53.940 Yeah.

00:54:54.140 I think this is indicative of a greater problem in society.

00:54:56.720 You know, I get messages from people that, you know, for example, I might make an Instagram

00:55:00.060 post about something like one small element of masculinity that they may happen to disagree

00:55:05.240 with.

00:55:05.840 And they take that out of context and they say, well, see, you're an asshole or you're

00:55:10.420 this or you're that because you said this one thing.

00:55:12.320 I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, did you see the 2000 other posts or comments or articles or

00:55:17.960 podcast or book that I read?

00:55:19.960 And I told an individual in particular, I said, look, you're taking one videos on YouTube

00:55:26.460 and that's a whole other conversation.

00:55:29.580 You're taking one video you saw on YouTube and applying it broadly to the depth of my work

00:55:35.620 over the past five years.

00:55:38.020 And I said, read the podcast or read the book, listen to the podcast, watch the other videos.

00:55:42.260 And then I ended with, you know, but normally people that make these kinds of comments aren't

00:55:46.960 really interested in doing a deep dive into what they're figuring out.

00:55:50.040 That's a problem with society is a lack of discernment, a lack of context, and really a

00:55:55.100 lack of trying to understand what another individual is saying or what their experience is or how it

00:55:59.940 fits into their grand strategy or plan or whatever of who they are.

00:56:04.120 A hundred percent, Ryan.

00:56:05.380 And really they're projecting the wrong stuff on you now, right?

00:56:08.480 That's what's not.

00:56:09.120 I talk about this in one of my workshops.

00:56:10.720 It's called fundamental attribution error.

00:56:12.820 So everybody's done this, right?

00:56:14.700 Follow the logic here.

00:56:15.880 And if it doesn't make sense, I'll try to do a better job of explaining it because if I

00:56:19.720 can't explain it to a six-year-old, I don't know what the hell I'm talking about anyway.

00:56:22.820 So everybody's seen that person in traffic that's darting in and out and they're speeding.

00:56:28.460 And generally when we see that person, what is something we might say?

00:56:32.660 Oh yeah.

00:56:33.020 What a dick.

00:56:33.520 What an a-hole.

00:56:33.940 What a jerk.

00:56:34.620 Whatever.

00:56:34.900 Right.

00:56:35.220 It's a personal attribution.

00:56:36.980 What a dick.

00:56:37.860 That person's a dick.

00:56:39.380 Now, how many of us have also, maybe at times, right?

00:56:42.860 It doesn't have to be, I've done that same thing.

00:56:44.900 But when we do it, it's like, oh, I'm late for an appointment.

00:56:47.240 Right.

00:56:47.540 Or I know I got to pick my wife up from the airport.

00:56:50.800 Well, that is now the situation determines it.

00:56:53.440 So fundamental attribution error is just a fancy way of saying we tend to explain other

00:56:58.060 people's shortcomings by, oh, that's a personal trait.

00:57:01.520 Like, they're this.

00:57:03.500 Right.

00:57:03.900 But then we rationalize our own through situational variables.

00:57:07.280 So it gives us the justification to behave like that.

00:57:10.280 A hundred percent.

00:57:11.040 And that's what leads to like schadenfreude.

00:57:12.800 Like, we find most people will find happiness and other people's suffering if they feel

00:57:17.420 like that person's a threat.

00:57:18.600 We're constantly projecting.

00:57:20.300 So the person, Ryan, that sees your post, they so deeply probably want you to be a fraud

00:57:25.200 or they so deeply feel like they're missing something and that maybe they didn't get that

00:57:29.220 point across themselves that they're going to project that.

00:57:31.600 Somebody did that with my book.

00:57:32.500 They gave me a one-star review.

00:57:34.320 And I ended up actually seeing this guy at a conference.

00:57:37.380 So I was like, hey, what's the deal with that?

00:57:39.300 Like, one-star review.

00:57:40.120 Do you, man?

00:57:41.200 Like, if you hated it that much.

00:57:42.340 But like a one-star review is like the book's falling apart.

00:57:44.620 Right, right.

00:57:45.200 This and that.

00:57:46.160 And the guy, I think, like, I don't think he ever expected me to see me in person.

00:57:50.760 But he said, you know what?

00:57:51.860 Yeah.

00:57:52.500 Once we kind of got through the superficial part of it, he was like, you know what, man?

00:57:55.980 I've tried putting myself out there and I wrote a book and it got shit on.

00:57:59.080 And I've seen kind of your thing take off.

00:58:01.120 And in all honesty, I got annoyed with that.

00:58:03.620 And he's like, I'll take it down and whatever.

00:58:05.600 I'm like, no, you can leave it up if you didn't like it.

00:58:07.840 But what I found is he was just unhappy because that was a venture that he didn't feel like

00:58:11.080 he was successful in.

00:58:12.340 And somebody had shared my stuff on social media and he just kind of felt like I was,

00:58:15.540 he said it.

00:58:16.100 He's like, I was tired of seeing your stuff.

00:58:17.980 And that was interesting.

00:58:18.880 At least he was honest.

00:58:19.940 Yeah.

00:58:20.100 I mean, that's true.

