Retired Navy SEAL Commander Rich Diviney | Achieving Optimal Performance

In this insightful episode of Get Better Today, retired Navy SEAL commander Rich Diviney discusses the distinctions between peak and optimal performance, underscoring the necessity of adaptability and resilience in challenging situations. Diviney provides an in-depth look into his SEAL training and debunks the myth of perpetual peak performance in athletic and business settings, stressing the importance of responsible energy management.

The conversation also delves into leadership attributes such as courage, perseverance, and humility, and Diviney shares his fascination with the intersection of neuroscience and performance. Additionally, Rich Diviney touches on the concept of multiple identities and their unconscious influence on behavior, explaining how these identities accumulate over time and shape actions. The dialogue emphasizes the need to identify and deconstruct these identities to pursue personal excellence and achieve goals.

Watch on YouTube
https://youtu.be/7t4AO5kaNtc


About Rich Diviney

Rich Diviney is a retired Navy SEAL commander. In a career spanning more than twenty years, he completed more than thirteen overseas deployments—eleven of which were to Iraq and Afghanistan. As the officer in charge of training for a specialized command, Diviney spearheaded the creation of a directorate that fused physical, mental, and emotional disciplines. He led his small team to create the first-ever “Mind Gym” that helped special operators train their brains to perform faster, longer, and better in all environments—especially high-stress ones. Diviney is the founder of The Attributes Inc., which is a specialized consulting firm in leadership and team building.

Connect with Matt Mayberry
https://www.mattmayberryonline.com/

Chapters

• 0:00 Guest Introduction: Rich Diviney
• 1:10 Understanding Optimal Performance
• 6:10 The Journey to Becoming a Navy SEAL
• 8:57 Lessons from SEAL Training
• 19:51 Attributes of Optimal Performance
• 25:01 Leadership Insights and Practices
• 34:20 The Irony of Leadership
• 35:19 Courage, Humility, and Empathy in Leadership
• 37:13 Delegating Responsibility vs. Accountability
• 40:43 Decision Making vs. Decisiveness
• 45:20 The Role of Neuroscience in Optimal Performance
• 50:45 High Performance Protocols
• 54:15 Transitioning to Civilian Life
• 55:03 The Power of Identity
• 1:01:31 Defining Excellence

Transcript

0:00

welcome to another episode of Get Better Today. I'm your host, Matt Mayberry. Today, I am joined by Rich Deviney. Rich draws upon 20 plus years of experience as a Navy SEAL officer, where he completed more than 13 overseas deployments, 11 of which were to Iraq and Afghanistan. Since retirement in early 2017, Rich has worked as a speaker, facilitator, and consultant. And in January of 2021, Rich released his first book, The Attributes, 25 Hidden Drivers of Optimal Performance. Please join me for this conversation with Rich Deviney where we talk about optimal performance. We talk about the attributes that lead to optimal performance. We also talk about what great leadership is, how one can become a great leader and drive more leadership effectiveness. Rich also draws upon his fascination with neuroscience and how he includes it into a lot of his work. Thank you.

Matt: 1:10

I've always been focused on peak performance my entire life, you know, be a peak performer, be a peak performer. But I've read an article where you talked about the difference between peak performance. performance. Can you expand on that thought and really the difference between peak performance and optimal

Rich: 1:29

Yeah, absolutely. And I will say as an athlete, uh, peak performance is actually what you're looking for. Um, the, uh, I think the, the distinction I always make is this idea that, uh, everybody, because athletes, you know, they, they hold a, a pretty high position in all of our, uh, vision. We, we try and, and endeavor to be peak all the time. Peak here, peak there, peak everywhere. Everybody wants to be peak. And, you know, And honestly, even when I was in the, even when I was still in the SEAL teams, people would tell me, well, you Navy SEALs, you're the ultimate peak performers. And I would disagree with that because, because peak by definition is an apex. And there's only one place you can go from an apex and that's down, right? Um, and then, you know, peak also has to be normally often has to be planned for scheduled and, and prepared for. Right. So, so the pro athlete, for example, the pro football player plans and schedules his entire week so that he can peak for three hours on Sunday. Okay. Uh, we don't get to do that in the real world. We don't get to do that in the SEAL teams. Right. And so, so I said, um, really what we are optimal performers. Optimal performance means that I am going to do the very best I can in the Whatever the best looks like in that moment, right? Sometimes our best looks like peak. And everything's flowing, and, uh, you know, everything's clicking, everything's going great, right? Sometimes our best, however, is I am just literally head down, going step by step, just nugging it out. Uh, because that's all I have right now, and it's dirty, and it's gritty, and it's ugly, and it's hard. And that is still performing optimally. And so, so optimal performance allows us to think about a couple things. First of all, it allows us to celebrate those times when we are not at peak, when we're just gutting it out. And I can't tell you how many missions I went on. Um, and afterwards we'd get back and be like, man, that was ugly, right? But we still got the job done. Okay. Um, so it allows us to celebrate those times when we're not peak and we're just gutting it out. Um, but it also allows us to do what I call responsible energy management. In other words, I don't need to be peak when I'm driving to the grocery store. Okay. I can be at some other energy level. In fact, uh, you know, kind of a myth I'll bust about Navy SEALs, because most people may have seen this on. On TV or movies, they might see a group of SEALs getting ready to do a mission, and they all huddle together like some sports team, and they're hoo yawing and high fiving, and that never happens, okay? Never. In fact, most of the time we'd be in our helicopters flying into combat, and the guys would be asleep. The guys around me would be asleep, they'd be napping. And there's a reason for that, it's because we don't know what's coming. We don't know what's going to be required for us. In terms of energy and time. And so we're not going to waste anything by doing stuff we shouldn't do. And so optimal performance allows us to kind of think about performance as this umbrella underneath which peak lives and gutting it out lives and even recovery lives. Right. But you can modulate. And I think every, every true high performing team, and I, I will, we can put athletics on the side there because athletics, you know, you really need to be peak for that, for those moments, right. But every high performing team understands this and modulates their energy because that's how you play the long game.

Matt: 4:26

I absolutely love that. I truly believe that that is one of the biggest misconceptions. I think in the business world, I think that sure, athletes talk a lot about peak performance, but I think you even hear a lot of leaders, you know, you and I do a lot of work. work with executive and leadership teams. And I think, I mean, I don't know about you, but I still hear the word peak performance. I need to become a peak performer. We need to instill more peak performers in our organization. What is maybe an actionable step that, you know, leaders can start doing to start creating and driving more optimal performers?

Rich: 4:54

think, I think the first step is to define the terms properly. I think a lot of, a lot of what I've found, uh, in, in, in the work that I've done, even when I was in the Navy, uh, but certainly, uh, certainly out of the Navy is, is just, it comes down to semantics in some cases, and let's, let's not, let's not define these terms in ways that we think they mean, um, but let's actually define terms in ways they actually are. And so, so just understanding that. Peak performance is absolutely allowed when it comes to optimal performance. You just can't do it all the time, right? So you can understand, and you don't need to do it all the time, right? You know, you can modulate yourself so that can The, the, the truest performers can peak on demand, they can recover on demand, they can gut it out on demand, right? That's really, optimal performance means a, a true level of control. So, so defining that, define the terms, giving people permission to understand. I think in what I, in the work I've done with organizations, just showing them this model allows them to now say, wait a second, it's okay. To be gutting it out right now. That's that, cause I'm still, I'm still moving. And in fact, it also encourages people to gut it out because, you know, if they, if they can't feel like their peak, they're like, well, at least I'm moving. At least I'm doing something and that's all good.

