The Gap Between Ideas & Action | Status Games Are Zero Sum

What's up family welcome back to stay in process. I today will be a little bit more spontaneous. This is going to be more so just of an update on sip. I think I talk about process a lot. I talk about the mental side of sport a lot. I think it'd be cool to share some of the. The stuff that I'm experiencing within the business with that I'm experiencing with these athletes kind of my plan was sip. You know I think naturally I'll share with you why sit mean so much to me and and you know how I'm thinking about it. This is my baby and this has been something that I've been building for the last year. And I want to be intentional with it so I'm really going through a phase within sip where it's growing so quickly and I'm being faced with challenges and challenges that I've never had to confront and I think in any business or anything you do you're either going to continue to grow. You're going to face call it challenges or a bottleneck and either you figure out a solution to that bottleneck or that challenge and you overcome it in the reward for great work is more work or you don't overcome that. Challenge and you stay where you are which is okay. I mean there's nobody telling you you have to continue to grow. But for me I want to I want to serve as many people as possible and I've shared in this podcast I love the idea of a bot and I keep bringing it up on every podcast but a bot is work it's a it's a Hebrew translation of the Bible of a word it's it's a Hebrew word within the Hebrew Bible a bot and when you translate it translates to work it translates to service it translates to worship. And so this is obviously my my career is my job this is the gig that allowed me to get my girlfriend to quit her job and go full time with sip it's everything to me it's all I think about and so in every way I'm trying to just make this the best product possible. As an active service to you all and as a active worship most importantly to God so I want to just create the best possible product you know I'm the product in some ways as a coach. I've other coaches coaching under me who are a representation of sip I want to make that the best product possible I want to make this podcast the best product possible and so I'm continuing to face these challenges and I think just talking to you guys a little bit about them is is maybe a cool opportunity for you to just get a peek behind the scenes of sip and you know some of the things that I'm reading some of the things that I'm learning. Some of the things that I'm trying to research more of to have a better understanding of so that I can incorporate it within the coaching and I just think it'd be a cool opportunity to share it with you guys because anybody that listens to this podcast is for the most part you know part of this this call it sip family of people that understand it you get it it's a feeling and it's a there's no other way to say it other than it's a feeling and there's other people out there that are creators that. You know might have a different intention with it and they want to get on here and it's super scripted and just you know give you every single thing in a very scripted format reading a script and that's not me I certainly will go deep on a topic you know you go you go and listen to the long hard stupid way. Podcast that's an example of me prepping like crazy for a podcast and then you know I felt like I executed my preparation in a good way. But then there's some podcasts if you go back to the early podcast I would just turn the mic on and have no idea what I'm talking about like what the topic was going to be and I would just rip and that was fun for me and I think I've I've grown and naturally when you're early on you have no expectation there's nobody that's listening. And so I just get to go and be whoever I want to be and then naturally criticism is deductive and so is praise. You know this podcast has grown people certainly have appreciated it and so when people appreciate it maybe unconsciously you start to shift your intentions and you try to create something for the audience compared to creating something for yourself and when I first started this it was so organic and raw and pure and I think today is a good opportunity to just get back to that you know I can feel any kind of way I want. About falling away from that or I could just get back to it as soon as possible and make my next best decision. I think getting real emotional about it or frustrated is just expensive and emotions bias it's a waste of my time. On topics like this and so that's why I'm creating this podcast today and the way that I am. It doesn't mean I'm not going to go and script out podcast because I do that as well. Some of these podcasts I love to pick one topic and go really deep on it like reference groups I just made a podcast on reference groups. I love to research that's a topic that I'm interested in I do believe that. You know where you end up in the next five years you can look at your reference group and we'll tell you exactly where you're going to be. Who are you looking to and so on that topic I'll go super deep and I'll research people. I'll research the topic I'll try to understand it even more but then sometimes I think it's good to just sit here and talk with you guys and build this relationship as you know as you would with a friend this is a relationship and I want to. Stay connected to you in that way and I don't ever really want sip to be that overly formal overly scripted approach i've had many great you know muses in my. Life recently of people that are doing this at a high level that are working with people that are. The highest of high levels in this space and some of the feedback has been like man you should you should really script it out and. Go super deep on a topic and and read a script and write it all out and maybe that's a thing that i'm going to do but so much about what sips stands for is spontaneous and is creative and is impetuous and. I am the audience and you know I trust my taste and. I think my taste and my feel for this has led me to you and that's enough proof for me that I just want to continue to stay authentic to who I am and how I go about this. Again it doesn't mean i'm not going to go deep on the topics but occasionally but it does mean that i'm going to. Occasionally have some fun with it and be a little bit more free and raw with you all. An example of of me trying to just take small steps forward to make this product better is. Shout out Bianca Bianca Saint George if you're listening to this shout out you Bianca i talk to Bianca she's like you know you got to figure out your mic. Your mic sounds crazy sometimes and you sound you hear the birds and my response is assuming i'm just trying to get this podcast out and recording it outside if you guys. Seeing the video i'm on my balcony and there's birds there's cars so if you ever hear that in the background forgive me and if the mic sounds funky at all forgive me and you guys can always give me feedback i love your feedback i love to hear what you guys are saying. You know like i just said i'm always going to say true to me but that's a great feedback. Eager to take the small step forward it's everything i'm trying to practice and teach is we're just taking small steps forward every single day and today that looks like getting on here and recording this podcast. And fix in this dang mic so i hope that this mic is better and if not. No factor will keep stacking so. Right away something that's on the top of my mind i had a conversation this morning for 50 minutes. With this individual that i have consumed from for a long time honestly i'm not sure sipp would be a thing if i didn't have these muses in my in my life and this was a guy that just has really. Transform the space within process and works with a lot of professional athletes has worked with professional teams and he actually sent me a DM. Which is crazy the guy that i was inspired by years ago i'm i'm a marketing guy naturally and so i understand the space of marketing and they talk about dream 100. You you build a list out maybe not about 100 people it could be but for me i listed out maybe 15 people that really inspire me. And just to see how they do it and see what i like about what they do some of these people have nothing to do with. The mental game or process and i would tell you more or more often than not the people that inspire me now are people that are like and the mod. Great author haruki maracami a great author i love to learn about their process Stephen King on writing is a book that i'm going to read soon on his writing process. I find it fascinating that somebody like George Martin could create the entire world of the game of thrones and house a dragon all that. And like what's the process look like there so a lot of the time I dream 100 now is. People that have nothing to do with sports a lot of musicians it's a lot of creatives Rick Rubin ask and but anyways when I initially did this I had a dream 100 and this cat was on there. Like one of the top people and so I think I could really honestly earnestly say that there wouldn't be sip without him and he DMs me and says I love what you're doing I would love to just hop on a call. And we talk for 50 minutes and about faith about you know the evolution of his company and the evolution of sip and what we believe to be true about working with people on their process and. Where the faith component lies in that and him and I both have a similar belief that a lot of the time the mental game is shallow when you don't bring the faith component into it that's just my that's just my truth and for some that's not the case and that's okay. You get to believe whatever you want to believe but just for me personally I never could surrender until I knew who I was surrendering to I couldn't surrender to myself and and so yeah the faith component so big. And remind me of this quote from the ball Robocon and for those of you that don't know and the ball Robocon is an angel investor if you've listened to my podcast in the past. I reference him a lot there's a great Eric Jorgas in book called the all maniac of the ball Robocon where he takes his greatest ideas and organizes them in a very clear and succinct way. And that was one of the first books I read that made me want to start my own thing one day he talks about leverage and how media and code or the highest forms of leverage and how nobody is you and that's your superpower and you escape authenticity you escape competition. Through authenticity by being yourself and by truly. pursuing the things you love he talks about how credentials are our I wash and at the end of the day you can