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Speaker 1: Welcome back to the art of charm podcast. The show designed to help you skyrocket your career, develop deeper relationships and unlock your hidden charisma. We know you have what it takes to reach your full potential. And every week we share with you, interviews and strategies to help you transform your life by helping you unlock your X factor. Now whether you're in sales, project management, engineering, building client relationships, or looking for love, we got what you need. You shouldn't have to settle for anything less than extraordinary.

Speaker 2: I'm AIJ and I'm Johnny,

Speaker 3: Have you ever wondered why some people have opportunities come to them effortlessly? Well, you have to fight. Chase, work your tail off for everything. Does it seem like some people have all the luck? Well, you settle for ordinary

Speaker 1: And that's why we've deconstructed the best in persuasion, influence and social dynamics to help you finally see the matrix and unlock your personal, hidden charisma, not

Speaker 3: Missing anything it's actually trapped inside you. And with the help of the art of charm, we're going to tap into it and make you shine and become the magnet. You truly are. Now one,

Speaker 1: Ask us a question, have a topic of the show you want us to discuss here at the art of charm. We're so excited to welcome you to our private Facebook group. Join over 4,000 people in our Facebook group for weekly live streams and lessons directly from the podcast. You can head on over to the artist, charm.com/challenge to join today. Now, thank you everyone for tuning in let's kick off today's interview today. We're speaking with rich Devaney. Rich is a former Navy seal and draws upon 20 plus years of experience as a seal officer where he completed more than 13 overseas deployments, 11 of which were to Iraq and Afghanistan throughout his career. He's achieved multiple leadership positions, including being the commanding officer of the Navy seal command. Since he retired from the military in 2016, rich has worked with Simon Sinek and his team to help leaders and organizations create environments where people feel valued and free to explore their potential and his new book, the attributes 25 hidden drivers of optimal performance. He writes about how inspiration gets people to take the first step and follow and trust gets people to climb the hill and brave the storm. We'll talk to them about how building this trust can come from. Simple learned behaviors that you need to understand and practice. If you want to build greater trust and accelerated performance in your team. [inaudible]

Speaker 3: Welcome to the show. It is a pleasure for us to have you on the show. We're going to be discussing a lot of things today. You have a mission, you have a book out, um, but we're going to need to get our audience cut up to speed. And I certainly have some, some Navy seal questions and I want to get into the OODA loop as well, perhaps. Um, but why don't we go ahead and get this thing started rich. What Lourdes you into the being a Navy seal?

Speaker 4: Wow. Uh, what Lord may. Well, so I grew up wanting to be a Navy pilot. In fact, my twin brother and I both wanted to be, well, we want to be pilots and we wanted to fly jets. And we said, okay, air force or Navy. And both of us, we grew up in Connecticut on the coast. So we both love the ocean. So we figured if you go to the Navy, then you could fly jets and be near the ocean and land on ships. And you know, what's tougher than that. So that's really where we are kind of how we were bent for most of our, I mean, that was like from the time we were six or seven years old, and then it was after the F the first Gulf war in the 19 in 1990. And I remember reading an article about the spec ops forces to include the seals and learned about these guys and said, man, these guys are, they, they seem to do everything, their water, their, their winter warfare, their desert, their jungle.

Speaker 4: And, you know, back then, no one knew very few people knew what Navy seals were to include myself. So I just started reading books and I said, man, these, this seems like it seems pretty, pretty bad. And so, um, and so, yeah, we ended up, uh, at Purdue university, I was in an ROTC program and ultimately said to myself, well, I knew I could be a pilot. Um, but I, I wanted to see if I could be a seal and, um, applied got selected fortunately, and then, and then actually made it through the training and spent the next 20 years in a very kinetic world because who knew what was going to happen, you know, after nine 11 and heroin ended up. So I'm so incredibly grateful to have done it. Um, my, my twin brother ended up becoming a pilot. He flew the Harrier in the Marine Corps. So that's the, the jet that goes up and down vertically. Um, so I lived vicariously through him and he lived vicariously through me. And, um, and here we are retired and at the end of 2016, I retired from the military and have been speaking and reading and writing,

Speaker 3: You know, I find there's two types of guys when looking at the military or a military career, one is what is the safest, easiest path and the other guy's like, what is the toughest most rugged, craziest path I can possibly take and rich, well, we know where you stand.

Speaker 4: It provides a lot of opportunity and, um, and yeah, for some, and again, there's no judgment there for, someone's like, Hey, it's an opportunity to do something, get an education, you know, serve in a different way. Uh, for others guys, much more like myself, I guess it's like, Hey, there's this opportunity to have some action adventure and try to do something very few people can do it now, again, part of the job, part of the, part of what you sign up for is to go to war. And, um, and again, when we signed up, there was nothing going on. So, so when war actually S you know, is, is in front of your face, you see, okay, who's, who's really in it, you know? Um, absolutely. Uh, but, and I don't say that to glorify, you know, quite honestly, war is horrible and we should, you know, we should do everything we can to avoid it if we can, but, um, but it does become very real once you're there. So

Speaker 1: Yeah, obviously being a Navy seal involves an immense amount of uncertainty, both in your training, and then in the theater of combat, and many of us were confronted with the same amount of uncertainty in the past year, plus going through a pandemic. What about your training really stood out to you as you dealt with the pandemic, just like everyone else, and especially around the uncertainty that we all faced. Wow.

Speaker 4: I mean, it, I think the answer to that is everything about my training. I mean, I often have remarked that seals spec operators certainly, but, you know, I was part of the seal team seals are, in fact, the job is to be masters of uncertainty. That's what we are. We are a, we train to be able to be dropped into environments of, of deep complexity and uncertainty. It's actually known as the VUCA environment, volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environments. Right. So you train to be able to drop into these environments and perform. Um, so, so yeah, I think, I think everything about what happened in 2020, I, I, and people who like me were prepared for now, now, just to caveat that doesn't make it any easier necessarily. Um, it just makes you understand, understand the whole process more and maybe even deal with the unease more effectively.

Speaker 4: I mean, it's funny. I, I think about seal training, you know, buds basic underwater demolition slash seal training, which is in Cornado California, it's six months long. It's known as the toughest training in the world. And you do things like Halloween where you go through a whole week and sleep for only like two hours. And I remember, you know, they make you do things like spend hundreds of hours running with, you know, heavy boats on your head and spend hundreds of hours exercising with 300 pound telephone poles and running around with those things on your shoulder and freezing, and the surf zone. And I remember reflecting back on my career, especially as I was writing this book and saying to myself, you know, you know, I've done hundreds of combat missions overseas, and I've done thousands of training evolutions, and never on one of them, did I carry a boat on my head or a telephone pole on my shoulder?

Speaker 4: Right. So what they were doing to us and training wasn't in fact, training us, they were, they were teasing. They weren't training us in the skills to be seals. They were teasing out these innate qualities, these attributes that actually allow us to understand how we show up and how we perform in uncertainty challenge and stress. And I think that's, that's the key. And that's kinda what I think even subconsciously drove me to kind of think about that and then eventually kind of put it to paper and pen and, and articulate it in a way that people could understand.

