Dr. Michael Gervais Is The Sensei of Human Performance

How do world-class athletes, artists and top business leaders organize their inner lives to expand the edges of their potential? What are the frameworks and key mental skills needed to excel in those intense, all or nothing make-it-or break it moments? How do change-makers find peace, grounding, and even joy in the most intensely stressful, critical moments of their lives and careers? There is no human more well-suited to fielding these questions than world-renown high performance psychologist Dr. Michael Gervais -- returning for his 4th appearance on the podcast. A globally recognized authority on optimal human performance, Dr. Gervais has spent the last twenty years working in the trenches of consequential, high-stakes environments, where there is no luxury for mistakes, hesitation, or failure to respond. His clientele includes the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks, countless Olympic medalists, MVPs from every major sport, world record holders, internationally acclaimed music artists, and corporate leaders. In addition, Dr. Gervais is the host of the popular Finding Mastery podcast. Alongside NFL coach Pete Carroll he founded Compete To Create, an online and live master class for the mind, and together they authored the recently released Audible Original also entitled Compete To Create -- a must-listen for anyone interested in raising the bar on their own potential. There's a reason he's been featured by NBC, ABC, FOX, CNN, ESPN, NFL Network, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Outside Magazine, WIRED, ESPN Magazine, the Harvard Business Review and more: Dr. Gervais is the sensei of human performance optimization. Unlike our previous episodes, today’s exchange is not about elite athletic performance. Nor is it about the demands of jumping out of a plane without a parachute. In fact, it's not really about sport at all. Instead, this is a conversation about how best to navigate the cataclysmic shit show we call 2020 -- and the years of political, pandemic and planetary turmoil likely to follow. It's about understanding trauma. Accepting pain. Working through it. And how suffering is integral to the human experience. It’s about the difference between purpose and vision. The role of sport in a world that's closed for business. And the importance of optimism in dark times. If you're new to the show, you're in for a treat. I adore this man. So prepare to fall in love. The visually inclined can watch our exchange on YouTube. And as always, the podcast streams wild and free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. If you enjoy today's conversation, you might also dig Michael interviewing me in the most recent Finding Mastery episode (FM #244). And you can mine his three previous appearances on the RRP (episodes 120, 252, and 366). It’s hard being a human in 2020. Don’t underestimate the circumstances -- but know there is a light out there. Let's find it together. Peace + Plants, Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 0:44Rich Roll?

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• 1:05Michael Gervais?

  The first order of business is always going to come down to awareness. Like, how are you imagining your future? And if it's fundamentally pessimistic, like, things don't work out, then let's recognize that there's a moment to be able to get better at it, you know, to shift it. And the data is really strong about why optimism is an important function for health, performance, well-being. And so, the first order of business, like I said, is always going to be awareness. It's where mindfulness and meditation, journaling, and conversations with wise men and women are really important. Because if you're not aware of the way you're thinking about the future, you can't change it. You determine your experience in life.

• 1:49Michael Gervais?

  You're an agent in this, as opposed to at the whip's end of your external world. And I haven't met a world-class thinker or doer that isn't fundamentally optimistic.

• 2:04Rich Roll?

  That's Dr. Michael Gervais, and this is episode 550 of the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 2:20Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast. Okay, so a couple of questions I want to ask today to posit for your consideration. How do world-class athletes, artists, and top business leaders organize their inner lives to expand the edges of their potential? What are the frameworks and the key mental skills and models that are needed to excel in those intense, those all or nothing, make it or break it moments? How do change makers find peace, find grounding, or even joy in the most intensely stressful, critical moments of their lives and their careers?

• 3:03Rich Roll?

  Well, today, we're going to explore these questions, these ideas, in a conversation with one of my very favorite people, one of the few, if not the only, person on the planet most qualified to speak about such matters. My friend, Dr. Michael Gervais, returning for his fourth appearance on the podcast. If you live in a wormhole and have never heard of this incredible man, I suggest you mine the RRP archive and give Episodes 120, 252, and 366 a spin. That's about six hours that go deep into Michael's story and his groundbreaking work in the sports psychology arena.

• 3:45Rich Roll?

  But the basic gist is that when it comes to optimal human performance, purpose, and passion, Dr. Gervais is the dude. As a sports psychologist, he works in the trenches of consequential, high-stakes environments where there's no luxury for mistakes, for hesitation, or failure to respond. His clientele includes people like Felix Baumgartner, who is the guy who jumped from space, professional sports teams like the Seattle Seahawks, basically the most prolific Olympic and professional athletes, MVPs in every major sport, high-level military, internationally acclaimed artists and musicians, Fortune 100 CEOs. You get the idea.

• 4:38Rich Roll?

  Okay, back to Dr. Gervais. Unlike our previous conversations, today's conversation is not centered around Olympic athletes, or other sports stars, or what it takes mentally and emotionally to jump out of a plane without a parachute. It is perhaps a more relatable exchange about how all of us can better navigate this wild, ever-changing, some might call it dumpster fire year, we call it 2020. And unfortunately, the years of pandemic, political, and planetary turmoil that are likely to follow. Who better, I ask, who better to ground and guide us through these turbulent times than

• 5:23Rich Roll?

  a psychologist who literally specializes in shepherding people through high-stress environments? So today's conversation is about working through all of this, working through pain, and how suffering is actually integral to the human experience. We talk about understanding trauma and the way it is impacting your life. It's about the difference between purpose and vision, and a reexamination of the role of sport in our society, given the pandemic. It's also about optimism, and how optimism can serve us even in the darkest times. And I promise, there's no empty platitudes. This is not about shoving a handful of bullshit positivity down your throat. Michael always keeps it real.

• 6:06Rich Roll?

  And finally, we talk about his new audiobook, which is an awesome listen in this moment. It's called Compete to Create. It's an Audible original. Seriously recommend checking it out. Personally, I tend to vacillate between doom and despair and wish of positivity. And this book, this listen, really has helped ground me, and I think it'll help all of you guys as well. It's hard being a human in 2020. Don't underestimate the circumstances, but know that there is a light out, and we're going to find it together. So this is me and Dr. Michael Gervais.

• 6:45Rich Roll?

  Dr. Michael Gervais back in the house. Round four.

• 6:48Michael Gervais?

  I can't believe it. You've changed my life.

• 6:50Rich Roll?

  Come on.

• 6:51Michael Gervais?

  Yeah.

• 6:52Rich Roll?

  Look what you've built. It's incredible, man. I'm so proud of you. You're impacting so many lives and I'm just, I'm in awe of the quality of content that you put out and how practical and helpful it is to so many people. And it's been a delight and a pleasure to watch you do that.

• 7:07Michael Gervais?

  Oh, man. That means a lot to me. I really, I don't say that lightly that you changed my life. It was super simple and it was benign. And I never would have thought that this medium, this intimate conversation between two people would be able to fundamentally shape, you know, how I think about not only humanity, but business and connection with other people. And so that, that, that afternoon that we sat in my office, like that changed my life. So I appreciate you, brother.

• 7:38Rich Roll?

  That's cool. Well, it was immediately evidenced to me, and I've said this to you before, that you have a natural gift for this and that it seemed only, only, you know, appropriate that you would launch your own show. Like you're so good at it. And you have this like

• 7:54Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, man.

• 7:55Rich Roll?

  ability to just get right to the heart of things immediately. Like you cut through all the bullshit and you see what other people don't see. And when you listen to your show, you get a glimpse of that. And I'm always like, oh, man. Like, cause we have a lot of crossover in our guests. So like if I'm preparing for someone, I'm like, oh, he was on mics. I gotta listen to this. Like this happened with Apollo Ono recently because he came on my show and I listened to your conversation with him. And I'm like, I'm not gonna be able to do that.

• 8:22Michael Gervais?

  Oh, come on. That's not even close. But you know, there are some advantages of being a psychologist that play up.

• 8:28Rich Roll?

  You have a training that I don't have.

• 8:30Michael Gervais?

  Well, you know, that being said, there's so much about just being authentically curious about the person that's in front of you. And I'll, I'll tell you some of the frames I come from, if that's useful.

• 8:41Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. Sure.

• 8:42Michael Gervais?

  Unconditional positive regard.

• 8:43Rich Roll?

  Podcast tutorial from, from the master.

• 8:46Michael Gervais?

  No, no, no, no, no, no.

• 8:47Rich Roll?

  I'm gonna find some mastery here.

• 8:50Michael Gervais?

  Okay, so unconditional positive regard for the other. You have that. That's how you've treated me in our first conversation. Unconditional positive regard for the other. And I think that as a philosophical note for how we engage with humans, that that is born out of the psychologist and the theory called Rogirian psychology, Carl Rogers. Unconditional positive regard. And if you just stay there, I think it ends up paying dividends for both.

• 9:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, I never thought a bit about it in that kind of context, but I do. Like, I only have people on that I'm genuinely curious about. And I've been in situations where a bunch of people are like, oh, you gotta have this person on. And I'm not feeling it, but I feel pressured in, not pressured, but like, well, everyone else seems to think this will be great. And I've learned that if I'm not feeling it myself, it doesn't mean that they're not a great guest for somebody's show. I'm just not the right cipher or host to bring out the best in that person.

• 9:56Michael Gervais?

  That's a cool approach, yeah. And, you know, I'm curious what you're searching for right now. What is it?

• 10:03Rich Roll?

  Look at, you did. I can't help myself, right? You are, I'm not gonna let you turn the table already. I'm gonna do your show later, man.

• 10:10Michael Gervais?

  All right, let's do that. But just as a high note, like, what is it that you're going after right now to try to better understand?

• 10:16Rich Roll?

  Well, a couple of things. I mean, the first thing I would say is I'm starting to put more attention on the guests that I'm seeking out, because I really haven't done that from a vision or systemic approach. It's somewhat reactive and very much impulsive. Like, I'll just come across somebody, and I'm like, oh, they're cool, and I'll do that. And I don't put, I don't like, put on my calendar, okay, I have to book these people, and I gotta seek them out and track them down. Like, it all just kind of happens organically, and that's seemed to work, but I think...

• 10:56Rich Roll?

  The show could benefit from me approaching it from a little bit more of a mindful intentional perspective. So I'm putting my focus on that. And also, most of the conversations that I've had historically have been pretty evergreen. They stand outside the context of time and culture. I could put them up at any moment and they would be fine. But the world changed in some pretty fundamental ways this past year, and I felt called to participate in that conversation in a more contemporaneous way. So now, every two weeks, I'm doing a conversation with my friend Adam Skolnik, who co-wrote David Goggins' book and is a

• 11:39Rich Roll?

  New York Times contributor, journalist, adventurer, environmentalist. And we talk about kind of things that are happening in the now. So that's new, and that's been kind of a little bit of a growth curve, getting used to that. And putting myself out there in a new and different way, because this has always been about the guest. But with these particular conversations, that focus gets flipped a little bit more on me.

• 12:05Michael Gervais?

  I've loved it. I've loved following what you're doing. It's cool. Yeah, nice work.

• 12:10Rich Roll?

  So, yeah, that's where my head's at. But I have been spending a lot of time paying attention to what's going on in America and across the world right now. And it's very unique. It's concerning. I think there's opportunity in it as well. So why don't we start with just your thoughts on how you feel about what's happening right now, and how you're thinking about it from a psychologist's perspective in terms of how to navigate it in a healthy way?

• 12:42Michael Gervais?

  Cool. I think that, one is, let's put a little fine point on psychologists for just a moment, is that there's general psychology, there's child psychology, and then I've cut my teeth in sports psychology, sports slash performance. And then a subspecialty, if you will, in consequential environments. So if there was such a thing as high-stakes psychology, that would kind of be where I'd sit. So inside of that, what does that mean? My unique experience is that I've spent deep time with people that are in the most consequential, the highest-stress environments known to humans.

• 13:23Michael Gervais?

  I'm finding incredible portability right now from those insights and practices for the rest of us.

• 13:29Rich Roll?

  Because we're all in some form or another in a, in a higher stakes environment.

• 13:34Michael Gervais?

  Oh, right now, the stress levels. Well, if we just look at some basic data, suicide, suicide ideation and actual suicide are up. Anxiety, depression, addiction, all curving, you know, hockey stick type arc stuff. So we're seeing mental health and the echo of mental health is going to be here for a while. The mental health concerns and the echo from what's happening right now, both from an awakening from the social injustice and the systemic racism and individual racism that's taking place, as well as a illness that we're struggling with, you know? And so, mental health is important. And I have,

• 14:18Michael Gervais?

  I don't think I'm the most, I'd like to think I am, but I'm not the most compassionate person. You know, I'm more of a systems thinker, and I really love getting into kind of what the heart and the truth of something is, and understanding how we can grow and be authentic in that growth arc towards the reaches of what is possible. So that, that's not like, I'm not this compassionate, heartfelt, high-drive, empathetic person. I'd like to be. I need to, I've been working on that my whole life, but I'm flooded with it now. I'm feeling what people are feeling, and I'm scared. You know, I'm nervous of people.

• 15:00Michael Gervais?