talk to somebody for five minutes and know if they know what they're talking about it's just a status game. He teaches you in that book Eric Jorgas in book. status games are zero sum. For a long time there, I really wrestled with playing baseball for me personally. And it's kind of, you could see like, challenging for me to share that with you guys because a lot of you are athletes, but Naval talks about status games are zero sum. And I felt like for a long time baseball for me was a status game. And I think the only way for me to not have treated it as a status game is to bring the faith component in and to view it as an act of a bod once again. So that's why I'm so heavy on that within sports is like it's got to be greater than you. It's greater than you. It's not all about you survival is selfish and we're going to we're going to do everything we can to create in a way that is authentic to God and to glorify him. So the day of Gloria shout out Bach shout out Garden City, but glory to God alone. And that's that's kind of been my approach with the faith component. And the status games we were talking about in the ball, but the ball has another quote in there that I remember reading when I was at probably Santa Clara Santa Clara is the second time I was reading this second or third time. I'd read it at Minnesota. I'd read it summer after Minnesota. And then I think I read it again at Santa Clara. And he talks about how networking is overrated. Networking is overrated. I remember where I was the first time I ever read that says networking is overrated. Go do something great. And your network will instantly emerge. That's one of those in the ball ideas. And I just like really believe that when I was at Minnesota they would have I was in the Carlson School of Business of Business of Management. And they would encourage you to go to these networking events and to get on LinkedIn and send all these DMs on LinkedIn. And I see all these funny memes. I've put it on my sip Sunday. But like, you know, I think LinkedIn was not in God's will for me is one of the memes I always laugh because I tried LinkedIn. It was so cringe and so corny for me. And so like I say that for me personally because I was trying to play to an audience that I wasn't I was trying to be so professional because I was still in a job. And I just wanted to take a more authentic approach actually talking about things I care about in the way that I wanted to talk about it, which is what sip is. I ended up starting making videos and that's where what got me here. But this idea of networking being overrated was always so real to me. Like what I'm going to go just build relationships and have no skills and think that those relationships alone are going to get me to where I want to go. I'd rather invest in the skills a learning phase. There's a learning phase and everything you're doing. I still think I'm in the learning phase. And then there's an earning phase and I went through three years of working in the mental game and and being in that learning phase. I had a brief stint in medical sales learning phase. And I just think networking is I wash. I think it's overrated. And if you go do something great. You acquire skills because nobody can ever take your skills. If I lost everything was sip and I was dropped on the corner in Alabama tomorrow and I had no money. I could take all the skills that I have with sip and I could trust that I could go build something else. I can start again. That's why skills are should be the focus. Requiring skills developing yourself as a human being becoming the type of person that is worthy of being in those rooms. That was always my mindset. And thank God for for Navarrava Conte for. You know me finding that and I'm grateful that I trusted that to scare anything to trust because you're basically believing that if you do great work. These people will find you and these people will come to you networking is overrated go do something great in your network will instantly emerge. And it has been exactly that for me. It's like a conviction for me now it starts out as maybe a belief. And now it's a conviction. I literally have the balls book on my wall behind me. I'm looking at it right now. I'm talking to you guys. But I have just poured everything I have into this. And I hope you can take the message whether you're an athlete or you run your own business or your creative like when your heart is in something and it's pure and it's intentional. I think intention has a smell people can sniff that out. You know I like to think that you guys can sniff out that I truly care about this. And that's what this is about intention has a smell. And when you create something with your with your heart and you create something that you love. People can feel that it has taste it has your feel has your taste it has your style to it. And that's what attracts these high quality people is when you're convicted and yourself and you're convicted and what you're doing and you're creating something not for them not to be impressive. You're not you're not creating something for the audience to steal people's attention and steal people's trust and to manipulate them and to listening to you because you have some outstanding hook. Like that was never my intention. My intention was so pure to just serve and to just talk to you guys earnestly and honestly and talk to you guys from my heart. And I truly think that is what led me to creating sip which is like the thing that I'm the most proud of in my life outside of having a woman who loves God and a beautiful family that they were building. I would say that's the thing that I'm the most proud of a sip. And as I've created sip I've been led to people you know like Jimmy Johnson shout out my guy Jimmy Johnson Jimmy Johnson is has his own company say come say. And I recommend anybody that listen to this goes and checks out say come say he's a co founder of that company go check it out on YouTube it's 15 minute debrief some of the greatest minds in the world they take their specific topic and they go deep on it for 15 minutes. There's a great one on the inner game my guy Ryan Sweeney who I know who runs the inner game. They own the IP of the inner game the inner game of tennis he actually got to go on say come say and do a great 15 minute debrief I know Mark Manson went on there Cody Sanchez had an unbelievable one but my boy Jimmy Johnson. He I know works with Jesse it'sler who's a beauty and Jimmy message me and basically just got connected me we just wanted to hop on a call and we talked for 90 minutes and now we talk every single month. And he connected me then at that point with a guy named Billy Oppenheimer and I've mentioned Billy Oppenheimer on this podcast. Billy is one of the most impressive individuals I've gotten to come across from a process standpoint and he's the research assistant for Rick Rubin and Ryan holiday. And I'm looking at my vision board right now and I got Rick Rubin and Ryan holiday on there and then I got to connect with the guy named Billy and Billy's got a beautiful newsletter I think it's called six after six on Sundays. And I highly recommend you guys go check that out but I've gotten to learn so much from Billy and I think that everybody's my teacher everything is here to teach me and help me. And and I just feel so blessed to be connected with Jimmy I feel so blessed to be connected with Billy and these connections lead me to other connections and these people came to me. Honestly I didn't seek out any of this they all messaged me and then I got connected with Billy and then this individual I just mentioned earlier who I really admire reached out to me and it's proof of concept for me that when you create something that you truly love and care about and it's a good product I like to think this is a good product to give it everything I have I hope it's good it could be better. But I think it brings people to you that align with your vision and so for whoever's listening to this you know if you're an athlete I hope that you you keep your intention pure and you keep your intention honest and you love what you do when you use it as an act of a bod or you just if you're not religious I hope that you look at this as you know you want to see how great you can be it's not about anybody else it's not about being seen by your coaches it's not about the status games it's not about your teammates opinions or the followers and your Instagram or social media it's also meaningless and so empty and so shallow and so yeah fruitless and those things are just noise criticism and praise are seductive and they're distracting and you listen to Marcus a really is Marcus a really says what is clapping but the smacking of hands what is cheering but the clacking of tongues it's a complete different other distraction these status games and so I hope for you as an athlete that you give everything you have to it if you're if you're not religious is just out of love being the best that you can be and seeing how far that can take you it's not about what they think and if you are religious if you are a Christian you believe in Jesus I guess about glorifying him and everything you do so lead the glory all glory to God alone it's about a lot it's about working and serving and worshiping it's about helping other people it's about using your craft to bring other people closer to him a lamp is not let to be dimmed were meant to shine and I just pray that you you shine that light brightly and boldly because of him and not because of the status when we think about child like Matthew 18 3 truly I tell you that the children will be the first kingdom of heaven I paraphrase that but that's what he's saying children are believing easy and without cynicism I love that idea I always think about this tick tock of this little girl in the ocean and she says God show me my dolphin she's in a boat with her mom her mom says ask God for a dolphin God show me my dolphin and I think that goes from shifting from praying to praising I learned about that in the book the circle maker praying circles around your life and your dreams you shift from praising the praying to praising and she's almost expecting it mark 1124 prayers if you receive that you will God show me my dolphin she's this little girl and a dolphin jumps out of the water before she can even finish her sentence that's child like to me that's a scary amount of faith say that out loud to yourself for quick scary faith scary bravery right such a scary amount of trust in your prayers that God hears you and he's closer to you than your worst thoughts and he doesn't forget your prayers so child like is believing easy without cynicism children seek no status remember that he's telling us to be