Matt: 6:08

That is absolutely great. Rich, what made you become And want to be a part of the Navy SEALs. You know, is there one particular experience throughout the course of your life that really, you know, made you go down that path? What was really that more of the backstory of Rich Deviney of all the life lessons that you've accumulated throughout your life that led you to that moment to be in

Rich: 6:30

Yeah. Yeah. It's a great question. And I think a lot of people in, in, in today's, uh, in, in modern times would, would think that I saw a movie or, or watched, uh, read a book or something. This was, this was. This was early 90s. No one knew what seals were back then. It was very, there were very few books. I think the only movie out there was like the Navy was Navy seals with Charlie Sheen. And then I think Steven Seagal and under siege was like a former seal. Right? So you see that there was sporadic, but Um, ultimately, you know, I, I grew up wanting to be a Navy pilot. Um, I, I have a twin brother, both of us wanted to kind of focus on Navy and Naval aviation. And so we were kind of bent towards that pathway. It was the, it was the, the first Gulf War. So we're talking, you know, 1990 Gulf War. And I remember, uh, I was in high school and I remember after, after that hundred day war, whatever it was, um, I saw an article in Newsweek magazine, um, article came out and had a picture of a guy's face, just camouflaged and said, America's secret warriors. And so I, I got this and I opened it up and it was a, it was a, uh, probably a, a 10 or 12 page article on all the different Spec Ops units. So you had Green Berets, SEALs, uh, uh, Army Rangers, you know, uh, Air Force, pararescue, things like that. Um, and it, it kind of highlighted, uh, it, it gave a little bit of synopsis on, on most of them. Um, what I noticed it had, it was, it was spattered and smattered with a bunch of pictures, probably 20, 25 pictures of, of, uh, Of special operators in different environments. Like, you know, some in skydiving, some underwater, some in desert, some in, in Arctic warfare, things like that. And I couldn't help, but notice that out of the 25 pictures, like 20 of them were Navy SEALs and they were all just in different environments. And I was like, wait, these are, who are these guys? Like that seems kind of cool. And so, so I caught the bug there. I was able to start reading up a little bit on them. Um, and when I was in college in the ROTC program. I was kind of saying to myself, okay, pilot, seal, pilot, seal. It was, it was still competitive back then because you know, they weren't, you know, they, they, they don't accept a lot of people, but ultimately I, I said to myself, well, I know I could be a pilot, but I don't want to, I don't want to be a pilot and, and look over at those seals and wonder if I could, could have done it. So I said, yeah, let me go that direction. So that's what, that's what drove me. And, and, um, Ended up, you know, getting selected to get to go to training. And then when I got to training, um, made it through, which was great. So, and so started 1996. So started a, a 20, almost 21 year career in the SEAL teams.

Matt: 8:57

And what would you say from a lessons and experience standpoint? What is one thing that you've taken away from becoming a SEAL and throughout your experience during that duration? Is there one or two? I'm sure there's multiple like 10 or 20 that you can really, you know, attribute that to, but is there really one lesson or experience that you've carried with you still to this day?

Rich: 9:16

Yeah. I would say there's, there's probably several, I would say one of the ones that pops into mind, uh, the most viscerally is that, um, As soon as I hit the beaches of buds, which is seal training, basic underwater demolition slash seal training. As soon as I hit the beaches of buds, I immediately felt imposter syndrome. In other words, and I say this in a good way because I've actually, I've throughout my entire life tried to metabolize imposter syndrome in a positive way. And what I mean by that is I immediately saw I was surrounded by people who were better than me and it upped my game. And I said to myself, okay, wait a second. I can. You know, I just need to up my game. And what's interesting about SEAL training is you start, you start a SEAL training class, a BUDS class. And we started with like 160 odd people, 165 people. And you start going through it and people start quitting. You're like, wait a second. You know, so we, right, we started at 165, we graduated 38. And so, so upon graduation, you're sitting there and I know I was sitting there. It's like, Whoa, you know, You know, how am I still like, like, I'm still here. How is that? How can that be? And so, and so you have, uh, so I think, and that, that, that, that feeling followed me my whole career. I just felt like I was always surrounded by people who I was not going to let down. I was going to up my game. And, and then even getting out of the Navy, you know, when I started into the leadership space, I tried to surround myself, people with people who were really good at what they did. And when I started looking at writing books, I started surrounding myself with people and talking with people who were really good authors. Um, so that I felt a little bit of that imposter syndrome. Should I be doing, I don't want to be a fraud, right? How do I up my game? And so, so it's the SEAL teams. One of the lessons was we can really. Take our performance in our game to the next level. And one of the ways we do that is to drop yourself into an environment where you are literally maybe the worst person, maybe not the worst person, but certainly you don't, you're like, man, these people, I am humbled right now. And so all I got right now is to learn and listen and, and grow. And I think that's a huge, huge lesson that can be. Applied to any, any aspect of life.

Matt: 11:26

You know, one of the things that really fascinates me about SEAL training, Rich, and you kind of hit on this, you know, coming from an athlete, coaches train athletes to become a football, for example, a football player, even if you're professional, right? We need to train to become a better football player in business. We want to train our aspiring managers and leaders to become more effective managers and leaders. But SEAL training is a little bit different. I feel like it's not we want to train you to become the best Navy SEAL you can possibly become. We want to actually try to break you. Can you talk a little bit about SEAL training and your experiences with that? And for everybody listening or watching, you know, just maybe some of those lessons that they can maybe incorporate into their day to day life, as far as getting uncomfortable and developing that persistence and grit that is, I mean, really every Navy SEAL possesses.

