The Art of Manliness - The Character Traits That Drive Optimal Performance

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast now why do some

00:00:11.340 people who look like can't miss high achievers on paper end up floundering in life while those 0.99

00:00:15.400 who can seem like underdogs end up flourishing when my guest noticed this phenomenon while being

00:00:19.040 involved in the selection process of veteran seals for a specialized command it led him to

00:00:22.960 the discovery that beneath more obvious skills are hidden drivers of performance which he calls

00:00:26.820 attributes his name is rich divini he's a retired navy seal commander and the author of the

00:00:30.980 attributes 25 hidden drivers of optimal performance today on the show rich discusses the difference

00:00:35.940 between skills and attributes and how the latter can't be taught but can be developed we then talk

00:00:39.980 about the difference between optimal and peak performance before turning to the attributes

00:00:43.140 which drive the latter we get into a discussion of the components of grit the difference between

00:00:46.740 discipline and self-discipline why you should become something of a humble narcissist and much

00:00:50.420 more and we enter a conversation with how to figure out the attributes you are and aren't strong in

00:00:54.160 which you need for getting to where you want to go after the show's over check out our show notes

00:00:57.640 at aom.is attributes all right rich divini welcome to the show thanks for having me i'm excited to be

00:01:12.720 here so you got a book out called attributes we're going to delve deep into this today and this is based

00:01:18.640 on your experience as a navy seal and also someone who's trained navy seals and other special operators

00:01:25.600 and you start off the book talking about how this idea of attributes really hit home to you

00:01:30.440 when you were you were training a seasoned navy seal in close quarter combat and he was having a hard time

00:01:37.980 with it and you couldn't figure out why because i mean it's like on paper this guy it looks like he

00:01:43.260 should just he should have gotten this but then you kind of had this real like this epiphany that

00:01:48.080 i was looking at the wrong thing so walk us through that story and how did this lead you to this idea

00:01:52.640 of what you call attributes yeah so the training we were running was for a specialized command and so

00:01:58.300 it was a separate selection and assessment training course where seasoned and experienced seals would

00:02:04.800 apply and then come to this particular course and then we'd we'd put them through like a nine-month

00:02:09.120 selection process and we were getting even in that about a 50 attrition rate so 50 of the guys were

00:02:16.040 not making it and these again these are experienced guys and up until that point before i took over

00:02:20.840 training we did not have as a command any real good explanations as to why and obviously it was a

00:02:28.880 it was bothering us because we'd want to articulate it but it also it was also kind of detrimental

00:02:35.440 because we weren't able to tell the candidates why you know the things like you know you couldn't

00:02:40.160 shoot very well or you couldn't jump i mean these are all these are all experienced guys so it didn't

00:02:44.300 make sense so so i was tasked with trying to find a better way to articulate it and what i recognized

00:02:51.860 in this course that was that we were we were actually looking at the wrong things we were looking

00:02:57.080 at performance in the wrong way and of course you know close quarter combat which really for for your

00:03:01.700 listeners is the the act of clearing going into and clearing a room and or a building in several

00:03:07.920 rooms and it's what you have to do when you're you know trying to find a bad guy or rescue a hostage or

00:03:12.560 something like that and it's a very dynamic fast-paced active and dangerous environment so you have to be

00:03:19.620 very specific about the way you conduct yourself conduct your weapons handling move communicate but it

00:03:27.560 also requires a whole different set of qualities you know the ability to think fast recognize adapt

00:03:34.360 be resilient and so and so ultimately it it made me have to deconstruct performance which is something

00:03:41.700 i actually found i really liked to do and and say okay what's the difference between performance and

00:03:48.160 ultimately gave me the insight to separate these things skills which are these learned qualities that tell us

00:03:55.640 how to do something and attributes which are these innate qualities which really describe and inform

00:04:00.980 the way we show up and so that was the impetus and and in doing so we were able to conduct the same

00:04:05.140 training we were always conducting but explain performance in a much different much deeper way

00:04:10.700 yeah so you mean you couldn't tell that guy if he's having a hard time well you're doing this wrong

00:04:14.400 like he was probably doing the skilled part right like he was doing but there was something

00:04:18.620 high like underlying that that was causing him to not be able to display that skill

00:04:23.160 that's correct and it's not even i mean it's not even the it was more that they weren't

00:04:28.400 able to do the skills correctly or the way we needed them to do the skills yet they were skills that

00:04:37.160 almost every seal has right so it was kind of it was just a weird situation to say hey you know you

00:04:43.800 couldn't do this but but the reason why is not necessarily because you can't do the skill it was because

00:04:49.180 we're looking for these these other qualities that inform the way you do the skill and the way i would

00:04:53.840 describe that is you know shooting is a skill you know let me just back up here a skill is is not

00:04:59.020 inherent to our nature right so we don't we're not born with the ability to drive a car ride a bike or

00:05:03.940 shoot a gun so you can teach those things you can be taught those things and the skills also direct

00:05:08.740 our behavior in in known and specific environments so here's how and when to drive a car how and when to

00:05:14.820 shoot a gun and so and they're very easily seen which means they're very easy to measure and score

00:05:19.480 and put stats around attributes are different they're inherent to our nature and they're harder

00:05:23.420 to see so we're all born with levels of adaptability and resilience and and situation awareness and of

00:05:29.320 course they develop over time and experience but but you can see levels of these things in small

00:05:33.220 children and instead of directing or dictating behavior attributes inform behavior so so for example my son's

00:05:40.820 levels of resilience and perseverance informed the way he showed up when he was learning the skill of

00:05:46.260 riding a bike and he was falling off a dozen times doing so so they kind of inform our behavior and

00:05:50.720 because they're hidden they're difficult to see they're most visible in stress challenge uncertainty

00:05:55.680 when when the environment becomes unknown and uncertain because in an unknown environment it's very

00:06:00.500 difficult if not impossible to apply a known skill and so in separating that what we recognize is that

00:06:05.820 you know you can you can teach people skills but you can't necessarily teach people attributes and