child like to enter heaven and to enter heaven and children seek no status. It's never been about that for them. And then you think about how children would see what they want. children are obedient, children are dependent. He calls us not to rely on ourself. And that's why I created my own thing in SIP because how can I teach you the mental game and tell you to lean on your own understanding and to make yourself a God, to worship yourself and to rely on yourself? That's the antithesis of everything I believe. I think we're called to be obedient to the Word of God. I think we're called to lean on Him not our own understanding and I think we're called to be dependent. This childlike idea is so powerful and anything you do in sports and business and creativity, that non-needing, non-seeking status, non-striving and just more so abiding and loving is like the sauce. And I think as we get older, we start to let the outside opinions influence us and you become a slave to it. You conform. This is the whole idea of Romans 12 too. Do not conform to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. This is the reference group podcast I made. It's so easy to conform. We're going to conform. So if we're gonna conform, it's at least conform to people that we aspire to be similar to, people that love God, people that are not status seeking, but we're going to conform and that's a natural thing that happens as you get older. There's a great podcast on Diary of a CEO where there's this great woman, I can't remember her name, but she goes on there and she's talking all about creativity and the right and left side of your brain and she has this point where she references an article. Now, when you fact check this article, you can't find this article. And so I tell you to take this with a grain of salt because I can't find the article either, but you can hear the message and understand that maybe the numbers are skewed, but the message is beautiful. She says that these college graduates were tested on creative genius and of all the college graduates that were tested, this was done by NASA supposedly, but all the students that were tested after graduating, two percent of the students were considered creative genius, creative geniuses. And they tested five and six year olds, again, take with a grain of salt, but just hear the message, the five and six year olds and 98% of them were viewed as creative geniuses. So I can't prove that to you, I can't find the research article, but all I know is that children are more creative genius than we are because they have no status, they're not seeking status. You have to realize status wrecks your creativity. The want to be seen and perceived, wrecks your creativity, it changes your intention. The want for money and notoriety, the want for, for, yeah, status. I think it all just wrecks your creativity. I think it pulls you away from who you are and your product isn't as good. And so when I'm talking about child, that's what I mean. Let your creativity guide you, let God work through you, let him create through you. And I think even if you're not a Christian, you can believe that, you know, you listen to people like Michael Jackson and Prince and they're talking about receiving. You listen to Madonna, she talks about being the manager of her talent. You listen to the guy who wrote War of Art, Stephen Pressfield, and he talks about how he receives, or receives ideas from the muse, which is a little bit too spiritual for me. Like I don't go there. I think spirituality at times can make your, you can make yourself a God. You can make yourself an idol. You think that you can be a God and do whatever. And I do believe that you can be great 'cause you're made in the image of God. But I think at the end of the day, we're a surrender to God's will. And we gotta be very careful about the spirituality side of things, the crystals, the tarot cards, the heavy manifestation ideas. Like you can be very, you can make yourself a God. And so I'm, that's a tangent. Like I don't necessarily agree with how Stephen Pressfield sees it as muse. And he talks about some woman that he's receiving from, the muse. I don't agree with that. But at least if you're not a Christian, you can understand that you're not the owner of your talent and you're a steward of the talent. And you're receiving that from somebody else, from God. And for me, fully convicted, I'm even hesitant to even encourage that mindset. But for me, it's all from Jesus. It's all from the fathers, from the Holy Spirit. And I am receiving these ideas. I'm the vessel, I'm the steward. And it's my job to be a good steward. And the status and the comparison and the ego and the noise and all that BS is distracting from my natural abilities. It's self-1. Self-1 wants all of those things. And self-2 just wants to be playful and create. And the noise is just interference. And the inner-gaming of tennis is a great equation. P equals P minus I. It stands for performance equals potential minus interference. So however I perform is determined by whatever my potential is, that's up to God, minus however much I interfere my ego. My ego mind is my self-1. And my ego mind loves these status games and this noise. And self-1 does exactly that. It interferes. And it doesn't allow me to create it to my best ability. And so back to everything we're saying with the networking idea and having a pure intention and earnest intention as an athlete, it just gave you that example. As a business owner, what if you shifted your intention from instead of just, I need to make as much money right now to maybe there's times where you're new to it. I have coaches reach out and ask me all these questions. And there's a learning phase. Get out there and do it. Talk about things you love. Keep your intention pure. Embrace the learning phase. Give everything you have to it and trust that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. These mentors will appear. And your job is to just learn and to pour yourself and to give yourself fully to it. And I think it's a really good belief doctrine call it that if you give yourself fully to something, like you're rewarded for that at some point and you just have to delay judgment and you don't have to understand when that will happen, you just have to approach it in the most earnest and honest way and love the work and pour yourself into the work. And everything else will be presented to you. Go do something great and your network will instantly appear. Will instantly emerge. And with it within a company, if you have a full company or already running and it's successful or whatever it is, I hope that you can maybe reset your intention and get back to your why and just remember that this is about service. And if you want to make more money, if you want to help more people, if you want to reach more people, keep your focus and your intention on serving. And we have to wake up every day and renew our mind and remind ourselves of what's important. And what is important is service. And if you have a servant mindset, everything else follows, full stop. That's the greatest advice I could ever give to anybody. And anything you do be a servant. So I hope if you're running a company, you keep that mindset of being a servant. If you are a creative, I hope that you take that perspective of you are creating for the creator, creation. We are from a creator. Let me say that again, he's a creator. We're a creation and we're creating. And the artist's way, which is also a little spiritual for me at times, but you guys know I love the artist's way. It certainly helped me in my walk. You just have to have the discernment to discern what is from God and what is not and something you can pray for. But in the artist's way, she says that creativity is the natural way of life. I have my vision board behind me, my mood board. And I literally have it on my wall. It's written like 10 times. Creativity is the natural order of life. Everything is creative energy. And that's one of the affirmations. She has you write every single day when you're new to the artist's way. But she says creation is God's gift to us. Creativity is our gift back to God. And so if you're a creative, which I believe everybody is, this isn't just for the creative archetype. I think if you're an athlete, you're a creative, if you're a business, you're being creative will only help you. But our gift back to God is creation. That's my opinion. So I'm going to take these creative gifts and I'm going to keep my intention pure and to create something beautiful. And the only way to do that is to truly let God create through me and to let him tell me what that looks like. And then to just listen and go and do it. And do it in the most authentic and pure way. And then whatever comes of it, great. But that's a gift back to God. And the minute that I create something that I'm proud of, that's enough for me. I love when I listen to David Senderer on the Founder's podcast and they ask him what his best podcasts are. And it's just what is he the most proud of. That's how he grades it. If he's proud of it, then he won. And I think Rick Rubin kind of communicates a similar message there as long as I'm proud of it of one. And I've said that on this podcast. But that's the first topic that I mentioned. I wanted to share with you guys is this idea of networking, this idea of intention. And just when the student is ready to teach will appear, I don't seek these out. I just have full faith that God is going to place these people in my path and he has. And so I hope you can hear that message and apply that to whatever you're doing. The next thing that I want to talk to you about is this idea of incubation. I often reflect on how sometimes I think the mental game is neglected. And I think that it's a new space where there's not many people. It's certainly growing. And I've been in it for the last almost five years. And I've seen it grow tremendously, which is amazing. But I think sometimes the things that are overlooked in the mental game is again, the faith component. I've shared that. But I think that the incubation piece is a piece that nobody talks about that needs to be talked about more. Sometimes you working so hard is actually contradict-- is actually hurting you more than it's helping you. At least that's my truth. So I should just maybe speak to my truths. When I am in this striving mindset, strive, strive, strive, it actually hurts my creativity. It's such a hard thing for me to grasp. Because everything I've ever been taught since I was a kid, it was work extremely hard. Everything is about work. And I grew up around my pops, who's up at 3.30 AM work in every single day, every single day. where on vacation he's taking