Rich: 12:19

you know, I would say break you is a strong way of putting it. I, I, but it's not, it's not necessarily untrue. Um, it's a strong way of putting it. But I think, I think the difference is, and it's interesting, I'm, I'm writing my second book right now. My second book is called Masters of Uncertainty, and the reason why I'm calling it that is because. That's how I always define the Navy SEALs, right? We were not, it was never about the scuba diving or the skydiving or the shooting or all the sexy stuff you see on TV. It was always about the fact that we were individuals and teams that could drop into deeply complex environments and still perform. Um, and to do that requires certain steps, right? And I'm going to write about the steps, but one of the, one of the key factors is to understand our attributes, which I know we're going to get into, but was really the impetus of my, my first book was this, these qualities, these traits, right? Here's an example, right? And, and here's how I started thinking about this. Um, when I started thinking about attributes and working with them, it was about 2010. So I went through SEAL training in 1996. Um, in SEAL training in BUDS, you spend, anybody who knows about the training knows that you spend hundreds of hours running around with big heavy boats on your head. You spend hundreds of hours exercising with 300 pound telephone poles, running around with those things, and freezing in the surf zone. Now it's 2010 and I'm thinking back, uh, to my SEAL training. I had at that point done hundreds of combat missions overseas. Uh, and I can tell you never on one did I carry a big heavy boat on my head or a 300 pound telephone pole, right? So, so immediately what you know is they're not in SEAL training, training you to be a Navy SEAL. What they're doing is they're putting you into these environments, these experiences to tease out these qualities, these attributes, to see if you have what it takes to do the job, right? Because if you have what it takes, if you have the attributes to We can always train you. Here's the other example I'll give because it was a story that was related to me that I thought was really, um, poignant, is, um, and this, I guess from what I'm told, this happened before I was, you know, before I went to the SEAL team, so we're talking late eighties, early nineties or whatever. Anyway, the story goes that this kid shows up to SEAL training and he walks into the instructor's offices and says, says, you know, I wanna be a Navy seal. They're like, okay, well you have to do a swim test. The kid's like, okay. They take him out to the pool, easy swim test, it's like 50 meters, so 25 meters to one end, 25 meters back to the other. Anyway, the kid gets ready, he jumps in the pool, as soon as he jumps in the pool, he sinks right to the bottom of the pool. And he starts walking across the bottom of the pool to one side, he touches that end, and he walks across the bottom of the pool back to the other side. He comes up, he's gasping for air, obviously. And the instructor looks at him and says, What the hell are you doing? I think he used more explicit language than that. But, you know, whatever. And the kid, who's still trying to catch his breath, looks at the instructor and says, I'm sorry, instructor, I don't know how to swim. At that point, the instructor pauses, and he looks at the kid and says, That's okay. We can teach you how to swim, right? And so the question becomes, why did the instructor say that? And the instructor said that because he knew that if this kid had the attributes, these qualities to show up to Navy SEAL training and he didn't know how to swim, he had everything inside of him that we needed for him to be a Navy SEAL, teaching him the skill of swimming, that'll be easy. Right. And so, so I think the difference between. Athletics, for example, it's why a lot of athlete I say a lot there. There are there are some some collegiate athletes who show up to Navy SEAL training and they quit, you know, within days. And I think I think the reason is because, like you're saying, it's a different environment in athletics. You're training in it. Skills. There's certainly attributes involved in athletics, but you're training in a mastery of skills, and you are training in a way that allows and encourages you to be at 100 percent when you're executing that, those skills, right? As soon as you hit SEAL training, the number, the very first thing they do is they take you down to zero. And in some cases below zero, and they say, okay, what do you got now? You know, and the idea is we want to tease out these attributes. We'll, we'll train you on all the other stuff later, but what we want is we want individuals. And teams that can actually operate, think, apply these attributes to uncertain environments. And then. Once they, once they figure out, because in uncertainty, in a chaotic, uncertain environment, our, our number one job is not to apply a skill or apply or to do a thing. Our number one job is to figure out what's going on first, right? First, you have to understand the environment, and then you act, and that's a big, that's a, that's a very big nuance there, and it has to happen very rapidly. And so these attributes allow to do that, and I think SEAL training is just, it just. It looks for and assesses those attributes you need. And then once, you know, once you're in there and it hyper develops them.

Matt: 16:43

Wow. And, you know, say I'm a leader of. A 2500 person organization, and I want to become a master ovens. Uncertainty. How can I incorporate aspects of, let's say, seal training? Or how can I incorporate maybe some best practices or philosophies or frameworks or? You know, how can I go about preparing myself, but also my team members to really lead through change more effectively and become a master of uncertainty? Is there anything that you have? And I'm sure you're working on this with your next book, so we don't have to uncover too much of that rich. But what is maybe a best practice or something that's on top of mind as it relates to becoming a master of

Rich: 17:20

Well, you know, it's, it is, it is, uh, it is a great, um, angle. And, and, and the, one of the very first things you have to do as a, as a business team or organization is understand the attributes. Um, attributes is one of the key factors. We, the attributes are our elemental behavior. It's, it's what drives our behavior at the. Most elemental level. And when I say that, I mean that even our personalities, you know, and I actually I love personality assessments. I've taken almost everyone. And I think some of them are really, really good. The problem with personality assessments is they only tell us how we're going to be in normal environments, right? And just normal everyday stuff, right? Once the shit hits the fan, excuse my French, right? That, that is when personality goes out the window. And I always use my wife as an example because my wife is, she's, she's one of the loveliest, most gracious, kindest, gregarious people out there when the shit hits the fan, that all goes out the window, right? And now we're dealing with attributes. We're running on attributes. And so, and so organizations and teams. Need to understand that. First of all, SEAL training is not what they should be looking for, you know, because again, if I'm looking for for specific attributes, well, let me back up. Every team organization has its own unique set of attributes that makes that team organization tick, right? So in other words, the list of attributes that makes a great Navy SEAL team looks different than the list of attributes that makes a great sales team or Surgical team or teaching team, right? So So the first thing is, and this is what we help people do. Organizations do. Let's figure out what that list looks like. Okay, now we understand what the culture is created, how the culture is created, what the core of the elemental parts of that culture are through these attributes. Then we say, okay, individually, how do we then Feed into these actors because we all individually come with our own set. Do we are we are we are we are we a fit culture fit? And then what will help them do is figure out ways either to performance assess, but even especially higher. How can we create hiring experiences or even questions that tease out these specific attributes, right? But but it has to be contextual, right? I can't. Take a bunch of accountants or wanna be accountants out to the surf zone in San Diego and throw them in there into surf torture and help it and have it tell me how they're going to be in accounting, right? It's just not contextual. So so what you can do and what we help organizations do is figure out how they can contextually modify their processes. So they're actually teasing out these attributes in a way that that accentuates their unique set for their unique team.

Matt: 19:50

I love that. And speaking of attributes, in January of 2021, you released your first book, The Attributes, 25 Hidden Drivers of Optimal Performance. Could you provide and maybe discuss maybe three of the top what those drivers are for optimal performance as we're on this topic of

Rich: 20:07

Yeah, absolutely. Um, I feel like I should just quickly give, give the audience a, a distinction between the two. So the difference between skills and attributes real, real quick, um, attributes are not inherent. Excuse me. Let's start with skills. Skills are not inherent to our nature. In other words, none of us are born with the ability to ride a bike or throw a ball. Um, we're taught how to do those things, we train how to do those things, right? Um, skills direct our behavior in known and specific environments. Here's how and when to throw a ball, here's how and when to ride a bike. Uh, and then because they're very visible, skills are very easy to assess, measure, and test. Okay? You can see how well anyone does any one of those things. You can put scores around them. You can put statistics around them. All right? The problem with skills is skills don't tell us how we're going to show up in stress, challenge, and uncertainty. Because in an unknown environment, it's very difficult, if not impossible, to apply a known. And so this is when we lean on our attributes. Attributes, on the other hand, are elemental. In other words, all of us are born with levels of Adaptability. Resilience. Perseverance. Okay, now you can certainly develop them over time and experience, right? But you can see levels of this stuff in very small children. Anybody who has kids or has dealt with kids will agree with me when I say that there are one and a half year olds who are patient and there are one and a half year olds who are impatient. Okay, so there's a, there's a nature nurture element to attributes. Attributes don't direct our behavior. Attributes inform our behavior. They tell us how we're going to show up to an environment. So, for example, my son's levels of perseverance and resilience and resilience Um, informed the way he showed up when he was learning the skill of riding a bike, and he was falling off a dozen times doing so. And then finally, because they're hard to see, they're difficult to measure and assess. How do you measure someone's levels of patience and adaptability, right? Um, the idea is, though, if you're looking to build the highest performing teams, The highest performing teams distinguish themselves by performing not only when things are going great, but also when things aren't going great. In other words, performing in uncertainty, challenge, and stress. So, so if you're ignoring attributes in this picture, You are ignoring a, an enormous, if not the most important part of the performance picture. So that's kind of just what attributes are when it comes to the, the, the attributes for optimal performance. Now in the book, I wrote about 25 attributes for optimal performance. We now work when we work with organizations and teams, we have 42. So, so we've, we, the list is expanded, right? The 25 still are pretty solid for kind of focusing in on optimal performance. Um, and I would say that the five categories are grit, mental acuity, drive, leadership and team ability. And we can kind of, you know, we can we can dive in any one of those if we want to. However, I would say when it comes to optimal performance, say, from the individual. Um, I think the grit categories and the mental categories probably are the most important. Um, we could, I would almost say the mental acuity come first because everything starts in the brain. But, um, we can, if we say grit say, you know, number one is courage as an attribute. So in other words, courage is one's ability, uh, to step into their fear and discomfort, okay? Now, this is important because courage is an attribute. People tend to think, like, they look at seals, for example, like, well, you know, I can't be as courageous as a seal, or I must have, I must have less courage than an A. V. seal, okay? That's not necessarily the case, right? Because, because fear is subjective. When we have the fear response, What happens is, our autonomic arousal goes up, the amygdala basically begins to give us two choices. Fight or flight, okay? Depending on what we choose, there's a specific switch that gets kicked in the brain, right? Fight, if you fight, there's one switch. If you, and that fight is step into your fear. Uh, flight is you step away, that's another switch, okay? If you choose to fight, i. e. step into your fear, you get a dopamine reward for that, okay? That is known as the courage switch, okay? You get, you get rewarded for that, right? So, So courage can be, but again, fear that autonomic arousal happens subjectively to the individual. You could literally have a group of Navy SEALs who are in Afghanistan in a gunfight with Al Qaeda, physiologically experiencing less fear than the eight year old you just asked to, to stand up in front of their class and, and introduce themselves. Okay. Um, so what we, when we think about courage as an attribute, you could actually be a genuinely anxious person. Okay. So, But you also might be very high on courage because every single moment of the day you're stepping into your fear. You're stepping into your discomfort. So, so it's really about the frequency with which you do it. So, so courage. But again, if you don't have that, if you're low on courage, that means just in general life, you are not stepping into your discomfort very often. In fact, you almost, you don't, you flee too often. And I think that's a very, I think that's a really powerful thing. Important attribute when it comes to optimal performance, because that's the first step quite literally the first step, right? Then you have perseverance, which is, you know, that's a if if courage is that first step. Perseverance is keep doing it, right? And then adaptability gets in there and resilient. So, but I think I think courage, perseverance and I think some of the some of the mental acuity are important. But if I were to pick two, it probably those two.