00:06:12.980 in this environment of cqc sure we could we could teach a guy how to shoot a gun and hit a target but

00:06:18.780 what we couldn't necessarily teach is how to run into a room and rapidly assess the environment within

00:06:24.440 milliseconds understand who's bad and who's not and then put a precise bullet where the bullet needed to go

00:06:30.200 all happening within milliseconds right and so so you start to we were in an environment where

00:06:35.420 attributes became very very important and everybody showing up to the training had the skills but we

00:06:41.220 just needed to see those skills conducted at a level where the attributes were predominant and one thing

00:06:47.360 you argue the book the whole thing about focusing on attributes is about getting you know improved

00:06:51.660 performance quality yeah and you make this distinction and performance between performing optimally

00:06:57.160 and peak performance i think most people they go you got to go for peak performance but you make this case

00:07:02.520 well maybe sometimes but usually not what's the difference between optimum and peak performance

00:07:07.720 yeah optimal performance just gives us a much broader way to look at performance holistically i mean peak

00:07:13.860 is great but but what people have to understand about peak is it's an apex that's all it is and it's and

00:07:18.220 from any apex you all you can go is down right so and peak often has to be prepared for and scheduled

00:07:24.140 and planned right the pro football player spends his entire week planning and preparing so that

00:07:30.880 he may peak for three hours on sunday right and so and so when you think about performance you know

00:07:35.900 you know seals and i think this applies to life but seals really people always say well seals are the

00:07:41.200 the best performing peak performers right and i said well that's that's not really true because

00:07:47.180 seals are more optimal forms optimal performance tells us that and recognize the fact that you know

00:07:54.020 well it means how can i do the very best i can in the moment whatever the best looks like in that moment

00:08:00.160 right so sometimes that looks like peak performance it's like okay everything's clicking there's flow

00:08:04.520 states it's awesome right but sometimes the best we can do in the moment is like i am head down

00:08:09.080 i'm grinding it out i'm taking step by step right that's all i got it's ugly it's dirty it's it's it's

00:08:14.980 gritty but that's all i got and that is optimal performance as well and so looking at performance from

00:08:20.060 an optimal aspect allows us to do a couple things it allows us to both well first pat ourselves on the

00:08:26.100 back when we're just grinding it out and it's dirty and it's ugly and it's gritty and it doesn't feel

00:08:29.820 that good but we're just moving right which by the way is how a lot of seal missions go i mean you know

00:08:34.420 something we sometimes finish missions and be like man that was really ugly we got the job done but that

00:08:39.140 that was not pretty at all right that was we were doing the best we could in the moment with what we

00:08:42.920 had but more importantly it also allows us to modulate our energy as we move through our experience

00:08:49.660 our day or whatever it is right because i don't need to be peak when i'm driving to the grocery store

00:08:53.880 you know i can be i can i can kind of modulate my energy down and be almost in a recovery mode if i

00:08:59.000 want to and so if we think about performance much more broadly in the optimal sense it allows us to

00:09:04.340 understand how to effectively move throughout our day and then it gives us the opportunity to also

00:09:09.980 kind of peak on demand you know because i'm i'm i'm saving up my energy or i'm i'm charging my

00:09:16.160 battery when i need to so that when peak is required i peak you know so there's nothing wrong with

00:09:20.800 peak performance it's just it's just a it's just only one aspect of performance i think optimal

00:09:24.800 performance speaks to the entire broad sense of performance overall all right so let's dig into

00:09:30.060 these attributes that allow us to perform optimally in the book you highlight it's 22 attributes and you

00:09:35.820 organize them into groups first group is grit attributes then there's mental acuity attributes

00:09:40.800 drive attributes leadership attributes and team ability let's start with grit yeah how do you define

00:09:46.680 grit broadly and then what attributes make up grit and i mean the other question is like can you

00:09:52.280 develop i mean so we talk about attributes being innate this would be a good chance to say well

00:09:55.560 can we also develop these so let's start there like what's grit and what are the grit attributes

00:09:59.440 yeah grit is so people a lot of a lot of a lot of people think of grit as its own attribute it's

00:10:04.280 really not it's a combination of things and so so grit speaks to our ability to push through

00:10:08.800 and and charge through acute challenges and obstacles right um and what it is is a combination

00:10:16.460 of things that allow us to do that that are baked and catalyzed and so the grit attributes are four

00:10:21.520 four attributes it's it's courage it's perseverance it's adaptability and it's resilience those four

00:10:27.620 things kind of blended and catalyzed make up grit they're the result of those things is is in fact

00:10:33.980 grit your ability to kind of push through and so again we don't have to have high levels of all of

00:10:38.320 them but all of them have to exist if someone is going to consider themselves gritty per se but

00:10:45.680 again grit really speaks to that that more acute challenge and stress whereas you know kind of

00:10:50.880 moving i'll skip one of the i'll skip over the mental acuity just for a second but the drive

00:10:55.120 attributes on the other hand speak to our ability to set and pursue and achieve these long-term type

00:11:02.020 goals right so drive speaks to more of the long-term type goal whereas grit is more acute well let's dig

00:11:08.240 deep into some of these grit attributes like take perseverance for example like what is what does

00:11:12.860 that look like and is it possible to develop that and if so like what can you do to develop it yeah

00:11:18.700 so let me answer that second part first because we can we can develop any attribute that we want to we

00:11:23.760 just can't do it the same way we can do a skill and a good way a good kind of the back of the envelope

00:11:27.780 test to determine whether or not it's an attribute or a skill because they get conflated all the time

00:11:32.600 is to ask yourself can i teach it or can it be taught if the answer is yes it's probably a skill

00:11:37.420 if the answer is no it's probably an attribute right so so like i gave the example i could take

00:11:42.020 you out to the range if you wanted to say he said rich i want to learn how to shoot a shoot a pistol

00:11:45.840 and hit a bullseye you know every time well i could take you out to the range and do that i could teach

00:11:50.320 you how to do that within a couple hours i mean that's a skill or you could say hey rich i want to learn