00:58:21.020 And yeah, that's interesting.

00:58:22.700 You know, I saw a study at one point and I'll probably butcher the terms of the study, but

00:58:27.100 they asked a bunch of people if they could have one of two options.

00:58:31.100 The first option was you can make, you can have a 10% increase in your annual salary,

00:58:37.600 but your neighbors, they'll be making, they'll be making more than you.

00:58:42.780 They'll be making 10% more than you.

00:58:45.280 Or you can have, and I might be butchering these numbers, but you can have a 5% decrease

00:58:50.240 in salary, but everybody, your neighbors around you will have a 10% decrease in salary.

00:58:55.800 So you'll be making less, but you'll be making more than your neighbors, which one you want.

00:58:59.180 And the majority of people chose the salary reduction simply because they had more money

00:59:04.480 than a neighbor.

00:59:05.800 Yeah.

00:59:06.020 Well, and somebody listening to this is like, well, no, that's not me.

00:59:08.940 Well, sure.

00:59:09.360 You're an outlier.

00:59:10.160 We're talking about the average myrmidon, right?

00:59:12.360 That you doesn't really even think about these things.

00:59:15.200 They're not self-aware.

00:59:16.380 Like people are pretty carnal.

00:59:18.040 I'm not going to say they're evil or anything like that, but like we're pretty base.

00:59:21.480 You know, like I know many of us fancy ourselves to be enlightened things.

00:59:26.960 We're not.

00:59:27.380 Like you look at the sample and there are a lot of situational variables.

00:59:31.320 Look what happens, man, when there's devastation, like a hurricane or an earthquake.

00:59:35.500 I know there's many of us that would love to think that we're going to help somebody on

00:59:38.140 the side of the road and we're going to do this.

00:59:40.100 But the vast majority of people across the world loot, steal, freak out, panic, get into,

00:59:45.160 and that's just, you have to acknowledge that.

00:59:47.080 You have to acknowledge that's a tendency.

00:59:48.740 You have to work on it.

00:59:50.120 And even if you don't do it at that magnitude, right?

00:59:52.240 Because not everybody's going to loot, but we inherently have selfish desires.

00:59:56.020 And I think that that's the part that, again, goes back into working in communication is

01:00:00.160 that selfish desires everywhere.

01:00:01.540 So find ways to be more.

01:00:03.160 That's why my book is structured in kind of a know thyself, know thy athlete.

01:00:07.300 And athlete's a universal term.

01:00:08.780 People read the book and they're like, oh, do I have to be a strength coach?

01:00:10.940 I'm like, no, man, I've read other people's books and I'm not like a seal.

01:00:14.300 And I'm not, I don't own a company in Silicon Valley.

01:00:17.260 Somebody that wants to perform, you want to excel, you want to perform, you want to do better.

01:00:21.420 Yeah.

01:00:21.720 You got to know this self-awareness.

01:00:23.300 And I think that you and I are kind of saying the same thing in different veins, right?

01:00:26.080 Like you got to be self-aware.

01:00:27.460 And that comes sometimes from like, do you feel like not having that formal mentor or

01:00:31.420 formal father figure starting out made you more self-aware?

01:00:33.780 Because you kind of learned like, oh, this is what I want, or this is how I want to be.

01:00:37.460 Or did that not come till later?

01:00:38.920 That didn't come till later for me.

01:00:40.440 I mean, fortunately, we're talking about coaching.

01:00:42.020 I had some great high school coaches that came into my life that really directed me and

01:00:46.000 never took it easy on me, but I never doubted their level of care and love for me.

01:00:50.660 In fact, some of them I still talk with and we're friends today, 20 years later.

01:00:55.860 That's how it should be.

01:00:56.860 Yeah.

01:00:57.220 No, it was great.

01:01:00.160 Yeah.

01:01:00.340 For me, I think it just, that awareness came from, from looking around at some deficiencies

01:01:05.120 in my life and then attaching it to some of the, what I believed at the time were the

01:01:09.780 reasons for that.

01:01:10.780 And I think I got that assessment, right?

01:01:12.340 Which allowed me to correct the behavior and then ultimately go on to start this podcast

01:01:16.760 and lead the movement I'm trying to.

01:01:18.880 Yeah.

01:01:19.440 And I think then, and that in and of itself, I would imagine like just the feedback from

01:01:25.140 viewers and the people that have had shared experiences to some degree in different

01:01:28.660 domains made that worth it.

01:01:30.420 I mean, you might not have had that if you had that classic mentor, like there's no doubt

01:01:34.620 I wouldn't be here if that were the case.

01:01:36.700 And that's what I mean.

01:01:37.480 Like, that's what I going back to the whole, like why I don't really get into the self-helpy

01:01:40.780 leadership classic bookstore, like let's not talk about the ugly stuff kind of thing

01:01:45.180 is like people sometimes just need to realize that, you know, sometimes virtue is vice and

01:01:50.520 vice versa.

01:01:51.900 Sometimes like some of your, like your biggest downfall in life sets you on that path.

01:01:55.100 Like why run from that?

01:01:56.640 Or like somebody asked me the other day, they're just like,

01:01:58.660 I can't get certain negative thoughts out of my head.