Matt: 25:01

And singling on leadership, you know, with all of your work with leadership, you know, leaders and organizations all across the country, what would you say is maybe a top attribute? Top two attributes of phenomenal, extraordinary leadership? Is there something that comes to mind as it relates to specifically just leadership rich?

Rich: 25:20

Well, I'm gonna give you a couple. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna sidestep the question, but let me, but let me give some context to it because I think when we talk about leadership, we have to understand something I think is very important. That is being a leader and being in charge are two separate things. One is a position. One is a behavior. Okay. And here's the interesting thing. We don't get to self designate. In other words, we don't get to call ourselves leaders. That's like calling ourselves good looking or funny, okay? Other people decide whether or not we are someone they want to follow, and it's based on how we behave, right? We've had this experience. I know I had it in the military. You might have had it. Other people who are listening might have had it. Where? I would see something, someone who outranks me, and I'd look at that person and I'd say, I wouldn't follow that person anywhere. Meanwhile, there's someone over here who has no hierarchical position or no rank whatsoever, and I'd be like, I would follow that person to hell and back. It's because of the way we behave. And so, so leadership, whether or not people are chosen and looked at as a leader, depends on how we behave. Those behaviors stem from these very elemental attributes. In the book, I talk about empathy, Um, decisiveness, accountability, authenticity, um, and there's one more, but I can't remember. Um, and I would say the reason why I, I, I, I, I said I wouldn't decide to set the questions because I don't, I don't know if one or another is more important. I think since leadership is a decision and a choice made by someone, they may preference one over, they may say, Hey, accountability is what I, I mean, that's my number one thing. If I see someone accountable. That's the, that, I'm going to say that's someone I'll follow. Someone else might say decisiveness. Someone else might say empathy, right? And so, so, but, but, but regardless, those five, when we would go around, when I got out of the Navy, I was in the leadership space, um, and we'd go around the world talking about leaders, leadership, and one of the things we do with, with, with audiences is we often, we'd have a flip chart next to us, and we'd say, Hey, We just asked him a question. What do great leaders do? All right. And we just have people yell at us like things, like just words. And we write a, we make a list of those things, like 20, 25 things. First of all, that list was always the same stuff. No matter where you went in the world, no matter what generation you were talking to, always the same stuff that's in the top 10 were always those things. Empathy. Authenticity, accountability, decisiveness, right? I mean, so, so we know viscerally what we look for in leadership. All right. And now we might, we may, we may, we may, uh, make, uh, make, or we may prefer one or the other, you know, I prefer accountability over this one, but ultimately it's those basic, basic things.

Matt: 27:51

I think that's where you and I relate, though, you know, and agree on is that I think great leadership first and foremost starts with your level of perspective. You know, I, I think if, if you think leadership consists of just having the title of being a leader or being in command, you're probably not going to display extraordinary leadership, you know, and that's why where I've seen, I've even seen the past 14 years in organizations in every sector of all sizes. Sometimes those in the C suite do not have as much influence as people below them. And you see it, you see it all over, you know, so it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with your title per se. And that's what I would love to kind of switch to now, Rich, because I've, I read an article where you talked about, Most leaders operate from a driver perspective.

Rich: 28:37

you can just almost think of an automobile analogy. A driver sits in that driver's seat and everything about. That automobile is in control by that human, that, that, that driver has, they have, they have the only view, right? They see exactly what they want to, where they want to go. Everything is about where they're going, what they're doing, and everything about the team or organization is simply a piece and part of the automobile they're driving. It's a switch. It's a lever. It's a, it's a shifter or whatever. And the problem with that is a, it's a very myopic perspective. But B, more, more damagingly, um, every single person in that team or organization is looked at as a piece or part that can be and will be replaced if they don't work, right? If I flip that switch and it doesn't work, well, I'm replacing that switch because I need that switch to do that, right? So A is myopic. B, it's very disempowering. It's very uninspiring. And you are not, you are not, accessing the breadth of knowledge, experience, perspective, ideas that in fact surround you, right? The leader looks at things differently. The leader looks at a, at a team organization as A combination, a collaboration of multiple perspective in that aspects and doesn't look at, Hey, I'm, I'm not the singular person in control. Now, my job is to have an overall view, of course, right? Because that's why I'm in the position I'm in, but I'm going to look at everybody as a contributed member of this, of this organization team. I'm going to lean on perspectives. I'm going to listen to ideas. This is a team. It's almost an organic. Thing versus a mechanical thing. And, uh, and I think those are the people who, who then the people in their span of care, we'll look at it, that's, that's a leader, right? Uh, but we all know, I mean, everybody knows when they're working for a driver and everybody knows when they're working for a leader, here's the interesting thing is that, is that sometimes, um, the environment, the situation will require for a leader to become a driver. Okay. But here's the, here's the kicker. If you've, if you've generated this, this, this environment of leadership, Those times where you have to become the driver and dictate the team just says, okay, cool. I experienced this in my own, just in the SEAL teams, right? I was, I was the officer in charge. I was, you know, I was, I was always in charge. Most of the time it was about let's get the team together. Let's let's kind of figure this out together, right? There were on occasion a few times where I had the picture. We had no time to debate it. I was like, Hey guys, this is what's happening. And the guys were like, got it boss, because they knew they're like, if the boss is telling us do this and do it now, there's got to be a good reason. We trust him. So you build that trust. Inside of your organization. So the times you have to shift into driver mode, it's, it's immediate. The trust is still there and the performance is still there versus be a driver all the time, because, because honestly being a driver all the time means you don't trust anybody. That's what it really means. So, so I think that's the, that's the distinction.