calls down. down after breakfast, he's taking a call. I mean, he's running a public company and he's CEO, so I get it. But he's always been that guy, and that's all I've ever seen. And maybe that's his truth, but for me, I've found that when I'm working in a creative space, and my job is to think clearly and to think creatively for each individual, and each individual presents a different situation or challenge, and I need to think creatively for what that individual needs in that moment as a coach. It's important for me to be in a creative space, and so striving is something that actually hurts that for me. When I say striving, that's like this, this making your work in idle almost. You go to your work for fulfillment, you go to your work for purpose, and for-- and I'm hesitant because I actually find a lot of purpose in this, but my purpose is to honor God and everything I do. But I think sometimes we can make the job in idle, and I certainly have done that at times. And I want to record podcasts every Thursday. I coach every single day of the week almost, and on Thursday as I'm not supposed to coach, but oftentimes I negotiate with my commitments with myself, and I do coach on Thursday, and then I coach a guy that's in Japan on Sunday. And I've coached every single day of the week. I prep for Bible study for seven hours, seven to eight hours on Sunday. I watch multiple sermons. I read the gospel over and over again. I take notes. I rewrite the notes. And so every day is so full. And I haven't really created space, no matter how much I talk about it. I haven't created the space that I need to be creative. And the artist states haven't been enough. Just one hour is not enough for me. And so I think it's important for you guys to remember also that the people that are giving you advice and feedback, and all these people you consume from, nobody has it all figured out. I certainly don't. And I'm figuring this out every day. It's kind of what this podcast is about. And currently the bottleneck for my business is my ability to think creatively and to be strategic. And when you're in execution mode, I'm doing administrative stuff. I'm trying to manage my books. I'm trying to meet with a tax guy. I'm trying to make sure everything from my finances side is good. I'm trying to coach up other coaches who are now working with in SIP. I am running a school community where I have over 300 people in there. And I post in there weekly. We do group coaching calls in there. Group coaching call for the athletes that are working with my other coaches. And then I'm coaching all my athletes on top of that. So it's absolutely consuming. And I love it. I wouldn't want it any other way, except I do need to find a way to honor my creative time more because it just makes me better. It's actually counterintuitive for me to always be working, striving, working, striving. I think about John 15 where Jesus is in the upper room and he's washing their feet and he's about to be taken away. And he can give them any kind of advice, advice is the wrong word, but he can leave them with a last message here and he can tell them anything. And he doesn't tell them to strive hard for the kingdom of heaven. He tells them to abide. That's a huge word there, abide. Shout out my guy, Jack O'Dow. Jack O'Dow loves this idea. This is my next tattoo is to get a vine with branches on my arm, I think, or my leg. But Jack O'Dowd has this beautiful affirmation that we came up with that when your connection is solid, fruit is inevitable. So let's go through this. Jesus is the vine. God is the vine. And we are just the branch and if a branch falls off the vine, the branch withers away. Once again, dependence. We just talked about child likeness being dependent on the Lord, not being a God, not making yourself a God, but being dependent. And that means being the branch. Jesus is in the upper room and he tells us, he says abide in me as I abide in you, something along those lines. And you know, what does abide mean? Abide means to remain. It means to stay and it means to dwell. Well within Jesus, stay with Jesus, remain with Jesus as he remains, stays and dwells within you. He's omnipresent. He's closer to you than your worst thoughts. He's with you at all times. And it's just us that takes our eyes off of him, no matter how brightly his light may shine, only those who are spiritually prepared to receive it will. So he's always, always there. And we just have to abide. And when I get into my self one mindset, my ego mind, it's like Drake has to do all of this and create all of this and push harder and wake up earlier and be more organized and create a longer list of things I need to do, striving, striving, striving. And if you read the inner dame of tennis, it tells you the first step is to know the voice of self one. And I know that voice. I call it the sensor. I call it the serpent with in my mind. In Revelation 12, 10, it calls the devil, the accuser. He's accusing the brothers and sisters of Christ every day, day and night. So I look at that voice as the sensor, as the artist way calls it, you can call it the serpent, as in the serpent in the garden of Eden, the the the deceitful, beautiful devil. It comes across as, you know, oh, this is good. It actually is a really beautiful thing. It's a good thing. You should work harder, be more organized, work harder, work harder. Like that voice can come across as very seductive for me. And I can think that it's the right answers. But it's the serpent, it's the sensor. It's the accuser for me. That voice is rarely right for me. I'm better off doing less at times. Let me turn around and look at my vision board quick, because I just put up a new picture. It says, "Men of lofty genius sometimes accomplish the most when they work the least." That's Leonardo da Vinci. Men of lofty genius. I'm not saying I'm a lofty genius. Trust me on that. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying I can learn something from these lofty geniuses. Men of lofty genius sometimes accomplish the most when they worked the least. That's the idea of abiding for me. If I just stay connected to the vine as the branch, there will be fruit that is produced. When the connection is solid, the fruit is inevitable. And so that is a huge idea for me that I have to find a way to overcome this current situation, to be greater than my environment, to be greater than my current situation, and to think strategically and just create space to figure out how to honor my creativity more and go on more walks and pray more and take more time to meditate. Quiet time is the best time for me because even when I'm reading, my mind is running and I'm thinking about the business. And so my time in the Bible, my time in prayer, my time in meditation, my breathwork, walks. When I was at my best creatively, I'm on walks every single day. Sometimes I go on walks for 45 minutes. That's when I'm at my best. And so why am I sharing this? That was one of the topics that I mentioned creating space to think creatively. We need to honor that. We need to get that on our calendar ahead of time. It's not real until it's on your calendar. I literally am scheduling time to think creatively, to do nothing. Novak, Jokovic, Arthur Brooks, a lot of these great minds out there. They talk about how boredom is where peak creativity lives. When you're bored, your mind finally has an opportunity to create. And that's the idea of incubation. You're getting space away from the act. And your mind finally has an opportunity to maybe it's received from God. Maybe it's your subconscious mind finally has a chance to come up with ideas. Whatever you want to call it, just understand that this is a principle that is communicated in sports, in business, in creativity that we need time away from the act. My dad had just got done telling you such a striver, but he's always told me Drake, you got to create time on a Sunday morning at 5 a.m. to just sit down and just think that's some of the best advice he's ever given me that has led him to becoming a multiple, a CEO of multiple different companies, taken a company public. Like he creates time to think strategically. And I have not done that. A lot of days I wake up and I'm coaching as early as 6.30 some days. Sometimes I finish my days at 5 p.m. And then I read and then I eat dinner and hang out with McCail and my dog and I go to bed. So I need more space like that. So we got in the calendar, a trip to San Diego. I was intentional to get all my calls scheduled Monday to Wednesday. We're going to San Diego tomorrow, which will be Friday the 17th. And I'm going to go Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. And that's going to be a lot of time for prayer. It's going to be a lot of time to get in the word. It's going to be time to go and walk to spend time with the two girls that I love the most and to have early mornings by just sit with myself and to just think, and her and I can sit down and map out who we want to be over this quarter and who we want to be in the next year and how we want to serve and how we want to give back and all these things. That's our opportunity. And I even will tell you, I've made a whole podcast about how I annotate books. I recently finished Garden City. I recently finished Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. Again, Garden City is by John Mark Comer. He wrote the Ruthless elimination of Hurry. Garden City is where I learned about a bod. It's where I learned about Salem being made in the image of God. Heruki Murakami, what I talk about when I talk about running phenomenal book and then Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird, which is one of my favorite books. Ever, those are two authors that are writing on their process. I finished those books. I'm deep right now in the upside of stress. I'm deep right now in the zen of Zen in the art of archery, which is a short book. And so I'm hoping that maybe today, maybe early days in San Diego tomorrow and Saturday, I can finish those books. That's one, two, three, four, five. I can wake up real early. And for each of these books, I dog ear the pages, which is just like bending the page over. And I highlight and I take notes. I've made a whole podcast on this. It's kind of adapted for me. I really just jot notes down of like having a conversation with the book and any pages that are dog eared. I go into the books in my quiet time and I open and I have a thing in note cards. I keep a note card everywhere I go with me and note card in my pocket for any note card ideas I have. And I have probably 500 note cards with me. I'm going to sit down with each of these books and go to each page that is dog eared. And I'm going to label the page number. I'm going