01:02:00.440 And I'm like, well, this is a spectrum, right?

01:02:02.940 Like if you're always negative, that's one thing.

01:02:05.060 If you wake up some days and you're sad or you feel crappy or like that's life.

01:02:09.060 I don't feel like we should try to like talk ourselves out of that.

01:02:12.180 Like you kind of have certain emotions for a reason, just deal with it.

01:02:15.120 Like there's cloudy days for a reason sometimes.

01:02:17.200 And I don't think it's doing any good things for mental health and telling people that they

01:02:21.540 need to be happy all the time.

01:02:22.860 And no, I mean, you're suppressing a lot of that, not really dealing with it.

01:02:26.020 A hundred percent.

01:02:27.680 And how would you relate to somebody if you were always happy?

01:02:30.460 You never would.

01:02:31.240 Well, and you know, those kinds of people.

01:02:33.100 I know those people.

01:02:33.960 In fact, I said this to myself the other day, I can't remember who or in what context, but

01:02:37.840 it was somebody that was just like smiling for, for no reason.

01:02:42.840 And I remember thinking, why the hell is that person so happy?

01:02:45.660 And immediately I didn't trust them.

01:02:47.740 Yeah.

01:02:48.540 Because it didn't seem real.

01:02:50.520 It's disingenuous.

01:02:52.080 Yeah.

01:02:52.700 Yeah.

01:02:53.300 It was crazy.

01:02:54.440 You know, I had somebody the other day say, well, what makes you so special?

01:02:57.360 I don't know.

01:02:57.680 I wrote something and what makes you so special?

01:02:59.200 I'm like, I'm nothing.

01:03:00.900 My beard.

01:03:01.620 Like, yeah, that's it.

01:03:02.820 Just the beard.

01:03:03.580 I told him like nothing.

01:03:05.440 I'm actually not that special.

01:03:07.500 Like I have faults.

01:03:08.800 I have things that I'm dealing with.

01:03:10.120 I have patience issues.

01:03:12.080 There's all, you know, I have integrity issues at times.

01:03:14.440 Like there's all sorts of things that I deal with, but I'm aware of it and I'm trying to

01:03:17.940 work on it.

01:03:18.380 Like any other human being.

01:03:19.820 Yeah.

01:03:20.340 You got to start from truth.

01:03:21.560 Like if you, if you paint yourself in the light that things are better than they really

01:03:25.300 are, you're not only are you kidding yourself, you're setting yourself up for failure because

01:03:29.220 you're not recognizing what needs to be shored up.

01:03:31.680 Right.

01:03:31.960 Well, and I, I'd actually almost kind of disagree with you on that one.

01:03:35.020 But one thing that makes you special, if you want to use a different term or whatever

01:03:38.240 is that going back to what we said at the beginning, you put skin in the game at

01:03:41.120 least.

01:03:41.580 So when people say like, Hey, what gives you the right to do this?

01:03:44.260 I go, listen, I'm very clear on, like, I don't know everything, but at least I'm willing

01:03:47.720 to state what I believe and put stuff out there, man.

01:03:49.860 And so at the end of the day, like if you have an example and you think this has done

01:03:53.060 better, I'd love to learn from you, but share it, you know, but you know, as well as I

01:03:56.380 do, those are the people that don't post anything.

01:03:58.580 They just sit there and like, yeah, Ken Kniff creepy in the corner.

01:04:03.980 That is a good point though.

01:04:04.840 It's like, what, what, what gives you the right, well, I paid the entry, right?

01:04:09.340 I put myself up to your point.

01:04:10.840 I put myself in the game.

01:04:11.740 That's what gives me the right to do it.

01:04:13.280 Like I put myself here.

01:04:14.960 Yeah.

01:04:15.280 And you reserve the right to be wrong.

01:04:16.940 Who cares?

01:04:17.560 At the end of the day, like if, as long as people say you went hard and you were honest,

01:04:20.800 like, that's what I said.

01:04:21.880 I'm like, and I actively people, I tell people once, once or twice a year, Hey, if you're

01:04:26.240 expecting these things, unfollow me.

01:04:28.700 I'm not that guy.

01:04:29.560 I'm not giving you this.

01:04:30.600 I'm not giving you that.

01:04:31.300 And that's not out of disrespect.

01:04:32.760 I'm just letting you know, right?

01:04:34.060 Like, cause I, I'm that guy that would much rather have a thousand true followers than a million

01:04:38.340 kind of takers.

01:04:39.220 We get enough of that in life.

01:04:40.320 And I think sometimes people say that, but I don't think they really believe it, you

01:04:44.060 know, but I, I, that's another reason I think it's interesting to engage on social media and

01:04:48.080 what have you is you'll find that like, generally, if you advertise something, you're only going

01:04:51.720 to convert a certain percentage of social media, quote unquote, followers anyway.

01:04:55.500 Like I find that there's a distinct difference between people that just follow me passively

01:04:59.500 and people that are on my newsletter, people that are on the newsletter.

01:05:02.560 Uh, right.