Matt: 31:26

And that's like, even with the best football coaches I ever had. I always make a joke that they would MF me day and night sometimes, but it's what they did behind closed doors. They're loving, they're caring, they're serving so that I can not only become the best young man that I can become, but also the best football player that I could become. So when they did MF me, It wasn't just me shutting off or, you know, blocking what they were yelling at about because they were upset at me making the wrong decision or the wrong play at that time. I think that is so much of great leadership.

Rich: 31:55

By the way, let me just interrupt you just for a second, because I think, you know, this is where, because I oftentimes don't, don't use athletics as examples. Cause I talk about uncertainty all the times and athletics is typically a certain environment, but this is exactly where this is a great example of where, Drivership does not work in athletics. When you have a team sports drivers, they don't, they don't, they're not part of the equation. They can't be right. The coach can't be the driver. You have to create a team that can actually flex and fluently lean on each other, right? So athletics is a beautiful example of leadership versus drivership because you can't have it. Any other way?

Matt: 32:31

I always say, I think even if you're not a fan of the game of football, success leaves clues. Success leaves clues where I, because like NFL, for example, right? Most of the team members are making over millions of dollars, right? Someone making 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 million a year. Massive egos or else you wouldn't have gotten to that level of your sport. Come from all different backgrounds to get that team of 53 individuals aligned and marching in the same direction. You can't be a driver. You can't be a

Rich: 32:58

And even though even if the position looks like it requires it like the quarterback for so I'm lucky enough to be friends with Drew Brees and and Drew and I have talked about this a couple of even when he was, you know, it's still still playing. Um, but his style with his team was very given. I mean, and and just hanging out with him, seeing him interact with the team. It was always about us. Yeah. Giving and recognizing and, um, and, and highlighting the, the, the, the team environment, it was very obvious that many times, you know, he was, he was kind of running the show, right? Because quarterbacks tend to do that. They need to do that. Right. But, but the environment he created was much different than that. It was, it was, it was very much a leadership environment. And so when you see it done correctly. Um, it's a, it's a real beautiful thing. It really is, uh, on the, on the athletic field or anywhere else.

Matt: 33:48

Beautiful thing. I think you're seeing more of it in today's business climate. I think you're seeing more leaders than drivers, but are there any best practices or tips that you've have rich that you've worked with leaders? You've worked with organizations where. Maybe a lot of their people managers, they are primarily drivers, but they want to shift more to become leaders. Is there anything that's top of mind or best practice that you could share to really help somebody where they're really passionate about making a bigger impact, bigger influence in their leadership? What can they start doing to not being a driver 24 7 and start being a

Rich: 34:20

Yeah. I mean, the, the, the, the quick answer is let go. Right. But let me, I'll caveat that. First of all, um, the motivation to do this is actually amazing if you think about it, right? Because if you are a driver. You likely have no time. You are doing everything. You're always at work. You can't trust anybody. You can't go on vacations. You can't do anything. Right. So, so, so, so your goal should be to generate a team that can run without you. I used to tell this to my junior officers. I used to say, Hey, you, you, you need to recognize what I call the irony of leadership. The irony of leadership is if you do your job correctly, You work yourself out of a job, you create a team that can actually run without you. Now in the SEAL teams, in the military, this is absolutely necessary because any one of us could get killed at any moment, right? So you have to do it. Um, but ultimately, you know, the motivation is if you generate a team that can run without you, you have so much more time to think about other things, not only take vacations, but you can actually, you can put your mind on strategic level stuff, right? So that's the motivation. Um, the act means you have to have courage, And you have to have empathy and you have to have humility, right? And those are all attributes. You have to, you have to actualize those three attributes. You have the courage to risk, to let people go and make mistakes. Okay. Now I say that, you know, when you, when you let the, when you let the rope out on people, you can do it in a way that, that is, that involves some risk assessment. Right. You're not gonna, you're not gonna let someone, fail to the point where it kills them or, or, or, uh, or, or tanks the business or whatever, right? But this is the hard part about leadership is how do you let that rope out just enough so that they're actually learning and they're feeling like they're, and they're making mistakes and they're feeling that they're supported and the mistakes aren't. Too catastrophic, but they're also there. They're serious enough that we actually learn, right? So that's the courage. Um, the, um, the humility is I have to give up my, my, um, my positional, uh, authority or hierarchy. I have to recognize that I might not have all the answers, right? I might not be the guy or the gal, right? So that's the humility. And then, of course, empathy. Um, you must have empathy for those you are actually letting the rope out on, right? Because they are going to make mistakes. They are going to fail. And you can't expect them to do exactly what you do, right? But if you don't let them learn, they're never going to learn how to solve problems themselves, right? They're always going to, they're always going to come and lean on you. Um, because if you have a driver, If you have a driver environment, you're going to find people coming to the boss all the time with their problems. That's what happens, right? Because I can't solve my own problems that, you know, the, the, the boss will solve them, right? Because, because they, they, they, they want to anyway. You're going to be stacked. You're going to, you're going to, you're not going to be able to, to keep up. You will, you will go into a downward spiral. So I think those three things, let go, Let people, let people give them the rope, give them the space, have the courage to do so, have the humility to do so, and have the empathy when they do screw up and be, and, and, and be accountable as well. So the other thing I'll say is accountability. And what I'll, what I'll say about accountability is I, because I used to say this, well, I still say it, but I kind of say you, you, you can always delegate responsibility. You can never delegate accountability. And what that means is. I'm going to give people the responsibility. Okay. And, and if they screw up, it's on me, you know, now you're hoping that behaviorally as you, as you model this behavior, that it'll be also, it'll be, um, you'll see more of it. Right? So, so the person you're hoping will also take some accountability, but, but you don't. You don't cut off accountability. You don't, you don't suddenly say, well, that's on you, right? No, no, it's on you, right? So, so we can always, we can always give responsibility. We cannot give up accountability. Well, you, you should not. I've had leader, I've had, I've had people in charge in the military who would, who would, who would delegate both, you know, and they weren't, and they weren't good. And people still don't think highly of them. Right. Because it's like, well, yeah, that person gave me a lot of, Of runway and space to go do stuff, but, and, and as soon as long as I was succeeding, you know, it was awesome. Right. I was, I was the top dude. Right. But as soon as I screwed up, man. That person was gone. Like cut bait. And that's not, that's not leadership.

Matt: 38:19

And I think that goes, I really, really relate to that, Rich, you know, because I've always used to say that, you know, you can demand accountability to a certain degree. I believe you can with your behaviors and the culture that you build within your organization, the four walls of your organization. But with what you said there, I relate to that as taking complete ownership. Full responsibility. And I think the greatest leaders, like the greatest coaches I've ever had throughout the game of football, and even in the business world that I've seen the past 14 years, even if it's someone else's fault, they get up in front of the whole organization and say, it is on me. I am the leader and what that does is that everybody knows that it was Jason's fault. Everybody knows that that irrational decision was Jason's fault, but the leader got up in front of everybody and said, it's on me. And what that does is it sends complete shockwaves throughout the whole organization of what does accountability look like? That's what it

Rich: 39:10

And I guess I agree with you. You can demand accountability as a leader. As long as you're doing it yourself, as long as you're going first in that behavior, you can, you can do more about demanding, but again, you don't, you never, If you do, if you do it yourself, you, you don't really need to demand it because people will model it. People will see it. They'll want to do it for you. They'll want to do it. Then they'll recognize how, how, um, again, I, uh, I like how you said accountability is owning it. Um, and, uh, and I think part of that is control, right? So one of the ways I describe accountability is it's quite literally taking the steering wheel, right? As soon as you blame someone, you've let go of the steering wheel, right? And so, and so I, there were times where something would happen and I would just deliberately say, hey, this is on me. And, and even though I knew it had nothing to do with me, the reason why I did is because as soon as I said that I had control. Right. I could take the steering wheel and I could start, I could start working to do something, you know? So, so accountability is also about taking that steering wheel, because as soon as you point fingers, you are, you're, um, giving up control. That's not a good place to be.