00:11:54.480 i want to learn how to be more patient or be more adaptable well i can't teach you that right so

00:11:58.980 so to develop an attribute takes self-motivation it takes self-direction and it takes a willingness

00:12:04.580 for that individual to step into deliberately step into environments that test and tease and

00:12:10.300 develop that specific attribute right so so if someone wants to develop their adaptability they

00:12:14.880 must deliberately find environments where their adaptability is tested so they can develop it so

00:12:19.940 that's so that's one thing perseverance is a great one and perseverance is is was fun to write about

00:12:25.360 because what i found is that it's a combination in fact of what i call sub attributes and now we get

00:12:30.700 a little bit complicated but it's a combination of three things it's a combination of persistence

00:12:35.040 tenacity and and fortitude and the reason why i had to combine those three and they're not separate

00:12:40.460 is because persistence and tenacity are in fact two different things persistence is is the ability to kind

00:12:46.520 of charge forth on solving a problem with a solution and just keep doing it right keep at it over and over

00:12:53.720 and over again until it works right this is another way to describe this is the stonecutter approach

00:12:58.280 right the stonecutter taps that rock and you know after 99 taps hasn't seen anything and on that 100th

00:13:05.640 tap the rock breaks right that's that's persistence tenacity is different tenacity is the ability to kind

00:13:12.480 of try something and if it doesn't work move on to something else and try something else so the car

00:13:17.320 mechanic is tenacious right i'm going to try that i'm going to i'm going to check the belts if it's not

00:13:21.540 that i'll check the spark plugs if it's not that i'll check the carburetor so if a stonecutter for

00:13:26.820 example were tenacious that stone would never get carved right or cut whereas if the if the mechanic

00:13:33.260 were persistence you'd probably run up your you know your your bill would probably run up and you'd

00:13:37.680 never get the problem solved right so so perseverance overall needs to be kind of a combination or balance

00:13:42.880 of the two we have to kind of understand what we're trying to do and understand what's going to

00:13:46.500 work in that situation and then fortitude really is the is kind of the mental toughness to be able to

00:13:51.780 modulate between the two and push through and so so it's a combination of all three and if someone is

00:13:56.880 is looking to develop their perseverance the recommendation i would give them would be okay

00:14:02.760 first understand where do you fall on the scale of persistence and tenacity you may be someone who's

00:14:09.640 very persistent but not enough tenacity right or vice versa and then of course where's your where's your

00:14:16.040 fortitude to kind of balance that all out those who are very very impatient tends to be a little bit

00:14:21.360 higher on the tenacity scale whereas those who are very very patient tend to be higher on the

00:14:25.440 persistence but but we all know success requires a balance of the two because depending on what

00:14:30.400 you're doing it might it might might modulate and shift i mean what would be an example of something

00:14:35.000 you could do to you know put yourself in so you could work on these attributes you know this

00:14:39.620 yeah so that's that's great great question and and it's a tough one to answer just because it's

00:14:44.640 it's highly subjective right because the because those those challenges that i consider challenges

00:14:50.500 as rich divini are going to be different than the ones that you as brett consider challenges or some

00:14:56.980 other person so so as as someone who wants to practice perseverance the recommendation is find

00:15:03.360 tough stuff to do now tough is going to be subjective to you like tough for me a tough stuff for me is going

00:15:09.200 to look differently than tough stuff for someone you know who has never even been in the military for

00:15:13.400 example right but i think that's that's the key is you have to especially when it comes to

00:15:17.880 perseverance you have to you have to find tough stuff that you that requires you to persevere

00:15:23.560 through i mean the good news slash bad news is that life is going to throw those things at you no matter

00:15:28.220 what i mean whether or not you go and look for them so you can certainly look for tough stuff but

00:15:31.920 also don't discount the stuff that just happens to us in life because life is rife with stuff that

00:15:37.500 requires perseverance well let's talk about the mental acuity attributes what are those and then how do

00:15:42.260 they work together yeah mental acuity are the four attributes describe how our brain understands and

00:15:48.360 processes the world and and out of all the attributes those are probably the four that are the most

00:15:53.340 connected because you can't really can't really just use one not use the other because it's really a

00:15:59.120 sequence and so it starts with situation awareness and this is how our how we absorb all of the

00:16:05.180 information that's coming into our systems right and when we get about 11 million bits of information per

00:16:10.120 second through through all of our five senses our conscious mind however frontal lobe can really

00:16:15.200 only process about 2500 bits per second right so so there's a massive amount of deselection going on

00:16:21.000 without us knowing and i mean something as simple as you know no one who's listening to this is is

00:16:25.540 noticing the feeling on the bottom of their feet right until i just said that right so so you know

00:16:32.640 we're deselecting a bunch of stuff but situation awareness is what we're noticing and and those with higher

00:16:37.680 situation awareness you could call a little bit more vigilant vigilance is another way to describe

00:16:41.840 this where you're just you're you're able to notice things that are in your environment that maybe other

00:16:47.000 people tend to kind of not notice right i'm the guy who walks through the city streets in new york

00:16:52.720 right and i notice the dark alleys and i notice the people the people's faces and their and where their

00:16:57.720 hands are and i notice the traffic you know coming from both directions and i'm looking i'm kind so i'm

00:17:02.640 constantly vigilant in some cases hyper vigilant which is sometimes bad because it can it can add

00:17:08.860 a lot of stress to the system but that's situation awareness so how much how we're taking information

00:17:12.380 in then it comes compartmentalization once we have that information in our system in our brains how are

00:17:17.920 we then assessing it in terms of how it's relevant to our current goal right from that assessment how

00:17:24.660 we're prioritizing that information so what's that what are those things that i need to focus on first

00:17:28.900 and then focus what am i focusing on first right so so that compartmentalization is a is a three-step

00:17:34.200 process that happens pretty darn quickly all right but it's still happening we're doing that assessment

00:17:39.300 those who are really really good at compartmentalizing can do that pretty rapidly in dynamic environments and