to name the book and then I'm going to write down a couple ideas. and maybe like a partial quote from the book. And then I have something called a commonplace book. And this is a great idea that I got from Billy Oppenheimer, who I mentioned earlier, who learned it from Ryan Holiday. We worked for, who wrote Ego's The Enemy. Stillness is key. The obstacle is the way phenomenal author who learned this system from Robert Green, I believe. But a commonplace book is one place where you basically have all your ideas from all these books. And in the past, I really passively read. And I naturally have pretty good recall. But when I have conversations with these books, and I write them down on note cards, and I think about them, and I go back through the book after I finished it, I actually retained this information better. I also like that Ryan Holiday talks about finishing a book and putting it away for a week, and then going into the book and writing the notes, because it's the things that stand out the most to you after a week. It's incubation away from the act. And when you're taking these notes, Billy Oppenheimer has a great quote that they're notes for a stranger. I love that. Notes for a stranger. What a savvy way of saying that, because that's what you are when you come back to the book. You're a stranger. And so when I get to San Diego, I'm going to be a stranger with these books. Maybe two of them all have finished right then, so breaking my own process. But I'll sit down with these books. I'll label them. The page number, the book name, maybe the theme of what it's about, and then I'll write down the quote. And so maybe I have a theme about surrender. Maybe I have a theme about observing your mind. I have a theme about how you are the audience. And like Anne LeMotte and Bird By Bird has a part where she says, I'm creating for an audience of two, me and my father, and nobody else. And she says that their opinions of me and my work are none of my business. Oh my gosh. And that really hit for me. Their opinions of me and their opinions of my work is none of my business. That's a note card idea. And so as I talk about status games, that's going to be its own category within my commonplace book, which is really just a giant bin with about-- what is that? Probably one, two, three, probably 40 different little containers for note cards. Each container has a label on it for what the category is about. And when I'm talking about status games, I will add in that category. Anne LeMotte, page, whatever, 200-- and I think it's like 208 if I remember correctly-- where she's talking about their opinions are none of my business. That's a status game thing for me. So I'll write that note card. I'll put it in the commonplace. And now in the future, if I ever wanted to write a book or I wanted to write a blog or I wanted to make a video about one topic, I can go to status games. And I can reference a note card about Naval Rovacant. I can reference Anne LeMotte. How she says she writes for an audience of two and that she is-- the opinions of others is none of her business. I can write about Stephen King and how he's-- or about Quentin Tarantino and how he says that the audience is him. Like, that's what the commonplace is for me. Those are the things that I like to do in my quiet time. I like to organize my ideas. I like to sit down with these books that I've loved and go back through the biggest ideas and organize them so I can always retain them and I can always reference back to them. That is some things that I'm going to be doing in San Diego that I can't wait for. And so I hope that you maybe took something from my process of reading notes for a stranger, the note card process. I hope that you took something from the importance of incubation in quiet time. I don't know. I just hope that you took whatever you needed to from that. But the space away from the act is so important. And my best work comes from that. Because when I'm doing that, I'm a more present human being. I'm more regulated. And I think sometimes when we're dysregulated, it's hard to create to our best ability. It doesn't mean that you can't create, but I just know that I create better when the audience isn't even a thought, honestly. And when I'm not consuming. And when I'm not thinking about anybody else, I'm just talking about things that I love, kind of like this podcast. And so get some space from it and schedule it because it's not real till it's on the calendar. Life gets busy. You will fill your life up with the busyness of life. And if I don't get on my calendar weeks in advance, what we're going to be doing, months in advance, a year in advance, shut out Jesse. It's sort of the big ass calendar, putting it on the calendar. It doesn't happen for me. And I know that about myself. And I get frustrated with myself that I break that at times. And why do I break that at times? Because I'm so under the cloud, so in the weeds, in execution mode, in operations mode that I don't think strategically, such as scheduling a trip to San Diego. And then we finally talk about it within 10 minutes. We've booked the hotel room. We've selected the dates. It's on the calendar. Now here we are. We're going tomorrow. And that's why it's for me. It's my job to get on offense. To go to San Diego and to say, hey, what are we doing over the next couple months? Let's book these trips. And that leads me to my next topic here at the next couple of months. I have gotten everything was sip because of quick action, I would say, the antithesis of everything I'm saying. I'm trying to tell you to not be in a hurry and slow down. And then I'm telling you I'm taking quick action. So just roll with me. You hear what I'm saying. But I have these ideas at times. And my ability to act on them right away determines the quality of it. It determines if I even do it. And I just know if I record a podcast. And I'm not so sure if I love the podcast. And then I wait a week to edit it. I'm probably not posting that podcast. I'm embarrassed to tell you guys that. But I'm here to be honest with you. There have been times I've made podcasts where I wasn't a 10 out of 10 for me. And like the long-hard stupid way was a 10 out of 10 for me. That's one of the best podcasts I feel like I've ever recorded. And so I edit it right away. I posted it within an hour of recording and editing posted. And then I know if I don't edit and post that podcast right away, I won't do it. That's something I know about myself. And so if I delay action, things don't happen. I don't do it. I know that about Drake. Part of this process is knowing who you are and knowing your tendencies and staying conscious enough to not go there. And so with these ideas like San Diego and this idea like these next couple months, I have to take aggressive action as soon as I have the conviction or the idea. That is what has led me here. So when I'm in Colorado, I remember I wanted to get an apartment in Colorado. We had just moved. McKaylen was in-- where was she? Salt Lake City. I was in Santa Clara. And I had this conviction like, let's go home. And both of us get jobs in Colorado. Let's be in Colorado and just check it out. And for three months, I was in Medsale. She was a GM at a cycle bar studio. We were living in Westminster, Colorado, which is 15 minutes from where I went to high school. And it's five minutes from where she went to high school. Five minutes from where her mom lived. So you can imagine knowing me, that's already a problem. My dad's an hour away. My mom is probably 30 minutes away. Like, that was a problem for me already. I didn't want to go home and be right where I have always been. There's so much more out there. And so it was a decision we made in the moment that we're going to go home and do this. And then within three months, I hate Medsales. I literally didn't get paid my first paycheck until I was quitting the job three months in. So there was a day where I called my pops. And I'm almost in tears. I had to ask him to pay rent for me. So for any of you guys out there that are in your learning phase, like understand, it's ugly at times. There is an ugly duckling phase. And everybody goes through it. And I'm sitting on the couch not even showing in my face because I'm so humiliated that I have to ask him to pay my half of rent. And McKaylin is paying the other half. Like, how embarrassing in that moment. And the job I was in, like, how terrible. A guy that's fresh at a college and you don't pay him for three months. What is that? Like a known company within medical sales. It's crazy. But I also just thought it was so transactional. And I couldn't do it. And for anybody else that's out there in Medsales, I have plenty of people that listen to their in Medsales. I don't think Medsales is transactional. I think the people I was working with was transactional. And I think you can really be a servant in Medsales. So take that with a grain of salt. But three months, we were convicted. We're going to get an apartment. And it was awesome. I had to ask my dad for money. I ended up getting the job that I thought I was going to get. So like betting on myself, just listening to the conviction. And then three months in, about probably a month and a half and I'm hating it. And I get connected with my old boss. And I ask him if I can help anyway, I start making social media videos. So I'm working from 7am till getting home at 5pm, not working out. And then I'm editing videos from 5 to 8pm. And then all of a sudden, I get offered a job after three months to go full time for this cat and go in and I'm an admin guy literally. So what do we do? These are the instant decisions I'm talking to you about listening to the convictions. McKaylin's a future wife. That's like the definition of a right or die. McKaylin sat with me in my car at Minnesota when I was crying. After I turned down opportunities to go pro and went back to Minnesota and sucked and couldn't even get out of an inning. And I'm sitting in my car at 11pm in Dinky Town, Minnesota. And manyapolis crying. And McKaylin's sitting there with me. McKaylin moved to Washington with me. McKaylin moved me into Santa Clara. McKaylin moved to Colorado and did the gig in Colorado for three months. And as soon as I looked at her and said, we need to do this. I think this is right for us. She quit her job. I quit my job and we both moved to Arizona. And for those of you that are listening that are maybe single or you have a girl or you have a guy, like your partner is a forced multiplier. The Val-Ravicom back to him. He says the two biggest decisions you can make in your life is who you choose to marry and where you choose to live. And the former, who you choose to marry, I think is so important. It