  And then my friends that are listening to this right now are saying, dude, you're so bullish and optimistic about the future. What are you talking about? So I've got both of those that are playing forward right now, so.

• 15:11Rich Roll?

  I vacillate. I vacillate from despair to optimism. And I think on that, that scale of systems thinking to kind of feeling my way in an empathetic fashion, I'm more on the empathy side. I could, I could benefit from a little bit more systems thinking, as I just explained to you. And I feel it deeply, you know, it's, and I feel, I've said this before also, but. I'm essentially introverted. I'm fine being alone. You know, I like to lock myself up in a cave and do my thing. And I thought, I've been training for this my whole life, man. I got this. Everyone's going to be out there suffering and I'm going to thrive. But it's really worn thin and not being able to see your friends and, you know, not being

• 15:55Rich Roll?

  able to plan for the future or have specific things to look forward to is very difficult. But from a personal perspective, the hardest part has been trying to parent two teenage daughters through this who are really having a hard time. And it's been, you know.

• 16:13Michael Gervais?

  When you say hard time, you mean like mental health?

• 16:14Rich Roll?

  Mental health, yeah. Yeah. I've got a extroverted 16 year old who wants to be with her friends and is in art school and loves the tactile, practical aspect of her craft, which has been stripped away from her. And now she's on Zoom from eight to four and then has to do her homework on the computer, all in the home, you know, and another 13 year old daughter who is very much an introvert, but the deprivation of external stimuli is causing, you know, some real mental strain on her. And I feel powerless to be of service to how to help them figure this out. And I'm just, it just breaks my heart.

• 16:56Michael Gervais?

  Yeah. I think the fact that you're aware of it is kind of step one. Cause some people, the old model of, let's call it, well, hold on, let me back up. No one's getting through this world without facing down trauma. Big trauma, big T or small T. So suffering is part of the experience that we have. It's a shared experience that we have. The word trauma ends up, takes suffering and puts a little finer point on it. Right? But what we're talking about is suffering. Now, that being said, let's call it 1980 model. Suck it up. Harden up. Figure it out. Go back to work. Come on. What's wrong with you? Like those are the messages that we're giving kids. When we were growing up, I don't know if you got those messages, but you know.

• 17:41Rich Roll?

  Pretty much.

• 17:42Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, definitely like the narrative, the social narrative was that whether it was in the house or not. And right now, what's taking place is very different. The fact that you're like, I'm really concerned about the da, da, da, da, you know, right. Step one, awareness, always is going to start there. And whatever practices that we can put in place to be able to increase our awareness, we're on to something. Step two is be grounded next to the person that you love.

• 18:08Michael Gervais?

  And so that's what showed up for me for years, working with some of the best in the world in their craft and some people that are aspiring to be. Is that when they rattle and I've worked my ass off to be grounded, that gift, whether it's an emotional rattle or something else that's taking, usually when we rattle, it's emotional. But there's, my mentors taught that to me at a young age. That when I would be melting or unraveling or frustrated or scared. And this is Gary De Blasio was my mentor for a long time, like since I was 16. And he just looked at me because he knew me and he just looked right into me and he's like, I see you.

• 18:48Michael Gervais?

  And he's like, I'm here for you as I'm melting down, frustrated, scared, whatever, trying to find the words to say. That I'm scared, but I'm really just using frustration as the vehicle, the unfortunate vehicle of talking about fear and sadness. And man, just have someone next to you that sees you and gets you. That in and of itself probably explains why 70% of treatment effects in small room psychology take place from rapport. The relationship in of itself accounts for, we believe, about 70% of change.

• 19:21Rich Roll?

  Not the advice or the counseling, just being there.

• 19:25Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, listening, seeing, understanding. And then if you've got some really cool tactics and strategies that you can layer on top of it, that only accounts for 20 to 30% of the change.

• 19:37Rich Roll?

  The impulse that I'm always fighting is, is trying to fix it, of course.

• 19:41Michael Gervais?

  Of course.

• 19:41Rich Roll?

  You know, and it's like, I can't fix it. So then I get rattled and I'm not able to be that calm, soothing presence.

• 19:50Michael Gervais?

  I find that hard to believe.

• 19:51Rich Roll?

  It's true, man.

• 19:53Michael Gervais?

  I find it hard to believe.

• 19:53Rich Roll?

  Ask Julie, she'll tell you.

• 19:55Michael Gervais?

  But you know, the other piece is like, but what you're talking about too, is that you, did you say the word powerless or helpless? Which word did you choose?

• 20:03Rich Roll?

  I think I used powerless.

• 20:04Michael Gervais?

  Yeah. Which is, that's where it starts to get scary for the people that are supposed to be the powerful. Right? So what does powerful mean? Not like I'm powerful and gonna tell you what to do, Mr. Mrs. You know, like not that type of power. No, that's not what you mean. But Albert Bandura, are you familiar with his work?

• 20:25Rich Roll?

  Uh-uh.

• 20:25Michael Gervais?

  Ah, this is, this is gonna be fun, Rich. So Albert Bandura, Dr. Bandura, living legend. He's octogenarian at this point, Stanford. And he changed psychology. So, uh, like he was one of the frickin' top tier, tip of the era people that I wanted to have on Finding Mastery. And I got to sit down with them. So it was like a living legend that I got to sit down with. So his original paradigm shifting, um, theory was on self-efficacy. And so efficacy means power, efficacious. It's a beautiful word, not well-used, um, not often used. So self-efficacy are, and he found that there's five ways to build a sense of internal power for people, to have agency.

• 21:09Michael Gervais?

  And agency is a fancy word for you determine your experience in life. You're an agent in this, as opposed to at the whip's end of your external world. But so what does it mean to be, have agency? And how do we build efficacy? It's really cool. And without getting too far in the mumbo jumbo, you know all of these skills. I'm gonna rattle them off, I'll rattle them off quickly.

• 21:34Michael Gervais?

  Vicarious experiences. So, looking at somebody that is doing something close to what you want to be doing one day. Just looking at it. And being able to see that, I think I could do that over. That's how, oh, look at the choices they made. Just watching mentorship in that way. But they don't have to be true mentors, but something that's close to what you want to do.

• 21:55Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. Game changer.

• 21:57Michael Gervais?

  What's an example?

• 21:57Rich Roll?

  Just as an example, to point to, to look to.

• 22:00Michael Gervais?

  Yes. Yeah, that's a, so that's actually a really important part of becoming efficacious. Is seeing what good to you looks like, or maybe great. The next is self-talk. Knowing how to talk to yourself. If you don't know how to talk to yourself well, it's nearly impossible. You know, and this is where, I think you recognize the kind of the bullshit of naive optimism meets the frontier of being in the amphitheater. Like, it's got to be real, the way you speak to yourself. And I haven't met, though, I haven't met a world-class thinker or doer that isn't fundamentally optimistic.

• 22:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's a key theme and point that you make time and time again in Compete to Create.

• 22:49Michael Gervais?

  Yeah.

• 22:49Rich Roll?

  Which I'm on like, chapter eight of now, which I love.

• 22:52Michael Gervais?

  The audiobook.

• 22:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, the audiobook. It's great. I love it. I love it because it's comprehensive, but it's also very practical and understandable. And you just relate these tools that we can all implement into our life that are all lifted from your work and your studying and working with all of these athletes. But what was really striking about it is, is this refrain that all of these things are trainable, are teachable, from optimism to grit, to confidence, to calm. We tend to look at high performers and think, well, that, yeah, that guy's super optimistic. He always thinks it's going to work out. He's able to control his mechanism at will.

• 23:35Michael Gervais?

  He was born that way, or had great parents.

• 23:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah, they, yeah, exactly. And I just, you know, I'm Debbie Downer, or I always think it's not going to work out. And that's just the way that I'm wired.

• 23:45Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, that so there's likely a predisposition towards anxiety or depression or optimism or pessimism that we're not fully aware of. Right. There's some genetic coding that happens passed on from a genetic standpoint from our parents and great parents. That being said, is optimism and pessimism are the two basic frameworks for how you view your future. It's kind of that there's, there's not another one. Some people might say, no realism. Well, you can have a realistic pessimism and a realistic optimism. It is the frame that you see your future through. And so it's a trainable skill, completely trainable. So is the opposite of that, like helplessness and learned helplessness,

• 24:30Michael Gervais?

  optimism and learned optimism. Oh, yeah, that, that doesn't actually snap well together. But the optimism pessimism, sorry, both are learned. And which means we can get better at them.

• 24:41Rich Roll?

  So walk me through the difference between what you just said and our kind of pop psychology version of that, like the fake it till you make it. And, you know, I'm Stuart Smalley and I'm going to look in the mirror and recount these affirmations. Like, what's the difference between truly training somebody to pivot from, you know, a pessimistic outlook on themselves and life and getting them into a more optimistic state?

• 25:08Michael Gervais?

  Okay, so the first order of business is always going to come down to awareness. Like, how are you imagining your future? And if it's fundamentally pessimistic, like things don't work out, then let's recognize that there's a moment to be able to get better at it, you know, to shift it. And the data is really strong about why optimism is an important function for health, performance, well-being. And so the first order of business, like I said, is always going to be awareness. It's where mindfulness and meditation, journaling and conversations with wise men and women are really important. Because if you're not aware of the way you're thinking about the future, you can't change it. Like, you're kind of stuck.

• 25:52Rich Roll?

  But I think most people are on that kind of recursive loop, where they're not even consciously aware that they're constantly affirming some story about who they are from a negative perspective. And if you challenge them on it, they'll say, "Well, you don't understand my life," or something like that. Like, there has to be a willingness, or like a crack in that, an opening, where they can say, or they can see themselves from 10,000 feet and say, "I need to address this."

• 26:21Michael Gervais?

  You're right on the money. So, this is the unfortunate insight that I wish it wasn't, I wish this wasn't the case. But my experience with working with people is that it's not until they have enough pain do they do the work to change.

• 26:38Rich Roll?

  I'm a living example of that.

• 26:39Michael Gervais?

  You are.

• 26:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah, we've talked about that.

• 26:41Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, you really are. And my favorite people are people that have faced the darkest parts of being human and say, "Okay, forget about it. Like, I'm doing this differently." Because they've got to the truth of some stuff. You know, the dark side of humanity, the suffering side, and they understand it. And so, that being said, is like, there needs to be enough pain for change to happen, because change requires real work. And this is why I'll say to folks, like, there's no hacks, there's no tricks and tips, you know, for fundamental growth. And it's a mistake to look at the strong men and women on the podiums,

• 27:22Michael Gervais?

  or the CEOs of whatever, and say, "Oh, look at how good they are from a physical standpoint." To celebrate them just because of they've had outward success is the mistake. The opportunity that sits underneath is how do they organize their life?

• 27:39Michael Gervais?

  And it's a fundamental organization towards the man or woman or person they want to become. It's a fundamental commitment. And there are, there are no shortcuts here. There's no hacks to that. So how do we organize our inner life? Get real with like the pain that you are carrying from an early part of your life. That is still part of the conscious or non-conscious narrative that is shaping thoughts and shaping words that you choose and shaping the actions that you take. And without some sort of examination or some sort of honesty about the way that you shape your thoughts and your words and your actions.

• 28:21Michael Gervais?

  I think it's really tough to flip a fundamental view of how you think the future is going to go, from pessimism to optimism. Can I add one more layer of complexity? Your brain is not trying to help you become optimistic. The three pounds of tissue is saying, hey dude, stay alive. Find the threat, find the danger. You know, you don't want to be taken for the fool that didn't jump when there's a lion in the bush. Is there lions in bushes? You know, like you don't want to be the fool that doesn't react properly. But you also don't want to look like the fool that reacts too quickly. So that's where we get these freeze mechanisms, you know, fight, flight, freeze and submit. And so your brain is trying to figure out how to survive.

• 29:04Michael Gervais?

  And your higher consciousness need to probably put a pin in that because that's a big word.

• 29:11Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 29:11Michael Gervais?

  Big phrase. But your, your ability to use your imagination, I'll be more pragmatic for a moment. Your ability to use your imagination to imagine what could be for you, counterbalanced to your brain's dictum, to survive, to recognize the sources of threat and pain, real or imagined from early on, or, or that's possibly going to show up in this moment. And it is ready right now to say, hey, flood your emotions, flood some physiology so that you can be on point and not be taken advantage of in modern times. So your brain is not trying to help you in this.

• 29:46Rich Roll?

  I don't know whether I feel good or bad about that, hearing that.

• 29:49Michael Gervais?

  Damn. So I think that if we said the good or bad piece and we said, well, that's actually the truth of what's happening. So what do we want to do about it?

• 30:10Rich Roll?

  Fundamental to all of this in Compete to Create is this commitment to self-understanding. Like, that underlies all of it. Like, you can relate these tactics and these strategies. Like, here's your morning routine. Here's a breathing technique. Here's a way of journaling. And here's a way of getting clear on what you have control over versus what you don't have control over, which are all super helpful. But short of a fundamental commitment to personal growth and broadened self-understanding, these things are not going to avail you much, right?

• 30:44Michael Gervais?