Matt: 40:11

Absolutely. And I'm sure you're writing about this in your new book to become a master of uncertainty and. But one of the things that you're not only is it really, I think, effective for leadership, but also just a game of life to become a optimal performer, really mastering decision making under pressure. So much of what Navy SEALs there, I mean, every decision nearly is operating in high pressure situations. How do you rich approach decision making in such environments? And what advice would you have for leaders or even anybody that has a desire to become more of an optimal

Rich: 40:43

Yeah, so, so I'm glad you brought that one up too, because, um, because decision making and decisiveness are actually two separate things. One is an attribute, one is a skill. Um, and so, so let me just, so here's the, here's the quick caveat. If, if anybody wants to figure out whether or not they're dealing with an attribute or a skill, okay, it's, it's easy. All you have to do is ask a simple question. The question is, can I teach it or can it be taught? If the answer is yes, it's probably a skill. If the answer is no, it's probably an attribute. So for example, you could say, Hey, Rich, I want to learn how to shoot a pistol and hit a bullseye. Well, I can take you out to a range and teach you how to do that within a couple hours. That's a skill. Or you could say, Rich, I want to be more patient. I can't teach you how to do that. That's that has to be self developed. Okay, and that's another thing we can get into how to self develop an attribute. But the idea is decision making is a skill. You can actually teach people how to make better decisions, how to look at things, how to analyze data, how to kind of go through a process of decision making. Okay, decisiveness is an attribute because it adds the speed and efficiency factor to it, right? And we don't and we look at it as a leadership attribute because we don't tend to look at people who waffle and kind of And kind of just, um, you know, swing and, and, and just, you know, don't, don't decide we don't tend to look at that as leadership. Right. So, but as a decisive as an attribute one to develop it, you just have to begin to say, okay, I have to start thinking very precisely about what levels of information I can be comfortable with to make a decision. Okay. So, so in the, in the military, we call this the 80 20 rule, right? A lot of times we're like, Hey, we're only going to get. At most 80 percent of the, of the Intel. So if we have 80, we're going to go, but sometimes that, that, that threshold would lower, sometimes you say, well, only a 50 percent or six, but you know, you're, you're, you're making it, you're making a risk assessment. What do I decide? Right. And so the same thing happens with every decision. What, what level do I have? What level of information do I have? When's the, kind of the minimum for me to say, okay, I'm deciding, okay. You decide you act, and then you have to have to have to. But, uh, buttress it with accountability, okay, because what you need to do once a decision is made and the action starts to go is look back and say, okay, what, was that the right decision? Are we going the right way? If it wasn't, okay, stop, let's make a different decision, right? So, so you can, you can make a decision and if you're accountable for it and you start moving and it's the wrong decision, you stop and you make a different decision, you know, but we have to be comfortable doing that. And I think, I think decisiveness is, uh, Is that ability kind of balance that in terms of I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to gather the data. I need to decide an act. And then I'm going to just monitor how it goes. And we're going to keep on moving. Right? So, so I think decisiveness, I mean, you know, I mean, you could do things as simple as, you know, just. Making more decisions in your daily life about, you know, and proactively doing it. Um, sometimes, um, sometimes we're in a position where our, our decision making ability or decisiveness is affected because we have too many decisions to make in a day. Right. And so, and so there are people, I mean, um, uh, Barack Obama and, um, um, Facebook, uh, Facebook guy, who's the Facebook guy again, um, uh, Facebook founder, uh, what's his name? Zuckerberg, yeah, both of those, I've read both of those guys talk about the fact that they, they would just, they'd have the outfit they were going to wear just laid out like Zuckerberg always used to be t shirt and jeans and, and, and one of the things he says is because I don't need that in my decision making matrix. That's just done, right? You know, so, so pre planning and certain things can actually limit the amount of decisions you make per day. Uh, if you are in a position where you're, you're over indexed on decisions, you know, uh, that those are some, some tricks you can use.

Matt: 44:28

that, that, that model has actually served me very well in my business, but also in life, but it all, it also has gotten me in trouble at home when my wife asked me to take the, you know, the garbage out, right? I can't do that. That's too many decisions. I need to focus on the

Rich: 44:41

By the way, when it comes to marriage, Matt, there's a difference between decisions and orders. Okay. in marriage, you just have to take the order and, and go, right? So.

Matt: 44:51

Absolutely. You know, Rich, one of the things that I'm, I'm deeply, deeply invested in and have been really my entire life. That's the athlete in me, high performance, optimal performance. And I really believe that that is what makes you unique and different, I think, from other Navy SEALs that I've had the fortune to have relationships with and, and talk with and have interactions with is really your focus on neuroscience. It's. And, you know, so much of the focus is on optimal performance, and you've written a book on the attributes. Can you talk a little bit about neuroscience and kind of how you've integrated that into optimal performance and just your thought