Speaker 1: Well, not only that they're putting you in a position to fail and fail repeatedly, and many can't handle that, which is why the attrition is so high. Well,

Speaker 4: And, you know, because failure is, you know, once we fail, the question is what do you do then? Right. And we kind of, I was adding, I was having coffee with a good friend of mine. In fact, if you've read the book, the, the, uh, the guy I was having coffee was Hank Hank from the book from the, from the perseverance and resilience chapter. And he was having coffee with him just yesterday. And he, we were talking about this and we're talking about how, you know, you know, we, the community was designed and had designed itself in a way that in many ways you try to be in very, very good shape because you have to be. Um, but you have to, once in a while, if not somewhat often, um, do something physically that breaks the body so that you may develop your mind, you know, because that's your mind kicks in when the body no longer has anything else to give that's when the mind takes over. And I think that type of training those types of things, even that type of experience, whether it be the pandemic or what, what people went through suffering, the body is broken, and now the mind takes over. And, um, and if you can train your mind, you can understand how you can effectively utilize your mind in those situations. You are. I think that's true confidence, to be honest with you, that's

Speaker 3: An incredible point. And one of the things that fascinated me about going into the pandemic was that amount of uncertainty in how everyone viewed it. And I said very early on, there's two ways that you can look at this. And for all of us as adults, the absurdity and the redundancy of life, uh, gets the best of us. And there's moments where all of us say to ourselves, I just wish the world would just stop for a moment. If I had a week where the world stopped, I could get so much done and I could catch up. And that idea, well, how wonderful would that be? Well, guess what the world actually stopped. So w what are you going to do about it? And there was folks who were like, well, here's an opportunity to lounge to, to eat Cheetos, catch up on Netflix, and I'll wait this out in three weeks, I'll be back at work.

Speaker 3: And then there was other ones that people like AIG and myself were like, here's an opportunity to do all the transitioning that we wouldn't wanting to do in this company while everything is on hold and go inward and focus on some of the things that we want to change and do all this work. And well, guess what, then those three weeks were up and people realize this is going to be an interesting situation. And I was, uh, going through this, I was telling AIG, and I might, might've mentioned this on a podcast. I personally don't know anyone who passed away from COVID. Thank God. However, I do know many people who had gotten severely ill and it was awful. However, the amount of people that I lost due to isolation, depression, and substance abuse during COVID, I lost count. And so granted this wasn't Ebola that was coming through the country and putting everyone in a place, but it was difficult to say the least for everybody and everyone handled it differently. Everyone looks back at it differently. And I'm interested to see psychologically, uh, what things linger on from everyone's experience during this as well. Yeah.

Speaker 4: Well, if you say something really profound Johnny, and that is, uh, and I want to kind of highlight this because it's a lesson that I think everybody should understand is that, um, ultimately really in reality, the world never stops. Um, it feels like it does, but in fact, it doesn't, and those people who thought it did and decided to lounge and do nothing and kind of fall into those states, the world kept on going. It just kept on going in different ways. That's what evolution is, you know, I mean, when the asteroid hit 65 million years ago, I, in essence for many Pete, for many species, the world stopped. But in fact, it didn't, you know, those species that evolved and chose to evolve, um, lived on. And, um, and I think that's the, that's the, that's the growth that we all need to understand and, and aspire to is that, is, that is evolution. You know, the world wheelchair nothing, as far as we know, science has not yet discovered anything in the known universe that doesn't change over time. Everything does, right. Which means if we are unable to adapt and evolve, we will go extinct. Um, and, and that's not what we want. We, extinction is not what we want. We have to understand. The world is always moving and we have to as well.

Speaker 1: And the book is about attributes. And for many of us during the pandemic, we realized some latent attributes that we had that had never been put into place, grit, resilience, having to deal with things around discomfort, pain, suffering that many of us had not experience in the modern world. Were there any latent attributes that you discovered through the pandemic? Obviously you've been through all the training, but the pandemic is a different situation.

Speaker 4: What a great question. And my initial answer is no. Um, because the pandemic wasn't that hard for me. Um, I didn't, I didn't find my, my, and my family either. I mean, my family got into the families of military service people, um, go through a lot of the same suffering that the service member does, um, as well. Um, so my wife was, I mean, she'd been through war with me. I mean, and, and my kids had been, I mean, my kid now I was, I was home with my kids all the time. I could help my son with advanced algebra, my, and my other son with his math and do stuff. And so it, in fact was a blessing for us. There was a lot of great things that came from that. Um, you know, certainly there was boredom and impatience, but that's nothing compared to, you know, what was going on. But I, you know, I think one of the reasons why I say no is because

Speaker 2: Ultimately, um,

Speaker 4: I think one of the ways we grow is when we understand when we are effectively able to reflect on the challenges that we've experienced in the past, right? And if we can effectively reflect on these challenges, whatever they be, whatever they might be. Trauma challenge, either inflicted on ourselves, through me, going, putting myself through buds seal training, or it just hits us, right? Someone goes through cancer. If we're effectively able to reflect on something, we learn the lessons from that challenge in a way that allows perspective to happen,

Speaker 2: Which means when we're, when we're

Speaker 4: Faced with another, you know, cha uh, challenge or tragedy or whatever, however you want to call COVID, um, immediately almost the first thing you do is you put your circumstances in perspective, right? And you say to yourself, okay, wait a second. We have it pretty good around here. I mean, what am I grateful for right now? We are really, we're healthy. We're happy. We're okay. Financially. There's a lot of people suffering out there, way more than we are. And then immediately makes you kind of say, okay, I'm good. There's nothing I can complain about. You know? Um, and even if you feel like you complain and you're like, well, that's, I understand that's just a, it's a first world problem in many ways. And so I think, I think, and certainly when you go through, um, a military career and you go through combat and you go through some of the things we went through as a family and as a community, when you lose friends who are dear to you and things like that, when things bad things happen, you go through something like pandemic. And, and I, and I'm not saying this to devalue anybody else's experience. I'm actually saying to emphasize that when you look at your own experience, you say, I, we have it pretty good. There are other people suffering. If I'm, I'm not going to complain, I'm not going to and whine and moan, I'm going to make something I'm going to make something happen. Am I going to help as much as I can, if I can help others, I will. So I think, I think perspective is part of that

Speaker 1: And really knowing thyself. And I feel like the training you went through, the assessments you've done, and even the self discovery around these attributes and the process that went behind the book, which I'd love to unpack in a minute. You know, many of us in the pandemic were forced into that. Self-assessment, you know, the modern world distracts us from that. And we follow comfort and our neurobiology doesn't seek out uncertainty or discomfort. We are wired to be comfortable and safe as much as possible. And now we're in a situation where we've had to self-assess in these areas and realize, okay, maybe some of these attributes that I had, I didn't realize they were latent, or there are some other areas for growth for me to really become the person that I want to be. And as Johnny was saying earlier, you know, that's how we tried our best to utilize that time in the pandemic and looked for others around us doing the same to help support us if we were falling back into the latter category of looking for comfort. So in building out this book and looking at these attributes, what was your goal in laying it out for us, the audience, to understand these attributes and then how to bring them forward in our lives?