01:05:03.480 And, um, but that goes into understanding social dynamics as well as somebody would say,

01:05:07.860 oh, I can help you do this and you can get a better following.

01:05:10.380 I go, you know what, man, there was one tenant, the best advice I ever got.

01:05:14.440 And it's the reason I don't pay for expensive marketing or I don't engage in certain tactics

01:05:18.760 and what have you is excellence is self-evident.

01:05:21.060 And so is bullshit.

01:05:21.960 And what I mean by that is if I, I, and maybe it's just the dumb Midwesterner in me from being

01:05:27.340 from Nebraska, but I just think if you keep your head down and provide value instead

01:05:32.060 of leading with vanity, eventually the right people will find out about your work and there's

01:05:36.240 nothing more powerful than word of mouth with other good people that just understand that

01:05:40.400 you're not a con artist because you and I both know people and millions of followers that

01:05:44.280 it's like, it's a circus and they're not providing any real, they're just telling people what

01:05:48.280 they want to hear.

01:05:49.320 Yeah, absolutely.

01:05:50.360 I want to go back on that same vein about what you'd said earlier where you had this elite

01:05:53.980 athlete and you're talking about you being this five, eight, 195 pound, you know, white

01:05:58.780 kid from the Midwest.

01:05:59.980 Like, why is he going to listen to you?

01:06:01.340 How do you begin to bridge that gap?

01:06:03.280 Because I know there's a lot of people out there, whether it's, uh, in an employee or

01:06:07.500 a, a, a client coach relationship or a father son relationship where they're trying to build

01:06:14.920 that level of influence and trust with other individuals that they may not have it yet.

01:06:18.820 Yeah.

01:06:18.920 If you were to ask me that three years ago, I'd go into a long winded diatribe, but I always

01:06:23.240 try to challenge myself to say, can you explain it in one paragraph, one sentence, one word,

01:06:27.760 you know, whatever.

01:06:28.320 And if I were to put this more in the paragraph side of things or bullet points, there's three

01:06:33.200 phases.

01:06:33.640 And I talk about this in the book, research, relate and reframe.

01:06:37.340 So when I first meet somebody, you know, I want to learn as much about them as possible,

01:06:42.060 right?

01:06:42.500 Like, and, and not just like service level, how are you doing today?

01:06:45.380 Right.

01:06:45.740 It's like, tell me about your favorite coach.

01:06:47.340 Why were they your favorite coach?

01:06:48.520 What's your training history been like?

01:06:50.160 What do you enjoy outside of sport?

01:06:51.720 How is that?

01:06:52.220 You know, I tried to discern kind of, I get a huge picture of, of who this person is.

01:06:56.660 And it's not like I'm sitting there, like, just launching these things at them.

01:07:01.660 So they feel like that becomes a problem too.

01:07:03.820 Right.

01:07:04.280 We weave it into just like we're doing right now.

01:07:06.120 Right.

01:07:06.320 We weave it into a discussion.

01:07:07.900 Sure.

01:07:08.020 It's either a phone call prior or if they just show up, like, you know, it's spread out.

01:07:12.120 It's a little micro interactions.

01:07:13.540 Right.

01:07:14.020 And then that leads to the second part.

01:07:15.920 So they don't feel cornered, Ryan.

01:07:18.080 It's relate.

01:07:19.260 I never take something from them without showing subsequent vulnerability and telling them something

01:07:23.900 about myself because a lot of people will, and there's an art to that disclosure, right?

01:07:28.840 I'm not like, oh, I was hospitalized right out of the gate.

01:07:31.480 Let me pour my heart out to you.

01:07:33.020 You have no idea who I am.

01:07:34.240 You haven't heard that right either.

01:07:35.380 At some point, just like talk to them about like, you know, either weave in something that

01:07:41.040 they've given you like summarize what they said, show them that you've been listening

01:07:45.420 and kind of add your own two cents to something, right?

01:07:48.560 You can't try to, and so many people will try too hard to be organic.

01:07:52.720 And then finally is reframing.

01:07:54.600 So once I know a little bit more about them, they know some stuff about me.

01:07:58.680 I've shown them that I've listened and I actually give a shit and I can summarize what

01:08:02.120 they're saying.

01:08:02.960 Everything I speak to now, it stays in a language that they can understand, right?

01:08:08.060 We gave an example of that earlier with the gentleman that squatting and risk aversion,

01:08:11.860 ACLs freaked them out, wanted to get faster.

01:08:14.380 Whether we're doing plyometrics or some other form of training, it's very easy to talk about,

01:08:18.240 hey, learning how to land correctly, decrease risk of injury, doing hurdle jumps will help

01:08:22.560 the elastic reactive response, help you be more quick.

01:08:25.320 You know, there's, you just have to show people that you really listened.

01:08:28.640 And I do an activity just to give your listeners some kind of value, something they can work on.

01:08:33.520 Might sound super stupid, but just do it.

01:08:35.820 And you'll be surprised at how much more closely it makes you listen.

01:08:39.980 Sometimes when an athlete comes in, I'll challenge myself to begin my next sentence, Ryan,

01:08:45.080 with either the last word they stated in the preceding sentence or the letter of the last

01:08:51.060 word they said.