  Yeah.

• 30:45Rich Roll?

  So, talk a little bit about that first, because that's the most important step. Like, in 12-step, step one is the only one you have to get perfect. I feel like, in this context, that commitment has to be firm for any of these other things to have the efficacy that they potentially can have.

• 31:05Michael Gervais?

  Okay, so, I love... So, you're getting right to the truth of it. This is where it all begins, is what do you really want? And if you're looking for better, you know, because you know that there is something deeper in you. There is more room to grow. There's further to go. There's a deeper authenticity. There is deeper purpose and meaning, and you want that in your life. Okay. So, those are the mechanisms that I've spent a lot of time trying to understand. And it has to start from that place. Like, "Okay, I'm sick and tired." This is a phrase that you'll recognize, of being sick and tired. So, I'm sick and tired of walking into a room and feeling like I'm just... I'm not

• 31:48Michael Gervais?

  grounded. I'm not me. I'm beholden to what they might be thinking of me. I've abandoned my history for the approval of somebody in this room.

• 31:59Rich Roll?

  The F O P O.

• 32:00Michael Gervais?

  F O P O. How about F O P O?

• 32:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 32:02Michael Gervais?

  You like that?

• 32:03Rich Roll?

  Oh, man. This is like my... This is like my Achilles' heel.

• 32:07Michael Gervais?

  Fear of people's opinions.

• 32:08Rich Roll?

  Oh, yeah.

• 32:09Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, you're not alone, brother. Like, I suffered... I suffered F O P O for a long time. It's probably what led me to, you know, this deep, almost... Sometimes I don't wish that people have this, I don't want to say maniacal, but this... And it's not quite obsessive, but it's this deep, kind of want to understand, how do humans work? Because I spend, I'm up all night thinking about it. It feels like most nights. You know, it's a thing that keeps me awake. It's a beautiful science. It's complicated. But all that being said, is that's where it starts. Like, is there more in you? And if there is, hold on, put a pin in that. There is more in you. There is more in me.

• 32:52Michael Gervais?

  So what do we do to be able to free ourselves up to express the reaches of our potential? What do we do? Well, if you and I wanted to go walk from here to New York City, and we hadn't done it, that walk before, you know what you and I would do? We would go get with somebody. We'd say, hey, who's walked it? Tell me what to do on the Rockies when I get to the Rockies. Tell me what to do when, you know, or help me understand how to navigate this type of challenges. Or what are the challenges? So you would go get around a community of people that understand deeper, that have done it. They've traveled the path. And that would be the second step. Is there more? Yeah.

• 33:36Rich Roll?

  But that example presupposes that you have enough self-understanding to know that you want to walk from California to New York. I feel like there's a lot of people who are living their lives reactively. They know they want, they thirst, they hunger for more meaning, more purpose, more passion in their life, but they're completely bereft of the tools or the means by which to connect with what that might look like. So they're shooting darts in the dark, thinking, I want these things, but how do I even begin the process of trying to figure out what that might mean for me?

• 34:14Michael Gervais?

  So I would say, the way that we do it for, let's just talk individually right now for one-on-one type stuff, is, let's say, let's use an extreme example. Somebody's really struggling, right? And they're highly anxious or highly depressed, or they're really struggling in life. First, it's like, okay, well, let's just stabilize a little bit. And so stabilizing is like, how do we help somebody be present? And being present is where your body and your mind are in the same place, focusing on the same thing. So that's what being present is. So how do we do that first? And if you're not with somebody that knows how to do that, how do you do that?

• 34:55Michael Gervais?

  Well, this is where meditation and mindfulness is like the modern science and the ancient wisdom of it is paying dividends. It's one of the ways to start. And if that feels like too big, like focusing on one breath at a time over and over and over again, if that feels too big, then okay, how do we get to that next place? Well, maybe there are some very easy ways to say, okay, well, I'm going to start being my best coach. And so now we're kind of moving into that self-talk thing a little bit. And the small Band-Aid kind of tactic, if you will, is be great at coaching yourself today. Mindfulness is about listening. And then coaching is more about self-talk. Like, what are you going to say to yourself? So those are two kind of, maybe some ways to start.

• 35:40Michael Gervais?

  And then I'd say, shit, get your sleep right.

• 35:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 35:44Michael Gervais?

  You know, that's super practical.

• 35:46Rich Roll?

  You got your whoop on.

• 35:47Michael Gervais?

  Oh, yeah. I've been, I see you've got yours on.

• 35:50Rich Roll?

  I haven't taken it off since I got it.

• 35:52Michael Gervais?

  Seriously?

• 35:52Rich Roll?

  I love it.

• 35:53Michael Gervais?

  Yeah. Yeah, can I tell you a funny story?

• 35:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 35:56Michael Gervais?

  So I first got it when I was doing, this is your world that I played in for a moment. But it was an ultra that I was training for.

• 36:04Rich Roll?

  I followed it.

• 36:05Michael Gervais?

  Oh, dude, I met, I met somebody. I met myself in a different way. I, I can't wait to-

• 36:12Rich Roll?

  Tell me about that.

• 36:13Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, so-

• 36:13Rich Roll?

  So you were, you were in a paddleboard from Catalina to, to LA.

• 36:18Michael Gervais?

  Stand-up. Yeah, so stand-up paddle. I grew up as a kid surfing and I'd look, as I look west, there's an island, Catalina Island. It's about 30 miles away. And I'd get frustrated with the island because it would block some of the big south swells that would come in. And then also I'm incredibly inspired by the island from this one narrative, which was natives that long ago that were on the island would build their own canoes and they'd pair up either two people or three people, or sometimes one person. They would travel the 30 miles, come grab some supplies and then bring it back to their family. I'm like, damn, that's

• 36:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 36:57Michael Gervais?

  It's legit. It's across Shark Alley. It's across, you know, 30 miles of open ocean. There's some pretty shifty currents that are happening in the Pacific. And I always thought like, you know, hundreds of years ago, that was taking place like, man. Equally inspired, this is weird, but the men and women that put up phone wires or phone poles in the, as pioneers to places like deep in mountains and I'm always like, somebody was here drilling into, you know, mother earth here. Oh, I don't know why, but anyways, so I'm watching that. And then one of my friends, I shared that idea with him, like how inspiring. He goes, well, why don't you do it? No, I don't, I don't do ultra types. I don't do distance stuff. I'm not built for that. And so he just kept

• 37:42Rich Roll?

  The self-defeatism coming out, right out of the gate from the high-performance psychologist.

• 37:47Michael Gervais?

  I thought I was actually working from reality. Yeah. But I was like, I didn't think I had that. And I had very little interest.

• 37:54Rich Roll?

  You're a waterman, though.

• 37:55Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, I spent a lot of time in the water. But not, but, but if you think about the way I've organized my life, it's really more about, in the sport world and working with the athletes I work with, more about intense adrenaline management.

• 38:10Michael Gervais?

  And then it wasn't until maybe about eight years ago that I started spending time with people that were doing back-to-back stuff, like what you're doing, you know, like really distance-based stuff.

• 38:22Michael Gervais?

  Carl Metzner, Metzler, Metzler, do you know that name? He ran the Pony Express?

• 38:27Rich Roll?

  No.

• 38:27Michael Gervais?

  So it was a project that we did with Red Bull.

• 38:29Rich Roll?

  Metzger?

• 38:30Michael Gervais?

  Metzger.

• 38:31Rich Roll?

  I think it's Metzger.

• 38:32Michael Gervais?

  Yeah.

• 38:33Rich Roll?

  It sounds familiar.

• 38:34Michael Gervais?

  It was amazing. He, he ran the Pony Express.

• 38:36Rich Roll?

  Sorry, Carl, if you're listening.

• 38:37Michael Gervais?

  I'm sorry, Carl. Yeah. It was a, um, it was amazing what he did. He ran the Pony Express like almost without stopping, like back-to-back, you know, days like, it was incredible. So that's when I first really got exposed to the Red Bull project of what it takes for you guys to do what you do. So a friend of mine held me accountable. And I said, yeah, okay. At one point I was like, yeah, yeah. I could, I think I could imagine myself doing that. And for two, three years in a row, when the season would arrive, he's like, so are you going to train for it?

• 39:09Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 39:10Michael Gervais?

  Ah, maybe next time, you know? And finally it's like, enough of your bullshit. And so we were training and, um, I blew it on nutrition, dude. I took everything so seriously. And I want to get to the whoop story, but I didn't, I never did anything like this. And I got my nutrition wrong. So on mile 23 of 31, I was hallucinating. And it also happened to be that I was doing 3.1 miles an hour into a 3.1 mile current. So standing still for 47 minutes, hallucinating, mild hallucinations.

• 39:47Rich Roll?

  Just under, under fueled?

• 39:49Michael Gervais?

  Yeah. I mean, overtaxed, under fueled. I came out, classic rookie mistake. I came out too fast. And everyone told me, Mike, take your time, come out slow. And I, and I thought I was. But I didn't really have this, the awareness and sophistication. I didn't have someone coaching me, you know, from a distance to do, like, slow down.

• 40:10Rich Roll?

  That just comes with experience, though. I mean, it being your first, you, you bit off something big for your first time out.

• 40:16Michael Gervais?

  Yeah. And this is the fun part about the whoop. I'll go in reverse order. I met myself in a new way at mile 23. And I needed it. You know, I, I felt disconnected to nature. So I called this thing called, I called the project, Project Reconnect. And what I learned two folds was like, what isolation and loneliness means. Because I was there. I felt a sense of abandonment that I was like, I don't know why, but abandonment came up for me, which was a really cool way for me to get to some truths for me. And then the second thing is that I realized that I am nature. We are nature. So nature is

• 41:00Michael Gervais?

  not the ocean that I would go get connected to. You and I are the same kind of stuff. And so it was a recalibration that I didn't need to reconnect to nature. I need to reconnect to my nature. And we are nature. It's not the mountains and the oceans and the grass. Our humanity is nature. And it's complicated. It's beautiful. So that was kind of what happened. It was transformative, say the least for me. And then, but whoop, back to whoop. So, uh, one of the, Peter Park was a man who was helping me get right, get fit. And he's amazing. I don't know if you know Peter, but-

• 41:38Rich Roll?

  I know who he is. I've never met him.

• 41:40Michael Gervais?

  Yeah. And so, amazing human. You guys would love the conversations that you guys would have. But anyways, so he was helping me get right. And he goes, listen, make a promise when you wake up in the morning. It was like a 4:30 wake up call. He says, don't check your whoop. Who gives a shit?

• 41:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 41:55Michael Gervais?

  You're going, right? I was like, yeah. So I'm going. So, um, long story, made a little bit longer here is that I wake up in the morning and we had to move up our launch date. It was just a strike mission. It was just me going with a boat in case I got in trouble, a trail boat. And, um, and so, uh, oh, so we had to move up the date a week early. And so I had, I had five days of travel in, um, like seven different hotel rooms. And I was like, okay, give me a two day breather and I'll-

• 42:31Rich Roll?

  No, gotta go now.

• 42:33Michael Gervais?

  So, so I woke up and you know what my whoop score was?

• 42:36Rich Roll?

  I don't know. 13.

• 42:39Michael Gervais?

  Yep.

• 42:39Rich Roll?

  Was it? It was 13? Oh, man. I've had those days.

• 42:43Michael Gervais?

  I'm gonna show you. I'm gonna pull it up and show you.

• 42:44Rich Roll?

  You wake up and you're just like, today's not my day. But it becomes a predictor of behavior. So it's dangerous in that regard.

• 42:51Michael Gervais?

  So I didn't look though.

• 42:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah, good.

• 42:53Michael Gervais?

  I made the commitment. And so that had something to do with bonking.

• 42:58Michael Gervais?

  Like I was on fumes. And you know, it also reminds me of, and I think you know this probably better than I do, is that we are made of so much. We are capable of so much. And so, um, there's so much more inside of us. And so it was a reminder of that.

• 43:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah. That's great. I love that. I mean, I think that there's, it's beautifully told. Um, and I'm glad you had that experience. I think there's something- Very unique about the endurance pursuit that stands distinct from the acute challenges of some of the athletes that you work with, where it's about these like microscopic moments.

• 43:35Michael Gervais?

  Yeah.

• 43:36Rich Roll?

  And that kind of, you know, and dealing with like fear, you have, you know, guys jumping out of planes at 25,000 feet and the kind of stuff that that you're more familiar with, but.

• 43:46Michael Gervais?

  Wait, without a parachute?

• 43:47Rich Roll?

  Right, without a parachute.

• 43:48Michael Gervais?

  Into a 16 story net that he built. Did you have Luke on the show?

• 43:52Rich Roll?

  No, I would love to. I would love to.

• 43:55Michael Gervais?

  You guys would have a great conversation.

• 43:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I'd love to talk to that guy. Insane. For people that don't know, Michael worked with Luke Akins, who jumped out of a plane at 25,000 feet without a parachute and landed in a net. This is the most bananas thing ever.

• 44:07Michael Gervais?

  Size of a two car, four car garage.