Speaker 2: Yeah. Um, ultimately

Speaker 4: I am really deeply fascinated, uh, with what I call elemental human behavior. What is it that causes us to behave when at like the atomic levels? And that usually means like, when things are really bad, when, you know, we always say, when, when things are really bad and challenging are the real us shows up. Okay. I'm interested in the real us. And maybe that's because I went through training that was like, it was like inherently shows the real real us. Um, and so, um, in, in beginning to deconstruct the difference between attributes and skills and how these attributes are kind of elemental to our behavior, um, I said to myself, well, this is a way that we can help on people. We can, I can help people understand their own kind of engines. I kind of say, humans are like cars, right? We're all, we're all automobiles.

Speaker 4: Um, some of us are Jeeps. Some of us are Ferrari's. Some of us are SUV's right. And there's no judgment because the Jeep can do things the Ferrari can't do, and the Ferrari can do things the Jeep can't do. Um, but it's, it's, it makes, it makes a lot of sense. And it helps out if we are able to once in a while, lift the hoods of our own engines and figure out what we actually are, because in fact, we might be a Jeep that's trying to run on a Ferrari track and we might be a Ferrari, just that's running on a Jeep track. And again, there's no judgment there either. You can be a Jeep running on a Ferrari track, but you better, it's going to really help. If you know, you're a Jeep running on a Ferrari track. Cause then you know exactly what you, what you need to work on to continue to run on that track.

Speaker 4: Or you say to yourself, wait a second. That's why I'm not happy. That's why I'm not fulfilled is because I'm a, I'm actually a Jeep trying to run on a Ferrari track on my Ferrari, trying to run our Jeep track. So these attributes are, are one of the most, one of the elemental things about ourselves that we can start to figure out and say, okay, this is why and how I behave the way I do. And knowing that it gives us some ammunition to both, um, maximize our performance on whatever track we're on, um, but also understand how to do better, um, and tweak our engines in ways that actually help us, because we all know there's thousands upon tens of thousands upon maybe even millions of tips, tricks, and hacks out there on how to perform better, how to do better. We all have these little things you can do, and they, don't not everyone works on every person, right.

Speaker 4: You know, some, some don't work on other people and other well understanding your own engine and helps you understand, okay, what's actually gonna work on my engine because putting a nitrous oxide pack on a Jeep edge, it might not be the right idea. You know, you might blow the blow the gaskets, right. So, so it helps you in fact pick the right tools by the self-awareness self-understanding, you know, so that's, I think one of my, what was one of my goals with writing this book was to write a book that wasn't a seal book, and it wasn't a book about seals or top performers or athletes or anything. The book I wanted to write a book that was about the reader. And when the reader reads this, say, wait a second, this book's about me. And when I'm learning something about me and that was what I wanted to do. And I think, um, so far the, the, the, the feedback I'm getting is that, that, that, that's what people are thinking, which is cool. That's I

Speaker 3: Love that analogy. And that's, it's wonderful because it gives everyone an opportunity to figure out what works best for them, where they can Excel and putting this book together and doing the research and you, our findings. Is there anything in particular that somebody who is looking under their hood should be looking for in order to figure out whether they're the Jeep or the Ferrari or notable pieces that can help them orient to a better lifestyle that's that suits their needs. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4: So, so the, the, the process is highly subjective and introspective. Um, and so, and what I'll say about attributes is that attribute, we all, we all have all of the attributes, you know, the, the difference in each one of us or the levels to which we have each, right. So if we take adaptability as an attribute, I might be, if w if one's low and 10 is high, I might be a level eight on adaptability, which when the world around me changes outside of my control, it's fairly easy for me to go with the flow and roll with it, right? Someone else might be a level three, which means when the same thing happens to them, it's difficult for them, right? Again, no judgment judging, judging where we fall on these attributes is like judging our hair color. There's nothing we can do is it's useless.

Speaker 4: But what we, if we were to line all the attributes up on a wall, like dimmer switches, all of our switches would be on different levels, and we'd have to figure that out. So, so that's number one is kind of figure out where you stand. And then it's going to be about understanding how that fits into the context of your current life and your current goal set, right? Because the attributes required to do one thing are different than the attributes required to another. So the attributes required to be a Navy seal that that list is going to is going to be different than the attributes required to be a standup comic or a teacher or a doctor. Right. Um, and some attributes, if you're low on it doesn't really matter because in the context of your goal, it's actually fine. Right? So the standard comic, for example, doesn't need a lot of empathy.

Speaker 4: Okay. It doesn't need to be high on the empathy scale. In fact, too much empathy might actually hurt a standup comic because how are you supposed to find funny at a funeral if you're, you have to empathetic. Right. So, so, so if so, if I stand up comics in the instead of comic world and says, oh, I'm a little low on empathy. It's like, okay, that's fine. I don't need to work on that. Um, but if the, if, if on the, on the other hand someone says, yeah, I want to be, I want to be a, um, a surgeon. Right. And so, um, so courage in my mind, courage would have to be one of those ones. You have a lot of, because, gosh, I can't even imagine doing that. Um, then someone's going to need to work on that or whatever it is, a adaptability or perseverance, you name the attribute. Again, it's a subjective task. So I think every person needs to understand a, where they stand and, and be say, Hey, what are my goals? And what, what's the, what are the niches, which with win within which I want to Excel and succeed. And then how does that line up with what I'm coming to the table with? You know, and if there are gaps, then start working the gaps. That's great.

Speaker 3: And most importantly is putting yourself in a position to be challenged. So you can see where these attributes lie. You're not going to find them or discover them, eating Cheetos, bingeing on Netflix. Right. In fact, and it's not something you're going to be able to look in the mirror and just guess, uh, there was 138 folks in your hell week if I remember correctly. And I'm sure every one of those guys going into it says, I got the attributes that it's going to take to get through this. And how many passed

Speaker 4: 168, something like that. And we graduated 38. Yeah. So, and that's normal numbers. I mean, you're, you're talking about 11%, 10 to 11%, uh, of, of, of success rates. So now 89 to 90% attrition. Um, because yeah. Yeah, because these attributes are the most visible and visceral, uh, experientially during times of challenge. And certainly in stress, you can't sit across, this is where this is where businesses and teams get it wrong because they assume sometimes that they can hire, or they hire based on skills because skills are highly visible. They're measurable. You can, you can score them, you can put stats around them. You can put them on resumes. You can see, but skills don't tell us how people behave and uncertainty and challenge and stress attributes do. And so you can't sit that because they're hidden, you can't sit across the table from someone at eight in an interview and assess how adaptable they are or how resilient they are.

Speaker 4: You just can't do it. It's experience that actually helps that vet out. Um, and so, uh, and so it's important for us to understand that these experiences, and so here's the good news. Every single one of us as human beings has been through challenge. And certainly in stress we all have, right? So we all have vignettes that we can look back on and start thinking about how we performed. And if we're honest with ourselves, we can say, you know what? I'm not very adaptable. Adapting is hard for me, or I'm not very patient, or I'm not very resilient, that type of self-interest or that type of introspection. And self-awareness allows someone to then say, okay, do I need to work on that? If someone wants to develop an attribute, they can do it. It just takes a lot of it's different than learning a skill.