Rich: 45:28

Yeah, I, I love neuroscience. Um, I'm, I'm kind of a, uh, a, uh, a super fan and I want to be. And so here's an example of that is, you know, I got out of the Navy and I recognize this is something I was very interested in. So I began to look for neuroscientists that I could kind of hang out with. One of the guys I met who's a dear friend to this day is Andrew Huberman. Um, and he has a, he has a phenomenal podcast now. I knew him before his podcast. In fact, we, the attributes book was because we were working on projects together, um, and, uh, that's a whole nother story, but, but he's been, yeah, he's been an influence, um, on a lot of my work because I've always felt like, um, The ability, I love, by the way, I love, I love most of what other SEALs have put out there. I think it's really good stuff. It's very, it's, it's, it's done, it's done very well. It's motivating and all that stuff. Um, so I, so I, I have nothing bad to say about this stuff. I've always been interested in, in attacking. Lessons from a career like a Navy SEAL from an angle of, okay, how can I actually take the seal off the pedestal and put that seal back in human realm? Because nowadays people think of Navy SEALs as this, you know, as maybe like professional athletes, like, Oh my God, they're just, they're just better. Right. We're not right. No, one's better. We're just, we found ourselves within niches that we excelled and there's reasons why we did that. And so I think what neuroscience does is it levels that playing field quite a bit. If you can start to explain to people. What's going on the brain during specific behaviors and why that works, then people are like, Oh, wait a second. This is not a Navy SEAL thing. This is a human thing. This is a brain thing, right? And so, so that's why I like to integrate neuroscience into what I write. I had some great mentors, you know, Simon Sinek is a friend. Um, he has, he talks about neuroscience. He's, he relates to neuroscience. Um, more so Dan Coyle wrote the talent code. He does the same thing. Steven Kotler, huge author and, and, uh, and, and hugely in depth neuroscientific in terms of what he puts it. So I always had these great influences about keeping neuroscience part of it. Andrew and I, because we're so, we're great friends. He's always helped me with that stuff. In fact, attributes is peppered with, with Huberman isms because, because he and I were talking so much during that writing that book. Um, but I think it's neat. And I think, you know, one of the things that I was going to. I was going to highlight was, um, was this idea of, uh, of learning. I think, I can't remember what we're talking about, but it keyed into my head, but I wanted to give kind of a neuroscientific, um, element. Oh, I think we were talking about courage and stepping into our fear. Right. And, and the fact that, you know, that, that people will learn. Yeah, it had to do with this idea that people will learn and our people will learn if you let them make mistakes. Okay. There's a, there's in fact, a neurological reason why we learn more and faster. When we fail than when we succeed. Okay. And the reason is because when we, when we learn anything, there's a neural network that's created, right? Two neural neural networks just that they link. Okay. And as soon as they link that, that initial link, the energy traveling between those. Those networks is fairly slow, but as we, as we do something over and over again, i. e. just repeat it, okay, that, that link begins to myelinate. So there's a, there's a, there's a substance called myelin that, that wraps around that neural connection, kind of like the, um, the plastic around a coaxial cable, right? So, so as that myelinates, that, that, that energy travels faster and faster. And so, so to think about this kind of in a simple way, if you're learning how to drive a stick shift car, okay, um, when you first learn, You're going to be thinking about, you're going to have to think about it a lot. It's a very slow thing. You're thinking about everything you're doing. Okay, but as you get better and better, that, that, that neural connection is wrapping with myelin. So you're, so, so you get to the point where you are unconsciously competent. You don't have to think about it, right? That's how you learn everything. That's, that's the learning process, okay? That whole thing, that, that, that connection and that myelination can in fact happen ten times, sometimes a hundred times faster. When three elements are present in the environment, and those three elements are intensity, novelty, and focus, okay? So if you have those three elements in the environment, you tend to learn very, very rapidly, okay? So this is the difference between being told a stove is hot, And touching a hot stove. Okay. Uh, being told a whole stove is hot. It doesn't, it doesn't involve any of those things basically. But when you touch a hot stove, suddenly it's intense, it's novel and you're deeply focused. Okay. Um, this is exactly why failure tends to teach us way faster than success is because when we fail. It's immediately intense. It's immediately novel. The intensity, the emotion, the novelty of the situation and the deep focus that you're in when that happens. Right? Um, on a simpler level. This is also why we remember songs. We remember the lyrics of songs we like so easily because those three factors are present in those environments will never forget the alphabet song. There's some songs we've heard we've listened to since we were kids will never forget the lyrics because those things, the things were present. So, so it's this type of neuroscience That I love wrapping into these explanations because it makes, for me, it makes the explanation real. Um, and it also lets people know, hey, I'm not just bullshitting here. This is, this is actually, this is happening in the brain. And if you understand it, you can actually start accessing that neurology in ways that, that really benefit.

Matt: 50:44

Absolutely. And speaking of, you know, optimal performance and neuroscience and Huberman and what are some of your protocols, Rich, for high performance, for optimal performance that have really served you well throughout your journey to really helps you perform at an optimal level? Is there anything that comes to mind for protocols? Because so much of leadership, I always say leadership is a contact sport. You might not be banging into heads like the NFL and playing the game of football, but I mean, it is a contact sport to inspire others and have a compelling vision of the future and, and to unite a hundred thousand person organization. It's not easy work.

Rich: 51:19

I think taking care of one's physiology is paramount. Right? And so, and I can speak with experience as someone who's because I travel so much and because of this, I go up, I go in waves. Sometimes I'm doing horribly and sometimes I'm doing much better. Right? But when I'm, when I'm in my, when I'm in my prime, okay, what's happening is I'm, I'm eating properly. Um, and I'm, and I'm eating in a, in a proper way that's also timed properly. So, you know, I'm not eating too late and, you know, I'm not going to bed full, things like that. I'm, I'm getting proper sleep. I'm, I'm conducting the proper sleep hygiene. So I'm actually getting enough sleep and the proper type of sleep. I'm exercising regularly. Um, and those three, I think those three very simple things. Um, Huberman would add, you know, getting morning sunlight. Sometimes you don't get to do that, right? But, uh, but I mean, if those three things, eat, eat properly, get proper sleep, and exercise regularly. I think those three things. You can add things. I add, um, I have a cold plunge in my house, in my garage, right? I do that. I really enjoy that. I, um, I, you know, I, in, in terms of my workouts, even though I do lift weights, I love going for runs. I mean, I do cardio. I do like, I do like high intensity cardio stuff like sprints up hills and stuff. But, but like just today, I went for a 3 mile run in the woods, which is really for me. A cathartic evolution, right? I don't, yeah, it's obviously, it's obviously giving me some, some physical benefits, but I think very, very clearly when I'm running. I just, I, it relaxes me and I don't, I don't go with my phone. I don't time myself. There's no music. I'm just by myself. I don't run with anybody. I'm by myself in the woods, taking in nature, right? Um, usually when the sun's coming up. So, so those types of cathartic, cathartic events. Um, and then I think recovery, recovery, I mean, sleep is one recovery mode, right? But, But, uh, but anything that we can kind of classify as bringing us joy can be defined as a recovery technique, right? And so we need to, and I think all high performers, because if we don't do this, by the way, we'll, we'll, we'll perform high, but we'll, we'll fall into entropy, right? We'll slowly burn out, right? So, so you have to implement these. These, um, activities that bring you joy. So for me, it's running. It's hanging with the family. It's, you know, you know, vacationing once in a while, but, but it could, it's reading, right? It could be reading. It could be going to church. It could be surfing. It could be meditating, whatever those are. You need to implement those into your daily routine, not just, not just, um, weekly or monthly, and it means that you need to find micro recovery moments where you can implement some of these tools that are allowing you to, to regenerate, because that's really important. So I think, I think the three, the three basics, eat, sleep, and exercise, um, and then the fourth would be recovery in whatever, whatever that looks like.

Matt: 54:01

Yeah, speaking on the daily for me, what has really worked is breath work incorporating, the Wim Hof method into my daily routine. I mean, that is completely revolutionized. I feel like my performance and mindset throughout the given day, one of the things that I want to end here getting near to the end. How was your transition to civilian life? I'm sure it's, I'm not comparing the two. I know for me, I didn't have the, the career in the NFL that I envisioned. I got hurt my very first game. My career failed. I, I didn't have that, that eight, 10 year NFL career. And for me in the very beginning, it was very tough because my whole entire life, I was viewed as Matt, the athlete. Matt, the football star for you, you know, how did you transition to civilian life and really take all that you've learned all the accumulation of the best practices and the mindsets and the leadership? How was the transition to civilian life? And how has that benefited you? How has it impacted you in some