• 44:09Rich Roll?

  You know, like. He's working with, with David Blaine right now. Are you involved in the Ascension project?

• 44:17Michael Gervais?

  I'm not, no.

• 44:18Rich Roll?

  When I saw David do his little trailer, I immediately thought of you and wondered whether you were involved, because I know Luke is.

• 44:25Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, Luke, that's a, that's a pretty, Luke's is more dangerous, I think, by far, but what David Blaine's doing is real.

• 44:33Rich Roll?

  So it was supposed to be like today, I think, but weather pushed it off. So basically what he's doing, for those that don't know, and he will have done it by the time this airs, but he wants to just strap himself to a whole bunch of balloons and float up into the air like a little kid.

• 44:47Michael Gervais?

  Yeah.

• 44:48Rich Roll?

  You know, and he, and he has a parachute up in the balloons, but he's not going to put it on until he's out of sight because he wants that visual. And then his, his idea is to go up to the elevation of Everest. He wants to get above 25,000, hopefully up to 29, and then parachute down.

• 45:06Michael Gervais?

  It's crazy. It's awesome.

• 45:08Rich Roll?

  What's so amazing and unique about that guy is that he pairs his magic skills with these true feats of athletic endurance.

• 45:18Michael Gervais?

  That's right.

• 45:18Rich Roll?

  The breathing and the cold and all the stuff that he does that makes him very special.

• 45:22Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 45:24Rich Roll?

  But back to the endurance thing. I mean, I think what I've learned and what it sounds like you got a taste of is, is that. Unique experience of self-connection that occurs when you're beyond depleted and stripped of all of your natural defenses and all the layers that prevent you from being that connected to who you are and the environment. And there's like a percolation of self-awareness and self-understanding that occurs. And then it translates into doing these things that you didn't think you were capable of. And so you become more connected to your potential,

• 46:03Rich Roll?

  like the ceiling on what you become, what you believe is possible, gets raised.

• 46:10Michael Gervais?

  That's exactly it. And you were asking earlier, like, how do people actually get to step one? Maybe the step is to sign up for something with you, because you're going to push them into the, like, you know, into that thin-hurt space, you know? And I don't know if you're doing that much anymore with the current conditions or at all. But if somebody could pair up with you for a little bit, I mean, you'll take them there.

• 46:34Rich Roll?

  I could take them there.

• 46:36Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, you'll take them there. And what a guide you'd be, really, you know? And so that's one way to do it, for sure. And I also think that we don't have to do extreme anything to get to the extreme awareness. You can do it on a pillow. You can do it in a conversation with someone that is wise. And you can do it by yourself in a journal.

• 46:57Rich Roll?

  It's harder that way.

• 46:58Michael Gervais?

  It's harder.

• 46:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Or you could take ayahuasca, I suppose, which some people do.

• 47:03Michael Gervais?

  Yeah.

• 47:04Rich Roll?

  We all have our ways of getting there, I guess.

• 47:07Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 47:08Rich Roll?

  But yeah, but endurance, ultra-endurance has been this amazing teacher in my life. And I don't necessarily feel like I have that much more that I feel like I need to prove to myself in that regard. But the lessons that I've learned from that inform everything that I do.

• 47:25Michael Gervais?

  There you go. And, you know, I think that, right now, the lessons that we need to learn are incredible right now. Like, what are we doing with politics? You know, what are we doing with COVID? And what are we doing with, I mean, the perfect storm here between racial justice, Mother Nature? Like, let me speak on Mother Nature for just a minute, one more minute, is that I bought this, I'm... Disappointed, it's too strong of a word, but man, I bought this sinker, this hook is a better way to think about it, early when COVID was first announced.

• 48:06Michael Gervais?

  And it was like, okay, isolation, lockdown, war, you know, frontlines, home front. And then I said, wait a minute, those are all jailhouse terms. Those are all like war-based frameworks that were trying to do something against Mother Nature.

• 48:29Michael Gervais?

  So it's wrong. Our tactic, our approach is fundamentally dislocated from how Mother Nature and we are Mother Nature are working together. And so I think that if we could take a pause, and this is not practical, but as an, at an individual level, right, to take a pause and say, what is my relationship with nature? And not to get too woo woo about anything, but this is Mother Nature speaking to us. This is our planet saying, hey, I got something that I'm gonna spin at you here. And what is your relationship gonna be with it? And all that being said is like, I've bubbled up big time. You know, like I've, for part of my job responsibilities and to honor the people

• 49:14Michael Gervais?

  that I work with, like in a really significant way. So, but I just wanna pause and say, let's get back to maybe some first principles about nature and how we're relating to our nature and the nature around us.

• 49:28Rich Roll?

  There's a lot to be mined in that. I mean, similar to you, I've been essentially locked down, but I've spent a lot of time thinking about that, you know, not just the efficacy of our national strategy or global strategy, but how to behave on a personal level. Like there's, there's our macro relationship with nature and then our interpersonal relation, each one of our individual relationship with nature. On a macro level, nature is telling us, look, your, your systems are broken. Your relationship with the animal kingdom is what created this. So I'm gonna throw you a curve ball because you need to take a look at this. We're not really taking a look at it. On an individual level, there's very little talk about ensuring that our.

• 50:15Rich Roll?

  Individual immune systems are intact and part of buttressing our immune system is being in contact with a diversity of environments and other people. But now we're being told we have to remove ourselves from other people. And I understand that like, and I'm doing that and I'm wearing masks and being a good citizen and all of that. But what is really going on here? And now we're in this situation where we've bungled and mishandled this to such a vast degree that there's no end in sight for this current protocol. Short of a vaccine being developed, we're just going to continue to accumulate 1,000 cases a day or whatever it is. We're not going to reach herd immunity in this way.

• 51:00Rich Roll?

  We're, we're kind of, either we completely lock down or we completely open up, but we're in this liminal space where we're not really achieving anything except prolonging the length at which we have to delay everything else in our lives.

• 51:13Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, it's, you and I are going to be fine and we're going to figure it out because we have agency back to kind of point number one. And we are using as best we can our community and our information from science and our history and being alive to want to do right, you know, for self and others. And those that have some underlying conditions, some real anxiety, some victimization, some, some depression, like, holy shit. Like, really, you can't go out of your house right now, you know, without being scared. Or there's a belligerence that you hide behind, like, I'm not doing this, you know?

• 51:58Michael Gervais?

  But that's an over course, over correction to, for many people at least, for.

• 52:05Michael Gervais?

  A trigger point or a tripwire for what it feels like to be told what to do. And so I'm, yeah, it's brutal.

• 52:13Rich Roll?

  Well, it's a witch's brew. It's not just the pandemic. It's our political environment. It is economic insecurity that's driving, you know, fear, division, vitriol, loneliness, separation. There's a giant swath of this country who feels unheard. They feel like they lack agency in their lives. And now there, we're in a situation that's so acute that it's a tripwire. So we're seeing these flare ups, you know, and then they end up in these videos that get shared on social media that is only exacerbating this vicious cycle of, of acrimony that is denigrating the, the kind of cohesiveness of the American experiment in general. It's crazy.

• 52:58Rich Roll?

  I've never seen anything like this. Meanwhile, you know, we have these, um, uh, you know, social protests over police brutality and racial injustices. And all of those are, you know, to some degree, appropriate responses to, you know, a system that has perpetrated harm and, um, and lack of justice for so many people in this country. And all of that taken together has created this moment that is very strange. And it's for, for myself, it's like, there's an uncertainty, like, how do I engage with the world right now? And I find myself at times, like, should I say this?

• 53:41Rich Roll?

  Or if I say this, then that person's, you know, like, the people are like afraid to speak, they're afraid to act. We don't know what the ground rules are here, and it's unprecedented in certain ways.

• 53:56Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, I think I, I know, I struggle with that same thing, like this, this bit of a dance, if you will, because, um,

• 54:05Michael Gervais?

  But here's how I sort it out. And the dance is like, how can I say this or that? Right? And speak my truth and also not alienate people that I might make a mistake in what I'm trying to sort out, because I'm a learner. I'm trying to figure this out with everyone else. And I've got to get back to first principles is what I do. So what are my first principles that matter most to me? And I've got, and my first principles might not be your first principles, but if we can get back to first principles, those kind of guiding principles that shape in the most aspirational way, your thoughts, your words and your actions. And if we can take a moment to reexamine those. And when I do that, I am so clear for me.

• 54:50Michael Gervais?

  And this, I'm going to say something that's charging and electric. I'm not voting for somebody that doesn't care about humanity. And when I say that, I know that people are saying, well, what do you mean? He, of course, Donald Trump, you know, is about humanity. I can't see it. So I'm not voting that way. There's no chance that I'm voting that way. You know, if I had a daughter, which I don't, I'd feel awful. And I might be offending you in the way that, because I don't know your vote and it's okay if you don't want to share. You're not offending me. Yeah, I don't know, I don't know where you're positioned. I'm with you on that. And so I've got to get back to first principles for me. And what happens for many people is they go, let's say that there's somebody at our table that goes, well, I got first principles too.

• 55:33Michael Gervais?

  And my first principles line up with supporting Donald Trump for president. And so now where we find ourselves in a problem is because they're so foundational and fundamental that we feel like we've got to protect them, those first principles. And so now we're in a vicious protection, aggressive, you know, it feels like it's a survival mechanism and a war that's taking place on first principles. And that's where we are right now. And so, so for me, another first principle is to create space, to talk and to dialogue and to be curious. And at the same time, have an eye and a lens on humanity. If we don't have that, I'm really not interested in being in the conversation.

• 56:18Michael Gervais?

  And so I'm finding myself, removing myself from many layers of conversations with people. Because I know that their first principle is so orthogonal. And there's not an interest in anything other than defending first principle, as opposed to exploring. I'm okay to be wrong. I'll tell you, my ego is no longer involved in what I do. And if my first principles and the way I'm acting on them are in error, which they will be at some points in my life. Cool, call me out. I want to be, I want to get better. But a first principle for me, sorry to get on the soapbox with you, but humanity. It's a first principle.

• 56:54Rich Roll?

  Humanity, empathy, listening, conversation, nuance, appreciation.

• 57:02Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, not narcissism. I know what that is as a trained psychologist, and I'm not diagnosing anybody. But you know what? When you can't see another person and really separate that another person is different than your identity. Think about that for a minute. That's what narcissism is. The inability to know the difference that you are your own individual person and not merely a reflection of me. That is a disordered way of engaging socially. And so what happens when people can't see that you have your own life and your own experience? That you're merely a reflection of me? And if you're, right now, you're wearing a striped shirt? And I don't like striped shirts?

• 57:44Michael Gervais?

  I'm gonna be cunning and sophisticated and making you feel absolutely horrible about how dare you wear, how stupid are you? Why would you wear a striped shirt? Like, please, striped shirts? What is wrong with you? And now to the point where at some point, you're like, oh, maybe I should, maybe I should change. But I've just berated you.

• 58:03Rich Roll?

  Cause I got the F O P O.

• 58:05Michael Gervais?

  But I've just berated you as opposed to like going to saying, hey, that's really curious. Stripe shirts, what's up with that? So, I don't know.

• 58:14Rich Roll?

  Crazy times, man.

• 58:14Michael Gervais?

  Got me going.

• 58:15Rich Roll?

  No, I like it. I appreciate that.

• 58:17Michael Gervais?

  Yeah.

• 58:18Rich Roll?

  You fired up a little bit.

• 58:19Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, I mean, I think that us, us folks that care about humanity and the planet need to vote in an aggressive way and come out, you know, make, get the, get the mailing thing right, whatever, whatever you're capable of doing in North America right now. Man, be bold.

• 58:37Rich Roll?

  I appreciated your co collaborator Pete Carroll's words the other day.

• 58:43Michael Gervais?

  How about it?

• 58:43Rich Roll?

  On social justice.

• 58:44Michael Gervais?

  How about it? I mean, he, he's been about this for a long time.

• 58:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 58:48Michael Gervais?

  You know, and so which part of his message?

• 58:51Rich Roll?

  Just, just the speech that he gave in general about like, look, man, we, you know, this is, this is real and we gotta deal with this. Like it, it feels on some, on some level, it's like, of course, but when you contextualize that within the, the culture of, of the NFL and how they've conducted themselves, you know, over the course of this, you know, crisis that we've endured, it feels bolder than it should.

• 59:18Michael Gervais?

  Yeah. You know, it's complicated and I'm so mindful that I've got, I've had incredible privilege in my life and not from an economic standpoint, I didn't, I wasn't born with a silver spoon, but the privilege and the advantage that I've had is a gift that I didn't even ask for, but I got it. And so the first time I heard white privilege, I was like, get out of here. You don't know where I came from. Like no one from my family came, I had a college education, you know, I had, we had a well on a farm that we came from. We didn't have, our pipes were kind of busted up, but we, you know, we had to

• 59:59Michael Gervais?

  figure stuff out as a kid, you know? I still had nice things, you know, I didn't go without. And I was like, get out of here. Like no chance that I come from a privileged, what you think is privileged. And then this was like four or five years ago, when that word was first introduced to me. And the gift that I've received from some of the players at the Seattle Seahawks and the rich conversations we'd have on the bus in between, you know, practice and on road trips, in between practice and games or whatever. And when they broke it down to, you have an advantage. Strip that word away, privilege. You have an advantage. You call the cops if something's wrong with your home, right? Yeah. Not us.