01:08:51.700 So for example, had a defensive lineman from the Jets.

01:08:54.620 I said, Henry, how are you feeling today, man?

01:08:56.840 He goes, sore.

01:08:57.860 What's the last letter in sore?

01:09:00.500 Oh, I'm sorry, E.

01:09:01.900 Yeah, right?

01:09:02.440 So I go, everywhere or anywhere in particular, Henry.

01:09:05.280 And he's like, really in my chest, right?

01:09:07.880 T, right?

01:09:08.720 Well, today we're going to do a lot.

01:09:10.760 And like, it's just a brief, it sounds corny.

01:09:12.860 But the thing is, is for somebody like myself, and I imagine a lot of your listeners, like

01:09:17.420 if they're passionate about something, they just do, do, do, do, do.

01:09:21.780 This made me a little bit more intentional about addressing exactly what he's talking about.

01:09:26.760 That's interesting.

01:09:27.700 It's just, it's simple, man.

01:09:29.140 It's one of those things that too, I just, I'm a big believer in testing yourself.

01:09:32.480 I've always been out to kind of prove myself, like, am I a fraud?

01:09:36.640 Because if I am, I'm going to wait, I don't want to waste my time.

01:09:39.980 I need to get into another field.

01:09:41.560 And so, you know, I'd go give presentations early on in my career.

01:09:46.280 And there were things that, you know, I didn't, maybe I have to talk about periodization or

01:09:49.400 agility, stuff that I'm pretty decently well-read on.

01:09:52.220 It's my responsibility to be well-read on.

01:09:54.540 And somebody would be like, oh, aren't you going to look over your slides?

01:09:56.620 And I'm like, listen, dude, I look over real quick to make sure that I stay true to the

01:10:00.780 structure of the story.

01:10:02.060 But if I have to sit there and do this and I don't know my shit and I need to get in a

01:10:05.260 different view.

01:10:05.640 And that's just me.

01:10:07.880 I'm not saying that's what everybody needs to do.

01:10:10.180 No, I think everybody should probably have a pretty good grasp on what it is they're

01:10:13.560 talking about if they're going to present on it.

01:10:15.180 Right.

01:10:15.680 And like, so these little games, even if they seem sophomoric or stupid, are just ways of

01:10:20.720 making sure that I stay sharp.

01:10:22.480 Yeah.

01:10:22.700 I'm listening and that I'm not just hearing.

01:10:25.520 And so there, yeah, research, relate, and reframe is kind of a three-stage framework I

01:10:29.380 look at in terms of managing those initial interactions and making sure that you set them

01:10:33.640 up for future success.

01:10:34.880 Does that make sense?

01:10:35.620 Oh, it makes total sense.

01:10:36.520 I like that reframe.

01:10:37.720 And I think, you know, you talked about the disclaimer with relating that you're not going

01:10:40.520 to just bombard them with your vulnerability, right?

01:10:42.700 Right.

01:10:43.160 Also the reframing thing.

01:10:45.620 I think sometimes it could come across if you don't practice this as pandering to somebody,

01:10:51.780 right, or treating them like a moron.

01:10:54.080 Yeah.

01:10:54.280 So you got to be very cautious of that as well, I imagine.

01:10:57.640 A hundred percent.

01:10:58.080 I mean, but it's like you said, right?

01:10:59.400 It's this delicate balance.

01:11:00.640 Like most people that are in the field of performance would understand that if I get

01:11:06.460 under heavy load in any facet, right, there's going to be motor unit recruitment, right?

01:11:12.160 Like our brain senses, our nervous system.

01:11:14.580 There's, we need more muscle fibers and we need more resources to be able to drive.

01:11:19.280 You think an athlete gives two shits about motor unit recruitment and neuromuscular excitation?

01:11:24.560 They want to win.

01:11:25.200 Right.

01:11:25.480 And I was an idiot.

01:11:26.320 I mean, there were times I said, don't trust anybody that doesn't share failures.

01:11:29.500 I remember at 24, I'm working with my first pro athlete and we're warming up and we're

01:11:35.480 doing some basic stuff and this guy's kind of half-assing it.

01:11:38.240 And I shit you not.

01:11:39.640 I literally am like, hey, it's important to go through the full range of motion here.

01:11:43.040 It gets synovial fluid going and lubricates the joints.

01:11:45.520 And that guy goes, bro, what did you just say to me?

01:11:48.560 And I'm like, well, you know, and like, yeah, it was well-meaning.

01:11:53.400 Meaning maybe a little bit ego-driven response, I imagine comes in place where.

01:11:57.920 Insecure because I was 24 and I wanted this guy to understand that he was in good hands.

01:12:02.660 Like I put a lot of time into their program, but I also understood I didn't have a beard

01:12:06.720 at the time.

01:12:07.660 They may see a 24-year-old guy that looked kind of baby faced.

01:12:10.460 I was kind of, it was my way of trying to say, hey, I know what I'm talking about.

01:12:14.540 Like, and you're in good hands, but instead I like was a jackass.

01:12:18.160 Right.

01:12:18.320 You undermined yourself.

01:12:19.920 Yeah.