00:17:46.280 constantly maintain awareness of what they need to switch to so so compartmentalization is is obviously a

00:17:51.320 very very necessary skill for a navy seal for example you have to be able to block out what doesn't

00:17:57.260 matter and only focus on what matters and this includes if the if the environment there is there

00:18:01.760 are miserable things about the environment that that do not have anything to do with your current

00:18:05.640 objective or goal you're able to block that out and move move past it right then comes task switching

00:18:10.240 which is really ultimately what people think of as multitasking but multitasking as we know is really

00:18:16.600 a myth we can't really focus consciously on one thing or two or you know two or more than one thing at a time

00:18:22.360 a great example would be driving a car and listening to a podcast right most people say well i can do that

00:18:27.240 but it doesn't count if you've relegated that that activity whatever you're doing to your unconscious

00:18:32.300 right we're able to drive a car and listen to a podcast because we don't have to think about

00:18:35.840 driving a car however if we're driving the car listening to a podcast and someone swerves in front

00:18:41.620 of us and we have to swerve out of the way and do some evasive maneuvers it's guaranteed that you're

00:18:45.460 going to have to rewind that last 15 seconds of the podcast because your your brain just switched

00:18:49.260 so so that's task switching and those people who are who are pretty good at or high on task switching

00:18:54.760 can very effectively hop mentally between contexts and categories they can go from you know quite

00:19:01.300 simply they can go from an email to a phone call to a to a text messages to a conversation right and

00:19:06.460 they can make those hops pretty efficiently and it doesn't really screw them up and then there are

00:19:10.740 people who really can't it's tough when they when they get when they're in something and they get

00:19:14.580 pulled away it's tough for them to get back in so again no judgment is really where you fall

00:19:18.800 and then learnability is your ability to kind of absorb and process all that information and and

00:19:24.060 learn it and metabolize it in a way that you can then affect it in your future behavior right so so

00:19:29.060 those people who are high on learnability are those folks who you you tell something you tell them

00:19:34.600 something one time or you show them something one time and and they got it right it's like man they

00:19:39.180 just have it they don't have to repeat it whereas i am actually in fact lower on learnability which

00:19:43.300 means i i find myself making the same mistakes one or two times before i actually learn right so so

00:19:49.920 i've had to adjust my learning process to to account for that because i'm lower on learnability so

00:19:54.460 that's how those four break out and they and they definitely work together yeah and i think the

00:19:58.660 mental acuity attributes really highlights the idea that this is not something you can teach like

00:20:02.180 all that stuff i was thinking the only way you can learn that is just experiencing like highly

00:20:06.860 fluid complex uncertain environments and that's you're going to learn how to be mentally acute

00:20:12.200 on the fly as you go through that experience that you're absolutely correct and i and i and it's

00:20:16.760 fun if you pick those environments again it's subjective but you know driving in traffic is is a

00:20:21.820 is an environment where you're testing your mental attributes right i use the example in a book of

00:20:27.020 running through an airport trying to find your your gate right that's another way i mean so so these

00:20:31.520 are are i also use the subway i love the new york city subways because it it exercises all of my

00:20:36.820 mental acuity attributes when i'm on it and trying to find where i'm going and and the platforms and

00:20:41.200 and the stops and things like that so so yeah we can it's absolutely something that someone has to

00:20:46.980 do for themselves although we can also you know such as seal training choose professions or

00:20:52.220 environments where the environment just hyper develops that stuff so we're gonna take a quick

00:20:56.780 break for your words from our sponsors

00:20:58.120 and now back to the show let's talk about the drive attributes you've got self-efficacy

00:21:05.900 discipline then you've got open-mindedness cunning and then narcissism we'll talk about that's

00:21:12.320 interesting so you don't think of that as a positive attribute yeah but i'd like to dig deep

00:21:16.160 in a discipline because i thought this was really interesting you in the discipline section you make

00:21:19.600 this distinction between discipline and self-discipline yeah what's the difference and why is it important to

00:21:24.920 make that distinction well it it is another fun thing about writing a book it you know it causes a lot

00:21:29.820 of introspection which it did for me and i i recognized that when i was talking about discipline

00:21:35.660 and beginning to write about it i was talking about the ability to kind of project and map out

00:21:42.380 and then move towards and achieve long-term goals right the discipline to be able to to hit the wickets

00:21:49.460 that are required to achieve a long-term goal of which i have a lot of i've been able to you know

00:21:54.980 achieve a bunch of neat kind of audacious goals in my life self-discipline though i don't have a lot of

00:22:01.020 right and i said okay why is that and what i recognize is that self-discipline it it speaks to

00:22:06.260 those pursuits that we can engage in on that the external world has no say in right and has no has no

00:22:15.140 bearing on right so so an example would be i want to eat better and get in shape workout right i can

00:22:21.600 decide that anybody can decide that and the external world has no say as to whether or not you achieve

00:22:25.880 that goal it's all on you right you can decide to eat better and then and then go to go to vegas go

00:22:31.060 to a vegas buffet the buffet is not going to throw bad food at you right it's all on you to do that so

00:22:35.320 so that's and and so that's self-discipline and there are people who people who have who are very

00:22:39.800 high on self-discipline are able to affect those goals and it's it's something that they're they're

00:22:45.240 really good at oftentimes it requires a routine you know that someone can kind of do so you'll find the

00:22:50.780 highly self-disciplined people usually have like high highly structured and routinized endeavors on

00:22:58.640 a daily basis right whereas the lower self-disciplined people like myself i'm i'm much more like yeah i'll

00:23:04.660 just kind of figure it out as i go you know i don't i don't have that right so now discipline overall um

00:23:10.100 it means can i can i achieve this goal right that the external world does have a say in right i mean

00:23:16.720 that's writing a book that's becoming an abc or starting a podcast i mean the the achievement of

00:23:20.840 those goals it's you know getting to a certain position in your company or whatever the

00:23:24.980 achievement of that goal the external world has a say in and so to have overall discipline is going