• 1:00:42Michael Gervais?

  You know, go fill in the blanks. Keep going right down the list. And so I go, oh, I had an advantage. Yeah, I see that. And I want to be careful because I've had lots of advantages, but it can also sound like I'm starting to get egotistical in some of the things, you know, but the basic advantage of just being born into a system that values white and being Caucasian, that's something to pay attention to.

• 1:01:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, I just love that Coach Carroll addressed it directly.

• 1:01:16Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, he did.

• 1:01:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:18Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, I think that he's a humanist, period. You know, he's studied humanistic psychology. He did one of his degrees, his master's degree, studied one of the humanistic psychologists and how it impacts.

• 1:01:33Rich Roll?

  I didn't know that.

• 1:01:34Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, so he's a humanist as well.

• 1:01:36Rich Roll?

  How are the Seahawks doing?

• 1:01:37Michael Gervais?

  Well, we don't know yet.

• 1:01:39Rich Roll?

  You're going up to the bubble soon.

• 1:01:41Michael Gervais?

  Well, you know, the bubble's pretty intense and we got to figure out what the right rhythms are. And so one of the reasons I've been bubbled up is to make sure that I'm doing the right thing, if ever, you know, that. But it's a dislocating experience for me this year. And so typically I travel from LA to Seattle every week for two, three, four times or days a week. But to do that this year is irresponsible.

• 1:02:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:06Michael Gervais?

  You know, and so, yeah, so the season's about ready to fire up. Preseason's happening here in a bit and I'm not sure at the time of the recording where we'll be, but what a massive experiment.

• 1:02:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:19Michael Gervais?

  You know, that's taking place right now.

• 1:02:21Rich Roll?

  What's your perspective on how the NBA has handled it?

• 1:02:25Michael Gervais?

  Meaning a full-on bubble up?

• 1:02:27Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:02:28Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, I think that at the time, I would say I'd make that same decision. You know, and I'd probably still stay the course. You know, there's great consequences to this. Consequences to family, consequences to earnings for the league. It feels responsible. So there's, there's, there's pro-cons to both. But I'd feel safer in that environment than some of the other environments that I see taking place.

• 1:02:57Rich Roll?

  I was watching Matice Tybalt's vlogs on YouTube. Did you check those out?

• 1:03:03Michael Gervais?

  No, I didn't, but I heard.

• 1:03:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it was great. You know, you're like, you just get this flavor of what the day-to-day like mundanity is. And all the protocols that are in place and how they really, it really is a bubble. Like, they're just in their hotel rooms and, you know, getting tested and going to practice and living completely isolated, you know, in this weird experiment.

• 1:03:25Michael Gervais?

  And this is, in many respects, is a, there's something really important for all of us to say, what is the purpose of sport in society?

• 1:03:35Michael Gervais?

  Is it a luxury? Is it a requirement? How does it fit? Why are we so interested in making this? Is it a business? Like, where does sport in modern day fit in our narrative? You know, because I can see parents making what I would consider risky decisions, putting their kids back into sport, unmasked with lots of other kids running around. And I'm talking about like 13, 14-year-olds, which is not the, you know, they're super-spreaders in many respects. So I'm not doing that with, you know, in my family. But so where does sport sit? And I think it's-

• 1:04:13Rich Roll?

  It's a great question.

• 1:04:14Michael Gervais?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:15Rich Roll?

  I mean, how do you answer that for yourself?

• 1:04:17Michael Gervais?

  Well, I think it's entertainment first. I think that fitness and health is different, you know, as a, as a, as a component. But it's, at this point, modern sport is entertainment. That's actually how they're classified, their paychecks are classified. And so it's a way of living for people. It's their life, it's their passion. But from a social standpoint, it's entertainment.

• 1:04:40Rich Roll?

  And that entertainment is a business. I mean, is it not business concerns that are driving this push to get it rolling?

• 1:04:47Michael Gervais?

  Oh, for sure. So like, yeah, for sure. And I think also, when you, when you, when you look at the kind of the, the picture of any league right now, there's definitely business drivers. And when you think about the importance of business across our country and these pockets, it's really important to many. You know, it's opening a lot of doors in communities. And then when you drill down to next level, coaches, you know, what happens to a coach? If there's no, yeah. What happens to the athlete's paycheck? You know, that's what happens to the, you know, the equipment folks and the ticket folks. And so it's a, it's a larger issue about health. And if they can get it right from a protective standpoint, okay.

• 1:05:32Michael Gervais?

  You know, but there's the, I think sometimes we forget just how, just because they're on TV and they're highly skilled, they deal with the same exact stuff you and I do, maybe even amplified.

• 1:05:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:46Michael Gervais?

  They're, they're no different than the two of us.

• 1:06:00Rich Roll?

  How are your Olympic athletes that you work with, dealing with everything that's happening right now? I mean, I just can't fathom having that dream pulled out from underneath me. When your whole life is oriented towards working, towards that specific moment, and then it becomes unavailable.

• 1:06:21Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, it's happening in college right now, too.

• 1:06:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah, college football.

• 1:06:25Michael Gervais?

  College, like Stanford volleyball. You know, imagine being one of the best in the world going into Stanford and now the programs, you know, shut down like what?

• 1:06:34Rich Roll?

  It's unbelievable. I mean, Stanford volleyball is like, the fact that it's crazy.

• 1:06:39Michael Gervais?

  Tightened.

• 1:06:39Rich Roll?

  Dominant.

• 1:06:40Michael Gervais?

  Dominant, you know? And so it's happening at the Olympic level, the pro level, it's happening at the college level and even in high school for sure. You know, senior year, the hot recruit, and now this kind of hodgepodge thing that's taken across the country. So that's, but here's, here's two examples that's happening at the Olympics. So go back up to your question. One athlete said, this is awesome, Mike. And this athlete is a absolute, flat-out world leader in the sport, their sport. I'll keep gender and sport out of it. For obvious reasons. This is awesome. I get to repair. I get time. I need time on my side. And this is, this could, I hope it sure, I sure hope it happens.

• 1:07:24Michael Gervais?

  But I think I was probably gonna make the team. Because to make most of the teams in the United States means that you're one of the best in the world. And trials, as you recognize, is oftentimes a higher hurdle than the actual games.

• 1:07:39Rich Roll?

  Correct.

• 1:07:39Michael Gervais?

  And so, I'm pretty sure I was gonna make the team, but, whew, I got some time now.

• 1:07:45Rich Roll?

  Well, it depends on the individual, because for the person who's coming up, who's maybe a little bit on the younger side, the little less experienced side, this definitely plays to their advantage. But for the person who's hanging on, and this is their last dance, one more year.

• 1:08:03Michael Gervais?

  I don't know if I can do it.

• 1:08:05Rich Roll?

  Especially when you're just trying to like, put ramen in the bowl at night, like most of these people, they, you know, there's this myth that they're all supported and have these sponsors, and that's true for only a very few people.

• 1:08:18Michael Gervais?

  Most, this is old data, but I think it's, it's about six years old, that the majority of athletes, or the average for the United States that go into the games, that make it to the games, are $150,000 in debt by the time they show up at the games.

• 1:08:32Rich Roll?

  Crazy.

• 1:08:33Michael Gervais?

  Yeah. And you know what we do? We're celebrating. You know, we're watching on TV, and we're like, feeling so good about America. And that aspirational, all-in beauty that they represent of us, like, they're coming back, and if they don't have a medal, they're, they're, you know.

• 1:08:50Rich Roll?

  Did you see The Way to Gold, that HBO documentary?

• 1:08:54Michael Gervais?

  I haven't seen it yet, but, um, yeah.

• 1:08:56Rich Roll?

  It's all about that.

• 1:08:57Michael Gervais?

  Yep.

• 1:08:58Rich Roll?

  Whether you're atop the podium, or an also-ran, once that sun is set on that event, and you're overnight back to civilian life, that transition is rough. And I'm sure you deal with that a lot, with the athletes that you work with.

• 1:09:15Michael Gervais?

  Transitions are really hard. We're in a, we're in a massive transition right now. You know, all of us are in transitional phase right now. But transitions out of sport, which you well recognize, is really tricky. And so- That being said, there are some frameworks to help through transition. North stars, realigning the North Star, realigning purpose in life is kind of where it starts. And so, right now for all of us, that's, there is a moment right now for all of us to say, "Okay, what's my North Star? What does North Star mean, purpose? What is my purpose?" And so that's a big conversation that I have with folks, touching a touchstone on a regular basis. "Okay, let's go back to purpose."

• 1:10:00Michael Gervais?

  And I've found that most people don't know their purpose. They can't articulate it, because it feels so big. It feels like, well, how do you know your purpose? Aren't those people that have purpose the lucky ones? And they just kind of knew early on? "I don't have purpose. My purpose is for my family." Well, that's purpose now. So if purpose, there's three components to purpose. It's got to matter to you alone, have meaning to you. The second is, it is bigger than you. And the third, it's future oriented. So as you're trying to articulate, what is my purpose in life? It just needs those three factors. And then if that feels too big, you can say, "Well, what is my purpose for this month?" You can thin slice purpose.

• 1:10:45Michael Gervais?

  You can thin slice it all the way down to, "What's my purpose today?" And if you did a bunch of those in a row, you'd probably snap up to larger purpose. And so you can thin slice it. It's not, in that, in that framework, it seems digestible.

• 1:10:58Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm. What's the difference between purpose and vision? Like in Compete to Create, you talk a lot about vision, like you need to have this vision, this, this idea of what you want your life to look like, and you have to put intentional attention on developing that. And that's challenging to me, because I don't know that I've really thought that through very much for myself. We can talk about that later. But how do you distinguish purpose from vision? Are those similar? Are they two different things?

• 1:11:29Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, this is where, like, language is really important. And so, vision is really about when you use your imagination, and you think about what it's like to be you, or it's like, or what the environment that you want to co-create to be. But if we just talk about you for a minute, when you close your eyes and use your imagination, what is the vision that you can create about?

• 1:11:56Michael Gervais?

  Your best, you know, like, what does it look and feel like? And so that's what that is about. What's the vision of your potential? Whatever word we want to use that when I say those words out loud, like your best and potential, it feels so, the language doesn't do it quite right because it seems so trite.

• 1:12:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah, jingoistic.

• 1:12:15Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, that's right. But it really is the mechanism that's underneath. When you close your eyes and create an imagination of what could be, what you would like your future to be, that's what vision is about. Purpose is the why that sits underneath it. Like, what is your life purpose? And the vision, imagination, is what does that look and feel like when that purpose is, is aligned with the man or woman or person you want to be? Does that help? And then underneath of that is like mission, like little missions, like little missions.

• 1:12:49Rich Roll?

  It still feels esoteric, like trying to figure out how to drill that down into, you know, a practical application on a day to day basis.

• 1:12:58Michael Gervais?

  And then let's complicate it because then you got like, what's your philosophy?

• 1:13:02Rich Roll?

  Right? I gotta have a purpose, a vision and a philosophy? Come on, man.

• 1:13:07Michael Gervais?

  You need all of them.

• 1:13:08Rich Roll?

  You know, I got shit to do.

• 1:13:10Michael Gervais?

  That's right. You gotta pay some bills too. You know, like, yes. But so purpose is this thing, like, what am I doing with my time here? Vision is, what does it look like when it's firing on all cylinders? And then philosophy is, what are the guiding principles? You know, is love a guiding principle that is important to you? Is kill or be killed a guiding principle? Is capitalism at all cost? You know, win or go home? Or is it, you know, something on the other side, which is like cooperation? Is it?

• 1:13:47Michael Gervais?

  I'm blanking on like different principles that matter. But so principles, that's your philosophy. Vision is what is it? When you use your imagination, go big, figure it out. Like not the what, but the how.

• 1:14:00Rich Roll?

  And then what about values? Cause that's come up on the podcast a lot, like aligning your actions with your, what is your value system? And are you aligning your actions with that value system?

• 1:14:10Michael Gervais?

  It's cool. That's, those are principles. Values are principles. Values and action are really first principles. Yeah. And so I would not separate those two.

• 1:14:20Rich Roll?

  Seems like a lot of work.

• 1:14:21Michael Gervais?

  Does it?

• 1:14:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:23Michael Gervais?

  Okay, hold on. When you use your imagination and you think about.

• 1:14:28Rich Roll?

  Here you go. You're turning it on me.

• 1:14:29Michael Gervais?

  Want to wait for.

• 1:14:30Rich Roll?

  I know.

• 1:14:30Michael Gervais?

  Want to wait for our podcast?

• 1:14:31Rich Roll?

  Go ahead. No, it's okay. Well, I'll indulge you a little bit.

• 1:14:34Michael Gervais?