determines a major part of who you become. And I can truly say I wouldn't have SIP if it wasn't for McKaylin. McKaylin has believed in me in moments where I don't believe in myself. McKaylin has checked me in moments when I need to be checked. McKaylin has encouraged me in moments where I question myself. And she, no matter what I say, has always trusted my convictions and been by my side and supported me every single day. step of the way. When I was quitting that job that I was in for three years, she sat there with me for two hours as I had his phone number up on my phone and I couldn't get myself to call them because I was so anxious about it and scared. And she just sat there with me and then I made the call and she was there with me through that as well. So here she is quitting her job. We moved to Arizona and I'm making the same amount. I thought I was going to be making more a year later. I found out I made the same amount. But I made the same amount that I was making in Medsales. And I was just an admin guy doing some social media and then I became an operations guy. And I was coaching as well. That was separate from the main gig. But I was coaching. I was doing admin. I was doing social media and then I started getting into more of the more marketing stuff, more operations side of things, managing coaches, hiring people, training coaches, managing, I started becoming the sales guy. I took every single sales call that came through. So slowly over those three years, I was acquiring more responsibility. And those conversations were not easy with my boss at the time. I had to go in there and basically ask for more, ask for a raise, ask for more opportunities to make money, ask for more of an opportunity to earn responsibility even without getting paid. You have to do the job before you get the job. So I was selling and doing the operations before I was even the sales or operations guy. And so for three years, we're doing that. And then I grow in my relationship with Jesus. And I can feel that, you know, I'm selling the mental game. I'm coaching the mental game in a way that's shallow. And that's nothing against anybody else. But just for me, personally, it was shallow. It lacked the whole purpose, which for me was Jesus and was faith and was a bod. And I listened to that conviction, the scariest decision I've had to make. And quit. And quit. And MacKalen was all on board for it. I had people in my life who are mentors, who are muses for me, who I love dearly, who told me not to do it, who told me that you never quit your job unless you have a job lined up. And it was a scariest decision I've ever made. And my life has completely changed because of it. Everything on the everything you want is on the other side of a hard decision, a hard conversation. And another example of us trusting our convictions, like we're very spontaneous when I have these convictions, we do it. I'm working in that other gig. And we're just, I'm worked, I worked every day of the three years. I didn't take one day off. I paid $13,000 to go to Italy and to into Germany, into Amsterdam, into Austria, to Vienna. And I worked every day while I was there, which again was a reason why I also was looking to do my own thing because it's not sustainable to work 80 hours a week. But I looked at her and I was like, you know what? I read Shudog and he talks about how Nike went to Japan. And Japan, Nike, I say, Phil Knight went to Japan with his partner. And Japan, there would be no Nike without Japan. Japan, like reset his standards, inspired him. And he came back and he created Tigris, I believe, is what it was called, and Tigris evolved into Nike. So I had just read that I remember reading it by the pool. And I was like, you know what? We have to take a trip. We don't work this hard and make this money and grind like this to just sit here and work. Let's go take a trip. Conviction. We book a trip three months later. We're in Italy and Florence, we're in Rome. I got to go see the Colosseum. I got to go see, you know, I got to go see the Vatican. I got to go see all these amazing things. Florence, MacKalen lived there. We got to go to Amsterdam. I got to see the Anne Frank House. I'm a history guy. We got to see Vienna, which was probably the biggest letdown of all of them. It was just shut down with the Christmas markets because it was during Christmas. And I was sick as a dog this entire trip, which, you know, in the artist's way, she would call that a Cria, which is you're working so much. And when you finally get a break, you crash out and get sick or whatever it is. I was sick the entire Europe trip working and trying to enjoy it. But it was a conviction. And I said, you know what? Screw it. 13K. Let's do it. Went to Italy. Went to do all these things. And I truly will tell you, I don't think SIP would be a thing if we didn't go to Italy. So here I am. I'm telling you, we took the job. We got an apartment in Colorado, took the jobs, got a conviction to leave, took the job, moved, drove across the states to Arizona, moved into an apartment. We had never toured in Scottsdale. How to conviction a couple of years later to go to Europe, Europe inspired me a couple months after I got back from Europe. I quit the job and created SIP. How to conviction to leave SIP because of these muses from Europe. And then quit SIP or quit this job, create SIP. And SIP has been so fruitful for the last year and a year and a couple of weeks maybe July 4th was my one year anniversary. It's your 16th. So one year in 12 days, I've been doing SIP and it's been so fruitful. I have 50 something athletes I get to work with and and McKaylin's full time. And I love what we're doing. And now we're having this conviction to go and explore. You know, I'm thinking about getting a house in Arizona and I'm like, you know what? Like this feels comfortable. And I've always felt like I have this voice in my head that like doesn't let me get comfortable. It's like a separate part of me that tells me Drake, you need to move, you need to leave Colorado. You cannot be by your family, your life. Drake, you need to ask for more, ask for more responsibility. We got to keep pushing your career forward. Drake, you got to go get life experience, go explore somewhere you've never been. You've never left the country. Drake, you got to play big or go and create your own thing. It's like whisper some God. And I have this whisper right now that Drake, you're comfortable. You live in Scottsdale. You live in Scottsdale for four years. You have a full business that's running and it's successful. And you're looking at houses in Arizona. You've never even been to the South really. You've never explored that. You've never lived by an ocean. I live in California, but I didn't never live by an ocean that like I could go fish in and swim in and be around. I've always wanted to. I read the book, The Blue Mind. And I do believe that being around water regulates your nervous system. I think it brings out the best in you. So I've always wanted to. I've never been to South Carolina. I've never been to Charleston. I've never been to Florida. I have been to Florida, but I never have lived in Florida. And so we have talked about taking this trip. And that's kind of like, you know, we're mapping that out right now. But I am, I am literally like mapping out where we're going to go. And this is what I have planned. And this is rough, but we're going to go Scottsdale to Austin. I have some friends in Austin and maybe record a couple podcasts. It'll be like a siptor. I'll document the whole thing and make vlog style content. And then have podcasts with these athletes that I've had the privilege of working with if they're open to it. So go to Austin, have a couple podcasts with a couple people. Go to Houston. I got some athletes in Houston. Maybe Ripson podcast with them, but at least get to see them. I got some guys at A&M. So I'll get to see some of them go through New Orleans. Never been in New Orleans. Go through Montgomery, Alabama. Never been in Alabama. And then drive to Naples. We'll spend a month in Naples. Then I'm going to go to Bradenton, which is where McCaylon's family lives. Go check that out. And see if maybe we want to live in Naples or do we want to live in Bradenton. And then go look at, go drive through Georgia, potentially see one of my athletes at UGA. And then go through Georgia into Charlotte, spend a week in Charlotte, North Carolina. I've heard great things about Charlotte, North Carolina. And then go from Charlotte to Chapel Hill, where I have an athlete who maybe I'll do a podcast with. And then, you know, spend a week in Charlotte in Chapel Hill and then go and spend a month in Charleston. So we're moving up. We go into, oh, that's actually backwards. I'm sorry. So we'll go to Charleston first. And then we'll go to North Carolina. Sorry. So the North Carolina comes after. But anyway, spend a month in Charleston and halfway through that month. My boy, Jack Winkler, shout out Jack Winkler. He, I talked about him in the reference group podcast in his girlfriend, Kaylee. We're going to go see them in Hilton Head and go fishing on a fishing trip with his brother and his brother's wife, Bianca. Those are some of the people I love the most in my life. And so we're going to do that trip. Go through Nashville. Hopefully my boy, Jack O'Dowdy will be there, rip a podcast with him. Shout out my guy, Cal Boy, Jay, Jay, O.D. And then go to Oxford, Mississippi. Stop there. I got a, I got an athlete on the football team at Ole Miss and then drive home in November. So that's about three to four months on the road. That's a conviction that I have right now that we're going to do. I just had this idea two days ago and I mapped it out. We're going to make it happen. Right when we get back from, from San Diego and we're going to go on this road trip and create from the road. I think it's an opportunity to spice things up and to get out of routine and to be spontaneous and to see how it affects my creativity and to see how it affects the business and helps us grow. All I know is more experience in my life, more perspectives, more, more cultures has always helped me. That's what Italy did for me. And so I'm like, let's go play big and let's see what it's about. By the way, my dog Eden can't even go outside because it's 120 degrees here. I know it's hot in these other places, but at least it's not 120 and at least the pavement isn't burning hot. So I'm like, man, that'd be a really cool opportunity to take Eden on the road with us and to go see McCaylon's family in Florida and to play bigger and to get uncomfortable. And that is where I'm at right now. That's what we're planning to do. Creating space to think creatively and to