00:23:30.760 to require flexibility and adaptability and some of those other attributes that um that allow you to

00:23:36.940 kind of move and shake and not get seduced by the highs and not get crushed by the lows and so

00:23:42.200 obviously the best combo is to is to have both both self-discipline and discipline and be a little

00:23:47.560 you know kind of in the in the higher end on both but we've all seen people who are very very highly

00:23:52.420 self-disciplined but they can't when it comes to their kind of their lives overall they can't

00:23:57.680 accomplish you know long-term goals at all right and then we've seen the opposite we've seen people who

00:24:01.880 are very very good at accomplishing long-term audacious goals but in terms of their their kind of

00:24:07.400 personal lives they're not self-disciplined at all so so best to kind of look at it as a as a combo

00:24:13.360 and see where you stand on either and maybe work on either one or both this made me think of as i was

00:24:19.240 reading your book not to like as i was reading this book i was also reading another book you already for

00:24:23.220 a podcast about jake mcneese and the filthy 13 from world war ii there's like so yeah there's a

00:24:29.440 demolition squad for part of the 101 and these guys had no self-discipline like none they didn't like 0.98

00:24:35.560 to salute they didn't like to do formation they were just dirty filthy gross drunk all the time 0.96

00:24:41.400 getting in fights so they had no self-discipline but they had a lot of discipline like they would 0.76

00:24:45.880 give them a job that seemed impossible they would get it done some way or another yeah yeah it's a

00:24:51.740 great example and then and again the um i mean you could say some spec ops units and seals have been

00:24:56.820 accused of that in fact almost exactly that is like you know you know kind of gritty dirty don't you

00:25:02.980 know don't salute like kind of the lower grooming standards but you know but when the job comes down

00:25:07.960 they will get the job done you know and and they will be disciplined in their pursuit of getting that

00:25:12.200 done and they will adapt and again if you are someone who's highly self-disciplined it probably

00:25:17.380 means that you really like routine and you really like structure and if you find that you're someone

00:25:22.780 like that and you're suffering from lower discipline right it's probably because in in the pursuit of any

00:25:30.300 long-term goal that the external world has a say in you are going to be thrown off your routine

00:25:35.420 you're going to be thrown off structure you're going to have to just adapt there are going to be

00:25:38.560 certain times where you can't get that workout in at the time that you want it to you're not going

00:25:43.680 to be able to get that meal you're not gonna be able to sleep when you need to sleep and so so again

00:25:47.400 i think it's an understanding i'm really interested in articulating this stuff so people can start to

00:25:50.980 understand and deconstruct their own performance and see where they fall on this stuff so they can say

00:25:55.640 it's not about working on this whole big thing i can actually just work on these two one or two

00:26:01.360 pieces and i'm going to be okay but yeah it's a great example let's talk about narcissism a little

00:26:06.020 bit sure how is that a positive attribute typically we think of narcissism as negative yeah it trends

00:26:11.940 towards the negative especially when you start getting in the higher levels but the reason why i kind

00:26:16.100 of had to add it into the kind of the drive category is because when we think about why we set

00:26:22.020 audacious goals there's a there's a little bit of a narcissistic tendency that comes into that i mean

00:26:28.300 narcissism is really basically the the desire to be adored and feel special and stand out and be

00:26:34.240 recognized that's what it is right and every human being has a desire at some level to have that happen

00:26:40.740 at least once or twice right and it's and the interesting is it's not it's not actually just

00:26:45.300 philosophical it's neurological right when we're when we're babies when we're infants so we're getting

00:26:49.960 paid attention to and adored by our parents or other adults right we're getting bursts of three

00:26:55.160 very powerful chemicals dopamine which is a powerful neurotransmitter which means you know

00:26:58.940 keep doing this this is good we're getting serotonin which is another powerful neurotransmitter that

00:27:04.100 kind of promotes this feeling of safety and and bonding and then oxytocin which is a hormone known as

00:27:09.940 the love hormone again a bonding chemical you know connecting human beings we're getting all three of

00:27:14.720 those when we're getting paid attention to and so and that's as infants that doesn't change when we're

00:27:18.680 adults right there's a reason why we want to feel special once in a while there's a reason why we

00:27:22.880 want to feel recognized and so and so there's a little bit of narcissism in that i kind of joke

00:27:27.360 and my buddies and i joke about this why did we all become navy seals you know at 18 or 22 years old

00:27:32.260 sure we were all patriots sure we love our country and we wanted to you know serve our country but it's

00:27:37.640 also because we wanted to be badasses right we wanted to see if we could do it we could see if we

00:27:41.660 could do something that very few people do that's a little bit of a hint of narcissism speaking and so

00:27:45.820 and so the idea is you know of course too much narcissism is bad right and there's and the and

00:27:51.080 the dsm-5 which is kind of like the psychology bible will outline i think it's nine nine criteria

00:27:57.380 for narcissistic personality disorder and if you read those nine things i think it's if you have five

00:28:03.060 or more you have the disorder right and so i i was reading through these nine things and i and of course

00:28:08.300 i didn't have five or more and i'm not even sure i had all of all of each one but there were certain

00:28:14.220 things i read it's like well i'm sometimes like that i sometimes feel that way and so i had to

00:28:18.500 really kind of again introspect and and be honest with myself about the fact that sometimes we set

00:28:24.280 and move towards audacious goals because of a little bit of narcissism in us and so if you

00:28:30.040 metabolize it correctly it can be an incredible driver and that's why i wrote about it as an

00:28:34.220 attribute right you people always say like you can't want to be president of the united states

00:28:39.120 unless you're a little bit of a narcissist totally totally right um so let's talk about

00:28:43.660 leadership attributes that includes things like empathy selflessness authenticity decisiveness and

00:28:49.480 accountability and the one that really spoke to me i think it's interesting i'm sure you get this

00:28:52.960 all the time as people read your book they're like well that one spoke to me more than the other ones

00:28:57.640 yeah the decisiveness one spoke to me for some reason in in that section you make the distinction