Speaker 4: You have to, it takes self motivation, self direction, and it takes a willingness for that person to step into discomfort and uncertainty and challenge. So they may develop it. Um, but that's the difference in the, in a quick back of the envelope test for the audience to determine whether or not it's a skill or an attribute is to ask the question or questions, can I teach it or can it be taught? Okay. If the answer is, yes, it's probably a skill. If the answer is no, it's probably an attribute, the example would be age. And Johnny, you say to me, rich, I want to learn how to shoot a gun, a pistol, and hit a bullseye every time. Well, I could take both of you out to the range and teach you how to do that within a couple of hours, that's a skill. But if you say rich, we want to be more patient, okay. I can't teach you patience. Right? Both of you would have to go find, you'd have to be a self motivated, self direct, and then go find experiences and situations that test and tease and develop your patients, whatever those are. So I don't know, you could go to the grocery store and pick the longest line to stand. And every time I don't know what that is or drive deliberately and Taft traffic, but you have to, you have to find them. I've

Speaker 3: Worked with Aja long enough to know, and vice versa that neither of us are stacked in the patients. And that's okay. And

Speaker 1: Obviously there's, there's two viewpoints of this, right? There's this view that, okay, I understand the dimmer switches and I don't need to change them. It's an eight it's who I am. And maybe I could find the better road for me to be on, or those in our audience who are obsessed with performance and say, I want to dial these switches to a 10. I don't want to be dim in any of these areas. So how can we create in our own lives opportunities for us to develop these attributes and identify the areas that might not be worth developing? Because there are so many attributes in the book, right? And of course there are members of our audience who want to be at a 10 on every one of them. And some of that time and energy span is just not really helpful for them. So how do differentiate and determine these are attributes that I want to continue to develop and work on, and you know what I'm happy with, where this is set. It's getting me results in my life and I can move on.

Speaker 4: Well, okay. So a couple of things there to unpack, first of all, the audience has to understand that, that it's, it's, it's impossible to be at a 10 on all of them. Right. It's just impossible. Right? We can't. Okay. The second thing is being a 10 on any of them is probably a bad thing, too much of anything. It's probably a bad thing. I don't know. I mean, I'd have to really look and do some real thoughts on if there's any of these attributes that like having too much of is not a bad thing. Right. Um, because even courage, I mean too much courage, that means you're, you're, you're, you're probably tipping into the, into the, um, zone where you are rushing in like a bulldog. I mean, you're not actually assessing risk properly, you know? So, um, so there's a balance there on all of these things you want to, you want to have, I mean, th the, the levels, you know, seven and eights are probably the good thing.

Speaker 4: And even things like narcissism, you want to kind of be in the mid range. You don't want even, you know, so, so first of all, yeah, you don't want to, you don't want to look for a perfect tens on any of this stuff, um, in terms of each individual and what they want to, uh, accomplish and what they want to kind of Excel in it, they have to, they have to do the work. They have to actually ask themselves the questions. Okay. First of all, what are the at, where do I stand on these things? Okay. And that takes, I can't tell them that, right? This is, this is why, you know, and so there's an assessment tool on the website. And then we put that on there and I wanted to design, and I wanted to put it on there for free. So people could actually do it whenever they want it.

Speaker 4: But it it's, it'll, it'll give you a kind of a score on where you stand on the grit attributes, the mental acuity attributes and the, and the drive attributes, and the idea behind the assessment is that when you take it that you, you have to really kind of introspect quite a bit. You have to think about it as you answer the questions and really answer them, honestly. And then even when you get your score, the score is going to be a kind of a score in comparison to the data that the data pool that we got the data, right? So, so if you're a level eight on adaptability as a year, level eight, as compared to this thousand group of people that we, so even those answers need to be kind of thought through and say, okay, how does this apply? Does this make sense to me?

Speaker 4: Um, this is, this is a little bit different than some of the other tests out there, right? The strengths finders and the personality tests and stuff, which I love, I think those are great. Um, but a lot of those are designed for you to kind of input a bunch of questions, uh, answers. And then they're going to tell you kind of who you are, right. Um, this is my assessment tool and the attributes assessment tool is completely different because it's really, it's really designed for you to think about and figure out who you are, you know, versus being told. Um, I can't tell you, I just can't tell you it's it's. And so, so, you know, for your audience members who are kind of highly motivated and really want to do the best they can, um, first it takes the introspect and say, okay, where do I stand then?

Speaker 4: Okay. Given the context of my goals, what are the ones that I need a preponderance of, and then based on those two lists, I, okay, where am I? Where am I really doing well? Okay. I'm on a level eight on like, I like seven out of 10 of these things. These three though, I'm a little bit low. Okay. I'm going to, I'm going to actively work to develop these three, these, these three, right. And then develop them to the extent where they're, where they're kind of good. I mean, you're not going to get, I don't think, I don't think, and again, I'm not a psychologist and I have to do this, you know, there's not a lot of research on this. I'm not sure you can get to a level of unconscious competence in an attribute that you're lower on. I think you're only going to be able to get to a conscious competence where you're, you're okay at it, but you have to think about it every time.

Speaker 4: And in fact, it might also be somewhat contextual. So for example, if you are impatient and then you have kids, okay. And you learn, and the kids inevitably teach you patience. Right. Hopefully because, cause they're like, okay, I know how I can be patient. I've developed my patience with my kids. That doesn't necessarily mean you can be patient with other people's kids. Okay. I mean, so, so it can be somewhat contextual. Developing an attribute could be somewhat contextual. It needs, takes work and takes, takes effort. Um, and so, and so just people have to understand that there's always going to be conscious thought involved in work that needs to be put in. And it's a highly introspective process.

Speaker 3: I love that. And you mentioned, uh, to go back a little bit, you've mentioned narcissism as an attribute and for as long as we've been doing this company and we've been in some very clinical settings and I have interviewed, uh, uh, some psychologists and I've been in this world and narcissism takes on different roles and different. And depending on the company that you're speaking to, where in a clinical setting, for the most part, uh, psychologists have always pushed narcissism into a place where you don't want to be narcissistic. You, you want to stay away from it. It's not a good attribute to have, and it's bad, bad, bad ban. Of course I've been in other settings. And I think it's an entrepreneurial ship and certainly business where people talk about the idea of adopting healthy narcissism or borrowing from, from places that, that probably don't have the best social results, but personally, they can get you into doing things that maybe you wouldn't been able to do. If you didn't borrow this from the dark side. And narcissism seems to be one of those, and you might need a bit of arrogance, the be able to step in the arena, knowing that you're about to get your kicked and narcissism is in the same way as like, well, you have to have some sort of love for yourself. And maybe even the delusion that goes with narcissism to put yourself in a place to be able to see victory or at least to be able to learn.

Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, no, it's so true. And so I really, this was one of the most interesting and fun sections for me to write about, um, because I had to really do some introspection myself. Um, but let me, let me separate a couple of terms here, cause I'm really into semantics if you'd get to Doby, which I'm sure we'll keep in touch, you know, I'm, I'm just, I'm really big in semantics. Okay. So arrogance is different than narcissism and, and arrogance is really, if I, and I usually relate arrogance to confidence. Okay. Confidence is, I know I can do this. Arrogance is I'm better than you. Confidence is internally focused. Arrogance is externally expressed, right. And that's different. That's a different category. Narcissism is the, is the desire to stand out, to be noticed, to be recognized, to be adored. Okay. It's a desire more than it is anything else.

Speaker 4: Um, and then, so what I did is I said to myself, okay, I'm going to get the DSM-V, which is the kind of the psychology Bible as all this I'm gonna, I'm gonna get, I'm gonna buy one of those things. I got it. And I started, I had to turn to the page on narcissistic personality disorder and I started reading. Okay. And in that, in that, in that, uh, DSM-V, that'll lay out about nine different criteria, like nine sentences there kind of criteria. And it basically says, Hey, if you, if, if the patient has five or more of these, then they, they have the disorder, the narcissistic personality disorder. So I started reading them and I said to myself, okay, well, as I read them, I was like, well, I certainly don't have five or more of these things. However, as I was reading each one, I wasn't necessarily saying, no, that's not me.

Speaker 4: You know, I was saying, wait a second. I, I can see myself. I've, I've sometimes thought wet that way or I've sometimes thought that way. So, so then I had to say, okay, why did I, for example, become a Navy seal in the first place, you know? And this is kind of a running joke in the teams. And certainly through my friends, it's like, well, we're 22 year old kids or in some cases, 18 year old kids, and yes, we're Patriots. We asked we want to serve our country. Um, but we also want to be bad asses. Right. We want to do something to very few people can do or even can even account. I mean, just it's, it's, it's the desire to stand out. Right. And so, yeah, so narcissism on a healthy level, when metabolized in a healthy way is the, is really impetus of audacious goal setting.

Speaker 4: I mean, you know, what, what makes someone want to be the famous rock star or the, or the, or the, the, the top-notch surgeon or the lawyer or the, or the military person or the other author, whatever that is, it's, it's that seed of narcissism is that seed of desire to stand out. And then I actually said, okay, let's back this up even more and talk about the neuroscience, okay. When we are infants and, uh, and getting paid attention to by our parents or others, we are getting hit burst with three powerful chemicals, dopamine, which is, this feels good. Keep doing it serotonin, which is a neurotransmitter that says, Hey, this is good. People like me, there's a safety connection bond thing. And then the hormone oxytocin, which is the love chemical, the love hormone. Okay. Uh, just, uh, um, exchange. When you have physical, uh, physical, uh, touching with other human beings, acts of kindness.

Speaker 4: We're getting all three of those when we're getting paid attention to that. Doesn't when we're adults, okay. When we're getting paid attention to an adored, we're actually getting the same chemical response. I would offer that, um, every single human being at some point in their lives wants to feel special, feel adored, stand out, be new, be unique. Okay. Um, whatever that definition takes on. What about that meeting? That meeting is? So I think narcissism, healthfully, metabolized can actually, um, can actually be a driver towards goals and audacious goal setting. I think that's why we have to look at it one caveat though, which I have to say, okay. Because it can narcissism when tipped to the wrong level. Okay. Too much is dangerous. Okay. Um, and it's also dangerous. It's dangerous for a couple of reasons. Obviously we know it's dangerous because it's, it, it makes people, you know, bad.

Speaker 4: Right. But it's also dangerous. Cause it's like a vampire staring in the mirror. We can't see it in ourselves. All right. So the inoculation to that is to surround ourselves with people who actually tell us the truth and love us and care about us enough to keep us reigned in. And don't put us at the center of attention all the time. Right. But you know, th the true narcissist you'll see, you can tell through narcissists cause they will. They surround themselves with sycophants, right. They are always the center of attention. Okay. If you have a group of, if you have a friend group of family group that keeps you humble, I call them your grounding wires, right? That's a, that's an inoculation that allows people to achieve audacious goals. Think about the most famous people on the planet, either, either currently or in history, throughout history who are also stable. Okay. It's usually because when they talk about their family, it's because they have a family environment that keeps them that way, you know, and they always go back to that home base to keep them stable, to keep them grounded. That's, what's the, that's the nodulation against, against, uh, too much narcissist.

Speaker 1: I think it's one of those attributes that when brought to everything in your life is incredibly dangerous to you and those around you and toxic. But of course, when we're goal setting in our career or taking on challenges of even trying to run a marathon, it takes a little bit of narcissism for you to say, I'm going to go after this goal that most people don't want. Can't take on. Aren't ready to, and of course, if we water that seed constantly, and we're looking for it in every area of our life, we turn away from relationships that matter. And of course we can't even create those grounding relationships in our life. Right. The other attributes that stood out to me in the book as, uh, interesting, maybe even counterintuitive to what we hear in modern media is cunning. Yeah. Right. It's a term that many probably have a negative connotation to, but of course it much like narcissism can help us reach those goals we have in our lives and make a successful. How did this attribute come about in your research and what lessons did you draw from it, uh, that might be counterintuitive to those in our audience who have a negative connotation around being

Speaker 4: Yeah. Yet again, it was introspection because, um, because I think one of the, at the heart of, of the Navy seals, one of the most, um, predominant attributes, uh, amongst Navy seals is cunning. Um, and the reason is because special operations forces to begin with were created basically to frustrate and agitate the enemy to basically do things that the regular service, the regular forces couldn't do sneak into areas that they couldn't, that the other people couldn't get into, um, uh, be invisible, be ghosts. Um, and that took hunting because you were going to, you're going to areas with small units, small groups of people that if you got caught, you were done right there, no way you'd survive. Um, and that took a, a way of thinking that was beyond and outside the normal perceived boundaries. So it's really, I mean, in essence, cunning is thinking outside the box.

Speaker 4: I mean, um, but ultimately when I kind of give you, if I give you the seal example, I always, I kind of use a medieval, um, uh, fantasy example on this. If you think of a tower with a princess in it guarded by a dragon and the king wants to save the princess route. So he sends his best nights, um, every, every day to go slay the dragon and save the princess. And every time that the night goes and tries to slay the dragon and gets killed, right? And then finally the seal shows up and asked the king, Hey, what's the mission? And the King's like, save the princess. And he's like, well, who gives a about the dragon? And the seal will begin to figure out a way to save the princess without even touching the dragon right. Going around there. This is cunning.