do new things. And so that's where we're at. That's kind of an update on SIP. I had a couple other other ideas in here that are just a little bit more rapid fires. We wrapped this podcast up with some things that I'm learning that I really love. I'll share some of the books that I'm reading, some of the books that I'm wanting to read as I'm able to create more space. But the first idea comes from this book, "Upside of Stress." Oh my gosh. Like I talk to you guys about meaning. I think man's search for meaning is one of the cooler books I've read, inspiring books I've read, in between stimulus and response lies your choice. You know, when you can't change your situation, you are challenged to change yourself. Those are all things that I, ideas I love. I've went to Tony Robbins, he talks about the quality of the meaning that you associate with situations. It determines the quality of emotions that you feel. And the quality of emotions that you feel determines the quality of your life. And really when I say the emotions you feel, that's really just a state that you are living in. When you're living in a survival state, it's hard to be creative. And survival is very selfish and creativity is very selfless. And survival is a narrow focus. And survival means that you believe that things are happening to you. And creation means that you think things are happening for you. And I've worked with some of these athletes that have been in the big leagues for 10 years. And what's the greatest separator? I've said this before, but the greatest separator for the athlete that's extremely successful and the athlete that can't get out of their own way. The athlete that is consistent and extremely successful associates empowering meanings with whatever happens. Things are always happening for them. And so this book, "Upsight of Stress" is just an extension of meaning. I'm going to talk to you about Arthur Brooks in a moment who's a professor at Harvard, a professor at Vanderbilt who I've loved, and everything comes back to right side of the brain thinking, finding meaning in your life. So we'll get to that in a minute. But in this book, "Upsight of Stress" is by Kelly McGonigall. It starts with this idea of stress. And they are studying these people. In 1998, 30,000 adults in the United States were asked how much stress they had experience in the past year. They were also asked, do you believe stress is harmful for your health? So right away, it's 1998. They're interviewing 30,000 people, adults, and they're asking them how much stress it experienced in the past year and do they believe that stress is harmful to their health. Eight years later, the researchers scoured public records to find who among the 30,000 participants had died. Let me deliver the bad news first. High levels of stress increased the risk of dying by 43%. So full stop. When you have high levels of stress, it increases your likelihood of dying, your risk of dying by 43%. But, and this is what got my attention, that increased risk applied only to the people who also believe that stress was harming their health. That's meaning. People who reported high levels of stress but who did not view their stress as harmful were not more likely to die. In fact, they had the lowest risk of death of anyone in the study, even lower than those who had reported experiencing very little stress. So let's say that again, the people that had very little stress but thought that stress was a bad thing, they were the ones that had that increased risk of dying. The ones that had high levels of stress but believed it was a really good thing for them. It actually made them sharper, smarter, grow faster. They actually lived longer. They were not at risk, which is crazy because it's just a meaning that they're associating with it. That increased risk applied only to people who also believe that stress was harming their health. In fact, they had the lowest risk of death of anyone in the study, even lower than those who were reported experiencing very little stress. So then she goes on to talk about how the researchers estimated that over the eight years, they conducted their study. That's 182,000 Americans. They may have died prematurely because they believe stress was harming their health. So full stop over those eight years, 20,000 people on average per year died because of their relationship with stress. That's just what she says here. According to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that would make believing stress is bad for you. Let me say this again, believing stress is bad for you is the 15th leading cause of death in the United States. Oh my gosh. That is higher than it's killing more people than skin cancer. It's killing more people than HIV and AIDS. It's killing more people than homicide. And so my girlfriend actually just recently had to get skin removed from her leg, gnarly, by the way. And as I'm reading this, I'm like, wait a minute. Her relationship with what this means is more important than her actually getting the skin removed. Like your stress can have a greater impact on you than anything. We know that a survival state is a stress state. It's hard to create from there. By the way, it's disease. You create disease when you are in a stressful state 24/7. So I thought that was insane. I immediately was like, oh, that's the placebo effect, but she actually has a part in here where it's like, yo, this is actually more than placebo. It's actually so much more because let me let me read this part to you about placebo. It says, every time you experience stress, your beliefs about it come to mind. Think about how many moments of your day you would describe a stressful. How often do you say this is so stressful or I'm so stressed? That's a part of this. We use stress as such a, we use it for everything. I'm stressed about my dog having an ear infection. I'm stressed about my company. I'm stressed about not getting enough sleep. I'm stressed. Everything is stressed. It's a lazy choice of words. But how often do you say this is so stressful or I'm so stressed? In each of these moments, how you think about stress can alter your biochemistry and ultimately how you respond to whatever has triggered a stress. A belief with this kind of power goes beyond a placebo effect. This is a mindset effect. I really like that. She defines mindset. She says, unlike a placebo, which tends to have short lived impact on a highly specific income, the consequences of a mindset snowball over time. Again, the consequences of a mindset snowball over time, increasing in affluence and long-term impact. What's interesting is when you have the mindset that stress is good for you, like you behave differently. When you, there's a part in here where she says, when you have the mindset, when you have a mindset or a perspective that aging makes you more wise and makes you more brilliant, your behaviors in your life naturally change and because you're getting wiser and you're getting better, maybe you work out more, maybe your habits change and you live a healthier life and so naturally you live longer. But people that believe that aging is a bad thing, they die sooner. They have less meaning for their life. They are more inclined to want to die. It's crazy. The people that view aging as a positive thing actually get better. They're healthier. They have less heart attacks. It's been proven. They're blood pressure is lower and they want to be alive. It's crazy to me. So she's talking about mindset and how mindset trickles down into everything. She defines mindset. She says, as we've seen, a mindset is a belief that biases how you think, feel and act. It's like a filter that you see everything through. Not every belief can become a mindset. Some beliefs simply aren't that important. You might believe that chocolate is better than vanilla, that it's rude to ask somebody's age and that the world is round not flat. Those beliefs no matter how strongly you hold them have relatively little consequences for how you think about your life. The beliefs that become mindsets transcend preferences, learn facts or intellectual opinions. They are core beliefs that reflect your philosophy of life. A mindset is usually based on a theory about how the world works. For example, that the world is getting less safe, that money will make you happy that everything happens for a reason or that people cannot change. All of these beliefs have the potential to shape how you interpret experiences and make decisions. When a mindset gets activated by a memory, a situation you find yourself in or remark someone makes, it sets off a cascade of thoughts, emotions and goals that shape how you respond to life. This in turn can influence long-term outcomes, including health, happiness and even long jeviti. Just so inspiring, it all comes back to meaning. She says, changing a person's mind about aging can even promote healthy behaviors. For example, an intervention assigned to increase positive age, also increase participants' physical activity. That's what I just said. When you have a positive view of growing older, you are more apt to do things that will benefit your future self. Again, we just don't know how much our mindset influences our daily decisions, but it's crazy. She says, this idea of meaning really plays when there's two things that are true. For example, a housekeeper that is cleaning somebody's home believes that they don't ever exercise. That's crazy. They don't ever exercise. They're more unhealthy. They show a group of these people that are housekeepers, a video that talks about how working out is important. If you don't work out, you're more susceptible to these terrible diseases. It's a terrible video that show them. They show the other group of housekeepers a video where they talk about how housekeepers can be viewed as fulfilling regular exercise. It's the equivalent of walking three and a half miles per hour. It's the equivalent of lifting or of water aerobics. They give them all these examples of how being a housekeeper alone will keep you healthy. It's a version of working out. The only thing that changed was how they viewed their job, which was housekeeping. In comparison, office work, such as sitting in meetings or working on a computer burns roughly 100 calories an hour. Housekeeping is strenuous work burning over 300 calories an hour. Two-thirds of the housekeepers recruited believe that they weren't exercising regularly. One-third said they got no exercise at all. Their bodies reflected this perception. The average housekeeper's blood pressure, waist to hip ratio and body weight were exactly where you'd expect to find if they were truly sedentary. Now they go on to do this study and those who had been informed that their