00:29:02.120 between being able to make a good decision and being decisive what's that distinction yeah i mean

00:29:07.840 the distinction is speed and efficiency right decisiveness is really an external expression

00:29:12.480 of our mental acuity attributes and and and more specifically like i guess compartmentalization it's

00:29:18.460 our ability to kind of assess information prioritize you know how that information kind of falls into

00:29:23.920 place and then and then focus you know make a decision on something and focus decisiveness is the

00:29:28.100 external expression it's it's now you're you're dealing with things that are coming at you and are and

00:29:33.040 one's ability to say okay out of out of what's going on and the information that i have

00:29:37.600 how can i make and begin to act on a decision and again the decision making process is something that

00:29:43.880 all leaders need but you know long protracted lengthy decision making processes often don't

00:29:51.240 necessarily feel as leader like as someone who's has the ability to say okay i have this information

00:29:57.400 it's it's enough that i feel like we're you know we have what we need and it's not it's not i'm not

00:30:02.520 reckless and i'm going to charge forth and it's kind of this 80 20 rule i mean we used to say

00:30:06.320 some of these targets you know if we can get at least a percentage of information on the target

00:30:11.140 that gives us enough to say okay let's go let's go check it out we're going to go and we would never

00:30:17.120 ever get 100 right ever and 80 was actually a good thing you know sometimes it'd be 50 or 60 but what

00:30:23.220 is that percentage of information that allows you to feel comfortable enough to say okay that's all i

00:30:27.180 need i'm not being reckless i'm going to make a decision and i'm going to push forth and again it's

00:30:31.380 we have to remember when it comes to decisiveness a decision can be final but not permanent right

00:30:36.840 the decisive person understands that when i make a decision i'm going to act on it's a final decision

00:30:41.080 which means i'm going to act on it and move congruently to what i just decided however if as i

00:30:46.880 as i implement that decision i start moving forward i find that it was the wrong decision

00:30:50.840 or there's a different better way it's not permanent i can change i can make another decision which takes a

00:30:56.120 little bit of accountability as well i think i think decisiveness and accountability actually work

00:31:00.460 in tandem when when they're working properly any examples from military history where you

00:31:06.300 think indecisiveness cost a military unit well i mean in the book i talk about stalin who when the

00:31:13.560 nazis were invading i mean stalin had all the proper clues in fact he had he had spies who told him

00:31:19.320 exactly when the nazis were going to invade russia and he chose to ignore that and when it in

00:31:25.940 fact happened he locked himself away in his house for several days and so the the commanders on the

00:31:32.080 in the front lines were were just completely almost neutered in their ability to do anything about it

00:31:38.560 because again in that environment they were afraid to do something that perhaps would be looked

00:31:43.920 unfavorably at by stalin himself so they were kind of neutered in their ability to to do anything

00:31:49.580 and that indecisiveness caused the german army to make advances that were unheard of for that size

00:31:58.420 of a unit when the russians were so overwhelmingly better prepared and bigger and more and better

00:32:04.400 equipped right but the but the germans literally became within you know several hundred miles of

00:32:10.040 of moscow right before the before it was really the winter that that stopped them so so that's a great

00:32:15.780 example in history of indecisiveness almost costing a nation so team ability attributes move on to

00:32:22.120 that you include integrity conscientiousness humility and humor so let's talk about humility

00:32:28.040 this is coming from a seal and i think most people when they think of seals i think of these sort of

00:32:31.540 hard-charging guys with swagger and beards but you note that you know the best seals are usually

00:32:37.620 the most humble seals so what does what does like swaggering seal humility look like yeah it it looks

00:32:46.100 like something that that almost is unnoticeable i always say the most dangerous seal you've ever

00:32:50.560 met is the guy you've met and you never knew you met right because it's unassuming and it's not and

00:32:56.440 it's not really visible i think i think there's a lot of seal stuff out there and seal mythology and

00:33:01.220 even some seals out there who who are very at least in image and and kind of the way they portray

00:33:06.860 themselves they kind of speak to that kind of oh yeah that's what a navy seal looks like but i i'm

00:33:11.980 i'm telling you that most seals are they look like regular people right you know and it's hard they're

00:33:17.760 not they're not necessarily easy to pick out and i think that's where they that's where the humility

00:33:21.620 begins but i think you know any seal regardless if you look like one or don't every seal recognizes

00:33:27.400 how humility is absolutely necessary and the reason why you recognize that and you it's something you

00:33:32.340 learn at buzz from day one is that is that you as a seal place yourself environment and into

00:33:38.260 environments that will immediately humble you if you are not already humble right the ocean is a

00:33:44.080 perfect example the ocean will kill you it will kill and it doesn't matter how good of a swimmer you

00:33:49.280 are it doesn't matter you know what background it will kill you if you turn it if you turn your back

00:33:53.300 on it right it's that it's that powerful you don't screw around with the ocean same thing with

00:33:57.720 mother nature in any environment but also in combat i mean listen you know in africa you know

00:34:03.080 there are bad guys who give guns to nine-year-olds right and a nine-year-old firing a bullet right that

00:34:10.100 hits a navy seal who might have you know 10 or 15 years experience that bullet if if placed properly

00:34:16.120 is going to kill that guy right and so and so the environments that you're in in seal life whether it

00:34:21.300 be the ocean or the the mountains or in combat where one bullet fired in the right way by anybody

00:34:28.940 can kill you is a is immediately humbling and i think so that i think most seals recognize that

00:34:34.460 and that's you know how it how how i found at least the guys i i was around for most of the time most of

00:34:40.220 my career conducted themselves and as you said in this section there's a sweet spot like you don't want

00:34:44.700 to be too humble because then you become sort of like a doormat but then you don't want to be like

00:34:49.680 again because you need some of that narcissism right to like yeah yeah bravado right i mean

00:34:53.520 the problem with humility is it comes with a little bit of a stigma and and you know where it comes you

00:34:57.760 know where that stigma comes from people people could debate but you know you know sometimes people

00:35:01.700 think of humbleness or humility as weakness or you know i'm gonna bow my head and you know give in