Rich: 54:52

Yeah, another great one. And I, I think, uh, I will say just I'll, I'll start by saying it wasn't too hard, but it also wasn't super easy. Um, there's a reason. And I think the reason, so, so this is, this, this is going to harken on another chapter of this new book. Okay. Because, because one of the chapters I'm going to write about in terms of what drives our behavior are our identities. Okay. The identities that we carry with us. Okay. Drive our identity, drive our behavior at very elemental levels. Okay. Uh, so, so if I say I am a husband, father, right? And I am a Navy seal, right? Um, and those, those identities are, are, are in sync, or at least, or at least even that's going to affect the behavior, even when I'm overseas in combat. Okay. And I've seen that the, the, the, the, the best warriors I've ever seen, they can be Navy seals in 1 moment. I killed the bad guy and the next moment would be taken care of. You know, civilians in a very caring way, right? So, so we, we behave based on these identities. All this to say is we will, our behavior will always, um, will always be prioritized towards whatever identity we prioritize. These identities are very, very powerful. The football athlete, football star identity is a very powerful identity. The Navy SEAL identity is a very powerful identity. What does that mean? It means when we stop doing it. There's a vacuum. And, um, and I think success relies upon those who are transitioning from, from, from very powerful identities to somehow fill that void. Now, I was very fortunate, okay? The reason why my, uh, I say my transition wasn't too hard was because my father husband's identity, Was always bigger than my Navy SEAL identity. And sometimes the Navy was like, no, no, your SEAL identities first, right? But, but my husband, father identity was huge. Right. And so, so as soon as SEAL went away, there was a, there was certainly a vacuum there, but I had the husband, father identity. And so that allowed me to say, okay, listen, I'm comfortable because I'm a husband, father. Now, what do I need to do? I need to build a new identity. All right. And that's what I began to say that I needed to do. Okay. I need, I want to, let me write a book. Let me, let me go into leadership. Let me, I had to figure it took me a couple of years to figure out what that identity is. Part of me is still figuring it out. And I mean, yes, author, but also entrepreneur and businessman and all that stuff. Right. So. But the idea is transition is going to be incumbent upon finding a different identity, putting that old identity on the shelf. We're not saying make it disappear or kill it, put it on the shelf, honor it right in whatever, but it can't be what you rely upon. And the guys who I see have the most issues are the guys who can't, they can't let go of that, right? They're out, but they're not, they're not, it's not forgotten. And they, they can't. And of course, you can't be there, you age out of that, you just can't do this stuff anymore, and it's hard for them to say, I am not I'm not an ABC anymore, right? Or I'm not. Well, I would say the Marines do this very well, but the Marines are genius, brilliant about this because the Marines whole thing is once a Marine, always a Marine, right? And so, so even when you're not, even when you get out of the Marines, the Marines, it's like, yes, you're still a Marine. That's why you, you, you meet 91 year old. Guys who called it, who, who refer to themselves as gunnery sergeants, right? Because it's a very powerful identity that the Marines have deliberately said, Hey, you're always a Marine. It's not the case with football or athletes. It's not the case with Navy SEALs. Navy SEALs is, you know, earn your Trident every day. And if you're not earning a Trident, you're not a SEAL. All right. So, so I think it's this identity piece. And I would imagine you coming out of the football arena really had to say, okay, what's my new identity and what do I build? And I think you've obviously done a great job, but I think that's the key to health and transition.

Matt: 58:25

I agree. And you can also, I think you hit on it. You can have multiple identities. you can create a new identity, you know, for me, I'm like, I'm like you, even though it was very difficult, I think for me in the very beginning, just because I was so confused with all the complexities and change and transition in my life. I had a coach in college who always told me that really changed my life. And still to this day, I use it and tell people about its importance. Football is what you do. It's not who you are. And, and to me, that just serves so much, I think, nuggets of wisdom that really helped me during times of transition to remind myself that even though I love this, my craft, it's not my identity, right? It's what I do,

Rich: 59:02

Well, I'll, let me add, because I think that you're, when you say that we can have multiple identities, I want to, I want to tap on that for a second, because in the chapter, I'm going to highlight this. Um. We all have multiple identities and, um, and we will, we will actually throughout our lives stack identities onto our being that we sometimes are unaware of, but every identity we stack on us on ourselves comes with a set of rules and conditions and behaviors, right? Because Because if you're going to be that, then this is kind of how you act. So, so the example would be, well, um, I went to this high school or I was the captain of this, my lacrosse team. Um, I'm a Harley guy. I'm a Navy SEAL. I'm a whatever, you know, every one of these stacks on. And so part of understanding and part of the book will be about, uh, diving into one's being so they can figure out their elemental performance. What's driving their behavior at elemental levels is understanding how many identities you've stacked on. And which identities are actually informing your behavior right now that you may not be aware of, okay? Because that could happen as well. Um, whether or not you agree with what happened on January 6th, okay? You had a bunch of people who were, who were, uh, behaving in a way that they truly felt was patriotic, okay? There's many of them who have come off of that now and said, You know what? Wait a second, I didn't I didn't kind of know I didn't, I didn't mean this or I didn't and it's because they were, they were, they're behaving in congruence with an identity that they were holding that was driving their behavior. All right. So whether or not you agree with it, it was whatever their identity was, it was driving their behavior. So our behavior can be driven at elemental levels. By things that we just, we don't remember, right? Or we don't have, wait a second. It's because I, I'm this. And so part of the process would be deconstructing a little bit. Okay. How many identities am I actually carrying? And once I get that list, which ones are the predominant ones? Because, because again, we'll behave towards the predominant ones, right? In the, and if you're, if your top one is a Harley guy, then we can, we can pretty much start to think about and predict what we're going to see in behavior that way, that way. Right. So, or a sports family, we've seen. Okay. I mean, we've seen sports fans get in massive fights, sometimes kill other, uh, other, uh, fans, right? Because

Matt: 1:01:16

Just

Rich: 1:01:16

it because they're so embroiled and, and, and, you know, the sports teams are like, what the hell? This is not what we meant. And so, you know, but, but this is how powerful identity is. And we have to be, be, be cognizant of the multiple identities that we've stacked on over, over a course of a life.

Matt: 1:01:30

Rich, last question for you. What does excellence mean to you?

Rich: 1:01:34

yeah. Um, excellence. You know, I think. I think excellence. Well, so I think, as with most things, it is, uh, it's a subjective term. Um, for me, it's, am I pushing myself beyond my comfort zone in a way that is progressing, um, My ultimate my ultimate goal, which my ultimate goal is to is to is to take care of my family be there for them But also provide resources provide provide a quality of life and well being to my family and others you know as well, but um, but so if I so excellence for me is Is if I'm taking steps towards that, you know, if I'm moving towards that, if I'm finding myself doing anything, you know, falling into habits that take me away from that or detract from that, I am not living in excellence, right? That's that's how I would define it for me.

Matt: 1:02:27

And I asked that question because the same coach that told me football is what you do is not who you are. That's the whole theme and focus of this podcast, which is get better today. He would always say GBT, just get better today. And that's exactly your definition is almost how I view excellence. It's what are you doing today? Just 1 percent to maximize your potential. Rich, what, uh, where can people find you and your work? Are there any, is there anything upcoming projects? I know you mentioned you're working on a new book here. Where can people go to find and engage with your great insights and work? Where can people find you?

Rich: 1:02:55

I think the best and easiest is theattributes. com, right? And it's all one word, theattributes. com. We have everything there. You can find the attributes book there. You can find what we do with, with business organizations. You can go take our assessment tool. Um, once the new books come, comes out and we get that, that'll all be, um, I'll be advertised on there and stuff. You can sign up for our newsletter. So, so the attributes. com and then, and also on there are my, um, you know, my Instagram, uh, rich underscore Davini and my face and my, um, why a Facebook, but also a LinkedIn. So those are all there on that site as well. So I think it's a one stop. Yeah.

Matt: 1:03:29

Perfect. Well, Rich, thanks so much for joining us today. It was a true honor and privilege to have you and to, to talk with you. I found this conversation to be so fascinating. I hope all of you enjoy it and Rich's insights on leadership and the attributes and so many of the other great things that we talked about,

Rich: 1:03:44

it's an honor to be here and thank you.

Matt: 1:03:45

Thanks, Rich.