work was exercise, lost weight and body fat. Their blood pressure was lower. They even liked their jobs more. Crazy. They had not made any changes in their behavior outside of work. The only thing that had changed was their perception of themselves as exercise. and the control group showed none of these improvements. So you get the point. She's talking about stress. She's talking about your relationship with working out how you're viewing it. Like so much of this is about the story that you tell yourself. And it's actually proven. And she talks about this index of cortisol versus DIA. I think it's how you'd say it's DHEA, which are two hormones that are released. The ratio of DIA to cortisol is the same. The ratio of DIA to cortisol is called the growth index of stress response. A higher growth index means more DIA. It helps people thrive under stress. It predicts academic persistence in resilience and college students as well as higher GPAs. And so when you feel stress, you produce cortisol. And cortisol, what is cortisol for? It could be associated with worse outcomes, such as impaired immune function and depression. But cortisol burns sugar and fat into energy. And it improves our ability of our body and brain to use that energy. So that's what the cortisol is doing. We're producing that. But then the DIA, like I said, is predicting academic persistence, resilience, and college students, higher GPAs. Higher levels of DIA have been linked to a reduced risk of anxiety, depression, heart disease, neurodegeneration, and other diseases we typically think of as stress related. And so it actually helps you with those areas. DIA. And they're both produced when you feel some kind of stress. You need both of these hormones, neither is good nor bad stress. However, the ratio of these two hormones can influence the long-term consequences of stress. During military survival training, a higher growth index is associated with greater focus, less disassociation and superior problem-solving skills, as well as fewer PTSD symptoms. The growth index even predicts resilience and extreme circumstances, such as recovering from child abuse. Crazy. You have these two hormones released, and really your relationship determines the ratio to which they're released. They show two videos, two three-minute videos. Crumb, who was conducting this study, wanted to see if people's perceptions of stress could modify this measure of resilience. Could a three-minute video about stress alter this key ratio of stress hormones? The answer amazingly is yes. The videos had no effect on cortisol levels, so everybody had cortisol. Everyone's cortisol went up during the mock interview. She's running interviews. This is a study that they're talking about, and they're trying to stress people out in the interview process. And so everyone's cortisol went up during the mock interview as expected. However, participants who had watched the stress is enhancing and enhances you. They watched that video before. They released more DIA, okay? DHEA. And they had higher growth index and participants who had watched the stress is the billitating video. I know that's a lot of information there, but all I'm trying to say is your relationship with your stress, your relationship with whatever's happening to you, the stories that you're telling yourself, does determine who you become. That's crazy. And Victor Frankl just called it in the concentration camp, meaning he said, "In between your stimulus and your response lies your choice. You get to choose who you want to be." Harvey Dorfman talks about the cycle of being a pitcher. You have an approach, you have a result, you have a response, and your response leads to your approach. Your approach is one pitch at a time. It leads to a result. Whatever happens in the result, you get to choose how you respond. And however you respond leads into the next approach, which leads into the next pitch. It's the same conversation. All we're saying is just to associate better meanings. Okay, so that's the upside of stress, little nugget that I wanted to share with you guys. Another thing I'm going to share with you, Arthur Brooks, phenomenal video on YouTube, 20-minute video, where he's talking about how phones are ruining our world. And in 2008, the mental health, I think it's like 2008, 2009, when the iPhone came out, the mental health of individuals dropped tremendously. He's teaching people how the science of being happy at Harvard and at Vanderbilt. What he has seen is that people that have less meaning are less happy. And he asked him a question on the first day, and I challenge you to answer this question for yourself. But he asked them, "What are you here for? Why are you here? And what are you willing to die for?" And he says, "The people that can't answer those questions are the ones that are typically unhappy." So have fun with that, answer that for yourself. And you can see why faith is such a needle mover for that. It gives you more purpose, it gives you more meaning to your life. And then he says that people who are unhappy, typically this is how they approach things. They use people. They love things, call it an idol. And they worship themselves, call it spirituality. Super spiritual. Maybe you're not even spiritual. Maybe you're just not a believer, or maybe you're just, you think it's all up to you. And you're all about you. It's all about making money. It's all about striving. It's all about being uber successful and you, you, you, you, you selfish. So these people that are unhappy and miserable and lack purpose, lack meaning, they use people, they love things, and they worship themselves. And he says, "People that I have meaning and purpose are the people that love people. They use things, the raw materials that God has given us, and they worship God, the divine." So I just thought it was so inspiring that he shared that, and I just, I've taken that with me. It's sat with me. There's few things that come across that rock my world, that rocked my world. I think his name is Arthur Brooks. He's such a beauty. He's another guy that talks about the importance of boredom. So it's really cool when I'm studying from all these great minds, and they all come back to similar mental models or principles. It's, it's a signal for me that maybe there's some truth to that mental model, and to explore it a little bit more. Again, what am I reading? This is how I wrap up the podcast. I'm finishing Zen in the art of Artery. I told you that. I'm reading the art, or the upside of stress, and just gave you guys a nugget from that. I'm reading the circle maker, which is kind of just like a free time book where it's about praying circles around your life. Certainly has encouraged me to pray bigger and play bigger to shift from praising to, or praying to praising at times to have faith that he's going to move. And I'm reading the year of magical thinking, which is, I think Joan Didian, as if I say her name right, beautiful writer. She has so many cool writing techniques and tools and tips that she gives out that I've really enjoyed. But the first book I've ever read by her, and it's about her husband who has a heart attack, pretty dark book, honestly. And when we talk about negativity, diet, I have moments where I'm like, is this good for me to be reading? But I just am admiring her, her writing, some like screw it. But the year of magical thinking is all about her year with that she experience grief, losing her husband. It's sad for sure, but it's certainly moving. And it's reminded me to be a little bit more grateful for these people in my life and the things that I have and how fragile this life is and how connection is everything. It's what matters and status is nothing and money is nothing and it's all about service and the people you get to meet. It's been beautiful. I'm also finishing the book Winter Garden. I'll probably finish that on the drive to San Diego, but winter garden is Kristen Hannah. I loved her book The Nightingale and Winter Garden is a historical fiction. So that's what I'm reading right now. Daring greatly is on the list from Brunei Brown. I've started that book, but I haven't got that deep in it. There's a book called The Breathing Cure that I want to read. A reasonable hospitality shout out Maddie Sanquist. She sent me that book, sip Sanquist. She's an awesome, awesome, rest or awesome human that I get to work with. She gave me that book. I got to read it. I have so many books that I want to read. The brother's car moths off. If that's how I say it, Fedor Gossi Eski is on the list. I got a bunch of books I want to read and sometimes that's daunting, but I just I love it. There's no hurry. The student is ready. The teacher will appear and that's the book. So that's the books I'm reading. I'm looking at my notes here to see if there's anything that I want to touch on anymore. This has been an hour and 20 minute podcasts. And we just happen. So no factor. I made a sub stack article. I'll leave it with that. I was really nervous to make that sub stack article because I've never put my writing out there and I've never identified as a writer. I'm an author, but I try to sub stack article and it was like, you know, the beginning stages of getting to create on a new platform when you have no expectations. So it was really freeing for me. And it was all about being coming conscious that comes from bird by bird. She says writing is about being conscious. And that's what the article is about. And when I was feeling insecure about what I was writing about. Is this any good? Is anybody going to like this? Am I a terrible writer? I just told myself that these other people their opinions about me and my writing and my work is none of my business. Back to what we talked about earlier. So that's what I'll leave you with today. I'm just eager to take the smallest step forward, staying in process, focusing more on a biting, creating space and keeping my intention pure focusing on creating a great product and reminding myself every day of who I want to be. The things I do and the things that I don't do the thoughts that I. I go to and listen to and the thoughts that I do not listen to from the accuser. And this was kind of a podcast where I just got to organize some of those thoughts and share with you guys who are at, but I love you. I appreciate you. Thanks for being here and thanks for supporting this. If you want to go check out that sub stack article feel free to if not no factor. Let me know what you think about us going on the road. Let us know if you have any recommendations on places you think we should live. Comment on this podcast if you want. So thanks for being such an important part of this. Love you. Talk to you soon. Stay in process.