00:35:07.720 or whatever and and you know it's it's not i mean i mean the the the humility properly well i

00:35:14.680 should say yeah humble i mean any one of these attributes brett taken to either extreme is bad

00:35:19.620 right so too much of anything is bad and too little of anything is bad so so on all of these

00:35:23.960 you want to find a sweet spot that's what that's the optimal place and it's no different for humility

00:35:28.960 right too much humility to the point where like oh no you know i'm bowing your head and you're just

00:35:33.560 you know almost a limp noodle is bad right there's a there's a there's a humility that says i think that

00:35:39.140 i think the healthy humility is is is the humility that says i am i'm confident with with my

00:35:44.280 capability my skill but i always have something to learn there's people who can always teach me new

00:35:49.040 things so i always have my ears open and i'm not arrogant about it right so it's kind of that

00:35:53.700 proper humility is confidence versus arrogance right that's what it is because again confidence is

00:35:58.960 i know i can do this and in doing knowing that i also know i have a lot to learn whereas arrogance

00:36:03.420 is externally focused it's i am better than you and as soon as you start saying that you've you've

00:36:08.460 closed your mind to additional learning and you have lost your humility i know my our podcast

00:36:15.280 listeners get tired of me saying this because i usually bring it up in every episode but this

00:36:18.380 sounds like aristotle this is yeah the idea of the golden mean right and finding the the the virtue

00:36:23.880 is finding that that middle spot between two vices essentially yeah i've had several friends who've

00:36:29.960 who've read the book and i've talked to about the book and and they're like hey this is this goes all

00:36:34.540 the way back to aristotle and they've sent me you know a lot of aristotle stuff so i've started to dig

00:36:38.380 through that but you're absolutely right i mean this is stuff that yeah it was cool writing about it

00:36:41.840 because the stuff that we've actually been talking about for for for you know thousands of years

00:36:46.500 right these qualities and i think this is just a different way to look at them and explain them

00:36:50.680 and articulate them so people can actually say okay this is how this makes sense for me so you have

00:36:56.680 a few attributes at the end of the book that didn't really fit into any of the the four categories and

00:37:01.700 we've you've mentioned some of them throughout our conversation one is patience and impatience and

00:37:06.700 then i think uh competitivist was another attribute tell us how those those attributes play in with the

00:37:12.740 rest of these attributes yeah well the the reason why i couldn't fit them into the categories is

00:37:17.880 because they didn't they didn't match up in terms of what i just said in terms of if you're if you're

00:37:22.840 really low or really high it's kind of bad you know they in other words they didn't really have a sweet

00:37:27.180 spot because there are people who are very impatient and they're highly successful there are also people

00:37:33.560 who are very patient and they're highly successful and same thing with competitiveness

00:37:36.840 and non-competiveness uh competent competitiveness and the other one was fear of rejection versus you

00:37:43.660 know kind of insouciance to what people think and so and so the way this works is uh you know let's

00:37:48.020 just say competitiveness because it's it's one that was interesting to kind of look at it's assumed by

00:37:52.040 most people that competitiveness is a absolutely necessary attribute for success right and i don't

00:37:58.880 disagree with that but what i do disagree with is the implied corollary which is that non-competitiveness

00:38:03.980 doesn't work right non-competitiveness can also be very very instrumental to high levels of success

00:38:10.560 and the reason why i know this is because i am not a competitive person right and i and i never was i

00:38:15.200 used to play sports in high school and i was in fact the captain of of my lacrosse team in high school

00:38:19.000 and and i never really it never really bothered me or moved me either way when we won or lost i was i

00:38:24.420 loved the game and i love the sport and i love the kind of the teamwork and i love the intricacies but

00:38:27.980 the winning or losing i was like okay i mean i didn't really bother me and i thought that'd be a

00:38:32.240 a hindrance when i went to seal training because i was like man that this might be bad but what i

00:38:37.300 recognized when i got to seal training is that is that the navy seals as as does most if not all

00:38:43.420 high-performing teams recognize and honor both polarities because both polarities are necessary

00:38:48.260 the competitive mind looks at a problem a situation an environment and immediately begins to

00:38:54.740 place rules and conditions around what they're seeing and then asks the question how can i win

00:39:00.980 in this environment based on these rules and conditions right that's very very powerful it's

00:39:05.460 a very very powerful thing to be able to do but the non-competitive mind looks might look at the

00:39:10.240 same situation and say okay i don't care about the rules you know as far as i'm concerned there are

00:39:15.020 there are no rules i don't really want to go down the line on this one how do we work or how do we how

00:39:20.240 do we find a way that's completely goes around it or does something different right that also can be a very

00:39:25.700 powerful success mechanism right and in the seal teams especially when we're looking at complex

00:39:30.560 operations you know here's a mission we have to accomplish this mission it's it's really beneficial

00:39:35.900 to have both polarities on a team because one will look at us how can what are the rules around here

00:39:40.940 how can we win what might be the best way and the other minds are saying okay what's a what's a way

00:39:44.900 we can think about this completely differently and so all teams will benefit from both polarities

00:39:49.100 which is why i put them in the chapter where i i talk about these others so how do you figure out what

00:39:54.180 your attributes are so we've talked about all of them is it just a matter of self-reflection or is

00:39:58.040 it do you need like a third party to sort of triangulate because i mean you might think well

00:40:02.980 i'm i'm gritty i've got grit but really you you don't so what does that look like figuring out what

00:40:07.920 your attributes that you have yeah it can come in different forms right so there has to be some

00:40:12.760 introspection but it has to be honest introspection like and and one of the ways we can do that is to look

00:40:17.040 back at those times in our lives where we were inside of challenge uncertainty and stress and how we

00:40:22.960 and kind of autopsy how we performed right you know i the environment was changing around me and

00:40:28.360 it was outside my control and i it felt really hard and bad well that might give a clue as to

00:40:33.080 your adaptability levels your adaptability might be a little bit lower right so so that's one place is