  Yeah. So when you use your imagination and you think about what it's like to be you when you're like just at your best, what's that? What's that about? What are the words you use? What are the images that come up?

• 1:14:49Rich Roll?

  Effortless, uh, strong, capable, articulate.

• 1:14:56Michael Gervais?

  Hmm. And then what are you doing to express those characteristics? Like now we're using imagination about what's possible in your life. So it's about you being that way. But then what do you think that is? Is it, um, let's do sport for a minute. Is it like, I don't know, being in the Super Bowl? Is it breaking records? Is it, you know, there's some concreteness now to get into. Is it building a media empire for you? Is it, um, you know, being like absolutely a community minded person? Like when you, when you go there, what is, how does it start to create some texture, some shape?

• 1:15:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I, I think that. And maybe we could talk about this more on your show, but I look at like, let's just take this podcast, for example. So I approach this much like I would approach a race. I trained as a swimmer as a kid. I learned visualization techniques. I learned how to train my body and my mind to prepare for an event. And I carry those tools into everything that I do. So today I show up, I prepare so that I'm ready. I get in the right frame of mind and mindset. I try to make sure I get enough sleep and that I'm nourished and all of those things so that I can show up and be the best version of myself in this

• 1:16:21Rich Roll?

  conversation. The goal being to have the most present, authentic, best version of what this conversation could possibly be. In the same way that when I would get up on the blocks for a swimming race, I've visualized it so much that now it's just a matter of executing, right? It's different in that in a swimming race, there's much more that you have control over. There's fewer variables. I don't know what you're thinking, what you're gonna say.

• 1:16:51Michael Gervais?

  Okay, this is great.

• 1:16:52Rich Roll?

  And I have to just be present and available for whatever is gonna happen and not try to control it. So there's a relinquishing in it. But I don't think about like, oh, I'm gonna build this huge media company, or I wanna influence this many people. Like, I just try to, I'm much more in the moment. I trust and believe that if I repeatedly show up with the best version of who I can possibly be, that those other things kind of take care of themselves.

• 1:17:23Michael Gervais?

  Okay, so, awesome. You've got the frameworks and the process to show up and be your very best. You know that flat out. You know how to do that.

• 1:17:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I've been doing that my whole life.

• 1:17:38Michael Gervais?

  That's right. So that's baked. And that's where you just went in this conversation. So then, if you and I were kind of drilling down, which we can do later, this'll be fun. But if we're drilling down, I'd say, okay, so you know what? Here's a vision that somebody said, let's get the best racers in the world together. Swimmers and let's see who actually excels. Let's see who can actually peak and prime and bring it amongst the best. That's a vision. And then, then if that person, if that person was you, you were creating that vision for swimming. Okay. And then I would double click about the vision for you and say, what, what is it like for you? When you're building towards that vision?

• 1:18:22Michael Gervais?

  And you're like, oh, I want to be free. What were the words used? There's an effortlessness to the way that I would work. And so that's starting to shape a vision. Okay. Then I would say, well, what's the purpose of this? Why do this? Why, why create this vision for your life? What you, what it is that you're creating, but who, the man that you want to become through this exercise? What's the purpose? And then you have to answer that.

• 1:18:46Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:18:47Michael Gervais?

  And then I'd say, you could use values, but I'd say, what are your, what are your guiding principles? Because you're going to have to make lots of choices. And then when you're making those choices, you know, to be a savage in business or to be a collaborator, whatever, being orthogonal, you got to make these micro decisions. The better you know, your principles, the easier you can line up your thoughts, words and actions.

• 1:19:07Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:19:07Michael Gervais?

  And then you'll be your best. So I'll do this with you, just super practical. My purpose is to help people live in the present moment more often. That's it. That's my purpose in life is to help people live in this moment more often. And what I know is that to do that, we have to condition and train our minds.

• 1:19:30Rich Roll?

  It's very specific. I love that. I would have thought you would have said something like, I want to, I want to help people achieve their potential. Or I want people to, I want to help people, you know, unlock their most authentic self or their best self.

• 1:19:44Michael Gervais?

  I think that's cool.

• 1:19:45Rich Roll?

  You know, but those are broader.

• 1:19:47Michael Gervais?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:47Rich Roll?

  Less specific.

• 1:19:48Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, for me.

• 1:19:49Rich Roll?

  Because those things occur as a result of being more present in your life.

• 1:19:53Michael Gervais?

  Yeah. Yeah. So what my purpose, and remember, when we go back to the science is that there needs to be three components. It needs a matter to you. I guess I want people to like be their very best, whatever. But you know what? I want to help people understand, because this is the keyhole. Living in the present moment and knowing how to condition and train your mind so that you can be present more often across potentially any condition that you are going to find yourself in. Shit, that's the keyhole for me. That's what gets my hair to stand up because I know what's possible for people when they invest in the inner life. And, and so, so then the next is what's the vision? The vision is a community of people that are flat out

• 1:20:33Michael Gervais?

  flourishing. Right? And so I want to be part of that community. I want to curate that community. That's actually what we have in the finding mastery community right now. And so because they're investing in their mind and training their mind and organizing their inner life. So we're creating a community of flourishing and that becomes this exponential. What happens if you got a bunch of people that are like really thriving in the right way? I don't know yet. My imagination hasn't gone there yet. I wish that I could get there. I don't have that yet. And then I've got first principles that are guiding my choices, guiding my words and my thoughts and my actions. So I can be about it in any moment of test.

• 1:21:13Rich Roll?

  There's a lot of clarity there. How long did it take you to arrive at this?

• 1:21:17Michael Gervais?

  Oh, I've been chipping away, chipping away, chipping away. My mentor, was it really about, Mike? What are you really doing? Chipping away, chipping away. Every time I read, I bounce it up against, am I full of shit? Is this right? You know, like, so it's a work in progress. It's, um, it's part of the ecosystem of my inner life that I'm bouncing up against those. And I'm reserving the right to change it too.

• 1:21:42Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:43Michael Gervais?

  You know, like, but it's been.

• 1:21:45Rich Roll?

  But this is what you take to these corporations when you and Coach Carroll consult, right? You talk about this in the book, right? Working with Microsoft and these companies where you get people to really drill down on, on these things for themselves.

• 1:21:58Michael Gervais?

  Yeah. So we, this is a cool story. This is, I'm, I'm able to talk about this, is that it's in page four, five, six of Satya Nadella's book. Hit refresh. And so Satya is the CEO of Microsoft. So we're doing a bunch, I was doing a bunch of work with Satya and his executive leadership team.

• 1:22:19Michael Gervais?

  And it's an eight hour training and subsequently we've trained about thirty to forty thousand people across their organization at eight hours a person on how to train their mind. Think about that investment. Oh my goodness, that's a real investment. So we, that's why we built this online course and the book is meant to be a tandem to it, but that's why we built this online course and that's the real mechanism, I think, to help align my purpose is it's an eight hour training to show you how to condition your mind in the practices and a community of people that are doing it together. So we got to the place where we talked about philosophy and Satya had a moment and he's,

• 1:22:58Michael Gervais?

  I don't know, maybe six months into the job and he, seventeen, fifteen or so direct reports, one hundred and eighty thousand employees roll up to these fifteen, sixteen people. Multi-billion dollar corporation and he pauses, he checks the room and he says, "Our mission is real and it's big and we're trying to do something amazing. And so what I want to do is I want to know you. I want you to know each other. I want you to know me. And so let's spend whatever amount of time we need right here to get our philosophies, our true philosophies in line and then share them with each other."

• 1:23:41Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:23:42Michael Gervais?

  Amazing moment.

• 1:23:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's pretty cool.

• 1:23:44Michael Gervais?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:45Rich Roll?

  Running a massive organization like Coach Carroll running the Seahawks, right? Like creating a culture of openness and transparency where if you can get everybody on the same page and aligned, then you become unstoppable.

• 1:24:00Michael Gervais?

  And what we found is like a thirty, thirty, thirty. So thirty percent in a, so culture, what is culture? It's, it's a pin, it's a word for, it's an emblem for the relationships.

• 1:24:15Michael Gervais?

  So relationships are the artifact of whatever the culture is. And so if you can create a container, a space for people to have great relationships, and you got a really clear North Star, you got something. And so it's a 30, 30, 30. 30% of the folks in your organization or your family are going to be all about the first principles and the mission, you know, and the purpose. They're like, yeah, this is, I love this place. 30% are going to be like, what are we doing? Right? Like, this is just my job, man. Let me go back to work. I don't do this. You are full of BS. Like, what are you talking about? Like, relationships, you know? And then there's a middle 30. That middle third is... Swing voters.

• 1:25:00Michael Gervais?

  That's it, man. So work with them, you know, to swing 15, 20% of that up, you got something special. I wrote down this line from, from the book that, that hit me, which is, through relationships we become. And that's another kind of theme that underscores all of this. So explain what that means, because it relates to what you just said. Yeah, I think that it's, we're right on it, is that first, the relationship with yourself, your relationship with others, with Mother Nature. Through those relationships, you become the person that hopefully you are working toward. And if you're not purposeful about it, you'll become something. You'll become someone.

• 1:25:45Michael Gervais?

  And if you become a bit purposeful about it, and you have that, you use your imagination, or you calibrate with your trusted community of mentors, or wise men and women and people, that you say, who am I, who do I want to become? Shit, that's a real question.

• 1:26:05Michael Gervais?

  So through relationships, we reveal, we become the person that we are becoming. And so that's the idea. And then last little fun science note is that Harvard did a really, really cool study. Do you remember the study, the 75 year study?

• 1:26:21Rich Roll?

  Maybe, I don't know.

• 1:26:23Michael Gervais?

  And they did it on fulfillment in life. So they tracked people for 75 years. And then basically, they wanted to understand what goes into living a fulfilled life. Not cool. So they basically, they said, okay, at the end of the study, did you live a fulfilled life 75 years or not? And then they drilled down underneath, what are those practices? And one of those practices, there's two really important findings that I want to share. One is that those that were fulfilled wrestled with the deep questions of life. They didn't solve them, but they wrestled. What is my purpose? What does it mean to be alive in modern times? How do I work with money?

• 1:27:05Michael Gervais?

  What are we doing here? What happens after life? You know, what happens after death, I should say. And so those are like really big, challenging, groggy type questions. Those that wrestled with them, reported to live a more fulfilled life.

• 1:27:19Rich Roll?

  That's counterintuitive, because when I think of the individual that's wrestling with those questions, I picture the tortured soul.

• 1:27:25Michael Gervais?

  Yes, that's the work, though. That is the work required. You know, like, tell me you're not better because you suffer a little bit in your training. And you suffer a little bit in trying to find the right word to hit on your next book or your current book. You know, like, there is a little bit of work and struggle that goes into it.

• 1:27:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:46Michael Gervais?

  So, yeah, and the second one, the second pillar of that finding was relationships, meaningful relationships, for those who are fulfilled. And it doesn't mean that somebody loves you. It means that you have someone and people to love.

• 1:28:00Rich Roll?

  Do you think that that individual who's wrestling with these fundamental questions about what it, you know, what life is and what it means, is that teachable or trainable? Or are people just, some people hardwired to be, you know, prone to that kind of thought process?

• 1:28:19Michael Gervais?

  Well, I think if, let's be uber practical. If your, if your thought processes throughout the day are How am I going to eat tonight? How am I going to feed my kids?

• 1:28:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah, the larger questions are indulgence.

• 1:28:31Michael Gervais?

  That's right.

• 1:28:32Rich Roll?

  Indulgences.

• 1:28:33Michael Gervais?

  So, once you get that kind of basic stuff,

• 1:28:38Michael Gervais?

  as well secured as you can, it doesn't mean that this is only for the independently wealthy that don't need to think about mortgage. That's not me. So, you know, once you get kind of some basic frames of stability and security for safety and shelter and food and that stuff, you provided the luxury to say, okay, what are we doing here? Because I'm working my ass off, you know, and I'm trying to figure it out. What am I trying to figure out? And I think it's a really important question to explore. And so that's, that's the nature of it.

• 1:29:10Rich Roll?

  So with this

• 1:29:14Rich Roll?

  purpose of trying to get people more rooted in the present moment, on the front lines of this battle are these devices, which are scientifically devised to maximize distraction, to addict us, to take us out of the moment. Like, I feel like that's where we need to put our intentional attention right now if we're going to win the war of being present.

• 1:29:43Michael Gervais?

  Yes.

• 1:29:44Rich Roll?

  So, talk about that a little bit. I mean, you open the book talking about that a little bit and the work that Tristan Harris is doing, which I think is super important. And I think this is a really big deal. I don't think anyone would disagree with that.

• 1:29:57Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, I think so. And I don't want to knock technology at the same level. It's easy for us to kind of take potshots at technology.

• 1:30:05Michael Gervais?

  I'm not suggesting that's where you're going, but I just want to kind of say that because I'm about to get.

• 1:30:08Rich Roll?

  Because you work with Microsoft.

• 1:30:13Michael Gervais?