Speaker 4: This is where you start thinking of taking a problem. Because a lot of times when we, when we, um, when we approach problems, um, we attach to that while we're trying to solve it, either preconceived or even, even, um, imagined boundaries and rules and constraints, right? And the cunning person is someone who asks the question, are these rules bendable, or even breakable. And if, if they are, and if I do what are the consequences? Okay. Because if they, if the consequences are dire, then you're going to look away for ways around. But I think entrepreneurs and people and innovators and iconoclasts, these are people who are coming, they think outside the normal scope of what other people think. And part of that is coming. So yes, conning used maliciously is bad. It really is. And we know there's, there's, you know, that there, this is, there's the folks at Enron, whoever, I mean, you can, you know, um, but look at, look at Oscar Schindler, right? I mean, this is a cunning dude who used it for good, you know, so, so, uh, so, so cutting used for good is different than kind of used for bad. And I think we should separate the, the judgment of the word, uh, from the actual word and put the judgment on the action, not the word

Speaker 1: It's such a great, I think again, we have these connotations in our head and these ideas that have not been tested and not looked at and introspectively viewed. So of course, when we look at others, it's easy to label. Well, we have to look in the mirror and look at ourselves and say, okay, who do I want to become? And what are the attributes that are important in that person? It's interesting in researching for this interview and reading the book that you throughout your career have face down your fears. So at the start, you said you wanted to be a pilot, but you're afraid of Heights. We heard that you're also fearful around public speaking, but you mentioned now a big part of your career is just that facing down these fears, jumping out of planes, facing a giant crowd, and actually speaking to them, how do you face your fears and what can we learn from that to face our own fears in our lives?

Speaker 4: Yes. Well, so the, so, so there's good news here. And I think Johnny, you had mentioned that, you know, human beings inherently, or I'm not sure which one you, but we're wired to kind of feel safe. Right. Um, and we want to feel safe, which is true. We, we do want, and I would actually, I would modify that to just say, instead of safe, I would say certain, we, we like certainty in our lives. Okay. Which is, you know, synonymous oftentimes with safety. Um, the good news is that we're also wired to step into our fear. Um, and here's why it's because, you know, fear is w you know, experiencing fear is means that we're experiencing something in our big dealer in our brain is getting tickled. Right. We all heard of our Magilla our threat detector in our brain. All right. And then when that, when that starts to ramp up, we can, we start to feel that fear.

Speaker 4: Okay. And if it ramps up too much, we get into a Miguel overload, which means we're acting without thinking in, in, in any type of amygdala ramp up where we're starting to be given two choices. Our brain is starting to give us two choices, either fight, which is step into the fear or flight retreat from the fear. Now there are specific circuits, uh, there specific circuits, um, uh, in conjunction with either one of those choices. Now we've also heard of the third choice, which is freeze. But what they've realized neurologically is that there is no, there's no free circuit. What freeze really is, is it's an oscillation between the two you're deciding whether or not you should fight or flight. Um, when we decide to fight, when we decide to step into our fear, uh, that that switch goes off in our brain. And as soon as that switch gets clicked, we get a dopamine reward, right?

Speaker 4: We get rewarded for stepping into our fear. Now this doesn't mean we're, we're stepping in and we're done, right. We've, we've reached that we've accomplished a goal. It means every single step we take, we get a dopamine reward. This is actually by design, by nature's design. We were designed as a species to go explore, to discover, to go find new territory, not go find new, um, new, um, uh, shelter and food. It's what's in fact, caused us to go from, from cave dwellers to space explorers. Okay. The fact that we're, we're, we're actually in fact rewarded when we step into our fear. So, so I think, I think, and I, and I didn't understand any of this while I was a seal, by the way, I think what I did understand, I, I think what, what, what seals and those people who, who actually more habitually step into their fears, what they've, what they've experienced.

Speaker 4: And they've, they've kind of realized is this reward that it feels good to do it, you know, um, when you step in, it feels good when you step in, it feels good and it's encouraging you to go. So I think, um, any one of us can actually practice our courage, you know, um, we could practice our courage by doing things that scare us. Now, it doesn't have to be extreme. Okay. You don't have to go skydiving tomorrow. Right. Um, you can, if you're an introvert, you can start a conversation with a stranger. I mean, you can, you can, you can give, you can stand up in front of, in front of people and, and, and give a, read a poem. I don't know whatever that is, but, but just notice when you do it, when you, when you step into it, notice the feeling you get, because it's a, it's a reward system and it allows you to keep going.

Speaker 4: So, so I just think I've been fortunate enough to somewhere along the line early, I guess, early on, um, have made it more of a habit to step into those things that, that I don't, you know, that kind of make me might be frightened, right. Whether it's Heights and I didn't, I never put flying in the category of Heights. And when you're in an airplane, it doesn't feel like, at least for me, it doesn't feel like I'm high up, it's really open Heights jumping out of airplanes or, you know, things like that. Um, but yeah, every time I did that, I had to proactively step into it and do it. And then when I was getting out of the Navy, um, I realized, you know, based on some things I wanted to talk about and kind of put out in the world, Hey, I should probably get good at public speaking.

Speaker 4: Um, and I don't like public speaking, so what did I do? I said, well, let me find a job where I'm doing that all the time, you know, and practice it. And so, and so now I've gotten to the point where I no longer I've inoculated myself. You know, I, I no longer feel the same fear going into a public speaking event or, or now I haven't jumped out of airplanes in years. Right. It's been, it's been quite a while. So I think I'd still feel the fear, you know, cause he can't, you know, if it does, it does atrophy, if you don't practice it a lot. Right. So, um, so you have to practice it, but, but we can do it. And it's a reward system that we should in fact, um, capitalize on,

Speaker 3: You mentioned about stepping into fear and making it a habit. And, and I think that's important for people to realize. And when you accept responsibility for the choices that you make, knowing that there are consequences to those choices, eventually you make your way to taking responsibility for even the presentation that you're putting out there. But also you're going to get to a place where you're taking responsibility for how you view those fears. And, and, and we have opportunities every day to start building habits, to step into that fear. And I, and, and I, it's difficult for people to understand all those opportunities that they have without accepting that responsibility.

Speaker 4: Totally. 100% agree, 100% agree. And it's, um, it's so it's interesting account response, taking responsibility and taking accountability is an interesting thing because people talk about it as, Hey, it's such a great app. I have it as an attribute, right. And it is a great, and it's one of the leadership attributes, but sometimes people don't understand the power of accountability. All right. Um, human beings want certainty, you know, and, and oftentimes certainty also means control. We want to be certain. We want to take control. Well, accountability taking responsibility and taking accountability is taking control of a situation. That's what it is. You are basically taking control of everything that just happened by saying, I am accountable. This is on me. And then immediately you're putting your position where you can now solve it and you can now get better. You have taken the driver driver's wheel taking control of everything that just happened, regardless of whether or not it was totally in fact your fault, right? Um, it's a, it's a process by which you can actually take control. And that's why it's so powerful. And when you have that control, as soon as you're in the driver's seat, you could drive that car wherever you want. And oftentimes you're gonna drive it and steer it towards learning development and growth and growth. Well, there's certainly

Speaker 3: Been decisions that I have made strictly on the fact, regardless of how I felt in the moment that it's just, it's better for me. And the results are going to be more beneficial. If I just go through this, when it would've been very easy for me just to say no, but again, it's taking responsibility for those decisions and knowing what's on the other side and knowing what's best for me, regardless of how I felt in the moment.