01:12:20.340 It's just, and like, so I look back on that and that's, that's an example of how to do

01:12:23.880 it incorrectly.

01:12:24.800 But I'd see that with interns.

01:12:26.320 They'd come in and be like, all right, guys, what we're going to do, 45 degree knee angle.

01:12:30.620 That's the optimal joint.

01:12:31.740 And I'm like, dude, that dude doesn't give a shit.

01:12:33.440 Right.

01:12:33.660 Like just tell him kind of the, this, that.

01:12:35.700 And some people do.

01:12:37.080 So I ask them that.

01:12:38.220 I'll send, I'll ask guys, I'll be like, Hey, who here's more visual, who tends to be a

01:12:41.940 little bit more analytical and like everybody's a mix.

01:12:44.640 Right.

01:12:45.140 Right.

01:12:45.340 And there's, somebody would say, Oh, I have a presentation on this.

01:12:48.120 Somebody's like learning styles or horse crap.

01:12:49.820 And I'm like, well, maybe in the classroom, of course, we don't want to just like cater

01:12:54.360 to somebody's quote unquote learning style.

01:12:56.260 We want to expose them to a variety.

01:12:58.220 Sure.

01:12:58.580 But when you're teaching athletes, whole body movements, how to cut, how to catch a clean,

01:13:03.420 if you're not teaching them in multiple ways, visual, analytical, kinesthetic, all that,

01:13:08.680 then you're, they're never going to get it.

01:13:10.500 Right.

01:13:11.120 Well, especially in a group setting too, is if you're, if you've got a, if you've got

01:13:14.360 a team or a group and you're teaching one way, well, you're missing 90% of the people

01:13:18.120 there or 80%, right?

01:13:19.800 They have jagged profiles, right?

01:13:21.260 Like this isn't, that's, and that's the core of what we're talking about, Ryan, really

01:13:24.520 is people aren't one dimensional.

01:13:26.400 They're not.

01:13:27.020 And so if you don't understand the, the fluidity of social dynamics and you don't understand

01:13:32.700 how to weave those in with an understanding of power and politics and ego and insecurity

01:13:37.560 and schadenfreude and masculinity and all this stuff that you've got to get out of the

01:13:41.720 way, it's wrong.

01:13:43.600 Like, cause this isn't just like, this isn't like mirror neurons and sitting there and

01:13:47.240 making sure that you're reflecting their body language.

01:13:49.820 Like sometimes these guys will test you and be like, bro, what the hell do you know about

01:13:53.420 me?

01:13:54.120 And in that moment, you got to be like, all right, how do I address this conflict?

01:13:59.220 You know, like that's a reality.

01:14:01.100 Well, and I imagine too, with, with elite athletes, you've got a, certainly a level of competency.

01:14:06.680 You've probably got guys with chips on their shoulder.

01:14:09.340 You've got egos.

01:14:10.640 I imagine like you've, you've got this whole broad range of, of, of people who are succeeding

01:14:18.580 at the highest level.

01:14:19.680 And that is going to create some barriers that you need to break down.

01:14:23.460 Spot on, Ryan.

01:14:24.100 And not only that, many of them have worked with guys before that just, uh, I got to

01:14:28.940 think about how to say this, uh, appropriately, um, have taken their money and use a lot of

01:14:33.680 BS training methods, you know?

01:14:35.520 And so you might be the fourth coach they've worked with in three years.

01:14:38.740 A guy came to me two years ago and he was being charged $3,000 a month for basically doing

01:14:44.980 like visual reactive board stuff while wearing many bands around his knees.

01:14:49.460 And I'm like, so let me get this straight.

01:14:51.140 You didn't really do any formal training.

01:14:52.840 And then I had a, another wide receiver that he went to one of these like route running

01:14:57.860 gurus that kind of make these Instagram hype videos.

01:15:00.640 Like, so what they do is they get like Drake on the background and it's just videos of cutting

01:15:05.240 and crazy little obstacle course.

01:15:06.920 Footwork and all that kind of stuff.

01:15:08.340 Right.

01:15:08.460 They're just like, we work, we don't do.

01:15:10.140 And I'm like, yeah, um, we're here.

01:15:13.580 We're actually going to break this skill down and we're going to teach you how to, and guys

01:15:17.860 will sit there and be like, well, yo, I had a pro bowl season last year when I did that.

01:15:22.700 And so you're like, all right, I've got to figure out how to give them 90% of what they

01:15:26.560 want or need 10% of what they want.

01:15:29.020 Right.

01:15:29.380 You know, and it's been, but don't break.

01:15:31.760 And so that's an element of it as well.

01:15:33.980 Sure.

01:15:34.680 Is that a copy or a book behind you there?

01:15:36.940 Yeah.

01:15:37.320 So the book's translated in six languages now.

01:15:40.240 And so, um, I don't have all of them here, but that's the German version, the Chinese version,

01:15:44.300 and then the U S version.

01:15:45.920 And, uh, man, it's just a self-published book.

01:15:47.820 So it's kind of cheesy, but like, it's just something I put there.

01:15:50.040 Cause it's a reminder that it was never supposed to happen.