  Ashok. Yeah, Ashok, no. No, but I think that it's doing, it's changing our world and it's helping us reimagine potential. And I just want to hit a quick note is that when I grew up surfing, we had to wait a month or two months before the magazine would come out with the new skills that the greats were doing. And so iteration would happen around that month, you know? Like, the young Grams would see it and be like, oh. That, look at that, you know, like that's what the pioneers are doing. That's what the high performers are doing. And so, human potential would progress at the rate of creativity, which is that, that it's not. Creativity, innovation is rare. It, it, it really is.

• 1:30:57Michael Gervais?

  But when you can see somebody else be creative or innovate, and then it speeds up that thing.

• 1:31:01Rich Roll?

  Right, the acceleration of information dissemination is related directly to the rate at which creative expression and innovation can occur.

• 1:31:11Michael Gervais?

  Amen. Yeah. Look at your linear logical lawyer brain.

• 1:31:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:15Michael Gervais?

  Making sense of everything. Good. Yes.

• 1:31:18Rich Roll?

  No, I remember that. I mean, for me, it was Swimming World magazine, you know, and I had the stack on my bedstand, and you would just count the days until it was gonna be in the mailbox.

• 1:31:26Michael Gervais?

  That's right.

• 1:31:26Rich Roll?

  And that was the only way of like knowing what was going on.

• 1:31:29Michael Gervais?

  And now, that technology has advanced in such a rapid rate that, you know, we're seeing it daily. We're seeing innovations and creativity and, you know, thin herd, potential pushing stuff happening every day. And so those clips are happening in a way that almost is overwhelming. And so, let's just talk about how our ancient brain works in modern times. So our ancient brain, it really hasn't evolved as fast as technology. Let's be clear about that. And modern technology, they understand the brain and the mind. So the brain is the hardware to oversimplify this beautiful set of three pounds of tissue that sits on our skull. It's the hardware, and we've got some software. Let's call it the mind right now to oversimplify this.

• 1:32:12Michael Gervais?

  They're better at it than most of us. And so, they know how to manipulate the brain to be attracted to their technology. They know how to manipulate the mind to be attracted to their technology. That's their business. And they've got scores of PhDs that know how to create dopamine hits, which if you take a lot of dopamine. It would, it's called cocaine. So they know how to get the brain primed for that good stuff. I say good stuff to somebody, you know, who struggled. I don't know if cocaine was a drug of choice for you or not, but.

• 1:32:47Rich Roll?

  No, I was, I was too, I knew I would like it too much.

• 1:32:51Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, right. Yeah. So, so anyways, they're better at it than we are. And they're certainly better at it than a 14 year old is. And when I say better is that as soon as we have some dopamine and some feel good stuff on our brain, our brain is saying, give me more, give me more. And what's required to that is some braking mechanisms, some self-control, some awareness to pull away from the, the slow drip of dopamine. And that takes some discernment. It takes some skill. It takes some real grit to do that. And it's really hard to do if purpose, back to that, isn't clear. Because it is so immediately affixed, what's a word?

• 1:33:36Michael Gervais?

  Just attractive. It's so immediately feeding and compelling is a good word, that it's a nice, easy trade for that versus anxiety versus purpose. And certainly if purpose is not clear, this invitation to explore a slow drip of dopamine is way better than anxiety, depression, or this muddled up purpose. Or if my purpose feels like it's just to work in this system to make somebody else money, the entrepreneur, the owner, the factory line worker, whatever. So, so, so what do we do? I don't have an answer.

• 1:34:11Rich Roll?

  Well, it becomes incumbent upon us to create healthy boundaries around these things, which takes a lot of work, you know, because it is so alluring. You know, I think from a neurological perspective, what is the long-term impact of constantly enduring these dopamine hits? Like when I was a kid, like a dopamine, you know, I wasn't getting dopamine hits throughout the day. So what happens when you extrapolate that out over a number of, of decades? What does that do to the, the human psyche and the human machine?

• 1:34:42Michael Gervais?

  We find ourselves with the inability to be bored. And that space, boredom is like a negative connotation to space. And boredom means-

• 1:34:54Rich Roll?

  Space is the place of creative spark and inspiration.

• 1:34:58Michael Gervais?

  Awareness, insight, yes. And so it's where imagination, you know, really can flourish. So I've been bored, you know, and it means that I don't really know what to do with myself in this present moment. And I'm struggling to be creative and whatever. So we're, we're finding, I, I think that if you're thinking about your kids for a moment is that there's some cool practices that we can talk about, like, like my son, you know, they, my son's school taught him this is that you don't charge phones and technology. He doesn't have a phone, he's 12, but you don't charge anything in your bedroom. So you charge it out of your bedroom. He takes technology breaks all the time because he kind of, he can recognize the difference between

• 1:35:45Michael Gervais?

  the, the freedom to create in that white boredom space, if you will, and how kind of relaxing and rewarding that is as opposed to like the stimulating on button. He loves that on button too now, so do I, you know, so there's, there's practices to be concerned about. And at the same time, technology's here, it's not going anywhere. So we need, we need to have a relationship with technology too.

• 1:36:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I just watch my daughters and this is, this is the vernacular with which they relate to their peers. Like they have to be fluid in this language in order to fit in and to survive. So it's about where does that tip into unhealthy, unhealthy relationship or a dependent relationship?

• 1:36:30Michael Gervais?

  Well, you know, when you and I were growing up, if we didn't get invited to the party on a Friday or Saturday night, or get invited to go to wherever or go on that surf trip for me,

• 1:36:40Michael Gervais?

  you find out about it kind of later.

• 1:36:42Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:43Michael Gervais?

  Not now.

• 1:36:43Rich Roll?

  No, it's happening in real time on Snapchat.

• 1:36:46Michael Gervais?

  It's like, whoa.

• 1:36:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:47Michael Gervais?

  You know, so-

• 1:36:48Rich Roll?

  It's brutal.

• 1:36:49Michael Gervais?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:50Rich Roll?

  It's really brutal.

• 1:36:53Michael Gervais?

  There's this moment where I realized my philosophy was coming through in parenting when my son was in this small, like he-

• 1:37:00Rich Roll?

  How old is he now?

• 1:37:01Michael Gervais?

  He's 12. And he was not interested in sport at this age, but he wanted to kind of play with his friends and it was a basketball team. And some of the other parents were-

• 1:37:13Michael Gervais?

  Were like really frustrated that these eight year olds were losing. And I turned to the dad and I was like, this is my philosophy coming out. And I was like, no, no, no, this gives him a great chance to figure out losing too.

• 1:37:25Michael Gervais?

  And he looked at me like, you're a loser, Gervais. Like, what do you mean? You want to teach your kids how to lose? I was like, yeah.

• 1:37:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:37:33Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, I want, I want to figure out.

• 1:37:35Rich Roll?

  I don't understand this thing about not keeping score.

• 1:37:41Michael Gervais?

  I do.

• 1:37:41Rich Roll?

  I think it's.

• 1:37:42Michael Gervais?

  You know, you know why we're doing it.

• 1:37:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I understand why we're doing it. But it goes back to what you said earlier about the most interesting people. Some of your favorite people are the people who have like under they've, they've, they've had pain in their life. They've grappled with it, they've wrestled with it and they've undergone change. Like I know some of the most, my favorite people are all people that kind of had hard childhoods. And really had a struggle. And it's made them, you know, really amazing individuals. But how do you square that with your impulse as a parent to protect your child? And, you know, immunize them from any kind of hardship?

• 1:38:21Michael Gervais?

  There's an athlete that I spent a lot of time with. He was MVP a couple of years. I don't think he's not in the Hall of Fame, but MVP a couple of years. And I said, hey, how you doing? I saw him a couple of years after. And I said, how you doing? And he said, great, you know, like transition was awesome. So good. So how's your son? And he says, he's good. So I was like 16. He's good. What do you, what do you mean? He says, you know, I'm like, I gave him everything. I gave him the best shoes, the best coaches. I had him invited to the best camps. He was on the fricking floor, the NBA, kind of ball boy and just around it. He loves basketball. But I can't give him the one thing that I had.

• 1:39:03Rich Roll?

  The drive.

• 1:39:05Michael Gervais?

  And the way he said that was, I had nothing. I can't give him nothing. So he goes, I don't know if I made a mistake, but I didn't have cool shoes. I didn't have right coaches. I was left out of the rich kid club. And you know what it taught me? I had a fucking fight. I had to scrap, drop my hips, figure it out. But when I got on the court, it was on. And I had purpose and I had fill in the blanks of all the stuff we're talking about. And he knew exactly where he wanted to go. He had a vision of what his future could be. And he had this incredibly crisp, every day was a mission to get closer to the, to the purpose and the, the vision. And he goes, I can't give him that.

• 1:39:48Michael Gervais?

  And so, man, that was an attunement moment for me. Like, yeah, I want my son to have a great education. And this, that and the other.

• 1:39:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I mean, that's the, the peril of every, you know, self-made man's success story, right? It's that scrappiness that got him to that place. And then their kids have a totally different experience.

• 1:40:12Michael Gervais?

  Did you ever read the, I think it was called G, generational wealth? G1, G2, G3. So G1 are the scrappers, you know, bold risk, getting after it, you know, big vision type of stuff. I'm talking about generational wealth. G2 kind of hold the line a little bit, but don't really grow it because they're afraid. They were so close to the, the heat of the, the G1.

• 1:40:35Rich Roll?

  You're talking about like the Vanderbilts of the world, right?

• 1:40:38Michael Gervais?

  Yeah. Generation one, generation two, you know, the sons and daughters. And generation three, they kind of squander it. They're like, I'm not close to the fire.

• 1:40:46Rich Roll?

  Happens every time.

• 1:40:47Michael Gervais?

  And I got, I got 30 million in the bank and I'm 14 million, you're 14 years old. Like, what are you, what are we talking about? You know, so, yeah, that's, it's an interesting social study there.

• 1:40:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I don't know how you fix that one.

• 1:41:01Michael Gervais?

  Maybe, maybe what, what's his name? Um, one of the wealthiest people alive.

• 1:41:06Rich Roll?

  Uh, Warren Buffett?

• 1:41:08Michael Gervais?

  Yeah. He's not giving his kids, hasn't given his kids much.

• 1:41:13Michael Gervais?

  Bold.

• 1:41:13Rich Roll?

  Well, that's a weird one, too. When you make that much money and then you're like, well, I'm just gonna give it all away. Like, what is your driving purpose? Like, I don't understand that drive at that level when you're talking about those kind of numbers.

• 1:41:26Michael Gervais?

  There's definitely odd behaviors in there.

• 1:41:28Rich Roll?

  It's not, it's nothing that interests me.

• 1:41:31Michael Gervais?

  I don't know if it's still true, but if the stock market is up, he gets McDonald's every day. Have you heard this urban?

• 1:41:36Rich Roll?

  I have, yeah. I think that's apocryphal. Or he, and he still lives in the same house and that whole kind of thing.

• 1:41:41Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, I don't know. I don't know him and I don't know these, but it's a pretty funny story.

• 1:41:45Rich Roll?

  I know. Well, like, so it's not about money for him, but then he's, it's, it's a mystery box to me. One more thing I wanted to explore with you. You posit the question in Compete to Create, like, is there a single determinant of success, right? So talk to me a little bit about that. What's driving success? And we just talked about scrappiness.

• 1:42:11Michael Gervais?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:11Rich Roll?

  That opens up the door to grit and Angela Duckworth's work and Anders Ericsson's work and all these things that you explore.

• 1:42:21Michael Gervais?

  It's not that simple for me, right? That's the question. Is there a single determinant? And if we had to hang our hat on something, we'd probably say, you're likely not gonna ever kind of reach your full expression of who you are as a person without real work. And so that's where grit hangs here. So grit has three components. This is Angela Duckworth's work. Passion, perseverance for long-term goals. So you could replace, I like to replace long-term goals because they feel so mechanical to like the vision that you hold for yourself. So do you have enough passion day in and day out? And do you have the internal skills?

• 1:43:05Michael Gervais?

  So all of these are internal skills. Do you have the internal skills to roll with the punches, to persevere during the down hard times? And then is the vision clear enough? Because if the vision and the purpose and those, those two words are not crisp and clear enough, the pain will win. When purpose is small, pain will win. When purpose is big, you'll deal with some pain. And that's the perseverance piece of this model. And so we could, what we do in the online courses, we double down. And in the book, we double and triple down and kind of some of the stuff. But to make it simple, there is not one golden thread for determinants of success.

• 1:43:46Michael Gervais?

  But if I was to hang my hat on something, I'd say grit is really important because it's got three main components.

• 1:43:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:54Michael Gervais?

  And so I wish I could find, I'm on a little bit of a pursuit to figure out, is there a golden thread that binds those that explore the reaches of human potential? I haven't found one yet.

• 1:44:04Rich Roll?

  Hmm. Yeah, and grit is teachable.

• 1:44:08Michael Gervais?

  Grit is teachable. Well, each, all three of those.

• 1:44:10Rich Roll?

  That's what you should have told your buddy in the NBA about his son.

• 1:44:13Michael Gervais?

  I know. I know. You know?

• 1:44:17Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:44:17Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, it is. And so.