Speaker 1: And the science is clear exposure therapy works when we're facing down our fears. It doesn't necessarily mean that you actually have to be jumping out of the plane, but even a VR headset that simulates that to allow your body to work through that fight or flight response in a meaningful way, practiced, measured, gets you to a place where that fear shrinks. It doesn't go to zero. You're not going to be fearless because it's a biological process to keep us alive. But we are wired that the more we experience some discomfort, the less painful that discomfort becomes and that fear of the unknown, the uncertainty doesn't have the same grip on us. And we practice that in our coaching with our clients in core confidence, where we create exercises to step outside of your comfort zone. And that forms the building blocks of confidence. And I know you have thoughts around building confidence as well. It's been a big part of your career and success. So for those in our audience who are feeling a lack of confidence, and of course this last year has set a lot of us back. What advice do you have around building confidence in our lives to take action, to face these

Speaker 4: Fears? Yeah. Uh, you know, the way I would define true confidence is this idea that, um, you feel it's not so much, you anticipate you, you know, what's going to happen, you can anticipate, or you have a bunch of skills you think true confidence is knowing that no matter how, no matter where this environment goes around me, I'll, I'll perform, you know, that, and that's what it is. Right? So, um, and I think what you said is, is both poignant and in line with what, with the answering the question. And that is, um, when you are exposing yourself to something you afraid of over and over again, what you're really doing is you're actually training yourself in the, in those tools required to actually in fact, buy down that fear, you know, you're and, and the way we do it. So fear is interesting. Fear is a combination really ultimately of two things, uncertainty and anxiety.

Speaker 4: Okay. Both of those combined great fear because you can have one without the other and fear doesn't exist. You can be anxious without being uncertain. That's like, I got a presentation next week that I'm giving to the boss and I know the presentation and it's, you know, I know what it's gonna look like. I know where I'm going. It just, I'm a little anxious. Okay. I'm not fearful. I'm just anxious. Um, and I'm not uncertain. Um, you can be uncertain without being anxious. Okay. That's every kid on Christmas Eve. All right. So there's no fear there. Um, if you have both there, if they start combining you start to tip into fear, all right. And when you do, you can begin to buy down your fear by buying down either one of those. Okay. Uh, those polarities anxiety is internally focused as physiological. And, um, that's, you know, I, you know, pupils, dilating, breathing, quickens, all that stuff.

Speaker 4: You can begin to buy down that with physiological means you can, you can do breathing exercise, your brief slower. You can do open gays, you know, things like that, that, that starts shifting your sympathetic towards your parasympathetic systems. So you can buy down anxiety. What that's also doing is it's also bringing your conscious mind back online because when our amygdala starts ticking up and getting overloaded, our conscious mind begins taking a backseat. So by buying down anxiety, you're bringing your conscious mind back online. As your conscious mind comes back online, you can begin buying down uncertainty, little bit more difficult because uncertainty is external, right? That's the world around you that you don't it's going on without you controlling it. But you can do that by asking yourself some questions. And we do this, the seals do this all the time, really unconsciously. Um, you say to yourself, what about this environment?

Speaker 4: Do I understand? Okay. And however, whatever that list is, however small, you look at that and say, okay, um, what can I control in this moment? You pick something and you control you move towards that. Okay. As soon as you make that movement, you get a dopamine response, you get a dopamine reward, right. And that dopamine reward allows you to then ask the question again. Okay. Now what can I control? Okay. Now what can I control? You're basically stepping through your fear. What exposure does the way where you're talking about, whether it be VR or real or real is allow someone to work through those processes mentally so that as they do it over and over again, they, they begin to get, um, very good. They begin to begin to understand exactly how to step through that particular fear, neurologically. They know how to do it.

Speaker 4: And, and so that's why it gets easier. In fact, they're not, it's not that they're getting used to the fear Jack they're there. In fact, they are getting less afraid because this is, this is what happens. And as you get less afraid, by the way, um, the ambiguous starts to come up. You don't, you don't get that amygdala response. And when fear no longer shows up, there's no longer courage either, which means you don't get the dopamine reward, right? So you can in fact, inoculate yourself so much to something that you no longer need cars to do it. And you're no longer feeling the rewards of, of dopamine either, right? Statistically, this could be the person who's afraid of skydiving and ends up doing 10, 20,000 jumps, right? By the time, by the time they're on their 20,000 jumps, they don't need cards to do it anymore. They're just doing it, you know, because, uh, because the big deal is not even getting tickled. So, so it's that process by which people can actually use. I love

Speaker 3: This. And what's interesting here and why a lot of people have difficult deciphering when it's fear or when it's, uh, anxiety is because it's all comes from the same place. It begins in your gut. And it's difficult to, to separate what that is. And this is exactly why we built our core confidence program, because it allows everyone an opportunity in a safe environment to have that feeling. And then as you mentioned, start to go down the list of questions to decipher. If am, am I in a place where I could get harmed? Am I in a place where I can gain something? And if it's a place where you can gain something and then going through the cognitive processes to allow you to go through it and then be reflective and pool out of that, something that makes you a better person.

Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, and what you're saying is really important because, because that, uh, that first question is also important. Is this something that I can get harmed from, right? Because, because sometimes flight is the right response, right. And people think, okay, fear. Yeah. Fear is also by, by nature is designed to, uh, allow us to appropriately assess risk so that we may survive because sometimes yes, you need to run. It's not a good idea to step into it. And so I think that's an important, an important distinction, look at

Speaker 3: All the other mammals when they even have that inkling of that, that hit of fear, anxiety that's going on. They bolt right. The rabbit, the deer they're out of there, what are they missing in life? Because they have this automatic response. We have this opportunity to work through these feelings, but you're not going to learn how to do that without that reflection. And then that understanding of what your emotional processes are to that stimuli.

Speaker 4: You're totally right. Yeah. And I think nature can teach us a lot about that because we also see, uh, aspects of nature when fear causes them to fight too. The dog that bites you is, is likely biting you because it's afraid. Right? I mean, um, so, so there are, I mean, even the, even the bear that attacks you, there might be Cubs. I mean, that, that bear is afraid of you're the Cubs getting it. So, so th the nature, I mean, we, we're, we're part of nature. I mean, we're animals at the end of the day, right? So we, we need only look to the animal world to see, to learn some lessons about how we operate. We certainly have been given through our conscious, our conscious mind, some, some opportunity, uh, that other species, at least to our knowledge don't have. Um, but, uh, but there's a lot of lessons

Speaker 1: There. I think for those in the audience who are feeling that fear and, and thinking about this, the most important thing that you mentioned is taking that step, because fear locks us up and whatever that may be in your life, that first step is going to be the most difficult. And then the next step is going to be easier. And the next step thereafter is going to be easier. So when we're facing down those fears, reminding ourselves that, that first step, it's going to be hard. That's okay. It is a part of the process that I'm working through. And of course, through experience, you realize in other areas really that's where we get away from just situational confidence. And we start building confidence that allows us in areas where maybe we didn't even know we were afraid and we have that feeling.