00:40:37.540 to autopsy you can if people really we can our loved ones who know us very well or our teammates who

00:40:42.380 we've been through shared challenge with can help us can help us distinguish those and then and then

00:40:47.860 just throwing ourselves into new challenging environments we can we can start to distinguish the key is

00:40:52.700 to know that first of all we all have all of the attributes okay the difference in all of and all

00:40:58.460 of us and each one of us is is really the extent to which we have each one right so i i talk about

00:41:04.200 adaptability as the example if 10 is high and one is low i'm probably level eight on adaptability which

00:41:09.320 means when the environment changes around me outside of my control i am pretty good it's very easy for me

00:41:14.180 to kind of go with the flow and flex right someone else might be level three which means the same thing

00:41:18.040 happens to them it's difficult for them to go with the flow and flex they're still adaptable it's just

00:41:22.480 difficult right so so if we were to line all these attributes up on a wall like dimmer switches all of

00:41:27.320 our dimmer switches would be at different positions and that that you know if we connect the dots all of

00:41:31.380 our lines would look differently and so this is the first thing we have to recognize the second thing we

00:41:35.080 have to recognize is that we don't have to have the perfect amount of all the attributes in fact

00:41:40.800 that's impossible okay and there's no judgment to where to where we fall on that scale right

00:41:45.040 but then the the specific niches we're in require certain attributes and others don't right um the

00:41:51.820 the stand-up comic doesn't necessarily need to have a lot of the leadership attributes right because

00:41:57.840 it's a pretty self-directed profession and i would say like take something as you know a specific one

00:42:02.000 like empathy if the stand-up comic is a little bit lower in empathy that's probably a good thing

00:42:05.860 because too much empathy is going to affect his routine i mean how can you find the funny at a funeral

00:42:09.840 if you're too empathetic right so so the idea is to to start thinking about this in a way like how do

00:42:15.680 i show up right you know in reading the book you get a sense of how of kind of what these attributes

00:42:21.180 mean i know on the website um we've developed an assessment tool that allows someone to go in

00:42:26.080 and get a score as to where they fall on the grid attributes the mental acuity attributes and the drive

00:42:31.080 attributes so they can kind of see as compared to a big data pool that we you know get got information

00:42:36.620 information from where they fall like on adaptability or situation awareness but then to

00:42:41.540 take those scores and say okay how does that what does that mean and how does that fit into my my true

00:42:47.020 experience does that make sense does it not make sense and do that diligence and the idea i guess

00:42:51.140 ultimately the way to think about this is that we're all as human beings we're all humans right

00:42:57.000 but we're kind of like automobiles right some of us are jeeps some of us are ferraris and some of us

00:43:02.040 are suvs right but there's no judgment there because the jeep can do things the ferrari can't do and the

00:43:06.260 ferrari can do things the jeep can't do and it behooves us to kind of lift our hood and figure

00:43:11.440 out what our engine looks like because we may in fact be a jeep that's trying to run on a ferrari

00:43:15.780 track or it might be a ferrari that's trying to run our jeep track and again if that's our choice

00:43:19.880 there's nothing wrong with that i mean we might say you know what i actually i want to i want to

00:43:23.620 take my jeep and get to on a jeep track but even if you're a jeep that wants to run on a ferrari

00:43:27.160 track what that allows you to do is say okay as a jeep running on a ferrari track what are those

00:43:31.480 attributes that i'm not i need to now actively develop so i can be a a better jeep running on

00:43:37.100 this ferrari track and i think that's the real power of being able to start to understand and

00:43:41.860 deconstruct this for yourself yeah it helps you figure out your fit and i mean going back to that

00:43:45.660 that guy you were training at the very beginning of the we're talking about the very beginning of

00:43:48.800 the podcast like at first when he got rejected he was really bombed but later on he figured out

00:43:54.060 because but then afterwards you told him like here's what you're lacking right but he also like

00:43:58.420 here's what you have here are the attributes you do have find something within the organization

00:44:02.880 that fits that and he did that and he had a really flourishing fulfilling career that's right yeah and

00:44:09.040 that just that knowledge allows you to kind of just yeah tweak yourself because again even even in in

00:44:14.600 the performance enhancement space there's so many different tweaks and techniques and and gimmicks to

00:44:21.220 to enhance performance that are out there right and and some of them are phenomenal some of them are

00:44:26.020 probably not that good but if you pick the wrong thing it's you know they don't all work for all

00:44:31.240 people right if you try to put a nitrous oxide booster on a jeep engine it's probably not going

00:44:35.240 to go very well right so so you have to just by understanding your own system you can in fact also

00:44:41.180 start to understand what those what's out there that can help you improve your system and that's

00:44:45.160 important too well rich uh it's been a great conversation where can people go to learn more about the

00:44:49.800 book in your work yeah it's uh so the best place is the attributes.com which is the website where

00:44:55.220 you can get the book you can also take that free assessment tool you can see where you stand on

00:44:58.960 that and then we have some workbooks on there that people want to develop specific attributes

00:45:02.840 they can grab a workbook and and develop attributes and then yeah and then there you can find the

00:45:07.160 instagram handle that i have for the attributes for rich divini and linkedin and twitter and things

00:45:12.300 like that so that's probably the best kind of one-stop shop for all things attributes the

00:45:16.620 attributes.com fantastic rich divini thanks for time it's been a pleasure thank you for having me it's been

00:45:21.200 a pleasure to be here so i appreciate it my guest today was rich divini he's the author of the book

00:45:26.260 the attributes it's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can find out more

00:45:29.840 information about the book at his website the attributes.com also check out our show notes at

00:45:33.580 aom.is attributes where you can find links to resources where you delve deeper into this topic

00:45:37.680 well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast check out our website at

00:45:48.400 art of manliness.com where you find our podcast archives as well as thousands of articles written

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00:46:17.380 i'm brett mckay reminding you to not only listen to the aom podcast but put what you've heard into action

The Art of Manliness - September 08, 2021

The Character Traits That Drive Optimal Performance

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