• 1:44:19Rich Roll?

  I feel like it'd be hard to teach, though.

• 1:44:21Michael Gervais?

  Grit?

• 1:44:22Rich Roll?

  It just feels like certain people have a motor.

• 1:44:27Rich Roll?

  You have, you have a son, like, you know, I've, I've got a bunch of kids, like, they're all different, man, and they all have, their, their motors are calibrated differently. And that had nothing to do with anything Julie or I did.

• 1:44:39Michael Gervais?

  And I think that if, when you think about all three of those, it's so mechanical to say, like, what we did, what's your vision? That's pretty mechanical.

• 1:44:48Michael Gervais?

  Requires some honesty and some imagination and a little accountability to sharpen it up. So that one's interesting, but certainly goals are relatively easy. It's an old conversation about setting goals. Right? And when I ask people, what do you think's harder? When I go into a room and there's a thousand people and we're teaching about, or even a small room with 12 people, you know, it doesn't matter, like, and we're teaching about grit.

• 1:45:13Michael Gervais?

  And I say, what do you think's harder? Passion, living with passion or perseverance, you know, dealing with the hard stuff? What do you think the room does?

• 1:45:23Rich Roll?

  Perseverance feels harder.

• 1:45:25Michael Gervais?

  Yeah. My experience has been, passion is way harder, way harder. You know perseverance, dude. You know it intimately, inside and out. Most people that are successful, they know how to roll with some stuff. They are resilient. Can they get better at it? Probably. You know, that's a skill too. Resiliency is a psychological skill. Any skill we can apply some effort towards, we can get better at it.

• 1:45:52Rich Roll?

  But you can't manufacture passion. I understand training for perseverance, but how do you train to be passionate?

• 1:46:00Michael Gervais?

  See, and I love where you instantly take it because you're an examined, serious person, is that passion.

• 1:46:06Rich Roll?

  I'm gonna take that. I'm an examined, serious person.

• 1:46:09Michael Gervais?

  You are, you are.

• 1:46:10Rich Roll?

  I'm gonna put that on my website.

• 1:46:11Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, you, yeah. You are serious though, right?

• 1:46:15Rich Roll?

  I don't know.

• 1:46:15Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, you're serious. I'm serious, you know? I don't want to be always serious, but anyways. So, passion is, um, there's two things that get in the way of passion. So, consider passion that inner fire.

• 1:46:29Michael Gervais?

  Fatigue?

• 1:46:31Michael Gervais?

  That'll put a heavy blanket on passion. And fear. So anxiety, the chronic looping worry that things are gonna go wrong, and then the mismanagement of your energy system. Not sleeping right, not eating right, you know, not moving right. You know, that fatigue, that chronic stress, the ability to manage chronic stress through breathing patterns, eating patterns, thinking patterns, that is the heavy blanket. That's one of the heavy blankets that sits on the flame of passion. And the other is, um, you know, just worrying, like excessive worry about stuff.

• 1:47:08Rich Roll?

  Passion feels like an unruly, unpredictable energy source that's hard to control and hard to direct.

• 1:47:17Michael Gervais?

  Oh, look at you. You got, it's big in you, isn't it? It's not a little flame for you, huh?

• 1:47:21Rich Roll?

  Well. You hear a lot about passion. You gotta live a passionate life, how to find your passion. It's all about passion, right? And now there's this counter narrative like that you're seeing where you're being told, forget about passion. That's a fool's errand. It's not about passion. That's like, you know, not something you need to be thinking about. And I sort of sit in this space where I don't feel like, I don't understand where passion falls in all of this. I understand drive, I understand vision, I understand purpose, meaning and all of those things. Passion just feels like something that's floating out in the clouds that I can't really wrap my hands around.

• 1:48:01Michael Gervais?

  So if we thought about it this way, if we made it uber concrete, which is, it's just that little fire in your belly to go do the thing, to climb the hill, to wake up and be about it. You know, it's that little fire in the belly. That's the way I think about it. And this idea of where the fool's errand is for passion is that if you just, that passion only comes from the special thing that you need to do.

• 1:48:31Rich Roll?

  It clouds out irrationality. It can, it can compel some bad choices.

• 1:48:36Michael Gervais?

  Yes. It's, yeah, I wasn't gonna go there. Yes, I fully agree with that. And, but the idea is, can you live with passion anywhere you go? Can you have a little fire in your belly in any room that you're in, in any environment that you're in? And that seems pretty daunting, but that's cool. Like for me, I like that. And I'm not saying, go chase your passion. I'm saying be passionate. And so where does that, that hooks around to me to an ancient concept. This is not something that I'm gonna stand on for science. That's the animation of the spirit.

• 1:49:14Michael Gervais?

  That, call it a fire in your belly, but the Trinity is a really cool, beautiful idea of that many, many spiritual frames kind of miss the subtlety about the animation of the spirit, of the aliveness that comes with being human, the animation of that magical world that we don't understand yet. And, but we think that there's probably something there, you know, call it spirituality. So, call it consciousness, call it fill in the blank. So, man, that's what, that's all it is for me. I want to be about it.

• 1:49:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, we all know, we all know that guy or that woman who, when they walk into a room, they just light it up because they, they just exude that in every facet of their life. When I see those people, I like marvel at that because it feels inaccessible, but also I'm jealous. Like, I want more of that in my life. But then, I'm not sure how to cultivate that. I look at it as a God-given disposition that they have, rather than something that they developed with some intentionality.

• 1:50:21Michael Gervais?

  Oh, that's cool. I think there's probably a predisposition to get into that too, but it's definitely something you can cultivate. But the way to cultivate this is to get the heavy blankets off of it. So, it's like addition by subtraction. So, it's, it's taking those heavy blankets. I, I really think that there's a couple of great constrictors of the human experience right now. And one of those is fatigue. And so, examining your recovery mechanisms in a significant way, I'm not speaking to you, Rich, but like the majority.

• 1:50:53Rich Roll?

  No, I, I need this, actually. I understand what you're saying.

• 1:50:56Michael Gervais?

  Yeah. This is one of the great constrictors because chronic stress opens the floodgate for draining fuel, quotes around fuel. But it just drains organisms. And so, if we're not psychologically skilled to deal with the chronic, chronic stress, no different than a dog, you know, when an alarm happens for a dog, there's a threat and they walk away, they, they go to the door, the doorman or the, the mailman's at the door and the dog's barking, whatever. And as soon as that threat goes away, you know what the dog does. They roll their head a little bit, they roll their body and shake their tail. And it's like they have just physically let go.

• 1:51:38Rich Roll?

  They don't hold resentments.

• 1:51:40Michael Gervais?

  We don't do that.

• 1:51:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:42Michael Gervais?

  So, yeah.

• 1:51:44Rich Roll?

  I wish we could.

• 1:51:45Michael Gervais?

  It's the recovery mechanisms that pay dividends.

• 1:51:48Rich Roll?

  All right, we got to wrap this up, but let's close it down with maybe a couple simple tactics or tools that people could use that are feeling overwhelmed. They're feeling the anxiety, they're feeling the fear, they're experiencing the vitriol, they can't put the phone down. Leave us with some pearls.

• 1:52:06Michael Gervais?

  Hmm, if I had pearls, you know, yeah.

• 1:52:08Rich Roll?

  Pearls.

• 1:52:09Michael Gervais?

  I got pearls. Well, I'd say.

• 1:52:10Rich Roll?

  You got plenty of pearl necklace underneath that hoodie.

• 1:52:14Michael Gervais?

  The hoodie, yeah, I'd say this, I'd say, um, order one is, um,

• 1:52:23Michael Gervais?

  investigating your recovery mechanisms. Let's work in reverse order. Take a look at sleep. Take a look at the quality choices you're making around nutrition and make sure your hydration is right. So, these are all restorative type of ideas, you know, like get your heart rate up in an acute way if you don't have an underlying condition, like get your heart rate up where you're stimulating your brain to say, ooh, that's right, we do hard things. And so, I'd say those are some easy frames to talk about, harder to stay current with, current, consistent with. And then I'd also say that mindfulness is a place to begin.

• 1:53:02Michael Gervais?

  And if mindfulness seems too unavailable, it's as simple as setting a timer, following an inhale and then an exhale with all of your might and starting over every time that you notice that you're distracted. And the moment that you notice that you're distracted, just returning back to the inhale or the exhale, wherever you are. Eight minutes is good science, 20 minutes is a little bit more interesting science you get to. The ancients would say, what are you doing, timing this?

• 1:53:33Michael Gervais?

  So, I'd say those are two kind of cool places to start. And I go way upstream to say, start with something, writing down, um, your philosophy, the guiding principles in your life. Maybe start with your purpose. If those feel daunting.

• 1:53:50Michael Gervais?

  Start building relationships when you're talking about stuff that really matters to. And for a long time, people would say to me, Mike, what are the, what are the best tools to invest in? And, and this is kind of with this conversation, but I'd be remiss if I said it's a fundamental organization of your life to be and become the man, woman, or person you want to be. And then the second thing that I missed for most of my professional life is the importance of your intimate relationships outside of the craft, outside of your business that you're doing. I wouldn't be the human I am today without those intimate relations and my wife at, you know,

• 1:54:28Michael Gervais?

  ground zero. So, you know, working on being, giving love and giving away as often as you possibly can. And so it ends up coming back around for the most part.

• 1:54:39Rich Roll?

  Hundred percent.

• 1:54:40Michael Gervais?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:41Rich Roll?

  Give more love.

• 1:54:42Michael Gervais?

  Hmm.

• 1:54:43Rich Roll?

  I like it. Powerful Mike Chervais.

• 1:54:46Michael Gervais?

  Hey, man. I appreciate you.

• 1:54:47Rich Roll?

  You're welcome here anytime. Come back and talk to me some more. I always find it nourishing. It's a pleasure to spend time with you. So, thank you.

• 1:54:55Michael Gervais?

  Thank you.

• 1:54:57Rich Roll?

  If you want to learn more about Michael, check out his podcast, Finding Mastery. It's, uh, it is masterful. Can't recommend it more highly. Compete to Create. Why is it just an audiobook? How come you didn't do a print book? Was it just a deal with Audible? Or?

• 1:55:13Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, it was an Audible original. So, we went in a little bit reverse order. And I like the idea of not burning down trees.

• 1:55:21Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:55:22Michael Gervais?

  But now I'm craving something tangible to hold. So, we're going to get to that, but that's not for about a year away.

• 1:55:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's cool. It's really well done. Pete Carroll pops in from time to time.

• 1:55:33Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, thanks, man.

• 1:55:33Rich Roll?

  To drop some of his pearls. And then I liked how you, you layered in some stuff from your podcast into it, which is what an audiobook should be. It's a, it's a dynamic digital document. So, cool. Anything else coming up? You've got this like online football training thing too, right? 11 on football or some Nike thing you did with Nike football?

• 1:55:53Michael Gervais?

  Oh, yeah. That's, uh, just, you know, people are interested in the mental part of the game at scale right now. And brands across the, the world are really interested in, you know, how do we organize our inner life and train our minds? So, it's just a conversation that's happening.

• 1:56:07Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:56:09Michael Gervais?

  There's a swell happening in the business world right now. There's an absolute swell, not from an anxiety fixing standpoint type of thing, you know, but like, hey, are people our most important part of the company? How do we invest in them? Rather than teaching them how to sell better or market better? How do we help them live better? And so that's, that's the part I'm super excited about.

• 1:56:32Rich Roll?

  Right. Cool, man. All right. Let's do it again.

• 1:56:36Michael Gervais?

  Thanks, brother.

• 1:56:36Rich Roll?

  Peace. Plaids.

• 1:56:42Rich Roll?

  International treasure, that Michael Gervais. Two years is too long in between our conversations. I love that man. I hope you guys got as much out of that experience as I did. I'll be sure to get him back here again soon. Check out his new Audible original, Compete to Create. It's a killer listen. Hit him up on Instagram and Twitter, at Michael Gervais. Let him know what you thought of today's exchange. And as always, check the show notes on the episode page at richroll.com to dive deeper into all things Dr. Michael Gervais. We also have another Roll On AMA coming up soon. Please leave your voicemail at 424-235-4626 with your question. I'm excited to dive into those and figure out which ones we're going to talk about

• 1:57:24Rich Roll?

  and answer on the next edition with Adam Skolnick. If you'd like to support the work we do here on the show, subscribe, rate and comment on it on Apple Podcasts, YouTube and Spotify. Share the show or your favorite episodes with friends or on social media. And you can support us on Patreon at richroll.com/donate. Thank you to everybody who worked very diligently to produce today's show. Jason Camiello for audio engineering, production, show notes and interstitial music. Blake Curtis for manning the camera, creating the video version for YouTube and all the little clips you see on social media. Jessica Miranda for graphics. Ally Rogers for portraits. DK for advertiser relationships and theme music by my boys Tyler Trapper and Harry. Appreciate you guys.

• 1:58:09Rich Roll?

  Love you. See you back here soon with another amazing episode. Until then, be well. Peace. Plaids. Namaste.