Speaker 4: And I think it's important because we have to understand that, you know, our, our, our nature designed our systems to protect our, to protect ourselves from ultimately death or serious injury. Um, and that's why that's why fear exists in the first place. Um, but we have to understand that in today's environment, especially in the first world environment, right. Um, there's actually very few things that are actually going to hurt us or kill us. Right. And a lot of our fear is based on, on assumptions and, and predictions that are false. So I think a question that can be asked in many times is, Hey, what's the worst that can happen and answer that, honestly, because if you actually write those answers down, um, you're gonna find, well, actually that's not that bad. And that's, and certainly that's not bad enough to limit my, my, my, um, desire or my ability to try, you know, uh, because, because man, the, the, the reward from trying is way, way better, uh, and more powerful than just the, maybe this bad thing happening. Um, so I think that's a good question to ask

Speaker 1: And test that hypothesis because it so rarely happens, but that governor kicks in. So test the worst and in science has actually shown that thinking through the worst and actually like feeling what the worst result is, lowers that fear innately inside of you. And even if it happens,

Speaker 4: I don't remember. I mean, I remember in college, there was a girl I had a crush on and I, you know, I know she was, she was really beautiful. And if she was very intimidating and I had kind of just, you know, chatted with her here and there, and I, I'd never kind of got the car, I didn't have the courage to kind of ask her out. And so one, it was one day or evening or whatever, I saw her out and I said, okay, I'm going to do this. And I went up and I asked her and she said, no, she said, at a point, I'm sorry, I have a boyfriend. I, you know, I, you know, that's very sweet, but I have a boyfriend. So the, the worst happens. Right. Cause she said, no, but I still felt great. And even to this day, I'm like, Hey, at least I tried, you know, at least I tried, instead of, instead of thinking like, oh, I could be sitting here, you know, at 47 years old saying my wonder, I wonder what would have happened that I had, I had actually asked, well, I asked.

Speaker 4: Right. And I felt good. So, so even when you do fail, um, just the, try the step into the fear, you know, that will also feel good, you know?

Speaker 1: Well, in wrapping, we love asking every guest, this question, what is your X-Factor? And with you, especially Johnny. And I got really excited because we think semantically X factor is an attribute. And we built an entire year long mentorship program to allow people to test and introspect in themselves to identify which of these attributes they have, that they want to use as that strength to get ahead and succeed. And as we talked about earlier, many of us don't self-assess, we don't take that opportunity to be introspective or in those cases where we do then create a life where we build out on those strengths and maybe build out some of those weaknesses, what do you over-index in? What is your X factor? That's allowed you to be so successful?

Speaker 4: I'm going to say humility, and I'm not going to say humility in the sense that makes me not humble because oftentimes when you say you're humble, it doesn't mean you're on the right. I'm going to say, I'm going to say humility in the sense that I've tried to make it a habit to surround myself with people who I find way better than me. Why do I say to myself, man, these people are intimidatingly better than me. And, um, and, and every time I've done that, I've, it's forced me to step up my game. It's forced me to become better. Um, and I remember thinking this when I went through seal training, I mean, got through seal training and looking around, I was like, man, these, these guys are super heroes. I mean, what the hell am I doing here? How did I get here? Um, and I remember even going through my career, regardless of what echelon I left, I, I, I, I succeeded to, to achieve, or what, what, uh, specialized or elite commands I, I ended up at, I would constantly say to myself, these people are way better than me and I need to step up my game.

Speaker 4: And I think that type of humility, it's almost, self-induced, you know, throw yourself into, into environments where you're not surrounding yourself with people who your better than, um, that I've been able to do that. And I, and I still do that. I mean, I, listen, I have, I've a couple of few, very good friends who are very successful authors. And, you know, I said to myself, well, let me see if I can step up my game. Let me see if I can, if I can, if I can aspire to do some of the great work things that they do, you know? So even today I'm trying to do it. Um, and I will continue to do, I love meeting people and experiencing people and talking to people who are, uh, who are just, I can, are inspirational that way.

Speaker 1: Well, this interview is fired me up and I'm sure many in our audience want to find this self-assessment so where can we go to take yourself assessment and find the book?

Speaker 4: Yeah. The best place is the attributes.com, pretty simple. And, uh, yeah, you can get the book there. You can take the assessment. Um, you, I would recommend if you, if you're able to read the book before you take the assessment, it'll just allow you to take it a little bit more introspectively. However, that's not required. You can take the assessment like right now, if you go get it. Uh, so it's, it's easy and it's free. So the attributes.com, you can find it there. I have the book, the assessment, I got some workbooks on there, or people can actually get that, help them, help guide them and coach them on how to develop each attribute. At least in the three, the first three categories I'm working on the leadership and team ability, and that's a blog post. And then on know, my Instagram handle is there. And LinkedIn, you can find me there so anywhere the websites are good. Good. Kind of. Catch-all

Speaker 1: Awesome. Thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me. It's been great, huge shout out. It goes to our Facebook group member, Ryan, Anthony Hernandez. He commented, I found your show four years ago. I lived in seclusion in a monastery and have been very spiritual, oftentimes solitary in my lifestyle for 11 years. And that had very little communication with the outside world. Think no internet, no TV, no smartphone. And of course no relationships for a while. I was living in the mountains and the jungles in the Philippines. When I finally left that life, I was overwhelmed with how fast the world had changed. And it only discovered Facebook in 2015. Well, around 2017, I discovered your podcast. I didn't even know what a podcast was and I've listened to the content you've posted. And let me tell you, it's helped me build confidence to talk to people, make new strategies to start my day and live my life and connect with people in a healthy way. I'm so excited to check out your X factor program. Y'all rock and have helped me in more ways than you'll ever know. I'm really

Speaker 3: Excited for Ryan. I've talked with him briefly in our community and he's loving everything that we've putting out there. And he's been putting those skills to the test. I mean, and as we've talked in this episode with rich, it's, the rubber meets the road is where it's at putting these things in action. And you can digest our podcasts. You can read all the books, but when you implement these strategies in your life, this is where you see how powerful they are.

Speaker 1: Absolutely. And we're so excited to be connecting with our podcast fans and listeners on our private Facebook group, right? Johnny, Trey

Speaker 3: AIJ. And I've been going live weekly covering lessons directly from our programs and podcasts to help you unlock your X-Factor so that you may begin to attract the right people, opportunities in lifestyle that you dreamed for

Speaker 1: Yourself. Last week's training was taken directly from our toolbox episode on transitioning out of small talk and beginning rapport building. And we discussed asking lateral versus vertical questions and how those can power your conversation, whether you're on a date, talking to a prospect or trying to relate with a coworker that live stream is now up inside the Facebook group, along with others. And we're there every week to answer all of your questions. So we look forward to seeing you there, join us today and check it out. The art of charm.com/challenge. Could you do

Speaker 3: Us the entire Arctic term team, a huge favor? Could you head on over to iTunes and rate and review this podcast? It would mean the world to us, and it helps others like yourself. Find the show.

Speaker 1: The art of charm podcast is produced by Michael Harrell and Eric Montgomery go out there and have an epic week. I'm a J and I'm Johnny shares.

Speaker 5: [inaudible] [inaudible].