01:15:52.340 I got told by five publishers, nobody would care.

01:15:54.840 And then we're coming up now on a hundred thousand copies sold independently in two and a

01:15:58.800 half years.

01:15:59.420 It's amazing.

01:16:00.520 It's amazing, man.

01:16:01.520 You too, right?

01:16:03.320 Yeah.

01:16:03.460 I mean, the, uh, the book writing process was not, not entirely enjoyable for me, but

01:16:08.880 I enjoy getting the word out and spreading the message.

01:16:11.660 And it's exciting that people resonate with it for sure.

01:16:14.360 Yeah.

01:16:14.600 Do people get on you and like, Hey, when's the second book coming out?

01:16:17.020 I get that quite a bit.

01:16:17.840 Yeah.

01:16:18.540 And you're like, Hey, I almost had a heart attack doing book one.

01:16:21.100 Can you leave?

01:16:21.960 It's like, just listen to the podcast, man.

01:16:23.780 Like I say it all in there.

01:16:24.860 Like you do what you need from there.

01:16:26.340 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:16:27.760 Well, it's good because it does digest a lot of different thoughts that are kind of

01:16:34.800 out there and loose into a succinct framework that's easy to consume.

01:16:40.260 So it is valuable for sure.

01:16:41.800 Yeah.

01:16:42.040 And I found, I mean, I, my book is very different than my podcast, than my online courses.

01:16:46.980 I mean, they, they're all interrelated, but what I have found is certain mediums are a

01:16:52.200 little bit more appropriate for certain messages, right?

01:16:54.460 Like you said, you said, you stated it perfectly.

01:16:56.620 The book's good for concise, collected, you know, concentrated format.

01:17:00.820 The podcast is a little bit more conversational.

01:17:03.220 And then my online courses are for people that really want to dive deep.

01:17:06.940 For sure.

01:17:07.220 So for the person that was like, Hey, when's your next book coming out?

01:17:09.760 I'm like, well, actually you want to check out this course.

01:17:11.780 Cause the online course is a sequel to the book.

01:17:14.040 Right.

01:17:14.400 And do you have an online, you have, you have courses coming up, don't you?

01:17:17.300 Yeah.

01:17:17.500 So I have two online courses that people can register for any time of year.

01:17:21.580 And then I also do in-person workshops, uh, as well.

01:17:24.600 And we're about to launch a new two day format.

01:17:27.140 Uh, it's called the art of coaching apprenticeship.

01:17:29.560 And so everything within that, right?

01:17:31.780 Like is just a little bit more immersive or interacted in some nature.

01:17:34.880 Right.

01:17:35.220 And so we try to provide people those mediums depending on what they want.

01:17:39.060 Right.

01:17:39.840 Yeah.

01:17:40.220 That's valuable.

01:17:41.340 Well, we are winding down on time.

01:17:42.920 Uh, I want to ask you the first of the last two questions, which is what does it mean to

01:17:46.620 be a man?

01:17:47.060 Yeah, I think for me, it's simply to persist and it goes into embracing imperfections kind

01:17:53.480 of in, you're going to have shrapnel in life.

01:17:55.580 And I found that almost anything that I've accomplished that's worthwhile if they threw

01:17:59.580 deer on me today was just because I am a persistent dude.

01:18:03.160 I'm not perfect.

01:18:04.280 Um, my first draft is always crap, but like, I'll just keep plugging away and it's just brick

01:18:10.320 by brick.

01:18:10.780 So I think to persist and embrace kind of that failure and, and imperfectness, otherwise you're

01:18:16.060 just going to drown in your own kind of iniquity and feeling like I'm never doing it good enough.

01:18:21.080 So persistence.

01:18:22.280 Right on.

01:18:22.500 Powerful.

01:18:22.980 Well, how do we connect with you?

01:18:24.380 Um, obviously pick up a book of, uh, conscious coaching, uh, learn about the workshops, just

01:18:28.680 find out about the podcast everywhere we can connect with you.

01:18:31.560 Yeah.

01:18:31.760 The one central database that's easiest for everybody is just art of coaching.com.

01:18:36.180 There's no V in front of it.

01:18:37.780 It is literally just art of coaching.com.

01:18:40.340 That'll direct anybody to everything else that's going on.

01:18:43.420 I'm on, I'm most active on Instagram.

01:18:45.320 That's just at coach underscore Brett B.

01:18:50.140 And, uh, again, that the website, art of coaching.com will direct everybody, uh, to any

01:18:55.660 of those sites, but that's the best way.

01:18:57.680 Right.

01:18:57.720 I will link it all up.

01:18:58.560 You know, you seem, obviously you're a very deliberate, intentional person.

01:19:01.620 I'm curious about why art of coaching and not science of coaching or not art and science

01:19:06.780 of coaching.

01:19:07.240 Like why art of coaching?

01:19:09.040 Yeah, that's a great question.

01:19:10.540 Cause I, I believe that interaction and coaching in general, and we use coaching as a ubiquitous

01:19:14.840 term.

01:19:15.200 So we think any form of leadership where you're guiding people is coaching, be involved in

01:19:19.920 sport at all.

01:19:21.000 Uh, but you know, it's an art guided by science.

01:19:24.100 And so one, I mean, the URL is just simpler, right?

01:19:27.180 Like for sure.

01:19:27.760 Yeah.

01:19:28.000 So art of that, that's a primary reason there.

01:19:30.140 And then it's, it's a nomenclature that people are already familiar with.

01:19:33.420 And so a lot of times in my field in particular, people will kind of say, yeah, there's a training

01:19:37.800 side and then there's the art of coaching.

01:19:39.580 And I find from a psychological standpoint, it just helps with callback to keep things familiar,

01:19:44.000 research, relate, reframe.

01:19:45.380 And so, and I think also finally, Ryan, and this is probably the biggest point is I felt

01:19:49.720 like that term had been bastardized.

01:19:51.280 I feel like people talked about the art of coaching again, as like a soft skill.

01:19:55.100 Like you said, it's something that we kind of just look at as we do it every day.

01:19:58.580 And I wanted to show people it's a lot deeper than that.

01:20:01.340 Leadership, coaching, communication is so much deeper and it's not just this art.

01:20:05.660 Um, so it's kind of a way to hook them in and say, Hey, there's more behind the curtain

01:20:09.140 here.

01:20:09.460 Let's find out.

01:20:10.760 Right on then.

01:20:11.160 I love it.

01:20:11.600 Well, Brad, I appreciate you.

01:20:12.460 I was really blown away with your presentation at SummerStrong, what, six, seven months ago

01:20:16.660 or so.

01:20:17.540 Um, and I was excited when, uh, when Bert reached out and got us connected because I've been

01:20:21.040 looking forward to this conversation.

01:20:22.080 No, no doubt the best.

01:20:23.700 So I appreciate you, man.

01:20:24.760 Appreciate you taking some of your time and sharing some of your wisdom with us.

01:20:27.240 Likewise.

01:20:27.640 Thanks for taking a chance on a relatively unknown guy that doesn't have 8 million followers,

01:20:31.500 but hopefully enjoyed the conversation, got some value out of it.

01:20:33.880 I know I did.

01:20:34.640 Yeah, man.

01:20:34.940 You knocked it out of the park.

01:20:36.040 Appreciate it.

01:20:38.600 Gents, there you go.

01:20:39.280 I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Brett as much as I did.

01:20:41.980 Having it with him.

01:20:43.300 Uh, I'm hoping that you're walking away with, uh, some new found perspective on what it

01:20:47.800 takes to coach and lead others.

01:20:49.720 Well, uh, obviously this is a man who is very, very well-versed and knows his stuff and is

01:20:54.260 really practicing what he preaches.

01:20:55.680 So, uh, I would definitely recommend that you pick up a copy of his book, conscious coaching.

01:21:00.320 I think you'll find a lot of value in there.

01:21:02.000 If you're a coach or leader, even if that's just a leader as a, as a father or, uh, some sort

01:21:07.500 of team leader at work, wherever you might be doing your thing, um, you're going to find

01:21:10.980 value in, in this book and in the resources that Brett has to offer.

01:21:14.400 So make sure you connect with him on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, uh, take, take a look at

01:21:18.820 his website, pick up a copy of the book, connect with me.

01:21:21.460 Uh, let me know what you thought about the show.

01:21:23.040 If you would share the show on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, wherever, again,

01:21:27.380 wherever you're, you're doing your social media stuff, share it.

01:21:30.000 That goes a long way.

01:21:30.700 And then in addition to that, don't forget the YouTube leather bundle giveaway.

01:21:35.560 Again, all you have to do is go over to our YouTube channel.

01:21:39.140 Also origin USA's YouTube channel, subscribe to both, take separate screenshots and send

01:21:44.900 separate emails of those screenshots to operations at order of man.com.

01:21:51.400 And on Friday of this week, uh, at 11 59 PM Eastern standard time, we'll draw three winners.

01:21:58.000 The first place winner will win a brand new pair of origin made and sourced in America

01:22:04.600 boots, the 12 week battle planner that we offer a leather wallet from us as well.

01:22:10.640 And our order of man hat.

01:22:12.880 All right.

01:22:13.420 So do that as quickly as possible so we can get you entered into that drawing.

01:22:16.220 And then of course, uh, you'll be able to see what we're up to on YouTube.

01:22:19.920 All right, guys, that's all I've got for you today.

01:22:21.540 Again, I hope you enjoyed the show and the conversation.

01:22:23.440 Glad that you've decided to band with us.

01:22:25.480 We need more of us in this battle.

01:22:26.720 So please share and, uh, and do your part in, in growing the mission and spreading the

01:22:32.040 word.

01:22:32.640 All right.

01:22:33.080 We'll let you get going until tomorrow for our ask me thing with the one and only Kip

01:22:37.000 Sorensen.

01:22:37.800 All right, guys, get out there, take action, become the man you are meant to be.

01:22:41.780 Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast.

01:22:44.620 You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be.

01:22:48.420 We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.

01:22:56.720 Thank you.

Order of Man - October 22, 2019

The Art of Coaching ｜ BRETT BARTHOLOMEW

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